Cobweb
Jee-woon Kim
2023, 132 mins.
Very hot film noir
Here’s a fascinating gem that utilizes the film-within-a-film technique to a very engaging effect.
It’s all about a one-hit wonder (Director Kim, given a marvellous take by Song Kang-ho) whose début production displayed a promising new talent, but all subsequent attempts were dismissed as trashy. What’s an artist who knows he’s better than his critics (“For film critics”—blush—, “you really have no class”; “Criticism is an art of revenge by those who can’t make art”—never mind failed politicians…) to do? Why, purloin a script from your esteemed mentor who had the good sense to die in an on-set fire before his next work had been green-lighted.
After successfully wrapping the script not of his own making (unbeknownst to most), Kim has a sudden flash of early brilliance and—at much consternation to the cast—notably leading lady Yu-rim (alluringly rendered by Krystal Jung), crew and backers (a wonderfully icy-cold interpretation of Chairwoman Baek from Jang Young-nam) the aspiring director extraordinaire manages to bring everyone back to the set for two more days of his rewritten ending.
From there, it’s a compelling juxtaposition of the reshoot (in glorious black and white) and present-day behind-the-scenes drama (in full colour, allowing viewers to readily understand which is which).
Kim does a superb job of switching back and forth while also letting his talented actors dig down deep into their theatrical and real-life motivations for doing what they decide to do. The twin set fires (then and now) add visual and dramatic glue to the believability of the whole.
Satirizing the “suits” behind making films (amidst copious amounts of scotch), truly hits the power nail on the head.
Musically speaking, Mwog’s original score (especially the Hitchcock-like “nervous” strings) adds a lot to the overall flow. But old Blue Eyes’ rendition of “Wednesday’s Child” speaks/sings volumes about what it really takes to produce a masterpiece. JWR
Lie with Me
Oilvier Peyon
2023, 98 mins.
Done that, been there
“We’ve never been a racist country.”
Oh to be 17 again and experience a first, somewhat confusing love that must be lied about or collapse under an avalanche of shame, scorn and outrage from friends and family alike.
In this case, after many lingering looks in town and at school, the affair begins with a simple question: “You like me?” Once acknowledged, the next vital admonition is equally brief: “Tell no one.”
The two smitten young men from Cognac, France, come in the engaging forms of carrot top Stéphane (played with a wonderful combination of youthful joy and naïveté by Jérémy Gillet) and the far more outgoing Thomas (a most promising performance from Julien de Saint Jean). As their love blossoms, skinny dipping in a secret hideaway (a common setting this season, i.e., Giuseppe Fiorello’s Fireworks, cross-reference below), in the tub or flying about on a motorbike, bliss is in the air.
Unfortunately, almost expectedly, the happy pair’s sudden embrace is immediately truncated thanks to Thomas’ relocation to Spain. As in all eras, long-distance relationships are almost always doomed to failure. But, at least there are memories.
Thirty-five years later, the now established author, apparently teetotalling Stéphane, accepts an invitation to be the speaker of honour for the launch of—you guessed it—a new variety of cognac in Cognac.
Naturally, after all of these years away, the writer has a multitude of emotions, recollections and reflections. Guillaume de Tonquédec serves up a masterclass of varied characterization in the film’s central role.
Then, before you can say “plot point”, Stéphane, meets his former lover’s son (as Lucas, Victor Belmondo delights both the eye and ear as elder and younger unravel past mysteries and present-day realities).
Peyon and his co-writers Vincent Poymiro, Arthur Cahn and Cécilia Rouaud have done an entirely convincing screenplay based on the novel by Phillippe Besson. The time “switches” between then and now are also effectively realized thanks to cinematographer Martin Rit and editor extraordinaire Damien Maestraggi.
There’s nary a filmgoer who can’t identify, one way or the other, with the blunt reality that a first infatuation seldom leads to a partner for life. In the same vein, most viewers will immediately be sent down memory lane with various takes on “what could have been”, yet never forget what was, however, fleeting. JWR
First We Bombed New Mexico
Lois Lioman
2023, 98 mins.
“Now I become death, the destroyer of the world”
- Krishna, later quoted by J. Robert Oppenheimer
Having already seen Christopher Nolan’s fanciful take on Oppenheimer, I was a little reluctant and reticent to view Lipman’s documentary that gets so much closer to the ugly truth of the Trinity test, July 16, 1945—dangerously held during inclement weather and a bit ahead of a safer schedule to make some political points by the land of the free to Stalin and Churchill.
But, no worries, the “largely uninhabited” nearby terrain (well just a few thousand inconsequential Indigenous souls and border-crossing Mexicans—thank goodness that is no longer a problem in 2024) was more than up to the task of enduring “white snow”, radiation and bomb bits, just so long as the Japanese would get the message, whether alive or dead.
Yet due to winds heading seemingly in all directions and a torrential downpour, the unsuspecting citizens of New Mexico ended up enduring a tsunami of widespread cancer that took the lives of newborns through older but not yet ready for the grave souls whose only sin was their zip codes.
After this test was ruled a success, and at President Harry Truman’s urging, the “war-ending” bombs were then dropped “for real” (August 6 and 9, Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively).
Viewers are compassionately and undauntingly guided through this horrendous result of “winning at any cost” by New Mexican Tina Cordova, herself a survivor but also a political activist of the highest order. Her meetings with the powers that be (e.g., Tom Udall and Cory Booker) ably demonstrate the need even today for supported health care and other forms of compensation for so many. But, as Congress as late as last week continues to prove that it is unable to govern, much less treat these innocent victims with the respect and dignity they deserve.
Insult to injury comes with the knowledge that The Land of Enchantment is also a huge mining centre for uranium—several of those mines abandoned but, of course, not cleaned up, ensuring future generations more illness and premature death—largely unable to have the necessary resources to care for themselves and their loved ones.
Lipman has cobbled together a compelling condemnation of US “leadership” looking the other way, when it’s, after all, only a few lowly immigrants (er, hello there Greg Abbott), who inadvertently make the rest of the country safer and better, oblivious to ongoing suffering from deadly radiation—mined or airborne—for generations to come.
Happily, even in such a dire tale, the homegrown music from Paul Pino and the Tone Doodles offers welcome relief and toe-tapping charts, inspiring one and all to keep a goin’! JWR