There’s an interesting story behind why we saw this movie. Natalie and I traveled across Europe last summer and found out that the Cannes film festival was going on around the time of our stay in France. We made a detour in our itinerary to hang out down there. After a tumultuous day involving the riding of a motor scooter around the highways of Nice (never, EVER ride a scooter around Nice) we ended up at a posh Chinese restaurant in Cannes. At the table next to us were two Asian gentlemen, having what seemed to be a dinner meeting. I guess hopped up on adrenaline from the day I began peppering these guys with questions about how cool the festival was and if they saw a lot of the movies and whether they saw any stars, etc. etc. It turns out the small Chinese guy was a film director and he seemed pretty annoyed at the questions. He just kept chain-smoking his little cigarettes and acting cool. His friend let us know that he directed this film and I guess it wasn’t good enough to make it into Cannes to be considered for awards, so he was probably a little bitter at this American tourist acting like we were equals. Anyway, that’s pretty much the reason we went to see this movie. 24 City is pretty much about different people that have lived in Chengdu, which seems to have been a manufacturing powerhouse during the Vietnam War. Different factories have come and gone throughout the last 50 years, each one going through the cycle of success, decline and inevitable disuse. The interviews were filmed at interesting angles and the music and editing was very dissonant which was fine but it felt very self-conscious. The director mixed real interviews in with actors playing parts, which gave the feeling that every interview was a fake one. I don’t think it’s wise to ever mix and match—K Street, that HBO series by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney attempted the same thing with similar effects. All in all it was a really slow, languorous movie with some good moments (a mother that loses her child in the crowd of a pier) but not very well woven together for a satisfying ending.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
WIFF - 24 City
There’s an interesting story behind why we saw this movie. Natalie and I traveled across Europe last summer and found out that the Cannes film festival was going on around the time of our stay in France. We made a detour in our itinerary to hang out down there. After a tumultuous day involving the riding of a motor scooter around the highways of Nice (never, EVER ride a scooter around Nice) we ended up at a posh Chinese restaurant in Cannes. At the table next to us were two Asian gentlemen, having what seemed to be a dinner meeting. I guess hopped up on adrenaline from the day I began peppering these guys with questions about how cool the festival was and if they saw a lot of the movies and whether they saw any stars, etc. etc. It turns out the small Chinese guy was a film director and he seemed pretty annoyed at the questions. He just kept chain-smoking his little cigarettes and acting cool. His friend let us know that he directed this film and I guess it wasn’t good enough to make it into Cannes to be considered for awards, so he was probably a little bitter at this American tourist acting like we were equals. Anyway, that’s pretty much the reason we went to see this movie. 24 City is pretty much about different people that have lived in Chengdu, which seems to have been a manufacturing powerhouse during the Vietnam War. Different factories have come and gone throughout the last 50 years, each one going through the cycle of success, decline and inevitable disuse. The interviews were filmed at interesting angles and the music and editing was very dissonant which was fine but it felt very self-conscious. The director mixed real interviews in with actors playing parts, which gave the feeling that every interview was a fake one. I don’t think it’s wise to ever mix and match—K Street, that HBO series by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney attempted the same thing with similar effects. All in all it was a really slow, languorous movie with some good moments (a mother that loses her child in the crowd of a pier) but not very well woven together for a satisfying ending.
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