Fall has been fun…but now it’s time to move on…into the SUNSHINE!
I’m off to Australia for the holidays, back in January.
The cinematic musings will likely be on hold until then, unless I happen to have an especially lazy day. Travel stories will abound…and perhaps if you are lucky, even a few photos. :)
I hope the rest of December treats you all very, very, very well!
Next time you see my feet, they won’t be nearly this pasty :)
Oh, you can follow my brief chronicle on the road to hug a kangaroo on Twitter.
Now please pray for me that I survive the 28 hours, two stopovers journey…ta.
You know, Herzog films are just of a different breed.
Some of them, like “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972), are a sheer joy to write about. It just flooded me, right after the credits rolled. Others, like “My son My son, What have ye done” (2009), is almost impossible to put into words. The creation sort of stands outside the realm of criticism…it asks for nothing and seeks to prove nil, its intrinsic value lying in the creative process that engages it. Verbal commentary, in a way, almost cheapens its dreamy quality by dragging it into the realm of reality.
“Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call New Orleans” (2009), for me, stands between the two extremes of affections mentioned. It is a gritty story rooted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The cinematography is shot with style, the tones and colors evoking the damp, heavy, sensual mood of the South. There is something organic and raw about swamps and heat of plantations, don’t you think? The green of the vegetations feel like they may simply come alive in the middle of the night and bury you in their lushness. The bayou always seems to be crawling with secrets and magic.
Werner Herzog takes advantage of his environment, as he always does, and uses the setting to create a whirlwind narrative of a police officer who because of one seemingly innocuous decision, starts to stumble through a series of life events that involves drugs, sex, mobs, money, deaths, violence, and…I could be missing something, but you get the point. The driving force of the film is drug addiction, which propels its central character, Sergeant Terence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage), with an unmatched intensity and focus in the enforcement of his desires and in the process, sees him bulling through his job with an ingenious wit and some very quick thinkings, eventually ending up in a position that is interesting indeed. The irony of it all is that Terrence didn’t ask for any of it: the money, the drugs, the distinction, the addiction, oh…certainly not the addiction. Yet he got it all.
How does Nicolas Cage invoke the role? With a deep affection and a quirky satisfaction, evidently. Anyone who watches this film can see how perfect Cage and Terrence are for each other. Really, I dare you to imagine anyone else wearing this role, because Cage wears it like a damn fine sleep-wrinkled, booze-stained, crack-powdered, and cocaine-laced cheap suit. He is a formidable actor that hasn’t had much chance to showcase his range in recent years, muddled with the National Treasure flicks that frankly, are just not good enough for him. Here he steps up to the plate and proves that he still got it. Shoulder slanted, face tense, a reckless gleam in his eyes and an urgent stuttering stream of outrageous propositions in mouth, Cage delivers what he calls his “impressionistic” performance – all the more impressive because unlike his role in “Leaving Las Vegas” (1995), he paints his character here completely dry, with no substance aid aside from that of his imagination. Wicked, I’m sure.
A couple days ago, while riding the subway, I came to a sudden realization about “Bad Lieutenant”. Many people try to stuff it into a genre or category of some sort…American crime, film noir, action thriller…I doubt any of that matters. Why bother with labelling? I doubt Herzog made it with any label in mind. One recurring theme in many of Herzog’s work seems to be the human quality of obsession, and the extent of our capabilities under its spell. Aguirre, My son My son, Bad Lieutenant…you see the thread of obsession running through them all. Herzog seems to be obsessed with obsession. Many of his films see the pitting of human nature against mother nature, the fallible against the infallible, the moral against the eternal. How much can we endure? How far can obsession pull us along? And can we ride it to our doom or bloom?
Obsession is a powerful emotion and motivator, and it can invoke a depth of potential that one doesn’t even realize one possesses. Terrence didn’t ask for any of his afflictions. But once afflicted, he had no choice but to utilize all his talents in order to fulfill his physical needs, in order to keep living. His addiction forced him to take risks, pusue suspects, and run his job with a deranged fervor. He wasn’t a most moral cop, perhaps, but he realized that he was very good at doing cop-ly things. Had he not been addicted, would he ever have realized the extent of his professional skills? We don’t see what kind of cop Terrence was before that fateful day when he jumped in the water, but I get the sense that he wasn’t anything outstanding. In a way, the addiction found him, and made a force to be reckoned with out of him. What hand does fate play in all this? How much of it is free will? There is a great scene near the end when Terrence and the man that triggered his current life meet once again, and they slump against the wall, and talk. I don’t remember exactly what they said…very little, if any. But the fact that they are across from each other again, years later, light-years away from their previous predicaments, and still so vastly unreachable from each other, carries a kind of ironic perfection.
We are just passing through on this earth, yet we leave so much mark behind in our path, often unaware of the damage. At the same time, mother nature is all-encompassing, and we often forget how our fragile humanity pales in the face of its grandeur. How much of what we accomplish is a result of free will, and how much is attribution of sheer coincidence? People talk of fate…what is fate? In the end, I kind of don’t care about it all, the labels. There are so many ways to get there, but the end result is still only twofold. So the question is, what do you want to make of the journey? And how much do you want to bet on getting to the end…only to discover, potentially, a whole new world of possibilities?
Survival of the fittest…it’s all that drives us, really.
Cage and Herzog post-screening Q&A at TIFF 09
My heart is yours (365/280), originally uploaded by JenniPenni.
Keep it in your palms.
It’s prettier that way.
“General opinion studies make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. Seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or news-worthy, but it’s always there. Fathers and sons. Mothers and daughters. Husbands and wives. Boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the twin towers as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge, they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling that you’ll find that love actually …is all around.”
“Love Actually”(2003) opens with a collage of the faces of ordinary people at Heathrow airport, one of the busiest travel portals in the world, where people from all different backgrounds, ages, sexes, colors, collide. They run toward each other, hugging, kissing, greeting, uniting, accompanied by the quote above. The film’s message is clear: open your eyes, and see the love that is everywhere, undeniable.
This is an age old theme that has been prodded, molded, stretched out and pressed in, turned inside out and upside down and twisted and re-presented in a thousand different deliveries: how love endures. And with a title that blatantly showcases another such attempt, it’s easy to write the film off as a cheesy cliche of holiday flicks. However, Love Actually is so brazen and enthusiastic in the pursuit of its vision, so skillful and sincere in the delivery of its message, so comprehensive in the plotlines that it engages, and so perfect in its casting, that it actually….succeeds.
Love comes in all shapes and sizes, but its form does not dictate its outcome. The great thing about love is that it’s available to everyone, and it does not discriminate. Here, we are treated to a plethora of characters and stories, each threaded through and with one another.
There is the love between husband and wife, lasting through years and withstanding the test of time, now having settled into a stable routine of domestic bliss.
There is new love, between newlyweds who somehow in this crazy world found the one they want to spend the rest of their lives with, and bask in the joy of their union amongst their loved ones.
There is love that is lost, through illnesses that is unexplained and unfathomable, at a time that is all too untimely.
There is love that is broken, through lies and betrayal, with no warning signs and no good reasons.
There is unrequited love, the kind that is heartwretching and bittersweet, the kind that suffers at the trickery of untimely timings, the kind that you have to live with because, well, you love them too much to do otherwise.
There is love that is too heavy to bear, because you already carry so much on your shoulders, and your sense of loyalty to your responsibilities are too great to overcome, and there is simply not enough room for the new love that you long for.
There is love that defy all logics, love that cross oceans, the kind that only happens in movies.
There is love that defy reasons, the kind that does happen…even in movies, because at the end of the day, you are only two lonely souls looking for company.
Then there is love that is totally unexpected, the kind that comes out of the left field and just kicks you in the gut and leaves you breathless, the kind that you will learn a new language for, the kind that you will learn to play drums for, the kind that you will chase a girl through the airport, through security check, to the boarding gate for, the kind that will lift you out of death, out of grief, and into the future.
There is all of those loves, and more. Love Actually is a film about love, for those who believe in love. Or, even if you are a non-believer, it seeks to warm your cold, cynical spirit and will make a valiant effort to convince you. Some will no doubt point to how saccharine the stories are and how unrealistic the payoffs are, and in a sense, they may be right. But before you turn it down, turn the movie on. Because it is necessary. Because for every over-enthusiastic heartwarming cliche it may carry, there exists a real, genuine moment of humanity. This film is full of them, these little moments of real gems. These moments are particularly moving because of both the amazing cast of actors and the amazing soundtrack that director Richard Curtis has chosen, which ranges from pop to jazz, from voices young to old, and so delicately evokes the emotional color of each scene. One of my favorite moments is when Sarah, played by the infallible Laura Linney, finally dances with Carl, a man that she has secretly loved from afar while working alongside him for years, at the annual Christmas party. They stand awkwardly in the midst of the dance floor, then Norah Jones’ “Turn me on” breathes through the air, and they touch for the first time. I watched Linney’s face as he held her, and I held my breath just for a second. How that scene eventually played out is one of the saddest moments in the film, even though putting myself in her shoes, I probably would have done the exact same thing.
What is love but hope? No love is perfect, but we long for it anyway because we can’t live without it. Many of the stories in this film is probably a little too nicely wrapped up for real life…but it is not ridiculous. It is not so far out of our imagination or so lamely construed, like most romantic comedies produced, that it is implausible. In fact, it is very plausible, and hopeful, and it celebrates love, instead of glorifying it. This is a movie worth seeing. And during the holiday season, when the TV is filled with incessant noises of re-runs and carols and sales, pop this on, let it play, and spend time with your loved ones. This is a movie that does not have a bad bone in its entirety, only love.
On the DVD bonus features, Richard Curtis said that he received his emotional education from Joni Mitchell…whose song “Both Side Now” echos hauntingly in one of the best scenes of the film, with the great Emma Thompson. The song speaks of what life is about and what love is about, first written by the singer in her 20s and re-recorded in her 50s, her voice now smoking with emotion and wisdom…a thousand cigarettes later. It said everything that the moment held, and all that could not be said, but can only be heard. Hear this:
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As every fairytale comes real
I’ve looked at love that way
But now it’s just another show
You leave ‘em laughing when you go
And if you care, don’t let them know
Don’t give yourself away
I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It’s love’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know love at all
Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say “I love you” right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I’ve looked at life that way
But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I’ve changed
Well something’s lost, but something’s gained
In living every day
I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all
I’ve looked at life from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It’s life’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know life at all
Sunshine, originally uploaded by Andross.
Sometimes I just want to let go
And let gravity do its work
Feel the weight of my flesh
Inhale the aroma of pungent earth
Savour the intimacy of billion years old stars
Sometimes I just want to lie still
And let the world go by
Shut off my senses
Turn within
And focus on my heartbeat
Sometimes I just want to be held
By the warmth of your light
The void of your vastness
and tumble in the weeds
With dirt in my nails and sunshine on my face
Sometimes I just want to be me
Sometimes I just want to be
Everything you can not possibly imagine
Your worse nightmares
Your brightest dreams
Your sorrows, pains, fears, regrets, bodacious laughs, tiny moans
And the sunshine will follow
And earthings will rise
And we will stumble together in glorified eternity
Just you and me
I walked into “Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire”(2009), directed by Lee Daniels, with a mixture of emotions: anticipation for all the positive reactions I’ve been hearing, and apprehension for the sheer amount of “buzz” the film has riled up.
I walked out of “Precious” feeling a mixture of emotions, again. Guilt, for inexplictedly finding myself laughing outloud during so many moments of the film. Angst, for the uncontrollable whimpers that escaped my throat during so many moments of the film. And confusion and anger, for not knowing how to reconcile the two, and how to go on feeling.
There are two ways to look at this. One, that the film was so shattered and distracted that it failed to deliver its central message. Or the other, that the film was so sure of itself, and so unflinching in its delivery of its vision, that it just blew through you, and it takes a while for you to grasp onto something and steady youself.
I will honestly admit that as I left the theatre, I was trembling and convinced that the film somehow failed me. How dare it jerk me around like some kind of toy dummy! I fumed. There were scenes where Precious, an obese, poor, shy, illiterate, beaten, abused and defeated girl, is being violated in ways that I could not have imagined. She was pushed down, slammed into the ground, the walls, the bed, the stairs, again and again, by her father, her mother, by strangers she didn’t even know. Then in a split second the scene would cut to a completely opposite world where she lives out her fantasies of safety and happiness and glamour, like any other young girl. Precious would twirl and swirl, shimmering in satins and velvets and glowing with joy and silliness, and I couldn’t help but grin with her. And then in a flash we are back to the cold apartment, the cold floor, bed, staircase, dirty kitchen, the hate. Then again. Back and forth. Sad and happy. Despair and hope. Tears and Laughters. Back and forth. Back and forth. This happens repeatedly throughout the film, and it utterly wrecked me.
Now, a day later, the wave of emotions within me has calmed slightly…and I have not been able to forget about Precious. What I have been able to do, however, is to recognize the power of the delivery of this film, and to realize how deeply it shook me. I was angry not because of how bad it was, but because of how badly I allowed it to get to me, and how deeply I somehow let it in. When Precious was on the ground, I was there with her. When she walked through the door of her apartment for the first time holding her son, I was right beside her. When she hesitated a brief second before handing her son to Mary, I wanted to jump in between them. When she ran down the stairs and fell, I almost leapt out of my seat to catch her. And when Mary pushed that TV off the railing….I froze. I just froze.
Gabourey “Gabby” Sidibe, who plays Precious and carries the film, is surprising everyone, including me. She has been touted as the great new breakthrough actress, a natural. I knew this before going in, but I didn’t realize how good she was until I saw her after the film. When she first appeared on screen, she was so fearful and shut-off, yet sparkling with an uncommon wit and a tough survival instinct, that I just wanted her to be ok. I didn’t think about the way she looked at her mother day in and day out or the way she held her babies or the way tears were rolling down her cheeks. I just saw a resoluted girl. I just saw Precious. When you see Gabby in interviews, a whole new persona emerges. Her same, round face is confidant and calm, not a trace of fear. She is upbeat and well-spoken, and the only commonality with Precious is the streak of wit, which shines through in both.
The entire cast is stellar here, but Mo’Nique deserves a special mention. She caught me breathless. She was so, so real in her role as a cruel, god-forsaken mother who is all but hardened into a rock of selfish instincts, that I had to re-learn how to love her in interviews afterwards. That last scene in the counsellor’s office, when she gave her explanation of what happened, and her reasons for why it happened, and her desire for what she wants to happen, and I found it impossible to hate her. She was only human, even if her humanity has somehow lost her.
Aside from the overall theme of struggle and hope, Precious the film, for me, comes down to the power of words. The power of education. Precious was pelted with blows all her life, many in the form of words. Her own mother called her worthless. Reckless teenagers shouted slurs of insults, and those words kept her down to the ground she was forced to. It wasn’t until she met Ms. Rain (Paula Patton) and Ms. Weiss (Mariah Carey) that she learned to write and speak her own thoughts. Through words, Precious learned the way to communicate her desires, fears, and hopes. Through words, and not fists, Precious was armed with the tool to show and convict others of her worth. Through words, she found the courage to climb out of the darkness within herself, and open up to the light of the world. Through words, Precious pushed through the fight.
There are many more moments in this film that made me gasp, shift in my seat, and tremble. Afterwards, I looked down and saw deep nail marks in my palms. Precious cut into me and I felt every slice. The pain is negligible though, when compared to what she went through. I don’t have personal experiences that exactly parallel hers, and for that I am lucky. But how many people have? And how dare we allow it to happen? And what can we do? We can open our eyes, for starters. A friend turned to me as we were walking down the damp, cold street toward home after the show and said: “It’s just so…ugly.” He’s right. It is. The truth is seldomly pretty. But we should not, and we can not, avert our gazes. For if we do, we are no better than the ugliness that we fear.
As the last scene faded to black, a single line of red letters flashed across the screen: “For Precious Girls Everywhere.” I involuntarily leaned forward in my seat and reached out a clenched hand, as if to touch it…but the words faded just as quickly into nothingness, and the lights came up. That’s how I feel about this film. There is nothing more to say. I don’t know exactly what I was reaching for, and I am utterly out of words. But I am comforted to know, though, that Precious has found hers, that she will be reading at high school level next year, and maybe the year after that reading to her children. I look forward to that. And I am hopeful.
“I can sing some of Hey Big Spender. Hey Big Spender…[laughs]…give me some money for a movie…[laugh]…spend a little time with me, you will.” – Lee Daniels
(I like him already)
Daul Kim, 1989 - 2009, RIP
Another one fades into oblivion.
Young, too young.
Bright, too bright.
Cold, too cold, the biting world.
She loved a punk boy in New York and had a French man in Paris. She doesn’t capitalizes her “i”s and anything else. She likes art and writes poetry to decadent pop culture flashes and wears expensive clothes and colors her hair and smokes a lot and respects Korean culture and embraces nudity and changes like the wind and won’t say sorry for living her life.
And now, I have to say “was”.
You beautiful creature. You tortured soul.
Too much, it was all too much.
She is in me.
I am in her.
All is connected in its broken, tattered, melodramatic, pretentious, cruel, gleefully exposing, cutting way.
I feel her, reading her words.
I miss her, even though I never knew her.
She said hi and wrote about forever.
Here is her last entry in her blog.
She’s there now.
May forever be good to you, Daul.
Why is beauty so painfully fleeting?
Words from Daul:
…
how can you be smart
when its love
i already accepted that i relate to nothing
past is heavy but past is past and
i can only try to understand
egoism
too much self importance
perhaps
luxury of time
perhaps just series of bad events which were only beautiful
the irony
the facade we put on
penetrating time.
but not egoism.
it is relative but different.
i just know
the more i gain
the more lonely it is
but when people grow together
its something that is not easy but is nice
and that is something,
relative.
staying relative is hard
staying honest is hard
i know i’m like a ghost
i have nothing
but myself
and potential, to me is the question of will
thats why i am present to you
S – thanks for telling me.
She glances from across the counter, and her eyes, her perfect, green eyes, hold still. They blink slowly, the pillow of dark chestnut lashes fan out and upwards like a thick plumage of palm leaves. Glossy. Curved. Perfect.
What would it be like to press my index finger to their tip…and press down gently on that fan of curvature? I wonder silently. Would those little, useless pieces of hair succumb to my will, then spring back to their natural, perfected state? I wonder if they are soft…like mine. I love doing that to mine, except they are straight and fine and very stubborn. Sometimes for no reason in particular, I’ll hold out my index finger, line it up straight and parallel to my eye just under my lashes, and blink. Each bend of each lash sends a tiny jolt to its base, hidden in the crevice of the upper rim of my eye, and the sensation expands, the way a warm gulp of mulled wine seeps down my throat and permeates every single pore in winter. It makes me feel alive, the awareness of each blink. It’s the closest to being able to feel my thoughts forming.
I blink a lot, it occurred to me, especially when I’m anxious.
“Nice color.” The Perfect Green Eyes motions to my fingertips, now tapping unconsciously on the marbled surface. “What’s that? Fuchsia? Fuchsia’s in this year. It’s all over the runway.” She waves her hand nonchalantly, as if shooing away a non-existent fly.
“It’s pink…berry, maybe.” I blink.
“Huh.” Those eyes again. There are some kind of gold speckles in it. I make a mental note to self. Is that what people call hazel?
“Don’t last very long though huh?” She waves again. ”I hate chipped nail polish, so annoying.”
…..A wave of severe indifference suddenly overcomes me. I will my face to stay still.
“And I like what you did to your hair, you know, that streak thing.” The Green Eyes flash, a glint of glee, I imagine.
“It was red.” I hear myself say. “Then orange, and now it’s kind of blond.”
“Huh.”
“My hair doesn’t hold color well.” I shrug.
“That must be annoying.” The Green Eyes blink again, and a smile curls up the corner of her perfectly plump, pink lips.
I want to laugh. But I don’t want to seem crazy.
“Actually, I kind of like it.” I feel a grin forming. It just creeps up my cheek like when you know you are about to tell a really funny joke, but you have to pretend that you don’t know. You know?
“Well, it’s certainly interesting. Not like my hair, it’s just always this boring red color.” She tosses her long, wavy, crimson tresses behind her shoulder. They are glorious, and she knows it.
“You can’t say you aren’t colorful.” The grin broadens, and it tickles.
The Green Eyes pause, then widen, and a trail of laughter spills out of those pink lips. Pitch-perfect.
She looks back one last time, those perfect green eyes flashing, and flips those god damn perfect hair again like she surely has done many times before. “Well, have a good day!”
“I will.” My smile now full-blown and I’m not even trying. “You too.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the guys behind me in line following her figure appreciatively with their gazes as she makes her way towards the door.
I reach into my hair and search for the faded strand of ashy blond. I can’t see. But I feel it.
Winding it around my left index finger, a deep breath escapes that I didn’t even realize I was holding. A wave of relief washes over me.
And just like that, a trail of laughter spills out of my plain, espresso-stained lips, and bounces off the ivory, smooth walls.
Lust. Caution.
Lust, Caution.
Lust….Caution.
The English name of Ang Lee’s latest film consists of two words. Taken separately, they stand alone as two individual concepts: Lust, a primal, human urge; and Caution, an evolved, societal tool. Put them side by side, and you see a comparison: the primal versus the evolved, individual versus society, incongruent.
Poke a little hole in the membrane that seperates the two, and we begin to see a contrast. Lust, the human emotion, surges in the face of caution. Caution stares right back, coolly, unflinching.
Make that membrane even more porous…and the two start to bleed into one another. Can you see it? The red, thick goo of lust languishedly start to expand ever so relentlessly…and the pale, milky fog of caution determinately surrounds the lust, permeating through space, suspending, until the red is only visible as a faint, blushing pink through the suffocating, white curtain.
Ever since I saw Ang Lee’s “Lust, Caution” (2007), I have not been able to stop thinking about these two words. They were not chosen at random, I know. Lee is a master at quietly evoking powerful emotions. To me, his directorial style is a gentle cross between Wong Kar-Wai and Clint Eastwood, combining Wong’s taste for moody, lush cinematography with Eastwood’s strong, silent characterizations. All three innately understand the power of the unsaid. All three evocate instead of telling. And that is why they move me like no other. Lee, in particular, is a provocative blend of eastern sentimentalities and western sensibilities. Perhaps that is due to his upbringing, born in TaiWan and educated in both his native land and America, he strucks me as a director with a precise feel for what he wants. The title of his first film, “Sense and Sensibility,” seems oddly appropriate.
“Lust, Caution” opens in ShangHai, China in 1942. The first shot is that of the face of a german shepherd, and pans up to the face of a man. Observe this quiet link between man and beast. It is an important theme that is revertebrated throughout the rest of the film.
We float up the stairs of a house, following the trail of indistinctable, womanly chatter, through a darkened corridor, and into a richly decorated room where a MaJong table sit in its midst, surrounded by four Chinese women at its sides. The air is sweet with scent of extravagance. Expertly-cut cheongsams glide over their well-preserved figures, the lush fabrics intimately outlining the curves of its adorner, its silky weight titallatingly speak of the pearly flesh that lies beneath. The upper class women giggle and laugh while their immaculately manicured hands float across the tabletop like marble scrulptures that come to life, precisely picking up, sorting, stacking, and throwing down MaJong pieces with a well-oiled ease, the gold and gems of rings and bracelets cut through the air in a blur, occassionally catch the light and reflect off a glint that is too bright to the eye. It’s 1940s in Japanese-occupied ShangHai, and everything seems possible and uncertain. Outside, the alleyways are dark.
This is described as an espionage thriller. It is so much more than that. Lee says that it’s filmed in the tradition of film noir. I believe that. It is also a love story, one of distrust, patrioism, self-preservation, of lust, and of caution.
The break-out star here is Wei Tang. This is her first film role, but you wouldn’t be able to tell. The story starts four years before that fateful MaJong game, in Hong Kong. The Japanese is closing in, and patrioism boils amongst young blood. Wong Chia Chi (Wei Tang), a first year university student, falls in with a group of eager fellow theatre students, and they come up with a plot to assassinate Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), a high level Chinese official working for the Japanese, a traitor to the country they love. The gang has no experience in anything of this sort, but their naivete is all the courage they need. The plan evolves in unexpected fashion when Mr. Yee and Mrs. Mak, Wong’s cover, meet. He takes an immediate interest in her. She is a natural actor and responds in kind, believing this is the “in” they needed. Once the spark is lit, there is no turning back. Unbeknownst to them, the fate of these six young people were forever sealed in the first look that passed between Mr. Yee and Mrs. Mak.
The plan is interrupted prematurely when Mr. Yee moves to ShangHai. Four years later, everyone find themselves in the same city again, and as fate would have it, in the same predictment. The naivete has long been stripped away by this point. The Japanese ruled the city. Death and poverty litter the streets of ShangHai, while the rich and powerful live in bored extravagance. That’s always the way it is. That was the way it was.
What follows, is the living-out of the fate of Mr. Yee and Mrs. Mak. They are from different worlds: a high official that lives in layers of secrets and security and a poor young woman with nothing to live for. But he is a man that many people wants to kill, and she is a woman that is hired precisely by those people to kill him. He is a traitor to his country. She is a patriot, or at least, she thinks she is. For all those reasons above, the two people most unlikely to meet, meet once again, and they rekindle the flame that was snuffed out four years ago.
What ensues you can imagine. The sex is explicit, and the film has gotten more attention for its NC-17 rating than its story. This is wrong. The sex is not unnecessary. It is the ultimate portrayal of intimacy between Yee and Mak…not only physical, but emotional. These are two of the most fear-filled, confused, and desperate individuals that existed. Yee can have anything he wants, but he is so scared of death, so consumed with the preservation of his mortality, that he can hardly find pleasure in all that is so readily available to him. His wife, his wealth, his job, his secrets, he goes through them with an air of stoic endurance. He endures them because he must in order to live, and he has accepted that…until he meets her.
Mrs. Mak is a cover, but for Wong, it is an escape from her life in reality. We hear little about her father, but we sense that she has been abandoned. She floats through life with a ghostly hopelessness. She insists on going to school just to feel some kind of purpose, even though all that is taught is Japanese, language of the oppressors that have sucked out all the hope in her life. She keeps on going to movies and cries in the dark, but even films are interrupted by war announcements. Escape is so hard to come by in those times…so when an opportunity presented itself, she seized it, and she met him.
Their relationship quickly ended up in bed, and that is where it stayed, most of the time. I suspect that is the only place where they both feel safe…stripped of clothes, naked, all that is visible is their lust for each other. Within the lust caution is exerted. They look at each other intently while their bodies engage, trying to find any trace of deceit and secrecy. They physically exhaust each other, fighting for climax, for weakness. This is a battle of the will, and the tangle of limbs are merely soldiers of war.
“I hate you.” She says. “I believe you.” He grabs her. “I haven’t believed anyone in a long time…but I believe you.” He shakes her with force. “Say it again.”
The problem with humans is that we are emotional creatures. Emotions are like floods…you open a small break in the barrier, and before you know it it all comes crashing down.
“You shouldn’t be so beautiful.” He wraps his arm around her in an iron vice, as if trying to squeeze out his desire of her, furious with his loss of focus while she waited outside.
“He knows better than anyone the extent of pretending.” She gasped, when asked by superiors to stay in the role longer. “He not only invades my body…but my heart. Only if I faithfully stay in this role can I burrow into his heart.” She breathes harder. “He makes me bleed and cry every time, only then will he be satisfied, only then will he feel alive in the dark. Only he knows that it is real.”
This is a losing game from the start. They both tried to conquer each other while deceiving each other. Lust was their weapon of choice, and caution was their armour. But even the most intimate act cannot strip away all that armour. Or maybe it did, eventually. They started to injure each other, inside. The seed of lust grew and grew, and started to chip away at the armour of caution from the inside out, and they were both helpless against it. The ending was inevitable. It could not have ended any other way. Watch the last shot of her, observe the flashback to those innocent days, and weight the consequence of that one, simple choice she didn’t even know she made.
Tony Leung has been my favorite actor for a long time, ever since I saw him in “In the Mood for Love.” I can’t explain why he is except, well, that he is my kind of person. There are many, many great actors that I admire: Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Benecio Del Toro, the list goes on. But no one does melancholy like Tony Leung. No one does a longing look like Tony Leung. And no one…and I mean no one, can make me feel myself breaking away into a million pieces, by simply walking away, into the shadows.
The film opened with a shot of a beast and a man. It closed with a view of just the man, Him. Observe him sitting in the darkness that he is so afraid of, then emerging towards the light, and walks into it. But even then he was never completely in the dark. He kept the light on himself, partially, as if afraid of fading into oblivion completely. And when he stands up and leaves the bed that he once shared with possibly the most real love of his life, his shadow lingers until the very last frame. He never really left the dark either. The beast in him is alone now, again, and how long will it be before it rips him to shreds?
Lust, Caution. Translated literally into Chinese, it becomes “色,戒” (Se, Jie), the official Chinese title of the film. Translating each character literally in the other direction, you get “Color, Ban.” The ban of color results in a void, filled only with shades of black and white. It is a simple state, non-emotional, ordered, but it is not real. We live our lives in color and chaos. Humanity is color. The emotions that mark our identity are colored, and are evoked through color. How ironic is it, that the caution against lust, one of the most powerful and colorful human emotions of all, is also synonymous with its complete removal. It is not a caution, then, but a complete wipe out of one’s humanity.
The line between lust and caution is a foggy one. Tread carefully… as once blurred, one may wipe the other out entirely.
“Even the favorite reviews, the audience response is the movie is too slow, deliberately slow. But for the Chinese audience, the biggest complaint is it happens too quick. I think the historical background that build into our genes is different. American people has never been occupied. The deep sadness and sentimentality, the cultural background that relates to melodrama that we relate to and grow up with, the propaganda, I didn’t imagine the difference is so big. It’s a very interesting cultural phenomenon.” – Ang Lee
I nearly died today, acquiring these red shoes.
There is something about them.
It is part of a special collection between H&M and Jimmy Choo. One time only.
An employee remarked that the crowd was: “like a pack of hungry wolves…devouring everything.”
One woman approached me while I was trying to nonchalantly balance the numerous boxes that tower over me in my arms.
“Can I have that?” She whispered loudly, staring straight at me, her eyes glazed over with a sheen of…confusion? Desire? I couldn’t tell.
“No,” I stared back, surprised by the calm of my voice when my mind is racing at a million miles frantically: Is she going to take my boxes? Why? Is she mad? Do I not seem like I want them? I am holding them, aren’t I? Wait…I am holding them, right?
“You can’t, I’m sorry.” I relented my gaze. I was never very good at staring contests.
Somehow, being in the presence of red shoes make me incredibly happy.
It’s maddening, I know.
I could weep poetries about their beauty.
Their allure.
Their passion.
Their mystery.
It’s like the sky opened up and an unknown deity of limitless power reached down and pulled me up by the wrists, lifting me up in the air, rising through the atmosphere, higher and higher, the wind skins past my flesh with merciless force and yet leaving behind not a sliver of wound. Rays of the sun beam through me, envelop me with its millions of tiny fingers, and gently brush every molecule of my being alive with warm, miniscule yet definite vibration…I hum with notes of joy.
Yes…I could weep (but I won’t).
In a way, I secretly love the confusion of desires that swirls within me. The inexplicable draw fills me with curiosity, and wonder, and I happily leave it room to ferment.
There is something about them, the red shoes.
Yes, there is.
