Movie Log: Take Care of My Cat, Felidae, and THE LAST DAYS OF DISCO
Take Care of My Cat
2001, South Korea, d. Jeong Jae-eun, 1h52m, ***
Who's In It: Bae Doona
Reason to Watch: Rise of Hallyuwood
Take Care of My Cat chronicles five young women after graduating high school, and how they drift apart because of their differences in ambition and social status. It's an interesting and frank look at this period in South Korean history: racism, socio-economic background, and sexism. One of the girls gives another a cat as a gift, because (heart-breakingly) it's all she could afford. But the recipient works long hours to succeed in the growing corporate world of Seoul and has to give it back. The cat is indicative of how the girls find less time to care for each other.
This was a major period for Korean cinema, and this was a cult hit that didn't make it overseas until much later. The depiction of characters is very artfully done, but the plot is unhurried and scattershot. Worth it for some of the actresses' performances: most of them would go on to have storied careers, Bae Doona chief among them.
Felidae
1994, Germany, d. Michael Schaack, 1h22m, ***1/2
Who's In It: Klaus Maria Brandauer
Reason to Watch: To find out what the heck it is
Only in Germany could someone produce the country's most expensive animated movie - one that looks better than some of Don Bluth's more harried productions - but make it about a cat serial killer, with graphic cat vivisections, realistic cat sex, cat death cults, weird talk about cats not intermingling "races", and torturous lab experiments on strays. All with a banging theme song by Boy George.
This movie exists because it is based on a novel that was a best-seller in Germany at the time. Animation was the only feasible way to make a movie about cats. Clearly the subject matter is adult, and I guess this allows for a fantastical take on hot-button topics that were still hitting too close to home in Germany. Despite the "can't we all just get along" happy ending, the movie treats the villain's eugenics plot with a little too much relish. I'm not at all surprised to find out that the author of the original book turned out to be a far-right, anti-immigrant jerk in recent years.
This movie is for nobody. It is nightmare fuel. I had a blast.
Subway
1985, France, d. Luc Besson, 1h42m, ***
Who's In It: Isabelle Adjani, Christopher Lambert, Jean Reno
Reason to Watch: Cinema du Look
Luc Besson's second film - or first with a decent budget - opens with a bravado car chase through the streets of Paris as a tuxedoed Christopher Lambert has a MacGuffin and is being chased by a bunch of men also in tuxedos. He escapes into the darkness of the Paris Metro system, and the entire rest of the movie plays out underground. He has stolen important papers from Isabelle Adjani because he has a crush on her; he's a safecracker and I guess that's his love language. He meets a whole bunch of interesting people who live underground: Jean Reno who won't stop drumming on things, a saxophonist busker who won't stop facing the wall, and a roller-skating purse-snatcher.
They form a band.
This movie starts great and establishes Luc Besson's sense of style; it nails a real '80s New Wave sensibility better than most Hollywood movies. This movement in French cinema - the "Cinema du Look" - emphasized style, sometimes to the detriment of substance. As it does here. The characters are just not that interesting, and it loses a lot of steam when it turns into a hangout movie with a nihilistic point-of-view. The Bass Player is played by Eric Serra, who would score most of Luc Besson's movies and GoldenEye, which come to think of it was likely influenced by the slick Cinema du Look style. The movie ends with a rock concert about how its story didn't mean anything and it doesn't matter.
The Last Days of Disco
1998, USA, d. Whit Stillman, 1h53m, ****1/2
Who's In It: Kate Beckinsale, Chloë Sevigny, Chris Eigeman
Whit Stillman is one of those filmmakers whose writing is so distinctive you know it immediately, and yet it never sounds inauthentic. He writes what he knows, and what he knows is insufferably well-educated, white, privileged Ivy Leaguers. He debuted with the incredible Metropolitan (1990) about the last days of Manhattan's debutante ball scene, which is stuffed with characters you would never want to be friends with but love hanging out with. Characters who are awful but funny and weirdly self-aware, in a satire that also has genuine empathy for its subjects.
The Last Days of Disco is the third film (or second chronologically) in a loose trilogy about this class of people (and there are cameos linking them which enrich the experience of rewatches). It is a miracle of "period" filmmaking on a budget, a testament to how great Kate Beckinsale is, and a brilliant "needle drop" soundtrack that avoids all the cliches. It stands on its own but also builds on all of the best (and very different) things Stillman accomplished in his first two films.
While it could never truly be the ultimate love letter to Disco, since it doesn't speak to what that movement meant to the gay community or to people of color, it does become very apparent that this was the last time so many diverse people in America were united by something they had in common. The last time they all shared a "space" peacefully. When Disco stopped, people went back to their own niches, and maybe that was where we zigged when we should have zagged. Either way, this Movie ends on a perfect step in the zag direction with a joyous call for everyone to just get up and dance again.
