Films I Saw This Summer
by Nicole Wallenbrock
Thirst
With all the teen-vampire fanaticism, the foreign art-film take on Dracula might pass you by. However, Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In, and the Korean Park Chan-Wook’s Thirst are original romances where bloodlust is anything but skin deep. Park is best known for his vengeance triology, (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Old Boy, and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance). In these films, characters who are subjected to violence become heroes when they retaliate with elaborate murder schemes. One suffers through gore in his films’ first half, but the conclusive proof of justice is in fact more blood and pain. Eventually, the carnage becomes more delicious than disgusting, for it is all bloodshed in the name of fairness.
The plot of Thirst is primarily shaped by Emile Zola’s Thérèse Raquin (1867). However, Park sets the naturalist French novel in modern day South Korea, and uses vampirism as a metaphor for the novel’s tragic, addictive love affair. Perhaps Park’s most inventive touch was to transform Zola’s Laurent, a gambler who can no longer afford the brothel, into the upright priest Sang-hyien (played by Kang-ho Sang, who also played the lead in Park’s 2002 breakthrough film, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance.) The film openly references Robert Bresson’s 1951 classic Diary of a Country Priest as Sang-hyien explains his struggle to suppress sexual desire in a voice-over while vigorously writing in a journal. The priest punishes himself by whacking his penis with a wooden stick when it becomes erect. When this does not suffice, he participates in a dangerous medical study in South Africa. There, ignorant doctors infect Sang-hyien with the vampire virus through a blood transfusion. When he returns to Korea, his sexual desire for Tae-joo (Ok-viri Kim), the wife of his sickly childhood friend, engenders a new obscene desire for human blood.
The sex scenes between Ok-viri Kim and Kang-ho Sang are reminiscent of the best of David Cronenberg and Catherine Breillat, exploring passion from both perspectives with animalistic flare. The sniffing, sucking, licking, and biting, is as audible as it is visual; in a particularly sensuous moment Sang-hyien gives two long strokes of the tongue to Tae-joo’s clean pale arm pit. The film is reliant on their chemistry, as their addiction to blood and to each other spawns the jealousy and torment that become their ultimate downfall. Kang-ho Sang’s striking good looks make him the seductive vampire, while his awkwardness and inconsistent righteousness demonstrate his character’s contradiction. As in Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Park transgresses gender roles to make the female a force to be reckoned with: Tae-joo intermingles her desire for blood and her desire for revenge on her in-laws. Ok-viri Kim as Tae-joo shows timing and character development, from a shy and needy young woman to a bold vampire selfish with hunger. Blue costumes and white powder aid her transformation into a shining ravenous imp.
The violence of Thirst is not as startling as Park’s best films, and the CGI that normally ties scenes together, at times appears too animated (Tae-joo’s and Sang-hyien’s bouncing from rooftop to rooftop resembles early Nintendo.) Yet the characters’ complexity and strength, and the modernization of the nineteenth century storyline, render Thirst a fascinating chapter in the recent frenzy for vampires. Park Chan-Wook couples the actors’ intensity with selfawareness, directing a film that is as tragic and true as it is humorous.
The Silence of Lorna (Le silence de Lorna)
The Dardenne brothers, Luc and Jean-Pierre, first won international attention in 1996 with La promesse, a film that dealt with Belgium’s clandestine immigration and which showcased the acting debut of the then fifteen-year-old, Jérémie Renier. Five films later, the Dardenne brothers are still exposing the misfortunes of immigrants and the extremely talented Jérémie Renier — now 28. However, as the title indicates, this film is Lorna’s story, a young Albanian immigrant, expertly played by Arta Dubroshi. Lorna immigrates to open a snack bar in Belgium with her boyfriend. However, her path to citizenship has been paved by an international crook that arranges marriages for foreigners. Junkies are ideal for citizenship marriages, as they accept a small amount of cash in exchange for a ring, and usually die of an overdose within a year. Claudy (Renier) complicates the plan when he sincerely cares for Lorna and attempts to come clean. Lorna’s boss wants to force his overdose, and Lorna feels utterly responsible for Claudy’s life.
The inverse of Hollywood production, the Dardennes’ superb realism is captured with a single camera, natural lighting, and brilliantly honest performances. Even in a secondary role, Jérémie Rénier proves his commitment to performance. Flushed and emaciated, Renier forces us to sympathize with the complexity of addiction. Dubroshi’s restrained expressions and blank stares convey Lorna’s internal conflict in the film’s first half. Eventually, Dubroshi exhibits Lorna’s conundrum with self-utterances and a fearful demeanor. Le silence de Lorna follows a social-realist tradition that comments on the unjust world; frequent shots of money affirm its unwavering importance, and Lorna’s final situation is the outcome of a long struggle to succeed in Western Europe.
Recently at an opening of a festival of their work at the Walter Reade theater I met Luc Dardenne. When I asked him why the brothers always chose to make features about poverty and the underclass, Luc responded, “because traditionally the poor are on the sides of the frame, in the corners. We want to place them in the center.”
Hump Day
It might surprise viewers to know that the writer/ director of Hump day is a woman. Lynn Sheldon’s independent feature is almost exclusively about men, and the awkward line where homosexuality and homosociality meet. Ben (Mark Duplass) is a newlywed happily contemplating the prospect of children when his wild college buddy, Andrew (Joshua Leonard), shows up at his door. Soon after, Andrew finds a party of non-conformist artists and invites Ben along. Late in the night, after untucking his shirt and bong-toking, Ben agrees to participate with Andrew in a home-video porn festival, Humpfest, claiming it is part of a larger statement of artistic integrity, straight men having gay sex.
What begins as intoxicated party babble, begins to take shape as a possible venture. The men question the project’s symbolic value; for Andrew it will mean the completion of a project, for Ben it will prove he is larger than his current lifestyle’s suburban values. Still, both men refuse to directly confront what their desire to participate in Humpfest might suggest about their sexuality. Lynn Sheldon teases the question, and makes every glance between the men questionable. This ambiguity looks to trouble the traditional audience’s expectations of male friendship, and satirizes the typical buddy flic. Nevertheless, the film is wrought with the purest cinema comedy, straight men pretending not to be…or perhaps, the reverse.
Moon
Much of the buzz surrounding Moon was due to the director’s famous rock-star dad, David Bowie. Indeed, it seems the apple does not fall far from the tree when it comes to mythologizing outer-space. Bowie, aka Ziggy Stardust, starred as “the man who fell to earth” in Nicholas Roeg’s 1976 film and his son’s debut continues where his father’s space lore left off.
A script that draws on themes found in 2001 and Solaris further enhances this nostalgic return to a bygone era of sci-fi. Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell whose dualism lies in more than his role’s true-to-life first name. A lone technician who sends masses of fuel from the moon to earth, his sole conversation mate is his computer, Gerti (Kevin Spacey), who responds to Sam’s need for human interaction with dead-pan comic relief. When a crash occurs, and Sam Bell recovers to be awoken by his doppelganger, a competition ensues; who will be the real Sam Bell, Sam or Sam? Rockwell’s performance seems incredibly human, especially when his character(s) struggle with the concept of not being so. The film retains some optimism where it might have spiraled into dystopia and is likewise an auspicious debut for its director, Duncan Jones.
