Watch it at Amazon
The following FAQ entries may contain spoilers. Spoiler tags are used sparingly in order to make the page more readable. Please note that the entries at the bottom of this page are about the ending of The Air I Breathe and are not covered with tags.
For detailed information about the amounts and types of (a) sex and nudity, (b) violence and gore, (c) profanity, (d) alcohol, drugs, and smoking, and (e) frightening and intense scenes in this movie, consult the IMDb Parents Guide for this movie. The Parents Guide for The Air I Breathe can be found here.
The air you breathe is basically your life and the transition of it. This movie is about people looking at their lives and wanting to change them. It is the moment of change. It is the butterfly emerging from its cocoon. It is cyclical. It is constant. It is like breathing.
The director of this film Jieho Lee once said in an interview, "You cannot love without knowing pleasure, have sorrow without knowing happiness. You need to know all of them to know one, and that balance came out." That is the basic of this film.
The first story to happen is Pleasure's. Then it passes into Sorrow's, and her story and Happiness' coincide. The both go over several weeks. When Happiness bets the money and loses it, and Pleasure gives him the gun in his apartment, Sorrow is at staying with Pleasure. When Happiness is robbing the bank, you can clearly see that he has grown more facial hair, which tells you weeks have gone by. By then Fingers has gotten hold of Sorrow, organized her tour, and we find out that hers and Pleasure's baby is a few weeks old. The important part of Love's story (which has the shortest timeline) happens just before Happiness robs the bank and throws down the money, which Sorrow then finds and gives her means to escape.
Pleasure probably saw the future of Happiness and knew of his quest to obtain happiness. By giving him the gun, he was encouraging him to make the breakthrough from the perceived cycle of work. Also, before he gave him the gun, it is interesting to note that he asked him repeatedly at point blanc range, why he bet everything on the horse race.Also, given the timeline of the movie, Pleasure had probably at some point seen (in the future) that by giving Happiness the gun, it would eventually lead to Sorrow getting the stolen money, which would allow her to escape. At the time he gave him the gun, his abilities has ceased though, which is why he replied 'I don't know anymore', when Happiness asked him, why he gives him the gun .
He had finally obtained freedom by breaking the cycle which he described himself at the beginning of the movie: study, more study and work. Additional notes: It was at this point, that he suddenly realized he was finally free. It is made reference to in the opening line, when he questioned whether the caterpillar knows that it has become beautiful upon leaving its cocoon.
These two characters were actually the opposite of the emotion they portrayed. It was about their journey to experience that emotion. It was more along the lines that you can't truly experience those emotions without experiencing its counterpart. Happiness shows this emotion for the first time, when he breaks out of his normal lifestyle. Pleasure experiences something close to the emotion, when the character no longer knows if the premonitions he is having are 100% true.
No one could get help because Fingers had control over the police department as well. This is insinuated when Pleasure is walking down the side walk getting money for Fingers and two officers see him, but drive off.
...before Fingers shot him?Pleasure was reaching out for pepper spray.
Yes, and it's true that it's very rare. You can find out more about it at http://www.bloodbook.com/rare-chart.html
Sorrow had no money to escape with. Her manager Frank had cleared out all of her accounts to try and pay back Fingers.
She got the blanket from the hospital itself. You can see this when she is laying down in the first scene with her being a patient at the hospital.
No, this film had the correct four emotions. However the character Fingers does pretty much represent the emotion Anger.
The musical score was done by Marcelo Zarvos.
The title of the song is "U Can Be" - by Akon & Dr. Dre
It was filmed in Mexico City.
It was a independent film so they didn't have a lot of money for promotion.The plan was for it to get what they call a "platform release." Open it in a few theaters then the following week a few more and the following week a few more. However people didn't go the first week, possibly because of the bad reviews it got, and the distributor decided to pull it out of theaters that week.
The movie itself got many mixed reviews, however all the actors got great reviews.Some positve reviews included-"Electric...a Brilliant ensemble piece."-Paste Magazine"Ingenious!"-The New York Times"Solid perfomances by Forest Whitaker, Emile Hirsch, and Sarah Michelle Gellar!"-New York MagazineAnd Some Negatives were-"14% on Rotten Tomatoes""D-"-Entertainment Weekly
r73731
