Bulk reviews, yay!
A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, 1991)
As a huge fan of Yi Yi, I had been meaning to watch this film for a long time as it's frequently hailed as Yang's magnum opus. Frankly, it's almost surprising it's gained any sort of reputation at all given the circumstances - due to copyright issues concerning the use of Elvis songs, this film has never been released on home video and the only way you will see this outside of a select special screening is on a bootleg copy that is just about VHS quality with very inconsistent tracking and forced subtitles that are at times difficult to read. Oh, and it's four hours long. So you'll probably understand why it took me a while to finally get around to watching this.
That all being said, this film is actually really good. Its defining feature is really just the sheer scale of it, which is unprecedented for a Taiwanese production. It has over a hundred speaking roles and it has so many intricately choreographed long shots that it's simply astounding. Oh, and it's four hours long. I already mentioned that, but it's worth bringing attention to just how much intricate craftsmanship there is packed into this film.
Set in 1960s Taipei, it deals with increasing gang violence among the youth and the main character who comes to be involved with gang activity and slowly starts to spiral out of control. Yang uses the long running time for an immense amount of world building and it really sets you into the political climate and attitudes of that era. It does begin to drag a little towards the end - although that could just be because it's just an exhausting watch - but it picks it up again for the climactic and emotional ending. I think I slightly prefer Yi Yi to this, but this is still an amazing film and I hope to see it in a better format soon (Criterion pls). 9/10
Days of Being Wild (Wong Kar-wai, 1990)
Wong is always exciting to watch because I never know what he's going to go for. Here his direction is very up close and personal, using extreme close-ups to convey sexual tension from the slightest of cues. Even when he's not closing up, he never misses a chance to present the scene from a wonderful and unique angle. The theme of unrequited love is the same as in many of his later films, but it's always great to see him tackle it in refreshing and exciting ways. 9/10
Upstream Color (Shane Carruth, 2013)
Made on a mere $50,000 budget (which is still seven times the budget of his previous film), Carruth really owns this film, doing everything from directing, writing, editing, cinematography, playing the lead part, and to even composing the score. You can tell Carruth has great ideas wanting to come out, but it's clear he shouldn't be doing everything himself. Everything about this film has a hint of amateurishness to it - the cinematography is really cheap and digital looking, the acting is pretty weak and the editing is kind of choppy and erratic. You can tell Carruth wants to be a sort of pseudo-Malick with his handheld shooting and quick cuts, but he simply doesn't have the tools to accomplish it properly. That being said, I think he'll be a great director one day, he just needs better production values to work with. 7/10
Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2006)
Seconding Crudblud's sentiments regarding this film, I'm not sure what this is either, but I absolutely loved it. Sure, it's a bunch of loosely connected scenes of people talking or just doing stuff, but Weerasethakul manages to make that a thoroughly mesmerising and meditative experience with his amazing cinematography, mise en scène and use of aural stimuli. Every shot in this film is just so masterfully composed. Some sequences are repeated with slight variations, first in a rural hospital and a second time in a modern urban one, and it's fascinating how small changes in tone, reaction, perspective and some changed dialogue can make the same sequences feel so different and captivating. 10/10