Garbage people.

It's pretty impossible to like any character in Linklater's SubUrbia. Well, except for the people running the convenience store. The 'kids', who already left high school and go around their small shit hole town being miserable are either outwardly racist or real great bystanders who say and do nothing. Unless it's for meaningful, personal, life-altering - "art", like Sooze's Burger Manifesto, Part One - The Dialectical Exposition of Testosterone. Everyone is rolling in every grave known to man.

That's just point one. The rest of it is stupid too. And boring. In fact, I had to watch it in two sittings, with much time between them. The movie only gets exciting in the end of the first hour. At the start, the main character states: "It's my duty as a human being to be pissed off." And what? What are they pissed off about, and what to they do? Fucking nothing! Because these people live meaningless lives on their own accord. You don't have to run for local government, or be a red cross volunteer, or a doctor. You just need to be less of a shit stain. 

Who would be sympathetic? 

It's so stupid to lash out at others when you've got nothing going on. Trust me, man, I got nothing going on. And it's so easy to take it out on anyone. But I just can't see eye to eye with these pathetic fucks, not when they harass the hell out the Pakistani couple that are trying to make ends meet. There's no redemption for the loser threatening them, and none for the idiots standing around, blabbing on about knowing each other names. It's not better than Totally Fucked Up (1993), but neither are any good.

This is a very rage-filled review, and this stupid little movie deserves every insult. Watch any other Linklater film, spare yourself.

The drunk antics were sort of amusing. 

 Watched: [May 28 2024]

Labels: 1996 film, 90s film, american film, comedy film, drama film, film, film review

Who is she?

Knowing anything about Anna Magdalena, outside of her marriage to Bach and the musical work titled after her, is not necessary for watchers of the film. Even so, the reference to a rather enigmatic woman, like many of her time were, piques an interest. Anna Magdalena, the name itself calls forth romance. 

Though I cannot speak for Ivy Ho (the writer of the film), I think the parallel relationship between the leads, Chan Kar-Fu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Mok Man-Yee (Kelly Chen), and the story of Bach and Anna Magdalena are more important that can be said on first glance. But first, the story itself:

Writing a love story.

Chan Kar-Fu works as a piano repair man, overtly shy or antisocial, when he meets Yau Muk-Yan (Aaron Kwok). Going by an alias, charismatic but presumptuous and an enormous slacker, he manages to stay at Chan Kar-Fu's place. An excellent apartment, a balcony fitted with a sizeable fish tank. Soon enough, Mok Man-Yee moves in above them, she plays piano (not well) and develops a rapid antagonistic relationship with Yau Muk-Yan. Spray-painted insults, screaming, and the potential of an arrest. To the misfortune of Chan Kar-Fu who falls in love with Mok Man-Yee, they change their tune and begin a romance.  

And such is the core of the story, a love triangle. Mok Man-Yee, drawn to rebellious types and always disappointed in them. Yau Muk-Yan, promising to change, yet never really coming close. Chan Kar-Fu, who just cannot be Mok Man-Yee's dream guy and he knows it.

The later half of the film takes a turn into the realm of the fantastical. Chan Kar-Fu writes and submits a naive and crude story about fictionalized versions of himself and Mok Man-Yee who work together to deliver a letter from an entity guarding treasure to his lost beloved. In the end of this work, the two end up together, happy. 

See, despite much being mysterious about Anna Magdalena, there is evidence that even after stopping her work as a court singer, quite the prestige, she would still preform with Bach. A kind of husband and wife partnership. Doting and infatuated. It takes that kind of romance to write an everlasting melody. In the ideal, Chan Kar-Fu's story ends just like that. Reality, is not at all the same.

Chan Kar-Fu's own notebook for Mok Man-Yee bears no success, the love is not meant to be. She never even knew. Still, it exists, like the love existed once.

And so.

Although I found the narrative and themes intriguing, waiting to see how much more Chan Kar-Fu could bare, I don't think the film's substance overcame it's style.

The visual components of the film were my favourite part. I liked the apartment. Yau Muk-Yan brushes his teeth on the balcony near a sink with the city just across. On the same balcony, the two have beers in the night. I want to be in a place like that. A dilapidated church is also a pleasant picture. I liked the framing of characters by the camera, intimate in stark clarity. The outfits were largely in neutral tones, colour-blocked to illustrate obvious silhouettes and evoke the character's personalities quite easily. The fantasy segment also provided fun costumes, almost like cheap cosplay or very low budget science fiction films. Visually, this film is exactly what I look for when I want to feel comforted.

Despite this, the character chemistry lacked and I did not root for the union of Chan Kar-Fu and Mok Man-Yee as much as the film likely expected. Still, the thematic experience, unfulfilled love, is an experience familiar to many. A burn, a shock, that wounds unexpectedly and so deeply you think you can never regain a normal, content self as this heart break is happening to you. A fading thing, both sweet and sour, later. Now you can only wonder what could have been, but as time passes, it doesn't look all that bad.

 Watched: [May 30 2024]

Rating: [7/10]

Labels: 1998 film, 90s film, asian film, comedy film, fantasy film, film, film review, hong kong film, romance film