The Sympathizer
Diego Crespo

Review by Diego Crespo Patron

The Sympathizer

2024
Liked

Rewatched 01 Jun 2024

Still pretty good by the end! But the drop-off when Park Chan-wook stops directing is immediately noticeable. Especially the fourth episode which is supposed to function as this movie-within-a-movie narrative. After Park's stellar compositional direction, match-cutting, cross-fading, the works, it was disappointing to see an episode based on making a feature film then do nothing but throw in some "cinemascope" black bars and faux-grain to express that. The final three episodes fare better with stronger direction and blocking but just nothing compares to those first three.

The lead Hoa Xuande plays remarkably well with Park Chan-wook's specific tonal wavelengths and his performance carries even the weaker aspects.

Imperfect to be sure. But boy, was I glad to tune back into hbo on Sundays again.

There's some viable criticism regarding its Vietnamese roots that I am not really qualified to speak on, so I will simply direct everyone to an instagram post by filmmaker Julian Doan, who worked on the show to speak about the series: www.instagram.com/p/C5wvRQcPQxg/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

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