Two things.
This is the best review ever. http://filmfreakcentral.net/screenreviews/memoirsofageisha.htm
After an 1/2 hour thought, I acquired the Jim Jarmusch Director's suite boxset. It was the last box at the city JB and it contained some of his earlier works (but not Dead Man, unfortunately) I love how you walk into JB and they're always playing something good and if you don't know it, you walk over to the shelf and try to have a peek at the wall that shows what they're currently playing without making an ass of yourself.
Well, back to suffocating myself under a pillow.
5 Comments:
I can't believe people are making such a big deal over the whole Chinese actors in Geisha - to the point where they're drawing upon things that belong in the history books...forgive and forget I say.
Most of that "review" isn't even commenting on the film...
haha
Sorry Jiao, I just thought it was funny how the guy tore the movie apart.
I've yet to see it (I'm waiting to see it on a Tuesday) and I'll bring forward a more constructive criticsm then. But for now, I will continue cringing everytime I see the trailer.
Btw, wish you the absolute best with your tropfest entry!
Thanks :)
I saw it the other day. It's alright but not nearly as enthralling and emotional as the book. It felt too rushed - the book was very long and the movie tried to cram it into 2.5 hours.
But that reviewer was judging the film based on those prejudices. A film shouldn't be judged like that. As for the Americanisation of the film - remember the original novel was written by a white man. And in the novel's prologue an old Sayuri is dictating her story to a white professor and the book you read is supposed to be the professor's translation of what Sayuri told him. So in other words the story was always a western perspective of Japan and Geisha culture.
I don't think the film ever claimed to be historically "authentic" (for example, Collen Atwood, the costume designer always said she deliberately changed the designs of the kimonos for the purpose of the film).
Rob Marshall did the exact same thing with "Chicago" - another stylised vision of a period in history but no one complained about the historical inaccuracies of that film..."Memoirs of a Geisha" is, afterall, a fairy tale.
If the book was written by a Japanese person then the movie would be abhorrent but in this case, I think the filmmakers are justified.
Qi, you have weird ideas re originality.
I say forgive, because the people of Japan are not the same as those of sixty years ago: the world is based on progressive thought and actions.
Countries that forget these pasts are doomed to repeat them.
However, I don't want to participate in that argument.
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