larscentury

An extraordinary thriller/drama, inspired by Hitchcock's Vertigo, Park Chan-wook's film explores obsessive eroticism and voyeurism with impeccable style and flair. Like Vertigo, which took many years to be fully appreciated, Decision to Leave may take time to find its audience; however, for viewers open to its beauty it offers great pleasures. The central relationship between the insomniac detective and Tang Wei's mysterious, seductive suspect is compelling. Small gestures take on great meaning, such as their smooth, joint efficiency in cleaning up after a shared meal of sushi at the police station, or gently looking at each other (at times impossibly - across space or time - through cross-cutting). I have watched this film four times so far, and will keep coming back to it in the future.

With this film,director Kim Ki-young updated his earlier film 'The Housemaid' (1960), which was a black-and-white melodrama about a middle-class family torn asunder by the intrusion of a seductive, manipulative femme fatale. As great as that film is, I personally prefer 'Hwanyo' or 'Woman of Fire'. Here, the oversaturated colours - blues and reds in particular - and the superb cinematography deepen the exploration of the characters. Also, the new housemaid is here a victim of male violence, rather than the highly eroticised agent of chaos of the original film. Those who admired Youn Yuh-jung's Oscar-winning performance in 'Minari' will enjoy seeing her in 'Woman of Fire' as sweet and innocent young woman driven mad by trauma, shame and desire.

Kim Ki-young works in a similar register as Oshima Nagisa, the great Japanese modernist, yet his films are even more committed to melodrama. He explores connections between late capitalism, modernism and sexual and erotic tension.

'Woman of Fire' is a sadly unwatched classic of Korean cinema. Clearly not for everyone, it would perhaps appeal more to fans of Fassbinder, Pasolini, and Imamura.

I've watched 21 of the Godzilla films so starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel with that series (eg All Monster Attack...), so now on to the Gamera series. This first effort was entertaining although a bit bland. The plot introduces us to Gamera, a giant turtle who has been in hibernation for thousands of years but is brought to life when a nuclear-armed Soviet jet plane crashes into the Arctic ice. The subplot involves a zoologist who studies Gamera, his beautiful assistant, and a young journalist who follows them around. Too many scenes with a young kid - that's a bit of a worry for me (although my daughter doesn't mind). The monster looks a bit cheap, but the plot moves along quite nicely, and as long as there are some scenes of Tokyo being stomped on I'm reasonably happy.