iFilm Connections Public Forum

The Critic's Corner

Asian Cinema in the 60th Cannes Film Festival

The Cannes Film Festival celebrated its 60th birthday this year. However, it has lasted for more than one jiazi, (a cycle of sixty years); though annually held, the festival was cancelled because of the outbreak of War in the 40s of the last century. That means it’s older than sixty years. Although the organizers did not hold any grand celebration and everything was scheduled as usual, it continues to occupy the top of the list among film festivals and is as stable as Mount Tai for the moment.

Strictly speaking, there were four Asian films that were entered into the international competition. They are Kim Ki-duk’s Breath/Soom, Lee Chang-dong’ Secret Sunshine, Naomi Kawase’s The Mournful Forest, and Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s Persepolis. Wong Kar-wai’s My Blueberry Nights, the opening film, is a Hollywood English feature and thus not in the list.

The results of the competition are remarkably stunning -- four Asian in-competition films secured three important prizes. The Prix du jury winner Persepolis, an animated film, is a joint venture by Iran and France. The film is adapted from a graphic novel of the same name by Marjane Satrapi, which has been very well received in France. She also brought Vincent Paronnaud, a well experienced French animation feature director into the production team. With a strong dose of autobiographic sense, the story begins in 1978. Marjane, a girl of eight years old, starts to fantasize herself as a world saving prophet. Through her growth physically and psychologically, the director unveils the social changes of Iran in the past decades, the influence of the Iran-Iraq war on Iran, as well as Marjane’s rugged and uneven road of love affair, her school and career. Though the style of the graphic animation is average, it’s full of philosophical thinking which resonates well with the audiences.

It was a right decision to give the Best Actress Award to the Korean Actress Jeon Do-Yeon who starred in Lee Chang Dong’s Secret Sunshine. She plays a grief stricken widow who relocates, with her son, to Milyang--hometown to her late husband. May be due to a slip of the tongue, she tells others about her intention to invest in the real estate. Her grief soars when her son is abducted and killed. Meanwhile, a devout cohort wants to help her to face the adversity. Bereft and tortured, she longs for rejuvenation. Might be because of the grace of God or her conversion, she has forgiven the jailed kidnapper and wants to tell him in person. The encounter with the criminal at peace brings out an unsettling question of faith in her: why is the criminal more at peace than her, just because of God’s forgiveness? Lee Chang Dong exposes the fundemantal hypocracy of religion. A murderer, after confession to God, then is promised eternity, isn’t he? No wonder there are so many murderers on earth. If there were devout jurors in the panel, Lee’s statement would not be taken seriously. Yet, Jeon Dong Yuen’s exquisitie performance is perfectly obvious.

As compared to Secret Sunshine, The Mournful Forest adopts a style of documantry. The writer-director develops a story of how old people handle grievances. Nothing startling. The blank faces on screen fail to charm the audience. To me, it was an absolute mistake for this film to have been selected for competition. It left audience puzzling and head-scratching at the honor. My friends, including film critics and the festival programmers, and I looked at its victory with cold eyes. What’s consoling is that films with popular and commercial appeals were the least appreciated by the juries; they showed more patience towards art films.

Triangle from Hong Kong, the only Cantonese film recruited as the Official selection (not as a candidate), was in the starting line at the last minute this year. The fame of the three directors Johnny To, Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam and with the presence of actors Simon Yam, Louis Koo and Sun Hong-lei, though its screened out of competition, the film really generated much discussion. Simon Yam said at the Press Conference that there were four difficult directors in Hong Kong, three were on board. It is beyond imagination to figure out how these three directors cooperated and shaped the narrative, and put it on screen in front of the audience with a unified tone. The keystones are friendship and tolerance. To, Tsui and Lim are buddies, and the film conveys the same message. Though characters and the plot are not unfamiliar, the film attains a realm like water in milk. It would not be difficult for those die hard fans to differeniate the different styles among the three directors while enjoying the film with great interest. Nevertheless, as it’s a film with strong commerical and popular appeals, there is nothing profound and special regarding the content.

The Flight of the Red Balloon, the opening film of the Un Certain Regard, was directed by Taiwanese auteur director Hou Hsiao Hsien; it is a French-language film in its essence (with only a little bit of Mandarin). Inspired by the French famous classic Le Ballon Rouge which enjoyed wide popularity, this film pays homage to Albert Lamorisse who died from an air crash accident when filming his. It is remarkable for Hou who does not know French but is able to root this film as close as possible on everyday life in French language and merge, without a trace, a foreigner’s point of view into the local culture. Curtained behind the prosperity of Pairs, Hou’s work is still straightforward and down to earth. Together with the red balloon symbol and the Hou’s complex of the train and the puppet, Juliette Binoche’s natural performance has been more dazzling and moving. As the film did not participate in the competition, Binoche lost the chance to compete for the Best Actress award.

This year, the documentary on filmmakers and critics Pierre Rissient: Man of Cinema directed by Todd McCarthy, a film critic at Variety, an entertainment magazine in the US, relatively, had aroused interest of certain people in the field. Amid the myriad screenings in Cannes, the film on those in the filmmaking industry deserved more words in its introduction. I attended the deliberate low profile premiere where McCarthy and Thierry Fremaux, Cannes Film Festival Artistic Director, came on stage to introduce Rissient to the audience, which was anticipated. What was unexpected and incredible was the presence of the leading figure of Cannes Film Festival Gilles Jacob, who managed to find time to attend the screening, and presented to Rissient the medal of the Cannes Film Festival.

Rissient is the world’s leading cinema maniac. Within the period of more than four decades, when Gilles Jacob reigned over Cannes Film Festival, Rissient has been discovering good films, and good assistants to directors. The documentary interviewed many world class directors such as Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorcess and Quentin Tarantino who calls Rissient the King of Cannes. Rissient’s achievements are definitely good materials for any documentary. It’s been known in detail to the veteran filmgoers that Rissient has been recommending Hong Kong films, from Tang Shu Shuen’s The Arch to King Hu’s A Touch of Zen. I saw it many times when Rissient set foot in Hong Kong; he went at once to watch the latest films by Ann Hui, Wong Kar-wai, Chen Kai-ge and Stanely Kwan. Once, he made a special trip to Hong Kong. He fetched from Taiwan, a French friend good in Chinese to accompany him to the dubbing studio to watch the rough cut of Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together which was without subtitling, in the dead of the night. Risseint’s contribution to the rise of Korean films is much appreciated. He helped Korean films to make their débuts in the competition sections of the Cannes Film Festival and Venice Film Festival; Im Kwon-Tak’s Chunhyang and Lee Chang Dong’s Oasis were the candidates for the competition respectively.

In the past twenty to thirty years, when Rissient came to Hong Kong, I have been on his list of contacts. I remember, many years ago, he asked me whether I had any information about the Korean Director Shin Sang-Ok and his wife Choi Eun-Hei. Though I knew the names and had watched their films such as Red Scarf, I had no clue about where I could inquire about these two. After many years, I then knew they were kidnapped by North-Korean secret agents when they were in Hong Kong. This is an indirect example showing that Rissient is acquainted with Korean film and filmmakers. Shin Sang-Ok and his wife Choi Eun-Hei were forced to work for North Korean films after being kidnapped; they escaped and returned to the free world in 1978. In 1994, Rissient invited Shin Sang-Ok to be the Cannes juror and his latest title Vanish, on kidnap, was screened. Shin died of illness at his eighty in Souel.

Todd McCathy, in his film, mentioned that Rissient discovered Hou Hsiao Hsien. Obviously, this is a mistake. As I am involved in this, I must clarify some facts. That year, I watched The Boys from Fengkuei at Taiwanese Film Festival held at the Hong Kong Art Centre. At that time, Alain Jalladeau, the organizer of the Festival des Trois Continents in Nantes was in Hong Kong. I remember when I had breakfast with him in Park Hotel Hong Kong, I passionately incited him to invite this film to participate in the competition section of Nantes. Finally, this film won the grand prix of the Festival in 1984. Next year, Hou’s A Summer at Grandpa’s won again in the festival. In 1985, Hou’s A Time to Live and a Time to Die won several international prizes from film festivals, such as those in Berlin, Rotterdam. In 1994, Hou first appeared in Cannes competing for the Palme d’Or with The Puppetmaster. It is a serious mistake for one to say Peirre Rissient discovered Hou. There is a big time gap of one decade from the The Boys in Nantes to The Puppetmater in Cannes. In the Night of Hong Kong party, I met Alain and we talked about this documentary, he said laughingly that McCarthy had made a mistake.

Another important Chinese film Blind Mountain directed by Li Yang from Mainland China screened in this year’s Un Certain Regard. Li’s previous film Blind Shaft received acclaims and Blind Mountain brought a certain degree of surprise to the audience. The film unveils the social injustice in China in front of western audience; of course, the face saving Chinese feel uncomfortable. However, they should be proud of having a director who dares to reveal and dig into the negative traits of society and of human beings. Labor and the continuation of the family line, are necessities in the poor mountain-ringed region of China where people are driven from kindness to twisted violence and ferocity. An ordinary city girl has been abducted and traded to a village in the area as a sold-off bride. Bride trafficking is widespread and it is out of the control of the village officials and police even if they want to intervene. The girl does not want to confine to other’s control and attempted to flee many times, even though she is raped by her “fake-husband” and gives birth to a baby. Her defiance is fuelled by her unwillingness to be deceived and to be maltreated, as well as by the power of the unrequitted familial love. The girl’s last ferocious movement at the final reel received audience acclaim. The film ends abruptly there which brought a round of applause singing the praise of the audience. With the unfailing assistance of the editor Mary Stephen, a Hong Kong citizen and the must recruited editor of French auteur Eric Rohmer, the effect is spectacular.

There were other two Asian films, or Chinese-language films, selected for the Un Certain Regard ; they are Night Train directed by Diao Yi Nan from China and Pleasure Factory filmed in Singapore by a Thai director Ekachai Uekrongtham. Dao’ previous film Uniform depicts a poor and introvert tailor whom indulges in her good feeling after putting on a police uniform, passes herself off as a traffic police. The female protagonist Wu Hongyan in Night Train also wears a uniform. She is a court police and often comes into contact with death sentenced convicts. Every weekend, she takes the night train to the city to attend parties in the hope of befriending someone she likes. At last, she found out that her beloved is husband to a female convict sentenced to death . It’s narrative on a commoner’s life, but it is placed so close to death. Many civilized countries have given up the death penalty. China, as mentioned, rose to prominence peacefully, and is never soft in executing death penalty. May be there are too many bad people and the bullets are cheap (there’s a hearsay that the family of the convict has to settle the bill.) The Thai director Ekachai Uekrongtham who also directed Beautiful Boxer chose to film Singapore’s red light district Geylang. Through the bold shots of lust and desires and the scenes on hawker calling, it seems, he is challenging the conservative Singapore film sensorship, just like what Oshima did to Japan with In the Realm of Senese. If this is his aim, he has achieved it. Yet, it is diffcult to ascertain what the audiences get from the film.

[Writen by Freddie Wong with translation by Dorothy Wong]