Viewing Journal - May 2016 #2

To Live (Zhang Yimou, China, 1994)

Three decades in the life of a Chinese family, spanning the Chinese Civil War, the Communist takeover, and Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. Fugui, Jiazhen and their children are not exceptionally heroic or important figures, they are entirely ordinary Chinese citizens. They're just trying to survive the tumultuous events of mid-20th century China, to raise a family and live quietly together, as happily as they can. It's all there in the title, they just want to live and nothing more. But even that was a dangerous, sometimes impossible task in their time. To Live shows bluntly how fearful and perilous a place Communist China could be, and how the people of China were misled by its utopian promises. The propagandistic language and groupthink insidiously sneaks into the private lives of families. The dictates of the Cultural Revolution destroys much of ancient Chinese culture - like Fugui being told to burn his beautiful, ornate puppets because they symbolize old feudal excesses, even though we have seen them bring so much joy to the community in his shadow puppetry shows. Mao claimed to be bringing about a true communal society, yet his rule weakened and outright destroyed the pillars of community, family and culture.

Unsurprisingly, the modern PRC government was not fond of To Live. It was banned in China and director Zhang Yimou, who had already gotten in trouble with censors for his earlier masterpiece Raise the Red Lantern, was banned from filmmaking for two years. Yimou protested this decision, saying that To Live was not necessarily anti-Communist. Indeed, To Live is not explicit in its criticisms or a political screed, it just portrays an era with honesty. But the PRC does not seem to encourage honesty about its country's history.

It's a shame, as Zhang Yimou no doubt made To Live primarily for Chinese audiences. It's an old-fashioned melodrama, and an exceptionally good one. The characters are relatable, likable and multi-faceted. And for all the tragedies and heartbreaks it contains, To Live is not at all hopeless or fatalistic. It's really a tribute to the everyday courage and resilience of one family, who find small but priceless measures of joy and happiness within the difficult situations they've been dealt. I hope that Chinese people have found ways to watch To Live regardless of its ban, it rightfully should be considered a national treasure.

The Brainiac (Chano Urueta, Mexico, 1962)

1661, New Spain. The Spanish Inquisition condemns Baron Vitrelius of Estara to be burned at the stake as a heretic and necromancer. While engulfed in flames, a bright comet passes overhead. The Baron cries out that, in 300 years when that comet passes by again, he will return and take his vengeance by killing the ancestors of those who have sentenced him to death. We flash forward to 1961 Mexico City. Astronomers are eagerly anticipating a rare sighting of a comet, but they are mystified when it appears then mysteriously disappears. In the desert a passerby notices a huge rock fall from the sky. A hideous, hairy alien beast steps out of the comet and sucks the poor guy's brains out with his giant forked tongue. He then transforms into none other than the Baron, back to enact his revenge! It will come as a surprise to no-one that the pretty lady astronomer is one of his intended victims.

The whole thing is too absurd to not be enjoyable. The Baron's alien form is hysterical. It's obviously a guy wearing a rubber mask. The death scenes show the monster licking the back of a victim's head with his big fake tongue while they shriek. My favorite detail - the Baron keeps his victim's brains in a goblet stashed in his living room, just in case he wants a quick snack. It's a pretty dreadful movie, without the spooky atmosphere or on-a-budget creativity of the best B-movies, but is utterly daft enough to be fun.

Viewing Journal - April 2016 #5

Tale of Tales (Matteo Garrone, Italy, 2015)

An adaptation of three stories from Pentamerone, a 17th-century collection of fairy tales by courtier Giambattista Basile. Pentamerone included early versions of the Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty stories among many others; some of the tales were later adapted by the Brothers Grimm. The three stories adapted for Tale of Tales are less well known. For all their bizarre, surreal flourishes, they are ultimately simple moral fables, and often shockingly harsh ones. Don't forget, in the original Cinderella story, the evil stepsister cut off her toes to fit in the glass slipper.

Tale of Tales does not sand the edges off Giambattista Basile's stories. It is violent, bawdy, blackly comic and occasionally horrifying. Aesthetically, it also has its roots in 17th-century Italy. Though Tale of Tales is filmed in English with an international cast, including major stars like Salma Hayek and Vincent Cassel, it is quintessentially Italian in its baroque, carnivalesque style. Director Matteo Garrone shot the entire film on location in Italy, in real castles and ancient forests. This gives Tale of Tales a tactility that makes all its outrageous fantasy feel grounded in a persuasive reality. The sparsely used special effects are mostly excellent, especially considering the low budget. The various beasts in Tale of Tales - including a salamander-like sea dragon, a skeletal giant bat, and a pet flea that swells to the size of a baby hippopotamus - are gorgeously designed.

The stories themselves are compelling, though largely out of step with today's tastes - they have little in the way of modern psychologizing. All three center around kings and queens whose selfish desires bring destruction to those around them. In Tale of Tales, the most essential and beautiful relationships - between sisters, brothers, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons - are threatened by selfish impulses, by lust, vanity, status, possessiveness and carelessness. Like the best fairy tales, the themes may be ancient but will always be relevant.

Tale of Tales will not be for all tastes and it certainly isn't perfect, but I loved it. It's a singular film that thrilled my imagination. Though it premiered internationally last year, it's just made its way to U.S. theaters this month, and is also available for rental on Amazon and iTunes.

Watch trailer here (warning: brief nudity and some grotesque images)

The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Taiwan / China, 2015)

Even more so than Tale of Tales, The Assassin is a film out of time. It is also an adaptation of an even older text - Nie Yinniang, a martial arts story from 9th century China. It belongs to the wuxia genre, stories of magic and swordsmen with astonishing skills. However, those expecting another Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or another Hero will likely be disappointed. The Assassin is the quietest, most restrained action film ever made, if it even counts as an action film. Swordplay erupts suddenly, and ends just as quickly. Between the bursts of violence, The Assassin is still and calm, unfolding at a deliberate pace that will either be hypnotic or narcotizing depending on your tastes.

The plot is difficult to suss out on first viewing. Part of this is due to the setting, in Tang Dynasty era China where the politics and customs are so alien. It's also due to Hou Hsiao-Hsien's approach to storytelling. The Assassin jettisons all but the most essential exposition, which makes the connections between characters, and their often duplicitous motivations, initially perplexing. Hou presents people and events in an almost objective way - he does not suggest, through editing or music or camera angles, how the viewer should think or feel about anything. Traditional dramatic beats and emphases are elided, in favor of a meditative, composed approach to the story. 

Yet, despite its labyrinthine plot, The Assassin has a simple emotional core. It's all about Yinniang, the assassin of the title. We first see her carry out an assassination in a black-and-white prologue, where she leaps from a grove of trees with terrible swiftness to dispatch a man on horseback. Yet in the very next scene, we learn that she is not always so ruthless. She lurks in the rafters of a corrupt official's house, watching him play tenderly with his young son. After seeing this, Yinniang cannot carry out the execution, leaving the man with a silent warning. Her master, a nun living in a mountainside monastery, scolds Yinniang for her sentimentality. As punishment, she is sent to kill her cousin Tian Ji'an, an official in the court of Weibo, a powerful province. We learn that Yinniang is the daughter of a powerful Weibo family. As a child she was promised in marriage to Tian Ji'an, but was betrayed and given to the nun to be trained as a killer. She returns to the court of her youth, a mysterious and mournful figure clad all in black. Yinniang hardly ever speaks, and as she bides her time and threateningly makes Tian Ji'an aware of her presence, we wonder what her intentions are. Will she or won't she kill her former betrothed? Does she still love him? She never reveals what she believes through words, only actions.

In the wuxia genre, warriors must transcend human connections and limitations to achieve perfection, and must be devoted to unyielding codes of behavior instead of following their individual desires. But Yinniang in The Assassin goes against the grain of most wuxia heroes. When she returns to Weibo, she re-enters a world of empty facades and power schemes, where everyone has a role to play. She realizes that she has only ever been a pawn - first of the court, then of her master. Yinniang rejects her assignment of impartial, inhuman justice, and decides to trust her instincts. She uses her skills to protect the good instead of eliminate the bad, and ultimately chooses humility over greatness, personal freedom over societal roles.

The Assassin is an extraordinarily immersive film. Hou Hsiao-Hsien obsessed over every detail of the production - costumes, interior design, rituals - to make everything authentic to the period. All the dialogue is an ancient Chinese dialect, the equivalent of a western period film's dialogue being entirely Old English.  Ping Bin Lee's cinematography is vividly beauty. The Assassin is visually comparable to late-era Kurosawa films like Kagemusha and Ran, especially in its bright colors, and the stark contrast between the pomp and ceremony of human societies and the vast wildness of the natural world. The Assassin was filmed in remote regions of China, and its birch forests, rugged mountains and misty lakes are like a classic Chinese landscape painting brought to life. There is a sublime quality to this film's beauty.

Watch trailer here

Viewing Journal - April 2016

Brief reviews of several films I've watched in the past week - from now on, I think I will alternate between these shorter, looser reviews and longer, essay-type reviews. Curiously all of these movies were released in 1991, not something I realized until writing...

Point Break (Kathryn Bigelow, United States, 1991)

In a sane world, Point Break would be a disaster. Johnny Utah (that name!) is an undercover FBI agent who infiltrates a gang of surfing bank robbers dubbed the Ex-Presidents because of the rubber masks of Nixon, Reagan, etc. worn during heists. Despite his commitment to the mission, Johnny Utah finds himself drawn to the gangs' charismatic leader, Bodhi, an adrenaline junkie, dangerous criminal, surfer guru, and cool big brother wrapped up in one mega-bro package. This becomes quite the pickle for Johnny Utah, who cannot choose between duty and bromance. Which leads to the iconic moment (memorably referenced in Hot Fuzz) where Johnny Utah finally has Bodhi in his grasp but cannot act as he must, firing his gun into the air and bellowing in manly anguish, all while Bodhi's piercing blue eyes peer sagely at him through Ronald Reagan's plastic face.

The script is a load of nonsense, albeit fun, harmless nonsense. But Kathryn Bigelow's direction elevates Point Break above being a macho-campy guilty pleasure - this is a very well-crafted film. Bigelow is a true master of action setpieces (I'd point to her more recent The Hurt Locker and Zero Dark Thirty as further proof) and offers up several jaw-dropping thrill sequences in Point Break, most notably a breakneck foot race through Los Angeles and not one but two skydiving sequences; I'm baffled as to how the latter were even filmed. Across-the-board fun performances keep Point Break engaging as well, even though the cast is a bizarre mish-mash of acting styles. Gary Busey is reliably weird, Lori Petty is a living embodiment of 90s girl power sass, Patrick Swayze manages to make the ridiculously-written Bodhi convincingly charming and villainous, all while sporting a glorious feathered mane.

And of course, there's Keanu Reeves playing Keanu Reeves as always. Keanu Reeves's appeal is one of the unanswerable mysteries of the movies. Nobody would mistake him for a gifted thespian as his range is very limited. Whether playing a pothead teenager or a kung-fu fighting messiah, Jonathan Harker or John Wick, Keanu is always Keanu, responding to everything with the affable befuddlement of a stoner or a Zen master. Yet I'm always heartened by his presence in a film - any movie feels a little bit more lovable with Keanu. I can't explain why - is it just comfortable reliability? Maybe because he seems like a genuinely nice guy? I may never know.

Watch trailer here.

Night on Earth (Jim Jarmusch, United States, 1991)

Jim Jarmusch is a heroic American oddball. It's no wonder that many of his films, Night on Earth included, prominently feature the music of Tom Waits - like Waits, Jarmusch is a true original, an idiosyncratic artist who seems almost too cool for his own good, but dammit if he doesn't pull it off. Night on Earth is an anthology of five short films, each set in taxicabs in different European and American cities on the same night. In Los Angeles, a chain-smoking, foul-mouthed driver alternately repels and charms her buttoned-up Beverly Hills fare. In New York, culture clash and unexpected friendship is found between an East German immigrant fresh off the boat and a squabbling couple of Brooklynites. In Paris, a driver from the Ivory Coast is intrigued and puzzled by a confident, testy blind woman he picks up. In Rome, a manic, crazed driver insists on giving confession to a priest in the backseat, horrifying him with tales of his odd sexual history. In Helsinki, men bond drunkenly over their increasingly depressing sob stories.

Some of these stories are funny and some are sad, some add up to a moral lesson and some to a punchline. What they have in common is a distinctly Jarmusch hang-out vibe, leisurely and unhurried, pleased to just spend time with and observe these quirky characters. Night on Earth thrives in a romantically grungy atmosphere of cigarette smoke and city lights, in a transient space where very disparate people are thrown together. Jarmusch is fascinated by the brief relationships formed between travelers of the night, whether tense and mutually hostile or unexpectedly warm and empathetic.

Watch trailer here.

Raise the Red Lantern (Zhang Yimou, China, 1991)

In 1920 China, a young woman with limited options becomes the concubine of a wealthy man who lives in an enormous, walled-off compound. She enters a bizarre, insular world that she will never be allowed to leave, one that has functioned for generations according to archaic rituals. Tellingly, Raise the Red Lantern never shows the face of the wealthy man in close-up - he hardly registers as an individual, more as a representative of an ancient and unyielding patriarchal system. Instead, Raise the Red Lantern focuses on his new concubine, Songlian, and his three other mistresses. Each night red lanterns are raised outside one of their rooms, signifying that the master will be spending the night there - the women compete for his favors, since his attentions directly influence their limited but precious power within the household. The women can be terribly conniving and cruel, but we always remain sympathetic and aware that their narrow world has forced them to become so vicious, like rats in a trap.

Raise the Red Lantern immediately overwhelmed me with the painterly beauty and precision of its cinematography. Director Zhang Yimou alternates between dehumanizing wide shots and humanizing close-ups. In many wide shots, Songlian is overwhelmed by her surroundings, whether the labyrinthine halls of the mansion or the opulent decorations of her room. She seems less like an individual, and more like another piece of furniture - which, of course, is how she is treated in her new life, as merely an object, a purely functional thing instead of a human being. Yet Yimou also films Songlian with close-ups that affirm her identity - and as played by Chinese superstar Gong Li, Songlian is a gripping character. With only her eyes and her facial expressions Gong Li can express multitudes - guileless heartbreak and imperious cruelty, sadness and hope and fury. She can be both fascinatingly enigmatic and emotionally open. It's an astonishing performance.

Raise the Red Lantern is a beautiful film, but it's not the kind of beauty you can ease into; like the dainty-looking concubines, its surface is pristinely gorgeous but despair and rage are roiling beneath. Indeed, though it is PG-rated and no sex or violence is shown, Raise the Red Lantern is more chilling than many a horror film.

Watch trailer here.

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.