4 Movies I Watched This Month (+ 1 Movie I Hated)

I've been watching movies a lot recently. I decided to start watching movies I hadn't seen from IMDB's top 250 list, and I also found a YouTube archive of Korean movies dating from as far back as the 1930s (KoreanFilm channel), so those two things have shaped a sort of weird trajectory through film that I have been hurtling through lately.

The Godfather (1972)

The first film I watched from IMDB's top 250 list was The Godfather. This is one I'd been meaning to watch for a long time, and I can see why it's held in such high esteem. It was easily the most compelling film of the ones in this post. The narrative is sprawling and has an almost slice-of-life feel with all the characters in the family and some really well-constructed moments of tension.

I chose this screenshot from the section in Italy because I thought the shot was really pretty, but also that section of the film is perhaps one of the most interesting. There's an ethereal quality to it in some places.

Crazy For You (진짜 진짜 좋아해, 1977)

This was the first film I watched on KoreanFilm. I had no idea what to expect and simply clicked on the first film listed. It was interesting, especially in its first half, telling the story of a schoolgirl with a bicycle meeting a marathon runner and basically having some banter with him. She also has a little brother who is quite fun.

Unfortunately, the second half becomes so overly dramatic that I couldn't take it seriously. It feels like a Shakespearean tragedy in the way that the characters' actions just make absolutely no sense. What I like most about this film has to be the cinematography. There are some lovely shots through flowers and such, as pictured above, and we get some good sporty 1970s outfits too.

The Harmonium in My Memory (내 마음의 풍금, 1999)

This is another 1970s Korean film I watched on KoreanFilm, and has quite a similar feel to Crazy For You, despite the fact that this is a 1990s production. Harmonium is set in a small village in the 1960s and is based a real semi-autobiographical novel by Ha Geun-chan. One thing this film does really well is to portray the rural setting. It feels very real, and the characters are very interesting within this world. The entire film is pretty much about a very child-like 17 year old girl who becomes infatuated with her new teacher, whilst he simultaneously becomes infatuated with another new teacher.

I really enjoyed how the film uses music and LPs as a connective theme. We have characters bonding over Connie Francis records, characters singing idly to themselves, and a character who spends almost the entire film asking, "what's an LP?" 1960s music as a connective device fits the film very well, and ultimately it's a nice study of the village and it's characters. Lee Byung-hun is charming as the male lead.

This Is Where I Leave You (2014)

This film is so bad. I only watched it out of Adam Driver related curiosity, but it was not a good decision. The story follows a man as he immediately finds his wife cheating on him with his boss, and shortly after discovers his dad has died. He then has to spend an extended period of time with his family - all of whom are inevitably dysfunctional, teeming with explosive relationship problems, and apparently desperately cloying at their past whilst in their hometown. The best scene is the one where Tina Fey punches a guy.

It seems like the film is trying to carry this message of how there's a poetry to everyone's mistakes and how cyclical yet unexpected life can be. That there's beauty and opportunity and love to be found in chaos and disaster and pain. That's the feeling I think it's trying to communicate, but in my opinion it does this really poorly by having its characters more or less treat each other with no regard and no humanity. It's just a conveyor belt of horrible things. A desperate attempt to cling on to some kind of emotional brevity amongst a familial and personal hellscape, with some sad puerile humour as a veil over the misery and hatefulness.

This kind of film-making seems like a huge trend. I've seen so many films and TV shows that tread in the same sad puddle, and personally I find it nothing but miserable to watch. Its attempts at a kind of knowing, wry humour fall behind the genuine callousness and emptiness shown as the characters use and abuse each other. I think one movie that went for this style and actually succeeded in making itself uplifting, genuinely funny, and endearing whilst using a narrative of dysfunction was Obvious Child (also released in 2014). I recommend watching that instead of this.