tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494160638739613756.post7560383310653219300..comments2024-03-19T03:18:53.505-04:00Comments on Not Just Movies: The River (1997)Jakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09078001374402400232noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494160638739613756.post-3209743732658114172010-04-26T08:04:11.123-04:002010-04-26T08:04:11.123-04:00I'll be interested to see how I respond to it ...I'll be interested to see how I respond to it after delving into his more cherished works like What Time is It There? and Goodbye Dragon Inn. But I found this movie to be curious resonant. I agree that its themes are broad and at no time mistakable, and Xiao-kang's illness certainly isn't used to the same evocative effect as those of Safe and Bigger Than Life. Tsai made it work for me, though, through his structuring of his open themes and the way he made them feel just a bit abstract when they were anything but.<br /><br />As I said, it's got some issues, and if it made it into my best of the '90s list, it would not do so until after the 50 mark, but I was sufficiently swept away by the tone and the choked emotion laid bare even as it never really surfaced completely.Jakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09078001374402400232noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-494160638739613756.post-17838476650206789002010-04-26T03:43:41.262-04:002010-04-26T03:43:41.262-04:00Wonderful review, Jake, of my least favorite Tsai ...Wonderful review, Jake, of my least favorite Tsai film. I thought it went on to become a parody of itself and and of all that Tsai's ever made. Tsai wallows in melodramatic excess, subsequently de-dramatizing it with mixed results. All his ideas are clear from scene one and he only goes on to pound on them. And I also felt that using Xiao-Kang's condition as a metaphor was a weak strategy.<br /><br />On any other day, I might have liked it. But having seen Tsai's films in order, this fell flat.Just Another Film Buffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17880550053788464732noreply@blogger.com