The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Zhang Yimou, "Red Sorghum" (1987)

Red Sorghum (Hong gao liang). 1987. Directed by Zhang Yimou. Written by Chen Jianyu, Zhu Wei, and Mo Yan, based on the novel "Red Sorghum Clan" by Mo Yan. Produced by Wu Tian-ming. Cinematography by Gu Changwei. Music by Zhao Jiping. Art direction by Yang Gang.

Cast: Gong Li (Jiu'er), Jiang Wen (Yu), Liu Ji (Father), Teng Ru-jun (Luohan), Ji Cun-hua (Sanpao).


Adapted from a section of Red Sorghum Clan, a multi-volume novel by Mo Yan, this year’s recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature, Zhang Yimou’s 1987 film Red Sorghum put the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers solidly on the world cinema map. (Remarkably, this was a fast book-to-film adaptation; both the novel and the film version were released in the same year.) Winning the Golden Bear at the 1988 Berlin International Film Festival, Red Sorghum was an auspicious debut for both cinematographer-turned-director Zhang and its young lead actress Gong Li. Zhang would go on to make more accomplished films, and Gong would grow more into the luminous beauty she is today, but Red Sorghum shows that they were beginning from an already elevated level.

Red Sorghum is set in the 1920s and 1930s in Shandong, a northeastern province of China. This is immediately set up as a memory piece, through the voiceover of a man who tells us that what we are seeing will show how his grandparents met and how his father was conceived. The unnamed and unseen narrator’s grandmother is Jiu’er (Gong Li), or “Nine,” whom we first see getting ready to be taken by a palanquin to her new husband, a leprous older wine merchant named Li Datou. This is an arranged marriage set up by her parents, and one she is an unwilling participant in. As the title indicates, red is an important and dominant color in the film, and this is the color of the interior of the sedan, as well as the color of the veil placed over Jiu’er’s head during the trip.

The narrator tells us that his grandfather is Yu (Jiang Wen), one of the men hired to carry Jiu’er to her husband. In a sequence that introduces the earthy bawdiness of this tale, Yu leads the rest of the muscular, shirtless men in a song that attempts to get a rise out of the impassive Jiu’er, as they tease her about her marriage, and jostle the car violently about as they sing. Jiu’er’s sobs and impending motion sickness eventually get them to stop. The travelers are soon waylaid by a bandit who tries to rob them and rape Jiu’er. Jiu’er, who has been exchanging surreptitious glances at Yu through the whole trip, throws bold glances at him as she is ordered out of the car by the bandit, wordlessly challenging him to save her. Yu rises to the occasion, overpowering the bandit with the help of the other men. Later in the film, after Jiu’er has been living at the winery for some time, Yu, wearing a bandit’s mask, abducts Jiu’er on her way home from a visit to her parents, and in a scene with intimations of rape (although Jiu’er doesn’t seem to be unwilling), he proceeds to have sex with her in a Sorghum field. This, the narrator tells us, is where his father was conceived.

Jiu’er, despite being forced into marriage, and twice carried by men in their arms like a potato sack, is no mere passive victim. She is a headstrong, argumentative woman, who at one point condemns her father for essentially selling her to an older man in exchange for a new mule. After Li Datong is murdered offscreen under mysterious circumstances (the narrator suspects his grandfather, though we never learn who did it), Jiu’er takes over the winery, and in contrast to their previous dictatorial owner, runs it as a collective with the workers as equal partners with her. This puts Red Sorghum solidly on good footing with Communist ideology, as the proletariat defeats evil capitalism, at least for a time. Yu drunkenly returns to proclaim himself Jiu’er’s new husband; though she throws him out at first, he is later able to claim his prize, after peeing in the vats of wine, which (in an example of the film’s bawdy and absurd humor) improves the flavor of the wine, and contributes to the great success of the winery.

Red Sorghum takes a dramatic shift from the humorous, almost fairy-tale quality of the earlier sections, to a much more violent and tragic tone, as the Japanese invade China, destroying the winery in the process. This shift is abrupt and awkwardly handled, highlighting the narrative weaknesses of the film. The Japanese are portrayed as violent and sadistic oppressors, punishing men by having them hanged and skinned alive like animals, and forcing the Chinese to do this to their own. Jiu’er and Yu lead an attempt to fight back against the Japanese, which sets the stage for the tragic ending to the film.

Red Sorghum has been justly celebrated for its visual quality; Zhang’s experience as a cinematographer makes sure that the film is no less than ravishing in its sensual use of color. For this film, Zhang employed Gu Changwei, another talented cinematographer who went on to become a remarkable director himself. The natural beauty of the landscape, the nearly documentary-like details of the wine production, and the full use of the symbolism of the color red – blood, the Japanese flag, the final red-drenched closing scenes – all of this makes Red Sorghum a veritable feast for the eyes.

The performances in the film are just as riveting as the visuals. Gong Li, though she would make a greater impression in later films by Zhang and others, is already in full command of the screen, a master of the portentous glance and sensual expression. Her ecstatic expression as she is seduced by Yu is one of the film’s most memorable shots. Jiang Wen as Yu wonderfully conveys the brutal animal-like nature of his character, although he is not portrayed as an evil person, and indeed displays heroic qualities throughout the film.

Red Sorghum screens at Asia Society, on 35 millimeter, on December 2, 4pm as part of the impressive film series “Goddess: Chinese Women on Screen,” which runs through December 8. For more information, visit Asia Society’s website.

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Asghar Farhadi, "About Elly" (2009)

About Elly (Darbareye Elly). 2009. Written, directed, production and costume design by Asghar Farhadi. Cinematography by Hossein Jafarian. Edited by Hayedeh Safarian. Sound by Hassan Zahedi and Mohammad-Reza Delpak.

Cast: Golshifteh Farahani (Sepideh), Taraneh Alidoosti (Elly), Shahab Hosseini (Ahmad), Mani Haghighi (Amir), Merila Zarei (Shohreh), Peiman Ma'adi (Peyman), Ahmad Mehranfar (Manouchehr), Rana Azadivar (Nazzie), Saber Abar (Ali-Reza).

About Elly is a psychologically penetrating film in which a woman’s disappearance gives rise to all sorts of complex issues of morality (both within an Iranian context and without), and questions of culpability and responsibility for tragedy.  The film ever so subtly switches gears from an observational and lightly comic portrait of Iranian middle-class life to a much darker morality play, and astutely demonstrates how both of these modes can be two sides of the same coin.  The story begins innocently and benignly enough, as a group of university friends from Tehran go for a vacation at a beach house near the Caspian Sea, where they engage in various sorts of horseplay, games of charade, volleyball, and other activities, taking advantage of the holiday to shake off the constrictions of their workaday lives.  The group consists of a couple of married couples and their kids, as well as the title character, Elly (Taraneh Alidousti), a shy kindergarten teacher and an outsider to the group who is reluctantly dragged there by her friend Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani), whose child is in Elly’s class.  Beneath the surface of this deceptively idyllic situation lies deceptions and secret personal agendas, beginning with Sepideh’s true purpose in bringing Elly on this trip: to set her up with Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini), a divorcee living in Germany who is now in Iran on a short visit, and in the market for a new wife.  When the rest of the group catches wind of Sepideh’s attempts at matchmaking, they join in on trying to bring the two together.  Elly resists, for reasons that are revealed only much later.

Farhadi proves to be quite adept at carefully controlling the tone of his film, and by so slowly and patiently setting up the situation and the complex nexus of relationships between the characters, he succeeds in deceiving the viewer as well, lulling us into the notion that this film will continue in this comic mode.  However, about 45 minutes or so into the film, the mood abruptly shifts gears when one of the children is swept out to sea while playing on the beach.  The child is eventually rescued, but an even more serious situation arises when Elly, who had been watching the children, herself goes missing.  At this point, the web of deceit tightens on all of the film’s characters, as all the lies, casual and serious, necessary and unnecessary, come back to haunt them, and the consequences of these lies are unforgiving.  Although some of the deceptions arise from particular proprieties necessary in Iranian society (for example, introducing Ahmad and Elly to the old woman who rents them the beach house as newlyweds), others are much more problematic and in many cases a function of serious breaches of ethics, committed in an attempt to save face or avoid problems with the police.  The brilliance of Farhadi’s script and direction (he won the Silver Bear for best director at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival) becomes most apparent in the later stages of the film, as he deftly maps out the shifts in the perceptions and behavior of the characters toward each other (as well as the viewer’s perception of the characters), as one secret after another is revealed.  Farhadi’s cast is uniformly excellent, especially Farahani, who compellingly registers Sepideh’s shock at how her seemingly innocent matchmaking has taken such a tragic turn, as well as the way her character, like others in the film, is revealed to not be what it initially appears.

About Elly screens on April 6 at 8:30pm, April 7 at 6:45pm, and April 8 at 1:30 at the Walter Reade Theater as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center's retrospective "Asghar Farhadi's Iran." Click here to purchase tickets.

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Bela Tarr, "The Outsider" (1981)

The Outsider (Szabadgyalog). 1981. Written and directed by Bela Tarr. Cinematography by Ferenc Pap and Barna Mihok. Edited by Agnes Hranitzky. Music by Andras Szabo. Sound by Bela Prohaszka.

Cast: Andras Szabo (Andras), Jolan Fodor (Kata), Imre Donko (Csotesz), Istvan Bolla (Balazs).

Bela Tarr’s second feature The Outsider, which recently screened as part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Tarr retrospective “The Last Modernist,” right at the outset sets up a juxtaposition of scenes that clearly sets out the filmmaker’s stance on the state of contemporary Hungarian society.  The film’s protagonist Andras (Andras Szabo), who we first see playing violin for the patients at the mental hospital where he works, gets into a vicious fight with a patient who refuses an injection he is trying to give him.  In the next scene in a bar (where Andras spends most of his free time, given his proclivity for drinking), a man resists being tossed for refusing to pay for his drinks.  In other words, there is no difference between “normal” society and a mental institution, at least in the world of The Outsider.  Andras struggles to cope with the difficulties of existing in this world, and resists, just as strenuously as the mental patient and the deadbeat bar patron, becoming a conventional, “responsible” member of society.  From the many lengthy conversations that make up much of this film, details about Andras’ life emerge: initially a promising musical talent, he was thrown out of conservatory training, and has spent his life working many different jobs, including his nursing work at the mental hospital.  He loses this job, as well as most of the others, due to his drinking.  Andras, true to the film’s title, cannot fit in either the artistic world or the working world, and he makes as much of a mess of his relationships with women as he does with his jobs.  He insists on paying child support for a woman whose child is probably not his, which puts a strain on his relationship with Kata (Jolan Fodor), another woman he takes up with afterward.  One of the film’s best scenes occurs in a nightclub where Andras is working as a DJ, when he has an argument with Kata, and where they scream at each other over the ear-splitting volume of the dance music.  The sonic wall preventing the two from hearing each other reflects the wall Andras has put around himself, an ultimately futile attempt at insulation from the demands that society insists he conform to.

The style of The Outsider will be a bit of a surprise to those more familiar with Tarr’s later works, beginning from Damnation (1988), to his latest and reportedly last film The Turin Horse (which is currently playing at the Elinor Bunin Monroe Film Center at Lincoln Center).  In contrast to the deliberately paced, somber black-and-white films with hypnotically long takes and incantatory repetition (especially in the case of The Turin Horse), The Outsider has a documentary-like, self-consciously “realist” style that has been compared to the films of John Cassavetes.  The rough-and-ready chaotic camera framings, while not as elegant as Tarr’s later works, does effectively convey the working-class struggles depicted in the film, which has potent affinities to other similar kinds of films being made in Eastern Europe at the time.  Tarr’s early films, despite their stylistic differences with later ones, show that Tarr consistently had an intense focus on how human beings struggle to interact with and understand the environments they find themselves in.

Here's a musical scene from The Outsider:

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Tsai Ming-liang, "The Hole" (1998)

The Hole (Dong). 1998. Directed by Tsai Ming-liang. Written by Yang Ping-ying and Tsai Ming-liang. Produced by Cheng Su-ming, Chiu Shun-ching and Pierre Chevalier. Cinematography by Liao Peng-jung. Edited by Hsiao Ju-kuan. Art direction by Lee Pao-lin. Choreography by Joy Lo. Sound by Yang Ching-an.

Cast: Yang Kuei-mei (The woman downstairs), Lee Kang-sheng (The man upstairs), Miao Tien (a shopper), Tong Hsiang-chu (the plumber), Lin Hui-chin (a neighbor), Lin Kun-huei (the child), Chen Shiang-chyi, Dephne Han, Wei Bo-chin, Jacques Picoux, Yee Chih-yen, Lu Hsiao-lin (Narrators).

One of the most interesting things about Tsai Ming-liang’s filmmaking career, considering what an inimitable and uncompromising artist he is, is the fact that three of the nine features he has directed to date have been commissioned projects. This is true of his two most recent films. I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone (2006), Tsai’s first film to be set in Malaysia, the country of his birth, was commissioned by Peter Sellars to be part of the New Crowned Hope Festival, a celebration in Vienna to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. Tsai’s latest, Face, was commissioned by the Louvre museum, as the initial installment of its “Louvre Invites Filmmakers” program; this film, as Tsai remarked during a discussion after its screening this past Sunday at Asia Society, will play in the museum for a year.

Tsai’s first commissioned film was The Hole, which was part of French production company Haut et Court and television station La Sept Arte’s series “2000 Seen By …,” a collection of eight films imagining the upcoming end of the millennium. The Hole has a vaguely science-fiction premise: Taipei has been struck by a mysterious virus called the “Taiwan Virus” which has as its symptoms bizarre behavior by those stricken with “Taiwan Fever,” which turns its victims into human cockroaches who crawl on the floor scurrying into dark places, hiding from the light. But as is typical for Tsai, he refuses to conform to any of the hallmarks of films like this. The premise is set up at the beginning of the film where, over a black screen with no images, we hear news reports and interviewees describing this situation. The Taiwan government has issued an evacuation order to the cities infected with the virus, and will cut off the water supply to those who remain; garbage collection has already been halted – in the apartment building where the film has set, residents routinely drop their garbage out of their windows. The film begins one week before the end of the millennium; the government has stipulated that on January 1, 2000, water will be cut off. Many of the voices we hear take the government to task for their inadequate response to this crisis. “They didn’t try to protect us,” says one. “To hell with our government!” says another.

The Hole focuses on two apartment dwellers who refuse to heed the evacuation call: a woman (Yang Kuei-mei) plagued by the constant leaks who obsessively hoards toilet paper and tissues; and her upstairs neighbor (Lee Kang-sheng), who goes to work every morning to the convenience store he runs, although he has no customers. The separation between these two lonely souls is breached one day when a plumber visits the man’s apartment to investigate a leak that the woman downstairs has been complaining about, and leaves a gaping hole in the floor, never to return. The rest of the film concerns itself with the consequences of the plumber’s action, which forces a connection between these two people who have probably never spoken to one another before this event. This hole has all the connotations one would expect, including sexual ones (which is made explicit in one scene in which the man sticks his leg into the hole). This hole is also a portal to a fantasy world, which contains the musical sequences that are the heart of the film. Tsai assiduously eschewed non-diegetic music in his two previous films; in The Hole, he breaks this trend in the most glorious way, with five charming and dynamic musical sequences, all featuring the songs of Grace Chang, a popular songstress of the 50’s and 60’s beloved in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. Although these sequences are influenced by Hollywood and Hong Kong classic musicals, they are much more earthbound, especially in their environments, which are in various areas of this very old, run-down apartment building with leaky, peeling walls. It’s as if the imaginations of the characters in this film are so restricted and limiting that even in fantasy, they cannot truly escape their depressing milieu. Also, it is unclear who these fantasies belong to: the woman downstairs, the man upstairs, or the collective unconscious of the building itself? Tsai provides very witty and humorous transitions in and out of the musical sequences: the first number, “Calypso,” featuring Yang Kuei-mei dancing in an elevator, is preceded by a shot of the hole, with cockroaches crawling out of it; after it ends, we cut to Lee Kang-sheng sprawled out, drunk, in the elevator.

The Hole, despite the pre-millennium tension that permeates it, and the familiar crying and despair that exists in its world, is Tsai’s most light-hearted and hopeful film. And although Tsai would disagree, a shaft of light suggesting a passage to heaven, a proffered glass of water, an outstretched hand, and a final love song from Grace Chang, all lead to what is as close to a happy ending as you’ll find in Tsai Ming-liang’s oeuvre.

The Hole screens at Asia Society on November 21, 3pm as part the series “Faces of Tsai Ming-liang.” Click here to purchase tickets.

Yang Kuei-mei performing "Calypso" from The Hole:

Grace Chang performing "Calypso" from the film Air Hostess (Wen Yi, 1959):

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Tsai Ming-liang, "Rebels of the Neon God" (1992)

Rebels of the Neon God (Qing shao nian nuo zha). 1992. Written and directed by Tsai Ming-liang. Produced by Hsu Li-kong. Cinematography by Liao Pen-jung. Edited by Wang Chi Yang. Music by Huang Shu-jun.

Cast: Lee Kang-sheng (Hsiao-kang), Chen Chao-jung (Ah-tse), Jen Chang-bin (Ah-ping), Wang Yu-wen (Ah-kuei), Miao Tien (Father), Lu Hsiao-ling (Mother).

One major element of Tsai Ming-liang’s films, remarked on by many commentators, is water; Tsai’s films are practically drenched with it. Water, in all its forms, courses through the films; in rainstorms, bottled water, toilets, flooding, bathtubs, and tears. It is omnipresent, yet mysterious and often menacing. It doesn’t give up its secrets easily, or at all. In this way, the water in Tsai’s films is very much like the characters in them, who do many things, often in silence, that are as mysterious and inexplicable to us as to themselves. In Tsai’s first feature, Rebels of the Neon God, by far the most conventional (relatively speaking) of his nine features to date, many of the characteristics that are unique to his films can be found, despite a repetitive musical theme and a jarringly over-romanticized “let’s blow this town!” ending (both imposed on him by his producer, and thoroughly cleansed [washed?] away in his subsequent films).

Rebels of the Neon God marks the first screen appearance of Lee Kang-sheng, who has appeared in all of Tsai’s features, and usually functions as the brooding, melancholic matinee idol at its center. (A scene in Rebels in which Lee’s character contemplates a poster of James Dean, cements this status in his films.) Although this was Lee’s first theatrical film, it wasn’t his first collaboration with Tsai; he appeared in two of Tsai’s television films, All the Corners of the World and Boys. But Rebels offered Lee the first real showcase of the qualities that make him so magnetic and mesmerizing in the context of Tsai’s films. In the very first scene in which he appears, his character, Hsiao-kang (the name he is usually given in Tsai’s films, a variation on Lee’s own name) rocks back and forth listlessly, watching the rainstorm outside his window, paying no attention whatsoever to his studies, which he will soon end. Noticing a cockroach crawling near him, he picks it up and spears it with his protractor. He then throws the wounded insect out of the window; soon after, another bug (or perhaps the same one) appears outside the window. Hsiao-kang hits the window to make it go away, but breaks the window and cuts his hand. As he scurries to the bathroom, his overly doting mother (Lu Hsiao-ling) and his perpetually angry father (Miao Tien) rush over. “Don’t you have anything better to do with yourself?” his mother asks in exasperation. As it turns out, the answer is no, not really. All of Hsiao-kang’s subsequent actions come from the same inchoate impulse to hurt and inflict harm on others, much as he does to the poor cockroach that has the misfortune to cross his path. Later in the film, he graduates to inflicting harm – not directly, but by proxy – to a human being. Hsiao-kang’s mother believes she has an explanation for his nature; he is the reincarnation of the god Nezha, who was also unruly and hated his father. Hsiao-kang’s father thinks his wife is simply nuts, and sees his son as an unredeemable bad seed; and indeed, Hsiao-kang does very little to prove his father wrong.

Hsiao-kang’s story parallels that of another aimless youth, Ah-tse (Chen Chao-jung) who lives with his brother Ah-ping (Jen Chang-bin) in an apartment invaded and menaced by water; the floor is constantly flooded because of the stopped-up drain on the ground. Tsai finds some unlikely visual poetry in the image of slippers, cigarette butts, and crushed beer cans drifting lazily along the apartment floor. Ah-tse and Ah-ping spend many nights as petty thieves, robbing payphones of coins and arcade games of their motherboards, to fund playing video games and hanging out at bars and roller rinks. One night, Ah-ping brings home Ah-kuei (Wang Yu-wen), a comely girl who works the counter at the roller rink, and whose uniform is a blouse and the shortest skirt or pair of shorts she can find to wear. Ah-tse masturbates to the very loud noises of Ah-ping and Ah-kuei having sex, incidentally echoing a key scene in Tsai’s next feature, Vive L’Amour. Later in the film, Ah-ping proposes sharing Ah-kuei with his brother. The three of them eventually spend their nights getting drunk and riding their scooters. Besides the water, an important constant of Tsai’s films are motorbikes, usually driven by the male characters. This is an instantly iconic image, and one that many filmmakers have used to portray the free-spiritedness of youth. In Tsai’s hands, this image is complicated, and indeed subverted, and this vehicle becomes an illusion of freedom, a mode of travel that leads nowhere, only to never-ending circles of confinement, speeding furiously yet going nowhere. It’s not that big a leap to consider this to be Tsai’s metaphor for the larger Taiwanese society itself.

The film hinges on a thoughtless act by Ah-tse – smashing the rearview mirror of the cab Hsiao-kang’s father drives, with his son beside him – that turns out to have very severe consequences. Hsiao-kang inverts the dynamic of the god that is his forebear, exacting a disproportionate revenge on the harm done to his father by attacking Ah-tse’s beloved scooter, effectively emasculating him. This comes after Hsiao-kang, now out of school, spends days and nights stalking Ah-tse and his friends, for reasons that are not clearly defined – is it homosexual longing, a theme that will come to the fore in Tsai’s later features? Or is it jealousy of Ah-tse’s apparent freedom from the strictures of parents and school that imprison Hsiao-kang? Tsai doesn’t tell us, and certainly his characters won’t, even though there is much more dialogue in Rebels than his other films. As always, Tsai leaves it to the viewer to judge what it all means.

Tsai’s original script ended with the destruction of Ah-tse’s scooter. Tsai’s producer at the time, Hsu Li-kong, insisted that the film would be too short, and came up with the tacked-on, clichéd ending that, along with the film’s score, more than ever seems a travesty perpetrated on Tsai’s film. Thereafter, Tsai worked with foreign producers, mostly French, who provided him the freedom to pursue his creative visions unfettered (Tsai had, and continues to have, a very antagonistic relationship with the Taiwan film industry). His next film, Vive L’Amour, gave Tsai his first opportunity to present his inimitable style in its purest form, unencumbered by commercial constraints. And, over the course of nine films, he hasn’t looked back since.

Rebels of the Neon God screens at Asia Society on November 13 at 6:45pm as part of the series “Faces of Tsai Ming-Liang,” a mini-retrospective that also includes Vive L’Amour (Nov. 17, 6:45pm), The Hole (Nov. 21, 3pm), What Time Is It There? (Nov. 21, 5pm), and a preview screening of his new film Face (Nov. 15, 2pm), followed by Q&A with Tsai Ming-liang and Lee Kang-sheng. The screening of Face is sold out, but there will be a standby line.

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Frederick Wiseman, "La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet" (2009)

La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet. 2009. Directed by Frederick Wiseman. Produced by Pierre-Oliver Bardet, Frederick Wiseman and Francoise Gazio. Cinematography by John Davey. Edited by Frederick Wiseman and Valerie Pico. Sound by Frederick Wiseman.

Documentarian Frederick Wiseman’s latest film, La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet, is a typically rigorous institutional examination, this time of the famed Paris Opera Ballet, getting up close and personal behind the scenes, observing rehearsals, administrative meetings, and many other minutiae of the day-to-day activities of this venerable institution. There is nothing especially earth-shattering or revealing that happens during the course of this film; the closest we get is a meeting with the dance troupe and the ballet’s artistic director about changes in retirement and pension policy that the French government is considering. Neither does this film break with Wiseman’s tried-and-true methods of filmmaking: fly-on-the-wall observation, eschewing interviews with subjects, soundtrack music, or onscreen identification of the subjects. Wiseman holds true with the cinema vérité techniques he has been practicing since Titicut Follies, his 1967 debut. He is less interested in personalities and drama than in process, procedure, and daily institutional life. This film focuses on lengthy, unhurried (La Danse clocks in at 158 minutes) and thorough observation of all the workers at the opera, from the dancers, choreographers, and administrative personnel, down to the cafeteria workers and janitors. Wiseman even gives us some shots of the basement and sewers underneath the opera house, as if to show us just how complete his document of this building is.

The heart of the film is the lengthy rehearsals of the opera repertory shows. These lithe, wiry dancers painstakingly perfect their movements, and under their trainers, refine everything down to the very smallest detail. And while the repetitive scenes of this process can at times be a bit wearying, it is still fascinating to watch, all of it happening at an intimate level that very few of us are privileged to witness in person. Behind the scenes, there are some telling moments that impress upon us the extreme physical demands ballet puts on a person’s body. One older dancer relates to the festival director her concerns that she is being scheduled for too many performances that will tax her physical abilities. “I’m not 25 anymore,” the dancer opines. This scene contrasts with another near the conclusion, in which a young, fresh-faced newcomer to the company gets advice from the festival director. “Don’t be afraid,” the director advises her.

All in all, La Dance: The Paris Opera Ballet is an interesting (if overlong) and worthy addition to Wiseman’s impressive body of work. It screens at Film Forum from November 4 through November 17; Wiseman will appear in person at the 8:30 screening on November 4. Click here to purchase tickets.

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Peter Greenaway, "Rembrandt's J'Accuse" (2008)

Rembrandt's J'Accuse. 2008. Written and directed by Peter Greenaway. Produced by Femke Wolting, Bruno Felix, and Kees Kasander. Cinematography by Reinier van Brummelen. Edited by Elmer Leupen. Music by Giovanni Sollima and Marco Robino. Production designed by Maarten Piersma. Costume design by Marrit van der Burgt. Sound by Bram Boers.

Cast: Peter Greenaway (Himself), Martin Freeman (Rembrandt van Rijn), Eva Birthistle (Saskia Uylenburgh), Jodhi May (Geertje), Emily Holmes (Hendrickje Stoeffels), Jonathan Holmes (Ferdinand Bol), Michael Teigen (Carel Fabritius), Natalie Press (Marieke).

Peter Greenaway’s new film, Rembrandt’s J’Accuse, in which he subjects Rembrandt’s famous 1642 painting The Night Watch to intense forensic, visual, and historical analysis, is one of Greenaway’s very best films, and certainly his best in well over a decade. I have been greatly disappointed by most of Greenaway’s recent output, for example The Tulse Luper Suitcases, in which Greenaway puts into practice his long-standing theories about what he sees as cinema’s currently impoverished state, which he sees as essentially illustrated literature, and how Western culture is text-based instead of visually-based, leading to what he sees as a woeful lack of visual literacy in the public at large. (Early on in Rembrandt’s J’Accuse, Greenaway gives voice on screen to these opinions once more, in the scolding, schoolmarmish tone that is probably his most off-putting and least attractive quality.) Greenaway’s recent films have become increasingly impenetrable and hermetic, seemingly made only for an audience of one – Greenaway himself. The alternative he has come up with to conventional cinema, using text, calligraphy, and frames within frames within frames to form an ornate collage, however visually elegant it often is, turns out in practice to be not quite as compelling as he thinks.

So it is with genuine pleasure (and relief) that I say that with Rembrandt’s J’Accuse, Greenaway has finally come up with a film that puts his visual and intellectual arsenal to brilliant effect, turning Rembrandt’s The Night Watch into evidence of an elaborate murder conspiracy. (Call it CSI: Amsterdam.) Greenaway appears on screen throughout to state the case for the prosecution, namely that Rembrandt’s painting is his “J’accuse,” or accusation of guilt towards the perpetrators of a conspiracy on the part of a group of Dutch military officers to murder their captain to gain more power for themselves. The officers planned to disguise this murder as a military accident. Greenaway is our guide to the evidence for this conspiracy, all of which he believes can be found within the frame of Rembrandt’s painting. His running voiceover and visual presence (usually in a box in the bottom center of the screen) relates 31 clues to the murder conspiracy (Greenaway’s well-documented obsession with numbers and lists continues unabated in this film) that can be found in the painting. Fully-staged reenactments with actors are peppered throughout to illustrate Greenaway’s thesis.

Greenaway identifies The Night Watch as the beginning of Rembrandt’s popular and economic decline, which he sees as a result of the successful attempt by the powers that were to suppress and bury Rembrandt’s accusation and force him into a later life of poverty and obscurity. As Greenaway intones at the film’s conclusion, “It is imperative that we reopen the case.” Greenaway uses the canvas of Rembrandt’s masterpiece to create one of his own, a film that is simultaneously a documentary, a murder mystery, an art history lecture, a political history of Amsterdam, and a seminar on the arts of both painting and visual analysis, and is endlessly fascinating and compelling.

Rembrandt’s J’Accuse is at Film Forum now through November 3. Click here to purchase tickets.

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Lars von Trier, "Antichrist" (2009)

Antichrist. 2009. Written and directed by Lars von Trier. Produced by Meta Louise Foldager. Cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle. Edited by Anders Refn. Production designed by Karl "Kalli" Juliusson. Art direction by Tim Pannen. Costume design by Frauke Firl. Sound design by Kristian Eidnes Andersen.

Cast: Willem Dafoe (He), Charlotte Gainsbourg (She).

Lars von Trier's latest (and most extreme) provocation, Antichrist, opens today at the IFC Center. Below is what I wrote on this film when it screened earlier this month at the New York Film Festival.

At the New York Film Festival, it’s almost guaranteed that there will be at least one controversial film to set the Alice Tully Hall denizens’ tongues wagging. The Danish cinematic enfant terrible Lars von Trier has supplied a few of these throughout the years – Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Manderlay. It’s safe to say that his latest, Antichrist, is without a doubt his most extreme provocation to date. Reportedly the result of a lengthy depression von Trier suffered in the period before he made it, this film astonishes with its free-associative, dream-like (or, more accurately, nightmare-like) style. Though it seems like most of the film doesn’t make a lick of sense, it is never less than riveting, even though most viewers will very much want to look away, especially in its extremely violent latter sessions. Von Trier has often been tagged with the label of “misogynist,” and Antichrist will do little to assuage these detractors. However, as with all things von Trier, the reality is not quite that simple.

The scenario is spare and archetypal: a couple, known only as He (Willem Dafoe) and She (Charlotte Gainsbourg), after the death of their young son, venture into the woods, to a place they call Eden, where He, a professional therapist, attempts to cure She of her extreme grief over her child’s death. These are the only two characters in the entire film, and von Trier unleashes an arsenal of nightmare imagery and WTF moments to depict this couple’s psychic journey. There are talking animals, genital mutilation, and other extremes, and at first it seems that von Trier is having a laugh at our expense. But it eventually becomes clear that what we see is far from a joke, and that this is as close a peek into an artist’s id as any that has ever been created. Gainsbourg won best actress at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and while evaluating performances in a film such as this almost seems beside the point, one can’t help but admire the fact that both actors are more than game for everything von Trier throws at them.

Divided into four chapters – “Grief,” “Pain (Chaos Reigns),” “Despair (Gynocide),” “The Three Beggars” – bracketed by a prologue and epilogue, Antichrist begins with a gorgeously shot slow-motion monochrome sequence depicting the death of the couple’s child. Accompanied by the music of Handel on the soundtrack, we see the child make his way out of the crib and fall to his death out of the window, unnoticed by his parents having passionate sex, very graphically shown – par for the course for von Trier, ever the provocateur. At the outset of the film proper, which switches to a muted color palette, She collapses during her son’s funeral and is subsequently admitted to a hospital. He pulls her out of the hospital, believing that the hospital is prescribing her too much medication, and that he could do a better job at curing her of the extreme grief and guilt over their son’s death. He intends to be analytical and logical in how he goes about doing this, to the extent that She at one point accuses him of being indifferent to their son’s death.

When the two retreat to “Eden,” a small log cabin deep in the woods, He puts She under hypnosis, to exorcise her guilt as well as her deep fears of the woods themselves. But very soon, his carefully planned strategy begins to unravel. She becomes increasingly erratic and less responsive to her husband’s admittedly unorthodox treatments. Through flashbacks and her husband’s discovery, we learn that She has been working on a thesis titled “Gynocide,” about the history of man’s brutality to women throughout the ages. (The film’s credits include a “misogyny consultant.”) Her studies have brought her to an unexpected and disturbing conclusion: women are the source of evil in the world. And in the increasingly brutal final reels of the film, she sets out to prove her theory in very graphic ways that will torture her husband, as well as the audience.

The above description may make Antichrist seem much more coherent than it actually is, at least initially. Von Trier also indulges in some rather clichéd and tacky depictions of the hypnosis sessions. And yet there is an elemental power to the flow of images in the film that, to this viewer, eventually proved irresistible. Von Trier clearly means to give the audience a taste of the psychological torture he experienced during his depression. Given the catcalling and booing that greeted its premiere at Cannes, it would seem that I am in the minority opinion. How one responds to this film ultimately depends on how one responds to its creator. If you are a hardcore von Trier fan (as I must confess I am), then you will fund much to savor. If not, well, as they say, caveat emptor. As one of the film’s chapter titles state, “Chaos Reigns.” That statement could stand as a credo for von Trier’s entire oeuvre, and it has never been truer than his latest work.

Antichrist can be seen (if you dare) at the IFC Center beginning today. Click here to purchase tickets.

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Claire Denis, "35 Shots of Rum" (2008)

35 Shots of Rum (35 rhums). 2008. Directed by Claire Denis. Written by Claire Denis and Jean-Pol Fargeau. Produced by Bruno Pesery. Cinematography by Agnes Godard. Edited by Guy Lecorne. Music by Tindersticks. Production design by Arnaud de Moleron. Costume design by Judy Shrewsbury. Sound by Martin Boissau, Christophe Winding, and Dominique Hennequin.

Cast: Alex Descas (Lionel), Mati Diop (Josephine), Gregoire Colin (Noe), Nicole Dogue (Gabrielle), Julieth Mars Toussaint (Rene).

One of the very best films you will see this year is Claire Denis' exquisitely rendered 35 Shots of Rum, now playing at Film Forum through September 29. Denis' latest film White Material, which returns her to the African setting of her debut Chocolat, will make its latest stop at this year's New York Film Festival, after its appearances in Venice and Toronto. So New Yorkers will have the opportunity this fall to be blessed with two new films by one of cinema's greatest living artists. Below is my review of 35 Shots of Rum, written when it screened at last year's Pusan International Film Festival.

Claire Denis’ gorgeous new film, 35 Shots of Rum, is as essentially plot-less as her previous feature, the globe-trotting philosophical treatise L’Intrus (The Intruder), but it is less experimental and more grounded in character and emotion. However, it is hardly less of a revelatory experience. The central relationship depicted in this film is that of Lionel (Alex Descas), a train operator living with his daughter Josephine (Mati Diop), in a working-class suburb of Paris. 35 Shots of Rum’s affinities with the works of Ozu, especially Late Spring, have been much remarked on by other commentators: the many shots and scenes that revolve around trains; the brief establishing shots between scenes analogous to Ozu’s “pillow shot” inserts; the delicacy with which unspoken aspects of intimate relationships are handled. The film’s central situation also recalls Ozu. Lionel, a taciturn widower, lives a quiet life with his daughter, and their deep love for one another is expressed through such gestures as one early scene in which Lionel buys a rice cooker for Josephine, who expresses great delight. The film is so patient about revealing the connections between its characters that it takes a bit of time before we realize that they are in fact father and daughter.

Two other characters also figure here: their neighbor Noe (Gregoire Colin), a rather eccentric young man who is attracted to Josephine, and Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue), Lionel’s ex-girlfriend who remains close to Lionel and Josephine, and seems to wish to rekindle her romance with Lionel, who in turn keeps her at arm’s length. Everything else in the film flows from this initial situation. But rather than imposing a dramatic plot, although almost any other filmmaker would have turned these potential conflicts into melodrama, Denis allows these characters to interact and lets their actions evolve organically. This is not to say that nothing happens in the film; actually, there is a definite progression that occurs, and it leads to a great deal of emotion. This occurs most significantly with what happens to Lionel’s colleague Rene (Julieth Mars Toussaint), who after being compelled to retire, finds himself adrift and unable to replace the order and sense of purpose that his job provided him.

The way in which Denis depicts the milieu of her film is quite extraordinary. The popular notion of the Parisian suburbs, many of which are inhabited by those of African and Arabic descent, is that of poor and angry people who every now and then erupt into riots against police and other authorities. The depiction of these neighborhoods in French films often plays upon these problems and concentrates on their conflicts with the larger French society. Denis, however, takes quite a different tack, concentrating much more on her characters as individuals rather than representatives of their race. These are ordinary working-class people who experience the normal joys and pains of anyone else, although presented here in an aesthetically beautiful way. Denis, to be sure, does not ignore a global perspective: she includes a key scene in which Josephine participates in a classroom debate about how African nations are adversely impacted by having to repay massive debts to Western nations. However, we are mostly immersed in the lives of the central characters, and it is always a pleasure to be in their company.

The loose structure of 35 Shots of Rum allows for some exquisitely lovely moments, most notably a key scene of the film in which Lionel, Josephine, Noe and Gabrielle all retreat into a bar during a rainstorm after their car breaks down on their way to a concert. Although the bar is already closed, the owner generously allows them shelter. A nearly wordless scene ensues, during which much occurs: Noe and Josephine’s relationship becomes subtly much more than a casual friendship; Lionel sees this happen, and tacitly accepts this despite his slight unease, while Lionel in turn acts upon his attraction to the statuesquely beautiful bar hostess, eventually spending the night with her. The four central characters dance to the tune of the Commodores’ song “Nightshift,” which is quite appropriate to the elegiac tone of much of this film. This is a beautifully choreographed and constructed scene, conveying everything through glances and gestures, and it is a great testament to Claire Denis’ prodigious artistry.

However, Denis is by no means a solo act. She has surrounded herself over the years with an ace group of collaborators who are essential partners in creating one of the great bodies of work in cinema. One of the most important members of her crew is Agnes Godard, one of the world’s greatest cinematographers, who seems incapable of composing a bad shot. She imbues all of the film’s environments with a textured, tactile quality that illuminates everything it touches. Denis’ regular screenwriting partner Jean-Pol Fargeau contributes greatly to a scenario that feels loosely improvisational yet exactingly precise at the same time. And of course, as always with Denis, much credit is due to the excellent cast she has assembled, which includes two Denis regulars: Alex Descas, a ruggedly handsome man who imparts tremendous gravity and great emotion to his role; and Gregoire Colin, who goes far beyond the quirks of his character to deliver a very poignant performance. Newcomer Mati Diop also impresses as the daughter who is protective of her father almost to his detriment (much like the typical Ozu heroine usually played by Setsuko Hara). Nicole Dogue skillfully expresses her character’s sense of regret over her life decisions, and her wish to have to same closeness with Lionel that his daughter enjoys. In every gesture and action Denis’ ensemble cast radiates a deep beauty that makes watching them a joyful experience.

35 Shots of Rum, along with Beau Travail and L’Intrus, is one of Denis’ greatest works, conveying the ebbs and flows of life with uncommon sensitivity. And by the time Lionel partakes of the titular drinks, an act that signifies his philosophy of life, one begins to wish one could spend many more hours in the endlessly fascinating world of this film.

35 Shots of Rum is at Film Forum through September 29. Click here to purchase tickets.

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Byun Young-joo, "The Murmuring" (1995)

The Murmuring (Najeun moksori). 1995. Directed by Byun Young-joo. Produced by Shin Soo-yeon. Cinematography by Kim Yong-taek. Edited by Park Gok-ji. Music by Oh Yoon-seok and Cho Byung-hee. Sound by Jang Ho-jun and Lee Young-kil.

This August 15 marks the 64th anniversary of the end of World War II, which is given different names in the countries involved. In the U.S., it known as Victory over Japan Day; in Korea, it is called Liberation Day, since Japan’s surrender meant the end of colonial rule. Among the many continuing legacies of the war is the plight of the “comfort women,” an estimated 200,000 women (some as young as twelve) from Korea, China, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, and other countries who were kidnapped or otherwise tricked into sexual slavery, forced to service Japanese soldiers. The misery for these women did not end with the war; they continued to be victimized by both sides of the conflict – by Japan’s continued refusal to this day to give an official apology or offer adequate compensation to survivors, and by the shame placed upon them by their home societies, forcing them to spend decades living in isolation and shamed silence. It wasn’t until the early 1990’s that former comfort women began to come forward and tell their stories, and more importantly, to petition the Japanese government for reparations. The vast majority of comfort women (80-90 percent) were taken from Korea, a colony of Japan during the war, and their stories form the basis of Byun Young-joo’s extraordinary documentary trilogy on the comfort women of Korea: The Murmuring (1995), Habitual Sadness (1997), and My Own Breathing (1999). Taken together, this trilogy (called the “Low Voice” trilogy, after the Korean titles of the first two installments) is one of the monumental works of world documentary, entirely the equal of such films as Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah and Marcel Ophuls’ The Sorrow and the Pity. Much like Shoah, Byun eschews the normal clichéd methods of documentary filmmaking, such as archival footage, dramatizations, and expert talking heads, concentrating on contemporary footage of her subjects bearing witness to a horrific period of their own lives and their country’s history. The one time Byun breaks with this is in a brief pictorial montage showing Japanese atrocities in China, which serves to remind us that the comfort women’s experiences existed in a larger context of Japanese war crimes, and was equally as brutal and deserving of close examination.

Byun’s first documentary, A Woman-Being in Asia (1993), dealt with the sex tourism industry in Asia, focusing on prostitution on Jeju Island. Byun and her crew were mostly dissatisfied with the results, feeling they had come into it with too much an imposed point a view, and a subsequent ambivalence toward the subject matter that filtered down to how they dealt with their interviewees. However, Byun serendipitously stumbled upon the subject of her next film when one of the prostitutes she interviewed revealed that her deceased mother was a comfort woman who became a prostitute after the war to pay for her own mother’s operation. Her decision to pursue this subject resulted in this trilogy.

The subtitle of The Murmuring, released in the 50th anniversary year of the end of World War II, is “A Woman-Being in Asia: The Second Report,” signaling that this new film was both a follow-up to and an improvement on her first film. Largely influenced by Japanese documentary pioneer Shinsuke Ogawa, Byun radically changed her methods of relating to her subjects in this film. Much of the film takes place in a house known as “Nanum,” or “House of Sharing,” a group home in Haehwa-dong, Seoul supported by Buddhist groups, where a number of former comfort women reside. Byun spent a few months before filming simply living with the women, until she gained their trust and they felt ready to tell their stories on camera. The stories they tell are truly heartbreaking; the women were taken at a very young age, and were commonly tricked with the promise of employment. One woman speaks of trying to kill herself on the way back home from Japan, because of her shame and knowing that she was effectively ruined for marriage; in terms of the rigid Confucian patriarchy that prevailed then, the fact that she served Japanese soldiers against her will mattered little. Most of the women living in the house suffer from numerous physical ailments, much of it resulting from their sexual enslavement; many returned with venereal disease and have scars on their stomachs from surgery. One woman talks about her wish to die, to end her continued suffering. Byun films these women in simple, functional camera setups, allowing them the visual and temporal space to tell their stories. Some confess their shame about telling these stories, which is quite understandable considering that it was only a few years before, in 1991, that Kim Hak-soon was the first comfort woman to publicly tell her story on television, making it possible for others to come forward.

Byun also documents the weekly protests organized by The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, which still continue today. Since January 2002, they have stood outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul every Wednesday at noon, year in and year out, regardless of the weather, to make several demands of the Japanese government. They insist that Japan make an official apology and acknowledge their responsibility for the plight of comfort women; give whole-hearted compensation to the women and their relatives; erect a monument to the women who died (about 70 percent died before the end of the war); and include this history in Japanese textbooks. To this day, none of these demands have been met, and therefore the protests continue. Byun shows in the film that Korean governments are also partly responsible for this state of affairs, since for many years they were very reluctant to press the issue, loath to jeopardize trade agreements and other compacts with Japan.

Byun also traveled to China to interview Ha Koon-ja and Hong Gang Lim, two comfort women who were never repatriated to Korea, effectively exiled because of their shame. These interviews provide some of the most powerful moments of the film: Ha tearfully recounts being forced to serve as many as twenty soldiers per day, and Hong, starkly framed so that her face floats in the darkness, relates the brutal story of having her vagina mutilated because of soldiers' complaints that, because she was taken so young, that she was “too small.” This section of the film also contains the footage of other Japanese war atrocities.

However, as sad and horrific as the stories these women tell are, this is only one part of Byun’s film. The Murmuring is also a very inspiring portrait of the women’s resiliency in the face of their hardship. They are still able to laugh and enjoy other people’s company, and most importantly, to sing. There are many scenes in the film of the women singing the liberation and love songs of their youth, both in the house and at the weekly protests. This speaks to an inner spirit that the horrors of war cannot extinguish. The women also express themselves through painting, which also gives them an outlet to cope with their memories and to heal their damaged psyches. The Murmuring is a rich and revealing film, quite literally so in the film’s last shot, as the camera pans across the naked torso of one of the women. Byun’s film is a beautifully constructed vessel allowing the “low voices” of these women to speak out fully and tell the collective story of this tragic period of history, a story that has yet to reach a fully satisfying conclusion.

Links for resources and more information:

Nanum (House of Sharing)

The Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan

Washington Coalition for Comfort Women Issues

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Park Chan-wook, "I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK" (2006)

I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK (Saibogujiman kwenchana). 2006. Directed by Park Chan-wook. Written by Chung Seo-kyung and Park Chan-wook. Produced by Lee Chun-yeong. Cinematography by Chung Chung-hoon. Edited by Kim Sang-bum and Kim Jae-bum. Music by Hong Dae-seong and Hong Yu-jin. Production design by Ryu Seong-hie. Costume design by Cho Sang-kyung. Sound by Jeong Jin-wook, Kim Suk-won and Kim Chang-sub.

Cast: Im Su-jeong (Cha Young-goon), Jeong Ji-hoon [Rain] (Park Il-soon), Choi Hee-jin (Choi Seul-gi), Oh Dal-soo (Shin Duk-cheon), Park Jun-myeon (Gop-dan), Kim Byeong-ok (Judge), Lee Yong-nyeo (Young-goon's mother), Yu Ho-jeong (Il-soon's mother).

Park Chan-wook's latest film, the vampire movie Thirst, which opened yesterday, was to me a supreme disappointment. Much better is his previous film, I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK, a strange and charming romantic comedy set in a mental hospital. Perhaps Thirst will do well enough to encourage an intrepid distributor to make this film available in the U.S., on DVD at the very least. Below is what I wrote on this film when it screened at the 2007 New York Asian Film Festival.

The oeuvre of Park Chan-wook seems designed to confound auteurists looking for a consistent directorial signature. His films are almost schizophrenically diverse: he followed up his little-seen early films Moon is the Sun's Dream (1992) and Threesome (1997) with the massive blockbuster hit Joint Security Area (2000). His next film, the grim, pitch-dark revenge film Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002), confused and disappointed most audiences. However, this was the beginning of a new phase in his career, the so-called “revenge trilogy,” which continued with Oldboy (2003) and Lady Vengeance (2005), which were much more successful, and brought him his current high international profile, culminating with the Grand Prix (second place) prize at Cannes for Oldboy.

Park’s next film, the sweet and delightfully oddball romance I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK, once again threw audiences for a loop, having now become accustomed to the ornate style of the trilogy. The result was disappointing box office returns upon its release in Korea. While the film is not quite at the level of his previous films (especially Lady Vengeance, his best to date), it contains charms enough of its own, and a unique visual style that beautifully reflects the unhinged nature of the inhabitants of the mental asylum where practically the entire film is set.

The film’s core romance occurs between Young-goon (Im Su-jeong), a young woman convinced she is a cyborg, and consequently refusing to eat, making her alarmingly thin; and Il-soon (pop music megastar Rain), a young man who is the resident thief, stealing both physical and imaginary possessions from the other asylum inmates. Il-soon has made it his mission to cure Young-goon, and he enlists the help of the other inmates.

While I’m a Cyborg may at first seem like a radical departure for Park, it’s not as dissimilar from his previous films as one would think. Park’s regular cinematographer Jeong Jeong-hoon provides the film with a bright pop-art palette that enhances the fantastical nature of the proceedings. Young-goon’s violent revenge fantasies where she transforms herself into a literal killing machine, mowing down the “white suits” en masse, shooting them with bullets out of her index fingers, provides the sort of bloody scene we have seen before from Park (although done here with a hint of self-parody).

The film’s tone is a strange mixture of whimsicality and darker elements. Young-goon’s habits, such as talking to her fellow machines (a vending machine, lamps, and other electrical objects) and “charging” herself by licking batteries in lieu of actual nourishment, are presented as charming eccentricities. However, the scenes where she is force fed and given shock treatment are rather more disturbing. The asylum setting, much as it does in such previous films as Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (as well as Ken Kesey’s novel), and James Mangold’s Girl, Interrupted, lends itself to social commentary, the asylum being an all too apt metaphor for the world at large, especially how people are subjected to harsh societal control by those in authority. Young-goon and Il-soon’s disorders are caused by their family histories: Young-goon witnessed her grandmother forcibly committed when she was younger, and Il-goon’s parental abandonment created his desire to disappear, rendered visually in scenes where other people dwarf him as he becomes ever smaller.

Park creates a compellingly fantastic universe in I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK, confirming his status as one of cinema’s supreme stylists.

Trailer:

The first ten minutes:

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Park Chan-wook, "Thirst" (2009)

Thirst (Bakjwi). 2009. Directed by Park Chan-wook. Written by Park Chan-wook and Chung Seo-kyung, based on the novel "Thérèse Raquin" by Émile Zola. Produced by Park Chan-wook and Ahn Soo-hyun. Cinematography by Chung Chung-hoon. Edited by Kim Sang-bum and Kim Jae-bum. Music by Cho Young-uk. Production design by Ryu Seong-hie. Costume design by Cho Sang-kyung. Sound design by Kim Suk-won and Kim Chang-sub.

Cast: Song Kang-ho (Sang-hyun), Kim Ok-vin (Tae-ju), Kim Hae-sook (Madame Ra), Shin Ha-kyun (Kang-woo), Park In-hwan (Father Noh), Oh Dal-soo (Young-du), Song Young-chang (Seung-dae), Mercedes Cabral (Evelyn).

Park Chan-wook’s latest film, the vampire movie Thirst (opening in U.S. theaters today), claims as its literary pedigree Émile Zola’s classic novel Thérèse Raquin. The combination of this lofty source material with a lurid tale of a priest turned vampire who eagerly, though not without pangs of conscience, succumbs to the pleasures of the flesh, is an irresistible (to some) confluence of highbrow art and lowbrow exploitation. This perhaps made it inevitable that it would win a prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival – it won the Jury Prize (third place), shared with Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank. The film’s protagonist, Sang-hyun (Song Kang-ho) is a devout priest who regularly gives last rites to terminal patients at a hospital. His daily exposure to the dying makes him long to do more to alleviate the suffering he sees daily. To that end, he travels to an unnamed African country to subject himself to an experiment that is meant to develop a vaccine for a mysterious disease called the “Emmanuel Virus.” He comes down with this virus, the main symptoms of which are coughing up blood and breaking out in large pustules on the skin. He dies as a result, but is miraculously brought back to life by a blood transfusion that turns him into a vampire. Sang-hyun still carries the virus, but when he drinks blood, his lesions and boils disappear. Upon his return to Korea, he becomes a legend as the sole survivor of the experiment, and people believe he has great healing powers and implore him to cure them. At the hospital, Sang-hyun has a chance meeting with Kang-woo (Shin Ha-kyun), an old childhood friend. Kang-woo, who has an unspecified mental disability, lives at home with his mother (Kim Hae-sook) and his wife Tae-ju (Kim Ok-vin), who was taken in by his mother as an orphaned child, and has since become a slave to the family. Tae-ju longs for escape from her circumstances, forced to be both wife and mother to Kang-woo and having to listen to the sentimental old Korean tunes her mother-in-law plays incessantly. Tae-ju tempts the priest into breaking his vows of chastity, in sex scenes that have become a major selling point of the film. Later, she finds out he is a vampire – initially repulsed by this, she becomes drawn in, and latches onto this as her means of liberation from her domestic prison.

In Thirst, Park supplies all the elements of his previous films that have pleased audiences and divided critics: the copious gushing blood, the rending of flesh, and the baroque style that were hallmarks of his so-called “revenge trilogy” – Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance. After a brief thematic departure with the oddball and very charming mental hospital romantic comedy I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK, he returns to his previous mode with this new film. In a way, Thirst combines elements of both the revenge trilogy and I’m a Cyborg. Comic elements combine with the bloody vampire tale to very unsettling and disorienting effect – it becomes a different film from scene to scene, and sometimes minute to minute. At one point it’s a somber religious parable; at another it is a blackly absurdist domestic comedy; at yet another it is a Double Indemnity-style film noir; at still another it is a distinctly Korean melodrama (although heightened to parodic effect). Unfortunately, on the evidence of this new film, Park’s style is beginning to yield diminishing returns. The film is all over the place tonally, and the wildly disparate elements on display – reflected in the film’s production design, a chaotic East-meets-West mélange of brightly-colored hanbok (Korean traditional clothing), designs inspired by French artist Odilon Redon, and colonial-era Japanese architecture – never jell into anything substantial.

We’ve seen the vampire tale many times before in the cinema, and in the past this has resulted in some very haunting and beautiful films, for example Dreyer’s Vampyr and Nosferatu (both the Murnau and Herzog versions). All the familiar vampire folklore, such as aversion to sunlight, sleeping in a coffin, the search for human blood, is replicated in Thirst, albeit with significant modifications. The vampire’s repulsion by garlic would presumably not have made sense in a Korean context, garlic being such an essential component to Korean food. Park adds a twist by having his protagonist be a priest, whose transformation into a vampire through a blood transfusion is the beginning of his passage from faithful servant of God to animalistic hell-bound vampire. (The Korean title of the film is “Bat.”) Of course, since the vampire in this story is a priest, fear of the cross doesn’t come into play. This idea has great potential – the struggle between dedication to his faith and the urges that are a result of his transformation promises to be very compelling. However, Park never takes this scenario anywhere beyond this high concept idea; there is such an arch air to the proceedings that it all ultimately becomes incredibly hollow and superficial. This is certainly not the fault of any of its performances – the film boasts some very strong supporting actors, and while Song Kang-ho is always compelling to watch (although he is restrained by Park and co-writer Chung Seo-kyung’s muddled script), the true revelation here is Kim Ok-vin (Dasepo Naughty Girls, Voice), transforming herself into a sexy and lithe live-wire who embodies her sexually awakened character with gusto and energetic brio. A word to the wise: those expecting extended torrid sex scenes between Park and Kim will be sorely disappointed; as is usually the case in film publicity, this aspect of the film was ridiculously over-hyped, both during and after production.

The main problem with Thirst, even beyond its overlong repetition and slack pace, is that there is never any real internal struggle evident in the character of Sang-hyun; he succumbs quite easily to sin – too easily. This superficiality extends to just about everything else we see – since there is very little at stake for anyone, it is very hard to care about any of the characters or what happens to them. This was certainly not the case with the revenge trilogy; despite Park being vilified from many corners for his depictions of extreme violence, this was in the service of a serious engagement with the moral issues explored in the films. In Thirst, Park seems content with having his characters be merely pieces on a chessboard, puppets to be moved around in ways that clearly amuses him, but precious little of that translates to us in the audience. Thirst, in the end, is all style and very little substance.

The Bourne Cinema Filmography: Shin Sang-ok, "Mother and a Guest" (1961)

Mother and a Guest (Sarangbang sonnimgwa omoni). 1961. Produced and directed by Shin Sang-ok. Written by Im Hee-jae, based on a novel by Joo Yo-seob. Cinematography by Choi Soo-young. Edited by Yang Seong-ran. Music by Jeong Yoon-ju. Art direction by Kang Seong-bum.

Cast: Choi Eun-hee (Mother), Jeon Young-seon (Ok-hee), Kim Jin-kyu (Mr. Han), Han Eun-jin (Grandmother), Do Geum-bong (Maid), Kim Hee-gab (Egg Vendor), Shin Young-kyun (Uncle), Heo Jang-kang (Fortune Teller).

One of four films Shin Sang-ok released in 1961 (the others were Seong Chun-hyang, Prince Yeonsan, and Evergreen Tree), Mother and a Guest remains one of his most celebrated and enduring films. Flush from the success of Seong Chun-hyang, Shin’s big-budget adaptation of the classic pansori tale that was a massive box-office hit, he decided to embark on a more intimate, small-scale project, and Mother and a Guest, an adaptation of a beloved short novel by Joo Yo-seob, scripted by Im Hee-jae (who also wrote the screenplay for Seong Chun-hyang), perfectly fit the bill. A potent melodrama revolving around the perennial conflict between traditionalist and modern values, the film centers on the titular mother, a young widow (portrayed by the luminous Choi Eun-hee, Shin’s wife and frequent star) whose largely self-imposed moral strictures are upended by the arrival of houseguest Mr. Han (Kim Jin-kyu, a popular actor of the time who also appeared in several of Shin’s films), a friend of her brother-in-law who awakens desires in the widow she thought were long dead, or perhaps never experienced. This slowly evolving love story is refracted through the perspective of the widow’s six year-old daughter Ok-hee (Jeong Young-seon), an adorable moppet who is one of the most endearing characters of her kind ever portrayed on film. She introduces herself and her family at the beginning of the film and provides a running voiceover throughout. This aspect of the story is a carryover from the original novel, which is also narrated by this character. In fact, the original cut of Mother and a Guest was adapted very faithfully from the source material. However, Shin ran into a problem when this version resulted in a running time barely longer than an hour, which was considered too short for release. As a solution, Shin and Im added a subplot involving a relationship between the widow’s domestic servant (Do Geum-bong, another frequent Shin star who passed away recently) and an egg vendor (Kim Hee-gab), which serves as a comic counterpoint to the melodramatic main plot. Other elements were added that broke with the young daughter’s point of view, such as a key scene between the widow and a fortuneteller (Heo Jang-kang), and a brief scene in which the widow poses in front of a mirror wearing a man’s hat.

Mother and a Guest, much like many of Shin’s other films, brilliantly combines a seemingly self-effacing and invisible style derived from classic Hollywood montage with complex and nuanced characterizations and visual parallels and contrasts that enhance this deceptively simple tale. The central heroine, as embodied by Choi Eun-hee, functions as the self-sacrificing, traditional woman common to Korean melodramas of the time, which was a particular specialty of Choi, who played this sort of woman in many films, for Shin and other directors. In this film, however, she goes far beyond this typical characterization to convey much deeper shades to this portrayal. One example is the scene in which she parades before the mirror wearing Mr. Han’s hat, after she chases her maid out of his room. She takes advantage of this brief private time to display a saucy, irreverent and sexy side to herself, free – however briefly – from society’s (and her own) constraints on behavior, expressed visually by wearing part of a man’s clothing. Even her own insistence on wearing the hairstyle and dress of a married woman even though she is a widow becomes less a capitulation to patriarchal, Confucian standards than an expression of her incredibly strong will – there is much evidence in the film that others see the mother, as well as the other inhabitants of the “widow’s house” (so called because all the women, including the maid and the mother-in-law, are all widows), as somewhat peculiar and behind the times. The rigidly moralistic beliefs of both the mother and her mother-in-law, which make it impossible for the mother to fully express the love she clearly feels for her boarder, are portrayed in the film as a function of class. While the widow and the houseguest are kept strictly separated through most of the film (one exception is a scene in which Mr. Han holds a sick Ok-hee in his arms while her mother sits beside him), the maid and the egg vendor are much freer to act on their attraction to one another, going all the way sexually (though of course, screen standards being what they were in Korea at the time, this happens off-screen) after a very funny scene in which the egg vendor cures the maid’s indigestion with his “medicine hands” and then proceeds to use those hands for more carnal purposes, leading to the maid’s pregnancy.

This sort of plot mirroring is reflected visually throughout the film – Shin in fact places characters in front of mirrors in key scenes:

One example of the film’s visual parallels is an early scene in which Mr. Han and Ok-hee go on a plein air painting outing, during which they stand on a hill, and Ok-hee calls out to her mother in the distance:

– a sequence echoed in the film’s last scene, when Ok-hee and her mother watch the train which will carry Mr. Han to Seoul, far from their rural village:


Mother and a Guest, which Shin did not consider to be his best film (many, including myself, would beg to differ; Evergreen Tree, which I have not yet seen, was Shin’s personal favorite) is a charming, lyrical work whose delicate beauty unfolds with each viewing. It is one of the great classic works of Korean cinema, as well as world cinema. It is available on DVD as part of the “Shin Sang-ok Collection” box set, which also includes A Romantic Papa (1960), Seong Chun-hyang (1961), Deaf Samryongi (1964), and One Thousand Years Old Fox (1969). This set can be purchased from HanBooks.