I Can Never See A Patient Walk Out Of Here, Never: The Men (1950)

The social issue film can often prove to be a contentious space of filmmaking one that delves into narrative misdirection by either focusing too deeply on one issue or grazing over the subjects in very troubling terms.  When you add the subject of disability into this particular construct things become even more frustrating in their lack of proper execution, a genre that suffers heavily from exploitation of characters, while also proving a place for actors to assure Oscar wins for being able bodied in a disabled role.  Essentially, while I do find Daniel-Day Lewis' performance in My Left Foot to be absolutely astounding, I am also aware that this role could have been provided to a truly disabled individual and achieved a tangible reality.  All this aside, I find it a considerable challenge attempting to locate films that focus on disability without it becoming an act of overt, privileged sympathy or a space for actors to grandstand in hopes of receiving accolades.  The Men, the film known for launching the career of Marlon Brando, does have moments where his Stanislavsky influenced method acting does result in broken glass and growling on the then still evolving actor, however, considering that it manages to situate itself almost entirely in the space of a Veteran's Affairs office, it takes time to delicately touch upon the identity, and more importantly, the embodying of a disabled self.  Wherein other works on this subject purposefully shy away from acknowledging issues of self and other, able and disabled, The Men constantly makes this a reality, lingering on the immobility or struggled movement of the bodies whose legs, while still present, are entirely inoperable.  Taking on even more layers, the film notes how longing and gendered desire factor into the disabled self and how even when dealing with a person struggling with disabilities a moments hesitation can carry dire consequences.  Furthermore, were these all not justifications enough to adore this movie, which is stunningly shot and compose, it includes a young Jack Webb rocking a beard and at one point drunkenly reciting Shakespeare and these are pretty much the very things that compose my dreams.  The Men is a masterpiece in social realism that deserves mention in the same space as To Kill A Mockingbird.

The Men centers on a group of soldiers who are shown engaging in combat, specifically Ken (Marlon Brando) who are injured while in the line of fire.  Ken is indeed shown writhing in pain as he slowly loses feeling in his legs.  The narrative then jumps to Ken in a dark room of a hospital bemoaning his very existence, refusing to even acknowledge a possibility of rehabilitation and projecting anger at the world around him.  Ken, of course, is not the only member of the hospital, which is full of other disabled veterans, all overseen by the optimistic and stern Dr. Brock (Everett Sloane).  The other members of the hospital include the horse gambling aficionado Leo (Richard Erdman) and the soft spoken Angel (Arthur Jurado) whose particularly agility despite being a paraplegic has earned him the title of Tarzan.  Furthermore, the group includes the leader of a Disabled Veterans Activism Group named Norm (Jack Webb) who approaches the issues of his specific community with unwavering optimism.  Between advocating for his patients continually working in rehabilitative therapy, Dr. Brock also attempts to lecture the families of paraplegics in the issues they will face once reintroduced into a non-disabled friendly world.  During one lecture, Dr. Brock is approached by Ellen (Teresa Wright) who purports to be a former girlfriend of Ken, admitting to having followed him to various hospitals only to have him refuse to meet with her, clearly ashamed of his disabled body.  While Dr. Brock initially sides with Ken's choice, he seems to realize that Ellen could prove to be the exact point of inspiration necessary to push through physical therapy.  The angry Ken appears dismissive at first, but when Ellen proves persistent, he agrees, hoping that he can make it through enough therapy to stand on his own during their wedding.  This challenge is also faced with the loss of patients to death and a continual awareness of the ways in which disability is severely limiting.  It is not long after their wedding, that Ellen has a moment of hesitation when Ken becomes frustrated, resulting in his leaving in a fit of rage, becoming AWOL in the process.  Through dedication on the part of Dr. Brock and some stern decisions on the part of Norm, Ken is able to have a last minute wake up call returning to Ellen and accepting her as a beneficial force in his life.

The way in which this film works with disability is fascinating in both a historical and theoretical framework, attempting to deconstruct the ways in which both intersect in the world.  Given that it is situated in a veteran's hospital affords it, in the context of 1950, a decidedly masculine twist, taking on feelings of lack and castration which are drawn upon, when the various characters forced those with privilege and ability to acknowledge their lack.  Indeed, when individuals like Ellen and other women invade the space it is almost out of curiosity and desire in a point of similarity, as opposed to unrestrained desire for the privileged able body.  The camera seems equally curious to consider how one desires the disabled body, resting on the fit and attractive body of Brando as he swings across parallel bars or simply lies in his bed severely immobile.  Brando can be desired and gazed upon in a unique way that would not quite work in the ways it would in later films, here lacking the desire of drag or queerness, but instead being a hyper-masculine figured incapacitated.  More contemporary works on this subject, mostly in the documentary sense seem to have reappropriated the masculine through sports, indeed a place where many disabled men are able to find their maleness again, thus finding shades of normalcy in the process.  This notion is perhaps most evident in the captivating documentary Murderball.  It is not small accident that Ken comes to rediscover his legitimacy through playing sports with his fellow patients, thus again asserting masculine prowess.  Yet, The Men seems hesitant to make this the ultimate answer to how to deal with disability, also offering outlets through embracing intellectualism as does Norm, whose quick mind and wit seem to be his method of confronting his lack.   For both men, however, failure still arises and their lack is still a reality, the closing moments of the film move into a decidedly melodramatic space, wherein Ken awakens to his, to borrow a term from Linda William's bodily sickness and it is his acceptance that Ellen is a force of aid that he moves to a new awakening.  Ken will always internalize his paraplegic self, but according to The Men, those willing to help should not be ignored, particularly those doing so out of the deepest feelings of love.

Key Scene:  Jack Webb drunk reciting Shakespeare.  Perfection.

Buy this movie, it should be more widely seen.

You Know It On Touch, Not On Sight: The Eye (2002)

I had originally slated another Pang Brothers film in the slot for this day in the marathon, but when doing some last minute perusing on my "to be watched" shelf which is in a constant state of caving in upon itself, I realized I already had one of their films waiting, one that was far more inclined to be read as a horror film than the one I had planned on viewing.  The film, The Eye, is perhaps most associated with its Jessica Alba remake some six years later, for which I have not seen, nor do I really care to.  However, my deep adoration for the last decade and some change of Asian horror films drew me to this without a moments hesitation, more so considering that this one navigates between a few different spaces of Asia, never making a clear distinction between the changes aside from dialects that most Western audiences, myself included, would be hard pressed to distinguish.  As such, there is a certain degree of privilege to the national viewer in a film like The Eye, which is not to say that it is distancing or alienating in its output.  The Eye is about as well made a thriller as one can ask for without completely detaching itself from the horror elements with which it borrows from liberally.  The Pang Brothers understand that what they have created is first and foremost a focus on one woman and her struggle to find meaning and purpose when her worldview is literally expanded in previously inconceivable ways, however, that does mean that there are not some genuinely creepy moments sprinkled throughout the film.  In fact, I would posit that this, a rather overlooked Chinese/Singapore horror thriller contains what may well be the scariest ghost appearance in any film I have ever encountered.  It is not a particularly ghoulish apparition, nor is it grotesque in any sort of body horror way.  It is unsettling because the directors make it non-apparent, indeed existing in the corner of the screen, as though it is almost scary to discover it than to not be aware at all.  In a world of post-modern horror genre films embracing the excess, The Eye in all its cinematic intensity and moments of truly spine chilling horror, manages to remind viewers that the scariest things are those only a few are privilege, nay, cursed to encounter.

The Eye focuses on Wong Kar Mun (Angelica Lee) a woman who has spent nearly all of her life blind after an accident in her youth left her so.  Yet, upon the information that a donor matching her type has recently been made available, her family, particularly her grandmother, rushes to get her an operation.  Although the other people in the space of her hospital room seem to fair far less in their sickness or troubles, Mun's operation is successful and with some basic rehabilitation and a pair of sunglasses she is capable of moving into the world with newly rediscovered sight.  However, her new vision-abled site is not quite as welcoming as she suspected, because where people were previously willing to help her navigate the spaces of her town, she now finds that people assume her completely capable of perfect vision, despite still struggling to completely see objects at time.  More so, her one passion as a violinist is trampled when she is kicked out of her former all blind orchestra, precisely because she is no longer blind.  If these issues were not enough, Mun begins to pick up floating entities and bodies emerging in her peripheral vision that simply should not exist, whether it be a man standing stoically in the middle of free way or a ghoulish mother and child floating into the space of a restaurant.  When her physical therapist and new found romantic interest becomes aware that perhaps her claims to be seeing entities beyond the dimensional space of normal perception, might be valid, he helps her to undertake a quest to find the donor.  This task of course proves quite troublesome since donor information is made decidedly confidential, however, the drive of both Mun and her doctor, lead them to Bangkok where it is discovered that the woman who previously held Mun's eyes was a social pariah because of her fatally accurate visions of death.  These uncontrollable visions led to the woman's suicide, thus affording Mun the eyes.  Helping to end the cycle of the unfortunate loss through a near perfect recreation of the suicide, Mun helps to put the woman's soul at ease.  Unfortunately, this does not necessarily end the visions for Mun who is confronted with one last series of death encounters, before she comes to lose the second sight, in a return to her original state of vision and, subsequently, her happiness.

Considering that I am currently working on a paper (which appears to be close to publication!) on the nature of disability in a certain big-budget super hero franchise, I am particularly keen as to when films productively deal with, or more so fail to deal with issues of confronting disability.  In a rare moment, The Eye manages to do the former and show a rather earnest look into what it means to be blind and, more importantly, how even when altered or corrected that previous blindness can still prove detrimental to one's world view, almost as if it were a very personalized consideration of the affect theory.  Mun finds considerable challenge in the act of expressing herself because how she sees the world is so distinctly different from the vision abled people she interacts with, whether it be her frustrated grandmother who no longer wants her child to be a burden, or her doctor who seems so attached to the medical elements of her blindness as to assume her every feeling and frustration without asking her opinion or interpersonal struggles.  Similarly, the film also considers what happens to a disabled person should they find themselves fortunate enough to become able bodied.  Indeed, Mun is removed from her friendship with blind persons through her new found privilege, but it is a reminder that even when she is afforded sight she still has the memory of a time when darkness was all she could sense.  Indeed, the film takes on yet another layer of disability narrative in how "one sees the world," particularly once Mun can see and even when she is capable of seeing, it is through her other senses as the doctor notes.  Finally, what makes the film an absolutely intriguing study of disability is in how the work navigates the post-operation sight of Mun, who invariably pulls from her former blind self in her description of the world and even her instantly matured sight is seen as something that is still burgeoning.  As such, her extrasensory vision, is deemed the exact opposite at first, precisely because she is still othered as a result of a now extinct disability.  The cinematic conventions of this film provide the final element of pro-disability narrative by reaffirming the possible visions a person learning to see might encounter, whether it be flickering lights, or blurry background imagery.

Key Scene:  Subway train ride.  If you watch this keep your eyes peeled (I realize the brilliance in this moment of the film now as I write this).  If you do, prepared to be scared beyond belief.

This DVD is super cheap on Amazon.  Buy a copy, it is well worth the cost.

Never Take Your Eyes Of Your Opponent...Even When Bowing: Enter The Dragon (1973)

So as August roles around I find myself dreading the prospect of school, not because I hate being a graduate student, on the contrary I enjoy it very much.  Instead, it is more of a hesitation, because for the first time in quite awhile I am genuinely busy and finding productivity rather rewarding, notably with one certain publication and at least two highly probable ones in the works, school and study is starting to finally shape into something meaningful. I dread school, because I know my desire to achieve will lead to a series of existential crises rooted in a misguided assumption that everything I do will be short of perfection.  Nonetheless, I hope that this forward momentum I have gained in the past months moves with me through August and onward.  As such, I knew that a welcome way to afford some comfort and ease with the upcoming stresses of school would be to do yet another film marathon, deciding to fill in a cinematic blind spot, this time kung fu/martial arts films.  Hell, I even made a hashtag to chronicle the entire event on Twitter, which is afforded the absurd name of #kungfubacktoschool.  I decided upon this particular film, first because next to Bollywood it is easily my most unseen category and fixing this has long been a plan.  Secondly, I have some bizarre belief that if I watch enough of these zen heavy films, along with some of the more post-modern comedic takes on the genre I will come to possess a world view that will allow me to deal with the stresses of wild self-expectations in the upcoming school year.  I know it is wild, but there is a surprising amount of earnestness in this particular endeavor, not that I do not like my other marathons, this one just seems too perfect to pass up.  I will, however, be engaging in a few previously planned blog-a-thons throughout so when a review of Spellbound or The Blob sneaks in do not be off put.  I might even read a book or two on the genre just to make myself well-rounded on the topic.  At the very least I will come to better understand the world of bad dubbing and Wu-Tang Clan samples, and I figured there was no better place to start this marathon than with the granddaddy of all kung fu flicks, Enter the Dragon.

Enter the Dragon, is a set of stories within one larger narrative, although it is clear that the narratives focal point is placed on Lee (Bruce Lee) an experienced and zen-infused Shaolin fighter whose skills lead to his being hired by what appears to be the British government to enter a fighting tournament in an unspecified Pacific island, where he is to take down the infamous Mr. Han (Kien Shih) a mob boss and martial arts expert who is assumedly engaged in some large scale sex trafficking.  Yet, the tournament attracts far more than Lee, indeed drawing the attentions of urban kung fu expert Williams (Jim Kelly) who appears to be entering the tournament to remove himself from the racially heated climate of America, where he as a black man could be attacked purely on those grounds alone.  Along for the voyage to the island is Roper (John Saxon) a compulsive gambler who sees victory in this tournament as a way to pay of his ever growing debts.  Needless to say, their arrival is met with less than ideal results as it becomes clear that the tournament created by Mr. Han is far from orthodox, instead featuring a series of his henchmen, including the bulky and impenetrable Bolo (Bolo Yeung) and the maniacal O'Hara (Robert Wall).  Lee, Roper and Williams, however, all prove quite adept as fighters displaying considerably different styles, while quickly destroying their opponents in their various bouts, all the while Lee endeavors to find out what Mr. Han is doing on the island, while also avenging the loss of his sister Su Lin (Angela Mao) in the process.  This espionage leads to paranoia on the part of Mr. Han who initially suspects Williams to be the operative, thus having him killed, using his dead corpse as an attempt to convince Roper to join his army.  Roper refuses and instead begins aiding Lee in the process of taking down Mr. Han's army, which includes Bolo and thousands of trained fighters.  Eventually, Lee chases Mr. Han into the underworld of his island, where the two duel it out, Han changing his weapons throughout due to missing a hand, which he replaces with various claws.   Ending in a wild fight in a hall of mirrors, Lee remembers a piece of sage advice from his sensei that affords him a technique to kill Mr. Han, thus returning to help Roper quell the last of the lackeys.  Both completely their desired requests, Lee's vengeance affirmed and Roper's escaping of debt almost certain.

Enter the Dragon, in most of its structure is a far from subtle film, particularly when it wants to consider issues of oppression and power in the way of economic privilege.  Indeed, Mr. Han is a person of insane wealth, having far more in common with a Bond villain than with his fellow martial artists.  This decadence is noted by Williams when he suggest the absurdity of an island dojo, when he can see people in the harbors of China barely scraping by, again obvious but certainly an enjoyable theoretical framework for such genre film.  However, it is in Mr. Han's being similar to a Bond villain that I cannot help but think of this movie as being heavily invested in issues of body politics, primarily how and who occupies the space of the film.  Sure one cannot help but acknowledge the physique of everyone involved, from Bruce Lee's insanely taut slenderness, to Williams' wild abdomen it is a film that rejoices perfection, at least in the physical sense, because it is clear that only a portion of this relates to moral validity.  Considering that figures like Bolo are bursting out of their bodies so jacked that it appears inconceivable, reflects not just their villainess nature, but their mental fragility as well.  The narrative seems inclined to suggest that Bolo is physically threatening, but far from mentally competent.  Similarly, the female bodies that occupy the film are dealt with intriguingly, not void of problems, but far more aware of the politics surrounding the feminine than many texts from the same era.  It is worth considering why Su Lin commits harakiri at the end of her scene, considering that she has fought valiantly and is not to be ashamed.  The reason it appears for her death is to avoid the shame of sexual being sexually defiled, by Ohara.  This takes on issues of intersectionality to varying degrees, but fails to attack them in regards to the larger narrative.  Finally, one must consider the figure of Mr. Han whose amputated hand serves as a metaphor for his otherness and is suggested as a reason for his insanity, but it is this missing body part that seems to drive him to his wildest actions, never really explaining why he is a villain who consumes, other than very vague suggestions that such actions fill a void in his lacking.  Sure this takes on phallic symbolism and sure it helps to make him have a cool weapon for the final fight scene, but it also allows viewers to create a villain by noting his deformity, one that he seems perfectly willing to exact upon others. If one then adds the final mirror sequence to the analysis, it becomes a full on moment of body, self-identity and the manner in which fracturing that can help transcend a moment, or avoid, to extend the metaphor, a depression or loss of self-worth. Again, it is not dealt with deeply, but Enter the Dragon does look at various forms of disability, each earning their own space, although they all bow to the perfect bodied figure in the end.  Problematic sure, but it is far more engaging a text than most and daring in its depictions for the era.

Key Scene:  The mirror room fight is a classic moment and has to be one of the greatest shot and choreographed fights in all of cinema.

This bluray is a must own, although there appear to be multiple versions.  I would say go for the cheapest option, but that is often a bad method of approach.  Also, somebody buy me this movie's soundtrack.