Makiko Esumi wants to know why in beautiful MABOROSI
MABOROSI (MABOROSHI NO HIKARI) (Hirokazu Kore-eda, 1995)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
January 21-23, 11:00 am
Series continues through March 27
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.kore-eda.com
After Yumiko’s husband mysteriously commits suicide, she gets remarried and moves to her new husband’s small seaside village home, where she begins to put her life back together. This stunning film is marvelously slow-paced, lingering on characters in the distance, down narrow alleys, across gorgeous horizons, with very little camera movement. The solid cast features Makiko Esumi, Akira Emoto, and the great Tadanobu Asano. MABOROSI is an amazing work from one of the leading members of Japan’s fifth generation, Hirokazu Kore-eda, who has gone on to make such treasures as NOBODY KNOWS and STILL WALKING. MABOROSI is screening at the IFC Center as part of the Weekend Classics series Milestone Films: 20 for 20, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the distribution company that continues to release and restore beautiful and important works. Upcoming films in the series include E. A. Dupont’s PICCADILLY, John Huston’s LET THERE BE LIGHT, and Manoel de Oliveira’s I’M GOING HOME.
As Im Sang-soo’s updated, reworked version of Kim Ki-young’s classic 1960 erotic thriller THE HOUSEMAID opens, restaurant worker Eun-yi (Jeon Do-yeon) is intrigued by a young woman’s suicide jump on the street right outside. It’s a rather ominous sign for Eun-yi, who then gets a job as a nanny for a rich businessman, Hoon (Lee Jung-jae), his pregnant wife, Hae-ra (Seo Woo), and their daughter, Nami (Ahn Seo-hyeon). When Hoon finds his way into her bed, Eun-yi is at first resistant, then surrenders to her master, much to the dismay of Mrs. Cho (Yoon Yeo-jeong), who has been running the household for years. And once Mrs. Cho tells Hae-ra’s mother, Mi-hee (Park Ji-young), precisely what’s going on, the real trouble starts. Im (THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG) infuses his tale of wealth, power, and sex with elements of horror and suspense, at times evoking Richard Donner’s THE OMEN as Mi-hee seeks to protect the family at all costs. Jeon, who was named Best Actress at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for her haunting work in SECRET SUNSHINE, is riveting as the conflicted young maid, caught in a web of shame, jealousy, betrayal, and ecstatic pleasure, going from childlike when playing with Nami to alluring when making passionate love with Hoon. Im’s fiftieth-anniversary reimagining of an influential Korean classic is a highly charged, potent melodrama with plenty of thrills, shocks, and surprises.
Cult director Alex Cox, the mastermind behind REPO MAN and SID & NANCY, must have threatened the people running the 2009 Venice Film Festival with a barrage of Growler missiles to get this unwatchable, thoroughly embarrassing piece of pernicious nonsense to be included in the prestigious festival’s competition. This very strange, low-rent satire, made primarily on green screen, is an unbelievably lame supposedly comic thriller about Pixxi De La Chasse (Jaclyn Jonet), a disinherited debutante who gets a job working for a pair of repo men (Miguel Sandoval and Robert Beltran) after her father (Xander Berkeley) and aunt (Karen Black) cut her off because of her penchant for getting arrested. Upon learning of a million-dollar reward for repossessing a long-missing train, Pixxi is determined to prove to her family, her Euro-trash wannabe sidekicks (Danny Arroyo as 666, Jennifer Balgobin as Nevavda, and Zahn McClarnon as Savage Dave), and fellow repo woman and urban legend expert Lola (a nearly unrecognizable Rosanna Arquette) that she can take care of herself, even as terrorists threaten to blow up Los Angeles with Cold War-era Growler missiles if the game of golf isn’t banned. Or something like that. While it’s possible that Cox might have been striving to make one of those so-bad-it’s-good kind of movies, he’s failed at that as well, even dragging Chloe Webb into this disaster. REPO CHICK is in no way a sequel to REPO MAN, but it does bring down its legend ever so slightly, especially when it includes the word “pernicious” in the dialogue, a direct link to the great “pernicious nonsense” line delivered in its awesome predecessor. The lone saving grace is activist singer-songwriter Danbert Nobacon’s “Jamestown 2007” song that plays over the end credits, but you’re better off just checking that out on his record THE LIBRARY BOOK OF THE WORLD. (Nobacon makes a cameo in the film, while Cox illustrated the former Chumbawumba leader’s 2010 book THREE DEAD PRINCES.) REPO CHICK will screen at the IFC Center for one week before being released on Blu-ray and DVD February 8.
After making METHADONIA, which was selected for the 2005 New York Film Festival, Emmy Award-winning documentarian Michel Negroponte (JUPITER’S WIFE) did not want to make another movie about drug addiction. But when he was introduced to the intriguing story of Dimitri Mugianis, ibogaine, and West African shamanism, he couldn’t help himself. Leader of the hardcore band Leisure Class, Mugianis had gotten off heroin by using ibogaine, an experimental, natural hallucinogen that is illegal in the United States. Mugianis was so impressed with the treatment that he immediately became part of the underground network that dispenses the drug, helping others detox much the same way he did. Negroponte follows Mugianis as he treats patients in Mexico and Canada, even taking the hallucinogen himself so he can experience its mind-altering effects (and add a groovy dream sequence to the film). And when one treatment goes terribly wrong, Mugianis starts questioning his mission and heads to Gabon to meet with Bwiti shamans and learn more about ibogaine and its unique properties. Mugianis is a compelling subject: open, honest, and strong, he dominates the screen, holding nothing back as he wonders whether he has merely replaced one addiction with another. Negroponte’s droll, often humorous narration counterbalances Mugianis’s determined, aggressive manner. The director avoids talking-head experts, instead letting the compelling story play out on its own, taking him and the audience on a very different journey than he first imagined. I’M DANGEROUS WITH LOVE, named after a Leisure Class song, is a passionate look at addiction, rehabilitation, and one man’s intense dedication to help others. The film opens January 12 at the IFC Center, with Negroponte on hand for the 8:20 screenings tonight and tomorrow.
