A new cinematic milestone: Silent Light

With this post I'll be bringing my diaristic entries about film to a new blog: http://daniel-hui.blogspot.com. This is so that I can write more personal entries about film, and not to dominate this common blog for my own use.



Silent Light - Every film we see changes us, little by little, imperceptibly. Even the films we detest inevitably change our perspective of things. But every once in a long while, there comes a film that changes the way you think about film - and about life - that it becomes a milestone for you. A point of change in your appreciation of things in general. For me, Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors: Blue was one of them; Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark was one of them; Werner Herzog's The White Diamond was one of them; Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror was one of them; Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story was one of them. Tonight I was fortunate enough to see a film that has become one of the most transformative experience in my recent viewing history - the film is Silent Light.

Now, saying this at this juncture - right after seeing the film - might undoubtedly seem like hyperbole, of course. Films need time to settle and be absorbed into our psyche before we are able to view them in the right mind. But transformative experiences has an effect on one right away, and upon retrospection, leads one to think that all the mini epiphanies that came before were leading to this major revelation. Seminal work by masters such as Victor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive with its enigmatic view of life, Ermanno Olmi's Il Posto with its joy in the mundane, Otar Iosseliani's Pastorale with its whimsical view on the cycle of life, Terrence Malick's The New World and The Thin Red Line with their revelment in nature; and lastly, Carl Dreyer's Gertrud with its affirmation of predestination and the ecstasy of recognizing it. These films - some religious, some not - are little steps that set the stage for a massive transformation that would take place in my film perception tonight.

A few words have to be said about the film. Silent Light is a film set amidst a Mexican Mennonite community about a religious husband who faces a crisis within himself after falling in love with another woman. This basic premise is what carries the film to the end, differing and adding little to its ascetic plot. As has been pointed out many times, its plot is heavily reminiscent of Ordet, Dreyer's famous work of spiritual crisis, and one which Paul Schrader uses to illuminate elements of Transcendental style in Dreyer's work, though he also criticizes Dreyer for not following through with its necessary stasis.

Before I continue, a few caveats must be made. Silent Light is a religious film, there is no doubt about it, and to try to describe the 'holy' or the 'divine' is indubitably futile and redundant. This state of grace, or, as Schrader describes it in his essay, the Transcendent, cannot be described, only induced. Hence, I shall not attempt to put into words what the Transcendent means to me, or what it should mean for anyone; needless to say that I'm coming from a religious standpoint, and my choice of words would be unquantifiable, even mystical.

The reason why I have not yet affixed Carlos Reygadas' name in front of the film's title, is because I'm not sure to whom true authorship of the film should be attributed to. Reygadas has provided a basic premise for the film - metaphorically, as a blank canvas, or the cinematic frame - in which the film is able to extend and explore itself. Take the opening time-lapse shot for example - the film opens with a shot of a starry sky, then pans down and tracks in slowly as a dawning sun paints the sky. Its beauty is at once stunning and humbling, but we can only admire the artist for knowing the means to capture it; part of its humbling quality comes from the fact that this is a miracle that happens not only once in awhile, but everyday, the cosmic phenomena that we are privileged to but seldom witness. Throughout the film, bursts of accidental grace appear - a flock of pigeons fly out of the roof of a barn, wind blows off the hat of a woman, a light drizzle set the background for an erotic tryst in a hotel room - enough to suggest the presence of something greater and out of mortal means.

Like Terrence Malick, Reygadas uses nature as a means to communicate God's divinity. Setting the story amongst a Mennonite community allows for the film's necessary proximity to nature, an unpredictable and wondrous force that is at once awe-inspiring and threatening. A mysterious element in itself, nature becomes the background of the story, sometimes leaking through the cracks of its intentionally rigid structure (more on this later). As such, the bursts of nature in a controlled dramatic tragedy becomes the moments of disparity in the film - these moments shock and awe us, such as our trembling recognition of a primordial power far greater than us.

The spare structure of the plot, the meticulous mise-en-scene, and the controlled style of acting gives these bursts of nature their power. More so, the film is strangely adherent to Schrader's definition of Transcendental style, that of the everyday-disparity-stasis structure - a style that, in Zen terms, would lead viewers to see a mountain as first a mountain, then not a mountain, then a mountain again. The film's protagonist, a middle-aged Mennonite farmer, faces a spiritual crisis when he is afflicted with a love he doesn't understand, for a woman other than his wife. He is so confused by this strange, seemingly external power that he attributes this obsession to God - and indeed, the woman takes on a deific figure in the story.

Yet, to see Silent Light as a film in the Transcendental style seems somewhat reductive, as so much of its means are made out of the artist's control, as compared to the strictly controlled films of Ozu and Bresson that Schrader used in his essay. Although everyday routine is mainly used to paint the film, and stasis is ultimately achieved at the end of the film (correcting, in Schrader's view, Ordet's eventual rejection of stasis), Reygadas knows enough to let nature take center-stage. Everyday routine is just the draining of filmic sensibilities to direct the viewer's attention to the miracles in the natural world. He uses the frame to capture moments where nature actively presents itself; even when his camera is purposeful, it is so as to present nature (as when a character leaves the frame and the camera, unfocused, tracks in until a branch of pink flowers come into focus, cutting only when a drop of dew has slid from the flowers to the ground). In this sense, Reygadas' style more resembles the American transcendentalism (not Transcendental style) of Terrence Malick, though his reduction of technique and obscuring of individuality places him squarely in the tradition of religious iconography that Schrader uses as metaphors in his essay.

In a way, Reygadas' form of everyday-disparity does not dictate a linear progression toward eventual stasis, but a conflation of the everyday and disparity that exists in nature. This seems similar to the Dreyer model which Schrader talks about, and it is clear that Dreyer was on Reygadas' mind when he wrote the story. However, more than a homage to Dreyer, Reygadas' story is a fable, a deliberately simplistic one that instead places its veneration on the divinity that is expressed in nature, that is the ineffable that cannot be expressed through any cinematic means, only evoked.

In evoking this divinity, Carlos Reygadas knows when to capture and when to create. Photography and motion pictures are often discredited as art forms because they lack the dichotomy of adapting reality and creating reality. Their reproductive quality means that there is little room for subjective interpretation, eliminating the dichotomy altogether. This argument, however, is easily discredited, and the reality is that motion pictures include both aspects of the dichotomy in more subtle ways than other arts. The role of the artist, in this case the filmmaker, to capture or create is often ambiguous and is thus often bypassed altogether in film discussion.

A distinct example in early film history is that of the films of the Lumiere Brothers. Though seemingly a direct reproduction of reality, their films often contain a good amount of invention, plot, and subtle manipulations of reality. This tradition continue even up to today, in the naturalistic films of Hou Hsiao Hsien and John Cassavetes, among others. Reygadas, while intimately controlling acting style, captures nature with such a keen sense of beauty that, instead of seeing it as an obstructing screen, uses it as a bridge to the Transcendent. The film's soundtrack, when not filled with intimate human sounds (as when one puts an ear close to another human body), is filled with the sounds of leaves, bellowing cows and insects. His manipulation of reality does not go unescaped - in the end, when the decisive action has been achieved, he uses a pair of butterflies (the most miraculous occurrence) that flies out of the interior and back into the wild, closing the film where it began, showing mountain as mountain again. This evocation of stasis and the Transcendent makes the film one of the most beautiful and transformative for me.

Hasn't it always been said that art is a joint effort between God and the artist - the less the artist does the better? Such is the case with Silent Light, in which both God and Carlos Reygadas take co-authorship. By no means is Reygadas on equal standing with God, but his veneration of the eternal and beyond evokes the holy and the Transcendent, creating a staggering and no less mysterious work that is impossible to completely describe. Silent Light is nothing but a miracle.

Going to this film has also been one of my most memorable cinematic experience ever. As the film ended, the audience sat rapt as the silent credits patiently rolled, talking in hushed whispers as if in a massive cathedral. Walking into the deep autumn neon streets, people were arguing fiercely about the film. Having no one to talk to, I felt like a disciple who has just seen a miracle, ready to spread the gospel to the world. I have never felt so alone.

Cannes diary: day two

On somnambulism, glamor and puppets

(I realize the Palme d'Or has been announced, and Cannes is but a residual memory now, but I'll continue posting these anyway.)

Seeing My Blueberry Nights first was one of my primary objectives of going to Cannes, and I just couldn’t pass up the chance of seeing it before anybody else. So, after missing last night’s premiere, I was hell bent on getting into the ‘Day After Screening,’ a special repeat screening for competition films held at the Salle du 60e, the theater erected on a rooftop specially for the festival’s 60^th anniversary. Nobody, however, told me that the theater only seated 400 people, and I was greeted by a snaking long queue a few hundred feet away from the theater. This, despite arriving an hour before the screening was due to start. The madness of film buffs and their obsessions over Wong Kar Wai…

Needless to say how disappointed I was over not getting in, but nothing could beat the crushing disappointment that was Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s Ploy, which I saw at a market screening after lunch, before it premiered at the Director’s Fortnight section. How it was even selected and how it quickly gained so much praise is way beyond me. Reuniting with his 6ixtynin9 star Lalita Panyopas, I expected (like many) a return to his crowd-pleasing style of filmmaking that brought about the wonderfully flavored yet irrepressibly dark Monrak Transistor. Instead, Pen-Ek seems to have gone off the deep end, getting more and more abstract with every film he makes. I admit I’d really loved Last Life in the Universe, and, despite some false notes, Invisible Waves was not half as bad as many people made it out to be, but Ploy – whoa ho – is a completely different beast altogether.

The film is spare and empty, with barely a premise to string everything together, which would be fine if it had stayed that way without straining to be something else. Harkening back to the 70s experimental Robert Altman films, it starts out as a dreamy exercise in somnambulism, the jetlagged state (that I was in while watching the movie) in which dream and reality seem equally real – and unreal. The problem, though, is that Pen-Ek introduces so many characters (six major characters in total, including a couple that only fucks throughout the entire movie) and plot strands into a complex story, then completely abandons them, leaving the film to flounder and gasp for air in empty stares. It is easy to mistake its clean lines and smooth camera moves as minimalism, but the movie is anything but minimalistic. Frustrated at not being able to tie up its strands together, it introduces even more bizarro plot twists (and singing sequences) that would make David Lynch proud, yoking them together with a tenuous mood that threatens to unravel into nothingness all the time. In short, it feels like a whole lot of sound and fury, but none of the real thing.

Now, as in Last Life in the Universe, Pen-Ek’s movies don’t have to make sense to be really affecting and evocative. Pen-Ek himself has said that he often didn’t know what his movies meant or how they are meant to turn out in the end. I think the capriciousness of filmmakers depends a lot on how much the audience is willing to indulge, and, for him (and us) to find a meaning to his own work, it would take a dollop of trust and a whole course in patience to connect to the material. And the amount of trust and patience depends on how much feeling the movie can enlighten, which is hard in this case. The dreaminess he tries to evoke feels very much like emptiness, and he gives one the impression of a spoilt filmmaker pushing around morsels on his plate rather than taking a huge chomp out of his ideas, just because he can. Sooner or later (or around the musical sequence, seriously), the (really) jetlagged brain will stop trying to find meaning in any of his characters, illogicalities appear for no reason, events stop connecting to each other, and there is completely no point in watching the film at all.

The thing that irked me the most was the acting, or what little was demanded of them, even more so when all things considered, Pen-Ek’s greatest strengths is way with actors (see Monrak Transistor). Casting huge stars in the roles of common people, even menial tasks like emptying an ashtray and making a bed are utterly unconvincing. You’d expect the actions to be more deliberate and familiar, but in little actions like this, they inadvertently break fourth wall. Allan Dwan, one of Hollywood’s great silent era directors, once recounted an anecdote about Gloria Swanson, who was made to ride the subway everyday and work as a counter-girl to open up her body language to tasks which otherwise would be ordinarily out of her way. If only Pen-Ek had done the same with his actors.

After a half-completed screening (there were no English subtitles) of Therese by Alain Cavalier (whose work was being retro-ed at the Director’s Fortnight section), my day ended with the gala of Hou Hsiao Hsien’s Flight of the Red Balloon. It being the premiere, with cast and crew present, it was a tight squeeze getting in, but well worth it as squeezing together with me was none other than J. Hoberman from the Village Voice, fighting hard to get past security to scale the blue-carpet steps of the Debussy. The theater was packed to the rafters with a palpable sense of excitement before the screening started. Stars dotted the landscape galore, – is that Shu Qi I spy talking to Chang Chen? – and indignant film people were fighting for seats in the free-seating theater. This, and the lines for the WKW film yesterday (and later, the Coen brothers’ film), reminds me of how important Cannes really is, despite all the noise and superficial glamor its critics often complain about. Never is film more important than when in Cannes, and the sad reality of the films shown here is that in spite of all their after parties and red-carpet excitement, the filmmakers would have to fight for distributors and worry about box-office receipts after the festival is over. Alas, a WKW or the Coen brothers film playing to a full-house with long lines and people fighting to get in will probably be playing to empty cinemas alongside blockbusters like Pirates of the Caribbean 3. There is no chance in the world that these auteurs would get their work out to the public if not for a glamorous festival like Cannes, and that is probably its main conviction, despite how laughable all the fanfare might seem after. Case in point, it’s the first Hou film I’ve been to with the audience this excited. People were cheering at every name in the opening credits, and taking photos of the Cannes logo that preceded the film. Finally, and this is probably true of all film festivals, movie-crazy people are the majority.

The film which unspooled, if nothing else, deserved a place in the main competition. Compared to many of the Palme d’Or nominees, Hou’s film was every bit as philosophical but was, most importantly, extremely light. Depicting the story-less story of a puppeteer (Juliette Binoche) raising her son with his Taiwanese babysitter in Paris, the film, which was originally meant to be a remake of Le Ballon Rouge, inevitably turned out to be a Hou film through and through. In fact, his light touch makes it slightly reminiscent of Café Lumiere, – Hou’s tribute to Ozu – more heavy on dialog though no less lyrical. He revisits familiar themes in The Puppetmaster, about life and art, – about how our lives resemble puppets without strings, and the strange ways which, through the course of our lives, we connect to the people around us – but he does not try to offer any ‘profound’ insights or epiphanies. Instead, like always, he uses life as his raw material and takes away the elements that make life sometimes confusing and overwhelming, framing it in his perspective and offering some poetic images as the red balloon floats through Paris, unguided and unwilled, through its course. It is as if it is being tied to invisible strings from the heavens, as all the characters’ lives are.

Cannes diary: day one

On lost luggage and Wong Kar Wai

My first trip to Cannes was inaugurated with an auspicious case of missing baggage. I had forgotten to check my baggage out of Heathrow when transiting in London, and was left wearing the same plane-weary clothes the whole day as I fretted and worried about the eventual fate of my stuff. It was returned to me that very night in one piece, thank heavens, and so began my (mis)adventures at the world's greatest film festival, no hyperbole here.

Missing the premiere of Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry Nights (but not missing the massive crowds that thronged the Palais for the premiere), I was confined to my apartment waiting for my baggage to arrive (in which contained the tuxedo I needed to walk the red carpet). Not that I could get tickets for it anyway. The film opened the festival with all the necessary glamor and paparazzi glitz for it's 60^th anniversary, and in many ways sums up everything about the festival. I was later lucky enough to squeeze into a market screening of the film (a nice word for it, though, judging from the petite theatrette it was screened in, it was probably more for buyers to see what they had missed buying) after all the hype and controversy over the film had become passé.

The film, like the festival, has an impenetrably beautiful sheen that is as much substance as is its raison d'être. Shot in extremely saturated colors and featuring a superstar lineup, the film feels like it was made by an overconfident hand hammering out time and again a familiar 'masterpiece' of arty wistfulness and gorgeous pop images. It is all superficial flavor-of-the-month candy cool, with absolutely nothing to fill in as substance. But far from covering it up with any form of weight, it wears its superficiality on its sleeve - style is much more important that substance, and that is perhaps the biggest epiphany one can get when attending the festival and its market. That is not to say the festival (and the film) is not all terribly fun and heady. After all, prettily packaged glossiness always has its appeal to everyone whether they care to admit it or not.

But back to the film. You know that even Wong Kar Wai is unsure of himself when he pours out every trick that he's used so far in this film (it even has a harmonica reprise of the iconic Shigeru Umebayashi theme used in In the Mood for Love!). There is only so much one can take of slo-mos, shutter effects, smudgy-eyed loneliness, characters sitting in cafes, awfully pretentious dialog and world-weary gazes. And in My Blueberry Nights, every frame is hyper-WKW. Wong Kar Wai has always tread precariously on the line of pretentiousness and sublimity; some of his films work (Happy Together, In the Mood for Love) and some don't (most of Ashes of Time). Even those that work sometimes waver between pretentiousness and genuine soul; he is always confident that pretty images, music, and well-placed words (in the form of intertitles or dialog) can evoke a sense of connection, even to ludicrous characters and premises. When he hits the right spot, his cinema is breathtaking; but when his style goes wrong, it is always horrible, horrible, horrible. Case in point, everybody who makes a film these days wants to make a Wong Kar Wai film, but almost every one of them turn out repulsively poseur. Which always leads me to think that there is something more to Wong Kar Wai's films than pretty images, music, and words.

But I'll be damned if I knew what it is. Sometimes I think it's heart (a too-muddled and rubbish term [alongside the term 'emotion'] for something that feels true), sometimes I think it's his fantastic way with actors. But both of these aspects are markedly absent in My Blueberry Nights. Its vacuous core is hardly helped by shrill and wincing performances by the usually solid Rachel Weisz and David Strathairn (though Norah Jones is, surprisingly, extremely okay). Maybe something gets lost in translation with his switch to working with Western actors, because with all the pretty images, music, and words, the film feels very much like a Wong Kar Wai-wannabe making a Wong Kar Wai film.

Nocturne Indien

The Alliance Francaise consistently brings me nice surprises. A few weeks ago, it screened a gorgeous print of Nocturne Indien, an elusive and stirringly beautiful film little seen outside France. Helmed by Alain Corneau, whose more popular work Tous Les Matins du Monde was screened earlier last month at the AF, Nocturne Indien is even more mysterious and unfathomable than its already dense and strange successor.

Much of the film is built around a self-reflexive wisp of a plot that alternately disappears, bends and refracts through the exotic Indian landscape that our European protagonist finds himself lost in. We follow him as he arrives in the tatters of Bombay city, following the trail of a friend that leads him deeper into the rural heart of India. The plot comes alive when he meets an array of colorful characters along the way, yet when our attention is turned onto the premise, we become unsure if he is only following shadows, if his friend even existed in the first place, if his friend was not actually his own shadow.

The film forgoes plot and character to become what critics lazily call 'tone poem' or 'mood piece' – it leads us into circles and more concentric circles, doubling onto itself and beginning again where one left off (as all good mysteries should be, I think). The protagonist himself is mysterious – he is a Portuguese man who speaks perfect English, played by a French actor complete with French accent – and is never allowed to reveal much about himself. And with the help of Schubert's sensual String Quartet in C Major, the loose script is all the better for the director to jig over his preoccupations and weave its textures like shades of smooth exotic carpets.

But Nocturne Indien is not a film that bears much logical scrutiny. It is a dream, a fantasy of an ancient spiritual India by a European director (to call it exoticized is right, but rather meaningless). Even though it was shot entirely on location, it never felt like it had reached India's shores, just as its plot begins from a concrete point and slowly disintegrates into a lushly illustrated illusion. Quoting Fernando Pessoa and Herman Hesse, it is apparent who the film identifies with – the dreamers: Pessoa, who yearned his life away, traveling the world in fantasies and thoughts but never stepping foot on the concrete soil of reality; Hesse, who was physically in Europe when he wrote his metaphorical masterpiece of (Western-inflected) Buddhism, Siddhartha.

The film exists in short bursts of wordless cinematic grace, hardly describable in logically formed sentences. After all, cinema helps us find the words we've always wanted to say but couldn't. There is a miraculous scene in which the camera first wanders around India as the protagonist imagines it in his mind, showing the empty places without people. Then, moments later, as the protagonist wonders through these places, we see the exact same shots this time with the protagonist in frame. The scenery is now given a purpose, bound to character and plot, wrenched from our imagination as it has with the protagonist, for whom the places have now 'died,' seeing it in concrete reality. There's always such a minute sense of disappointment when we see in real life all the things we have previously imagined, as if reality took away something that's preciously ours– our images, our imagination.

Like the elaborate tracking shots of empty hallways in Ozu's Early Summer, the camera in Nocturne Indien acts as if with its own spirituality – with the ability to travel beyond the characters, beyond our physical reality, to show us images from a phantom land; the camera seems to represent something transcendental (time?) that exists outside of us. It brings us that phantom land on a big white screen (because we become like that protagonist, finally visiting the places that were once the images in our imagination – bringing about the death of the images), but yet, because of the wonderful paradox that is cinema, it allows us to see a reality without physically stepping foot into it. Seeing reality as if in a dream, we are able to reclaim the images as ours, cradling and nursing them as our new shared images, our common illusion (and the images, dwelling in our minds like spirits mixed in a heady cocktail, obtain rebirth). And the miraculous thing about it is, reality or not, they end up being part of our memories anyway, shared with strangers in the same room whose lives connect and share in that same moment.

But a film like Nocturne Indien can never bear to complete itself (and let itself die). The ending doesn't make sense at all except in a logic of its own, and Jean-Hugues Anglade's expression at the end makes it one of the most enigmatic and unforgettable endings in all of cinema, reminiscent of Greta Garbo's face in the famous ending of Queen Christina. And a film that ends without punctuation (not even ellipses) is like Kafka's greatest novels – they never die, sullied by a point, message or even an idea. Like a thought, half-formed, on the tip of the tongue waiting to be uttered – the stage where everything, even love, is at its most bewitching, innocent and perfect.

The Silent Women in Ozu, Naruse, and Mizoguchi

It is always hard to drag oneself to the cinema and overcome the inertia of watching an embarrassment of Japanese riches at home on DVD. But what better opportunity to do it than at a screening of newly restored prints of Japanese silent films?! Thanks to ‘The Silent Women in Ozu, Naruse, and Mizoguchi’ film screening organized by NUS Centre for the Arts and Asian Film Archive last night, we unworthy earthlings were able to have an invaluable film experience with the woefully neglected era of Japanese silent films, from which most of the films are now lost.

I'm only becoming acquainted to Mikio Naruse's work recently on DVD (Flowing being nothing short of wonderful), but Nightly Dreams was an enjoyment. A boisterously 'noisy' silent melodrama, it's also the liveliest of the three tonight, what with all its modern fast montages and repeated scenes. Additionally, Naruse outdoes Kubrick's famous 2001 cut when he cuts from a character throwing an apple into the air and turning into a baseball pitched by his young son. And he did it 30 years before anybody even heard of Kubrick's name! I've long heard that Naruse started out making slapstick comedies as an auteur with a distinct style, which probably explains why this film feels so different from his quieter post-war domestic melodramas. The giddy and excited visuals in this film makes me very curious about his other films from this period.

I absolutely adored Kenji Mizoguchi's Osen of the Paper Cranes, an unabashedly melodramatic weepie. It just blows my mind how Mizoguchi was able to make a masterpiece like this so early in his career – before Sansho the Bailiff and Ugetsu (forgive me for only namedropping the obvious – they're my favorites), his early 50's work that made his name in the West, he already had a film like this under his belt in which all the elements that enchant us – the lyrical tracking shots (including one that lingers on an empty street seconds after the eponymous tragic heroine pledges her devotion toward her adopted brother), the infinite compassion with suffering, and the transience of the present – are already in place and perfectly executed. There are so many scenes in which one can feel the magic of cinema, so many clever ironies, so many beautiful coincidences…the theatricality of it all, the distance between the audience and the story (just like bunraku theater), the inexplicable inner grinding in the heart when we hear a story: how strange it is that we feel something real while watching something clearly unreal!

I could never agree with Western critics and audiences who seem to think of Ozu as the most Japanese of Japanese directors; compared to Mizoguchi (with his distancing effect, an effect present in many Japanese theatrical traditions), he always seems to me as the most Hollywood one, and tonight's film only reinforced that idea in me, Lubitsch reference notwithstanding. For anybody who thinks that Ozu makes the same films over and over again, I would invite him to see just one of his silent films. Ozu clearly does not fit our bad habit of pigeonholing a director into an auteur theory (the same goes for my earlier pigeonholing of Mizoguchi) – all his films (even his later 'seasonal' films) are markedly different from each other for those who watch carefully. His form (the easiest target and the one thing most often picked apart by critics eager to find an angle into his films) might remain the same, but never what he expresses. He is by turns angry, melancholic, naïve, idealistic and cynical, and I get pretty irate when people (this often includes myself, too) speak of his films in absolute terms, of his 'ideologies,' when it's impossible to ignore that he has many conflicting ideas in the breadth of his work, or even in a single film itself.

But back to Woman of Tokyo, which was screened as part of tonight's program. To me, Ozu's silent films are a little like staring into the blinding sun – while he takes great lengths to dilute the surface of many of his later films, everything is completely direct in his early films. Of what little of his silent films that I've seen, every emotion is told bluntly and precisely, and with a resolutely unsentimental poker face, like putting every little thing under the magnifying glass. Because of this, Woman of Tokyo is unthinkably intense at its brief length. Ozu has always been a master from the get-go – he is able to evoke our sympathies and tell an entire story with an economy of lines, gestures, and cuts – his cruel, cruel cuts. He is at his most cruel in his early silent films; he doesn't so much as find his 'voice' as he ages, only ways to mask his cruelty in his later pictures.

I must admit I had my doubts about the gamelan music accompaniment (I'm used to my silent films – on DVD – completely silent, for fear of ruining it with bad scores), even to the point of bringing wads of tissue to stuff my ears with if it turned out to be unsuitable. But it was great – mostly unobtrusive, and very pleasantly forceful at the right moments. Some parts were even, dare I say, sublime. A big thank you to the organizers, it was truly an unforgettable evening!

It saddens me unbearably that so little survives of Japanese silent film, and tonight has only confirmed my suspicion that the world never quite got past the artistry of Japanese film. I wouldn't need any other kind of cinema in the world if I could only wallow in the wealth of early Japanese films, like a bird that never finds his way back to land – there's no turning back, it's only the horizon for me and stretches and stretches of the deep blue sea. Since the start of the year I've been watching Japanese films maniacally, getting to know the early masters – Mikio Naruse, Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu, Sadao Yamanaka – and the later New Wavers – Nagisa Oshima, Shohei Imamura, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Seijun Suzuki, Kon Ichikawa, Kihachi Okamoto. And I'm barely at the tip of the iceberg; there are still so many Japanese filmmakers still unknown to me – Hiroshi Shimizu, Keisuke Kinoshita, Tadashi Imai, Hideo Gosha, Yoshishige Yoshida, Susumu Hani, Shuji Terayama, Teinosuke Kinugasa, Kaneto Shindo, Kinji Fukasaku.…it takes a lifetime (maybe more) to scratch the barrel with Japanese cinema (and that's not counting the modern filmmakers): but yes, I would willingly die trying!

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Loft

One of my first festival films was Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Charisma at the ripe age of fourteen, and it nearly put me off festival films forever. By turns confusing and frustrating, it starts off as a gritty policier, then haywires into the forest with a heartwarming redemption fable before kamikaze-ing into a bleak apocalyptic ending. In between Kurosawa throws in some bizarre imagery (the premise is about a man’s love affair with a tree that threatens to poison the world with its very existence), shady morals and gruesome violence – all much too overwhelming for a young mind not yet shaped on foreign film. But the film did strike something in me, it made me so repulsed and maddened that I swore off Kurosawa’s name, afraid that his free-form messiness will corrupt (just as the tree in the film) my sacred image of cinema.

Five years later I was queuing up for tickets for Bright Future on an impulse. Don’t ask me why.

It seems, by his latest potboiler Loft, that he hasn’t changed much as a director – he still works with plots that feel as scattered as sticks thrown into the air and left to fall; he holds the same contempt for the audience, cajoling then revolting against their expectations; and he still remains as bewilderingly unforgettable as ever. The audience I was watching the film with were howling in laughter at some scenes and whistling impatiently at others – unsurprising, since though Loft goes under the guise of a supernatural horror, it feels much more like a bizarro underground avant-garde feature made to satisfy his hardcore fans (I’m not one of them, though).

Most of the time, though, Loft feels very much like a horror movie gone wrong. Not bad horror – bad horror are horror movies that try to scare things up a certain way but end up tickling the audience. Loft, as it title suggests, is too lofty even for that. It does not even bother with scaring the audience. Or, to put it more clearly, it bothers to build up the audience’s fear insofar as it wants to deflate and ridicule it.

But Kurosawa’s films are much too intelligent to be bad horror. His Kairo was one of the films that jumpstarted the Asian horror explosion at the beginning of the millennium. Together with (the truly scary) The Ring, it uses banal imagery and puts them in the context of a metaphysical horror beyond the reaches of logic, teasing and teasing the audience into paranoia and confusion with so much built-up atmosphere. All-too-recognizable household objects like computers, the internet, long-haired women and empty rooms became menacing fodder for a paranoiac’s overactive imagination, subverting the Western horror trend of fantastical monsters and creatures; it caused me and many others to take a long hard stare at our innocent household appliances after the movie.

The rest of post-millenial Asian horror learned the gore-less atmosphere and banal imagery well, wearing the genre out with the same static camera and unhurried editing that served its predecessors so well. But perhaps these ‘tools’ that Kurosawa had employed earlier weren’t even meant to be horror tools at all – they could’ve just been means with which Kurosawa had wanted to subvert the horror genre, fucking it up for the audience and, at the same time, teaching us a new language of suggestive horror.

Now, with the clout of Asian horror passed and (thankfully) forgotten, Kurosawa returns to the genre again, to fuck things up and mess with the audience’s heads. Loft takes all the clichés of Asian horror – the long-haired female, the absence of gore, the themes of urban isolation and loneliness – and scatters them like sticks in the air. Having lured in the Asian horror crowd, he gives us a premise straight out of the numerous copycats that followed – writer with mental block (female – always female) moves to a decrepit old house and starts seeing strange apparitions (of a female in black dress). Even through the exposition acts, he shoots the film in full-on horror mode, making big scenes out of inconsequential situations as the writer sees things that might be there/might not be there.

As the film lurches slowly to its inevitable climax, Kurosawa makes a different film all together, subverting, even fucking with what the audience thinks might happen next. He leads the audience down a familiar path in each scene and, instead of progressing to a logical conclusion (logical in horror-movie terms, that is), turns round a different path all together, what leads the critics to calling it ‘incoherent.’ He sets up a horror-specific scenes to build suspense when the protagonist plays hide-and-seek with the ghost, but when it finally appears in front of her (and we expect her to die horrifically), Kurosawa cuts to the next scene days after with the protagonist completely safe, never returning to what happened earlier. Another scene brings a character face to face with the ghost, but as the score builds up toward its inevitable scary climax, the character just walks right out of frame, leaving the ghost high and dry, talons outstretched uselessly. The most telling of all these frustratingly tedious and bizarre sequences, however, is the ending, in which a tacked-on cheesy happy ending is violently and rudely interrupted by an ‘alternative’ ending, forcing the chapter to close on a sickeningly bleak note.

It almost seems as though there are three stories are being told here – the story with its characters – existing with its own internal logic and rules –, the story that the camera (ie Kurosawa) tells that deliberately avoids, subverts and confuses the former, and the story that the audience wants to be told (that exist in the typical horror movie lingering shots before a ghost appears out of the corner). If anything, Loft is a cinematic thesis in which Kurosawa explores the language of editing and rhythm, a playground in which we are the toys.

Kurosawa never seemed to have liked his audiences – even when he’s playing to our expectations, he is never making things simple for us. Kairo was all atmosphere and no climax, deliberately falling short of the right notes (whereas subsequent Asian horror was hitting all the right notes, but sounding completely out of place). Here, Loft plays it straight-up but shows us the middle finger when we don’t expect it, like a mischievous imp leading us right to the door and slamming it in our faces. It is an experiment, a fascinating one where the audience never knows where he’s leading us toward, not even until the end.

But Kurosawa obviously knows his stuff well – he is experimenting with the format the same way a deity makes people suffer just to see ‘how much we can take.’ The way he effortlessly leads the audience to the noose is unsettling – he uses jump cuts (between shots with very small changes in between) and weird back projection to drum up a feeling of madness and paranoia even among the most commonplace scenarios. And, in spite of him, the story and its characters have an intrigue and urgency that carries it along despite of all the convoluted twists thrown along its way.

What comes out of this whole fucked-up affair is a very strange movie, but an experience unlike any other movie in cinemas now (which is why the audience, which automatically rejects anything that doesn’t fit a formula, cannot accept it). It’s bewildering and frustrating, like any other Kurosawa movie, but it’s interesting, and that makes it so much the worth watching than a movie as boring as Apocalypto, which tries to wow with grandiose themes within its three-act structure. But perhaps ultimately, what makes a movie is our expectations – I’m easy, give me a thousand-year-old mummy, 1920’s pre-war Japanese scientists, eerily scratchy film reels, a girl that vomits mud, and a mystery that never solves itself, and I’ll lick my paws like a happy puppy. But expect a normal movie while watching a Kurosawa movie, and you will be fucked.

Imprint

Coming off from a spectacular nightmare filled with violence and torture, I woke with a specific desire to see Takashi Miike's much-feted Masters of Horror episode Imprint, the episode that started a minor furore when it was banned from the cable broadcast that originally commissioned it.

But expectations kill the best hopes, especially when hope takes the form of gloriously vulgar and imaginative filmic violence - the particular kind I saw in my dreams. I don't know what Imprint did for the hoards of festival-goers who report – as veterans brag about their war scars – their trauma and awe at its audacity, or Tobe Hooper, who supposedly had nightmares himself after seeing it. The violence was actually rather mild – at least for Miike standards – and not really that imaginative.

The film though, takes place in a surreal and extremely exoticized Nipponland, where women speak Engrish and have red armpit hair, and pinwheels grow from the ground in place of flowers. Its imaginative candy-colored design and stylized visuals are a treat for the eyes though, and help rest them while waiting for Miike and the scriptwriter (Shohei Imamura's son and co-scriptwriter) to bring on the horror, which doesn't quite have the intended effect of making us stare mouth agape while the rolling credits smirk at us.

Quinceañera

Waiting for that streak of light (which may never come).

I did not expect a part of Quinceañera to be this gay. I expected to see a funnier film. I did not expect its narrative balance tilted towards melodrama. Given its predominantly Hispanic setting, I expected to see closely observed, familia-centric relationship dynamics. Intriguingly though, I did not expect the film's more subtle lament on "self-preservation" (a most apt term coined by a reviewer I read on said film). In the end, I can only surmise that expectations are bastard bitches. I personally feel this movie promises more than it delivers. However, based on the promises alone, I am prepared (barely) to forgive its undeliverables.

Quinceañera appears to be a Hispanic equivalent of the Bar Mitzvah or the Debutante's Ball, held on a girl's fifteenth birthday. It is a traditional celebration marking her rites of passage into womanhood. This film hence chronicles the trials and tribulations of Magdelena, a 14 year old girl soon to have her own coming of age in more ways than a mere ceremonial Quinceañera. Extrapolated from her interactions with the people around her, from friends to lovers, from immediate family to surrogate relations, we'd also be getting a sense of the modern moods and social mores blanketing the Hispanic suburbia of Echo Park, Los Angeles and it's not gonna be pretty.

I sense a deeply obstinate undercurrent of fear permeating this entire picture. All its people seem strangely afraid of losing something (rather than someone) they hold dear. The "things" range from material wealth to peer-pressured social status, from needy emotional mentorship to youthfully precocious pride, from staunch religious/ moral authority to intangible attachment to tangible possessions. The people residing in Echo Park hence respectively emit unsettling vibes, collectively squirming like frogs in slowly boiling water. Amphibians think they can adapt in water or land, despite the rising temperatures, until they die, that is. Questions abound; Are they clueless to their predicaments or just clueless by choice? Tricky.

This is perhaps where the supposed "self-preserving" motivations come into play. Case in point (and there are many cases), (Spoilers ahead) Magdalena's stubborn priest of a father only accepted Mag's pregnancy when his sentient wife 'pragmatically" pointed him towards the miraculous possibility of immaculate conception bestowed upon his daughter (though there is a medical explanation). The film does not make clear on whether the father is clued in on the religiously pious conceit he has built-up around himself in accepting her daughter's predicament. The fact that that is the "official" presentation of the father's re-consideration has already masked the supposed silver lining with an ironic discordance. (End spoilers)

In a film which strives to be likeable, it is indeed a pity that something as simple and pure as amor has been demoted to dimming beacons of light, hardly allowed to penetrate Quinceañera's clouded landscape, hence depriving its many undernourished portraits of much needed perspectives. If you asked me, it does not really matter the differences in class, age, gender or race. Everyone seems to be looking for an excuse to not pursue their "love", and instead arming their defense mechanisms in service of something they may unconsciously value more - their sundry fears or loathing. My favourite Eurythmics' quote hence applies here, as

Cruel is the night that covers up your fears.
Tender is the one who wipes away your tears.
There must be a bitter breeze to make you sting so viciously -
They say the greatest cowards can hurt the most ferociously. *

Whether intended by the film makers or not, this is one of the most pessimistic films I have seen this year (and I have seen my fair share of downers). All said, though worthy of this fairly lengthy discourse, the misguided idealist in me can never consider a film like Quinceañera to be my cuppa. Increasingly, I am seeing cinematic attempts to block out the "exit light" as unnecessary, because life by default is already brighter than a big projected white screen, and darker than a cold empty theatre. To quench tastebuds already parched and bitter, a warm brew of Champurrado shall best be served sweet.

* From "Miracle of love" by Eurythmics

You, Me and Dupree

Not just another third wheel movie.














I must admit I was initially trying my best to hate You, Me and Dupree because it has the makings of a feel-bad comedy (which I am beginning to resent). That I hate "domestic hostage" movies (Duplex, What about Bob?, Pacific Heights etc) did not help much either. However, this movie somehow managed to wear down my defences. The screws of contrived tension may be wound ever so tightly by the minute but the counter-balancing humour and unassuming warmth marches on, urging me to continue watching. Most of all, its steady flow of goodwill charms slowly but surely won me over, of which the main source of this glow emanated from the goofy but sincere Owen Wilson. From wrongly perceived feel-bad beginnings, Dupree eventually got me feeling good, really good.

And as I watched on through the midway point, I realised this film also illuminated itself in more ways than one. It may be dressed like a sporadically sloppy comedy with convenient caricatures befitting a "third wheel" movie, but gradually and imperceptibly, it dispenses an antidotal rush of blood to the head. Owen and the myriad cast have shown that they do the things they do because they are daunted by the direction the river is flowing. They lack the commitment to swim upstream because, unlike salmons, they are hampered by questions of this survival instinct. With our differing and sometimes unattainable "beliefs", some of us will naturally doubt our purpose and endeavour to continuously search for new ones, only to completely lose ourselves along the way. Yet others, resigned to muted acceptance of what is perceived to be the limited meaning of life, decent people them all, bear the greatest fear and burden - of disappointing the ones we love. However, what is most surprising about this movie is its eventual intuition and sensitivity. It bothers to tell us that while we misplace so much trust in our fears (or run away from them, depending on our perspectives), we may forget to the trust the strength of faith and mutual love our loved ones have for us. Awesome.

As if the above sunshine is not enough to brighten up the gloomy haze, this movie also sneaked in interesting observations about friendships. Even if we delusionally think we do, we don't choose our friends, they choose us. Most of the time, they just randomly slide in and out of our spheres, at different stages of our lives. The real ones stay on, the others fade away. For better or worse, they infect us with their presence. An outsider may sometimes wonder, why would people with seemingly no common traits end up as fast, loyal, longtime friends? Truth is, friendships evolve, strengthen or weaken over time, and should not be taken for granted, because they fulfil our very human needs. Our friends don't necessarily have to share in our lifeviews all the time, but their similar or differing perspectives on things may in fact reinforce our beliefs or put our excesses in check. They watch our backs and become the seeing eye bitches of our respective blindspots. Most importantly, the thought that there is a surrogate family out there who unconditionally share in the ups and downs with you, is certainly something to be grateful for. I for one think true friendship is a beautiful thing and due in part to personal failings or the random whiles of fate, is very hard to come by. I hence shudder to think how empty life may be, without it.

Entertaining, warm and illustratively inspirational, I love the positive spin of this hopeful movie. To conclude, forgive me for being about to lay it thick with the following euphemisms (this is after all, just a comedy, damn it!), but as we flow down the streams of hopes and fears, as we traverse the great rivers of love and friendships, You, Me and Dupree is the affirmative kind of boats which will arm us with sturdy paddles and fortify our resolve to row towards the deep blue sea, of life. Amen!

You, Me and Dupree opens this week in local cinemas. Watch out for it.

Feel-bad Comedy Part 2: Little Miss Sunshine

For better of worse, Singapore Dreaming has moved to California...



Little Miss Sunshine opens with a succinct introduction of yet another dysfunctional family. Pictured above, it's made up of some very distinct personalities. Conversations begin. Questions are asked. Accusations are hurled. Assumptions are made. Cursing is heard. They fight, alot, some with words, others without. That said, a lot of things are accomplished by dinner's end. Not only do we get to know who they are and what they are sitting on that dinner table for, we will soon learn when and how they will embark on a road trip, plus the reason why. Will they reveal themselves as more than what we have already seen? Are they gonna rally behind the hopes and dreams of those they love and cherish? Will there be mayhem or serenity? Can love conquer all? Is this movie worth all its troubles, if any? Though I have seen this movie, I can only answer for myself.

Amongst the uniformly decent ensemble, the always dignified Alan Arkin is the brightest spark as the foul mouthed slash big hearted patriarch. The rest of them look like they tried their best to pad their archetypical roles with the zest and heart exuded by Arkin. And try, they did, hence there's nothing much to complain about (yet). There also seems to be a concerted effort to weave a charming tale which aims to functionalise a dysfunctional family, to bring about some form of heartfelt closure, as these movies usually do. Which means I can't really dislike these kind of movies also (yet). However, the more I watch on, the more I feel the effort is unnaturally straining and the moodswingy plot is struggling for "a" closure. Make no mistake, everything do fall into place in the end, but whether they are in the right place or not, that is the arguable question.

To me, though Little Miss Sunshine is funnier, it gradually feels like a Wes Anderson movie. You know, dramedies made with a sardonically witty disposition, a penchant for understated ironies and proud namedropping of literary/ pop cultural references. It is "funnier" because sporadically, the film do break out of this mold, thanks largely to the naturally charming ensemble. This movie in parts boast of an explosive yet intuitively cohesive comic timing. But just when these brief moments had a chance to live and breathe, they die (Now that I think of it, this film resembles Todd Solondz pics a little too, but the big difference is that Todd knows how to "resurrect the dead", while LMS tries). In short, the balance is tilted. Little Miss Sunshine shows promise of providing potently moving entertainment, but the promise is squandered by a desire to appear more awkwardly feel-bad than is necessary.

Much as I admire them, these kinds of movies can never be my cuppa. I prefer my comedies broad and my dramas deeper. It's already hard to set one genre up properly for them to solicit my love, but to simultaneously tackle both satisfactorily would require compensating virtuousity this side of the best Buffy episodes (that is, deft blend of equal parts humour and pathos). I also prefer such movies more tightly paced and less "ashamed" of appearing generic, because "idiosyncratic" can oftentimes be a nicer word for many not-so-nice words.

Admittedly lured by its rave reviews, I walked into this "idiosyncratic" movie fully expecting chockful of laughs and some nice tugs of them heartstrings. Turns out, there is not enough to cheer about but too much to jeer for the noisy, preachy, and dimly lit Little Miss Sunshine. In fact, I find its bleak streak eclipsing whatever little sunshine peeping through. This certainly doesn't do well in brightening up my increasingly darkening frustrations. I actually found myself losing patience two-thirds through this movie (which is never a good sign), after you-know-what happened to you-know-who and then you-know-who else decided to do you-know-what else. At that point, I began to wonder, how much longer can I tolerate such unmitigated feel-bad comedies before I start walking out on them like I have been doing for most horror flicks?

This piece was previously posted in another forum and I was observed to be in praise of a critically ravaged RV but is mercilessly vitriolic towards the unanimously raved Little Miss Sunshine. To which I felt the need to present my personal opinion that RV is a classic in my book compared to LMS, because rising above RV's external mayhem lies its sincere core, a pure heart which does not shout out for exclusivity, it's just there, plain and simple. To me, the difference between the two films is glaring. Little Miss Sunshine's main thematic focus (whether they are executed well or not, that's subjective) is about familial dysfunctional fixations and the intentionally masochistic road towards reconciliation. RV, on the other hand, exemplifies the enduring responsibilities of father/manhood in increasingly underappreciating times, and the faith to convert the pain inflicted upon you, especially by your loved ones into something trancendentally Herzogian. That it is much funnier also does not hurt its chances of winning my approval.

In conclusion, I acknowledge that my exceedingly harsh words for Little Miss Sunshine may stem from my profound disappointment with its over-rated critical buzz and its grossly mis-marketed vibes, but I sure ain't 'bout to be non-violent, for I hate hate hate Little Miss Sunshine!! This road(kill) of a movie has murdered my mirth-seeking spirit and induced my urge to stare at the EXIT lighting. I want to erase memories of having seen one of the most irritating movies in recent experiences. In my mind, a deafening yell also surfaced, and it goes something like, "Bring on Talladega Nights already!!!" I swear I will go mad if I don't see a straight (in all sense of the word) comedy anytime soon. I so need my laugh fix, asap.

Feel-bad Comedy Part 1: Singapore Dreaming

This shall be Part 1 of a double bill write-up on a couple of feel-bad movies I have recently seen (coincidently both films encircled shaded themes of familial dysfunctions). There was no conscious effort to group the two movies; they just fell onto my lap. Whether I like these feel-bad movies or not should not concern others, but my laying out the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of these flicks may hopefully offer some an idea of what they may be getting into. So here goes.
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Singapore Dreaming: Is it a "Like sand through the hourglass..." or a Presidentially endorsed "It is as it was.”?















Singapore Dreaming ( 美满人生 ) chronicles a working class family living in a capitalistic society, struggling with the frustrations of unfulfilled middle class ambitions. Ironically, when their material-centric dreams come true (almost), they are plunged into a spiral of challenges, which send their family dynamics into a topsy turvy. The film aims to deliver, as quoted from its marketing, “…a poignant, yet darkly humorous story about a typical Singaporean family coming to grips with their aspirations. It weaves a layered and moving tale about a family dealing with loss, ambition and the search for what really matters in life.”

Yes, the President blurbed about it. Mr Brown laced it with premium chocolate. Its prior previews sold like hot cakes and media approvals have been gaining momentum. The local film Singapore Dreaming is having a commercial release right now. I hence entered the cinema with very high expectations. So did it deliver what its marketing promised? In short, though I won't mind recommending this mildly entertaining movie (which works well as a tv soap opera), I don't love it. If you care to know the longer take on why I think so, then there are the below paragraphs...

The acting in Singapore Dreaming is all round evocative. The production quality is good. The sporadic humour is tickling and the pathos generally works. Singapore Dreaming is probably the first local film to succeed as a familial dramedy, if it did not so insistently choose to bear the burden of being a “Singaporean” movie. To me, this film just feels like an episode off an adequate TVB (HK) series, which have all the above-mentioned qualities, and then some. Just because the film dabbles in some men-on-the-street ideas of working class Singaporean lives does not elevate its level of social authenticity like any random Jack Neo production arguably can.

Allow me to sidetrack a little to comment on the Singapore Dreaming vs Jack Neo movies comparisons so rampant in film reviews I have read so far. I know I may unwittingly be inviting people to challenge my spews, but frankly, all the words expended so far may actually be the reactionary defenses of the Jack Neo groupie in me. I do not like Singapore Dreaming enough because I feel it is no Jack Neoir-ish enough, but I sense detractors are trying to closely associate Dreaming with Jack's grassroots films and yet push for it to assume an air of comparative superiority. Hence, no self-respecting Jack Neo groupie is going to stand on the sidelines and be unheard.

Granted, Neo also takes potshots at local social issues and manipulates his audiences with in-your-face sentimentalities, but he does so in purer and simpler extremes, which rules out common criticism leveled at his films for being middle of the road affairs. If Singapore Dreaming is a standard soap, then Jack Neo movies are bottled bleach solution, which would often leave us feeling stung and raw, but ultimately illuminate lucidly our sense of national/social/ familial identity. I will argue Jack accomplishes his non-critics baiting aims admirably because he is willing and able to tap into this country's shared emotional reservoir more heedlessly (and strangely to me, more effectively) than anything Singapore Dreaming can shrewdly conjure up. I hence honestly believe the cultural medallion winner to be the real deal, that his sincere films are more effortlessly authentic in echoing the silent majority Singaporeans' thoughts and feelings. That, and that fact that I am willingly planting for a "I Not Stupid Tree".

Now back to Singapore Dreaming. With my above sentiments considered, the main reason why I don't respond to Singapore Dreaming may be that I feel it's purported grasp of the heartlander spirit is adequate at best. It's the very same reason why all of Eric Khoo's pre-Be with me flicks don't work for me, until he realised it's futile to try to prove he can completely understand heartlander sensibilities and started making more universal movies about the human condition. In other words, Singapore Dreaming may work as a standard non-country specific melodrama, it is just “no Singaporean enough”, but which its marketing spin so far has been insisting, it is.

There are illustrative basis for my rant on why Singapore Dreaming is “no Singaporean enough”, for there are niggling elements in this movie which kick started my nitpicking urges on the film’s social authenticity and they greatly diluted my enjoyment. I shall list below, 3 of my most highly personal nitpicks.

(As the below passages may have spoilers and meant for discussion purposes, readers are advised to skip the green passages if you have not seen the film)

Nitpick number one: This film has some weird fantasies about including cheap laughs/ melodramatic plot devices being a true indication of 3-rooms flat dwelling Singaporeans. Come on now, any people who lives in HDB flats nowadays know and can attest that the frequency of people doing "that" in "there" is no longer as high as this film is implying. And to suggest higher numbered-rooms flat dwelling people will really do "that" in 3-rooms flat's "there" feels like what condo dwelling or above peeps will come up with. Could this be a socially conscious allegory to show that the higher we climb up the social ladder, the pissier we will get? I don’t know, it sure did not work as a funny scene to me.

Nitpick number two: I acknowledge the heightened melodramatic excesses in the last third of this movie is an effective showcase of the cast's acting talents and the crew's deft mastery of their respective film making craft. It's moving too, in a soap opera moving kinda way. However, the unrealistic behaviours of 2 caricatured characters, (one dripping with sardonic humour about his industry's unique products and services, another behaving badly for no other reason than to ratchet up the melodramatic angst of a main character) just reminds me further that this is a soap opera, and not much more. It can boast no claims to realistically understand a segment of this country's population via its illustrated comedy and drama so far. What it can be proud of, is that it is better than any random TCS tele-movie/ serials staining Singaporean television sets.

Nitpick number three: The behaviour of a main character near the end of the film is “surreal”, to say the least (I shall try not to overuse variation of the term "unrealistic" too often). No sane Singaporean in that "predicament" will do what is done "realistically" (I know, I can't resist) as the “act” itself is just too religiously irresponsible. Allow me to explain. (Spoilers ahead) If one is to up and leave and not return for a long time, one who has seemed "tao-istically" pious enough throughout the movie, one would have made arrangements for ancestral responsibilities like twice-monthly offerings and other miscellaneous festivities to be properly taken care of before leaving. In the movie, the ancestral tablets are still there! (End spoilers) Perhaps this plot development is in keeping with the spirit of melodramatic soap operas, with a clear and present intent to show up it's ability to heart massage its viewers. But that act of negligence to me, is just too jarring.

Since I don't classify this film as a "Singaporean" movie and only think of it as a "melodramedic" outing, I hence wonder, why should people see Singapore Dreaming in a cinema if they can get more mirth and tears renting some trusty TVB soap operas? Then I considered (perhaps presumptuously so), TVB might not be so hot with Singapore Dreaming's intended critics/ audiences. Furthermore, this film is exclaimed/ marketed as being socially relevant to our material-worshipping, love-starved and angst-ridden country. Now who wouldn't want to go in and experience the joys and pains of being Uniquely Singaporean? I would, I did, but I came out feeling something's missing. Damn.

With all said, above are still only my own nitpicks and their personally perceived trespasses most probably won't affect others as much. In the end, I think Singapore Dreaming is a suitably entertaining film with heartfelt melodramatic elements and I shall mildly recommend it to others as such. In fact, this film should be distributed regionally just to showcase the actors. I personally think they are too good for the movie. Richard Low, Serene Chen, Lim Yu Beng and Dick Su are unfortunately saddled with strictly plot-dictated roles, but I thought they made the most out of their respective screen time. On the other hand, I think both Lim Cheng Peng and Yeo Yann Yann deserve Golden Horse mentions.

Lim Cheng Peng's (the mother) character transition, though narratively unrealistic in my book, is emoted very well. She imbues her character with an emotional honesty, which renders the funny moments organically believable and the dramatic ones with a deft touch of gravitas. Yeo Yann Yann (the daughter) exudes a dexterous grasp of steely demeanour and heartfelt vulnerability so rare in local "thespians". The woman is like a younger Sylvia Chang to me, supplying a refreshing breath of intelligent naturalism despite Singapore Dreaming's awkwardly contrived universe.

All in, these actors effectively made my viewing experience of Singapore Dreaming not a complete waste of time. I sincerely hope for better writer/directors out there to discover these talents, work with them synergistically and ultimately push the Singaporean cinematic landscape beyond caricaturised portraits, beyond our sociological fixations with keeping things "local". The outlook is positive. Singapore Dreaming is inching towards the "universal" of Be with me, but imbued with more astute commercial sensibilities, showing that art and commerce can and will eventually result in a perfect blend. I personally can't wait for a truly great film to emerge out of the current pool of Singaporean film making talents, and I have a feeling the wait is not going to be too long.

The most romantic film ever made

Louis Malle's Les Amants is the most romantic film ever made. Screw subjectivity and critical judgment. I've just come off fresh from seeing it, and, in the spirit of the film, I'll let my excitement wash over me instead of letting it die down to see it coolly. Seeing it gave me one of those precious moments, moments where you gasp and go oh-my-god, disbelieving your eyes that cinema could go to places like this, and make you feel things you never felt were possible in fiction.

Buried within the Optimum Releasing of the Louis Malle box set, but it emerges the most deafeningly romantic, even when compared to the already celestial ending of the more famous Elevator to the Gallows. Its blissed out view on happiness makes it impossible to attach any critical adjectives to it; it requires us to suspend all thinking faculties and just go with that one powerful emotion.

It's amazing how it turns what could've looked like a cover of a chick romance novel into something this beautiful. Henri Decae, who almost single-handedly created the first images of the New Wave, literally sets the screen aglow in ecstasy, painting the two lovers in a heavenly light in that pivotal centerpiece, which is one of the greatest moments of cinema, bar none. Even Jean Vigo's L'Atalante holds nothing on this. (There will be spoilers from hereon, and I would urge you to stop reading this paragraph if you've not seen the film. The joy of discovery in this film is so much more than any other film I've experienced, that I'm wholly convinced that one should experience this as fresh as a virgin.) Stripped of their daily pretenses and graces, the two lovers traverse a God-made Eden, becoming simply Man and Woman and reuniting again, several millenia after the First Man and First Woman were expulsed from paradise. When Jeanne Moreau takes Jean-Marc Bory's hand and asks him 'Is this the land you created for me to lose myself in?', the gaze is sealed and the viewer can do nothing but share in their passion. The two lovers become such eminent symbols of love, sex, and happiness that it's hard to imagine anything more sensual and erotic than this, especially when compared to the fully colored and fully exposed sex symbols of today. They belong to an era removed from any other, not the era that the film was made in, but a black-and-white, pristine era that exists only in cinema, one in which true love still exists without the moorings of reality.

And the decided lack of moorings in this film is what makes it so bewitching. Whether it's the fleeting white horse or the eyes of the beautiful beautiful Jeanne Moreau, the film doesn't look back, but indulges fully in the moment, that moment of sensuousness. It is so fitting that the film should be called Les Amants, because anything else would be pretension - the lovers become the lovers of any era, any millenium, by their love alone they have been elevated to the great lovers that have long passed. They transcend being, nature, rules and become one - spirits entwined - with a world that is beyond the tangible, such that any rational reasoning will not be understanding. It's a magical world, a fantasy world, a world that is as unreal as we want it to be real. And this world, the film proposes, can only be reached through a temporary moment of love, un-selfish, immaterial, illogical, and unquestioning love. And when you're able to give yourself in, together with the film, it suddenly becomes so clear and not that unreal anymore.

At the risk of sounding like a nut, I just wanted to recommend this film to everyone who thought that this century has made us cynical. Cinema, which began and evolved with this century, has rarely stepped out of its time so gloriously that it becomes a monument, a structure of those classical (and probably impossible) days. It is the single most ravishingly beautiful moment in the history of cinema.

The Banquet

The sin that The Banquet commits - that of championing idiocy and making unrequited love a virtue - is not one uncommon to literature and film when masters like Dostoevsky and Herzog themselves occasionally lapse into it. The idiot is often seen as being pure-hearted and untainted by the world's evils, oblivious of everything else other than his love (for mankind or for a particular person) and set apart for that very reason. In an even further simplification of this romantic idea, unrequited love or anything that makes one seem remotely victimized or vulnerable is often seen as something noble, a naive notion that giving - rather than receiving - is always better.

But perhaps we are all prone to these romantic delusions - it always seems easy to project our fantasies on and idealize people who can't defend themselves, when in life we have to face morally ambiguous decisions that sit uneasily with our conscience. In this way, the characters in The Banquet remarkably resemble humans in real life. A dark reimagining of Shakespearean irony in an ancient Chinese court, this film does to wuxia what previous Kurosawa adaptations of Shakespeare does to the samurai movie genre: it adds complex and ambivalent characters to a harsh Spartan landscape - in this case, a landscape where the heroic jiang hu of rebel warriors and codes of honor don't exist. In fact, one wonders why it took so long for a Shakespearean tragedy to be transplanted a Chinese palace, since Chinese history has always been ripe with usurpers and incestuous cannibals.

Flying people have been associated with Confucian ideals like chivalry and integrity so much that Feng Xiaogang's dark and terrible take on the new wave of arthouse wuxia comes as a very welcome breath of fresh air (is it still a wuxia movie without jiang hu?). Much more coherent than either of Zhang Yimou's art direction/cinematography-obsessed wuxia debacles (In one scene, the emperor (played by Ge You) even recites two lines of a poem that were first invoked in House of Flying Daggers, a wink at his trend-setting senior), it, however, abuses yet again the slo-mo action sequences that are supposed to evoke a lyrical poeticism. I have to admit to having no knowledge of Feng's previous films, but his direction here - in spite or maybe because of its opulent visual style - comes in clean broad strokes (with a special delight for slick and wanton violence), leaving ample room for its complex melodrama to unfold.

Its portrayal of timeless power struggles ensures its relevance in our weary world of duplicity and subterfuge - every character has an ulterior motive and is constantly double-crossing one another, thanks in large to the complex and winding screenplay. The screenplay is an actor-centric one; though it starts off shaky, it quickly becomes spare and rather elegant, leaving its implications to the subtleties of the players' expressions, but leaving room for a dramatic soliloquy here and there for each character. And every character, all contemptuous and selfish people, remains unlikeable throughout the film, though it must be said that the main pleasure of the film is derived from all the countless backstabbings. It somehow reminds me of another palace intrigue period melodrama earlier this year, the Korean smash hit The King and the Clown. Much less looney and unsympathetic of its characters, The Banquet lacks the hypocritical sugar-coating of a love story over what is essentially a power play between the characters in the former, though it does also commits the same offense - romanticizing the lover almost to the point of demonizing the beloved.

Zhou Xun, giving the most in her deceptively doe-eyed fashion, has the most shallow and unlikeable character tin the movie as a maid infatuated with Daniel Wu's prince and tortured by (the ever-reliable) Ziyi Zhang's ruthless and conflicted empress for that reason. Along with the prince, the two typify a youthful recklessness - though Wu's character is actually younger than Zhang's - that worships free love and rejects compromise with a stubbornness that costs the lives of countless around them. By the end of the film, it is unexpectedly the empress that is the most sympathizeable, with Zhang at her finest, switching between disparate emotions with the ease of a pro. The ending itself is a magnificent stroke of inspiration, lingering on a single shot that stings all the more for its uncertainty and ambiguity, the very themes of the entire film.

Yet, ultimately, it is eventually clear where the film stands when - spoilers ahead - the emperor kills himself and, with him dying in her arms, the empress comes to a heart-breaking epiphany that she has killed the only person who'd ever really loved her. The film celebrates self-sacrificial love, innocence and honor, in spite of its edgy, cynical exterior. One thing is clear about films that commit this sin (if it can be seen as a sin at all) - they seem to represent the makers' hope in restoring innocence, however preciously little, in a world where being hardened and jaded is the only way to live. In potraying this innocence/idiocy, some achieve this with a transcendence that resembles hope, while some only manage a jarring and hypocritical incongruence that doesn't glue. I think The Banquet ends up being a bit of both; its 'innocent' and slightly cloying love story feels jarring when compared to the transcendence - one that is achieved through irony - of its bleak and terrible world.

A Bresson Weekend

Had a nice Bresson weekend. Started with L'Argent, which I saw dog-tired but which kept me up through it and hours after. The feeling is like witnessing a nice human being get his brains splayed out by a pick-ax, and then it takes awhile after to clean up the mess of brain matter from your clothes. Proponents for Bresson-as-spiritualist/transcendentalist should do well to see the extremely cynical and nihilistic ending - there is nothing pure or beautiful in this film, it's a whole pessimistic view of the gruesome world in all its evil, making this essay suddenly seem very persuasive.

Then I saw one of the perennial faves Au Hasard Balthazar, and it soon became one of mine too. Then I can see what the spiritualists are going on about. Bresson definitely never shies away from cruelty, but suffering and the loss of innocence are portrayed with such sanctity and nobility that it is all too easy to see him as a hardcore Calvinist. The moments of fragile beauty found constantly suppressed under the reign of materialistic evil, albeit fleeting, are made all the more stunning because of its brevity, Bresson's commitment to realism. And if you don't know what I'm saying, I don't know too - it's so hard to put any Bresson picture in words.

The funny thing about Bresson, to me, is not only his enigma and the absolute impossibility to define (and fully understand) him, but why the pictures of his that I love occupy less space in my mind than the pictures that I don't. I don't hate any of his pictures, but those that I don't love perplex me and badger my mind because of that. L'Argent, for example, forces me to go back again and again to its brutality. Maybe it's his deep-seated nihilism that I'm really attracted to, except I often get distracted by his colorful bursts of transcendence.

I'm gonna revisit Pickpocket soon, for what reason I don't know, since I didn't understand it either. It's a little hard to come down from the Bresson 'perch' after standing up there for awhile, he makes everything else look indulgent and talky. Why was he canonized anyway? I don't think anybody could ever come up with a sastifactory answer (21st century criticism, especially, 'dictactes' that we have to be lucid and recognize all his contradictory aspects), so I'll just join the cult of him like some newborn baby.

Mukhsin - A Yasmin Ahmad film

Ballad of a single chopstick.
























Watching Mukhsin, a new film by Malaysian filmmaker Yasmin Ahmad, has fired pelts of ricocheting childhood memories inside me, figments of my past which I thought I have long since let slip. Instead of posting my thoughts about the movie (which I may do so eventually or may already be doing so), I will first like to share with all, some resurrected jigsaws of my past. I shall try to reconstruct the lost pieces as best I can, now.

I have a childhood playmate in my pre-teen days, my cousin from my father's side. She is one year my elder. My cousin comes from a family of six siblings (five daughters and a son) and she is the youngest. Her father drove taxis back in those days to feed his big family. Her mother committed suicide by jumping off their ninth storey apartment building after my cousin’s birth. But enough about her family background. She was my holiday playmate, my companion, and I liked having her around, a lot.

Twice a year, during the school holidays, my cousin would come stay with us. We were like a pair of chopsticks whenever she visited. We would eat together, play together, and sleep like contented babies together. We were inseparable. In between meals, we would roam around our stomping grounds, having fun in the sun, gleefully escaping into our own little world of whimsy and make-believe. We liked playing games with other kids or re-enacting stuff we watched on the telly. We liked catching spiders in shrubs and when thirsty, sucking on dripping ice cream sticks. We enjoyed the outdoor stations of playgrounds as much as stashing ourselves inside their nooks and crevices, having a breather while talking about nonsense or “serious” things. Once we were done resting, we would try constructing skyscrapers or fantastical creatures out of whatever materials we can find in and around the sandlots. (Playgrounds were much more fun in those days, because you could actually get hurt falling down, rubbing exposed skins violently against rough gravel-like sand. That, and the fact that there was actually sand back then to play around in and get dirty with. Those were the days…). In other words, my cousin and school holidays went together like peas and carrots. Having her around, the holidays were always too short, and the wait for the next one was always too long.

My cousin was a sickly child. Besides gawking at her sweat soaked sheets on some nights, I would not have guessed the girl went in and out of hospitals very often back then. "…Ah di ah, don't you tire out ah mei huh, or I spank your behind then you know!" or so I had often been told by older relations (my family nick was ah di, which literally meant little brother. Ah mei is Hokkien for little sister. Our charming monikers made sense since both of us were youngest in our respective families). Anyway, that girl could outrun me anytime, as I was not exactly an energizer bunny back then, but that would be another story altogether... Thing is, I felt happy and contented that there would always be this other little person who enjoys wasting time with me, that there would be someone who could share my perspectives on ice cream, the sound of crickets, doubling homemade blankets as superhero capes, and arguing over the right amount of water to use for the best sandy construction. Kids need companionship too, I guess.

However, there was something about this girl that confounded my unformed little mind. She would sometimes say things I found too hard to comprehend. Like, "You should be thankful both your parents are still alive, you know?" or "You should try to be more caring towards our granny, understand?" I don't know, and I don't understand. Anyway, I hardly gave a thought to these mild “lectures,” for I only wanted to play and play around some more. Personally, I did not and could not understand her burgeoning desires to outgrow her childhood and become an adult, a woman. What I did understand and could not forget was the day she went away…

In case you are wondering, she did not die.

It was our last day together during the December holidays, I was 11, she was 12. The sun was blazing hot and so we took a break underneath a play "cave." I can't exactly remember the kinds of conversations we had, but in between her “lectures,” the words we exchanged would usually revolve around the food we had eaten, and the meals we were going to eat, the games we played or were going to play, and the time we should get back home before any random adult spankmaster decided to whoop our behinds. It was in the midst of this usual stream of mindless conversations that the girl dropped the bombshell - she told me that from next year onwards, she would want to find part-time jobs to help her family out in whatever ways she can. And just like that, she stopped coming over. The peas and carrots were separated. This chopstick had lost a playmate. A chapter of my life had reached its end...

I did not die either.

Fast forward. My cousin got a job (as a sales girl) eventually. She opted out of continuing her studies after her 'N’ levels to work full time in a factory. She met her husband-to-be in the same workplace. They got married, gave birth to three children (at last count), and she is now a happy stay-home mom. Besides the usual annual pleasantries exchanged during the past twenty Chinese New Year get-togethers, we hardly speak to each other anymore. We have grown up and grown apart. Yes, life turned out good for my childhood playmate, as it turned out fine for me too, I guess. I bluffed my way through my studies, got in and out of the civil service, succeeded in eking out a modest living in the private sector, and failed miserably at a couple of relationships. I have been through no weddings and two funerals (my grandma and my dad) so far. Nowadays, I spend my time working, eating, going out with friends, surfing for porn and escaping into the vast wondrous world of movies. The usual stuff a single 30-year-old bloke does, I hope. In retrospect, I think I may still be that 11-year-old boy, but I am not fretting over it. Life always works itself out, so I firmly believe. Or do I?

With all said and done, what I am most fascinated by, in fact, is the concept of memories and the part they play in recollecting our past, and - more intoxicatingly so - our childhoods. Those were the days when we still believed in magic and knew no limits. We still loved and hated people but would just as easily forget about them the next minute. In a world where bigger, taller people told us what to do day in day out, we would naturally cling on to people our own size, share in the wondrous worlds we conjured up, and slip in and out of them willingly. I hence marvel at the way our perspectives on things - love, life and everything else - shift, as we grow up and leave the wonder of our innocence behind. It is intriguing that the point where this innocence is lost varies from person to person, even though we might have started at the same point once.

Life is a mysterious thing, more intriguing than any movie out there. To me, its innate philosophy (if it can even be called a philosophy) is simply this - if it isn’t this, then it’s something else. We are constantly shoved into a new crossroad, with paths that lead us to places we don’t know, with horizons that get murkier by the minute. Our choices may often be half-chances, but I think the routes we have taken are never wasted, for even a road less traveled can be used in consideration for our journeys ahead. This may also be where art, like movies, books, music and so on, comes in. And since I am a film geek, shall just talk about cinema then.

Great film art resonates emotionally because it has an uncanny understanding of genuine feelings. It intuitively evokes them. As they are effectively an audio-visual document of temporality, film has also become an intriguing tool for the human studies of time, memories and their associative impacts on our consciousness of these phenomenons. As such, film encourages us, its respondents, to rekindle our respective search into the dark side of our souls, a realm where we cumulatively dump or hide away (by habit, necessity, defenses or sheer desperation), the good and bad things we might have lost along the way.

As such, I am always thankful for films like Mukhsin, because via their unassuming plays on these 24 frames per second, the sublime truths within will gently reveal themselves. In parts, I enjoyed Mukhsin’s encapsulating moments of the courtships between the two protagonists. Isolated from the others, they are set adrift in a feverish bubble of first love, stirring up exquisite bursts of bittersweet bliss that bewilder and intoxicate. In sum, I respond to the palpable sense of place and time establishing the boy, his girl and everyone they knew. The vastness of the green paddy fields and the clear blue sky, the soaring flight of a homemade kite, the antics of naughty pets and peripheral personalities, all of which form a verisimilitudinally rich tapestry of Mukhsin’s universe. These captivating markers of one’s fading memories cushion my walk. They allow me the breathing space to use this film as a mirror, to coax out a purer reflection of my inner self, which I thought had long been decimated by the realities of innocence lost. With Mukhsin, I get to experientially and contemplatively glimpse, albeit fleetingly, into a bygone joyous time of innocence regained.

It has made the chopsticks whole again.