The Three Potatoes

8th October 2008
The Air I Breathe (2007)

Director: Jieho Lee
Writers: Jieho Lee & Bob DeRosa
Starring: Forest Whitaker, Kevin Bacon, Brendan Fraser, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Andy Garcia

There is a Chinese proverb that life is made up of four emotions: happiness, sorrow, pleasure and love. These are not separate but are the elements of human existence. The Air I Breathe creates people from these emotions who walk among us and weave delicate ties between their paths. Happiness (Forest Whitaker) lives a straight, unstimulating life in an office until one fateful night. Pleasure (Brendan Fraser) is a gangster who sees the future and finds no joy until a new assignment changes everything. Sorrow (Sarah Michelle Gellar) is a starlet who has her world turned upside down by crime boss Fingers (Andy Garcia). Love (Kevin Bacon) is a doctor must do all he can to save the woman he loves.

The concept is so engaging and elegiac, the cast so exciting that I waited for this film with great anticipation. It was exactly what I hoped for, minus a few elements which were a bit annoying. There is a plot point which is significant to propel the story but has a big hole which could have been better written. The film has been met with mixed reviews - it has been slammed by many critics and sits at 14% on Rotten Tomatoes but enjoys a 7.3 on imdb at current date. The consistent complaint is the overly pretentious nature of the content - thinking itself too clever and melodramatic and has been unfairly likened as the poor mans Crash (argh which did not deserve to win for best film!). However movies like Crash and Babel illustrate the interconnectedness of modern life, the significance of coincidence and realistic stories of people with their lives shaken and tossed about. The Air I Breathe is incredibly ambitious - not to portray reality, but to express the essences of life. The film is a poem, not documentary. The people are emotions, who spin and touch and change with other emotions, the situations are dramatised scenes to envelop the essential importance of the development in their lived. The motif of the butterfly throughout the movie is a symbol of change, reflected as the characters emerge from their cocoons. Viewers and critics who take the film literally are missing the point - it must be watched as a piece of poetry.

SMG has made a string of forgettable movies - the latest being the Grudge which was boringly similar to the original; and Southland Tales which could have been good but went horribly wrong. I was relieved to find her role wonderful and performance a revelation. Her character's stage name is Trista - a variation meaning sadness in many languages. Brendan Fraser gives a great weight to his character, heavy with despondency and a murky mind who was absorbing to watch. Two actresses I treasure fill in small roles - Kelly Hu and Julie Delpy who add appeal in their small moments on screen. Andy Garcia as the crime boss Fingers was apparently so effective in his method acting SMG had difficulty separating reality from the film and found it truly scary to work with him in some scenes.

This is a directional debut for Korean American film maker Jieho Lee, who was intrigued by the proverb and how he would make it into a dramatic story. He spent six years on this film. I am looking forward to seeing what other exciting concepts he can develop for screen.

I can really see people disliking the ambition of the film, but I found it as deliberate and divine as a poem about the flutter of a butterfly's wing.