My Favorite Film of 2000: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

 I'm starting a series of reviews on this blog, looking back at my favorite films of different years, from contemporary movies all the way back to silent films - both as an excuse to write about personal favorites, and to show what films I admire from different eras of history.

China, 2000

Directed by Ang Lee

I have vivid memories of my first time watching Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as a kid. The first moment of high-flying action left me awestruck. A powerful sword, the Green Destiny, has just been stolen by a masked bandit. One of our heroes pursues the bandit, and suddenly they are bouncing off walls, parkour-style, and continuing the chase on the rooftops, gliding from roof to roof in the night. When our hero catches the bandit their fight defies the laws of physics - they run across walls and perform impossible mid-air acrobatics, but there remains a tremendous physicality and athleticism to their movements that makes the fantastic battle believable. I had never seen anything like this before, and I was stunned. The rest of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon absorbed me just as much - not only was it exciting, but it had a grand beauty, a sense of mystery and romanticism that lit fire to my imagination. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was the first foreign film I remember loving, and it has instilled in me a fascination with martial arts films that remains to this day. It's also one of the rare childhood favorites that, as I've gotten older and less impressionable, has not lost any of its magic.

Director Ang Lee has stated that his intention with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was nothing less than to make the greatest martial arts epic, or wuxia film, in history. And while I obviously have not seen every martial arts film ever, in my eyes he has succeeded. Crouching Tiger does for the wuxia genre what The Lord of the Rings does for western epic fantasy or The Godfather does for gangster films - perfects a genre at the same time that it transcends it with a far grander vision than is usually offered by stories of its type. The fight scenes are technically astounding, and varied in their style and impact. The film's craft is of the highest quality, and of a scope and stately beauty comparable to an epic from the golden age of Hollywood. The performances - those of Ziyi Zhang and Michelle Yeoh in particular - are impressive. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon offers movie escapism at its best.

At the time, Ang Lee must have seemed like a counterintuitive choice to direct an epic fantasy film. Before Crouching Tiger, Lee had only directed several small-scale Chinese dramas and an adaptation of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Yet, along with proving his skill as a director of ambitious spectacle, Lee brings the same focus on character and theme from his previous features to Crouching Tiger, giving it an emotional honesty and sensitivity not often found in action epics. There is a surprising amount of Jane Austen in its DNA, considering its generic and cultural opposition to all her works. Calling Crouching Tiger a Sense and Sensibility in ancient China - with Shu Lien as its Elinor and Jen its Marianne - is simplifying things a lot, but should give you an idea of its thematic concerns. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is about conflict between (and within) characters with differing philosophies on how to live. Shu Lien and Li Mu Bai are governed by their "sense" - rigid personal codes of honor and societal respectability - while Jen is governed by her "sensibility" - self-expression, passion, individuality. Crouching Tiger shows the benefits and limitations of both ways of living.

Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) and Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat) are warriors who live by strict codes of duty to society, self-discipline and worldly detachment. From their first scene together it is obvious that, beyond their mutual respect and friendship, unexpressed romantic feelings exist between them. But circumstance, honor and an excess of restraint keeps them from acting on their love or even confessing it. Li Mu Bai has just retired the warrior life and is leaving his sword to the protection of his friend Sir Te, where it is stolen. The bandit is Jen (Zhang Ziyi), the young daughter of one of Sir Te's guests, Governor Yu. Jen has been secretly trained in martial arts by her governess, actually the infamous criminal Jade Fox in hiding; Jen is engaged to be married to a man she does not know, and rages against the constraints of a proper life she does not desire. Jen befriends Shu Lien, and Li Mu Bai pursues her in an attempt to convince her to become his apprentice, but her increasingly wild and dangerous expressions of pride, fury and contempt for society cause conflict between them.

Neither way - of self-denial or selfishness - is portrayed as entirely right or wrong. This is most clearly shown through the two very different romances of Crouching Tiger. Shu Lien and Li Mu Bai have a great friendship and clearly relish each other's company, though they have never allowed their relationship, despite their feelings, to develop past that. They come to realize that they have been depriving themselves for too long. Li Mu Bai describes why he abandoned his former life - he had been meditating and reached a spot of absolute stillness and ultimate detachment. But instead of achieving nirvana, he felt a horrified emptiness, and something pulling him back to earth - which we understand to be Shu Lien. For all their wisdom, Shu Lien and Li Mu Bai are cowardly when it comes to their own desires, their ascetic lifestyle becomes only a negative. Their confession of love, once it comes, is tragically overdue. Yet, at the same time, it is all the more meaningful and mature for its withholding - it comes from a place deeper than just lust or romantic attraction.

Jen's romance, told in flashback, is entirely different. As her family crosses the desert, their caravan is raided - the raiders' leader steals her beloved comb, and she pursues him furiously to get it back. This leads her to become lost in the middle of the desert - the comb-stealer, Lo Dark Cloud, brings her to his cave hideaway where she can regain her strength. The two initially hate each other, though in a playful sort of way, but this transforms suddenly into lust. Their love affair is wild and exotic and very romantic, but also unstable and dangerous. And when it seems to end, they both fall into rage and self-destruction. Their romance is about the opposite of Li Mu Bai and Shu Lien - both are beautiful and foolish in their own different ways.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is about the necessity of balance in life - between our passions and our duties, between being a member of society and an individual. The film ends tragically, because our characters have realized this only too late. But all of this is told in the form of a tremendous fantasy adventure - and as in a musical or a dance film, the fight sequences of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are not so much a way to advance the plot as eruptive, fantastic expressions of characters and their conflict. It's only a bonus that the fight scenes are so terrific, and varied in style - from Jen's arrogant battle against dozens of warriors that destroys a whole restaurant, to a ferocious duel between pissed-off sisters, to a struggle between Jen and Li Mu Bai high in the stalks of a bamboo forest, jaw-dropping in its beauty. The athleticism, creativity and cinematic beauty on display is exhilarating.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a rare sort of movie - one with the beauty and mystery of an art film, but a soaring sense of adventure that will appeal to a wide, international audience of all ages. It's a masterpiece and a movie that entirely captivates me.

Other films I love from 2000:

• Yi Yi (directed by Edward Yang, Taiwan) - a masterfully-made, wise portrait of a Taiwanese family. You can watch the trailer here.
• O Brother, Where Art Thou? (directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, United States) - hilarious characters, great music, and a weird, wonderful reworking of Homer in the South.
• Best in Show (directed by Christopher Guest, United States) - fake documentary about the Mayflower Dog Show, one of the funniest movies I've ever seen.
• In the Mood for Love (directed by Wong Kar-Wai, Hong Kong) - 2000 was an amazing year for Asian film. An almost-romance between neighbors who suspect their spouses are having an affair with each other, told with achingly gorgeous visuals and music.

Barry Lyndon

United States / United Kingdom, 1975
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Barry Lyndon is seemingly Stanley Kubrick's most "normal" film. Based on an 1844 novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, it outlines the rise and fall of Redmond Barry, an 18th century Irishman and opportunistic social climber, who fights in the British and Prussian armies in the Seven Years' War (and deserts both), ascends to the highest levels of society through lies, luck and seduction, and ultimately loses it all. The broad strokes of Barry Lyndon are typical, it's a story we've all heard before. There is nothing here as obviously outrageous as many of Kubrick's other films - including, prior to Lyndon, a political satire ending in nuclear holocaust (Dr. Strangelove), a trippy science fiction epic (2001), and a bizarre shocker about crime and punishment in a dystopian London (A Clockwork Orange). Yet in its own way, Barry Lyndon is every bit as unusual and challenging as any of them, and just as clearly an uncompromised product of Kubrick's vision.

Barry Lyndon's opening sets the tone for the 3 hours to follow. The funereal notes of Handel's "Sarabande" blare on the soundtrack as the opening titles appear.

The first image shows, from a distance, two men about to engage in a duel.

We cannot see their faces, and their human drama - of life-or-death importance to them, obviously - is dwarfed by the landscape surrounding them. The scene almost looks more like landscape painting than photography. A narrator informs us, without an ounce of emotion in his voice: "Barry's father had been bred, like many other young sons of a genteel family, to the profession of the law. And there is no doubt he would have made an eminent figure in his profession -" BANG "- had he not been killed in a duel, which arose over the purchase of some horses." And we see Barry's father fall limp in the distance.

This opening tells us several things about Barry Lyndon. 1) This is a highly formalized film - from the overwhelming classical music, to the fussily decorous titles, to the painterly cinematography. 2) Largely due to 1), this is a distant, cold film. We are observers of these people and their tragedies, but Kubrick never invites us to feel sympathy for them. We are always kept at a distance. The dry narration often tells us what is about to happen before it actually does, flattening suspense or typical engagement with the story, and it even makes sardonic little jokes at the expense of the characters, which leads us to 3) this is all quite absurd. The duel may have been of the utmost importance to Barry's father, but to us it looks petty and foolish - a dumb quarrel erupting over an event as comparatively trivial as the purchase of horses. The grand aesthetics do not elevate the characters and their tragedies so much as parody them.

Barry Lyndon's attitude of bemused detachment is what makes it so unique. Our main character is never particularly likable, and star Ryan O'Neill intentionally plays Barry as a blank slate of a person. The film moves along at a steady pace - about the speed of a glacier, also an apt comparison for how warm and friendly it is. I've probably made it sound deeply unappealing: Barry Lyndon is beautiful but cold, and unconcerned with character development or traditionally engaging storytelling. Yet it is mesmerizing, and even surprisingly enjoyable. How so?

For starters, I'm not using the word "beautiful" lightly in this case. Barry Lyndon is one of the most gorgeous movies ever made. If every artform has at least a handful of indisputable genius artists, then Stanley Kubrick must be considered one of the true geniuses of the movies. From the cinematography to the music to the editing, Barry Lyndon is masterfully crafted. Every image is carefully composed and lighted - Barry Lyndon used natural lighting instead of set lights, which at the time required the development of a new type of camera lens (also used by NASA). The effect is magical, especially in the scenes lit only by candles. The images have a soft glow that, along with the film's slow, steady rhythm and beautiful music, has a hypnotizing power. Taken purely as abstract art, Barry Lyndon is remarkable.

But there's more to it than that. The images of Barry Lyndon are designed to look like paintings, not only for beauty's sake but to communicate the story's themes. Redmond Barry wants to attain a certain status within a society that prizes a rigidly aestheticized lifestyle. He lies, cheats, and transforms himself to achieve his goals, and as he does so, the images themselves become more formal and stylized. Through much of the first half, detailing Redmond's humble beginnings as an Irish lad and anonymous soldier, the imagery is painterly, but has an openness and freedom to it.

As the film continues and Redmond reaches the highest levels of his society, the photography becomes more static and controlled. In Barry Lyndon, the indoors, ritualistic life of the high class is portrayed like a luxurious prison. Characters are trapped in beautiful images resembling the tableaux of 18th century paintings. The Lyndon estate becomes as claustrophobic as the Overlook Hotel of Kubrick's next film, The Shining.

The highly controlled camerawork is violated during several violent moments of the story. Redmond starts a fistfight with another soldier during his time in the British army. Kubrick films the fight with a handheld camera, giving it an intimate, visceral quality shockingly different from the cool distance of most of Barry Lyndon. We hardly ever see Redmond happier than during this scene, where he is beating the hell out of another man.

Stanley Kubrick rarely had a kindly view of human nature, and his Barry Lyndon is a savage satire of the classism of 18th century society. As Kubrick views it, there is a brutal animal nature beneath the formality of high society. All the rituals and grandeur of their civilization are just fancy trappings on a "survival of the fittest" Darwinian struggle to be the biggest and the best, to crush any competitors. A perfect society for a sociopath like Redmond Barry to flourish in. Moments like the aforementioned fight scene are just the characters - and the film itself - dropping any pretense and revealing their true nature. Kubrick plays much of this for sardonic, bone-dry comedy, and it is surprisingly hilarious at times.

Yet, to the film's credit - and keeping it from becoming totally misanthropic - Redmond Barry is not entirely unsympathetic despite being a nasty cad. He is also tragically misguided, a young man in search of his place and in want of a father figure. We see him behave gently and honorably around only a few people - including a superior in the army who becomes a mentor, and Barry's young son who he loves dearly - and he loses all of them. For all its frigid cynicism, Barry Lyndon accumulates moments of tremendous power, particularly towards the end. Kubrick may be ruthless in his view of human folly but Barry Lyndon is not entirely heartless.