Jieho Lee
The Air I Breathe

Interwoven stories are gradually becoming a new frontier of modern cinema. Take Paul Haggins' Crash, Inarritu's Babel, Guillermo Arriaga's melodrama The Burning Plain. All examples of intertwining stories that continually return through a common thread. "The Air I Breathe" (one of the few films that did not change its title once it arrived in Italy) is yet another example of this interwoven storytelling. Directed by Jieho Lee, of clear South Korean origin, the director employs a highly respectable cast to tell a rather disconnected story.

The filmmaker starts from a Chinese proverb according to which life is divided into four "sections": happiness, pleasure, sorrow, and love. Each of these four moments has its main protagonist.

Happiness is the part of life where Lee chooses as the protagonist Forest Whitaker, who, having made a wrong bet on a horse race, is forced to struggle against a criminal who calls himself Fingers (Andy Garcia, the only character who returns in all four parts of the film).

Pleasure tells a part of the life of one of Fingers' helpers. A man (Brendan Fraser) who has the gift of clairvoyance and thus manages to save Tony (Emile Hirsch), the gangster's nephew.

Sorrow is instead represented by the pop star Trista (Sarah Michelle Gellar) who, despite her fame, cannot live the life she wants and having found her soulmate, ends up losing them immediately.

Finally, love is embodied in the figure of a doctor (played by Kevin Bacon) who finds himself in the difficult situation of having to save a life by relying on others...

"The Air I Breathe" is a complex work precisely because of the structure with which it was conceived. The film flows well, at times truly engaging, but loses credibility in the final sequences. In the first hour, Jieho Lee had created a somewhat "laid-back" yet frenetic metropolitan atmosphere (thanks in part to the use of flashbacks), but in the last scenes, unfortunately, it descends into banality. Kevin Bacon improvising a superhero, a bag full of money that strangely ends up in that car...

In short, a film that starts well but loses credibility as the scenes progress. The foundation was very good and it could have really turned out to be an excellent film. It's a pity for the choices that seem a bit far-fetched, which also undermine the good work done by the cast.

"Sometimes the things you can't change end up changing you."