{"id":1162,"date":"2015-04-18T17:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-04-19T01:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=1162"},"modified":"2015-04-18T17:00:45","modified_gmt":"2015-04-19T01:00:45","slug":"solitary-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/solitary-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Solitary Women"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Nathaniel Dunaway\r\n Entertainment Editor<\/pre>\n
Last weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing a pair of films that, as well as sharing the fact that they are both great movies, share similar themes, chiefly that of the complicated female protagonist on the edge of society. They involve ladies who are loners, who are strange, and are therefore unwelcome strangers to those around them. Before breaking down each film more, I\u2019ll just say this: both are highly recommended, and both are currently playing for a limited time at the incomparable Salem Cinema.<\/p>\n
\u201cA Girl Walks Home Alone at Night\u201d<\/strong>
\n3 paws out of 4<\/em><\/p>\n
The first word that comes to mind when thinking about this film is \u201cstyle.\u201d It\u2019s dripping with it. Shot in gorgeous black and white and self-described as \u201cthe first Iranian vampire spaghetti western,\u201d \u201cA Girl Walks Home Alone at Night\u201d is the story of The Girl, a nameless, lonely vampire, played by Iranian-American actress Sheila Vand.<\/p>\n
The Girl stalks the streets of Bad City, a small hamlet of perpetual squalor, where there is (among other things) a ditch full of corpses that no one seems to pay much attention to. Newcomer Arash Marandi also stars as a greaser punk who becomes transfixed by The Girl. The cat that plays Arash\u2019s pet cat in the film is also a great performer. The film is based on a graphic novel by Ana Lily Amirpour, who also directed.<\/p>\n
In a recent interview with \u201cThe Moveable Fest,\u201d Amirpour, when asked why she gravitates towards horror, replied: \u201cDo you think it\u2019s a horror film? If there\u2019s a vampire in the story, you\u2019re in a certain realm. But I think it\u2019s more like a John Hughes film than it is a horror film.\u201d<\/p>\n
My only disclaimer is that if you\u2019re put off by black and white movies or by subtitles, do the following: get over it, and go see this movie.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cKumiko, the Treasure Hunter\u201d<\/strong>
\n3 \u00bd paws out of 4<\/em><\/p>\n
In 2001, a Japanese woman named Takako Konishi was found dead in a snowy field in Minnesota. According to an article by Paul Berczeller in \u201cThe Guardian,\u201d a misunderstanding between Konishi and the local police a few days before her death led to the media believing she had died while looking for the money hidden by Steve Buscemi\u2019s character in the film \u201cFargo\u201d (in reality, Konishi\u2019s death was ruled a suicide). This led to an urban legend surrounding the event, and that urban legend led to the film \u201cKumiko, the Treasure Hunter,\u201d which takes this seemingly absurd premise and runs with it, to deeply troubling results.<\/p>\n
Directed by David Zellner, the film stars Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi (\u201cPacific Rim\u201d) as Kumiko, a socially awkward, solitary woman living in Tokyo, who is obsessed with treasure-hunting. On one of her adventures, she discovers a damaged VHS copy of the film \u201cFargo,\u201d and believes it to be a clue to finding a large stash of money, which Steve Buscemi\u2019s character in the film buries in a field. Convinced of the movie\u2019s authenticity, Kumiko steals her boss\u2019s company credit card and travels to Minnesota to find a treasure that isn\u2019t actually there.<\/p>\n
The film does an expert job of sticking with Kumiko, focusing loyally on her quixotic journey, and of making Minnesota feel more foreign to the audience than Tokyo. Like \u201cA Girl Walks Home Alone at Night,\u201d Kumiko also features an impressive performance by an animal, this time a pet rabbit named Bunzo.<\/p>\n
My disclaimer for this film, the first half of which is entirely subtitled Japanese, is the same: get over it, and go see it<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two stories of women on the fringe playing now at Salem Cinema<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}