Part of what I love about movies is living vicariously through their characters. This might at least partially explain my love of bad sci-fi films, since I can never hope be the world's leading expert on ancient Egyptian languages who translates hieroglyphics on some stones and opens a portal to another planet. It might also explain my love of certain children's movies and bad romantic comedies, since no one can stay so happy and naive for so long. Sometimes it's important to experience what the characters feel, as in Schindler's List or House of Sand and Fog, precisely because you will never - you hope - experience the horror and injustice the characters face.
But of all the emotions I relish experiencing through film, the one I might love most is vengeance. It's dirty, it's bad and it's not nearly as fulfilling as pardon and redemption, but it is entirely satisfying while it's happening and it is so far from my own experience that I can only experience it through film (or literature). When characters experience unthinkable tragedy, their quests for revenge are all-consuming, enveloping not only those they seek to punish but themselves as well. They become single-minded to the point of insanity, obliterating everything that stands in their way, inevitably leading to complete self-destruction.
For my money, no films have pursued the concept of vengeance as fully or as graphically as Park Chan-Wook's Vengeance trilogy, comprised of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. I started with Oldboy in November last year and ended with Lady Vengeance several weeks ago, watching character after character invite vengeance to destroy their lives. These movies are full of some of the most awful violence and some of the darkest humor I've ever seen, without exaggeration. (Is it funny when someone has just cut out his own tongue with a pair of scissors and then starts to sing a song? Maybe, maybe not...)
It's hard to see the problem with revenge when it's warranted, but the complication is in deciding who gets to make that call. In Park's trilogy, everyone does, from the evil to the innocent. So when one person does it you're cheering them on and when the other does you're horrified. This is the problem with vengeance: you can't make it universally okay because not every person will exact it for the right reasons and because it's really difficult to tell when you've gotten it. If your child is murdered, is it enough for the murderer to be murdered? If your kidney is stolen, is it enough to take the thief's kidney? What if he only has one?
Monday, July 30, 2007
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
The Host
Film critics always like to talk about horror films actually meaning something. The Saw trilogy is a comment on the apathy of the bourgeoisie. Hostel is about Americans' xenophobia and non-Americans' justified hatred of America. But when movies are bad (as are the above), I don't really care what they mean. To some extent, they're nice to have for cultural reference, but until they're on when I can't find anything else to do, I'll pass.
Joon-ho Bong's Gwoemul (The Host) looked pretty scary in its trailers, but I think that was partly due to the trailers' artificial lack of dialogue (similarly mute misrepresentations happen with a lot of foreign films' English-version trailers, often with comic effect). What looked like a monster-horror film turned out to be, well, still a monster movie, but also a family comedy-drama and a smart political satire.
When a monster (which happens to have been accidentally created by the American military) starts running amok in Seoul the Park family - a little girl, her idiot father, her feeble grandfather, her medal-winning archer aunt and her alcoholic uncle - comes together to try and stop it in order to preserve their lives and relationships. Much of the time, it was a lot of fun watching them run around trying to find and fight this thing, but there was something very serious about the realities of such a monster infiltrating the city and the Park family.
As they chase after the monster, the Parks run into obstacle after obstacle set in place by the government. Playing on the southeast Asian fear of SARS and other viruses, the Korean government is convinced that the monster has brought a deadly virus, with symptoms similar to the common cold and which ultimately lead to a swift death. When it seems the Koreans can't handle the situation, the American military swoops in and proposes using Agent Yellow, a biological weapon, to destroy the monster and the deadly virus it has brought with it.
At a time when the American military is being questioned domestically and abroad, a lot has already been said to the effect of, "Americans stick their noses in where they're not needed or wanted, and they need to get the hell out. The rest of the world hates them." The more helpful and as I see it, more accurate sentiment as portrayed in Gwoemul is, "Thanks for coming over to help, we really appreciate it, but why do you have to always think you know what's best? Listen to us! Our way of seeing things is different from yours, but it is valid." There was an unexpectedly poignant moment I think I'll never forget when one of the characters says, "My words are words, too!"
It's trendy, I know, for some Americans to be obsessed with southeast Asian cultures, but I can honestly say I've never had a desire to visit them until these past six months or so of watching their films. There is something I'm missing, some piece of all the films that won't fall into place until I read some history books and take a trip or two. While film might not be the best way to understand a place, Gwoemul, A Taste of Tea (which I watched recently, too) and several others have confirmed for me the indispensability of film and other media as a way to enlarge experience. I may never get to travel to southeast Asia, but film has brought me past the veneer of the place.
Joon-ho Bong's Gwoemul (The Host) looked pretty scary in its trailers, but I think that was partly due to the trailers' artificial lack of dialogue (similarly mute misrepresentations happen with a lot of foreign films' English-version trailers, often with comic effect). What looked like a monster-horror film turned out to be, well, still a monster movie, but also a family comedy-drama and a smart political satire.
When a monster (which happens to have been accidentally created by the American military) starts running amok in Seoul the Park family - a little girl, her idiot father, her feeble grandfather, her medal-winning archer aunt and her alcoholic uncle - comes together to try and stop it in order to preserve their lives and relationships. Much of the time, it was a lot of fun watching them run around trying to find and fight this thing, but there was something very serious about the realities of such a monster infiltrating the city and the Park family.
As they chase after the monster, the Parks run into obstacle after obstacle set in place by the government. Playing on the southeast Asian fear of SARS and other viruses, the Korean government is convinced that the monster has brought a deadly virus, with symptoms similar to the common cold and which ultimately lead to a swift death. When it seems the Koreans can't handle the situation, the American military swoops in and proposes using Agent Yellow, a biological weapon, to destroy the monster and the deadly virus it has brought with it.
At a time when the American military is being questioned domestically and abroad, a lot has already been said to the effect of, "Americans stick their noses in where they're not needed or wanted, and they need to get the hell out. The rest of the world hates them." The more helpful and as I see it, more accurate sentiment as portrayed in Gwoemul is, "Thanks for coming over to help, we really appreciate it, but why do you have to always think you know what's best? Listen to us! Our way of seeing things is different from yours, but it is valid." There was an unexpectedly poignant moment I think I'll never forget when one of the characters says, "My words are words, too!"
It's trendy, I know, for some Americans to be obsessed with southeast Asian cultures, but I can honestly say I've never had a desire to visit them until these past six months or so of watching their films. There is something I'm missing, some piece of all the films that won't fall into place until I read some history books and take a trip or two. While film might not be the best way to understand a place, Gwoemul, A Taste of Tea (which I watched recently, too) and several others have confirmed for me the indispensability of film and other media as a way to enlarge experience. I may never get to travel to southeast Asia, but film has brought me past the veneer of the place.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
It's me
Just now, outside my seventh-floor window, Iz Kamakawiwo'ole's cover of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" started playing loudly. I walked to the window and a flock of white birds was flying back and forth against the backdrop of the monument and a bright blue sky.
If I had been contemplating some major life decision and at that moment had said If God exists, He will give me a sign right now," I would have found the answer. Since I know there's no such thing, at least it gave me something to smile about.
Who's setting me up here?
If I had been contemplating some major life decision and at that moment had said If God exists, He will give me a sign right now," I would have found the answer. Since I know there's no such thing, at least it gave me something to smile about.
Who's setting me up here?
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