Valhalla Rising 2009

Valhalla Rising 2009

Valhalla Rising has been on my 'Scandinavian movies to watch' list for a while.  It got bumped down the list time and again as films like Arn and Rare Exports got North American releases.  I finally sat down and slotted the disc in and sat in a state of bored/baffled/confused/intrigued/awed stupor for the entire run.  This film had weight, gravity, and deep themes, but never really names a character.  It has beautiful cinematography and a bad Blade Runner clone soundtrack.  It has brutal fights, but is too focused on its loftier goals and themes to ever get around to offering much action, entertainment, or exploration.  If this reviews seems unfocused and confused it is only because this film left me totally curfuzzled (to steal a term from the heartwarming claymation Mary & Max).  It has contradictions and ideas that make it interesting, but fails to be interesting.  I still can't decide if it was deep or pretentious, art-house or artistic.

Perhaps breaking the film down will add clarity?  I doubt it, but here I go... Valhalla Rising has some beautiful vistas.  It was shot in Scotland and many of the shots are just beautiful and filled with imagery.  On the other hand it has some horrible 1978 style effects during flashbacks and flash-forward scenes combined with a synth musical track that seems equally out of date.  The writer/director Nicholas Winding Refn deserves some props for making a film with deep religious themes while having minimal dialogue and a cast of basically unnamed characters.  The film is broken up into sections or acts with each act having a title.  This seems like an odd choice and breaks the film up into six acts.  I feel this has to have some deeper meaning that I just missed.  Is it some biblical or christian reference that flew over my head?  Some reference to Danish theater perhaps?  If this doesn't have some grand import behind it, I think this little nugget of oddness can be added into the fail pile.  Refn succeeded in bringing some brutal, short and intriguing violence to the screen, but much like the landscapes the action can't really carry the film past all the dead space filled with bad music.

The protagonist is called One-Eye because he only has one eye is silent or mute, I know that is soooo deep.  He is played really competently by Mads Mikkelse, but it is hard to get behind a murderous semi-godlike slave when he refuses to explain anything. Never a line mumbled or a sound made.  Not even a communicative grunt.  This badass makes his wishes known with meaningful looks and staring off in the distance like all real men should.  His woeful stares are translated into dialogue by the apparently telepathic child side kick listed on the credits simply as "the Boy".  The rest of the cast is filled out with warriors and a priest-like general.  Of course the priest-general wants to take his merry band of killers to the Crusades, but they get trapped in some fog only to be lost in a strange land where they are chased and hunted by some "pagan primitives".  Can God save this band of crazed Norsemen or will One-Eye be the savior?  That is the main crux of the story, but it never fully develops.  So a mute protagonist that isn't mute because an emotionless kid speaks for him has to save a bunch of murderous zealots from what is obviously Native Americans.  Yep that sums it up pretty well.

Can this pic sums up the movie?

I could ramble on forever about Valhalla Rising without ever giving the reader a clearer view of what to expect or really formulating any deeper insights, but my rant here is already longer than the script of the movie.  So in summary... bad story, music, pace, and dialogue... good acting, attempts at depth, action and themes.  This is one of those films that just leaves me wondering if I just didn't 'get it'.  It makes it hard to really bash the film, but in the end I think it comes across as a B thriller with serious themes.  I would recommend Valhalla Rising only to fans of Vikings and people seeking a bit more religion in their foreign action movies.

PS I think this requires a public service announcement.  A couple of my friends attempted to convince me that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is actually a show worth watching.  Be warned this is a mean joke meant to torture you through 20+ minutes of horrible voice acting and nauseatingly smug cuteness. DO NOT BE FOOLED - DO NOT WATCH MY LITTLE PONY!

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale 2010

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale 2010

So who likes campy holiday horror movies?  Well to be honest I do, but Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is actually much deeper than your average Santa slasher flick (see Santa's Slay 2005).  It is a Finnish flick and is a dark tale around some of the pre-Coca Cola versions of our favorite Christmas character.  It reminds me of an old fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm more than the horror flick I assumed it was going to be.  It might be a bit too dark for me to show it to a child that I don't wish to inflict nightmares upon, but it is pretty comic and has a good child actor in the lead.  It would be fantastic for kids that can handle movies with a dark turn like one of my childhood favorites, Gremlins 1984.  Well other than the liberal use of old man full frontal nude shots...

... Make up your own opinion about nudity and society, but for me this falls under personal opinion and to me it was inoffensive.  The nude shots were mostly from far away and quick so you won't be getting the 'giant blue ween' problem I noted in the Watchmen, but it is definitely there. Combining the nudity, dark themes, and a few translated swear words and this film earned itself an R rating by the MPAA (send them an email to complain about the rating, draconian ruling as usual).  I think the director, Jalmari Helander, might have served himself better with some editing for North American release, but that may have been his only mistake in this flick.  With the budget, style, and content it could not have been handled better.  The effects fall short of a big Hollywood movie, but much like Trollhunter they make great use of what they have.  It is done as realistically as a movie about Santa can be which keeps the camp down to a level that is comic without changing the movie into full blown spoof.  The story is great and the main character, played by Omni Tommila, is a protagonist my inner child identified with. Some of the dialogue is bad as it was translated and some of the characters do some odd stuff, but overall this movie isn't serious enough to worry about problems every holiday flick is guilty of.

Rare Exports is one of those foreign gems that I adore.  It is quirky, fun, and completely outside of the modular story telling I am used to in modern cinema.  I caught a few promo videos and the short films it is based on last year and have been eagerly anticipating its North American release.  After finally getting to see it, I can say that I don't regret the rental and will be picking up my own copy soon.   I would recommend Rare Exports to very open minded families and those looking for a completely different Christmas flick.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920 / Hugo 2011

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920 / Hugo 2011

The review will meander a bit around a modern film before talking about the classic silent era horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).  Earlier this week I gave in to the pressures of positive reviews, academy awards and my love of all flicks by Martin Scorsese and went to see Scorsese's new children's adventure movie Hugo (2011).  Hugo has some interesting ties back to early cinema and inspired me to re-watch to review one of my favorites of the silent era.  It was a hard choice between Metropolis (1927), Dr. Caligari, or a movie by Georges Melies (discussed below), but I chose my favorite silent flick The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.  Now to stop dancing around the issue and get into the details of historic characters, film history, and finally some movie recommendations.

Hugo was the inspiration for writing about a silent film so I should discuss it and its ties to silent movies first.  It is a great adventure story with fantastic effects, sound, costumes, and a pretty darn good story, but that is better explained by the awards it received.  At the 2012 Oscars it took home awards for Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and lastly Visual Effects.  Personally I saw it in 3D and minus a scene or two ruined with heavy 3D snow I can see how it won both cinematography and effects categories.  It is a great looking work that does some amazing tricks with 3D and regularly has staggering shots involving the mechanics of clocks.  It is no great surprise that it was a technically solid, beautiful movie with Robert Richardson as the cinematographer and Scorsese directing.  Richardson has worked with Scorsese in the past as director of photography on Shutter Island (2010) and worked on both Kill Bill flicks.  Scorsese is a directing powerhouse famous for a long list of masterpieces such as Raging Bull (1980), Goodfellas (1990), Gangs of New York (2002), and The Departed (2006).  Enough gushing about the talent behind the flick and to why it is relevant to my romp back into the silent era.

Hugo is the story of an orphaned boy seeking a last connection to his dead father.  The boy named Hugo, played competently by Asa Butterfeild, befriends the goddaughter of the owner of a toy shop in the train station where Hugo lives.  The store owner's story intertwines with the story of Hugo and his dead father through an early clockwork robot.  The historical significance in the film comes back to this toy shop owner.  The toy maker, Ben Kingsley who is awesome as always, turns out to be famous early film and effects genius George Melies.  The story of the character intertwines with Melies's fall from film making into obscurity working in a Paris train station and his rise back to recognition.  The movie does deviate from the true story of Melies but much of the silent movies shown are actual Melies films.  Hugo does a great job of opening up this fantastic film maker to a modern audience.  Meleies made silent movies from 1986 to 1913 and was an early pioneer in special effects.  He was one of the earliest film makers to explore genres of horror, science fiction, and fantasy with famous films that drew upon ideas from contemporary science fiction writers such as Jules Verne.  Kingsley portrays Melies as a man damaged by his fall from grace and financial failures which closely reflects the real life Melies.

So after a two hour modern flick extolling the wonders of early film making, I was overwhelmed with a desire to watch a silent era horror or fantasy film.  Naturally I drifted back to the film class favorite The Cabinet of Caligari because it was my first non-Buster Keaton silent film.  Dr. Caligari is one of best examples of early horror and expressionism in film.  It involves ideas of reality and insanity.  The story unfolds through a character recounting the tale of how he came to track a murdering hypnotist and asylum director back to the insane asylum.  It questions what is reality and who really is insane.  The recent Martin Scorsese film Shutter Island closely mirrors much of the same ideas and themes.  Dr. Caligari draws heavily on expressionism for its style and its heavy use of angles give the whole story the surreal qualities that further confuses reality and fantasy.  It is hard to explain the aesthetic style of Dr. Caligari and I suggest everyone checks out at least a few minutes of the film to understand how fantastic the art and sets could be in the early era of film.

OK enough of me feeding you a film history lesson and down to the important recommendations.  The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is a wonderful film.  It is a simple story with very complex ideas and subtext.  The set design and style create a wonderful fantasy world and you will recognize parts of the set because modern film makers draw heavily from Dr. Caligari (Tim Burton flicks and coffin scenes from Dracula [1931] are a great example).  On the other hand I can't recommend Dr. Caligari to most audiences.  It suffers from the slow pace common in silent films.  Unless you like black and white or silent movies, Dr. Caligari will only be interesting for its historic context.

Hugo on the other hand should appeal to a modern audience from children right up to jaded art house fans.  Scorsese again pulls off a blend of pop film making and beautiful art.  It borders at time on a pretentious film history lesson (like this article!), but it is exciting and entertaining.  I didn't think that Hugo could live up to critical acclaim it has received, but I think it did.  While it wasn't the most engaging or fun movie last year it certainly was one of the most beautiful with staggering effects and some of the best sound work I have ever seen.  I would recommend Hugo to anyone looking for a deeper kids movie and anyone who loves Scorsese.

Castaway on the Moon 2009

Castaway on the Moon 2009

If someone tells you to watch this romantic comedy that miserably failed at its native Korean box office... listen to them.  Castaway on the Moon is a great film that seems to carry none of the hype it deserves despite winning several awards from small film festivals.  The failure of the film is probably attributable to how hard Castaway on the Moon is to classify.  At times it straddles a line between comedy and an in-depth dramatic character film. At other times it bounces between gag humor, romance, and complex themes of isolation in modern society.  At one point it even includes a chase scene with all the adrenaline and quick cuts of a Jason Bourne flick.  Due to its odd tone, long stretches without dialogue (or more accurately monologues in a film about a castaway), and slow pace it is little wonder that Castaway on the Moon didn't see huge box office numbers or fanfare announcing its international release.  These problems are extremely easy to overlook and I think it deserves a bit of fanfare.  Well now that I have teased the reader about its story, I can give a few details.

Castaway on the Moon has two intertwining storylines.  The first story is of Kim Seong-Geun, played by a very capable Jeong Jae-Yeong, who after a series of events attempts to take his own life by jumping off a bridge into the Han River in the center of Seoul.  He wakes up perfectly healthy but stranded on an island in the middle of the broad river.  The depressing events that bring him to the edge are cleverly laid out starting with the phone call that opens the film.  The rest are presented as flashbacks, but his life before his suicide attempt is only minimally explored.  His background is used to express his despair and explain why when he wakes up on an island in the middle of the river only a half mile from Seoul that he never really tries to swim back to civilization.  Instead he chooses to live out life on his tiny wild island so close to the ordered society that he cast himself from.  Much of this storyline mimics a dark comedic take on the classic castaway stories and closely resembles films such as Tom Hanks' Cast Away (2000).  The parallels to Hanks' film include a very 'Wilson' like imaginary friend to act as a foil for Seong-Geun's monologues. 

The gags, comedy and survival of Seong-Guen are frequently shown through the lens of the other main character Kim Jeong-Yeon, played by the cute ex-pop singer Jeong Ryeo-Won.  An agoraphobic recluse, Jeong-Yeon interacts with the world through the computer and a camera at her window.  Again the character is isolated, quiet, and depressed resonating the tones of despair and disconnection felt by Seong-Geun.  Her photography brings her into voyeuristic relationship with Seong-Geun.  As she watches him live and survive they begin slowly writing to each other via the romantic classic of a message in a bottle.  Their blooming romance is the most touching example of truly damaged love I have seen since Punch Drunk Love (2002) and rarely have I rooted for a happy ending like I did during the roller-coaster of emotions that is the conclusion of the film.  I have to compliment the film on the use of language as well.  The use of English as the language of communication between the characters sets English, one of the most spoken languages on Earth, as a secret tongue used to set the characters further apart from the Korean society they partially inhabit.  This had to be done cleverly considering that English is a common language in Korea.

The few critiques of the film that I have are mostly technical.  While the acting by the main characters was good, the gags by Jeong Jae-Yeong were over the top at times and the minor roles were forgettable even if humorous.  The cinematography was good, if basic, but there were a couple of close-ups of characters that really jarred with the sky or background including one that nearly broke the ending for this hyper-critical viewer.  The last very minor complaint has to be levied against the director Lee Hae-Jun.  He choose to put a few unrealistic, possibly supernatural, aspects in the film.  These were well done gags and one got an audible laugh from me, but take the film in yet another odd direction.

Despite these complaints, I loved this film.  It was touching, sad, deep, comedic and left me with a warm fuzzy feeling that I just don't get from most romantic comedies.  While I am a fan of Korean cinema, this one deserves an audience outside of the Hermit Kingdom.  Sadly, due to its juxtaposed nature it hasn't seem to find that following.  I cannot recommend this movie enough.  It would make a great date night flick, but its deep treatment of themes of loneliness should be enough to appeal to any lonely intellectual.  I would recommend this to fans of Cast Away, couples, and anyone who thinks they can better explain the tones of Castaway on the Moon.


Three quick post scripts.  One, cheers to my buddy Randy for the recommendation.  This film was never even on my radar until you mentioned it.  Second, after a half year off from reviewing (medical stuff) I am back at it.  I apologize for the wait to the few folk who read every post.  Lastly I also need to apologize for my possible butchery of the Korean actor and character names.

Trollhunter 2010

Trollhunter 2010

So this zany Norwegian film came to me through a review done by Movie Bob over at the online e-zine/website The Escapist.  Movie Bob and his webshow Escape to the Movies are great and I highly recommend it.  I respect his reviews and agree with his points even when I totally disagree with his verdict.  The most important note about Movie Bob is that he is a great movie reviewer that usually manages to be funny as well as informing.  Now that I did a plug for his review of Trollhunter I can skip the rest of this and go back and watch it again...

OK it is totally worth watching two or more times, but I should do my own work.  So Bob summed up the best parts for me and turned me on to this Norwegian gem, but it warrants a bit more of a write up!  Trollhunter is yet another example of fantastic Scandinavian cinema.  There have been a glut of Swedish films becoming popular in the last few years (most notable are Let the Right One In [2008], The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo [2009] and its sequels) and I have had been salivating to get my hands on a copy of the awesome Christmas comedy horror film Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (check out the trailer here) from Finland, but Norway has largely been overlooked by this film addict (though Dead Snow [2009] the Nazi zombie flick is on my to watch list).  A recent article on the Hollywood Reporter website claims that Norwegian and other Scandinavian films are being sold left and right this year at the Cannes Film Festival so perhaps there will be even more oddball wonders to enjoy in the coming year!

Back to Trollhunter, the film is the, fictional, story of a government troll hunter in Norway.  It takes a page our two out of the Blair Witch Project's playbook and is shot using "found" footage from a "missing" group of student journalists.  It is shot using hand cams and reinforces the amateur feel with various scenes of the crew setting up mics and cables.  The crew are a set of students who are trying to get an interview with a man they believe is a bear hunter, but in reality is a government sponsored troll hunter.  This relationship of interviewer and subject plays out perfectly with the skeptical film crew asking all the right question allowing the troll hunter to fill in the myths, legend, and story.  The story is pretty basic and doesn't need much explaining, but the basic premise is that the troll hunter character is fundamentally an animal control officer who answers to a mysterious bureaucrat.  He leads the film crew on an expedition over northern Norway to find out why the trolls have begun to leave their native territories.

As stated above the story and writing are fairly straightforward, yet done exceptionally well.  A few times it is obvious that writing and camera work were done in ways to minimize the expensive CG work, but it didn't really detract from the narrative.  The writer/director on the project was Andre Ovredal.  Orvredal did a fantastic job of maximizing his budget and using natural settings to create a great atmosphere.  The film was shot by Hallvard Braein who does some great work shooting mostly at night with limited light sources.  A few of the scenes using the camera's "night vision" setting didn't work that well though.  The special effects and CG studios involved were Gimpville and Storm Studios who both did a fantastic job creating great trolls, both in terms of sound and visuals, with a limited budget.  The overall film budget was between $3 and $3.5 million USD, which is great considering the amount of visual effects required.  The trolls are have that CG glossy sheen at times, but are diverse, interesting, and well made.  The soundtrack was oddly hilarious at times which fit with this oddly comic mock-umentary, but this could just be an issue due to cultural differences as most of the movie is played dead straight despite its humorous nature.

The acting by the film crew is good, but not exceptional and most won't recognize the actors.  The troll hunter is played by Otto Jespersen.  Jespersen is the real standout performance in the film.  His character is intentionally flat and emotionless playing up that he is a worn-out government functionary perfectly.  The troll hunter's shabby trailer, beat up Range Rover, and costumes blend towards making the story seem feasible.

In conclusion Troll Hunter is a great foreign film.  It is a wonderful comedic look at the legend of trolls and is shot in a fake documentary style that makes it into a wild ride.  The film has the usual short comings of monster movies and foreign movies, but these roll together to give it a great campy charm.  I would recommend this movie to fans of Scandinavian movies and those that just love foreign monster flicks.

Four Lions 2010

Four Lions 2010

Four Lions is one of those foreign films that could never be produced in the United States.  It is the story of a smell cell of incompetent jihadists.  The group desperately wants to be Al Qeada suicide bombers, but the group only includes an idiot, a white man, a social incompetent, a rapper straight out of school, and a family man.  This dark comedy is the story of their struggle to bomb an important symbol of British Imperialism.  They fail in every way imaginable and that is where this movie becomes a fun satire laughing at jihadists. 

The creator, Chris Morris, considers himself a satirist, but the subject matter is a bit raw.  He collated years of funny stories and anecdotes of failed bombers to create many of the gags used in the film, but most are absurdly over the top.  For instance the character Faisal, played by Adeel Akhtar, tries to train crows to carry bombs and fly into buildings.  At the end of the film, the group strap bombs under costumes that include a ninja turtle and a kid's cereal mascot.  The pure absurdity of the characters allows for this controversial film to come off as a dark comedy that seems to condemn suicide bombers while simultaneously seeking to understand them. 

The acting is really good throughout the film with sentimental moments mixed in with the truly idiotic. The main character Omar, Riz Ahmed, is a family man who's wife and son seem to be happy that he is going to kill himself.  He has tender moments with his wife and uses the characters from The Lion King to explain his mistakes at the training camp in Pakistan.  He is the brains behind the operation, but is constantly at odds with the more than a little insane Barry, played by Nigel Lindsay.  Barry is almost a caricature as the overly zealous convert to Islam, but is easy the funniest character in the film.  The rest of the cast fill out a roster of misfits that can even make mass murder funny.  These characters could only work with the stellar writing and directing of Morris.

The film is good technically and uses some tricks I have seen before, but plays them in new light.  The most notable is that it mixes in security camera and cell phone footage.  With the shots that appear to be taken by night surveillance on the characters these shots are used to break up the more hilarious parts of the film into a regular series of chuckles.  The pyrotechnics are pretty low key, but it adds to the homemade feel of the bombs.  I can't go into much more detail without ruining a clever plot point or a great visual gag, but the other technical aspects, like the music, fit into the film flawlessly.

This film is not for everyone and makes multiple offensive statements about the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks as well as frequent antisemitic remarks.  In the context of a satire I never found myself being shocked by what was said, but other might not feel the same.  This is a great dark comedy and political satire, but without subtitles people who don't understand the thick British accents may be lost by the fast flying insults.  I would recommend this film to fans of British comedies and those that love political satire such as Lewis Black.

Dogtooth 2009

Dogtooth 2009

After realizing I had missed a few of the foreign film nominees from the Oscars, I decided to catch up.  With foreign films access is always an issue, but Netflix seems to be getting better all the time.  One nice advantage of foreign films is that sites like Netflix can get streaming rights cheaply.  I personally love this feature since a trip to the mailbox is way too much work!  Now if Netflix just broadened its 'Watch it Now' collection and allowed for you to change subtitles or audio tracks I would probably never leave the house, but I digress.

Dogtooth was the first film on my list available streaming from Netflix so I dove into it first despite hearing some really mixed reviews.  After watching it, the mixed reviews make a lot more sense.  I watched the film last week, but had to take four or five days to digest it all.  This is a truly odd and disturbing movie.  It is also much more than that.  It is moving, interesting, gritty, at times violent, and totally funny in a deeply dark way.  I can understand it getting the Oscar nod due to its acting and story, but it is way to off beat and disturbing to win... Apparently the Academy agrees (It did not win, that was In a Better World).

OK a little background on the film might be nice before I get into the odd details.  Dogtooth is a Greek film that was released there in 2009, but like most foreign films it took a while to reach the US.  It won an award at the Cannes Film Festival gaining international attention in 2009. I am not sure exactly when it first hit our shores, but it splashed up on my radar late in 2010.  It was directed by Yorgos Lanthimos who to our American audience has done nothing noteworthy before Dogtooth, but has directed a handful Greek language feature films.  The rest of its technical crew and writers are equally off the radar to myself and most Americans, but the writing was good.  The story was unique and interesting with dialogue that really sold the crazy world the characters lived in.  Lighting, sound, and cinematography were all sub par even with budget restrictions in mind.  There were a few clever shots, but most of the film was technically mechanical and uninspiring.

The story is a bit unhinged, but so unique I can totally forgive the lackluster aspects of the film.  It centers around a family of five.  The father seems to work as an average factory manager, but that is the only connection to the outside world that the family has.  The three 'kids', one boy and two girls, are late teenagers, but have never left the compound that they live in with their parents.  The parents have completely sheltered their children and control their lives and education.  The parents redefine words and terms to explain the outside world.  The 'sea' is a chair and cats are dangerous animals that kill.  Much of the dark comedy in the movie revolve around these repurposed words and misunderstandings.  The son attacks a kitten with garden shears to protect his family and the children believe that real airplanes sometimes fall out of the sky so you can play with them (the parents put toy sized models in the yard where the plane 'crashed').

The downside is some of the most disturbing content also revolves around these misunderstandings.  The scene with the kitten is highly disturbing and dark.  The daughters lick each other sexually after learning it from a visitor, but in all the wrong places (shoulders, stomach, face, etc).  This brings me to the most unsettling aspect of the movie to me.  Incest plays out prominently in the story, always a direct result to such insular families, and is portrayed a little too completely.  American cinema would probably ignore this controversial story idea completely and without it the film would loose its potency, but it could have been addressed more through inference making it less unnerving.  This seems to be a conclusion other reviews have also reached.  It deals with interesting, even if disturbing, topics, but shows too much of the truth to be viewed as entertainment.  The story can't be discussed in too much more detail without ruining the humorous and dark surprises, but the film's story was very engaging.

My favorite part of the movie was the acting.  Considering the movie basically had a cast of five, without stand out acting this movie would be a complete bore.  The roles of the children were wonderfully acted.  In particular the 'Eldest' played by Aggeliki Papoulia.  She was spectacular in this film's lead role and made awkward-rebellious work.  She was oddly sexual, violent, and beautiful while still maintaining an innocence and childlike nature.  Her character was the child testing the boundaries and creating the central conflicts throughout the film giving her the most room to work.  Papoulia's portrayal showed all the depth of the internal conflict of a character who is totally trapped, but is scared to escape.  The father played by Christos Stergioglou was amazing as well.  Taking a violently protective and abusive father, but playing him as a soft, methodical character worked wonders in this role.

So to wrap this up... Dogtooth was a great character drama that also touched on dark humor and sexuality, but did it all in a way that was disturbing to watch.  It is a movie that will leave you thinking, but was slow paced and at times boring.  I was moved by and sympathized with the main character, but felt no relief upon resolution.  The characters and story were intriguing, yet if I had to balance enjoyment and entertainment against the disturbing and hard to watch scenes, this film would come up short.  All in all, this film was amazingly well acting, but was so oddly paced and unnerving that I cannot totally say I enjoyed the experience.  I would recommend this film to fans of foreign language dramas and those that will put up with a lot of bore for those dark, dark comedy gems.