"Accomplishments"
In theaters: From its first shot, The First Omen is already evoking the original film's aesthetic, whether it's white skies over 70s America or the golden sun of Rome. But by focusing on the girl whose birth was engineered to then give birth to the Antichrist, the film also has a modern layer, absolutely scripted in the wake of the American Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. It's the dangers of the anti-choice movement taken to its most horrific metaphorical extremes, with religion forcing women to give birth to their rapists' babies, even at the cost of their own lives. Not hard to decode this one. Nell Tiger Free is supremely watchable as the young nun trying to uncover the mystery at an orphanage and protect the girl who seems to be tagged as Damien's mother. Now of course, it's a prequel to a horror classic, so some things seem destined to happen. There's some very nice ambiguity about whether the supernatural is happening or not, which is undermined by that fact. It also helps the savvy audience member figure out what's happening before it's actually revealed and makes various call-backs and tributes perhaps expected (except they do play things completely differently, and don't limit themselves to The Omen). And yet, they still pull an ending that, while never contradicting the previous films, also opens the door to future chapters in the series. I quite liked it, perhaps as much as the original.
At home: Mabel Cheung's An Autumn's Tale is, at its heart, a romantic comedy, but one that has a tragic streak. Cherie Chung plays Jennifer, a girl from Hong Kong who's come to New York nominally to study, but really to be closer to her boyfriend, except he's moved on. The distant cousin who takes care of her needs isn't exactly the community hero described to her, but rather a ne'er-do-well who gambles, fights and parties, and her apartment is in a slum. It's all short in New York, but you're sometimes hard pressed to recognize it. This is the immigrant's New York, and Cheung's camera finds new places to show. Chow Yun-fat is great as the initially obtrusive cousin who starts to have feelings for Jennifer, but has made a career of being the kind of guy women don't see as having marriage potential. Will he make a change in time (and convincingly enough) to wind up with the girl? Or will he self-destruct long before that point? There's a lot going on, emotionally, and I especially love the last 15 minutes or so.
Three Chinese women find each other in Stanley Kwan's Full Moon in New York, each from a different corner of Asia - Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland China - and strike up a necessary friendship in the face of cultural isolation. And each has a different experience. The most moving is Siqin Gaowa's, playing the bride of a Chinese-American, and completely cut off from her roots and family, suffering loneliness in an otherwise happy marriage. Sylvia Chang is an actress from a well-to-do family, consistently judged for her Chinese-ness, despite near-total integration. And then there's Maggie Cheung, playing a character who is held back from living the American life she wants to lead because her roots pull at her, notionally between the other two. This isn't as lush as some of Kwan's better known films (Center Stage, Rouge), a smaller film that perhaps blew its budget on the trip over - certainly, there's some some subpar dubbing when the English language is used that make it feel even cheaper - but it's an immensely well observed drama. "And we're gonna leave it there."
In Farewell China, Clara Law paints an ugly portrait of the United States (or at least, of New York)' but also gives no other alternative to her characters, as everyone back home in Mainland China counsels them never to return. After losing touch with his wife gone study in America (Maggie Cheung), a husband (Tony Leung Ka-fai) smuggles himself to the Big Apple to track her down. The picture painted by the people whose lives hers intersected seems disjointed and impossible to reconcile (it is proper, I think, to compare this with the Chinese-American indie film Chan Is Missing), but it will when they finally find each other. Though I can't really co-sign the twist that makes it possible, it doesn't come out of nowhere. But while the search goes on, the husband finds himself in a world of poverty, sin and decadence, helped on his quest by a 15-year-old prostitute, just to give you an idea of how debased Law's America appears to be. And if there's racism - and there is - it's often directed inward. A self-loathing that goes beyond rejecting one's home country, but one's cultural identity, which Law may be equating with the Cultural Revolution. Vivid images, strong acting, but a big downer. Prepare yourself.
Some people are just meant to be in each other's lives... Comrades, Almost a Love Story is being coy with its title, but it also obviously invites small tragedies to keep the two leads apart. Leon Lai a naive country bumpkin just moved to Hong Kong to make his fortune before getting married to his sweetheart. Maggie Cheung is much more streetsmart new arrival who takes advantage of him. But the relationship grows, first into a friendship, then one with benefits. But is there more there? As they fulfill their ambitions, unspoken feelings get in the way, but director Peter Chan isn't telling a traditional romcom here, so while the hand of destiny plays a part, truthful psychology governs the characters' reactions. Shout-out to a couple of character actors supporting the action: Eric Tsang, who I've loved since Infernal Affairs, and famed cinematographer Christopher Doyle here in the amusing role of the English teacher. Comrades IS a love story, just not a traditional one, and it explores, in fact, more than one love story, loves forged by different blacksmiths, whether friendship, adversity, or familiarity. Even Irene Tsu's starstruck love for William Holden in the film counts.
After 17 years in the U.S., an Angolan immigrant finally gets to bring his family over in Farewell Amor, including a wife who has fallen deep into religion and a teenage daughter who just wants to dance despite her mother using Footloose as a tenet of her faith. All the actors are good, but Jayme Lawson (who seemed on the cusp of something in 2022, with notable supporting roles in The Batman, The Woman King and How to Blow Up a Pipeline) as the daughter is particularly mysterious and entrancing. They all have their mysteries though, the director Ekwa Msangi doubles back on the drama to give each of their revelatory points of view. Because after all, this is about reconnecting with people you only ONCE knew, or in the case of the father-daughter relationship, never really knew at all. This is a reunion in the shadow of its title, which seems to signal something else. And for the father, there is the loss of a secret partner in the States, but is that all there is to it? Or will this family not survive coming together so late. Farewell Amor comes off as a sweet (bittersweet?) family drama supported by truthful performances and some amazing music.
Olivier Assayas is best known for art house dramas, but what happens when he attempts an action thriller early(ishj) in his career? Well, Boarding Gate's first act does have long conversations and characters with strange interests and detailed backgrounds, but it soon picks up in terms of violence, twists, turns, and paranoia. Asia Argento is a sexy damaged beauty trying to escape a toxic relationship, and escape she will, though her flight turns into a tense globe-hopping affair. We're right there with her, no seeing a complete picture of circumstances, sometimes even behind her on certain things. Assayas has assembled an international cast that includes Michael Madsen, Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth(!), and a number of solid French and Chinese actors, to tell a story about being out of control, letting others make the calls in our lives, and to my mind, only gives Argento's Sandra an actual choice and decision at the very end of the picture. A neat little thriller - grimy, perverse and absorbing.
Olivier Assayas' second project with Kristin Stewart (and again as the personal assistant of a famous person), Personal Shopper is really about dealing with the absent. See, Maureen (Stewart) is a medium and she's waiting for her dead twin brother to call out to her. She's basically living for an absent person, just like her job is buying clothes for her almost-equally absent boss. Her boyfriend is aboard and just a face on a computer screen. A strange stalker (who she uses as proxy for a voice from beyond the grave) is texting her, inviting her places, but not present. This is a lot of Maureen walking into empty rooms. The eye of the camera seems to believe in the supernatural, but is it a grand hallucination? We're free to make our minds up on the subject, but like Maureen might we not be filling in the "absence" with our own imaginations. And just because there is absence, it doesn't mean there's nothing or no one. A supernatural thriller that's really about texting and interacting with others online? Only Assayas.
My Companion Film of the week features Caroline John (Dr. Liz Shaw)... I'm not familiar with the The Woman in Black's source material - a ghost story penned by Susan Hill - but the 1989 adaptation is pretty chilling, a haunting that drives one into madness. Set in the Edwardian era, a young lawyer is sent to take care of a dead woman's estate, and is visited by spectres of a bygone tragedy. The location for this is incredible - I can't believe it's real. More incredible still, perhaps, is how that little dog follows the directions of our man so well, being a loaner and all, but whenever a pet is part of a horror narrative, I feel like there's always extra suspense. There's one surprising scare, but otherwise, this is far more about sustaining a creepy paranoid mood, and it succeeds at that. I at first thought I'd seen Robert Wise's name flit across the screen and thought myself in good hands. The director was actually Herbert Wise, who directed I, Claudius, so I wasn't in bad ones after all.
Books: Collecting issues #285-286 and Annual #19, Fantastic Four Visionaries: John Byrne Vol. 7 also includes Avengers Annual #14, Avengers #263 and the double-sized X-Factor #1, and there lies the obvious problem. That's only three Fantastic Four comics, and I question the appropriateness of most of this ancillary material. The Avengers Annual is the flip-side of an FF story that nerfs the Skrulls (what did Byrne have against them anyway?!) and Byrne did do the breakdowns, so okay, but the Avengers stuff feels like you've jumped into the deep end of an unknown continuity and several pages are repeated (interesting to compare Sinnott to Kyle Baker as finishers, but still). Then, the famous one-off where a kid dies trying to copy the Torch (inspired by the kid who died a few years prior trying to fly like Superman), which is slightly impaired by being a Secret Wars II tie-in. And the Shooter-era interconnectedness gets out of control with the final batch of issues which show how Jean Grey is brought back from the dead, really an X-Men story. The crux of it is told in the FF issue, and I don't see why we need its lead-in (since it's recapped anyway), nor its follow-up (which has, like, a couple panels of Mister Fantastic and nothing to do with the FF). Neither of these have a role for Byrne, and this is supposed to be Visionaries: John Byrne. My X-Factor collection started with #2 (you couldn't always trust your local convenience store), so this was my first read of #1, but that's neither here nor there. I suppose there was an awkward amount of issues to get the trade paperback series to 8 volumes, but how about just making one thicker?
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