Cinema Talk

Hands down, the best movie of 2007. It doesn’t earn any points for originality since its ultimately just a textbook example of Tsai Ming-Liang’s more accomplished aesthetic, but still it is really funny and completely truthful. The two young leads are perfect, brilliantly anti-cute when they could have easily been the opposite. Their story is pretty much a “best-of” tribute to many of Ozu’s silent films with Tomio Aoki. Ultimately the film feels a bit more influenced by modern Asian minimalism, which of course is not problem by my standards, but it also is more than willing to take a trip down memory lane with a boyish type of playfulness. The story with a father is a bit more romantic (by comparison) with a somewhat surrealistic edge. At times, I did get a sense that the director was laying it on a bit thick with the humor, especially since the audience didn’t seem to have a problem with the otherwise “slow” approach, but the film still provides a veracious punch. Definitely the best of 2007, so much more so than There Will Be Blood or whatever other prestigious American film.