Review: Konsento / Concent (2001)

Yuki Asakura's (Miwako Ichikawa) life is thrown into turmoil when her older brother Taka (Houka Kinoshita) commits suicide. Seeking to understand why her brother died, she consults her former psychology lecturer, Dr. Kunisada (Masahiko Akuta), as a patient. She also meets a former classmate, Ritsuko (Miho Tsumiki), who seems to have an ulterior reason for helping her.

I couldn't take seriously Masahiko Akuta's eye-rolling performance and Miwako Ichikawa appears in a lot of nude scenes, some of which seem unwarranted. There's also some pseudo-scientific mystical explanation (a staple of Japanese screenwriting for the supernatural?) for what is happening, which doesn't have any impact on the plot.

The supernatural elements seem very gimmicky and don't mesh well with the realistic tone of the film. If you ignore them, this film turns out to be a competently made drama about a woman coming to terms with the death of her brother and her troubled past.

Japanese with English subtitles.

3 out of 5 stars.

Review: Life on Mars (American) (2008)

Started well enough with stories based on the original British version, but went downhill quickly. The writers couldn't decide how Tyler's hallucinations should manifest, so they chose whatever prop was convenient, which diminished his fear and made him almost look forward to them. They also made it a device to move the plot forward once too often, like 'Medium', instead of keeping it mysterious and leaving us to wonder if Tyler was really in a coma or just mad.

Another big difference with the original series is the power dynamic between Sam Tyler and his boss, Lieutenant Gene Hunt. In the original series, Tyler was second-in-command, so Hunt had to tolerate him and the other detectives had to at least follow his orders. In this series, Tyler is just another detective, so why doesn't tough-guy Hunt just side-line or transfer him?

Other problem: Harvey Keitel, a great actor, is badly miscast Gene Hunt; he's simply too old to be running around bashing heads in.

2 out of 5 stars.

Review: The Pumpkin Eater (1964)

Follows the breakdown of housewife Jo (Anne Bancroft) and writer Jake Armitage's (Peter Finch) marriage, told from Jo's perspective.

Harold Pinter adapted Penelope Mortimer's novel for the film, and the dialogue has his style of using repetitive phrases, which calls attention to itself and becomes distracting after a while. On the other hand, director Jack Clayton and DoP Oswald Morris set up some visually rich shots to support the point or emotions in each scene.

Anne Bancroft inhabits her character so well that we are drawn along with her as Jo becomes increasingly distressed and suspicious of her husband's activities. Peter Finch as Jake supports her well, though we necessarily don't see as much of him. Character actor James Mason has a small but critical role as a nasty and oily acquaintance.

4 out of 5 stars.

Review: The Thin Blue Line (1988)

In 1976, Dallas police officer Robert Wood is shot to death by the driver of a car that he had pulled over. A month later, the police receive a tip off from teenager David Harris and charge Randall Adams with the murder. Adams is subsequently convicted of the crime.

Film maker Errol Morris retells the events using his now-famous style of interviews, re-enactments, montages, and Philip Glass' minimalist music. The impact of the documentary comes from the participants telling their story and letting the viewer decide on the truth or falsity of the matter, so when Morris interjects editorially, for example, when he intercuts one witness' interview with a movie clip to demonstrate their self-delusion, it weakens the strength of his presentation.

The documentary starts strongly with the murder and investigation but drifts after the end of the trial, as Adams appeals his sentence through various courts but there is no one to guide us through the process or explain the significance of each court decision.

4 out of 5 stars.

Review: Rasen / The Ring 2 (1998)

A sequel to 'The Ring', where people who watched a cursed video tape die a horrible death within a week. This time around, pathologist Dr Mitsou Andou (Koichi Sato) and medical student Mai Takano (Miki Nakatani) unravel the mystery behind the death of Dr Ryuji Takayama (Hiroyuki Sanada), who was one of the last victims in the previous film.

It's a lifeless effort, made worse by some cheap production values and grainy film. Apparently, a second sequel to 'Ring' was made later, which ignores all the events in this film.

Japanese with English subtitles.

1 out of 5 stars.

Review: The Take (2004)

Two Canadian activists and film makers, Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis, document the struggle by unemployed workers in Argentina to repossess their workplaces.

They focus on workers in the Forja vehicle parts plant in Buenos Aires, who learn from other groups how to prevent administrators from stripping the factory and how to petition the court and city for the right to run the factory. In the background is the 2003 presidential election, where one of the candidates is Carlos Menem, whose government introduced globalization policies that allowed companies to strip Argentina of its finances.

Secondary threads are the seamstresses who have taken over the Brukman clothing factory and then expelled by the police, workers who manufacture tiles from a repossessed factory and an activist whose mother is a supporter of the Peronists in the presidential election. The industrialists come out of this film looking very smug and unconcerned for their workers.

It's clear that the heart of this film lies with the workers and their quest to regain their dignity and livelihood in the face of incredible resistance from the government. There's a inspiring and frightening scene when the seamstresses, middle-aged or elderly women, and their supporters, face riot police over the closure of their factory, and the mayhem that ensues when the police decide to disperse the crowd.

As a film, it tries to tackle too much in one go (the non-interview with an IMF official doesn't lead anywhere), and there isn't a single strong thread to follow.

3 out of 5 stars.