Oh it's crummy. Make no mistake. But to a degree I felt vaguely wrong slamming it because it felt something like criticizing the illustrative quality of a pre-schooler's finger painting. It's not so much mean as it is pointless.
As always, the movie doesn't feel so much like a narrative with an actual plot as it is a montage of establishing shots. Dialog runs not so much like an interaction between characters as they appear to be monologues of two or more characters spliced together through some daring and edgy editorial pizazz (they aren't, btw). Absolutely every shot, even those in broad daylight, look like they were shot overexposed under the fluorescent glow of a Safeway produce aisle. (Maybe this is to be praised for consistency -- critical, 'climactic' scenes feature characters picking produce and riding Muni buses.) Equipped yet again with merely two facial expressions (blank & upset) and speech lacking inflection and syncopation, the protagonists are left utterly uncharismatic. The effect is predictable -- you don't care very much about their angst and life history and wish they would go bother somebody else.
That all just had to be said. But again, pointless. Through the forces of democracy(1) and the market, Kieu as a film will likely see little circulation outside of SFIAAFF. Lacking the option to see this film, there is apparently not much point in me warning you not to.
This entry can salvage a few broader points, though:
1) As mentioned last entry I'm perpetually amazed at how Asian American film makers rail against the mainstream media's portrayals of Asians, go to film school, buy/rent expensive equipment, apply to and get some fabulous grants... and then turn around and make films that show pretty much the EXACT SAME THING. Kieu is another example of this -- if this film was made by a non-Asian, people would be horribly offended at the yet again exoticized, emasculated, emotionally-constipated portrayals of Asians.
2) If you think review whoring is an issue with major studio films, you have NO idea how bad it is on the ethno-indie film circuit. At the very least major-releases get enough exposure that dissenting opinions will emerge. (I'm reminded of the murmurs about Sideways being overrated that eventually surfaced back in 2005.) With the ethno-indies you have a cacophony of well-meaning, softballing professional reviewers, reviewers highly connected to the projects and festivals, reviewers having a political agenda, and reviewers that simply don't have the time to write about anything beyond their 'picks' for the fest. The end effect is that you'd only really hear one kind of view. For example:
Variety review
SF Chron festival picks
They mean well, but this is NOT what's going to help Asian Am cinema in the long run. People need to start making better films, not better-reviewed films.
(1) As someone who's been denied the facility to rate films at SFIAAFF twice now, I've got to wonder if disenfranchisement runs rampant at the fest. In one case we had fled the theater halfway through -- if that's not saying something that should go on record, I don't know what is. For this one we were so apprehensive that we essentially procrastinated about leaving for the film and got there too late to recieve the ballots. The snarky slacker demographic is being seriously under-counted.(*)
(*) Sorry about the footnote. Been reading some D.F. Wallace lately and I'm just pedantic enough to think this whole footnote thing might be a good idea.
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