Customer Reviews

The Air I Breathe [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Air I Breathe is a movie of the entangled lives genre, similar to Crash in that respect, and it also conforms by way of gratuitous violence and strip clubs it gladly flaunts. But that is not to say that the narrative lacks depth or emotional layers. The viewer becomes acquainted with three lives that will intertwine so as to lend freedom to a fourth in four vignettes titled: Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow and Love. These characters, respectively played by Forest Whitaker, the disgruntled Wall Street clerk turned bank robber and suicidal sociopath; Brendan Fraser, a reticent hitman who seems to have lost his ability to predict the future as he decides to forsake fealty to his heartless crime lord (Andy Garcia); Kevin Bacon, a doctor who saves the life of Trista, a persecuted pop-star, and is thereby enabled to save from a snake bite his best-friend's wife (Julie Delpy), with whom he also happens to be secretly in love; and Sarah Michelle Gellar's pop tart, Trista, who becomes entangled favourably by the three lives but will lose everything in the while, love, career, and friends.
This is the debut feature by Jieho Lee, a Korean-American director and screenwriter who wrote this script as a reflection to his journey in a "bimodal world". The cinematography is well suited by the description of bimodal, as the colors are very stark but a terrifying chiaroscuro breathes the presence of a dual tone universe which seems to preface the destiny we all have set out for us, but not independently of others. The acting is mediocre, but for the outstanding consummate performance of Andy Garcia, who seems to be getting better with time and roles, and the flaky, horned-up supercilious nephew of Garcia's role played by Emile Hirsch.
The movie bounces along several themes but seems to defragment a somber reality where death and debts seem to frustrate everyone who has a heart, and where life is held hostage by forces that threaten us at all times, from every angle.
The congruence of themes is intriguing but the direction fails to fully represent this enigma in ways that portray the meaningful (or lack thereof) essence of life, aside from the role of coincidence. It seems to have no meaning save for being a yarn tangled and reeled compact. Ultimately however the violence seems to be overbearing and inopportune to portray the pain of ordinary lives and extraordinary men, some of which inexplicably have the advantage to foresee the future. This last aspect of the movie is very clearly a deus ex machina, which functions effectively as a means to allegorize destiny, but it does not fit with the pragmatics of the narrative's realist outlook. I fault the writing for that, whereas it was clearly insightful by other turns. There are deaths upon deaths and several cars slamming into people. A practice which I've yet to see done as well as in the Mexican movie Amores Perros, which was also about debts.
Herein I think much of the movie fails as well: the restraint it practices in regards to theme of debts, as was the case with the theme of destiny. I enjoyed the movie and it does hold you riveted to the screen thanks to stories that intersect and diverge only to meet into the future of one pop-star who is running away from her past and her present. It could have been better, but it deserves to be viewed.
A movie with a lot of questions, too bad it does not know how to ask them...

"The Air I Breathe" is an ensemble piece about a psychic gangster and a chinese proverb. I can't think of another story that has ever followed this formula, and so I loved it from the start, from the first powerful beats of the soundtrack, as an original and beautiful, unheard new story. It is fresh in most every way. It is deep, but it will not beat you over the head with its message. Like a chinese proverb it politely opens a door to greater wisdom. It's up to the viewer to step inside.

Forest Whitaker is tremendous. One of the only flaws with this show is that he's not in it more, though from a storytelling perspective it makes sense. All of the performances are stellar, as would be expected from Whitaker, Bacon and Garcia, but equally stunning are Brendan Fraser and Sarah Gellar, both of whom have given the best acting performances of their young careers in this film. I'm not familiar with Emile Hirsch or Julie Delpy, but they are both strong in supporting roles.

There is a lot going on here, on multiple levels, and so it is only natural that the movie seems a little too short. Bacon's story in particular might use some further fleshing, especially as he's such a joy to watch. Again, however, like a chinese proverb it must be concise. The undercurrent matters more than the surface, and some viewers will be turned off by this. When the proverb comes full circle, the film's purpose is spent, and audiences waiting for the resolution of a typical three act play will likely find the ending a touch too quick, as there are numerous story threads that never get wrapped up. But the story here is the vessel, not the wine.

It isn't perfect. It's not Hamlet, but I'd put it just a notch beneath American Beauty or Crouching Tiger as one of the more beautiful and literate experiences I've seen lately.

Many will view it with the same eyes that saw Scarface and miss a lot. Nothing against the brilliance of Scarface, but this is a gangster flick of a very different sort. After I watched it the first time, I wasn't sure just what I'd seen. Then I thought it through, and realized some of its subtle brilliance. I'll tell you what I mean, but first:


****Spoiler Alert****
****Watch it Once at least before you Read This****


"The Air I Breathe" What does that mean?

Whitaker plays Happiness, and his epiphany (the moment when he discovers himself) takes place at both the beginning and ending of the film. The rest of the story is just a deeper examination of this cyclical change, as he discovers in a heart-wrenching instant that everything he has lived for is wrong, that uncertainty is beautiful, pleasure is not found in lust but in the moment of transition, that this day's sorrow is pregnant with tomorrow's joy, and that real selfless love is the constant to carry us through. This transition destroys him, and sets him free.

Gellar (also known as Trista, who refuses to reveal her true name--as suffering is the place where lovers secretly meet, or "tryst") is Sorrow, the counterpart to Whitaker's Happiness, and as such she mirrors his transition. His death brings her freedom. She becomes the butterfly to his caterpillar. The instruments of this change are Fraser's Pleasure and Bacon's Love, also counterparts.

Pleasure is the more fleshed of these two. In one of the movie's more interesting twists he can see the future. There is no uncertainty for him, and, despite much sex and violence, no pleasure, until Sorrow enters his life on the same day as Uncertainty. When he meets Trista his visions begin to fail him, but for the first time he begins to live. He turns from his boss, Garcia's Fingers, to give hope to Sorrow--just as Whitaker turns from his life in pursuit of money (Fingers represents Greed as the villain of the piece), at the last moment accepting that it will never free him of suffering. Fraser comes to accept this fact of life, and this acceptance allows him to find . . . He impregnates Gellar's character before he is killed, leading to the final conflict of the tale, when Sorrow crosses paths with Love.

Bacon's Love is pained yet true. It is not the classical love of self-sacrifice and explosive dramatics, but the real love of patience, trust and constant creative expression. It is also an abandoned, lonely yet strong Love. The object of his affection is married to a plastic surgeon (bastardizing his emotion in favor of shallow ideals built around the drive for money, again greed being the villain), and she is dying, bit by a snake (the symbolism there is easy enough) and nothing can save her but the transfusion of a very rare (one in a million) blood type, which happens to be shared by our very own Trista. That is: Sorrow is the only one that bleeds right. Sorrow, meanwhile, is preparing to throw herself from the roof of the hospital where Love works as a hopeless and desperate surgeon. In short: Love saves Sorrow by giving her a reason for being, as she saves him by bleeding, feeding new life into his dream, and, cyclically, giving him a reason for being.

That's asian philosphy for ya!

So Happiness gives up the money he stole, gives up his life even, throwing it from the roof where he is surrounded by snipers. The snipers are Fingers. Whitaker finally owns his "money" only when he gives it away. It lands in the lap of Sorrow, who is thus empowered to move forward, carrying the unborn child of Pleasure, into a future made uncertain by, as much as it is made worthwhile by . . . Love.


Whew. Props to anyone who made it through that. But there's one piece still missing. What is "The Air I Breathe"?

It is transition. It is the moment of change. It is the butterfly emerging from its cocoon. It is cyclical. It is constant. It is like breathing.

It is subtly brilliant, like a good asian proverb should be. It is secretly beautiful, like Pleasure, like Happiness, like Love . . . like Sorrow.

First of all I am biased: I love films that tell stories about lives that impact other lives through small coincidental moments. Another reviewer of this movie used the term "butterfly effect." I automatically give this kind of film three stars even if it is a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Given this bias, I am rating this film four and a half stars because I was quite taken by the theme that tied the four stories together.

The rest is spoiler, so don't read any further unless you have seen the film already.

For me at least, this film was about the monotony and the banality of our lives that are the by product of conformity, routine and safety. Each of the characters in the four stories are leading lives of quiet desparation. Their daily life consists of monotonous routine and they are all emotionally inert.

Each character is protected and "safe" within the framework of their life and each takes a huge risk that catapaults them out of their cocoons into something bigger then their original selves. Through risk, danger, and moments of intense and reawakened feeling, they experience, however briefly,a peak moment of humanity that makes the risk worthwhile even though it may end in death.

The "Happiness" segment is about a stockbroker, a man who jumped through all the right hoops, fit quietly into society, and now live on the verge of despair until the moment he takes a monumental risk, and steps outside his boundaries to spend a glorious hour as a criminal living entirely in the moment, totally alive right up to the moment of his death, having had one brief shining moment of a happiness that bordered on ecstacy.

"Pleasure" gives us a criminal whose life, although outside the law, is equally as boring and banal as the stockbrokers because of its total predictability and unvarying routine. When circumstances destoy his safety net, our criminal experiences pleasure: initially from the experience of pain and subsequently from caring for someone other than himself.

"Sorrow" is the story of an almost-celebrity singer who surrounded by entourage and the insulation of an entatainer's world is also living a life of monotony and banality. With the promise of stardom on the horizen, the singer destroys her safety net by choosing freedom and is awakened to her humanity through fear and sorrow.

"Love" is yet another view of the same theme. In this case a physician who lost the love of his life because he opted for emotional safety and failed to act. The eminent death of his loves pushes him outside his comfortable boundaries and he takes action in ways that would have been beyond the self-efacing ways of his ordinary and monotonous life.

When all is said and done, the film is about breaking boundaries to find a moment of passion and of real humanity, regardless of the consequences. The cast, from the leads to the supporting roles, were all very good, and in some cases outstanding. Actors of the stature of Whitaker, Fraser, Geller, Bacon and Delpy deserve our thanks for accepting parts in small budget films such as these. They bring a good script to life, and provide opportunities for new indie directors.

The Air I Breathe [Blu-ray]

Just like Crash, Babel, and other films before it, The Air I Breathe attempts to weave the lives of different people all into one story. Crash and Babel are two of my top films and I'm a big supporter of Sarah Michelle Gellar so I was definitely interested in seeing The Air I Breathe.

Another initial draw was that the story was based on a Chinese proverb where happiness, sorrow, pleasure, and love all interact with each other for a greater purpose. The interwoven stories and the initial purpose they serve for one character was executed fairly well. The last few frames make the 90-something minute film worth it, but the build up to it just wasn't what I expected. There was something a little flat about the film that I can't really get a hold on.

It wasn't the performances. They were all amazing. Forest Whitaker is a gem, and I really enjoyed seeing Kevin Bacon being emotional. Sarah Michelle Gellar has the acting chops, and she gets to showcase just a small amount of what does she have. Brendan Fraser portrayed a very low-key character, and I enjoyed him. I will admit that Andy Garcia and Emile Hirsch irritated me a bit.

Visually, the film was on and off. There were certain moments where things could have taken one or two steps up, and the impact the scene was meant to have would have generated something more. I will exclude Forest Whitaker's character's disposition and the final few frames from that for they hit where they were supposed to, as well as Sarah Michelle Gellar's scene on top of the hospital and Kevin Bacon's reaction.

I also believe that - for me - the emotional notes the film was supposed to hit didn't hit hard enough because the majority of the characters weren't really fleshed out as much as they should have been.

At the end of viewing, The Air I Breathe did not reach the status that I give Crash and Babel. The emotion and character development was just shy of giving me the feeling that I garnered from those two films. I definitely think if Jeiho Lee is given another film that he would surpass the effect The Air I Breathe was given.

Buy this movie, it's worth it.

Don't judge the movie by analyzing the storyline.
Don't judge it by trying to compare this movie to "Crash" or "Babel" or whatever.
Don't listen to the comments by those, who want to show off their "deep" "cineaste" experience and questionable good taste in movies.

The magic of moving pictures lies NOT in specific tasks, that you can identify and cross off a checklist. It's the colors, shapes, movement, moments, timing and sound that evoke emotions while watching - and also after watching.

This movie is unsettling, it"s intriguing and it will leave you with very personal, beautiful thoughts to explore. If you need inspiration and stimulation, you should see this. If you are looking for a movie, that does all the thinking and feeling for you, you're better off watching E.T. one more time.

FIVE STARS for this one. Way to go.

The Air I Breathe is a deeply sad, richly plotted drama centered around an Ancient Chinese proverb that all life is divided into four basic emotions; Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow, and Love. The film is divided into four short films, each centered on one of those four emotions, that all intersect and shape the fate of each other's main character. First-time writer/director Jeiho Lee isn't entirely successful, however, as this fiercely ambitious drama is wrought with powerful performances but little else. It is entirely unclear what this film is trying to say.

One can assume that Lee was attempting a parable on how we all try to fill our lives with these emotions.... or maybe that none of these emotions are attainable? It's a truly baffling screenplay. The dialogue is clunky, the characters underdeveloped and unsure of their direction, and yet the exceptionally powerful performances ground the film in ways it almost doesn't deserve. The frenetic editing serves neither to enhance the story nor to add suspense to the proceedings. This ambitious little drama would have been much better served with an experienced director with a knack for subtlety, something sorely lacking in this pieces.

But those performances! With a cast of Oscar winners and nominees, we are treated to nothing but the best these actors have to offer. Andy Garcia chews the scenery as gangster Fingers, who is one of the few characters with relevance to each of the film's subplots, but his over-the-top antics shows him a much more dept actor than he has been credit for over the years; he knows this script is silly. Brendan Fraser sulks as the moral center of the story, Emile Hirsch babbles as Fingers' vulgar nephew, Forest Whitaker whimpers as a sniveling banker, and Sarah Michelle Gellar unexpectedly shines above the rest in an award-worthy, career high performances as a rising pop star. Gellar truly excels at the role, and embellishes it with an understated grace and innocence. What is ironic is that it is she who most needed this film to be a success, and it is she who will be most affected by the film's failure to receive a theatrical release. It's a shame, too - this could have been the film that cemented her status in Hollywood as more than just the star of Buffy.

Despite these unusually strong performances, the movie never fully gels; The crime isn't criminal enough, the violence isn't violent enough, and the drama isn't dramatic enough. What would have greatly benefited the piece is a longer running time, which would have allowed the characters to blossom as more than just caricatures. The actors try to make these people feel real, but we simply don't see enough of any of them to truly understand what makes them tick. Nor do we see enough interaction among them to see why their connections with each other is relevant. Again, this all falls to the inexperience of director Jeiho Lee. He has crafted an entertaining crime drama, and proven to the world that Sarah Michelle Gellar deserves better than teen horror films, but he fall just short of his attempts at reflection on the human spirit.

Before I start, I have to say something: I tend to watch movies haphazardly, meaning I'll watch one for 25 minutes, pause it and then go do something else. Unless I am in a movie theater, I can't spend more than 30 minutes watching a film; except for this one. First thing I noticed while watching this was the sound: it has fantastic music, music that goes from pure drums to orchestrated magic. One thing to note is the dialogue, it's chock full of one-liners that will sadly go unnoticed during a first watch.

In summary, four very different characters' lives come together in an unassuming manner and the presentation is delivered in a fantastic manner. The dialogue from each character is pitch-perfect and the camera angles are well-used. I found myself jumping out of my seat at multiple times and could feel my heart pounding in anticipation at times of suspense waiting for the next scene. Each character did a fantastic job with their part, even the goons.

This is a stellar movie with quite a stunning cast. The problem with movies such as this one lies in the publicity and director's name. I had never heard if the director until I had watched the film and, sad to say, almost passed on watching this intellectually provocative piece of cinema. I tend to base my initial opinion about movies on other peoples' reviews and that can be a good thing; or a bad thing.

This may sound like one of those "embellishing" reviews but I did find a few problems with the film. If you are looking for a movie with deeper meaning or sophisticated explanation, you will not find it here. The dialogue is rich, yes, but the entire plot summary will leave you wanting for more. There are a few flash-backs and they work well from detracting from the current state of things but all in all, there really isn't any ground-breaking life-pondering message in this film. It's a good movie though the ending, as I have said before, will leave you asking for more.

"The Air I Breathe" is a great movie from the start. The story is fast paced, grabs your attention right away and keeps it.

This ensemble cast is amazing, Brendan Fraser, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Andy Garcia, Forest Whitaker, Emile Hirsch, Julie Delpy and Kevin Bacon!

Each main characters story is shown, Whitaker is "Happiness", Gellar is "Sorrow", Fraser is "Pleasure" and Kevin Bacon is "Love" and each reveals a little more about the story as it is unfolding.

I rented this on a whim and loved it, this is the type of movie you never see coming, the type of movie you want to own after you watch it!

-Note-
After watching the movie, read the review by Brian Rooney (Littleton, CO USA), first off, his review is excellent and two he breaks down exactly what the story in the movie means and how it all comes together. Nice work Brian!

'The Air I Breathe' is not a great film, but it has been pieced together with some skill and the script has been written with an attempt at a degree of originality. It also has the advantage of a skilled and likeable cast of actors. I have no qualms in saying my opinions are always at least partly subjective. I am influenced by numerous factors that will often make me biased in support of particular films. In this case, I consider myself to be a fan of the work of the actress Sarah Michelle Gellar and I am likely to look upon films she appears in more favourably than I perhaps otherwise would do.

Is 'The Air I Breathe' any good? It is not the best film I have ever seen, but it certainly isn't the worst - by any means. I have given this film three stars. Deduct half a star to allow for my likely bias and two-and-a-half out of five is probably not unreasonable. Is it enough? I think it's good enough to make it watchable and that is more than I can say for many far more expensive and highly marketed films.

Put simply, this ponderous and uneasy melding of noirish crime melodrama and nihilistic character study is for the audience who really loved the allegorical minefield that was Crash. This 2008 movie actually makes the interconnecting contrivances of the 2005 omnibus film seem all the more plausible with an overstuffed storyline that hinges on an ancient Chinese proverb that breaks life down into four emotional cornerstones - happiness, pleasure, sorrow, and love. The irony of the filmic treatment by Korean-American director/co-writer Jieho Lee is that he takes the proverb literally by having the four principal actors represent the emotions individually. Cheekily, Lee gives none of their characters real names (though one has a stage name) and then has them intersect to show how the emotions co-exist and make up the whole of the human experience. The problem is that Lee is so caught up in his concept that the resulting screenplay (co-written with Bob DeRosa) feels like it's in a constant spin cycle of increasingly preposterous situations, all for the sake of illustrating how their paths are inextricably linked to each other.

Lacking the confident finesse of obvious role model Robert Altman (think Nashville or Short Cuts as comparative works), Lee goes so far as subdividing the movie into four discrete chapters. In "Happiness", Forest Whitaker (his follow-up to The Last King of Scotland) plays a self-defeated money manager who bets his life savings on a fixed horse race only to find himself indebted to a vicious Mob boss named Fingers (seriously). An unusually glum-faced Brendan Fraser is "Pleasure" playing a clairvoyant (again seriously), tough-acting money collector charged with babysitting Fingers' obnoxious nephew Tony. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays "Sorrow", a Lindsay Lohan-type, alcohol-fueled pop star known to her fans as Trista, a name derived from the Latin word for "sad". Her contract is sold by her desperately smarmy manager to - you guessed it - Fingers. The final chapter has Kevin Bacon playing "Love" as a doctor who still holds a torch for Gina, a herpetologist married to his shallow best friend, a plastic surgeon naturally. A predictable, race-against-the-clock tragedy then occurs. There is no point in discussing the common points of intersection other than to say that Lee's everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach does not hold up remotely to the light of credibility when you look, for example, at the convolutions that a character like "Sorrow" goes through. Your eyebrows will be severely exercised by the last ten minutes.

The cast is all over the map here, but the four principal actors - Whitaker, Bacon, Fraser and a surprisingly sturdy Gellar - are all relatively effective. In particular, Fraser's clamped-down turn shows a heretofore hidden talent for Guy Ritchie-type movies. It would have also been nice to see some evidence of Gellar's pop-star appeal other than her character's tabloid-friendly behavior. As Fingers, Andy Garcia seems to be playing the same despicable role he has been playing in Ocean's Eleven and any number of mob-related movies. Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild) is appropriately irritating as Tony, while Julie Delpy (Two Days in Paris) is given little to do as Gina except look faintly forlorn. Ultimately, it really comes down to the actors in terms of making this a salvageable film-watching experience. It certainly isn't Lee's overly familiar, Tarantino-style filmmaking techniques (...in fact, I think there are more car crashes and near-crashes here than in "Crash"). The 2008 DVD features a robust commentary track from Lee, DeRosa, cinematographer Walt Lloyd and editor Robert Hoffman - worth a listen if only to understand the good intentions behind the production. Four minutes of deleted scenes, understandably excised, and two minutes of outtakes, none of it amusing, are also included.