Eureka

[Mark Schilling]

 Dennis asked for my views on Eureka. At present I don't have any since I
> haven't seen the film. I had several chances, but scheduling problems
> interfered. The film's length meant devoting the better part of a day to a
> single screening at a time when I was trying to clear huge piles of work
off
> my desk.
>
> I do feel, though, that the critical zeitgeist, both here and in the West,
> is turning against minimalism, which now looks like a very nineties,
> end-of-the-millennium phenomenon. Critics who cover Asian art films have
by
> now seen dozens of slow-paced,. ponderously acted exercises in post-modern
> gloom and the smarter ones have come to see the style for what it often
> is -- a ploy by Asian filmmakers and producers to buy instant artistic
> credibility with foreign festival programmers and critics.
>
> I'm not charging anyone, least of all Aoyama, with cynically graying down
> their films just to win festival invitations, but Asians in the industry
> are, above all, realists who long ago figured out that, to win the heart
of
> a programmer in Toronto or Locarno, gray worked better than the
Technicolor
> emotional hues of so much Asian pop cinema. But as Miike Takashi pointed
out
> to me in a recent interview, festival programmers are fickle folk who may
> like gray this year, but go for red the next. Fashion rules in the world
of
> art cinema, just as it does everywhere else.
>
> This is not to say that minimalism is dead and that Jackie Chan movies are
> going to start getting invitations to the Cannes competition -- only that
> critics who have had too many hard sits with interminable Asian art films
> are finally rebelling. Aoyama, whatever the merits of Eureka, may have
> encountered one such rebel in the NYT's Stephen Holden.
>
> Mark Schilling
> schill at gol.com
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <MileFilms at aol.com>
> To: <kinejapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2000 11:48 PM
> Subject: Eureka
>
>
> > Dear friends,
> >
> > I'm sorry I haven't been able to participate lately and I'm quite behind
> on
> > the times these days. Way, way to many restorations happening here this
> year.
> >
> > Anyway, I was very disturbed by the New York Times trashing this week of
> > Eureka. I thought it a fine film despite (or maybe because) being
> reminiscent
> > of Maborosi. I was also told that a major problem in distributing the
film
> > (okay, besides being almost four hours long, sepia-toned, and with five
> > hundred lines of dialogue all together) would be the director's poor
> critical
> > reputation in Japan. Another concern is Wild Bunch's initial asking
price,
> > but that would be our lookout...
> >
> > Mark, Aaron and others, could you share with me your reviews and
thoughts
> on
> > "Eureka"?
> >
> >
> > Dennis Doros
> > Milestone Film & Video
> > PO Box 128
> > Harrington Park, NJ 07640
> > Phone: (201) 767-3117 or (800) 603-1104
> > Fax: (201) 767-3035
> > Email: milefilms at aol.com
> > www.milestonefilm.com
> >
>
>