The White Girl (dir. Jenny Suen) is an interesting nostalgic drama about Hong Kong/Pearl Village eventually disappearing. It's gorgeous to look at thanks to Christopher Doyle but if we're going by recent village movies,
Lu Over The Wall is better formed. The characters in this aren't as engaging like the Japanese Sakamoto (Joe Odagiri) who starts squatting in the "Ruins" where he plays around with a giant camera obscura or the titular girl (Angela Yuen) who hides from the sun (hence the nickname) and wants to find out about what happened to her singer mother. The young boy Ho Zai (Jeff Yiu) is really the life of the film in his fight to keep the village from being subsumed by commercial mainland China. Some of the scenes and shots are slow to little consequence other than exercising being a fan of slow cinema. Still, the lamenting atmosphere and sense of place is strong, and worth watching if interested in Hong Kong's death by 2047.
Lu Over The Wall (dir. Masaaki Yuasa) is a thrilling and uplifting Japanese animated film about Hinashi, a Japanese fishing village, overcoming their prejudice of merfolk. It's very much a mix of
Ponyo and
Beck, as the reluctant protagonist Kai must contend that in Hinashi it's either work in seafood processing like his dad or make umbrellas like his grandpa, which is why he's secretive on his music-making. His music gets spotted online by his neighbours, Yuho and Kunio, and so they try to form a band when they encounter Lu, a mermaid that loves music so much she forms feet when it's played. Lu has a dad simply called Papa who is a giant shark that can transform into a shark businessman when he comes into town for seafood inspection. The character relationships are enjoyable and while friendship is a cliched theme in animated fare, it's very much earned here especially in the current climate of xenophobia and bigotry. The film is full of wonderfully animated sequences. This is Masaaki Yuasa at his finest in purely Flash animation where surrealism, unnatural proportions, movent and exertion are given extraordinary power. There are some mindblowing 360 shots. While it's a fun adventure movie, it also delves into fears, insecurities, and past traumas of the residents that gives the film some more subtext. This is all built up to a flooding climax that is even more exciting than
Your Name's earthquake. Honestly, it's the most satisfyingly Spielberg-like film I've seen in a long while, more so than the disappointing
Super 8 or the nostalgia exercise that is
Stranger Things. Also, mer-doggies are the cutest damn thing in a film this year.
and despite the gruesome subject matter, I found their interactions really touching.
