The Gospel According to Prisco

I can’t say I’m a Wong Kar Wai fanatic.  He does beautiful stuff, and he’s extremely nuanced and stylistic.  But, I don’t know.  I’m not one of those die hard cinemophiles who masturbates all over himself with every foreign indie release.  But the cast intrigued me in this, so I decided to check it out.

Essentially, it’s a series of vignettes following a lonely girl as she travels from town to town, seeking enlightenment and love and blueberry pie.  I think?  It’s a bit artsy for even my tastes, but it’s very well acted.  Norah Jones is the lead, and who fucking knew she was an actress?  I just thought she was a songstress, but here she is, throwing down a hell of a performance.  There’s not much for her to do but stare forlornly at the ground and make frowny faces for most of the film, but she does it quite alluringly. 

It’s good to see Jude Law back to work.  I sort of forgot why I liked him until this movie cropped up.  Jude Law’s a good actor DESPITE all the roles he’s taken.  And then we’ve got David Straithairn and Frankie Faison putting forward pretty dependably solid performances.  Both of these guys are just go to for interesting characters.  Rachel Weisz has a terrible accent and a powerful delivery that will be cropping up in casting sessions from here to eternity.  And I don’t know why, but Natalie Portman is playing a poker gambler, and for some reason, I just love her.  It’s one of those roles that will let the haters hate on her, and the lovers love on her, and I am staunchly in the latter camp. 

Hell, I loved Garden State. 

The camera work is smart and sparkly.  Wai kind of turns the camera on America’s view of itself.  Everything is neon and nighttime, vaguely garish.  Which is how most of us view Asian cities, particularly China or Japan.  I got a little fed up with the slow-motion shots, where inexplicably the action suddenly goes all dramatic and slow motion.  Norah Jones features on the smoky sultry soundtrack, because you’d have to be an incredible fucking doofus to cast her in your movie and not ask her to throw in a couple songs for the benefit of all.

It’s a sweet film, and a short film, under 90 minutes.  I would definitely recommend this as a DVD purchase, or as a nice date film.