Tag: Foreign

Désolé, Pardon, Je m’excuse was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2025! It had its showing on Wednesday, July 30th as part of the festival, and it was the World Premiere of this film!

Who doesn’t love a good torture flick? Wait, not torture flick, but actually someone getting tortured. Yeah, apparently in this world people can just release videos of themselves torturing people and people just like, watch it and think its interesting. Go figure.

Ella (Eva Prévost) works in some job and has to do customer support, but when these new torture videos hit the net she is all over it. Who cares about jobs and responsibilities? And for some reason, her boss (Tobie Pelletier) is totally fine with it, because she is hot. Anyways, Ella has dreams of getting into the torture game. It sounds fun! So she begs to take her bosses AirBnB so she can torture someone to death. Again, normal thing to do.

He says she should start smaller, maybe a nice dog, but sure, she can have two days.

Well, long story short, she ends up capturing a guy to torture accidentally. And it doesn’t go well! More and more people get involved, and well, shenanigans!

Also starring Luc-Olivier Boutet, Julianne Boucher-Telmosse, Jo Cormier, and Guy Jodoin.

Getting tortured is best done with someone who can smile.

Well. First thing that takes getting used to is how really into torture the people in the world seem to be. Like, the beginning is so silly, it is almost confusing as a viewer. But once the plot gets established, and Ella gets going, we realize she is just a confused young woman who doesn’t know anything and just wants to help people. Even if she is bad at it.

Honestly, the movie was a blast though. The main character is just so…silly and yet earnest at the same time. She is hard to describe, but she is the main character and we are here to figure out how to get out of her weird scenario that she is totally responsible for. I didn’t expect a second person to get involved, nor did I expect 5 or more.

And yet, the movie goes in a way that makes sense, and ends in a way unexpected. Another fun slight contradiction, but this is the realty and we have to accept it.

3 out of 4.

Good Game was watched as part of the Fantasia International Film Festival 2025! It had its showing on Sunday, July 27th as part of the festival, and it was the World Premiere of this film!

Esports, it is so big right now. And Good Game is not the first movie to exist about esports in a “underdog sports story” and it certainly won’t be the last, but it is definitely the one to talk about right now.

To set the stage, we are in Hong Kong, and we have our group of ragtag people ready to make a team. We have someone aptly named Solo, whom was just kicked off of his esports team for trying to do too much on his own. We have Tai, who owns a failing internet cafe, because kids only play games on their phones now, and he employs his daughter Fay, who cannot hold a normal job at all. And we have Octo, a former movie star, now also faded to obscurity, who just likes to play games with his wife because she is losing her mind, literally, and the games help keep her functioning and thinking.

So of course, these four are going to make a team, to compete in a upcoming tournament for a lot of cash that they can just enter and it is perfect timing! But, their main problem is, they aren’t very collectively skilled, especially against groups who play together all the time. And they all have issues that will, of course, get in their way of achievement.

Starring Yanny Wing-yan Chan, Man-Chung Lam, Will Or, and Meng Lo.

Don’t worry about the fifth person here. They are not on the team!

Okay, so, like I mentioned, a ragtag group of people coming together to do sports and succeed is not a new concept. Nor is it a new concept for Esports. So going into this movie, I was a little bit waiting for it to really wow me with somethin new. And unfortunately, it did the absolute opposite, and I kind of hate it.

First note, and every E-sports movie does this. They are not playing a real game that people know about of course, it is a made up one for the movie. It is FINE. But when we have to watch the “game” for so much of the movie, it becomes awkward. Regular sports don’t have this issue. Even movies about made up sports don’t have this issue because they can still play them. But I am left watching a generic shooting game, with rules that fit for the movie, and just have to trust their word. In an attempt to make it more exciting, the Player Characters that they controlled were played by real people too, to give it an action feel to it, but when we don’t even know the real rules of the game (because its made up and just sort of winging things), it never really grabs the excitement that can exist for real properties.

Now secondly, movies need tension for people to care. And sometimes that tension is obvious, like this movie. Ailing wife, mother disapproving of the gaming, anger issues. And they will all happen, and none of them really…seem to matter. Who cares if a mom is upset, when you are an adult, and literally doing it with your other parent? If your wife is sick, and she approved of the game playing, she will still be fine with it even if she is unconscious. (That does sound more shallow than I want it to be, but…it is a movie).

More importantly, there is one pivotal scene that really just got under my skin. The rules of the match where to protect a single player for the game time, if they do, then they win, and if they lose, they lose. An attacking and a defending team. For the movie to have the group have a FALLING OUT, because the player who needed to survive to win, did whatever he could to survive, makes absolutely no sense. It is a video game they are playing, for money they all need! I can’t imagine a scenario with real people where using teammates as shield would piss them off in this scenario. No one is getting actually hurt, and they all have the same goal.

It is just…It is a movie that is trying to use real sports drama in esports, for age groups and morals that don’t exist in gaming community. The movie stated out standard and cliche, but it became a bad film and I struggled to get through the last half hour, knowing it not only offered me nothing new, but absolutely bad plot points.

0 out of 4.

Butterflies (Perhoset) was watched as part of Cascadia International Women’s Film Festival 2025! It has its showing on Sunday, April 27th as part of the festival.

Working women never have it easy. Just ask Siiri (Aska Korttila), a working woman, and she doesn’t have it easy!

Specifically she has a government job. No, not one she was voted in, like a politician. She works for one of them, Lena-Maj (Leea Klemola), as some high level of assistant. She has to help her get from place A to B, get her in contact with people, book their hotels, book their cars, handle her meeting notices and phone calls. It is a lot of work. There is even another assistant, who is much worse at the job, but he is cool so he gets away with it.

Regardless, Siiri is now in her home town where she doesn’t want to be, because that is the next stop in the tour. And thankfully, it is a quick one. But because her boss’s husband picks that time to let her know he wants a divorce, so Lena-Maj agrees to stay in the town for their little festival all weekend to try and have fun and avoid reality. And now, Siiri can’t escape her own!

Which means dealing with her father (Jani Volanen). She doesn’t like him. He is a screw up. And he knows it. But he just wants to help her, even if he cant help himself. And it turns out that the apple doesn’t fall that far from the tree.

Also starring Alex Anton.

The fields that grow her sorrows are bountiful.

The two leads in this film are uncomfortable people to watch. They rolled low on charisma and luck, and things don’t go their way. They are not the life of the party (despite the dad being a semi successful musician or something like that)? So if you are going to watch this movie, you are going to have to be willing to deal with that uncomfortableness.

I think the situations presented in this film were decent. I think they could have escalated a bit more, and often kept staying in rather…tame situations. It never made it to the next level. And worst of all, it didn’t feel like it was worth it at the end. It reminds me of a Blink-182 lyric, “Work sucks, I know”. But this is a movie where unfortunate things happen without a great level of payoff. “Life sucks, and then you die,” another song quote reference from The Fools.

A way to describe this could be a black comedy, but usually those movies go darker and potentially include death. So a black comedy without the extreme elements? With a bit of that “British” humor behind it.

It certainly achieves that result, but I wish it went to those greater levels.

2 out of 4.

Flow was watched early from a screener. It is being released in Seattle on December 6th, 2024.

Who doesn’t love a good animal adventure? This one is about a cat (none of these animals have an actual name in the movie, but, my own kid referred to the cat as Felix, so now you have to know that as well). This cat likes to chill by itself, and eat fish that some dogs have fished up, quite rudely. The area has no humans at all, but there is a house of a woodcarver, who really loved cats. Maybe it was this one? So there are several cat statues around, some quite large.

And…then a flood happens! A large flood, with the water keep growing, and growing, and growing.

Well, the cat doesn’t like water, and is a bad swimmer, but thankfully…a small sailboat appears nearby and saves it! And it has a Capybara in it? What the hell is a capybara doing steering a boat? Will it eat the cat? Better to be in the boat, than in the water. Soon, other animals join the boat, a whole misfit crew situation, as they try to navigate this flooded world, with food scarcity, not much land, and shiny baubles.

There is not enough pro-Capybara media out there. There is not enough anti-Capybara media out there, either. Where is all of the Capybara media??

Flow feels like a cutscene of a PlayStation 2 video game, and a short turned feature length film, all in the best ways. It is Cel-shaded, but also, something else? It reminded me about the short Paper-man, sort of. A highly stylized art style that was unique, and maybe still a little old and retro, while clearly being better than the technology 25 years ago.

What the animation did was allow the film to be looked at with curiosity and pleasure. The other aspect that should be highly touted (And again, reminiscent of an animated short), was that it had no dialogue. These weren’t talking cartoon animals, they are just regular cartoon animals, trying to live their animal lives in a world that seemingly was abandoned by humans. I love me a no dialogue film, if it works for the plot and story, which this one absolutely does. The story we can tell through their interactions. The story of what happened to the humans can only be guessed and theorized, which is itself fun. And the story of how these animals learn to co-exist and try to survive in their new environment is one worth seeing.

I think Flow is an animated film that takes risks, and in a year where there are some big budget releases that realize they can put out lesser products, and still make bags full of money, it is great when these smaller films show that the genre (animated) is one still worthy of your time.

3 out of 4.

Killing Romance was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Saturday, May 18th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

First, Hwang Yeo-Rae (Lee Ha-nee) gets famous! A viral person, a superstar singer, and an actress, and she is everywhere. She rises so fast, she gets put in the lead of the most expensive film of all time, and it is a dud. Her acting falls flat, she is a laughing stock. Sure, people love her for this, but she thinks this is a tragedy and her life is over.

Then she meets Jonathan Na (Lee Sun-kyun), a very rich, powerful man, who helps her out of a jam, and seems to like her. Perfect. They live away from Korea for so many years, and eventually return, Hwang now a house wife, with the world forgotten about her.

But then she meets Kim Beom-Woo (Gong Myoung). No, this is not a love thing. This is just a guy who happens to be a super fan of her work. Apparently there is a lot of them ou there. Kim is stuck in a house hold where he cannot pass the college entrance exam, and cannot go to Seoul University like everyone else in his family has ever done. He is a disappointment. But he is able to get a script to Hwang when the couple moves next door.

A script? For a musical? Can this be Hwang’s next big break? Well, no, because Jonathan says no. He cancels the whole thing. He is powerful. He is strong. He is rich. He is controlling over Hwang. He can get people killed. Hwang realizes she needs out of this relationship, it is toxic. But to do that, either Jonathan will have to die, or she will have to kill herself.

Also starring Bae Yoo-ram, Pierce Conran, and Shim Dal-gi.

Gosh, I am already in love with this guy myself. I need to of course start this section talking about Lee Sun-kyun, who tragically passed away in December. I won’t go more into the story and circumstances of his death, but they were very tragic from almost every standpoint. He was famously known as the rich dad in the Parasite movie from a few years ago. I don’t know if this is his last movie, but it is certainly now one of the last ones. And it is tragic that this is a movie where the main plotline is to actually try and kill his character.

And he destroyed this role as the toxic mean husband.

Killing Romance is certainly a movie that is indescribable in many ways. It is a BIZARRE film. It is wacky. It is strange. It is an experience.

I think the offput nature of the film, the switching aspect ratios, the switching of quality, the terrible background scenes, the zany nature of Jonathan’s character, are all just certain features that highlight the absurdity of cinema. I know this isn’t a negative of Korean cinema or anything like that. This is just a movie that wants to do its own thing, and is unapologetic in the process.

Is Killing Romance itself a good film? Honestly, hard to tell. I did enjoy my watch overall, and I appreciated the creative output. And again, if this one is Sun-kyun’s swan song, it was certainly a cherry on top.

2 out of 4.

Tenement was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Friday, May 17th as part of the festival, and it was the North American premiere of this film!

Sorya (Thanet Thorn) is a Japanese-Cambodia woman and a Manga artist, who has already hit a wall in life. She likes what she does, but it isn’t challenge, and she wants to make a horror manga. Also, her mom died. That is important. Because of the death, and wanting to make the book, Sorya wants to go back to her ancestral home in Cambodia, to the same apartment complex where her mom used to live, to help for inspiration, and her own life in general.

And heck, this place is a dumb. People seem friendly, but you can tell it has not been maintained in any level, and its just rubble. Her boyfriend Daichi (Yoshihiko Hosoda) joins her on this adventure, and she is also able to meet her Aunt Mao (Sveng Socheata), who still lives there. This surely will be a great place for inspiration.

Unfortunately, they didn’t know how apt the horror would be. With basically cults running around and rituals, it turns out their stay here as tenants might not be that long.

Also starring Sahrah Pich Manika, Rous Mony, and Touch Narady.

Exactly what I like waking up to see. All of my neighbors with candles watching me, for protection. Tenement feels almost meta in a sense. The lead couple wants to go to this complex, specifically to get a horror feel, and of course that is what they get. They get weirdly terrorized in their sleep. They have creepy kids singing songs. They get to worry if everything is just a dream.

But all of these elements just felt like regular horror staples. It was interesting that they were so up front with the horror aspects at the start. They didn’t keep things in the dark and rely entirely on jump scares or anything like that. It just failed to capture me at all on the story. It was boring, with a few interesting scenes thrown in. And, I can also say that I didn’t like the ending that much.

Now, there can be a lot more to this story that I am unaware of. Like Cambodian history, or the area, and that all might have deeper meanings, but I am just a lost American, looking for scares, and getting a movie that felt disappointing in that aspect.

Oh well. Might still be worth a watch for the visuals, but my overall disappointment in the matter is what judged this rating.

1 out of 4.

Excursion was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Tuesday, May 14th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

Iman (Asja Zara Lagumdzija) is just a girl, trying to do her best in upper middle school, whatever grade that is officially I am not sure. Just the last one of the middle school in that country. Every year the kids get to go on an excursion to another country or area, and it is a long process to figure out. They have parental involvement, a lot of politics, and a lot of worries about the price. Because sure, they could go somewhere fancy, but if the whole class cant go because its too expensive, then maybe it shouldn’t be a trip.

They mostly want to go to Italy, despite the fact that it is expensive. They are worried about going to a poorer country and getting taken advantage of, or in trouble.

But back to Iman. She is a smart girl, she studies and gets As, and helps her bestie cheat. What a friend. During a game of truth or dare, she agrees with a question that, according to another boy, they had sex. Yes of course this is true. Shocking to everyone. But it is true! This lie of course, has to be believed, so it leads to more and more lies, making things more uncomfortable, until the obvious starts to spill over.

Also starring Maja Izetbegovic, Izudin Bajrovic, Mediha Musliovic, and Nadja Spaho.

Just kids lying and being kids I guess. Excursion is a very tame film. Fun fact, by the end, you won’t see the excursion happen. That isn’t like half of the film, it is zero of the film. But the discussion of said trip is a large portion of the plot, usually involved with just parents and teachers, but it pads this movies run time. It is barely over 90 minutes, and it really needs that padding.

The films other plot, about Iman’s lies are just…disappointing. This giant blow up never really occurs either. People hear the rumors and spread them as kids. There was talk of an abortion occurring. Some of the teachers also become aware of it. But nothing ever really boils over into the “this is too much” area of the film that one hopes this would build up to!

In fact, this is an independent film that really feels like it had the idea for the story, but not the idea on how to end said story. Too much is left unresolved, and this overall just feels like a bigger waste of my time. The story is unexciting, and neither of the main plot points are resolved. It was just a small look into the life of this group of kids. And sure, films like that exist. But it is wild how many independent films just decide they can end it suddenly and say that is what they were going for. At some point, you have to call it out, and that is what I am doing for Excursion here.

A waste of time, a story that doesn’t live up to its plot outline, or its title.

1 out of 4.

The Quiet Maid was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Sunday, May 12th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

Ana (Paula Grimaldo) is a Colombian who finds herself in Spain! She is here to work as a maid, to earn more money, because her sister is going to go to medical school, but they need money for it. She finds a family who needs maid services, and can sponsor her living in the country.

They promised that soon, in September, they will work on getting her the papers she needs to be a permanent citizen, which would mean a higher salary, and an ability to make more money. But first, the whole month of August, she is with this same family in their big vacation home. They need her there every day, 7 days in a row, none off, and if she does will during their vacation, she will be given a lot more time off and money with the family back at their regular home.

But, of course, this family is a bunch of rich fuckers. The dad doesn’t trust her. She is constnatly talked about like she isn’t there from the son’s horndog friends. She can’t go out and have fun ever, like Gisela (Nany Tovar), a fellow Colombian maid from a different house nearby. Gisela pushes her to date, to dance, and more, but Ana knows one wrong move, she could be fired, and sent back out of the country.

The family sucks though, and eventually Ana will realize that they are not going to necessarily keep their words. So she is going to have to make her own way through this month, for herself, and for her family back at home.

Also starring Ariadna Gil, Luis Bermejo, Pol Hermoso, and Violeta Rodríguez.

Sometimes you need a break to just play with your pussy.

Yes, this is another fuck the rich movie. But this one does it the best, of ones I have seen so far at SIFF. A bit satirical at times, and a little bit over the top. Certainly a potentially strong pro-woman message about a woman doing things her way, and accomplishing despite men and spiteful women trying to break her.

According to the trivia, this is the first European film to be fully funded by NFTs. Which is something I really hate to hear, and it makes sense a few of the plot elements in retrospect. I won’t let that take away anything from the actual movie, but NFT’s just feel scammy to me, so I wonder if anyone got scammed as a result of the making of this film. That would drive me nuts.

Grimaldo as the lead does a lot with a little. After all, she is *quiet*, not loud. She is an observer, and makes plans in case things blow up. She speaks up for herself when she realizes that these papers can likely never come, but is also forced into many uncomfortable situations thanks to the nature of her job. She can’t really say “No” a lot for reasonable tasks that would fall under her umbrella, and if she agreed to be with them every day, she has to be with them in their good and their bad moments.

I think this film is a bit funny, despite the drama and serious moments. A good tale of gleeful revenge and perseverance by the end. We are all Ana at points, and its good to see when good people come up on top.

3 out of 4.

Solitude was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Sunday, May 12th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

Gunnar (Þröstur Leó Gunnarsson) is an old man, who lives off on his own large land, with his horses and other animals. He likes it like that. He is self efficient. It is reliable. And he has turned down many offers to sell his land, because he just wants to stay there until he dies. Well, the government won’t wait for him, and because he didn’t negotiate, they bought his land from him anyways due to government legalese stuff. And his land was such a good place and need, he is getting $150 million, which is a lot for a dude that old, to do anything he wants in his life.

So he moves to the city, even though he never wanted to, in Reykjavík, and gets a quick apartment to exist in. Has its own furniture. Now what?

Well, the first person he meets is Ari (Hermann Samúelsson), a 10 year old kid and neighbor, who wants to sell him a newspaper. Literally this is his only human contact, and its frequent enough, so that when he is locked out of his house, he asks Gunnar if he can wait in his for his mom (Anna Gunndís Guðmundsdóttir) to return. Hell, he even becomes a babysitter, and a very nice friend to the family.

But Gunnar is just not used to people so much, he is not used to common social norms, and doesn’t know what actions are inappropriate. He just wants to help people. And when people think he is a nefarious old guy, then that is the only thing he can be to them.

Also starring Jóhann Jónsson and Jóel Sæmundsson.

He’s about to drop the hottest new track of 2024. I think the actor who played Gunner here was a pretty solid dude. He carried pain in his eyes, and felt like he was truly going through these experiences. I think the story is a good idea for one, a nice clashing of generations, and a desire for more innocence in the world. A desire for people to just be good to each other.

But the film didn’t do enough to get that ending. We had a small bit a conflict, and almost no closure, because that is life or whatever. I think there was a lot more drama that could have been explored, and this movie left too much on the table. And that should be a compliment. I wanted more of Gunner and his story about acclimating into city life at his old age, and we just get so little. The snippets we get are good. But why leave it at the simple story? Why leave it so incomplete.

I am not sure what else I can say here. It is overall just disappointment, compared to anything else. Because there is a lot of shit movies out there, and I just want those with potential to really deliver, and not waddle around. For example, the refugee plot line was great! It showed so much character, and had the potential for a lot more. But it was brushed aside so fast that we could barely even have a moment to focus on it with Gunner.

Oh well. If I am alone in this rating, maybe I will be the real solitude.

2 out of 4.

Bonjour Switzerland was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Saturday, May 11th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

Hello, Switzerland! Yes, I know a little French, be impressed.

To set the stage for this film, you need to know about Switzerland. And you know what? I am going to quote Wikipedia here. “Switzerland has four national languages: mainly German (spoken natively by 62.8% of the population in 2016); French (22.9%) spoken natively in the west; and Italian (8.2%) spoken natively in the south. The fourth national language, Romansh (0.5%), is a Romance language spoken locally in the southeastern trilingual canton of Grisons.”

Four languages is a lot, but not really for Europe. A big German population, by a lot. Well, in this film, there is a referendum being brought up to change Switzerland from FOUR languages, to just ONE language. And it has gained some steam, but most people think it is absolutely silly. They like how unique everything is. And the way the law is on the ballot, they have to pick if they want it to take effect or not, and if they want it to pass, which language should be the one remaining?

Well, shockingly it passes. And due to apathy and other reasons, it looks like FRENCH is the winning language. This pisses off most people. As now many folks have to learn French, more than expected. And our main character, a cop (Beat Schlatter), is struggling to learn, and he will need to, to do his job.

He actually gets a big job, to go down to Ticino, an area of Switzerland that is mostly Italian speaking, because they are rising up and talking of separating from their country. Forming their own tiny nation, and will fight and attack to get it going. Oh boy. Politics, amirite?

Also starring Vincent Kucholl, Catherine Pagani, Silvia Jost, and Leonardo Nigro.

I don’t know if this is a Switzerland specific joke or not. But, tiny car and many people is still funny. Okay, first off, let me tell you about what I learned about the title as it is in Switzerland. It is called “Bon Schuur Ticino”. So, first off, Ticino is that one area with the Italians. They can be specific to them in the title, since they would know that, while us filthy Americans do not. But Bon Schuur? That is nonsense technically. It is how a German speaking Swiss would likely pronounce Bonjour. So a German speaking Swiss, speaking French, poorly. That is pretty clever, and something I never would have gotten on my own (thank you Swiss friend who saw this and laughed about it).

Now, onto the story. It is quite a very silly one. We have terrorism, and deceit. We have bombs going off and people getting kidnapped. We have old people potentially getting arrested or fined for just wanting to do their own thing. That’s right, we have a satire.

And like any satire, you have to know everything they are satire-ing, to get the full picture. That can be hard to get with a foreign flick whose own politics and social norms are so unlike your own. I am assuming there is a LOT of this movie that I just didn’t get and would have found it to be a lot more funny if I did. But alas, that is the problem with culture sometimes. As I am not a Swiss Scholar, I couldn’t even get the joke in its title.

Overall I can say it is an interesting and amusing movie. There are parts that still made me laugh, but a lot of parts that just fell flat, and I can only think to blame it on the fact mentioned above.

2 out of 4.