Мен Менің Тынысым: Төрт Эмоцияның Ізімен

the film

The Air I Breathe is a 2007 crime drama film and the directorial debut of Korean American filmmaker Jieho Lee, who co wrote the script with Bob DeRosa. The film stars Kevin Bacon, Julie Delpy, Brendan Fraser, Andy Garcia, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Emile Hirsch, and Forest Whitaker. The concept of the film is based on an ancient Chinese proverb that breaks life down into four emotional cornerstones – Happiness (Whitaker), Pleasure (Fraser), Sorrow (Gellar), and Love (Bacon). The proverb speaks of these emotions, not as isolated fragments of feelings, but as elements that make up the whole of the human existence. Each of the four protagonists is based on one of the four emotions; and like the proverb their paths are inextricably linked to each other, akin to the Fingers (Garcia) of a hand. None of the four main characters' actual names are mentioned in the whole film, although Gellar's character's stage name, "Trista", is mentioned several times. The Air I Breathe was financed by NALA Investments through its production company NALA Films, and was released on January 25, 2008 in the United States. The film received mainly negative reviews from critics, but some of the cast's performances were praised with Gellar, Garcia, and Whitaker being singled out.

Jieho Lee wrote the script for The Air I Breathe in 2003. He later sent it to several producers, including Lawrence Bender and John Woo, and eventually teamed up with Paul Schiff. Schiff brought the film to Emilio Diez Barroso (the chairman of NALA Investments and founder of NALA Films), who financed it with money raised from private investors, "state subsidies" and "film subsidy programs" such as the fund run by the Mexico film institute Imcine. Diez Barroso, Caamaño Loquet, and Schiff served as producers, in association with Paul Schiff Productions (whose Tai Duncan co executive produced with Christopher Pratt). Given the film's limited budget, the director, cinematographer and executive producer all appeared as minor characters. The Air I Breathe had a 29 day shoot and over 50 location changes. Lee described the filming as "madness", and said: "We were running everywhere. It was so crazy. I think I got sick because I didn't sleep at all". Worldwide, the film grossed $2.6 million.

Reviews for the film were overwhelmingly negative. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gave it an approval rating of 10% based on 40 reviews, with an average rating of 3.83/10. The site's consensus reads "The Air I Breathe is a jumbled indie production that accomplishes little save for the squandering of a talented cast". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 37 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Most critics agreed that while the cast gave good performances, the film itself is overly pretentious to the point of comedy. Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum gave the film a "D−" and called it an "unintentional parody". Claudia Puig of USA Today conceded that each of the film's segments "has its moments" but that on the whole it lacked "an overarching vision". In the New York Daily News, Jack Mathews thought the film had a "convoluted screenplay" that went "0 4" on its segments, despite the "fine" performances from the cast. Carina Chocano agreed that the cast was of a "high caliber" and "disport[ed] themselves admirably" in the Los Angeles Times, with special mention to Andy Garcia and Forest Whitaker, but ultimately felt that "the whole thing looks like a pirated knockoff" with "all the aesthetic innovation of a disposable razor commercial", showcasing "meaningless allegory, violence and pretension" that gets "more ludicrous by the minute" and is "good for an occasional laugh". Annabelle Robertson from Crosswalk also praised the cast, particularly for Forest Whitaker and Sarah Michelle Gellar, but criticized it as an "off kilter copycat of Crash with lesser production values". Writing for Variety, Ronnie Scheib also agreed that the cast was "stellar" but deemed the film to be "morosely pretentious" and questioned who it was for as it "strains both credulity and patience".

The film was released on DVD and Blu ray Disc on May 27, 2008 in the United States and includes a commentary, featurette, trailer and deleted scenes. It was released on DVD in the UK on September 15, 2008.