The more I listen to it, the more I love it.
Don't ask me why. Though it might have a lot to do with the following:
Damon Albarn's voice
the music
the long instrumental piece of the title track at the end
Another album that appears high on my iPod list is At War with the Mystics from The Flaming Lips.
Last weekend, I had also indulged in playing all the Edgar W Froese albums I have got. In the end, I could not tell which is which, and I also lost track of their differences from music from other electronic artists or bands such as Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze... But I don't care any more if I remember which is which...
April 30, 2009
April 28, 2009
The lady with the dog
A film of former Soviet Union shot in 1960, the cinematography is one of the most artistic of all black and whites. The shades of water when the two protagonists were sitting on a bench by the sea, for example is an memorable one. But the most poignant and poetic is the scene when they meet in Moscow in a wintry day. While they were talking in a room, the camera follows the sound of music and cuts to outside the building where a man is playing flute under the starry night. As the camera is positioned at ground level near the player, the confined space between buildings forms a near V shape and it feels as though he is talking with the twinkling stars above the contained space. Visually the scene is rather dark and bare, leading our imagination to the stars and music which are the stars of that scene.
Inside, the heroine laments that they are like two birds being kept in separate cages. The above scene seems to confirm this in visual forms.
Inside, the heroine laments that they are like two birds being kept in separate cages. The above scene seems to confirm this in visual forms.
April 27, 2009
My blueberry nights
I was slightly disappointed by this film: it feels like a diluted version of his previous ones, such as Fallen Angels in its heavy use of night scenes, and Chungking Express, for the repeated sound of a passing train and the lyrics as a diegesis. I have expected something better from Jude Law, and more substantial from Natalie Portman who is brillant in Closer.
As most of his films, the characters are lacking depth and social dimensions. It is like a pop fiction that focuses only on 'now', 'this moment'. And probably due to the constant resort to the soundtrack, it reminds me of A Man and A Woman (1966) from the French director Claude Lelouch which some film critic comments is more like a MTV (born 15 years ahead of its time) than a film!
But does it really matter? After all, not all directors, even the 'greatest ones' have such an knack of how to engage the audience, a sense of rhythm, and are brilliant with improvisation. And maybe for that reason alone, we should give Wong and his gang the due credits.
As most of his films, the characters are lacking depth and social dimensions. It is like a pop fiction that focuses only on 'now', 'this moment'. And probably due to the constant resort to the soundtrack, it reminds me of A Man and A Woman (1966) from the French director Claude Lelouch which some film critic comments is more like a MTV (born 15 years ahead of its time) than a film!
But does it really matter? After all, not all directors, even the 'greatest ones' have such an knack of how to engage the audience, a sense of rhythm, and are brilliant with improvisation. And maybe for that reason alone, we should give Wong and his gang the due credits.
Jean Renoir
I watched two films by Jean Renoir last week: Toni (1934) and The Rules of the Game (1939). The latter, a flop at its first release, is considered to be the 'best' in cinema history, but to me while it is technically superior to his earlier works, I enjoyed Toni a lot better.
Made in 1934 on shoestring budget, Toni is a rough gem: rough both on the quality of images and the use of largely non-professional actors from the local areas; gem for it is a most delightful works with wonderful sense of rhythm, insightful depiction of human nature, and a great structure that signifies life has a pattern like season and nature. It is 'realistic' both for its use of the natural landscape resulted from location shooting, and for the rich texture of characters brought by the use of non-professional actors. And like some of his other great works of the same period, the characters are never black and white but feel as real as everyday life.
Toni, for its gritty realistic value and sense of poetry reminds me of his other two films that I love: A Day in the Country and The Grand Illusion. Both simple in structure but with great eyes on human nature, they are some of the cinematic greats. The performance in A Day in the Country by Sylvia Bataille is supremely subtle and unforgettable, with a soundtrack working like a brush in creating the mood of the film.
On a different note, Toni reminds me of the early works by a young Chinese director Jia Zhangke who, at the forefront of making gritty realistic films, was actually adopting many methods 'pioneered' by Renoir in his early career, such as working with friends and non-professional actors with strong local accents unintelligible to many, working on un-finished scripts and heavy reliance on improvisation, and location shooting. Different from Renoir though, Jia's insistence on portraying the lower class Chinese living in rural China comes both from his rebelion against the mainstream Chinese cinema and his own experience of growing up in one of the poorest regions in Western China, while Renoir's might have more to do with his artistic and intellectual interests and preference. Jia's early works (Xiao Wu, Platform, Unknown Pleasures) is in a sense a remake of Toni in Chinese contemporary rural context. He is yet to come up with anything as beautiful (and inspirational) as A Day in the Country, or as engaging as The Grand Illusion.
Made in 1934 on shoestring budget, Toni is a rough gem: rough both on the quality of images and the use of largely non-professional actors from the local areas; gem for it is a most delightful works with wonderful sense of rhythm, insightful depiction of human nature, and a great structure that signifies life has a pattern like season and nature. It is 'realistic' both for its use of the natural landscape resulted from location shooting, and for the rich texture of characters brought by the use of non-professional actors. And like some of his other great works of the same period, the characters are never black and white but feel as real as everyday life.
Toni, for its gritty realistic value and sense of poetry reminds me of his other two films that I love: A Day in the Country and The Grand Illusion. Both simple in structure but with great eyes on human nature, they are some of the cinematic greats. The performance in A Day in the Country by Sylvia Bataille is supremely subtle and unforgettable, with a soundtrack working like a brush in creating the mood of the film.
On a different note, Toni reminds me of the early works by a young Chinese director Jia Zhangke who, at the forefront of making gritty realistic films, was actually adopting many methods 'pioneered' by Renoir in his early career, such as working with friends and non-professional actors with strong local accents unintelligible to many, working on un-finished scripts and heavy reliance on improvisation, and location shooting. Different from Renoir though, Jia's insistence on portraying the lower class Chinese living in rural China comes both from his rebelion against the mainstream Chinese cinema and his own experience of growing up in one of the poorest regions in Western China, while Renoir's might have more to do with his artistic and intellectual interests and preference. Jia's early works (Xiao Wu, Platform, Unknown Pleasures) is in a sense a remake of Toni in Chinese contemporary rural context. He is yet to come up with anything as beautiful (and inspirational) as A Day in the Country, or as engaging as The Grand Illusion.
April 21, 2009
Tess
I watched Tess for the first time soon after its first release. I was rather looking forward to it but after sitting through 172 minutes I was bored and disappointed. Sure the highly praised cinematography is impressive but the film as a whole is lacking in the gripping power I had anticipated from a director who had directed some of my favourites such as Knife in the Water, Repulsion, Cul-de-Sac, Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown. It is probably not the 'fault' of the story per se. An recent adaptation of The Woodlanders deals with similar tragedy owed to steep social gaps and conflicts and yet it is most touching with great performance from Rufus Sewell, who plays the wronged lover.
I suspect that its meritocracy has a lot to do with the performance from the leading lady Nastassja Kinski who though pretty does not carry the weight of a great tragedy. Rather her beauty seems to be too dominating an element and more than often been turned into a clothes rack of the costumes department. The same goes with a number of scenes where the art directors were getting an upper hand of the film. The scene where Tess and her family were evicted from the family home and had to resort to camping in the rough outside 'our church' is a case in point. It was such a showpiece of art design and great photography that it feels more like a bohemian family camping in style rather than a fatal tragedy that would force Tess to return in disgrace to her raper.
That said, my disappointment might well be rooted in other things, such as the hype surrounding it at its first release.
I suspect that its meritocracy has a lot to do with the performance from the leading lady Nastassja Kinski who though pretty does not carry the weight of a great tragedy. Rather her beauty seems to be too dominating an element and more than often been turned into a clothes rack of the costumes department. The same goes with a number of scenes where the art directors were getting an upper hand of the film. The scene where Tess and her family were evicted from the family home and had to resort to camping in the rough outside 'our church' is a case in point. It was such a showpiece of art design and great photography that it feels more like a bohemian family camping in style rather than a fatal tragedy that would force Tess to return in disgrace to her raper.
That said, my disappointment might well be rooted in other things, such as the hype surrounding it at its first release.
Question time
I am reading Norwegian Wood by a Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami and many a time I caught myself wondering why I was still holding the book. I have never been to Japan and I have only talked with one or two Japanese neighbours, yet I found the characters lifeless and surreal, the story rather trivial and the translation even worse (or should it be the other way round?).
The opening, though sentimental, is enticing enough for me to carry on reading but the conversations between characters - which are used to carry the story through - fail to reflect the differences of age, gender, culture and characters. The protagonist - who is 19 turning 20 feels almost like an middle age salary man who has experienced all and rather disillusioned. Sometimes I thought this novel was more like a bad taste porn movie than a real piece of 'literature' that seems to have gained such a popularity with its home audience.
I have no idea why I would think the characters surreal. Is it because most of my recent 'knowledge' about Japan has mainly come from watching works of Yasujiro Ozu and to a less extent those by his contemporaries before the 1960s?
When I searched on the net to find out more about the novel, I was dismayed to find that it is now being made into a film by a Vietnamese French director... I wonder what I have missed in the book that is so great for a director whose debut was The Scent of Green Papaya.
The opening, though sentimental, is enticing enough for me to carry on reading but the conversations between characters - which are used to carry the story through - fail to reflect the differences of age, gender, culture and characters. The protagonist - who is 19 turning 20 feels almost like an middle age salary man who has experienced all and rather disillusioned. Sometimes I thought this novel was more like a bad taste porn movie than a real piece of 'literature' that seems to have gained such a popularity with its home audience.
I have no idea why I would think the characters surreal. Is it because most of my recent 'knowledge' about Japan has mainly come from watching works of Yasujiro Ozu and to a less extent those by his contemporaries before the 1960s?
When I searched on the net to find out more about the novel, I was dismayed to find that it is now being made into a film by a Vietnamese French director... I wonder what I have missed in the book that is so great for a director whose debut was The Scent of Green Papaya.
Coal miner's daughter
I came across a newly digitalised Coal Miner's Daughter. Although I had technically watched it, I grabbed it from the shelf with a rather mixed feeling.
It must be 1984 when I first watched it - during the what must be the first American Film Festival in China. Hungry for anything different and from the English speaking world, we - myself and some of my roommates decided to skip a Chinese class and cycled to the nearest cinema located in a heavy machine factory, now the site of private housing. Five films were on show and that afternoon, it was a double billing for Star War and Coal Miner's Daughter. Star War was too much of a fantasy boy film for me with aliens and strange gadgets flying around the enigmatic universe, and it was the latter that kept me confused for a long time. We were used to the idea that film is supreme and should be didactic. We had never been exposed anything so 'complicated', gritty and realistic. Furthermore, the bedroom scene in her first night, rough and crude, was too suggestive for an eighteen year old raised in a society where sex was a taboo. The impression that the leading actress was not the typical glamorous 'beauty' also puzzled us with little exposure to the outside world. I could not remember what we talked about after the films but surely nobody remembered her much.
That afternoon was memorable - also because it was the first time we took advantage of the freedom that came with being a university student now free from the incessant demand of scoring high marks to get into a good university. The thrill to skip a class was remarkable without realising that some among us had to pay high price for it. At that Chinese class with over 100 students, students were asked to submit an essay at the end of the two hour session. The absentees were penalised twice - for being absent and for not submitting the essay. At the end of the term, I had a 'failure' for one of the assignments never submitted and a pass in Chinese - which disqualified me from being entered a 'Three Distinguished Student' selection (Distinguished in moral, academic study and physical education), the first 'black mark' since I was in Primary four!
The funny thing was ever since then, it didn't seem to matter how 'bad' I scored in all subjects and I had since decided to throw myself into what took my fancy the most - namely, classical music which I listened to whenever I could in the dorm while my roommates were listening to English tapes to improve their listening comprehension; and literature - which I devoured when I was supposed to going over the essays in the textbook.
In those days, I didn't really know the name of the actors except for those highly profiled by the Chinese Popular Cinema, sold millions of copies back in the 1980s. It was not until the last few years when I came across films like Three Women, Bedlands and In the Bedroom that the Sissy Spacek was registered in my brain. Her freckle face - which was a big turn-off for both boys and girls in Chinese culture failed to inspire me to check out who she was when I had to select and show fresh students scenes from Carrie to help them to analyse and write an essay on it. Neither had the film appealed to me and I had never managed to see the symbolic meanings in depicting a teenage girl that way. I was not impressed.
But I have become quite a fan of hers ever since Three Women, and sometimes I wonder if she had a more conventional beauty or glamour, would her stardom be higher, and the eighteen year old me more impressed by her performance in Coal Miner's Daughter.
It must be 1984 when I first watched it - during the what must be the first American Film Festival in China. Hungry for anything different and from the English speaking world, we - myself and some of my roommates decided to skip a Chinese class and cycled to the nearest cinema located in a heavy machine factory, now the site of private housing. Five films were on show and that afternoon, it was a double billing for Star War and Coal Miner's Daughter. Star War was too much of a fantasy boy film for me with aliens and strange gadgets flying around the enigmatic universe, and it was the latter that kept me confused for a long time. We were used to the idea that film is supreme and should be didactic. We had never been exposed anything so 'complicated', gritty and realistic. Furthermore, the bedroom scene in her first night, rough and crude, was too suggestive for an eighteen year old raised in a society where sex was a taboo. The impression that the leading actress was not the typical glamorous 'beauty' also puzzled us with little exposure to the outside world. I could not remember what we talked about after the films but surely nobody remembered her much.
That afternoon was memorable - also because it was the first time we took advantage of the freedom that came with being a university student now free from the incessant demand of scoring high marks to get into a good university. The thrill to skip a class was remarkable without realising that some among us had to pay high price for it. At that Chinese class with over 100 students, students were asked to submit an essay at the end of the two hour session. The absentees were penalised twice - for being absent and for not submitting the essay. At the end of the term, I had a 'failure' for one of the assignments never submitted and a pass in Chinese - which disqualified me from being entered a 'Three Distinguished Student' selection (Distinguished in moral, academic study and physical education), the first 'black mark' since I was in Primary four!
The funny thing was ever since then, it didn't seem to matter how 'bad' I scored in all subjects and I had since decided to throw myself into what took my fancy the most - namely, classical music which I listened to whenever I could in the dorm while my roommates were listening to English tapes to improve their listening comprehension; and literature - which I devoured when I was supposed to going over the essays in the textbook.
In those days, I didn't really know the name of the actors except for those highly profiled by the Chinese Popular Cinema, sold millions of copies back in the 1980s. It was not until the last few years when I came across films like Three Women, Bedlands and In the Bedroom that the Sissy Spacek was registered in my brain. Her freckle face - which was a big turn-off for both boys and girls in Chinese culture failed to inspire me to check out who she was when I had to select and show fresh students scenes from Carrie to help them to analyse and write an essay on it. Neither had the film appealed to me and I had never managed to see the symbolic meanings in depicting a teenage girl that way. I was not impressed.
But I have become quite a fan of hers ever since Three Women, and sometimes I wonder if she had a more conventional beauty or glamour, would her stardom be higher, and the eighteen year old me more impressed by her performance in Coal Miner's Daughter.
April 17, 2009
First memories about films
When I heard people talk about their childhood or their past in great, funny and vivid details, I either get jealous or furiously depressed: I feel I have been treated a bad deal in my share of the capacity of brain cell because sometimes I cannot even figure out whether what I 'remember' was the sheer fiction fuelled by imagination or a combination of fiction and truth. When I hear the questions such as what was my earliest memory, I honestly do not have a clue. I have some vague memories of my childhood living in a mountainous area where the air was fresh, life was gay, and there was a river full of stones right behind my house, but then I cannot work out if the images was in fact constructed the stories from my parents, literature, or really derived from own experience, pure and simple.
But when I watched the Italian film 'Rome, an Open City' and read that the film contains possibly the 'cruelest torture scene' in cinema, I heard myself saying that is Euro centric - because a childhood secret tells me otherwise.
I cannot figure out how old I was, but for a long while, I was seriously worried that if my secret - a recurrent dream - was exposed, I would become a shame and be disowned by my family, my school and anybody else that I know.
That secret of my childhood involved me betraying the top secrets of the 'Party' (inevitably in those days, the Communist Party) in order to save my pitiful self from being tortured to death by the 'enemy' (i.e., the Nationalist Party), and when I woke up from such nightmares, I would usually be very ashamed of myself and wonder why a daughter of a proud Communist was such a coward in front of fire, bullets, or simply all tools of torture. I wanted to behave like those martyrs in films who would rather die than risking the lives of their comrades or undermining the 'great revolutionary cause'.
For a long long time I could not work out what was wrong with me. I kept this recurring dream to myself until I started to read books on psychology and realise it might have a lot to do with the films that I had been exposed to in my childhood. And indeed when I was researching on Chinese cinema some years ago, a figure suggested that when China was first opened up in the late 1978 to 1979, there was a huge surge in the audience number. In fact the figure was a staggering 2.19 billion or something like that which has never been outnumbered. The reason for such a record? Simple: television was just a department of the radio station and the ownership of television was nominal. And there was no other forms of entertainment. So going to the cinema was the main recreation of the whole population who had until that point been starved of films for more than 12 years. The fact that film tickets were cheap and usually handed out free was also a major factor.
However the 'golden year' of cinema had nothing to do with the boom of film making. The films available at that time were predominantly products of the '17 years', namely from 1949 to 1966 - the period between Communist Party first took power and before the Cultural Revolution was launched. And although film scholars would nostalgically described that period as a time of relative freedom for the 'cultural workers', film was used by the ruling party - following Lenin's claim that 'film of all art is the most important' for propaganda, to educate mass the revolutionary past and propagate revolutionary ideas and agendas. And to play safe, the most popular genre was to relate the history of how the Communist Party 'drove away the Anglo-American Imperialists and its running dogs - the Nationalist Party' in the three decades of endless civil wars and 'anti-Japanese Invasion War'. And in such films, the Communists are nearly all immaculate: they do not just look the part in being incredibly handsome and well dressed, but also are 'made of steel that never melt under fire'.
My memory might have played a trick on me, but I do remember going to cinema a lot with my family and that I would usually come out from the cinema and not being able to follow the discussions of my classmates after we were taken to the cinema. But scenes of torture were visual and did not require high intelligence for a 12 year old to understand and these must have triggered those nightmares in which I always begged or cried: 'please don't torture me. Tell me what you want and I will tell all'.
I have been asked how I developed the passion for cinema, has it anything to do with such experience. My answer was of course not. But some events that happened around that same time might have sown the seeds of this passion. Like the mentor in Cinema Paradise, my next door neighbour of many years was an army projectionist. And because my apartment was one of the 'biggest' (for lack of furniture rather than its actual size, and my parents' hospitality), every now and then, my neighbour (who would usually snored at my apartment after lunch) would show films in my apartment - with neighbours cramming into the 200 square feet room, some in the 'stall' on the cold bench or floor, some in the 'circle' on my parents bed. Films being shown include the epic 'From a Slave to General', 'Maple Tree Valley', the singing and dancing 'Five Golden Flowers', 'Liu Shan Jie', 'Ah Si Ma' etc... It was one of the highlights of our lives - not just because of the entertainment, but also because my home would become the centre of the whole block which housed around five households on each of the four floors. Because there was only one projector, half way through, we would have to take a break when the projectionist changed the reels. Sometimes at lunch time, I would spot him mending the broken films at their sewing machine doubled as a worktop and sometimes I could not help but to pick up one of those cut out pieces and kept them in my treasure book so that I could show off to my classmates at school! Until now, I don't think I appreciated what an effort he must have made to keep it from my family from knowing such a shady side of my character!
But when I watched the Italian film 'Rome, an Open City' and read that the film contains possibly the 'cruelest torture scene' in cinema, I heard myself saying that is Euro centric - because a childhood secret tells me otherwise.
I cannot figure out how old I was, but for a long while, I was seriously worried that if my secret - a recurrent dream - was exposed, I would become a shame and be disowned by my family, my school and anybody else that I know.
That secret of my childhood involved me betraying the top secrets of the 'Party' (inevitably in those days, the Communist Party) in order to save my pitiful self from being tortured to death by the 'enemy' (i.e., the Nationalist Party), and when I woke up from such nightmares, I would usually be very ashamed of myself and wonder why a daughter of a proud Communist was such a coward in front of fire, bullets, or simply all tools of torture. I wanted to behave like those martyrs in films who would rather die than risking the lives of their comrades or undermining the 'great revolutionary cause'.
For a long long time I could not work out what was wrong with me. I kept this recurring dream to myself until I started to read books on psychology and realise it might have a lot to do with the films that I had been exposed to in my childhood. And indeed when I was researching on Chinese cinema some years ago, a figure suggested that when China was first opened up in the late 1978 to 1979, there was a huge surge in the audience number. In fact the figure was a staggering 2.19 billion or something like that which has never been outnumbered. The reason for such a record? Simple: television was just a department of the radio station and the ownership of television was nominal. And there was no other forms of entertainment. So going to the cinema was the main recreation of the whole population who had until that point been starved of films for more than 12 years. The fact that film tickets were cheap and usually handed out free was also a major factor.
However the 'golden year' of cinema had nothing to do with the boom of film making. The films available at that time were predominantly products of the '17 years', namely from 1949 to 1966 - the period between Communist Party first took power and before the Cultural Revolution was launched. And although film scholars would nostalgically described that period as a time of relative freedom for the 'cultural workers', film was used by the ruling party - following Lenin's claim that 'film of all art is the most important' for propaganda, to educate mass the revolutionary past and propagate revolutionary ideas and agendas. And to play safe, the most popular genre was to relate the history of how the Communist Party 'drove away the Anglo-American Imperialists and its running dogs - the Nationalist Party' in the three decades of endless civil wars and 'anti-Japanese Invasion War'. And in such films, the Communists are nearly all immaculate: they do not just look the part in being incredibly handsome and well dressed, but also are 'made of steel that never melt under fire'.
My memory might have played a trick on me, but I do remember going to cinema a lot with my family and that I would usually come out from the cinema and not being able to follow the discussions of my classmates after we were taken to the cinema. But scenes of torture were visual and did not require high intelligence for a 12 year old to understand and these must have triggered those nightmares in which I always begged or cried: 'please don't torture me. Tell me what you want and I will tell all'.
I have been asked how I developed the passion for cinema, has it anything to do with such experience. My answer was of course not. But some events that happened around that same time might have sown the seeds of this passion. Like the mentor in Cinema Paradise, my next door neighbour of many years was an army projectionist. And because my apartment was one of the 'biggest' (for lack of furniture rather than its actual size, and my parents' hospitality), every now and then, my neighbour (who would usually snored at my apartment after lunch) would show films in my apartment - with neighbours cramming into the 200 square feet room, some in the 'stall' on the cold bench or floor, some in the 'circle' on my parents bed. Films being shown include the epic 'From a Slave to General', 'Maple Tree Valley', the singing and dancing 'Five Golden Flowers', 'Liu Shan Jie', 'Ah Si Ma' etc... It was one of the highlights of our lives - not just because of the entertainment, but also because my home would become the centre of the whole block which housed around five households on each of the four floors. Because there was only one projector, half way through, we would have to take a break when the projectionist changed the reels. Sometimes at lunch time, I would spot him mending the broken films at their sewing machine doubled as a worktop and sometimes I could not help but to pick up one of those cut out pieces and kept them in my treasure book so that I could show off to my classmates at school! Until now, I don't think I appreciated what an effort he must have made to keep it from my family from knowing such a shady side of my character!
April 15, 2009
The poisonwood bible
It has taken me a long time to finish reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, but it is a good read and has an interesting angle to history - through that of five women who followed the head of their household to Congo in the late 1950s at the eve of the independence. Their journeys reveal the many different aspects of colonial and post-colonial history of Africa and make a fascinating introductory to anyone who is interested in the social scenary of the diamond/natural resource rich but poverty striken continent.
On a personal note, reading this book reminds me of a promise to Andrew who has asked me many a time to tell him more about my father, who, like Mr Price, has remained blind to the changes in society, but lead perhaps an extradinary happy life because of that guiding faith throughout his life.
On a personal note, reading this book reminds me of a promise to Andrew who has asked me many a time to tell him more about my father, who, like Mr Price, has remained blind to the changes in society, but lead perhaps an extradinary happy life because of that guiding faith throughout his life.
Kenji Mozoguchi and Japanese art
By sheer coincidence, I have watched some of the 'best' by Kenji Mozoguchi: Ugestsu (The Tales of the Pale and Silvery Moon after Rain), Sansho the Bailiff, The Crucified Lovers (A Story of Chikamatsu). They are all black and white works shot between the 1930s to 1950s relating the endless struggles of human beings in feudal society when conditions were harsh and social convention worked constantly against human nature. As I watched them, I did not know a thing about the director and except for The Crucified Lovers, the stories themselves failed to make strong impressions over me. So when I read lately how highly he is regarded by some film scholars, I decide to find more of his works and reassess this 'master of cinema'.
Like his other films, the story of Mis Oyu is rather conventional, but when I watched it last night, I did seem to pick up a lot of things that had escaped me, such as his 'signature' styles which include the aethetic settings and the long still shots. The scene when the hero paid a visit with his aunt to Mrs Oyu when she was offering her first performance is a case in point. It began with a medium/long shot showing Mrs Oyu playing an instrument on the floor with a comment from the hero on the beauty of the 'stage' and her 'wonderful taste'. Then as if to underline his point of view, the camera moved outside the room and stayed in the corridor from which the 'stage' and music became the focal point. The camera stayed there for a long while to allow us to take stock of the story from afar and admire the beauty associated with Mrs Oyu.
There are many scenes where we are let to admire the beauty of season or nature. The opening sequence for instance has the hero wondering about the garden when he is waiting for the arrival of his future bride, and it seems simply the most natural thing for him to fall in love when Mrs Oyu made her first appearance under the new sprout leaves and beautiful cherry blossom. Then when he is struggling between confessing his love to her and supressing his feelings, the backdrop of the scence is an exquisitely maintained garden within the four walls of a typical Japanese house. Such scenes shot in composed manner are visual poems on beauty, natural or cultivated, and remind me what a master Japanese are in the craft of creating beauty with restrains - leaving the impression that such beauty is of minimum human interference.
I wish one day such films will be restored to its full former beauty. Because at their current state, it is difficult to comment on the use of lighting etc.
Like his other films, the story of Mis Oyu is rather conventional, but when I watched it last night, I did seem to pick up a lot of things that had escaped me, such as his 'signature' styles which include the aethetic settings and the long still shots. The scene when the hero paid a visit with his aunt to Mrs Oyu when she was offering her first performance is a case in point. It began with a medium/long shot showing Mrs Oyu playing an instrument on the floor with a comment from the hero on the beauty of the 'stage' and her 'wonderful taste'. Then as if to underline his point of view, the camera moved outside the room and stayed in the corridor from which the 'stage' and music became the focal point. The camera stayed there for a long while to allow us to take stock of the story from afar and admire the beauty associated with Mrs Oyu.
There are many scenes where we are let to admire the beauty of season or nature. The opening sequence for instance has the hero wondering about the garden when he is waiting for the arrival of his future bride, and it seems simply the most natural thing for him to fall in love when Mrs Oyu made her first appearance under the new sprout leaves and beautiful cherry blossom. Then when he is struggling between confessing his love to her and supressing his feelings, the backdrop of the scence is an exquisitely maintained garden within the four walls of a typical Japanese house. Such scenes shot in composed manner are visual poems on beauty, natural or cultivated, and remind me what a master Japanese are in the craft of creating beauty with restrains - leaving the impression that such beauty is of minimum human interference.
I wish one day such films will be restored to its full former beauty. Because at their current state, it is difficult to comment on the use of lighting etc.
April 07, 2009
Fiction
I never thought you would call again.
I should have never done that.
You are an animal.
Animal? Of course not. If I were, what were I? Tiger, dragon or a cat?
You are an animal. You come here, then ignore me completely until you are hungry again. It is humiliating.
I can see your points now. I admit that I am sometimes an animal. But it is not that clearn cut: in between the time when I am here and when, as you put it, I 'ignore' you 'completely', I feel the deep sorrow for what I have done to you. I cannot take you out to theatres, riverside or anywhere for that matter and I feel guilty for treating you like this. But every now and then, I feel the urge again... I have made you a victim in doing so.
Would you like to know what the 'victim' think of it?
Yes.
Well, first of all, she would not like to think of herself as a victim, for she can exercise self-control and in fact, that is why she never initiates any meetings, and when the animal does come around, she would like to think of it sheerly as a meeting of two old friends. Since he went away nearly a year ago, she had been living happily on her own. But it is also ture that she loves the moments that they share. She is not going to complain, because if she chooses, she is capable of self control.
You are a mature woman. Fiction is good because it helps to address issues like this.
Is your urge that of an animal?
Yes.
She was confused.
This was the closest of any hints that he did care for her. And the fact he was so upfront about his 'wrong-doing' seemed to suggest that he meant what he said. But the thought that he only considered his 'urge' that of an animal troubled her. She was not sure if that was to prevent her from hoping or that he had been telling the truth; using her for his animal instinct, and instinct only.
She knew him well by now and has long since stopped harbouring any hope of him being otherwise, such as being romantic, showing more feelings and care when they were not together, getting in touch when he was away...
She was reasonably content being on her own. Having confessed his troubling return to her life to her pal, she has been advised to enjoy all the 'good times' he could possibly offer but keep an 'emotional detachment' towards him. But the more she thought about it, the more this idea sounded disgusting to her. She decided to 'resume' her normal life and was determined not to respond when he contacted. She managed it sometimes, but more often, she just gave up too readily, thinking she should not ridicule herself by making a fuss of an request for as 'innocent' as a 'chat', or watching a film on DVD together at her place.
It dawned to herself one day that what she needed was a serious relationship to keep her stop agreeing to see him. Perhaps that was the answer, but deep down she knew she should have taken initiative rather than to wait till that day or that person to land into her life.
Waiting, waiting, and waiting, that was what she used to do when she was much younger. She didn't find it a problem then to have to wait for a whole week to hear from her then boyfriend because she had got a busy job and not hearing from him in between dates seemed a good way not to get distracted from her filfulling career. But with the benefit of hindsights, it was the lack of intimate contact that had eventually pushed her away. Now when she thought about it, she was amazed this would happen again at this stage of her life.
That he had wanted to meet her only when he felt the animal 'urge' reminded her of a letter from her ex to his new belle some years ago. In it he was responding to her question whether or not he loved her. They had then been together for a good eight months. She could not quite understood at that time if she was playing fire with him, but now she believed she was just behaving like a human being who did not want to be used by a married man. It was incredible how she had come to understand the woman who had 'stolen' the heart of her ex through this.
I should have never done that.
You are an animal.
Animal? Of course not. If I were, what were I? Tiger, dragon or a cat?
You are an animal. You come here, then ignore me completely until you are hungry again. It is humiliating.
I can see your points now. I admit that I am sometimes an animal. But it is not that clearn cut: in between the time when I am here and when, as you put it, I 'ignore' you 'completely', I feel the deep sorrow for what I have done to you. I cannot take you out to theatres, riverside or anywhere for that matter and I feel guilty for treating you like this. But every now and then, I feel the urge again... I have made you a victim in doing so.
Would you like to know what the 'victim' think of it?
Yes.
Well, first of all, she would not like to think of herself as a victim, for she can exercise self-control and in fact, that is why she never initiates any meetings, and when the animal does come around, she would like to think of it sheerly as a meeting of two old friends. Since he went away nearly a year ago, she had been living happily on her own. But it is also ture that she loves the moments that they share. She is not going to complain, because if she chooses, she is capable of self control.
You are a mature woman. Fiction is good because it helps to address issues like this.
Is your urge that of an animal?
Yes.
She was confused.
This was the closest of any hints that he did care for her. And the fact he was so upfront about his 'wrong-doing' seemed to suggest that he meant what he said. But the thought that he only considered his 'urge' that of an animal troubled her. She was not sure if that was to prevent her from hoping or that he had been telling the truth; using her for his animal instinct, and instinct only.
She knew him well by now and has long since stopped harbouring any hope of him being otherwise, such as being romantic, showing more feelings and care when they were not together, getting in touch when he was away...
She was reasonably content being on her own. Having confessed his troubling return to her life to her pal, she has been advised to enjoy all the 'good times' he could possibly offer but keep an 'emotional detachment' towards him. But the more she thought about it, the more this idea sounded disgusting to her. She decided to 'resume' her normal life and was determined not to respond when he contacted. She managed it sometimes, but more often, she just gave up too readily, thinking she should not ridicule herself by making a fuss of an request for as 'innocent' as a 'chat', or watching a film on DVD together at her place.
It dawned to herself one day that what she needed was a serious relationship to keep her stop agreeing to see him. Perhaps that was the answer, but deep down she knew she should have taken initiative rather than to wait till that day or that person to land into her life.
Waiting, waiting, and waiting, that was what she used to do when she was much younger. She didn't find it a problem then to have to wait for a whole week to hear from her then boyfriend because she had got a busy job and not hearing from him in between dates seemed a good way not to get distracted from her filfulling career. But with the benefit of hindsights, it was the lack of intimate contact that had eventually pushed her away. Now when she thought about it, she was amazed this would happen again at this stage of her life.
That he had wanted to meet her only when he felt the animal 'urge' reminded her of a letter from her ex to his new belle some years ago. In it he was responding to her question whether or not he loved her. They had then been together for a good eight months. She could not quite understood at that time if she was playing fire with him, but now she believed she was just behaving like a human being who did not want to be used by a married man. It was incredible how she had come to understand the woman who had 'stolen' the heart of her ex through this.
April 02, 2009
Fresh look at Ozu
When I visited Beijing two and a half years ago, I got hold of an anthology of Yasujiro Ozu's last 15 films. Their style and quality is consistent and in fact, probably because they tend to focus on domestic issues of the middle class, with roles by his regular actors, it is easy to come to the conclusion that Ozu the director had stayed that way all the time: low camera position, minimum movement both of the camera and the characters, protagonists hardly engaged in matters of monetary nature.
Tokyo Chorus and I Was Born But... change all that. Such delightful and beautiful pearls show a very different Ozu: one that deemed humour one of the key elements in his characters and story telling, one that was obviously heavily influenced by masters like Chaplin (think of the scenes where the father was captured making faces in front of camera), and one that is already a great director with child actors.
Both films have many scenes of children behaving, well, just like children in their most natural state of their age, and it was incredible that Ozu managed to get such brilliant performances from these child actors, with the eldest being no more than eight or nine years old. I Was Born But... stands out in particular as it deals both with children's adaptation to the usually forced new environments (new neighbourhood, new school, new kids, new bullies etc as their fathers' social status changed), and that of the adult world from their prospectives. The latter proves to be especially a fresh and poignant angle to remind us what is being lost from adolescence to adulthood when reality kicks in.
In comparison to the characters in Mikio Naruse's best works, such as When Women Ascend the Stairs and Flouting Clouds, who are all obviously making difficult choices due to the lack of financial stability, those in Ozu's latter and better known films seldom address such issues openly as if they would be resolved on their own. Yet the two films from his silent era suggest another template, one which is not too different from that of Naruse in terms of how the ordinary people are leading their lives when bounded by immediate or long term financial concerns. It is only in the latter period that Ozu dropped such subject matters directly related to one's financial circumstance.
A true master, someone whose early works prove to be a wonderful surprise to those like myself who were introduced to him through his latter works. His works look at the role of a father in the family, especially that in a boy's world. His concern is humane and realistic. But best of all, he has never allowed himself to forget the films are there to entertain in the first instance; his wit and sense of humour are there to captivate us throughout in the two silent films.
Tokyo Chorus and I Was Born But... change all that. Such delightful and beautiful pearls show a very different Ozu: one that deemed humour one of the key elements in his characters and story telling, one that was obviously heavily influenced by masters like Chaplin (think of the scenes where the father was captured making faces in front of camera), and one that is already a great director with child actors.
Both films have many scenes of children behaving, well, just like children in their most natural state of their age, and it was incredible that Ozu managed to get such brilliant performances from these child actors, with the eldest being no more than eight or nine years old. I Was Born But... stands out in particular as it deals both with children's adaptation to the usually forced new environments (new neighbourhood, new school, new kids, new bullies etc as their fathers' social status changed), and that of the adult world from their prospectives. The latter proves to be especially a fresh and poignant angle to remind us what is being lost from adolescence to adulthood when reality kicks in.
In comparison to the characters in Mikio Naruse's best works, such as When Women Ascend the Stairs and Flouting Clouds, who are all obviously making difficult choices due to the lack of financial stability, those in Ozu's latter and better known films seldom address such issues openly as if they would be resolved on their own. Yet the two films from his silent era suggest another template, one which is not too different from that of Naruse in terms of how the ordinary people are leading their lives when bounded by immediate or long term financial concerns. It is only in the latter period that Ozu dropped such subject matters directly related to one's financial circumstance.
A true master, someone whose early works prove to be a wonderful surprise to those like myself who were introduced to him through his latter works. His works look at the role of a father in the family, especially that in a boy's world. His concern is humane and realistic. But best of all, he has never allowed himself to forget the films are there to entertain in the first instance; his wit and sense of humour are there to captivate us throughout in the two silent films.
April 01, 2009
The way we were
There are times one just wonders how come some films got made. The Way We Were falls into that category. I knew the song since being an adolescent, and I had watched the film for the sake of Robert Redford. He didn't help the story but he was the only thing that kept me from the switch off control - because a) he was still in his prime despite the disappointing characterisation of his part, and indeed the whole story; b) I couldn't help hoping that he could inject Barbara Streisand some sense of humour, which of course was a tall order.
What a fiasco!
But it dose help me to understand now the crucial part humour plays in keeping the audience tuned.
What a fiasco!
But it dose help me to understand now the crucial part humour plays in keeping the audience tuned.
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