Let's talk about Lee's film first. The director of the highly recommended Shopping for Fangs has, in his new film, Flow , taken the tactic of Soderbergh's Schizopolis . He's discarded narrative for a fragmented story, tied together by a video interview with a pampered filmmaker. Here's a moment of well-staged satire, regarding the cinematic language of hackneyed adult thrillers, particularly Primal Fear . But Flow may just count as something the director had to get out of his system.
Flow looks all the more trifling when included in the same program with the superb a.k.a.
His father was killed by the Khmer Rouge. Two of his brothers are still in the picture. His elder brother is scrabbling out of poverty, living in the suburbs, married, raising a baby, working and going to school. The other brother is a runaway who ends up facing an attempted murder charge. By his own account, Ny was dropped by his mom in favor of her new husband, so he comes back to this locked-up project apartment alone every night and keeps his head down.