Bluesy and Trap Review The Festival Flicks

Goodbye South, Goodbye
Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, Written by Chu Tien-wen, based on a story by King Jieh-we and Jack Kao Starring Jack Kao, Hsu Kuie-ying, Lim Goong, Anne Shizuka Inoh, His Hsiang, Lien Pi-tung, Kao Ming, Vicky Wei, Lei Ming, Lee Tien-lu, Lee Ming-lang, and Lee Kwei

A Self-Made Hero
Directed by Jacques Audiard, Written by Alian Le Henry and Jacques Audiard based on a novel by Jean-Francois Deniau. Starring: Mathieu Kassovitz, Anouk Grinberg, Sandrine Kiberlain, Daniele Lebrun, Jean-Louis Trintignant.


Trap: Sorry you missed this one, Bluesy. Although not a masterpiece, Goodbye South, Goodbye is still a very worthwhile film - a quieter and more contemplative version of the sort of gangster film one often sees coming out of Hong Kong, but one that emphasizes character and milieu over action. It tells the story of a couple of petty hoodlums whose attempts to set up a gambling den in Taipei are quelched by local gangs, and who must then decide whether to try to set up shop in the provinces or head for Shanghai, now ironically the "land of opportunity" due to the changing political situation in mainland China. The film starts out with a long beautiful tracking shot from the rear platform of a train - the scenery gradually changing from countryside to provincial slum - the first of many, which can be seen as a metaphor for the characters' situation. No matter how much they try to change their course, they still end up in the same place. They bounce from one half-baked scam to the next, pretending that this one will be the one to put them over the top, only to fall ever shorter of their goals. Hou's direction is careful, studied and quietly beautiful, full of long, sweeping tracking shots and casually artful compositions. If it has any flaws, it is that the pacing is a bit too casual for the sort of story it tells, which will probably lose a lot of viewers, but for someone willing to give it the time, it will amply reward their attention.

Bluesy: I didn't see it, but I don't have ample attention... which is just fine, considering the film I DID see today, Self-Made Hero was one of the best films I've seen all year. I mean it. This little french film which won the Cannes Film Festival award for best screenplay, and thusfar, has NO American distributor had to have the best story and most enjoyable, humorous execution of anything out there. If you have any chance at all to see but one film at this years New York Film Festival, see A Self-Made Hero.

It tells the story of a liar: a charlatan, a fake, con man of sorts but mainly a man with a child's imagination, who managed to convince a whole country that he was a war hero and resistance fighter, instead of an ex-traveling salesman come street beggar. He devoted his life to being the best "hero" in the world... passing himself off as some real life James Bond incarnation, and getting away with it. After all, like one character in the film says "I think I knew you were lying from the start... but I liked it." In today's society of Ninja Turtles and Schwarzenegger clones, a simple guy playing the role of a hero is something "I like" as well.

After the screening, the Director, Jacques Audiard, said he had seen Woody Allen's "Zelig" thirteen times before making this film (which was an adaptation of a novel by Jean-Francois Deniau). But Audiard's hero, Albert Dehousse (the hunky Mathieu Kassovitz, who was the director of "Hate" and who can practice his English on me any time) is no Zelig. He has no hidden agenda, other than to live up to his boyhood dreams of being a real life hero. He's not in it for the money. Certainly he goes through years of poverty while he studies every newspaper, book, newsreel of the men he will eventually pretend to have fought with, assuming his new "identity." He just wants to be looked up to.

After going through a childhood of being taunted for having a lush for a father, who died when Albert was a boy, and living with a delusional mother; Albert escapes into books and a fantasy life that never leaves him, even through adulthood. Whereas there have been numerous films of the Peter Pan syndrome, which are NOT amusing or sympathetic, A Self Made Hero manages to tell a fascinating story AND get our sympathies behind Albert from the get go, so that when he finally gets his dream of being a Lieutenant Colonel... we're behind his ruse all the way, applauding and cheering for him. What happens when he does become a hero? Well, even that has us biting our nails till the very end, rooting for our "hero's" triumph over the unimaginative, ill wishing bullies of the world. I'm sorry, I'm kvelling, but I really loved this film. What did you think, Trap?

Trap: I liked it as well, particularly because of its lightness of touch and generosity of spirit. Although at first Albert actively seeks to deceive those around him, he soon finds the artificial persona he has created for himself taking on a life of its own. People believe this charming, seemingly guileless young man (his Resistance "colleagues" trust him because he doesn't belong to any particular political faction - not realizing that the reason for this is that he doesn't belong to the Resistance at all) because they want to and the more outrageous his lies become, the more people believe him. Later in the film, when he is assigned the task of ferreting out collaborators in occupied Germany, he astounds everyone at his ability to see through their deception -- no-one suspecting that his ability to do so is the result of his own first-hand knowledge of the subject. Throughout it all, he remains an innocent, his trickery not the result of mendacity or the desire for gain, but a simple, child-like longing to be a hero.

Bluesy: In other words, we both LOVED this movie (I think it's destined to be a classic, if it's given a chance and picked up by a distributor that is). Go see it. Now, I'm up for a nap.

Trap: Okay. Good-night.

A Self Made Hero:Great Great

Goodbye South, Goodbye: Good

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