Hero (2004, US release)

directed by Zhang Yimou

A CONTROVERSIAL CHINESE BLOCKBUSTER
Zhang Yimou’s first film of the martial arts genre is an imaginative and expressive interpretation of China’s ancient history; a Chinese poem in the way Beowulf is a medieval poem. Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978) also comes to mind. Zhang accomplishes a majestic work of fiction through highly-stylized cinematic technique and a narrative that is, in Gregory Currie’s sense, variously interpretable (Currie, 1995). Once its color-coded sequences and unreliable narration are interpreted, however, Hero stands as a visionary work of formal beauty and Chinese pride. As a result, these two key attributes have sparked controversy amongst Chinese audiences & American commentators who made such unreflective remarks about the film’s ideology as “redolent of fascinatin' fascism”(Hoberman, 2004). Therefore, two issues must be addressed: does Hero condone tyranny by “revising” China’s history and is it possible to critically evaluate this film within the landscape of Western political correctness? I intend to answer no, on both counts.

Click Here to read more (complete essay in a pdf file).

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)

In his review of Borat, I remembered David Edelstein saying the film made him cringe. I felt the same way. During its 85-minute running time, my emotional response was one of “disconnected embarrassment,” an oxymoron befitting the film’s contradictory approach to its material. The film caricatures the idea of “the foreigner” in the form of a low-brow, but mainstream narrative; it is designed to appeal to passive male adolescent movie-viewers. And the film fails, compared to the more consistent & better structured Talladega Nights featuring equally outrageous but more family-friendly performances by Cohen & Will Ferrell. At least this Nascar-culture caricature has a palatable touch of burlesque. Borat fails in tone, a cohesive structure and in its intentions.

(to read more, click here)

The Bridges of Madison County (1995)

Meryl Streep plays, Francesca, a midwestern farmer's wife of Italian descent & plays it well.

I don't care for the shoddy contemporary story-frame, in this framed narrative, involving Francesca's children. It is likely an artifact of Waller's book that unfortunately remained in the screenplay adaptation.

This film is very similar to the story in David Lean's "Brief Encounter," and also brings to mind the general structure of Sydney Pollack's "Out of Africa."

What's most striking about the film: if one were to assume that illicit love letters & stories of forbidden romances could attain the status of art or artwork, the story of the love affair in TBOMC could be used to argue that certain artworks are indeed ahead of their time; for Francesca's family could not have reconciled her infidelity, no matter how moving her portrait of the romance, until some time has passed.

... Could Art be Infidelity plus Time?

A History of Violence (2005): a draft essay

Cronenberg ventures into a Lynchian realm of the uncanny in A History of Violence, a stylish pseudo-thriller in disguise. What begins as a genre film that engages the voyeur turns against the audience and results in an intellectual complicity; when the good guys justifiably obliterate the bad men, the discerning viewer wonders if the defeated were merely replaced by something deadlier. In this dark film, trouble gravitates towards a peaceful family man & his small community when mobsters seek his attention after a publicized heroic act. Beneath the suspense & exhilaration of self-defense lurks the inelegant outcome of self-preservation. The "aw shucks" small town setting evokes Blue Velvet’s Lumberton; the evil man sports a grotesque facial disfigurement instead of a breathing mask that feeds a sewer of obscenity. However, after the thrill of the main action, the film does not conclude with the verdant landscape of sunshine on white picket fences, but a protagonist who returns an outsider from what Stephen Price would call “the wilderness” (Prince 260).

(to read more, click here)

List of... Easy-viewing Movies

I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)
Better known as "IKWIG."Romantic fable set in the Hebrides of Scotland. The Archers' Romantic comedy is charming & filled with memorably lines, such as "There ought to be a law about trees!"

Walkabout (1971)
Nic Roeg's enigmatic film transforms a severe turn of events into a trance-like rite of passage in the Australian desert. A non-Western where civilization & the wilderness seem to co-exist in a time capsule that is a thing of beauty to behold. If viewers can tolerate the abstract juxtaposition of images, the "transportive" music & visuals will sweep them into a temporal paradise with a strange momentum of its own.

Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Whenever a recent funny movie features a leopard or similarly untamed felines, this Howard Hawks screw-ball comedy comes to mind. Susan & David seem to be metaphors for the prototypical male & female in courtship mode, especially when one party is both consciously & subconsciously non-consenting. A screwy comedy that is just about as delightful as Cukor's The Philadelphia Story (1940).

The Searchers (1956)
The Classical Western. I wonder if the definition of "the western genre film" was greatly influenced by this well-studied, seminal film of the classical western style. Ethan's racism (protagonist) is sometimes argued as the film's fatal flaw, but these cententions are often taken out of context. There are plenty of other film characters that are walking contradictions, namely the self-destroying Jewish-Nazi Danny Balint (Henry Bean's The Believer); Ethan remains the outsider at the conclusion & with John Ford's classical frame/composition, we infer that our gunslinger remains condemned to the wilderness of Monument Valley.

Manhattan (1979)
This movie has been called Woody Allen's love poem to his "hometown" New York City. I share this thought.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Despite the fact that Dreyer's systematic use of the close-up dominates this one-tone film, the experience of seeing intense emotional suffering during the protagonist's act of martyrdom transcends schadenfreude. (Word of Caution: this is the least easy-viewing of the bunch)

Blue Velvet (1986)
I "Blue Velvet" for a good laugh at the cinema; to experience the state between waking dream & reckless laughter. Best experienced with a crowd, say in a college film class.

The Shop Around The Corner (1940)
Lubitsch is probably the master of the sex comedy in the mythical era sometimes called "The Golden Age of Hollywood." Remade as a Judy Garland/Van Johnson musical & Meg Ryan/Tom Hanks romantic comedy. A comfort film for those snow days.