Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2003 3:43 pm    Post subject: YEAR-END TOP TEN

It would be meaningless for me to post a Best of 2003 list as I've not even seen the most critically acclaimed movies of the year. It is likewise meaningless to post a list of best movies that opened in Singapore this year as I had watched only about a dozen movies on general release and liked fewer than a handful. As such, I could only post a Best of 2002 list, for movies with a 2002 release date in the U.S. (Irreversible is the sole exception) Of this list, only one movie (Signs) was seen in 2002 and only four ever appeared in cineplexes. One was seen at SIFF and the rest, on DVD.

The Best Movies of 2002


10. The Rules of Attraction – Roger Avary
A film soundly trounced by a carrier-load of reviewers, Rules may seem to amount to nothing more than misanthropic sneering at the anomie and vapidity of self-absorbed college kids. While I don’t deny that sneering at brats is a primary source of the movie’s delight, the heedless shenanigans depicted translate cumulatively into a post-millennial update of Renoir’s Rules of the Game. In that renowned classic, decorum and frivolous pursuits mask the intrinsic vacuity of the bourgeoisie. The character Octave, played by director Renoir, says at one point, "It's a world where everyone lies". Yes, especially to themselves and so too, do the characters in Rules. The film employs kinetically euphoric style to deconstruct the facades and chic-platitudes (cocaine chic, gay chic, virgin chic) that define the folklore of the Nouveau Bourgeoisie.


9. Signs – M Night Shyamalan
How clever it is, that a sly genre exercise can be embraced by both rationalists and theists for espousing their respective tenets and how subversive, for proving that a mainstream film can express more than authorial intent.


8. Punch Drunk Love – Paul Thomas Anderson
Anderson’s the best American director today, bar none. Every one of his four features made to date is a great film, collectively marked by consistency of vision, penchant for absurdity intertwined with pathos and an outstretched hand towards greatness. His latest opus, a paean to romantic idealism, not only features the only watchable Adam Sandler performance thus far, it also exposes the wounded heart of the child within that raging, often insufferable persona.


7. Gangs of New York – Martin Scorsese
What a bracing, breathtaking epic this is, a film drunk on stylistic grandeur, steamrolling through conventions of narrative and character development to deliver a reimagining of history as operatic mythology, inspired as much by Beowulf and Shakespeare as it is by Fellini and Kurosawa.


6. 25th Hour – Spike Lee
The genius of this film is that this story of personal tragedy encapsulates the responses to post-9/11 trauma in microcosm. While Monty’s downfall parallels the fateful events, his best friend (played by Barry Pepper) represents those vociferous elements that put the blame squarely upon the U.S. for incurring that tragedy. By extension of the metaphor, Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s character can then be said to speak for the silent majority with no real stand of its own - the people who chase after the numbing comfort of ideals and illusions. Finally, it is Brian Cox as Monty’s father, who forms the stalwart, working-class pillar of support. And perhaps this resilience, this loyalty of the common citizen is all that a nation can rely upon when faced with the consequences of their misdeeds.


5. Sunshine State – John Sayles
Sayles has always been interested in the intersection between personal and communal history and this movie best exemplifies his cinematic approach, as he creates a vivid sense of community from nothing but performances. And it is in writing for, and directing, a huge ensemble cast that Sayles truly shines, for no other contemporary filmmaker comes close (no, not even Altman) to him in making each person come alive, imbued with personality and a past, with mere bits of dialogue. Racial inequality, politics, ecology, commerce and tradition are themes that are neatly interwoven into this mini-epic and by movie’s end, you’d be exhausted by the sheer scope of what Sayles had achieved.


4. Sweet Sixteen – Ken Loach
Ken Loach’s masterpiece possesses the raw edge and authenticity of a documentary combined with unvarnished, spontaneous and powerful performances, Loach hallmarks. If it is possible to watch the ending and not be moved by the crushing loss of hope and youthful idealism, then it may be possible for a heart to be made of cold granite.


3. The Grey Zone – Tim Blake Nelson
Holocaust-themed movies have been done to death, you say, and perhaps you’re right but there simply isn’t any Holocaust movie like this one. The Jews here are not merely docile sheep to be herded to their bitter ends, as those that take up the position of ‘Sonderkommando’ are just as venal and unscrupulous as the Nazi jailers. They are pro-active, too, and contribute to the only armed revolt that would ever take place at Auschwitz. Here, moral relativism no longer has any meaning, as even the act of helping a child survive would be damning her to a lifetime of horror. Unyieldingly bleak and bereft of any hope for deliverance, this movie takes a long hard dive into the abyss of despair and never returns. It scars your soul and leaves you a bruised and battered shell, clawing at shadows.


2.Invincible – Werner Herzog
Herzog’s first feature in more than a decade may be his most personal film yet, as he has never before expressed cinematically his feelings about Germany during the rise of National Socialism. It is also his most radical, a departure from all those stories of megalomania and the folly of ambition, of waking nightmares and insanity. Here instead is a story of a truly exceptional person with no agenda but a naïve wish to be an inspiration to his people. If his performance seems wooden, it is simply because we are not watching an actor pretending to be a strong man; for two years, Jouko Ahola held the title of World’s Strongest Man. And at the film’s emotional zenith, we are not merely watching an actress emoting like a pianist; Anna Gourari is one of the great Russian pianists of this generation. Tim Roth really did hypnotise that woman. Herzog’s adherence to veracity accords the film a strong core of emotional truth that, coupled with his affinity for “unembarrassed images”, makes this a beautiful, offbeat, quietly affecting movie.





1. (Tie) Irreversìble – Gaspar Noe and Russian Ark – Alexander Sokurov

On the surface, these two films may not share much in common but together they expand upon the idea of cinema as ‘imprinted time’. We watch not the unfolding of narrative but the inexorable progression of real time, which imbues the films with raw immediacy, as we are made sharply aware of each passing moment.

Irreversible has been derided as nihilistic but that is a facile assessment that takes no account of its moral nature and its antithesis of violence as entertainment. Its reverse structure and its vertiginous camera movements are never gimmicks; they serve to expose the cascading layers of the characters’ psychology. This movie plants rattlesnakes in your belly and drags you choking and screaming through fields of rose thorns and barbed wire.

Every review of Russian Ark seems unable to get past its cinematographic virtuosity. Yes, it is made in a continuous take but what good is this technique if it doesn’t contribute to the artistic value of the film?

The film would not be essentially the same were it edited, as this would have resulted in the banality of an episodic narrative. Its method allows us to view the 300-year history of the Hermitage as a continuum, which is important because those years represent Russia’s period of Eurocentrism. At the finale, the last ball in the Winter Palace in 1913, Russia parted ways with Europe as it went on the road to communism, a fact that was manifested symbolically in the movie. Sokurov’s film suggested that this might be a good thing after all (the parting of ways, that is, and not communism), as the search for national identity must begin by casting off borrowed and extraneous influences. Indeed, it was in the 20th century that Russian art and literature gained new prominence, and the world came to know of Nabokov, Pasternak, Solzhenitsyn, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and those giants of cinema, Dovzhenko, Eisenstein, Tarkovsky and now, Sokurov. As such, perhaps Russian Ark is neither a lament nor a nostalgic tribute to the age of the Tsars but more rightly, a eulogy, a gesture of good riddance, that the ark of Russian culture may then sail forward unshackled to its ‘imported cultural heritage’ (Beumers, Kinokultura).

Posted: Thu Dec 18, 2003 1:08 pm    Post subject: Return of the King

Being an unwavering champion of The Two Towers since last year, it really pains me to say that I disliked Return of the King immensely. It failed on all the most important levels that made the books such a treasured component of my life. And to think that it is currently the best reviewed instalment of the trilogy.

It was more than a decade ago that I reached the words,

He drew a deep breath. 'Well, I'm back,' he said.

I was stunned, exhilarated, emotionally spent and for days thence, I lived as if in a daze, my mind enthralled by the spell of the books. I made watercolour paintings of the principal characters and bought miniatures to re-enact my own Battle of Pelennor Fields. I began to overuse words like, 'dotard', 'fealty' and 'tarry'. I took up kendo because it's the closest I could get to learning swordfighting (fencing was much too sissy for me).

Revisiting the stories over the years felt like returning to the company of old and dear friends.

Now, I do not demand that this third instalment adhere closely to the narrative of the Holy Texts. In fact, since re-reading it throughout this year, I found many narrative digressions that should be (and were) excised from the adaptation. What I found wanting was that the movie didn't bring me to the same emotional high I had at the closing chapter of the book. I do recognise, however, that it's more a problem of my expectations than it is of the filmmakers.

Here, then, are my problems with the movie, from the minor to the catastrophic:

Problems of Omission

I'm certain some of these problems will be rectified in the Extended Edition but as they are, they diminish the theatrical version greatly. To begin with, after Theoden fell, he was forgotten for the rest of the movie. He was KING of Rohan, the Rohirrim MUST despair at his passing. It seemed as if he was left dead and neglected on the battlefield. Also, in the trailer, we see Eomer wailing as he held a prone body close to his chest. I'm certain he was lamenting the fall of Eowyn, which was not depicted at all. The exclusion of these scenes robs the movie of much needed emotional gravitas.

A brief scene at the Siege of Gondor, prefaced by "Release the prisoners!", shows the armies of Mordor lobbing severed heads over the walls of Minas Tirith. We never find out who these "prisoners" were and how the Gondorians would react to them. We see a head rolling on the ground and that's it. We never even get a sense of the psychological terror unleashed by the enemy.

Faramir, Captain of Gondor

Faramir was the most beloved leader of Gondor, more so than Boromir. In the movie, however, it seemed nobody in Minas Tirith gave a shit about him. Riding in retreat from Osgiliath while pursued by orcs and Nazgul, no-one from Minas Tirth came to his aid except for Gandalf and his flashlight. Nobody cared that he returned safely and, most damningly, nobody lamented his fall in battle later on. He possessed the most tragic character arc in the books yet in the movie, was treated worse than a minor character. He was persona non grata. It is this fool's hope that his story would be fleshed out better in the Extended edition.

Aragorn's Character Arc

As mentioned by various reviewers, we never get a sense of Aragorn's kingly quality. The film made it seem as if he ascends the Throne of Gondor due to feudal birthright alone and not deed, as was established by the books. He rode into Minas Tirith and just like that, became their king without earning fealty from the leaders of the city. And speaking of birthright, the Armies of the Dead were HIS to command as he is the rightful heir of Isildur. He shouldn't be going around asking, "What say you?" as if inviting them for a round at the pub. I half-expected a wise-ass ghost to remark, "I say bollocks to that".

The Battle at Pelennor Fields

The Two Towers surprised and entralled me because I never imagined the battle at Helm's Deep to be depicted as in the movie. Then again, Tolkien never did devote many pages to it, which explains why I was blindsided. The battle kept kicking up to higher and higher levels - first there was the siege, then the fall of the Deeping Wall. The retreat followed by Forth, Eorlingas! Gandalf's cavalry appeared at daybreak, then the charge. Even then, it still was not over. The Ents, whom my imagination has never been able to picture, attacked with rock and stone and by then, I was reduced to a delirious wreck.

There was structure to the battle. There were ebb and flow. There were escalating crescendoes.

All of which were missing from The Battle at Pelennor Fields.

Sure, we had siege towers, trolls, Nazgul, Grond(!) and Mumakil but the organisation of the battle sequences seems scattered. The movie flitted from one moment to the next - Grond, for instance, broke through the fortress door then conveniently disappeared - instead of building up steadily from its components. The enemy never presented a united front and never seemed credible as an insurmountable force.

What's far, far worse was their easy defeat by the fluorescent-green Armies of the Dead. It made the victory of the Gondorians hollow and meaningless. Tolkien ensured that the Dead never set foot on Pelennor Fields because that battle represented The Last Stand of Mankind. It MUST be won by men (technically, along with a woman, a dwarf, some elves and rangers) and not by sodding ghosts.

This thematic negligence infuriated me to the point where nothing else could salvage the movie for me. What capsized the movie completely was the handling of

Eowyn's Character Arc

Eowyn's evolution from a servile woman to a warrior was, to me, the absolute zenith of the book. It was the fists-pumping, Hell, yeah! moment, it was inspirational and profoundly moving.

You see, Eowyn was the feminist icon of the books. She can fight but, as seen in the Extended Two Towers, can't cook worth a damn (how typical). She longed for valour and renown in battle but instead, found herself babysitting the women and children time and again due to patriarchal prejudice. This was an important facet of the books that, again, was not depicted in the film.

I harbour a deep suspicion that it was a conscious decision on the filmmakers' part to downgrade her role in the movie and relegate her to the status of a petulant, unskilled girl.

One scene was particularly telling. Prior to the departure of Aragorn and Co to the Paths of the Dead, Eowyn offered him a drink. Their ensuing dialogue was lifted almost verbatim from the book (pg 794):

'A time may come soon,' said he, 'when none will return. Then there will be need of valour without renown, for none shall remember the deeds that are done in the last defence of your homes.'

Eowyn's immediate response was cut out of the movie completely:

And she answered: 'All your words are to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house..... But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.'

'What do you fear, lady?' he asked.

'A cage,' she said.

This conversation makes clear Eowyn's motivation and frustration at being side-lined, without which her ride into battle possesses no context.

When it came for her time to shine, the movie screwed it up royally.

From page 851:

A sword rang as it was drawn. 'Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may.'

'Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!'

Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that (she) laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel. 'But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am. You stand between me and my lord and kin... For living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him.'

See that? Defiant laughter. Voice ringing like steel.

And more:

Still she did not blench: maiden of the Rohirrim, child of kings, slender but as a steel-blade, fair yet terrible. A swift stroke she dealt, skilled and deadly.

In the movie, the poor girl was shaking like a leaf and wielding her sword like a child. And where was this deadly skill of hers? Where was her courage? Her defiance?

All that was left was the ineffectual line, "I am no man". Blah.

Everyone involved should be rightly ashamed for turning the heroic Eowyn into a weakling.

----------------------

Rant over, I do acknowledge that there were some good parts in the movie - it's just that those parts never meant much to me in the first place. I wanted to be shaken and to be moved to tears, both of which never occurred.

To be fair, the movie had too much to live up to. The Return of the King had already been conceptualised and made in my head all those years ago. It is perhaps too much to ask Peter Jackson to surpass the imagination.

Posted: Fri Dec 19, 2003 11:12 am    Post subject:

I didn't mind that it was different. The Two Towers was miles removed from the source material yet I felt that it worked. I thought the pieces would fit in the bigger picture of the entire trilogy. However, what the filmmakers had done in Return of the King was to take a good story and made it bad.

Here's an idea of what I'm talking about:

Elrond approached Aragorn as the latter camped out with the Rohirrim at Dunharrow. After presenting Aragorn with the reforged sword, Elrond advised him to hasten through the Paths of the Dead, so that Aragorn, aided by the Dead Army, can intercept the reinforcements of the black fleet.

Now, the film gave us the impression that Aragorn knew what he must do; that is, to recruit said Army into the coalition of the willing. It seemed as if Aragorn had planned to do so even as he set out through the mountain pass.

If this be the case, then there would be no need for the Riders of Rohan to come to Gondor's aid at all!

Aragorn could have prevented many, many needless deaths by telling Theoden and Co to just chill while he brings his phantom army. The Rohirrim contributed absolutely NOTHING to the battle and only got their king killed in the process.

A message could also be sent to Gandalf at Minas Tirith to await Aragorn's arrival, as was done by Gandalf at Helm's Deep. Gandalf can then concentrate on the city's defence.

What kind of bloody king is Aragorn if he could not even plan ahead to safeguard the lives of his people?

Not only does he lack foresight and logistical ability, he also has zero tactical skills.

As you see, this was one of many instances where Peter Jackson's adaptation failed for me. The entire narrative got more and more waterlogged as the movie went on until I just couldn't take it anymore.

Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2003 11:18 am    Post subject: Films you love for the weirdest of reasons.....

One movie that struck a chord of stadium-concert proportions in me was the once-mentioned Another Day in Paradise. In a scene late in the movie, James Woods' character was out in the woods (heh) shooting guns with his young protege. His faced twisted in a scowl of searing disdain, Woods remarked to his friend how much he hates all that grenery and quietude and how he cannot sleep unless serenaded by the din of traffic as smog fills his lungs. Right there and then, I found my virtual soulmate.

Yet another instance that comes to mind is a specific scene from Pollock. Our titular hero, having attempted to settle in the countryside, goes out on his bicycle to purchase a carton of beer from the grocery shop. On his way back, no doubt seduced by the siren call of said sweet libations piling the front basket of his conveyance, he endeavoured to open one by prying its cap on the handlebar whilst pedalling and steering. Alas, such a maladroit manoeuvre immediately ran afoul of several Laws of Physics, including Newton's 1st, 2nd and 3rd. As Pollock, bicycle and beer met road in an ungainly heap, I cried a silent tear for all those smashed, wasted bottles of liquid sunshine and for the desperation of a man whose being despairs of sobriety.

Posted: Fri Nov 28, 2003 7:09 pm    Post subject: Master & Commander

Master and Commander

Master and Commander is an enthralling valentine to an age consigned to history and the oblivion of memory; an age in which men value valour and honour more than their lives, an age of wooden battleships and sailing by the stars, an age when men were MEN.

It is perhaps anachronistic (but refreshing, no less) to find a contemporary movie so unabashedly, well, MANLY. Not only were there not a single female speaking part, the captain and crew were not driven by the love of some prissy, arisocratic hussy back in Ol' Blighty. In fact, the only reference to women in this film was the toast by Lucky Jack:

"To our wives and sweethearts." (Beat) "May they never meet."

This film, as befits its masculine underpinnings, is brash, bold, obvious, muscular and occasionally, stiff and ungainly but one cannot expect a barbarian to do pirouettes, innit? It doesn't pretend to be something it jolly well is not.

Speaking of said shining examples of humanity, the guiding principle of my life is crystallised in these words espoused by Conan the Cimmerian, in response to the question, "What is best in life?"

"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women!"

The crew of the HMS Surprise, I'm deeply heartened to report, share this passion as well. Oh, but they are not bloodthirsty savages (they are bloody English, after all -- hey waitaminit, maybe they ARE). They also indulge in the finer things in life like music, zoology and shagging (though the last item wasn't pictured).

I wished they would have waded ashore the Galapagos islands with muskets locked and loaded, blasting every ugly iguana in sight but I suppose they need to conserve the ammo for more deserving prey, like the Frenchies (who, I might add, sounded like the French knights from Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

Russell Crowe eschewed his angsty schtick for an energetic and galvanising performance. He is a leader, a teacher and a brilliant captain and you know his crew will follow him into the Jaws of Hell, if need be. His eyes twinkle whenever he outsmarts the Acheron and though he is a hard taskmaster, he also has time for mirth and even a bit of singing. He clearly enjoys this. In the sea, he's in his element.

Powerful though Crowe's performance is, he is very nearly upstaged by newcomer Max Pirkis, who plays the young midshipman, Blakeney. Never have I seen such a nuanced performance and such unflappable stoicism from someone so young. Make sure you remember his name. He'll go far, as long as he does not succumb to the seductions of Hollywood, that babylonian whore.

Director Peter Weir gets an ovation from me, as he's clearly taken a huge risk with this movie. It doesn't pander, it takes its time (the doldrums in the middle portion almost capsizes this movie) and it effectively ostracises the female demographic. Yes, yes, you may say that Russell Crowe will get the ladies into cinemas but really, there's nothing here that women can relate to. It's the TA POR movie of the year.

As you may well surmise, this film celebrates militarism unapologetically. If this theme offends your scrawny little peacenik ass, then you have no business watching it. Come to think of it, this has been a good year for war movies. Not only were there this and Revo, there's also that little indie pic next month. You know, the one with midgets, trinkets and gay archers.

Years from now, I shall watch Master and Commander at home, with my young son on my lap and I shall say to him, "See that, lad? That's how you become a MAN."

This is a film to treasure, indeed.

Posted: Tue Nov 18, 2003 11:04 pm    Post subject: All Or Nothing

All images (c) MGM.com and United Artists

All Or Nothing

Back in the days when the world was young, early Man emerged from his cave to the warmth of a lifegiving sun and, through his Neanderthal eyes, saw that the world was good. He knew his place in this world, did early Man. Although he had neither the linguistic nor intellectual capacity to codify it, he understood intuitively the one Truth that was self-evident: Natural selection.

He knew that had he been born with diminished physical and heuristic faculties, he would fail to hunt down his quarry. And then, the swift and merciless axe of Nature will fall upon him and his bloodline.

See, the reason we're all not still swinging from trees is that natural selection, when left unfettered by meddlesome human intervention, is the most puissant engine of change and improvement (except maybe for our mouthfuls of rotten crockery, unimprovable by millennia of evolution).

Alas, the advent of civilisation has effectively forestalled this engine and one instrument proved the most insidious and efficient in this regard: The welfare state.

This brings us, in a labyrinthine fashion, to Mike Leigh's All Or Nothing.

The film depicts a nuclear family eking out a meagre existence amidst the post-industrial wasteland that is 21st century England. While the female members of the family are conscientious, though menial, workers, the father sleeps until noon while the son lazes around all day. Every single person that shows up in the film is invariably corpulent, pulchritudinously-challenged or both combined. That they are also frequently feckless and rude should not come as a surprise, if not for the fact that those traits represent their only prominent qualities.

This grim drama, forever teetering on the brink of despair, may sound immediately repulsive but perhaps Mike Leigh intended it to be both a lament on the state of British society and an excoriation of the welfare state.

The Empire had long since collapsed and now the cracks in its armour are filled by the dregs of Western civilisation, festering like sores and breeding offspring in their own likeness. Instead of being allowed to perish into the good night as natural selection dictates, these fustian masses are kept barely alive by medical and welfare benefits that suck wealth from the marrow of the nation. Such a mollycoddled society only begets frailty and incompetence.

Implicit in its astringent narrative is the tacit suggestion that the welfare state must be abolished and laissez-faire social Darwinism be allowed to flourish, that they may once again be worthy of the lineage that stretched back through the mists of antiquity to a time when Man strode across the great savannah, the master of all he surveys.

 Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2003 4:46 pm    Post subject: REVOLUTIONS!

Our expectations temper our response to a movie, that's true, and in the case of Revolutions, not only did it play out the way I wished and hoped it would, it also gave me Holy Shit moments of pure fanboy delight.

It had heart, depth, genuine artistry and towering imagination. In other words,

I fucking loved it!

Here's why:

The Resolution to Neo's Storyline
I will go into this later but for the moment, suffice it to say that this, the final instalment, resonates with echoes of the finest anime, from Akira to Ghost in the Shell to Neon Genesis Evangelion. Like these three, so too did Revolutions contain much ambiguity. Not everything was explained yet it all makes sense within the film's internal logic.

Revolutions, the War Movie
Nothing exhilarates me more than a war movie done well, and Revolution does it damn well indeed. There's a 'Humanity's Last Stand' vibe of desperation to the final battle. There're eviscerations, low-tech re-arming of APUs, 'homeland defence' by the womenfolk and even a Lt. Vasquez (Aliens) homage. It thrilled me to no end, Black Hawk Down to the Nth degree.

The Action Cinematography
Every action scene in here was brilliantly conceived, staged and paced. In lesser hands, the attack on Zion could have amounted to nothing more than a pulverising barrage of squiddies. The Bros, however, imbued it with such a perfect balance of rhythm and chaos that I watched with mouth agape. The chase of the Hammer, though similar to the final flight of the Osiris, took on the gauntlet thrown by the best Millennium Falcon sequences and fucking ran with it. Even the Smith-Neo showdown could not be sullied by their mutual lack of martial finesse as it's now transformed into a fight between superheroes. Everytime lightning flashed behind one of them in his 'hero' pose, I'm reminded of the superhero comics I grew up with. Good God, it was like a battle between Superman and Thor, the stuff of fanboy dreams.

Visual Design
While being absorbed in its storyline and action setpieces, it's easy to forget just how much imagination and visual flair went into the movie. I mean, consider the following: a mechanical jungle, replete with mechanical bugs and snakes. A giant drill that sprouts appendages. Squiddies that flock together like tightly-packed schools of fish. A sentinel that crouches like a predatory feline. The Viking funeral. The surface details on the Logos and the Hammer. My eyes drank in every drop of all that intoxicating beauty.

And the scene in which the Logos does a dolphin leap into the sky now stands as the single best scene I've seen in a movie this year, surpassing even those delightful leaping Hulk scenes.

Mechas
Call them powerloaders, APUs, mobile armoured suits, mechs or mechas; having grown up with the likes of the Transformers, Macross, Gundam and Evangelion, I respond instinctively, almost viscerally, to those anthropomorphic machines. Seeing a mecha in a movie is almost like seeing a good friend again. Seeing them in BATTLE, with blazing chainguns, makes me fall in love with the movie effortlessly.

In short, the movie fulfilled all my fanboy hopes and dreams.

------------------

Now that that's all out of the way, let's talk about
What I Think It All Means

Feel free to rebut, challenge and dispute. Here we go:

The entire conflict is an age-old game between The Architect, who believes that, even though humans are imbued with free will, our responses are always predictable and hence, controllable and The Oracle, who takes the opposite stance, believing instead that humans can possess the potential to surprise machines of unimaginable, insuperable intellects. In a sense, they are almost like those deities in Norse, Greek and Hindu mythology that use humans as pawns in their celestial games. If I may make an analogy, the Architect is Zeus, the Oracle, Athena and Neo is the Matrix's equivalent of Ulysses.

As revealed in Reloaded, the Architect has won five times in the past. I surmise that whichever door the One chooses is irrelevant - Zion will be destroyed so long as the One believes that humans can triumph over the Machines through strength of arms alone. The One arises (like a Slayer) in every generation or cycle of the Matrix. He is someone who can manipulate the Matrix code intuitively and eventually becomes a Messiah who leads his people not to salvation but to inevitable doom.

Which brings us to Zion. Now, I assume that the Zionists have no written history as we see no evidence of libraries or archives. In fact, it seems to me a civilisation predicated on oral histories. Hence, they themselves have no records of who constructed Zion and gave them their machines. The councillor from Reloaded believes that their predecessors build the place but I contend that it was built and maintained by the Machines.

Why?

As a pressure release valve, so to speak. A refuge for those souls who reject the programming of the Matrix. They have a choice to drop out and as such, would not threaten the fabric of the Matrix.

But why destroy it?

Perhaps as a form of control, to prevent overpopulation and to prove to humans that the Machines own their asses. To show them that their free will and their faith amount to nothing. The Machines cannot just nuke Zion, as Ebert suggested, because Zion is a hermetically sealed city. Nukes would either totally collapse it or prevent inhabitance for decades, thus precluding its manifest function.

So how did Neo succeed when his predecessors didn't?

The Architect said love motivated Neo, and perhaps this love made him into something the Architect never imagined. He didn't believe Neo would be able to save Trinity at the end of Reloaded but he did. It was love, and the loss of that love, that enabled him to sacrifice himself.

Further, Neo did something unprecedented. He integrated his code into Agent Smith, transforming the latter into a blight, a pandemic. Even the Oracle did not foresee this course of action but she knew then what she must do to provide the humans a bargaining chip with the Machines.

The Oracle has often been derided for speaking in riddles but everything she said and did was meant to convince Neo that he must make his own choices. To paraphrase from T2, "There is no fate but what we make". I suspect their first encounter in Reloaded was set up by her to convince Neo that he cannot win Agent Smith through conflict as they are equals. They are the Yin and Yang.

And how did Neo gain powers in the real world?

He didn't. Neo doesn't manipulate the laws of physics in the 'real world'. He could only manipulate Machines; Machines that run on that same Matrix code he controls. Stands to reason that he just bypasses the software failsafes intuitively to destroy those Sentinels. He could probably do that right from the start, just that he discovered this ability only at the end of Reloaded. Similarly, Agent Smith can download his programming into Bane thus, he could probably interface with the Sentinels as Bane was the only survivor of the massacre he initiated.

What about the end, then?

Just because the Oracle has won this round doesn't mean that all enslaved humans will be freed from the pods. It only means that the 1% of humans who reject the Matrix can now drop out without fear of persecution, at least until the next One arises. I figure this was the term of the bet between those two and the Machines would still retain their thermal-biokinetic power source.

What about Sati, then?

Two probable explanations come to mind. She's either, (a) merely a redundant sunrise-making program (and the Matrix definitely needs some sunlight) or (b) the incarnation of the next One. But then, she's a program, which reduces the validity of the latter hypothesis.

 Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2003 10:42 pm        Post subject: REVOLUTIONS!

Here's da seeing-to:

Last thing fucking first - Plot, as in a conventional narrative, does not exist in either Reloaded or Revolutions. Every exchange between the humans and the sentient programs (Architect, Oracle and Merovingian) exists solely on the level of subtext. None of them would come right out and give the humans a straight explanation because the AI players were just fucking with the humans.

Consider this bit during the Oracle's meeting with Neo in Reloaded:

This exchange told us two things:

1. Neo and co. believe in the Oracle simply because they don't have another source of information. They believe in her even when she is saying, essentially, "I'm not here to help you". Neo, then, is her willing and ready pawn;

2. She knows that she must integrate with Agent Smith in order to furnish Neo with a bargaining chip with the Machines. Why? To win this round of the Game, that's why.

Does my coming up with those two interpretations signify my reading too much into the movie?

Perhaps, but for two things:
-- any interpretation of a cinematic narrative is valid so long as it does not contradict said film's internal logic,
-- a movie whose plot exist at the subtextual level DEMANDS closer analysis.

Hence, I find the latter two Matrix instalments to share much in common with the recent films, Mulholland Dr, Avalon and Signs. Where Mulholland is concerned, the artistry with which Lynch made it convinces us that there is much more to the film, and that it demands to be understood within our personal schemata. But considering the divergent contexts in which this movie was viewed, it comes as no surprise for some critics (and many movie-goers, too, I presume) to call this movie, "Moronic and incoherent".

Such divergence obviously applies to the films, Avalon, Signs and Matrix R&R, as well. I find these three even more insidious than Mulholland because they wear the guise of genre films yet subvert those genres so delicately that they become quite another thing altogether. Avalon, for instance, seemed like a Matrix rip-off at the outset but morphed into a parable of free will. In Signs, the alien invasion exists solely to provide the proverbial crucible for the characters to test their natures. In both these movies (as in the two Matrix ones), their central themes remain at the level of subtext.

Failure to recognise these subtexts should not be taken as indicative of diminished intellectual capacity, as has often been suggested, but rather, as an unwillingness to interpret that which cannot be reconciled with our personal schema or aesthetic.

 Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2003 11:28 am     Post subject: REVOLUTIONS!

Translation of the Merovingian's curses

“I have sampled every language, French is my favorite. Fantastic language, especially to curse with. Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d’enculé de ta mère.” — The Merovingian, in the Matrix Reloaded

Here's the contextual translation, by a poster called shellorz:

 Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2003 1:50 pm            Post subject: REVOLUTIONS!

Whether it's welcome or not, it's inevitable.

Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions:

The Cliff Notes Version 1.0

As usual, it is merely my interpretation so feel free to disagree, dispute, ignore.

The Rules of the Game
Let's start at the very end.

The Architect tells the Oracle something to the effect of, "This is a dangerous game you have played". Note: YOU have played. It may mean different things in the context of the movie but let's just assume, for the sake of this interpretation, that the Oracle challenges the Architect's staunch belief in predetermination, with particular regard to the human concept of "free will".

The Architect gave Neo two choices but the outcome of either couldn't be of less interest to him as all eventualities have been accounted for. Zion will fall, as it did in the past, and the Matrix will be rebooted. Up until that point, Neo has merely been following orders, a dutiful "victim of causality". As such, the choice the Architect presents is no choice at all. The words of the Merovingian prove most revealing here: "Choice is an illusion created between those with power, and those without."

As for the Oracle, if you recall from Reloaded, the Oracle is (in the words of the Architect), "an intuitive program, initially created to investigate certain aspects of the human psyche".

Perhaps in the course of her heuristic existence, the Oracle must have realised that humans, no matter how much they are controlled, are still capable of making choices that no sentient program can foresee. This goes some way into explaining why she keeps on harping about, "We can't see past the choices we don't understand".

Sometime between the fall of the 5th Zion and the awakening of the present One, perhaps a wager or a challenge was put forth by the Oracle to the Architect: He will stave off Zion's destruction and the "cataclysmic system crash of the Matrix" if the One could surprise them with initiatives they had not accounted for. Perhaps the Architect was curious as to how this game might be played out, which was why he agreed.

Why do I think it was a game between the two of them?

At the end of Revolutions, the Architect promised the Oracle that those who want to be freed would be freed. This was not a promise made to Neo. All Neo cared about was Zion. Why, then, would the Architect throw in this bargain if not because it was an agreement between the Oracle and him?

Also, the one promise he did make was not carried out. Neo chose the door back to the Matrix to rescue Trinity, an act that would have caused "a cataclysmic system crash, killing everyone connected to the Matrix, which, coupled with the extermination of Zion, will ultimately result in the extinction of the entire human race".

Nowhere in Revolutions was seen the commencement of this "system crash". When the Logos went topside, the pod-fields were all humming away merrily with not a care in the world.

Hence, the scenario with the Architect gave me the impression of a Kobayashi Maru test from Star Trek. This test puts an officer in a Scylla-and-Charybdis situation: you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. According to Trek lore, the only way to beat it is either by cheating (as Kirk did) or through sacrifice.

So why did the Architect go such a long way to explain things to Neo when he could have just gone ahead and ordered Zion's destruction anyway?

He is perpetuating the illusion of choice and free will. Humans need this illusion to feel they have some semblance of control over their lives. In the context of the Matrix, it is the choice of rejecting the Matrix and subsequently living in Zion that prevents the malcontent humans from threatening the Matrix's social and ideological cohesion. So now, when Neo makes the choice, the Zionites will think that it's a choice made willingly by a human and not foisted upon them by a Machine.

Further, the entire Reloaded episode accomplished only one thing: to get Neo to meet with the Architect. Neo must be presented with the choice and to later realise that the one choice he must make is that which is not offered by the machines. This was why the Oracle never gave Neo any input into the path he must take.

The Merovingian stands outside this entire game. He knows about the previous Ones and all that but he doesn't care. It almost seems as if he's amused to see how easily humans get manipulated, again and again. The Keymaker and the Trainman work for him so naturally, he wouldn't give them up without a fuss.


What is the Matrix?

The very notion of humans as batteries is absurd. The bulk of the energy that's pumped into us (i.e. food and heat) gets wasted as entropy. Our combined energy output (bioelectric, kinetic, biochemical) is miniscule compared to the energy input required to sustain us.

So, either the Wachowski brothers are idiots or it's all a lie.

Let's just gravitate towards the latter, where speculation is possible. Now, even if humans are harnessed and enslaved for some inexplicable reason, why should they be jacked into the Matrix? The mind doesn't require any input correlating to reality to stay alive. Coma patients can survive for years without any knowledge of "reality".

Perhaps the Matrix is created in each human mind, each one acting as a distributed processor. Its function: to put the remaining vestiges of humankind through perpetual hell. Each "cycle" or "revolution" of the Matrix brings forth a saviour in whom the people place their faith, only to be betrayed when he "chooses" Zion's destruction. The utter loss of hope and faith may cast us into our personal hells. Then the cycle begins anew.

On the other hand, to borrow from Dark City, perhaps the Matrix exists for the Machines to probe into the human psyche.

Additionally, the Matrix is also a place of refuge for rogue programs in exile. I now believe that the kid who can bend spoons in the first Matrix is a rogue program himself, as is Sati.

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 5:37 pm    Post subject: Moonlight Whisper

Moonlight Whisper

That wasn't love they were expressing, it's mutual dysfunction. Do you honestly think they could get through life unscathed without addressing their problems?

I like all positions and it's more like once a day.

Nope. I'm a trisexual. I'll try anything sexual. (Thanks, G)

No problem with foot fetish but yes, "I can't take this shit" because you're mistaking a destructive relationship for affection, which was present only before their problems began.

---------------------

During the equivalent of your Secondary 4, a new guy attended my school and joined my class. He was almost like that boy in the movie: he was creepy, a brown-noser and an ingrate and made no attempts to assimilate into his new milieu. We tolerated him and pretty much left him alone until his ceaseless brown-nosing became unbearable. So, on Sports Day, we hatched a plan. Two guys shadowed him, with the rest of us standing by. As soon as he went into the gents, we cordoned it off, took out a gunny sack that Steven kept for just such an occasion, covered his head, shanghaied him and gave him a Gomer-Pyle-style battering. We could hear his howls from the toilet even from the classrooms in the adjoining block. The kid had no idea who his assailants were. Of course, everybody kept mum, even the ladyboys.

On the next schoolday, instead of keeping his head down and dealing with it (thus earning our respect), he did what every bitch would do: he brought his parents to see the principal. They raised such a stink that the police was brought in and interrogated nearly all of the students. Everyone stuck together. Nothing got out. Even at that tender age, we understood what the words 'honour' and 'loyalty' meant. He left the school soon thereafter. He must either be a serial killer or a hairdresser by now.

The moral of this story is twofold:

1. Nobody likes a pathetically spineless creep.

2. A boy makes a transition to manhood by learning his place in the world and by learning to deal with close interpersonal violence. If he never learns to deal, why then, he'd probably end up wishing he were a dog for some bitch. He never learns to be a man. In other words, I wish I had a chance to kick the motherfucker's ass.


When you arrive at the end of the movie, do you actually believe they'd live happily ever after? Am I the only one who wished he died in that waterfall?

Of course, you might implore me not to judge harshly a relationship that does not conform to societal norms. I say that's bleeding heart, liberal bullshit. Despite what we idealize, people are not at all that diverse or complex or multi-faceted. All our needs are essentially the same. A woman needs a man, full-stop, not a dog. If it's an unequal relationship, it's not a relationship. It's just a timebomb.

I didn't hate this movie vehemently. I merely found it irredeemable and wholly without merit.

Posted: Tue Sep 30, 2003 3:15 pm    Post subject: I Was Born But.....

I Was Born But...


I Was Born But... is NOT a great film. It's not a good film and neither is it a nice film.

On a Monday evening like any other, a small group of tired, hungry film lovers filed into an auditorium to watch a silent film. As the battered 16mm print spun onto the rickety projector, as light passed through celluloid through glass to solidify on fabric, it dawned slowly upon us that what we are watching was not a silent film. We were witnessing PERFECTION.

It is perfect in the sense that absolutely nothing in the film was flawed and nothing could conceivably be added to the movie to improve upon it. It needed no sound, no accompanying soundtrack, no colour, nothing -- just the primordial covenant between the viewer and the moving image. Its comprehensive perfection extended to its compositions, editing, naturalistic performances and character development. We empathize, deeply and acutely, with those two boys and their father. Unlike Russian silent films, which bear the imprint of the decade in which they were made, I Was Born But... was indeed timeless and dateless. In fact, I was bowled over by how contemporary the movie seemed, despite being made over 70 years ago. Everyone can relate to that crushing loss of childhood innocence, and the resolve to better one's parents. During the latter parts of the film, the entire auditorium was stone-silent, save the clickety-clack of the projector. The audience was transfixed.

I walked out of the auditorium humbled yet filled with ineffable joy.

Film critics have often claimed that the art of the motion picture had been perfected in the 20s and 30s. I didn't think much of that statement, until I watched this movie and realised they were right, after all.

Now I know that some of you might be thinking, "Oh, I don't know. I'm not a fan of silent movies" or you might maintain a skeptical stance. If you do either, then you're sadly mistaken. Inky always praised Ozu to the skies and everytime I read one of his posts, I projected that same sense of skepticism. Now I'm converted. I will embrace every Ozu film like they were manna from Heaven.

And so, if you consider yourself a film buff, if you think you live and breathe cinema, if you want to savour a slice of perfection, then drop everything this Friday and GO WATCH IT. If you think it cannot be as good as what Sinny and I make it out to be, then you're wrong. It's better.

Posted: Sat Sep 27, 2003 2:21 pm    Post subject: JFF Comments

Lovers Lost

"Now that's what I call a fucking show!" So says George Clooney's character after Salma Hayek's python dance number in From Dusk Till Dawn and so say I after this movie. It's got everything a guy wants: copious sex and nudity, campy fun, sepia-tinged flashbacks featuring a poolshark channeling Paul Newman, a protracted death scene that trumps the one from Breathless and the clincher, for me, the scene that shall forever be known as

That's what I call bar-top dancing, godammit!

Let's be clear on one thing: this is a quintessential exploitation flick.

The co-author of the book Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Film, Felicia Feaster, defines the genre as

Of course, by now the genre itself has become mainstream and the term has little or no meaning in the wake of blockbusters like Bad Boys 2. As such, if the very notion of an exploitation flick does not appeal to your baser instincts, if all you want to watch are 'artistic' films then chances are, you would not like this film.

But if you do watch it, you'd notice that Fukasaku's direction here is always energetic and just when things start to stagnate, he throws a doozy from way out of left field. It's just one damn thing after another and by movie's end, you'd agree you've got your money's worth.

A final note to all my homeys here: if you cannot get your rocks off to that sex scene then dude, you might as well feed your wiener to the dogs cos you've got no fucking use for it anymore.


The Geisha House

Yet another exploitation flick from our man Kinji, this one plays a little, erm, ho-hum for a vast proportion of its running time. But that's my problem cos I'm just not all that curious about the feudal politics and assorted shenanigans that geishas get up to. Then, the clincher (my favourite word of the day): Omocha gets starkers.

She looks a lot like Vivien Hsu (the girl of my wet dreams), does Omocha, and her, erm, morphology is pretty similar to boot. I went straight home and checked out some, ah, reference material on my PC and there is no doubt. The size and shape and angle of incline, etc. A striking facsimile. Or perhaps that's merely an Oriental thing.

I must admit though, that the film left me conflicted at the end. The bleeding heart, politically-correct-Nazi part of me bristles at its glorification of ritualised prostitution yet another part (the part that was tailor-made for this purpose, admittedly) was going, "Hell, yeah!" at the magnificent display of young, porcelain skin. Guess my prurience wins out at the end.

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2003 1:15 pm    Post subject: O BROTHER where art thou?

Kitano Takeshi's 2000 film, Brother is due to open at Cathay soon. From Sight and Sound:

So, does Kitano attempt to make this film more accessible to Americans? Does he attempt to make a big budget action picture? Does he do a Jackie Chan or John Woo?

Does he bollocks!

This is a Japanese movie, a Kitano movie thorugh-and-through, only set in LA. I was truly surprised that there wasn't the least bit dilution of his filmmaking sensibilities. He doesn't even bother to explain Yakuza customs to a Western audience. Nope, no dumbing down here. It is as uncompromising as anything he's ever done. This is due primarily to the fact that Kitano was able to maintain strict control over the movie, something other Asian directors have to give up when making the transition to Hollywood.

The moment Joe Hisaishi's distinctive score plays over the opening credits, you know you're in familiar territory. The plot?

Outcast yakuza Yamamoto (Kitano) flees to LA to hook up with his brother, only to find that the latter is now a street-corner drug peddler. Yamamoto (or Aniki, as everyone obsequiously refers to him), takes over and turns it into big business. Then, their outfit did something no-one in their right minds should have done. They fucked with the Mafia.

Granted, much of the movie is par for the course for any Kitano movie. Sudden explosions of violence, long periods of calm and inaction. Blood, guts, fingers, bullets. Oh, and there are at least two scenes that will make even hardened criminals squirm. But Kitano does not fetishize gore -- he's quite a sentimental bugger at heart and this movie even had a fable-like moral.

The distinctions between this and his other movies are mostly superficial (speaking in English, brothas, etc) though its epilogue is certainly uncharacteristic. I think Kitano wants his character to come across as capable of both extreme violence and compassion, though he has a funny way of showing it. The movie also contains enough ellipses and discontinuities to please discerning arthouse snobs.

Yes, you may say it's not as good as Sonatine or Hana-Bi. But any Kitano movie is still miles ahead of almost anything currently playing in the cineplexes.

What did I really think of it?

It made me want to scream, "Fuck, yeah!" at many times in the movie. I left the cinema feeling energised. Kitano rocks. I loved it.

Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2003 6:50 pm    Post subject: Directors You Like or Dislike The Most

Most Liked (in terms of consistency)

1. That dead Russian on the left, naturally. I still don't get The Mirror but at least I've given up trying to figure it out.

2. Kurosawa Akira - he made 32 features. I've seen half of them and loved them all. Even 'slight' works like The Lower Depths and High and Low contain moments of brilliance. Can't wait for the rest of his films to be out on DVD.

3. Terry Gilliam - no other contemporary director possesses such an off-kilter visual style and penchant for insanity.

4. Ken Loach - a Ken Loach movie is like a tin of sardines: you ALWAYS know what you're gonna get. Though there were several films of his I couldn't bring myself to like, I still have to admire his uncompromising approach to cinema.

5. Werner Herzog - the blurb at the end of the trailer for Fitzcarraldo proclaimed it as "a movie that could only be made by Werner Herzog". He's made some boring shit in his career but hey, they still bear his distinctive imprint.

6. Alain Resnais - I know he's made some truly bad films but I haven't seen (or choose not to see) any of them. By being insular I thus avoid tarnishing my esteem for his work.

7. Scorsese - I admired, but didn't like his most acclaimed films (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas) yet I'll watch anything by the man (though I've heard that his first film, Boxcar Bertha is rubbish).

8. Zhang Yimou - I'm such a sucker for pretty pictures. Has anyone seen his Codename Cougar (1989)? It seems lost in obscurity and it's the only one of his movies I've yet to see.

9. Ang Lee - nope, haven't disliked any of his movies yet and even boring ones like Ride With the Devil and The Ice Storm have their merits.


Neutral

1. Hitchcock - was a time when I went on a Hitchcock binge, nothing but Hitch everyday and it soon became such a bloody chore. It was like watching the same movie over and over again. The only films that stood out against that background noise were all his most highly acclaimed ones.

2. Atom Egoyan - he makes intelligent, probing films marked by his consistency of vision but his often novelistic approach can result in them being rigidly formalistic, emotionally distant and overly arty. I can, however, admire much-acclaimed movies like The Sweet Hereafter, Calendar and Exotica without being enamoured of them. My two favourite Egoyan movies, incidentally, fall on either ends of the spectrum: Felicia's Journey - the most conventionally executed movie in his ouevre and Speaking Parts - hallucinatory, self-reflexive and a bridge between the two stages of his filmmaking career.

3. Federico Fellini - loved Amarcord and 8 1/2, disliked the rest.


Dislike

1. Wong Kar Wai - I've watched all of his movies from 1991 onwards, admired his technique but didn't like a single one of them. The fact that his films seem rough and unfinished may constitute a large part of their appeal but I find this approach grating. I also find his directorial decisions inscrutable; a feeling bolstered by having watched the original ending to In The Mood For Love. Regardless, I will continue to watch anything he puts out. Ain't gonna give up yet.

2. Steven Spielberg - might seem fashionable to diss him but the truth is that I've seen every single one of his movies since Jaws but

(a) I can never watch any of them twice, not even Jaws or any of those Indiana Jones movies. After the initial thrill of watching the latter two subsides, there is nothing left to warrant a second viewing. I hope the DVD boxset will change my mind.

(b) I hated everything he's done since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) with the probable exception being Jurassic Park because it was sporadically fun.

3. George Lucas - not a Star Wars fan, I am.

--------------

I could also include Hollywood hacks in the latter list but they do not deserve the honour of having their names mentioned.

Posted: Wed Sep 24, 2003 10:03 pm    Post subject: Your Most Memorable Movie Endings

Damn, I've got so many. Here are a few:

1. Breathless (Godard) - Patricia turns around very slowly toward the audience and asks, rubbing her lips with her thumb, (copying the gesture that Michel copied from Bogart) "Quest-ce que c'est degueulasse?" (Sick? I don't know what you mean). And with that, a cinematic revolution was born.

2. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (Herzog) - Aguirre walks amongst the monkeys, picks one up and then tosses it aside. He declares to the silent universe: "I, the wrath of God, will marry my own daughter and with her I will found the purest dynasty the world has ever seen. We shall rule this entire continent. We shall endure. I am the wrath of God!" The camera circles the raft as we see Aguirre alone on the raft, lost, hopelessly drifting to oblivion. The audience is left enraptured and dumbfounded.

3. Fail-Safe (Lumet) - a collage of archetypical images of New York, a didactic yet powerful signifier of what mutually assured destruction actually means.

4. Felicia's Journey (Egoyan) - Felicia recites the names of the girls forever lost, leaving her the sole custodian of their memory as the camera pans up and circles around - as if questioning how such unspeakable evil can exist amidst such gentle, quotidian beauty.

5. Heart of Glass (Herzog) - pilgrims on a precipitous outcrop in the middle of the ocean. Seagulls. The final prophesy. The film thus ends, taking flight and burning a vapour trail into the stratosphere.

6. Limbo (Sayles) - how aptly the ending reflects the title.

7. Beauty and the Beast (Cocteau) - falling, then flying. My heart still aches to think of this beautiful, beautiful scene.

8. Brotherhood of the Wolf (Gans) - sailing on the good ship, 'Frere Loup'. Corny, Hollywoodesque yet strangely affecting.

9. Wages of Fear (Clouzot) - truck drivers just have no luck.

10. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Demy) - if such a scenario occurs to me, I will react in exactly the same way. We loved once, truly, tenderly, tragically, and we move on.

11. Life of Brian (Jones) - "Some things in life are bad,
They can really make you mad.
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle,
Don't grumble, give a whistle!
And this'll help things turn out for the best...
And......."

12. Mon Oncle d'Amérique (Resnais) - Moving slowly into closeup of a mural on the side of a building until only individual bricks are seen. We're all more than the sum of our parts.

13. Mulholland Dr (Lynch) - Silencio!

14. Nowhere in Africa (Link) - a final moment of connection.

15. Night and Fog (Resnais) - There are those who refused to believe this, or believed it only from time to time. Those of us who pretend to believe that all this happened only once, at a certain time and in a certain place, and those who refuse to see, who do not hear the cry to the end of time.

16. Playtime (Tati) - a highway and streetlamps. All are lit save one.

17. Portrait of Jennie (Dieterle) - the portrait.

18. Kes (Loach) - the antithesis to The 400 Blows.

19. Red Sorghum (Zhang) - "Niang, niang, shang xi nan..."

20. Simon of the Desert (Bunuel) - The Devil invites Simon to a Black Mass. An airliner passes overhead. We are then transported to...... Bunuel's idea of Hell. Now we know from where the Pythons got their ideas.

21. Speaking Parts (Egoyan) - light and shadow, hallucination and tangible reality. A connection.

22. Stalker (Tarkovsky) - telekinesis and the secret of the Zone revealed.

23. The Sacrifice (Tarkovsky) - a house on fire, an ambulance, a postman on a bicycle, a witch and a running man keeping his compact with Faith.

24. Stroszek (Herzog) - a truck on fire, an Indian chief, a ski-lift that doesn't stop, a forlorn gunshot, a rabbit on a fire-engine and two chickens: one that dances and one that plays piano. Pure Herzog.

25. The Cranes Are Flying (Kalatozov) - personal grief gives way to collective, nationalistic solidarity. Propaganda done right.

26. Whale Rider (Caro) - pride and dignity reawakened.

27. Wintersleepers (Tykwer) - the final descent into infinity. Ang Lee used the same shot for Crouching Tiger.

28. Z (Costa-Gavras) - martial law comes to Greece. Amongst those banned, the letter 'Z'.

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2003 6:01 pm    Post subject: What's the weirdest movie you've seen?

Tucked away within the dingy recesses of our beloved Durian library reside these works of unalloyed insanity:



"What's it about?" I hear you curious minions inquire.

The Legend of Suram Fortress
"A film version of a well-known Georgian folk-tale. A young boy has to be immured into the walls of a fortress in order to stop it from crumbling to pieces."

This is, essentially, the plot, which doesn't even begin to describe the movie. There are tightrope walkers, dancers and, most bewilderingly, a man and a woman who mime a grasshopper and a butterfly, respectively. It's..... I.... dear Lord.... words fail me.......

Ashik Kerib
"Wandering minstrel Ashik Kerib falls in love with a rich merchant's daughter, but is spurned by her father and forced to roam the world for a thousand and one nights - but not before he's got the daughter to promise not to marry till his return. It's told in typical Paradjanov style, in a series of visually ravishing 'tableaux vivants' overlaid with Turkish and Azerbaijani folksongs."

Yes, but that synopsis neglects to mention the harem of plastic submachinegun wielding women or a king who sits and sways side-to-side to conch shells held by manservants or our hero himself rolling along while wrapped in a carpet.

Weird is too mild an adjective for Paradjanov's films. I still want to watch his The Colour of Pomergranates and I'm lucky I didn't catch any of his movies during this year's Fest, otherwise I would have walked out.

I challenge you to watch this DVD and then formulate your response to it.

Posted: Mon Sep 15, 2003 6:56 pm    

Here's another one I've raved about before, which I consider to be one of my all time favourites:



Plot Summary
"Set in the pre-industrial past, Heart of Glass tells of a German village that loses the secret of making its unique Ruby glass and whose townspeople turn to madness, murder and magic to recover the lost ingredient. Herzog reportedly hypnotized his actors in order to convey "an atmosphere of hallucination, of prophecy and of the visionary. The mixture of mysticism, apocalyptic grandeur and incredibly photographed visions he achieved make this possibly the most breathtaking film of Herzog's career."

Both hated and loved (in equal measure, I hope), Heart of Glass is a film that's so singular, it's naturally unforgettable. Though it may seem upon first viewing to be fairly pointless, I still maintain (staunchly, I might add) that there is a point to it all -- it does not exist merely as a cinematic experiment. I'm pretty sure that the scene in which our prophetic hero wrestles an invisible bear out of its cave in a snowy forest, for instance, stands as a grand metaphor but (as with the dancing chicken in Stroszek) for what, I don't know.

Not only does Herzog hypnotise his entire cast save one, he also attempts to hypnotise the viewer with the opening shots of clouds flowing like rivers. And if there is a cinematic expression of transcendence, the closing scene of the movie is it. I wish I had transcribed the closing words when I borrowed the DVD. Should you decide to borrow it, You MUST listen to Herzog's commentary after watching the movie.

Here's what Ebert wrote of the movie, in a snippet of an unarchived review:

Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2003 4:44 pm    Post subject: Fave Documentary

Werner Herzog is a madman. In spite of or perhaps, because of it, he's a cinematic genius. His movies evolve through 'feel' and not through theory and rationalisation. This makes them unique, inscrutable and often, strangely magnetic. Over the final, unforgettable scene in Stroszek, Herzog intoned on the commentary track of the DVD that:

Similarly inexplicable metaphors abound in his documentaries, which are less about 'things' than they are about memories, experiences or simply, imagery. An article in The Guardian on the book, Herzog on Herzog, has this to say:

Here then, are three of my favourite documentaries, all directed by Herzog.


The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974)

Walter Steiner is a champion ski-jumper and full-time carpenter who makes wooden figures that adorn the mountain on which he lives. As is typical of a Herzog film, the most interesting, arresting moment in here arrives in an anecdote -- this time, of a sick raven our hero once nursed back to health. Perhaps it says something of his close affinity to birds (like Jacques Mayol to dolphins in The Big Blue) that drives him to be the greatest ski-jumper in history. The movie is often described as 'ethereal' simply because, I suspect, it's the only adjective that does justice to a movie filled with super slow-motion shots of skijumpers in flight. Still available only on VHS.



Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997)

Dieter was born and raised in Germany. In the Second World War, allied air forces attacked his little village and one aircraft passed so close to his window, he came face to face with the pilot in the cockpit. Henceforth, his destiny was set -- he will immigrate to the US and become a pilot. That, he did and during the Vietnam War, got shot down over Laos and taken as a POW. His war stories are the stuff of nightmares -- ankles chained to a wooden block with fellow prisoners and so starved of meat that they would shuffle down to the latrines and use a live snake to fish for rats crawling in shit, rats they would then consume whole. I cannot even envision the state of hunger that would drive a man to such desperate measures. It's just as well that that anecdote was merely narrated. If there is ever a film or documentary that fully deserves the cliched label, triumph of the human spirit, this movie is it. Herzog is currently working on a film version of this documentary and I shudder to imagine the kind of imagery that will eventually manifest on the screen.


Lessons in Darkness (1992)

If you find yourself groaning, "A one hour film of oilwell fires? I'll pass, thanks", you have no idea what Herzog is capable of.


Relevant passages from another Guardian article:

Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2003 10:05 am    Post subject: THINGS YOU MISS MOST WHEN YOU ARE OUT OF SG

A diatribe inspired in equal parts by 25th Hour and Transmetropolitan


Fuck all you Heartlanders, who descend upon shopping malls on weekends like a scattered flock of famished vultures in your sandals and bermudas and rascally children in tow, who form snaking queues for food, who complain incessantly of the slightest threat to your miserable way of life.

Fuck all you nouveau upper-middle-class, with your private apartments, swanky cars, overseas education and golf club memberships; you who think that getting it made gives you a right to sneer with unmitigated contempt at the people from whom you descended.

Fuck all you obsequious, deferential little mice, you brownnosers who tremble before authority; you who are given a choice between drawing a line in the sand, saying, “No further” and bending over and taking one for the team and you always, always choose the path of least resistance so long as it guarantees your continued survival.

Fuck the authorities for cultivating this culture of fear and timidity and servility.

Fuck Singaporean food, oily, chockfull of nauseating spices and pork, pork, pork everywhere you look – the entire Chinese race would go extinct if not for pig farmers. A country of 4 million people and not one, not a friggin’ one can make nasi lemak worth a damn.

Fuck the migrant labourers who choke the public transportation system, who smell, who yell into their tacky handphones, who get treated as pariahs.

Fuck the Filipino maids who congregate on the hill above Orchard MRT every Sunday as the only way to feel connected, to feel self-respect, to feel like a human being again.

Fuck over-qualified foreign talents who treat this country as their disposable playground, who chug down overpriced drinks at pubs that exist solely for their benefit, who come here to lord it over the natives.

Fuck Singaporean women who look down their powdered noses at Singaporean men while slumming for big white dick. Fuck Singaporean men who turn off your fellow women by being too timid, too inexpressive, too effeminate.

Fuck SARS, fuck the paranoia it engendered and fuck all the idiots who wore surgical facemasks in public – what, you’d trade a quick death now for a slow, agonising one years down the road?

Fuck Taoist ritualists with their clashing cymbals and tuneless brass instruments, who perpetuate the idea of cacophonous funerary rites as the ideal of filial piety; ever heard of rest in peace, assholes?

Fuck the media for worshipping flash and superficiality and vapid celebrities.

Fuck this over-congested, over-priced, over-the-hill country. We should be given the right to bear firearms and go Columbine periodically to thin out the herd.

Most of all, fuck you, you whingeing, whining misanthrope; fuck your hate and resentment, fuck you for never acknowledging how truly fortunate you are to live here and not in some shithole you so richly deserve, for eking out a meagre existence while aspiring to nothing higher than the upper echelons of mediocrity.

You had it all and you threw it all away.

Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2003 5:02 pm    Post subject: DOWN WITH LOVE

This movie left me feeling warm and aglow from its heady exuberance. I adored it but the thing is, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was that made me like the movie so.

It was a satire and marginally, a loving homage to a wholly celluloid past, that much was certain. What blindsided me was that it never stepped wrong – there were many instances when it could have slipped into self-parody or became tacky and cheesy but these moments never materialized. Consider this sidesplitting line by our man Ewan, recalled, yet again, from faulty memory, “I can make love to you longingly, respectfully and adoringly and you can continue to have meaningless sex with me”.

That line could have been delivered with po-faced earnestness or with a nudge nudge wink wink, “It’s only a movie” glibness but instead, it came off as something comical yet serious at the same time.

How in the name of Holy Fuck did the movie hit such varied yet effective notes?

Consider also the split-screen telephone conversation between the McGregor and Zellweger characters, which put them in suggestively sexual positions. How was it that that scene wasn’t tawdry, like something in Austin Powers but was genuinely amusing, generating laughs like it’s the first time we ever watched such a scene?

I have no idea. I enjoy trying in vain to grasp its technique as much as I enjoyed the movie for what it was.

I think its success is due in large part to its casting choices. There are many more dashing young actors in Hollywood than Ewan McGregor but can anyone imagine the likes of Ben Affleck or Colin Ferrell in the role? McGregor possesses this self-effacing charm that makes him always fun to watch. This may sound strange but he reminds me of The Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night – not any one of them, since their personalities were so singular and disparate but perhaps, that same feeling of joy and genuine disbelief at being given the chance to excel in something one enjoys the most. I remember the interview he gave upon confirmation of his role as Obiwan Kenobi. The lad was ecstatic. Here he was, a Scottish kid playing his childhood hero. I think that feeling never left him, no matter what roles he subsequently accepted. On top of that, he can sing, swagger and dance – anyone wants to bet against me that one day, Ewan will be holding a naked gold statuette?

And then there is Renee Zellweger. Like her leading man, she too, lacks any indication of ego or pretension, at least in this movie. Her lengthy monologue could have easily caused eyes to roll or watches to be checked but we were all paying her our undivided attention, weren’t we? What was it that compelled us to do so? Was it solely her personality? Had it been J. Lo, Reese Witherspoon or, hell, any other actress, we’d be hurling rotten tomatoes at the screen, wouldn’t we?

Along with Niles and Sarah Paulson, this movie embodied joy of performance, and it's rare these days to encounter a Hollywood movie whose cast just want to have fun and invite you along with them.

I must admit I haven’t been as baffled by a 2003 movie as this one. It is deeply in love with its own artificiality yet wasn't a fake. As I write this, it dawns upon me that it is as much a lampoon of contemporary audience expectations – in the sense that a movie these days cannot have just ONE twist, it’s gotta have an entire pretzel of ‘em - as it is of the era in which it is ostensibly set. Of course, I can just take off my pedant hat and accept this movie as a funny, entertaining romantic comedy but doing so amounts to disregarding all that craft and talent and “authentic weirdness” (Rosenbaum) that went into its making. It is not a simple or shallow film though I’ve yet to figure out what it wants to say, or even if it has anything to say at all. It filled me with an ineffable delight and maybe that’s explanation enough.

Had I been assigned this movie to review I would have rated it five stars. Of the movies debuting in 2003, only two others deserved that grade in my book: HULK and Finding Nemo. Looks like Rosenbaum wasn’t kidding when he gave Down With Love a ‘Masterpiece’ rating.

Posted: Wed Aug 27, 2003 9:18 pm    Post subject:

Additional thoughts on The Sacrifice:

1. Many of Tarkovsky's films have been accused (and perhaps rightly so) of being emotionally remote - they do not elicit any emotional response overtly. But if you consider the sense of deep humanism inherent in the personal awakenings of their characters, you would understand that they are experiencing seismic shifts in their psyche. The Sacrifice, in contrast, is the most accessible, both thematically and emotionally, entry in his oeuvre. Emotions are brought to the fore, and it is difficult to be unshaken by its very final scene.

2. Although some critics have (in jest, I suspect) labelled the movie "Tarkovsky's version of an Ingmar Bergman film", I think the tone of the film is closer to Dreyer's Ordet and Day of Wrath. Every Bergman film I've seen (and I've not seen them all, admittedly) ends in a tone of conciliation or resignation. The Sacrifice ends in stark defiance - of the capricious whims of fate, I suppose, and of the complacency of the faithless, themes that Dreyer had explored in his own fashion.

3. Its paucity of location and sets, along with its measured, Tarkovsky-esque tempo, makes its mise en scene transparent - you can easily follow the camera movements, the blocking and also, the editing of the film. In an early scene in which Adelaide, Alexander's (the old man) wife was introduced, the camera apparently tracked backwards through some pieces of furniture and two seated characters. I smiled with glee when the companion documentary confirmed my conjecture - the actors and crew members were waiting for the camera to clear before they set themselves (and the furniture) at the very place the camera had passed. Other camera movements were similarly rudimentary but there was always something in the scene that attracts the eye and pulls you into the picture. Tarkovsky can never be accused of minimalism - at least not for this film, rich in visual detail.

4. Its obvious that many scenes were accomplished in a single take, as is Tarkovsky's common practice with intricate set-ups. This makes the final, 11-minute sequence all the more astounding when you consider how much movement and elements had to be worked into it. And to think that they had only ONE SHOT in getting it right. I'd like to imagine, usually when accompanied by alcohol, that Aleksandr Sokurov sought inspiration from Tarkovsky's films (his senior at the VGIK, after all) before embarking upon Russian Ark.

5. I still get goosebumps when I watch that 'deleted' scene. Its sense of slow motion was accomplished by adjusting the camera speed even as the scene progressed, a tricky thing to do during a dolly shot. That shot alone, compounded by its consummate sense of compostion, attests to both Tarkovsky's and Sven Nykvist's impeccable mastery of their craft. Even if you're not a Tarkovsky fan, do borrow the DVD just for the documentary.

6. For someone who was cancer-stricken, Tarkovsky looked remarkably healthy at the time of shooting The Sacrifice. He died after its completion.
_________________
"We must declare open warfare on mediocrity, greyness and lack of expressiveness, and make creative inquiry a rule in cinema."

Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2003 12:15 pm    Post subject: HOMERUN

I won't mince my words: Homerun is the best Singaporean movie made to date. Before you start guffawing, let me assure you that I'm not being ironic or arch. I genuinely meant what I wrote. I have to qualify that statement by admitting I have not seen such enduring classics as Mee Pok Man, Chicken Rice War or A Sharp Pencil but I'm confident my appraisal will prevail.

Here is the case for my defence.

To begin with, it is the first local movie to capture the zeitgeist so successfully. Its topical political allegory marks it more as a document of moods and feelings in Singapore circa 2003 than it does for 1965. We may look back on this movie years from now and still feel, despite its quaintness, that it reflects the tenor of the times, puerile sniggering and all. It earns its place in the discursive geography of the country.

For those who object to its inclusion of said allegory, do you honestly think that it would have made for a better picture were it a complete retread of the original?

My belief: no, it wouldn't. The addition of those elements elevates the movie into something original and, yes, uniquely Singaporean.

Of course, this begs the question: would I have liked a similar movie that takes such jabs at Singapore?

Hell, yeah! I'm not beneath puerile sniggering at lowbrow, low-blow mud slinging myself. It has to be funny and wicked enough, is the thing. For those who feel sorry that Malaysians get the short end of the stick here, perish the thought. I've encountered far more acerbic commentary in their mainstream press. It's nice to know that Singaporeans are such sensitive souls, able to feel our dear Neighbour's pain, but really, the most strident critics of a country are the enlightened citizens themselves. All this talk of banning is just silly since the movie wasn't in the least bit malicious. It was all a spot of good fun.

And what's that I hear you intimate? Something along the lines of, propaganda?

Well, name me all the Eisenstein films you know.

If your answer includes any one of the following: Alexander Nevsky, Battleship Potemkin, Strike, October, then Congratulations! You've named a propagandist film.

Of course, it's absurd to suggest I'm equating Jack Neo to Eisenstein but my point is simply that cinema is often employed, even today, to further agendas and act as propaganda. Acknowledging this fact does not gainsay other qualities of the film if we weigh those elements separately.

I recall, from faulty memory, the Straits Times review that said something to the effect of, "It doesn't know whether to be a satire or a tearjerker."

There is no reason why it cannot be both. One cannot judge a movie by what it isn't and that line is not, by any reckoning, a valid criticism of a movie.

Detractors of the movie tend to decry it also for its distinct lack of, to say the least, subtlety. But to gripe about lack of subtlety in a Singaporean film is akin to taking a day trip to JB and then complaining about the filth and decrepitude you encounter. No, such things are a given. They are a part of the natural order.

True, many elements of the movie offend my delicate film snob sensibilities but it may be useful to remind ourselves, from time to time, that films are very much products of the culture that spawned them. My saying this may be tantamount to blatant hypocrisy. After all, I'm such an ardent trasher of Iranian films. However, until proven otherwise, I still maintain that arthouse Iranian films, by and large, are made For Export Only. This may help to explain why, for instance, Kiarostami films are never well-received in his native Iran.

Homerun, in contrast, was made by a Heartlander for Heartlanders. Taken in this regard, Homerun succeeds admirably - and I daresay, resoundingly - not only in connecting with its intended audience but also in its broad appeal. It entertains, in its lumbering and over-earnest fashion, but it doesn't make me cringe as other local movies had done and, most importantly, I didn't feel disrespected after watching it. Perhaps being earnest to a fault is something people here find distasteful and I certainly recognise that.

So, for the final analysis, here's what else I liked (besides those I covered above):

1. Engaging lead characters, and the fact that those adult caricatures didn't overstay their welcome to become annoying.

2. The inclusion of non-Chinese characters, which prevents the movie from being thought of as made in Chinese territories. Those Indian boys understood Mandarin very well, eh? Cynics may argue that they merely assume token minority roles but hell, this is a movie in Chinese, is it not?

3. Plentiful crane shots. SFC, your money's all on the screen.


Well, I admit this list doesn't amount to much but that goes the same for the movie, I suppose. I think I've yet to recover from the shock that I didn't hate it. No, such fiery passions are reserved for the likes of 15 and Eating Air.

----------------------------

Writing about Homerun, interestingly, has made me come to grips with my objections towards 15. Why am I able to like a film by a Heartlander for Heartlanders but not one by an Ah Beng for Ah Bengs and Ah Lians?

Sometime last night, when I had nothing better to do except devote considerable thought to matters of no importance, the revelation struck me: it is the most exclusivist feature film in the history of Singaporean cinema.

If you’re well acquainted with the Ah Beng subculture then the movie strikes all the right chords in you. If you’re not then you’d stand outside the film.

Someone (I forget if it was Despair or Sinnerman) mentioned that he didn’t like Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back because it was too self-referential; it leaves you cold if you catch no ball. I believe a similar circumstance applies to 15.

All the while, ever since watching it, I had maintained the staunch opinion that the movie would have been a good one had it focused exclusively on the two characters that appeared near the end of the movie. Yeah, the two with penis envy. Their segment had a semblance of heart and may be capable of generating genuine empathy had Royston developed the dynamics of their friendship and delved deeper into their psyches. I would be the first to stand and applaud such a movie – screw what others think.

I now realise that I judged the movie by my own reckoning of what it should be rather than what it is.

Does this mean I like the movie now?

No, I still hate it but at least I’ve begun to put aside my feelings towards it in order to evaluate it more dispassionately.

I regard Royston as a gifted visual stylist but I sense he was over-indulged by his producers. As such, it was all too easy for him to fall prey to the common affliction that besets many ambitious first-time directors: he wanted to put everything in the film. Why, for instance, did he include a whole bunch of Hokkien singalongs when a handful would do just fine? If he had meant them as shout-outs to his Ah Beng homies, well, he certainly had a right to do so - just don’t blame the rest of the audience from feeling monumentally annoyed.

It’s also manifestly obvious that fans of the film lavish praise on it principally because Royston dared to be transgressive, at least in a Singaporean context. I’m sure there were many who experience a delicate frisson of pleasure every time they hear the much-beloved aphorism, “Kan nee na chau chee bai”.

How scandalous! How rebellious! How it acknowledges us!

Yet again, the exclusivist nature of the film rears its doughty head.

If it’s indeed true that, PR spin aside, the movie was made to cater to that specific audience, then most of our objections to it would be nullified. Can we then weigh its artistic merits independently of both its premise and (almost nonexistent) narrative?

Perhaps, though I wish someone would shed some light as to how it can be done.