As promised

[chani]

Two reviews concerning the two last films I saw, The Wayward Cloud and Where The Truth Lies.

I really don't know what to say about the Taiwanese movie, Tian bian yi duo yun (The Wayward Cloud), except that it is a cinematographic experience, even though I prefered Tsai Ming-Liang's previous works (like The River). It isn't a movie for everybody and certainly not for kids. First off it's a movie for photographers and people who enjoy arty shots. Every shot is thought, polished, built as a masterpiece of cinematic work. There are a few amazing shots in the film. But above all, it's a conceptual movie with a symbolical language and haunting themes (that are in all of his films).

As for the pitch:

A very hot summer in Taipei drives everybody on the edges. It's very dry so the lack of water quickly becomes an issue. Watermelons are cheap and they can stand in for water. A young woman and a young man live in the same building. They have nothing in common but some day they meet up and love ensues, but she doesn't know he makes a living as a porn actor playing in movies just above her own apartment. 

The Wayward Cloud is a film about love, but also about water problems (a recurring theme, the water is either missing, leaking or polluted in Tsai's movies), industrial towns and the isolation they provide, about heat and drought, about sex and frustration.  It's about pornography, and of course about alienation. Actually it's a critique of porn since a few scenes show how porn films are shooting. It's often funny with moments or details working as comic relief which creates a distance between the audience and what is happening on screen which would be unbearable otherwise (is there something more boring and depressing than the shooting of porn?).
 The main theme, in my opinion, is the matter of ersatz, hence the metaphor of the water melons used as a substitute of water (or used as a fetish and replacing a cunt in a the poster-scene that reminds me of Courbet's famous painting, L'Origine du Monde). Water melons can't really make up for the lack of water just like porn can't make up for the lack of intimacy, of connection and passion between human beings. Erstaz don't work, and the male character knows it better than the female one (he's obviously fed up of water melons!).

The musical interludes (told you it was an experience!) are completely insane and provide a certain lightness because they are cheesy enough to make you smile, with a bit of political criticism (the statue of dictator Chiang Kai-shek kind of become a sort of giant dildo for a troupe of singing flower-ladies!). The rest of the movie is without any music but there's an interesting work on shadowgraphes and on sounds (eating sounds, sex sounds) from the first sex scene with the water melon to the last one. That last sex scene is hard to take, according to me because of the sound, even though the protagonists manage to connect finally...You barely dare to swallow, especially if you are a woman, just like men usually don't feel well when watching the ending of Oshima's In the realm of the senses. But Tsai's movie isn't like Oshima's. First because the scenes aren't pornographic, but also because it's much more intellectual with plenty of metaphores (like the locked suitcase!). It is made to be parsed, it says things while Oshima's movie showed stuff.

I really can't say if the last shot is the most disgusting or the most beautiful thing ever. Having said that, it's less disturbing and shocking than The River, and above all it's more accessible despite so few dialogues.

I went to see Atom Egoyan's  Where The Truth Lies because of the two leading actors, Kevin Bacon who is often excellent and Colin Firth who is well...Colin Firth! By the way I kinda feel the urge to watch my DVDs of Pride and Prejudice BBC style...

 

A successful comedy duo, Lenny and Vince who were a national sensation thanks to their mob-run nightclub and telethon act, split up in the 50's after they were both involved in the demise of a young girl, Maureen, whose body was found in their suite in New Jersey. 15 years later a young journalist, Karen O'Connor, who used to be a big fan of the duo, wants to know the truth. But of course it's more complicated than that...

The revelation, the truth that we apparently get in the end, is not as important to the movie as the actual journey. It looks like true film noir but what I liked about this film is that it seemed mainstream but actually was not at all. It had a very refreshing tone and actually conned the audience.

In a way it was very classical. The mise-en-scène was precise, the pace was good, the score suited the film and created the right atmosphere and we got amazing complex performances from everyone.

Of course Bacon shines as Lenny, but the role is meant to shine, and he plays it perfectly. Colin Firth as Vince Collins plays vulnerability and sense of control or violence which is more subtle and makes his character oddly touching but won't get him an award. Alison Lohman as Karen O'Connor is very good too, at once timid, cunning, she surrenders as well as she controls. She's the perfect Alice (but it's another actress who plays Alice in the movie).

Classical but...never quite giving you what you would have expected!

The movie is quite erotic too with hot sex scenes, especially the lesbian one (yes this is me saying that!). Sex scenes are tasteful and hot at once, and not mainstream even though there wasn't any frontal nudity from the males. The atmosphere is oneiric which fits in the drugs theme and in the Alice subtext. Because yes Lewis Carroll is never far away.

I don't want to reveal too much and spoil people but I really enjoyed that film. The key lies in the mystery that the characters are, not in what happened to Maureen. The visible plot isn't the matter of the film, hence all the implausibilities. Above all the film avoids all the clichés and the easiness that Cronenberg's A History Of Violence indulged in, it is elegant, creative and thought-provoking !

 

Comments

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Well technically it was porn since there was erect penis, real penetrations, real blow jobs, semen, close-ups on genitalia etc...but of course it's also a "true" film with a scenario, good actors and arty shots. I agree it isn't a porn movie, it isn't porn in spirit and it isn't made to make the audience masturbate (which is the goal of porn), but it definitely has pornographic scenes. The film ruined the actors' career, especially the girl who played Sada, btw.

I saw it twice, the last time it was indeed in the 90's on telly (ARTE the cultural French-German channel, very late of course), so I may have seen an un-cut (!) version, indeed.

The sex acts are quite hard compared to any other films that aren't X-rated, she sucks him a lot (she's obsessed by his penis, hence the ending...), the carnal passion is well shown (and yes it was a real story that happened in the 30's). The S&M theme is there too, and it's quite graphic. There's a scene in which an egg is inserted into Sada's vagina and she has to lay it like a hen...and her lover eats sushis while dipping them into her to get some juice...A young girl is deflowered by geishas with a dildo...Very Japanese!
The most "disturbing" scene, IMO, might be when Sada makes him fuck a very old servant, he's disgusted by the woman but horny enough to do it, without paying too attention to the old body and we aren't sure that the old lady simply passed out or died from a last orgasm.

[candlelightfrot.livejournal.com]

Ok... now I remember the sex. Sex in movies sorta gets all rolled into one for me, I can't recognize what act happened where. But I do remember the egg and the old woman, now that you have reminded me.

Well, the Japanese are rather involved in erotica and the naughty bits. Their erotic art prints often stylize the rest of the body but the sex organs are drawn to a high degree of detail. So "Senses" was very much in that 'realm.'