MOM July 2012

[KGB]

Morning Departure torrent
I Love Beijing torrent

[TheDenizen]

thanks for those links KGB

[afx237vi]

Morning Departure is available here as a direct download. I like John Mills, so looking forward to watching this one.

[afx237vi]

I watched Morning Departure this morning. My review: "Not spectacular in any area, but a solid drama with a very British sense of resilience and fortitude. Stiff upper lip and all that, eh chaps? It's a bit of a slow-burn to begin with, and there were times when I felt it wasn't quite as tense or claustrophobic as the situation demanded (again, that British stoicism), but it's carried along nicely by some fine acting and a strong sense of character development."

[afx237vi]

One interesting note about this film is that a month before its release, there was a real life submarine disaster in Britain when HMS Truculent sunk after colliding with a Swedish oil tanker in the Thames Estuary:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Trucul ... 29#Sinking

You can see a brief clip of the salvage operation here, and it looks remarkably similar to how it's portrayed in the film:

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/trucu ... ns-to-port

[paulofilmo]

I Love Beijing is also on YouTube.

It didn't leave any great impression, but I guess that's the point. Like there's nothing to impress into, or stick to - everything slides off into time and radio chatter* and cheap dresses. No UNESCO sites or family get togethers, just taxiing networking, the shallow and self-perpetuating; past faceless highrise and lamp-lit cranes.

The closing song cuts through like a sacrifice, lament. (Although, I am powerless against lachrymose laments by pretty fourth-wall breaking sweethearts in slow-motion). The scene reminded me of Ray's Company Limited - the record playing as the man and woman sit down to tea. Ray's cultural juxtaposition was more subtle and less sentimental, but Ning's does illustrate the closing narrative point: the breadth and substance of Dezi's new, day-lit clientele.

*While the editing often feels borrowed and translated from European cinema, the use of radio and other elements of sound design reinforce the de-personalised malaise. I mean, fuck, I get that at work with Radio 1. It's just not real--the pipes don't go deep enough and don't tap into anything but a simulacrum of experience. It's an energy drink, an aid for endurance. I guess the film is trying to capture this feeling of lost, empty change--the feeling I get with Lost in Translation or impersonal connection of You Are Listening to Los Angeles, or Burial's music.
But Wai's films sate this lust for purgatory; the debauchery, the mass-transport bespangled acoustic ecology in the soundtracks.

[KGB]

It didn't leave any great impression, but I guess that's the point. Like there's nothing to impress into, or stick to - everything slides off into time and radio chatter* and cheap dresses.
[...]
*While the editing often feels borrowed and translated from European cinema, the use of radio and other elements of sound design reinforce the de-personalised malaise. [...] I guess the film is trying to capture this feeling of lost, empty change.

I agree with these parts. 'I Love Beijing' is a solid film. It starts out really great (the scenes showing Dezi's relationship are probably the best) and then it sorts of just slowly wanders into numbing void and filler dolly shots of Beijing; pretty forgettable, but a pleasing experience nontheless. The use of sound is, indeed, interesting: apart from the constant radio chatter during Dezi's driving scenes, there's never really a single moment of silence.
Apart from montage scenes with background music, be it "on the air" sounds like radio transmissions and TV screens, or be it an overlapping conversation in the background, music coming from a toy, or - mostly - the horns and motors of the infinite cars flowing across Beijing, there's always something (apart from the ambience sounds of course) that's sort of distorting the atmosphere and the true peotic nature of the scene. In the end one ends up naturally ignoring it and it becomes sort of a wall-of-sounds that flows in the same rythem with the rest of the film, contributing to the idea of a restless, aimless Beijing. It doesn't always work though, and some scenes come out rather weak as a result.

Dezi is a young philandering taxi driver in Beijing. Thanks to his profession he meets people whose lives range far beyond his horizon. But when it comes to women his horizon has no limits. Following Dezi’s taxi, we are taken on a journey across Beijing. He is always on the move, people and places flow quickly in and out of his life. Dezi’s floating between destinations and women is much like Beijing’s own search for its identity between the old values which are disappearing and an unknown future.

I can't really agree with this summary. I don't know if it was promotional or a subjective opinion or whatever but I didn't really see what Dezi's story had anything to do with Beijing's dissapearing values. Granted, I know nothing about chinese culture - maybe someone with more background can help here. But there were very few moments where a clash of ideals seems to be the thematic threadline holding the film. For me, it was more about Dezi's taxi as a sort of escapism from his marital responsabilities - perhaps from something else, too, as Dezi seems inclined at moments to attempt to fix his marriage, even if clueless about how to proceed.

In that sense I do see the parallel between Dezi and Beijing - as I said before about the city, Dezi is also aimless and restless, wandering through the highway existentially to the background of millions of cars and the radio host's voice (sort of a post-modern, down to earth 'Taxi Driver'). The scenes in which Dezi's driving in which we get to see Beijing are really pretty, and really give the sense of an anonymous metropolis, lacking any sort of identity. But that's probably how Beijing is in real life.

One thing I did think I managed to catch about Beijing's "old values" (which I didn't understand at all) was [spoiler]the thing with the girl Dezi ends up marrying. What's the deal with that? Why did the librarian hook them up? Why did Dezi marry her instantly? Is there a cultural influence there that went over my head?[/spoiler]

All in all, I tend to agree with paulofilmo. It's a well done film, and I liked it, but it really didn't seem to go anywhere, and the parts that got more interesting were cut short and never given any conclusion. And if it truly was the point of the film, then why did it end on such a melodramatic note? That really brought the film down a notch for me. I read somewhere that there was actually a 20-minute climax scene is a club that the critics didn't like and was cut short, so I suppose the ending scene was produced in a rush to give the film conclusion (although, of course, it would work better if there was no conclusion at all).

So in the end it boils down to the question of, if a film appeals less to the viewer to make a point (in this case, the lack of emotion and identity in contemporary Beijing), and it gets that point across, does that actually make the film better or worse? I don't know, I'll leave that up to the film theorists. Personally I don't really give a fuck.

Score: 75 (Tier 7)

[KGB]

On a sidenote,

1. It has ten or less ratings on Criticker; excluding users like imdb, RNG, etc...
2. It is available through either Netflix or Youtube.
3. It is at least ten years old.

I'm not crazy about these rules.

1. This seems a little too restrictive. Also a limited number of ratings adds to the chances of any chosen film to be a dud; if you ever went to a film festival you'd know that going to films based solely on the plot summary is pretty much playing russian roulette with your precious time. There's so much experimental crap I would love to erase from my mind, but it's too late, too late... There are many acclaimed films that the majority of people didn't see (remember the first MOM was 'Time of the Gypsies' - my very favorite film nowadays); also it might boost up participation in the MOM, i suppose.

2. Personally if it is available on torrent it seems enough for me (I hate watching films on youtube and there's no netflix here), but some people are appearantly still sensitive about not giving out their money before watching a film so we can stick to this.

3. I don't even see why this is necessary.

These are just a few suggestions, you're the one going through the effort so I'll respect whatever way you wanna keep it. This is still a pretty great way to get to know films.

[paulofilmo]

A good list for art foraging:

EDITED. Sorry about that.

[paulofilmo]

Really enjoyed Morning Departure! Cheers.