Sunday, April 24, 2011

LA FILLE AU FOND DU VERRE A SAKE (2009, Emmanuel Sapolski, B)

I don't enjoy this film, and I'm not sure why. Theoretically, I should have enjoyed this film, because there are many reasons that should have made me like it, such as

1.The film is about interracial relationship.
2.The film seems to be made with good intentions towards its Asian characters.
3.The film has a nice supporting gay character.

However, I don't enjoy it that much, and I still can't figure out why. Maybe the reasons why I don't enjoy it include:

1.The heroine's mother seems to be a stereotyped character, but the Asian mother in MY BROTHER IS GETTING MARRIED (2007, Jean-Stéphane Bron, A+) is a little bit stereotyped, too, but I still like MY BROTHER IS GETTING MARRIED very much.

2.The film ends with the reconciliation between the runaway Asian woman and her family. Normally I love films of which the heroine severs her ties with her family at the end of the film, such as SHIRLEY VALENTINE and LE BLEU DES VILLES (1999, Stéphane Brizé), not the ending in which family members reconcile with one another.

However, I still worship the film RESTLESS (2009, Laurent Perreau, A+++++++++++++++) very much, though its heroine reconciles with her grandfather near the end of the film. In fact, the reconciliation between these two characters moves me so much that it makes me want to cry.

So I'm not sure that the reconciliation is the reason why I don't enjoy LA FILLE AU FOND DU VERRE A SAKE, because there are some family reconciliations in other films, and I still enjoy them.

Apart from LA FILLE AU FOND DU VERRE A SAKE, there are other films about Asian-Caucasian relationships which I don't enjoy, such as:

1.BUTTERFLY MAN (2002, Kaprice Kea, C)

2.THE LAST SAMURAI (2003, Edward Zwick, B-)

3.NOW CHINATOWN (2000, Steven Dunning, C)

4.ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE (2002, Hu Mei, Austria, B-)

5.PARIS (2004, Ramin Niami, C)

I'm also not sure exactly why I don't enjoy the five films above, though these films seem to be made with good intentions towards their Asian characters, too.

Maybe some critics should analyze the five films above and LA FILLE AU FOND DU VERRE A SAKE, so that I may understand why I don't enjoy these films.

On the contrary, there are some films about Asian-Caucasian relationships that I like very much, including:

1.AE FOND KISS... (2004, Ken Loach, UK, A+)

2.THE HOME SONG STORIES (2007, Tony Ayres, Australia, A+)

3.IRON & SILK (1990, Shirley Sun, A+)

4.LADY BAR (2006, Xavier Durringer, France, A+)

5.M. BUTTERFLY (1993, David Cronenberg, A+)

6.MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE (1985, Stephen Frears, UK, A+)

7.NINA'S HEAVENLY DELIGHTS (2006, Pratibha Parmar, UK, A+)

8.SIAO YU (1995, Sylvia Chang, A-)

9.TERRIBLY HAPPY (2010, Pimpaka Towira, A+)

10.THE WEDDING BANQUET (1993, Ang Lee, A+)

This is the photo of Frédéric Siuen, a supporting actor in LA FILLE AU FOND DU VERRE A SAKE.




No comments: