Sunday, October 9, 2005

Zhang Yimou’s chinese films vs. Zhang Yimou’s films for chinese people

    My project on Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige involves a  once a week thirty minute conversation with my project leader.  He has a round face in which his two beady eyes loook like dimples on a cushion.  He also has a deceiving simple smile. A deceiving simple smile, not because he is particularly sadistic, but because his comments on my comments always end up dwarfing what ever intelligence i believed i had come up with.
    But that aside, here is one of his ideas on zhang yimou’s films worth noting.   Most of his films are accused in China for catering to foreigners.  The splendid architecture of “raise the red lantern”, the wrenching drama of “judou” or the not-so wrenching drama of “shanghai triad” are all taken for granted by chinese people.  it is their history, their country, of course they know about it, and they don’t need to be reminded of it if nothing new is brought to its table. 
    In “raise the red lantern” the table lacks any developpment.  The tradition of the red lantern is merely mentionned by the camera.  Red lanterns in a row on a rack. Cut. Red lantern hanging up high (my exacter translation of the film’s chinese name is: raise the big red lantern very high up). Cut. Red lanterns hanging up.  The tradition is not detailed.  What was the order in which the red lanterns were stuck up there? How did you choose the lanterns? What did the different characters on them signifiy?  Now those are obscure, fascinating pieces of information tucked into the belly of the literary classic giant “story of the stone” (my exacter translation: the dream of the red building).  My project leader wishes Zhang Yimou would make an effort and reach in to it.
Posted by Aventurina King in 17:52:26 | Permalink | Comments (4)

You hua hao hao shuo (keep cool or my translation: we can talk this over)

After a series of big budget, prize winning movies, Zhang Yimou finally really dazzles in the comic, french avant-garde con documentary-looking “you hua hao hao shuo”.  The screenplay, like the camera jumps all over the place.  In the first scene, the lens jogs then leaps along side Quqiang as he chases after his beloved An Hong.  He blocks her escape route off in a bus and she reminds him unceremoniously that she has dumped him a long time ago.  Unconvinced, he follows her to her grimy apartment complex and pays various street squatters (one of which enacted by director Zhang Yimou) to yell out what end up being inanities to her window.  Take the simple phrase “an hong, I miss you so much I can’t sleep”, the illiterate middle man transforms it into “an hong, I miss you so much i can sleep” “an hong, i don t miss you and i can’t sleep” “an hong, i miss you so much i want to sleep”.

Speech, or the inherent mysteriousness of speech is the theme and the motor of the plot.  How can you understand someone through their conversation?  Here, the answer is you can’t.  The beloved pest, gives in, then on a whim, gives him out again to the streets where he is beaten up by her blinged-up boyfriend.  Enraged, he throws the labtop of some poor passer by at his aggressors.  The labtop breaks, the poor passer by, a measly intellectual that recites incomprehensible proverbs at every turn, demands reparation from the hospitalized Quqiang.  Quqiang just wants to cut his aggressor’s hand–it must be the right hand–off.
Both, unaware of each other’s intentions, together, sollicit a rendez-vous from the boyfriend in a kitchy hybrid of a karaoke and a restaurant.  He will be late and the two companions sit opposite side a pink tablecloth stuffed with food. 
Finally Quqiang cuts into the pork foot with the butcher’s knife he kept in his bag for one reason.  The beady eyes behind the intellectual’s glasses glaze over. “it will be, must be the right hand” Quqiang explains. 
The rest of the film is a mystery to me.  Which one of the two characters is clinically coo-coo?  Is it quqiang who flippantly hands over a brand new computer to the intellectual after one hour of pig-foot incision? or the intellectual who refuses and bleats out cautionary proverbs to prevent quqiang from committing his butchery?  Is it quqiang who ties the other up and beats him in the cellar upstairs? or the other who once freed, runs around wielding a knife chopping at walls?  or maybe the both of them when they decide to be friends in the end.

Posted by Aventurina King in 17:35:26 | Permalink | Comments (1) »