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Reviews
The Mass of Men (2012)
Depicts the reality
The film starts with the scene that someone attacked the office, which is shown by a security camera there. After that, the story begins in an office where a man visits to lend money and an office lady refuses it because of his 3 minutes-lateness.
Including me, many audiences would expect that a man who attacked the office at the beginning of the film is the man talking with the office lady. But the film betrayed those expectations in a good way and that creates surprise.
Not only that effect, but also it depicts that the poor, who is refused to lend money unreasonably and cannot get enough support to get a job, is not only a few.
I personally like the film so much, it depicts the social gap and contempt to the poor in the US very well with effective surprises.
Spielzeugland (2007)
Great feeling of tention
The story is about Jewish mother and her son. One day, the mother finds out her son is not in the bed in the morning. She thinks he is picked up by German police for Holocaust with her Jewish neighborhood.
In my opinion, the point of this short film is time series. Because of it, the story is not simple to understand, however, by not showing the scene that Heinlish fails to follow David's family until the last part, audiences grasp when the mother sees David became more effective.
The old hands playing the piano in the very last scene is touching one, however, I could not understand the choices of the pictures after that. There are pictures of David's family, Heinlish and her mother, and one more. If they show the pictures at the end, I thought they could be some meaning or message through it.
Overall, I like the glassy atmosphere of the film.
The Crush (2010)
The Crush
A lead character of this short film is a boy in an elementary school who is crush on his teacher. One day, he meets her fiancé and try to relegate him from her.
I think that the acting of the boy is amazing. His serious face and the way to speak at the battle scene between him and the fiancé make the atmosphere more strained. The setting of the boy seems to be around 10 years old. Generally, 10 years-old boys do not speak in such a serious tone and without facial expression. In my opinion, this directing succeeds in creating a suspenseful scene. However, the way to shoot the place of the battle when the fiancé comes in such as adopting a filter and swaying is too much and too direct. That direct direction decrease the scary atmosphere instead of increasing it.
Whacked! (2011)
Whacked! review
Whacked is the short film of a killer who kills a target by using a golf ball. The story begins with the scene of a dead person in a city and suddenly changes to the scene in a golf course. It raises question such as why that person died and where it is, and this is good way to attract audiences. For me, golf is just a sport for vacations, so I did not expect that it was his means of killing at all.
Since I like the emotional movie in which audiences think about what the lead character thinks and how they overcome their hardships, I do not like this film since it was so simple. However, I think the structure of film is clear and it successfully solves the questions which the audiences come up with at the beginning of the film at the last scene.
Lifted (2006)
Simple but funny film
Lifted is the film about an alien who cannot control the UFO well to draw a person in. I like the character's facial expression so much as I do in other films created by Pixar. Because of his facial expression, the audiences can feel and share the emotion of him. The way the boss alien let a trainee alien control the equipment of UFO after he helped his trainee was like people do. These actions and facial expressions like humans make characters more and more approachable. Also, since the story is so easy to understand, I could watch the movie with pure fun. The impact of the last scene was great as well. Overall, the film has so much funny content in it, so I recommend this film to people who want to watch hilarious one and want to watch movie without complex questions which needs to think of.
Father and Daughter (2000)
Great emotional film
Father and daughter is an animation short film. One day, a father leaves at the lakeside without his daughter. She comes to that place every day to meet her father again. He never comes again while she is alive but they see each other in the last scene.
I like the pathetic atmosphere of this film created by French-style music, animation design, and black-and-white pictures. Actually, the story is unrealistic since ordinal people would understand their father will never come back as they grow. However, the daughter's action, going to the lakeside even though she understands it, makes the film more emotional. The contrast by monotonous music and this emotional contents was excellent.
One thing that I could not understand was the reason why the father hugs his daughter at the last scene since he left her alone. But now, that scene seems the daughter's wish and I guess that it means her wish finally comes true after she dies.
Three Days in Kamakura (2012)
Depicts complex emotion well
"Three days in kamakura" is a short film which is about a married couple who live in Kamakura. A husband is an English teacher of an international nursing center and one day, a mother of one of the student did not show up to pick him up. While waiting his mother at the couple's home, they felt fleeting happiness.
Through a whole story, the atmosphere is dismal. Unlike the beautiful image of Kamakura, the weather was always gloomy. But I thought this depicts the emotion of a wife effectively. She seems that she could not rebound because of losing a child by miscarriage. On the other hand, although there are many scenes of her facial expression, it was hard to get the subtleties of her emotion.
Also, there are some loose plot thread that I could not understand. For example, Ms. Yamada leaves a garbage bag in front of the couples' room every day, however, a film did not show why she does such a thing. For me, it was hard to realize what role Ms. Yamada takes in this film.
Gasman (1997)
Question remains
*Including spoilers
The setting was a father who goes to Christmas party with his 4 children. The half of them are his present wife's and the other half.
When the father meets a woman and her two children on the way to the Christmas party, their relationship was not clearly shown. I was a little bit confused because I could not understand the relationship between the father and the other half children. After that, since each daughter struggles for their father by insisting he is their own father I expected that the woman at a railroad track was his mistress. However, who would take children of both wife's and mistress's to Christmas party together? This question remains even after watching the film. Also, how father treats the girls when they struggle was also unclear. I could not see what he thinks and feels through that scenes. However, I personally like the old taste of this film.