another two from the festival

Ploy

The sense of universality in a marital drama can be difficulty to accomplish. Take a few famous examples from the pantheon: Rossellini's Viaggio in Italia, Antonioni's La Notte, Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, and dare I say, Cronenberg's Crash. As a civilized treatment of an eternal human condition, Ploy comes quite close for joining their rank. Pen-ek Ratanurang should be lauded for curbing his incomprehensible tendency to include gangster subplots in a relationship drama (however much they signify the characters' internal struggles). While we still cannot avoid sudden acts of violence, they are kept to a minimum, and as you may find out (as I did), they are quite tolerable. Despite minor hiccups, Ploy should be noted for its superb illustration of the lackadaisical mental states caused by jetlag. The cinematography is nothing less than stunning - using space and depth to their full sensuous effect. Adding to the elegant atmosphere is the script: economical, precise, and at the same time general enough to be universally appealing. In the film's final moments, the viewers may feel relieved (as I did) that so many things could have gone wrong, but they didn't - or did they? In any case, they have little influence to prevent Ploy from becoming one of the best films ever made about marriage.

Le Voyage du balloon rouge

Some people say that this could be Hou Hsiao-Hsien's most accessible film. I would probably concur. There is a affectionate sense of cuteness throughout the voyage, whether it comes from the witty kid or the omnipresent balloon. Rest assure that the kid's performance bears none of the conventional mannerisms; it is markedly natural, yet without any of the deliberate unconcern for dramatics in the so-called "realist" cinema. Juliet Binoche offers one of her most liberating and convincing performances - if one can get used to her blond hair. Technically, the film is impeccable. It again reinforces my belief that Lee Pin-Bing is the best cinematographer working today. Fluid camera movement tracks the path where the human gaze goes and does not elide any of the details we would like to notice. As usual, there are extremely delicate moments of human interaction - full of subtleties that defy verbal description. Did Peter Greenaway just cry out loud that cinema is brain dead? Think again. With masters such as Hou Hsiao Hsien, there is no need to be pessimistic about the future of cinema.