Thursday, October 13, 2005

Mail Order Wife

Here in Indonesia it is not very easy to get your hands on good independent films. Mostly all the commercial blockbusters are mass produced on DVD. But occasionally there are some independent titles that are worth picking up. I had mentioned before that there was a crackdown here and I could not get any good copies of the new movies but the storm has passed as we knew it would. The news made the headlines for a while and now things are back to normal. Last week I managed to pick up excellent copies of Valiant, The Lords of Dogtown, Four Brothers, and a few others.

Among these films, I got my hands on a move called MAIL ORDER WIFE. It looked interesting but what I did not know at the time is that it was produced by Doug Liman, the director of Swingers. The cover I got does not resemble the poster below. In fact it looked a lot more depressing. But what can I say, I like depressing movies.


As the title suggests, the movie is about a guy who orders a “mail order wife”. I believe this is a real concept. I have heard about loads of operations like this running out of Eastern Europe. In this case the woman is from Burma. I will not give the story away as it is very interesting to watch it unfold. There are no wild twists or mysterious plots but it is fascinating to watch human behavior in these circumstances.

The entire film is shot in the form of a documentary. And surprisingly at times I found my self wondering if this was in fact a documentary. It was a very unique approach to the subject which I felt gave the film a more realistic aspect. The actor’s performances were all commendable but the most honorary mention must go to Eugenia Yuan, the girl who plays the bride. I mean, there were scenes where this girl really had me going. At some points when she was flipping out she reminded me of some Indo/Chinese girls I have dated and it was fucking scary!

Overall, this film is worth watching as a time pass and the end does pack a little punch. Well, maybe more of a titty twister than a punch. Mr. Indcoup, what was that British film you mentioned to me a while back? I was trying to look for it.

2 comments:

tempo dulu said...

dude the film is called "layer cake".

I'd also highly recommend another British film called "It's all gone Peter Tong". It's about a nightclub DJ who goes deaf cos of all the music. Superb acting, great music, very funny, and with a nice message to boot.

Both these films are available here quite easily. I got them at Mangga Dua.

And make sure you see Hotel Rwanda. Depressing, but uplifting at the same time.

AmitD said...

So avi where is my mail order bride??