tamosoeka

We all thought art is history. It has been exiled to museums for safekeeping. And our generation won't produce it no more.

Then I stumbled upon this film! It was so unexpected!

If I was given a chance, I'd delete Hollywood & Bollywood forever - to replace them with South Korea.

Today's audience have no idea, a lot of films that were made in the early period of when film itself was born were gutted in fires (they are irreplaceable as it is). Thanks to those industries, now the art of cinema is being lost with pop culture's obsession of stardom and glamour.

Very few South Korean films are bad, almost all are good. This one was over the moon.

Now, of course, it is not for everybody. I understand some might find it a slow-burner, usually art films are.

The difference is, this one was not trying your patience & keeping you with the story to the end.

This one is not a sleeping pill, unlike the countless productions billed as art films - it is a poetry.

Not just the last sequence, that drove me to tears. I'd be murmuring to myself those lines the boy was saying, for a long, long time (I only read the captions in English) :

"I a sinner, I have shoplifted expensive whiskey from the supermarket, I have crossed the road when the traffic was red, I have smashed car window..."

Then, the black stones.

Just hats off to Gyeong-Tae Roh! You did it! This world is a more beautiful place with directors like him existing, completely - not without.

If sitting on a time bomb is your thing, this movie is for you. Otherwise, skip it.

The film lures the Muslim, liberal audience into believing there is a good work, expectation shatters when one starts watching it.

My breathing literally stopped for two hours. I think the director was aware of it, what it could do to people. So came the dialogue, a woman choking on popcorn in a movie theater.

Let me say a thing or two about myself here. I stayed away from gay films for nearly a year & then returned to them again, discovering some wonderful works. 'Breaking Fast' is not one of them.

It is billed as a rom com, while throughout the time, if I'm not wrong - all it sounded like was a theological argument. I did not find one tiny drop of romance here.

Quite frankly, all it felt like is a well-familiar Islamophobic tirade. It pretends to be something else, but achieves the exact opposite. Is this your way to justify the Gay Muslim's existence?

Of course being gay & Muslim is no easy thing. Gays are executed in Middle East, there's no denying that. One can clearly see why the character Sam hates the religion he was supposed to inherit.

At the same time, the story is taking place in a completely different universe where there's barely reasons to weep for it or do all those overacting. It brings to the mind what happened after Iraq war, the liberator US army liberated a gay in Iraq at the cost of genociding the bloody straight people.

This was, of course, 'saving' people. The ultra-liberal director, easily forgot that one cannot save somebody from their own culture. Nothing can be more nonsensical than this.

Guess what? Now homophobia is thriving in all these countries. Every countries that the US has touched. What was already a taboo that no one spoke of, parents would know but pretend not to see, has now become an issue everybody is talking about. Does this help the persecution scenario?

Even as a comedy, it did not do a good job. The only thing I found remotely funny was when Mo started singing.

Plus, no one should have such a wrong idea of world's people, whatever their race or religion is, that juxtaposing vagina and hijab together the way it did would be very digestive. Except, the rapists.

The question that comes here is, who are your target audience?

I tried to figure it out. Is it the Americans? If so, allowing them to watch (and further confirm) their prejudices on screen is not a disservice. If it is gay, Muslim audience around the world, you have blundered.

For the entire film, Mo was an outsider, guinea pig in a laboratory - where everybody is attacking his faith. This, nevertheless, starts with 'respect my culture'.

What could be bigger joke than this? What could be more bullying, either? A bullying that lasts one and a half hour.

Everybody knows there are people who'd find it funny, still. It's not their fault.

But here, you are in Hollywood, you have good money funding your project, and your concern is homophobia in Muslim lands. Why'd you waste it this way?

The film managed to become overwhelmingly foody while talking about Ramadan & offering the basics of do's and don'ts during the month - in the guise of cultural representation.

The eyesore was the scene of Mo praying. By that time, I already went to the balcony & started telling Mo : don't pray! You don't have to. Do your stuff. You don't have to pray. If you are praying, you are causing even more damage.

Nobody should pretend to be what they are not. This film is a very prejudiced version of how things are in the Muslim world around its gays, and it perfectly manages to alienate the Muslim audiences devoted to their religion.

But what more one could expect, after all? It literally ended with a death kiss, that was too boring to watch.

Please try better.

The only good news is, this film is not the end of the world. And of course, better things are possible.

I mean, how could one not jump all over the bed after seeing this?

The mere joy of seeing this film, being lucky enough to cross paths with it, you end up thanking your luck that you found it.

I have watched tons of South Korean movies and so far, nothing beats this one. I wish more works of the director is available for international audience, so I get a chance to see them, too.

I was simply envying that this was a director, after a long, long time, who invented a completely new and his own cinematic language - stunned by the mere fact, that it is still possible.