A CHINESE GHOST STORY (1987), ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA (1990)

A Chinese Ghost Story

Young roving debt collector goes from town town to collect money, usually unsuccessfully. He spends the night in a temple and meets a beautiful young lady. He falls in love with her, only trouble is she turns out to be a ghost. 

A Chinese Ghost Story could be looked at as having a little something for everyone. A rather sweet romance between the two leads, though hampered slightly by the fact that she is a ghost. Lots of fighting scenes, many involving the un-dead are here as well. It's an interestingly shot film with lots of blue background, shadowy images and wind driven special affects that are appropriate to the story. The highlight of the film is probably the final fight scene involving the tree demoness and Yin, the priest.

Sequels:
A Chinese Ghost Story II (1990)
A Chinese Ghost Story III (1991)
Remake:
A Chinese Ghost Story (2011)

Once Upon a Time in China

There is a lot of impressive fight scenes in Once Upon a Time in China, led by martial-arts legend Jet Li. 

Different political factions within China have their conflicts, as well as the outside forces of England and the United States. The plot itself is interesting most of the time, but at times hard to keep up with in the context of all the wall to wall frantic action. The success of this film also led to a slew of sequels:

Once Upon a Time in China II (1992)

Once Upon a Time in China III (1993)

Once Upon a Time in China IV (1993)

Once Upon a Time in China V (1994)

Once Upon a Time in China and America (1997)

MOUCHETTE (1967, FRANCE), L'ARGENT (1983, FRANCE)

A poacher confronts the title character

in Mouchette

(On Mouchette) "Robert Bresson has made several films of such sobriety that while some people find them awesomely beautiful, other people find sitting through the like taking a whipping and watching every stroke coming."-Pauline Kael,  5001 Nights at the Movies

And I understand both points of view stated above. When I first saw a Bresson film (Pickpocket) I kept thinking that I missed something. It took me awhile to adapt to Bresson's subtle form of cinema. He just will not tell a story in a conventional way! He also seems to skip important plot points, which have made me go back and see if there was a scene I missed (I did it for Mouchette and L'Argnet) more than once. I didn't miss a scene, it's just M. Bresson's way.

Mouchette is sort of a coming of age story of a teenage girl...if you can consider a coming of age story that will certainly end in tragedy a coming of age story. It is a pretty rich character study of this young girl and we see Mouchette awaken to adult experiences in subtle ways and in other ways not so subtle. I like this film, but it really helps to watch Bresson films more than once. (Which I did).

The title character gets passed around
in L'Argent

"Bresson films, which look and sound like no other filmmaker, alive or dead, are austere, limpid morality tales, photographed with almost scientific clarity...Bresson creates a kind of cinema in which characters are not seen but represented, as dramatically and effectively as they would be by actors wearing masks." -Vincent Canby, New York Times, October 2, 1983.

I honestly thought that L'Argent was going to be a heist film. Silly me, I forgot this was a Robert Bresson movie! What we see is how a counterfeit bill effects several people's lives in negative ways. At least several people initially. The ensemble nature of the film eventually breaks down into the study of a driver named Tyvon, who passes one of the bills off innocently enough and begins to lose everything. He loses his job, his wife, his daughter and eventually any sense of morality, leading to a horrific conclusion for everyone.

Is money the root of all evil? It certainly does make people do some pretty awful things. Bresson's last film and might be a good one to start with for those uninitiated with the director.

GOODBYE, LENIN (2003, GERMANY), THE TRUMAN SHOW (1998)

Alex (Daniel Bruhl) and his real mother (Kathrin Sass)
in fake surroundings in Goodbye, Lenin

Goodbye, Lenin is a comedy with many dramatic elements about a young man (Alex), who during the time of the unification of Germany in the late 80's witnesses his mother (Christiane) have a near fatal heart attack and lapse into a coma. When she comes out of it a few months later, Alex tries to keep it a secret from his mother that Germany is now unified, afraid the shock might kill her. The lengths that Alex goes to keep this false narrative going reminded me of one of my favorite movies, The Truman Show.

The Truman Show is the story of Truman Burbank, an insurance salesman with a wife living a seemingly normal life in a seaside community called Seaview. Except the only thing real about Truman's life is Truman himself. All that goes on around him is part of a TV show called The Truman Show, with everyone in Truman's life being actors, all under the control of a producer named Christof.

There are a lot of similarities and a few differences in both films.

Here are ten off the top of my head.

1. Both films rely on a lot of coincidences. Goodbye, Lenin has Alex coincidentally having the nurse (Lara) of his sick mother be a woman he was separated with during a street demonstration earlier and later becoming his girlfriend. In the The Truman Show (TV show). Truman meets his future wife by her hurting her ankle and landing in his lap. This of course, was manipulated by the show's script writers.

2. The show within the movie of The  Truman Show is watched by millions of people. The special show put on for Christiane in Goodbye, Lenin is for her only.

3. The desire to become a Magellan-like explorer is a recurring theme in The Truman Show. Looking up to East German space explorer Sigmund Jahn is a recurring theme in Goodbye, Lenin.

3. Alex and Truman are both separated from their father when they are young. Both are reunited with him later, discovering the disappearances of both dads were caused by factors other than what they first thought.

4. Product placement in The Truman Show (TV show) is ubiquitous. Product placement (aka evil Western influence) in Goodbye, Lenin is something to be hidden from Christiane at all costs.

5. Alex's friend Denis utilizes old news footage and fake reports for Christiane to watch. It is amateurish, but it works. Christof the producer of The Truman Show (TV show) runs the most elaborate and expensive television show ever created.

6. Christiane finds out the truth late in Goodbye, Lenin and turns out to be okay with it. She acknowledges her love for her family before dying a couple of days later. Truman finds out the truth at the end of the movie, moons Christof and goes to the outside world.

7. You can look at The Truman Show (movie) as an indictment of capitalism (By what ratings and chasing profit makes them do to poor Truman) or of religion (The manipulative omnipresent producer is named Christof for goodness sake!) Goodbye, Lenin's politics seem to be more pro-Capitalism, (the East German stuff wasn't nearly as good as the new stuff) but that is debatable.

8. Both have fine comic moments drawn from the absurdities of their situations and make you wanna cry at other moments.

9. At the end of Goodbye, Lenin, Alex recounts that the country his mother thought she lived in never really existed the way she imagined. At the end of The Truman Show (movie), Truman realizes that the only part of the life he led that was real was himself.

10. At the end of Goodbye, Lenin, Alex's family shoots the mother's ashes into the sky and wonder whether or not she is looking down on them.  At the end of The Truman Show (movie), two of Truman's fans search for something else to watch on TV.

Truman (Jim Carrey) and his fake wife (Laura Linney)

 in fake surroundings in The Truman Show

THE CLOUD-CAPPED STAR (1960, INDIA), SUBARNAREKHA (1965, INDIA)

The Cloud-Capped Star

Director Ritwik Ghatak's The Cloud-Capped Star and Subarnarekha are interesting films to watch as a double feature. The first film is one of sacrifice. Nita, the daughter of a poor Bengali refugee family uses her strength to hold her family up. This sacrifice eventually does manage to keep the family going, but at the cost of her dreams, her mind and her health. Her brother is a dreamy artist who seems like a bit of a no-account, so it is interesting that he is the one who does understand what Nita has done for them at the end.

Subarnarekha

Subarnarekha is a film I liked even more than The Cloud-Capped Star. It is an intense drama that runs from about the time of the assassination of Gandhi until the early 1960's. This film has a great deal to say about the caste system, refugees, how we treat others, marrying the one you love, pride and honor. There is a scene at the end of the film in a brothel that is one of the most heartbreaking I've ever seen on film.

One of the good things about going through the films in the 1001 book is watching films about different cultures actually made by filmmakers that live in that culture and can bring that unique perspective to it.