Change Your Image
dewanevl
Reviews
Cowards Bend the Knee or The Blue Hands (2003)
A unique voice in cinema
Many people have compared Maddin to David Lynch - although there are some psycho-sexual similarities, they have it wrong. He's the Tom Waits of film. To watch his films requires not the suspension of disbelief, but an open subconscious.
Throw your mind away and enjoy this film. Hockey players ensconced in sperm and a combination beauty salon, brothel, day care center and abortion clinic all make appearances here. And an interesting story mixing "Hands of Orlac" in reverse and...well, a lot of Maddin. Unlike any film experience you'll see, but you'll come away a better and more open person because of it. And Melissa Dionisio is the most stunning actress I've ever seen on screen.
For people new to Maddin, I'd recommend starting with The Saddest Music in the World, which really works as a movie and a story and almost makes sense from a realistic point of view.
I come away from his films glad that we have somebody who thinks like that, and glad that he put it on film.
Living on Tokyo Time (1987)
Slow but interesting
I just saw this on the Asian network. Steven Okazaki really caught the impossibility of communicating between the two young people, with the language differences and even the two cultures. He also caught the everyday life of an Asian-American, including the very tiring familial issues that can arise.
Spoiler: It was a very sad movie in that you would very much like things to work out between the two parties and you really care for them. It's obvious that Ken is a good person and so is Kyoko. But the movie ends as you expect it to end. Ken's show of anger is just perfect at the very end - exactly as it would happen in real life, still worrying about not breaking anything, even though the most important thing in his life has disappeared.