Conversations with Other Women

Watched Conversation(s) with Other Women with usual partner (Eka). =) A bit of an artsy film I suppose, what's with the split-screen cinematography. What's more, it's only screened in Cathay Orchard, in a small studio. Not bad for some VIP feel, huhuh.


The film itself was great, in my opinion. Considering 90% of the movie is a conversation between two people in a hotel. Or, depending on perspective, a very long (ahem) sex scene. =D Very refreshing for a change.

Speaking of which, I don't quite get the plurality in the title. I don't think the short lines exchanged with the few other female characters are significant enough. But anyway.

I've always been drawn towards mature characters in any kind of fiction, and I guess it's the top reason why I like this movie. Rational characters, rational conversation, nothing dramatized, nothing over the top. Still the woman (Helena Bonham Carter) has such strong personality, and the man (Aaron Eckhart) has such charming enthusiasm, that really engage attention from beginning until end. That plus some quiet humour from both as well as other characters.

I guess the clever use of split-screen helps too, since it keeps things alive with flashbacks and split-sequences (don't know if it's a technically correct term; what I mean is they split an event sequence into two and run both on the parallel screen. Like, say, the way you ask two kids to count one to ten in order, with one kid saying only the odd numbers and the other only the even numbers). And the last scene is quite a perfect ending technique. (Won't spoil it for you. Go watch.)

The official site justifies this technique by saying, "Since there are two sides to every love story, split screen proved to be the perfect way to tell both sides of Conversations with Other Women." It does heighten the interaction feel, though I don't think it is really about "two sides of a story", for which, in my opinion, they'll need to be consistent about which side represents whose side of the story. I'd say they interact quite amiably that the two sides aren't so different at all. But of course this way of telling it is much more interesting. =)

It is fairly open-ended too, with a slight suggestion towards a happy one =D so that's just perfect for me. Hahah. After watching moral-heavy movies like Hero and The Banquet, I'm starting to favor open-ended movies over simple happy endings. That is what life is like, after all.