In the commentary for the movie Eve and the Firehorse, the director Julia Kwan said she doesn't actually feel deserving of giving a commentary; this being her first film...I beg to differ...
Watching weird unknown film titles used to be what I do. Going and hang out at my local video rental show and browsing through titles picking anything up...the weird the unusual especially was a habit. Anything that catches my eye...and because i 'allow' myself to watch movies without big stars or big media hype or even hype in the artistic sense... I do sometimes discover absolute gems...but nowadays I hardly have time to watch films and thus my film watching diet has reverted to those movies in the cinemas with my girlfriend. I stopped buying dvds as I was pilling up on alot of DVDs that weren't getting into my player as is.
Yesterday though, a film caught my eye...it's called Eve and the fire horse.I picked it up.A most astonishing synopsis, it says it's about a little girl who tried to undo her mother's run of bad luck by going to Jesus and because her family is buddhist; the mixed understanding of religion results in an amazing fantastical religion of her own..I paid for it in an instance and was watching it immediately upon reaching home.
It was a most wonderful film...at first very subtle but with a beautiful imagery that shows alot of life's small details and chinese cultural elements in a Canadian migrant setting.Elements that I do see around me and often take for granted...elements inside a film was suprisingly beautiful and I sat with the wonder following eve's eye on things as if admiring everything again for the first time.
The film also bewildered me in it's treatment of religion. And it said so much without saying and asked question which gave me answers...if you get what i mean. Answers I can't define but smile knowing at heart...I guess a better explaination is visual cues brought up knowing/feeling something unexplainable that's not even existing in thought.. but feelings were provoked.Especially scenes treated with ambiguity in surrealism...this scenes were bewildering to the emotions.
Surrealistic scenes where Jesus danced with Buddha and where a goldfish sung karaoke.How these happened? Watch and see...It is unbiased towards christianity though it did tackle it head on with a child wondering why grandma pours tea for a God never thirsty? A nun saying that buddha isn't a God and Jesus is the one true God, a child defying her parents believe in Buddha to a buddhist mother saying it should be okay for my child to believe in christianity...afterall, another god means more 'protection' for her daugther rite?
If you loved Joy Luck Club, this is about in the same league genre-tically but in a much smaller and much more personal perspective of a little girl with a dose of religion.A wonderful gem of a film that leaves me so refreshed to thoughts and to go out and actively finding gems films again...
alot of people i know first ask who's the star and says eee...must be boring when I reply that there are no stars...allow yourself this one treat of a movie please...