Folks, Harry here... You are about to read John Robie (one of the sickest individuals ever to walk the earth and just wrong in all the ways that teenage girls hope that the pretty boy isn't) talking about THE ISLE (which has been described to me as being one of the most repulsively grotesque works of cinema ever splashed upon a screen) Heh... Well, you have been warned... tread forward at your own risk...
I got a ticket. 72 in a 35. That’s a big ticket. That’s in the state of Utah. I live in the state of California. That’s a ticket that’s not getting paid. "Who you here with," the Heber City cop asked. Ain’t it cool, I said. He looked at me, looked down at the ticket, wrote something else on it and handed it to me. He doubled it. "Joel Schumacher was born in Heber City," he said. That’s not true, I said. "Neither is this story," said the cop, and he vanished just like that. The part about the ticket and not paying, though, that’s true. But it wasn’t 72 in a 35. It was 86 in a 40.
There aren’t going to be a whole lot of people that like The Isle. Its got severe animal cruelty, its got rape, its got a guy trying to kill himself by swallowing fish hooks and then ripping them out and its got a girl who tries to do the same thing except she doesn’t swallow the fish hooks, she puts them in her twa…
…to see an entire theater full of critics cry out in disgust is a beautiful thing. Some of The Isle is revolting, and the artistic merit of the animal cruelty stuff is real, real debatable. I’m of the mindset that a filmmaker shouldn’t take advantage of that which is weaker than him for the sake of art. PA’s excluded. Ha ha! Easy joke 101. Then again, it’s just a fish getting its side cut off and being released. And a dog being beaten. And another fish. And there’s that pussy…
The Isle works as an allegory. On the surface it’s a twisted romance. Deeper, though, it’s a lesson on the Eastern mentality towards gods, man and the universe. I swear I wasn’t doped up when I saw it.
Hyunshik, on the run from the law, hides out at a fishing camp run by Heejuin, a beautiful freak of a woman. The camp is made up of tiny huts set afloat on a lake, and Heejuin likes messing with the people staying in the things. She swims under the huts and pokes her guest with pointy sticks while they poop (this review belongs in the New Yorker) and holds the guest underwater whenever they fall in. She’s mischievous like a god is mischievous, and…okay, everyone who’s not in a Korean Cinema class skip down past this next bit. I’m gonna provide a service to the poor saps in the little classrooms somewhere in the future somewhere on the globe that have to write a paper on The Isle.
MAN, GODS & THE UNIVERSE: ALLEGORY IN KI DUK KIM’S THE ISLE
Though allegory in film is often, at best, muddled and misguided director Ki Duk Kim’s The Isle succeeds in being both a compelling, disturbing romance and a reflection of China and Japan’s views on man, the gods and nature. Though Kim seems to destroy the entire parable in the film’s final image – relegating what should be a meditative look at the universe to a simple message of man needing woman and woman needing man – the rest of the film holds up to the allegory.
The beautiful, mysterious Heejin runs a fishing camp on a deserted lake. Little more than miniature huts painted in primary colors and set afloat, the camp is instantly recognizable as something that does not exist. The huts are too small people to live in much less function; it’s impossible to stand up in them and there’s barely room to move. Hyunshik, an ex-cop in deep emotional pain and on the lam, comes to hide out at the camp, and from his first moment on screen he announces himself as something more than a man. He’s not complacent like the other guests, who are happy to simply fish and play cards and let the water flow by. He wants more.
Heejin is basically a god here, mischievous and alternately providing for the guests (man) and screwing with their lives. She’ll bring them bait and bring them prostitutes. She’ll also sneak under their huts and poke them with a stick or hold them underwater when they fall in. The fact that she’s one of the only people able to use the motorboat – many try – further shows her difference from those around her.
On the surface Hyunshik is simply attracted to Heejin. What he really wants, though, is to be like her, to be like a god. He proves his worth when he kills the pimp that shows up at the lake to collect his whores. The pimp – to the whores alternately a provider and fiend – is also like a god. To further this point he is the only other person in the film aside from Heejin and Hyunshik able to use the motor boat. When Hyunshik kills the pimp he establishes himself as a god, and when he rapes Heejin he tarnishes her. Man is not supposed to best gods, certainly not supposed to kill or rape them. Professor I saw you making out with Suzie from your Thursday Eastern European Cinema class, so give me an A or else I’m telling the dean. What Hyunshik has done has upset the balance of nature – the lake – and though he and Heejin find a peace with each other they both know that the disturbance they’ve created will not be tolerated. If the yin is out of balance the yang will swing back, and in the end of the film the two unhook one of the fishing huts and try to escape. They know it’s a pointless flight; one can never escape nature.
Pump in some pretty adjectives and you got a paper. Don’t bitch about it being wrong. I’m a college grad from a good school. The Harvard of Boston, actually. If you get, say, a D on the paper because the take on Eastern Religion is all wrong don’t blame me. You’re the one that cheated, pinko.
The Isle kills itself for me with its final image, which real, real lamely drives the point home that Kim thinks his film is nothing more than a testament to the frailties of relationships and the ultimate truth that we must accept the other sex into ourselves if we are ever going to find peace. Whatever professor.
THE BLEEP BROTHERS
The Bleep Brothers, on the other hand, is about cussing and big cocks and real live porno movies and crazy Japanese comics and strippers that shoot darts out of their vaginas. The poster announces, plainly, "a Japanese fuckin’ comedy," and it’s got a picture of one of the brothers pounding the other in the ass. Yeah Sundance. If only the movie lived up to the hype. Of course I was the only one in Park City supplying hype, so the blame rests squarely on my shoulders. My rippling, chiseled shoulders.
Tatsuo (Kintaro Seagal) and older brother Ikuo (Zenjiro) perform manzi, a Japanese comic vaudeville performed in pairs. Basically the two riff off of each other machine gun fast and we all laugh. The two just aren’t that good yet, with the highlight of their act – the only gig they can get is in a strip club – being when Tatsuo drips his pants and shows off his mammoth tool. The two (the two brothers, pervert) manage a guest spot on a TV show, they start to curse on air, they’re bleeped out and boom, phenomenon. Loads of fame, and when they run low on material Ikuo follows Tatsuo around on his sexual adventures – the "Real Life Porno Comedy, hi! – and writes down everything Tatsuo and the girl say. Then he repeats it on stage, he gets bleeped and everybody laughs.
And I laughed…for a little bit. The movie is way, way too long. 124 minutes too long, and there’s a whole lot of very not funny, taking-things-a-little-too-seriously dramatic work here. The tone skips all over the place and talk about pace…seriously, someone talk to writer/director Yoshiyasu Fujita about pace. More craziness and less drama would’ve served The Bleep Brothers well, and there’s a genuine feeling that all involved simply ran out of jokes halfway through.
All this kinda points to a question that’s been bugging me all week. The Sundance Writers Workshop pairs independent and budding screenwriters/filmmakers with established industry talent. The elder acts as mentor and helps the newbie shape the project, and in theory it sounds like a great thing. A young Tarantino was paired with Terry Gilliam and there’s no question it tremendously benefited the guy. Maybe it even benefited both. My problem with the program, though, stems from what I’ve seen this week. Of all the films with the Sundance Workshop logo tagged to the credits only Hedwig and the Angry Inch feels like a truly realized project, the kind of thing that sprung full-formed from a small group, that feels complete and unique. All the rest of the films – like Lift and The Bleep Brothers – are unfocused affairs, and I'm beginning to think that part of the problem is the Workshop. What happens when you pair up someone with indie film sensibilities with an established old Hollywood pro, the guy that’s got the 1-2-3 act structure tattooed to his skull, that knows all the beat points and all the tricks? I’m not saying the Hollywood guy is bad. Not at all. It’s just that indies and mainstream films come from two different worlds – and yes, they still do – and when you try to find a middle ground between the two on a project, independent yet sellable in the grandest Hollywood sensibility, don’t you destroy at least a little bit of the magic that made the film special in the first place? In Lift it felt like the shoplifting material was played down and the very obvious, very-seen-in-Hollywood-films family material was played up. In The Bleep Brothers the wacky, crazy comedy falls by the wayside as the relationship between the brothers – the very typical relationship – is built up. Does the Sundance Workshop threaten to kill what’s special and different in the name of making the film more palpable for a wider audience? Has this been the case in the past? I hope that’s not. I hope these two films are the exceptions.
When The Bleep Brothers is funny it’s very funny. It’s not very funny very often, though, and what should have been a hilarious yet touching look at two brothers instead spends too long at the amusement park trying to figure out what to go on and not enough time on the rides. Oooooo, that’s ugly…
