Workers, Peasants --- Jean-Marie Straub & Danièle Huillet, 2001
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Monday, March 18, 2013
Payback
“You even know what reimburse means?” Di Caprio’s Calvin Candie replies to a runaway slave, not smart enough to know economic jargon, before he is torn limb from limb by Candie’s pack of sadistic bloodhounds.
Inglourious Basterds’ barfly banter is substituted for underhanded business negotiations and transactions, mostly centering on the commerce of human flesh, either dead (bounty-hunting) or not-so-dead (slavery). The ensuing carnage of Django Unchained is thus the paroxysmal riposte to the injustices of the master-slave economic system, just as the atrocities of WWII provide the stimulus for the revenge fantasy of Basterds. QT’s latest is certainly audacious, and you can’t say that about 90% of today’s movies. Yet when QT “rewrites” the past, as he has done in his past two films, in order to “get even” with the crimes of history and the inadequacies of cinema to confront these crimes, the rambunctious manchild cannot help but consolidate even further the brutal motor of the history he is rewriting, in all its obscenities, viciousness, and barbarism.
It’s a matter of reparation versus reimbursement. Both acts necessitate the righting of wrongs, but only the former implies renewal, while the latter only presupposes payback. In Django, Sam Jackson’s Stephen (his best performance since I was still in preschool) is obviously a damning doppelganger for actor Stepin Fetchit, and by blowing off his kneecaps in the film’s end Django reimburses the negative African-American stereotypes exemplified by the roles of Fetchit in the ‘30s. Whether it’s riddling bullets to the mangled body of the Führer or blowing up plantation houses, both reimbursing the resistance that was supposedly lacking those dark days (respectively, the French Resistance and innumerable slave uprisings prove otherwise), QT’s “history” films provide no “restoring” alternative other than this vicious system of exchange.
Hence, Django is less about slavery, or the collective emancipation from it, than vengeful individualism, which is easily subsumable to the same evils of history that one is against. Besides his wife, Django rarely helps out any of his fellow slaves. In fact, one scene shows him giving a black barman the stink eye, and, during the long ride to Candieland, Django, on horseback, goes so far as to treat the marching slaves alongside him as inferiors. Why the hell should he help them, when he is the indomitable baadasssss! Turning the tables on the white man, Django whips the white captor’s ass; now he is the one who inflicts pain, making the white man his “bitch”. In a way, in his quest for vengeance, Django just takes over the role of his brutal white masters, and, conversely, the white men replace the roles of the black men as helpless victims. Similarly, the Jewish Americans of Basterds carry out mass slaughter against those genocide-loving Nazis, who’re blown to pieces. No matter how loony QT’s rewritten histories become, the same roles of master-slave, perpetrator-victim, are still maintained, and any alternative from this diabolical dualism has no place here. The roles will frequently change, but it won’t be destroyed. Django frees his wife, but, from Schultz’s cold corpse, keeps the bill of sale.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Novice Impressions (K-pop)
Eroticizing goofiness, the unique gift of such goddesses as Marilyn Monroe, Anna Faris, HyunA....
“Resistance for freedom of expression through music via sixth sense…. Their title track is an expression of the limitations of experiencing music with only five senses, and it asks people to feel it instead with their sixth sense.” --- promotional for Brown Eyed Girls’ Sixth Sense album.
K-pop fans seem to thoroughly embody the figure of the medieval exegete, combing through songs, albums, music videos, concerts, interviews, romanized lyrics, choreography tutorials, TV appearances, etc., within an endlessly expanding Borgesian media library. And the relationship between K-pop fans and their sacrosanct pop idols is the material obverse of the spiritual bond between devoted followers and their unseen God.
T-Ara appeals to me personally, since they sustain, for this day and age, what I love most about the girl group movement back in the sixties: the cherub-faced rebel girl melodramas of The Shangri-Las and the freewheeling and reckless bliss of The Tammy’s “Egyptian Shumba”.
“What I have in mind is the capacity of entertainment to present either complex or unpleasant feelings (e.g. involvement in personal or political events; jealousy, loss of love, defeat) in a way that makes them seem uncomplicated, direct and vivid, not ‘qualified’ or ‘ambiguous’ as day-to-day life makes them, and without intimations of self-deception and pretence.” (Richard Dyer, “Entertainment as Utopia”) “… [Walter] Benjamin was not much interested in theories or “ideas” which did not immediately assume the most precise outward shape possible.” (Hannah Arendt, “Introduction” to Illuminations) In its brevity and immediacy, pop song lyrics, instead of plumbing for “deep” meanings, seem to crystallize those “complex or unpleasant feelings” in “the most precise outward shape possible”, giving this popular form its special vicariousness. The best songs of T-Ara seem silly at first due to their repeated lyrics and linguistic nonsense, but these whirls of onomatopoeia vividly communicate something more dramatic and emotional. In “Bo Peep Bo Peep”, right before the girls are able to express their deep remorse and love to the man who’s sick of them, who’s leaving them, somehow God goes Tower-of-Babel on the world for a second time, and, instead of reciting the words which will make their man return, the girls go “Bo peep, bo peep, bo peep, oh”. The seeming meaninglessness of the lyrics reveals poetry (and T-Ara can do “serious” poetry too: “I hope my lips that recite this sad poem will be remembered in your black eyes” in “Day by Day”), but more importantly the constant repetition of the lyrics makes the song effortlessly danceable. Thus, pop song lyrics present the flashpoint of the poetic and kinesthetic.
T-Ara’s “Day by Day” would work perfectly with Philippe Garrel’s The Inner Scar.
Friday, March 8, 2013
The Tracks of My Tears
Some points of departure that may potentially constitute an evaluation or a defense of Autumn in My Heart.
--- For all its over-the-top outbursts and tears, the show boasts a definite “rigor”, not to be mistaken for stylishness or old-school classicism, in its melodramatic construction. There are no unnecessary elements here, only elements (flashbacks, plot revelations, close-ups…) that will underscore as intensely as possible the heavy emotions within the story. So, for instance, it hardly matters that the production team gave very little thought to set design, since the show derives its emotional power not from the splendor of its sets but from Song Hye-Kyo’s tear-streaked face. The show’s vital force, its unique heartbeat, is formed from this obsessive concentration on only the certain elements it deems as essential in accumulating the feelings of the drama. Throughout the sixteen episodes, these concentrated feelings gather up like a storm, mapping out lines of force that collide, intersect, and repeat. Thus the show is structured around a series of dramatic encounters and confrontations, missed chances and unspoken desires, along with multiple repetitions of lines of dialogue, settings, gestures, and music cues. All these lines of force also possess an unchanging trajectory, which goes all the way to a devastating finality. No wonder in shows like these things only get worse. Calling this stuff heavy-handed is just too insubstantial!
--- Each of the main characters cannot love if not in a deranged state. This is in line with the show’s full-blown melodramatic trajectory, which requires the creation of characters that are willing, without hesitation, to go to the utmost extremes and plunge into the torments of romance. Subtlety and nuance in characterization have no home here, since these qualities are unable to jive with the drama’s emotional bounce and overriding purpose, specifically the relentless accumulation of feelings. Whether it’s Tae-seok’s unrequited, almost masochistic, love for Eun-suh, transforming him from bad boy to faithful mensch, or Yumi proclaiming to her fiancé Joon-suh that she’ll die without him, in the hopes of suborning him into a marriage he doesn’t want, the characters’ arrant amour fou arrives at a mad morality. The hysterical spirit of the romance overthrows the conventional and powerless principles of love that the older characters term as wisdom. None more so than in the romance between Joon-suh and Eun-suh is this expressed. The familial bond between the ex-siblings blooms into romance, much to the outrage of the other characters, but nevertheless their fragile love only flourishes more so once it is rendered as taboo. As Eun-suh quavers to Joon-suh, “Let’s just look at each other as if it’s a dream”, there is a moving realization that their love achieves in reality the affections of dreams. In that instant, love is reinvented.
--- Autumn in My Heart, through its love story, revitalizes the passé concept of innocence. Joon-suh and Eun-suh’s romantic relationship, throughout the entire show, never loses the brother-sister tenderness of their adolescence, given that these two lovers, to begin with, have yet to mature into adulthood. Whenever they encounter each other, the lovers “catch” their childhood once more, regaining their youthful liveliness. Indeed, the scenes with the couple candidly manifest the pep of puppy love: puerile, annoyingly sexless, yet wholly genuine. But this childlike innocence is too vulnerable to face the (melo)drama and too impulsive to avoid it. No matter the hostility and hardships, Joon-suh and Eun-suh, with tears streaming down their faces, defend their pure love, because this is the only portal to their lost childhood. In Jean Renoir’s The River, one of the characters says, “And the world is for children, the real world. They climb trees and roll in the grass. They’re close to the ants and as free as the birds. They’re like animals. They’re not ashamed. They know what is important.” Somewhat similarly, the romantic scenes between the two leads usually take place outdoors. However, these moments of innocence, when teenage hopes and dreams are recovered and which the adult world smashes into oblivion, comprise the instant when true love takes central importance and runs unashamed and free. Innocence is no longer the safety net for censorious puritans, but a force of love that can potentially turn the world upside down.
--- That ending, with the sudden refrain of an important line of dialogue, is possibly the most moving I’ve ever seen.
--- For all its over-the-top outbursts and tears, the show boasts a definite “rigor”, not to be mistaken for stylishness or old-school classicism, in its melodramatic construction. There are no unnecessary elements here, only elements (flashbacks, plot revelations, close-ups…) that will underscore as intensely as possible the heavy emotions within the story. So, for instance, it hardly matters that the production team gave very little thought to set design, since the show derives its emotional power not from the splendor of its sets but from Song Hye-Kyo’s tear-streaked face. The show’s vital force, its unique heartbeat, is formed from this obsessive concentration on only the certain elements it deems as essential in accumulating the feelings of the drama. Throughout the sixteen episodes, these concentrated feelings gather up like a storm, mapping out lines of force that collide, intersect, and repeat. Thus the show is structured around a series of dramatic encounters and confrontations, missed chances and unspoken desires, along with multiple repetitions of lines of dialogue, settings, gestures, and music cues. All these lines of force also possess an unchanging trajectory, which goes all the way to a devastating finality. No wonder in shows like these things only get worse. Calling this stuff heavy-handed is just too insubstantial!
--- Each of the main characters cannot love if not in a deranged state. This is in line with the show’s full-blown melodramatic trajectory, which requires the creation of characters that are willing, without hesitation, to go to the utmost extremes and plunge into the torments of romance. Subtlety and nuance in characterization have no home here, since these qualities are unable to jive with the drama’s emotional bounce and overriding purpose, specifically the relentless accumulation of feelings. Whether it’s Tae-seok’s unrequited, almost masochistic, love for Eun-suh, transforming him from bad boy to faithful mensch, or Yumi proclaiming to her fiancé Joon-suh that she’ll die without him, in the hopes of suborning him into a marriage he doesn’t want, the characters’ arrant amour fou arrives at a mad morality. The hysterical spirit of the romance overthrows the conventional and powerless principles of love that the older characters term as wisdom. None more so than in the romance between Joon-suh and Eun-suh is this expressed. The familial bond between the ex-siblings blooms into romance, much to the outrage of the other characters, but nevertheless their fragile love only flourishes more so once it is rendered as taboo. As Eun-suh quavers to Joon-suh, “Let’s just look at each other as if it’s a dream”, there is a moving realization that their love achieves in reality the affections of dreams. In that instant, love is reinvented.
--- Autumn in My Heart, through its love story, revitalizes the passé concept of innocence. Joon-suh and Eun-suh’s romantic relationship, throughout the entire show, never loses the brother-sister tenderness of their adolescence, given that these two lovers, to begin with, have yet to mature into adulthood. Whenever they encounter each other, the lovers “catch” their childhood once more, regaining their youthful liveliness. Indeed, the scenes with the couple candidly manifest the pep of puppy love: puerile, annoyingly sexless, yet wholly genuine. But this childlike innocence is too vulnerable to face the (melo)drama and too impulsive to avoid it. No matter the hostility and hardships, Joon-suh and Eun-suh, with tears streaming down their faces, defend their pure love, because this is the only portal to their lost childhood. In Jean Renoir’s The River, one of the characters says, “And the world is for children, the real world. They climb trees and roll in the grass. They’re close to the ants and as free as the birds. They’re like animals. They’re not ashamed. They know what is important.” Somewhat similarly, the romantic scenes between the two leads usually take place outdoors. However, these moments of innocence, when teenage hopes and dreams are recovered and which the adult world smashes into oblivion, comprise the instant when true love takes central importance and runs unashamed and free. Innocence is no longer the safety net for censorious puritans, but a force of love that can potentially turn the world upside down.
--- That ending, with the sudden refrain of an important line of dialogue, is possibly the most moving I’ve ever seen.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Working Girls
It starts off like a Hiroshi Shimizu title: Korean Girls at the Harbor. Five best friends, at the peak of their high school years and without a care in the world, prance merrily ‘round the waterfront, sing and dance to some silly song, take pictures for mementos, scream and giggle uncontrollably, without a care in the world. It’s the epitome of friendship, an intimate togetherness between the five girls that the rest of the film will endeavor to replicate but never truly fulfill.
This brief flashback that opens Take Care of My Cat washes out into the mundane present day. As if to jolt us into these contemporary times, the first thing we suddenly see is someone shattering an apartment window, whilst down below one of the girls, now out of high school, goes off on her morning commute to faraway Seoul. In this film, none of the main characters own a car, so going from one place to another, whether for work or leisure, means bus rides, trains, and long walks, together with the exhaustion that is attendant with everyday commuting (how refreshing it is to see a film that acknowledges the fact that private transportation remains a luxury for a minority while the rest of society queues for the next ride back home). More importantly, the manner in which these characters are classified and restricted to particular social options, as well as their relations and interactions with one another, is mainly predicated on their work. Ji-young (Ok Ji-young), living with her grandparents in the slums near the harbor, boasts the unique talent for creating textiles, a skill set that sadly has no place in the money economy as evinced by her unemployment. The two twins Bir-yu (Lee Eung-sil) and Ohn-jo (Lee Eung-ju), as their chief source of income, sell trinkets on the streets. Upwardly mobile Hae-joo (Lee Yo-won), working at a brokerage firm in Seoul, uses her charm and charisma to climb up the corporate ladder in a job she’s terribly underqualified for. Meanwhile, Tae-hee (Bae Doona, the greatest actress of our times) helps run her family’s spa, even though she’s not earning anything from it. The ever-growing working hours, the encroachment of labor time into leisure, the constant fear of being without a job in tandem with the precarity of work itself --- no matter how many times these girls reunite, it is tragically inevitable that work, the means to simply survive, will ultimately tear this group apart.
What moved me in this film is its encapsulation of a moment in young adulthood when all that matters, hopefully for the time being, is to make ends meet, even if we unavoidably risk losing what is most important: our hopes, our dreams, our friends. There is a restlessness that is felt here, a quiet desperation at the way this present world is being run, something it shares with Yasujiro Ozu’s salaryman films. It’s this desperation, call it anger if you want, that is more precious than gold, because cinema, in the words of Pedro Costa, is supposed to “make us feel that something isn’t right”.
This brief flashback that opens Take Care of My Cat washes out into the mundane present day. As if to jolt us into these contemporary times, the first thing we suddenly see is someone shattering an apartment window, whilst down below one of the girls, now out of high school, goes off on her morning commute to faraway Seoul. In this film, none of the main characters own a car, so going from one place to another, whether for work or leisure, means bus rides, trains, and long walks, together with the exhaustion that is attendant with everyday commuting (how refreshing it is to see a film that acknowledges the fact that private transportation remains a luxury for a minority while the rest of society queues for the next ride back home). More importantly, the manner in which these characters are classified and restricted to particular social options, as well as their relations and interactions with one another, is mainly predicated on their work. Ji-young (Ok Ji-young), living with her grandparents in the slums near the harbor, boasts the unique talent for creating textiles, a skill set that sadly has no place in the money economy as evinced by her unemployment. The two twins Bir-yu (Lee Eung-sil) and Ohn-jo (Lee Eung-ju), as their chief source of income, sell trinkets on the streets. Upwardly mobile Hae-joo (Lee Yo-won), working at a brokerage firm in Seoul, uses her charm and charisma to climb up the corporate ladder in a job she’s terribly underqualified for. Meanwhile, Tae-hee (Bae Doona, the greatest actress of our times) helps run her family’s spa, even though she’s not earning anything from it. The ever-growing working hours, the encroachment of labor time into leisure, the constant fear of being without a job in tandem with the precarity of work itself --- no matter how many times these girls reunite, it is tragically inevitable that work, the means to simply survive, will ultimately tear this group apart.
What moved me in this film is its encapsulation of a moment in young adulthood when all that matters, hopefully for the time being, is to make ends meet, even if we unavoidably risk losing what is most important: our hopes, our dreams, our friends. There is a restlessness that is felt here, a quiet desperation at the way this present world is being run, something it shares with Yasujiro Ozu’s salaryman films. It’s this desperation, call it anger if you want, that is more precious than gold, because cinema, in the words of Pedro Costa, is supposed to “make us feel that something isn’t right”.
