“Moebius” and More is what MMM promised, so here it is…
Sunday evening was upon us.
The much anticipated UK Premiere of “One on One”, a new offering from Mr Kim Ki-duk was now here – complete with nice introduction by Dr. Anton Bitel – and although I intend to review it in length at a later date, and perhaps re-watch here is a Mini Mini Mini Mini-almost-Minute review:
“Mo’ violence
Mo’ mins
Mo’ minutes
Mo’ dialogue
Mo’ contrived dialogue
Mo’ brilliant social commentary
Meobius it ain’
So what was left of this Sunday night?
Well, apart from the 2 further Mise-en-scène Shorts collections at the Korean Cultural Centre – as mentioned in the previous LKFF article [Part 2] – there was “Pascha” over in Odeon Covent Garden and “Obsessed” here, where I stood… at Odeon West End.
Therefore I was left with “Obsessed” as my only real choice. I mean, “Pascha” had already begun by the time “One on One” had finished… and I’d rather see a feature than the Mise-en-scène Shorts.
Excuse the pun but I certainly wasn’t ‘Obsessed’ with seeing “Obsessed” but attend and ‘Observe’ I planned to do.
However, with other things playing on my mind, articles to write and perhaps a tad ‘sick’-of-staring-at-a-cinema-screen ‘illness’ taking hold, I left the film after around 30 minutes of it. That said, here’s another Mini Mini Mini, Micro even, review…:
“So I left the screening but not just due to the film’s content. I also had other things to do. My life isn’t all glamour, glamour, glamour. Far from it at times.
The film looked sumptuous and pretty, & so too did the actresses and actors.
It did seem like a TV movie a little. My mind was elsewhere anyway. Shame… as the period of the Vietnam war interests me, essentially due to the injustice by the US at the time – Vietnam is still crippled, literally and generations later kids are born with deformaties as a result of sprays used. And that’s without mentioning the loss of lives in their droves.
However, I think I would have learned little from this film, about Vietnam or even Korea’s part played. It’s a love story, after all and I could feel the way proceedings would roll out.
Perhaps I’ll catch it some day.”
Monday, Monday…
So… I regret not seeing “Neighbors” – the film, not the dreaded Australian TV series – due in part from witnessing the ever so many who were flooding out of the film after it finished, and as I arrived for the exquisite “Manshin” plus Q & A with director Park Chan-kyong.
I don’t therefore regret seeing “Manshin”. Words can not express, but I will attempt a review at later date.
Some words I will say are these…
“It covers not only subject matter close to my heart, such as Comfort Women – briefly – and the North & South divide of Korea, but also makes use of various filmic forms: Documentary, re-enactment, visual art and more.
It also features a couple of individuals whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting – author Hwang Sok-yong and actress Moon So-ri. The latter displaying some of her best acting to date, as well as showing of her skills in Pansori singing.
I drew a vague parallel with a documentary I caught at Raindance by popular Polish filmmakers Bartek Konopka and Piotr Rosołowski. The parallels I feel existed one essentially ones regarding the style used, in types of footage used etc, plus that it deals with Voodoo, another ‘calling the spirits’ method. “The Art Of Disappearing” is the film I refer to here.”
I must add that the Q & A was both interesting and entertaining. Not to mention the fact that director Park chose to speak in English in much of it… prompting him to turn to fabulous translator Seh at one point at say words along the lines of “Am I going to cause you to lose your job?”… Fantastic guy.
It’s a shame though that there was no way I could catch “A Moment To Remember” at the Korean Cultural Centre. I don’t believe I’ve seen it… and due to timing clashes this time around, it meant I wouldn’t on this day either.
That brings us to Tuesday – but that will be in a forthcoming article.
If I can backtrack a tad to “Manshin”… Later in the week, I was fortunate enough to grab an interview with director and all round nice guy, Park Chan-kyong – incidentally, the brother of Park Chan-wook – and that conversation will also follow very soon.
Footnote:
This year’s LKFF seems to have a vague theme of brothers, or indeed brother directors, what with Park Chan-kyong & brother Park Chan-wook and Lee Jung-dong & brother Lee Chan-dong.
MiNi MiNi MOViE - REViEWS, NEWS & iNTERViEWS 