Skip to main content

The Hanging Garden (Canada)

This film has been directed in a different fashion. You will see past and present collide somewhere together. It is beautifully shown how memories of the past haunt a family to an extent that everyone goes through the same phase.

aving run away as a self-hating, obese and abused 15-year old, William returns to his parents home after 10 years to attend his sister's wedding. He's happy in his new life, with a partner, steady work and having lost all of his excess weight. Being back at home revives all of awful memories of his childhood: overeating because it's the one thing nobody can stop him from doing; being hit by his drunken and abusive father; being seen by his grandmother when he has his first sexual encounter with a male friend; his mother arranging for him to have sex with a woman while she sat in the next room. New revelations are in store however. After the wedding is over, he finds that he has a new sister Violet whom he did not know existed. He sees how his mother is struggling with everything in this dysfunctional family. She has to bear the brunts of father, take care of her mother in law and also deal with the sudden disappearance of her son. She has had enough and she just leaves home and disappears from everything. William now has to take care of his father. They try to reconcile. Meanwhile, His sister knows that her brother and now husband have an attraction for each other. She gives them a chance to relive their fantasies from their teenage days. The mother is found nowhere. Meanwhile, William also finds out that Violet is actually his daughter from the sexual encounter that his mother made him do. Having had enough, he just leaves the town with his daughter.

Oh boy!! This family was dysfunctional or what! I kept wondering how can anyone live in such an atmosphere. The quirk infested family includes a gay asthmatic son, a foul mouthed daughter, a wishy-washy mother, a senile old granny, the abusive gardener father, and a kid. Overall it is such a depressing environment. There were a few moments in the film that were touching and/or calm, but they were few and far between.

Overall just an ok film. It tries to be different (which it is) but not every enjoyable. (4.5/10)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Shortest Distance is Round 3: Fallen Flowers

Continuing with the weird trilogy of "The Shortest Distance", I am so glad that finally I am done with part 3 and won't have to deal with this again in future. Thankfully, as of now the makers have not announced any further parts; which will save all of us on this earth from the embarrassment of watching this in near future. After the first 10 minutes are used in sort of recapping bits of first two parts, the story moves forward. Haruto is now starting to have feelings for Ruka, the mysterious pole dancer from second part. In a fit of rage, Ruka ends up killing the goat man and to save him and Haruto, Shibahara asks them to go underground. Meanwhile Shibahara continues the search for Seiya (the guy who had cut off Haruto's penis). It turns out Seiya is now also taking care of the original club owner from part 1. Both of them were released after they had informed Shibahara of Aoyama's secret location. Shibahara tortures Seiya's boyfriend leading to Seiya killin

One Summer Night (Korean)

I really wanted to like this film but for non native speakers, these movie leaves a lot to be understood and the way scenes were unfolding in front of me, I wasn't sure many times what was really going on. The story had potential button getting any back story on any of the characters limited my ability to empathize with any of these actors. Film starts with two North Korea military guys Yong Joon and Jae Sung having sex and they are caught red handed and they run. Three years later we see Yong Joon in Seoul leading a very mundane and poor life. He has a boyfriend Tae-Kyu, who is a weird guy. He is carefree, doesn't do any work and is completely emotional and financially dependent on Young Joon. In fact, even Yong Joon will go to any lengths to protect him , fend for him and taking care of him to the extent of even taking up prostitution. Suddenly one day Jae Sung appears in their life again. His motivation is not clear but it is obvious he wants Yong Joon back in his life, who

Ultimate masturbation: Shigoki no yama (Japanese) [The Ultimate Masturbation]

I would never know what was the point behind making this film. Was it supposed to be a comedy, cos it wasn't. It wasn't even porn. It was just a silly attempt at making something absolutely senseless and ridiculous. The story, as well as direction is equally shoddy. You could laugh for having seen something so bad, but I wouldn't call that comedy. An old man runs a camp about gay masturbation. The explanation given is that gays masturbate for pleasure unlike straight men, for whom the act is seen as shame or because they can't find a woman. One day a straight man shows up and wants to join the camp for his thesis. After discussion, he is allowed in. Rules include that you can masturbate together, you can masturbate one another, but there is no fellatio or anal sex. Some students of course breaks rule. The teacher then talks about 2 forms of masturbation which gives ultimate pleasure. He shows one without touching and then refuses to talk of the other. Somehow suddenly,