jürgen fauth’s muckworld

Mike Leigh’s Happy Go Lucky had critics buzzing, but I found myself shut out of the screening at the Berlinale Palast. Instead, I caught another worthy contender for the Golden Bear: Korean auteur’s Hong Sang-soo’s Night and Day. Later in the day, Errol Morris presented the first-ever documentary to screen in competition in Berlin, the Abu Ghraib investigation Standard Operating Procedure. I capped the day with the Gospel According to Klaus Kinski, as documented in Peter Geyer’s Jesus Christ Savior.

Read day 6 of my Berlinale Journal.

Since I’m behind the curve on most items in this Konsum roundup, the soundtrack for today’s post is provided by Talking Heads, performing “The Great Curve” in Rome in 1980. You can download a DVD of the entire show from Dimeadozen.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
As apparently the last critic in New York City to see the freshly Academy-snubbed 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, I don’t have much to add to the universal acclaim the film has garnered — only this: if you take a look at the Rotten Tomatoes page, you’ll see adjectives like “excruciating,” “harrowing,” “wearing,” “wrenching,” “bleak,” and “unblinking.” All of those fit, but it seems to me the terminology applied to blockbusters like The Bourne Ultimatum isn’t inappropriate, either: 4 Months is also an edge-of-your seat thriller.
4 luni, 3 saptamani si 2 zile. Cristian Mungiu, 2007. ****

Woman on the Beach
My favorite at NYFF06 — at least until INLAND EMPIRE showed up — is currently playing at Film Forum. Reason enough to take another look. Lo and behold, it’s still a wonderful film. J. Hoberman.
Haebyonui yoin. Hong Sang-soo, 2006. ****

The Duchess of Langeais
An About.com review of Rivette’s Balzac adaptation starring Jeanne Balibar and Guillaume Depardieu is forthcoming.
Ne touchez pas la hache. Jacques Rivette, 2007. ****

The Wire, Season 1
Yes, we’re ridiculously far behind, so I can barely participate in the conversation at this point. Anybody who’s been following this blog knows that I’m a sucker for structure, and The Wire’s intricate plot lines left my head spinning. Looking forward to catching up with the remaining four seasons, like, this weekend. ****

30 Rock
I love every single character on Tina Fey’s show, from Alec Baldwin’s head of TV and microwave programming to nutso Tracy Morgan and Kenneth the Page, and I haven’t seen a TV show that delivers as many smart laughs per minute since the first season of Arrested Development. 30 Rock makes me happy. ****

Californication
Thoroughly enjoyable HBO series about a sex-and-booze addicted writer (David Duchovny) who is still in love with his ex-wife (Natascha McElhone), and whose novel God Hates Us All was adapted into the “Tom and Katie” vehicle Crazy Little Thing Called Love. ***

I wasn’t too enamored with Hong Sang-soo’s A Tale of Cinema (NYFF 2005), but this new film is marvelous. Set in an off-season seaside resort, it concerns a movie director and his girlfriends (both sober and drunk on sake), an abandoned dog, vindictive sushi chefs, and swollen muscles. A delicious surprise. At the press conference, Sang-soo turned out to be as soft spoken and gentle as you would expect. He works with a twenty-page treatment, shoots in sequence, and doesn’t write actual scenes until the day of shooting. The result is ineffable, subtle, hilarious, and true. With the beautiful Korean TV star Go Hyun-jung. My favorite film at the festival so far.

Woman on the Beach. Hong Sang-soo, 2006. ****

[tags]korea, 4 stars, hong sang soo, go hyun jung, film, nyff[/tags]