Two of the best Buddhist films of last year couldn't be worlds fuller apart. David O. Russell's films get better by quantum leaps with each new effort. Three Kings was a remarkable feat of critical thought and entertainment, which pushed beyond the indie-cuteness of his first films, which never quite achieved the necessary coherence. But nothing prepared the way for Huckabees. How can you not love a film that not only brings Tippi Hedron back to the screen, but let's her say "fuck". But there's more: We get a lesson in the convergence of eastern and western metaphysics in a way that is effective without sermonizing -- pace, "What the [bleep] do we know?" What we get is one of the two Buddhist truths (this is the "general" or universal truth), and lots of lovely touches, like the caricatured (and accurate as far as caricature goes) view of grassroots social change movements which brought back lots of memories. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356721/ Spring Summer Fall Winter... Spring give us the other half of the Buddhist worldview -- the other truth (the particular). By paring away at the particulars that can lead us astray, Ki-duk Kim is able to complete a full cycle of a life, of life, by never really drawing on anything other than simple events. There are a few points where the phantastic (sic) intervene. The mother's death as she slips beneath the ice, the murder off-screen, remind us that we're watching a film -- but these serve to distance us from the experience enough that we can then contemplate the movie as a work, an artifact, and not the message itself. The boat is not the point, but getting across the wide river requires a water-craft. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0374546/
