Nozomi (Bae Doona) dreams that there’s more to life in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s AIR DOLL
AIR DOLL (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2009)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Saturday, March 3, $12, 2:00
Series runs March 2-18
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
Over the last twenty years, Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda has compiled a remarkable resume, directing eight narrative features and four documentaries that investigate such themes as memory and loss. His 2009 film, Air Doll, examines loneliness through the eyes of a blow-up doll come to life. Bae Doona stars as Nozomi, a plastic sex toy owned by Hideo (Itsuji Itao), a restaurant worker who treats her like his wife, telling her about his day, sitting with her at the dinner table, and making love to her at night. But suddenly, one morning, Nozomi achieves consciousness, discovering that she has a heart, and she puts on her French maid costume and goes out into the world, learning about life by wandering through the streets and working in a video store, always returning home before Hideo and pretending to still be the doll. Adapted from a manga by Yoshiie Goda, Air Doll is another beautiful, meditative study from Kore-eda. Nozomi’s wide-eyed innocence at the joys of life comes sweet and slowly, played with a subtle wonderment by South Korean model and actress Bae (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, The Host). The film does, however, take one nasty turn and is a bit too long, at more than two hours. But it’s still another contemplative gem from the masterful director of Maborosi, Nobody Knows, and Still Walking. Air Doll is screening on March 3 at 2:00 as part of the Japan Society series “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” twenty-two films over three weeks from Japan and Korea that examine twisted, obsessive, dangerous, and downright crazy sex and romance.
“You call this a film?” Jafar Panahi asks rhetorically about halfway through the revealing documentary This Is Not a Film. After several arrests beginning in July 2009 for supporting the opposition party, the highly influential and respected Iranian filmmaker (Crimson Gold, Offside) was convicted in December 2010 for “assembly and colluding with the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.” Although facing a six-year prison sentence and twenty-year ban on making or writing any kind of movie, Panahi is a born storyteller, so he can’t stop himself, no matter the risks. Under house arrest, Panahi has his friend, fellow director Mojtaba Mirtahmasb (Lady of the Roses), film him with a handheld DV camera over ten days as Panahi plans out his next movie, speaks with his lawyer, lets his pet iguana climb over him, and is asked to watch a neighbor’s dog, taking viewers “behind the scenes of Iranian filmmakers not making films.” Panahi even pulls out his iPhone to take additional video, photographing New Year’s fireworks that sound suspiciously like a military attack. Panahi is calm throughout, never panicking (although he clearly does not want to take care of the barking dog) and not complaining about his situation, which becomes especially poignant as he watches news reports on the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan. “But you can’t make a film now anyhow, can you?” Mirtahmasb — who will later be arrested and imprisoned as well — asks at one point. “So what I can’t make a film?” Panahi responds. “That means I ask you to take a film of me? Do you think it will turn into some major work of art?” This Is Not a Film, which was smuggled out of Iran in a USB drive hidden in a birthday cake so it could be shown at Cannes, is indeed a major work of art, an important document of government repression of free speech as well as a fascinating examination of one man’s intense dedication to his art and the creative process.
Based on Kathryn Stockett’s bestselling 2009 debut novel, The Help is an overly melodramatic, emotionally manipulative film about the relationship between the white homeowners of Jackson, Mississippi, and their black maids. Set in the 1960s just as the civil rights movement was beginning to gain ground, the plot centers on a recent white college graduate named Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (Emma Stone) who decides that something must be done about the way the whites treat the blacks in her town. An aspiring writer, Skeeter tries to convince black maids Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) and Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer) to share their stories for a book that a New York publisher (Mary Steenburgen) might be interested in, but the women are terrified that speaking out could cost them their livelihood as well as jeopardize their physical safety. But as things get worse in Jackson, led by such snooty rich women as Hilly Holbrook (Bryce Dallas Howard), Elizabeth Leefolt (Ahna O’Reilly), and even Skeeter’s mother, Charlotte (Allison Janney), the truth starts becoming more and more difficult to suppress. Adapted and directed by Tate Taylor, The Help undercuts what it is trying to accomplish by making the conflict, well, as black and white as possible, overplaying the sympathy card and laying on the white liberal guilt. While the white men in the film are all powerless cardboard cutouts, there are virtually no black men at all, save for the local preacher (David Oyelowo ) and a counterman (Nelsan Ellis). The only white Jackson housewife who doesn’t treat her maid like a slave, Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain), is a ditzy blonde who can’t take care of herself. Taylor (Pretty Ugly People), who was born and raised in Jackson and is a close friend of Stockett’s, offers the same scenes repeated over and over, going on for nearly two and a half hours. Nominated for four Academy Awards — Best Picture, Best Actress (Davis), and two Best Supporting Actress nods (Spencer and Chastain) — The Help, though well acted, is a major disappointment, a simplistic and condescending movie about an extremely important subject that deserved better treatment.