Archive for the ‘film’ Category
three quite pleasurable little rants and rallies
Bai Ping Ting
on Chinese women, fantasy and reality
I’ve been watching The General and I, a charming if generally ludicrous multi-million dollar Chinese historical fantasy series about a woman whose leadership abilities all men defer to. Fat chance of that happening in the real China, where the dictatorship of macho thugs has reigned supreme for decades. But could today’s fantasy – minus all the superhero powers – ever become tomorrow’s reality?
China, like every other country, has traditionally been highly patriarchal, and to be fair the dictatorship (I refuse to endorse the charade of calling the country a people’s republic) is moving with the times in calling for greater gender equality. However the political reality is clear. China’s dictatorship is essentially based on the nine members of the ‘Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party’, and of course these individuals are regularly replaced over time. No woman has ever been Standing (or even Sitting) on this Committee, and according to Wikipedia, ‘since 1997, China has fallen to 53rd place from 16th in the world in terms of female representation at its parliament, the National People’s Congress, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union’.
Soong Ching-ling
It’s a disastrous situation, especially considering that in terms of women in the workforce, China is one of the world’s most egalitarian nations, outdoing the USA, Japan and many other developed countries. There seems to be little motivation to encourage women into the really important political jobs – the jobs they’d be best suited for as the more collaborative gender, and Angelababy’s Bai Ping Ting (actually not the most collaborative of females) is unlikely to change the situation. There doesn’t seem to be any woman of anywhere near the political stature of Cixi or Soong Ching-ling today. So I’d urge the smart women of China – there are millions of them – to rise up and demand their government to open its doors and let them in. They can’t do a Tianenman Square on you this time!
Cixi
on the archbishop of everywhere and nowhere
The same-sex marriage/marriage equality no-brainer has dragged on for far too long here. The other day I heard a fat archbishop of somewhere-or-other being introduced by the ABC to put the nope case. He started on about marriage being meant to be between a man and a woman, and I switched him off. Ahhh, but to have spent some time alone with him…Ok, I’d promise to have my hands tied behind my back. I’d ask him, how may female archbishops are there, mate? I mean, throughout history? In round figures? How many female bishops? Cardinals? Popes? You don’t think that’s relevant? Are you prepared to admit that your organisation’s hierarchy is extremely patriarchal? Like, the most patriarchal institution in the western world by a million miles? No, don’t blether on about your Mamma Superiors, I’m talking about the big decision-makers, you know that. And have you noticed how the most patriarchal societies in the world – look at the Middle East, Africa, parts of Asia and Eastern Europe – are also the most homophobic? You think that’s coincidence? Bullshit, patriarchy and homophobia hang together like a pair of testicles, and if you were a female archbishop, as you should be, you wouldn’t be sitting there spewing shit. But no, the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church would rather collapse under the weight of its own criminality than appoint a female to high office. So let me now turn to women everywhere, but especially to educated women who identify as Catholic. What the fuck are you thinking? How can you sleep at night? How can you more or less passively support the most retrograde and destructive institution in the western world? If you haven’t the sense to recognise your own interest, do it for other women, straight or gay, religious or no, and make a stand, surely you can do no other.
don’t ban, just abandon
on the history of marriage
‘Marriage has always been between a man and a woman, and I see no reason to change it.’ These, from memory, were the words of our former PM Julia Gillard, who was otherwise a good leader. Of course, even it it were true that marriage had always been between blokes and sheilas, that wouldn’t be sufficient reason to continue with that exclusive system. It’s a bit like saying ‘blacks have always had to sit at the back of the bus and use the back entrance and eat the leftovers…’ But has marriage always been between men and women (or little girls)? Or even between humans (I’m sure I’ve heard of a few blokes marrying horses and such). Who of us has witnessed the first marriage? Or the second or the fiftieth or the 500th? Where and when did they take place? Ten thousand years ago? Fifty thousand? Presumably at the time of mitochondrial Eve, some 180-200,000 years ago from memory, humans – and she was most definitely Homo sapiens – didn’t marry. There was little need for it as far as I can see, as there wouldn’t have been much in the way of property to protect and hand down to your legitimate heirs. And that’s interesting because, since mEve definitely had children, and we’re all descended from them, that makes us all bastards.
We don’t even know if humans were particularly monogamous at that time – we know sweet FA about their sexual liaisons, though it seems likely they were more free and easy than they are now – together with plenty of fighting over best mates. Of course the romantic in me likes to think that a twist of fate could’ve taken us the way of the bonobo, but there’s still time, and I’ll fight for that twist for the rest of my days. Meanwhile, marriage, if we must have it (and I’d rather not) is always what we make it, and making it as inclusive as possible is surely the best for us, and will maybe bring us full circle…
love isn’t blind, just blinkered
Limi Girl – part 2
Jacinta: So, Heigo takes up the washerwomen’s sad song on the lakeside, and we see the hard, basic work of the villagers, and the beauty of the mountainous countryside. A reality view juxtaposed with a touristy view.
Canto: Right, we’re back with Limi Girl – a long review, or more like one of those chats through the movie that you get on DVD extras.
Jacinta: Or used to get. And it’s by outsiders rather than insiders, so not so interesting…
Canto: But more critical, in a good way. So in the next scene the camera slowly drifts across Xiumei’s bedroom-study, where she’s writing and contemplating and looking melancholy. Above her head is a portrait of a dancer, which she stares at…
Jacinta: My guess is she’s confused, and not at all confident about becoming a dancer, or returning successfully to college.
Canto: So she goes to her father to talk. She explains to him that when she dropped out she decided that she would study hard and re-enrol in a ‘normal college’…
Jacinta: That’s an interesting piece of exposition. What kind of college was she enrolled in before?
Canto: Yes it’s confusing – either she went to the city to enrol in a dance college or she dropped out because she wants to go to dancing school…
Jacinta: It must be the first option. So now she feels like a failure and a disappointment about the dance thing.
Canto: She tells her father it will be cheaper and she might get a ‘national student loan’, but he says this is impossible.
Jacinta: In other words he forbids it.
Canto: She doesn’t respond for a moment, then finally says she has decided….
Jacinta: It’s a lovely scene, in the silence her breathing becomes heavy as if his words have winded her. But then there’s defiance.
Canto: So now there’s an argument, she’s in no position to decide, he told her the dancing would never amount to anything and now they’re in debt. She vows to pay it all back, tearfully saying she wants more than a good village life.
Jacinta: She’s distraught more than angry. Note that after the first day back she’s reverted to traditional garb. She’s caught between two worlds.
Canto: So Xiumei walks off into the night, and a woman comes in and says ‘Xiumei’s father, you shouldn’t treat her that way’. He looks gloomy.
Jacinta: Who is she? Doesn’t sound like Xiumei’s mum. A neighbour?
Canto: Not sure. Next Xiumei is out on the mountainous slopes collecting roots and herbs, working hard. She reaches a high point and looks out over the beautiful wooded mountains and valleys of her homeland. She’s in turmoil. She trudges back home with her donkey and her load of herbs.
Jacinta: Here it might be apposite to speak of the music, which I found very effective in its understated way. Evocative, wistful.
Canto: Heigo walks through the countryside with his mother.
Jacinta: The one who’s supposed to be in hospital.
Canto: He’s complaining about how she set him up with Shugio, while she says that it’s his duty as an adult to marry – he’ll be laughed at otherwise. He mocks the suggestion, and starts to sing another song, but his mother insists he go to see Shugio’s family to make up for his poor behaviour.
Jacinta: So next we have Heigo sitting beside his mother, or maybe Shugio’s mother, discussing the wedding with Shugio’s family over cups of tea. They’ve been engaged for 20 years, she says, and should’ve been married long ago.
Canto: And the others agree, talking over Heigo’s head, as people do in court.
Jacinta: Heigo himself looks barely 20 years old, poor thing. Finally he gets up and asks Shugio to step outside so they can ‘nurture their feelings.’
Canto: He’s not happy, and Shugio follows him out, trying to keep up with him. He rounds on her, accusing her of luring him back from Guangdong for this ‘trivial matter’ of marriage. And of course Shugio is shocked and annoyed at this reaction. Heigo, it seems, wants to give the impression that all this ‘arranged marriage’ stuff is beneath him, and that Shugio, too, is beneath him. ‘You don’t understand me at all’, he says.
Jacinta: This is one of many moments in the film where so much is revealed in a few words. Here we’re both slightly repelled by Heigo’s arrogant dismissiveness and sympathetic to his unfocussed but intense aspirations.
Canto: Shugio responds well, after consideration. She may not know him entirely, but she has tended and nurtured him, and dreamed of their future life together. But yes, she says, ‘you’ve broadened your horizon and now you are bored’. Heigo seems sympathetic, but insists – this was a match created by their parents, now they’re grown up and free to choose for themselves…
Jacinta: He ignores the fact that she has already chosen him.
Canto: He declares his choice – he doesn’t know how to live with someone who doesn’t know him.
Jacinta: But who ever knows another, or himself?
Canto: Upon saying this he flounces off, and she responds, most heart-rendingly, ‘I don’t know how to live with someone else either’.
Jacinta: They’re both exaggerating their inabilities.
Canto: Next, Gaidi meets up with ‘sister’ Xiumei, still collecting herbs on the mountainside. She has a pair of shoes for her, from cousin Heigo. Xiumei wants them sent back, but softens when she sees Gaidi’s disappointment. So they trudge together along mountain paths, with the gift, and a trailing donkey.
Jacinta: The camera again lingers here on the lush beauty of this landscape. In the previous scene we heard a cock crowing as the betrothed couple disputed under the trees. This play between the physical beauty of place and the nurturing atmosphere of domesticity – where everyone’s a sister or a cousin – and the sense of constraint and even suffocation for these young aspirants, this is so beautifully handled I think.
Canto: In a clearing, Xiumei dons the new red dancing shoes from her cousin, and dances, while Gaidi watches entranced. For a while they dance together, a slow swaying dance, arms akimbo. Then Gaidi takes her turn for a solo, as the sun begins to set.
Jacinta: Note that Xiumei turns contemplative, watching Gaidi. Thinking about dance, the fantasy, the reality…
Canto: And looks a little melancholic, I’d say. In the next scene Gaidi sheepishly approaches ‘sister Xiumei’, who’s emptying her basket, perhaps as food for some farm animals. Gaidi’s cattle, or the family’s cattle she’s been tending, have run off, and damaged a neighbouring wheat crop. So now she’s afraid to return to her aunt, where she’ll likely get a beating. Xiumei offers to return with her, to protect her, so they head off together. Her aunt is already angry, and tries to get at Gaidi with a broom. She’s angry about the loss of money, as they’ll have to compensate the neighbour. Xiumei steps between them, saying ‘don’t hit her any more’, so this is perhaps a common occurrence, ‘she’s just a kid’. So the argument continues, with Gaidi’s aunt, who’s also Heigo’s mother, asserting her right to beat her whenever she likes, since she feeds and clothes her..
Jacinta: A useful device for bringing Heigo and Xiumei together again, and here’s where we get some more useful exposition.
Canto: Yes, because Heigo appears, tries to calm his mother and tells Xiumei not to interfere, but the headstrong Xiumei won’t have any of that. ‘You wouldn’t let her go to school, and yet you beat her like this’. Not surprisingly, the older woman responds by mocking Xiumei’s school failure – ‘you must’ve done something shameful while you were away.’ Xiumei is stung, can’t think of a retort, and flounces off.
Jacinta: And naturally Heigo seizes his chance to get her alone.
Canto: Yes but before that, we focus briefly on Gaidi and her aunt. With Xiumei gone, and Heigo off after her, Gaidi is ordered inside. Her aunt follows her, picking up the broom, but then she tosses it aside before entering the house.
Jacinta: So Xiumei is having her positive influence. It’s neatly observed.
Canto: So Heigo begins by apologising for his mother, but Xiumei shrugs it off, ‘I’m used to it.’ Then she tells him she will return the shoes tomorrow.
Jacinta: They sure know how to hurt each other.
Canto: Of course Heigo objects. He bought them for her off his first pay in Guangzhou, has been keeping them for her ever since.
Jacinta: They sure know how to make each other feel guilty.
Canto: So Xiumei gives him a speech with obvious similarities to the one he gave Shugio. Things have changed, they’re not kids anymore, it’s water under the bridge, she doesn’t want this kind of life.. But Heigo wonders, understandably, about the change. It’s only been a year – he’s been working, she’s been to college. She can only say, much as Heigo said to Shugio, ‘you don’t understand me’.
Jacinta: It’s the old story of unequal feelings. Shugio loves Heigo, but Heigo can’t return the love, partly because she represents the past to him. Heigo loves Xiumei and she in return wants to transcend the past that he represents to her. There’s a fearful symmetry here. But there’s also in this dialogue, especially from Xiumei, another fearfulness, or a great uncertainty, about how to live, the difficulties of going Outside, to the City, the Great World.
night flight to Dubai
If you’ve come here looking for Bondesque hijinks click off now. The plane was a Boeing 777, with I think 10 passengers abreast, 3x4x3 with 2 aisles. I take this from Dr Google as much as from unreliable memory, there are apparently many ways of fitting out a 777. Our seating was on the left side facing forward, my TC had the aisle seat, I took the centre, and the window seat was taken up by a late-comer, who thus dashed our hopes of moving up one and gazing into the outer dark. This gangly young Englishman’s trials in clambering over and around us to get to his seat were a promise of discomfort to come.
It was a 14-hour flight to Dubai, starting at around 2200 but due to time zones and date-lines etc we’d be arriving at 0530 the next morning. As mentioned, I’ve had plenty of advice about pills or treatments for whatever might ail me on the flight but in truth I prefer remaining unmedicated as far as possible, and in my sixtieth year I’m pretty well drug-free, if you except life’s absolutely necessary pleasures, caffeine and alcohol, and I’m ever alarmed by and resistant to the collections of meds many of my peers feel forced to take against Alzheimer’s, anaemia, angina, anxiety, apnoeia, arthritis and let’s not get started on the rest of the alphabet. So all I took was some nasal spray and chewing gum as a defence against ‘plane brain’, aka aerosinusitis, and this worked a treat.
I didn’t sleep a wink in those 14 hours, though my reliable but argumentative TC insisted I had some winks, possibly as many as 40. Of course I was wide awake as I could possibly be for the take-off, but I mustn’t exaggerate my terror, it was nothing compared to the Mad Mouse. What made sleep impossible was the discomfort, the novelty and the anticipation, a mèlange of unbeatable distractions. My window-side neighbour was asleep within minutes of take-off, which didn’t stop him jabbing and kicking me when he shifted positions. There was a dearth of space between me and the seats in front and I felt timid about leaning my seat back too far. As time went by I became obsessed with my legs, which didn’t have room to straighten. I tried pushing my arse right back in the seat, I raised it up awkwardly, but just couldn’t get my angles right. My TC on seeing me squirm suggested I take some exercise in the aisle, as per the advice of all experts, but I perversely refused such an easy solution, and didn’t leave my seat until just before touch-down. Which turned out to be one of the highlights of the flight – possibly the longest pee in my peeing career.
Of course it’s hard to look back over so many years of peeing and pick out some, or any, of the great ones, and in any case peeing is such a subjective thing. For example, we’ve all experienced the agony of desperately needing a pee but being nowhere near a publicly sanctioned pee-place. In such circs your distressed state will disable you from conducting pee-stream studies of any kind; the last thing on your mind will be your PB in this activity. I’d go so far as to say that the physical release, the sense of near-weightless joy caused by these outpourings has been probably my most spiritual/religious experience. A true feeling of Salvation, as far from mere bean- or pee-counting as can be had.
Anyway what was intriguing about this mighty slash after 13 hours or so of being plied – necessarily, given the arid aircraft atmosphere – with coffee, fruit juice, and more pure unadulterated water (my least fave drink) than I usually consume in a month, was that, until my legs finally communicated to me that they really had to be stretched, I felt no great urge to relieve myself. Even after several minutes of quite exhilarating straightening and muscle-rubbing in the aisle, my loo visit seemed more after-thoughtful than necessary, so I was in a kind of neutral, clear-headed state when I observed my pee go on and on, leading me to thoughts of PBs and such. If it wasn’t my longest ever, was it in my top 10 (or top 5 if it was in the top half of the 10)? How could I tell? Clearly there is one pee I’ve had in my life that is my longest. Is this in any sense important? Well, maybe. Interesting, certainly. Though on reflection it isn’t so much the longest but the largest by volume that’s important* (or merely interesting) for presumably sometimes the pee runs more feebly than at others; the valve, so to speak, being plus ou moins open – constricted or dilated due to the vagaries of the weather, state of health, age perhaps or even just state of mind. Maybe one day scientists will hatch a device to be implanted in the midriff to measure the highs and lows of pee-flow. Maybe they already have, it wouldn’t suprise me, the utility of such is clear. But it would also allow some champion to claim the Biggest Pee, another entry to add to the Guiness Book of Perhaps Not so Pointless Records. And as I sat back in my now more comfy seat readying myself for Dubai, I thought of another perhaps not so pointless PB that I might just have broken, in that at some point during this flight I may have reached a higher distance above sea-level than ever before. Now how could that be monitored in our monitor-loving age? But then again, sea levels rise and fall, so….
Dubai lights. We watched the perfect landing on the screen before us. The airport was pale in the breaking dawn and glittering with artificial light. There were planes everywhere. Already it was 28 degrees outside.
*Just as the Nile is the longest river but the Amazon is by far the largest by volume. The Amazon wins.
TRIP HIGH/LOWLIGHTS
– The food was plentiful, varied and delicious IMHO, and the service was excellent, under sometimes difficult conditions.
– You need to see things from a baby’s perspective. As they’ve not yet developed sophisticated means of either conveying or receiving info, their instinct is to make as much noise as possible to make absolutely sure that others know they’re suffering horrendous agonies or experiencing the most frabjous joy. So nature has furnished them with the most impressive noise-making equipment for this purpose. It’s highly adaptive, another fine example of evolution at work. Ear plugs next time, though simple perspective taking can be sufficient.
– Not having a tech-savvy 13-y-o as my TC it took most of the flight to work out the functioning of the on-board entertainment (the first 2 hours just to get the headphones plugged in and operational). The movies were mostly boorish but I found one, Carol, based on a Patricia Highsmith novel I actually read some 20 years ago, a book/film about longing, desire and hope, regardless of sexual preference really, very much the sort of thing I’m drawn to. Reminds me of my fave Jane Austen novel, Persuasion. Highly recommended – I got teary. Fine performances by Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. Also recalls to my mind my fave line from the KJ Bible, perhaps my fave line in all litt: ‘Hope deferred makes the heart sick’.
Couldn’t settle to anything else much, though I did find a silly thriller very much starring Olga Kurylenko, the Most Beautiful Woman Who Has Ever Lived according to my ever-changing judgment (OK is always more than OK, I like to say), but not even her loveliness and her formidable ball-breaking superhero role could force me to see the shamefully silly shenanigans to the end. Better to watch L’Annulaire again, and again.
– Aerosinusitis. I did feel a painful buid-up after take-off but then came a sudden but sort of slow uncorking and brightening of sound, rather pleasurable, and I had no further problems on the outbound flights.
Une presence francaise at Dubai airport
movie review – shadowless sword
Pour qu’une chose soit interessante, il suffit de la regarder longtemps.
Gustave Flaubert
The altogether too irreproachable So-Ha
I’ve done a couple of movie reviews in the past, and I think I might do them more regularly in the future, just to give some play to my more creative writing side.
The Korean film Shadowless Sword (filmed in China) begins with warfare and a fighting heroine Mae Young-Ok, who unlike La Pucelle in Shakespeare’s Henry VI, doesn’t need voices from heaven or magical powers to help her. This is a modern (2005) movie, though set in the tenth century (presumably the Christian dating is for we westerners’ benefit), and so the heroines are tough, highly skilled sword-fighters with flawless grace, spotless costumes and peerless beauty, which of course I’m all in favour of. Korean women can do anything!
At the outset, we’re told that the old Korean land of Balhae fell to the Georan, a northern tribe, in 926. The Georans renamed the area, but the vanquished people regrouped and fought to recover their homeland. Again, not unlike the situation in La Pucelle’s France in the fifteenth century… And a quick check of Korean history tells me this isn’t MiddleEarth make-beliieve. Balhae, which indeed came to an end in 926, was an empire that covered northern Korea and southern Manchuria for some 300 years. Not that this film’s director, Young-jun Kim, intends to be any more historically accurate than Shakespeare. Billed on SBS as a martial arts film (but it isn’t really, it’s a historical fantasy), Shadowless Sword takes as many liberties with the basic laws of physics, not to mention credibility, as it does with history. Swashbucklers fly through the air with the greatest of ease, disappear in a puff of chemicals, and swat enemy combatants like flies in battle scenes that would leave poor old Richard III scratching his hump in wild surmise. All of which I happily forgive in view of the film’s real heroine, the inscrutable Yeon So-Ha….
In the opening scene, Balhae’s capital Sanggyeong is raided by the Eastern Georan ‘Killer Blade Army’ under their leaders Gun Hwa-Pyung and Mae Young-Ok, and the crown prince is killed. The Balhaens, if that’s what they call themselves, are in crisis, and need to find a new leader, preferably of royal blood, to carry on the fight. This is a problem, as the Killer Blade Army seem intent on murdering every last member of the royal family, but there’s one possibly promising candidate, an exiled prince named Jeong-hyun. Balhae’s PM (probably not elected) sends the nation’s premier swordswoman, the aforementioned So-Ha, to seek out the prince and offer him the kingdom. So-Ha is of course totally stunning as well as prodigiously disciplined and effortlessly talented – probably better suited to recapture the greatness of the dynasty than any male… but her role is to serve.
She finds the quondam prince in a far-flung backwater, trading in the black market under the name of Sosam. When she makes enquiries about his real name, he tries to bump her off via his gang of thugs, which sets up the next scene of choreographed mayhem, this time played half for laughs. So-Ha then confronts Jeonghyun with the situation, that he must take up the role of king. The somewhat embittered Jeonghyun is unimpressed – considering that his motto now is ‘survive no matter what’, why would he take up the apparently lost cause of the Balhaeans? With that answer, he disappears in a burst of fire and smoke, as you do. But he’s not out of trouble, as his beaten-up gang has discovered his identity, and, at the same time, the Killer Blade Army have arrived in the region to dispose of the last remaining royal. Of course So-Ha arrives in time to rescue the prince, whereupon Mae Young-Ok arrives to kill him off. Appropriately, as the bad guy, she’s just slightly less beautiful than So-Ha. They exchange pleasantries – ‘great to meet you at last, I’ve heard so much about you..’ Then there are some attempted negotiations – ‘hand over the prince and nobody else’ll get killed’. The gang leader, a comic character, tries to team up with Mae Young-Ok and the KBA, in the hope of profit, but is slaughtered for his pains, to impress upon us the ruthlessness of the bad guys. In the ensuing violence So-Ha urges Jeonghyun to make a getaway, thus further binding him to her. There follows a lengthy chase over rooftops in the dark with the usual flying and acrobatics and swordplay, but of course they escape, and their relationship, still shaky and suspicious, starts to develop. They retire to a tavern, where the worldly Jeonghyun tempts our squeaky-clean heroine with alcohol and food, to no avail of course, she’s has no such material needs. In fact, this is one of the more interesting scenes, which takes it beyond a mere ‘martial arts’ movie (in fact it is described as belonging to the broad genre of wuxia, which literally means ‘martial arts hero’, a category that So-Ha fits squarely into, a category that includes popular literature, opera, TV and video games).
A group of uniformly clad individuals enter the tavern – their slightly outlandish outfits broadly represent the Georan style in the movie. Jeonghuyn recognises them as another of the ‘gangs’, who are are out for trouble because their leader has been killed. So-Ha, not much interested, suggests they move on, as they’re in constant danger. Our princeling, feeling trapped by this stranger who’s trying to force him into kingship, stands on his dignity, saying that nobody can tell him when to stay or go, and in an access of frustration, he hurls his cup at the gang sitting nearby. They react in the usual low-key but totally ominous fashion of martial-arts types, standing up and asking what might be the matter. Jeonghuyn, apparently improvising, says that his boss, indicating So-Ha, wants to ask if their leader died due to sexual over-indulgence. This of course leads to a confrontation, but before things escalate, a female figure, the former leader’s daughter, floats down from the ceiling, demanding to know what’s going on (I like how these female figures are given such prominence in what is clearly a patriarchal ancient society, a modern twist designed to appeal to both sexes). One of the gang members tells her what So-Ha is alleged to have said, whereupon she shoots the (male) messenger, a reminder of the arbitrariness of ‘justice’ in this world. The daughter, or spirit, than asks So-Ha to repeat what she ‘said’, whereupon the two women retire to the forest, not in the ‘let’s step outside and settle this man-to-man’ fashion of your Rambo type, but to sort things out rationally and truthfully. The spirit-daughter is made aware that it’s Jeonghuyn who’s causing trouble, but that he’s to be forgiven as he’s potentially the saviour of the kingdom. Alternatively, So-Ha may have told her a cock-and-bull tale… In any case the scene reverses old values: the male is infantile, the women are wise, and their cool heads must prevail.
Meanwhile, the KBA leader, Gun, is being castigated by the Georan leadership for not having captured Jeonghuyn or dealt with So-Ha. They’re also annoyed with Gun for his nasty habit of killing off the royal princes, when they want to bring them onside, to bring peace to the country. Gun, though, is driven by family and tribal revenge, as we see through a flashback of his father being tortured and killed before his eyes, and through his regular remarks about family honour counting for everything – the usual primitivist prescription. ‘If you want to achieve something big, you need to control your vengeful spirit,’ the royal courtier tells Gun, in one of the film’s most resonant lines.
Mae Young-Ok is in hot pursuit of our heroes, who are moving from resting place to resting place, all the while talking and arguing about evil spirits and the role of the sword in everyday life, with Jeonghuyn sometimes lashing out at the demands being made on him. While passing through a market town he makes a break for it, but is caught by one of the KBA leaders, at the same time that Mae Young-Ok catches up with So-Ha. There follows the obligatory martial arts scenes, with swordplay and magic and comedy. So-Ha bests Mae Young-Ok, who lives to fight another day, while Jeonghuyn comprehensively slaughters his adversary – another milestone on the road to kingship. The pair reunite and flee, chased by the KBA. Just before they’re caught, they jump in the lake, which leads to underwater swordfighting, which starts to make me wonder if this is all based on real events. At one point Jeonghuyn looks like drowning, but trusty magical So-Han gives him the kiss of life. They eventually escape through the sewers or something, where they have another heart-to-heart about kingship, duty and destiny, rudely interrupted by the magical arrival of Gun. More unbelievable swordplay ensues, with no conclusion – the good guys make their escape, with Jeonghuyn wounded in the back, and Gun is left looking murderous and steadfast.
In the next scene, the two bad guys contemplate their failure, and Mae Young-Ok is given one last chance to kill So-Ha. Meanwhile, So-Ha tends Jeonghuyn’s wound, the second serious wound in the back he’s suffered. Jeonghuyn makes light of it, but So-Ha reminds him of his youth, before his exile, when he fought bravely for the dynasty. Then we have flashback of the battle in which he received his first wound, and where, as So-Ha reminds him, he received the title of ‘General Splendour’ and the acclaim of the people. Clearly So-Ha knows more than one might expect, and all the while she’s trying to push towards acceptance of his destiny. Her faith in him, of course, comes with a degree of sexual tension.
Once Jeonghuyn has sufficiently recovered they travel on through the countryside disguised as Georans. They witness the suffering of the people and the brutality of the Georan overlords, all intended to sway Jeonghuyn to the side of righteousness. At the next resting-place, he starts practising his swordsmanship; he’s falling under the spell of the shadowless sword, apparently. Shortly after this, at a stream where Jeonghuyn catches fish, they’re ambushed by Mae Young Ok and her band. In spite of being sitting ducks, Mae Young-Ok’s gang misses them with their arrows – incredibly incompetent for a super-warrior. So we have another chase, with magical flights through the trees, and another inconclusive clash of the two woman-warriors. Somehow the good guys fight off the bad guys, but So-Ha has been struck by an envenomed dart, and she begins to weaken. This is the occasion for another piece of moralising, as So-Ha insists that she be left behind, for Jeonghuyn must continue onto his destiny. Jeonghuyn though, argues that if it is a kingly duty to leave his man behind to die, while preserving himself, then he wants nothing to do with kingly duties. So-Ha relents and allows herself to assisted.
They arrive at the home of a man So-Ha calls her uncle, who greets Jeonghuyn as a royal prince. So-Ha collapses, the venom is discovered, and she’s given no chance of recovery.
In the next scene we’re at Georan HQ, where they’re concerned that So-Ha’s uncle is raising an army against them. Gun’s men, the Killer Blade Army, having failed in their task, are to be replaced by the Golden Bow Army. Gun and Mae Young-Ok are pretty unhappy about this, but the Georan PM is adamant. However, he forces Mae Young-Ok to sleep with him, making vague promises to give her another chance. Gun, seeing this, remembers the promise that he made to his faithful warrior-servant, that once all the royal children were killed, they would create their own dynasty together. He’s not a happy chappie.
women warriors
So now it is Jeonghuyn’s turn to watch over So-Ha, who miraculously recovers. Gun kills the Georan PM, while Jeonghuyn recognises So-Ha’s uncle as the commander from the battle of his youth, who tended his wound. So-Ha rises from her sick-bed, recognising that Jeonghuyn is in danger, but Gun arrives to confront her. Her uncle, though, intervenes, and begins a fight with Gun which you know he’s going to lose. Meanwhile the KBA, or is it the GBA, attacks Jeonghuyn while he’s visiting his mother’s grave, but S0-Ha rescues him. Returning to camp, they’re attacked again, this time by Mae Young-Ok, who assures So-Ha that if she overuses her energy now, her arteries will become twisted and she will die. So much for ancient Chinese medicine. Anyway, after more inconclusive balletic battling, along comes Gun to save the day. It’s the moment of truth, at long fucking last. Gun squares off against So-Ha, informing her that he’s disposed of her uncle. He promises to do the same with Jeonghuyn, telling her that she can win only with a decisive killing blow. Can your sword kill? he taunts her. She responds with one of the film’s tropes – the sword is not for killing but for protecting valuable things. With that they commence their final whirligig battle, which ends when Mae Young-Ok tries to intervene and is run through by So-Ha. So-Ha stops, stunned, and Gun takes the opportunity to run Mae Young-Ok through in the opposite direction, in the process delivering what will be the mortal blow to So-Ha. This of course further emphasises Gun’s black nature, and Mae Young-Ok gives a ‘ya shouldna oughta done that, boss’ look to Gun before dropping dead.
Meanwhile Jeonghuyn comes to the party. He’s been on the periphery of things, but rushes up to tend to So-Ha. ‘Nothing can stand in my way,’ says Gun, ‘now watch me slice up this little princeling’. Jeonghuyn notices Gun’s sword, which he took from the crown prince when he killed him. Gun conveniently tells him that two identical swords were given to two princes. This brings on a flashback. He remembers when, as a youth, he taught an orphan girl (yes, the young So-Han) to fight with this sword, telling her it wasn’t for fighting but for protecting valuable things. So he takes up So-Ha’s sword and prepares to fight Gun to the death. Needless to say, he wins, being able to control the ‘internal injury’ (you’d have to see it, and you still wouldn’t believe it).
Returning to So-Ha, who’s still on her feet, brave warrior that she is, Jeonghuyn becomes emotional – ‘if it weren’t for you…’, and So-Ha responds ‘you have been the meaning of my life for the past 14 years’, and suddenly legions of armed men emerge from the bushes, not to fight but to pledge allegiance to their new king. Then suddenly they come under attack – signifying that there will be bloodshed in the kingdom for some time to come. Yet somehow, through the magic of film, our two good guys find themselves alone, which allows for a truly touching death scene, with tears dribbling down. So So-Ha will not become the power behind the throne, except in spirit. Jeonghuyn is now alone. We next see him leading his troops into battle, no longer resembling a Chinese Mick Jagger, and giving a stirring speech à la Elizabeth I or Churchill (sorry about the western references)….
So that’s Shadowless Sword, a marginally superior wuxia movie, I suspect, though I’m no expert – with an impossibly virtuous heroine, which does have a romantic appeal even to an old cynic like me. In some ways it takes me back to my own dreamy childhood, when, bedridden with the mumps, I spent my time reading a prose version of Edmund Spenser’s Tales from the Faerie Queane, and fell in love with the fair Britomartis, who donned armour to rescue her father from the wicked clutches of some black knight or other, in a world of dungeons, dragons and ugly old witches disguised as fair young maidens. Funny how vivid those childhood memories can be. Though no doubt distorted and inaccurate. What I liked too about the movie was the suppressed, or unexpressed sexuality of it all. So-Ha’s competence and unflappability made her sexy, not her dress, her walk, or anything ‘feminine’ about her. That again, took me back to Britomartis and Shakespeare’s Rosalind and other insouciant androgynes. There are certain types, it seems to me, that transcend culture, and I really love that.
film review: the photograph
The 2007 Indonesian film the photograph definitely has some power in spite of certain manipulations and conventions which I’ll get to later. It boils down to a very simple story, a two-hander essentially, about a relationship between an old and infirm photographer, and a young, struggling single mother, Sita (Shanty), teetering on the abyss. Sita sings in a karaoke bar and is clearly being forced into pleasing the customers in other ways by a hectoring standover figure. She’s separated from her young son Yani who she rings whenever she can, as well as sending money home (she also has an ailing grandmother).
But let’s begin at the beginning. The film opens as we enter the photographer’s dilapidated studio, with old pictures on the wall in old gilt frames. The old man shuffles among these images, regularly contemplates a trunk of photographic and other memorabilia, and spends some of his time burning offerings to his ancestors, or whatever gods he believes in, on an abandoned rail line just outside of town.
The beautiful Sita, having been forced to leave her living quarters, asks the old man if she can rent the room above his studio. The photographer’s responses are always non-committal if not grudging, and he seems to be lost in another world. Sita takes advantage of this to simply move in.
That’s when we turn to Sita’s life as a karaoke singer and spruiker for clients. Her ‘pimp’, if that’s what he is, is presented rather one-dimensionally as a whining, bullying little packet of evil who bangs on the door of the phone booth while she speaks to her son, and cajoles her into a room where three thugs rape and abuse her. He appears also to take all her earnings because she apologizes to the photographer for not being able to pay for her room and begs him to let her stay on. Having been beaten up, she’s unable to work, and so she makes herself useful to him by cleaning his studio and helping with the occasional customers he photographs against painted backdrops of the countryside.
The film dwells on this awkward relationship, contrasting the spent, secretive old photographer with his face toward the past, and the struggling young woman with a mixture of pragmatic hopes and idealistic dreams for her and her son’s future. The old man is looking to groom a successor, but he needs someone who can carry on the spirit of his ancestors. Sita is half-interested herself in taking on the role, but realises that the tradition-bound old man, in spite of his growing kindness toward her, would find her unsuitable, just as a woman.
Sita hasn’t told the pimp her new address but he soon finds her and starts haranguing her, but is beaten away by the neighbours. Later he returns, and in one of the film’s most unconvincing scenes, chases her out of the town along a railway track, where, conveniently, the old man turns up and somehow the pimp manages to get himself run over by a train, though the impact is not presented and the likelihood of this young man, who’s clearly been living by his wits for years, allowing himself to be hit by a train in this way is just about zero.
Anyway, being freed of this man, she’s able to look more clearly towards the future – she’d love to become a chanteuse on a cruise ship. Meanwhile the photographer is getting more tottery, and while he’s on what might be his deathbed she explores the place further, including a trunk that he’s strictly forbidden her to open. It contains, inter alia, some tattered photos of the mutilated victim or victims of a train accident. The old man, suddenly recovered, catches her snooping, and we get a flashback to his youth, when he was on a train which hit someone on the line. He took photos of various parts of the victim’s body, the photos Sita found in the trunk, and he’s been haunted by the event ever since.
The old man returns to his dying, and he may already be dead when a last photograph is taken, with him propped in a chair and Sita by his side. This is the photo of the film’s title, and it eventually comes into the possession of Yani, Sita’s son, who narrates the final moments of the film, uniting past and future through the power of photography among other things. A pleasant and sometimes moving film, a little marred by some unlikely plot elements, and by a slightly unreal spareness of scene, with little of the bustle you would surely find in urban Indonesia. Film-makers, of course, create their own reality in a film, which is never the ‘real’ reality. At the same time a degree of verisimilitude is essential to evoke the sorts of responses you want to evoke in viewers. This is one of the essential balancing acts in any film, and the hardest thing to manage (and that’s what makes James Bond films such abject failures in my view). The photograph, unfortunately, doesn’t quite succeed in this regard, but the characters, especially Sita, are interesting enough to compensate.