Recently I have been watching a couple of films from writer/director Yulin Kuang, and it was her work that came to my mind while watching The Lottery. The plot here is that Augusto is sitting at the airport thinking on the three biggest regrets in his life – the biggest and most recent of which is to do with his current relationship with Savanna. See, Augusto has won the green card lottery and is on his way to the US, although his girlfriend of 6 months cannot join him unless they take some calculated actions to do so – but where does love fall in such plans?
The reason Kuang's work came to mind was that in several of her films I have been impressed by how well she nails the sense of sweet, charming, whimsy which is needed to delivery on what she is trying to do; these are skills that were needed with this film. Essentially it is a sweet little film and generally it works for what it is trying to do. It has gentle humor and a tale of a girl loving a typical man regardless of who he is (ie, the type of love that probably shouldn't be pursued in the real world). The flashback structure allows the viewer to build towards the ending that was always coming, but do so in a way where we care and feel for the couple. The problem is that the film doesn't totally sell this tone through all aspects. For example Augusto is not as charming as he needed to be as a character – this is partly down to the performance from Cruz Cordova, but other aspects of the writing and delivery also affect it – even technically I would have liked the cinematography to have had fuller colors and fewer sharp edges in the look.
It does still just about work for what it is doing, but with such a film one really needs the viewer to be totally won over by the sweetness and charm of it all – and here it doesn't do enough to do that. It will still work for many, but I think the vision of Daud here is more than he delivers on, and it stayed with me throughout that I would love to see what Kuang would do with the same material.
The reason Kuang's work came to mind was that in several of her films I have been impressed by how well she nails the sense of sweet, charming, whimsy which is needed to delivery on what she is trying to do; these are skills that were needed with this film. Essentially it is a sweet little film and generally it works for what it is trying to do. It has gentle humor and a tale of a girl loving a typical man regardless of who he is (ie, the type of love that probably shouldn't be pursued in the real world). The flashback structure allows the viewer to build towards the ending that was always coming, but do so in a way where we care and feel for the couple. The problem is that the film doesn't totally sell this tone through all aspects. For example Augusto is not as charming as he needed to be as a character – this is partly down to the performance from Cruz Cordova, but other aspects of the writing and delivery also affect it – even technically I would have liked the cinematography to have had fuller colors and fewer sharp edges in the look.
It does still just about work for what it is doing, but with such a film one really needs the viewer to be totally won over by the sweetness and charm of it all – and here it doesn't do enough to do that. It will still work for many, but I think the vision of Daud here is more than he delivers on, and it stayed with me throughout that I would love to see what Kuang would do with the same material.
