Hey folks, Harry here wishing he was snuggled in a seat in Rotterdam film after film after film watching these jewels that the lovely Elaine has so wonderfully set forth to describe for us. I want to hear more about this film that was kidnapped. That sounds fascinatingly fucked up! Here's Elaine.... on your knees dogs
DAY 3
The festival is now well underway, and if a pattern is emerging (apart from it being sunny in the morning and blustery at night), it is that Korea rules. My top-5 so far features three Korean feature films and a short one, and I have yet to see the one that the organisers describe as "a bona fide festival hit," "Take Care of My Cat." What are the odds of this becoming a Korean clean sweep for me?
The festival has also had its first minor scandal, in the form of an Iranian film that got kidnapped because of a dispute between the producer and the director. I guess the problem of final cut is not limited to Hollywood studios.
Today's reviews are all of Asian films - two Korean
ones, a Chinese one and a Thai one. No Japanese films
today, but I'll make up for that in a few days, when I
watch Kurosawa's "Pulse," Sono Sion's "Suicide Club"
and Oshii Mamoru's "Avalon."
FLOWER ISLAND (Song Ilgon, 2001)
I remember writing an AICN review in which I claimed I was a very fairly stoic person, thus proving that the tears I shed over the film I was reviewing (Zhang Yimou's "The Road Home") were a truly extraordinary occurrence. Since then I have got emotional over a fair number of films, but nothing could have prepared me for the response I have had to "Flower Island," a Korean film I have now seen twice at the festival. There are images in it that haunt me, and an aria which not even the theme from "The Road Home" (which has been haunting me for the past 15 months) can banish from my mind. And yes, I have wept my heart out over it. Twice.
Now I'm a morbid person. I admit that. I collect requiems and I'm fascinated with death and different ways to approach it. I am also a bit of an emotion junkie. I detest cheap sentimentality, but there is nothing like real, heart-felt suffering to set me off - the tragedy of intelligent, sensitive people who, for whatever reason, are thrown from the path they have chosen and forced to let go of their dreams, their hopes and everything they hold dear.
I suppose that is why "Flower Island" gets to me the way it does. It is about death and learning to let go, and then some.
"Flower Island" is the story of three emotionally scarred women who travel to an island where pain and sorrow are supposed to be cured. The first, Oknam, is a housewife who prostitutes herself in order to buy a piano for her daughter. When a client dies on top of her, she rings the police, who in turn contact her unsuspecting husband. Having been told to stay away from home for a while, she sets out to visit her "angel friend" in on island in the South. On the way there, she hooks up with a funky teenager called Hyena who has just aborted her baby in a public loo and is now looking for her mother, who abandoned her when she was a baby. After some odd adventures, the two of them run into Yoojin, a young opera singer who has been diagnosed with cancer of the oropharynx and has been given a brutal choice: either to have her tongue removed or to die an extremely unpleasant death. Choosing to end her life with her voice intact, Yoojin sets out to die, which she does in the end in a most poetic manner.
The above description might lead you to believe that "Flower Island" is a chick flick in which women sit around talking about their problems. It is not. The women in the film do not discuss their trouble; they just sense instinctively that they are all needy and support each other without drawing attention to it. Thus, an unspoken bond builds between Oknam, who refers to herself as "Joohee's mother" and needs someone to watch over, and Hyena, who insists on calling herself a woman but is really a child in need of a mother. Between the two of them, they also manage to make Yoojin's last days bearable, even though Yoojin (the spiritual heart of the film, and the object of a pervasive angel symbolism) initially fends off their attempts at friendship and barely acknowledges their presence.
"Flower Island" is a very intense experience. From the brutal opening to the harrowing ending which references both Verdi's "Traviata" and Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott," the film packs in everything from total torpor to utter glory, and so manages to be utterly depressing and gloriously uplifting at the same time. It also features some profoundly stirring cello and piano music, and a poetic imagery which leaves only the most spiritually sterile unaffected.
Needless to say, it is a very emotional experience - for me, anyway. There are three scenes in it that make me weep, and one which positively makes me want to bawl. The one where Yoojin, hands covered in blood, sings an aria about the darkness that is enveloping her. The one in which, face alight with a glow quite unlike her usual torpor, she plays with sparklers. The one in which, having just arrived on the island, she basks in sunlight, allowing the light to warm her face and throat. And most harrowing of all, the one in which, after a whole lot of blood-spitting and near-suffocation, she tries out her voice and finds it is still there. The smile on her face after she hits the first notes is without any doubt the most haunting thing I have seen in cinema for years.
"Flower Island" is by no means a flawless film. The
photography is messy and the characters who are
introduced in the second act add little to the plot,
although they could be said to represent the notion of
letting go. Furthermore, there are some flashbacks and
flashforwards which rather distract from the "flow" of
the story. They do add a certain poetic flavour to the
film, but those not into poetry are likely to find
them annoying, in the same way that they will find the
childish Oknam an irritating character. However, that
does not alter the fact that "Flower Island" is a
virtuoso performance. It isn't for everyone, but those
who allow themselves to be carried away by deep,
stirring emotions will be sure to be blown away by it.
ONE TAKE ONLY (Oxide Pang, 2001)
This is a good popcorn movie. Like its predecessor "Bangkok Dangerous," it deals with small-time crooks in a way that is neither deep nor original, but quite entertaining. It boasts flashy photography, even flashier editing and a big, pounding techno score, and should go down well with the MTV generation.
"One Take Only" is the story of two working-class Bangkok youths: Som, a teenage prostitute with a heart of gold, and Bank, a clumsy but likeable drug dealer. About fifteen minutes into the film, the two hook up and try to make a living together. For a while, life is sweet; then, inevitably, one of Bank's drug deals goes awry, and the results are tragic.
"One Take Only" is a typical example of a film that emphasises form over content. The colours are bright, the editing is frantic and the coolest scenes are the MTV-video-like segments in which the protagonists imagine what might happen if they were to enter a particular situation. That said, it is by no means a heartless film. Som genuinely cares for the people around her, and there is something touching about the way she looks after their interests even when she is on the brink of death. One just wishes there were a bit more substance to the film - a bit of bite to go with the visuals. Then again, that would defeat the object, which is quite obviously to deliver a cool-but-charming flick.
Keep an eye on Pang. His stories may not amount to
much yet, but given a good script, he might turn out
to be a Thai Aronofsky.
BUTTERFLY SMILE (He Jianjun, 2001)
Beginning director makes off-key low-budget films, gets recognition and is offered a big budget for his next film, which lacks the gritty charm of the earlier productions. It's an old story, but one which is unfortunately true for He Jianjun, whose "Butterfly Smile" looks slick but achieves little.
He has made some wonderful films. Both the black-and-white "Red Beads" and the gritty "Postman" were exercises in alienation, social ineptitude and voyeurism. They got off to a slow start, but once they were over, you realised you had been watching something quite meaningful.
"Butterfly Smile" is different in that the opening is probably the most exciting part of the film. In the dark of night, a woman driver hits a cyclist, and finding him unconscious, decides to drive on. Unbeknownst to her, a voyeur has been filming the whole thing, and after having dropped the victim off at a hospital, he decides to use the footage for his own ends. Initially, it seems to be a sadistic power game, but gradually the man is revealed to have another agenda.
The film raises a few interesting questions about guilt. The voyeur not only tries to make the woman feel guilty about the hit-and-run, but also worries about his own part in the case. Does the fact that he knows who caused the accident but doesn't tell the police make him an accomplice? Is it morally acceptable to bully a person who has committed a crime into a confession? And does the confession, once made, relieve one of one's guilt? They are fascinating questions, but unfortunately, He does little to answer them. The film ends up being a moralistic pamphlet rather than an analysis of the workings of the guilty mind.
"Butterfly Smile" has great scenes. The scene in which
the voyeur (played with great intensity by Zhang Yimou
veteran Ge You) rings the woman to tell her she has
left her iron on is a hoot, and the ones in which one
sees him grow disgusted with with the sadistic game he
is playing are pretty impressive. The film also looks
fantastic; I don't think I have seen another movie in
which the dark is so beautiful. Ultimately, though, it
is an overlong and unsubtle gimmick that doesn't
really work. It's an interesting film, but not an
entirely successful one.
ONE FINE SPRING DAY (Hur Jinho, 2001)
Hur's debut "One Fine Spring Day" is the sort of film that sounds dumb in description but actually is quite good fun. It is basically "boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy and girl split up, boy is devastated," but with enough charm to make it worth one's while.
The boy, in this case, is Sangwoo, a twenty-something sound man who is hired to record endangered sounds such as the wind rustling through a bamboo forest, temple bells ringing and old people singing Arirang songs. The radio programme for which he works is presented by a young lady called Eunsu. Somewhere between endangered sounds and shared bowls of ramen, Sangwoo and Eunsu fall in love, and for a while they are deliriously happy. Then Eunsu begins to have second thoughts about the relationship, and before he realises what is happening, Sangwoo is dumped. The rest of the film revolves around his attempts to pick up the pieces and the question whether he and Eunsu will get back together.
There is a slight and fairly poignant family sub-plot, but by and large, this is a story about love. About a guy who thinks the world of his girl and drives to her house in the middle of the night when she sleepily mentions she misses him on the telephone. About the way he stares at her when she's asleep, and the way he grins at her when she does something unexpected. About the sense of betrayal he feels when she dumps him. And, ultimately, about the way he learns to get over his tragedy in a dignified way.
The above sounds hackneyed, but Yu Jitao infuses Sangwoo with such warmth, such enthusiastic goofiness that it is a pleasure to behold. Lee Yeongae isn't quite as loveable as Eunsu, but the scene in which she tells Sangwoo that he looks cute when drunk is one the highlights of the film.
"One Fine Spring Day" isn't the most earth-shattering film you will see this year, but it is charmingly recognisible and quite infectious at times. You could do worse than see this at some festival.
NEXT UP FOR REVIEW:
- Abolfazl Jalili's "Delbaran"
- Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Pulse"
- Sinisa Dragin's "Every Day God Kisses Us on the Mouth"
- Nobuhiro Suwa's "H story"
Elaine
