L.A. Without a Map

LA without a map was for me, the high point of this year's Singapore Film Festival (99). This modern day fairy-tale may come across as 'clich-ed' to some - especially the last bit - but it made a nice and interestingly pure change to the 'my ship is bigger than yours' crazy budget films out there right now. It's a raw and engaging film that puts a certain warmth in your heart when you leave the cinema. It's about love, dreams, loss, the fragility of life (and love) and it can be damn funny when it wants to be... the acting ain't bad either. :) Vinessa Shaw looks set to be the next big thing.

The film tends to fizzle out, like the bright lights of Hollywood for the main character, Bradford undertaker Richard (David Tennant), but the movie is still worth viewing. I enjoyed it, especially the drab lighting in Bradford turning to the neon colors of Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and actress wannabe Barbara (Vinessa Shaw), and then blending to black and white. The two don't stand a chance of working out together, but they do. The character development is shallow and much in the film is predictable enough to draw from it greatness, but the contrasting views (European and America, rich and poor, dreams and reality) give the film just enough spice to make this a good film. Vincent Gallo's character, Moss, is funny, and the cameo appearance by Johnny Depp is good--his poster eyes talk--and should have been played out along with Barbara talking with her dead father. (7/10)

I saw this film at the Brussels International Film Festival. The Finnish director, Mika Kaurismäki, participated also in this "special screening". The film is a nice, delightful love story. There's this Scottish boy who falls in love with a girl who comes from Los Angeles. Eventually, the boy follows her to the City of Angels.

Half comedy, half romance. A nice film.

***/*****

As a director, Mika Kaurismäki is definitely not as talented as his brother Aki, the drawer of great films like La vie de bohéme and Drfiting Clouds. L.A. Without a Map has nothing in it, and proves with "Condition Red" and "Last Border" that Mika Kaurismäki has lost his touch of directing. With "L.A." M. Kaurismäki tries to make a some sort of a satire of Hollywood, and connects it to a love story of a british undertaker and a lovely waitress from Hollywood. David Tennant and Vinessa Shaw play the main characters with out any kind of charisma. When Tennant's undertaker wants to be a writer and Shaw's waitress wants to be an actress in any cost, their relationship in Hollywood seems to be an impossible thing to work out.

Vincent Gallo and Julie Delpy make a charming couple in the film, but their chracters are very poorly sketched. Johnny Depp and Jerzy Skolimowski make funny cameos.

L.A. Without a Map won't make you laugh when it's supposed to, trust me. But it's not as bad you might expect, it's not a pathetic picture. Kaurismäki has only made a film that will easily erase from memory. And because of that, you can safely watch it. But that's not much.

I realize that I should not comment on other peoples comments, but sometimes it just p***es me of how low the rating is.

L.A. Without a Map is not really a "romantic comedy" a la Meg Ryan/Sandra Bullock, but it IS very romantic and sometimes funny and sad. The main character is a pretty strange man, and the female character is far from being "a good girl". I would catalogize it as Tragic comedy/Drama. This movie is probably an example of how "non-standard" films are unpopular with many people. DO NOT watch this movie if you like Jennifer Love Hewitt.

The lighting here is dark and realistic almost like a documentary at times. The characters are real characters with depth. Tennant and Shaw are great. Unlike a "romantic comedy" the ending is not retarded and predictable. Tennant is the last person you would expect as the "hero" of a "romantic comedy". He gives the movie depth and realism. All characters of the move are actually anti-heroes. The movie is still funny and positive and deeply human.