I Blogged, But...

A new cinematic milestone: Silent Light

2007-11-09T03:55:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-29T13:46:00.000+08:00

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

2007-05-24T22:57:00.001+08:00

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

2007-04-13T16:17:00.000+08:00

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

2007-03-22T15:23:00.000+08:00

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

2007-02-20T13:52:00.000+08:00

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

2007-02-07T17:05:00.000+08:00

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

2006-12-14T00:02:00.000+08:00

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

2006-10-10T00:29:00.000+08:00

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

2006-10-04T17:51:00.000+08:00

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

2006-10-04T16:48:00.000+08:00

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.
______________________________________________

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

2006-10-02T12:22:00.000+08:00

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

2006-09-27T10:27:00.000+08:00

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

2006-08-28T00:51:00.000+08:00

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

2006-08-26T05:34:00.000+08:00

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.

Me and You and Everyone We Know: Second Take

2006-08-22T13:26:00.000+08:00

To see Miranda July's debut feature and critical darling Me and You and Everyone We Know as the typical quirky American independent feature is perhaps missing her point, or attaching too much importance to an outwardly lightweight and effervescent movie that thrives on succeeding moment after euphoric moment with life-affirming meaninglessness.

The post-American Beauty-Solondz-Anderson American indie is typified by one-note quirky characters who are used to portray a suburban milieu that is wacky and unusual. Their quirks are used to provide the ironic wit to sugarcoat (sour-coat?) plots and relationships that are ultimately familial melodrama at its core - about dysfunctional families finding ways to bond with each other.

I think Miranda July on the other hand, starts from regular (or ill-defined?) people whose characters are not defined by their idiosyncracies or backstories (save maybe for John Hawkes' character, whose symbolism can be a bit heavy-handed at times). Rather, they seem more like Linklater's characters, who try to find wonder and innocence within lives of banal ordinariness. July's quirkiness arises from the need to see the world differently from its normal colors - to see a kaleidoscope of the absurd and whimsical in the mundane. As such I think she's more like a Peter Greenaway, only interested in seeking these moments of wonder and child-like discovery, even if they defy narrative or thematic cogence, or more (or less) importantly, 'meaning.'

A typical American indie starts with a view of distorted/dysfunctional suburbia at its core and has its characters find some form of normalcy (in familial warmth and love, in familiar universal themes); July subverts this process - she starts from a common banality, and tries to find the transcendental from there, even though it might appear forced, or unnatural at times. She is not interested in working towards the meaningful or philosophical as American indie is; her 'moments' are, if anything, random, but fiercely romantic vicissitudes that show us an inner layer of wonder (though not meaning) in our otherwise normal lives.

But perhaps to see it as a deconstruction of the genre - a lofty and high-minded term - is missing the point either. The film is such an enjoyable romp of life through the July-blender, that it's hardly worth questioning the arcane. Her doe-eyed exuberance can feel overwhelming and narcissistic to some, but if her only mission is to allow us to look at normalcy in a new perspective, isn't that the very definition of art anyway?

Me and you and everyone we know: First Take

2006-08-22T03:40:00.000+08:00

Staring blankly, at imaginary seas...

This film geek thinks Me and You and Everyone We Know is unlike the rest of most American independent films out there. That this contemporary masterpiece of human observation is very often compared or mentioned in the same breath as those cinematic swill, well, breaks his heart. He shall attempt to argue why he believes so.

Despite their similar "genre" trappings, I always get this suspicion that most American Independent filmmakers get off making films which show off their understanding of film school references, sardonic witticism or metaphorical ironies. They set out contriving characters and circumstances to encircle such conceits. Though they may not admit to it, these myopic ego-maniacs harbour hopes for critical appreciation. Dependent on their abilities, they will set off on a differing course attempting to achieve this ambition. If they can't win unanimous praise, they hedge their bets making films to reflect their devil-may-care, self-referentially sophomoric tendencies (cough *Kevin Smith* cough). If they can, they fashion deliberate, preferably trademarked styles, and fixate on "cool" aesthetics or pontificating themes just to "corner the market" (cough *Wes Anderson* cough). Either way, they all do what they do in a bid to elevate their products above mediocrity, to achieve a somewhat distancing stylistic/emotional quirkiness which trumpets an overriding pride to swim against the current. It always boils down to an agenda to shout out their "me me me...." intellectuality rather than the genuinely humanistic desire to tell stories about me and you and everyone we know (of which any insights gained are entirely up to the viewers' discretionary contemplation).

Lest I be accused of presumption, Me and You and Everyone We Know may arguably possess the above contentious qualities, but I feel it is ruled less by its idiosyncratic self-awareness and guided more by debut helmer Miranda July's wildly rampaging and deeply intuitive sensibilities. This woman, due in part to her romantic eccentricities and alternative arts background, seems to capture the pulse of normalcy extremely well, perhaps because an outsider tends to see the things we take for granted more clearly. Her willingness to show us her (floating) life and worldviews are thus, illuminating. I argue that Miranda is like a sensitive visionary, bursting to set alight a selected dark spot within the vast cinematic universe. She knows her glow is not for everybody, and she is honestly incapable of spreading herself thin. This concentrated dose of radiating energy may thus be therapeutic to some or highly carcinogenic for others. No prizes for guessing that I beg for her refreshingly healing powers.

If you'd asked me, there are no generic designs from Me and You and Everyone We Know to solicit any specific response, because it understands that our respective closets differ in shapes and sizes. For the purpose of this discussion, I shall solely focus on the film's respective characters and extrapolate any further thoughts from there.

(Spoiler Alert: As this piece is meant more as a post-viewing discussion, plot revelations may be hinted at, but kept to a bare minimum.)

A struggling performance artist toggles between her dream of pursuing her ambition and her harsh realities of under-appreciation and lovelessness. She is sensitive to all living things but may be too quirky to function for her own good. At night, at home, forlorn and alone, the woman is a neurotic mess, which perhaps fuels her angst and propels her art; but by day, she conscientiously goes about her work of ferrying old folks to and fro. This day job is not without its merits, for it allows the woman to gain a clearer perspective on her art and life, via the wisdoms gently imparted by her elderly charges.

As the film's title suggests, this intensely quirky woman is not the sole portrait existing in its suburban landscape. It also harbours a boat of wandering souls, bobbing up and down the currents, staring blankly at imaginary seas. These myriad characters may or may not be connected with one another, but their respective flames faintly flicker, fanned ever so precariously by loneliness, boredom, emotional dystrophy and unquenched desires.

For instance, the performance artist's artwork is rejected by an avant garde curator. This curator in turn doubts her own ability in sifting through an increasingly obtuse set of criteria for the judgement of art. Though the curator wields her condescending power over the struggling artists, she finds herself the subject of ridicule from more established icons in the field. The realisation of the meaningless nature of her professional pursuits exacerbates her insecurities and hopelessness, causing her to begin questioning the worth of her own work and, by extension, the state of her personal life.

Then there is the object of the performance artist's desire, a newly single father of two young sons. The "self-immolating" man has been recently divorced from a wife who badgers him with an alarmingly passive aggressiveness. He works in a department store selling shoes and singing the blues. His sense of inadequacy as a father is balanced by his love for his children. The man is currently lost in transit, his emotional wounds left raw and gaping. Consciously waxing lyrical about his solemn state of being, he is simultaneously pretentious and pitiful. Thankfully, he has the opportunity of starting a whole new relationship with our quirky protagonist. However, once bitten by a failed marriage, will the man overcome his twice-compounded shyness? Is he ready to love again?

Working alongside him is a fellow colleague, a nice enough guy though he is not much to look at. Due to circumstances not entirely contrived by him, this movie shows the man spending his spare time engaging in harmless/mischievous banter (depending on one's perspective) with a pair of bored teenage girls. What is his motivation for indulging in his "hobby"? Will he act on his urges instead of stopping himself in time?

The girls form an interesting specimen of suburban fauna. They are too naive to realise they are baiting their charms at their own risks and too clueless to realise they are being callous to a neighbourhood boy (the single dad's elder son). They are dependent on each other for a mutual approval of their fragile self-image. Their vacuum-like existence in a place of perpetually sanitised inertia not only magnifies their desires to grow up, it also affords them a narrow range of emotional high-lows, framed within a wider spectrum which they are incapable to fathom at this point in time. Ultimately, is this pair of aimless youths capable of empathising with anyone but themselves? Are they vindictive vixens-to-be or just dazed and confused adolescents?

The elder son of the single dad is a more cryptic read. A telling scene of the boy staring blankly at his family portrait during an otherwise unrelated moment reveals the maelstrom of emotions coursing through his red-blooded veins. More self-aware than his younger brother on the impact of his parent's failed marriage on their respective lives, the boy appears moody and confused. Compounded by his sexual awakening, his muffled mind and his burning loin engage in a tug of war, ceaselessly tormenting his impending growth. The angst and the pain of being no longer a boy and not yet a man must be tough on the fella, but nothing and no one can successfully help him navigate the murky depths of adolescence but himself....oh well, good luck.

Living amongst the beings described so far, a next-door neighbour girl silently watches, her gaze often evoking a weary air of sentience and an intuitive urge to soothe. She tells lies and keeps secrets (her own or others) with uncanny ease. This intriguing child is pregnant with a swirling undercurrent of emotions that a girl of her age shouldn't be marooned in. She is intoxicated with the bliss of a future while languishing in the melancholy of her present. Her pensive yearning is so palpable that we can sense it in her logistically fixated behaviour, and understand her odd pragmatism to not openly divulge her vulnerabilities. That said, her equally willing generosity in letting kindred spirits into her world, suggests something astoundingly heartening - that shared pain transforms and heals people. Cliched though it may sound, knowing that one is not alone is not only comforting, it's therapeutic.

Lastly, I shall focus on a little boy (the younger son of the single dad), whom more than any characters in this ensemble, articulates this film's themes well and serves as its best emotional anchor. The things he does are somewhat meaningless but ceaselessly fascinating. This inquisitive boy actively seeks out strangers or strange things without guile. He willingly tackles one mystery after another, searching for answers to anything which may confound his unformed mind. For example, throughout this film, we see him chasing after an unknown chiming that happens everyday at dawn. What could be its source? He also does not fully grasp the hidden meanings adults are so fond of engaging in modern conversations. He communicates without completely understanding the context, hence coming off as refreshingly honest. Being new to a world fraught with hidden dangers, this child surprisingly purifies a world which, unbeknownst to him, may even succumb to his commanding innocence. In the end, we share in the delight of his discoveries, but I wonder why is that so? Is it because we too desire to unravel any past unsolved mysteries gnawing inside our childhood? Do we hope to be as pure as he is and be as impervious to the impurities so keen on sullying our respective lives? Or do we still have misgivings imprisoning our more matured beings, stunting our future growth and are thus heartened that they can be resolved, at least, in fictitious universes? Alas, I don't have all the answers.

To me, this wide-eyed boy sums up the romantic glow that shines on the film's darker corners, urging me and you and everyone we know to stop and enjoy the inherent wonders residing in the stolen seconds and minutes within our lives. He encourages us to stare at the sun and not be afraid to make some noise, to recognise who we are, and be willing to try out how to do what, whenever, instead of fixating on the why, or who we may become. Yes, we are all ignorant of our fates and may fear the worst, but there will never be a silver lining awaiting us if we do not aim for the sky. If we do not let our flight of fancy soar beyond the murky clouds of doubts, our maladies will never be cured. As a result, we may find ourselves increasingly unable to let go of our accumulated defenses. We may forever lose ourselves in the dark waters of our respective misgivings.

(End of spoilers)

The film's oft-criticised quirks and the hotly debated moral ambiguities aside, I think Me and You and Everyone We Know is a film infused with Miranda July's uniquely passionate vision. Its universe may be populated by off-centred characters, but stripped of the candy coating, its expressive core reveals a pure and deep reservoir of transcendental romanticism. Our eyes are opened to the ecstatic truths embracing our randomly meaningless lives, highlighting the beauty of numbing banalities and sublime wonders that co-exist within all our living moments. If we bother to look, we will find welcoming joys in all the unlikely places. Such an endearing motto sure beats just breathing, drinking, eating, shitting, fornicating, sleeping and all around being boring. As the Pet Shop Boys once famously uttered, "We were never being boring, we were never being bored....", and we shouldn't be.

Eric Khoo's No Day Off

2006-08-21T15:30:00.000+08:00

I have extremely mixed feelings about Eric Khoo's new short film No Day Off. I was initially outraged, feeling very uncomfortable with Khoo's demonization of middle-class Singaporeans who employ maids. He reduces them into stereotypes (compounded by the fact that we don't actually see the Singaporean characters but only hear their voices offscreen) and statistics (which is at odds to his supposed humanization of maids - after all, we're all only statistics). No doubt it's, as a friend said, middle-class guilt that drives the movie, but belonging to the exact class of people he criticizes in this movie, it made me angry to think that it is Khoo - himself one of the richest people in Singapore - who is the one to adopt such a holier-than-thou stand and make such a criticism. The people in the first two segments are portrayed as downright obnoxious and condescending, without a single redeeming quality about them. Especially when told in vignette-style interspersed with statistics (by which, I take to assume, he is trying to indict EVERYONE from this class), it makes any reading of objectivity moot.

It tries to balance out the Singaporean-middle-class bashing with a relatively more sensitive third segment, but the damage has been done and the fact that the last segment's characters are Indian instead of the previous two's Chinese characters makes me wonder if he's trying to say that, after all, it's a race thing; or perhaps it's part of an artist's natural self-loathing act to reflect on and criticize one's own status. Maybe, I don't know. In short, in the process of 'humanizing' some people, he has drained the rest of Singapore from its humanity; the same argument as to defend the defenseless, we must first attack the people who are in power.

Yes, his point is noble. The film was made, ostensibly, in reaction to the recently enacted government policy that dismisses the compulsory off day for maids. But I think to make such a point, the issue of maids and their relationship with their employers has to be handled more sensitively and deeply, instead of being incendiary or skewed. The most dangerous thing about stereotyping and attacking the middle-class is causing the movie to lose some credibility along the way, which might cause the message to be lost to some.

After all this initial outrage had died down, however, what I find I can't forget is the beautiful face of the lead actress. She carries her role with such a strong and sensitive presence that it commands the screen and breaks free from Khoo's occasional heavy-handedness. It is, after all, an extraordinarily good film, viewed outside of its politics and its newspaper-clipping-style melodrama.

But probably the thing that irked me most was that it is true - that such melodrama does happen, and such obnoxious and condescending stereotypes do exist. And being part of their class gives me an equal amount of guilt and shame (which I might have instictively reacted to with anger), even though I might not think I'm guilty of such things. Knowing that there are people like that is what makes me ashamed.

At the end of the day, I guess my opinion does not matter to much. The audience seemed to have love it and that's what matters most maybe. If Khoo can get through to us by giving us another guilt bag to puncture (although it's not at all like Workingman's Death - Khoo's movie has much more dignity to it), then I believe it has more than justified its aim. If it can shame the government into retracting that law, or shame Singaporeans into treating their own maids better, then all the more it should be seen by the masses, who are numbed into ignoring the things we don't often see. After all there are all kinds of people, though the good people are not all good and the bad people are not all bad. I can't really presume anyone's stereotyping anything either, when I'm often first in line to admit that stereotypes are true and exist everywhere around us. Oh well what do I know.

A rush of blood to the head

2006-07-24T15:28:00.000+08:00

I Vitelloni
It's been quite a while since I've gotten that mad feeling you get after seeing a movie in the theaters; that rush of blood to the head after the last scene ends. Most of the best films I've seen this year were at home, though I can't imagine how much more impact they would have had if I had seen them in the theaters, as they are meant to be seen...

I Vitelloni is the kind of Fellini film that reminds me why I fell in love with him at the early onset of my film addiction. He remains the filmmaker that best personifies the term 'bittersweet,' never afraid of engaging in sentimentality (both comedic and tragic) in pursuit of the sense of wonder that comes with pure cinematic magic. Shorn of the whimsicality that will later characterize him, I Vitelloni is more in line with his neorealist La Strada, Nights of Cabiria, Il Bidone, where a simple narrative provides the flow for what's more important in the film - the tiny triumphs and disappointments of his central characters that you find yourself caring so much for. It begins, like the other films, as a boisterous comedy, but builds its dramatic heft without you realizing until an ending heavy with poignance comes rolling in. The ending of this film, in particular, is simultaneously so feel-good and filled with regret that it's overwhelming - that it comes almost tangential to what was ostensibly the main narratives in the film makes it even more incredible - the kind of scene that feels like a mad rush of blood to the head.

The Cloud-Capped Star
Abbas Kiarostami said that his favorite films are those that put him to sleep on first viewing (often because their pace and style are so different from conventional films that he wouldn't be able to get used to them at first), but make him lose sleep the second time round. This was exactly what happened to me with Ritwik Ghatak's The Cloud-Capped Star, whose scenes begin and end much longer than films from other countries would. Having heard and seen nothing of this Bengali master before, I wanted to see this because it was described as a dark melodrama - right up my alley if it was done correctly, in the Sirkian/Ozu/Satyajit Ray/Loach kind of way. It was definitely subtle, with an ascetism that is not unlike Ray's (maybe it's an Indian cinema thing, I haven't seen enough to know), but its nondescript pacing put me to sleep within half an hour. Awaking periodically however, I managed to catch some scenes that haunted me and refused to leave my mind after - scenes where image, sound and scenario collide so violently that they are wrested forth from the need of a single coherent narrative to form life and consciousness on its own; those moments (of truth?) in cinema when you're not just listening to or watching a story unfold, but allowing the story to become part of your being.

I saw it a second time last night, and lost sleep because I couldn't stop thinking of the movie. Re-watching those scenes as part of a flowing narrative only drummed their power in even deeper, and in these elusive moments, I felt genuine grief - something that rarely happens out of Ozu's films. I can't quite explain why this movie works either, to tell the truth. Its melodramatic machinations are plain as day, and behind every scene you see them work like the skeleton of a clock methodically ticking off every frame - but still you feel so much for the characters, and so wistful when the film eventually pulls back and watches them from a distance. So much so that when the film ended and the DVD returned to the menu (with the beautiful face of the female protagonist peering out of the window from behind a cloth, accompanied with the great Tagore song - one of many peppered generously throughout the movie), that sense of real, palpable grief just refuses to go away.

I suppose I can find some reason of its greatness in the sleeve notes - it would seem that Ghatak really felt for his character, and in her he infuses so much sympathy and compassion. It is probably that passion for his character, that aggression that makes this movie so fiery and so brutal despite its flaws, as such concentrating my love for it in a few bursts of beauty (as compared to the rigor of Ray's perfectly-formed Charulata, which I love equally, but whose love I have for is evenly spread out). I can't be sure that is the reason of its greatness, but those scenes sure felt something like magic.

Both films from Esplanade.

Do we have to understand movies?

2006-07-09T02:26:00.000+08:00

The Spirit of the Beehive

A few days ago I just realized it's been only a short 3 years since I went hardcore on movies. This comes because recently I've been reading some film criticsm and re-thinking what brings me back to film time after time, when I'd previously flitted here and there from art form to art form like a fickle lover. I can't say. I can't say exactly what film means to me either, or what approach of film criticism is the 'right' approach.

It used to be that I thought film could change people's lives. I still think so, actually, but not as much. Be it as it may, film is a medium that, too often, manipulates people around, and often to prove a point. Even Yasujiro Ozu, one of the greatest directors, is a master (and subtle) manipulator, twiddling the audience (very often cruelly) round his fingertips. Although most of his films urge an acceptance of loss and regret at the end, it is never without the trauma of a (concocted) social realism that the audience has to go through first before reaching to that conclusion - leading me to think if ever a manipulator (albeit a fine one) of people on the whole can be regarded as the greatest human alive (if one were to allow film that status).

I think my recent re-evaluation on my film fanaticism can be attributed to three things: the writing of my own screenplay, the recent viewing of what I consider the greatest film I have seen as yet (Werner Herzog's very recent The White Diamond, more on that another time), and the movies that I gravitate to of late. Since I am not a critic by profession and the 'right way to see movies' is not imperative thinking, it is the geek's own responsibility unto himself to rethink what he's spending so much of his life on.

Peter Greenaway said that film is too important to be wasted on telling stories, and that set me off thinking. Not that I'm a huge Greenaway fan, but I'm beginning to see the futility in storytelling for many films. All narrative-driven films seek to exploit (some more clumsily than others, is that how critics separate the good from the bad?) the audience's emotions. Most of us are privvy to that exploitation, but why do we go back to that again and again, and subject ourselves to the strings of a puppeteer when we have our own uncontrollable lives? Discounting the need for entertainment is stupid of course, and there can definitely be a convergence of art and entertainment. But when entertainment wants to be serious art - as is the case of many movies coming out of left-Hollywood of late - where does art end and politics (both human and social) begin? We all know the effects of Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, do we allow movies to encroach into those boundaries to triumph our own political leanings? And what can this mean to film geeks who only quote directors by their last names?

And I've not come to my point yet. Recently I saw Victor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive, which has haunted me since I saw it a few weeks ago. I think it is one of the 'big' films in my life that I think is truly great and I love, but I didn't understand it at all, and, most importantly, I realize I don't want to. The same goes for Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai, Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror etc. Mirror has absolutely no narrative at all, and I am never completely sure what Melville is trying to say at any one point of Le Samourai. And here, I wish to pose the million dollar: Must movies be understandable for them to have value?

By the word 'understand,' I don't just mean to understand their narratives or characters, but also what the creators are getting at, to the extent of what feeling you're supposed to feel at any one point of the movie. Critics nowadays (the quotable ones at least) assign a value to everything (and it is their job, admittedly), 'Two thumbs up!' if not 'Haunting!' 'Devastating!' 'Hilarious!'. But what are these adjectives and how do they relate to the importance of cinema in our lives?

Of course I must say, this is not completely unrelated to the reactions I got out of my screenplay, to which people often tell me the characters/narrative/my intentions are completely incomprehensible. Being politically correct, I have to 'listen' and 'accept' their criticisms, but all I really wanted to say is 'So what?' Why do movies need to be any of these? Why do movies have to be defineable, and, why do people need to be able to have some sort of exegesis to like or love a movie? And here I'd like to include a quote from Flannery O'Connor regarding the Mystery that I'm attracted to in fiction: 'The serious fiction writer will think that any story that can be entirely explained by the adequate motivation of the characters or by a believable imitation of a way of life or by a proper theology, will not be a large enough story for him to occupy himself with. This is not to say that he doesn't have to be concerned with adequate motivation or accurate reference or a right theology; he does; but he has to be concerned with them only because the meaning of his story does not begin except at a depth where these things have been exhausted. The fiction writer presents mystery through manners, grace through nature, but when he finishes, there always has to be left over that sense of Mystery which cannot be accounted for by any human formula.'

Until recently I'd found myself emphasizing on narrative/intent and the comprehensibility of a movie, and I don't seek to claim any moral edge or superiority to this argument (there are, after all, so many different ways of seeing a movie and no rule), but just to pose these questions, and maybe also as a better way of clearing through my thoughts and 'evolving' in hitherto embarrassingly short career as a film buff. As I see myself, the need to understand movies comes from our very bourgeois thinking, as film buffs, to assign a value to every movie we see. It's almost as if we don't deem a 'like/dislike,' 'good/bad,' or any darn adjective a critic might use to a movie we've seen, we would've wasted our time seeing it and there's no justification or vindication for ourselves. The thing about art (if the movies aspire to be an art form, that is) is that the fact that it has been created is reason enough for its existence. Art is its own raison d'etre, and is its own answer to the perennial annoying question 'Why should art exist?' Whether we like or dislike an artpiece is immaterial and completely irrelevant to anything in the universe.

What then is our duty as film buffs? As purveyors and appreciators of haute culture? Here's something for me to ponder over the next few days.

Thank you for smoking

2006-07-04T02:42:00.000+08:00

Smoke run rings around my eyes.

Michael Jordan plays ball, Charles Manson kills people, we talk...and eat alot.

Thank you for smoking centers on smooth talking lobbyist Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart). We will hear him narrate on screen, his spin doctoring exploits on behalf of the pariah industry of modern culture, Big Tobacco. The man is also a divorcee, alimony-ridden and accorded weekend custodian rights to his twelve year old son. Nick does the best he can to bond with his child while juggling the rest of his life on a tightrope, but this is a precarious journey as one careless slip on the man's part and he will fall headlong into a sharks-infested tank. "Thank you" is hence a film about Nick's work, his son, his friends and enemies, his sex life and (very likely) smoking. Or is it?

What I love about this quirky movie came as a surprise to me. It's not the eloquent arguments for or against cigarette-smoking, or the witty (but ultimately apathetic) satire on media, politics and conglomerate capitalism. It's not even the entertaining one-liners and numerous ironic acronyms worthy of a quote during mirthless dinner conversations. Though it must be said, I enjoyed all the above (and of course, Rob Lowe's sleeping habits...don't ask).

What I love about Thank you for smoking, is its unobtrusive yet acute observation on our human conditions and the inter-relationships we forge as a result. There is the willingness of people to be subservient to those we hate or despise because we too are waiting to become someone hate-worthy and despicable. There is the fact that many people work in jobs they may not like but are good at, because they like being good at what they do, instead of sucking at doing what they like. I am heartened by the subtle foil of mentorship as a paternal expression of love between men. I am intrigued by the unspoken stolen moments of father-son bonding whenever father and son engage in spoken conversations (because very often, words get in the way). I appreciate the gratifying realisation on the importance of mutual, honest and dependable friendships, especially when one is typically ostracised, or unfortunately, down and out. I recognise the subconsciously desperate need for comfort and solace from those who are extremely lonely but do not want to admit it. Finally, I agree with this exquisite truth that it does not all boil down to our need to pay the mortgage, but for whom we are willing to pay this mortgage.

To me, Thank you for smoking has earnestly pursued these "uncool" agendas by overlaying it with a generously light and zippy dose of the aforesaid "cool" elements (a cool protagonist fighting for a cool stand using cool means to achieve cool ends, while in the process does whatever he can to appear unimpeachably cool). As a result, cool people may like or dislike it, depending on whether they think it is more cool to like or dislike it. As for uncool people, they may love it ceaselessly, if they choose to accept that its underlying aim, is to sincerely illustrate people's collective, basic, emotional needs. (For those who may eventually disagree with me and find me overtly presumptuous, you may slap me now. But I shall carry on. )

Like all talky films from Goodfellas to Before Sunrise, I think the really great ones rely less on the dialogue and more on the way it is delivered. Case in point, a most enlightening arc of this film is a school paper which the protagonist's son has to write and present on, titled "Why is America the best government in the world?" When the man advises his son to write about anything, his son responds, "What happens if you are wrong?", to which the man replies, "That's the beauty of argument. If you argue correctly, you're never wrong." Pay attention to this scene and the rest of this film whenever father and son converse, and look into their eyes. Have the son indeed learnt a priceless lesson from his father? Eventually, did the boy heed the call of his mentor by arguing beautifully on the topic set for him? This film presents the young man's answer. Don't note the words that come out of his mouth as he answers this question. Look instead at the way he delivers the answers, with his eyes. If you ask me, that is one of the most sublime cinematic moments in the whole of 2006. Paraphrasing from Superman returns, I think that from that moment on, it is conclusively clear that the son has become the father, and will become one hell of a man.

Young helmer Jason Reitman (son of Ivan) does a great job directing this wildly irreverent film. In fact, it reminds me of shades of Paul Thomas Anderson and Spike Jonze in terms of film making virtuosity and cinematic kookiness. In addition, its sharp yet charming sense of humour reminds me of Alexander Payne's satiric masterpiece, Election. The intelligence is apparent, but therein lies the challenge with movies like "Thank you" - partisan critics may exact intellectual superiority over its lack of ambition in satirizing the target (in this case, Big Tobacco). They may complain that it does not carry enough political weight or persuasive power, hence unfairly rating "Thank You" a failure. Though if I am to engage these critics (which I am about to), I may find myself the very subject of this film's observation. Thank you for smoking adopts a fluffy playful tone throughout because it serves as an effectively ironic commentary on modern discourses being ultimately, a farcical pursuit.

Consider a dinner conversation between Nick and his son. When observed at face value (because their "bonding progress" during this scene is more captivating to me), it lucidly illustrates the mechanics of "argument." Nick explains that A will try to argue B is wrong and in so doing, imply that A is right. Likewise, B can do the same and argue A to be wrong so as to imply B is right. In trying to prove either side to be wrong, and implying themselves as respectively right, there is the convenient negligence to the fact that A and B may both be wrong. The underlying purpose of this back and forth, according to Nick, is not to determine who is right or wrong, but to "argue beautifully", so as to see who can successfully sway C to Z in deciding the eventual winner.

Vocal proponents from politics, religion, the mass media, non-profit organisations to corporate empires will very often apply these insidious tactics to sway or dull the silent majority, strategically prolonging an ongoing debate (if they are on the losing end), for they know that the benefits of a damage-controlling procrastination far outweighs the potential costs of any unfavourable resolution. Note that this ploy is contingent to a presumption that the public is too stupid or apathetic to care. Instead of making a just and righteous choice, the mandate's decisions rest on who "sells" better. May the best spin win, so to speak. This may come off as a rather pessimistic observation, but I opine that it is not far from the truth of our current state of affairs.

It is hence in my opinion that debating on the political potency of Thank you for smoking is besides the point, and I do not think political commentary is the film's main objective. Despite its acerbic wit and argumentative exuberance, Thank you for smoking deliberately skims the surface because it is ultimately a whimsical heartwarmer underneath (think Neil La Bute's earlier Nurse Betty). It is more concerned with the intuitive unveiling of its characters' realistic motivations than the near surrealistic environment created for them. Don't believe me? Consider Rob Lowe's sleeping habits (again, don't ask, go watch the movie).

I choose films I love based not on intellectual brilliance, genre boundaries or stylistic deficiencies/excesses, I choose them based on the underlying themes explored, themes which I can instinctively respond to. By treading lightly on those issues which actually matter to us most and showing that we have instead accorded greater importance to the incidental nonsense that surrounds our daily existence, Thank you for smoking deserves my grateful thank you's. Though I have not yet touched cigarettes all these years, I need to understand that my life is so much more than just the consideration of whether to take them up or not. What I need to know more about, is perhaps the difference between moments when smoke gets in my eyes and when the tears I shed, are for real.

This is one of the year's best films. And you heard it here first.
_________________________________

Thank you for smoking opens on 6 July 2006.

The Unforgiven

2006-07-01T09:57:00.000+08:00

To forget, not to forget, or to live and let live.

The Unforgiven is a gripping cinematic experience brought to screen by an exceptional first time talent, Yoon Jong-bin, who managed with a small budget and a whole lot of ingenuity to craft out a sensibly edited, sensitively acted and strikingly directed feature film debut. Tackling disparate subjects ranging from latent impulses to institutionalised violence, from rationalised repression to the blurring lines of masculinity, The Unforgiven will challenge your sense and sensibilities, it will force you to re-examine evoked memories of your own past experiences, and it will shake the very foundation of your respective moral barometers. In short, this is not a film you will easily forget.

On a warm night out on leave, Seung-young, still dressed in army fatigues, asks to meet up with his high school classmate, Tae-jung. Tae-jung, who has since completed serving his National service, used to look out for Seung-young when they re-united in army. Tae-joung was a sergeant near the end of his service, while Seung-young, who deferred due to college, entered army as a fresh and junior private. The reasons for this present-day meeting are not made clear but Seung-young mentions he has important things to tell Tae-jung. This meeting seems like an awkward affair. Despite Tae-jung's accommodating ways, there is a latent air of tension compounded by Seung-young's reserved but mysteriously grave demeanor. The Unforgiven hence chronicles this eventful night juxtaposed with the flashback days when Tae-jung first re-unites with Seung-young through Seung-young's eventual army days after Tae-jung's departure from service. The details as to what happened in the past and what will happen on this night, I shall leave to your discovery.

I am impressed that the forceful ensemble performances of The Unforgiven are able to realistically flesh out its protagonists' idiosyncrasies with courage, openness and stunning consistency. The pacing near its end could have done with a little fine-tuning but this is a mere quibble when considering director Yoon (who also has a role in this movie, but as whom I shall not divulge) has managed to tell a compelling story with concisely plotted situations and incisively drawn characters. These in turn culminate seamlessly and help to generate an ending which is intellectually thought-provoking and yet dramatically resonant. Yoon's handling of the actors (most of them newcomers themselves), and his decision to deftly alternate the story between flashbacks and the present is most intuitive, for besides not losing sight of the narrative flow, he has conjured up a situational, behavioural and emotional synergy much needed for the audience to connect with the film's intended themes.

For a first time effort, The Unforgiven is an assuredly made film. It has valuable things to say and it says them well. Some critical opinions I have read so far point to the film being an attack on the system of mandatory National Service in Korea, which breeds a vicious cycle of institutionalised aggression and victimisations. To a certain degree, I agree with this interpretation, but I also believe this film attempts to shed an illuminating light and non-judgemental presentation on national service being a representation of any hierarchical social system. To me, the "army" experience is the same wherever you go and will only get more complex as one progresses in career and in life. By showing how different men behave or react within these systems, I thought the film's most revealing focus is more psychological; as it offers telling insights into the differing emotional landscapes of men, in exploring who will possess the willingness and ability to survive under the compounding regiment of life, and who won't.

We may not be able to resist the temptation of judging some of the characters in this film, but I strongly urge all to look at their strengths and weaknesses, to consider the ways they interact with one another and the actions they take within the system, due to their respective natures. That said, we should not overly sympathise with them either, because their relative abilities to function with the situations dealt to them or the questionable moral/ideological compromises they might have taken in order to survive, only serve to mirror our own reflections on how we choose to live our lives.

In this film's universe, there are people who think they are clever and those who think they are stupid. There are those who are strong, there are those who are weak, those who are loyal and those considered too fanatic. However, there is no denying that whatever feelings these people have unleashed on screen, they are viscerally palpable. The intensity of its emotional undercurrents sweeping throughout is in fact one of The Unforgiven's most captivating qualities. The repression of guilt, hurt, rage, and other unshapely dark emotions seep into the protagonists' tainted psyche, and into their conscience, it cuts deep. I am hence deeply intrigued. How we choose to absolve ourselves or deny it shows up the measure of our life views. Lighten up, some would say, but it's easier said than done for others. Ultimately, this film does not preach the best ways to untangle the knots we may have accumulated in our time, it just observes that to let go or to hold on, is dependant on our ultimate willingness to live and let live.

The Unforgiven opens in Singapore on 6 July 2006.

The King and the Clown

2006-06-21T06:57:00.000+08:00

"...For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been...' " - John Greenleaf Whittier

The people in The King and the Clown care a lot, but their cares are different in some ways yet similar in others.

For instance, three street entertainers care for their survival, as their stomachs are empty and their options limited. They are common folks eking out a living, and will do whatever it is necessary to guarantee food and shelter. But nowhere in this film portrays this inseparable trio as miserable beings, for they can count on their fellow buddies to bask in the ups and endure the downs, and they seek to enjoy their time here as long as it lasts. There is something almost pure and admirable about their sensibilities, in fact. The laugh when they are tickled and cry when they have to. Their emotions are true and the friendship they share with one and other, open and caring. They are like a surrogate family, pure and simple. Alas, as fate would have it, into their circle, two other runaway minstrels intrude.

The older minstrel, strong and resourceful, takes care of his younger charge. Other than that, the older man seems to have no care for the world. He refuses to relinquish willing subservience to any sacred concepts or symbols of authority, and he has no worries that he is leading an impoverished existence. He only comes alive when he walks the tightrope of performing to his cheering audience, showcasing his skills as an acrobat and revelling them with the wit of a jester. However, in closer scrutiny, there is a milder side to this untamed creature. He often softens in simple contentment, when in the quiet company of his young companion. His only care in this world, lies in sharing the good and bad times with this man and protecting the unbreakable bond of this complex friendship.

The younger man, blessed with an alluring androgyny, is an effete and sensitive creature. He is weak in will and physicality. He seems to care for many things, his older friend and mentor, the people around him, what they think of him. And when circumstances force the minstrels' entry into palatial grounds, the young man cares for the king too, for he is privy to both sides of that broken man.

The King has a lot of love to give but he does not know where to put it. He may be too far gone, forever lost in his own madness to properly care for himself. But he does care, it appears, for an alternate reality where the past is unjust and irreconcilable, where the present is his "payback playground" for him to exact vengeful games. His wilful rage, his tyrannical cruelty and his abysmal insanity belies the psyche of a broken man, one who pursues desperately to unlock the tortured child within. This "boy" seeks for a
sanctuary of comfort from a select few people who may wean him off his maelstrom of torment, albeit temporarily.

One of these people is a eunuch, serving the King in faithful silence. His intentions may be benign but he is no less treacherous and scheming. However, he cares for his king with a hint of paternity, unlike most of the king's men. Those ministerial subjects care more for the official legacy of the previous king's rule and the preservation of the government. Unbeknownst to himself, he is to be instrumental in fueling the trajectory of this sweeping tragedy. Sadly, like the angels in Wim Wender's Wings of desire, this sagely eunuch is ultimately a bystander. He may know how it all ends but he can do nothing about it. That is the worst predicament that can be inflicted upon any human being.

The last person worthy of mention in this most intricate of human studies, is that of the King's concubine. Looking like a manipulative femme fatale who mollycoddles the King's sometimes childish desires, the woman is revealed to be one who defies popular opinion of her outwardly skanky persona. A telling blink-and-you-miss scene involves the King, half smitten with his new object of desire (the androgynous minstrel), but summoning his once favoured muse (the concubine) to offer him alternate satisfaction. However, the fickle King callously rejects his concubine's carefully tailored advances. With his back facing the woman, we see traces of immediate realisation and sinking hurt that she is no longer in the King's favour. Panic, anger and abject despair flash before her coiffured facade. It is in this very instant that one realised the woman's love and affection for the King runs deeper than prior assumptions. She may in fact be the one who cares for the King, the most.

The central characters in The King and the Clown broke their backs scaling insurmountable mountains. They chase after what they want, not realising what they need is more important. In the process, some will bid farewell to king and concubines, others to friends, or lovers. There are hidden secrets kept due to sundry fears and loathing. There are schemes set into motion by good or bad intentions. There are blatant lies told with compelling reasons, but for most of which, is love.

Stripped of the social and political fabric dressing this movie, and we have some of the most evocative aspects of love demonstrated by The King and the Clown's myriad characters, where each of them stakes a claim in its wide emotional spectrum. By observing and understanding these practitioners of love via their telling/ nuanced behaviors, the resonating power of this film's finale hence crescendo into a frenzy, for we have seen the respective arcs of the main protagonists' journey culminate, reaching a thrillingly intense fever pitch.

But what exactly, is love? And what can it do?

Love can transcend hunger for power, desires for carnality and greed for material pleasures. Love may be sought after for a rare moment of comfort, dissolving away pains when they are most tortuous. Love, which demands our understanding that to give, and not expect it in return, is its purest representation. This love is ingrained in all humans, from parents to children and vice versa, from amongst friends to siblings, from slaves to their masters, from those whom you hold dear, your true beloveds. Indeed, we are all capable of love, but this capacity is equally adept to create or to destroy, as this film evocatively illustrates.

In retrospect, The King and the Clown has spun a tale which laments with Shakespearean sentience. It observes its characters like games people play. It lets them be who they are, but it plots their paths along a Greek-tragic spiral, pushing their descending slides toward an inevitable destination. Their lives are already written, but their respective ends not revealed to them. The players hence behave as mere mortals do, without foresight, unprepared to deal with the forces of their respective destinies. The irony being that, the truths could have been unravelled earlier, if they had delved a little deeper. Feelings could have been reconciled faster, if they had bothered to look each other in the eye.
(Note to readers: The "eyes" in this movie deserve our unblinking stares for they speak more effectively than "mouths" do.)

That said, there is a purpose to this cruel study, for it serves to test the limits of amour. We weep not because of a tragic end, for in this world of missed opportunities and twists of fate, we are heartened that the humanity of its characters remains intact. Beyond its constricting environment and cultural mores, The King and the Clown demonstrates that love is pure. Love has the innate potential of providing us all, comfort, closure and contented acceptance of this mortal coil. Lives may be surrendered but love wins in the end. An innocent notion perhaps, but in my book, it's worth each and everyone's subscription.

Blessed with crisp direction, an engrossing story and one of the best ensemble performances of the year, The King and the Clown is packed with a viscerally forceful energy which carves deep into our emotional landscapes. Its quiet hopes (perhaps) are to heighten our sensitivity towards our strengths and failings, to illustrate the universality of human nature. We may live in different times and places, we may be impoverished or privileged, but our basic needs for love is homogeneous. Once we understand what we do is affected by who we are, then I think the film has accomplished its most sincere aim.

The King and the Clown opens in Singapore cinemas on 22 June 2006. Watch out for it.

Saraband

2006-06-13T05:05:00.000+08:00

I saw Ingmar Bergman's self-proclaimed final film Saraband a few months ago as part of the swedenmade film festival organized by SFS. I wrote this immediately after, but it was homeless for awhile because this blog hadn't been set up, and when it finally had, reviews of the SIFF films inundated it enough to keep this for later. So I'm posting this here now, a little late and irrelevant, but at least it would keep the blog from sounding so echo-y-y-y-y-y...y.

In Saraband, love doesn’t just hurt. It destroys, maims, suffocates and fucking kills. Cheery, but not all that atypical of Bergman films. His latest shows that he remains the same intellectual agonizing man whose self-exile to the Faro Islands provides him with intense existential crises every other day. Thinking this sequel to the masterful Scenes from a Marriage would be a Bergman-filtered Before Sunset (in which the actors age along with the characters), I expected these characters (who I adored in the preceding film) to mellow, or to become, at least, more resigned to fate, if not just a little wiser. Instead, recalling the chilly gloom of his earlier trilogy (Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence), these characters exist in a godforsaken landscape, having only grown harder and more bitter, and despairingly pessimistic about their age as death looms. None of them are heroic, or even very religious – a new character Henrik (played by Börje Ahlstedt in the customary stiff upper-Bergman way) uses an ancient chapel merely as a place to practise the organ undisturbed – they are cowardly and pathetic, and pitiable.

For them, there is no salvation nor comfort. Love provides them with more suffering and anger than solace. More than most of his other films, I get the feeling that there is so much violence here, both physical and verbal. Perhaps it goes to show that love is violent and, above all, destructive. The characters repeatedly hurt each other through their casually brutal words, and when anger finally manifests itself physically – in a scene reminiscent of Erland Josephson’s stunning violent outburst in Scenes From a Marriage – it is made all the more intense because it is an act borne out of intense and inexpressible love, not hatred. But then again, love and hatred have always been separated by such a fine line, and perhaps the most painful thing about these characters is that they are all too aware of this themselves. They feel guilty about hating the people they love, and try to pull away from this hideous nature. And being unable to, they in turn feel bad about this inability. They are trapped again and again in their self-created loneliness, agonizing about it to an unanswering God.

In a particularly revelatory scene, Liv Uhlmann’s Marianne turns and walks away from the altar as the clouds lift and a ray of glorious sunshine penetrates the darkness of the ancient chapel, where prayers have been cast blindly through the ages. She turns and is suddenly struck by a painting on the altar - a mural that shows Jesus Christ thronged by followers, with one, in particular, who clings on desperately to his outspread arms, hungry for a shred of his love. The scene - which could also easily be frowned upon as being too sentimental amongst the more intellectual circles who prefer the metaphysical abstractness of the earlier trilogy – is one which binds the movie together, not only bringing Marianne and Johan back into the focus of what was ostensibly a story about their children, but also points out how difficult it is for people to love each other. Love might’ve been present, but, as seen in the failed marriage of Marianne and Johan, love is not enough. As the people in the mural remain starved for love, so are the characters who can’t seem to love each other the right way. So much so that they often turn to a non-existent entity as an ideal for love and truth – in this case, the decidedly unreligious characters can only remember a dead person (Henrik's wife, Anna, played by Bergman's late wife) as the apotheosis for love, modeling and recompensing her love but never reaching it. If her love seems unreal even for the people who had known her, she becomes even more of an ideal to Marianne, who has never met her, and is now enamored by the possibility of being able to love and be loved in equal heights.

Watching this movie, it suddenly occurred to me that most of Bergman’s characters can’t cry. They might yell and scream, sob and wail, even thrash around, but a close-up to the face would immediately show them almost completely dry-eyed. It almost seems to me that Bergman is deliberately denying them the basic catharsis known to all men since birth; that they’ve become such hardened creatures to others as to themselves that they are unable to even confront their own emotions, constipating in their bursting emotions and drowning inside, dying every day from each tear that cannot be shed. In the last segment of the film, Johan suddenly has a nervous breakdown in the darkest hour before dawn, the hour when regrets and losses hit the insomniac with the soberest force. Being unable to hide from these emotions yet incapable of expressing them is perhaps one of the most painful ways to die. So it is perhaps some sort of a miracle, that Marianne genuinely breaks down in the very final scene of the movie before the movie camera quickly fades to black. Could it be the stoic master of pain finally giving his characters some way of redemption as his final swansong?

L'Eclisse: Still-moving in time

2006-05-26T02:45:00.000+08:00

For years of being a film buff, Antonioni has always been my bane. I could never get his films (those I've seen anyway - L'Avventura, La Notte, Blow-up, and that incomprehensible segment of Eros), and could never understand how anyone could. His films always struck me as beautifully shot, but cold, illogical, and most of all, interminably boring. Like a kid straining his neck to see into a party that he's left out of, it always baffles me the amount of praise and respect he gets from critics and directors I hold in high regard (Tarkovsky, for instance).

So I put in L'Eclisse yesterday, as a sort of final effort to tackle his films before branding him forever into that category of directors whose films I will never touch again. I have to admit that at first, as is the case with all Antonioni films, I had to try very hard to like it, or, at least, I tried very hard to understand why everyone reveres it. L'Eclisse is not so much different from the previous two in his loosely formed trilogy - for the most part, the film wanders around without a plot; gloomy characters indulge in stark black-and-white melancholy without much dialogue to even hint at any form of exposition. The most surprising thing to me is that as the movie went along, I actually found myself liking it more and more, and by the end I was completely sold. I will try as much to list down my thoughts on this film, though I must admit being a non-Antonioni fan I might be seeing things the 'wrong' way,' so feel free to correct me if you think I'm wrong.

The images in L'Eclisse remind me of ancient Greek sculptures, or the marble replicas made of them by the early Romans. There's a fluidity in his camera movement that contradicts the rigidity of his mise-en-scene that makes each scene like a living tableaux – constantly moving within a still frame.

This notion is succeeded by the sense I get that, like ancient Greek sculptors, Antonioni is trying to capture the action and vividity of life within a regal, austere structure. Like the Roman sculpture that Monica Vitti briefly touches in Alain Delon's home whose eyes are carved upwards in a bid to capture immortality, Antonioni seems to be interested in preserving something forever. This can be seen in the deliberate 60s fashions and landscapes in the film - it seems that Antonioni is not interested in making a timeless film at all (a film with recognizable emotions and characters), he seems to be making an anachronistic film, a film that can be pressed into a time capsule and opened years later as testament of a past long lost. If this is so, molding these intentions round a plot or sympathize-able characters would only contradict them - the effect is to be cold and distant, such that the viewer will always be kept observing.

Film has always been a contradiction, a manifestation of the past continuous. Anything put on film is instantly dated, and yet film proceeds in a linear rhythm mirroring the flow of time in real life. Watching old films, we don't feel time as much because most films are experiential and are designed to get you into them, such that we don't feel the incongruity of time in any way. Antonioni's films, on the other hand, seem to be designed to be artefacts, films with which you'd always feel the long presence of time elapsed from when it was made and when it is viewed - in my case, 44 years after its release. I don't know how it was viewed during the 60s, but as a modern viewer, it almost feels like it was made then sealed in its own glass casing to be preserved and looked at by people from a different era.

I said earlier that Antontioni seems to be preserving something, and it seems to me that he's capturing an epoch, an era where morals have been unhinged by money and modernity, and mattered. Now that an even more diluted era has been shaped by the digital revolution (and its subsequent information overload), this artefact becomes, to me, even more precious, fragile and beautiful. He captures the surburbia of modernist buildings and smooth ascetic lines and juxtaposes it with the chaos and decaying stones of the streets of Rome, where ancient architecture like the coliseum still stands proudly against the flow of time. He captures the materalism and amoralism of modern characters like Alain Delon - to whom women are only as valuable as smooth flesh and chic threads but not as valuable as the solidity of cold hard cash - and the romanticism and disillusionment of characters like Monica Vitti (whose gorgeous cheekbones make her look like a Greek goddess herself), to whom, as in her own words, love has become so difficult in the modern world, complicated by lifestyles and words. But I don't think Antonioni captured all this with any sense of regret or judgment, and that's the main thing that sets him apart and, I think, makes him problematic for me most of the time – his freeform method is usually a little too sparse and bare for a restless viewer like me. He is more interested in pointing out the distance between past and present, how much we've changed and how comfortable we've grown living with the past, so much so that we don't feel the weight of the millenia of time that has gone by.

Yet, despite his stoicism in the handling of these themes, Antonioni seems more aligned with Vitti than Delon, as only a romantic would strive for something permanent and attach importance to any ideal like immortality. And seeing Antonioni carving out his immortality in stone with this movie is just as moving as seeing how Vitti, in love with a person she hates and despises like Delon, struggles in herself to hold on to something real in the face of blind and shifting time. He is interested in capturing and preserving life, with his camera meandering in a Ulysses stream-of-consciousness manner that makes random people sitting outside a café, nuns walking down the streets and an old man who loses millions at a stock market just as important as Vitti or Delon. It is a film dedicated to the people we pass by everyday but pay no attention to, people of whose memory is scrubbed from our lives and from time just a few moments later. In one particularly poignant scene, Vitti looks outside the window from Delon's apartment and sees the people of everyday life, knowing that in a few minutes she (and the world) would forget them, and that she too would eventually suffer the same fate.

The last five minutes - one of the most brilliant revelations in cinematic history – beautifully condenses all the sadness and helplessness in the film. [Potential spoilers from here] Silent and without the two lead characters, it shows us the places where Vitti first falls in love with Delon, now meaningless and everyday - the indifferent passing of time and life. What was there is now gone, and what is now there will be gone tomorrow, leaving no trace of its presence before and no permanent marks on the course of time. The 60's (as with any era), along with all its characters and their loves and lives, has gone by, and we can only watch it like smoke trails left behind by airplanes passing on a clear blue sky.

Eight Below

2006-05-10T02:54:00.000+08:00

Fresh off his frantic role in the saucy and gory Running Scared, Paul Walker calms down visibly in the PG-rated Eight Below. Heading an eclectic cast of humans and animals, Walker fits in nicely as the expedition guide of a scientific research team stationed in Antarctica. Due to a heavy snow storm and the approaching winter season, Walker is forced to abandon his eight ruskies aiding him over the years. He finds out too late that he will be separated from his dogs for longer than he intended. Wrecked with desperation and guilt (the man had earlier strapped all the ruskies down on leash, thinking he would be back for them shortly), the rest of the film splinters between the dogs' struggle to survive the harsh Antarctic conditions and the helpless Walker trying his best to fund his trip back to rescue and reclaim his faithful snow dogs.

The film does a good job in introducing this tenacious brood of canines prior to the film's tragic developments. We are suitably thrilled to see them pulling sleds on a mission in which Walker is tasked to escort a scientist (Bruce Greenwood) on a research trip. Despite the myriad troubles along the way, the dogs do an outstanding job and manage to bring back the guys alive. Alas, their achievement are brushed aside (sensibly) when push comes to shove in prioritising the emergency evacuation of the research team.

Oh my, what will happen to those cute ruskies? We don't wanna scare off shaken children and their weeping parents with eight dead carcasses now, do we? Worry not, for this is a Disney movie. Hence, glowing charms and winning balm will blanket any tiny tragedies strewn along the way. The triumphant spirit of men (or men's best friends) will always endure and be rousingly celebrated. Without a doubt, there will be a happy ending. So sit back, relax and enjoy the movie. I know I did. In fact, I enjoyed this picture enough to want to further expand my thoughts on it. Beneath its benign veneer, I do think Eight Below offers insights worth pondering over.

After the film, I perused the internet for some post-movie reading pleasure and to my surprise, I realised I'm in the minority here, for I fancy the human story more than the canine one. I find myself strongly empathising with Paul Walker's character. Walker is one of the most conscientious young actors working in Hollywood today. Unfortunately, he is also hampered by his chiselled good looks, as most critics equate matinee idol visage as an inability to emote. However, Walker is less emotive than most actors because he is more behavioural. And it is in his behaviour that I managed to feel the saddening desperation of his campaigns. As can be seen in the bureaucratic offices and the scientist portrayed by Bruce Greenwood, few can or are willing to understand that these dogs are family to him. People may laugh him off as a silly chap embarking on a futile mission to save some dogs. Despite the ridicule, he doggedly marches on, for they are not just some dogs. They are the very foundation which keeps his drifting life anchored. Realistically, this film also acknowledges that sooner or later, he may have to give up his pursuit. And he does, for a while.

In one scene, the film uses a cinematic shorthand of a dejected Walker returning to an Oregon trailer as a telling illustration of the man - alone, without familial attachment and out of his elements when returning home. His only true "home" is not in Oregon or Antarctica, but likely anywhere he can roam with his beloved huskies. His angst and despair evoked at this point of the movie is palpable, giving a sense that his resigned solitude will almost be certain.

Thankfully, it takes another dog-loving friend (arguably presented here as a loner too) to impart some much welcomed wisdom - whether it be as an act of respect, a reciprocation of love or a show of gratitude, it is always important to reclaim your loved ones, no matter whether they are dead or alive. The man hence resumes his pursuit, ever determined to do the right thing. It is actually through this heartening "expedition" that Paul accepts a simple truth - he must open himself up to love from those around him. He realises that he is capable of not just receiving love, but giving it too.

Wait a minute, it's still just some dogs, dammit! If you have read this far and still think it's exceedingly silly for a man to go all out for some huskies, then I think nothing much I say will matter. So here goes. I am suddenly reminded (damn my free associative mind) of the first segment of If These Walls Could Talk 2, whereby Vanessa Redgrave's lesbian lover dies on her. She helplessly witnesses as the property they shared is legally transferred to her lover's next of kin, an opportunistic nephew. The silent aching on her face speaks a thousand words of sorrow, and the power of the scene unintentionally renders the next two segments of that movie redundant.

The societal definition of kinship will never be all-inclusive, as love comes in different shades and colours. Love is beyond definition. I for one cannot understand pet lovers. We have to endure enough joys and grief with human loved ones, so why should we subject ourselves to such emotional extremes with some other species? Then I consider the possibilities - those who are brought up in loving families and hence have lots of love to give; those who no longer have anyone else to turn to but pets to share their joys and grief. The permutations in between are endless. I realise I need not understand how others practice their love, I just need to consider whether I have done good in mine. One man's fight for his eight dogs taught me this much. There is hope for Disney-esque movies after all.

The Child (L'enfant)

2006-05-09T05:16:00.000+08:00

Children, go, where I send you...

With each new film they make, starting from La Promesse (followed by Rosetta, The Son, and now, The Child), Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne has steadily created a contextual and ever expanding cinematic universe which serves as an unforced placebo mirroring our real one. In the process, the brothers have demonstrated an uncanny ability to articulate their unobtrusive takes on modern socio-politics, adeptly presenting tough ethical conundrums which challenge man. Without judgement, they unleash upon unsuspecting viewers, incisively drawn characters whose uncontrived behavioral and emotional manifestations eventually point towards their films' intended themes. It is through the Dardennes' intuitive understanding of the protagonists and the situations they face that eventually bring out their humanity. In sum, they never fail to deliver poignantly dramatic character studies of equal exquisite restraint and empathic power.

A Dardenne brothers' film promises no clear answers, but challenges its perceptive viewers to ruminate over what they have seen; at the end, each and every viewer would be free to draw their own conclusions. It is this real breath of freedom which leads some, like me, to conclude that though a Dardenne brothers picture may present strife and confusion, dread and heartaches, they are necessary fuel for our cumulative journey towards the redemptive denouement of each film. One thing is clear - the ending will always pack a cathartic dose of sobering epiphanies.

Their latest feature, The Child (L'enfant), is no different. Typical of a Dardenne brothers' film, we are plunged straight into its universe without the benefit of immediate clarity. We see a young woman, Sonia (Déborah François), cradling her newborn son as she quickly realises her boyfriend, Bruno (Jérémie Renier), who has been uncontactable since their baby's birth, has temporarily sublet their apartment to a couple of strangers. The woman, with baby in tow, soon finds the father, but he is in the midst of petty thieving and is dividing his loots with his young accomplices. Sonia does not seem to mind her boyfriend's prior absence and present nonchalance. She is just glad to have found her boyfriend and quickly forgives him, forgetting about her past inconveniences. Shortly after, the couple is holding each other with the baby in their blissful embrace.

Bruno and Sonia appear to live off his occasional loots and her unemployment benefits. Despite Sonia's gentle nudges, Bruno does not intend to find decent work as he does not believe in it. We soon see the couple having fun in the sun and indulging in some spontaneous shopping. They do not seem entirely worried about their questionable ability to look after the newborn child, the father more appearing less so than the mother. It is at this pivotal juncture that Bruno does something so startlingly unimaginable that the relationship between the couple starts to splinter. The rest of the movie will see Bruno attempting his best to simultaneously salvage the consequences caused by his misdeeds and regain Sonia's trust.

The Dardenne brothers may have sought to end The Child on a redemptive note, but its protagonist, Bruno, calls to question on whether such a resolution is ever going to be possible.

Given the irrevocable emotional claims he has at stake with his girlfriend and son, and compounded by his expected moral responsibilities as a father, boyfriend or even a decent human being, Bruno's actions will definitely confound and horrify even the most casual of observers. However, the Dardennes' do not make easy movies, for we too can see throughout that Bruno is not evil by design. The criteria from which he makes his decision are random. He seems incapable of discerning if his behavior is good or bad - Bruno only senses what is supposed to be right or wrong when others around him react strongly to his behaviour, and he in turn reacts accordingly. This in itself makes The Child one of the most frightening and saddening character studies committed to screen. It is frightening for we are being shown a specimen of a man who is capable of the most unimaginable evil without grasping its horrors, and the most astonishing goodness without understanding its virtues. It is saddening because he knows not what he does and so may never be able to learn and change for the better.

The effects of having someone like Bruno can be clearly seen throughout the movie, but the possible factors that had led to his character bear closer scrutiny. In one of the movie's later scenes, there is a subtle moment where Bruno visits his mother late at night to ask for her help. In an ordinary movie, this moment may have merely been a plot device to push the story forward, but in the hands of the Dardennes, it serves a veiled, deeper purpose. We are offered a glimpse into the relationship Bruno has with his mother - informal, distant and dampened by undesirable father figures. His mother may love him, but she seems more afraid of her current live-in boyfriend than in showing concern for her son's welfare. Though never explicitly mentioned, one can only assume the harsh environment Bruno might have lived under through his childhood years. If so, the unfortunately nurtured product of these conditions may hence be someone like Bruno - cowardly, restless, unintentionally callous, and unable to discern good from bad, right from wrong.

But all is not lost. Throughout, Bruno also exhibits desirable traits. He cannot feel for himself but he can feel for others, and his guilt is often a reciprocal product of this. He also appears to be capable of love toward his girlfriend and genuine compassion for others, even though he may not completely understand these notions. He does not resort to unnecessary violence when dealing with people (from his girlfriend, his son to his young accomplices) and seems incapable of lying to his loved ones. Case in point, when confronted, he confesses his deeds to his girlfriend without any attempt to fabricate lies. There is hence something pure and innocent about Bruno. He is like an unformed child, without guile or agenda, making one wonder at the Dardennes' intent in naming this film.

It is more of a curse than a blessing to be someone like Bruno, for society will always protect a child, but not a man who acts like one. Children are embraced and deemed adorable if they possess milder shades of Bruno's traits, for they are still within the control of adult supervision. But if these traits are transplanted onto a man of Bruno's age, it becomes a completely different ball game. Without a leash, Bruno is a hazard to himself as well as those around him.

As a viewer, I am prone to pity or condemn someone like Bruno instinctively. However, I also realise how easily I forget my comparatively more blessed upbringing and affluence. Unconsciously, I might well be looking upon someone like Bruno with utter disgust, condescending sympathy or perhaps even a plain superior need to point out his flaws. This whole commentary may even be more presumptuous than I'd care to admit, in fact. However, this enlightening film sets the record straight. We should not sympathise, condemn or condescend; instead, we should just observe, empathise and most importantly, understand one question - who are we to judge someone/something we barely comprehend? All we can do, perhaps, is to reflect on our own experiences in relation to the movie, and hopefully draw some valuable life lessons from it.

Few modern films are as uniquely conceived as those from the Dardenne brothers, for they understand the relentless dichotomy governing humanity and society - that our everyday existence is plagued by tug-of-wars between life/death, good/evil, order/chaos, conviction/faithlessness etc. They also possess the will to steer lost souls towards the light of one powerful notion - the constant of change, believing in an evolving humanity capable of defeating our fears, so that our hopes will rise from the ashes of our enbattled beings. This light guides us. It keeps us going.

Returning to the question of whether The Child ended redemptively, I will consider a leap of faith. Given his reactionary behaviours and wavering instincts, what Bruno needs might simply be a positive role model (or emotional anchor) to guide him onto brighter paths. It is too late for his parents to do him any good, but a lover like Sonia may be his best bet towards redeeming himself.

The Dardenne brothers compassionately delve in the belief of our will and ability to constantly better ourselves. Through their films, I have learnt many lessons which I would normally have taken a lifetime to accrue. In those precious hours of watching their films - from La Promesse through The Child (and beyond) - I find myself gaining insights, from the value of repentance to the redemptive powers of forgiveness and everything else in between. These sublime wisdoms will cushion my walk as I trudge on in this daunting existence. And I think to myself, if I succeed in becoming a better person, I will forever be indebted to generous filmmakers like the Dardenne brothers and their movies. If I fail, I can always paraphrase the quote-worthy Roger Ebert, for I know that shall be the degree to which I have room to grow.

Invisible Waves

2006-05-03T01:23:00.000+08:00

Invisible Waves will be seen by many people as being 'seriously flawed,' and honestly there isn't much going for it critically. It is, thematically and aesthetically, a retread of Pen-Ek's last work, Last Life in the Universe, with themes like death, solitude, romance, fate and guilt brought onto the canvas by the beautifully-lensed landscapes of Chris Doyle. Yet it seems unnecessarily harsh and anal retentive to criticize a work whose aim is not to push any boundaries or progress any further than what it can be.

The story of Invisible Waves is threadbare, and to provide any outline of it is to already spoil the whole movie. Pen-Ek said in many interviews that he is attempting film-noir, and if seen in this way it is undeniably a failure: though its plot is essentially a noir-ish plot, the entire movie is so empty of seediness, shadows, and extreme emotions to recall any of those golden B-movies. It seems to me that Pen-Ek had more of Melville than Huston or Ray on his mind - in particular, Le Samouraï comes to mind when viewing Invisible Waves; two films which negotiate freely between reality and fantasy and, as I see it, are essentially films about dying.

Most of Invisible Waves is set in a creaking and beat cruise ship that is filled with echoes and phantoms rather than holidaying people. Asano traverses the long empty corridors aimlessly, drowning in, as we come to understand, guilt and remorse. Wandering around in a maze set by his boss and his own conscience, he is trapped within unknowingly, and slowly dying every frame of the way, making the film not unlike Jarmusch's Dead Man, but with a more romantic fatalism toward death. The film works in an ominous, almost menacing tone most of the time, though after it is all over, what seemed like suspense earlier unravels and almost seems to become a melancholic cognition of death - which is, uncannily, what life is like, mostly. Yet, what seems so dissonant about this surreal claustrophic nightmare (filmed together with an otherwordly ring) is the way strange occurences and people keep interfering with how the plan should've been carried out - it seems, somehow, like a conspiracy movie with fate subtly tweaking and interfering in events without anyone, least of all the audience, knowing, and only in hindsight do we realize that the feeling that seemed so out of place with the tightly controlled atmosphere of the movie is the factor of uncontrollability that, though little, changes things dramatically. The film appears to be at odds with itself in this way, with the noir-ish elements of the plot often being tugged to the wayside by that elusive, esoteric factor. It is almost as if different people are each creating distinct moods (the screenplay, the cinematography, the brilliant sound design/music, and the direction), not forcing the movie into any one direction but allowing it to sprawl and flow wherever it feels like it should.

However, all this has been and can be said for Last Life in the Universe, which in my opinion evokes this feeling in a stronger and more immediate way. What Invisible Waves lacks of its predecessor, most of all, is the romantic yearning that suffused Pen-Ek's last film. But because of that, it's a much looser film with a more free-form structure, which is probably closer to the maker's intentions. Asano, in a typically colorless performance (it is this colorlessness, often mistaken for versatility, that allows him to fit seamlessly into any role) doesn't have the same chemistry with Gang Hye-Jeong - who seems absolutely bewildered - as he did with Sinitta Boonyasak. There are a few moments of tenderness though, when we actually see Asano, Gang and her baby dancing together; I only wish there were more of these to pull the film substantially enough in that way. But tenderness in this movie comes primarily in the form of Maria Cordero, whose brief moments in the film provide such a sense of warmth and comfort that is almost enough to tilt the entire film in her direction.

I don't know exactly what the repeated symbolism of the calm sea represents, I presume there must be some sort of correlation between the crests and falls of waves and that of the characters - when one character is riding a crest, another must be at a fall. But attributing anything to shots of the sea is pointless, because, as one character in the film points out, the sea is so vast and blanketing that it could represent anything to anyone. For me, the sea is something that's unchanging; an eternal mainstay in humanity that will always affect us, whether directly or indirectly, in our lives. There is one particular scene which I love, and of course spoilers from hereon: Earlier in the film, there is a long take of the sea over which we hear Cordero whispering words of comfort to Asano. Now, Asano is shot repeatedly at a pier in Phuket, and he falls into the sea. We then cut to a long take of the sea that moves ever so slightly with its calm waves, and the next thing we know, Asano is back at his apartment block in Macau, talking to Maria Cordero. It is almost as if Asano fell into the sea and drifted all the way from Phuket back to Macau; as if he'd already died, and, following the gentle current of the sea, is brought back to life so that he can eventually understand the meaning and the inevitability of his own death.

C.R.A.Z.Y.

2006-04-30T03:06:00.000+08:00

Hush my child, it's okay,
for God works in mysterious ways.

Opening with the heartbeats of an unborn child, Canadian sleeper hit C.R.A.Z.Y. stylishly courses through the veins of time; within its 2 hour duration, 20 years in the life of this child and his loved ones will flash before our eyes. We will experience many things vividly. We will come to understand the times and places in which we find these characters. We will be exposed to the pride and prejudice which bind them. We will learn to empathise with the pains and disappointments which haunt them. And we will be moved by the love and humanity which guide them. As they explore and endure through life's ebbs and flows, C.R.A.Z.Y. sensitively chronicles the evolution of a slightly dysfunctional but glowingly loving Quebecois family. As if touched by Midas, director Jean-Marc Valle has created one of the most warm, insightful, and spiritually redemptive films of the year. But let's get back to the beginning...

The movie is told through the eyes of Zac, the child we are first introduced to in the opening. Born on Christmas 1960 and fourth in a line of five sons from the Beaulieu family, Zac finds himself forever attending Midnight Masses on his birthdays. The boy also never gets the presents he wants, for reasons which we will soon know. Because of that, Zac is filled with Bah-Humbug repression, but that will not be the only repressed aspects of the poor boy.

From the beginning, there are hints of something special about this kid. He survives a miraculous fall from his father's arms on the day of his birth; he sports an isolated lock of blond hair; he shares an almost psychic link with his mother; and he alone can soothe his baby brother's cries. Word has it he can heal all sorts of bleeding, too. And what's more, he loves to push the pram-a-lot. Okay, that came out awkwardly.

It is obvious early on that Zac is gay, before he even knew what gay means. His parents, the Patsy Cline-loving Gervais and his Christ-worshipping wife Laurianne, senses this too, apparently, but Zac's mother's mild compassion to this is often overshadowed by his father's staunch disapproval.

Gervais, a working class family man, never stops nurturing his effete son's challenged heterosexuality. Ignoring the boy's choice of a mock toy pram as his birthday gift, Gervais buys the boy a sports game set instead. Eavesdropping on his parent's conversation one day, Zac learns that his daddy don't like no fairies, prompting him to pray hard to Jesus in the late of the night - he don't want to be no fairy either. The boy loves his father. He is so eager to win his love and acceptance that he is willing to bend his desires and pretend to be something he isn't.

Zac makes such sacrifices because he worships his father and craves for his affection. Gervais has a tough personality typical of blue-collared father figures. He exudes a grunge heroic cool blended with an appealingly rugged handsomeness, traits envied by kids of Zac's age. The short-lived moments where the two stop for fries together, illustrate the bond which intoxicates the yearning child. They are depicted with such a jubilant nostalgia that the afterglow of these stolen moments linger long after the story has moved on. And move on, it did.

Not only does he have to fight a losing battle in the denial of his identity confusion, Zac also needs to jostle for the affection of his father with his four other siblings. All of whom seem more advantaged in snagging daddy's love. The eldest and middle brothers excel in academic and athletic pursuits respectively while the youngest brother will, by default, be adored. It is his father's affection to the second brother, the problematic delinquent Raymond, that confounds Zac the most. Not only are they arch nemeses, Zac senses that his father seems to take uncommon pride in Raymond's antics - however mischievious, Raymond still exhibits clearly masculine traits. Zac hence, is the odd one out - nervy, asthmatic and too sensitive for his own good. He wets his bed, too. With each passing day, the distance between father and son widens.

With the odds stacked firmly against him, poor Zac can't do much else besides gliding on wings in soaring flights of fancy, and seeking solace from his embracing mother. Via their psychic connections, mother and son place their shared Catholic faiths in the hands of the Lord, hoping and praying together, that he will no longer wet his bed or become a fairy, that his father will love him again, and that he is indeed as special as his mother claims. Alas, to be special is to be different, and different is not a trait welcomed in Zac's suburban universe, where conformity is valued, deviancy frowned upon. Quoting Michael Apted's wise observation, "Give me a boy at seven and I will show you the man." Despite his best efforts, there is no turning back for Zac; the journey ahead for him will be long and arduous...

This film is evenly spread out into three acts, showing the myriad upheavals affecting Zac and the Beaulieu clan as the boy turns 7, 15 and 21. Notice how much of this piece I have devoted on the first act alone. I will not focus on the second and third act, suffice to say they are more or less the same, only more contextually layered, more intricately woven and increasingly mature.

Allow me to draw from an obscure analogy made in Kevin Smith's Dogma, which I think applies to C.R.A.Z.Y. succinctly. Concepts that form the backbone of our natural human/familial growth - love, faith, identity, pain, loss, despair, memory, sacrifice, and contentment - are like glasses of water. These glasses are full, and are easy to fill up at first. But the older one gets, the bigger the glasses get too, taking much more than the same amount of water to fill these glasses. Still, these glasses have to be refilled periodically. It may take more effort, but it is almost always worth it. Conversely, if they are not refilled, the glasses will dry up and these unquenched concepts will inadvertently shrivel and die.

Vallee has thus concocted an ever-thickening cinematic brew to fill these glasses and encourages us to savour it together. For not only are its contents more complex, these glasses would only get bigger. Watching the growth of the protagonist and his family, your heart will ache, flutter and then be set aglow - just remember to refill your own glasses when you come out of the movie.

Final Words:

C.R.A.Z.Y. exhibits a delirious visual flair reminiscent of Fernando Meirelles's City of God. On the aural front, it is not inapt to compare it with the best of Cameron Crowe's sentient song fests (in fact, I could go CRAZY with a whole other essay focusing only on the allegorical musicality and dramatic relevance of the movie's song selection). Dramatically, this film has deeply drawn, non-caricaturing protagonists. All these, together, are capable of shoring up tidal waves of emotional resonance, humour and grace, hence earning the reconciliatory catharsis emanated by film's end. I have not experienced such warmth and comfort since Peter Sollett's familial masterpiece, Raising Victor Vargas.

Thematically, C.R.A.Z.Y. serves as an admirable cousin to Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, though not as the purveyor of gay rights, but as yet another film that sheds a sympathetic light on people who live in secrets and lies. It shows how devastatingly numbing these burdens can become; how such perpetuated disguises will only hurt more people in the end; and finally, how liberating it would be if one chooses to open up, however painful the days and months ahead. This film argues that though happiness might not be guaranteed, a humbling sense of closure will eventually be reached. With truth, comes ecstasy, and peace will follow.

Goodness permeates every inch of this movie. If this is not a sign for perfection, I would like to know what is.

Hostel

2006-04-29T23:33:00.000+08:00

Hostel, despite its aesthetically pleasing and interesting posters, is a pathetically joyless film, not for its gore and nudity or its psychological effect on people - it's joyless because even the filmmakers don't seem to be having much fun. Touted along with recent films like Wolf Creek and the remake of The Hills Have Eyes as the 'new generation' of horror, it promises to bring uncompromising violence and unflinching terror back to the horror movie, which, for the first half of the decade, has been languishing in PG-13 rip-offs of gore-less Japanese horror movies.

Now violence? It most certainly has. But is it really uncompromising? Eli Roth, a self-proclaimed gorehound, seems bent on making an independent horror movie......Hollywood style. Hostel suffers from the worst traits of a Hollywood horror movie and an independent horror movie. He delivers scene after scene of blandly sanitized violence the Hollywood way (start of violence, cut to character screaming, aftermath of violence). And then, proudly proclaiming his Troma/70's-horror influence, he gives us a script as lamely conceived and plainly stupid as a frat boy could write. He sets his movie in a spastic fantasy of Eastern Europe, where quaint architecture, boobs, and plot devices galore reside along with torture chambers (both real and fake). He hardly even bothers to conceal the plot's badness, triumphantly and idiotically parading them as if they're emblematic of his B-grade pulpy horror roots.

It wouldn't even be that offensive had he really gone all out bloodletting with glee. There is no macabre sense of fun, not even a sense of sickness and perversity in the violent scenes, which, along with the whole movie, are just awfully boring and routine. Not even a hilariously inept cameo by Takashi Miike and a trying-too-hard-to-be-over-the-top-psychotic Rick Hoffman could save it from being anything but another bland Hollywood product - the movie is as fake and gaudy as those torture exhibits shown in the movie.

I haven't seen the rest of the 'new generation,' so there might still be hope yet. But if this new generation that everyone speaks of turns out to be like Hostel - a sad and limp attemp at returning to 70's edgy gore without any of the edge that made it shocking - and Hollywood sees this as a good trend to follow, then horror movie fans are in for a rough time. I must say, though, that at least Alexandre Aja (who did the remake of The Hills Have Eyes)'s High Tension a few years back, despite its plot contrivances, had ridiculous fun trying to put the audience through psychological torture, stacking up the suspense in the murder sequences and grossing us out with over-the-top violence that doesn't have any pussy cutaways. Hostel, on the other hand, writes one offensive character after another, doesn't make us the least bit interested in what happens to them, and then expects us to squirm in our seats with its wimpy torture scenes. Yes, Hostel is torture in the other sense, it's tortuous that a frat boy director this stupid and half-hearted believes the audiences to be as stupid as him. And it's even more tortuous, proven by the box office receipts, that the audiences really are.

The Giant Buddhas & Love Story

2006-04-26T09:16:00.000+08:00

My hand seems to be extraordinarily unlucky this year - the films dealt to me this SIFF were largely either completely uninteresting or excruciatingly awful. So I made up my mind on Sunday to go with the flow, ie, if the first film was good I'd go for the second one, if the second one was good I'd go for the next, and so on... The first film I saw that day was The Giant Buddhas, which, thankfully, was finally a movie I could love after a string of eight stinkers (yes, eight!), but my lucky streak stopped at second (Singapore's Love Story), which petered out my day.

Kelvin Tong's return to the big screen after barely a year (the horror movie The Maid (2005), which I quite enjoyed) is the Andy Lau-financed Love Story, an elliptical maze of meaningless quotes designed to ensnare you in its frustrating web and make you pray for a mercifully quick death. I haven't seen a single film in Andy Lau's Focus First Cut Series, but I can't see how having Andy Lau's (a bland singer and wooden actor) name attached to the project could give it any indication of quality. With commercial values (read: entertainment) strictly absent, Kelvin Tong has created another piece of arthouse turd that could only be interesting to high-minded literati who cream in their pants thinking of how they could elocute its many 'themes,' 'parallels,' 'allusions,' 'intertextuality...' - a movie that takes itself so seriously in its metaphorical bullshit that it almost makes it seem like a crime to enjoy a movie. Its frequent use of pretentiously laughable intertitles attempts to align itself with Wong Kar-Wai (it even blatantly cops lines from Wong's earlier movies), upping its quotability and annoyingness but doing little to lift the film from repetitive tedium. What Kelvin Tong doesn't seem to get, most of all, is Wong's strength with actors - Love Story is filled with badly miscast pretty faces struggling with secondary-school-poetry that is a mouthful to pronounce, like a college Last Year at Marienbad-wannabe dubbed in poor Mandarin by a ten-year-old kid.

While Kelvin Tong's strength as a filmmaker isn't in writing, it certainly isn't in direction. The Maid was enjoyable in spite of itself - its cast brought with them a rigor and energy that helped drive the film despite its tired Asian-horror cliches and flimsy (where's the) plot. He is right in saying in the post-film Q & A that Singaporean film also needs to have an adventurous, experimental side. Unfortunately, with all his ambitions unbridled by the creative freedom Andy Lau gives to the series and without any talent to match, all he can come up with is faux-arthouse mumbo jumbo that seems typical of an insufferable local experimental Chinese play.

What Love Story lacks most of all is any indication of real emotion, leaving this black hole of a film adrift in its lofty cloud castles while the world rotates on by. It seems incomprehensible to me that a filmmaker would invest any amount of time and money for a project he doesn't seem to care much about - none of his characters seem remotely human enough to pull off the weird-sounding lines that seem to have come out from a computerized word-hat. Making this total disinterest in reality more painful is the fact that he chooses to suspend the film in a pseudo setting completely decontextualized from Singapore. This theme is, perhaps, something he wanted to play with of course, but looking at it from a similarly disinterested point of view, disinterested filmmaking only invests disinterestedness from an audience who simply can't give a shit for a film that can't give a shit about anything other than itself.

Christian Frei's Giant Buddhas, on the other hand, uses the documentary form as a journal - what comes out is a deeply heartfelt take on the futility of situations. Using the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan as a starting point, the camera ruminates and meanders all around the world on its subject, with Frei filling the narration with his own ponderings, turning what could potentially be a documentary charged with angst and fury into a mournful, and often lyrical elegy of the world's failures - it gives me the feeling of looking at an old photograph of better times and romantically imagining how things could've been better if they had stayed the same, the kind of nostalgia that can only come with a perhaps foolish, and wistful obsession with the impossibility of the past.

As is all our initial reactions to the destruction, Frei starts of with an agenda to kill, and a subject like this could easily fall into an indictment of the persons to blame. He seems to recognize early on, though, that the real culprit - as in every issue, if one really sits down - is always elusive, though it is always easy to find the immediate person at hand. The Taliban behind the destruction would be the easiest to blame, but was it really the West's indifference to Afghanistan's problems (the Swiss offered millions of dollars as aid to restore the Buddhas, but refused when the Afghani government requested for this to be used on the starving children instead) that caused the destruction of the Buddhas? Could it be the West's ignorance and blind terror at Muslims that caused the Taliban to react in an extreme manner to show the world what it was capable of? Frei asks these questions not without a sense of lament, as hapless and desperate as a man forced to see events play out with his hands tied behind his back - which is the only way we could make any sense out of history; the common mantra of studying to not let history repeat itself nothing but a sad fallacy.

This approach is not new, more recently Syriana achieved the same effect within the realms of fiction (which, people seem to be able to accept more readily, maybe because it is more distanced). And like its fictional counterpart, Giant Buddhas succeeds too, when it finds its views in the lives of its protagonists - their hopes, their glories and how much the Buddhas had meant to them before they were destroyed. Editing it and adopting a macro view, Frei gives us a sense of omniscience, but a sad one at that, because knowledge also makes us that much more pessimistic at the world never being able to correct its own problems; the insight only shows us how deeply entrenched into its own mistakes the world is, an ever-tangling web of unsolvable intricacies that makes any one solution impossible (or, as shown in the film, even laughable) and potentially damaging; he shows us the world as it is, driven on a machination doomed to its own destruction.

This destruction is shown not only in the physical sense (as in the pulverizing of the Buddhas) but also in the people's lives, their culture and past. The film shows the preservation of the Chinese national treasures by the Chinese government (though their motives are not far from mercenary) and sighs that some cultures are more privileged than others when they have their history to keep. It makes me reflect somewhat on modern Singapore, its landscape whitewashed with barely a hint of its past in its 80's mad rush to modernize and develop. How Singaporeans walk about each day embracing the future and taking not one nostalgic look at the past, our collective culture one huge blank erased by the money-making industry - the reverse of China's money-driven tourist industry. Looking at that and looking at the artificial world Kelvin Tong has created in Love Story and how he attempts to ditch the old (or the real and tangible) in search of something new makes me sigh.

Eventually, and spoilers ensue from here, the film moves towards an ending that forgoes its documentary form, yet is even more moving precisely because it's contained within a documentary. We follow Nelofor Pazari, the beautiful Afghani actress exiled in Canada and heart of the film, who journeys back to Afghanistan to reclaim some of her memories and search for the Buddhas which her father had posed with in an enigmatic photo, as she finds that her homeland has been completely disfigured from what now only exists in her memories. She goes to where the Buddhas once stood and sees the big empty hole that the world has left behind, an ugly scar dented forever in history. Then suddenly the film veers into magical realism and for a moment you believe what you see onscreen and you feel a sudden rush of elation with Pazari, and then reality hits home and you remember that it could only all just be a dream. As the camera pulls away from the landscape of Bamiyan Valley, so do I yearn to pull away, further and further from ineffectual reality, and into what can now only appear, in our dreams.

Workingman's Death

2006-04-20T23:11:00.000+08:00

Films like Workingman's Death exist for the same reasons charity shows are televised every other month and students flood the island hawking for donations in tin cans on Flag Day - to remind, and shame us, in our blissful satisfied corner of the world, that less fortunate people still exist. These less fortunate people are so crucial in a 'first-world' society, that governments harp on them, using them as marketing campaigns for their kindness; schools ceaselessly drill into students the suffering of these people, driving (or coercing?) them to do charity work to have a 'social-conscious' mind; and, of course, as we all know, private organizations make use of them to keep their money rolling in.

So what's our deal with them? It seems every society needs a guilt bag to puncture once in awhile, to shake us out of our comfortable life, because as much as we don't like discomfort, we also don't like to be too comfortable. These bags come in the form of these 'easy' charities, easy because we don't have to see them face to face - so long as we continue 'helping' them by donating, we allay our guilt yet keep them at bay. It is our middle-class society way of acknowledging the presence of the poor and occasionally helping them through middle-parties so that we could still remain comfortably guilty in our existence.

Workingman's Death comes to us as yet another harbinger of revelatory bad news, another guilt bag to puncture. Yet the biggest hypocrisy is that it is made only so middle-class people wallowing in their stupid lives can give up some of their hard-earned money in exchange for a ticket to make them feel guilty, a special commodity that is fast becoming necessary in our lives. The crime here is even more unbearable - unless someone tells me that for every ticket purchased, some portion would directly benefit one poor soul that was depicted in this movie, these paying middle-class folks would only go home, perhaps feel ashamed of themselves a bit, maybe make a resolution not to complain so much when they go to work the next day, and by the end of the next work day (or week, or month) they'd be complaining again. Or, they would type on their personal computers how much this movie has opened their eyes or changed their lives or whatever the New Age excuse for self-reflection is, or, as in my case, how repulsed they are by this movie. Either way, the only reason it could exist is to provide that thorn.

We have a tendency of exalting these harbingers without first thinking of their very own contribution to the cause - probably the latent hypocrisy in these documentaries, also known as postcards from the edge (of the third world). Why else would Christian Frei scramble to stress on James Nachtwey's hands-on aid to people of war-torn countries, in his documentary War Photographer, if not to immediately dispel any cry for hypocrisy? Of course, in journalism, we have to acknowledge the two-way pull between keeping a distanced objective eye (and doing actual reporting) and helping hands-on. But Workingman's Death, a slickly produced documentary with superb professional-looking camera work (one scene even had up to four cameras operating at the same time!), remains so adamant in showing how the characters suffer (yet remain impossibly optimistic about their suffering) that it paints them into mere caricatures, or, even worse - its effect is not unlike paying money to see the sideshow freaks in a circus, shuddering and feeling lucky that we were not born like them.

As the show drones on with piles of ironic wit - we see how sulfur workers in Indonesia rush to carry heavy bags of sulfur down the fields while indifferent tourists watch on; Indonesian workers chatter about their favorite Western bands (drawing chuckles of recognition from our middle-class audience); and, when the film turns its eye to Nigeria and decides to up the ante in impact, we see how various goats and cows are clumsily slaughtered (causing a few audience members to head for the exit; people who, in my mind, go back home to a full slab of steak later) just to invoke even more tsk-tsk's than just simple human suffering. It fulfills its promised five portraits of working people in the 21st century (technically only four are portraits of the workingman's death; the fifth, in China, seems more to serve the film's ironic edge), eventually heading to an epilogue in Germany showing a disused steel factory-turned-leisure park that is now littered with smooching teenagers, oblivious to the solemnity and harshness of their surroundings. This epilogue can probably be interpreted in two ways, 1. To show, after all the previous images of hellish working conditions in third-world countries, how much the first-world countries have put behind them to become a superior, cleaner state of affairs, or 2. To prove the point about how we, languishing in our self-built comfort zones, don't see the irony of living comfortably while horror is taking place somewhere else in the world, and, most importantly, to make us feel guilty about this. I prefer to choose the latter, the lesser of two evils, which is still bloody obnoxious.

Adam's Apples

2006-04-15T12:12:00.000+08:00

The Gospel according to the Gibbs...Take that!

Group shot: Behold, the five misfits of religion.

While having proven he is capable of making painful heartwrenchers (Brothers, Open Hearts), Anders Thomas Jensen has also exhibited an acute flair for helming some of the most entertaining black comedies dotting the landscapes of modern cinema (Flickering Lights, Green Butchers). Adam's Apples however, resides in the pivot of this spectrum. It represents the culmination of all which make a Jensen picture so fascinating, whatever its genre trappings.

Serving the rest of his sentence at a remote Christian halfway house, neo-Nazi Adam (Ulrich Thomsen) begrudgingly meets his supervisor Ivan (Mads Mikkelsen), a priest who seems eccentric from the start go. As part of the induction interview, Ivan tasks Adam to set a goal within the time frame of his remaining days. The skin head jokingly suggests baking a pie, using the fruits from Ivan's beloved apple tree. Though it is apparent Adam is merely ridiculing Ivan's authority, the clueless priest (intentionally or otherwise) assigns Adam the duty of caring for the tree and eventually baking that pie when the fruits ripen.

There are other misfits in this sparsely populated church. Gunnar (Nicolas Bro), an obese kleptomaniac who cannot stop eating; Khalid (Ali Kazim), an easily agitated Arab who cannot stop cursing; Sarah (Paprika Steen), a slightly dim pregnant woman who cannot stop crying. All three seek refuge in this quirky sanctuary, reconciling with their respective histories while doing basically nothing else. Throw a few more archetypes into the mix, from a repulsively heartless doctor to skinhead thugs, from dying anti-Semites to a "lively immobile" boy (don't ask) and you will have encountered all the intersecting worms writhing within Adam's Apples. No matter, for the eventual taste of those strange fruits may yet lead these worms towards some form of redemption. Or not.

Apples moves along breezily enough. It generates laughs aplenty when introducing these myriad weirdos. But when misfortunes start befalling the apple tree (constituting some of the film's best comedic/dramatic set pieces), evangelical Ivan starts floating a notion to Adam that the devil is testing the bald sinner's resolve to get the pie made. But the goodness-averse Hitler worshipper does not suffer fools from a Christian zealot, least of all, a warped case like Ivan.

Ivan tolerates hostilities by completely deflecting them with nauseous zests or obnoxious good humour. It is soon learnt he also survived a series of unfortunate events in his life, any of which could have easily broken the strongest men. But in Adam's eyes, Ivan merely deny those troubles with grand delusions or is hiding behind his religious piety (The devil is testing him too, or so Ivan claims when confronted by Adam at one point). Adam thinks Ivan a coward, and despises the man with seething vehemence.

The latter half of this film hence shifts its focus onto an excruciating tug of war between Ivan and Adam. The silly priest seeks to rehabilitate the skinhead with religion and his self-styled good nature (sic). The skinhead seeks to break down the priest's hypocritical defences by whatever means necessary – with blatant insubordination, hardcore physical violence and increasingly cruel taunts which toggle between the threshold of good and the near unbearable edges of dare I say, evil.

From this point on, Apples assumes a dramatic heft further bolstered by moral/religious conundrums tormenting the film's protagonists. Will the priest break down and burn the crucifix? Will the skinhead cave in and memorise the bible by heart? All I can say is that the evolutionary journey for these two men will prove to be an enlightening one.

Beneathe its reckless violence, liberal slapstick and sardonic humour, Adam's Apples deftly straddles between political incorrectness and a thoughtful meditation on faith and morality. It illustrates the blurring lines of good and evil while pushing the limits of bad tastes to masochistic extremes. It is to Andersen's credit that he can keep Apples' disparate moods in check. In retrospect, the contextual build-up to articulate this film's eventual position on God and humanity completely takes my breath away. Lastly, allow me to exclaim at the intuitive choice to end this movie with that song. The congruence of its lyrics to this movie is so uncanny it simply knocks me off my feet!

Adam's Apples opens exclusively at Orchard Cineleisure on 3 August, 2006. Watch out for it.

I did not kill Gandhi

2006-04-15T02:34:00.000+08:00

Looking to the skies, staring at the sea...

Recently widowed, retired Professor Uttam Chaudhary cannot remember things, dressing up to go to a school he no longer teaches and calling out to loved ones who're no longer here. It does not take long for his daughter and son to realise their father is suffering from the degenerative Alzheimer’s disease.

As his memories begin to fade and play tricks on him, Uttam suddenly believes an outlandish notion that he was accused and subsequently incarcerated for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi. Could this sudden belief have arisen due to the demented man's scouring of old news articles? Could this have been Uttam's random act of retaliation towards his desperately weakening condition? Could there have been a deeper well of reasons, tracing all the way back to an indelibly traumatic childhood? If only there were simple answers...

I went into this movie fully aware of the odds stacked against it. This is an Indian film. It has melodramatic excesses choking its every narrative turn. The score cues its audiences at every opportunity it gets. The actors chew up the screenplay and deliver OTT performances. There is a lot of screaming, wailing and choreographed fainting. These contortionistic faces populating the movie may hence distress some Western audiences. In fact, the insensitive, politically incorrect viewer in me was half expecting the angsty cast to burst suddenly into a song and dance revue. That, however, they did not do, for very valid reasons.

The film festival booklet's synopsis has wisely alerted us all that this movie will not sing and dance. And as the film plays on, I can sense my glib defences wearing down, for I gradually realised the good intentions of "I did not kill Gandhi". Gandhi should not sing, for it laments, it cries and it heaves its weary sighs. I find myself agreeably accepting its genre boundaries, for it earns my deep respect. This film attempts to illustrate the genuine pains a debilitating disease like Alzheimer's can inflict on its sufferers, and their equally suffering loved ones.

Chronicling a man sliding down the spirals of Alzheimer's, Gandhi also gave a voice to his helpless family (in particular the sensitive filial daughter, whose plight in this movie is so tragic that I can hear those songs coming on already. But I jest unwisely...), as we see how the man's descent can so destructively drag all those around him down the same emotional abyss.

Funny how people will rejoice at the sight of babies uttering their first words. They will eagerly anticipate words and sentences that are almost certain to follow. Conversely, people despair when their Alzheimer's afflicted loved ones "momentarily" returns, when a sudden clarity reappears on his or her previously blank face. Thing is, we must gradually learn to accept that these hopeful glimpses are false and hurtful, for the sentences will inevitably reduce to words, and further evaporate to indecipherable babbles. Their lucidity will diminish. Their minds will be gone, never to come back. They will become grown up babies, who will never again utter any more rejoicing first words.

No songs written, no movies made, no words in any known language can accurately articulate the pain and hurt Alzheimer's can inflict on the damned souls. Somewhere in this movie, it was wisely observed that the loneliest man is the one who has lost himself. In attempting to depict the heartaches encircling those imprisoned by Dementia/Alzheimer's, "I did not kill Gandhi" barely scratches the surface. But it's a decent start. It touches base with the many trials and tribulations crippling the sufferers and their lucidly helpless caregivers. Yes, the destructive power of this dreadful disease does not affect the sufferer alone. It sweeps across the familial landscape and forces its inhabitants to shape up or disintergrate spectacularly. Lives will be changed, relationships will be shifted, and the strength of kinships will be rigorously tested. It is most unfortunate that such a tragic disease subjects its participants to cruel challenges. But in the process, blood bonds will be thickened, one's familial faith will be renewed and the ties that binds a family will imperceptibly bloom and strengthen.

If I am to follow the unabashed example of this courageous film, I hope for all to heed its call. Cherish your loved ones. You never know when they'll be gone. It is never too late to give them that big sloppy kiss or a huge constricting squeeze. Just make sure they do not freak out.

We Feed the World

2006-04-15T02:22:00.000+08:00

The first SIFF 2006 offering I watched was docu We Feed the World, and although there were some interesting anecdotes to be found in the film, it generally felt a little lost and unsure of exactly what message it was trying to bring across. Yes, it's about how large corporations have affected the way food is being produced and consumed around the world, and damning everyone who condones (or is oblivious to) the behaviour of these large corporations, but honestly who hasn't heard of this before? It's simply a retread of old points without anything new, and a rather boring retread at that.

In the end I was more interested in observing the process of chickens being slaughtered (totally mechanized!) than really focusing on the issues that director Erwin Wagenhofer intended to bring across. It would seem politically incorrect but I would say Michael Moore's documentaries were at least entertaining to watch while being a least a little thought-provoking, whether or not certain parts were fabricated or not.

Rating: * * (out of four stars)

Next Door

2006-04-15T01:51:00.000+08:00

'If only my seduction skills were better...'

Next Door, reportedly one of Norway's highest-grossing films of 2005, wears its Hitchcockian influence on its sleeve, attempting to be a Rear Window-Vertigo-Psycho blend updated with considerable gloss to an upclass apartment complete with high-ceilings, well-spaced classy furniture, and, of course, moody yuppies. Comparisons aside, however, its Hitchcockian elements stop there as it puts on its serious 'mindfuck' mode, hoping to please today's cynical audience of twist endings and satisfactory explanations. All it ends up with is a thick, muddled alphabet soup tediously explaining the pieces laid behind that has already been made painfully obvious to the viewer earlier - think David Lynch with an irritatingly intrusive running commentary explaining all the incongruities.

A huge pity actually, considering the first half could actually turn out to be an interesting exercise and dissection in the truthfulness of cinema and the manipulation behind editing, all pieced behind a vampiristic tale of sexual manipulation and conquest. It leaves many fill-in-the-spaces gaps in between, but only proceeds to shove its pieces back into these gaps one by one, which leads me to wonder if the writer/director thinks that the audience is that stupid, or if he's merely showing off his art director's credos by droning on overly lengthy (and not particularly well-written or interesting) explanations to a too-simple premise. It would've been interesting had it been made as a 20-minute short film. As an already brief 75-minute feature, it only feels 55 minutes too long.

1st day of the fest

2006-04-15T01:03:00.000+08:00

I cannot judge films that I don't understand enough to like or hate, so the meaning of the opening film, Egypt's Kiss Me Not on the Eyes (or Dunia) and the accompanying short by acclaimed Malaysian director U-Wei Haji Saari, My Beautiful Rambutan Tree in Tanjung Rambutan, is lost on me. The former is an outright criticism on female circumcision in Egypt, filling itself with bright primary colors and native drums. Its exploration on the female psyche and sexuality means typically capricious and unpredictable feminine behavior (completely lost on this male viewer) on the part of the equally confused female protagonist, yoked together by seemingly random anecdotes regarding the protagonist's blind mentor's search for light and her neighbor's daughter's circumcision. Putting aside its angry feminist stance (which I'm able to sympathize with, but which might not be altogether relevant to this society), the film seems to be about searching for human truth and the ideal in daily life, somewhere between oft-leaden dialogue about finding the center of the universe and extended seduction scenes without gratification. It reminds me somewhat of the equally confusing (to me, at least) feminist movie, One Sings, One Doesn't by Agnes Varda (SIFF '05), which prompts me to wonder if most (if not, all) are designed, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to alienate the male audience.

I'm unfamiliar with U-Wei's previous films, my previous knowledge of him consisting only of the fact that he's the first Malaysian director to be invited to Cannes. His latest short film is some sort of a curiosity - a film about sibling rivalry set in an old colonial-style bungalow creaking with a humid Southern Gothic flavor that eventually trips into dark horror-ish lands. Static, for the most part, and elegantly understated, it uses rambutans as a sort of metaphor for the sibling's playful contempt to each other, but the metaphor seems only to serve as the center of the ending, which, I must say, is quite beautiful in an abstract and poignant way.

April 13, 2006 is the first day of the rest of your life.

2006-04-13T20:14:00.000+08:00

Not only is today the opening day for the 19th Singapore International Film Festival, it also marks the official kickoff of “I blogged, but” (a humble nod to our beloved God of cinema, Yasujiro Ozu).

“I blogged, but” is a concept movie blog which seeks to approach film writings whichever ways we see fit.

We have an eclectic mix of writers from all walks of life. Their aims in contributing their thoughts here may hence vary. For critical consensus and academic accreditation? For fame or glory? From impulse or instinct or the need to share life altering experiences? For films which are capable of conjuring up humanistic transcendence? For movies that simply put a smile on your faces? Let it be known “I blogged, but” may aim to do all of the above, or none at all.

You have been warned.

Note: To commemorate the inauguration of “I blogged, but”, writers shall attempt to provide a pooled coverage of the films to be screened at the 19th Singapore International Film Festival.

Watch this space. Thank you.