Saturday, October 18, 2003
Night & Fog
Directed by Alain Resnais
A 30 minute black and white documentary juxtaposed with colour; the black and white segments being footage of happening in WWII prisoner camps; and contrasting it with colour – depicting these deserted camps in its condition when the film was made.
Night & Fog is the name given to prisoners who are humiliated and treated like animals – their heads are shaved, clothes tagged and hands tattooed. They are shot; sent to gas chambers resembling shower warehouses; used as guinea pigs for experiments; ill prisoners are given similar medicine and left to die; dead bodies recycled into products such as soap and fuel.
The trauma of watching Night and Fog is that the footage doesn't flinch from telling us the truth. The music is often piqued ironically, with its high and shrill notes; almost to dare us to laugh. The narration is crisp, leaving the visuals for us to imagine the greater atrocities that were not captured on screen.
Even if Truffaut had exaggerated by calling it one of the greatest film to be ever made, it stands as a must watch among any WWII documentary.
In the Mood For Love
Directed by Wong Kar Wai
(review based on Criterion DVD collection)
In The Mood will probably be remembered as Wong Kar Wai’s most popular film with critics and audience.
The theme of forbidden love is portrayed within the background of 60s Hong Kong where he evokes a sense of nostalgia through a whirlwind mix of capturing the most intimate detail from narrow winding corridors to small offices and a large archaic looking clock. In an offbeat scene, Maggi Cheung who plays Mrs Chan lets her neighbour try out her new Japanese rice cooker, and everyone is so anxious that when it cooks, they rush to scoop their share.
Many critics have praised In The Mood as a beautiful love that never really bloomed. The cinematography is extra-diegetic, often shot to alert audience of their involvement as spectators; either behind a screen or through narrow corridors. Part of the reason also lies with having to film the characters in the real set which further creates a sense of claustrophobia.
The story is based on coincidences. Mrs Chan, Su Li-zhen moves in on the same day with Mr Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai). They are cordial with each other until they realize their spouses are cheating on them; and to add salt to injury, it was each other’s partner they were seeing.
Mo and Li-Zhen started seeing each other and fell in love but they could never seem to engage in the ultimate betrayal of leaving their spouse and live with each other. Mo, however soon had to leave for Singapore. He knew Li Zhen would never be able to leave her husband and hence departed gracefully.
Nothing much happens in The Mood for Love but it is hauntingly captive with the reserved acting of our two protagonist. The music adds another layer of allure exuding more charm to the already complicated yet intense underlying emotions of our characters.
There are a few extraordinarily scenes. One of them is the back to back playback when Mo and Li Zhen seems to be flirting with each other. In the first scene, Mo took the initiative. The second scene sees Li Zhen acting rather out of her character as she smiles and touched the latter suggestively. The playbacks is in contrast to the characters we have known and we thought we knew; hence acting as a standout extra-diegetic tool.
When Li-Zhen and Mo rehearse as if they were a married couple and Mo having an affair; it not only puts the notion of voyeurism back to audience consciousness; but also ridicule their situation. The concept of staying faithful to their spouse because of norms is the reason for their forbidden affair apparently. Yet this scene raises the question of what constitute betrayal if love happens; and even when they don’t act on it. By pretending as if they were rehearsing, the thorny dilemma adds another layer of surrealism.
That is probably the crux of In The Mood for Love. When Wong Kar Wai uses nostalgia to tell a love story; it becomes magic, because everything that we thought we knewa about love suddenly seemed so hazy.
Reefer Madness
Written by Eric Schlosser
This volume compiles three articles questioning the state of free market and capitalism in America.
Reefer Madness explores the issues behind marijuana use and trade; uncovers stories of injustices and sentences meted out to users or growers who are given inflated sentences.
In The Strawberry Fields depicts the harsh cruelty of strawberry farming in California and raises the issue of employing illegal immigrants who are exploited because of their status.
An Empire of the Obscene is the longest piece in this compilation as Schlosser reveals the network of American sex industry; at the same time, relating the rise and fall of porn starter and kingpin, Reuben Sturman. The article also questions the validity of cracking down on porn, which by itself, is a large industry.
Like his previous book, Fast Food Nation, Schlosser manages to induce us to question the rheotrics of societal assumptions on controversial issues such as drugs and porn. Whether you agree or disagree with him, one thing is for sure, as a journalist, he uncovers stories which we would have overlooked.
A must for those concerned with social issues.
Directed by Alain Resnais
A 30 minute black and white documentary juxtaposed with colour; the black and white segments being footage of happening in WWII prisoner camps; and contrasting it with colour – depicting these deserted camps in its condition when the film was made.
Night & Fog is the name given to prisoners who are humiliated and treated like animals – their heads are shaved, clothes tagged and hands tattooed. They are shot; sent to gas chambers resembling shower warehouses; used as guinea pigs for experiments; ill prisoners are given similar medicine and left to die; dead bodies recycled into products such as soap and fuel.
The trauma of watching Night and Fog is that the footage doesn't flinch from telling us the truth. The music is often piqued ironically, with its high and shrill notes; almost to dare us to laugh. The narration is crisp, leaving the visuals for us to imagine the greater atrocities that were not captured on screen.
Even if Truffaut had exaggerated by calling it one of the greatest film to be ever made, it stands as a must watch among any WWII documentary.
In the Mood For Love
Directed by Wong Kar Wai
(review based on Criterion DVD collection)
In The Mood will probably be remembered as Wong Kar Wai’s most popular film with critics and audience.
The theme of forbidden love is portrayed within the background of 60s Hong Kong where he evokes a sense of nostalgia through a whirlwind mix of capturing the most intimate detail from narrow winding corridors to small offices and a large archaic looking clock. In an offbeat scene, Maggi Cheung who plays Mrs Chan lets her neighbour try out her new Japanese rice cooker, and everyone is so anxious that when it cooks, they rush to scoop their share.
Many critics have praised In The Mood as a beautiful love that never really bloomed. The cinematography is extra-diegetic, often shot to alert audience of their involvement as spectators; either behind a screen or through narrow corridors. Part of the reason also lies with having to film the characters in the real set which further creates a sense of claustrophobia.
The story is based on coincidences. Mrs Chan, Su Li-zhen moves in on the same day with Mr Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai). They are cordial with each other until they realize their spouses are cheating on them; and to add salt to injury, it was each other’s partner they were seeing.
Mo and Li-Zhen started seeing each other and fell in love but they could never seem to engage in the ultimate betrayal of leaving their spouse and live with each other. Mo, however soon had to leave for Singapore. He knew Li Zhen would never be able to leave her husband and hence departed gracefully.
Nothing much happens in The Mood for Love but it is hauntingly captive with the reserved acting of our two protagonist. The music adds another layer of allure exuding more charm to the already complicated yet intense underlying emotions of our characters.
There are a few extraordinarily scenes. One of them is the back to back playback when Mo and Li Zhen seems to be flirting with each other. In the first scene, Mo took the initiative. The second scene sees Li Zhen acting rather out of her character as she smiles and touched the latter suggestively. The playbacks is in contrast to the characters we have known and we thought we knew; hence acting as a standout extra-diegetic tool.
When Li-Zhen and Mo rehearse as if they were a married couple and Mo having an affair; it not only puts the notion of voyeurism back to audience consciousness; but also ridicule their situation. The concept of staying faithful to their spouse because of norms is the reason for their forbidden affair apparently. Yet this scene raises the question of what constitute betrayal if love happens; and even when they don’t act on it. By pretending as if they were rehearsing, the thorny dilemma adds another layer of surrealism.
That is probably the crux of In The Mood for Love. When Wong Kar Wai uses nostalgia to tell a love story; it becomes magic, because everything that we thought we knewa about love suddenly seemed so hazy.
Reefer Madness
Written by Eric Schlosser
This volume compiles three articles questioning the state of free market and capitalism in America.
Reefer Madness explores the issues behind marijuana use and trade; uncovers stories of injustices and sentences meted out to users or growers who are given inflated sentences.
In The Strawberry Fields depicts the harsh cruelty of strawberry farming in California and raises the issue of employing illegal immigrants who are exploited because of their status.
An Empire of the Obscene is the longest piece in this compilation as Schlosser reveals the network of American sex industry; at the same time, relating the rise and fall of porn starter and kingpin, Reuben Sturman. The article also questions the validity of cracking down on porn, which by itself, is a large industry.
Like his previous book, Fast Food Nation, Schlosser manages to induce us to question the rheotrics of societal assumptions on controversial issues such as drugs and porn. Whether you agree or disagree with him, one thing is for sure, as a journalist, he uncovers stories which we would have overlooked.
A must for those concerned with social issues.
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Red Beard (Akahige)
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Red Beard’s fable of how a young arrogant doctor who dreams of becoming rich and successful but ends up learning something about life is a cautionary tale of humility.
Noboru Yasumoto, (Yuzo Kayama) the young doctor who learns western medical science pays an informal visit to the Koishikawa Public Clinic, run by Dr. Kyojio Niide; also known as red beard (Toshiro Mifune). Yasumoto realizes he has been duped into coming here by his father to learn the ropes. He tries to get away by refusing to obey red beard’s orders but ends up learning more about the poor.
Applauded as one of Kurosawa’s great film on humanity, Red Beard portrays poverty unflinchingly. Yasumoto first foray into the destitute is an encounter with insane patient “Mantis” (Kyoko Kagawa) who mislead him into believing that she was imprisoned by the doctors. These early first scenes set some of the most powerful disturbing moments. As Mantis relates stories of being raped, we experience the entrapment of our characters as they are physically trapped and cloistered around the room.
When Yasumoto is told to watch an old man die “with respect” we witness the horror of watching a life end through his gaze. This is immediately followed by a gruesome operation; of which he fainted. Again, the spectator witness the horror through our protagonist’s facial expression.
Red Beard rescues the young Otoyo (Terumi Niki) from the brothel who suffers from syphilis. She appears to be mad initially, feverishly scrubbing the floor (perhaps a metaphor of her desire to be cleansed of her defiled body) but later nurses Yasumoto to health. The role reversal does not just imply the fraility of doctors as humans; but also establishes our protagonist’s turning point in his outlook towards the towners.
Red Beard boasts only one hilarious fighting sequence; and remains humanist in its outlook. Even when it is not exceptionally exciting without much fighting/ chasing scenes, it retains spectator interest because the moral is so simple and wonderful to believe in.
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Red Beard’s fable of how a young arrogant doctor who dreams of becoming rich and successful but ends up learning something about life is a cautionary tale of humility.
Noboru Yasumoto, (Yuzo Kayama) the young doctor who learns western medical science pays an informal visit to the Koishikawa Public Clinic, run by Dr. Kyojio Niide; also known as red beard (Toshiro Mifune). Yasumoto realizes he has been duped into coming here by his father to learn the ropes. He tries to get away by refusing to obey red beard’s orders but ends up learning more about the poor.
Applauded as one of Kurosawa’s great film on humanity, Red Beard portrays poverty unflinchingly. Yasumoto first foray into the destitute is an encounter with insane patient “Mantis” (Kyoko Kagawa) who mislead him into believing that she was imprisoned by the doctors. These early first scenes set some of the most powerful disturbing moments. As Mantis relates stories of being raped, we experience the entrapment of our characters as they are physically trapped and cloistered around the room.
When Yasumoto is told to watch an old man die “with respect” we witness the horror of watching a life end through his gaze. This is immediately followed by a gruesome operation; of which he fainted. Again, the spectator witness the horror through our protagonist’s facial expression.
Red Beard rescues the young Otoyo (Terumi Niki) from the brothel who suffers from syphilis. She appears to be mad initially, feverishly scrubbing the floor (perhaps a metaphor of her desire to be cleansed of her defiled body) but later nurses Yasumoto to health. The role reversal does not just imply the fraility of doctors as humans; but also establishes our protagonist’s turning point in his outlook towards the towners.
Red Beard boasts only one hilarious fighting sequence; and remains humanist in its outlook. Even when it is not exceptionally exciting without much fighting/ chasing scenes, it retains spectator interest because the moral is so simple and wonderful to believe in.
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
YI YI
Directed by Edward Yang
Yi Yi resonates with heartfelt warm and humor, a likeable film that captures the inner emotions of individuals and their relationships with family and friends. Instead of using close shots and magnifying facial expressions to dramatize, Yang places his characters within the context of a background; and shooting them as distant as possible. The effect is not one of creating spectator distanciation, unease, or even irony. Its an uncanny emphasis, reflecting the possibility of openness in interpretation within Yi Yi and films in general.
YI YI begins with a marriage, considered in Chinese tradition as one of the most important event in an individual’s life. Ah Di (Chen Xisheng) is marrying pregnant Xiao Yan (Xiao Shushen) but their ceremony is foiled by the appearance of Yun Yun (Zeng Xinyi) who thinks she should be the lucky one.
Grandma (Tang Ruyun) who had an upset Yun Yun crying and kneeling on her feet over her, soon went into a coma. Even though we do not get to see Grandma’s behaviour, her presence as a vegetable throughout the movie is always felt. She remains the person her family members confide even though she was in a deep sleep.
The fall of the matriarch signifies the crumbling of the family for she was implicitly the symbol for the support. Soon, everyone else in the family started questioning their lives.
Min Min (Elaine Jin), her daughter, realises she is living in a “blank” and worried that she will end up like her mother. NJ Jian (Wu Nienjen), the husband of Min Min and breadwinner of family not only has work problems to contend with; but also faces the probability of a love rekindled when he met ex lover, sweetheart, Sherry (Ke Suyun). His daughter, Ting-Ting, (Kelly Lee) dates her close friend’s beau, Fatty (Yupang Chang) while Ah Di slumbers into financial difficulty.
Even though the entire film stretches close to 3 hours, YI YI remains captivating for very simple reasons.
Yang’s lingering shots, instead of creating boredom or tension, are Tarvoskyesque, in the sense that they create a classicism effect of stark emotional beauty. An example: When Fatty and Ting Ting hugs each other amidst a busy noisy road, we feel their desperation and helplessness. This is in contrast to another scene where they plan to have sex in a hotel room. While both instances adopt long shots, the violence is always underplaying within the appearance of subtle dramatism. It is only later when Fatty commits a crime that we comprehend that a more complex human unconsciousness is constantly at work.
Their adolescent love affair parallels NJ’s difficulties coming to terms with his difficult past; Sherry, whom he stood up years ago, still in love with him, but now married to a rich insurance agent. Yang intercuts the scenes between the two couples to align the theme of love and alienation.
Humor keeps YI YI realistically painful. Fatty tells Ting Ting after watching a movie that movies are replays of life, as it contains both tragedy and humor. He believes that movies allows people to “experience” life three times because they are given the chance to see lives of others, lives of their own, as well as feel with their characters – of what they could not have possibly done in their own lives.
Yang Yang (Jonathan Chang) who is the butt of female taunts or a curious kid who asks questions adults are hardly able to answer, represents innocence and purity. Yet, like other characters in Yi Yi, he undergoes changes when he develops a crush on the girl who played cruel jokes on him. Note the scene where he sees her as a shadow against the backdrop of a documentary on the formation of rain. It was that scene which probably indicates his growing interest with the opposite sex. He will follow her to the pool and learns to breathe underwater, perhaps to get closer to her. Yang Yang does not mention his feelings but like adults, he will soon acquire the language.
Of particular interest is YI YI’s significance as a film on the meditation of Asian traditional values faced with the onslaught of modernism and globalisation – Yang Yang preferring Macdonald burgers to Chinese wedding dinner food; Ah Di’s shotgun wedding, Ting Ting’s close friend’s mother’s adulterous affairs e.t.c.
YI YI closes with Granny’s death and Yang Yang breaks his silence, offering more profound views that can be expected of a boy his age; that he strive to find out where she has gone to.
Death, is an important event in Chinese tradition; and Yang chooses to close his film with it. The closing sequence not only contrasts with the festive opening (and a baby shower in the middle) reflecting filmmaker’s preoccupation with ceremonies as opportunities for social gatherings, paroxysms, and introspection.
It is unlikely that Yang intends to highlight the discrepancy between traditional and contemporaneous values. He merely portrays and recreates changing societal impact upon families and individuals. The result is one of vulnerable pessimistic rootlessness and emptiness.
Truffaut
Written by Antoine do Baecque, Serge Toubiana
Fans of Truffaut rejoice. This is the book to read if you want to know everything about him, including excerpts from his most personal letters.
Though, even if you do not love Truffaut, you could still read this book and weep with one of French New Wave’s leading directors; who was born an illegitimate child and felt stunted by the lack of love from his mother.
Truffaut drew inspiration from novels; reads Balazc, criticizes French cinema; promotes the idea of auteur with guidance from Andre Bazin, a surrogate father figure; and is a prolific director who constantly makes films that alternates between critical and box office success and failures.
Reading Truffuat, also helps one understand how he made his movies; and under what circumstances. This is what Truffaut fans should read.
Directed by Edward Yang
Yi Yi resonates with heartfelt warm and humor, a likeable film that captures the inner emotions of individuals and their relationships with family and friends. Instead of using close shots and magnifying facial expressions to dramatize, Yang places his characters within the context of a background; and shooting them as distant as possible. The effect is not one of creating spectator distanciation, unease, or even irony. Its an uncanny emphasis, reflecting the possibility of openness in interpretation within Yi Yi and films in general.
YI YI begins with a marriage, considered in Chinese tradition as one of the most important event in an individual’s life. Ah Di (Chen Xisheng) is marrying pregnant Xiao Yan (Xiao Shushen) but their ceremony is foiled by the appearance of Yun Yun (Zeng Xinyi) who thinks she should be the lucky one.
Grandma (Tang Ruyun) who had an upset Yun Yun crying and kneeling on her feet over her, soon went into a coma. Even though we do not get to see Grandma’s behaviour, her presence as a vegetable throughout the movie is always felt. She remains the person her family members confide even though she was in a deep sleep.
The fall of the matriarch signifies the crumbling of the family for she was implicitly the symbol for the support. Soon, everyone else in the family started questioning their lives.
Min Min (Elaine Jin), her daughter, realises she is living in a “blank” and worried that she will end up like her mother. NJ Jian (Wu Nienjen), the husband of Min Min and breadwinner of family not only has work problems to contend with; but also faces the probability of a love rekindled when he met ex lover, sweetheart, Sherry (Ke Suyun). His daughter, Ting-Ting, (Kelly Lee) dates her close friend’s beau, Fatty (Yupang Chang) while Ah Di slumbers into financial difficulty.
Even though the entire film stretches close to 3 hours, YI YI remains captivating for very simple reasons.
Yang’s lingering shots, instead of creating boredom or tension, are Tarvoskyesque, in the sense that they create a classicism effect of stark emotional beauty. An example: When Fatty and Ting Ting hugs each other amidst a busy noisy road, we feel their desperation and helplessness. This is in contrast to another scene where they plan to have sex in a hotel room. While both instances adopt long shots, the violence is always underplaying within the appearance of subtle dramatism. It is only later when Fatty commits a crime that we comprehend that a more complex human unconsciousness is constantly at work.
Their adolescent love affair parallels NJ’s difficulties coming to terms with his difficult past; Sherry, whom he stood up years ago, still in love with him, but now married to a rich insurance agent. Yang intercuts the scenes between the two couples to align the theme of love and alienation.
Humor keeps YI YI realistically painful. Fatty tells Ting Ting after watching a movie that movies are replays of life, as it contains both tragedy and humor. He believes that movies allows people to “experience” life three times because they are given the chance to see lives of others, lives of their own, as well as feel with their characters – of what they could not have possibly done in their own lives.
Yang Yang (Jonathan Chang) who is the butt of female taunts or a curious kid who asks questions adults are hardly able to answer, represents innocence and purity. Yet, like other characters in Yi Yi, he undergoes changes when he develops a crush on the girl who played cruel jokes on him. Note the scene where he sees her as a shadow against the backdrop of a documentary on the formation of rain. It was that scene which probably indicates his growing interest with the opposite sex. He will follow her to the pool and learns to breathe underwater, perhaps to get closer to her. Yang Yang does not mention his feelings but like adults, he will soon acquire the language.
Of particular interest is YI YI’s significance as a film on the meditation of Asian traditional values faced with the onslaught of modernism and globalisation – Yang Yang preferring Macdonald burgers to Chinese wedding dinner food; Ah Di’s shotgun wedding, Ting Ting’s close friend’s mother’s adulterous affairs e.t.c.
YI YI closes with Granny’s death and Yang Yang breaks his silence, offering more profound views that can be expected of a boy his age; that he strive to find out where she has gone to.
Death, is an important event in Chinese tradition; and Yang chooses to close his film with it. The closing sequence not only contrasts with the festive opening (and a baby shower in the middle) reflecting filmmaker’s preoccupation with ceremonies as opportunities for social gatherings, paroxysms, and introspection.
It is unlikely that Yang intends to highlight the discrepancy between traditional and contemporaneous values. He merely portrays and recreates changing societal impact upon families and individuals. The result is one of vulnerable pessimistic rootlessness and emptiness.
Truffaut
Written by Antoine do Baecque, Serge Toubiana
Fans of Truffaut rejoice. This is the book to read if you want to know everything about him, including excerpts from his most personal letters.
Though, even if you do not love Truffaut, you could still read this book and weep with one of French New Wave’s leading directors; who was born an illegitimate child and felt stunted by the lack of love from his mother.
Truffaut drew inspiration from novels; reads Balazc, criticizes French cinema; promotes the idea of auteur with guidance from Andre Bazin, a surrogate father figure; and is a prolific director who constantly makes films that alternates between critical and box office success and failures.
Reading Truffuat, also helps one understand how he made his movies; and under what circumstances. This is what Truffaut fans should read.
