Foreign Correspondents - a film by Mark Tapio Kines

Foreign Correspondents
directed by Mark Tapio Kines
starring Melanie Lynskey, Wil Wheaton, Corin Nemec, Yelena Danova...

This is the film I can safely say I've heard the most of, on the Internet at least. And just because Mark (the director) has designed such a beautiful website for it (see links) I was too shy to make my own decent page on ForCor. But not anymore! Is it the end of the year, the unbearable heat, my finally-at-last knowing that this year is over ? (June 8, 1999 speaking) Who knows, but I've just decided to re-build this whole ForCor-page.

Why is this film so special ?

Ha, for many reasons. First of all, I kind of "know" the director (ie Mark and I have been exchanging emails for a year or so), and this is definitely the film I know most about (not-counting Heavenly Creatures), and whose development I've been most closely following (since May 1998, ie most of post-production - and okay I wouldliketomakeit clear that I did not actually help, I was just posted about the film's situation every now and then. But loads of moral support)

What else makes it special: It's Melanie's first film after Heavenly Creatures (no I am not counting her cameo appearance in The Frighteners).So if you think Ever After was Mel's post-HC movie, nonono, it wasn't. Mel actually auditioned for Ever After while shooting ForCor, but of course when you have Drew Barrymore in the cast somehowthings go a lot faster.

Lastly (but maybe I should have said this first), Mark is the first writer/director to design his own website for his film, and to finance, cast, and do a lot more for his film through the Internet.

Other particularities rely in the film itself, and we'll see about that in just a few secs...

The story (or actually, stories)

...Now this wasn't very long, was it ? So here is a sort of Denise Calls Up (for the theme and the American indie tag) meets Chungking Express (a two-story film about frustrated love stories in a big city, with a clever link tying them up together. Still, the style's very different), with a spice of La Double Vie de Véronique in the first story (the story with Mel! Lonely young woman starts getting really weird letters. Like Véronique in LDVDV. And if I can take this opportunity to say that Irčne Jacob's beauty is so so breathtaking, no matter what my sister says -she hates her for being so off-reality). Anyway, all films which I very much love, for different reasons, but basically all the same: love stories that don't go anywhere, really. Or two girls that never really meet (yes I know they do meet, but one of them doesn't realize it until blah blah blah... For LDVDV-fans).

Sorry about the digression (really. I try to stop doing that, but then I do it all over again. I just don't do it in university papers. Ha but if only I could...) So the first part of the film is set in LA, where Melody (Mel) has just moved in, alone (and lonely, too). She doesn't exactly find fulfillment in her job (answering the phone in a lawyer's office) and ends up joining the Neighbourhood Watch in the hope that she'll meet some new people. As this happens she also starts getting poscards meant for a Jenny Bergen (hence the title of the first story, Dear Jenny), and which are being sent from la belle France (no-one in France calls it like that, by the way, but I guess you knew that). Having nothing better to do with her time (I think we've established that), Melanie, sorry Melody finds herself much too involved in this correspondence.

The second part (before I get carried away and tell you the whole of Dear Jenny) takes place in san Francisco, where Trevor (Corin Nemec - oh my god he is just so handsome... Yes well this might be my coming in, as it were. I do find some men attractive. Like Corin. There are others as well, but I'll leave those revelations for later) is meeting his penpal Mira (Yelena Danova, who looks just so great in the film... I am dying to see her act, really), a young Yougoslavian living as a sort of au-pair girl with a wealthy American family (they have a son, which she babysits for a lot. And I must say most of the scenes in Love, Trevor are just great. Thena again such terrific characters were made for screenwriting). Back to the story... I wouldn't want to tell you too much and spoil the film for you, but let's just say that Mira 's visa is close to expiring and the couple she's staying with have paid for Trevor's ticket in the prospect that he shall marry her, thus making her an English citizen (Trevor is English). Loads of elements make this story compelling (yes I've read the script! Lucky me! Wpp-hoo!), not least Trevor and Mira's totally opposite personalities. A lot remains unsaid (which is GREAT!) and another interesting feature is that both Mira and Trevor are Europeans, looking at America from a foreign point of view, which is always very interesting if you ask me. Or maybe I'm just saying this because it would be my own point of view if I went to the US - but I've never been there.

The (Dream) Cast

They may not be famous, but Mark managed to get all the right personalities for the film. Here are the four main actors:

Mel, Wil Wheaton, Corin Nemec, and Yelena Danova.

Melanie Lynskey as Melody

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A top-choice. And Mel said yes. There is a meaning to life after all. Mel playing Melody is first and foremost (Melanie-fan speaking) a thank-you-Mark casting, as it is Foreign Correspondents which set Melanie's career back... on track (thunder). Melody's part must have been pretty hard to play, as she spends a great deal of screentime alone, looking at love postcards which are not for her anyway, and getting very, very depressed. It's hard to really get the picture when you're reading it (just to make a LDVDV-comparison, I can't imagine what the script for LDVDV must read like: Weronika walks to the window. She is in her undies. She sees an old lady in the street. She walks back. She doesn't speak. But then you know it's Irčne Jacob, adnd it makes all the difference!!!!!! Irčne. The obsesion I was under before I saw Heavenly Creatures, The Film Of The Century. Anyway), but Melanie alone and depressed somehow becomes a very encouraging thought (it's the sort of moment when, naive spectators as we all are, we believe this is the real Mel, and decide to join the movie just to keep her company, remembering that she's so desperate we'll almost sound interesting). Actually, this is the sort of character you might very well fall in love with (if you're into having crushes on movie characters of course. I know I am). Anyway. I might see this film a great number of times.

Wil Wheaton as Jonas

This film made me re-discover Wil Wheaton! Who basically looks like a nice guy, even though he was in that film which bored me so, Stand By Me (I know, I know, loads of people loved it. Blah-blah). Jonas is Melody's neighbour, who very predictably falls for her. Of course her having a crush on some French guy she never even met and who doesn't know she exists does come as a bit of a problem, but I won't tell you any more than this.

Corin Nemec as Trevor

Love this actor. Loved Parker Lewis. Unfortunately only taped one episode, which eventually got erased because we needed the tape (and I would like to take this opportunity to say 3rd Rock From The Sun is the greatest TV show ever and Kristen Johnston is great to see and hear, and John Lithgow as well, although not for the same reasons, and all the actors actually, even though I can't remember their names). Anyway. Corin Nemec looks great. All the time. corin Nemec has great teeth. Corin Nemec has got straight hair, falling on his face (he is English in the film). He is a great choice for playing the self-contained, and also a bit calculative Trevor (if anyone here read Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir, Trevor reminds me very much of Julien Sorel - Ewan McGregor in some incredible miscast for The Red and the Black TV mini-series - , a young man who has a plan but somehow gets trapped by his own feelings).

Yelena Danova as Mira

I can't tell you how grateful I am to mark for letting me know of this actress, whom I had never seen on film since I never saw Independence Day nor in the Chicago Hope episode she was in (what do I do of my days exactly is my question as well). Mira is the sort of girl who always sounds so cheerful and upbeat but is really so lost and alone, and it makes for one of the most interesting characters I've ever read about (really, I mean it. She's just fascinating. You just feel like rushing into the screen and tell her: stop it! You're lying! Look at things like they really are, for once! - But you know she'll never do it, because it's just too hard). Anyway, she has some of the greatest lines in the film. Which we'll all see some day.

...And the man behind all this

Mark Tapio Kines. Not famous, but it's only a matter of time. And besides, if fame means stalking, does he really want it ?

Anyway. Mark currently (June 1999) works as a webdesigner for Paramount, and has designed official sites for quite a lot of films, including his own. But he only does it for the money, you see, cos mark graduated graduated fropm CalArts to become a film director, and indeed he directed a few short films before he recklessly threw himself into the Forcor adventure. And adventure which 's been lasting for over two years now, and where Marl often thought his film would NEVER get finished, let alone distributed. But it somehow got finished, edited, music-added, completed, and is now eagerly waiting for a distributor which will wisely say it has to be distributed in the UK some time between september 1999 and June 2000 or else Jovita won't get to see it before a very, very long time.

Foreign Correspondents will be shown at the Chicago film festival this June.