The fabulous baker boys

What a surprise find this was! I didn't expect much from it despite the many rave reviews of its leading lady Michelle Pfeiffer, but her performance throughout was simply impeccable, that is, even without the now most famous scene where she sang on the piano. This makes me wonder why there aren't more film of such calibre from Hollywood - super script, great performance from all leading actors, and undeniable chemistry between the romantic leads! And more puzzling - where is Michelle Pfeiffer now?

The lives of others

This is the one I watched first among the four I brought home, and it took me a week before I was ready to view it for the second, third, and the fourth time. I was simply, mesmerised.

Yes, there are loopholes where the scripts could be developed further to make it even more convincing - especially when the captain decided against following his instinct and duties. After all, after 20 years in the business, the outcome of his investigations is nothing new to him? So why change now? And to risk his own career and life?

However if we could push this bugging question aside (more of this later), the film is a super masterpiece - and I could not think of any other words to describe it - other than telling my friends that it is the best being made in recent years.

Apart from the captivating story, and the very subtle performance by all - both on and behind the camera, the core quality of the masterpiece is the incredible performance by Ulrich Muhe, who I could recognise but could not quite place where I last saw him - until my second viewing. This man is a real master of performance - or shall we say, he was capable of making us sympathise with the character with 'super control and understatement'. Hints of dramatic interior changes were usually suggested by a subtle gesture or tear drops that could be barely detected in a small screen of a television. Apparently he is also an extremely intelligent man - as all the answers he was giving during the interview included in the special feature reveal.

It made the viewing all the more poignant to know that the film partially reflected his own personal experience and the fact he died soon after the success of the film - which made him known for the first time outside his native Germany.

Back to the argument that the script could have made a strong case on why the captain experienced change at that particular moment. I gather we will just have to take the director's words for it that he was trying to show the power of music, and the fact we humans are capable of change. From a more personal point of view, I think the change is credible - just look at my father - a hardcore communist who must have done a lot of damages in his career as a political instructor and army representative. But because of his integrity (yes, it is there despite everything said about a communist) and his belief in the greater good, I imagine he is also a 'whistle blower' who was capable of making a decision that might jeopardise his cause - because he believed in the greater good and was therefore able to change...

Joyless street

It felt like a long boring film packed with stereotypes at first, especially up to the point where two women were trying to seduce the fat and vulgar butcher in order to get their hands on some precious meat for their family, but Joyless Street turned out to be yet another, shall we say, hidden, gem, where one is never really quite sure where it is leading up to.

It is a moral film, no doubt, and sometimes it even feels too much on that side. But from the moment where 'Miss Greta' walked out of her job in defense of her morality it became, it seems, more engaging. Somehow, the human tragedy began to draw you to the character when such a sad and fragile woman had to carry on her frail shoulders the heavy burden of the whole family, her invalid father on one side, and her little sister on the other.

I didn't realise Miss Greta was played by the screen icon of the namesake until she was well down her road to 'moral ruin'. Though it was only her second starring role, the qualities that made her such an incredible presence on screen was already in full bloom: her eyes seem to say thousands when she remained silent, and they had the power to empathise with her character.

The archive says that up to 90 minutes materials are still lost, and I could not imagine how long the film had been!

Alice in the cities

I thought I had lost patience with Wim Wenders, I was however pleasantly surprised last night when I found myself hooked by these two unlikely protagonists - neither of whom seemed to be making an effort to interact or entertain each other on their long journey homes.

Typical of Wim Wenders, story was not its intention or strength, and for the first 15 minutes, we were kept in the dark on what this is all about. But once the title role Alice is involved, the film seemed to gain a different dimension despite itself and soon, we just want to know if Philp, the photographer/writer could eventually find the way home for Alice who was left to his care by her mother without his knowledge.

At more than one points, I believe the director is working towards keeping a historical record of what places were like then and there, for without much dialogue and with a rather loose plot, our attention was drawn towards the landscape along the way home of the protagonists. But the theme music that appeared every now and then seemed to suggest that the landscape was reflecting the human inside of the protagonists and we became more concerned over the fate of the two that had been thrown together by a mother's negligence.

Intriguing is the word that left in my mouth after watching it.

Musings of a Chinese Gourmet

This is a supreme example of how to write an book on a subject that nearly everybody can claim to be an 'expert'. First published in 1952, the book, reflects on the roles of food in both state affairs and home front, and explores the rich history and culture in things we deem ordinary and common. The charm of it is that the author is a true gourmet and knows how to enjoy life to its full extent whatever situations he finds himself in. The author is a rare species these days - for I am not sure how many Chinese can claim to know BOTH Chinese and Western cultures on equal standing.

I've loved you for so long

I was lucky yesterday: when searching the database, I found, to my disbelief that there was a copy on the shelf.

It is one of the best films I have watched recently: the performance, the script... all subtle and with great depth.

PS:

I had wanted to watch it for a second time, but at the meanwhile, reluctant to do so. The film is not meant to be a suspense, but in effect, it is on first viewing. This is because the 'crime' Juliet committed was not revealed to us until 1/3 into the movie, and once we learnt what kept her in prison for 15 years, we became effectively an ally of Lea's husband - worried if she would do it again and felt our hearts jump to our throat whenever she was left alone with Lea's young daughters. We also wondered if her budding relationship with the two completely different men would come to anything... and that if the unconditional trust Lea had on her rather withdrawn sister was misplaced.

But I did watch it for a second time and found that this time round, I was able to relax a bit and focus more on the sublime performance, especially on that between the sisters who did look alike in a subtle way. To play the role of Juliet the way Kristine Scott Thomas did required some great courage - to appear on the screen at one's true age with hardly any make-up or special effects to enhance their appearance. It is in a sense a gamble from both the director and the actress - to star someone who looked deprived of love and no longer cares for how they presented themselves to the world.

And in the end, one can only ask why that we are not treated to more films of such high quality.

Mother India

In the period when I was immensely impressed by films like The Big City, I compiled a list of India films that I should watch, with Mother India on it. It was however nothing like those carefully thought through and directed films. Instead it is a huge disappointment.

This 'Mother India', it seemed, was capable of enduring just any hardship or humiliations landed on her, first by her mother-in-law, who mortaged the land for the sake of a lavish wedding she could never afford for her only son; then by the greedy and heartless loan shark; followed by flooding, which took away her youngest child. Though she had to slave just as hard as her naive husband, she was a typical housewife in the sense she did not just look after the growing household, but also provide daily message to her husband... And for the sake of her sons and the absent husband, she was ready to go to... hell.

All this is fine... because that is women's fate anyway in most part of the world.

What puzzled me increasingly though was the fact that there had never been any space in the film to query what went wrong, and the characters just accepted all the misfortunes, some of which self-inflictd, as a way of life...

But the big challenge is that although throughout the film there was only one villain, the loan shark, and the conflict between him and the Mother India highlighted again and again, the villagers were in fact his ally - they denied, for their own interests, the help she deserved.

The ending of the film was bizarre. Because it was the mother who shot her son who had been trying to get a fair deal on behalf of her and indeed the whole village.

I wonder what messages the director was trying to convene through the film. And the fact that half of the screen time was filled with songs and dancing typical of Bollywood did not help me to warm up to this 3 hours 'epic'.