4. “Oldboy”
Oh-Daesu, a commoner with a bad drinking habit, picked the wrong night to get wasted. On his daughter’s birthday, captors kidnap him and murder his wife, trapping him in a hotel room for fifteen years. When he exits, vengeance is on his mind, but little does he know that his captors are not finished with him. Park Chan-Wook’s most violent and propulsive entry in his Vengeance Trilogy is so startlingly and thrillingly executed that it gave the revenge picture a kick in the ass that lasted for years (and made near-contemporaries like “Man On Fire” look positively timid). Unlike other twist or revelation-laden films, “Oldboy” still rewards multiple viewings due to a tone that veers between roller-coaster ride and shock-corridor funhouse mirrors and a number of standout action sequences that would inform several bigger American films, naturally without any edge.
3. “Memories Of Murder”
Like all Bong Joon-Ho pictures, his sophomore feature-film effort —a sprawling murder-mystery procedural about a serial killer on the loose— is profound, absurd, comical and breathtaking sometimes all within a few moments. No one seems to quite expertly negotiate such discordant moods without coming off as tonally dyslexic. Song Kang-Ho (a Bong regular) stars as a bumbling, lazy local detective all too eager to pin a series of rapes and murders of local women on the first mentally disabled sap who mildly fits the description. But his case is abruptly transformed when a methodical big city detective from Seoul (Kim Sang-kyung) is sent in to assist. Predictably, their methods clash, but as the roller-coaster drama unfolds, and both police officers are faced with their own epiphanies and moral dilemmas, this zigzagging saga lands in some beautifully unexpected places.
2. “The New World”
What is man given, and what shall he take from the earth? Settlers arrive at Jamestown with unease, unfamiliar with the local natives, in this story not entirely about the mythic meeting of Pocahontas and John Smith, but also of the human nature behind colonial expansion. Unusually gun-shy, Colin Farrell’s inward John Smith is taken by the youthful spirit of the young Native girl as the settlers are enamored with the land, while we remain uncertain whether they are part of the land or vice versa. Typically poetic and gorgeously realized, like Terrence Malick’s other works, “The New World” is principally concerned with man’s grasp exceeding his reach, and the need for possessing what cannot be kept in one’s hand.
1. “Cache”
The camera always deceives in a Michael Haneke movie, a theme that’s run through his films, but reached its zenith with this suspense thriller. Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche play a troubled couple who find their marriage stretched to the breaking point when they start receiving mysterious videotapes capturing the exterior of their suburban townhouse. At first seemingly like an obscure prank, the videos start to stockpile, and the couple suddenly remember dark secrets about their pasts. The film works doubly if you’re familiar with Haneke’s usual interest in French/Algerian conflicts, though it still satisfies as a conventional thriller with unspeakable depths that bubble over in nasty ways. Consider the final shot, one that twists the film on its head and offers a host of new answers and disturbing sociopolitical possibilities.
