please read this post, and PLEASE get angry over it. please.

Seeing as that I'm the first person ever to post on the message boards for this film, even though it's four years old, I might not get many people in on this discussion, with the possible exception of skiersmustperish, who gave the film a ten-star review.

You see, I like films, generally. I make a point to see new films that I don't know much about, while at the same time avoiding films I know I will have absolutely no interest in. The films I don't care for are current Hollywood films, and I don't post on those boards, because I know I'd be nothing more than a troll. So I spend all my time being nice, you see, and being diplomatic, always hanging out on the boards of films I like or love, constantly defending them, or at least pointing out their flaws in a very nice way. I never get a chance to say things like, "this is the worst film I've ever seen."

This is the worst film I've ever seen. There, I've finally said it. It might not be 100% true, if I really think about it, but it's close enough.

Okay, now for my defense against "why don't you go watch MEET THE SPARTANS," although I doubt the challenge will ever come, given the dustiness of this board. My defense is simple. Here is a list of filmmakers that I currently think are at the top of their game and represent the best of what world cinema has to offer today: Tsai Ming-Liang. Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Hirokazu Kore-eda. Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Abbas Kiarostami. Jia Zhangke. Guy Maddin. Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Aleksandr Sokurov. David Lynch. Todd Haynes. Manoel de Oliveira (sometimes). Zhang Ming (though his most recent film was a serious misstep). Alfonso Cuaron. Okay, take your best shot.

And I will say this: James Lee has a helluva eye for composition. The DV images are snappy and flawless in the way lines and shapes converge, tightly controlling our gaze. But it's not nearly enough to sustain this feature. Characters behave erratically without motivation, then abruptly and absurdly die. Audience sympathy is supposed to follow character after character like links in a chain, but instead our sympathy for anyone completely evaporates in the first ten minutes. I'm not quick to criticize a film for its "plot," because I recognize that the criteria we judge cinema by must be different from that we judge literature by. But this movie has no organizational theme, no overarching message, no structure, and no play. That's probably the worst of it - Apichatpong can get away with radical playing with structure, because it's just that - PLAY - not throwing structure out the window. This film just sits there humorlessly as parts fall off of it. It's like watching the slow death of an old ugly car.

This is a very long post, and undoubtedly if anyone reads it they'll wonder why I didn't just write a review instead ("a slow death of an old ugly car" might be an eye-catching tag). The answer is that I'd love a chance to joust with someone on this thing. I've never had that chance before, because I'm too much of a nice guy. Here's a film I hate enough to get into a fight over.

Best of luck.