Idiots breed with idiots to produce more idiots.
Two very long film reviews.
Kokuhaku (*****) is the Japanese submission for the Best Foreign Language Movie Academy Award, and if it doesn't win it, then it must be an outstanding year for movies. The film opens with a teacher announcing her retirement from education, to the general indifference of her class, who continue texting, Facebooking and messing about until the teacher announces that the recent death of her daughter appears to have been no accident and, in fact, was a murder carried out by two pupils in her class. While she doesn't want to rehash the verdict, she won't forgive and intends to get revenge. Now, if this was a Hollywood film you'd expect it to rapidly descend into nonsensical torture-porn at this point, but brutal slaying isn't what this teacher has in mind. After all, that's too easy, too swift. What she has in mind is something more horrifying still...
'Kokuhaku' tells its tale from five different perspectives, shifting the narration between the teacher, her pupils and their distraught loved ones, who unwittingly exacerbate the spiralling insanity. As we learn more about the characters, their motivations and their reliability become less and less clear. The film asks questions about the justification of revenge, the alienation of teenagers (and their subsequent identification with dubious role models) and the desperate conviction that you're right despite increasing evidence to the contrary; to these questions it offers no easy answers.
Obviously this is a lot to get in, and the idea of constantly shifting the narrative could lead to characters being two-dimensional and plotlines left hanging. The genius of 'Kokuhaku' lies in its rich, developed characters and its twisting, confounding storyline. Bizarrely, yet perfectly, soundtracked by European post-rock and filmed beautifully, there's not likely to be a better film this decade, let alone this year.
Everyone's already seen Black Swan (***1/2) so I doubt I'll have any more to add to it. The plot, of course, is Natalie Portman's ballet dancer, Nina Sayers, being picked to play the Swan Queen (in 'Swan Lake') by director Vincent Cassel. However, the sensitive, fragile Portman is fine as the White Swan yet doesn't seem to have what it takes to play the evil Black Swan. As she struggles with the role and tries to find the part of her which is the Black Swan, and with Mila Kunis ready to step in any time, she starts to lose her mind. Or does she?
This is Darren Aronofsky's fifth film now and thematically they're all largely similar (obsession and its pitfalls) while artistically being very different. This, of course, is no bad thing: compare and contrast with, say, Tim Burton, whose efforts are thematically varied but all feel the same. This one, while filmed in a similar style to 2009's Oscar loser 'The Wrestler', is darker, weirder and less straightforward than that, although again acts as a character study for the central character. While Randy The Ram can't admit that his best days are behind him, Nina Sayers refuses to allow anything to stop her in her biggest performance to date. Neither of them know when to walk away from the spotlight and it ultimately costs them. 'Black Swan' is, for me, not the masterpiece it's been heralded as, and may be overrated, but its exquisite cinematography and intriguing mystery make it a worthy addition to Aronofsky's oeuvre.
Kokuhaku (*****) is the Japanese submission for the Best Foreign Language Movie Academy Award, and if it doesn't win it, then it must be an outstanding year for movies. The film opens with a teacher announcing her retirement from education, to the general indifference of her class, who continue texting, Facebooking and messing about until the teacher announces that the recent death of her daughter appears to have been no accident and, in fact, was a murder carried out by two pupils in her class. While she doesn't want to rehash the verdict, she won't forgive and intends to get revenge. Now, if this was a Hollywood film you'd expect it to rapidly descend into nonsensical torture-porn at this point, but brutal slaying isn't what this teacher has in mind. After all, that's too easy, too swift. What she has in mind is something more horrifying still...
'Kokuhaku' tells its tale from five different perspectives, shifting the narration between the teacher, her pupils and their distraught loved ones, who unwittingly exacerbate the spiralling insanity. As we learn more about the characters, their motivations and their reliability become less and less clear. The film asks questions about the justification of revenge, the alienation of teenagers (and their subsequent identification with dubious role models) and the desperate conviction that you're right despite increasing evidence to the contrary; to these questions it offers no easy answers.
Obviously this is a lot to get in, and the idea of constantly shifting the narrative could lead to characters being two-dimensional and plotlines left hanging. The genius of 'Kokuhaku' lies in its rich, developed characters and its twisting, confounding storyline. Bizarrely, yet perfectly, soundtracked by European post-rock and filmed beautifully, there's not likely to be a better film this decade, let alone this year.
Everyone's already seen Black Swan (***1/2) so I doubt I'll have any more to add to it. The plot, of course, is Natalie Portman's ballet dancer, Nina Sayers, being picked to play the Swan Queen (in 'Swan Lake') by director Vincent Cassel. However, the sensitive, fragile Portman is fine as the White Swan yet doesn't seem to have what it takes to play the evil Black Swan. As she struggles with the role and tries to find the part of her which is the Black Swan, and with Mila Kunis ready to step in any time, she starts to lose her mind. Or does she?
This is Darren Aronofsky's fifth film now and thematically they're all largely similar (obsession and its pitfalls) while artistically being very different. This, of course, is no bad thing: compare and contrast with, say, Tim Burton, whose efforts are thematically varied but all feel the same. This one, while filmed in a similar style to 2009's Oscar loser 'The Wrestler', is darker, weirder and less straightforward than that, although again acts as a character study for the central character. While Randy The Ram can't admit that his best days are behind him, Nina Sayers refuses to allow anything to stop her in her biggest performance to date. Neither of them know when to walk away from the spotlight and it ultimately costs them. 'Black Swan' is, for me, not the masterpiece it's been heralded as, and may be overrated, but its exquisite cinematography and intriguing mystery make it a worthy addition to Aronofsky's oeuvre.