Time Never Stands Still, Especially Happy Time: Tears Of The Black Tiger (2000)

I am fully willing to admit that Thai cinema, amongst a ton of other regional cinemas has proven to be one of my most under viewed areas, and while I have seen at least one Thai film to date I do not recall being in the right frame of mind to appreciate its deliberate pacing and focused narrative, which is a shame because I am certain that with a different frame of reference I would have absolutely adored the work.  Nonetheless, when I discovered Wisit Sasanatieng's Tears of the Black Tiger hiding in the deep caverns of Netflix watch instantly it looked far too excellent to pass up as an inclusion on my entire month of westerns.  Of course, I fully expected it to be a traditionalist work within the framework of non-western bodies, but what I got with this film was something wildly its own and visually captivating, possessing what may well be my new favorite color palette for a film.  It is a highly pastel based backdrop, almost indicative of the sixties era east asian post-cards and album covers that involve light green and pink patterns to a high degree, a style that would become embraced by the punk movement only years later.  Furthermore, all of the love for Django Unchained, deserved as it may be, often forgets to remember that all Tarantino really does is copy and paste his films together based off of a ton of crazy things he has already encountered in his vast and surprisingly well-rounded film diet.  It is easy to see where a filmmaker like Tarantino, as well as many Korean and other contemporary East Asian auteurs would have borrowed from Sasanatieng's cult classic, both in its decided embracing of the non-linear narrative, while also making decided use of the glossy, high cinema respect that comes with the western genre.  Each rawhide fueled swelling of the soundtrack pairs magnificently with the simple, yet earnest, love story that emerges within Tears of the Black Tiger and never seems forced or repetitive, despite being a film that essentially recreates encounters between specific characters over a varied length of a couple of decades.  Suffice it to say, if this is what I have been missing out on by not engaging with Thai cinema, consider it a new point of reference and the next area of focus when I do one of my marathons reflecting on works that I have failed to catch up with up until this point.

Tears of the Black Tiger is not exactly the most straightforwards of narratives, but it nonetheless does have a degree of linear structure.  The film focuses on a rural area in Thailand that is subject to a particularly rough group of bandits that have been very frequently and very violently scouring the hillsides for money.  Their main figure is that of Dom (Suwinit Panjamawat) a reluctant bandit whose only real passion in life is to make a name for himself in order to assure a life with the upper crust Rumpoey (Stella Malucchi) of whom he has been quite fond of since childhood when the two took a canoe ride together.  In a particular shootout between Dom and a group of police officers, wherein Dom is attempting to make contact with his love, he is trapped by the  officers and dealt with personally by the lead officer, who indeed is slated to marry the young woman, per the bequest of her father who sees the upstanding officer of the law a much more ideal fit for his daughter than any lowlife, and impoverished thief.  Already facing the trouble of authorities down his back, doubly so when his intentions with Rumpoey are fully acknowledged, things are made far worse for the suffering Dom when his own gang members suspect him of engaging in duplicitous behavior and in the process turning their own guns against him.  All the while Dom is dealing with apparent deja vu as he finds himself defending Rumpoey against a group of wily men who mock him for his aspirations with such a woman, but the difference between their initial encounter in Dom's youth and their recent one is a decided disconnect from concerns for harming those antagonizing him and he proves himself an ideal match for Rumpoey in his willingness to sacrifice himself for her well being.  Of course, no amount of establishing his love for Rumpoey, nor her returning of such feelings, can allow for Dom to find solace, because he is still forced to deal with his maniacal gang members and in a poetic final shootout, Dom attempts to reach for a picture of Rumpoey to explain why his actions have been so unusual, only to be shot by a member assuming that he was reaching for his gun.  Dom dies and in the closing moments all that is left is a visual memory of the bond between the two star-crossed lovers, one that was never to be based solely on unjust class divides.

This film is a visual experience, between its heavy use of pastel colors and fiery, almost incandescent lighting, Tears of the Black Tiger fails to have any visual competitors, maybe with the exception of the equally stylized Pedro Almodovar, who films are very much cinematic pop art.  Furthermore, it is precisely in this comparison that I want to talk about the manner with which Tears of the Black Tiger deals with the trope of violence within the western.  Almodover, a well-established director, often uses his highly stylized and comic stripe style visual elements to suggest something humorous, if not out right absurd about sexuality and gender performance.  This sort of detachment allows for viewers to become comfortable with the topic only to have the director eventually slap a very real and ethically fueled dilemma into the discussion, one that refuses to embrace conservative values.  I would extend this frame of reference to Sasanatieng's film, especially considering that it is a film that makes heavy, if not excessive, use of egregious and gratuitous gore.  Although given the pastel wash that lays upon the film it is, like Almodovar, quite humorous and almost laughable when men's heads explode into pink ooze, only to be completely ignored and moved away as though a simulacrum or virtual experience completely detached from human loss.  The notion of death and loss is quite frequent within the western as a genre and what Sasanatieng does within Tears of the Black Tiger is not new per se, he is simply the first one to do it in such a sensational and absurd manner.  Yet, if this violence were to merely go unchecked I would find this film to be far more problematic, but that is far from the case and, again, like Almodovar, Sasanatieng makes sure to incorporate the reality of loss beyond the corporeal within the final moments of the film, depicting the images of both Dom and Rumpoey in picture frames and the credits begin to roll.  Sure viewers are allowed to revel in the excess and violence while the film rolls, but it is not a reality which one should subscribe to for any reason, and the closing credits suggest that violence in cinema, most notably westerns has a degree of falseness about it, but memories do linger and for many in the world they are very much a result of an insane and unwarranted act of violence.

Key Scene:  Shooting a bullet through coin.

Again this is available on Netflix watch instantly, you should bump it way of in the queue immediately.

Your Shadow Is Over The LIne: J.S.A.: Joint Security Area (2000)

Sitting nicely between at the beginning of The New Korean Cinema wave, as well as clearly show influence from the Hollywood infiltration in Suth Korea the few decades prior, Chan-wook Park's much heralded and well received J.S.A., or Joint Security Area is an action thriller done right.  Often credited as Park's introduction to popular moviegoers, J.S.A. has subtle hints to the methods and commentaries the director would later incorporate in his Vengeance Trilogy, of which Oldboy is perhaps his most well-known work.  It contains a handful of well-known Korean actors, ones whose faces I can now identify, although learning names is still taking some practice, and comments upon perhaps the most strenuous of subjects to the Korean person, the hyper-intense relationship to their bordered communist neighbors North Korea.  Like Shiri, a work that was for quite some time the highest grossing film in South Korea, J.S.A. considers the validity and necessity of a division between Korea and goes so far as to cross the seemingly impenetrable, all be it non-physical, border.   As a thriller, J.S.A. is exceptional, playing into the all to familiar practice of a non-linear narrative within South Korean films, yet managing to use this detachment from temporal space to create contradictions between the recounting of hotly debated events resulting in the murder of a North Korean soldier.  As a film deeply entrenched within the political concerns of a divided Korea moving into the 21st century, Park is careful to consider the validity and verifiability of accusations of rule breaking, particularly when the tensions are predicated on political ideologies, ones enforced by colonized forces and non-present entities.  A border crossing film in the most literal sense, J.S.A. questions the notions of ideological divides and posits a possibility of something transcendent of such detachments, especially when loneliness and a longing for fraternal bonds come into play.

Joint Security Area situates itself quite knowingly within the history of a divided Korea, going so far as to incorporate images and writings reminding viewers, mostly Koreans already aware of the hostilities, of the lynchpin created by the DMZ in the 1950's.  With little explanation beyond this the film depicts the results of this pin being pulled when a shot fires and a North Korean soldier is killed, resulting in a shoot-out between two divided nations.  What follows is the joint investigation by a fictitious global initiative noticeably similar to the United Nations, which intends to investigate how the incident began. The investigation is led by Major Sophie Jean (Yeong-ae Lee) a child of a Korean War refugee and Swiss woman.  If her gender were not already a point of contention, her problematic mixed identity certainly adds a problematic layer. Yet as her investigation begins it becomes clear that the stories provided by the South Korean soldiers engaged in the act, as well as their North Korean counterparts do not match up, heavily predicated on a lack of explanation to a missing firearm slug.  For the South Korean army Sergeant Lee (Byung-hun Lee) represents the point of inexplicability, yet it becomes apparent that he has crossed over to the North Korean side, purely by accident, but, nonetheless, stepping on a mine in the process.  Lee is discovered by Sergeant Oh (Kang-ho Song) who is wary at first of his pleas for help, but after explaining that he can diffuse the bomb with his help Oh reluctantly agrees.  The two share a few moments of discussion and eventually end up sending mail to one another via a flying brick.  Upon the joking suggestion of another soldier in the North Korean Army Lee finally crosses the border and after initial fears the group begins hanging out, eventually bringing another soldier from each side into the picture.  The group keeps their meetings secret, but during one night of revelry, they are discovered leading to a panicked firefight that kills two North Korean soldiers.  The remainder of the narrative centers on Sophie's discovery of this, as well as her own problematic past as it relates to the Korean divide.  Tragically very few survive the entire altercation and the two countries remain problematically severed.

I mentioned in the introduction that this is a film entirely concerned with border crossing, this of course expands way beyond the simple idea of moving from the South to the North and exists on metaphorical levels as well.  Firstly, Sophie represents a variety of crossed borders, firstly in her mixed race identity that crosses national borders, as well as social and political ones.  Similarly, her place as a female within the masculine oriented world of the military represents a border as well.  Even the methods by which the film narratives itself transcend borders, Park's non-linear narrative and use of time both as a grounding signifier and a means to undermine moments crosses temporal borders quite frequently.  Of course the film, while bookended by Sophie's experiences is inevitably about the soldiers experiences as they do cross that literal border.  In crossing the "Bridge of No Return" Lee and Oh have invariably crossed their countires ethical and political borders as well, ones that have very dire consequences resulting in the very least with incarceration and at the very most death. However, the group also transcends notions of fraternal relations, almost to the degree of intimacy as they share food, fond memories of their girls back home and a latently sexual exchange of spit.  However, what proves to be the greatest border crossing has to be Park's choice to depict North Korea not as a place of propaganda driven blind followers, but a country being destroyed by lack of food and a grounded economic future that, nonetheless, finds hope in their leaders and the ideas of communism.  Park's film advocates a unison between two opposing ideas that does not mean synthesizing, nor does it mean absolute exclusion.  It, like Shiri, envisions a a border that exists to mark nothing more than delineations, but can always be moved across with little threat to one's life.

Key Scene:  The moment when the soldiers decide to take a picture of their friendship, Park choose to up the graininess of the scene, subsequently causing it to have a nostalgic feel in line with sentimentality and it comes off beautifully.

This movie is a bit pricey and I had to rent it from the USC library to watch.  With that being said it is quite excellent and purchasing a copy is on my to do list, as it should be on yours.

I Can't Put Anything Inside Me: 301, 302 (1995)

This film features a suspense laden-melodramatic narrative, an industrial noise-heavy soundtrack, and two women increasingly dealing with dueling paranoias crammed into incredibly tight spaces.  From that description alone one could assume that I was describing a Dario Argento movie and their assumptions would easily be justified.  However, the movie I am describing is actually a Korean movie from right in the middle of their illustrious and still evolving New Wave.  The film 301, 302 is brilliant, experimental and highly-invocative film that is about women's place and identity within Korea as it moves into modernity.  Heavy with a social critique, at no point does 301, 302 overdo its imagery and become on the nose.  A study in the issue of psychologically based eating disorders in their emergence, existence and eventual ending and it also questions the relationship of food and consumption relate to the body image, particularly, when that images is predicated on male dominance and judgement.  The acting within 301, 302 is stunning, the cinematography is intensely realized and the overall grittiness of this film causes viewers to become aghast at what would normally be simple images of food.  Cheol-su-Park's work intends to undermine the comfort in food and eating, as well as causing aversion to the traditional gaze in cinema, all of which he manages to do and still provide a entirely watchable, if not intense movie.

301, 302 begins, in sorts, at the end of the narrative, we are shown 301 (Eun-jin Pang), referred to by her apartment, engaging with a detective who is inquiring about the disappearance of her neighbor 302 (Sin-Hye Hwang).  301 explains that she was a pseudo-friend of 302, in that she, a cook, often attempted to deliver food to the writer who lived a very secluded and reserved life behind her closed apartment door.  The detective assumes that 301 offers little to his investigation and leaves, at this point the narrative unfolds, through what we assume to be flashbacks.  We are shown 301in earlier years, overweight attempting to cook a meal for her husband who is dismissive based on her expanding weight and constantly heckling about liking her food.  Eventually, 301's husband leaves her and she takes up attempting to win 302 over with her cooking.  She is enraged when she discovers that 302, who has a huge aversion to food, is always throwing her food away.  After confronting 302 about her refusal to eat by forcing her to eat the rotten leftovers, 302 confesses to being sexually abused at a young age while working in a her stepdad's butchers shop, ever since she has found herself disgusted by both food and the act of intercourse.  Feeling terrible about her actions, 301 begins to attempt making food for 302 that will be suitable to her diet, focusing on organic ingredients and often vegetarian dishes.  As each persons past opens up it is revealed that they both engaged in some terrible actions, 301 cooking her cheating husband's dog alive and 302 leaving a girl in a freezer to die.  Eventually their pasts become nearly irreconcilable and the two must come to grips with their consumption disorders in a disturbingly poetic finally, one that has to be seen to be believed.

The film can be critiqued from many venues, particularly in regards to feminist theory.  In terms of a revenge narrative, the possibilities are evident, although it does not necessarily reflect this tradition in that it fails to exact bodily revenge as is the case with works like Deathproof or I Spit On Your Grave.  Similarly one could analyze the notion of voice and empowerment within women's movements, it is no surprise that 302 is a writer, as she sees it as a means to deal with her traumatic past and give voice to others who may have experience similar situations, however, this is also not completely plausible as we are led to believe that she never finishes an entire piece, let alone one one that companies agree to publish.  Ultimately, the film is to be read as a commentary on the power of food in female identity.  For 301 her ability to cook and enjoyment in eating are seen as a means of power, although her consumption becomes problematic when it is used as a means to replace her lack of sexual activity, it, nonetheless, suggests the possibilities of food serving as a means of identity.  Similarly, 302's refusal to eat has its own identity attached to it, although again it is unhealthy in its sexual attachments.  However, this unacknowledged hunger strike certainly has political implications that can be drawn from many a moment in history.  The food in this film, however, is to constantly be questioned, even in the closing moments of this dark film, we are not quite sure as to whether the food serves as a thing of disturbing unison or blatant and literal division.

Key Scene: Pretty much any of the cooking scenes are magnificent.

I am enthralled with this movie and am glad to have purchased a copy, however, I am also aware that it may not be for everyone, so I highly suggest renting the film before making a purchasing decision.