Deep Drama In Hollywood And Asia

I first thought of studying film after watching an Ozu film. It was so amazingly quiet and intense that I felt an urge of expressing myself the same way. So real and yet so surreal. After getting to know the Asian film industry slightly better, I knew it wasn't that all Japanese or Taiwanese films were were composed like this - in fact most of them tried to do what they saw in western films - but i guess every Asian director could relate to those feelings that are expressed so subtly. Not a racist thing, just different types of cultural behaviors in the eastern side of the world, or at least in some Asian countries.

Tsai Ming Liang is a great example, although an extreme one. His film The River is dealing with such intense dramatic issues in such a quiet, almost serene tone, that it gets to your entire body. The Japanese anime director Makoto Shinkai is another interesting example. I remembered his films when watching the trailer for Welcome To The Rileys.

Welcome To The Rileys deals with loss, like the films of Shinkai. But unlike Shinkai, it seems like the writer/director of The Rileys is following every Hollywood cliche possible. Too bad that James Gandolfini, an actor with great talent, is sucked into such a bullshit drama that probably will get some Oscars.

Remember the Dardenne brothers with their film The Son? It had the same basic theme as The Rileys, parents coping with their son's death. You didn't hear anybody saying the son was dead. But you just knew it. They used cinema, not cheap soap-style manipulations to give you the story.