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FILM COMMENT
January / February 2004
TWO FOR THE ROAD
Filmmaker Michael Almereyda offers a couple of highlights from 2003
Left: Invisible Light
I have to confess a year's-end revulsion for lists, awards and the impulse to make a horse race out of the annual run of unique and disparate films. That said, one movie that keeps galloping in my head is Joe Dante's hilarious Looney Tunes: Back in Action, a corporate creation that manages to reflect more gleeful personality and anarchic energy than it has any right to. I was amazed by the number and quality of gags crammed into every square inch and the unexpected depths of nostalgia emanating from brief appearances by the likes of Speedy Gonzales and Yosemite Sam. As the preening, prancing chairman of the Acme Corporation, Steve Martin holds his own against his cartoon co-stars, and Brendan Fraser is notably good in conveying what it's like to be trapped in a revolving door with Daffy Duck. (This year's Oscar winners, if they're really worth their salt, would do well to sign on for the sequel.)
On the other end of the spectrum, there's Gina Kim's achingly spare, focused,
naturalistic (and undistributed) feature debut,
Invisible Light
, which divides itself between two stories linking two solitary young women, one in L.A., the other in Seoul. The film's title is rather precious, and contradictory, as what's remarkable about the movie is extremely visible. Kim has a terrific eye, a gift for near-wordless storytelling, a knack for generating a tense gliding rhythm between images and sounds, shots and scenes, and for yielding a quality of radiance in her actors.
© 2004 by Michael Almereyda
