The Lyrical and Meditative Films of two 21st Century Masters

Looking over significant films of the 21 century on They Shoot Pictures, East Asia makes a prominent showing. While Japanese cinema has been internationally admired since the 1950's, the works of other East Asian nations have not caught on until recently.

Looking over significant works of recent history, names like Wong Kar Wei, Zhang Yimou, Jia Zhangke, Ming Liang Tsai and Apichatpong Weerasethakul are common. The last two of these directors will be the focus on this blog. For ease and my own sanity, I will refer to Apichatpong Weerasethakul as Fred (I'm not the first to call him this).

The films of Fred and Tsai have a great deal of common elements and represent a movement of hyper realism in terms of characters and mise en scene. however, both of their films contain supernatural or fantastical elements that gives their films an ethereal film.

In the film "What Time is it There?" a brief encounter between a woman and a man selling watches in Taiwan spurns a mysterious connection. The two of them have parallel experiences while he is in Taiwan and she is in Paris.

What is most fascinating about film is the juxtaposition of the two films. First, the woman goes to Paris in the winter and for a large portion of the film, is tucked into tight, claustrophobic, and bleak places not indicative of the city of lights. At the end of the film are scenes finally shot in Luxembourg and the Paris of lore comes alive. Though the garden is cold and the crowd is sparse.

While in Taiwan, the man continues to sell watches, deals with a mother who cannot her husband's death, and takes an interest in french culture. In fact, through most of the film, the man is seen doing more Parisian things than the woman. Also, the colors of the Taiwan scenes feature more vibrant reds and colors than those shot in Paris.

In one of my favorite juxtapositions of the film, the man watches Francois Truffaut's seminal film The 400 Blows starring Jean Pierre Leaud. Meanwhile in Paris, the woman encounters the real Jean Pierre in an inspired cameo.

The film is purposely disjointed and almost entirely free of dialogue which is a common theme in many of Tsai's films.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul (pronounced ah-pah-chee-ta-pong weere-ah set-ah-cuhl) aka Fred's films are similar to Tsai. Looking at his film, Tropical Malady, one sees symbolism of love, frustration, happiness, and a confusing disjointed vision of man's struggle against himself.

The first hour of the film is a love story between two men in Thailand. It is sweet and the story is fairly linnear. With not enough of words, the love develops and then, one of the men disappear into the forest and the other one goes in to find him.

What follows in the next hour is a man's battle with a mysterious naked man which I take to represent love and the carnal duality of emotions buried within men. The theme of men as beasts was clearly delinneated in the early portions of the film in dialogue. The beast literally comes to life in the final frames in the form of a glowing tiger speaking in a strange tongue.

The battles in the forest could also be taken as allegorical referring to Jacob wrestling with the angel. The fight of Jacob symbolizes wrestling with his feelings about the lord and his own personal faith. Given that love is a leap of faith, I think this could be a logical point.

These are just two films by these great auteurs and are absolutely necessary watching for those who want to delve into the great of the 21st century. Yes, they are slow and many will consider them boring but like many of the movies I discuss on this blog should not be watched to escape or to enjoy but to experience in the same way that one views modern abstract art.

i just dont like 8 1/2

this is going to be a short one.

tonight i re-watched frederico fellini's masterpiece 8 1/2. unanimously considered one of the greatest films ever made, i never gave it a serious watch. i tried watching it about 5 years ago but couldnt get into it. however, a lot has changed in those years. during that time, ive experienced virtually all of fellini's catalog and enjoy quite a bit of it. ive gotten into luis bunuel and dusan makavajev; really out there filmmakers. so, when i saw it was going to be on turner classic movies, i DVR'd it to gave it a second chance.

and the result was pretty much the same.

i still dont like it. i think its wierd, often dull, and though i agree that the direction as well as marcello mastroianni's performance are excellent, if not sublime, the movie as a whole is lost on me.

in some ways, im kind of glad that im not going crazy for this because it means that not every film in the upper echelon i like. if my tastes as to what is the best of the best is the same as everyone else, it wouldnt terriblt original for me now would it.

so with that, 8 1/2, the searchers, and l'atalante would never be in my top 100 (or 10000!) of all time.

david lean is a boring director

there. i said it.

he has made some masterpieces: lawrence of arabia, in which we serve, brief encounter, great expectations, and bridge on the river kwai are the ones that come to mind. on the other hand, he has also made some good but boring films including the one i watched last night summertime with katherine hepburn in a role that is virtually identical to her character in the african queen; a gutsy independent, idontneedaman kinda-thing. it was watchable and at times very enjoyable but there is something ultimately unsatisfying about lean.

blithe spirit, hobson's choice, this happy breed, oliver twist are all good films and they are all very well done but they didnt really drag me in. it certainly werent the stories (noel coward and dickens are pretty worthy writers) or acting (guiness in olivier twist! laughton in hobson's!) so i reasoned it must be the direction.

i looked it up last night and he only directed 18 films and of those, ive seen about 12 of them and while only one of them was actually bad (we will get to that in a minute) the rest were merely good said in a non-chalant 'nothing to go crazy over' kinda way. aside from the 4 films i listed above, i wouldnt really recommend any of his other films nor would i tell people to steer clear.

that brings me to ryan's daughter, his biggest failure and an almost unwatchable self indulgent 3 hour plus "epic" without a center. though its nowhere near heavens gate, it tries to be grander than it is. maybe that is the legend of david lean; a director whose projects are grander than what he is capable of stylistically. of course, i subscribe pretty heavily to the cahier du cinema ideals of a director having a stamp visibly on all their films that make it their own (sorry william wyler and george cukor, your work is indistinguishable from each other)