In Review: THE SOCIAL NETWORK (David Fincher, 2010)

http://www.theoneonefour.com/2010/11/21/in-review-the-social-network-david-fincher-2010/

UP IN THE AIR (Jason Reitman, 2009)

http://www.theoneonefour.com/2010/03/15/in-review-up-in-the-air-jason-reitman-2009/

HAPPY END (Chung Ji-woo, 1999)

Review of Happy End at the oneonefour.com:

http://www.theoneonefour.com/2010/01/20/in-review-happy-end-chung-ji-woo-1999/

In Review: THIS CHARMING GIRL

I have just posted a review of Lee Yoon-ki's first film, This Charming Girl (2004). It's available here:

http://www.theoneonefour.com/2009/09/24/in-review-this-charming-girl-lee-yoon-ki-2004/

The Battle for the Soul of Jesse Eisenberg

I recently watched Adventureland (Greg Mottola, 2009), newly released on DVD, an indie romantic comedy that I really enjoyed. It stars Jesse Eisenberg, who is also the lead of two other very good comedy-dramas, Roger Dodger (Dylan Kidd, 2002) and The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach, 2005). These three films have a great deal in common, especially in terms of the characters that Eisenberg plays. In all three, Eisenberg is positioned between different concepts of masculinity, especially in relation to women. Eisenberg's characters are all very similar, sensitive young men who want to respect women and find romantic love. They are in many ways post-feminist young men who want to join in rejecting traditional masculinity. However, in each film, there is an older male character who tempts the character into rejecting their sensitivity and embracing their "natural" sexual urges. Of course, these natural urges involve viewing sexuality in a physical rather than idealist light.

This biological argument gets expressed in the great opening scene of Roger Dodger, with Roger's opening line: "What's happening right now is important only in the context of our continuing evolution as a species." Roger (played by Campbell Scott) explains to his colleagues that man is only useful as long as he has a utility to women. Once that function ceases, which he believes is coming in the future with technology that will allow procreation without men, the result will not be "equality" but rather "natural selection"; the role of the male gender will thus become first servitude and then elimination. It is a dazzling speech and performance, as indicated within the film by the applause he is given by his colleagues after he concludes, and sets up Roger as a seducer, not only or even primarily of women but of his young nephew (played by Eisenberg). It clearly sets up the character's hatred of women as being intimately linked to his vulnerability. But this vulnerability is actually not biological in any way. It is primarily social and cultural, a result of Roger's own difficult relationship with his father. This scene sets the stage for the drama not only of Roger Dodger but of the later films as well. Both the father in The Squid and the Whale (played by Jeff Daniels) and the carnival maintenance worker in Adventureland (played by Ryan Reynolds) make similar arguments about sexuality being something that is a physical need in order to justify their own behaviour, and Eisenberg in each case is lured into rejecting his former values and following this path. By the end of each of these films, however, the character comes to a better understanding of the jaded and rather pathetic nature of these characters (only in Roger Dodger does this character also come to some self-realization) and rejects them.


Adventureland is especially interesting because Eisenberg's character is now older (post-graduate) and in many ways the battle is not as difficult. He easily rejects Connell for the loser that he is, and even forgives his girlfriend for cheating on him. This is why I think the most interesting character in the film is actually Em (played by Kristen Stewart), who is also torn between two different types of masculinity and has difficulty rejecting the older form. Again, this is less biological than social, given the difficulty she has in her own family situation. Still, although it is about slightly older characters, Adventureland still has a youthful idealism and concludes on a beautiful shot just before Eisenberg enters into the world of sexuality. What will be interesting will be if Eisenberg continues to get cast as similar characters as he gets older. Because in many ways the battle he will face going forward will be much more internal, an attempt to maintain a certain idealism in the face of social reality.

THE HURT LOCKER (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009)

By far the most critically acclaimed film of the year so far is Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq war action film The Hurt Locker. When discussing the film, people inevitably point out that it is an "apolitical" Iraq film, usually claiming this as one of the reasons it is so successful. In my opinion, there is no such thing as an "apolitical" film, but I understand what the critics are referencing. Unlike many of the other Iraqi films, there is no overt political stance, nothing polemical about the story. It is an action film set in Iraq, about an elite three man bomb squad. Most of the film concerns the men doing their job, with brief moments away from battle in between. It has the feel of a Howard Hawks film, of professionals at work. But, it is also, I think very clearly, a film about America in Iraq. The political may be subtext here, but it is nevertheless very present. (WARNING: Some spoilers ahead)

After an opening in which the first group leader is killed, the film follows the new group leader, Sgt. James, along with Sgt. Sanborn and Specialist Eldridge. Clearly, James is the lead of the movie, a character with tremendous charisma, a man who seems, especially through the first part of the film, to be exactly the type of man and leader war requires. He may be crazy and have a death wish, but the film also romanticizes this as the type of bravery and courage one needs in battle (he is reminscient of the character of Kilgore in Apocalypse Now). He is also very paternal, especially to young Eldridge, who is seeing a army doctor because he is having difficulty adjusting to the stress of his job.


The major set piece of the film is a sniper battle, and although it is a great example of filmmaking from Bigelow, it is also the most ideologically dubious part of the film. It ends up having the feel of a video game, in which we can take pleasure and thrill from long distance murder. This takes place roughly halfway through the film. Fortunately, the last hour works towards questioning the heroism it initially celebrates.

This begins right after the battle, when the three men have a drunken evening together. At the end of this night, James puts on the helmet he uses when going into diffuse bombs. It is the only thing he feels comfortable doing. In the next scene, the men discover a "body bomb" which James believes is the young Iraqi boy he has befriended. This drives him towards revenge, in which he recklessly puts his men's lives in danger.

On one of these ill-advised missions, Eldridge is wounded and sent home, denouncing James before he leaves. Shortly afterwards, we learn that the young Iraqi boy is actually still alive, making James' actions even more absurd. The final mission before leaving is trying to diffuse a bomb strapped to an innocent Iraqi man. This time, however, James is unable to save the man and the bomb explodes.

James and Sanford survive, although their faces show the effects of the shrapnel. They have an extended talk about the dangers of their lives, in which Sanford claims he hates the country and wants to leave. James, however, is a different case.

We see him back at home, but for James, this world is more strange and disconcerting than anything in Iraq. Bigelow films the supermarket in a way that would not seem altogether out of place in Godard and Gorin's Tout Va Bien. James, like America, or at least a part of America, has become an addict. In his case, as the opening states, the drug is war itself.


Early in the film, we are given a deadline heading: 38 days left in Bravo Company's rotation. However, the film ends by reversing this expectation, as James goes back to Iraq for another year of duty. The critique of America comes through this lead character, who cannot stop living this life of war. Still, Bigelow does not make this too overt. Here, she is similar to Hawks, who would often subtly critique his heroes but also maintain a certain macho admiration for them. The last shot of The Hurt Locker does this as well. It shows the absurdity of James going back into battle for another 365 days, this time into an increasingly desolate Iraq. But the use of slow-motion and loud music also gives this sequence a grandiose quality that comes across as "cool". Like most mainstream American films, The Hurt Locker is not so much apolitical as it is contradictory and incoherent at the ideological level, working on both those in favour of and opposed to America as a military force. This is a limitation and a plus: we have both a great action movie and a critique of that mentality. Ultimately, any critique of something that also becomes it is inconsistent and even hypocritical. At the same time, only the most closed-minded viewer will fail to ponder the mentality of war addiction this story puts across.

Recent Films

I've seen a few more new films over the past two weeks, bringing my total of 2009 films up to 13, a very high number for this time of year. Usually there are few films of interest until later in the year, but the new films at the Jeonju film festival, the release of new films by Korean auteurs, and a few interesting genre exercises have made this first half of the year relatively strong.

The most recent three films I have seen in the theatre are all explorations of familiar genres: Bong Joon-ho's Mother, Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom, and Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell. The best of the group is the later, a great, fun, low-budget horror homage by the now very mainstream director Sam Raimie. Of course, this isn't actually "low-budget", but rather, like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse (2007), a tribute to those films, the difference being Raimi was once an actual director of these types of movies with his Evil Dead trilogy. Any fan of horror films will be familiar with what Raimi is up to and there are plenty of great and inventive sequences on display here. But, for the student of horror films this one works on an ideological level as well, with a pretty clear critique of capitalism and the "values" it embodies. This is another way in which it is a throwback, recalling the great cycle of horror films from the 1970s. The Brothers Bloom is the most self-conscious and self-reflexive of the bunch, a con film that uses the genre as a metaphor for myths and storytelling in general. It is too heavy-handed and the ending is not successful, but it is very well-written and acted and I quite enjoyed it on that level. Mother, Bong's deconstruction of the maternal melodrama, is not a very "fun" film, especially over the first half. But, after Bong has set up his plot, the concluding act works very well. It also is dark and unusual enough to stick in the mind.

All three films are still in theatres here and I think they are all worth seeing, and Raimi's in particular is really one that works great in the theatre with an audience. But, just a warning, it's a loud one.

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (Sam Mendes, 2008)

"I Don't Want to Talk About the Wheelers Anymore"

Near the conclusion of Revolutionary Road, there is a brief epilogue to the future, after the Wheelers (played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet) have left their suburban community. Their neighbors are having a drink with the new residents and discussing their former friends. The husband suddenly leaves and walks into their backyard. The wife follows, and the husband says that he doesn't want to talk about the Wheelers anymore. The wife says they don't have to, and the two kiss and embrace. This scene functions as a meta-commentary not only on the film, but on the subsequent critical response. Much of the criticism labeled at the movie concentrates on how much they dislike the two lead characters, who are described as horrible, narcissistic people. The reviews seem not to be about the movie but about the offensiveness of the characters. Reviewers, like the husband next door, do not want to talk about the Wheelers. They do not feel the characters are worthy of their attention and time.

This response is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, the vitriol aimed at the Wheelers seems disproportionate. These characters are flawed, but hardly villainous and hardly beyond the realms of realism. Most of this criticism seems very reactionary: they are snobs (read Eastern elites), they are bad parents (although we never really see much with the children, who are simply not the focus of the story), etc. There was even a criticism of the British director Mendes making another film critical of America. Second, these criticisms of the characters neglect the extent to which the Wheelers are both concrete characters and allegorical figures. They have to be placed within the context of the other characters and what they represent to them. However flawed they may be, they also represent something extra-ordinary to those around them.

This distinctive quality of the Wheelers is both admired and feared, both exciting and crazy. They are linked quite clearly with another allegorical character, John Givings, the son of their neighbors who has a PhD in Mathemathics but is also in a mental hospital and deemed insane by the society. He is only in two scenes, one in which he bonds with the Wheelers over their proposed move to Paris, and another in which he criticizes them for turning their backs on their plan, but these scenes are the most distinctive in the film. Dr. Givings serves to comment on the Wheelers, both in their similarities and differences with him. The Wheelers are both revolutionaries and just another middle-class couple. In the terms that would be used in the 60s, they are weekend leftists, not the Weather underground. They play out a very American myth. Paris is a frontier in which to escape the trap of American society, a place of adventure where the limitations of society can be avoided.

All of this allegory is heavy-handed, and certainly the film is not particularly subtle. This is characteristic of Mendes, of whom I am not generally an admirer. But this film, perhaps because of the backlash against it, earns my respect. It is not a masterpiece of directing, but at least Mendes does not rely totally on intensified continuity editing to achieve his effects. The mise-en-scene and cinematography may be overly pronounced, but to hold a shot for over a minute in today's Hollywood is a welcome change. And unlike Mendes' early films, such as American Beauty (1999) and Road to Perdition (2002), there is no real redemption offered here. This is a film not afraid to end negatively, pessimistically and critically. It is a rare Hollywood film helped rather than hurt by its conclusion. And I suspect it is this lack of a feel-good ending that people are reacting against.

One final note: I have heard a couple of comparsions of Revolutionary Road as a far less interesting take on material covered much better in the AMC television series "Mad Men". While I can understand the comparisons, they are not really fair to the film to say "Mad Men" is "better". What it is, unquestionably, is more entertaining, especially to a male audience. "Mad Men" is a very typical product of our current era. It condemns the characters and at the same time celebrates them as "cool" and "hip". It is both profound and superficial, and makes no real demands or challenges of its audience. Revolutionary Road is harsher medicine; it is much less hip, much less fun, but is certainly no re-tread of material handled better on "Mad Men".

MILK (Gus Van Sant, 2008)

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Earlier this year, Gus Van Sant made Paranoid Park, another film in an experimental register that followed such works as Last Days (2005), Elephant (2003), and Gerry (2002). His new film, Milk, is a very different work, one in which Van Sant seemingly returns to his more mainstream works of the 1990s (Good Will Hunting [1997] Psycho [1998], and Finding Forrester [2000]). Clearly, Van Sant wants this more political work to reach a larger audience. However, I do not think he reverts to pedestrian style of his earlier mass audience efforts. In fact, I slightly prefer Milk to Paranoid Park. Both are near masterpieces of a comparable quality (if very different in approach), but Milk's greater political force makes me favour it more.

As a biopic, Milk is most interesting in how it rejects so many of the cliches of this mini-genre. It does not focus on Milk's early life. In fact, Milk's personal life in general takes a backstage to what actually made him interesting: his political activism. This is what the film is really about. Although Milk has been compared to Malcolm X (Spike Lee, 1992), it avoids the problems to which Lee's film falls victim. Malcolm X becomes so consumed with its lead character's life and personality that it fails to be a really compelling about its political activism. Malcolm X as a figure ends up feeling very safe and even co-opted. This is not the case with Van Sant's Harvey Milk. The biggest surprise about the movie is that it does not play it safe politically. It argues that there is a need for more radical approaches and that middle-of-the-road liberal centrism is not always (or even usually) the real motor for change.

For this reason, I was reminded of The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966), a most unlikely and no doubt highly idiosyncratic comparison on my part. Seeing the Castro and the oppression it faced from those in authority (an oppression whose wider history is seen in the opening credits [Figure 1]), I recalled the Casbah under French rule. In particular, the street protests that Van Sant depicts have an edge to them that uses the realist style that Pontecorvo conveys so well (Figures 2, 4-7). Milk's role as mediator is to represent this outrage and make happen the changes the community needs, not unlike the position of the FLN. In the gay movement, there is not the terrorism of the Algerian War, but there is every indication that Milk and his followers would result to this if their civil rights and safety continued to be abused. If Proposition 6, which is a major part of the narrative, had not been defeated in 1978, as the movement first believed, violence seemed a real and maybe necessary possibility. For this reason, Milk is more than just conventional Hollywood liberalism.

A large part of one's evaluation of Milk turns on how you view its more conventional and melodramatic moments. If you see these as Van Sant sacrificing artistic integrity to make his film more palpable for the popular audience, your evaluation will be more negative. But there is a way of reading these moments as working in concert with the more political scenes of collective action. Here I'm reminded of another great political work, the little known Scream from Silence (Anne-Claire Poirier, 1979). There's even a direct connection here with the use of the whistle as a defense against heterosexual male aggression and violence, which Van Sant uses for his most poetic shot in the film (Figure 3). In her tour de force of feminist activism, Poirier establishes a dialectic between Godardian style counter cinema and the melodrama of a suffering female victim. In his article on the film, André Loiselle argues that this combination of distance and emotion makes it both more emotionally resonant and politically effective. While Milk is not in the same category, I do think its melodramatic scenes and devices serve a purpose. For example, the sequence of Milk's murder uses a rack focus in which Milk looks out at his favorite opera (Figure 8). It is rather overblown, but it does reflect Milk and the gay movement's own fascination with the operatic aesthetic and thus is appropriate as a depiction of his final moment. If this and similar tactics, such as the musical score, are seen as an extension of the importance of emotion as well as reason, Milk can be viewed as less compromised and more authentic in its vision, even if that particular vision is not as pure as Van Sant's other recent films.

André Loiselle, “Despair as Empowerment: Melodrama and Counter-Cinema in Anne Claire Poirier’s Mournir à tue-tête (Scream from Silence)” Canadian Journal of Film Studies vol. 8, no.2 (Fall 1999): 21-43.

SEX AND THE CITY (Michael Patrick King, 2008)

For the first time in many months, I ventured to a multiplex for a new mainstream release, the film version of HBO's Sex and the City. I enjoyed the series well enough, although less so as it progressed (early on there was something liberating about the show's frankness). I didn't have great expectations heading in, but figured of all the major summer releases, I would probably find this one more interesting than the others. Here are some thoughts:

- I found the film mildly entertaining, although much less funny than the series, especially the earlier episodes. It is heavy on melodrama, some of which is effective because of the performances. The writing is much flatter than the series as well. I wasn't bored, and not actively annoyed either. Given my low expectations of contemporary Hollywood, not bad.

- Aesthetically, the transition to the big screen did not change the style much. There were moments of bombast, especially the opening and closing, but generally it was TV functional cutting of the intensified continuity variety. King's background as a TV director does not differentiate him positively or negatively, since the televisual style has taken over mainstream filmmaking over the past couple of decades. There was a New Year's Eve montage through the snow that I thought was well-handled because it wasn't overblown.

- Narratively, the first hour was quite cinematic in adhering to the 3 act structure: 1st act (1/4 of film) (set-up); 2nd Act (1/2 of film) (rising drama); 3rd Act (1/4) (denouement). There is a major turning point an hour in, which is typical of Hollywood narrative. But then the film does begin to feel like a television narrative and is very loose for its last near hour and a half. This isn't inherently a flaw, but it does seem like it is neither tight and economical nor relaxed and character-driven, since the episodes and drama are very rushed and forced. And the conclusion is very quick for such an epic length.

- Ideologically, there is not much to add that hasn't been discussed. Yes, it is a Hollywood consumer product, and yes, there is a sexist dimension to the backlash against this. Other contradictions can be listed. What struck me was the film's sexual explicitness was combined with a simplistic view of sexuality (the Miranda-Steve subplot is pretty embarrassing). Perhaps King could have consulted Dan Savage as co-writer.

- Finally, the success and debate around the film is the most intriguing and at the same time boring aspect. The film opened here on Thursday, and with the Friday holiday, will certainly have a huge opening weekend. It is playing at 4 screens at the Co-ex multiplex here and every screening today was sold out. There is also mass advertising on television. Does this really say anything about the current social zeitgeist? Maybe, and we'll surely have lots of writing, both popular and academic, to explain the phenomenon. It's a cultural marker, to be sure, and more significant than Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and most other blockbusters. But it's also depressing that this is what passes as mainstream feminist (or is it post-feminist?) discourse.

- There's a discussion of the film over at Slate that is worth checking out.

WOMAN IS THE FUTURE OF MAN (Hong Sangsoo, 2004)

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Woman is the Future of Man is the fifth feature of Hong Sang-soo, and offers similarities with his previous work while also looking forward to his next films, although I have yet to see either the film that precedes it, Turning Gate (2002), or the film that follows, A Tale of Cinema (2005). It is Hong's shortest film at 87 minutes, and also the one with the longest average shot length (99 seconds). There are only 51 shots, well over half of which last more than one minute (see shot breakdown here). The narrative form, while not containing the experimentation of The Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors (2000), is nevertheless more difficult than his last two films and more in keeping with Hong's earlier obsessions.

The narrative begins with two men, Mun-ho, a painter and university instructor, and Heon-jun, a film director. After meeting outside Mun-ho's large house (he is married but we never meet his wife), the two men go to a restaurant to eat and drink. What follows is the longest shot of the film, over six minutes, most of which is a static two-shot (Figure 1). However, after the men argue (about a woman, of course), Mun-ho exits. Heon-jun asks the waitress to be in his film, she refuses, the camera pans over to her at the cash register, and then back to Heon-ju, who gazes out the window and makes eye contact with a woman (Figure 2), after which the shot finally cuts. We do not realize it yet, but this actually begins a flashback from Heon-jun's perspective about his relationship with Seon-hwa. Eventually, the film returns to the two-shot back at the restaurant (Figure 3). What follows is another very long take, the second longest of the film (over five minutes long) in which the earlier shot is repeated. This time, Heon-jun leaves, Mun-ho asks the waitress to pose nude for him, the camera pans away and then back, and Mun-ho makes eye contact with the same woman (I believe) (Figure 4) before Hong cuts. We then begin Mun-ho's flashback and his relationship with the same woman, Seon-hwa.

After these two flashbacks, the two men go to meet Seon-hwa again, and end up waiting for her at a bar (Figure 5). This shot is another two-shot, but now even the background of the earlier, simple shots is gone and we get only a wall. This is the nadir of the characters and their limited outlooks, and after Seon-hwa arrives shortly afterwards the compositions over the second half of the film become more crowded and complex (Figures 6 and 7). This mirrors the deepening of the characters' world. After another night with Seon-hwa in which both men sleep with her again (in the same order as before), we leave this trio and join Mun-ho and his students. Mun-ho takes a female student to a hotel for sex (a love hotel, as they are known in Korea) but they are discovered by a jealous male student. The final shot has Mun-ho and the girl discussing the possibility of being found out by the school. Here we have another two shot, but in the open air of the city (Figure 8). Eventually she leaves and the film ends with Mun-ho alone but yet framed against the vast vanishing point of the city lights (Figure 9). The ending denotes isolation, but also a denial of the type of selfishness Mun-ho has exhibited. The characters may deny the social world in their artistic solipsism, but the ending suggests that Hong wants to go beyond this.

A final note: one of my favorite filmmakers is Abbas Kiarostami, and one of the aspects of his work I most admire is the degree of self-criticism on display (an especially great example is The Wind Will Carry Us). I see a similar quality in Hong, and one that is becoming more and more present through his artist surrogate characters. His new film, Night and Day, moves further along in this direction.

WOMAN ON THE BEACH (Hong Sangsoo, 2006)

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My exploration of the work of Hong Sang-soo continued yesterday when I was able to track down a DVD copy of Woman on the Beach, his most recent film prior to the just released Night and Day (2008). Having watched Hong's first three films in order, I am now, purely by (Hongian) coincidence, proceeding backwards in time from Night and Day. From an evaluative standpoint, I felt Woman on the Beach to be my least favorite Hong film. It has the plainest structure and is the least dream-like of all of his work, and the second half especially lacked the complexity of his other films. But it still intrigued me for a number of reasons, especially in connection with Hong's other work. Coming to Woman on the Beach without knowing Hong's oeuvre would, I believe, deeply reduce its meaning and enjoyment, although it could also cause one to unfairly underrate it (as perhaps I've done). Rather than offer a review of the film, what I want to offer here are a few ideas around both Woman on the Beach and the reading of Hong in general.


The Mysteries of the Hongian Zoom

Michael Kerpan, one of the best critics of Asian cinema, commented to my previous entry on Night and Day that he is still "pondering the mysteries of the Hong-ian zoom." Hong first introduces the zoom, apparently very obtrusively, in his previous Tale of Cinema (see review discussing the zoom in that film here). I first encountered it with Night and Day, and it is on display again in Woman on the Beach. Its use is still, on the whole, rather difficult to decipher. But there is one scene where Hong uses the zoom in a clearly expressive manner.

It is one of the longest takes in the very slowly edited film (ASL over 70 seconds; shot breakdown here), lasting over four minutes. It contains three zooms. After starting with a two shot of two characters, Jung-rae (a film director) and Moon-sook (the woman he and his junior colleague Chang-uk are competing over) (Figure 1), Hong zooms out to reveal Chang-uk and create a three shot (Figure 2). This is the zoom as formal play, as Hong had ended the previous scene by making the audience believe Jung-rae and Moon-sook were going to liaison away from the other man. As the scene progresses, Moon-sook reveals that while living in Germany she had serious (meaning sexual) relationships with two or three foreigners. At this point, Jung-rae begins a tirade against "unattractive" Korean women who leave the country and become desirable in foreign cultures where Asian women are eroticized. At the beginning of his speech Hong zooms back in (Figure 3), commenting on his closed-mindedness and the anxiety her admission has provoked. Tellingly, he states that he is not bothered about the myth of Western men having larger penises, unconsciously revealing, of course, that this is exactly why he is upset, and not the absurd reason he mentions. Eventually, she responds by saying that he is a typical Korean man. At this point, Hong zooms back out (Figure 4). Jung-rae leaves and the shot finally cuts. This scene is not only the most compelling of the film, but it is also a great microcosm, in its dialogue and zooms, for the entire movement of the work.

Hong and Psychoanalysis

"If an object is to take its place in a libidinal space, its arbitrary character must remain concealed. The subject cannot say to herself, 'Since the object is arbitrary, I can choose whatever I want as the object of my drive.' The object must appear to be found, to offer itself as support and point of reference for the drive's circular movement. . . (This was) the fundamental lesson of Lacan: while it is true that any object can occupy the empty place of the Thing, it can do so only by means of the illusion that it was always already there, i.e., that it was not placed there by us but found there as an 'answer of the real.' Although any object can function as the object-cause of desire -- insofar as the power of fascination it exerts is not its immediate property but results from the place it occupies in the structure -- we must, by structural necessity, fall prey to the illusion that the power of fascination belongs to the object as such." (32-33)

The above quote is from Slavoj Zizek, from his book Looking Awry, which I recently re-read. The passage came to my mind while watching Woman on the Beach and reflecting on Hong's work in general. While it was serendipity that led to this connection, I think the link between Hong and psychoanalysis is more than simply in my mind. Hong holds a fascination for formalist critics such as David Bordwell, but his films are equally compelling for a psychoanalytical reading.

As typical of Hong, Woman on the Beach features a scene that is a repetition of an earlier sequence. Figure 5 is a centered two-shot of Jung-rae and Moon-sook during their first moments alone together. It is the most self-consciously beautiful in the film, and its striking cinematography makes its replay later in the film all the more noticeable (Figure 6). This time, Jung-rae is with a different woman, Seon-hee, who he met earlier in the day. Although the scene replays itself, there is a difference beyond simply the woman herself. The framing is no longer centered and balanced, and it is also slightly to the right of the earlier alignment. I would propose that the reason for this can be explained by the above quotation. Whereas the meeting with Moon-sook happened by chance, the courtship of the later woman was deliberately planned. He meets her by asking to interview her for a film because she looks like Moon-sook. In other words, he tries to replace her in his libidinal structure, which he eventually does. But when Moon-sook returns the next day, he chooses to return to her. However arbitrary she may be, Moon-sook was found as opposed to placed. This allows her to maintain a sense of illusion and fascination. Through his slightly mis-placed mise-en-scene, Hong subtly conveys this concept.

The Value and Limitation of Formalism

One of the most memorable images from Woman on the Beach occurs when the director tries to illustrate his problem with women and the possibility of overcoming it. He draws a diagram (Figure 7) in which he illustrates reality as a amorphous blob. Within this, various events take place, which are represented as points. The problem is that we form an idea or shape that obsesses us. The small triangle in the figure represents Moon-sook's relationship with a foreigner, which is pre-occupying him. He argues that he can perhaps overcome this by focusing on all the aspects of her, forming a different shape that comes closer to represent her whole reality. Not surprisingly, David Bordwell discusses this scene at the conclusion of essay on Hong (it also provides the inspiration for the title of his piece):

"A little parable about ellipsis, the diagram illustrates the out-of-synch patterning of films like The Power of Kangwon Province and Virgin Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors. It also evokes the ways in which Hong's men, obsessed with an image of woman, make the same mistakes over and over. Interestingly, Moon-sook, the woman who is pursuing Jung-rae, finds the diagram clever but evasive. After denouncing Korean men, at the climax she will assert: 'I don't repeat things.'
It might be our director's new motto. After venturing very far into a hall of mirrors, Hong returns to everyday life and the minutiae of behavior. Having shown that a person's every word or gesture can harbor obscure correspondences, he is content to let us find them on our own. He no longer has to repeat things." (29)

While Bordwell's interpretation here is certainly debatable (I find it far more schematic in terms of positive versus negative characters than what Hong actually presents), it is valid and even compelling in reading Hong's recent films in relation to his earlier work. What I problematic is the way Bordwell seems to be willfully ignorant of the more troubling aspects of the scene. The fact that the triangle represents a relationship with a foreigner, which is then crossed out, is not even described by Bordwell, let alone analyzed. Yet it is key to the scene and how we interpret its meaning. How do we read the crossed out triangle? Is it a call for acceptance of people? Or an evasion of aspects of people we cannot accept and thus need to be eliminated? It is here that we need to move beyond formalism. And although I do not have the time or probably the ability to apply a thorough psychoanalytical reading here, it seems to be inviting one with its blotch of the Real, its "pieces", and even its coffin-shape (death drive, anyone?).

A final note: Hong's discussion of sexual anxiety and Western foreigners is the first I've come across in Korean films, which is admittedly a small sample. I'd be curious how far reaching this exclusion is. Also, this looks forward to Hong's next film, Night and Day, which takes place mostly in France but features an almost exclusively Korean cast, reflecting the continued isolation of Korean characters within another country. I'm interested to see if Hong continues to incorporate more notions of "otherness" is his next films. It seems a fruitful avenue to explore to move away from the notions of purity and idealism that haunt all his films with the exception of Night and Day.

Slavoj Zizek, Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan Through Popular Culture (Cambridge, Mass: October Books, 1991)

David Bordwell, "Beyond Asian Minimalism: Hong Sangsoo's Geometry Lesson," in Huh Moonyung, Hong Sangsoo (Seoul: Korean Film Council, 2007): 19-29.

LAKE OF FIRE (Tony Kaye, 2006)

After months of trying, I was finally able to track down, through bittorrent, Tony Kaye's abortion documentary Lake of Fire. The film has received praise as a relatively un-biased take on the issue, neither pro-life or pro-choice. I would agree to a certain extent. The film is not un-biased, as there is a clear point of view, but its perspective is not really pro-life or pro-choice. Rather, it is anti-pro-life.

During debates on pornography, there evolved a position that became known as anti-anti-porn. This described people who did not necessary support pornography but nevertheless disagreed with the anti-porn position, especially around the idea of censorship. I think Kaye takes a similar position regarding abortion. The film begins with a discussion by intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky and Alan Dershowitz, who describe the difficulty and complexity of the issue. Kaye also introduces Dershowitz's friend Nat Hentoff, an liberal atheist who is nevertheless pro-life. However, Hentoff's more intellectually legitimate position is not explored. Instead, Kaye focuses on the extreme religious right who support the shooting of abortion doctors and the bombing of abortion clinics. The only time Hentoff is shown again is when he argues that the pro-life position needs to be more consistent: not only anti-abortion, but anti-capital punishment, anti-war, etc. This is followed by the most persuasive argument of the film, put forth by Chomsky:

"It is very well established that as women have more opportunities, more education, as better medical care is available, as more family planning is available, fertility rates go down, abortion goes down, children are better cared for, women are healthier. Those things are known. Those are all things that are easily under social control and should not be controversial. I don't think there should be anything controversial about making sure that women have access to decent obstetric care. That alone would save hundreds of thousands of lives each year. If you want to do things to help women, there are very easy ways to do it. And it's not just true of women but also children. Unicef also reports that, if my memory is correct, 15 million children die every year from mostly easily treatable diseases, things like a lack of drinkable water, or dehydration, or diarrhea, things that can be very easily treated, and treatable for pennies a day from the rich countries. So, if you're serious about saving lives, about saving children's lives, there are easy ways to do it. On the other hand, if you look at the same people who are most militant about saving the fetus, are they calling for an increase in foreign aid? Are they concerned that the United States has the most miserable and miserly foreign aid program of any developed country, by quite a large margin? The country has plenty of wealth, the means are easily there, (but) the social policy is being designed to enrich the wealthy even further and let the poor suffer, let the children starve, let the mothers die, and so on. That's an overwhelming problem. People who are willing to address those problems we can at least take seriously when they talk about values. You can listen to what they say about other things, like abortion, which is a hard question. But I don't think we should be interested in discussing it with people whose values are such that they don't care about the massive problem of killing and harming women and children that they could easily deal with and are doing nothing about. In fact, making it worse, not doing nothing about it, but making it worse."

I would describe the film as anti-pro-life because it does not deal with people on the pro-life side who we can take seriously. People like Hentoff are not the focus, but rather easily dismissed zealots or political opportunists like Pat Buchanan (at the end of Chomsky's speech, Kaye cuts to a Buchanan speech at the American Life League, a political "shock" cut if there ever was one). This is not necessarily a negative, since the vast majority of pro-lifers cannot be taken seriously, and Kaye effectively critiques this position. However, he could also have interrogated the pro-choice position as well. Kaye does hint at this, since some of the pro-choice positions are not well argued (the female rock band, for example), but ultimately does not make this a significant part of his film (see Alexander Payne's Citizen Ruth (1996) for a more neutral critique of both sides of the debate).

Why, then, would I not describe the film as pro-choice? Simply, it is the graphic imagery Kaye shows of an abortion early in the film which resonates in the mind. This is not the shock imagery used for pro-lifers, which is also shown but doesn't have the same impact. Rather, it is a matter-of-fact procedure shown of an abortion performed after 20 weeks in which we see the hand of the fetus in a washing bin. The disturbance of this image is such that it can potentially overwhelm any other facts and cause hesitancy in any pro-choice position. This is deliberate on Kaye's part. Most abortions take place before anything resembling a actual human has been formed. What Kaye wants to leave viewers with are the questions of when this takes place and what consequences this decision has on what the law on abortion should be (if any).

Although Lake of Fire is over 150 minutes long, it seems to need a sequel in which Kaye would tackle the actual difficulty of the abortion issue without concentrating on individuals who do not deserve the attention they receive. Unfortunately, as long as terrorist groups on the pro-life side continue to receive support, they have to be dealt with, and Kaye does this well.

Jeonju Film Festival IV: Bela Tarr

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The major retrospective at the Jeonju festival this year was devoted to Bela Tarr (previous years included Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Chantal Akerman, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Glauber Rocha, Somai Shinji, Ritwik Ghatak, and Peter Watkins). I was able to see Tarr's 1984 film Almanac of Fall (one of his two films in color) as well as his 435 minute Satantango, which was shown over eight hours with two intermissions. Following Satantango, Tarr was present for an hour long Q&A.

Almanac of Fall had moments of visual inventiveness in its treatment of a constricted space, but overall felt derivative. The story deals with an older woman and the various characters in her life, including her son and her nurse, who are battling for her trust in order to secure her money. The film felt like Fassbinder, particularly Chinese Roulette (1976), crossed with a Bergmanesque interest in close-ups. Tarr seemed restricted by the theatricality of these bourgeois characters, who he clearly detests (there's a little Michael Haneke here as well). Also, as Tarr has admitted, he does not have much interest in color, much preferring black and white. Although he tries to use color to expressive effect, it comes off as overly schematic. Still, Tarr's visual flair is apparent, especially with one shot that takes place underneath a floor.

Satantango, however, is an entirely original piece, not only in its length but in its ability to capture the materiality of life. The only other filmmaker who even comes to mind is Andrei Tarkovsky, especially Andrei Rublev. During the Q&A, someone asked Tarr about his influences. He stated that he is more inspired by music than other directors, reasoning that if he liked another filmmaker enough he would have no need to film himself. I asked him about Tarkovsky directly, and he stated that although he had seen and admired Andrei Rublev, he did not see the similarity. In addition to arguing that the camerawork is very different (which is true), he noted that Tarkovsky was different in that he believed in God, and that in Andrei Rublev the rain is cleansing as opposed to oppressive. I would qualify these comments by stating that Tarkovsky, like Bresson, was both a spiritual director and a very physical one. Additionally, the rain and nature in Satantango may be oppressive, but not nearly as much as the scenes of character interaction indoors. Because of the aesthetic intensity and at times beauty of the outdoor scenes (see Figure 1 particularly), not only visually but aurally, there is a majestic, almost spiritual, quality to these sequences. We should also not forget that the film is called Satantango, implying a dark inversion of Tarkovsky's view of God rather than a complete rejection. In fact, I feel the whole film offers a dark variation on Tarkovsky, including a sequence towards the conclusion that involves the ringing of a church tower bell.

Satantango is an adaptation of a novel by Laszlo Krasznahorkai and tells the story of a number of characters living on a collective farm. Tarr's view of humanity is completely lacking in sentiment, and the characters are shown in all of their physical and emotional ugliness (Figure 11 is representative). But unlike Almanac of Fall, Tarr does not hate these people, and we as an audience do not as well. Before the screening, Tarr introduced the work by stating: "Try not to hate them. Love them and understand them." Part of how Tarr achieves this is the immense running time, which gives us a closeness to the world and rhythms of the people that we would not ordinarily have. Tarr claimed that he could have told this story in about 30 minutes if all he wanted to do was give us the plot. What he achieves through the concentration on the physical world (which he devotes as much or more screen time than the characters) is an anti-humanist work in the sense that humans are placed in perspective to their natural surroundings. Humans are not privileged. Paradoxically, this lack of concentration on these people allow us a greater empathy with their plight and situation.

The length of the film allows Tarr to create a number of repetitions and variations without these shots seeming as formal as they would in a more concentrated narrative. Figure 3 is the opening shot, while Figure 4 takes place over six hours later. The variation is striking (cows on the farm and in the mud, horses on the pavement in the town) but not immediately apparent (the similarity of Figures 5 and 6 is more obvious, but again the time gap in the shots gives them a naturalism they would not otherwise have). My favorite variation occurs with Figures 7 and 8. The later occurs near the end of the film, where we see the character Futaki leave for the last time. Without giving this character any especially redeeming traits, Tarr nevertheless allows for a certain admiration for this man. Part of this is through the parallel with the earlier shot. No longer on the farm, Futaki is heading onto the horizon of our modern world, not unlike ourselves.

Along with the extreme length, Satantango employs a radical long take style. The average shot length is 145 seconds, the longest currently on record at the Cinemetrics database (you can view the shot breakdown here). There is a certain perversity in these shots at times, such as near the conclusion when two bureaucrats are typing a document about all the characters and stop halfway through to have a quick snack, all of which Tarr continues to film. In any case, the style is not simply serving the story (a notion Tarr showed open contempt for in the Q&A; in modernist fashion, it is present for its own purpose and to create its own effect. Figures 9 and 10 are the opening and closing of an over two minute shot that slowly shows us a close-up of an owl. It is one of the most memorable images in the film, but cannot be clearly linked to anything in the story. At most, one can say it has some supernatural or mythic connotations (the same can be said for Figure 2). The film ends with a character who is mainly outside the main plot machinations. The character of the doctor has been left behind on the abandoned farm, and proceeds to board himself in, until all light vanishes from the screen. It is with this bleak image that Tarr ends his epic. Afterwards, when asked about the future, Tarr admitted he was frightened, while at the same time being uplifted that an audience can still enjoy this film.

Film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum is one of Tarr's biggest supporters and has certainly influenced my thinking and writing in this entry. There are links to two of his articles on Tarr below. In a Best of 1994 article, Rosenbaum wrote the following on Satantango:

"The film played here only once, at the film festival, with Tarr in attendance, and it says something about the involvement of the audience (most of whom stayed the film’s duration) that the subsequent question-and-answer session lasted about an hour."

Almost 15 years later and on the other side of the globe, I could describe the experience at Jeonju as being almost identical. During the second intermission, my impression of the film was one of admiration but also slight disappointment. I did not feel it was the masterpiece many had claimed. Over the last three hours, my entire experience was transformed. Most of what stands out in my memory comes from the last half, but only has the resonance it does because of the power of the whole. This may be the greatest experience I have had in a theatre, and indeed this film more than any other needs to be seen in the cinema. The DVD, valuable as it is, works best as a recalling of the original's power, not as a duplication of it.

Rosenbaum's Satantango review
Rosenbaum's career overview