Accidental Kidnapper (Yukai Rhapsody). 2010. Directed by Hideo Sakaki. Written by Hisako Kurosawa, based on the novel by Hiroshi Ogiwara. Produced by Takayuki Sugisaki, Haruo Umehara, and Kazufumi Asami. Cinematography by Masayuki Fujii. Edited by Hideki Seino. Music by Izumi Sakaki. Art direction by Shimpei Inoue. Sound by Hisashi Iwamaru.
(Note: this review has been cross-posted on Twitch.)
Hideyoshi Date (Katsunori Takahashi) is at his wits’ end when we first meet him in Hideo Sakaki’s Accidental Kidnapper. Deep in debt, with no job, no prospects, and no family, he’s ready to end it all, and tries to do so, but he doesn’t even have the nerve to commit suicide. Wacky events are set in motion when Densuke (Roi Hayashi), a grade school boy, gets into Hideyoshi’s cab and demands to be taken to his prep school. Hideyoshi at first tries to get rid of him, but when he learns that Densuke comes from a rich family, he seizes on the opportunity to get himself out of his financial hole. Recalling the advice of an old prison mate (Takashi Sasano) who pops up now and then to give fantasy pep talks, Hideyoshi hits upon the idea of demanding ransom from Densuke’s parents. Densuke is also on the run; he is impulsively running away from home because he hasn’t been getting along with his parents lately. A foolproof plan, right? Well, if you think so, then you must have not seen a film before. Myriad complications ensue when Densuke’s father turns out to be no ordinary business executive, but a yakuza boss (played by Sho Aikawa, who by now can do this kind of role in his sleep), who sends an army of underlings out to find Densuke and Hideyoshi.
Accidental Kidnapper, based on a 2004 novel by Hiroshi Ogiwara, is light and genial entertainment, which is not especially ambitious or demanding of the viewer. The film plays everything straight down the middle, so that while there are many incidents and complications that pile on top of one another during its course, there’s little sense of urgency or danger. Each event feels like a function of pre-determined plotting, rather than organically arising from the characters and their environment. That being said, one can’t discount the considerable charms Accidental Kidnapper does possess, the main one being the great cast Sakaki has assembled. Takahashi and Hayashi work together beautifully, making their initial personality clashes and eventual camaraderie feel natural and never less than believable. Sho Aikawa and Shun Sugata (as the boss’ right hand man) portray their yakuza roles with considerable skill and charisma, and the quirky baby-voiced actress/singer YOU also impresses in a more limited role as Daisuke’s mother. Accidental Kidnapper, appropriately enough for what is essentially a road movie, also contains some quite stunning scenery, and the natural beauty of the countryside is as easy on the eyes as the film itself is easy on the brain. So while Accidental Kidnapper isn’t a very substantial film, there are plenty worse ways to while away a couple of hours than in the presence of a bumbling criminal and the adorable tot he keeps in tow.
Accidental Kidnapper screens at Japan Society on July 8, 6:15pm. Click here to purchase tickets.
Tian An Men. 2009. Directed by Ye Daying. Written by Wang Bing. Produced by Han Sanping. Cinematography by Yang Tao. Edited by Cheng Long. Music by Xu Xiangrong. Production design by Quan Rongzhe. Visual effects supervised by Feng Liwei. Sound by Gu Changning.
Cast: Pan Yueming, Liu Xiaoxin, Tian Lihe, Xin Peng, Guo Keyu, Masanobu Otsuka.
(Note: this review has also been cross-posted on Twitch.)
Aliens, ninjas, mutant girls, soft porn, ass-kicking martial arts, unclassifiable weirdness … the New York Asian Film Festival truly has something for everyone, and these elements are perennials of this festival that is now in its ninth year. Such creatures and film genres, in fact, should by now be expected sights at the NYAFF. However, one of the true oddities of this year’s selections is Ye Daying’s Tian An Men, a slightly modernized slice of straight-up PRC propaganda created for last year’s 60th anniversary of the 1949 founding of the People’s Republic of China. Tian An Men is very much a throwback to the Chinese state productions of the 1950s and 1960s which glorified China with heroic episodes from the country’s history. The most famous cinematic product of last year’s celebration/nostalgia trip in China was Huang Jianxin and Han Sanping’s The Founding of a Republic, a star-studded super-production that detailed the history leading up to the formation of Communist China. The cast was a veritable who’s-who of just about every significant star of mainland China and Hong Kong. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Zhang Ziyi, Andy Lau, and Zhao Wei are but a few of the superstars who appeared in this film, mostly glimpsed in the briefest of blink-and-you-missed-them cameos. Alas, despite its blinding star-wattage, The Founding of a Republic was a tedious exercise in mind-numbing exposition, so obsessed with trivial detail and blindly reverential that it was practically unwatchable. Still, the film did extremely well, breaking box-office records, probably more because of the patriotism of its audience rather than any real enthusiasm about its quality.
Tian An Men is easily far superior to The Founding of a Republic, if only because it dramatizes one specific episode rather than being a vast but shallow panoramic historical portrait. The film concerns a group of People’s Liberation Army soldiers tasked with getting Tiananmen Square in proper shape for Chairman Mao Zedong to give his speech at the founding ceremony of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949. Tian An Men delves into the rather fascinating minutiae of the problems the PLA faced in accomplishing their mission in the scant month in which they had to do it. The most dramatic episodes concern the acquisition of red dye for banners, and the quest to find proper sized lanterns to adorn the stage where Mao will speak. This scenario, on paper, threatens to be unbearably boring, but Tian An Men avoids this potential pitfall due to its detailed specificity, handsome production design (with CGI post-production enhancement), solid if unspectacular performances, and its utterly straight-faced sincerity. Tiananmen Square, of course, is associated in most people’s minds today with a far more tragic period of Chinese history, but the film that bears its name mostly succeeds in making this reality not an insurmountable impediment to appreciating this film.
Tian An Men screens on July 8, 1:45pm at the Walter Reade Theater. Click here to purchase tickets.
Electric Button (Moon and Cherry) (Tsuki to Cherry). 2004. Written and directed by Yuki Tanada. Produced by Ishiro Usui, Tadashi Ono, Nayoya Narita, and Yasuhiko Higashi. Cinematography by Kei Yasuda. Edited by Sumiyo Mitsuhashi. Music by Sei Komiyama. Production design by Chie Hori. Sound by Yukiya Sato.
(Note: this review has also been cross-posted on Twitch.)
Yuki Tanada’s 2004 erotic comedy/drama Electric Button (Moon and Cherry) is part of this year’s Japan Cuts section “Best of Unreleased Naughties.” This means, of course, the best unreleased (in US) Japanese films of the 2000s, but Electric Button is naughty in a very different way. Tanada’s film has been described as a distinctly female perspective on the Japanese genre of pinku eiga (“pink film”), which is a brand of soft-core sex film, but this isn’t quite accurate. Yes, there is copious sex in the film, but it isn’t as explicit or programmatic as in regular pinku eiga, the conventions of which usually demand five sex scenes per hour at roughly ten-to-fifteen minute intervals. Electric Button is closer to another genre of Japanese sex film called roman porno, which was similar to pink film but had a more literary, artistic bent and felt less formulaic than many pink films. Tanada, a female director, offers a startling inversion of the normally male-oriented perspective of these films, and calls attention to aspects that would normally not be closely questioned or examined.
The film’s protagonist and first-person narrator (a common pink film/roman porno convention, and appropriate to Electric Button’s literary milieu) is Tadokoro (Tasuku Nagaoka), a meek university student who is recruited to join an unusual literary group on campus called “Electric Button.” This group is devoted to studying and writing erotic literature, and they meet in an apartment festooned with erotic toys, novels, manga, and pornography. The name of the group is their cheeky reference to female genitalia. As one would imagine, the group consists mostly of a motley bunch of randy guys, including a workout fanatic, a white Westerner, and most oddly, a retired grandfather (the great veteran actor Akira Emoto), who is also a student.
Electric Button’s lone female member is Mayama (Noriko Eguchi), an established and published erotica writer who regularly churns out stories under a male pseudonym. She sits quietly as the guys welcome Tadokoro into their group, and as Tadokoro tries to impress them with his expert knowledge of female anatomy. But Mayama immediately, and accurately, identifies his true sexual status: “But aren’t you a virgin?” she asks Tadokoro. And while he tries to deny it, his secret is out. Tadokoro leaves the meeting mortified, but the next day is approached by Mayama, requesting his assistance. One thing leads to another, as they say, and soon Tadokoro finds himself summoned for regular sex sessions with Mayama. But there is an agenda: Tadokoro discovers that Mayama is using their sexual encounters as fodder for a novel she is writing. Rather than a literary muse, Tadokoro is more like a guinea pig for Mayama’s sexual experiments, which soon expand to include hired call girls and S&M torture artists. Tadokoro’s initial excitement turns to dismay as he becomes increasingly humiliated and aware that actual romantic feelings seem to only be on his side of the equation.
The drama and humor of Electric Button is mostly mined from the gender reversal Tanada performs on her sexual-awakening scenario. She casts Tadokoro in what would usually be the female role of the film’s central relationship. He is the shy, virginal character who is initiated into the world of sex by the considerably more experienced, and presumably older, Mayama. Tadokoro even bleeds the first time he has sex with Mayama in a clever parody of a girl’s first-time bloodletting. Mayama is a seemingly cold, manipulative user, unapologetically fabricating real-life scenarios for her fiction, assuming the more masculine role in her relationships, and disguising herself as a man for her readers. Tanada’s twisting of genre conventions heightens both the provocative eroticism of her tale and the volatile emotions on display. Tanada shoots Electric Button in the low-budget, functional style of erotic films, and this efficiency of form serves as dramatically powerful shorthand. Electric Button (Moon and Cherry) is an impressive debut film, and Tanada continued her explorations of young people’s sexuality, again featuring strong female characters, with Ain’t No Tomorrows (2008), which screened at last year’s Japan Cuts. Another recent Tanada feature, One Million Yen Girl (2008), also screens at this year’s festival.
Electric Button (Moon and Cherry) screens on July 7, 6:30pm at Japan Society. Click here to purchase tickets.
Actresses (Yeobaewoodeul). 2009. Produced and directed by E J-yong. Written by Yoon Yeo-jeong, Lee Mi-sook, Choi Ji-woo, Ko Hyun-jung, Kim Min-hee and Kim Ok-vin. Cinematography by Hung Kyung-pyo. Edited by Hahm Sung-won and Ko Amo. Music by Jang Young-gyu and Lee Byung-hoon. Production design by Hong Joo-hee. Costume design by Cho Yoon-mi.
Cast: Yoon Yeo-jeong, Lee Mi-sook, Choi Ji-woo, Ko Hyun-jung, Kim Min-hee, Kim Ok-vin, Kim Ji-soo, Lee Ji-ah, Kim Yong-ho, Oh Je-hyeong, Ahn Ji-hye, Yoo Te-oh.
(Note: this review has been cross-posted on Twitch.)
“Curb Your Enthusiasm meets Korean TV drama” could be the tagline for E J-yong’s delightful Actresses, a semi-improvised comedy/drama featuring a sextet of actresses – Yoon Yeo-jeong (A Good Lawyer’s Wife, The President’s Last Bang, The Housemaid), Lee Mi-sook (An Affair, Untold Scandal, Hellcats), Choi Ji-woo (Winter Sonata, The Romantic President, Everybody Has Secrets), Ko Hyun-jung (Woman on the Beach, Like You Know It All), Kim Min-hee (Hellcats), and Kim Ok-vin (Dasepo Naughty Girls, Thirst) – all “playing themselves.” (I’ll explain the quotes later.) The entire film takes place during a Vogue fashion shoot on Christmas Eve, teasing out the camaraderie and conflicts that arise among these strong women with equally strong egos. The action plays out in near-real time, faux-documentary style. The actresses are a cross-section of different generations: Kim Ok-vin and Kim Min-hee are the youngest, in their 20’s; Ko Hyun-jung and Choi Ji-woo are in their 30’s; Lee Mi-sook is in her 40’s; and the eldest is Yoon Yeo-jeong, in her 60’s.
The most pronounced conflict in the film occurs between Ko and Choi, who very nearly come to blows. Because they are of the same generation, they are the most direct rivals. Choi, prior to the shoot, is the most anxious at meeting the other actresses: “Just imagining a bunch of actresses with strong egos in one place … It’s so scary!” These women have had similar experiences and would seem to have natural camaraderie, but the dog-eat-dog nature of the entertainment industry encourages rivalries that can often become very bitter. Actresses makes much of Choi’s huge stardom in Japan, mostly due to the massive popularity there of Winter Sonata, the 2002 Korean TV drama that was a smash hit across Asia, and was a major work of the hallyu (Korean pop-culture wave) phenomenon. This forms a major part of the rivalry between Choi and Ko, who wishes for similar pan-Asian popularity; Ko identifies as her personal rival Lee Young-ae, who achieved great popularity in China due to her work in the 2003 Korean TV drama Dae Jang Geum (Jewel in the Palace). There is a funny bit in which Choi is accosted by a trio of middle-aged Japanese women fans when she arrives at the shoot; this was the main fan base of Winter Sonata in Japan.
The opening epigram of Actresses states that “There are male, female, and actress in this world.” This illuminates a major theme of the film: actresses are put in a separate category from “normal” people, their every move subject to media scrutiny. Especially as women, they are judged much more harshly for getting divorced or other supposed peccadilloes, things that ordinary people experience every day without being put under a public microscope. Such things happen in many other places, of course, but this situation is much more pronounced in Korea, which still remains a very patriarchal society. Actresses is quite astute in its depiction of the elaborate apparatus of image-making which is a crucial part of both the film and fashion industries. The Vogue staff (who also portray themselves) are well aware they’re taking a big risk by having all of these actresses, along with their attendant egos and insecurities, in the same room together. Kim Ji-soo, the Vogue department head organizing the shoot, advises her staff, “Just keep telling them they’re pretty.” E pokes fun (perhaps; it could be sheer reportage) at some of the outlandish and rather silly concepts for fashion photo shoots. Two of the more amusing are Kim Ok-vin wearing a low-cut red dress while carrying a fishing pole, and Kim Min-hee donning a big pair of velvet bunny ears and eating a cream-topped cupcake.
The final half-hour of the film, where all the actresses gather around an improvised Christmas dinner with copious amounts of wine, is the most revealing. They discuss their rivalries, the difficulties of personal relationships and being actresses in Korea, the pressures of fame and being under constant public scrutiny, and the divorces of three of them – Ko, Yoon, and Lee. The only moment that comes across as somewhat false is when all the actresses break down in tears toward the end of their talk. Although they are mining very painful personal material for this scene, the suddenness with which this is introduced feels a bit forced and shoehorned in to unnecessarily underline the film’s themes.
Even though Actresses is billed as featuring actresses “playing themselves,” its most clever gambit is in forcing the viewer to question what that really means. Much of the actresses’ personality traits – Ko’s wicked temper, Choi’s diva attitude, Yoon’s world-weariness and irritability – play upon Korean audiences’ popular notions of these actresses, and their media image. But is all this truly “real,” or instead film performances that actually have no basis in reality? It’s impossible to say, so who these actresses really are remains a mystery, despite a film form that encourages us to read what we see as actresses revealing their “real” selves. And if that’s not meta enough for you, as promotion for the film in Korea, all six actresses were featured in a photo shoot for … you guessed it, Vogue.
Actresses hums along at a breezy clip, and at first it seems like a mere trifle, if an enjoyable one. However, as things get serious in the final reels, it becomes clear that the actresses’ real lives (they all credited as screenwriters) have been mined to create a work that has much more depth than it initially appears to have. Viewers’ comprehension of this film is directly proportional to their familiarity with these actresses’ film and television work and their personal lives, as well as the Korean entertainment industry in general. Therefore, much of the proceedings will be a bit inside baseball for most non-Koreans. However, issues of the travails of actresses, and the double standards they are often held to, will resonate with viewers from anywhere in the world. Actresses may initially seem to be a superficial, if pretty, object, but in the end becomes a moving tribute to these beautiful women and their enduring allure. Actresses has a radically different style from E J-yong’s last film, the pop-art confection Dasepo Naughty Girls, and adds another facet to this director’s very eclectic career. Actresses is a lovely tribute both to the six women featured and to actresses everywhere. The film sparkles with effervescent charm, and there are doubtless many gems to be found in the outtakes. One could easily, and enjoyably, spend many more hours in the company of these wonderful women.
Actresses screens on July 3 at 7pm and July 5 at 3:40 at the Walter Reade Theater. Both screenings will be introduced by E J-yong. Click here to purchase tickets.
Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo. 2009. Written and directed by Jessica Oreck. Produced by Jessica Oreck, Maiko Endo, and Akito Kawahara. Cinematography by Sean Price Williams. Edited by Jessica Oreck and Theo Angell. Music by JC Morrison and Nate Shaw. Additional music by Masami Tsuchiya, Haroumi Hosono, Mishio Ogawa, Logic System, and Paul Grimstad. Sound by Nate Shaw.
Jessica Oreck’s film Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, now at Film Forum through May 18, is not, as its title would seem to indicate, a cult science-fiction film. Instead, it is an impressionistic, non-linear, and often visually stunning documentary exploring Japan’s fascination (indeed, obsession) with insects. This is illustrated by the initial scenes of the film, where we follow a beetle hunter as he stalks new specimens through a forest, and observe a boy hounding his father to help him buy a $47 beetle at a pet store. Later on, we meet a man who keeps boxes of crickets inside his apartment because he so loves their sound, and cruise along with the beetle hunter, driving the bright-red Ferrari he bought with his earnings from selling beetles. It quickly becomes apparent that Oreck is not depicting some bizarre subculture; to the contrary, the Japanese love for insects is something that is deeply engrained in their culture and illustrative of their unique approach to nature and their sense of aesthetic beauty. Interspersed between these scenes of insect enthusiasts (never identified by name) are narrated sequences explaining how insects symbolize art, history, and literature stretching back to Japan’s origins.
Oreck connects the brief lives of insects with the Japanese concept of mono no aware, which relates to the transcendent beauty of all things in nature, and the idea of existence as fleeting and temporary, putting a primacy on appreciating each moment of time as fully as possible. Haiku poetry is the literary form that perfectly embodies this philosophy; many of these three-line poems are dedicated to insects. This belief in life as ephemeral is also connected to Japan’s volatile environment; its history is filled with many natural disasters caused by floods and typhoons. One commentator in the film remarks that ten percent of the world’s recorded earthquakes have occurred in Japan. The hypnotic, sonorous narration which fills in this cultural background match well with the mesmerizing visuals which come courtesy of cinematographer Sean Price Williams, who brilliantly captures microscopic scenes of bugs in grass or on pavement, as well as the neon panorama of Tokyo’s cityscape. Avant-garde cinema deeply informs this documentary; such scenes as fireflies buzzing in grainy low-light and insects flying in blinding floodlights would not be at all out of place in a film by Stan Brakhage or Nathaniel Dorsky.
Jessica Oreck, currently an animal handler at the American Museum of Natural History, reinvents nature documentary with Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo, transforming what could have been an unbearably dry lecture with visual poetry that makes it a beautiful work of art. Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is at Film Forum through May 18; Oreck will appear in person on May 14 at the 6:30 and 8:20 shows with live exotic insects. She will also be at the 4:40 show on Sunday, May 16 with Hugh Raffles, author of Insectopedia, available from Amazon.
Update, May 17, 2011: Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo is now available on DVD, with three deleted scenes of interviews with philosopher Dr. Takeshi Yoro, whose insights greatly inform Oreck's documentary. To purchase, visit Factory 25's website. The film also has its TV premiere on PBS's Independent Lens tonight at 10pm. For more information and TV listings, visit the Independent Lens website.
Last Train Home. 2009. Directed and photographed by Lixin Fan. Produced by Mila Aung-Thwin and Daniel Cross. Edited by Lixin Fan and Mary Stephens. Camera operated by Shaoguang Sun and Lixin Fan. Music by Olivier Alary.
The sharp contrast between the lives in cities and countryside always truck me. Submerged under the glamour of the modern metropolis, the poverty in the vast rural area is overwhelming. As I traveled, I started to focus on the migrant workers, whom I believe have contributed the most to China's prosperity but benefited the least... On a national level, China is dashing to become a richer country. Should tradition, morality and humanity be drowned in a world of tireless rumbling factories is the question we should ask.
-- Lixin Fan, from his director's statement.
Every winter, the world's largest human migration occurs in China, as many of its 130 million migrant workers in the cities make the arduous trek home to their families for the Chinese New Year. These scenes of the teeming masses of humanity clogging train stations, desperately trying to get their only chance all year to visit their loved ones, are some of the most startling images of Lixin Fan's superb, heartbreaking documentary Last Train Home. Fan, a Chinese-born, Montreal-based filmmaker, began his career as a journalist for the Chinese national TV broadcaster CCTV, and as the above epigraph indicates, it was there that he began to be interested in the ever widening gap between the rich in the cities and the poor in the countryside as China embarked on its dizzying rush toward world economic dominance. However, as China isn't exactly a bastion of journalistic freedom, it's not too far off base to speculate that Fan moved into independent filmmaking (as well as to Canada) in order to more freely explore the massive societal upheavals that have occurred in China as a result of its drive toward greater prosperity. What Fan illuminates with penetrating acuity and sometimes uncomfortable intimacy in Last Train Home is the fact that this prosperity is largely the result of the efforts of these many millions of migrant workers, who travel many miles from their rural homelands to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and other industrial hubs to toil for many hours in factories to make the products that those in more affluent parts of China and overseas enjoy. However, these workers have very little share in the massive riches that this activity brings to others. They are low-paid, have very little rights to workers' compensation and social services, and, most pertinently for this film, are prevented from bringing their families with them, due to China's very strict residency laws. This serves to break families apart, as parents are forced to be away from their children for months and sometimes years at a time, leaving children to be raised by their grandparents and other relatives. The absence of parental structure and authority causes a whole host of problems, not the least of which is delinquency and aimlessness among the younger generation.
These issues are given indelible life by the case of the Zhang family, the troubled unit Fan focuses on in the film. Zhang Changua and his wife Chen Suqin are factory workers in Guangzhou, who left their village home in Sichuan province and their newborn daughter 17 years earlier to seek work in the cities. They have since regularly sent money home, while their daughter Qin and younger son Yang were raised by their grandmother, so that their children will have enough money to attend school, and hopefully, escape the hard fate of their parents. Tragically, these hopes are dashed by Qin, who has grown up with seething resentment at what she sees as essentially abandonment by her parents, who are virtually strangers to her, since she has seen them so seldom over the years. She feels oppressed and smothered by their expectations of her, and sees their parental authority over her as illegitimate. "All they care about is money," Qin says at one point, her voice dripping with scorn. She also hates having to work on the family farm with her brother and grandmother, and describes her school as a "cage." Her restlessness and yearning to be rid of these strictures on her personal freedom eventually leads to Qin fulfilling her parents' worst nightmare: she drops out of school and becomes a factory worker in the city. Qin doesn't really enjoy this work either, but she takes solace in the fact that she at least earns her own money and can feel that she has greater freedom, however limited or illusory it may be. Qin's mortified mother and concerned father embark on a rescue operation to convince Qin to return to the village and finish her schooling; they also want to ensure that her brother doesn't follow her example. They all go back home for New Year's, Qin sullen and reluctant. Back home, this sets the stage for a dramatic confrontation, one that is predictable if we pay close attention to Qin's moods, but is no less shocking and tragic.
Last Train Home bears some stylistic resemblance to another recent Canadian documentary about China, Yung Chang's Up the Yangtze, which followed stories centering around the Three Gorges Dam project. Fan worked on that film as an associate producer and a sound man, and Chang was a consultant on Fan's film. Both directors share an emphasis on individual stories set against a larger societal backdrop, and making clear how the macro and micro aspects of their subjects' situations entwine. Fan eschews voiceover and uses music sparingly, constructing his documentary with a dramatic arc similar to fictional films. Fan prominently name-checks Jia Zhang-ke in interviews as a major influence; and indeed, Fan's concerns dovetail with Jia's ongoing project to record the effects of China's massive social changes on the daily lives of people. Fan, however, brings an intense intimacy to his material that is all his own. Fan's camera (he did his own cinematography) is an unseen character of this drama; it is not the Frederick Wiseman-like objective fly-on-the-wall, but rather a sympathetic confidante. Fan's prodigious gifts of observation (in abundant evidence in his depiction of the massive crush of travelers at the Guangzhou train station, just barely controllable by the police) honor all his subjects, whether they are the main characters like the Zhangs' or someone glimpsed for a few seconds, affording them the respect and dignity that they are too often denied. The overwheming impression that I took away from Last Train Home was not how unique the Zhangs were, but to the contrary, how typical they were. A film just as compelling could conceivably be made of the lives of any of the millions taking the trains every year, and I think this is Fan's main contention. A country that compels so many to tear apart their own families and toil away at numbing, repetitive labor with little to look forward to except a never-ending struggle, is a country that is deeply in trouble, despite the efforts of governments to whitewash this fact, or offer temporary distractions such as the Olympics. It is a situation that will eventually prove to be unsustainable. Last Train Home, beyond being a deeply moving work of art, is a passionate wake-up call, vividly illuminating issues that the powers that be will ignore to their peril.
Last Train Home screens tomorrow at 12pm at the Walter Reade Theater as part of New Directors/New Films 2010. It will be released later this summer by Zeitgeist Films. Click here to purchase tickets.
Betelnut (Bing Lang). 2005. Written, directed and photographed by Yang Heng. Produced by Liu Jinhou, Yang Heng, Tian Xiaopo and Wang Hongwei. Edited by Tian Kun. Music by Wu Jun. Location sound by Shen Jin Guang. Sound production by He Bin.
Cast: Tian Li, Liang Yu, Wu Ming, Dai Qi, Xiong Heqing, Zhu Ju, Gao Yi, Tian Linfeng, Duan Zhoujin, Ji Jiaxing, Xiang Peng, Fan Chao, Duan Zhouqian, Luo Xiadong, Wang Shengcong, Long Zeli, Quan Limin, Liang Xiaolong, Xiong Hui.
"Life seems so cheap sometimes." This statement by a girl succinctly expresses the philosophy of the aimless characters of Yang Heng's debut feature Betelnut, a quietly stunning film that finds great beauty in its stillness and austerity, rendering the actions of its characters within a rich musique concrete-like sound design and an intricately arranged visual field that makes us pay attention to the tiniest detail of its images. Yang often has major events of the film occur in extreme long-shot, obscured behind objects, or otherwise somewhere other than in the foreground. This serves to paint a compelling portrait of the restless youths in the film, who while away a hot, lazy summer by drifting on boats, voice chatting and playing video games at internet cafes, smoking, chewing betelnut, and having the occasional drunken binge in a karaoke bar. This all occurs in the ultimate dead-end town: there seem to be few opportunities or job prospects, no school, adults, or controlling authority, and the boys indulge in petty crime and thuggery. One of the characters manages to escape this place at the conclusion (although it's hard to say for how long), while the others remain trapped in this endless, nothing existence.
Set in Jishou, Hunan province (Yang's birthplace), Betelnut focuses on two young boys, Ali and Xiao Yu, who while away the days hanging out by the river and drifting on the boat where one of them live. They steal motorbikes and sell them to make money, which they use to hang out in internet cafes and drink at karaoke clubs. They are consciously take-no-shit tough guys, but they have major weak spots that manifest themselves, and in some sense are exploited by, the two girls they pursue romantic relationships with. One of the boys encounters a girl in an internet cafe, chatting with another boy online. He runs into her again after he meets her again at the gas station where she works. His friend pursues a girl who happens to already have a boyfriend. But romantic attachments here are just as ephemeral and tenuous as the other parts of their lives. Just as the boys assert their freedom to take what they want and beat down anyone else who gets in their way, the girls assert their freedom not to be attached to anyone, and to be free to be with anyone they wish at any time. This, naturally, creates some violent conflicts in the course of the film.
This is very familiar material, and fairly standard in films dealing with young people. The difference is in the bold and radical style Yang imparts to the material. The long-take aesthetic is a common mode of Asian art cinema; Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang are two of its better known adherents. Yang, however, takes this even further than other filmmakers, allowing the sense of oppressive stillness and heat of the environment to permeate our consciousness in a visceral fashion. Yang's approach to landscape composition has been compared to Chinese classical painting, and this pastoral serenity, combined with Yang's mostly fixed camera, proves to be a sharp contrast with the dramatic events that occur within this scenery. This effect is aided greatly by the superb sound design, which fills in significant narrative details and makes the film an even more vivid experience. Yang proves himself a major talent with Betelnut, a film which greatly rewards patience and observation. Yang's subsequent feature Sun Spots pushes this style even further, and there he comes up with even more lovely and mesmerizing results.
Betelnut screens tomorrow at 6:45 at Asia Society, as part of its series "China's Past, Present and Future on Film," highlighting recent independent Chinese films. Click here to purchase tickets. Use the discount code "asia725" to buy tickets at the $7 member rate.
22. The Beaches of Agnès/Les Plages d’Agnès (Agnès Varda, France, 2008)
If The Beaches of Agnès is indeed her final film, as she has indicated, she couldn't have created a better swan song. This is a glorious capper to a brilliant career, a memoir with saucy humor and heartbreaking poignancy.
I am a writer on film based in NYC, whose work has appeared in Senses of Cinema, Offscreen, and other film journals. This blog is a forum for news and commentary on world cinema. Asian cinemas, especially Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and Hong Kong cinema, are a major focus. However, this site will also frequently cover other notable happenings and trends across the globe. Also, this site will serve as a chronicle of my personal exploration of cinema.
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