The documentary “Iron Crows” that opens today at the Film Forum in NY derives its title from the nest made by a couple of crows in a tree on the desolate grounds of PHP, a ship breaking site in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Instead of using twigs, they build their nest from iron filings that are plentiful in a place where taking apart decommissioned ships is big business. The crows are a perfect metaphor for the men (and boys) who work there. At the end of each working day—the average wage is 2 dollars—they have to scrape iron filings from their feet and legs. Most of them work in bare feet or flip-flops and shorts. Until recently their employer, one of the more enlightened, did not even supply hard hats. An average of 20 workers dies in the ship salvaging industry each year. With a work force of 20,000, this is a shockingly high number.
“Iron Crows” is about as fine example of solidarity with the working class in film that I have seen since “Wasteland“, the documentary about the men and women who worked as recyclers in the world’s largest garbage dump at Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro. Artist Vik Muniz incorporated them in a series of large-scale photos based on classic paintings that used salvaged material of the kind that they extract from the dump each day.
Just as art can be created out of the bowels of Jardim Gramacho, it is gratifying to see Korean film-maker draw beauty out of a landscape that seems just as unpromising. But that he does. The sight of an enormous oil tanker floating silently into the shallow waters out of the morning mist near the PHP yards is as breathtaking as a Thomas Eakins seascape.
But the focus is almost entirely on men at work. Scaling the ships each day, they use blowtorches to “break” the ships into manageable blocks of metal that can be reused in new industrial production. Some 85 percent of Bangladesh’s iron comes from the Chittagong ship-breaking docks.
Except for the blowtorches, there is not a single labor-saving device at PHP. There are no forklifts or cranes. When a piece of the ship has been cut from a higher deck, the workers toss it over the side taking care that one of their comrades is not in the path of the projectile. Once it is on the ground, a crew of a dozen or so workers will hoist the slab of metal on their shoulders and walk it to an awaiting truck, all the while singing a work song that—to my astonishment—sounds exactly what I have heard from Leadbelly or Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee in a context that is not that far apart. Given the desperate situation of many of these workers who hail from northern Bangladesh and view PHP as a step up, there is a compulsory character to their labor that approximates prison labor in Mississippi or Alabama.
Despite their integration into the world capitalist marketplace, the workers retain customs from their village and a steadfastness to their Muslim faith that are not much different than the patterns Bengali people have followed for a thousand years. They sacrifice a goat at one point and mix its blood with sawdust. The mixture is then scattered into the bowels of the ship they are working on at the moment in order to ward off evil spirits.
As you watch them at their various tasks, you become mesmerized. Director Bong-Nam Park has an amazing ability to turn their labors into something approximating a ballet. The only other film that I have ever seen that comes near to delivering that sensation is “In the Pit“, a 2006 documentary about construction workers involved in building the second deck of Mexico City’s Periferico freeway that is available from Netflix, which I recommend highly.
The big difference between “In the Pit” and “Iron Crows” is politics. The Mexican film is primarily interested in the esthetics of work, while “Iron Crows” is also a cry for social justice that is often heartbreaking. A man who is featured in the film visits his home village in the north for his yearly reunion with his wife and relatives, where he sees his infant daughter for the first time. She was born blind because of an inadequate diet. While we are all aware of the crushing poverty of Bangladesh, seeing this man and his wife weeping over this tragedy makes it personal, which was obviously the intention of director Bong-Nam Park.
Clearly a turn is taking place in Korean film. Despite being one of the most exciting and innovative film industries in the world today, the emphasis has been mostly on genre, including ghost and gangster stories. Park’s documentary tells us that the wrenching changes brought on by globalization have inspired some Koreans into applying their skills to social and political topics.
Chittagong has a particular meaning for me since my old friend Bedabrato Pain, whose wife Shonali Bose directed “Amu“, screened his newly completed film “Chittagong” at NYU a couple of months ago. Chittagong was the site of an armed rebellion led by high school students in 1930 that was crushed by the British. I will have more to say about this film in a week or so, but will simply observe now that the promise of the struggle against British colonialism has only been partially fulfilled through independence. Nominally free, Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi workers are still prisoners of starvation.
UPDATE:
Just received this email from an old friend from Bangladesh who actually lived not too far from Chittagong:
A minor comment on your review would be that workers retain rural customs and unorthodox Muslim traditions that are local to Bangladesh/ Bengal. For example, theses practice, like sacrificing goats and warding of evil spirits, are also common among Hindu Bengalis, too. Some of the workers in ship building industry in Chittagong are of Hindu origin too, I believe.
Some of the religious/traditional practices of Bengali workers, such as beliefs in saints (“pir”), spirits (“jins”), etc. are not in accordance with (strict) Wahabi-type Islamic fundamentalism . These beliefs and practices are often condemned by orthodox Muslim clergy and the likes of Jamaat-i-Islam.
Two films have come my way recently that deal in their own way with the systematic brutality of modern armies. “Burma Soldier”, an HBO Documentary that airs on Wednesday May 18, tells the story of Myo Myint who joined the Burmese army in 1979 at the age of 16 and trained as specialist clearing landmines. An attack by Burmese insurgents severely injured Myint, leaving him without a leg, an arm and most of the fingers on the hand of the remaining arm. What he lost physically was offset by a political and spiritual transformation that turned him into a pro-democracy activist. Not only is “Burma Soldier” a stirring portrait of one man’s struggle against physical and political adversity, it is an excellent introduction to the country’s history. Now playing at the Film Forum in New York, “City of Life and Death” is a fictional account of the so-called Rape of Nanking, the Japanese army’s assault on China’s capital city in 1937 based on Iris Chang’s 1997 best-seller. I can recommend it but with major qualifications.
Even before his calamitous injuries, Myint began to question the cruel and anti-democratic role of the military. To start with, the dominant Burma nationality sought to impose itself on other ethnic groups in the same fashion as the Turks over the Kurds, or the Chinese over the Tibetans. The military that had seized power in 1962 sought to forcibly assimilate the “lesser” nationalities into its own warped vision of Burmese identity in accordance with the arrogant “modernizing” vision of both British colonialism and the “socialist” powers that forgot that there is no socialism without democracy.
He saw countless acts of brutality when on duty. Women, especially from the non-Burma nationalities, were forced to work as porters and even to walk in front of the soldiers in mine-infested terrain. Insurgent captives were routinely tortured. Myint recounts one incident in which a knife was plunged through the cheeks of a man during the course of an interrogation.
As you watch “Burma Soldier”, you cannot help but be reminded of the unfolding drama in the Middle East as one self-described “socialist” or “radical” government seeks to impose itself on a restive population. It is useful to remember that the brutal and corrupt Burmese military that has as dominant a role in the national economy as is the case in China or once was the case in Turkey.
General Ne Win, who came to a power in a 1962 coup, proposed a “Burmese Way to Socialism” that blended Marxist verbiage with outright nonsense. For example, the film describes his 1988 fiscal measures, taken on the advice of an astrologer. Win devalued the currency according to a formula: any monies divisible by the number nine were now invalid. So devastating were consequences for the poor and the working class that the seeds for today’s pro-democracy movement were implanted. Sometimes it is easy to forget that the main reason the Burmese people want the right to elect their own leaders freely is because that is a way to address economic exploitation, even that which occurs in the name of socialism. As a tarnished symbol of a degraded system, General Ne Win had much in common with Libya’s Qaddafi. Win claimed that his socialist system would mix Marxism and Buddhism, while Qaddafi’s recipe included Islam instead of Buddhism. In either case, you ended up with a despotic system that sparked a wholesale revolt.
After leaving the army, Myint embarked on an intellectual journey that led him to read a wide variety of philosophical and political books. He came to the conclusion that the system had to be transformed. He became an activist and took part in demonstrations following the 1988 economic restructuring. He also started a secret library of banned books. When he was arrested at a rally, he told the judge at his trial that “I don’t believe in the military regime”. That act of defiance led to a 15 year prison sentence.
The oppressive system in Burma has led to remarkable acts of courage from individuals such as Aung San Suu Kyi who was under house arrest for about the same number of years Myint was in prison. In the 1990 general election, her party won 59% of the votes and 81% (392 of 485) of the seats in Parliament. The army decided that the people’s will meant nothing and have ruled by terror for more than the past 20 years. One can only hope that the people of Burma will finally prevail since history and the unshakeable will of people like Myo Myint are on their side.
“City of Life and Death” is an unrelenting journey through the horrors of the Japanese occupation of Nanking in 1937 that some scholars believe resulted in the deaths of as many as 300,000 civilians. Considering that these deaths occurred in the span of weeks rather than years, it has led some to consider it as one of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century in terms of the time-frame.
Hewing closely to the findings of Iris Chang, Chinese director Lu Chuan tells a tale of unremitting cruelty that amounts to a holocaust for his own people. Indeed, this story included its own Oskar Schindler, one John Rabe, a German businessman (despite his Anglo-sounding name) that ran Siemen’s branch operation in Nanking, who confronted the Japanese army over its abuses and sought to protect civilians in a Safety Zone that was often disregarded by the occupiers. In one scene, they come into the Safety Zone in order to dragoon 100 Chinese women into working as sex slaves for their troops.
Rabe (John Paisley) has a Chinese male secretary named Tang (played by Fan Wei, a Chinese comedian in a decidedly non-comic role) who like his boss appeals to the dubiously better judgment of the Japanese. In a departure from conventional holocaust type narratives, John Rabe is a member of the Nazi party who uses his ties to Hitler to sway the Japanese military brass. In one of the unfortunately all-too-glaring missteps of this well-intentioned film, there is no attempt to put his humanitarian impulses into any kind of context. We can only surmise that Rabe had an emotional attachment to the Chinese people that stemmed from having living in Nanking since 1909.
As might be expected, Tang is a passive figure who follows Japanese orders in more or less the same way that the Judenrat cooperated with Nazis in the Warsaw Ghetto, at least until the full horror of Japanese occupation is revealed. In one of the film’s more wrenching scenes, the soldiers hurl his 11 year old daughter through the second story window of an apartment building killing her instantly. Her offense was to try to interfere with a Japanese detachment that was rounding up Chinese women for a “comfort station”, including her mother.
Given the unrelenting procession of horrors that are depicted in this 133 minute film (Chinese captives burned alive, etc.), one might ask what might motivate an audience to remain in its seats until the bitter end, about which there is no doubt from the very beginning.
The NY Times review puts its finger on one of the film’s strengths:
“City of Life and Death” isn’t cathartic: it offers no uplifting moments, just the immodest balm of art. The horrors it represents can be almost too difficult to watch, yet you keep watching because Mr. Lu makes the case that you must. In one awful, surreal interlude, severed male heads swing from rope like ornaments, while in another, Japanese soldiers — having buried some Chinese men alive — stamp down the earth as if planting a crop.
Although I recommend this film with some reservations, I have to wonder about the strange world we are living in when the “immodest balm of art” suffices. Somehow, the visual power of Lu’s film is expected as a pay off when all else fails in terms of our conventional expectations of drama. Shot in black-and-white, it certainly grips your attention with its flair for the macabre.
But despite my admittedly close attention to the gruesome action, I found myself troubled throughout by the film’s lack of context. There is nothing at all to explain why the Japanese occupation was so barbaric. In many ways, the film reminded me of the 1997 “Welcome to Sarajevo” that depicted the Serbs in pretty much the same terms, as demonic forces that killed for the love of killing.
Iris Chang’s book set the tone for the film by adopting the same stance toward the Japanese whose culture apparently set them on the course of a Nanking holocaust in the same way that German culture prepared the extermination of the Jews. Some critics of her books take exception to that view, however. In a 1998 review that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, David M. Kennedy wrote:
Elsewhere Chang serves notice that “this book is not intended as a commentary on the Japanese character,” but then immediately plunges into an exploration of the thousand-year-deep roots of the “Japanese identity”–a bloody business, in her estimation, replete with martial competitions, samurai ethics, and the fearsome warriors’ code of bushido, the clear inference being, despite the disclaimer, that “the path to Nanking” runs through the very marrow of Japanese culture.
In my view, wartime savagery is not the reflection of any national culture but instead the result of indoctrination that young men and women receive when they are drafted or when they enlist during the kind of fervor that arose after 9/11. Military training consists mainly of getting normal people to get used to the idea of killing, a most unnatural form of behavior no matter what a sociobiologist might tell you. It is not in our culture or in our genes. It is rather in the propaganda system of the hegemonic powers and their drill instructors that are carefully selected for their ability to transform ordinary people into killers. For insights into this, I recommend Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket”.
This is a follow-up to my initial post on the New York Asian Film Festival, which included a review of a pre-festival screening of “High Noon”, a Hong Kong movie about disaffected teenagers. The festival began officially last night and I strongly urge people in the Greater New York area to try to make it as many screenings as possible since on the evidence of the 7 movies below you will simply not find anything better—starting with Woody Allen’s latest flop.
Unfortunately, only three of the movies discussed below have youtube clips with English subtitles. I do include still photos for the others to convey some sense of what these altogether marvelous films are about. I should add that if you do want to see the youtube clips sans subtitles, you can. All are available through youtube searches.
1. “When the Full Moon Rises” (Kala Malam Bulan Mengambang, Malaysia, 2008)
Remember “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”, the TV show from the mid-70s that featured Darren McGavin as a reporter for a National Enquirer type tabloid? In each episode McGavin as Carl Kolchak tracked down one mysterious killing or another, inevitably involving some supernatural creature or another—from an abominable snowman to vampires. By many accounts, this show was the inspiration for “X Files”.
This Malaysian flick (the first I have ever seen) was directed by Mamat Khalid and stars Rosyam Nor as Saleh, a reporter in the Kolchak mold. But rather than playing it straight, Khalid made a movie that borrows liberally from Leslie Nielsen movies like “The Naked Gun”. Nor bumbles from one scene to another, having little clue about what is going on about him.
Set in 1956, on the eve of Malaysian independence, Saleh stumbles into a vast conspiracy of Communists who seem to style themselves as Nazis, ghosts, were-tigers, vampires and midget gangsters. The plot is almost incidental to the movie, which is much more about genre-subversion. Mamat Khalid is a huge fan of cheesy 1950s movies in Malaysia (apparently it was a thriving industry) and has created a pastiche that both honors and pokes fun at the past. The movie’s style is one part Tim Burton and one part Charles Ludlum’s Theater of the Ridiculous. Any attempt on my part to analyze the movie would prove futile, except to say that it is a pie in the face to conventional nationalist mythology.
2. Dachimawa Lee (South Korea, 2008)
This is very much in the spirit of the flick above. Dachimawa Lee is a comic version of the Korean version of James Bond anti-Communist movies of the 70s and 80s. Like Saleh the reporter and Inspector Clouseau, superspy Dachimawa Lee often creates havoc no matter his best intentions. The plot revolves around Lee tracking down Japanese spies who have stolen a Golden Buddha. But as was the case with “When the Full Moon Rises”, the real purpose of the movie is to set up one comic scene after another and to mock nationalist mythology, all of which involve a running sight gag—namely lead actor Lim Won-Hie’s baby face. It is rather like casting Lou Costello as James Bond.
3. Breathless (Ddongpari, South Korea, 2009)
This is a powerful study of a loan shark enforcer who despite his sadism and his misogyny emerges in the end as a sympathetic character, at least within the context of a society that accepts such behavior as normal.
Yang Ik-June, who directed, wrote and played the thuggish anti-hero Sang-Hoon, touches raw nerves in this his debut film. As a young boy, Sang-Hoon witnessed the killing of his mother by his father who has just been released from prison after 16 years.. This brutal act has done nothing except make Sang-Hoon eager to brutalize the rest of the world, including his father. In the very first scene, a man is beating his girlfriend on the street. Without a word, Sang-Hoon drags the man away and beats him to a bloody pulp. When he is finished, he begins slapping the woman around. Clearly, social improvement was not on his mind when he stepped in.
A day later he crosses path with a high school girl who calls him to order for spitting on the ground, a little too close to her feet. This prompts Sang-Hoon to punch her in the face. Yeon-Hee (Kim Gol-Bi) is no pushover and demands restitution from Sang-Hoon, who lives by his own warped code. Her insistence, however, impresses him and the two rapidly become companions even if much of their conversation consists of him calling her a cunt and her calling him a gangster scumbag.
Yeon-Hee developed her own callousness living with an abusive brother who aspires to be a gangster himself. As it turns out, he eventually lands a job as Sang-Hoon’s trainee and puts up with daily beatings for not being tough enough with the hapless souls from whom they extract repayment.
As is the case with the best Korean movies, the personal becomes the political. Sang-Hoon’s is the prototypical Korean male, even though his toughness is exaggerated for effect. Director/writer Yang Ik-June is really interested in diagnosing a deep-seated malaise through the film medium. Unlike “The Raging Bull”, which this film bears some resemblance to in its relentless brutality, this is more than just the portrait of an individual. In an interview with Twitch magazine, Yang tried to put the domestic violence that occurs throughout the film in a broader context:
As for domestic violence, the ones who commit that are always the fathers, as you can see in the movie. And there is a reason for that: in the past Korea was colonized very often, it was also invaded very often, so the economic situation in Korea was very hard, very difficult. And so the fathers, who were responsible for the family, they did not have an attitude of good behavior or love towards the family. What they were thinking was: “I need to earn money, so that my family can live good”. So there is a difference between that. Instead of love for the family they want to earn money. Because they are so obsessed with earning money they drag their family with violence towards that goal, instead of going there together. And that is where all that domestic violence comes from.
4. Equation of Love and Death (Li Mi de caixiang, China, 2008)
This movie should appeal to the audiences who go for the “coincidence” movies like “Amores Perros”, “Crash”, “Babel”, et al. As is the case in this genre that has gone viral in international film circles, the major characters bump into each other to life-altering effect. And as is the case with the rise of China economically, this particular film not only competes with the Western product but also exceeds them handsomely.
The main character is Zhou Xun, a young female cabdriver whose boyfriend disappeared years earlier and whose memory still haunts her. In the beginning of the movie, she runs into two poor and desperate peasants trying to make their way home. They are not above robbing her to pay for their airfare back to the rural village that they have not seen in practically as many years as she has been separated from her boyfriend.
In a scene that evokes the crashes in Paul Haggis’s dreadful movie “Crash”, Zhou Xun and the two desperados come together in a highway accident that sets the gears of the movie into motion.
What makes Equation of Love and Death far more interesting than its Hollywood counterparts is its relentless energy and brilliant acting. Of particular note is the performance of the two captors played by Wang Baoqiang and Wang Hanyui, who effectively stand in for the hundreds of millions of farmers and temporary workers screwed over by the Chinese capitalist system. Wang Baoqiang might be familiar to those who have seen “Blind Shaft”, another Chinese movie about super-exploited workers in the coalfields. Wang Baoqiang plays a hapless peasant desperate for work that is victimized by a couple of con artists promising work. He is outstanding in both films.
5. Plastic City (Dangkou, Hong Kong, 2008)
This has a most unusual setting for a Hong Kong crime movie, namely São Paulo, Brazil. This joint Hong Kong-Brazil production tells the story of a crime boss involved in counterfeit goods trafficking, a far cry from the drugs or professional assassination angle these movies rely on so often. It is also a male bonding movie with the older crime boss Yuda (Anthony Wong) relying on a young and handsome Japanese man named Kirin (Joe Odagiri). Their relationship is like father and son, but has homoerotic overtones as well.
Yuda and Kirin have rivals in the counterfeit goods business, as might be expected. They are also pressured and extorted simultaneously by crooked cops. Although I expected the movie to unfold according to the conventions of Hong Kong crime movies, it took on the character of a magical realist novel before long including a confrontation with an albino tiger in the rainforest.
6. Ip Man (Hong Kong, 2008)
An “old school” martial arts movie based loosely (very) on the life of Ip Man, who trained Bruce Lee in Kung Fu. As might be expected, the movie involves one choreographed fight scene between Ip Man (Donny Yen) and the bad guys after another. In keeping with the proud traditions of both Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, the fighting is pretty close to the real thing.
As it happens, the bad guys are Japanese soldiers who are occupying China during WWII. The movie makes no attempt to render them as complex characters and they serve mainly as punching bags for Ip Man, who seems capable of ridding China of its occupiers all on his own.
If you are looking for shaded characterization and subtle dialog, look elsewhere. But if you are looking for the exciting, kinetic action that put Hong Kong cinema on the map, this is a must-see.
7. Warlords (Tau ming chong, Hong Kong, 2007)
This is a historical drama based loosely (very, once again) on the Taiping Rebellion with superstars Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro in the leading roles. As the movie begins, General Pang Qingyun (Jet Li) finds himself the sole and bloodied survivor of a battle between the Taiping rebels (who had been led by a man claiming to be related to Jesus Christ) and the Qing army that Pang served in.
After being nursed to health by Lian (Jinglei Xu), a peasant girl that he becomes intimate with, Pang moves on to a nearby village where he tries to blend in with the local population that is being victimized by a bandit gang led by Zhao Er-Hu (Andy Lau) and Zhang Wen-Xiang (Takeshi Kaneshiro). Drawing upon his tested combat skills, Pang confronts Er-Hu and spares his life just when he has his sword at the bandit’s throat. Impressed with Pang’s prowess, Er-Hu invites him to join his gang. In no time at all, Pang becomes co-equal with the two bandit leaders as the three embark on a series of confrontations with the imperial army.
Showing his strategic acumen, Pang suggest to his two comrades that they enter the imperial army as a group so they can get their hands on rifles, which were essential to further success. In those days, soldiers were often rewarded with spoils of a vanquished city rather than wages so being properly equipped was a sine qua non.
As the three warlords become ever more powerful, Pang succumbs to hubris and begins to identify more and more with the royal family. When it becomes necessary to slaughter 4000 soldiers who have surrendered, Pang does not hesitate. This act of cruelty costs him the friendship of Er-Hu and Wen-Xiang who had long given up their bandit ways under Pang’s guidance. When they remind him of how he has forsaken his principles, he replies that the ends justify the means which for him is defeating the enemies of the throne.
Although the movie is first-rate entertainment, I was disappointed in its utter lack of interest in the historical context and which even the usually sagacious Subway Cinema, the organizers of the film festival, refer to as “an insane putsch led by a warlord claiming to be Jesus’ younger brother and it resulted in 20 million deaths.”
Despite the strange religious beliefs of the top Taiping rebel, farmlands under his control were seized from the feudal overlords and distributed to the peasants. He also banned foot binding and declared equality of the sexes. It also sought to eliminate class distinctions and in so doing was hailed by Mao Zedung as a forerunner to the revolution he led.
One of these days, a movie might be made that is sympathetic to the Taiping rebellion (if one has not been made already.) Now that’s one I’d pay good money for!
Last week I mentioned to my wife that very few things keep me committed to the hedge fund manager’s playground that Manhattan has become other than the ethnic restaurants we love exploring and the film festivals that feature the offbeat and the interesting. Despite being a film enthusiast, I have only stepped foot in a neighborhood theater once this year and that was to see Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me to Hell” (not recommended).
But when I received word a couple of months ago that the yearly New York Asian Film Festival was scheduled to open on June 19th, I felt like a tot awaiting a visit from Santa. I have been covering this festival as a NYFCO critic since it began and it has afforded me some of my greatest film experiences over the past decade.
As you might expect, the festival includes low culture as well as high. To be more exact, the low culture martial arts/gangster movies that Hong Kong pioneered incorporate many high culture aspects, incorporating innovative film techniques and penetrating looks at an Asian society where cops and gangsters often play interchangeable roles. For those who want a Marxist analysis of this genre, I strongly recommend “City on Fire”, a Verso book written by my friends Michael Hoover and Lisa Stokes which can be read online here.
Additionally, the festival screens movies that represent serious efforts to examine the human condition and that are clearly influenced by classic traditions in film going back to Satyajit Ray and Akira Kurosawa, not to speak of great American and European film.
Last night I attended a pre-festival screening for “High Noon”, a movie made in Hong Kong last year by a 24-year-old director named Mak Hei-yan who spoke during a q&a session. Mak’s movie utilized a screenplay about teenage angst and rebellion written by Tom Lin that also figured in companion movies made in Taiwan and Mainland China. Each director took liberties with the script to capture the local conditions where the movie was made. Mak’s movie captures the febrile energy of Hong Kong where at least some young people from the lower classes apparently remain immune to its dubious charms. If her title “High Noon” evokes the 1952 western classic about a sheriff discovering himself under the crucible of an outlaw threat, then the plot and style of “Rebel Without a Cause”, the 1955 movie about teenage angst.
Whether or not Ms. Mak has seen the James Dean vehicle, she has as acted as a medium for its message. Like the U.S. in the 1950s, today’s Hong Kong seems to have lost its moorings despite material abundance.
During the q&a, in response to my question about what social or economic conditions could be driving its youth to self-destructive behavior, Mak stated that they still have hope that friendship and love are possible despite all odds. For someone like me who was about the age of the characters in “High Noon” when “Rebel Without a Cause” was popular, I felt that this dialog between James Dean and his love interest would have fit in with her film:
Judy: I love somebody. All the time I’ve been… I’ve been looking for someone to love me. And now I love somebody. And it’s so easy. Why is it easy now?
Jim Stark: I don’t know; it is for me, too.
Judy: I love you, Jim. I really mean it.
Jim Stark: Well, I’m glad.
The travails of Mak’s characters are not that different from those that afflict characters in American flicks, including drug abuse, teen pregnancy, and mindless gang violence. But it is what she does with these problems that set her apart from her peers in the West, including the feckless producers of “Juno”, a movie about teen pregnancy that treats it like a lark. Additionally, a key plot element involves one of her male protagonists uploading a video showing him having sex with his girlfriend that eventually becomes viral—to shattering consequences. All of these problems are treated without kid gloves and to greater dramatic impact than what we have become accustomed to from Hollywood.
Beyond her ability to treat the inner lives of her characters with a depth and maturity that belies her own youth, Mak has a flair for the dramatic visual statement that is the mark of a real genius with a camera. In one scene, one of her seven male students and a ketamine addict (a drug originally used by veterinarians but has emerged as a drug of choice at raves) tries to shut himself inside his mother’s vinyl suitcase, a gesture evoking a desire to go back into the womb in some ways. When he proves too large, he begins jumping up and down on it instead. This mad behavior serves to describe his psyche much more dramatically than the words of a social worker or priest, the customary Greek chorus in Hollywood teen angst movies.
“High Noon” will be shown again at the film festival. I can only urge New Yorkers to bend every effort to see as many of these movies as they can since they are unique opportunities to get a bird’s eye view of Asian society as well as superb entertainment. Scheduling information is here.
