You're So Stressed Out, Do You Want Some Pot?: Crank (2006)

I know that whoever might come across this blog would seem to find my taking the time to even blog about Crank a bit curious.  A film that appears to be a completely action oriented film starring Jason Statham that could very well have been shot entirely as a result of a couple of guys drinking way too much Red Bull before doing an equal amount of cocaine.  Crank is a movie that on paper would be everything I despise about the movie industry, because it appears to be filtering out normative fare about cool white guys running amuck in a city with little or no consequence to their own bodies or those around them.  Crank, however, proves almost immediately to be the singular exception to this rule, becoming something much more in lines with Tom Twyker's Run Lola Run or the maddening cinematic sporadical nature of a Terry Gilliam film.  Crank emerges off of the screen as some sort of larvae that had been festering in the open wounds of the post-modern cinematic structure, wherein the likes of referential filmmaking and only the most moderate of attempts to merge new filming technologies with narrative were being explored.  Here, in the frantic pace of 88 minutes the directorial team of Neveldine/Taylor offer up a cocktail of special effects, music and every other possible element that is as lethal to the eye sockets of the viewer as the drug with which the film borrows its title.  It is not to say that this sort of execution should be the singular approach to action filmmaking, because if done so with even the slightest of a misstep it becomes nauseating, foolish and frankly a bit grating.  Crank, however, manages to take the concept of the frenetic filmic possibilities of post-modernism and move the camera within the diegetic space in clever ways, both breaking the fourth wall and the very understanding of temporal progress in cinema to result in something that is far more enticing that it is disconcerting.  Crank has the feel of being a rather fun experimental film project that has been stretched to its absolute limitations, always at the point of cracking, but never losing its tension.  Indeed, if there is anything to find fault in with Crank it is the fanboys who have appropriated the film as their point of reference without doubly understanding the moral implications at play in the film or how the function as part of a larger commentary on the nature of dilmmic language and action cinema.  Crank is a gift, one that is both acknowledged by a large audience, but also quite overlooked by many for its layered critical possibilities.

Crank focuses on the character of Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) a hired hand for various criminal organizations in Los Angeles who happens to awake one morning to find himself in a dizzied frenzy and barely able to walk.  It is not until he approaches his television and discovers a DVD explaining his situation that things become much clearer.  Chev's former boss has exacted one of his henchmen, Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo) to see to Chev's death, but given the warped sense of how to go about murdering a hired hand, Verona chooses to inject him with a cocktail of various drugs that put his body into a state of slow nerve and arterial arrest.  Panicking, the maniacal Chev attempts to contact his girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart) with no success, leading to his turning to his 'doctor' and medicinal advisor Doc Miles (Dwight Yoakam).  It is explained that the drug's affects can be slightly altered if Chev is capable of keeping up his heart rate and adrenaline to their highest points, as it will keep him functioning and prevent his body from shutting down.  At first completely concerned with sustaining his own well-being Chev begins a rampage about Los Angeles that includes him obtaining and snorting crack on a bathroom floor before getting into a fistfight and even driving through a packed mall in order to evade police in pursuit.  In between, all of this Chev continues to load himself up with various drugs and sources of caffeine, all the while attempting to contact Eve, while also obtaining information regarding Verona and his lackey through his friend and informant Kaylo (Efren Ramirez).  When Chev is finally able to catch up to Eve, her generally blasaie attitude, paired with her constant pot smoking lead her to be rather oblivious to the going-ons, although when she sees Chev's body falling apart she is willing to sacrifice both mind and body (in a very obvious way) to assure his safety.  Eventually, Doc Miles is able to meet with Chev and help control the substance running rampant through his body, but it proves only a means to slow down the decay, thus causing Chev to execute in his last hours alive the most wild and aggressive of revenge acts, all culminating with him falling as his body slows to its final beats.

This movie is a lot of things in a matter of very little narrative space.  It is rather clear that the filmmakers had a great time creating the film and by extension Statham seems to clearly enjoy the general off-the-wall nature of his characters' rampaging.  What is lost in the visceral styling of the film and the latent coolness of such a unchecked push through rage is a larger look at the male power figure in the action film and the ways in which he too is capable of going on rampages in the name of his own self-interests, even if not quite as intense as is on display in Crank.  This male action figure as body that can overcome all obstacles has its most classic connection to the iconic works in the James Bond franchise, primarily those tied to Sean Connery.  What makes Crank so absolutely scathing in this regard is the noted emphasis on Chev's own survival being predicated on filling his body with chemically vile materials, all the while breaking and plowing through everything in his path in rode to save himself.  Indeed, his relations to the other characters around him are also stretched by his own fight or flight mentally, here drawn out to a very literal level.  In a way, Chev is a Bond or, in fact, another Statham action character, but here the sense of good versus evil becomes far murkier, when indeed his only willingness not to flee for his safety and the though of taking Eve with him is challenged by the realization that even if he continues to rampage and destroy accordingly he will only do so in a futile sense.  This awakening all plays back on his ultimate decision not to go through with an assassination, which led to his being injected with the Crank in the first place.  Wherein a previous masculine action hero is playing into the execution of military orders or the saving of his daughter from an unseen kidnapper, Chev is solely doing things for his own fruition, taking and giving to others as it enables him to further on his desires.  This would all make for a great film, but what takes the film to the next level is the moment when Chev must encounter his own mortality in the death bed of a patient at the hospital.  The existential implications in this, one of two paused and slowed down moments in the film is highly evocative, as it is not until he is plummeting to his own death where the futility of his own actions and the larger masculine hero as harbinger of unchecked power crash to the ground, here very literally.

Key Scene:  It is tough to pick out of something that is so heavily invested in a strung out narrative, but one can see many of the elements at work well in the mall chase scene through its entire fruition.  Also the subtitles scene is pretty great.

Crank is rather easy to come by on bluray and must be seen in HD.  I was glad to become aware of this film through a blog some time ago of underrated bluray releases.  I cannot emphasize the deserved place of this film on that list.

Two Men Eat, One Man Dies: The Housemaid (1960)

I had been made aware of The Housemaid well before finally coming to watch it, although had I been bit more patient I probably could have seen the bluray that is to be imminently released as part of Martin Scorsese's World Film Heritage Project which is being mounted by Criterion.  Due to research for a project though viewing was of the necessity and its availability on Hulu made it all the more justified.  I, of course, had already seen the somewhat loose remake of the film by director Im Sang-soo, but had long been trying to find an inexpensive way to see Kim Ki-young's Korean classic.  Often mentioned in  both intensive analysis of Korean melodrama, as well as the more broad surveys of the country's film, The Housemaid has been aptly described as the "before and after moment" in Korean cinema.  While it is far and away a different and in some ways better film than Psycho, I am comfortable suggesting that this providing the same sort of film/viewership dichotomy shift but in a way that proved far more evocative in terms of the trajectory of both Korean cinema specifically and the larger East Asian filmic output in general.  Were one to go purely off of the visual stylings and narrative choices in this film it would be hard not to immediately think of Hiroshi Teshigahara's stunning and visceral Woman in the Dunes, yet this equally engaging, if not decidedly more abrasive film arrived to cinemas four years earlier.  I find The Housemaid particularly worth one's time because it is as near perfect a genre hybrid that will ever exist, in so much as it is a combination of the deep-seeded psychological intensity both present in horror and melodrama, usually for entirely divergent reasons.  The Housemaid is scary, but not in the jump scare kind of way or in the ways in which the slasher films of the eighties proved to be, instead working from a frame of reference where the human existence is a thing of inherent frustration always managing to result in the greatest of psychological fracturing.  Furthermore, given the film's entrenchment in horror and melodrama the narrative is visually preoccupied with the idea of the body as something that is to be placed upon with force sometimes physical, but always cripplingly emotional.

The Housemaid, despite its rather suggestive title, focuses on the experiences of a man simply known as Piano Teacher (Kim Jin-kyu) whose teaching music at a women's factory is barely managing to keep his family from falling from their tenuously attained middle class status.  The Wife (Ju Jeung-nyeo) attempts to work from home as a seamstress, but her constant bouts with sickness have troubled her ability to do so, made doubly challenging by taking care of their daughter Ae-soon (Le Yu-ri) who appears to have suffered bodily affects from polio, as well as a son Chang-soon (Ahn Seong-gi) whose precociousness borders on diabolical.  Needless to say, Piano Teacher finds his job burdensome, all the more so when he is made the object of misguided affection by countless students, one whose whimsy leads her to write a love letter that causes her expulsion and eventual suicide out of shame.  Moving along with his plans of achieving a higher status for his family, Piano Teacher begins offering piano lessons from home, wherein one of his vocal students Miss Cho (Um Aeng-ran) leaps at the opportunity.  Working in a surprisingly invasive manner, Miss Cho establishes herself as a dominant force in the house, despite only appearing for the piano lessons, when it is revealed by Piano Teacher that he is now hoping to obtain a maid, Miss Cho calls upon her chain-smoking friend, who becomes known specifically as Maid (Lee Eun-shim).  Moving into the space, the Maid is associated more with destruction and mismanagement than nurturing and anything remotely indicative of domestic work in a traditional sense, indeed her inability becomes a point of frustration for Wife and to a degree Piano Teacher, yet when it is revealed that the student who confessed her love to Piano Teacher is dead, both Miss Cho and Maid use it as an opportunity to blackmail him, leading him to "accidentally" have sex with Maid and causing her to become pregnant.  This pregnancy comes simultaneous to Wife also becoming pregnant, causing a divide in the family for expectations and a decision to force Maid to procure an abortion.  This jealously results in Maid becoming vengeful and attempting to kill their children and eventually does convince Piano Teacher to consume poison.  In a final twist, the film moves back in time and suggests the entire set of events to be a series of day dreams only to be compounded by yet another unusual narrative choice in the closing moments of the film.

Given my recent movement in academic research towards gender and embodiment in cinema, both in traditional genres like horror, as well as newer, more unconventional examples, mostly related to non-human/robotic bodies, I have tended to read recent films with this lens upon each text.  While, I will admit it has proven to be an overextension in a few cases, with something like The Housemaid body is not only worth considering, but is absolutely essential to the narrative.  Take for example Ki-young's decided fascination with the disabled body in the film, his choice to included Ae-soon is at first suggestive of problematic exploitation, however, on second consideration one understands that in both melodrama and horror the disabled figure often represent the point of suffering and even decided anger in the case of the latter genre.  Here, Ae-soon, is not the point of ultimate suffering, because individuals like Piano Teacher exist in a state of han, or notion of suffering based on unfair oppression, a term unique to Korean culture and usually evidenced in a larger collective notion.  Many Korean thrillers pull the idea of han to invoke a knowing subtext related to elements such as colonialism or class-based oppression, these ideas are popular in works like Mother or the Whispering Corridors franchise.  Here han is a decidedly privileged feeling and what is often embodied physically, instead becomes something reappropriated for a privileged individual to feel as though he is suffering, despite being well-to-do and only responsible for his own terrible decisions.  Furthermore, body becomes a class-based signifier as well, wherein the rats that appear throughout the film, both evidence a breaking from hegemonic and socially prescribed structures to something deem unsavory and indicative of the lowest of classes, in that rats represent the sewers and streets.  I say this to suggest that the very rats that Maid kills represent her own attempt to destroy her classed body, yet when it is her ability to convince Piano Teacher to commit suicide via poison, it becomes rather clear that he too is capable of embodying a rat. Of course, body works in other ways throughout the film, just as psychoanalysis, Marxist class ideals and many other readings would, it only speaks to The Housemaid as a rich cinematic text.

Key Scene:  The water spiting scene is great, but there is also a scene that falls apart on itself, here literally, due to the lack of a complete copy being available.  In the context of the scene and its suggestion of a psychotic break, it would appear as if the loss of these few frames was predestined from its inception, working in a similar way to Bergman's Persona.

I plan to obtain this as part of the World Film Heritage box set, but it is also available on Hulu, so viewing is subject to multiple options.

I'm Michio Hiyazaki, Too: Doppelgänger (2003)

When Christopher Nolan released the audacious and interwoven narrative that was Memento he created a piece of cinema that not only demanded a full viewing by those engaging with the work, but required it in order to truly understand the complexities of what he was trying to do in regards to the frame of storytelling, as well as in consideration of the frames of cinematic space.  When people went nuts about his more recent Inception, I kowtowed to it being cinematically sound but also silently remembered that his earlier work was far more engaging, entertaining and deconstructive in regards to what the traditional film could do despite having a relatively minuscule budget.  I say all this because it is a rare feat for film to be so different and demand that those watching it give it their full attention, but more so to be rewarding as a result.  In most cases, such as something like 13 Tzameti, the film will take an idea and flounder it in its own sense of pretension and self-aggrandizing glory failing to see the message beneath its push for grittiness and non-narrative constructs.  Doppelgänger, hereafter Doppelganger for the various search engines, is from director Kiyoshi Kurosawa and in its quest for an understanding of how one categorizes the self in relation to a larger social other, he manages to push not only to the level of the puzzling Memento but well beyond its limitations, breaking down even more cinematic conventions in the process, even if doing so required the simplest of camera tricks and editing techniques, and while the currently available transfer of the film is far from stellar, it is better than not having this work readily available to American audiences and the particular sects of fan boys that see Inception or anything Nolan puts out as the pinnacle of cinematic achievement, in which case most items are far from reaching (Inception is quite good I am willing to accept its having merit).  I included Doppelganger in the month of horror movies, partially because it is wildly revisionist, but too because it demands viewers to reconsider what is truly scary in life, positing that an encounter with one's self in all its impossibility would prove far more challenging to the self than any degree of horrendous other, because it breaks down the very dichotomy in the process.  This has the same chilling effect as it does in Primer, but here with even more of a confrontational intensity.

Doppelganger focuses on the work of Michio Hiyazaki (Koji Yakusho) an engineer who is working on a machine for disabled persons that is both incredibly mobile, while also possessing the finesse to properly crack an egg into a bowl, a task that is considerably difficult given the still clunky movements of even his high end robot prototype.  Caving under the stress related to such a project, doubled with a deadline, Michio's day is made all the worse when he discovers that a duplicate version of himself has begun occupying all the same places he does, specifically a coffee shop, but eventually meeting him in his own house.  Knowing of the ancient folklore that one who sees their doppelgänger is assuredly moments away from their death Michio begins to panic even more, actually ignoring his work in the process, even when it prove successful at an expo of the product.  Frustrated, Michio begins to mount all his efforts into confronting the doppelgänger  who while similar in looks is the complete opposite of the repressed and reluctant Michio, using all of his will and power to exert himself in the world in a wily and destructive way, going about killing individuals and sleeping with women, much to the demise of Michio who fears that they will mistake the engagements as actions undertaken by himself, leading Michio on a frivolous quest to prove the difference between himself and his identical doppelgänger  only able to convince a few that he is actually a twin brother, thus explaining his questionable actions and problematic ways.  Yet, when Michio comes to discover that the doppelgängers destructive attitudes are actually helping to relieve stress from his life, he begins to embrace its presence, allowing his particularly rampant and carefree attitude to wash over his previously troubled body, playing into blind ignorance in favor of allowing himself a continually stress free state of existence.  Yet even in these moments of joy, the actions of the doppelgänger prove to get a bit too out of hand and Michio must step in and correct the actions of his other self, one that ends in even more violent results than before, but not prior to an absurd set of events that take place in an abandoned building, one of which includes a giant disco ball careening out of control.

The self and the other prove to be the great divide in terms of privilege and oppression in pretty much any system of hierarchies in the world.  Doppelganer, absolutely destroys any possibilities of quantifying these two opposing forces, instead; suggesting that the self/other divide is entirely an internal construct created by one to define and set up an existential understanding of how one should engage with the world.  Now this becomes tricky when the self must create a tangible other in the real world, whether it be through creating a sense of higher moral standing based on religious/philosophical ideals, or in an oppressive sense through suggestions of inferiority that are always ungrounded and often predicated upon some seemingly miniscule genetic difference.  Again, Doppelganger manages to tackle both of these as constructs by showing that when extended to consider an identical body this becomes impossible to assert, let alone conceive, affirmed by Kusosawa's splitting of the screen into multiple spaces to consider how and why a person would demand a separation from one's self, here in a very literal sense.  What makes Michio's doppelgänger distinct is its seeming lack for moral conviction or sense of restraint, giving it a very id-like quality that he initially attempts to suppress, however, when it becomes evident that these actions speak to his internal frustrations Michio is willing to overlook such problems in favor of his (the self's) higher advancement.  Indeed, by throwing the genetic variations out the window, it also causes Michio to consider his own points of power and lack, drawing upon his own failures by having to face himself in a mirror of sorts, one that constantly haunts his every move.  By seeing his own loneliness on display through an other version that seeks harmony, Michio begins to fall apart at the seams, but this is not before the other, or perhaps the self, takes it upon itself to engage in a destructive path, one that is never truly reprimanded, for Michio has managed to exist space as both the self and the other, throwing any sense of authority or hierarchical structure out the window.  Kurosawa breaks the conventions of cinema in order to show that rules and guidelines are foolish when the very signifier that have caused them power are duplicated, subverted and invariably undermined.  This is a bold and forward thinking piece of cinema that demands to be viewed fully and critically.

Key Scene:  The first of the filmic space fracturings is so pleasantly unexpected as to set the pace for the remainder of the film as it grows exponentially more bizarre.

The transfer of this film currently available is a bit underwhelming, as such a rental will make due until a bluray is made available.

Sometimes Truth Defies Reason: Frailty (2001)

Whenever I take upon a viewing marathon, particularly one that involves me watching a ton of films of a specific genre I attempt to do a bit of research and find some examples of criminally underrated films that for a variety of reasons were overlooked and written off, yet prove to be the highlights of that particular year in filmmaking and even stand on their own against the giants of the genre.  While 2001's Frailty is not a perfect film, nor could it compete with the likes of The Exorcist or its contemporary masterpieces in the same ambiance and from the same year, particularly Mulholland Drive, it does manage to allow the important influence of these respective works wash over the narrative and make it become a visually engaging work with a narrative that could only work with the right levels of earnest dedication from all those involved.  Flowing in a simulacra of saturated filmic space, created by the mesmerizing cinematography of Bill Butler, Frailty manages to possess precisely this degree of direction and certainty, only benefitted by the always rewarding, if not initially realized, acting of Matthew McConaughey.  The fact that this is the feature length directorial debut of Bill Paxton, perhaps better known for his role on Big Love, makes the discovery of something like Frailty that much more rewarding.  Essentially, there is no quantifiable reason as to why a person would like Frailty on paper, nor is there an explanation as to how people would have sought it ought upon release, because it would appears to be a derivative and contrived piece of filmmaking with little to offer to the genre.  Derivative it is not, perfectly seasoned with a blend of horror classics and an understanding of a changing landscape in narrative filmmaking, Frailty manages to step up and compete with the other great puzzle films emerging around the time, such as Memento, The Machinist and in small ways the masterwork Zodiac.  To have been the person who rediscovered this film must have really been quite the revelation, not because it is has now become a much adored contemporary classic, but because it clearly appears to be remerging in the most word of mouth way possible.  I certainly know it will receive a healthy dose of acknowledgement on my part, right beside a few of my contemporary overlooked horror films in Session 9 and the science-fiction survival nightmare that is The Cube.

Frailty begins at the FBI headquarters in Dallas, Texas wherein a man introducing himself as Fenton Meeks (Matthew McConaughey) explains to Agent Wesley Doyle (Powers Boothe) that he is rather certain about the whereabouts of the God's Hand Killer, suspecting it to be his mentally unstable brother, who has recently committed suicide.  Suspicious for obvious reasons, Agent Doyle demands that Fenton provide some substantial evidence to such bold acquisitions, leading to Fenton telling a rather lengthy back story about his childhood growing up with his brother Adam (Jeremy Sumpter) in a single parent household with their father, played by Bill Paxton.  Things, while tough financially, are relatively easy going until in the middle of the night their father claims to have seen a vision of angels explaining that it is the job of not only himself, but Fenton and Adam to become slayers of demons in the name of God.  Thinking that it is simply a wild delusion of grandeur, Fenton, and to a degree Adam, write off the entire incident and continue on with their daily lives, even going so far as to overlook their fathers repeated returning home with items related to the killing of demons, the most disturbing being the various weapons he purports to be key to the act of slaying.  Yet, even this does not truly cause the children to step back and critique the situation, but when the father does indeed bring home a woman, bound and kills her with an axe, claiming that her sins had resulted in her becoming demonic, both the children appear to be initially hesitant, particularly Fenton who immediately questions the behaviors of his father and their larger implications on society.  This questioning on the pat of Fenton, leads to a divide between himself and Adam who sides with their father and betrays Fenton's desire to run away.  This leads to Fenton being locked in a cellar until, as his father says he is able to see God, at which point he will be released.  Through eventual dehydration and becoming stir crazy, Fenton claims to have seen God and then begins joining in the killings, as though it were something forever engrained in his psyche.  These actions carry the narrative back into the present where Agent Doyle and Fenton arrive at the alleged place of the burials.  It is at this point, where it becomes convoluted as to whether the narrative told was indeed through the yes of Fenton, or through those of Adam, perhaps even existing as a bizarre and troubling version of both.

Frailty could be interpreted as many different narratives, all having to pull from a decidedly complex narrative, that masks itself in a deceptively obvious form of linearity.  One could certainly make a case for it being a narrative of split-personality disorder, wherein one character is, in fact, extending his former reflections into multiple characters to help rationalize the terrible actions he committed, a reading that is further suggested by the general synthetic look of the film, one where glossy shine makes each action seem impossibly fabricated.  Another could simply be a study of the nature of evil and whether or not ridding the world of such entities should be deemed murder, the Texas setting for this reading making the narrative that much more complex.  I, however, am rather convinced that it is actually a metaphor, albeit obvious at times, about a troubling past with child abuse that was exacted upon children by a father figure.  Indeed, the narrative suggests that the family is void of a maternal figure, but the ways in which food magically appears in scenes and domestic chores happen to always be complete, would suggest that the memories spouted by Fenton are missing an element purposefully, perhaps an abused wife so minimized at the hands of an angry father that she has become literally non-existant in the narrative.  I know that the film suggest she has passed away, but considering its willingness to alter and shift factual understanding at a moments notice make such assumptions quite tenuous.  The reading of it as such a film is reinforced by particular images of Fenton possessing bleeding hands from working all day digging an impossibly large ditch.  Sure these could be callouses, but considering the father's reaction and awkward willingness to help heal the damage it could equally be read as one such act of abuse.  The fact that Denton is also depicted falling asleep during class, reflect his worry of the visions of God trouble facing his family, but again, it also could indicate an individual so emotionally distraught in the space of his home that he can no longer rest without severe anxiety and distress.  Add these images and subtle narratives to the notion that Adam and Fenton have considerably altering views on the nature of their father's goodness, and such a narrative begins to become rather blatant.  Indeed, should nothing else sound plausible, turning ones attention to the nailing the hatch shut on the shed scene, pretty much makes it a fact.

Key Scene:  The vision of the first weapon sequence is rather basic trick cinematography and special effects, but it occurs with such a degree of realized execution as to completely change the pace of the film, and is only one time when which this occurs in the stellar film.

This DVD and bluray is cheap, I would recommend the latter as it is a decidedly cinematic film and well worth a blind buy.

I'd Love For The Alarm To Ring Right Now: [REC] (2007)

For the few people who have been reading my blog since its inception over two years ago will be more than aware of my constant quest to find the perfect found footage films, delving far back to the somewhat unbearable, yet historically relevant Cannibal Holocaust and engaging with more contemporary works like The Bay and Chronicle in hopes of finding more hope for the genre's continued success.  [REC] was one film within this cannon that I had been meaning to undertake and had let percolate on my DVD shelf for nearly as long as I have had this blog up and running.  Suffice it to say, the wait was more than worth it, proving to be one of the most narratively, cinematically an jarringly engaging works within the found footage horror sub-genre I have ever witnessed.  While it will still pale in comparison to the revelation that was The Poughkeepsie Tapes, [REC] begins in the most innocuous of manner, only to end in one of the more dark and disturbing of spaces ever committed to in found footage.  [REC] beyond being a stellar work within the sub-genre, also stands on its own as a work of horror filmmaking at its height, using a variety of traditional tricks for the genre to create an ambiance and general sense of dread from the very opening of the film, always aware that in regards to this particular style of filmmaking, much of the fear and anxiety comes from not only what the camera accidentally captures, but from what it will always fail to catch, particularly when the device used to capture the events begins to fall apart on itself.  Indeed, if, as I and others have suggested, the found footage sub-genre exists as a sort of commentary on the post-modern nature of horror filmmaking  then [REC] is this notion at its most realized, resulting in a slew of sequels as well as the ever present American remake.  The joint direction of Jaume Balageuro and Paco Plaza manages to become both a look at what can scares viewers within the purportedly honest filmmaking style of found footage horror, while also extending the unique lens of this sub-genre to consider very deep issues of social divides, both rooted in physical and philosophical differences, never at one allowing those engaging with the film a moment to catch their breath and regroup themselves emotionally.  If cinema, as Tom Gunning suggests, is a thing of attractions, [REC] considers how this attraction can occur without being a necessarily pleasurable experience.

[REC] begins as many found footage films do, in media res, focusing on journalist Angela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) as she and her unseen cameraman Pablo (Pablo Rosso) capture footage for their informative expose show While You Are Asleep.  It is during this particular night on the job that they are tasked with filming the work of a firefighting crew, Angela hoping that since the job is particularly rife with physical challenge and danger that she will be able to cut together a particularly engaging episode of the show.  Despite meeting interesting people at the job, including the strong-willed and likable Manu (Ferran Terraza) it appears as though the evening will be rather underwhelming, until the station receives a call to aid in the opening of a locked apartment, where the neighbors and owners confessed to hearing screams coming from the room.  Upon arrival, the Angela, Pablo and the firefighters find almost the entire apartment complex awaiting their arrival with looks of concern and confusion upon their faces, begging that the crew immediately resolve the issue.  Upon entering the locked room they discover an older woman disheveled and half dressed jumping about her room and making disturbing shrieks and gargling noises.  Assuming her to be on some sort of drug trip or suffering from high degrees of hysteria they attempt to approach her in help, only to have one firefighter be bitten by the maniacal woman, immediately going into shock after the events.  When another firefighter plummets to his death and other individuals start taking severely and violently ill, the apartment residents and the crew attempt to exit the building only to be stopped by a SWAT team informing them that they are now in a quarantined space, incapable of leaving until a health inspector has entered and can provide the necessary tests and vaccinations.  Yet when this occurs and more outbreaks take the other residents and at one point the health inspector himself, Angela and Pablo begin planning their own escape, only to realize that what was initially believed to be a disease that spreads through saliva might well be the result of a much more sinister force, leading them in a face to face encounter with a truly disturbing entity.

[REC] avoids the pitfall of many a found footage films where a director, who usually doubles as a writer on the film, finds it necessary to make every character involved hyper-aware of the situation, dropping dialogue and narrative hints that suggest a complete understanding of every obstacle and a even more keen understanding of the presence of a camera in the situation.  Balaguero and Plaza do no such thing, realizing that the camera in the space of this film can be both a point of benefit for catching moments of human degradation and occasionally triumph, but often fails to do so with any degree of cinematic pleasure.  At first, I found myself frustrated with the particularly blurry and shaky quality of this found footage film only to realize that in its stylistic endeavors this breaking down of the visual aid is perhaps more accurate than most, never fully painting an accessible picture of the events, only half revealing the narrative elements, because as is the case with films like this the work is supposedly a rediscovery of an item that was never afforded a means to edit itself into cohesion.  Of course, films like The Bay and The Poughkeepsie Tapes change this by making the narrative work within the frame of a documentary style.  Nonetheless, [REC] is wholly an incomplete document and, as such, carries with it a certain degree of eeriness as a result.  I do not mean to say that this lack of full cohesion makes it an incomplete experience, but instead a decidedly more accurate one, causing the narratives of distrust, paranoia and perversion to become believable, so in that by the time viewers are shown the reveal in the closing moments of the film it is both baffling, but not so inconceivable as to drive away those watching from continuing on the thrilling ride.  At times [REC] does become aesthetically profound, whether it be something as simple as a girl, moments away from turning via the disease confronting the camera, or a defeated lingering on a man in a hazmat suit entering the building, [REC] kowtows to the possibilities of the cinematic form to be gripping even in its least technical performances, and almost as a way to play with the audience, the film calls attention to its very narrative in the closing line of the film, only to immediately follow this with a title card and notably non-diegetic music playing over the credits.

Key Scene:  The hazmat suits preparing to enter the building is a moment of tragic serenity in an otherwise non-stop thrill ride of film.

[REC] is readily available to all those interested in viewing the film, which, in my mind, should be everyone.

I See Dead People: The Sixth Sense (1999)

The name M. Night Shyamalan has become quite the running joke in contemporary Hollywood, indeed a name that once carried weight in the thriller community has been relegated to mocking and outright avoidance, in so much as his most recent film Another Earth went quite out of its way to assure avoid noting that it was directed by Shyamanlan, wherein during his height as a filmmaker he could earn viewers purely by attaching his name to a project, even as just a producer.  This may seem almost impossible now given the string of terrible movies from the director, but when one revisits Unbreakable, or even Signs they can see an auteur at work who has been allowed free reigns in making directorial choices, even if some of them were less evocative than others.  However, there was a decided phenomenon surrounding his 1999 work The Sixth Sense, one that became so evasive in popular culture that everybody was aware of the spoiler well before encountering the film.  Admittedly I had never encountered the film in its entirety until yesterday when I finally, with a degree of hesitation, popped it into my Bluray player.  Initially, a little hesitant to embrace the cinematic elements of the film, I realized that there was something wonderful, in a completely eerie sense, at work.  This realization, would, however, not have come were I not completely aware of the reveal at the end of the film, which is made somewhat nauseatingly clear throughout the film.  It is not the on-the-nose ways in which I find the film particularly well-executed, but more so in regards to the more subtle elements.  For example, there are some notable choices with the cinematography and mise-en-scene that pay off in major ways by the end of the film, and much to my surprise Bruce Willis delivers a rather nuanced performance that calls attention to the major issue his character is facing throughout the film.  Of course, an argument could be made that these moments are far from the credit of Shyamalan and this might well prove true, but it is precisely this combination of factors that make for a somewhat timeless thriller, which might be ripe for rediscovery in about twenty years, who knows maybe Shyamalan will have found his footing again, or he will have made so many missteps as to become completely irrelevant.

The Sixth Sense begins with Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) indifferently celebrating the receiving of an award for his work in child psychology alongside his wife Anna (Olivia Williams).  When they return to their room after talking, they are stunned to find one of Malcolm's former patients half-clothed in their bathroom, blaming Malcolm for his societal issues.  Frustrated the young man shoots Malcolm before killing himself.  The narrative then jumps forward a year to show Malcolm undertaking a new case with a young boy named Cole (Haley Joel Osment), who suffers from incredibly intense social anxiety and depression issues following the divorce of his parents.  Malcolm, hoping to use this a point of redemption after what he deems a failure with his former suicidal patient dumps everything into his helping Cole, much to the frustration of Anna, with whom Malcolm is continually growing distant.  Yet, when Malcolm makes a breakthrough with Cole, who has been previously incapable of help from other psychiatrists he feels obligated to go above and beyond his duty as a psychiatrist, particularly since it is revealed that Cole believes that he can see dead people wandering about the world, in his mind unable to realize that they are dead and thus going through routines to fix wrongs.  Malcolm is decidedly suspicious of this claim, but, nonetheless, follows Cole through his visions, particularly brutal ones involving images of hanging bodies and violent gun accidents.  When, Cole begins describing in great detail individuals' most repressed secrets, Malcolm begins to take his claims seriously, even agreeing to drive Cole to a some what far off funeral to help a young girl correct her wrongful death, one she managed to videotape.  This endeavor causes suspicion in Anna who has become involved with her shop hand, as well as Cole's mother Lynn (Toni Colette) who has become frustrated by ungrounded claims that she is partaking in child abuse, as well as fear for Cole and his, in her eyes, unhealthy attachment to his dead grandmother.  When Cole finally explains in great detail what he sees, a series of events paired together make Malcolm realize that not only is his attachment to Cole a unique one, but his growing distance from his wife, might be predicated not upon this attachment to his patient, but a very tangible removal from the physical world.

I want to note that there are some problems of dated choices in the film, but one could make that claim for most every "great" movie from 1999, perhaps the most important year in film since 1976.  A few moments of slow motion filmmaking and sickeningly heteronormative narrative aside, The Sixth Sense manages to create an ambiance of otherworldliness without ever making it frustratingly clear.  Again, I came at this film already aware of the reveal, so my ability to pick up some of these directorial choices was indeed predicated upon this and I could not speak for a completely blind viewing of this film, although I would be quite intrigued to see a legitimate cinephile go into this film blind as to its narrative and reveal, although that is probably impossible.  However, I digress, I want to hype the cinematography of this film above anything else, particularly the way in which Tak Fujimoto makes the "non-human" entities of the film pop out against the mildly gritty posh urban backdrop that is downtown Philadelphia.  The film lights Willis in such a way that his eyes become piercing black orbs, indeed quite spectral in their essence and the use of the now iconic Willis scowl draws even more attention to this idea.  Never one to layer on the performance, what Willis brings to Malcolm's character through a barebones performance is an individual who has lost the ability to express himself physically to another person, which is indeed true of a narrative where he is dead and incapable of communicating in any way beyond changing the temperature of the room or through influences of memories.  Also, the manner with which the film is edited allows for a very, very subtle breaking of the linear narrative, at times even the most minimal of jump zooms noting the difference between the space of the human figures and those of the ghosts, undoubtedly, a purposeful choice on the part of Shyamalan who has never failed at creating suspense.  Of course, this film is also quite scary, although it does lull viewers into its intensity, much like Signs much of the film is spent anticipating the presence of a scare and while there are really only one or two examples of this in The Sixth Sense when they do occur they prove to be almost too intense to handle, an execution of horror that has only really occurred with perfection in The Exorcist

Key Scene:  The ghost reveal in Cole's tent will scare you, if it does not then you have a nervous system made of iron.

I cannot defend this film enough and considering that it is pennied out on DVD, grabbing a copy is a given.  If not from Amazon it is readily available at pretty much any place that sells media in its various forms.

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.

All These Beautiful Things That Were Destroyed...I Could Restore: The Mystery Of The Wax Museum (1933)

For the final post to the enjoyable and brilliantly put together TCM Summer Under the Stars Blogathon, I decided to go in the direction of a film I had never seen, as opposed to revisiting works for which I knew I already had a deep affinity.  This is always a gamble, considering that I could turn out not to enjoy the movie at all and would be left writing a blog for a blogathon that is anything but celebratory about the work in question.  Fortunately, The Mystery of the Wax Museum is an incredibly watchable film that manages to be one of the creepier and haunting film I have ever encounter, despite being made in 1933.  Images of melting wax faces and the chiaroscuro expressionism that generally influence the narrative of this film are some of the best of the era, existing in a wonderful middle ground between the nightmarish work of Fritz Lang and the dreary desolation of the film noir works of the forties.  Indeed, The Mystery of the Wax Museum could have gotten away on looks alone, the added enjoyment of some great acting and a relatively engaging plot make for an all around great cinematic experience.  Since this is a blogathon concerning the "Featured Star" of the day, I must give brief mention to Glenda  Farrell who is wonderful in this film and is indeed the reason this film was take upon by me, even if blindly.  Knowing very little about her (and highlighting her in the synopsis), I thought it worth mentioning  Fay Wry whose presence reminded me that she was the famous girl from King Kong, as well as in the criminally under-viewed 1932 adaptation of The Most Dangerous Game.  Along with her presence in The Mystery of the Wax Museum and a ton of other horror films, I am considering that argument that Fay Wry might be the original scream queen, or at the very least the grandmother of genre films.  Her presence in this film is decidedly within her more traditional roles, but given the manner with which bodies double and layer upon one another through wax duplications, her presence also takes on an ethereal quality, adding to the already eerie nature of the film.  The Mystery of the Wax Museum is not a grand stroke of horror through barrage, but instead; is a subtle repetition of creepy moments that come together to really leave an unsettling feeling in the viewer long after finishing, much like Dead of Night or The Blair Witch Project.  This is the ideal horror cinema.

The Mystery of the Wax Museum begins with Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill) completing yet another work in his prized London wax museum, centering around his incredibly lifelike statue of Marie Antoinette.  His moment of happiness is quickly stifled when he is visited by his parter Joe Worth (Edwin Maxwell), who explains that the museum is proving to be a huge loss financially and that the only way to recoup the losses is to burn the entire place down for the insurance money.  Ivan attempts to stop Joe from his act but fails to do so.  The film then fast forwards twelve years to New York, where the city is receiving its own wax museum, overseen by Ivan, who must use apprentices to do his work, considering that he no longer has hands to sculpt with after they were severely damaged in the fire.  Ivan is particularly frustrated with the new work, blaming much of the trouble on hiring a recovering drug addict named Professor Darcy (Arthur Edmund Carewe) and a deaf-mute named Hugo (Matthew Betz).  Regardless, the museum is slated to open soon so Ivan pushes through with his work at full speed, even receiving a new statue in the mail whose life like qualities are quite uncanny.  Centering this female statue as the center of his exhibit as a Joan of Arc recreation, Ivan slips into a maniacal push for perfection.  Meanwhile, up and coming journalist Florence Dempsey (Glenda Farrell), while investigating a murder, comes to realize the similarities between a recently deceased woman and the new statue, as well as a similarity between a few other missing bodies and some of the other additions to Ivan's collection.  Hoping to warn others, particularly her roommate Charlotte Duncan (Fay Wray), Florence takes it upon herself to make the connection between the dead bodies and the new statues, coming into contact with a deeply entrenched bootlegging scheme in the process that is run by none other than Joe Worth.  This, however, does get the attention of the police, who agree to meet Florence at the museum a decision that proves quite fortuitous because they arrive only moments before Charlotte is to be "embalmed" by the maniacal Ivan, who believes that she will provide the final piece de resistance for his collection.  In the end, Florence saves the day with her persistence and because the film was set in the early thirties, her reward is nothing more than marriage to a man she only remotely likes.

For a film that is an early work in horror/thriller filmmaking, I did not expect to be able to pull a lot from work critically.  However, from the moment Ivan lingers on the female statues in his London museum, which cinematically are clearly played by actresses (one's who will later play characters in the narrative) it becomes clear that the film takes on a second layer of objectification of the desired body.  Objectification and looking at bodies in cinema are nothing new to theory and criticism, indeed tying most prominently to Laura Mulvey and her idea that the gaze in cinema is that of a male viewer that objectifies the woman on screen as an other.  While this theory has been reconsidered, altered and contested over the years, it, nonetheless, stands as the language used to describe the female body on display in film.  However, while these bodies are desired in the film, it is precisely the double layer of the "fake" body and the real that causes viewers to reconsider how they constitute the objectified body passively and what happens when the active body is forced into passivity, or in reverse what happens when a body, like the film's opening image of Marie Antoinette later becomes the character of Florence.  This is a wild notion of movement through a space by a body, one that is, as Mulvey would suggest, in a constant state of cinematic desire, whether to be objectified by the male gaze or longed for as a thing of cinematic beauty by the women who look at the ethereal presence of the wax versions of Wray and others.  Ivan represents a maddened version of the gaze in the diagetic world of the film, enacting his artistic objectification of bodies, both male and female, taking dead corpses, who are no longer active and proceeding to make them even less human, by making them posthumous objects of artistic desire.  The fact that Ivan himself is a crippled figure adds another layer of disability in relation to the ideal body as a point of desire and thus objectification.  In that he is no longer human, indeed relying on wax to pass as visually normal, he could be read as a vengeful disabled body that seeks "justice" upon the able-bodied individuals he encounters, housing them in a shell of wax, to deny their ability, while making his wax visage no longer the disabled figure, but that of normalcy.  This is all happening in a film from 1933, it is quite amazing that it has not gained the same level of notoriety as its counterpart from the same year King Kong.

Key Scene:  The opening fight in the London Wax Museum is really creepy, in a I might have nightmares from melting wax faces kind of way.

The DVD I have is not the greatest of version, particularly since it appears to be stuck between full colorization and black and white scenes.  Nonetheless, it is a magnificent work and well worth tracking down in an alternative format.

Finally, I would once again like to thank Jill (Sittin' On a Backyard Fence) and Michael (ScribeHard on Film) for letting me be part of this wonderful blogathon.  This last film was a great discovery and my previous revisits of Spellbound and The Blob were equally enjoyable.

What I Do Not Give, You Must Never Take By Force: Curse Of The Golden Flower (2006)

Sumptuous.  That is the only way to appropriately describe a film like Curse of the Golden Flower.  It is rare for a film to be so colorful, visually mesmerizing and luscious, while still also proving to be incredibly evocative in its narrative, one that is Shakespearean in its undertaking.  Few directors were able to do this with any consistency during their career, Akira Kurosawa being the prime example of this, however, while he has not had quite as prolific a career as Kurosawa, Yimou Zhang has been able to captivate and enthrall audiences with his visually engaging material since first coming onto the global cinematic scene with his troubling Raise the Red Lantern and consistently releasing films that challenge the notions of what constitutes traditional imagery in Chinese cinema.  While my personal favorite by the director is likely to forever remain Hero, I cannot think of another film, aside from those that rely heavily on CGI-based special effects, that has looked so beautiful based entirely on its color palette.  Indeed, as I struggle to make a comparison to another director, my mind immediately jumps to the work of Satyajit Ray, whose films, while in black and white, contain such a regal sense of beauty that one earnestly gets the feeling of being present for the events.  In most cases this quest of a cinematic beauty would suffice and would prove enough for the film to gain a large world audience, however, like Kurosaway, Zhang realizes that narrative cinema also rests on having a well-executed story that is delivered with consistency.  Casting the likes of Chow Yun-Fat and other notable Chinese actors, Curse of the Golden Flower takes on yet another level of Shakespearean evocation, in its performances, each actor immersing themselves fully in their roles to lend to the visual statement of the film.  At times I found myself think that this could be half the film it is and still have proven to be a wild success.  Sure, it might be a bit of a stretch to include it in my month of kung fu/martial arts films, but there are Dynasty Warrior-esque fight scenes, and for being a last minute addiction to the list when another planned film fell through, it has made me glad to catch up with another Zhang work, while already considering a way to marathon view the remainder of his films.

Curse of the Golden Flower is situated in during a particular festival in imperial era China involving a lavish homage to the golden chrysanthemum.   The festival is only a backdrop to the dealings of The Emperor (Chow Yun-Fat) who finds himself at odds with a particularly troublesome military campaign where he fights along side his son Prince Jai (Jay Chou).  His returning to his palace results in a high degree of paranoia between his wife The Empress (Gong Li) and her stepson Prince Wan (Liu Ye) who have been engaging in an illicit affair for years.  Wan, however, is not entirely committed to The Empress and has been having his own affair with the palace doctor's daughter Jiang (Li Man).  Suffice it to say, the various relationships and tenuous family ties lead to deception and plots at rebellion, particularly the one planned by The Empress to take down The Emperor, by obtaining the aid of Prince Jai.  Of course, The Empress's paranoia concerning her husband is not ungrounded as it is eventually discovered with the help of a spy that The Emperor, has been attempting to, for a considerable amount of time, poison The Empress by mixing a highly toxic black fungus into her drinks.  While the fungus does not succeed in killing The Empress it does cause her to become mentally unstable, thus leading to her wild and confrontational admittance to her plots, even dismissing Wan and revealing their previous affair.  After a few assassinations and even more acts of punishment, Prince Jai finds himself taking heed of The Empresses's suggestions and planning a revolt against The Emperor.  Mounting an army full of golden armored warriors, the men of Prince Jai's army bombard the palace, which is being heavily defended by The Emperor's own grey armored men.  Made aware of the attack earlier, The Emperor strategically defends his palace and only the stubborn Jai continues his assault, eventually being captured and brought before The Emperor. The Emperor offers to spare the life of Prince Jai on the condition that he be willing to give the poison to The Empress, an offer he refuses, instead choosing suicide, much to the despair of The Empress and surprise of The Emperor.

For a film that is essentially a gloriously shot and visually audacious narrative on family drama, it is quite interesting to consider the ways in which this film avoids the use of names to signify the personal. Indeed the two biggest authority figures in the film are referred to constantly as The Empress and The Emperor, at times, even by their own children.  Authority in this context is entirely a result of lineage, yet, the lineage also comes with a high degree of signifiers, ones that are almost all nominal.  The Empress is not really the mother to all the figures, yet she is to be treated as a maternal authority, which, of course, means that a large issue of Oedipal complexes arise, even if pulled from a non-biological context.  Indeed the relationship between Prince Wan and The Empress is not incest per se, but given the attachment towards names and the authority they carry, it manages to suggest such, particularly when the betrayal emerges.  Indeed, when The Empress discovers that Wan has found himself another lover, her reactions seem almost indicative of a maniacal mother figure out to protect their child from the dangers of the public, circa Carrie.  One would assume that as lovers it would take on a different context, but, again, the naming and authority that comes with such actions result in an unusual result.  Even the brother recognize their privilege to be contingent on relational elements to The Emperor and The Empress, thus explaining why Prince Jai is afforded such authority, because he stands to be the son of both the matriarch and the patriarch, as opposed to Wan who is only the son of the patriarch, albeit, the lover of the matriarch as well.  Yet, for all the concern of asserting unquestioned power in a role of authority, Zhang's film does make it rather clear that those in power, particularly males, are afforded a means to change the rules and remove those from spaces of power as they see fit.  Viewers first see this occur with his removal of Wan's mother from society altogether, leading to her insidious revolt and very violent punishments.  However, this also occurs in the closing moments of the film, when in a state of frustration and rage, The Emperor is able to appropriate his name and power to cause those right below him to die.  Interestingly, the film does show the power that an mass of people can exert against one figurehead, perhaps as a second level of irony to the faulty importance placed upon such points of authority.

Key Scene:  The first shot of the palace grounds covered n chrysanthemums will take your breath away, I assure you of that.

I am going to buy a copy of the bluray just to have play as ambience, it is really a visually captivating work.

I'd Throw You Into The Ocean...Shock Therapy: Run Lola Run (1998)

Fueled almost entirely by the MTV generation of a deluge of imagery and noise, it is impossible to pinpoint exactly everything that occurs within the vast narrative framework of the taut and intense Run Lola Run, a German film by the stellar director Tom Tykwer, whose recent involvement in Cloud Atlas has made me come to appreciate his presence in cinema.  In its seemingly ecstasy filled narrative, Run Lola Run manages to expertly consider gender expectations within Germany as it moved into the twentieth century, providing both positive and negative images of such, while, simultaneously, completely disregarding any sort of semblance of cinematic linearity or formality.  To call Run Lola Run a structuralists nightmare is an apt description, yet in its decidedly deconstructionist nature, it, nonetheless, speaks volumes to the manner with which a generation of technologically enhanced youth engage with the world, both virally and virulently.  It is always a surprise to me to consider that this film was made in 1998, because, aside from its clearly dated fashion choices, the considerations of youth, money and the ability to navigate at capitalist oriented social landscape blow the lid off any of its contemporaries.  In fact, I would even say that this film stands miles above Fight Club in its satirical consideration of a thrill seeking, adrenaline fueled culture, and, as seems to be the case with many films of similar themes to David Fincher's now well-established classic, predates it.  I am also aware that the film exists within the constraints of the era, with its techno/house music inspired soundtrack and mixing of filmic forms, but damn if it does not do so with such a seamless fusion and direction that it is essentially visual LSD.  As noted earlier Run Lola Run clearly finds its influence in a Y2K fearing group of youth that sought out visual overload as a distraction from the real woes of growing up, in the matter of a succinct eighty minutes, Tykwer's film focuses on all the social issues present in such a state of fear, both with a detached sense of satire and a noticeable degree of earnest concern.

Run Lola Run, is a non-linear film, but not in the manner one might initially assume.  In fact, the plot is somewhat straightforward.  First, there is Lola (Franka Potente) a young, red haired woman who begins her day by answering a phone call from her distraught boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) whose ties to criminal activity has led to his losing a large sum of money, which he was to deliver to his boss, known for his hot temper and willingness to snap over the most minor problems.  Manni had the money prepared to deliver, but in a panic left it on a subway train to avoid suspicious police officers, leading to its being grabbed by a homeless man with an affinity for bags.  Frantic to correct this wrong, Manni begins to consider robbing a nearby grocery store, news that leads to Lola running, as fast as she can, in order, to both obtain the money and, hopefully, stop Manni from making a huge mistake.  This is where the films linearity breaks down, into various versions of the events, each separated by a discussion between Manni and Lola in bed, the topic concerning love and death.  The first scenario finds Lola running to meet with her father Vater (Herbert Knaup) only to be told that she was adopted and not deserved of his money, which leads to her failing to meet Manni prior to the robbery and she in turn becomes an accomplice and is shot during the police suppression.  The second scenario finds Lola choosing to rob her fathers bank, as opposed to asking for the money, which, in turn, leads to Manni being hit by a work van, when the two are having a conversation.  Finally, it is during the third scenario that things finally begin to work in the favor of Lola, and she, instead; chooses to gamble a small bit of money with the hopes of winning enough to save Manni.  However, in this scenario, Manni finds the homeless man and gets his money back and the two reunite without the woes of a financial fear, or Manni's death for that matter.  While this scenario is certainly idyllic, it is not void of death, which is made only minor note of, since viewers are assumed to be siding with the success of Lola and Manni anyways.

I was a little hesitant to embrace this as a film worth including in the month of women in film, which is winding down nicely, with a flow of solid film, particularly since it does have a focus on a couples issues.  However, the title does not deceive, for it is truly about Lola's relation to the events.  Even when we are shown Manni dying, it is within a framework of actions undertaken by Lola, whose movement through the world seems to magically and metaphysically affect every person she talks with or touches, sometimes for the better, at other times for the worse.  Perhaps, the most powerful statement in the film comes from the suggestion that Lola's own frustration with how a situation ends can be verifiably changed should she will it to be so, particularly when it relates to the death of herself or her lover.  The physicality, athleticism and brains Lola possesses within the film also suggest a rejection of gender norms that reject women in any sort of authoritative role, in fact, it is in the first scenario where Lola dies that she is the least authoritative, and, as a result, is killed for not possessing a grounded voice and identity.  In a bit of genius, however, the second scenario rejects her use of violence as a challenge to her oppressor, particularly since it leads to the deaths of people she cares for, and for whom she was protecting.  The third scenario, ironically, is the one in which she embraces capitalism, while simultaneously exploiting it, and it is this scenario that she is able to assure her desired outcome, doubly so, one could argue, and if there were any question as to whether or not Lola's father was a problematic figure, with his philandering and desire to create more offsprings was problematic, his demise in the final scenario certainly provides a clear and deliberate answer.   Run Lola Run depicts the possibilities of a woman with a purpose and demands that viewers accept this emerging reality, something that would drastically change in cinema as it moved into a new millennia, wherein many women possessed similar roles and the assured place of patriarchy and traditionalism in cinema disintegrated.

Key Scene:  For a film whose shots last an average of 2.7 seconds it is hard to pick a scene, but I am partial to the casino section, because it exist both within and outside of the narrative framework created up until that point in the film.

I rented this initially, but ordered a copy of the bluray immediately after the credits moved up the screen.  I strongly suggest you do the same.

You Need To Do Something Bad To Stop Yourself From Doing Something Worse: Stoker (2013)

Here goes my first in theater viewing experience for a film released in 2013, and boy could it have been anything more welcomed and wonderful than Chan-wook Park's English language debut Stoker.  I had already planned on viewing and blogging about this film given the skew towards Korean cinema that has occurred since my beginning graduate school, however, it works doubly in that it is also a film centrally focused on a woman, or in the case of this narrative a relationship between a mother and daughter, more than justifying its inclusion on this month of women in film.  Stoker, based solely on its trailer alone, promised to be an intense and gripping psychological thriller, with expert actors and all the insanity one would hope from Park's legacy.  I was admittedly worried that the American framework would actually hinder Park's sensibilities as he would be required to adhere to the expectations and safety of studio work, however, this is far from the case.  Stoker, while certainly no, Oldboy, manages to exceed in intensity, break the conventional frameworks of cinema, to the point of purposefully freezing frames, not to mention having a narrative so incomprehensible, multi-tiered and non-linear that it does not simply suggest a reviewing, but assuredly demands it occur.  It is a pleasure to see a Park film in English, not that I do not fully enjoy his work, even when I have to read subtitles, but the extra layers of humor, darkness and subversion that emerge merely within the way lines are delivered added to the experience of his work twofold.  In its decidedly non-traditional structure, Stoker rejects the traditional storytelling arc of cause and effect leading to a climax that is succinctly solved.   Instead, Stoker begins at a swelling point and expands continually, always seeming as though it is ready to burst at the seams, and even when viewers are led to the moment where they could assume the narrative has taken its last violent twist, they are quickly betrayed their comfort when the madness of the film pushes one step further.  If Stoker is an early entry into 2013, I am absolutely elated as to what else will emerge  to be its equal, and even surpass.

Stoker focuses on a family reeling from the death of their patriarchal figurehead Richard Stoker (Dermot Mulroney) after his apparent suicide.  While death never proves to occur at a good time, it is particularly problematic for young India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) whose birthday also fell on the same  day.  An already reclusive girl, India goes into a full scale withdrawal, only worsened by her mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) and her attempts at overbearing forces of unity.  The two find it troublesome to navigate a world after the loss of their husband and father, yet when Richard's brother Charlie (Matthew Goode) appears the family adjusts to an eerie change, because this is the first time India has ever learned of Charlie's existence.  His impending presence is already problematic in his clear indifference to the absence of his late brother, as well as his immediately burgeoning relationship with the widowed Evelyn.  However, while it is clear that Evelyn is far more affectionate towards Charlie, he, nonetheless, engages in her advances half-heartedly, all the while making awkward passes at India. When various individuals go missing, particularly Charlie and Richard's aunt Gwendolyn (Jackie Weaver) India begins to grow suspicious, an act whose engagement leads to her growing disconnect at school, coming to head when she attacks a boy with a sharp pencil.  In the process, Charlie becomes even more protective and invasive in India's life, even saving her from a near rape, by choking the aggressor to the point of breaking his neck, something India reflects upon fondly.  However, when suspicions towards Charlie mount, India does more research, and discovers that Charlie's past is incredibly problematic, leading to Charlie attempting to convince that they should escape the house and move to New York.  However, Charlie realizes that, in order, to successfully move they must get rid of Evelyn, an act that India reacts to in an unusual manner, leading to her own movement out of the house into the world, closing the film in a baffling yet incredibly intense way.

I feel almost a fraud in my consideration of actually analyzing this film, because to be fair there is a lot going on, particularly in relationship to authority and undermining power.  Firstly, however, I want to make note of the ways in which Park is clearly borrowing from many of his predecessors, whether it be the tips of the hat to Hitchcock via Matthew Goode's inspired rendition of Anthony Perkins circa Psycho, or some rather clever reconsiderations of David Lynch psychotics laying right under the veneer of perfect middle class image.  What these two directors, and certainly Park share, is a deep-seeded resentment for unquestioned authoritative figures, particularly those of the patriarchal figure, in fact, it is no surprise that in all three directors' works women play key roles in plots alterations or doing away with negative forces.  However, Stoker takes the complexities of navigating such a world to new levels when he displays other women engaging in the oppression for their own selfish advancement.  I am, of course, referring to Evelyn who sees the emergence of Charlie as a perfect avenue for her to do away with the burdens of her dead husband, for whom she possessed very little love, as well as India, who she comes to loathe as a result of Charlie diverting his affections towards her.  India, unlike the other characters, seems always and at once aware of every vindictive and dangerous force in the world around her, whether it be some gross and easily enraged football players, or their friend who pretends to mean well, only to turn out to be equally violent.  India also sees symbols of authority as a threat, something that is initially foreshadowed with a cop who visits the Stoker home on a disappearance investigation, but figures again prominently into the film later.  It is, instead, when India must clearly make a statement about a person who is outright bad that she falters, yet, just as her father taught her when she was young, acts that may seem bad at the moment, could well prove to prevent something far worse from occurring.

Key Scene:  The shower scene...it is intensity taken to a new level.

This is the first real film of 2013 for me and it is quite excellent.  As I stated earlier, if this is a sign of the year to come, I am ready to embrace it passionately.

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.