December 19, 2004
Yen and I got together and watched several hours of short films last night, in the form of two anthologies: Three Extremes (2004), a horror triptych from Takashi Miike, Fruit Chan and Chanwook Park, and Ten Minutes Older (2002), a collection of 10 minute shorts from a slew of international directors, including Jim Jarmush, Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, Aki Kurasmaki and Spike Lee. Regarding this: how do so many great directors get together for an anthology like this without me hearing about it until last night? As far as temporally restrained shorts go, this was far more satisfying (and even, in the case of Herzog's entry, enriching) than the similarly themed Lumiere & Co., with which it shares a number of the same directors.
Regarding Three Extremes, Miike's section was not only the best -- it was also one of the best things he's ever done: a dream-like ghost story, told with a sense beauty and restraint that he's always hinted at in his other films but never fully explored. His film is the first in the series, and it sets a mark that the two other films can't match -- not that they necessarily try. Fruit Chan's entry, Dumpling, has received the most acclaim, and it's a decidedly morbid and fairly hilarious little tale that actually managed to legitimately shock me, to the point that I gasped aloud. It had some nice Chris Doyle cinematography, too. Park's section, though, was horrible. Between this and my mixed reaction to Oldboy, I think I can definitely say that I'm not a fan of his work. It's nice to be able to dismiss the hype, for once, rather than get caught up in it. And if the rumors are true, and Sam Raimi wants Park to remake Evil Dead -- well, first of all, there's no point at all in remaking Evil Dead but if he's got to do it, he's got the wrong Asian director: I thrill to think of what Miike would do with the property.
Posted by David Lowery at December 19, 2004 04:33 AM