A Film a Week - Love in the Big City / Daedosiui salangbeob

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

People navigating love life and life in general is hardly a new subject in cinema and other art forms. Even the setting in which a straight woman lives with a gay man in the same apartment is not that new. However, Park Sang-young’s novel “Love in the Big City” is not merely a Korean riff on, let’s say, Will and Grace TV series. On the contrary, it aims for something more earnest, realistic and aware of the wider societal context.

The best-selling novel is actually getting two releases this fall. While the TV series adaptation will hit the small screens later this month, the big screen one, penned by Kim Na-deul (“Perheps Love”, 2021) and helmed by E.oni, formerly known as Lee Eon-hee (of 2016 “Missing” fame), has already premiered at Toronto and screened at Hawaii International Film Festival.

E.oni opens her film with a man running up the stairs to reach the rooftop terrace where a woman in wedding gown leans on a fence and smokes a cigarette. Loud music on piano and choir vocalising and a drone shot of downtown Seoul send the rest of the action into a series of flashbacks marked by numbers suggesting our protagonists’ age, starting when the two of them meet as a part of the same large French language-majoring group at college under the mentorship of the professor Olivier (Salim Benoit).

Jae-hee (Kim Go-eun) is a free-spirited, some would say “wild” girl. Although an over-achiever by nature, she is concentrated more on having fun than on studying. After all, she lived in Paris and is quite fluent in French. Contrary to her, Heung-soo (Steve Noh, also known as Noh Shang-hyun) is an aimless and timid guy who chose to delay his military service by studying French, drawn to the language because of Albert Camus’ “Stanger”. He seems to be the only guy in the group who is not in love with Jae-hee, and there is a good reason for it: he is gay, but he hides it even from his mother.

After an incident draws them closer, they become close friends and he moves to her apartment. They confide in each other and navigate their love lives together, while raising suspicions that they are a couple. Although their adventures might seem goofy and funny at times, they can also take a darker turn. After all, Korean society is still conservative, patriarchal and with strict hierarchy, while the acceptance of either LGBTQ+ people or male-female friendships as such is not implied.

Although the story has the clear beginning and ending, the seemingly integral choice of things in-between taken from the source novel can prove to be a bit troublesome, especially for fitting into a single movie. Although it is quite generous in the terms of runtime, the material simply seems a better fit for a one-season TV show. E.oni’s opting for a few clubbing montage sequences early on, kinetic camerawork (executed by the DoP Kim Hyoung-ju) and quick cutting saves some of the runtime, but seems a bit counter-intuitive for a romance drama. Later on, when the comedic elements evaporate, the style also gets calmer, and more fitting for the serious topics the novel, the script and the film try to explore.

The two leading actors remain on the centre stage of the film for the whole time, playing their characters evolving the best they can. Still, they are better at nailing the basics of them laid out early on than at getting to the characters’ emotional depth and complexity as the film moves to the more serious territory. Kim Go-eun, of “A Muse” (2012) fame and recently seen in “Exhuma” (2024), enjoys walking on the wild side and defying the strict and patriarchal society as Jae-hee, while Steve Noh, one of the stars of 2015 “Seoul Searching”, plays Heung-soo with tact and just the needed amount of swagger.

In the end, “Love in the Big City” is a film that opens certain aspects of contemporary life in Seoul and Korea in general from the point of view of young(er) people. It might not prove to be a seminal piece of work, but it is still decent.

A Film a Week - Good Children / Dobra djeca

 previously published on Cineuropa

We mature, we age and our lives change, but does the dynamic between siblings morph as time passes by, or do they stay attached to the patterns of behaviour they developed in their childhood and youth? Those are the questions that up-and-coming Croatian filmmaker Filip Peruzović asks in his feature-length debut, Good Children, which has just premiered in the 1-2 Competition of the 40th Warsaw Film Festival.

Nikola (Filip Šovagović, of No Man’s Land fame) and Saša (Nina Violić, most recently glimpsed in Good Times, Bad Times) are siblings on a specific mission: to clean up a large house after their mother’s death. Saša has her whole life and family in Canada, so time is of the essence. Contrary to his sister, Nikola seems like a bit of an idler, stuck in a rut in his own life, so he clings to both the objects and the sentiments of the past. During breaks from cleaning the house, getting rid of the furniture and packing up the memorabilia, they have conversations that quickly turn from mundane to passive-aggressive and, afterwards, play games like they did in their childhood, which fuel the toxicity of their relationship even more.

The script, written by the filmmaker and Nikolina Bogdanović, shows the differences in character between the two slowly and tactfully, but also in great detail. As a director, Peruzović creates the notion of the separate worlds they live in and of the one they have to share owing to these specific circumstances. He does so by employing Tomislav Sutlar’s hand-held camerawork at short-to-medium distance, imbuing the movie with warm, patinated colours. This world seems to be stuck in the era of their childhood, or even before that, thanks to Dino Topolnjak’s production design full of objects from Yugoslav times that appear to be in daily use. On the other hand, the striking sound design by Ivan Zelić, consisting of both interior and neighbourhood noises, reminds us that we are watching a contemporary story, and the fusion of the two makes it appear timeless and universal.

Largely a two-hander, except for the sequence in which the neighbour (Vinko Kraljević) comes to offer his condolences and try to retrieve a trimmer he lent to their mother a while ago, which sparks one more awkward conversation, Good Children depends heavily on the two main actors. Both of these thesps are more than capable of holding our attention individually and on their own terms, while the chemistry between them seems playful, natural and completely believable, making the film an easy watch.

On the other hand, even despite the running time that clocks in at 78 minutes, Good Children has a bit of an aura of an extended short, since most of the plot, the atmosphere, the relationships and the sprinkling of details could easily be laid out in under 30 minutes, even while keeping the deliberately slow pacing in Iva Ivan’s editing, which suits the situation that the characters find themselves in perfectly well. This should not come as a surprise, given that Peruzović mastered the short format before moving on to the feature one, ranging from his early work Tetrapak (2010) to Sinking Objects (2018), which was also included in the Deep Cuts omnibus. But in the end, the longer format offers the opportunity for the slow passing of time to be felt more intensely, and Peruzović seizes it, making Good Children more than a solid debut.

Apartment 7A

 kritika objavljena u dodatku Objektiv dnevnog lista Pobjeda

Malo je labavih trilogija koje funkcionišu i zajedno i po pojedinačnim filmovima kao što je to slučaj s onom „stambenom“ Romana Polanskog. Nju sačinjavaju londonski Repulsion (1965), njujorški Rosemary‘s Baby (1968) i pariški The Tenant (1976), svi filmovi stoje postojano „kano klisurine“ sami za sebe, a i zajedno tvore jednu zaokruženu celinu. Mnogi su se na njih nadovezivali, pokušali da ih repliciraju ili čerupali određene delove koji su im trebali, oni bistriji su ih samo citirali i na njih se pozivali, ali je samo Polanski znao i imao formulu da bi tako nešto izveo. Užasi u sva tri filma su realni i opipljivi i zapravo izviru iz ljudske prirode i društva, a sve natprirodno je samo manifestacija te metafore.

Ako to neko nije shvatio, onda je bolje da filmove ne dira. Nažalost, produkcijska kuća Paramount, režiserka Natali Erika Džejms i njeni ko-scenaristi Kristijan Vajt i Skajlar Džejms su posegnuli baš za, makar u Americi, najpoznatijim centralnim delom trilogije za koji su smućkali pred-nastavak skrojen oko jednog od likova koji se pojavljuje u dve, ali apsolutno memorabilne scene. Film Apartment 7A koji se, navodno, dugo „krčkao“ na koncu čak i nije dospeo do kino-dvorana, već je odmah pušten u virtuelni prostor preko platforme Paramount +.

Prva greška koju su Džejms, ko-scenaristi i producenti napravili bila je ta da sami sebi nisu postavili pitanje šta je još ostalo da se kaže o „svetu“ Rosemary‘s Baby. Odgovor na to pitanje bi glasio „apsolutno ništa“, jer je film Romana Polanskog jedan od onih koji u potpunosti govore sami za sebe, sve što treba je već u njima i sve je na svom mestu da se rasplete u završnoj sekvenci. Novom autorskom timu je, dakle, ostalo da ponovo ispričaju manje ili više istu priču o likovima koje zapravo poznajemo, pod uslovom da smo gledali film.

Ako jesmo, onda znamo da ni Rozmeri (Mia Farou), ni njen muž Gaj (Džon Kasavetes) tu nisu pokretači ničega, već su žrtva i predani (u smislu mikro-agresija i izluđivanja), ali zapravo nesvesni pomagač mračnih sila. Zato novi tim u priču mora vratiti samo mesto radnje, zgradu Bremford, i likove Mini i Romana Kasteveta, te pronaći njihovu novu, odnosno staru i pređašnju žrtvu, što je u ovom slučaju Teri Đonofrio koje se možda sećamo kao narkomanke iz podruma koja se ubila.

Ako nismo gledali original, zašto bi nas onda zanimao njegov „prikvel“? Sve u svemu, Sizifov posao za onoga ko ga se latio.

Elem, Teri (Džulija Garner) je plesačica koja je došla u Njujork s farme na Nebraski kako bi uspela u svetu brodvejskih mjuzikla. Povreda članka na jednoj od proba pred predstavu koja bi joj mogla lansirati karijeru dovodi je u vrlo nezavidnu poziciju. Tako povređena ne može davati sve od sebe, a još je navučena i na lekove protiv bolova.

Ona na jednoj audiciji upoznaje reditelja Alana Maršanda (Džim Sturdžis) koji isprva ima poriv da je ismeva i ponižava, ali se Teri ne da. Ona ga prati kući, pa tako dolazi do Bremforda i tamo upoznaje Mini (Dajen Vest) i Romana (Kevin Mekneli) koji je pozivaju da se useli u naslovni stan na sedmom spratu čiji su oni vlasnici. Predstavljaju se kao ljudi koji nemaju svoje dece, a voljni su pomoći onima u nevolji.

Za Teri je to prilika da se približi Alanu i konačno zaista pokuša da „uspe u životu“ i izgradi karijeru na brodvejskim daskama. Malo je možda odbija to što Mini i Roman pokušavaju da joj kroje život, to što sanja čudne i zapravo sve čudnije snove, kao i nejasna sudbina njihove prethodne stanarke (eto prilike za još jedan „prikvel prikvela“). Kao što pretpostavljamo, sve ima svoju cenu, što će Teri saznati na teži način, a znamo i kako se priča završava...

Svaka čast glumcima koji pokušavaju da poznate likove odigraju na jedan novi način, ali i to se u ovom slučaju čini prilično uzaludnim, budući da ti likovi nisu produbljeni, a Teri zapravo deluje kao kompozit Rozmeri i Gaja. Sama zgrada je solidno pogođena spolja, ali iznutra, što je važnije, deluje poprilično generički, ofrlje dizajnirano i odrađeno, kao da je sloj CGI-ja dodat preko AI-promptova. Nema onog mekog svetla i neoštrih rubova koji su kod Polanskog imali dramaturšku funkciju, a poneki nahereni ugao snimanja tu ne može puno pomoći.

Zapravo, Natali Erika Džejms pokazuje svoju maštovitost samo u sekvencama sna, naročito onim ranim u ključu izvitoperenog mjuzikla. Ali i njih ima previše, pa im se efekat gubi, a kako vreme prolazi, one se skraćuju i postaju rudimentarnije s jedinom funkcijom prepada koji i tako očekujemo. Apartment 7A tako postaje i ostaje uzaludni pokušaj, ali i strm pad u karijeri autorice jednog izvrsnog „uzdignutog“, opipljivog i metaforičkog horora, Relic (2019), kojim se tada približila teritoriji kojom i dalje suvereno vlada Roman Polanski.