Boy meets girl. Boy befriends girl. Boy and girl have sex. Then boy and girl have issues. Sounds boring, right? Like something you’ve seen a million times before. Well, believe it or not it can still be interesting. FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS is a shining example of that. Starring THAT 70’s SHOW actress Mila Kunis and all around superstar Justin Timberlake, director Will Gluck, from EASY A fame, has made a wonderfully fresh and hilarious romantic comedy.

The story revolves around two people who have had consistent bad luck in the dating game. The main reason for this is their deep seated fears of commitment. Timberlake’s character is still struggling with being abandoned by his mother while Kunis is battling with the life long absence of her father. Kunis works as a headhunter who convinces Timberlake to make a cross country move from LA to New York to work for GQ magazine. After the relocation the two become close friends and convince themselves that they can easily have a sexual relationship without feelings getting in the way. However, they soon discover that sex and feelings are impossible to separate.

This film was not only funny but also heartwarming. Timberlake and Kunis played wonderfully off of each other and, despite the expected cliches, the story still felt grounded in reality. Their personalities and experiences made them relatable and therefore likable. You can clearly see why they make the decisions they do and also why their friendship is so important to them. The additions of talented actors Patricia Clarkson, as Kunis’ free spirited mother, and Woody Harrelson, as Timberlake’s outspoken gay employee, made the whole experience that much more enjoyable. You may not like romantic comedies but if you like to laugh and feel good I suggest seeing FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS.

Sci-Fi films aren’t a complex entity.  All you need is the right mixture of science & fiction and your film will not fail.  I wish this recipe for success were true for IN TIME, the new sci-fi thriller starring Justin Timberlake.

In a future where no one grows old, humanity is genetically engineered to stop aging after the age of 25. However, no one is immortal because at the age of 25 a thirteen digit “time-piece” appears on your left arm.  At that moment your time starts.  If that clock ever gets to zero, you timeout…you die.  Imagine a world where the rich can live for hundreds, even thousands of years because they come from time, the same way our silver spoons come from money.  This is a world where the poor literally live day to day earning time like minimum wage because time is money, literally.  Today a cup of coffee will cost you 3 minutes; tomorrow it could cost you 4.  When you live in a society where time is of the essence then a 1 minute increase in the cost of living could be your life.

IN TIME lacked the grandeur and momentum in screenplay ability that any great film has to keep its audience’s attention unraveled and undivided.  In layman’s terms, I was bored out of my mind. Timberlake plays Will Salas, a factory worker who’s just living minute to minute like everyone else in his time zone.  Then enters Henry Hamilton, played by Mathew Bomer, who ever so timelessly gives Will over 100 years, a reward he felt Will deserved for trying to save his life from the local gangsters.  That’s when the adventure was supposed to begin.  However, what happened was a Bonnie and Clyde symmetry, with the help of the beautiful Amanda Seyfried, that left me wondering how films like these ever get the time of day. This movie is the prime example of how a phenomenally original idea can become mediocre if executed poorly.  I felt that the movie dragged along, trying its best to intrigue the audience with its unique concept but lost originality shortly after the opening credits.

One thing is certain, Timberlake has arrived.  With previous works that have done well and being paired up strategically with the sensational Seyfried, Timberlake proved that his acting prowess and rugged bad-boy-look comes across well for the former N’SYNC singer.  So, this I promise you, Timberlake is here to stay.

Nonetheless, the only thing worse than a bad film is a film that was just above par, a film that has the potential to be great but arrives late or not all.  Director Andrew Niccol did such an amazing job on THE TRUMAN SHOW and GATTACA, and though IN TIME  had the same originality, it ran out of time on impact and impression.

Have you ever underestimated a film?  You saw the trailer and thought; “GOD, That film is going to suck!”  Well that’s exactly what happened when I saw the trailer for REAL STEEL, starring Hugh Jackman.  But I figured, why not?  I’m bored, there’s nothing else to watch, and I don’t have to teach tomorrow. My priorities are in order.

REAL STEEL is a not too distant future when boxing, karate, and mixed martial arts are a thing of the past.  In this story, men can grow up to live their fantasy of being a video game professional that control fighting robots. Jackman plays Charlie Kenton, a former boxer turned robot-controller who can’t keep a robot to save his pocket. He has gotten himself into a load of debt, and like any gambler keeps putting himself further in the red.  Enter Max Kenton, played by Dakota Goya, Charlie’s son, whom Charlie hasn’t been a father to and who throws a wrench into Charlie’s master plan of wanting to make money. How you’re asking? While breaking-in to a junk yard, there’s the father-son bonding every kid longs for: Max finds a first generation sparring robot that he wants his dad to “train” as fighter.

As I began to engage in this futuristic story of how the world of competitive fighting has went to scraps, no pun intended, something surprising happened…a decent storyline!  Wait for it…good acting! A father-son dichotomy was unique and well directed!

This underdog story has compelling characters, particularly Charlie, who realizes that in the ring of life there is no bell. It only takes a few years to become a great boxer, but it takes a lifetime to become a great man.  (And no better motivator to excel a man to achieve his manhood than the beautiful Evangeline Lilly, who brings the motherly grease-monkey love interest to the film.)  There’s also Max, who has to learn about forgiveness, patience, and the overwhelming desire to push his way into his father’s heart.  Max shows the audience that childlike faith conquers all. This film made me feel like I was watching the banter that Sly Stallone and Burgess Meredith gave us back in the 80’s. Jackman and Goya bring camaraderie to the screen that few actors have accomplished since the first Rocky.  REAL STEEL pulls at your emotional will to want the little guy to win, but opens your awareness to the real victory in and out of the ring.

Paul W.S. Anderson is continuing his action movie trend with his new feature film THE THREE MUSKETEERS.  Shifting gears from video game adaptations to books, Anderson’s take on Alexander Dumas’ swashbuckling novel has everything you’d expect in a big budget action flick.  Dirty plots, love, betrayal and elaborate fight scenes are all present and it’s the standard formula for a song and dance that Hollywood has done to death.  The finished product is quite predictable, but that being said, Anderson has still managed to make an entertaining film.

The story centers around the three down on their luck Musketeers who rally to keep France from going to war with England.  Athos, played by PRIDE AND PREJUDICE actor Matthew Macfayden, has been betrayed by the beautiful and cunning double agent Milady DeWinter, RESIDENT EVIL’s Milla Jovovich, and is coping by consuming copious amounts of alcohol.  Aramis, portrayed by up and coming actor Luke Evans, has chosen to join the clergy and pray his sorrows away while Porthos, THOR’s Ray Stevenson, has picked the route of a gigolo.  Through convenient coincidence the three friends come across hot headed youth D’Artagnan, PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTNING THIEF actor Logan Lerman, and begin their quest to save France.  Their foes along the way are the sly Duke of Buckingham, LORD OF THE RINGS actor Orlando Bloom, and clever Cardinal Richelieu, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Academy Award winner, Christoph Waltz.

Honestly, I had low expectations going into this film and I was pleasantly surprised to find that, most of the time, I was fully engaged in the story.  The fight scenes were well placed, well choreographed and the dialogue had clever flashes of wit. The actor’s performances were decent, although it would be nice to see Christoph Waltz deviate from the personable villain persona that made him famous.  Certain parts of the story seemed to lack development, such as the love affair between D’Artagnan and the queen’s lady in waiting, but on the other hand it is an action film and the action did take precedence over some of the weaker points of the storyline.  Overall, Anderson has made a fun and solid film.  If you’re unsure of what to see this Fall and don’t mind a bit of frivolity I would recommend THE THREE MUSKETEERS.

The 2011 Busan International Film Festival (now known as BIFF) began last Thursday and continues until this Friday. I was able to attend 12 films over the course of the weekend, catching many of the movies I most wanted to see. Overall the quality was quite strong, with a number of great films that will certainly be among my favorites in what has already been a very good year in world cinema. Unlike at most festivals, I confined myself this year to all new releases, both because of their quality and because I didn’t find any of the retrospectives particularly intriguing. It was a great opportunity to see films by many acclaimed directors as well as a place to see smaller films that may not be seen or heard from again. Below is my complete list of films, in order of preference, as well as some other, smaller films I missed but of which I heard some positive notices.

My favorite film of the festival, and probably my favorite of the new decade of the 2010s, is the Dardenne Brothers’ THE KID WITH A BIKE. Like all of their films, it focuses on a character and a class that is normally ignored in cinematic representation. As the story opens, the 11 year-old protagonist Cyril has been abandoned by his father and is living in a group home. His journey is depicted in the Dardennes’ typically simple, direct and visceral style, identifying with his situation and emotions and yet seeing him clearly and with all his flaws on display. The ending is just about perfect, avoiding the desire to be unnecessarily tragic while also acknowledging how difficult and fleeting peace will be for this character. For anyone who thinks they do not like art cinema and stereotype it as slow and pretentious, this is a film that can change your mind. The other masterpiece of the festival was Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirthahmasb’s THIS IS NOT A FILM, a truly unique and original look at an artist who is unable to create and yet is ultimately still able to make a film against overwhelming odds. As many know, the acclaimed Iranian director Panahi (THE MIRROR, THE CIRCLE, CRIMSON GOLD, OFFSIDE) was sentenced to six years in prison and given a twenty year ban on filmmaking because of his subversive activities during the Iranian election protests. While under house arrest, Panahi and his documentary director friend Mirthahmasb decided to film his life while he awaits his appeal. Panahi begins by describing the screenplay he was planning before his arrest. Using his house as a miniature set, he reveals his opening shots, providing a great look at a director “working” and showing Panahi’s genuine love of his craft. But he soon grows impatient, and uses clips from his previous work to show that directing has to be captured through the actors and how they interpret the characters, something his discussion of his pre-production process cannot capture. But before the film ends, Panahi ends up having one of these real moments with a young student who is working in his building, filming him as he travels on the elevator collecting garbage. The final image is powerful and heart-breaking, as Panahi films the social world outside his courtyard but cannot join it. One of the best of all meta-films, and a striking contrast with hip postmodern senses of what self-reflexive cinema is really about.

Childhood was the subject of both Lynn Ramsay’s WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN and Kore-eda Hirokazu’s I WISH, both of which were very successful although completely different in their respective aims. Ramsay’s film, based on a well-known novel by Lionel Shriver, is a very dark look at childhood, but from the perspective of a mother, Eva (played by the great Tilda Swinton), whose son Kevin commits a massacre at his school. From his early childhood, the relationship between mother and son is very strained. In the nature-nurture debate, Ramsay wisely decides to be neutral, instead concentrating on impressionistic imagery to convey Eva’s emotional experience of having a problem child. Unsettling and dark but honest and important. I WISH, on the other hand, is one of the warmest movies I’ve seen in a long time. It details two brothers, Koichi  and Ryu, who are living apart due to their parents’ separation, one with their mother and the other with their father. They decide to go on a journey with their friends to a spot where the bullet trains meet and where, according to legend, their wish to be reunited will be granted. The pacing is quite slow and the first hour lacks a momentum you would expect from a movie about children, but the last half and the journey of the large group of children rewards one’s patience. Kore-eda comes close to being overly cute and sentimental, but the performances and stories of each child actor are so strong that it is hard not to be seduced by its charm.

In the next tier of films are Mohammed Rasoulof’s GOODBYE and Lars von Trier’s MELANCHOLIA. Along with Panahi, Rasoulof was also convicted to a prison term and banned from filmmaking for his political activities. GOODBYE documents his own personal feelings about wanting to leave the country through the story of a young female lawyer. The style is very reserved and formal, telling the emotions through the visuals rather than the dialogue, especially in the repeated and varied framings of the character’s apartment. I found it slightly more mannered and self-consciously austere than necessary, but still an effective look at being in an untenable position with few choices, all of them bad. MELANCHOLIA is von Trier’s take on the apocalyptic genre, telling a split narrative of two sisters, one of whom suffers from melancholia and the other who is obsessed with Melancholia, a large planet that may hit Earth. The first half, featuring Kirsten Dunst and her wedding, is rather reminiscent of Dogma film THE CELEBRATION and not as effective, while the second half is von Trier using sci-fi spectacle to create Kubrickian, 2001-like imagery. While I’m not a huge fan of von Trier and I don’t think MELANCHOLIA is completely successful, it is a work worth seeing and one of his better recent efforts, and Charlotte Gainsbourg is great as always.

Unfortunately, I was only able to see three Korean films this year, unlike last year when I saw mainly Korean movies. The best of the three was Jeon Kyu-hwan’s FROM SEOUL TO VARANASI, although it was also the most problematic. Jeon is best known for his TOWN trilogy (MOZART TOWN, ANIMAL TOWN, DANCE TOWN), but this is my first exposure to his work. It tells a story of two love affairs of a married couple. The husband, who works at a publishing company, is having an affair with one of his writers, while his wife begins a relationship with a young Lebanese man. I’m always interested in Korean films exploring foreigners in Korea in their films, and I give credit to Jeon for his tackling of this material. However, it can be argued that Jeon displaces the problems of Korean society (racism, sexual repression) onto his foreign characters, who turn out to be stereotypical Muslim terrorists. The fact that the husband’s affair is shown in graphic detail while his wife’s is never shown explicitly is a comment on its taboo nature, but that repression gets depicted in a literal explosion that her terrorist lover commits in Varanasi. It reminded me of American Vietnam films like THE DEER HUNTER, which are interesting in exploring their American characters but use the foreign characters only as symbols. That said, I found the movie compelling, and not as easy to dismiss as a simple ideological reading may suggest. The two other Korean films were disappointments. The documentary ARI ARI THE KOREAN CINEMA had a lot of great footage from almost every major Korean director and star, but was too rambling and unfocused to be effective. It is too scattered to work as a real introduction while lacking the depth a more knowledgeable viewer would seek. Still probably worth a look for fans/scholars of Korean film, but missed potential. The animated feature KING OF PIGS was the worst film I saw all festival, a poorly shot and acted work that attempts to be dark and profound but ends up being juvenile and banal. The potentially interesting subject matter, centered around male teenage bullying in Korea, is sadly wasted.

Rounding out my line-up of screenings were Philippe Garrel’s THAT SUMMER, Paddy Considine’s TYRANNOSAUR, and Amir Hossein Saghafi’s DEATH IS MY PROFESSION. The Garrel film covers rather familiar territory, detailing the friendship and love affairs of a group of artists. It is well acted and watchable, but lacks any real purpose or immediacy. TYRANNOSAUR features great performances from Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman, and is an impressive debut for actor Considine. However, the grim subject matter revolving around domestic abuse has been handled more powerfully by other British films (NIL BY MOUTH, for example) and again the territory felt too familiar. Both THAT SUMMER and TYRANNOSAUR work well enough on their own terms, but seemed to lack ambition. The Iranian film DEATH IS MY PROFESSION was more of an outright failure, despite a very intriguing opening that seemed to set the stage for an Iranian spaghetti western. The final hour degenerates into pathetic melodrama with a broad man versus nature metaphysical struggle standing in for Iranian society. The first Iranian film that has disappointed me.

Among the smaller films generating buzz at the festival: the Korean dramas RED VACANCE, BLACK WEDDING and BLACK DOVE; the audience favorite HOT HOT HOT; the Indian film GUZAAARISH; and the Soviet spaghetti western THE SEVENTH BULLET. Overall this year’s festival was stronger in terms of its international content while remaining committed to Korean and Asian cinema. The addition of the Busan Cinema Center was also welcome, making the venues more concentrated and the experience more audience friendly. While still with some of the drawbacks of a large festival, Busan seems to be moving towards trying to provide a small festival environment within the larger structure. Hopefully this direction will continue going forward.

Here is the complete list of films:

5 stars

The Kid with a Bike

This is Not a Film

4 and a half stars

We Need to Talk About Kevin

I Wish

4 stars

Goodbye

Melancholia

3 and a half stars

From Seoul to Varanasi

That Summer

Tyrannosaur

3 stars

Ari Ari the Korean Cinema

2 and a half stars

Death is My Profession

2 stars

King of Pigs

Starting on October 12th and playing for just over a month at the Seoul Cinematheque is a 22-film program of Classic French Cinema. Sixteen of the films are playing with English subtitles, and include almost all of the major French directors of the time period:

Jean Renoir: BOUDU SAVED FROM DROWNING (1932), TONI (1934), LA BETE HUMAINE (1938), FRENCH CANCAN (1954)

Jean Vigo: L’ATALANTE (1934)

Sacha Guitry: FAISONS UN REVE (1936)

Jean Gremillon: L’ETRANGE MONSIEUR VICTOR (1938), LUMIERE D’ETE (1943)

Julien Duvivier: PEPE LE MOKO (1937)

Marcel Carne: HOTEL DU NORD (1938), CHILDREN OF PARADISE (1945)

Abel Gance: PARADIS PERDU (1940)

Robert Bresson: LADIES OF THE BOIS DU BOULOGNE (1945)

Jean-Pierre Melville: SILENCE OF THE SEA (1949)

Jacques Tati: JOUR DE FETE (1949)

Max Ophuls: LE PLAISIR (1952)

The complete schedule is available at their website.

Although released many months ago in the US and now out on home video, Terrence Malick’s THE TREE OF LIFE has been slow arriving to Korea. That will change next month, when the film will play the Busan film festival, and then apparently begin a theatrical run later in the month. Despite being available on video, it is a film that should be experienced theatrically. I was lucky to see it this summer in Prague, and think it may be the best film Malick has made since his masterful debut, BADLANDS, in 1973. It is a film that has been widely debated by North American critics already, and it certainly will not appeal to everyone. In fact, if you disliked his other movies from the past decade, such as THE THIN RED LINE and THE NEW WORLD, this one probably won’t change your mind. However, I feel it is a stronger film than either, with a stunning combination of grand ambition and deeply personal, emotional image-making. It has been described as religious or at least spiritual, which is true to an extent, but I think it is more accurate to see it as mythic. The following thoughts on the film are fairly personal and tangential because I find it rather impossible to appreciate this film in any other way. (MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD)

The opening quote from the film sets up its mythic quality, and throughout I keep reflecting back on the images, projecting them forward from the opening scenes into shots in the later half in a way I haven’t experienced since Bela Tarr’s SATANTANGO. I think this is at least partially due to the formal nature of Malick’s shots, quick glimpses of images that are constantly moving, establishing a rhythm that makes the shots both dynamic and yet as vivid as still photographs.

The images that most resonated for me were the shots of the jellyfish, which get many other mirroring images throughout, including the scene that has stayed with me the most. The young protagonist breaks into a girl’s bedroom and goes through her clothing. Malick then cuts to him throwing the nightgown into the river, and then having an emotional confrontation with his mother.

When thinking about this sequence, I was reminded of the work of another visionary artist, the singer-songwriter Neil Young, specifically this verse from his song “Broken Arrow” (recorded when Young was with the band Buffalo Springfield):

Eighteen years of American dream,
He saw that his brother had sworn on the wall.
He hung up his eyelids and ran down the hall,
His mother had told him a trip was a fall,
And don’t mention babies at all.

Like Malick, but using words rather than moving pictures, Young creates a poetic evocation of childhood sexuality and repression and the way in which stories and myths work to reinforce this shame. I think this is important to discuss because I feel many critics simplify what Malick is presenting, especially the Good Mother/Bad Father binary. Certainly the mother is the better and more loving parent, but the very saintliness that is projected on to her hides the way in which she is eroticized by Malick’s images. Read from a psychoanalytic perspective, the mother and the father are more than just individual people and characters. Symbolically, they stand for much more, especially since this is primarily a flashback/memory. If the father is less sympathetic, our main protagonist nevertheless admits he is more like his father than mother, an identification that gets naturalized through entering into the social order.

While the strength of THE TREE OF LIFE is definitely in the scenes of childhood, the more controversial framing material is still important to the overall meaning and ultimately works thematically, even if it is less emotionally compelling. Although I’m an atheist, the religious nature of the sequences had power for me, probably because I viewed them as less about some vague metaphysical striving and more as a concrete expression of how one searches for meaning. Once again, it brought to mind another song lyric, this one from Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne.” Why I linked this stanza with the protagonist and his conclusion is not something I can fully articulate. Perhaps it is the use of the religious/mythic as an attempt to understand and deal with the world as humans experience it.

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said “All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them”
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone

Few have ever described Malick as a particularly allusive director, seeming to be much more of an original than a cinephile/plunderer like Quentin Tarantino or even Martin Scorsese. But few recent films had me recalling and rethinking other works of art more than this one. Its unique achievement is that the allusions may be different for every single viewer, despite the mythical line that allows it to cohere. Easily the best American movie of the past five years.

This year’s Busan International Film Festival (now BIFF, not PIFF) begins in less than three weeks on October 6th, and runs for eight full days of screenings until October 14th. A strong line-up of films again this year, a fine mix of international auteurs combined with a full slate of Korean works. Also debuting this year is a new cultural complex, the Busan Cinema Center, which will include: Cine Mountain (9 stories, ‘Haneulyeon Theater’, Midsize Theater, 2 Small Theaters, Office); Double Cone (4 stories, cafe, and restaurant); Big Roof (BIFF Public Square Roof); BIFF Hill (4 Stories, BIFF Office, Busan Cinematheque, Busan Asian Film Archive); and Small Roof (Covers the 4000 seat Outdoor Venue). The venue is widely regarded as a major architectural achievement as well. The following is a preview of my most anticipated screenings at this year’s festival. I should note that I have seen a few of the films already that otherwise would have made my list, most notably Terrence Malick’s  THE TREE OF LIFE (which I saw in Prague but has not opened in Korea yet) and Hong Sang-soo’s THE DAY HE ARRIVES. I recommend both, especially Malick’s. I’ve also included some honorable mentions. The dates and times of screenings are being released tomorrow (Wednesday, September 21st) at 5 pm local time. Tickets go on sale on-line at 9:00 am on September 28th.

1. THE KID WITH A BIKE (The Dardenne Brothers)

Already receiving enthusiastic notices from the Toronto festival (TIFF), with some critics even going so far as to state that it is the Dardennes’ masterpiece to date. Considering the brother duo from Belgium have won multiple festival awards already (including two Palme d’Or at Cannes), this is very high praise. One critic who I especially admire, Girish Shambu, described it as follows: “Running, pedaling, chasing (and being chased), climbing, falling, never standing still: the new Dardennes is a wonderful film about movement. Not a single wasted shot, gesture, word or look: I love this film.” Sold.

2. THIS IS NOT A FILM (Jafar Panahi and Mojtaba Mirthahmasb)

A documentary from imprisoned Iranian master Jafar Panahi, detailing his current situation as he awaits for his appeal to be heard. Shot on a consumer-grade camera and smuggled out of the country, it debuted this year at Cannes. The title is an ironic reference to Panahi being banned from filmmaking and a comment on the nature of the story, which consists of mundane reality and not anything resembling a “film”. I highlight this film to also call attention to the other Iranian films showing this year at BIFF: FINAL WHISTLE, GOODBYE, EPHEMERAL WEDDINGS, A CUBE OF SUGAR, DAUGHTER…FATHER…DAUGHTER, DEATH IS MY PROFESSION, and THREE AND A HALF. Given the general strength of Iranian cinema, all are worth taking a chance on seeking out despite being made by relatively unknown directors.

3. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Lynne Ramsay)

After a long hiatus, Lynne Ramsay (MORVERN CALLAR, RATCATCHER) returns with a feature starring Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly. The plot revolves around a mother trying to deal with the aftermath of her son’s high school killing spree. Reviews have been mixed after its Cannes screening, but Ramsay’s first two features are so strong and the subject matter so compelling that it remains high on my list.

4. ALPS (Yorgos Lanthimos)

Lanthimos was a relative unknown until 2009′s DOGTOOTH started making the festival rounds, eventually being picked up for North American distribution and ending up on many year-end lists for 2010. I know very little about his follow-up, other than Lanthimos stating in an interview that it will be more extreme than DOGTOOTH. Hard to imagine but intriguing all the same.

5. MELANCHOLIA (Lars von Trier)

The notorious von Trier debuted his latest at Cannes and then got banned from the festival for alleged anti-Semitic remarks, which were basically just a bad and awkward attempt at humor. The film itself was well received, with Kirsten Dunst winning the actress prize at the festival. Von Trier is not among my favorites, as I think he is often more showman than real artist, but his films are rarely dull and when they work, they’re terrific.

6. I WISH (Koreeda Hirokazu)

Koreeda is part of the Asian minimalist school and has built a strong reputation over the last decade. Even though his last film, AIR DOLL, was not considered the equal of his earlier work, he is still a director  I want to see more of.

7. ARI ARI THE KOREAN CINEMA (Heo Chul, Chung Ji-young)

A documentary on Korean cinema by acclaimed Korean New Wave director Chung and scholar/filmmaker Heo, which the program describes as examining the past and future of Korean film. A must for Korean cinema fans.

8. ALMAYER’S FOLLY (Chantal Akerman)

Akerman is one of the modernist masters of the 1970s, somewhat ignored within art cinema circles because of the near avant-garde quality of her work but more recently rediscovered with the emergence of more minimalist styles which she influenced. Not for everyone, obviously, but a true experimenter of the form.

9. PINA (3D) (Wim Wenders)

A 3D film from former New German cinema pioneer Wenders, this is essentially a dance film, but one in which the 3D technology is integral to providing a new take on the art form. Will lose a lot of impact on video so a good chance to see this in the theatre.

10. FAUST (Alexandre Sokurov)

Yet another adaptation of the Faust legend, yet Sokurov (RUSSIAN ARK) always manages a fresh take on whatever material he encounters.

Honorable mentions: new films by Aki Kaurismaki (LE HAVRE), Mathieu Kassovitz (REBELLION), Gus Van Sant (RESTLESS), Phillipe Garrel (THAT SUMMER), Nanni Moretti (WE HAVE A POPE), Kim Ki-duk (AMEN) and Takashi Miike (HARAKIRI). Plus a retrospective on Portugese Cinema and the Korean genre filmmaker Kim Kee-duk.

Also, for film scholars and hardcore cinephiles, the Busan Cinema Forum looks very interesting, with the filmmakers Apichatong Weerasethakul, Hong Sang-soo, and Bong Joon-ho, as well as the academic Dudley Andrew. This 3 day event is being held from Monday, October 10th to Wednesday October 12th with panels held by the Society of Cinema and Media Studies (the largest media studies organization in North America) and the Association of East Asian Film Studies. Registration of 50,000 won for those in Korea required by October 5th.

You can check out the BIFF website in English here.