Bowling is a Dangerous Sport
Oh, my aching body, you would never think it, but bowling can result in some aches and pains if you don’t really know how to throw the ball correctly. So now I basically, just want to sit in my comfy chair and relax tonight, but first, another collection of odds and ends from this week in viewing:
*
Ah Fei was the only film I saw this week, and the only screening of the Cinematheque Taiwanese mini-film festival that I was able to attend. Recently, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Chicago donated over 120 prints from the last 30 years of Taiwanese Cinema to the Wisconsin Center For Film and Theater Research (it may seem kind of odd, but Madison is home to the third largest film archive in the US; it is also home to some influential scholars with a deep interest in Taiwanese cinema, which is why we’ve had complete retrospectives of the films of Edward Yang, and a near complete retro of the work of Hou Hsiao-hsien, one of those scholars, a personal favorite of mine, David Bordwell, is also now working on a book on Hou). Speaking personally, such a large donation could yield a treasure trove of information, especially in future retrospectives, shedding new light on the Taiwanese New Wave of the 1980s.
The Taiwanese New Wave is similar to the French New Wave; most cinephiles have heard of Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, et al, but we haven’t heard much about the many one-shot wonders who made one personal film in the late 1950s, early 1960s. Likewise, many knowledgeable cinephiles have heard of Hou Hsiao-hsien, Edward Yang and Tsai Ming-liang, but who in American has really heard of Wang Tung, Wan Jen, Ke Yi-Cheng, or Chen Kun-hou? The Taiwanese New Wave occurred at a historical moment when the KMT government began to open up, and the government-controlled Central Motion Picture Company began to support a new generation of filmmakers who were concerned with such notions as the current-lived reality of Taiwan, and the idea of Taiwanese identity and history (previously, Taiwanese cinema had been limited to popular cinema and propaganda films). These concerns may have made the films less accessible to Western art-house viewers, who weren’t familiar with such events as the February 28th Incident (featured in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s
City of Sadness) of the 1950s White Terror (featured in Hou’s
Good Men, Good Women and Edward Yang’s
A Brighter Summer Day), and all I can say is thank god for program notes, but they were fertile ground for the directors and screenwriters of the New Wave.
If
Ah Fei (d. Wan Jen), a Taiwanese film from 1983, is known at all in the West, it is because it was scripted by Hou Hsiao-hsien, and while it does not equal the heights of the films of the New Wave luminaries, it is a very effective domestic melodrama in it’s own right, set against the backdrop of Taiwan’s transformation from a former Japanese colony to the urbanized, capitalist state of today. The film, using an episodic format, follows the titular character, a young Taiwanese women called Ah Fei, from her childhood in the mid-1950s rural Taiwan, through the urban poverty of the early 60s, to the new affluence of the 1970s and 1980s (after university, she ends up working as an advertising executive in Taipei). Ah Fei is torn between two parents, who are very unhappily married. At the beginning of the film, Ah Fei’s father is a wastrel, a somewhat abusive drunkard, gambler, and philanderer, while her mother, the daughter of a wealthy rural doctor, suffers largely in silence, occasionally exploding into a rage. After a miscarriage and a scandal involving her father’s seduction of a local housewife, which forces them to give up their house, they move to the slums of Taipei.
At that point, the roles reverse, and the father becomes a much more sympathetic character, as he bonds with his formally distant daughter, supporting her desire for education (one of my favorite scenes is when he takes Ah Fei to an Italian restaurant for spaghetti after the radio announcement of her success in the high school entrance exams), while Ah Fei’s mother, for the lack of a better term, becomes a colossal, miserly bitch, given to bitter recriminations and harsh treatment of her children. As times goes on, Ah Fei’s father leaves to become an expatriate worker in the Philippines, and the family begins to enter it’s period of affluence, graduating from the slums to a relatively spacious apartment in a new building. But Ah Fei can not escape the domineering presence of her mother (who has all but removed the spine from her husband after he returns later in the film), especially after she finds out about the high-schooled aged Ah Fei’s relationship with a boy.
Later, after college, with Ah Fei in her mid-20s, still living at home and financially supporting her family, meets the same man, precipitating a crisis between her mother, who uses a combination of guilt, shame, and raised voices to control her daughter (at one point, she locks Ah Fei out of her own apartment), and Ah Fei, who wishes to marry him. The two of them eventually tearfully reconcile, as Ah Fei models her wedding dress for her mother on the eve of her marriage, and it’s hear that the film most resembles an American chick-flick tearjerker, especially with Ah Fei’s father looking on, smiling as the two of them tearfully embrace, but then the film cuts to an exterior shot, looking through the big picture window, into the apartment, before panning across the apartment block, dwarfing the characters, one of many stories in the vast urban expanse of Taipei.
The best thing about
Ah Fei is the succession of actresses, both child and adult, who portray the character, all are soulful, wide-eyed young girls, who collectively deliver an excellent performance, of a largely reserved character who is mostly an observer in the life around her, speaking only on occasion. Stylistically, the film follows the New Wave trend of relatively long shots and static set-ups (though, let’s say, not as long or as static as some contemporary Hou Hsiao-hsien movies); a common shot, is a static long-shot, with the camera peering at events through a door, it seems to be a common shot in Taiwanese cinema. The film also shares the common episodic narrative structure, sometimes just cutting between time periods, and at other times using dissolves and graphic matches (one vivid example occurs during the transition between college and her advertising career). While the domestic melodrama is at the forefront of the plot, the development of Taiwan is omnipresent, especially in the mise en scene; especially in the settings, as the family moves from the Japanese-style rural house (which is actually a mixture of Japanese and Chinese architectural elements) to the ultramodern, Western-style apartment in Taipei.
The film also hits upon the conflict between traditional and modern values, especially as Ah Fei and her mother vie for the direction of her own life (and which leads to Ah Fei living a somewhat alienated existence), as Ah Fei struggles to assert her own independence, as a financially successful modern woman, yet still under the control of her mother, and expected to support her family (with one of them, her older brother, probably best described as a dead beat). This conflict is probably best visualized by the contrasts that the film draws between the two prospective marriages in the film. The marriage between Ah Fei’s mother and father was an arranged one, while Ah Fei chose her husband; in the flashback to the wedding, we see Ah Fei’s mother in her traditional red and gold wedding dress, but Ah Fei wears a very elaborate, Western-style, white wedding dress (the only real memorable instance of characters wearing white is in the beginning of the film, during a Confucian funeral). An interesting theme, common to many films, and I can not wait to see it elaborated in future retrospectives.
*Simply put, last week’s episode of
24 was one of the best hours of television I have seen in a long time (at least for a show not associated with Joss Whedon). For a plot-dominated show, an entire episode almost devoted entirely to characterization is a relative rarity, and it was as well-executed as the shows tried and true plot twists (and the final three-way view of the nuclear bomb was poetic in my view, utilizing the shows stylistic traits to great expressive effect). I mean, they actually made Kim Bauer relevant to the storyline in perhaps the episode’s most moving moments, as Jack and daughter have their “last talk.” But there was also the reactions of Kate Warner and President Palmer to Jack’s decision. But really, I think the episode belongs to Xander Berkeley, who plays the doomed George Mason; even if his appearance in the Cesna was predictable (I spent most of the show wandering how long it would take Jack to figure out that Mason was on-board, especially since the director refused to show the back of the plane), it was powerful. His counseling of Jack and sacrifice is among this season’s top three emotional moments (the other being the earlier conversation between Mason and his estranged son, and the Jack-Kim conversation). Give this man an Emmy!
Most surprisingly, in terms of plot, a show ostensibly about a terrorist nuclear attack is now apparently beginning to move towards a larger story of a massive government conspiracy to instigate a war between the US and three (unnamed) Middle Eastern countries, involving members of the NSA, CIA, the military, and Congress (even though the President is a virtuous person), it’s something of a throwback to the 70s style government paranoia thrillers like
The Parallax View and
Three Days of the Condor. Wow, that’s surprising, (1) for coming from a show on Rupert Murdoch’s FOX network, and (2) given our current political and military climate; I’m surprised Ari Fleischer hasn’t told the American people “that they need to watch what they are watching on TV.” I actually looked for conservative political commentary on
24 on the Internet, but I couldn’t find any. If anyone has any links, post them in comments, I would be interested in reading them.
*Came across this
article on some
Buffy news boards, it’s part one of a round table discussion of the seventh season of
Buffy the Vampire Slayer conducted by David Lavery and Rhonda Wilcox of
Slayage: The Online International Journal of Buffy Studies (yes, this is a serious academic website), James South, professor of philosophy at Marquette University (he edited a book
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy which is out this March; it is part of the a popular culture/philosophy series which includes
The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh of Homer and
Seinfeld and Philosophy), and
Salon critic Stephanie Zacharek. There is one comment in particular from James South, which is a useful description of the television that I enjoy:
One reason it's too early to make a real assessment is because it's clear the writers have just given up making episodic television. That's not meant as a criticism, just a statement of fact. There is no longer any way to assess an episode or series of episodes until we've see the trajectory of the entire season. The show has become so dense with allusions to itself, the story lines so complicated, that no closure is possible within any one episode.
*Lastly, while I was waiting for the screening of
Ah Fei to begin, I was reading the program guide for the Wisconsin Film Festival; in the promotional essay detailing “Wisconsin’s Own Filmmakers” I came across a few sentences that caught my attention: “And while we’re not sure whether
Saving Human Lives in which a lonely hitchhiker waits for a ride along a rural highway on a bleak wintry day is autobiographical, filmmakers and Wisconsin natives Joe Pickett, Matt Lee and Mark Proksch assure us that it was shot in the coldest weather ever.” I was just idly scanning this essay when I came across this passage, but the name Mark Proksch stood out because I went to high school with a Mark Proksch. Since it was not a common name, I thought it might be the same guy, and then I noticed the name Matt Lee, who was one of my best friends in high school (the two of them had gone to UW-Eau Claire for college), and who I haven’t seen since 1998. Apparently they started a film collective called Cine-Magic in St. Paul which makes 8mm short films, a trip to their
website confirmed it was the guys I knew. Though I won’t be able to attend their screening, as I already bought my tickets, I was able to view their short film
Saving Human Lives online
here. I thought I would post it here as a shout out to them. Hmmm, maybe I should invest in that camera I was always talking about buying.
Question of the Week
I was just watching
Ebert and Roeper, and they were reviewing the new film
Poolhall Junkies, paying special attention to Christopher Walken's performance. They got me thinking about seemingly ubiquitous character actors that populate both our film and television screens; it's probably fair to say that in many cases these actors and actresses are in fact more important than the movie stars themselves, even if their work goes largely unsung. So the question of the week is:
Who do you think is currently the best unsung character actor working in film and/or television today? Give a few examples of their work, and please explain why that work deserves special merit.
Everyone, try not to duplicate each other in your choices (we're going for a diverse group of actors and actresses), and more importantly do not choose a character who is relatively well known (for example, John C. Reilly). And remember, the question of the week is open to any blog member or reader, so everyone feel free to chime in.
boring, a. dull, humdrum, flat, banal, routine, lifeless, wearying, The Hours.
Why do I subject myself to these things. Well today, it was basically because I was bored, and it was only $3; I would consider even that a waste of my time, if it wasn’t for the fact that the theater I went to serves tasty cheeseburgers and fries for under $4. But I digress. Oscar season is upon us, and the White Elephant has again, as expected, reared it’s ugly head (scratch that, ugly could be interesting), this time in the guise of Stephen Daldry’s
The Hours. Stephen Daldry, the director of
Billy Elliot, what the hell was I thinking? Well, it does have one impressive cast: Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman (and her, for some reason, now notorious, prosthetic nose), Julianne Moore, Ed Harris, John C. Reilly, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Claire Danes, and Toni Collette. Keith Phipps, in his
The Onion review, rightly said this film had one of the most impressive ensemble’s since
Magnolia. He also rightly called this film “arid.” (I’m intrigued by his comments, referring to Pedro Almovadar’s desire to adapt this book, and I have to say I agree with his assessment 100%) I’m basically struggling to find an upside to this film, and the only thing I can really think of is that I’m left with a vague desire to actually go to the library and read Woolf’s
Mrs. Dalloway.
Mrs. Dalloway is the structuring element of the film: Kidman’s Woolf writes it, Moore’s suburban housewife reads it, and Streep’s Manhattanite editor basically lives it; this three-way schematic also applies to the three plot strands: Kidman’s Woolf knows what she wants, but is forbidden to have it, Moore’s character doesn’t know what she wants or how to get it, even if she did, and Streep’s character has no idea what she wants even though she has ample opportunity to get whatever it is she wants (I guess you could say that these characters are also in three stages of an episode of clinical depression: post-depression, depressed, and just getting depressed). Daldry makes vague attempts to connect these three plots strands via cutting (as well as the screenplay, in what I thought was a laughable turn of events), using juxtaposition and repetition, though I didn’t think they really build to anything that interesting. Phillip Glass’s score didn’t help. I really like his music, and even though I think this is among his lesser works, it’s still among the best things in the movie, even if at times, I was thinking to myself, “wow, that sounds really derivative of his score for
Kundun,” which incidentally, is one of my favorite film scores.
But let’s face it, this film is middlebrow Oscar-bait, purveyed and peddled like crack to the Academy by the arch-dealer Harvey Weinstein and his Miramax syndicate. It’s got all the classic traits of White Elephant Art: an A-list cast, filled with noted and well-respected thespians; a literary pedigree, given the prestige of Michael Cunningham’s novel (though after reading a
NY Times article about the film and Woolf, there’s plenty of scholars out there who hate both) and that of Woolf and
Mrs. Dalloway itself; Big Themes (Life, Death, Love, Happiness) presented in a self-important way, but without being too obscure or overly intellectual; a visual style that may seem arty to people who only go to the movies a couple of times a year, but is really old hat, which includes easy symbolism (my favorite, close-up of dead bird with beak, cut to close-up of morbid Nicole Kidman and prosthetic beak); production design so impeccable and exacting, that you have a hard time believing that anyone is actually living in these supposed eras; and sentimentality. But worst of all was the freakin’ monologues which compose over half the screenplay; you could conceivably cut-up the movie into little pieces and show award show clips for just about every character. I can’t remember how many times I said to myself “Oscar moment, that will look good on the jumbtron at the ceremony.”
By themselves, these traits aren’t necessarily deadly, but taken together, well, I don’t really want to revisit the moment. White Elephant Art, like
The Hours is just dull, it’s not art imitating life (we should be so lucky), but art imitating art, which probably wasn’t that good in the first place. These films can have sex without being sexy (uh, I’m a heterosexual male, and
The Hours had rampant lesbian subtext, and there was no heat, no passion, nothing), violence without being violence, humor without being funny (the only time I cracked a smile, was when I was reading the credits and the Craft Services credit went to some company named “Cecil B DeMeals”). Don’t even speak of drama, or tension. The only real spark came from Allison Janney and John C. Reilly, both of whom were seldom used in the film. But I basically just sat there waiting for someone to finally kill themselves so the film would conclude; of course, Ed Harris’s character was the sacrificial lamb, helpfully foreshadowed by some dialogue in Woolf’s strand, and then ineptly staged, so that I could see it coming like a train barreling down on my stalled car (didn’t help that Harris was seriously overacting in this instance, giving his impression of what it must be like to take Xanax and Ritalin at the same time; you know, this is the second instance this weekend of me seeing an actor covered with disease make-up, I felt more for the animatronic puppet Rygel in
Farscape, now that looked painful). And of course, it ended, and we get climactic meeting, followed by life-affirming scenes, even in the face of madness and death. Oh great.
Favorite Supporting Role of the Night has to go to Richard Lewis on
Alias. I’m so used to seeing him in his neurotic loser-comic persona, that I was very surprised as his turn as an oily, counterintelligence bureaucrat; even liked the hair. I hope they use him as a reoccurring character. And the question of the night has to be “Irina Derevko, good or evil?”
