Clean -- France/2004 -- Directed by Olivier Assayas

Widowed rock-star Emily has just been released from a six-month prison stint stemming from her heroin addiction. So begins her quest to reclaim her young son, placed in the custody of her protective in-laws. Maggie Cheung imbues Emily’s struggle to stay clean with a potent combination of rawness, compassion and truth.

Couple bits of trivia:

Olivier Assaya is Maggie Cheung's ex-husband and he wrote this part specifically for her.

Tricky has a cameo role in the film. He plays himself.

Okay, so...Emily Wang (Maggie Cheung) is a struggling singer and heroin junkie. When her husband, Lee (also a struggling musician), dies of an overdose (while Emily was off in her car shooting up), she is sent to prison for 6 months for possession. Everyone blames Emily for Lee's death because she was the one who got him hooked on heroin. Their son, Jay, has been living with Lee's parents (Nick Nolte and Martha Henry) because of Emily and Lee's drug addiction and travelling. After Lee's death, they gain custody of Lee due to Emily's imprisonment. After she's released, she is still unable to take care of him...she's switched from heroin to methadone addiction. So, her father-in-law, though sympathetic to her situation, asks her to stay away from her son until she is able to get her life together.

I'd read some reviews beforehand that were negative on the story but positive on Maggie Cheung's performance. (She won the Best Actress award at Cannes for this role.) I love Maggie, so I decided to see it anyway, but didn't go in with high expectations. So, I wasn't all that disappointed to find that I agreed with most of the reviews. It was, in a word...Boring. There was so much potential to punch things up a bit. There could have been more of a custody battle. And there weren't really any ups and downs during Emily's recovery period. Yeah, she relied on the methadone for longer than she should have, but I think it would've been more realistic for her to relapse or at least be in a situation in which she was tempted.

However, Maggie Cheung did an excellent job with what she had to work with. Having only seen her in Chinese films, it was cool to see her in a very different role. The film was set in Hamilton, Ontario, Paris, London and San Francisco, so Maggie spoke in (British) English, French and Cantonese. It was also a different look for her: her hair was really wild and frizzy, kind of a 'fro...as close as Chinese hair can get to a fro, lol.

If you're a fan of Maggie, then see it...on DVD. Otherwise, skip it. C-



Niceland -- Iceland/2004 -- Directed by Fridrik Thór Fridriksson

A boy’s quest to rekindle his beloved’s will to live lands him in a haunted junkyard rumored to hold the very meaning of life. Love conquers all in this deliberately childlike, almost shockingly sweet, modern-day fable from director Fridrik Thór Fridriksson (COLD FEVER).


Niceland revoles around the character of Jed, whose sweet, innocent, naive personality would lead one to believe that he may be very mildly mentally retarded. Several of his friends he works with in a plastics factory definitely are mentally disabled. His girlfriend Chloe, who seems to be at the same level mentally as Jed, is obsessed with her cat, Catey. Right after Jed proposes to Chloe, he is accidentally responsible for Catey being killed by being hit by a car. Chloe goes into a deep depression because Catey was her "purpose in life." Jed insists there must be another purpose of life and Chloe tell him he needs to find it or she won't marry him. So, he goes around town asking everyone he knows (and some he doesn't) what the purpose of life is. No one knows.

Coincidentally, while watching TV later that night, he sees an interview with Max, a man living in a junkyard. The interviewer asks Max what the purpose of life is and he refuses to share the answer. He leaves home to find Max and get him to tell him the answer. He ends up living with Max at the junkyard for several days, because Max refuses to tell him. We later find out why Max is such a curmudgeon and why the hell he's living in a nasty-ass junkyard.

Well, like the SIFF synopsis says, it's a modern-day fable. If you can manage to not take it literally, you might find it charming and sweet. However, what SIFF describes as "almost shockingly sweet" came off really sappy to me at times, especially the last half-hour or so. I give it a C+.

The director, Fridrik Thór Fridriksson, was there to introduce the film. Either the man has the personality of a sack of potatoes or he's very shy. I'm guessing the latter. He spoke to the floor and was so quiet, it was difficult to hear him. What I did manage to get is that this was his first English-language film and though it was filmed in Germany and Iceland, it was set in Scotland.

You know what I liked best about it? Even though it was in English (with Scottish accents, of course), IT HAD SUBTITLES!!!! What a concept! Somebody should tell the Dead Man's Shoes people.


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My diminutive DVD collection: http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?cat=1&id=kurlyswirl

I be Scrobblin': http://www.audioscrobbler.com/user/TasteeTreat/