October 1, 2015
About Love – 2004,
Taiwan/Japan/China
Films like About Love
are nearly impossible to pull off successfully. In fact, the last one I saw
that did so was Hal Hartley’s Flirt,
which used the same dialogue in three very different situations and was
fascinating to watch. All too often, though, films that are made up of
different stories loosely surrounding a common theme are a mixed bag, usually
comprised of one that is good enough to warrant being expanded into a feature
film, one that is mildly interesting, and one that is best forgotten. Think 2004‘s
Eros. Unfortunately, not even that
last description can be applied to About
Love, a film so jumbled and amateurish that it doesn’t contain a single
memorable character or truly convincing love story, a sin for a film that has
the audacity to call itself About Love.
The film begins on a promising note. In its first few
moments, we are introduced to two artists in Japan, Yao (Bo-Lin Chen) from
Taiwan and Michiko (Misaki Ito) from Japan. They are both struggling – he creatively
and emotionally, her emotionally due to her long-distance relationship. In one
scene, she notes poignantly, “It took four second to end a three-year
relationship.” The cad. Eventually, the two meet. It is a brief meeting,
brought on by a near encounter between her and his bicycle. He notices she is
crying, and literally just like that, he is completely enthralled by her. What
follows in one of the most immature and juvenile displays of affection I have
seen in a film, one that would only seem romantic were if done by an
inexperienced young high school student. Here, it comes across as neither
realistic nor involving. Instead, it reeks of desperation, an attempt at being
so cute that no one will notice how utterly pitiful such an action would be for
adults to engage in in real life.
The second story takes place back in Taiwan, and in it we
are introduced to Ah Su (Mavis Fan), a young woman building a wall unit at odd
hours of the night. She can’t lift it, so she calls a young man named Tecchen (Ryo
Kase), who she may have met at a bar, and tells him to come over. Once there,
she asks him to help her lift the unit and then to paint it. His facial
expression reveals that this was the last thing he thought he would be doing.
Sparks fly briefly, but she halts them – a bit too roughly, I might add –
saying that she was just using him to get over her ex. He seems okay with that.
Thus far, this portion of the film – if one ignores the
moment that the pair pointlessly breaks into dance - has been fine. However,
like the previous segment, it soon finds itself veering into ridiculousness. In
no time, the two of them are off to find Ah-Su’s ex and ask him if he is
willing to talk to her, presumably about a reconciliation.
Oddly enough, the problem with the segment is the very
reason it is initially interesting. Tecchen is not from Taiwan and speaks very
broken Chinese. This has great potential in a movie about love, for what better
message to emphasize than love’s ability to transcend words. Alas, it quickly
becomes evident that the segment’s writer intends to use the technique strictly
for comic relief, and in a later scene, we are supposed to laugh when he is
unable to convey Ah Su’s ex’s message to her. The problem is that viewers can easily
decipher what Tecchen says; therefore, there is no reason for her not to be
able to. And if she is able to figure
out her ex’s message, but chooses not to reveal her understanding, what does it
say about her that she keeps harassing Tecchen about his inability to translate
it accurately? The first option is the result of a poor screenplay; the second
would reveal a character who doesn’t deserve the effort Tecchen is making for
her.
In the film’s final segment, we are swept across the Taiwan
Straits to Shanghai, where a Japanese teacher from the film’s first segment
arrives to… well, I’m not exactly sure what he arrives to do. He doesn’t seem
to be teaching Japanese or learning Chinese. In fact, it appears that he gets a
job in a restaurant and simply waits around for his girlfriend to reply to his
letters. While there, he befriends the daughter of a woman he is renting an
apartment from, and she develops a crush on him. In one scene, he appears to
realize this, but by the very next scene, he has apparently forgotten it, so
much so that in a later scene he is absolutely stunned to discover that she had
feelings for him. Of course, by now, it is too late – for both him and the
movie.
And that is all there is to the film. Three incomplete love
stories that reveal neither insight into nor an understanding of love. Instead,
we are treated to tales of such immaturity and falseness that I began to wonder if anyone involved in the construction of the film knew anything about real love. Here, we have the equivalent
of high school crushes, the kind that people later talk about as having been steps in their maturation, not as evidence of their achievement of
actual mature love. This is unfortunate, for the performances in the film are not bad, and the third segment is indeed watchable. However, in the end, About
Love is too cute for its own good, frustratingly simplistic, and utterly
forgettable. It is about nothing of substance and offers nothing worth taking to heart about love. (on DVD)
2 stars
*About Love is in
Japanese, Chinese, and English with English subtitles.
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