God is D_ad benefits heavily from the I see what you were going for factor. The title does suggest a lot of what’s to come — not in its reference to Nietzsche’s largely misunderstood proposition; rather, the quote appears early in the film, never to be seen or heard from again.

I think it’s an OK road movie, with an interesting cast of characters. They’re a bit clichéd, but there’s enough divergence from the archetypes to keep things interesting. In particular, the strangely parasitic relationship between Tim’s sidekick, Bob, and the epileptic Lindy, has something uncomfortably authentic and human about it, and really doesn’t come to a resolution (which, I guess is nihilistic… kind of).

It’s entertaining, and you get the gist of where the filmmakers were going, but there are also situations and motives you just have to take their word on. An incident with a drifter builds up a sense of dread that evaporates without explanation. Scenes begin in new locations, and you have no idea how they got there. With animated sequences interspersed throughout the film we’re given glimpses of Tim’s fanatical vision of a Dungeons and Dragons scenario he hopes will win him a prize at a nerd convention (his whole reason for putting this trip together, though other characters have their own motives). We start with the assumption that these cut scenes coming from Tim’s POV, since he’s the damn protagonist, but the source seems to inexplicably shift to Lindy in the middle of the film!

Things like that make you wonder how much ended up on the cutting room floor, and whether any of it would have effectively connected any of these jarringly dissonant scenes. I had no sense of time or causality, but just had to accept it and move on.

The film relies on the intersecting arcs of Meredith and Alex to provide some dramatic heft, though the tone is too uneven to really utilize the tension. Tim has an arc, but it’s so abrupt and subjective that it’s easy to miss.

Nevertheless, I don’t think it’s a bad movie. It’s entertaining as long as you’re willing to suspend disbelief and fill in all the blanks.

The food stalls appeared, and that’s when the dread took hold. Any minute now…

“All the leaves are brown…”

A girl with short-cropped hair would be bobbing her head to one side and breaking into apartments. A cop would have a conversation with his washcloth. So little happening over such a long, long time.

As it turns out, Arvin Chen is no Wong Kar Wai; and this is a very good thing. For me. I hate Wong Kar Wai. I got through about eleven minutes of In The Mood for Love, before deleting it… er, returning the DVD. To the Block… buster? (Yeah, that’s the ticket.) I know, I know — everybody loves his stuff. I’ve heard opinions running the gamut from glowing to self-defining. Not liking Wai makes me feel like William Shatner in The Twilight Zone, trying to convince everyone there’s something on the wing. My buddy Patrick (from Cinema Sucks) offered an explanation. His popularity owes much to atmosphere rather than story or dialog. That’s the thing: I don’t care about the look of a movie. David Lynch might turn even whiter if he’d heard someone say this, but it’s all the same to me watching it on YouTube versus The Cinerama Dome (aside from the company). Which means James Cameron can organize all the crypto-liberal pixelated circle-jerks he likes, but he ain’t getting my money. (For what it’s worth, at least Cameron used to be good. Michael Bay should face prosecution.)

If Au Revoir Taipei hadn’t been suggested to me multiple times as review material, I probably wouldn’t have watched it. In spite of my apathy toward films hovering near the romantic comedy perimeter, I’m tempted to call Au Revoir Taipei a flawless effort. I was thoroughly entertained the entire time. I watched it just before working on the web video review of it (for Cinema Sucks), and even though the deadline to get on that was looming, I couldn’t bring myself to skip ahead. There really weren’t any dull stretches that could bear it. The pacing was spot on. They made their point and moved on, trusting us to understand.

Gambling on nuance shows a respect for the audience, and an expectation that they’ll get it — which means a lot of people will be frustrated. Just kidding. (No I’m not.) It also suggests confident filmmakers. For subtlety to work, a writer and director must have some certainty that they’d been clear enough beforehand to make each scene that follows comprehensible. They did this, and made it look effortless to boot.

There wasn’t a single character I didn’t like. Granted, they all fit an archetype, but none of them pandered to it, and so they maintained their humanity. Susie and Kai (pictured above), were awkward, but not hopelessly so. The gangstas-to-be, Hong and his crew, could have easily descended into dumb slapstick, but they didn’t. There were no hairpin turns in character development, or misplaced existential questions.

I think Au Revoir Taipei is a great film, and a perfect choice to start off the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival this year.

From a mainstream point of view, there’s little new ground covered in Raspberry Magic. Without an awareness of ethnic politics, it would easily be a well done, albeit rather boilerplate family movie. The core story deals with children attempting to gain a sense of control over a chaotic home life, though it handles this difficult topic with a deft comic touch. Anyone who’s grown up dealing with ongoing family drama that rattles their sense of stability would be familiar with the powerlessness felt when stress over money and questions of separation intrude on childhood. It’s understandable that young Monica would disappear into the rigid structure of science to restore order to her world. Simultaneously, she adopts a superstitious view of her experiment, taking on a belief in the magical potential of its success to restore the security of her home life; and burdening her with the illusion of responsibility for her situation.

The major theme that I noticed was one of transposing some of the roles typically found in the genre. It does go against the archetype to have a girl preoccupied with science, rather than a boy. Without calling special attention to the fact, the family’s heritage is explicitly Indian American; rather than, say, the patronizing stereotypes, however benignly intended, a more mainstream movie would generally resort to for comic relief. Some of the jokes are very effective in conveying the ethnic identity of this family, and the dual cultures to which they belong; such as when the mother complains bitterly at the trite exoticism demonstrated by a proposed cover for the cookbook she’s writing. Much like The People I’ve Slept With, Raspberry Magic pushes the trend made popular by Better Luck Tomorrow of having an Asian American cast, without being self-conscious about justifying it; either through mainstream ethnic cliches, or trying to prove that they are mainstream, and just as good as white people.

Another reversal manifests in a mysterious custodian who provides the decisive wisdom necessary to change her approach to her experiment, and to get in touch with her feelings. I do wonder whether they would have gone there if they’d had a male lead. There is a certain lack of imagination in making a nerdy girl become more emotional, fulfilling an expectation of society. The only time boys are told to search their feelings is when they’re trying to figure out how to fuck up a bad guy they can’t seem to beat. Then they use their talisman or whatever, and go wolverine on that shit.

Even though I didn’t find anything earth shattering in the plot, I do see value casting an Indian American family in a typically American family drama. I would recommend it as a good example of mainstreamy family fare with a nice ethnic twist.