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.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" Review: Lee Sang-il's "Villain"

Villain (Akunin). 2010. Directed by Lee Sang-il. Written by Shuichi Yoshida and Lee Sang-il, based on the novel by Shuichi Yoshida. Produced by Tomoyo Nihira and Genki Kawamura. Cinematography by Norimichi Kasamatsu. Edited by Tsuyoshi Imai. Music by Joe Hisaishi. Production design by Yohei Taneda. Costume design by Kumiko Ogawa. Sound by Mitsugu Shiratori.

Cast: Satoshi Tsumabuki (Yuichi Shimizu), Eri Fukatsu (Mitsuyo Magome), Masaki Okada (Keigo Masuo), Hikari Mitsushima (Yoshino Ishibashi), Kirin Kiki (Yuichi's grandmother), Akira Emoto (Yoshino's father), Kimiko Yo (Yuichi's mother).

One of my favorite recent Japanese films is the complex crime drama/lovers-on-the-run story Villain, screening as part of Japan Society’s film series “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”  Below is what I wrote on this film when it screened at the 2010 Busan International Film Festival.

The finest film to date from Japanese-Korean director Lee Sang-il (69, Scrap Heaven, Hula Girls) is this tale of murder (based on a novel by Shuichi Yoshida, who also penned the screenplay) rendered in complex shades of gray.  Villain gains its tremendous power from both its excellent performances (not only by the leads Satoshi Tsumabuki and Eri Fukatsu, but the stellar supporting cast), and its intriguingly ambiguous scenario, which challenges easy moral and character judgments.  The “villain” of the title would at first appear to be Yuichi (Tsumabuki), who commits murder during one terrible night in a fit of rage.  But as the circumstances of the night are slowly teased out during the course of the film, and the context surrounding the murder is gradually revealed, we come to learn than Yuichi isn’t the only one worthy of being tagged with that titular appellation.  Two other possible candidates are the flighty, superficial Yoshino (Hikari Mitsushima), whom Yuichi pines for initially, but who herself pursues the rich playboy Masuo (Masaki Okada), who is contemptuous of anyone he considers beneath his station.  All three of them figure into the murder at the center of the story.  Yuichi is eventually forced to go on the lam, where he encounters Mitsuyo (Fukatsu), a shy and lonely woman who impulsively joins this fugitive, determined at all costs to see the goodness that exists at Yuichi’s core, convinced that his act of murder is not in his nature, but forced upon him by circumstance.  The film itself appears to endorse Mitsuyo’s point of view, until an occurrence very close to the end seems to turn that completely on its head.  Lee Sang-il throughout demonstrates an assured, compelling command of visuals and narrative flow, staging the chaotic maelstrom of events with a masterful hand.  Fukatsu won a well-deserved best-actress prize at the Montreal World Festival; her performance is extraordinary, and her role proves to be the film’s most crucial one.

Villain screens at Japan Society on March 9 at 7:30.  Click here to purchase tickets.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" Review: Hong Sangsoo's "Tale of Cinema"

Tale of Cinema (Geuk jang jeon). 2005. Written and directed by Hong Sangsoo. Produced by Hong Sangsoo and Marin Karmitz. Cinematography by Kim Hyung-koo. Edited by Hahm Sung-won. Music by Jeong Yong-jin. Sound by An Sang-ho.

Cast: Kim Sang-kyung (Kim Tong-su), Uhm Ji-won (Choi Young-shil), Lee Ki-woo (Jeon Sang-won).

Tale of Cinema, Hong’s sixth feature, is an incredibly witty and playful meditation on the confluence of life and cinema. Over the course of twelve films, Hong has created a unique and fascinating body of work, unabashedly auteurist and boldly inventive. From the start, Hong’s films existed in opposition to conventional methods of storytelling, and he makes use of a relatively limited set of character types and milieus (usually the filmmaking and academic worlds) to experiment with narrative structure in his films. Recurring patterns of human behavior, character and narrative mirroring, and repetition run throughout his films. Along with that, he offers funny, painful, awkward, and brutally honest depictions of male and female relationships. Tale of Cinema added some intriguing new wrinkles to his cinematic strategy: this time (as the English title makes clear), cinema itself is his main subject matter. Similarly to some of his other films (The Power of Kangwon Province [1998], Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors [2000], Turning Gate [2002], Woman on the Beach [2006]), Tale of Cinema makes use of a bifurcated structure with echoes and mirrors in each half. However, while the structures of these other films serve to complicate and deepen our understanding of the characters and their situations, in this film we are invited to reflect on its own status as a cinematic object. To this end, Hong introduced some visual elements that have become stylistic hallmarks of his subsequent films, most prominently the frequent use of the zoom lens. The first time I saw Tale of Cinema (at the 2005 New York Film Festival), I found this quite disorienting, since Hong’s visual style up to that point consisted of minimal camera movement and practically no optical effects. Also new for Hong was the use of a voiceover and much more liberal use of non-diegetic music. All of these elements, including quotes from, and echoes of, his earlier films in Tale of Cinema serve to enhance our awareness that we are indeed watching a film, making what happens to the main character perhaps a cautionary tale.

Tale of Cinema has a loose, improvisational, and comic feel that is quite charming. In the first part of the film, an aimless student (Lee Ki-woo) meets up with a young woman (Uhm Ji-won) he has known in the past, and convinces her to join him in his quest to kill himself. However, things don’t quite go according to plan, as they often do in Hong’s films. In the second half, Tong-su (Kim Sang-kyung), a failed filmmaker, has become convinced that his successful and celebrated film-school classmate has stolen his life story to make one of his films. After watching this film again at a retrospective devoted to the director, he spots the film’s lead actress (Uhm Ji-won again) outside the theater, and begins to doggedly pursue her. For those who haven’t yet seen Tale of Cinema, I won’t reveal the connection between these two halves, since that would lessen the sense of discovery that is at the heart of this film’s considerable charm. Those familiar with Hong’s previous films will sense a subtle optimism that doesn’t exist in his earlier films. Hong, as usual, elicits engaging performances from his leads, Lee Ki-woo a natural as the childish and self-involved suicidal young man, Kim Sang-kyung (who also starred in Turning Gate) quite funny as the bizarre (and possibly delusional) wannabe director, and especially the strikingly beautiful Uhm Ji-won, who deftly pulls off her tricky dual role.

Tale of Cinema screens March 8, 7pm as part of Japan Society’s film series “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”  For the rest of the screening schedule and ticket info, click here.

This post is my contribution to the 2012 Korean Cinema Blogathon, hosted this year by New Korean Cinema and cineAWESOME! You can read all the other entries here.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" Review: Shinya Tsukamoto's "Vital"

Vital. 2004. Written, directed, edited, photographed and production designed by Shinya Tsukamoto. Produced by Shinya Tsukamoto, Keiko Kusakabe, Koichi Kusakabe, and Shinichi Kawahara. Music by Chu Ishikawa. Sound by Yoshiya Obara. Special makeup effects by Takashi Oda.

Cast: Tadanobu Asano (Hiroshi Takagi), Nami Tsukamoto (Ryoko Oyama), Kiki (Ikumi Yoshimoto), Kazuyoshi Kushida (Hiroshi's father), Lily (Hiroshi's mother), Go Riju (Dr. Nakai), Jun Kunimura (Ryoko's father), Ittoku Kishibe (Dr. Kashiwabuchi).


Shinya Tsukamoto’s beautiful film Vital (2004), one of the great highlights of Japan Society’s film series “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” continues his filmic exploration of the human body. Several of his other films (the cult classic Tetsuo the Iron Man and its two sequels, Tokyo Fist, Gemini, Bullet Ballet, A Snake of June [also screening in the series]) focus obsessively on the materiality of the body, and specifically on the various ways it can be smashed, violated, and exposed. However, in Vital, Tsukamoto goes deeper, literally, digging into the mysteries of human consciousness and what constitutes life.

Hiroshi (Tadanobu Asano), a medical student, wakes up from a coma, caused by a traffic accident in which his girlfriend Ryoko (Nami Tsukamoto) perished. Hiroshi, described by Tsukamoto as a “modern-day Leonardo da Vinci,” returns to his anatomy studies, making detailed drawings of his dissections.  Meanwhile, he struggles to piece together his memory, which was severely damaged by the accident. Asano, who is often quiet and nearly somnambulistic during much of this film, maintains a quietly brooding presence, which draws us into his character’s travels through his consciousness, gradually revealing more details of his life and his relationship with Ryoko before the accident. Through the crucial clue of a cadaver’s tattoo, Hiroshi comes to realize, in the film’s most perverse twist, that the body he is dissecting in his anatomy course is in fact that of his dead girlfriend. Ryoko, whom it seems nursed a desire for death, requested that her body be entrusted to the medical school for the students’ use.

Tsukamoto bathes his film in an icy blue palette and exhibits a striking sense of architecture and space, which is quite effective in exploring the contrasting spiritual realms his protagonist explores. During the time he is dissecting Ryoko’s corpse, he experiences frequent visitations from her, and in this way, he travels between the worlds of the living and the dead. When Ryoko was alive, they often flirted with this boundary through their kinky sex games of erotic asphyxiation. Hiroshi existed in the area between life and death during his coma, and ultimately he must choose whether he wants to be with Ryoko in her world, or remain in the world of the living.

Even though there is more than a hint of necrophilia in this scenario, Vital is remarkably free of exploitative elements and is quite restrained in its approach. There are many memorable and arresting images, such as superimposed cremation smokestacks, and the scenes of Ryoko’s visitations, especially one where she performs an anguished dance on a beach. One of the most moving passages in the film is the combined funeral and med-student graduation, where there is a deep respect expressed for the sacrifices the medical subjects and their families have made in the quest to expand human knowledge. “We owe them thanks,” the anatomy class professor intones before the students begin dissecting. And even though the essential question of the path Hiroshi ultimately chooses remains unresolved at the film’s conclusion, this is well in keeping with the deeper mystery the film poses of what constitutes human consciousness, a mystery which we are nowhere close to solving.

Vital screens at Japan Society on Saturday, March 3 at 7pm as part of its film series “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” an impressive selection of provocative films featuring twisted, obsessive, and extreme love stories from both Japan and Korea.  Several celebrated auteurs are represented here; besides Tsukamoto (whose latest film KOTOKO opens the series), the series offers films by Koji Wakamatsu (his latest film Petrel Hotel Blue and two earlier films from the 60s and 70s), Hong Sangsoo (Tale of Cinema), Kim Ki-duk (Bad Guy, Dream, Time), Nagisa Oshima (In the Realm of the Senses), and Lee Chang-dong (Oasis).  Click here for more information on the series and 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:

"Yeonghwa: Korean Film Today" Review: Yim Soon-rye's "Rolling Home with a Bull"

Rolling Home with a Bull (Sowa hamkke yeonaenghaneun beop). 2010. Directed by Yim Soon-rye. Written by Park Kyoung-hee, based on the novel "How to Travel with a Cow" by Kim Do-yeon. Produced by Yang Dong-myung. Cinematography by Park Yeong-jun. Edited by Park Kyoung-sook. Music by Roh Young-sim. Production design by Kim Jong-woo. Art direction by Kim Min-jeong. Sound by Seo Young-june.

Cast: Kim Yeong-pil (Choi Sun-ho), Kong Hyo-jin (Lee Hyun-soo), Mek Bo (Han-soo/Peter), Jeon Guk-hwan (Sun-ho's father), Lee Yeong-yi (Sun-ho's mother), Mun Chang-gil (old Buddhist man), Jo Seung-yeon (boy monk's father), Weon Poong-yeon (cow auctioneer), Ahn Do-gyu (boy monk), Jo Moon-eui (policeman), Jeong Weon-jo (Min-gyu), Park Hye-jin (Sun-ho's aunt).

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on New Korean Cinema.)

A humorous, lyrical, and philosophical wonder, Yim Soon-rye’s Rolling Home with a Bull is her best film to date, a superior addition to her already impressive body of work.  Essentially a Buddhist parable, its free-flowing peripatetic nature, following the path of a lovelorn, failed poet who seeks to escape his home and his own past, is filled with warmth and humanity, its import growing deeper with multiple viewings.  The film at first unfolds in a deceptively realistic mode, but then dreams and allegorical visions gradually take over the narrative, pulling the viewer ever so subtly into the rich fabric of its atmosphere, and making the audience a shotgun rider on the spiritual journey taken by its protagonist.

Sun-ho (Kim Yeong-pil), in the opening scenes, has had just about all he can take with the backbreaking work on his family farm, deep in the countryside of Kangwon Province.  His ears ring with the harsh tones of his bickering parents – his irascible, cantankerous father (Jeon Guk-hwan), and long-suffering mother (Lee Yeong-yi) – all day long as they plow the fields with their trusty work bull.  Sun-ho’s father harshly criticizes his son’s impractical and fruitless pursuit of poetry and his habit of coming home late drunk every night.  His mother hectors him to get married, and to follow the example of other village men who have taken Southeast Asian women as wives; in her mind, the clock is rapidly ticking, as Sun-ho is now nearly forty.  (Much of the film’s humor derives from the verbal dueling of Sun-ho’s parents, the father frequently calling his wife a “hag”; this brings to mind the real-life elderly couple of the Korean documentary Old Partner (Lee Chung-ryoul, 2008), which functioned as a paean to bucolic life.)  Finally, Sun-ho’s frustration with his parents and his own feelings of personal failure drive him to taking a pickup truck and the family’s bull out on the road, with the aim to sell the bull and use the money to go traveling.  The remainder of the film takes the form of a road movie, a familiar staple of Korean cinema, as Sun-ho is forced on a long trip because he can find no buyers for the bull.

The Buddhist content becomes ever more apparent as the story progresses; besides the bull itself, which we are told has great symbolic value in Buddhism, other recurring figures appear: a kindly old monk (Moon Chang-gil) and his “Ohmygod Temple”; a father (Jo Seung-yeon) and young son (Ahn Do-gyu) who beg to ride Sun-ho’s bull in order to gain enlightenment; and, in a late scene, the miraculous blooming of a lotus flower.  But the most important recurring figure in Sun-ho’s life is the sudden reappearance of his estranged former lover Hyun-soo (Kong Hyo-jin), who informs him of the death of her husband, who also was Sun-ho’s best friend.  Hyun-soo’s choice to marry this friend over Sun-ho, we soon learn, is the cause of his retreat from his former city life in Seoul and a deep resentment that has rendered him unable to pursue any other relationships with women.  These characters, and others, serve to guide and instruct Sun-ho on the path he must take to heal his pain and reveal a purpose to his restless wandering.

This is all guided by the unerringly masterful hand of Yim Soon-rye, aided by Park Kyoung-hee’s beautifully written screenplay, based on Kim Do-yeon’s novel How to Travel with a Cow (the film’s Korean title is How to Travel with a Bull), Park Yeong-jun's richly textured cinematography (the Red One digital images nicely capture the beauty of Korea’s countryside), and a well-placed Peter, Paul and Mary folk tune.  As usual, Yim elicits great performances, which in this case go well beyond their allegorical function; Kim Yeong-pil and Kong Hyo-jin are especially great in the drinking scenes that most immediately recall Hong Sang-soo in the way their personal histories spill out as easily as the many bottles of soju they consume.  And last but not least, the titular bull is a compelling, sympathetic character in its own right; while not achieving the sublime depths of Bresson’s Balthazar, it’s at least in the ballpark.

Rolling Home with a Bull screens at the Museum of Modern Art on September 23 at 4:30 as part of the film series “Yeonghwa: Korean FilmToday,” screening September 22 through October 2.  For more information, and to purchase tickets, visit MoMA’s website. 

"Yeonghwa: Korean Film Today" Review: Shin Su-won's "Passerby #3 (Rainbow)"

Passerby #3 (Rainbow). 2009. Written and directed by Shin Su-won. Produced by Shin Su-won and Kim Mi-jung. Cinematography by Han Tai-yong. Edited by Lee Hyun-mee. Music by Moon Sung-nam. Art direction by Kang Ji-hyun. Sound by Lee Taek-hee.

Cast: Park Hyun-young (Kim Ji-wan), Beack So-myung (Si-young), Yi Me-youn (Producer Choi), Kim Jae-rok (Sang-woo), Cho Hyun-sook (Hyun-joo), Yang Jong-hyeon (Ahn Chang-nam), Park Ji-weon, Song Nam-hyeon, Noh Yu-nan (Rainbow band members).

(Note: this review has been cross-posted on New Korean Cinema.)

The trials and tribulations of being a film director, an oft-told tale in movies, gets a unique and lightly surreal spin in Shin Su-won’s Passerby #3 (Rainbow), which can be best described as the slightly milder cousin of Barton Fink.  Passerby #3 features an increasingly unhinged protagonist whose attempts at individual creativity are continually ground under the merciless gearwheels of the conventional wisdom of producers and investors, whose ideas of what sells seemingly shift without rhyme or reason.  Ji-wan (Park Hyun-young), after catching the filmmaking bug with her first touch of a camera, impulsively quits her day job, going all in to pursue her dream.  Cut to: five years later, with a bratty, demanding teenage son (Si-young, played by Beack So-myung), an increasingly impatient husband (Sung-woo, played by Kim Jae-rok), 15 drafts of her script “House of the Sun,” visions of imaginary ants everywhere, and constant producer rejections, Ji-wan has yet to make her debut.  Producer Choi (Yi Me-youn), an old friend of Ji-wan’s, provides her with a last lease on professional life by hiring Ji-wan at her company; but alas, the vicious cycle of script changes, rejections and enforced commercial mainstreaming begins anew. 

Inspired by the sight of a rainbow in a puddle that may or may not be a mirage, Ji-wan pursues a new idea, a music-themed film called “Rainbow,” which greatly excites her, but unfortunately meets resistance yet again from Choi and the investors.  Choi, taking her cue from her bosses, harshly criticizes Ji-wan’s “psychotic” fantasy-laden script and her “shitty imagination,” giving her the rather insulting gift of the book “How to Write a Script,” so that Ji-wan can come up with an alternate idea.  Choi soon relents, forced to try to work with Ji-wan’s original “Rainbow” script when a rival production company launches a project similar to the one Ji-wan is currently writing.  Unfortunately, Ji-wan’s travails with Choi eventually lead to the bitter conclusion that there are really no friends in the movie business.

Just as Ji-wan is bullied in the pursuit of her art, her son Si-young is bullied in the pursuit of his, by an upperclassman at school who taunts and intimidates him as they practice together in the school rock band, and swipes the new guitar Si-young’s mother bought him.  This paralleling of two creative people whose attempts to fully express their talents are thwarted by intimidating forces is but one example of the depth and sensitivity of characterization that vividly breathes life into what could have been an irredeemably clichéd scenario.

Passerby #3 (Rainbow), Shin’s debut feature, which won best Korean film at the Jeonju International Film Festival and best Asian-Middle Eastern film at the Tokyo International Film Festival (both in 2010), is at least partly autobiographical.  Similarly to her film’s protagonist, Shin quit her teaching job in 2002 to enter film school and pursue filmmaking while raising two children.  Again, like her main character, Shin had also been preparing a music-themed film before making this one, and indeed, many musical elements remain in her story.  However, Shin insists that the events occurring in her film are heavily fictionalized.  Nevertheless, based on the portrait Shin paints of the Korean film industry here, one could be forgiven for concluding that it must be a miracle that any personal, non-derivative films manage to be made in Korea at all.  Passerby #3, of course, is itself proof positive that such films are indeed being made, and are by no means rare.  The performances in the film are, for the most part, just as multifaceted as its narrative.  Park Hyun-young is especially memorable as the spineless sad sack who eventually finds the courage to be more than a bit player in her own drama, while Yi Me-youn, as the producer, reveals deeper layers that complicate her role as the villainous killer of creativity she initially seems to be.  The only character here that feels miscalculated is that of Ji-wan’s son Si-young.  As played by Beack So-myung, Si-young comes off as such an obnoxious jerk, and is so merciless in his verbal take-downs of his mother, that it’s difficult to feel sympathy for his artistic struggles.  Still, this only slightly mars what is otherwise an affecting, impressive introduction to an interesting new director well-worth watching.

Passerby #3 (Rainbow) screens at the Museum of Modern Art on September 22 at 4:30 and September 25 at 4:30 as part of "Yeonghwa: Korean Film Today," a small but impressive snapshot of recent Korean cinema.  A joint presentation of MoMA and the Korea Society, the series runs from September 22 through October 2.  For more information on this and other films in the series, and to purchase tickets, visit MOMA's website.

"Blissfully Thai" Review: Wisit Sasanatieng's "Tears of the Black Tiger"

Tears of the Black Tiger (Fah talai jone). 2000. Written and directed by Wisit Sasanatieng. Produced by Nonzee Nimibutr. Cinematography by Nattawut Kittikhun. Edited by Dusanee Puinongpho. Music by Amornbhong Methakunavudh. Production design by Ek Iemchuen. Art direction by Akradech Keaw Kotr and Rutchanon Kayangnan. Costume design by Chaiwichit Somoboon.

Cast: Chartchai Ngamsan (Seua Dum, "Black Tiger"), Stella Malucchi (Rumpoey), Supakorn Kitsuwon   (Mahasuan), Arawat Ruangvuth (Police Captain Kumjorn), Sombati Medhanee (Fai), Pairoj Jaisingha (Phya Prasit), Naiyana Shiwanun (Rumpoey's maid), Kanchit Kwanpracha (Kamnan Dua, Dum's father), Chamloen Sridang (Sgt. Yam).

Asia Society's essential "Blissfully Thai" film series continues with Wisit Sasanatieng's deliriously psychedelic classic Thai cinema homage Tears of the Black Tiger, screening tomorrow at 6:45pm.  For tickets, click here. Below is what I wrote on this film at the time of its extremely belated 2007 US release.


“Nostalgia as future shock,” is how the press notes describe Tears of the Black Tiger, the debut film from Thai writer-director Wisit Sasanatieng.  The first Thai film chosen for the Cannes Film Festival, it was purchased by Miramax shortly after its Cannes screening in 2001, but – as was so often the case, especially with their Asian film acquisitions – Miramax proceeded to agitate and frustrate the film’s potential audience by holding back its theatrical release, forcing fans to troll the Internet to search for English-subtitled imports.


Sasanatieng is a major player in the renaissance of Thai cinema that began in the late ‘90s, which also includes Tears of the Black Tiger’s producer Nonzee Nimibutr (Nang Nak, Jan Dara), Pen-ek Ratanaruang (6ixty9, Monrak Transistor, Last Life in the Universe), Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Blissfully Yours, Tropical Malady), and Hong Kong-born brothers Oxide and Danny Pang (Bangkok Dangerous, The Eye). Many of these filmmakers (with the exception of Weerasethakul, whose background was in avant-garde film and gallery installations) began in advertising, and Sasanatieng is no exception. He experimented in his commercial work with much of the wild visual tropes and super-saturated coloring featured in his film.


Consisting of equal parts Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpah, and the palimpsests of numerous 50’s and 60’s Thai action films, Sasanatieng’s film brilliantly combines cutting-edge technology (much of the film’s bright pastel colors were digitally added in post-production) with nostalgia for the popular cinema of Thailand’s recent past. Tears of the Black Tiger boldly jettisons realism in order to create a uniquely cinematic universe. Making use of such retro-cinema techniques as painted sets, back projection, iris shots and wipes, Sasanatieng has created a visually stunning and self-aware pop artifact. There is a quite bracing spirit of formal playfulness that is reminiscent of Jean-Luc Godard and Quentin Tarantino. One great example occurs during the opening shootout, in which the two central gunslingers, attired in the archetypal costumes of Hollywood Westerns, battle seemingly dozens of other gunmen. These antagonists are dispatched en masse, punctuated with enormous, and absurdly fake, bright red squibs of blood. After the film’s hero kills one of them with a bullet that ricochets off several surfaces before landing right between his eyes, a title card appears: “Did you catch that? If not, we’ll play it again.” The sequence then replays at a slightly slower speed and from a different angle, allowing us to follow the bullet’s trajectory. This sort of genre parody/homage is in abundance throughout the film.

The film’s plot is unabashedly melodramatic: Dum (Chutchai Ngamsan), the son of a poor peasant farmer, falls in love with Rumpoey (Stella Mallucci), the daughter of the local governor. Class differences conspire to keep them apart, culminating in Rumpoey’s unwilling betrothal to police captain Kumjorn (Arawat Ruangvuth). During his time apart from Rumpoey, Dum has become a bandit, the titular “Black Tiger,” infiltrating the gang who murdered his father in order to avenge that death. When he learns of the gang’s plan to ambush the governor’s house on Rumpoey’s wedding day, Dum must battle both his romantic rival and his former compadres in order to save her.


This “pad thai Western,” to use critic Chuck Stephens’ description, was conceived as an homage to Thai genre film master Rattana Pestonji, an independent filmmaker active in the ‘50’s and ‘60s who has now been mostly forgotten, both in and out of Thailand. Perhaps this film will encourage repertory houses and film societies to seek out this director’s work, which at least on paper seem to be long overdue for rediscovery. However, Tears of the Black Tiger is not simply an empty post-modern exercise. The obvious affection with which Sasanatieng regards his Thai cinema forbears, not to mention the Western films that influenced them, permeates every aspect of this production. Simultaneously retro and futuristic, Tears of the Black Tiger is a feast for the eyes and ears, an orgy of riotous color and movie-mad delight.

"Breaking the Waves: The Films of Zero Chou" at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Taiwanese director Zero Chou is one of the more interesting talents to emerge in recent world cinema.  A former journalist who moved into documentary filmmaking in the late 90’s, she is also, by all indications, the only openly lesbian filmmaker in Taiwan.  She works very closely with her life partner Hoho Liu, who also serves on her films as cinematographer and co-editor.  Chou has a distinctively allusive style that freely shifts between realism, dream imagery, and fantasy, an intensively sensual eye that is attuned to human desire in all its forms, with a special sympathy for those who exists on society’s margins.  She has been deservedly acclaimed for her films: Splendid Float won the best Taiwan Film award at the 2004 Golden Horse Film Festival, and Spider Lilies won the Teddy Award for best LGBT themed film at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival.  Five of Chou’s features will screen from June 7 through the 30^th at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, in a series called “Breaking the Waves: The Films of Zero Chou,” organized by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York. All screenings are free, and Zero Chou will appear in person for introductions and Q&A's at the screenings of Wave Breaker (June 7) and Spider Lilies (June 9).

Corner’s (2001)

This impressionistic documentary about a gay bar in Taipei has many levels, beginning with the voiceover by Hoho Liu (Chou’s partner, co-editor and cinematographer), which is in French.  Running throughout the film, this voiceover reflects the feelings of displacement felt by many of the subjects of the film.  Mandarin is inadequate to express the feelings Liu wants to express; French gives her the proper words in which to do this.  Corner’s is a place where, as one subject says, the patrons can “relax” and freely be who they are.  It is a respite from the strictures of conventional society, and the coming of the dawn is a dreaded event, meaning a return, for some, to hidden desires and concealed sexual lives.  In one striking sequence, people exit the club into the street, but the framing makes it seem like they are all entering dark closets.  The bar was closed after a police raid, so the film also represents a memorial to this place, and what it meant to those who patronized it.  There is a very sensual passage in which two women, whose faces we don’t see, are in the process of making love, and as is the case with the film itself, it is a powerful affirmation of desire in the face of societal opposition.  The name of the bar itself represents marginalization, being in the corners of society, rather than out in the open.

(June 30 at 6:30pm)

Splendid Float (2004)

The theme of dual lives in Corner’s carries over to Splendid Float, Chou’s second fiction feature and the first in her “Rainbow Colors” series of films, each of which is defined visually by a key primary color, in this case, yellow.  This is the color of a T-shirt worn by Sunny, the lover of the protagonist Roy (James Chen), a novice Taoist priest by day and a drag performer, named Rose, at night.  Rose performs with a troupe of fellow performers on a traveling float that performs in a different location each night.  One night when the truck the float is mounted on breaks down, Rose first meets Sunny (I-chin Zhuon), a very handsome surfer type, at a roadside café.  Almost instantly, they act on their attraction to one another, but almost as quickly, they must part from one another.  Their separation is sealed shortly afterward when Sunny mysteriously dies by drowning.  Torn apart by grief, Rose finds it increasingly difficult to maintain the two separate lives he leads, and he embarks on a quest to learn why Sunny left so suddenly, and throughout the film, he communes with Sunny’s ghost.  The narrative is deliberately slim and spare, all the more to concentrate on how Rose grapples with grief, and there are frequent sequences of the drag group performing to appreciative audiences.  The film floats freely between the past and present, frequently superimposing time periods visually on top of one another; this is a stylistic hallmark of the entire trilogy.  Splendid Float beautifully captures not only the sadness Rose feels, which he expresses through his performance, but the camaraderie that exists among the family of performers that surrounds him, and which provides an anchor and source of comfort that the world outside this nurturing environment lacks.  One of Rose’s fellow performers jokingly expresses dread at the coming of the dawn, in which they will no longer be beautiful women, but horrifying hags, transformed by the harsh light of day.  The film is awash in glittering rainbows of color that express a hopeful quality in the midst of grief, loneliness, and despair.

(June 16 at 6:30pm)

Spider Lilies (2007)

Takeko (Isabella Leong) and Jade (Rainie Yang), the two women at the center of Spider Lilies, Chou’s intricately layered second feature (the “green” section of her “Rainbow Colors”), have retreated into worlds of their own making as an escape from loneliness and trauma.  Their destinies have become intertwined as the result of a massive earthquake that figures in both their pasts.  Jade works as a web-cam girl on a sex site, broadcasting from her bedroom, a room adorned with beaded curtains, dolls, and plush fabric to give the illusion of a girlish boudoir.  Just beyond Jade’s camera frame, and unseen by her customers, her room is a drab dwelling, the walls stained and peeling.  She also lives with her senile grandmother, who in a funny early scene, wanders into the room during one of her web-cam sessions.  At the suggestion of a customer who says she should get a sexy tattoo, Jade finds her way to the tattoo studio run by Takeko, and she requests a pattern of spider lilies that adorns the wall of the studio, and matches a tattoo on Takeko’s own arm.  Takeko refuses, saying the pattern is cursed.  Jade and Takeko first met years ago; Jade remembers their first encounter, but Takeko doesn’t (or claims not to remember).  Jade invites Takeko to visit her website, and later excitedly relates on her next web-cam session the story of how they met, hoping that Takeko is one of her online viewers.  The film frequently flashes back to both of their pasts, and the earthquake in which they both lost family; Takeko lost her father, and Jade (supposedly) lost her mother.  Takeko has retreated into her own world just as Jade has, though her meticulous attention to her tattooing art, spending hours creating designs for her customers and keeping diaries on her creations and who is wearing them.  Her tattoo matches her father’s, and she wears it as a unique form of therapy for her younger brother Ching (Shen Jian-hung), who witnessed the earthquake and lost his memory of his identity as a result.  Meanwhile, David (Kris Shie), a vice cop assigned to investigate and plan a raid of Jade’s website, has fallen in love with her and delays the investigation as much as possible. 

Chou freely melds fantasy and reality, the present and the past, and interior and exterior worlds, to create a very complicated story that is far more elaborately plotted than Splendid Float.  The discursive, roundabout style of storytelling here allows Chou to fully explore how members of societal subcultures – online sex workers, tattoo artists, gangsters – plot out their lives on the margins, making worlds much richer than that of the larger society that marginalizes them.  While the themes of lesbian desire Chou presents here may be familiar ones, Chou and cinematographer Hoho Liu’s sensually-charged images and bold juxtapositions elevate the experience into an aesthetically intense one.

(June 9 at 6:30pm, director intro/Q&A)

Drifting Flowers (2008)

The “red” section of “Rainbow Colors,” Drifting Flowers is a decades-spanning triptych exploring the romantic and emotional lives of three women at varying stages of their lives, grappling with love, desire, and longing.  This film pulls back from the dreamy and allusive style of Chou’s previous features, adopting a more realistic and less stylistically adorned filmmaking style.  While Hoho Liu’s cinematography is as lovely as ever, the choice to ground the film more in objective reality exposes its themes as overly familiar, and its issues are too much on the surface and lack the intricate depth of Splendid Float and Spider Lilies.  Drifting Flowers remains compelling, however, due to its strong performances and evocative visuals.  The three sections of the film are connected by a train passing through a dark tunnel, on which some of the major characters happen to be traveling.  It’s a familiar metaphor, but appropriate one for the life passages all the characters go through in the course of their narratives. 

Each section is named for the character it focuses on. Two of these characters are May (Pai Chih-ying) and Diego (Chao Yi-lan), who we meet at two stages in their lives.  Eight year-old May lives with her blind sister Jing (Serena Fang), who works as a bar singer, with Diego as her accordion and piano accompaniment.  Diego’s butch appearance causes May to ask her, “Are you a boy or a girl?”  This question gets variously asked by, and of, different characters throughout the film.  Diego eventually begins a romantic relationship with Jing, which makes May jealously angry, though she is unsure why she feels that way at this young age.  May’s schooling is affected by being kept up all night and sleeping at the bar, since Jing is raising May on her own.  After May angrily sends Jing on a dangerous trip outdoors by herself, after having witnessed Jing and Diego kissing the night before, Jing is compelled to leave May permanently with foster parents.  The foster mother asks Jing and Diego to stay away from May, since she feels that the environment “isn’t good for a young girl.”  The tragedy of the story is that the confluence of May’s jealous feelings and society’s prejudice and strictures drive these sisters apart.  Diego’s section, the final part of the film, details her life before she met Jing, exploring her gender confusion and grappling with her attraction to women and her wish to look less like a typical girl.  This causes conflict with her mother, who tries to get her to conform to a girlish appearance, and her brother, who objects to Diego inheriting any part of the family puppet-show troupe.

The middle section focuses on Lily (Lu Yi-ching), an old woman with Alzheimer’s at a nursing home, who is visited by Yen (Sam Wang), a gay man who is Lily’s legal husband.  Years earlier, they got married to appease their families, while pursuing secret same-sex relationships.  Lily in her senility mistakes Yen for her lover, who died years before.  Yen is HIV-positive, but refuses to take his medicine because of their vicious side effects.  Yen has lost the will to live because of his illness and a cheating younger lover.  The film’s last section flashes back on a younger Lily (Herb Hsu), who works as a showgirl on an outdoor stage.  The younger Lily encounters the younger Diego, whose family’s puppet troupe is losing customers to Lily’s titillating stage show.

Drifting Flowers shares its languorous pace and melancholy mood with other Taiwanese cinema stalwarts such as Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang, although Zero Chou’s style is more accessible than either of them.  The presence of Lu Yi-ching, a regular actor for Tsai, reinforces this connection.

(June 23 at 6:30pm)

Wave Breaker (2009)

A project made for Taiwanese television, Wave Breaker, Chou’s latest feature, departs from the gay and lesbian themes of her previous features, though it is consistent with those other films in its intense identification with those who are different from the larger society.  Hao-yang (Yao Yuan-hao), a teacher and surfer, is stricken with spinocerebellar ataxia, a physically debilitating disease that seems similar to Lou Gehrig’s disease, inherited from his late father.  Hao-yang’s mother, Shen Li-ping (Xu Gui-ying), a councilwoman, is determined not to let his son die the way her husband did, and insists on putting him in extensive physical therapy, even as Hao-yang’s condition gets progressively worse.  As opposed to model son Hao-yang, younger brother Hao-ting is a continual disappointment to his mother, pursuing a music career and refusing to get a regular job, preferring to drive a cab.  Wave Breaker, much like Chou’s other films, approaches its narrative in a temporally non-linear way, beginning with Li-ping taking Hao-yang to drown in the sea as an act of assisted suicide, and backtracking to show what led up to this event.  Although the film never transcends its status as a “disease-of-the-week” TV movie, it admirably avoids false uplift and refuses to offer inspirational platitudes, showing us the weight of unavoidable tragedy.

(June 7 at 6:30pm, director intro/Q&A)

"Blissfully Thai" Review: Pen-ek Ratanaruang's "Monrak Transistor"

Monrak Transistor. 2001. Written and directed by Pen-ek Ratanaruang, based on the novel by Wat Wanlayangkoon. Produced by Nonzee Nimibutr and Duangkamol Limcharoen. Cinematography by Chankit Chamniwikaipong. Edited by Patamanadda Yukol. Music by Amornbhong Methakunavudh and Chartchai Pongprapapan. Production design by Saksiri Chuntarangsri. Costume design by Sombatsara Teerasaroch. Sound design by Amornbhong Methakunavudh.

Cast: Supakorn Kitsuwon (Pan), Siriyakorn Pukkavesh (Sadaw), Black Phomtong (Yot), Somlek Sakdikul (Suwat), Porntip Papanai (Dao), Ampon Rattanawong (Siew), Prasit Wongrakthai (Sadaw's father), Chartchai Hamnuansak (Prison guard).

Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s melodramatic musical Monrak Transistor tells the sad, pathetic tale of Pan (Supakorn Kitsuwon), an aspiring singer who, through a series of episodes detailing poor choices and colossal bad luck, is separated from his wife Sadaw (Siriyakorn Pukkavesh).  The film begins with Pan imprisoned and forced to excrete a stolen necklace he had swallowed earlier.  A prison guard, who happens to be from Pan’s home village, addresses the camera and tells the story of how he ended up in prison.  Pan’s story is one of the hoariest of tropes: that of the innocent country naïf who becomes corrupted by the bad old sinful city, in this case Bangkok.  But the charm of Monrak Transistor is that the film itself is very much aware of how hackneyed and maudlin that story is, so Ratanaruang impishly plays with it by utilizing narrative devices such as direct address to the camera, as in the prison guard narration, and several instances in which characters briefly give asides to the camera.  Another instance of this occurs in an early scene in which Pan sings to Sadaw in her room to demonstrate his love for her; a cutaway shows Sadaw’s angry father (who dislikes and distrusts Pan) listening in on the fully orchestrated song on the other side of the door.  Later in the film, in a sequence detailing Pan getting drafted into the military and sent to boot camp training, Pan and his fellow soldiers join in on singing “Mai Leum” (“Never Forget”), a famous Thai love song that becomes a repeated refrain in the film.  This song is reprised in a later scene, where some characters return from the dead to sing the song.

The film also has a lot of fun with the contrasts between the rural village and Bangkok, playing up these contrasts to a consciously absurd extent.  The outdoor concert, in which we are introduced to Pan as a featured performer on the stage, is populated with a large number of ducks and goats, who seem almost as numerous in the crowd as the humans.  Pan cures the back pain suffered by Sadaw’s father with an elaborate folk remedy with fanciful names.  This is the environment that surrounds and protects Pan and Sadaw, and is the source of their moral virtue.  The government breaks this bond by drafting Pan into the army, and this enforced separation is the catalyst for Pan’s precipitous downfall and Sadaw’s destitution and abandonment.  Pan’s pursuit of a singing career is also a corrupting influence, causing him to go AWOL from both the army and his family, and eventually leads to his incarceration.  What makes Pan such a pathetic figure is the fact that so much of what happens to him is a function of accident and happenstance.  He is almost never an active agent.  Whether he has to mop floors for two years in pursuit of his professional singing debut, is propositioned by a skeevy impresario, or is falling into a vat of human excrement, he allows himself to be passively carried along on the tide of machinations done to him by others.  Pan always has our sympathy, but he never comes across as very smart.

Monrak Transistor is dedicated to, and is an homage to the spirit of, the famous luk thung (country music) singer Suraphol Sombatcharoen, whose song “Mai Leum” recurs in the film.  It has affinities to other Thai films by Ratanaruang’s contemporaries who also mined Thai cinema to fashion their own post-modern nostalgia reworkings.  One of them is Wisit Sasanatieng’s Tears of the Black Tiger (screening June 10 at Asia Society), a candy-colored “pad Thai Western” that is cannily referenced in Monrak Transistor; it is the film that plays in a scene at an outdoor theater.  (Tears also stars Monrak’s lead actor Supakorn Kitsuwon.)  Despite Ratanaruang’s cheeky stylistic games, Monrak Transistor retains a genuinely emotional core, helped in large part by its very attractive cast, including Kitsuwon and Pukkavesh as the central couple, and also the very striking Porntip Papanai as Dao, who becomes an alternate love interest for Pan. (Papanai also portrays the hotel maid in Ratanaruang’s Ploy.)  Inventive and beguilingly charming, Monrak Transistor – which premiered in the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, and was Thailand’s 2002 foreign film Oscar submission – helped greatly to cement Thailand’s prominent place on the world cinema map at the turn of the millennium.

Monrak Transistor screens tonight at 6:45 at Asia Society as part of the film series “Blissfully Thai.” Click here to purchase tickets.

           

Interview with Shen Ko-shang, Director of "Two Juliets"

On the opening day of "Taiwan Stories," the Film Society of Lincoln Center's survey of classic and contemporary Taiwanese cinema which wraps today, I sat down to interview director Shen Ko-shang at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York (TECO).  Shen directed "Two Juliets," the second section (and my favorite) of the omnibus film Juliets, which reinterprets Romeo and Juliet in contemporary and historical Taiwanese settings.

What was the origin of the Juliets project?

The project was inspired by director Ang Lee, who won an award of $300,000 (US).  He wanted to cultivate some new blood into Taiwan’s film industry, so he decided to use this money to do that.  He gave the money to his brother Khan Lee, who was the project manager of the Juliets film.

You were a documentary filmmaker before participating in this film.  Why did you choose this particular project as your first foray into fiction?  Was this a long-standing aspiration of yours?

I’ve always dreamed of being a director of feature films, but it takes a great deal of capital to make this kind of film.  I cherish every opportunity to let my voice be heard, and there is a market for documentaries in Taiwan and internationally, so I got involved with documentaries at first.  My experience in making documentaries was a great help for this project.

Could you talk about Beigan, the island setting for “Two Juliets”?  What was it about this particular location that was attractive to you for this story?

I scouted many locations before I settled on Beigan, but none of them fit the allegorical tone that I wanted for my film.  Being an allegory, the story has to be beyond time and space, and very abstract.  The island of Beigan is really far away from the island of Taiwan proper, and I found that this island contained all the elements I’d imagined.  I even revised my script to reflect the particulars of the setting.

I was very impressed by how intricate your film was, for such a brief running time, being set in two different time periods: the 1980s and the present.  Could you talk about how you came up with this particular structure?

Figuring out how to reinterpret the classic story of Romeo and Juliet was a very difficult task.  I decided to focus on women’s self-awareness.  I highly value women’s persistent attitudes toward love and relationships; I think women are more courageous than men in this respect.  The time structure of my film is like a circle.  In every relationship we start from love, which eventually comes to an end.  But this ending also means the start of a new relationship, so it’s just like a circle.  The first two thirds of the film focus on the previous time, or the “old Juliet.”  The final part of the film concerns the present time.  This is how I chose to deal with the dilemma of love.  I purposely made the male character kind of dumb; he’s the only one who doesn’t know that Juliet hasn’t gone crazy.

I was also impressed by your lead actress, Lee Chien-na, who beautifully pulled off the dual role of the two Juliets.  This must have been very difficult for someone with no previous acting experience.  How did you find her?

Before I started shooting, a lot of people thought I was crazy, because I cast someone who had never acted before, and who has to play two roles in this movie.  Lee Chien-na was a contestant on Taiwan’s version of American Idol; she came in 10^th place, I think.  So she clearly had singing talent, even though she had no acting experience.  I spent a lot of time talking with her, and I could see that she was kind of obsessed with love and passion, and these were the kind of characteristics I was looking for.  So I decided to choose her to take the leading role.  Before formally shooting, I spent about a month with Chien-na to go over the script, to explore her acting potential.  Do you think she performed well?

Oh yes, very much so.

Compared to other actors of the younger generation, I think Chien-na is less “urbanized,” as we’d call it.  But you can still feel she’s very energetic and localized.  She’s like a stone that hasn’t yet been crafted by other artists.

So she’s more natural, you mean.

Yes, she’s more natural.

Did you sense this about her the first time you saw her?

No, the first time I only thought, she’s pretty! (Laughs) I cast her based on a hunch, and also the way she talked about her previous love experiences.  I decided to bet on her.  In addition, her upbringing is similar to the character she plays; her real family ran a singing troupe like the one depicted in the film.

It’s very interesting to hear that you drew upon your actress’ real-life experience to shape the character she played.  This leads me to wonder how your experience as a documentarian informed the way you made this fictional work.

Before Juliets, I spent about 8 years making documentaries.  Because of my abundant experience making documentary films, I’m always in touch with real life and real people.  Based on my long-term observations of reality, I imported these images into this film.  While I was making the film, I would think of how real people breathe, how real people act, how they sound in the documentaries, and then bring this to the fiction.  It’s very funny that when you’re shooting documentaries, you always want to make people more dramatic, but in fiction you want people to look more authentic, more real.

How much leeway did you have while making this film, as far as your interpretation of the Romeo and Juliet concept, and its connection to the other two films?  I was struck, for example, by the dominance of the color red throughout all three films.  How hands-on was Khan Lee in supervising this project?

I had 100 percent freedom in creating my film.  Producer Khan Lee did not interfere at all.  Before shooting, we all discussed it, and came up with the concept that the three directors would subvert the classic Romeo and Juliet.  Then Khan Lee just left it to the three of us to interpret it in our own way.  He completely disappeared from the whole project after that.

"Blissfully Thai" Review: Pen-ek Ratanaruang's "Ploy"

Ploy. 2007. Written and directed by Pen-ek Ratanaruang. Produced by Rewat Vorarat. Cinematography by Charnkit Chamniwikaipong. Edited by Patamanadda Yukol. Music by Hualampong Riddim and Koichi Shimizu. Production design by Saksiri Chantarangsri. Sound by Akritchalerm Kalaynamtr.

Cast: Lalita Panyopas (Dang), Pornwut Sarasin (Wit), Apinya Sakuljaroensuk (Ploy), Ananda Everingham (Nut), Phorntip Papanai (Tum), Thakaskorn Pradabpongsa (Moo).

A Bangkok hotel is the backdrop for a crumbling marriage, a torrid love affair, and moody languorousness in Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s Ploy, a film so ethereal that it nearly floats off the screen.  This is a mode Ratanaruang has favored in his most recent films: Last Life in the Universe, Invisible Waves, and his most recent feature Nymph.  His films now seem to be experiments in how minimal in plot, how elliptical and allusive in tone, and how much empty space and silence they can bear and still retain audience interest and substance.  Judging by some of his recent critical notices, the jury may be out on this, but as for me, I find both Ploy, and its follow-up Nymph, very beautifully made and fascinating, melancholy ghost(ly) stories of a sort.

The storyline of Ploy, such as it is, concerns Wit (Pornwut Sarasin) and Dang (Lalita Panyopas), a married couple returning to Thailand for a funeral, after living for 10 years in the U.S.  They arrive at their hotel at a troubled state in their marriage, having grown distant from one another, spending very little time together and no longer having sex, mostly arguing with each other.  Wit believes their love has reached its “expiration date,” and Dang suspects her husband of having an affair when he finds another woman’s name and number in his jacket pocket.  Unable to sleep (and perhaps as an excuse to get away from his wife for awhile), he leaves their room to get cigarettes and hangs out at the hotel bar.  There he meets Ploy (Apinya Sakuljaroensuk), a young woman with a frizzy halo of Afro-like curly hair, who is waiting for her mother to arrive from Sweden.  Wit invites Ploy to stay in their hotel room, to get cleaned up and wait for her mother, which greatly displeases Dang, who wishes to rest in privacy after their long trip.  As the film progresses, more tidbits of information about Dang emerge: she is a former film star who left the business long ago, and now appears to exist in a deep depression, which she assuages with heavy drinking, and (the film suggests) drugs.  While all this is occurring, a separate story details a hotel room tryst between a hotel maid (Phorntip Papanai) and a bartender (Ananda Everingham), a narrative thread which only has peripheral association with Wit, Dang, and Noy’s story, yet gets nearly equal screen time.

The minimalism of Ploy’s narrative allows Ratanaruang to visually indulge in varied ways, favoring long shots of its characters, and empty corridors that reinforce the sense of the drama that plays out against the hotel’s anonymous, antiseptic backdrop.  The maid and the hotel bartender serve as a counterweight to the distant and unhappy Wit and Dang, their sexual passion in stark contrast to the married couple who sleep as far apart as possible on their bed.  Although the film is named for her, we learn very little about Ploy, and she remains a mystery to the end; never explained, for example, are the bruises around her eye (which mirrors bruises Dang receives late in the film), or the male companion she leaves behind to go to Wit and Dang’s room.  Ploy shifts often between dream and reality, deliberately confusing distinctions between the two.  At least two major scenes in the film are revealed to be the dreams of Ploy and Dang, and this uncertainty about what we see in the film has a faintly unsettling effect.  Ploy ultimately lacks the lasting resonance of superior, earlier films such as 6ixty9, Monrak Transistor, and Last Life in the Universe; still, it has intriguingly odd visual and narrative touches and is never less than lovely to look at.

Ploy screens at Asia Society on May 13 at 6:45pm as part of the film series “Blissfully Thai,” which spotlights key Thai cinema of the past decade, including works by other major Thai directors such as Apichatpong Weerasethakul (last year’s Cannes Palme D’or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Blissfully Yours) and Wisit Sasanatieng (Tears of the Black Tiger).  Ratanaruang will have a Q&A after the screening, and will participate in a discussion on May 14 at 2pm with Apichatpong Weerasethakul at Asia Society to discuss their work and recent Thai cinema.  For info and tickets for Ploy, click here.  For info and tickets for Saturday’s talk, click here.