Just some more quick notes on another early Hou Hsiao-hsien film that I saw this week at the Cinematheque (tonight begins the Frank Tashlin retrospective), his 1983 film Boys from Fengkuei, this film has much more in common with the early masterpiece A Summer at Grandpa's than it does with his earlier, commericial film The Green, Green Grass of Home. Ah Ching lives with his family in a rural province of Taiwan, in his late teens, Ah Ching is an unemployed, high-school dropout who basically hangs out in his small seaside village with his hoodlum friends, getting into trouble (including some gang-like fights); Ah Ching was formerly quite close to his baseball loving father, but the father took a baseball fastpitch to his head, and is now a brain-damaged mute who sits silently in his wicker chair all day. After a vicious fight, Ah Ching and his friends retreat to the beach, which includes two priceless, funny moments, Ah Ching and his friends playing on the beach, trying to drag the pants off one of them, and another when the four friends dance on the seawall to impress a girl (a very impressive shot, in this film Hou Hsiao-hsien begins to display his trademark long takes and precise, rich images and precise framings). After getting into another fight, which lands the friends in jail, Ah Ching and his friends move to the city of Kaioshung, and take an apartment. Ah Ching takes both his job and night studies seriously, and in the process, falls in love with his neighbor's live-in girlfriend, while his friends continue to screw around, hang out with hoodlums, and, eventually, quiting their job to work as a vendor selling music cassettes on the street. Growing increasingly alienated from his friends, Ah Ching bonds with his neighbor's girlfriend, especially after her boyfriend is fired from his job for stealing and goes to sea. When Ah Ching's father dies, Ah Ching and the girlfriend visit Fengkuei, but fail to bond. Soon afterwards, she leaves for Taipei; Ah Ching finds his friends on the street; their business is failing, and one of them is being inducted into the army. The film concludes with Ah Ching yelling at passerbys, hawking his friends tapes. Hou Hsiao-hsien achieves some naturalistic performances of aimless, contemporary youths (in some ways, the film reminded me of Goodbye, South, Goodbye), as well as a nice rythmn; their is a definite growth in his aesthetic between The Green, Green Grass of Home and A Summer At Grandpa's; there is a definite change in tone and style, maybe he was exposed to some European art cinema, the film is punctuated by stretches of Western, classical music as well as some lyrical flashbacks to Ah Ching's youth with his father. An interesting film.
I was kind of disappointed that I was not able to see Hou's first feature film, Cute Girl; David Bordwell and another professor were discussing it right in front of me and both agreed that it was hilarious, in a good way, not in the awful way that is The Green, Green Grass of Home.
Saw two films today, ensemble dramas both dealing with politicized issues: land development and race in John Sayle's Sunshine State and women self-image/esteem in Nicole Holofcener's Lovely and Amazing.
Generally, I like John Sayles. Yes he can be overly earnest and didactic, with some characters launching into speeches representing various political viewpoints, but Sayles has always been accomplished in his skill at directing actors, the often brilliant tapestry of characterizations that he weaves with his screenplays, and his definite feel for the physical/cultural/economic space that his characters inhabit (I should also say that I prefer his smaller-scale, initimate character studies such as Passion Fish and Limbo, over his more ambitious, and more overtly politicized, ensemble dramas such as Lone Star). Sunshine State shares all of these characterisitics, with a great ensemble anchored by Edie Falco and Angela Bassett (this has been noted before, most specifically in an article in the magazine Cineaste, but Sayles is perhaps the most accomplished white writer-director when it comes to minority characters, we get a panopoly), but is hampered by some political points that are so heavyhanded, that it makes Men With Guns look subtle. Also, the ending is especially disappointing, some of the various narrative threads do come together, but others just either peter out or are left unresolved. It is particularly disappointing when compared to Sayles's brilliant "non-resolution" ending to Limbo, instead we get a deux ex machina that stops those "evil" developers, not to mention an incredibly contrived shot of a mass exodus from Plantation Island (all of the men in Edie Falco's life, Marc Bluca's golf-pro Scotty, Timothy Hutton's WASPish landscape architect, her layabout ex-husband; not to mention the construction crew hired by the developers). The only narrative thread's resolution that I liked is that, Angela Bassett's Desiree decides to bury the hatchett with her estranged mother, and spend more time together. But mainly, the drama was disappointing. Still, the acting, the characterization, and Sayles's eye for detail more than make the film watchable.
Sayles's could have learned from Holofcener's brilliant DV film, Lovely and Amazing, that the personal is the political. The film fully integrates it's examination of women's sexuality, body image, self-esteem, careerism, and race into a funny, sad, and touching family ensemble drama (the film launches into it's "thesis" right away with a shot from a photoshoot, when Emily Mortimer's character is made to feel uncomfortable and exploited). Holofcener focuses in on the intimate relationships between the three sisters and their mother, all of whom are struggling with various, interrelated issues, as well as the rather clueless men in their lives (James LeGros is pretty funny in his blankness, and Jake Gyllenhaal is very good as the alienated, lonely young man that Catherine Keener's character creates a relationship with). The film benefits from it's sense of humor and the realistic relationships between the various women, the combination of exasperation, love, and bitchiness. I particularly liked Blethyn as the faintly sad and lonely mother, and Catherine Keener as the rather immature, ex-homecoming queen sister with some "anger" issues and a rather acidic (and hilarious) tongue.
Just a few quick thoughts (little pressed for time right now) about a film that I saw today that will surely find a place in my list of the best films of 2002, the Israeli film Late Marriage (d. Dover Koshashvili), a black comedy about arranged marriage in modern day Israel. Zaza is a 31 year old doctoral candidate, who, in the eyes of his parents, as well as his extended clan of Georgian immigrants, is well past the respectable age for bachelorhood, prompting an increasingly frantic search for an appropriate wife (by the beginning of the film, Zaza tells one prospective wife, a 17 year old, wannabe fashion designer that he has visited at least 100 potential brides). While Zaza goes along with his parents plans, but he has other ideas, Zaza is in love with Judith, who horror of horrors, is a 34 year old, single mother and divorcee, and thus, in the eyes of his parents, a totally unacceptable bride. What commences is both a bleakly funny and harrowing, naturalistic portrait of oppresive tradition; Koshashvili, despite what I perceived to be some problems with coverage, creates a well-paced series of intimate conversations, awkward silences, and harrowing confrontations (the film is divided into several "acts," seperate sequences such as the awkward visit to a local family with a matchmaker, the realistic and intimate lovemaking between Judith and Zaza, the invasion of Judith's apartment by Zaza's extended family, Zaza's mother visiting Judith afterwards, and a broken Zaza's wedding to another, more acceptable bride), all captured in a series of static, long takes.
What I found really interesting about the film was it's treatment of what is a rather patriarchal tradition. The women of the film, represented by Zaza's rather domineering mother, are both the key enforcers of tradition, along with expressing sympathy for the plight of Judith (when the family confronts Judith and Zaza, as they leave, Zaza's younger sister and grandmother express sympathy with Judith; later, Zaza's mother, out of guilt, visits Judith afterwards, and you can clearly see her sympathy for Judith, and her questioning of what she has done to this poor women and her son). The men of Zaza's family, like his father and uncle, are the ostensible benefactors of this tradition, but they only seem to be going with the motion, they admire Zaza's pick for Judith, and allude to similar situations which they experienced in their own pasts (when Zaza's mother returns from visiting Judith, she asks her waiting husband if the only reason he returned from his lover, is because her brothers forced him to). Nobody seems to benefit from what is being forced onto a new generation, except resentment and ultimately, unhappy marriages.
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