2005 AFFD Festival Week -- Bad Guys & Dolls
I skipped Monday because I had seen all the major films screened that night, so Tuesday I flew down the tollway and arrived for two equally odd films that both countered their faults admirably.
First was Bad Guy, an early Kim Ki Duk drama. Let me back up and say, watching movies that you dislike is somewhat like getting a bad grade in school. When you get an "A", there's not a lot of discussion, just celebration. When you get a "D", you have to explain every little factor involved in your failure. Bad Guy made me want to talk endlessly about cinematic flaws and feeling miserable.
I could play the smartass here and say Bad Guy is your average boy-stalks-girl, boy-forces-girl-into-prostitution, girl-remains-a-prostitute story. Bad Guy is about a seemingly mute, near-indestructible fellow who plays security to a section of town that would give "strip mall" a whole new meaning. One day he spies a pretty young girl and assaults her, almost immediately. The film kicks into gear from the word go, and never really lets up with its distaste for decency and kindness. Characters that do "good" things are frequently doing them for all the wrong reasons, and often when it is far, far too late. The main character tricks this young woman into becoming a hooker, and she carries out her duties, slowly becoming acclimated to the routines of whoredom. Meanwhile, it's clear that the Bad Guy has an attraction to her, perhaps just a fascination with something innocent, perhaps some tiny spark in his heart that has not been dulled by the rest of his life. Who knows, and who cares? The film basically says once you become a whore, you'll never know a "normal" life again.
And yet, despite the grim premise and what unfolds, the film is never unwatchable. With slight jabs of humor and occasional detours from the expected narrative course, Bad Guy may not be entertaining, but it is a completely captivating film.
Of course, where there is a Bad Guy, there is always bound to be a Worse Guy, and a major flaw of the film is that this allegedly more evil presence is given short shrift in the story, and we never know how conflict between the two would have turned out. What we do learn, very effectively, are the following three lessons:
1-When in Korea, be very careful when choosing a financial lending institution.
2-If you see a guy walking down the street toward you and he is carrying a five-foot-long piece of jagged glass, step aside or better yet, cross the street.
3-When forced into prostitution and then released, don't go back into prostitution without a substantially better reason than "I am attracted to the man who forced me into prostitution."
How I rated Bad Guy: 2
Then there was Takeshi Kitano's Dolls, a lovely film filled with vivid colors and textures. Made up of three stories, I think Kitano's exercise would have been better served by focusing on only one. Of the three, the prominent narrative is about a pair of former lovers bound by a red rope. They wander throughout cities and countrysides as "The Bound Beggars", and I must say that for beggars, they always seemed to be wearing the snazziest clothing every time they appear on screen.
The other two stories, of an aging Yakuza and his lost love and a wounded pop star and her unhinged fan, seem to have been afterthoughts more than fully-realized tales. I wouldn't have minded films about any one of these separately, but the bound couple more effectively conveys the themes that I think Kitano was trying to get at, and a full feature about a couple silently traversing an entire country would have been something. Imagine that: no dialogue, simply their observations of everything they pass by and their memories of all things past. Now that would have been something to shout about.
How I rated Dolls: 2
Next Up: A sweet closing
First was Bad Guy, an early Kim Ki Duk drama. Let me back up and say, watching movies that you dislike is somewhat like getting a bad grade in school. When you get an "A", there's not a lot of discussion, just celebration. When you get a "D", you have to explain every little factor involved in your failure. Bad Guy made me want to talk endlessly about cinematic flaws and feeling miserable.
I could play the smartass here and say Bad Guy is your average boy-stalks-girl, boy-forces-girl-into-prostitution, girl-remains-a-prostitute story. Bad Guy is about a seemingly mute, near-indestructible fellow who plays security to a section of town that would give "strip mall" a whole new meaning. One day he spies a pretty young girl and assaults her, almost immediately. The film kicks into gear from the word go, and never really lets up with its distaste for decency and kindness. Characters that do "good" things are frequently doing them for all the wrong reasons, and often when it is far, far too late. The main character tricks this young woman into becoming a hooker, and she carries out her duties, slowly becoming acclimated to the routines of whoredom. Meanwhile, it's clear that the Bad Guy has an attraction to her, perhaps just a fascination with something innocent, perhaps some tiny spark in his heart that has not been dulled by the rest of his life. Who knows, and who cares? The film basically says once you become a whore, you'll never know a "normal" life again.
And yet, despite the grim premise and what unfolds, the film is never unwatchable. With slight jabs of humor and occasional detours from the expected narrative course, Bad Guy may not be entertaining, but it is a completely captivating film.
Of course, where there is a Bad Guy, there is always bound to be a Worse Guy, and a major flaw of the film is that this allegedly more evil presence is given short shrift in the story, and we never know how conflict between the two would have turned out. What we do learn, very effectively, are the following three lessons:
1-When in Korea, be very careful when choosing a financial lending institution.
2-If you see a guy walking down the street toward you and he is carrying a five-foot-long piece of jagged glass, step aside or better yet, cross the street.
3-When forced into prostitution and then released, don't go back into prostitution without a substantially better reason than "I am attracted to the man who forced me into prostitution."
How I rated Bad Guy: 2
Then there was Takeshi Kitano's Dolls, a lovely film filled with vivid colors and textures. Made up of three stories, I think Kitano's exercise would have been better served by focusing on only one. Of the three, the prominent narrative is about a pair of former lovers bound by a red rope. They wander throughout cities and countrysides as "The Bound Beggars", and I must say that for beggars, they always seemed to be wearing the snazziest clothing every time they appear on screen.
The other two stories, of an aging Yakuza and his lost love and a wounded pop star and her unhinged fan, seem to have been afterthoughts more than fully-realized tales. I wouldn't have minded films about any one of these separately, but the bound couple more effectively conveys the themes that I think Kitano was trying to get at, and a full feature about a couple silently traversing an entire country would have been something. Imagine that: no dialogue, simply their observations of everything they pass by and their memories of all things past. Now that would have been something to shout about.
How I rated Dolls: 2
Next Up: A sweet closing
posted by scn at 9:20 PM
<< Home