I want to comment on the geisha scene--one that is less than a minute long.
There is more power, mystery, eroticism, history, suspense--and a whole bunch of other adjectives--in that one brief scene than in the entire movie Memoirs of a Geisha. Or any other movie I've ever seen with a geisha.* It is absolutely hypnotic and something you will never forget.
And that's just a tiny fraction of this movie.
Same sex relationships figure in the plot, so I count this as one of my ten best gay films. But it is not a gay film in any other sense except that the desire and love is for the same sex.
The dialog is literate and witty, the characters are multi-dimensional, and the story has many levels. It is a meditation on beauty, obsession, jealousy, order, and disorder. This movie is fascinating, mysterious, and exquisite.
What else could you possibly want?
*EDIT: I learned from the message boards that the character is actually a high-ranked courtesan, not a geisha. For devotees of Japanese culture, this distinction is important; for us regular people, not so much.
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