Dead Europe

Not too much to say about this one, other than that it’s not very good. The story follows an Australian man as he travels to Greece to spread his immigrant father’s ashes. He discovers some secrets about his father’s past, which are supposed to be dark and troubling, but we never really learn why the father acted the way he did. The film instead relies on some unsubtle arguments between characters to establish that yes, there are disagreements between Palestinians and Jews, and between Catholics and Jews, and that yes, these disagreements are a part of European heritage and history. Then we are just meant to transplant this information into our understanding of the father’s actions, and feel moral outrage or anger or something. But there’s no real connection between the characters and the dreadful racist things they say, so I ended up not feeling anything at all.

Rating: 4/10

The Sessions

Not too much to say about this one either, other than that it’s very funny. The three stars (John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy) are great, and funny. It was so funny that I feel like I missed half the lines in the movie because the sound of the crowd laughing drowned out the dialogue. I should watch this again at home so that I can actually hear what’s being said, and it will probably be even funnier. Did I mention it’s very funny?

Rating: 8/10

The Girl from the South

If this was a Hollywood biopic and not a documentary, it might have gone a certain way: a youthful, idealistic girl engages in political activism (in this case, it’s for the reunification of Korea); gets the attention of the government in a bad way; overcomes hardships (like being in prison) while continuing to fight for her cause; and eventually becomes a hero, and a symbol for what’s right in the world.

The beginning of this documentary feels like it’s going to follow that plot. The director, José Luis García, was in North Korea during a youth festival in the 80’s and filmed the “girl from the South”, Lim Su-kyung, during her press conferences and rallies. The archival footage is very well-shot, and I kept wondering why this movie was only being released now. It turns out that the more interesting part of the story occurs in the present day, when the director returns to Korea. I think he is hoping to find that the girl (now woman) is still continuing her activism. While Lim does still do a political radio show on the Internet, she’s become more subdued, and private. She seems not to want to be on camera, and keeps taking the filmmaker to dinners in large groups, so as to avoid talking to him directly. When García finally gets to interview her, it’s like pulling teeth as she keeps deflecting his questions. She certainly still has her political opinions, but she’s no longer the charismatic and gregarious girl that she was as a student.

In a way, the movie becomes a story of how a person can change. Lim does not live up to the symbol that she was supposed to be. Whether it was the suffering she went through in prison, or the tragic accidental death of a family member, or just age, something changed her and made her into a real person, and not a stock character in a film.

Rating: 7/10