YI YI (7.9/10)

Edward Yang, 2000.
The story chronicles a year in the life of an upper middle class family living in contemporary Taiwan, beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral. Each of the family members have their own distinct subplots; ranging from the innocent misadventures of a youth exploring the world, to the pangs of adolescence, to the difficulty of realizing ones place in the world, and the reflections on a life lived. The remarkable thing is that while each story has its own progression, character development, climax, and resolution it fits in with perfect harmony to the overall dynamic of the story. In essence it is akin to watching numerous short films within the framework of a larger picture; Yang does this exceptionally well.

Yi Yi is easily one of the best films I have seen in the past six months. However, for the death of me I could not think of anything insightful to say about it. Recently I realized that while amazingly well done, it is not the least bit interesting; the family leads a relatively vapid existence, granted they have their moments but overall their story is definitely not extraordinary by any means. The film is successful because the average viewer can relate to it. While only a select few can recall the bittersweet experience of discovering a severed human ear in a field, everyone can relate to the joys of affirming life and the sorrows of death, to the idiosyncrasies of family and friends. This ability to connect to the characters on a personal level makes the film extremely enjoyable to watch, and is the same reason why Homer, Marge, Lisa, Bart and Maggie Simpson are icons of global popular culture.

La Chinoise (7.1/10)

Jean-Luc Godard, 1967.
La Chinoise is commonly referred to as Godard’s most political film, and for that reason I believe it is not as highly regarded as the others. It is based around the philosophical and ideological discussions between five students living in a Paris apartment. Together they form a radical Maoist group and conspire to commit acts of terrorism with the intention of inciting a revolution. The story is loosely based on Dostoyevsky’s novel The Devils, which follows a group of revolutionaries in Imperial Russia. The name Kirillov given to one of the students in the film is an obvious homage to Fyodor Mikhailovich.

The group believed that Mao was the only true vanguard of socialism, actively fighting American Imperialism in South East Asia. Hence they were Maoists, not Marxists or Communists. Although Godard was interested in Maoism at the time, the film does not promote the ideology nor glorify terrorism. Rather I believe he uses the students to parody the intentions of student activism and illustrate its inherent flaws. The dialogue with Francis Jeanson a prominent professor and activist, who was arrested in 1960 for supporting Algerian terrorist groups, further reduces the group’s revolutionary ideas to nothing more then dangerous and foolish pedantic abstractions destined for failure. In the end their revolution is summarized as little more then the murder of the wrong person and the inevitable breakup of the group.

Godard employs easily decipherable symbolism with bold contrasting colors to create a rich visual aesthetic. However, the power of the film is not in the cinematography or plot but in the ideas, in the lively discussions between characters. The actors eccentric personalities help lighten up the cerebral dialogue. They included familiar faces of French Cinema such as Anne Wiazemsky who was Godard’s wife at the time and the official badass of the new wave, Jean-Pierre Leaud. Ultimately, La Chinoise stands better as an entertaining intellectual discourse then a serious film.

What is it? (6.8/10)

Crispin Glover, 2005.
From what I gather the film is about the conflict between different states of consciousness with in the Protagonist’s psyche, a character with Down syndrome and a passion for murdering snails. The project entirely financed by Glover lacks any lavish extravagances and has a prevailing ‘low budget’ feel to it. The ultimate result is a very interesting film with an exceptionally well done soundtrack; including Wagner’s Tannhauser overture and the Clock Work Orange theme.

According to Glover who was very sincere in his talk after the screening, the film was meant to be a reflection of his personal distaste with the mechanisms of censorship present within the current corporate Hollywood system. His intention was to make the viewer as uncomfortable as possible. Forcing them to question the images on the screen and the intentions of the director, rather then leaving the theatre in a complacent stupefied haze. He does this very well by exploiting every cultural taboo he can think of ranging from sex and racism, to fascism. I have an inclination that Glover’s explanation was a rehearsed boiler plate response, amid audience questions and comments such as, “Why are you trying to copy David Lynch? Why is your film so weird? You are nothing more then a misanthrope with more money then me!”

It would have been interesting to ask him if the images exist purely as a manifestation of his anger with corporate censorship, or are they a fulfillment of an innate human desire to look at what is forbidden. Does his aesthetic simply arise from the underlying beauty in the taboo, in the disgusting? Is this is why artists constantly strive to exploit the most disturbing images imaginable in their work? If so, is any other rationalization for films like this little more then intellectual abstraction?