Let’s Fall in Love

Taiwanese director Wuna Wu has found a good subject in her documentary Let’s Fall in Love: matchmaker Helen Chen is a fascinating, larger-than-life figure, reminiscent of Rosalind Russell’s Auntie Mame with her dramatic meddling in other people’s lives. She is officially a “marriage consultant,” a lifelong passion on the side of her other, full-time job. She says she does it for the good of Taiwan, which has a 50% divorce rate. She meets someone who wants to be set up and spends years looking for their match. She does it for her country.

Wu’s film is best when it lets Chen do her thing. She is unbelievably confrontational, and one scene will have you squirming in your seat as she confronts a young man about why he doesn’t want to marry her client. He giggles nervously and evades her questions. She finally squeezes out of him that he finds her unattractive, too heavy. She tells him to get over it, and leaves the room to let him think about it. He sits in his chair looking like he’s just been air-raided. It’s an unbelievable scene, only it’s a shame filmmaker Wu doesn’t capitalize on the potential of these kinds of scenes.

The problem is Let’s Fall in Love isn’t a portrait of Chen. Wu chooses instead to focus on the marriages of her friends and her own lack of love. It’s proves difficult to cover such a massive topic in 90 minutes, especially since Wu can’t find her way into the story. The personal, diary-like nature of her involvement – the film’s director crying alone in a room, as Wu does at one point – spoils all of the fun. Still, there are many scenes here of marriage on the rocks that will leave you speechless, with the couples arguing on screen, but always playing to the camera—giggling, trying to remain calm. The film goes on to become a sappy paean to romance. Too bad, because Wu had her subject in Chen, and we are left at the end with a bouquet of unanswered questions: Who is she? Why does she do this? Do her set-ups ever fail? What’s her marriage like?

Seven 2 One

One of the slighter showings at AFFD, Seven 2 One is instantly recognizable as easy, money-making junk. It’s the kind of teen action movie that Hollywood pumps out all year: slick action flicks with hot young stars. The characters in Danny Pang’s film are culled from either soap opera stereotypes or teen comedy tropes, and his plot moves like a ninth-grader’s creative writing assignment.

His story bills itself as a Rashomon-like tale of different truths, but it’s not. At the beginning, a murder occurs during a robbery at a convenience store, and it takes the rest of the film to find out why it happened, who was there, and who actually killed him (which you figure out twenty minutes in). And, surprise!—all of these attractive young people are interconnected. The cast of characters features three lesbians, a cop, a lecher, a drug dealer, and a gambler. And even though the film ends with a random, interminable lesbian kiss, nothing seems edgy or cool. And that’s it, okay? That’s all. Okay, okay. I cannot tell a lie. I still kind of enjoyed Seven 2 One.

Odds and Ends

All the festival films screening today are at the Magnolia Theatre. The dramedy No More Cry!!! Plays at 4:45, and of course the closing night film, the Canadian sex comedy The People I’ve Slept With 7:30, with director Quentin Lee in attendance. For my money, though, catch these ones:

Like You Know It All – An uncomfortable comedy along the lines of Curb Your Enthusiasm, the one follows a narcissistic art-house filmmaker as he judge a film festival. Apparently he’s “very famous… in east Asia.” I wonder if he would be screened at AFFD. South Korea consistently does comedy the best, and it also does a pretty good “dark.” Usually at the same time. (Magnolia 2:00 p.m.)

Symbol – Programming Director Steve Norwood said Symbol was very hard to advertise, let alone to group into a genre, and so they classed it “eclectic.” Apparently, this Japanese film is unlike anything you’ve ever seen, and when he mentioned it before a screening yesterday, those in the audience who had already seen it started cheering. It closes the entire festival in its second showing tonight. (Magnolia 10:00 p.m.)

Main Image: From <em>Let’s Fall in Love</em>