April Snow : some reviews from French spectators part 2 !
From http://www.allocine.fr/film/critiquepublic_gen_cfilm=108687.htmlTranslated from french to english by camille
Lachapelle - le 25/04/2006
Snow in April. Not very probable. As the meeting and love story between the two characters of a film which still captivates you, long time after the last image. It is beautiful, all in sensibility. The feelings are retranscribed in all their complexity. The falsely slow rhythm gives to the actors the possibility to captivate the spectator by a sober, efficient acting. A film to see at all costs.
Lventriloque - le 16/04/2006
Situation at least very funny, highly tragi-comic! That must happen all over the world, with various conclusions... The two persons hospitalized don’t have almost any importance here, we become attached to the "two cuckolds in the same situation, both broken down", the plot becomes so tense that it takes its time, but there is, in this hesitation, this reserve, an ultimate form of decency. A blasting family scene in the middle of the movie awakes us awfully !!! In fact, these two persons take revenge or it’s the nature which helps everything doing well? But it’s not the problem! The snow of April gives a tad poetry to their relationship and the snow road goes to infinity. Cruel, without concessions on the human nature, but very tender at the same time, we say ourselves "and if that arrived to us"?
Laurent_Lenormand - le 14/04/2006
A movie which we leave fascinated, calm and happy. The beginning is a little slow, but because we have to take time to enter the movie. The story is conventional and remains throughout the movie, but on this banal plot Hur Jin-Ho draws a painting all in delicacy, reserve and of sensitivity, quivering of emotion. Gradually, an atmosphere settles. The silence cracks, a soft heat starts to emanate from the movie. We are spellbound, almost without our knowledge. Especially, we never feel attacked. We never have the impression that the director try to catch artificially our interest by some unwelcome show off. All happen by gazes, gestures, sometimes slightly started. It is very moving. And it’s at the same time a visual and auditory beauty (excellent choice of music !) absolutely outstanding. I admit I’m a big nostalgic of Asia, where I lived and where a part of me still remained. Therefore I am not objective, in the case someone can be with a movie. But there, I really needed treasures of energy for not running quickly to buy an one-way ticket for Seoul or Tokyo after seeing the movie. If that is not enough to convince you to go watching it...
JamesDomb - le 13/04/2006
I’ve thought a lot about Truffaut, Sautet (camille : famous French director), in particular of La peau douce with this evocation of an (or more according to some points of view's) adultery and this high sensitivity emanated from long silences, glances of the characters. The Korean film director Hur Jin-Ho collects magic moments of life through the acting of his two fascinated actors, Son Ye-jin and Bae Yong-joon, both luminous and full of grace. The film director belongs to the new wave of Korean cinema and imposes his singular world. April Snow is not a trickling melodrama but oscillates between the heat of feelings and the reserve, the hope and the distress, until the desire and the remorse of its two characters. We think of course of Random Hearts’s scenario of Sydney Pollack but this is at first a real Korean movie, with its philosophy, its gestures and postures, its glances, its unstated things. There is a statement of melancholy, a disappointment face to love which shows through April Snow but also a fear of living without it. The characters have to deal initially with sorrow and anger because of the common betrayal discover. Then the characters look at themselves, think that they are not alone and that they can count on each other to rebuild, until they find that they are in the same situation as their spouses towards whom they were disappointed. Untill reconsidering the behaviour of their spouses. The music of Jo Sung-woo is splendid and manages to give a lightness to the characters’s feelings. A lightness which echoes to the omnipresent snowflakes, reflection of the characters’s state of mind. Snowstorm, confusions of the feelings. Soft snowflakes falling with parsimony, calming down of the characters. April Snow is a movie which takes its time but its rhythm really did not disturb me. I was captivated by the beauty of the actors, the ambiguity and the depth of the story. A true intimate and delicate jewel.
I particularly like this review, although it’s not written in a literal way, the author just share with us her feelings in a very humorous way. But for me, it’s a kind of review written by real common movie-goer.
From http://www.ciao.fr/April_snow__Avis_912803
Translated from french to english by camille
There isn’t any month to love you
From Nelleling - April 15th 2006
author evaluation : 5 stars
Advantages: It is more than a very beautiful Asian movie, it is simply a beautiful love story.
Disadvantages: My boyfriend has taken my handkerchiefs.
Complete opinion :
When the weather was nice... we locked ourselves in an obscure theatre to see "enfermés dehors” (camille : french movie which the title means lock out) and when it rains, we’re still in the obscure theatre to see a Korean movie at Bercy (Camille : a Parisian movie theatre which screens AS)... 34 screens only project this small cinematographic jewel.
"April Snow" is a movie in 2005 of Hur Jin-Ho, the Korean names give you a desire to take an aspirin ?... me too. No matters for me, the film is terrific. My boyfriend is still in shock, too much emotion. Yes, the cinema, is expensive... especially for the packages of handkerchiefs. "April snow": the sudden impulse of the lovers of love.
The film is released on April 12th 2006...we’ve seen it on April 15th... and we think that it will not remain a long time on our screens for lack of publicity. So here I’m, to try helping this movie...known only by movie lover and in VO please (camille : original version, meaning Korean speaking) because Korean who speaks French... that will be weird.
A movie which lasts one hour and forty five minutes. About Love. Even if that hurts, even if we don’t understand anything any more. A love story as we would not like to live but it’s so beautiful. But all is possible with love. It is not only on cinema....
A man rushes to the hospital, his wife just has a very serious car accident.
A woman sat in front of the operating room, in sobs. Her husband just has a car accident, very serious.
These two victims are in the same car. These two know each other well. Very well. The respective spouses of the two victims break down each one in their own way, a man does not express the same way his sorrow as a woman. Very quickly... they understand ... they were misled by their respective spouses. Betrayal after sorrow. The anger and thousands of questions to ask.
In-Su (Bae Yong-Joon), the misled man (and additionally he works in the spectacle) strikes down by sorrow, shame, anger, incomprehension... he’s beautiful in tears, or when looking after his wife. These feelings are also found in parallel on Seo-Young (Son Ye-Jin).. same shock same fight... they are beautiful, they are honest, they don’t have anything to reproach themselves and they must endure the consequences of their respective spouses during a part of the movie.
Why ? What have they done to deserve that … legitimate questions face to the illegitimate couple plunged in coma.
The car accident caused the death of a very young man. These two adults didn’t only betray the confidence of their spouse... they destroyed the life of a whole family and it is In-Su and Seo-Young who must deal with the consequences of their irresponsible acts.
It is so well filmed... with sublime musics .. atrociously melancholic... we would voluntarily plunge in this nameless sadness.. a very beautiful cinematographic moment. A wonderful moment, moving, full of tenderness. Actors who play so right that we cry (anyway, we did not hesitate to cry, it is a happiness to see a so touching movie)
Beautiful camera shots, the rhythm is rather long, but we’re not bored only one second... we cannot... we don’t want... we want to see, we want to understand how they will end up... they are close... their stories are alike, the geographic proximity brought them closer. Together face to this dramatic event, some moments of extraordinary masochism in this movie shown in a so subtle way... www.prettypictures.fr
Few dialogues. We don’t need them ... Seo-Young who wants to see the other woman in spite of her pain. This curiosity is not reserved to the misled women. My husband’s lover.. how is she ?.
They listen to the messages on their respective cell phones... how to hurt themselves till the end... a desire of self-destruction.... they are on the same wavelength, they can’t sleep... they ask themselves the same questions, same sordid thoughts... they even thought, wished the death of their respective spouse... terribly human. We should believe that love supports better absence or death than doubt or betrayal.
To revenge while having an affair together? Yes, except that there is more than sex in this relation. Love is there between them. The spectators are the witnesses of a new love story which begins.
They don’t ask any question anymore. And we neither. The anger is not there anymore. They love. That does not mean they don’t love their respective spouses any more. Love is complicated. Maybe because of it that love is magical. Like snow in April.
posted by Toujours_BYJ @ 4/29/2006 09:00:00 AM
6 Comments:
camille! i love these reviews!
noticed you haven't shared these on KOB & quilt... please do...! i think the rest of the bae-world would really really really love to read this.
in fact, i hope wuri yong joon gets to read it too :)
thank you so much for taking time off your busy schedule to do the translation to share with us. thank you thank you.
Camille,
Yes, love is complicated AND MAGICAL!! Tell me about it...
I was happy to read the viewer's comment on the music.
I personally like it very much.
Also, I was interested in knowing who Sautet was, so I did a search on him. Found out that he wrote and directed "Garcon" - a movie I had always wanted to see. The co-writer of the film Jean-Loup Dabadie has a son who is very famous in Japan. Florent lives in Tokyo and is the editor of the Japanese version of "Premier" magazine, among other things. He is fluent in Japanese, and I find him quite interesting.
Merci, again!!
Hi bb, I didn't post my translation yet because I would like to finish my translation but I will share on Quilt and KOB tonight.
How I wish YJ can read these reviews, I think he will be glad to know that french people like AS after what happened with Korean media last year.
Hi Flowerbossa, Claude Sautet is very famous in France.
He has some very good movies like Les Choses de la Vie (about adultery too, which Hollywood has done a remake with Richard Gere and Sharon Stone), César et Rosalie (I love this lovie), Nelly et Mr Arnaud...
Camille,
Thanks for translating all the reviews for us especially the last one. I love the way she experessed for views for the movie.
Stay healthy.
Hi Marissa, I think lots of us love the last review.
Thanks for your concern, I'm OK now.
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