Support the Weekly

Film Reviews

He’s plumb depressed.

Just Deserts

Chicken with Plums serves a healthy laugh with suicidal tendencies.
by Bob Green | Feb 6, 2013

Chicken with Plums, an Iranian and French film with English subtitles, is a surprisingly witty comedy-drama with visual flair. Directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi, the folks who gave us Persepolis, this tale of a moody violinist nursing a broken heart skips melancholy and goes for whimsy, big time.

Beautifully turned-out, this funny tale with a serious subject–suicide–moves quickly and deftly, defying the odds. Our main character (let’s not call him heroic) is a talented, almost totally self-absorbed musician (he’s just bought a Stradivarius) who has been on the cusp of great fame; the scuttlebutt is that he’s a technical wizard but lacks soul, human feeling. Does he change? Well, he undergoes a series of often-hilarious experiences that are supposed to help. But this truly unpredictable movie will surprise you if you try to second-guess it.

This film is structured wittily, moving a few times back and forth in chronology–for real effect. Visually, it’s eccentrically beautiful, with one graphic novel sequence. If you go in cold for this movie, accustomed to the typical “serious” Persian cinema-tale, you might wonder if you should laugh–yes, right from the very start. A light-hearted movie about a middle-aged man considering suicide is occasional, indeed. His misfires at offing himself are, believe it or not, very funny.

His problem, despite having a wife and two personable, bedeviling kids, is still pining over his one-time love, who has disappeared. The broken heart cannot be mended, he thinks, but the lady in question reappears and then spurns him (again). No one can help–not his smart brother, his severe wife, his fair-weather friends.

This is not a traditional movie, French or Iranian: It has satirical sequences needling American ethos (terrific), childcare, Persian bargaining techniques (which prove to be universal). Mostly in Farsi, with some English and French, and shot mostly in three Iranian cities, this surprising movie knows what it’s doing. And when’s the last time you heard of a laugh-out-loud Iranian movie?

While most of Chicken with Plums is excellent, it really unfurls and blossoms in its bittersweet last 30 minutes, when the lost love reappears. Before that, the comic tone, never cheap or self-indulgent, doesn’t waver.

It’s the surprise of the art-house season, and you won’t have to put up with Adam Sandler fans. Farsi usually scares those types off.

COMMENTS

We often print online comments in our “Letters to the Editor” section of Honolulu Weekly. While submitted letters are often edited for length and clarity, online comments we use are printed entirely as they are written for the website. If you do not wish for your comment to be used in Honolulu Weekly print issues, please write “Don’t Print” at the end of your comment. For questions, e-mail editorial@honoluluweekly.com. Thank you!

blog comments powered by Disqus

This week

Derelict Downtown

For as long as we can remember, Chinatown has been notorious for drugs, homelessness and filthy streets. Some claim nothing has changed–and that it never will.

Sweet Ride

Bicyclists have long been overlooked by four-wheel riders on Honolulu’s congested streets. In the gleaming, armored pecking order of the road, cyclists are too often dismissed as lane hogs, hand-signaling nuisances and unfortunates who can’t afford cars.

Hoopili miss

The fate of some 1,525 acres of land at Hoopili in ‘Ewa may have been decided last Wednesday in Hawaii’s First Circuit Court. The decision might have gone differently, but the appellant attorneys’ strategy seemed to collapse as Judge Rhonda Nishimura picked it apart based on technical errors.

Housing First $

Last Thursday, May 9, the Caldwell administration revealed its action plan for solving Honolulu’s homeless problem. But at the City Council’s budget meeting the same day, Budget chair Ann Kobayashi wanted to know where the money for “Housing First” (see Cover Story, pg.

Do it Wright

The Mayor Wright Housing project has been slated for major redevelopment by the Hawaii State Housing Authority (HSHA); requests for qualifications will be going out to developers in three to six months. Nonprofit group Faith Action for Community Equity (FACE) wants to make sure the project’s tenants have a say in the redevelopment process, which could include major renovations or a total rebuild.

Street Disconnect

The Honolulu City Council held a special Committee on Transportation meeting on Tuesday, May 7, to go over its Complete Streets initiative with input from the department directors of Design and Construction (DDC), Planning and Permitting (DPP) and Transportation Services (DTS). At prior meetings, including the Moiliili workshop, community members pressed the idea of combining Complete Streets with Caldwell’s repaving projects, which Dan Burden of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute and some councilmembers have said makes sense.

Stopping Growth

Not much to agree with my friend Doc Berry (“Limits of Growth,” April 17). None of the scenarios he posits will ever materialize.

Get it together

In your Diary of May 8 (“End of the 27th)” you reported on SB 1214, passed by the Legislature. In their nimble way, the Legislature tacked the wheel boot prohibition on a bill that was intended to abolish the Commission on Transportation.

Look both ways

On Friday, May 3, at 3:45 p.m., I was driving town bound through the Wilson tunnel on the Likelike. I was parallel to another car, and there were several other cars following closely behind me.

Thank you!

Congratulations Honolulu Weekly on the recent Pai award for investigative reporting (“Boss GMO,” Jan. 4, 2012).

Truth be told

When the biofuel guys say that costs are “confidential” (“Big-foot Biofuel,” May 8), I reply that since I am the one who is going to end up paying the cost, I have a right to know. Frankly, when everybody tries to hide the costs, I smell rat …

Nature’s beauty

The Foster Botanical Garden never ceases to inspire for an urban setting it is like a step back in time (“See the Flora,” May 8). If Koko Crater Botanical Garden contains the world’s largest plumeria collection as suggested, it may be thanks in part to the Prussian born Dr.