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 #4

Flash Gordon (Mike Hodges, United States, 1980)

I knew I was going to love this from its ridiculous start. A villainous voice whines that he is bored and wants a new plaything. His equally evil minion presents him with an obscure planet to toy with, "the inhabitants refer to it as the planet Earth", he sneers as contemptuously as possible. Cue comic book styled opening credits and Queen's earworm of a theme song (Flash! AAAH! Savior of the Universe!).

We discover that the villainous voice belongs to Ming the Merciless, an evil intergalactic emperor with wicked eyebrows. Ming is played by none other than Max von Sydow, known for his existentially despairing Swedish dramas with Ingmar Bergman, and few movie-related things are more delightful than hearing great thespian von Sydow deliver dialogue such as "Halt, Lizard Man! Escape is impossible!". 

Flash Gordon is absurd and aware of the fact. The sets are gaudily colored and elaborately fake, with spaceships that are obvious painted models. The plot is convoluted and nonsensical. The performances are hammy - especially Brian Blessed, the leader of the Hawk-Men who bellows all his dialogue in a ludicrous Scottish brogue. I have a fondness for old-school space operas in the Edgar Rice Burroughs vein, which are usually low on brains but high on fun and imagination, so I had a big goofy grin on my face throughout Flash Gordon.

Watch trailer here

Beau Travail (Claire Denis, France, 1999)

A sergeant of the French Legionnaire grows jealous of a young soldier's seemingly effortless skill and bravery. His envy grows, leading to tragedy. However, very little of the barebones plot is expressed through dialogue - Beau Travail often unfolds like a dance performance. As the soldiers perform their drills in the desert, Claire Denis films the ritualistic exercises like a modern dance. Beau Travail is beautifully photographed, with special attention paid to the gorgeously barren Djibouti landscapes, the idealized masculine bodies of the soldiers, and the faces of local African women, peering with bemusement at these foreigners beneath their colorful hijabs. It's all very lovely and very tasteful - maybe too tasteful? Macho competition is largely expressed through intimidating glares, and in one sequence the two men circle each other like territorial lions while opera soars on the soundtrack. Yet I was never persuaded of the intensity of Sergeant Galoup's hostile obsession with the young soldier. Beau Travail is intelligent and artfully made, but its themes - masculinity, conformity, neo-colonialism - felt too notional and neat to have much weight. And then there's the ending, which I'm not sure yet is beautiful or ridiculous or both. Either way, it's unwise to make definitive snap judgements about a Claire Denis film. Better to let them steep in your mind.

Watch trailer here

Valley of the Bees (Frantisek Vlacil, Czechoslovakia, 1968)

Mesmerizing from its opening credits, rolling over eerie reverse-negative images of a swarming beehive and scored to an ominous male choir. This sequence begins Valley of the Bees on an unsettling, offbeat note that it never wavers from. In medieval Europe, two men form an intense friendship within their strict religious order of Teutonic knights. Ondrej was placed in the order after his father threw him against a wall, then in regret promised to commit his son to God if his life was spared. His friend Armin is a former soldier of the Crusades, and a fanatic believer in his order's harsh form of Christianity. His friendship with Ondrej is possessive and quite probably underlaid by repressed sexual desire. Ondrej flees the order, losing faith in its holiness after a particularly brutal incident. He returns to his former home and marries - his new wife is, disturbingly, his stepmother and his father's widow, though they are the same age. Armin is disgusted by his friend's betrayal of the order and attempts to persuade him to return, eventually turning to violence fueled by jealousy and religious psychosis.

Valley of the Bees is a brutal immersion into medieval life. In Frantisek Vlacil's vision, medieval Europe offered only violent religious fundamentalism or amoral sensuality that is hardly less cruel. Perhaps the only exception comes from a blind woman that Armin meets in the wilderness, who lives comfortably with both sincere faith and healthy sensuality. He is alarmed by her lack of shame, yet she reacts to his extremism with sympathetic pity and kindness. Armin is an unforgettably frightening character. Late in the film, he has a discussion with a more reasonable priest where he reveals that he believes all men deserve to die since nobody can achieve moral perfection. "Let life be extinct. The angels will remain. No one has ever seen them, and yet I hear the beating of their wings." His desire for moral perfection is really fueled by a hatred of humanity, and above all hatred of himself. Armin is a chilling and still-relevant warning of religious purity descending into apocalyptic nihilism.

Beauty and the Beast (Juraj Herz, Czechoslovakia, 1978)

Nobody does dark, creepy fairy tales better than those crazy Czechs. This version of the old gothic romance exists on a hazy border between fairy tale and outright horror. It creates a marvelously sinister atmosphere on a small budget, helped greatly by a dramatic organ soundtrack. The Beast's castle is rotting and overgrown, the cursed forest is populated by the skeletons of dead trees and overhung with mist. Juraj Herz's conception of the Beast is much darker than the grouchy but essentially harmless big teddy bear of more well-known versions. The Beast is bird-like, with giant talons and a grotesque feathery body. In the opening scene, he slaughters a caravan of travelers trespassing in his forest - he is beastly both inside and out. Belle awakens a human, gentlemanly side of the Beast, but at the same time an evil, Gollum-like voice in his mind urges him to kill her and drink her blood. This is decidedly not a Disney version of the tale, yet the romantic heart of the story remains the same. It is still a story about the redemptive and transformative power of love. Though this Beauty and the Beast is not as great as the magical Jean Cocteau version from 1946 or the beloved Disney animation from 1991, it is another distinctive and creative take on the story. Worth seeing, especially for those who like their Romances spiked with horror.

Viewing Journal - April 2016 #3

Kagemusha (Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1980)

Before he became a film-maker, Akira Kurosawa wanted to be a painter. In his later years, making color films instead of black-and-white as he had done for decades, Kurosawa returned to painting to create storyboards for his movies. These paintings were expressionistic and brightly colored.

Incredibly, Kurosawa managed to translate the essence of his paintings onto film - every frame of Kagemusha feels as precisely composed, yet overflowing with bold, unreal color, as a painting. In one unforgettable nightmare sequence, Kagemusha even becomes one of Kurosawa's paintings, as the characters run through a surreal, garishly colored dreamscape that was painted by Kurosawa himself.

In terms of sheer beauty, very few films equal Kagemusha. It is masterfully made. The story it tells is a simple but powerful one, similar in its premise to Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. A petty thief, sentenced to execution, is noted for his incredibly similar appearance to the feudal lord Shingen. The thief is brought before Shingen, and claims that the lord is actually a far greater crook than he is for leading so many to their deaths. Shingen is impressed by the thief's boldness and promises to spare his life if he becomes his decoy. Shingen is killed by a sniper from a rival clan, and the thief becomes his shadow to maintain the illusion that the great lord remains alive. In becoming Shingen, the thief changes. He sees how his simple gestures while posing as the great leader can inspire courage and loyalty in his followers, and give them something to believe in. He grows to love Shingen's young grandson, and shows far more kindness to the boy than the real man ever did. Kagemusha draws suspense and quiet humor out of the thief's charade, as the naturally crude and earthy peasant attempts to bamboozle everyone and is often surprised by his own success.

Yet his charade must ultimately be revealed, which is where Kagemusha becomes a grand tragedy. For all he has learned in becoming a great man's shadow, in many ways the thief's initial assessment was correct. From all this feudal warfare comes needless devastation, and the symbol of unity that Shingen represented was just that - a symbol, far from immutable, and one that is swept away to irreverence once more powerful forces come along. Like Kurosawa's next film, Ran (which, astoundingly, surpasses even this one in greatness), the tragedy of Kagemusha is unflinchingly sad, a cautionary tale that inspires humility. It culminates in a haunting final shot, which communicates all that needs to be said.

Fun fact: Kagemusha was made with the financial support of American filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. They were aghast to hear that Kurosawa, legendary at this point of his career, was having trouble securing financing for his planned epic, and basically strong-armed American and Japanese studios into bankrolling him. Lucas in particular had been inspired in his work by Kurosawa's earlier films - his Star Wars was deeply influenced by Kurosawa adventures such as The Hidden Fortess.

Watch trailer here

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, United States, 2015)

...speaking of Star Wars, I finally had the chance to revisit the latest installment of the saga, which I was mildly disappointed by on my initial viewing in theaters. Thankfully I enjoyed it a good deal more the second time through, although I still have some issues. The Force Awakens is a prototypical J.J. Abrams movie. It is slick and high-spirited, with a good grasp on characters; it also lacks the kind of creative vision that would make it truly memorable.

Star Wars is like a modern, pop-culture version of old epics such as the Nibelungen cycle. Heroes and villains emerge in new generations, each cycle formed by and echoing what has come before. First Anakin became Darth Vader, then Luke became a Jedi, and now the grand story of good versus evil continues with Rey and Kylo Ren. But there's a fine line between stories being reincarnated and regurgitated, and The Force Awakens sometimes falls on the wrong side. The victory of Return of the Jedi seems to have not mattered, as The Force Awakens resets everything. The Empire is now the First Order and the Rebellion is the Resistance. Han Solo has returned to smuggling. The bad guys have built another Death Star (now an even bigger Death Planet!) with a weak spot, because that worked out so well for them the first two times. There's little suspense in the overarching plot, and a disappointing lack of creativity in expanding the Star Wars universe.

Even though I found its plotting and mythology to be unimaginative and lazy, The Force Awakens makes up for a lot with sheer likability. The dialogue and performances are earnest and good-humored, and all the new characters have instant chemistry together. I was particularly impressed with the new villain, Kylo Ren, whose personal struggle between dark and light sides has an interesting twist. The return to practical effects and old-school creature designs is great fun, too - BB-8 in particular is a marvelous creation. The Force Awakens looks and sounds like a Star Wars movie should. It may not be my ideal continuation of Star Wars, but it is a fun, well-crafted sci-fi adventure.

Watch trailer here

Viewing Journal - April 2016 #2

Spider-Man 2 (Sam Raimi, United States, 2004)

Only 12 years after its release, Spider-Man 2 seems downright retro within its genre. In my opinion, it's among the handful of great superhero movies, and one that exposes the unimaginative and clunky qualities of today's cinematic superhero juggernauts when held in comparison. Don't get me wrong - many Marvel and DC films of the past decade are decent fun, but it's become increasingly obvious that the genre suffers from bloat, formulaic storytelling, and either leaden self-seriousness or jokey self-awareness, as if anxious about being perceived as cheesy. Spider-Man 2 is nothing but sincere, in both its character drama - Peter Parker is an honest-to-goodness dork here and not the smug pseudo-nerd of the Amazing Spider-Man reboot, and all the more lovable for it - and in its old-school comic book aesthetic. It's also modest in stakes and storytelling, with only one villain and several action setpieces. The lack of franchise tie-ins and Giant Flying Objects Falling On Cities™ is refreshing. Spider-Man 2 has room to breathe as a stand-alone story, one that does not feel pieced together by a committee but has its own distinct personality.

Much of that personality comes from director Sam Raimi, whose pop-art style is perfect for a Spidey movie. Many frames look like live-action panels of a comic book, and I love that insane hospital sequence where we are reminded that yes, this is the same man who directed those crazy Evil Dead movies. That sequence introduces, in high style, a classic supervillain - Doc Ock, played with intelligent menace and charm by Alfred Molina. He is suited with four metallic, serpentine arms, animated with marvelously creepy expressiveness. I love how Doc Ock's character arc dovetails with Peter Parker's - both are torn between selfishness and self-sacrifice, leading to a final act where they battle aboard a speeding train and finally face off in a simple one-on-one climax. Both sequences hinge on characters deciding to sacrifice themselves for the sake of others, in redemptive acts of selfless bravery.

"He's just a kid...no older than my son." I love that moment. Spider-Man 2 is a great example of simple but moving - and fun - comic book storytelling.

Watch trailer here.

L'Atalante (Jean Vigo, France, 1934)

Its story could not be simpler. A village girl marries the captain of a canal barge, L'Atalante, and moves aboard the barge with him. It is also home to a small crew: a cabin boy and a tattooed sailor, Pere Jules. Once their honeymoon bliss fades, however, the girl begins to feel cooped up and yearns to see the world outside the cramped barge, to the perplexity of her rather provincial husband. This causes tension and a rash separation, which they both quickly regret - only when apart do they realize how truly fond they've grown of each other.

L'Atalante's simple and ancient story is the frame on which director Jean Vigo hangs all sorts of wonderful things. It is photographed with beautiful detail and texture, alive with mist and water and smoke. Pere Jules is a wildly entertaining supporting character, a garrulous drunken sailor who would be mere comic caricature if it weren't for the persuasive physicality and nuance of Michel Simon's performance. Jules is a larger-than-life figure, covered with crude and childish tattoos, spontaneously breaking out into dance and song. His cabin is cluttered with trinkets from all corners of the world, which he shows off to the girl with delight in one enchanting scene - "only the finest things", a marionette, a music box, a sawfish bill, crass posters of exotic beauties, even his old friend's pickled hands in a jar, "all I have left of him"! The barge is teeming with Jules's beloved cats, who basically steal the film. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a cat in half of L'Atalante's shots. They pop out of closets, curl up on beds, crawl casually across the background, or cling to Jules's back for dear life while he bouncily plays the accordion.

In part because of its simplicity, the central love story is beautiful. Both characters are entirely ordinary, living a working-class life that, although shot through with strangeness and poetry, is far from glamorous. Their connection is portrayed in an unadorned way by Vigo - neither make any great insights or romantic declarations, but their simple affection and desire for each other is felt keenly. In a surprisingly frank scene (see here), the two lovers sleep in separate beds far apart, and a series of cross-cuts expresses how much their bodies ache for each other. The wife tells her husband a folk superstition about being able to see your beloved's face in the water - he initially laughs her off and jokingly dumps his head into a river. Upon their separation, he desperately dives into the river and swims downward, hoping to glimpse her face again. On top of the husband swimming Vigo superimposes an image of his wife floating in her wedding dress (see here). It's movie magic at its most poignant. Once husband and wife are finally reunited, it's one of the most celebratory and well-earned happy endings in movie history.

Tragically, director Jean Vigo passed away from tuberculosis shortly after finishing L'Atalante, at only 29 years old. This was the only feature film he ever completed, and he knew he was dying as he made it. Even so, with only one film his career as a director and artist has more brilliance and power than most. L'Atalante is a masterpiece.

Watch trailer here.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park (Steven Spielberg, United States, 1997)

There's an odd trend in Steven Spielberg's career. He directs awe-inspiring, generation-defining adventure classics - Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jurassic Park - and follows them with oddly mean-spirited, tonally confused sequels - Temple of Doom and The Lost World. The drop in quality is even more obvious from Jurassic Park to The Lost World, a sequel than contains not an ounce of the wonder that made the original so beloved. The dinosaurs, filmed with awe-struck reverence in Jurassic Park, are now little more than generic scaly beasts to chase around and gobble up our protagonists. The fearsome velociraptors can now be dispatched with a well-timed gymnastics kick. Jurassic Park was mythic and fearfully respectful, The Lost World is just another dumb monster movie. Speaking of dumb, good Lord are the humans in The Lost World a full bench of idiots. Of particular note are the normally excellent Julianne Moore as the stupidest scientist this side of Prometheus and a grown man who runs in panic from a tiny snake into the waiting jaws of a tyrannosaur.

As is almost inevitable for a Spielberg film there is an absentee dad and the rebonding of family through trial, but Spielberg has seemingly never cared less about his characters - including the returning Ian Malcolm, played by a visibly bored Jeff Goldblum, and his daughter Kelly, the aforementioned gymnast assassin who otherwise has no discernible personality. As is also inevitable of Spielberg, there are excellent moments amid the uncharacteristic mediocrity of the rest of the film - Moore kept from plunging to her death only by a slowly breaking pane of glass, invisible raptors cutting through tall grasses towards their prey. Apart from these inspired moments, I suspect that Spielberg did not have his heart in this project. Made between Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, perhaps it seemed too juvenile at that point in his career. And I don't know what to think about The Lost World's odd and perversely amusing sadistic streak. The dinosaurs of Jurassic Park inspired the terror and awe of wide-eyed kids, but in The Lost World the T-Rex will break into the kids' backyard and devour the family dog.

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.

The Films of Wong Kar-wai: In the Mood for Love

Hong Kong, 2000
Directed by Wong Kar-wai

In the Mood for Love took a turbulent road to its completed form. Wong originally envisioned a film set in mainland China in the mid-20th century titled Summer in Beijing, to be a triptych of stories similar to his Chungking Express and Fallen Angels. Eventually he realized that shooting a film in China set during that time period would be too difficult because of vigilant Chinese censors, and relocated to Hong Kong, also narrowing his focus to only one story - a love story. In the Mood for Love took 15 months to shoot, an unusually lengthy production, especially for a film with such an intimate focus. Wong shot largely without a script, improvising, creating and re-creating the story as he went along. The post-production was, by all reports I've read, rushed and confusing, with the film barely completed in time for its premiere. Enough footage was cut out to have made an entirely different film, and perhaps a radically different one than the final product. For all the chaos of its creation, you'd expect In the Mood for Love to be haphazard or unfocused, if not an outright disaster - but it's not. Actually, In the Mood for Love is among the most controlled, elegantly composed films I've ever seen. Every shot and every edit is purposeful and beautiful, and contributes to a whole that is basically perfect.

Like Wong's earlier Days of Being Wild, In the Mood for Love takes place in 1960s Hong Kong. Two married couples, the Chows and the Chans, move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Separately, Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) and Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung) begin to suspect that their spouses are having an affair with each other. They form a tentative friendship, trying to figure out why they were betrayed by those closest to them, and finding some solace in a sympathetic confidant. Quickly it becomes clear that more feeling exists between them than just sympathy, but they both deny it and vow not to be like their cheating spouses. They find excuses to spend time together, Mrs. Chan helps Mr. Chow write the martial arts novel he's long dreamed of making. Though their relationship remains platonic, eventually they can no longer ignore their growing feelings and decide to stop seeing each other.

In the Mood for Love is maximalist in style but minimalist in its approach to character and story. There is little in the way of traditional plot development or exposition. We learn about the main characters from brief snatches of dialogue, their expressions and body language. Wong's films usually contain voiceover from the characters, communicating their stream of thoughts, but In the Mood for Love eschews any narration - we must guess what these people are thinking and how they feel, since they rarely communicate it directly. The characters of In the Mood for Love are often situated within doorways or windows, or partially obscured from the camera by walls or other people. I felt like I was spying on them, and even caught myself trying to peer around a corner to get a better glimpse (a sure sign that I was engaged by the film). Watching In the Mood for Love is trying to solve a mystery, where each gesture, each polite conversation is loaded with more meaning than is apparent on the surface. Wong's decision to position his characters within frames also expresses their entrapment - within marriages where they're been betrayed, within a society that is quick to gossip, and within themselves and their own principles, noble as they may be.

While Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan don't express their feelings, the film does it for them. In the Mood for Love is gorgeously expressive. Shigeru Umebayashi's stirring strings score and Christopher Doyle's colorful cinematography communicate their yearning and their lovesickness. Mundane sequences, like Mrs. Chan going out for noodles, are made achingly beautiful through the music and camerawork. All of Wong's films are more musical than literary in their structure - they are built on repetitions and refrains instead of A-to-B plot developments - and in their impact, which is more emotional and visceral than intellectual. Wong has stated that if Chungking Express is pop music, than In the Mood for Love is chamber music - which seems a perfect comparison to me. It is simple, elegant, and melancholy.

All this stunning artistry would have a hollow center if Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan's relationship didn't work, but Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung have tremendous chemistry together. Their beauty is certainly a part of it - Tony Leung makes smoking look cool again, and watching Maggie Cheung sashay about in her various form-fitting dresses is mesmerizing. Both Leung and Cheung would have been terrific actors in the silent film era - they express great depth and subtlety with very little dialogue, mostly through their eyes and their posture.

Ultimately, In the Mood for Love is difficult to write about. Words don't really capture its hypnotic effect - this is a film whose power comes less from its ideas and more from how the music, the editing, the camerawork and the performances draw you into its mood, and into sympathy with two good-hearted but very private and very lonely people. I've seen it three times now, and each viewing has cast a spell on me, unbroken from beginning to end. It's a masterpiece of filmmaking, one of the very best films of the past 20 years.

The Films of Wong Kar-wai: Fallen Angels

Hong Kong, 1995
Directed by Wong Kar-wai

Wong Kar-wai originally conceived his two-part Chungking Express as three stories, but once the first two were developed, he decided that they were enough for a full film and cut out the third. This third story, about the relationship between a hitman and his female partner, developed into his next film. Fallen Angels could be seen as a continuation of Chungking Express - both are split into two stories, take place in the same Hong Kong neighborhood, and revolve around similar themes. But Fallen Angels is also a darker, weirder, more stylistically experimental film than its predecessor - the night to Chungking Express's day.

The first story is about a hitman (Leon Lai) and his partner (Michelle Reis). She tells him where his next hit is, collects cash for him, and cleans his apartment hideout, but they hardly ever meet in person. Despite wanting to keep their partnership an impersonal one, they grow infatuated with each other. Both characters are romantically alienated loners, taciturn and cool. The hitman kills his targets nonchalantly, in shoot-outs filmed with woozy style, not caring who they are or why they've been targeted. The second story stars Takeshi Kaneshiro (one of the cops of Chungking Express) as an eccentric mute who breaks into closed-up shops at night and illegally runs the business, aggressively (and amusingly) coercing customers into buying whatever he's selling. He falls in love with another spastic oddball (Charlie Yeung), but his affection is unrequited.

Even more than in Chungking Express, the two stories of Fallen Angels are strikingly different from each other. The hitman's story is surprisingly violent for Wong. The hitman and his partner are classic Wong characters - cool, introspective loners - but taken to a darker extreme. They are entirely detached from everyone and everything, nocturnal creatures living by their own codes, beautiful but doomed. Wong's style is moodier and more experimental than ever. He often films characters with a fish-eye lens, their faces looming in the foreground against a distant background of neon lights and colors. It's a disorienting but perfect way to portray their alienation through visuals, loners drifting through the seductively dangerous world of Hong Kong at night.

The second story is far more sentimental and funny, even becoming an outright slapstick comedy at points. Much of its charm is due to star Takeshi Kaneshiro, reminiscent of a young Cantonese Johnny Depp. His character, though he cannot speak, is quirky and extroverted. Where many Wong characters put protective barriers between themselves and others, the mute forces himself into others' lives, in amusingly obnoxious ways. He takes his failed romance with Charlie in stride, finding happiness wherever he can. The sweetest moments of Fallen Angels involve the mute's relationship with his father, and their odd but loving friendship.

Fallen Angels is an exuberant mess, digressive and tonally all over the map (it should be noted that this sort of 'messiness' is not unusual for Hong Kong cinema, which often combines comedy, action and drama in ways that might seem incompatible to those used to Hollywood standards, which generally sticks to one or two genres per film). Fallen Angels is more about individual sequences and moments than any overarching plot or theme. These moments are sometimes funny - like Takeshi Kaneshiro harassing unsuspecting passerby into becoming his customers despite their protests. And sometimes they are mesmerizing - like when Michelle Reis leans against a jukebox as a strangely sinister pop song puts her in a trance, and for a few minutes Fallen Angels becomes an abstract music video, lingering on Reis's languid swaying as the machine's fluorescent lights run across her reflective dress. Any narrative is forgotten in the hypnotic interplay of music and color and movement. One downside to Fallen Angels's scattershot approach is that the film is, understandably, uneven - the subplot about the hitman and his other love interest, Blondie (Karen Mok), falls flat. But any dull sequences quickly give way to some new wondrous moment of discovery.

Once again, Wong Kar-wai's love for his home city shines through. Like Chungking Express, Fallen Angels is a cinematic love letter to Hong Kong, though a far stranger and more fantastic one. Fallen Angels takes place almost entirely at night, in a frightening but beautiful vision of Hong Kong that seems more like a science fiction metropolis than a real world city. The mute says that "all the weirdos come out at night" - the characters are these nocturnal weirdos, scrounging a living outside the law and the mainstream, hoping to find simple human connections in the urban purgatory they live in.