Listen now | LA Times film critic Justin Chang and I discuss Lee Chang-dong's powerful drama, a slippery tale of love, innocence, eros, and simmering violence that has the bones of a thriller but the air of a cautionary existential fable.
Remember this from The List several years ago. The slow burn of it all. You're not quite sure where it its headed. Then, suddenly, you are hit with it.
Fine review. It's interesting how this movie and "Drive My Car" are such excellent adaptations of excellent books while departing from the source material. Reminds me of Almadóvar's adaptations of Ruth Rendell and Alice Munro. I wonder if you or anyone else reading this have seen other adaptations of Murakami's books and if you recommend them.
I love Lee Chang-Dong’s movies so I’m looking forward to this one! Everything he’s done, including this one, is great, but for me the best and most heartbreaking is Oasis. It is a masterpiece.
I'm only a few minutes into the podcast, but feel it worth sticky-noting that the HFA played a Green Fish print from its own collection as a members' screening in 2019. It's nascent Lee, but just like later Lee it unfurls with a perceptiveness that you might not expect from within its genre trappings. The film also imprints some visual moments (nearly) as astonishing as his later works do. So it is worth seeing, and seemingly not unseeable.
My god, what an extraordinary film. I actually find it more powerful and disturbing than Bong's "Parasite," which had a much bigger reception a year later. I can't begin to summarize the many ways that this film moved me and left me with my jaw on the ground. I remember shaking with anticipation the last half hour when I first saw the film--talk about a slow burn that really builds. Part of it is how it turns from a love-triangle film into a thriller. Part of it is the incredible score, with its beating bass line. But what really remains with me is the ending and all of its emotional and visual power. It might be the most remarkable ending I've seen in the last decade--it leaves us with so many questions, including whether it really happened or whether it's just part of a story in Jongsu's head. A masterpiece in all regards, one that I have delighted in sharing a few times with my BU students, who also found it entrancing.
After seeing the film, I read the Murakami story "Barn Burning," What a fruitful discussion we fans of either the film or Murakami or both could have about the similarities and differences between film and story. I'll make one minor but interesting observation here: The film includes a few mysterious segments about a cat, possibly real, possibly imagined. Murakami often features cats in his novels, yet there's no cat in "Barn Burning." It's almost as if Murakami, in cat form, has pulled off a stealth cameo in the film.
I saw that....a well told and disturbing story.
Remember this from The List several years ago. The slow burn of it all. You're not quite sure where it its headed. Then, suddenly, you are hit with it.
Fine review. It's interesting how this movie and "Drive My Car" are such excellent adaptations of excellent books while departing from the source material. Reminds me of Almadóvar's adaptations of Ruth Rendell and Alice Munro. I wonder if you or anyone else reading this have seen other adaptations of Murakami's books and if you recommend them.
I love Lee Chang-Dong’s movies so I’m looking forward to this one! Everything he’s done, including this one, is great, but for me the best and most heartbreaking is Oasis. It is a masterpiece.
I'm only a few minutes into the podcast, but feel it worth sticky-noting that the HFA played a Green Fish print from its own collection as a members' screening in 2019. It's nascent Lee, but just like later Lee it unfurls with a perceptiveness that you might not expect from within its genre trappings. The film also imprints some visual moments (nearly) as astonishing as his later works do. So it is worth seeing, and seemingly not unseeable.
My god, what an extraordinary film. I actually find it more powerful and disturbing than Bong's "Parasite," which had a much bigger reception a year later. I can't begin to summarize the many ways that this film moved me and left me with my jaw on the ground. I remember shaking with anticipation the last half hour when I first saw the film--talk about a slow burn that really builds. Part of it is how it turns from a love-triangle film into a thriller. Part of it is the incredible score, with its beating bass line. But what really remains with me is the ending and all of its emotional and visual power. It might be the most remarkable ending I've seen in the last decade--it leaves us with so many questions, including whether it really happened or whether it's just part of a story in Jongsu's head. A masterpiece in all regards, one that I have delighted in sharing a few times with my BU students, who also found it entrancing.
After seeing the film, I read the Murakami story "Barn Burning," What a fruitful discussion we fans of either the film or Murakami or both could have about the similarities and differences between film and story. I'll make one minor but interesting observation here: The film includes a few mysterious segments about a cat, possibly real, possibly imagined. Murakami often features cats in his novels, yet there's no cat in "Barn Burning." It's almost as if Murakami, in cat form, has pulled off a stealth cameo in the film.