cecilparks's reviews
by cecilparks
This page compiles all reviews cecilparks has written, sharing their detailed thoughts about movies, TV shows, and more.
7 reviews
This movie should not be seen as a straightforward ghost movie, nor as a basic series of set-ups, struggles and resolutions. It is a gripping movie, masterfully shot, bleak in its vision yet assembled with an inspiring meticulousness.
Junco is a psychic who feels trapped by her extra-sensory powers in more than one way. For one, she cannot hold a regular job, despite her best efforts. She is also aware that her gift will never be completely understood or taken seriously by the public at large, not even by those who seek her help.
When a freak coincidence lands a missing girl in her husband Katsuhiko's hardware case - after the police, as a last resort, has asked for her advice about the case - she sees it as a possible opportunity to make a name for herself as a serious and respected psychic, while clearing her husband and her of any responsibility in the girl's disappearance. She sees a way out the couple's humdrum, boring life, and her husband wants to believe it too. Needless to say, not much goes according to plan.
**NOTE** About the doppelganger appearing in the movie, as mentionned in a comment below. The double does represent impending death for Katsuhiko. The decision to have him burn his double alive was a way to show how he is not willing to accept a fate he has not chosen.
Junco is a psychic who feels trapped by her extra-sensory powers in more than one way. For one, she cannot hold a regular job, despite her best efforts. She is also aware that her gift will never be completely understood or taken seriously by the public at large, not even by those who seek her help.
When a freak coincidence lands a missing girl in her husband Katsuhiko's hardware case - after the police, as a last resort, has asked for her advice about the case - she sees it as a possible opportunity to make a name for herself as a serious and respected psychic, while clearing her husband and her of any responsibility in the girl's disappearance. She sees a way out the couple's humdrum, boring life, and her husband wants to believe it too. Needless to say, not much goes according to plan.
**NOTE** About the doppelganger appearing in the movie, as mentionned in a comment below. The double does represent impending death for Katsuhiko. The decision to have him burn his double alive was a way to show how he is not willing to accept a fate he has not chosen.
When I got out of the theater after seeing this movie, I was stuck with one major question: how does one get the financing to make such a movie? How do you sell a movie so unusual to investors?
I must admit I desperately wanted this movie to make sense. I wanted the mason to have a legitimate reason to fill an elevator with concrete, and I wanted this reason explained later on in the movie, but I could tell the answer would never come. I know my expectations were conditioned by years of conventional cinema and storytelling. For this reason alone, Cremaster was worth watching. It stirred me up, exposed me to very personal and thorough symbolism, and made no apologies.
This movie is not cinema as you've come to know it, it's performance art caught on film. I've heard that the artist explains a lot of his symbolism on his website but I'm not sure I want to know, at least for now. I'd rather let the images simmer in my mind for a few weeks and let meaning bubble up. For now, three days after seeing it, I'd say the movie is basically about the powerlessness of the individual against the powers that be and the necessity for an artist to pander to those powers to achieve his vision. This necessity is also the struggle that drives the creative process. Lackeys and employees are numbed by their position, and some of them express themselves in a creative way to alleviate the numbness and feel alive. Whether they succeed or not is not the point.
I must admit I desperately wanted this movie to make sense. I wanted the mason to have a legitimate reason to fill an elevator with concrete, and I wanted this reason explained later on in the movie, but I could tell the answer would never come. I know my expectations were conditioned by years of conventional cinema and storytelling. For this reason alone, Cremaster was worth watching. It stirred me up, exposed me to very personal and thorough symbolism, and made no apologies.
This movie is not cinema as you've come to know it, it's performance art caught on film. I've heard that the artist explains a lot of his symbolism on his website but I'm not sure I want to know, at least for now. I'd rather let the images simmer in my mind for a few weeks and let meaning bubble up. For now, three days after seeing it, I'd say the movie is basically about the powerlessness of the individual against the powers that be and the necessity for an artist to pander to those powers to achieve his vision. This necessity is also the struggle that drives the creative process. Lackeys and employees are numbed by their position, and some of them express themselves in a creative way to alleviate the numbness and feel alive. Whether they succeed or not is not the point.
If you thought Miike was nothing but a deviant obsessed with sex and violence (Dead or Alive, Ichi the Killer, Visitor Q, Audition, etc.), you'll be very surprised by Shangri-La.
A printer is forced to shut down his business after his main client goes bankrupt. That rich client has a lot of property and assets hidden away and doesn't plan to use those assets to pay for his debts. Ridden with shame from leaving his employees without a job, the printer tries to commit suicide but ends up instead in Shangri-La. Inhabited by social misfits, Shangri-La is basically a small group of makeshift houses by a river in an industrial wasteland. The "Mayor" and the "Deputy" of Shangri-La set on to help the printer get revenge on the rich businessman, and make a little fortune while they're at it.
Who would have thought Miike would deliver a solid, tightly-paced, feel-good movie ? Hilarious at times and based on a fantastic script, this movie proves that Miike can and will do anything that inspires him. He has balls of steel and doesn't care what you expect of him.
8/10
A printer is forced to shut down his business after his main client goes bankrupt. That rich client has a lot of property and assets hidden away and doesn't plan to use those assets to pay for his debts. Ridden with shame from leaving his employees without a job, the printer tries to commit suicide but ends up instead in Shangri-La. Inhabited by social misfits, Shangri-La is basically a small group of makeshift houses by a river in an industrial wasteland. The "Mayor" and the "Deputy" of Shangri-La set on to help the printer get revenge on the rich businessman, and make a little fortune while they're at it.
Who would have thought Miike would deliver a solid, tightly-paced, feel-good movie ? Hilarious at times and based on a fantastic script, this movie proves that Miike can and will do anything that inspires him. He has balls of steel and doesn't care what you expect of him.
8/10
Saw this at a cult film festival. You'd think a cult audience would be able to stomach depictions of self-inflicted violence, but several people walked out. I can't really blame them. It is an intimate and plausible portrait of a woman who has lived her life on autopilot until she finally finds a way to feel alive and beautiful: by mutilating herself. She seems painfully aware that her friends and coworkers won't get it, understandably, and that once she takes that path, there is only one way out.
Devastating.
Devastating.
Take "Ringu", make it visually slicker, overexplain plot elements that don't really matter and remove the paranormal explanation and you have "The Ring". The moviemakers involved in the remake had the laudable idea of taking the near-perfect original plot in new directions, but all their initiatives fall flat by the 75th minute. In-depth character development is not a necessity in a genre movie, just a brief explanation will do. I can't blame the American team for trying to dig deeper, but their new ideas don't hold water and go nowhere. The actors don't even sound like they believe their own lines in a few scenes.
There are some great moments in "The Ring", but they were integrally lifted from the Japanese version. The way the story unfolds in "The Ring" may seem unoriginal to someone who has already seen "Session 9", "Stir of Echoes" and M. Night Shyamalan's work, but that would be unfair since all those movies were obviously inspired by the J-Horror wave of the late nineties, which arguably culminated with 1998's "Ringu" (although I hear the recent "Dark Water" is brilliant). If you thought "The Ring" was good and if you don't mind sub-titles, do yourself a favor and seek out movies by Kiyoshi Kurosawa ("Cure", "Seance"), Hideo Nakata ("Ringu" 1 and 2, "Dark Water"), Masayuki Ochia ("Hypnosis"), Takashi Miike ("Audition", "Visitor Q", countless others) and Higuchinsky ("Uzumaki").
There are some great moments in "The Ring", but they were integrally lifted from the Japanese version. The way the story unfolds in "The Ring" may seem unoriginal to someone who has already seen "Session 9", "Stir of Echoes" and M. Night Shyamalan's work, but that would be unfair since all those movies were obviously inspired by the J-Horror wave of the late nineties, which arguably culminated with 1998's "Ringu" (although I hear the recent "Dark Water" is brilliant). If you thought "The Ring" was good and if you don't mind sub-titles, do yourself a favor and seek out movies by Kiyoshi Kurosawa ("Cure", "Seance"), Hideo Nakata ("Ringu" 1 and 2, "Dark Water"), Masayuki Ochia ("Hypnosis"), Takashi Miike ("Audition", "Visitor Q", countless others) and Higuchinsky ("Uzumaki").
