Past Lives
Celine Song's Past Lives is a movie that reminds me why I love movies. Film is art and what purpose does art serve other than to help you experience humanity through it? Past Lives is a film about time, choices, and love.
In 1999, Na Young and Hae Sung are 12 year olds growing up in South Korea. They have a crush on each other and they go on a date in a park. But Na Young soon moves to Toronto and changes her name to Nora.
12 years later, Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) and Nora (Greta Lee) get in touch over Facebook. They Skype constantly, but are unable to visit one another. Nora is about the go on a writer's retreat in Montauk and Hae Sung is spending the summer in China studying Mandarin. Nora suggests they take a break from talking so they can focus on living the lives right in front of them.
12 years after that, Nora is married to Arthur (John Magaro), a writer she met at the retreat. They live in New York City. Hae Sung comes to visit. His visit to NYC stirs up complicated feelings in all three individuals: Arthur wonders if he was a roadblock in a romance that should have taken place between Nora and Hae Sung; Hae Sung muses about what would have happened if Nora never left South Korea; Nora is faced with a road not taken.
The Korean concept of inyeon comes up multiple times in the film. It's the idea that people are part of one another's lives because they played a role in each other's past lives. So if two people get married, they were part of each other's past lives 8,000 times before. Nora and Hae Sung discuss how they were perhaps in each other's lives before but don't have enough inyeon to be each other's partner in this life. Hae Sung says that he loved Nora as a girl for who she was...but who she was made her "someone who leaves." But to Arthur, Nora is "someone who stays".
Inyeon is a beautiful idea and one that expands our humanity, and what is also beautiful is that Past Lives is not a movie about jealousy or adultery or competition. Hae Sung, Nora, and Arthur spend an evening in a bar with Nora translating for the two men and eventually just having a conversation with Hae Sung in Korean. When she goes to the bathroom, Hae Sung apologizes to Arthur for speaking privately with Nora, but Arthur says that it's ok and that Hae Sung made the right decision by visiting Nora. Later, after Nora sees Hae Sung off in his Uber, she weeps in her husband's arms and he just holds her. I was struck by a thought: this is what it means to love the whole person. And that includes understanding when they weep for a past love or what could have been. This kind of love is not jealous or fearful or hateful, nor is it confident or boastful. What a beautiful and courageous kind of love it is to be able to accept all of someone else, even when their love extends beyond you.
Grade: A
***
The History of Sound
Two men who love music come to love each other in WWI era New England. Paul Mescal plays Lionel Worthing, a Kentucky boy who leaves the family farm to study voice at the New England Conservatory in 1917. There, he meets David White (Josh O'Connor), who studies composition. The men bond over their interest in folk songs and become intimate.
David invites Lionel to participate in a project where they will travel across Maine, collecting folk songs from the people who live there. They carefully record these songs on wax cylinders. Lionel moves to Europe and though he writes David monthly, he never gets a response. He moves on, but never forgets the best months of his life on that trip with David.
The History of Sound is a beautiful film despite its conventional trajectory. It's really Lionel's story--and Paul Mescal is as soulful as ever, with his sad, deep eyes. Not surprisingly, the movie has a lovely soundtrack filled with folk music and ballads, as well as choral music and even some Joy Division near the end. The final scenes, starring Chris Cooper as the elderly Lionel, who went on to become an esteemed ethnomusicologist, pushes the movie from "good" to "very good" in my opinion. I'm talking Brokeback Mountain levels of emotional catharsis. Or maybe I just have a soft spot for old, lonely men.
Grade: B+
***
Eddington
Ari Aster's latest film is...a lot. The director's trajectory has been an interesting one to say the least. From an excellent horror film (Hereditary), to a film I consider one of my favorites of all time (Midsommar), to a very weird, yet quite funny anxiety fever dream (Beau is Afraid), to this one...a neo-Western that has a lot of say about our society during and post-covid, but doesn't really say it clearly.
Eddington takes place in Eddington, New Mexico. A small town torn apart by covid-era politics (the film opens in May 2020). Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) is the sheriff and Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) is the mayor. Ted enforces mask mandates and Joe prickles at being forced to wear a mask. But also, Ted is working on a deal to build a data center in Eddington, believing it will bring jobs to the community.
Pascal skillfully plays a quintessential neo-liberal politician. And Phoenix skillfully plays a borderline nutjob who *might* read as libertarian if you squint. Eddington teases at playing "both sides" politics for the first half of the movie, skewering the self-indulgence of liberal white people in particular, before veering off in a wildly different direction.
Eddington really is a mess, but it's a very interesting (and, at times, darkly funny) mess. I saw a comment that said the film is "less about any left or right ideologies as much as it's about examining the type of people who have no actual ideology but are using a cause or message to further their own agenda". This really hits the nail on the head. It's not really about politics, it's about trying to wrest some control in an absolutely batshit out of control world.
Is the movie good? Eh. It's not bad. It's not particularly enjoyable to watch, not because it's unpleasant, but because it's throwing a lot at the wall and not much is sticking. That said, it's quite ambitious and even audacious at times. I'll probably let it sit for a couple years and then return to it and see how I feel about it. But it's no Midsommar.
Grade: B
***
You Can Count On Me
This 2000 Kenneth Lonergan film is slice-of-life Americana, which is Lonergan's specialty (he also directed Manchester By the Sea). The quiet film follows a brother and sister, Sammy and Terry Prescott. As children, the siblings lose their parents in a car crash. As adults, Sammy (Laura Linney) is a responsible single mom who comes across as a bit uptight, but is mostly just trying to do right by her young son Rudy (Rory Culkin). Terry (Mark Ruffalo) is the ne'er-do-well sibling who lives a nomadic lifestyle, gets into random bar fights, and asks his sister for money.
Despite Terry being a bit of a bum, Sammy loves her brother deeply and is relieved when he visits town after 3 months of no contact. Turns out, Terry was in jail. During Terry's stay, the two siblings seem to wear off on each other a bit: the uptight Sammy starts an affair with her very annoying and petty boss, Brian (Matthew Broderick), while the irresponsible Terry takes a shine to Rudy and brings a little fun into the kid's life.
However, Terry is still deeply emotionally immature and makes some seriously dumb choices, which causes Sammy to re-evaluate her own decisions.
Lonergan, who has a cameo as a pastor in You Can Count on Me, excels in crafting films about imperfect people making foolish choices, but still being worthy of love. He's a humanist and his movies are reflective and quietly profound, if not all that exciting. You Can Count on Me is notable because when I first watched it back in 2000, it was the first time I saw Mark Ruffalo in a movie and I remember being pretty impressed. 25 years later and I think Ruffalo is one of the finest actors working today. More so than Linney and Broderick, Ruffalo's acting feels lived in. He really slips right into the skin of his character. That alone makes the movie worth watching.
Grade: A-
***
Good Boy
Good Boy, directed by Ben Leonberg, is a horror film from the perspective of a dog. A young man, Todd (Shane Jensen), is very sick with some kind of lung disease. Against the wishes of his sister, he decides to move to his late grandfather's house out in the woods. He takes along his loyal dog, Indy (played by the director's very own "good boy", also named Indy in real life).
Indy can sense that something is wrong with the house: he hears noises that sound like another dog coming from the basement and he can perceive someone (or something) hiding in the shadows. Meanwhile, Todd begins isolating himself as death draws near. He yells at his sister on the phone when she says she wants to visit him. He rages at a medical profession who explains that it is "too late" for experimental treatment. And finally, he even pushes Indy away. The good boy who only wants to love Todd is dismissed from the bed and told to sleep on the floor. And then outside, chained to a doghouse.
Although Indy survives the film, Good Boy is a tough one. Dog lovers' hearts will be squeezed as Indy whimpers in fear at a creature stalking the house and tries to protect his oblivious owner. But even though Todd is a real jerk to Indy at times, it's hard not to understand and sympathize with him on some level. Todd doesn't know how to deal with the fact that he is dying. He rages and then breaks down in sobs. He yells at Indy and then pulls him close for a hug. Good Boy is a pretty simple movie, but it packs an emotional punch.
Good Boy is short and spare. It's not particularly scary and it's even a bit boring. Not much happens. But it's also very unique, emotionally intense, and, of course, it stars a very, very cute dog. It's worth a watch if you're a horror fan or a dog lover (although be cautious if you don't like to see animals in distress. Although there really isn't any violence against animals, it's hard to watch Indy "act scared"...even though he is indeed acting!)
Grade: B
***
Cannibal Mukbang
With a title like Cannibal Mukbang you would think that this movie would be mindless, bloody fun. I went into it expecting a movie about a woman who does mukbangs where she, you know, eats people (for the people reading this who aren't terminally online, a mukbang is when someone makes a video of themselves eating a lot of food. It's a thing and people can make good money doing it. Is it sexual? Not typically, but it can be).
Well, the movie does contain a lot of cannibalism, but there's barely any mukbanging. Instead, the film is primarily focused on the relationship between Ash (April Consalo) and Mark (Nate Wise). Ash is a cute, perky girl who does mukbangs for a living and Mark is an autistic-coded nerdy guy who works in customer service. When Ash accidently hits Mark with her car, a romance begins to bloom.
Mark eventually discovers Ash's secret: the meat she cooks for her mukbangs are made of...people!!!! Not just any people--rapists, child molesters, and killers. Ash has an ethical code and only kills and eats men who commit heinous crimes. At first Mark is horrified, but after he witnesses her kill a man and helps her move the body, he gets sucked in to Ash's life of cannibalism.
Cannibal Mukbang was a bummer and a disappointment. The movie is so focused on Ash and Mark's relationship--there is drama and anxiety and "do you love me?" and "I want to take things slow". It feels very high school. It doesn't help that Ash is a manic pixie dream girl and the guy who plays Mark is simply a bad actor. However, he is not as bad an actor as the guy who plays Mark's brother, Maverick.
The brother character, Maverick, is such a pig, so evil, and so poorly acted with such cheesy lines I have to believe that this was a purposeful choice by the director. The character was such a cartoon, that it felt like a parody. Now, a film like Cannibal Mukbang, you might think that the whole movie is a parody--or more like, a homage--to cheesy B-horror films. B-horror films are even mentioned in the movie when Ash and Mark bond over their love of horror. But it felt like the director didn't fully commit to the film being just a ridiculous, cheesy, blood-and-guts fest. April Consalo, for example, is a good actress and does a great job portraying Ash. But then Nate Wise and Clay von Carlowitz (the guy who plays Maverick), are so, so bad at acting. I'm not sure how to explain it, but something didn't add up...it's as if director Aimee Kuge wanted to make a cheesy horror film and a sweet relationship drama and then failed at both.
Also, the ending is a massive bummer. You can see the "twist" coming from a mile away.
Spoilers ahead..
Ash asks Mark to hide in her closet while she brings a "date" home. We know that this date will be with a disgusting rapist pig of a man that Ash will kill and then harvest his body for meat. Turns out, the date is...Maverick! Mark's brother!! Instead of helping Ash kill him, Mark helps Maverick escape... and we know Maverick isn't a good guy because he nearly strangles Ash while calling her a "useless whore". Mark allows Maverick to escape, and then a weeping Ash kills Mark with an axe saying "you're all the same".
Man, I hated this fucking ending. The pig rapist gets away, Mark proves that he's a pussy not worthy of Ash, and Ash is alone. Not that I really care about these characters, but damn. It was just like...I wanted a movie about a sexy chick who eats men on camera...not this frustrating ending after an hour and a half of relationship drama. Also, the director is a woman and it's not like female directors can't be disappointing, but I felt like she should have done a better job with the material. I was expecting subversion and I didn't get it.
Anyway, this movie is definitely someone's jam, so if it still sounds intriguing (hopefully you didn't read the spoilers), it's worth watching it. It just wasn't the movie for me.
Grade: C+
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