by Chris MaGee
Shunji Iwai has always been a bit of a hit and miss filmmaker for me. While I'd count "All about Lily Chou-Chou" and "April Story" as some of my all time favorites I could just as easily say that he's always balanced precariously on the line between substance and pure style and many a time slipped right over the edge and made pretty, but empty films. Those missteps would hardly be a reason to relegate him to the cinematic midden heap, but then again, he may have already done that himself. Since his 2004 drama "Hana and Alice" the former music video director has been keeping a very low profile. There's been continued talk of his script for "Bandage", a film about Japan's indie music scene in the 90's that was/ is supposed to be directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, but nothing has surfaced yet. What has surfaced is a new short film by Iwai, a film that will mark his debut with English language filmmaking.
Iwai will be joining the likes of Mira Nair, Brett Ratner(?!) and actresses Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman in the omnibus film "New York, I Love You" by directing a segment starring Orlando Bloom and Christina Ricci. Besides the usual gossip about stars dating that have accompanied paparazzi shots of the two actors filming in the streets of New York there haven't been many details about the content of Iwai's roughly five minute long contribution, except that Bloom will be playing a character named David and that Ricci's character is named Camille, but that's soon going to change.
"New York, I Love You" is set to screen as a work in progress right here in our fair city at the upcoming Toronto International Film Fest. Now, the question is, will I squeeze in a screening of the film for five minutes of Shunji Iwai? Well, I'll certainly try and I'll do it for two reasons, one being that I have to let all of you know about it, but there's another reason. Frankly, I always get nervous when an Asian filmmaker makes the transition to English language films, and in my humble opinion that only director to do that successfully has been Ang Lee. I like Iwai, in fact I think he could one day down the line be a truly great director, but I'd hate to see him make the same mistake that Wong Kar Wai did, a filmmaker that I truly love(d), like the one he made with "My Blueberry Nights". I guess we'll see how Iwai fares in a couple weeks once TIFF begins.
Thanks to Don Brown at Ryuganji.net for the heads up about this.
Shunji Iwai has always been a bit of a hit and miss filmmaker for me. While I'd count "All about Lily Chou-Chou" and "April Story" as some of my all time favorites I could just as easily say that he's always balanced precariously on the line between substance and pure style and many a time slipped right over the edge and made pretty, but empty films. Those missteps would hardly be a reason to relegate him to the cinematic midden heap, but then again, he may have already done that himself. Since his 2004 drama "Hana and Alice" the former music video director has been keeping a very low profile. There's been continued talk of his script for "Bandage", a film about Japan's indie music scene in the 90's that was/ is supposed to be directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, but nothing has surfaced yet. What has surfaced is a new short film by Iwai, a film that will mark his debut with English language filmmaking.
Iwai will be joining the likes of Mira Nair, Brett Ratner(?!) and actresses Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman in the omnibus film "New York, I Love You" by directing a segment starring Orlando Bloom and Christina Ricci. Besides the usual gossip about stars dating that have accompanied paparazzi shots of the two actors filming in the streets of New York there haven't been many details about the content of Iwai's roughly five minute long contribution, except that Bloom will be playing a character named David and that Ricci's character is named Camille, but that's soon going to change.
"New York, I Love You" is set to screen as a work in progress right here in our fair city at the upcoming Toronto International Film Fest. Now, the question is, will I squeeze in a screening of the film for five minutes of Shunji Iwai? Well, I'll certainly try and I'll do it for two reasons, one being that I have to let all of you know about it, but there's another reason. Frankly, I always get nervous when an Asian filmmaker makes the transition to English language films, and in my humble opinion that only director to do that successfully has been Ang Lee. I like Iwai, in fact I think he could one day down the line be a truly great director, but I'd hate to see him make the same mistake that Wong Kar Wai did, a filmmaker that I truly love(d), like the one he made with "My Blueberry Nights". I guess we'll see how Iwai fares in a couple weeks once TIFF begins.
Thanks to Don Brown at Ryuganji.net for the heads up about this.
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1 comment:
I'm probably the only person in the universe who preferred the fluffy My Blueberry Nights over the (imho) overly self-indulgent 2046.
But yeah, I worry too. But will be curious to see how his MTV aesthetics would look in New York. Guy's one of my all-time favourite directors. LOVE LETTER was one of the most important films to me during my teens (and I still watch it before and during shoots for, ah, inspiration) It's still hard to judge how good he can be from a short film though. Tend to feel that numerous directors just aren't that good when doing segments for omnibuses, never seem to show the actual talent you see in their longer features. (it's a little something I finally realized after going to see both Chacun son cinema and TOKYO! in the same week)
But Iwai had done his share of short films, so I assume he can't be THAT bad with this medium.
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