Brehm Blog
Eugene Suen Aug 05, 2010
Who is Hou Hsiao-Hsien?
For the past quarter century, the Taiwanese director has been revered as one of the grandmasters of world cinema. The first Chinese director to garner the prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, film critic J. Hoberman calls him our "greatest living narrative filmmaker"; scholars consistently rank his works among the most artistically significant of our time; a Village Voce/Film Comment international critics' poll in the late 1990s identifies him as "Director of the Decade".
In light of this, it is surprising that only four of Hou's films to date have received theatrical release in the United States. The same fate has befallen other important foreign directors whose works have been deemed too difficult, too esoteric, to be financially viable in a market dominated by commercial fares and escapist entertainment. Martin Scorsese, an avid Hou fan, often laments the state of our culture for its unwillingness to embrace film as a legitimately artistic medium. It would appear that Hou's brand of austere, minimalist cinema - with its deliberate pacing, extended long-takes, and rigorous focus on the subtle moments of everyday life- is having difficulty attracting a general audience whose attention span has been greatly reduced in this media-saturated age, who sees film primarily as a commercial medium of escapism, emotional manipulation, and instant gratification.
Whether or not you like films and care about art cinema, this phenomenon should be of particular concern for Christians. Among the more significant developments in contemporary Christianity is the move towards embracing ancient tradition, particularly spiritual practices and rituals that help root
us in the reality of the divine. Silent contemplation and meditative prayer are just some of the kinds of practices that allow us to slow down, look inward, and develop heightened awareness of the rhyme and rhythm of life in the midst of our restlessness. They help us to sober up and embrace life as it is given in all of its basic simplicity and beauty. While fast-paced, escapist commercial cinema has its value in the marketplace, the inability (and sometimes utter unwillingness) of people to slow down and embrace films that do not fit the mold of conventional cinema and their culturally-defined sets of expectation is indicative of a grander, more pressing problem that has, I believe, very serious spiritual ramifications.
To learn to appreciate art like Hou's works is to learn to surrender our need for constant distraction and instant gratification, to learn to expand our horizon, and to become attuned to the spirituality present even in the most mundane moments and casual gestures of everyday life. The best of his brand of cinema - typified also by the likes of Edward Yang, Abbas Kiarostami, Yasujiro Ozu, and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne - has the ability to help us live deeper and look closer. The transforming power of these films is akin to that of a meditative prayer.
Hou's latest, The Flight of the Red Balloon, is a wonderful introduction to this kind of poetic, unobtrusive cinema. A French-Taiwanese co-production commissioned by the Musée d'Orsay to celebrate its 20th anniversary, this marvel of a film is an homage to Albert Lamorisse's classic 1956 children's film The Red Balloon and continues Hou's preoccupation with collective cultural history, the relationship between past and present, and the nature of artistic enterprise and its role in human interaction.
Like its source material, Flight of the Red Balloon shows a young boy going after and being followed by an elusive, seemingly sentient red balloon around the city of Paris. Unlike Lamorisse's original, Hou's film goes beyond depicting the wonder of childhood and morphs into a light-hearted but casually melancholic portrait of the close-knit social circle that surrounds the boy. The balloon assumes the role of an active observer, a symbol of childhood innocence and contradiction, and a hovering presence from the past that witnesses the untidy modern life shared by the boy, his frazzled mother - a professional puppeteer played by a luminous Juliet Binoche (who has never been better or sexier), and his babysitter - a Chinese film student who is in the process of remaking the original Red Balloon.
The plotless film revolves around the daily existence of these individuals and is defined by casual encounters, ordinary moments, and off-hand conversations/reflections that subtly but unmistakably
convey the poetic rhythm and essence of modern life. A scene featuring the tuning of a piano in the midst of domestic chaos, for example, has the graceful flow of an expertly choreographed dancemovement. Slowly and in its unassuming way, the film serve as a quietly rigorous and self-reflexive meditation on art and life. More importantly, it is a celebration of human experience and its banality, ambiguity, and contradictions. It is the filmic equivalent of a poem, and a sublime and rapturous one at that.
Whereas escapist entertainment distracts us from the messiness of real life, this film, like every great work of art, enhances your perception of reality and make your want to embrace life all the more. I invite you to check it out. It may take some time getting to, but the reward is a richer, deeper, and more abundant life.
-- Eugene Suen
Elijah Davidson Jul 31, 2010
Dinner for Schmucks is a remake of the 1999 French film The Dinner Game. The French are noted for their appreciation of Jerry Lewis, and having seen this film, it is no surprise to me that this story was popular in France.
This movie is essentially a modern day Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin movie with Steve Carell in the Lewis role and Paul Rudd in the Martin role. The hallmarks of a Lewis and Martin movie are all there - the straight man is having trouble with his romantic interest, the socially awkward idiot enters his life and causes more problems, but ultimately the friendship they form saves the day. Interspersed throughout the story are zany bits of slapstick and painfully awkward situations. You cringe as much as you laugh.
Being that it is a modern take on a Jerry Lewis movie, the humor is a good deal bawdier than Jerry Lewis' family friendly 1960s comedies. Explicit sexual humor abounds, and the film comes very, very, very close to full frontal nudity though it does so in a ridiculous way.
The basic premise of Dinner for Schmucks is thus: wealthy investment management executives search their city for eccentric, socially awkward people, invite them to dinner, laugh at them, and then crown one of the "idiots" as the night's winner. That sounds mean, right? Well, it is mean, and therein lies the trouble with this movie.
Clearly, the executives are the bad guys because they are making fun of these "idiots." The audience is supposed to be repulsed by the suits. But, the audience isn't really all that different than the suits. After all, the audience is invited to laugh at the idiots too, which it can't do, because laughing at the idiots is wrong.
Where then, does the humor lie? It lies in the awkwardness. Unable to laugh and unable to grieve, the audience sits in tension between the two. Like in Meet the Parents, the humor, if we can call it that, arises from the uncomfortable situations the protagonist finds himself in while dealing with the socially awkward idiot. If you like that kind of "humor," or rather, if you can stand it, you'll enjoy Dinner for Schmucks.
Dinner for Schmucks is an example of a comedy of manners, in which, a high social class is critiqued by its interactions with a lower social class. Classically, subtle wit is more important than broad humor (like slapstick). Like Jerry Lewis' films, however, Dinner for Schmucks is packed with very broad, physical humor. Some people will like this; others will find it silly and unfunny.
The central conflict in this movie revolves around Tim's attempt to obtain a promotion, because he believes that doing so will impress his girlfriend enough that she will agree to marry him. The dinner for idiots is an initiation right of sorts into the upper echelons of his company. This comedy of manners is critiquing our society's often unspoken belief that material worth is of greatest worth and that it is ok to step on whomever you need to in order to increase your material worth.
I resonate and agree with this critique. Material worth clearly isn't of greatest value. Other things are a much more important foundation for a correctly-lived life. The movie sides with faithfulness, truthfulness, and kindness as winning out over greed, pride, and dishonesty, and for that I applaud this film. The film's posture toward the "idiots" is particularly heartening. We are invited not to laugh at them, but to embrace them with all their idiosyncrasies and annoying personality traits. I know I need all the encouragement I can get to better live out this kind of love.
Is Dinner for Schmucks kind of cheesy? Yes. Is is bawdy? Yes. Is it light and mostly predictable? Yes.
Is it also truthful? I think so.
-- Elijah Davidson
Elijah Davidson Jul 28, 2010
We live in a society obsessed with romance, and honestly I am at a loss to explain why. I know I sympathize with this preoccupation. As a single, young man in his mid-twenties, I spend an inordinate amount of time contemplating my sometimes flourishing most often floundering love life. I seem to believe that I am owed amor. Where did that sense of entitlement come from?
Much to my charigne, the Bible is mute on the subject. Apparently the Biblical writers lived in a time much different than ours where romantic pursuits took on either a remarkably different character or existed as something else entirely. For the life of me, I cannot find the passage where Jesus tells me how to get a date, much less a wife. There is, of course, Song of Songs, but even then, the most strident exclamation arising from scripture's greatest love poem is, "Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires."
What's a boy to do? Society says romance is everything. The Bible doesn't say much to the contrary or in affirmation. I want to believe that everything works out in the end in every romantic endeavor, but experience has taught me that this just isn't so. Sometimes hearts break. Sometimes lovers split. Sometimes you end up alone on the streets of Dublin singing your heart out for a spare shilling hoping someone will stop to listen.
That is where we join the Guy's story in Once. He's brokenhearted and alone, unsure of what to do with his life, with dreams of doing this or that "once" he gets this or that straightened out.
And then someone stops to listen. The Girl hears the love behind his laments, and they form a friendship full of healing and new hope.
Once is a musical unlike any other. As a friend so astutely pointed out for me, the movie is a vehicle for the songs, as if the movie was made to give the songs a stage. Indeed, the film acts in many ways as an 83 minute long music video. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, the Guy and the Girl, have composed a beautiful collection of songs including the Academy Award winning "Falling Slowly," and the film does their songs great justice.
Linking the songs together and informing the songs and being informed by the songs is a delightful love story with more depth than most. Over the course of their two or so week long relationship, the Guy and the Girl fall in love with one another, but they are mature enough to know that the purpose of their love is not to be together forever. They love each other so they can separate, and though apart, live better lives and love other people better because of their love for one another.
Why do we fall in love? Some would say it is because we are hard wired to try to propagate the planet with more of our species. Romantic attraction facilitates progeny. Others would say that romantic love makes all our other problems go away. "All you need is love," these paramourian prophets proclaim.
The Bible seems to say both and neither. The Bible definitely says that God is good in all things, and I imagine that means no matter how desperate and desirous our hearts may be and no matter if our hearts find romantic satisfaction or not.
If only I could remember to believe that.
Once believes that we love, and that love is good even when things don't turn out like we think they should.
I believe that God loves us, and that God is good even when things don't turn out like we think they should.
(Once is rated R for language. This is an Irish film, and the Irish seem to use a certain four letter word like teenagers use the word "like." I don't think any ill-intent was, like, intended.)
-- Elijah Davidson
Elijah Davidson Jul 24, 2010
If Salt is the only Salt movie you ever want to see, don't go see Salt.
I love a good spy movie. What can I say? I am my father's son. At my father's side, I've seen every James Bond movie, many of them multiple times. I've enjoyed all of Hitchcock's yearns of mistaken, duplicitous identity. I've even seen the spy movies you've never heard of like The Day of the Jackel and The Odessa File (both highly recommended, by the way).
I used to pour over "spy gear" catalogues. I begged my mom to take me to a spy shop I discovered in the yellow pages. I had a nondescript cardboard box (so that it blended in) in my room when I was a kid full of "gadgets" I had created for the day when it became necessary for me to go undercover to save the world. I would dress in all black and sneak around the house trying my best to not be discovered by "the enemy," also known as my little brother and sister.
(And to this day I will still tell you proudly that the CIA recruits more people from my undergraduate alma mater, Texas A&M University, than from any other non-military institution of higher learning in the nation.)
I love spies, and so for the first 95 minutes of Salt's 100 minute running time, I loved this movie, and then I realized that this movie wasn't going to end.
On the most basic level, Salt is a throwback to the Cold War espionage films of my childhood. There's mystery and intrigue and elaborate world domination plots and evil Russians and secret, training facilities in Siberia and you're never quite sure who's on whose side. If you focus on the basic plot and premise, Salt is fun.
And I think if Salt had been made 40 years ago, it would have been a really neat movie. Unfortunately, it was made today, and so it falls victim to an industrial movie-making machine hungry for franchises. Instead of being a twisty thriller like those of days gone by, Salt tries to be the next Jason Bourne, and she fails to measure up.
The Bourne movies are my favorite film trilogy since the original Star Wars films. Beneath the frantic and fantastic fight and chase scenes of the Bourne movies beats a strong heart of genuine emotion. Jason Bourne's is a compelling story because he is a character on a journey for real redemption, and each film in the trilogy grants him a bit of that redemption. The climax of the third film gives it to him completely.
Eveline Salt wants redemption too, and I don't think I'm ruining your film-going experience by saying that the story keeps it from her, kinda, though there doesn't seem to be any reason to deny her some redemption except to provide an excuse for a sequel. Sigh. I miss the days when they knew how to make movies with endings.
That being said, if you're in the mood for a good almost-throwback, Cold War era espionage thriller with some modern car chases and fight scenes thrown in for good measure, and if you think you might be interested in watching the further exploits of Eveline Salt in the soon to be produced sequel(s), this is the movie for you.
Otherwise, hold a double-feature in your living room with The Day of the Jackel and The Odessa File, and savor sweet story resolution.
Oh! And don't I have anything faith-related to say about this movie? I don't think so. Every movie doesn't require theological reflection. Sometimes a story is just a story, and that can be ok.
As long as the story ends!
I love a good spy movie. What can I say? I am my father's son. By my dad's side, I've seen every James Bond movie, many of them multiple times. I've enjoyed all of Hitchcock's yarns of mistaken, duplicitous identity. I've even seen the spy movies you've never heard of like The Day of the Jackel and The Odessa File (both highly recommended, by the way).
I used to pour over "spy gear" catalogues. I begged my mom to take me to a spy shop I discovered in the yellow pages. I had a nondescript cardboard box (so that it blended in) in my room when I was a kid full of "gadgets" I had created for the day when it became necessary for me to go undercover to save the world. I would dress in all black and sneak around the house trying my best to not be discovered by "the enemy," also known as my little brother and sister.
(And to this day I will still tell you proudly that the CIA recruits more people from my undergraduate alma mater, Texas A&M University, than from any other non-military institution of higher learning in the nation.)
I love spies, and so for the first 95 minutes of Salt's 100 minute running time, I loved this movie, and then I realized that this movie wasn't going to end.
On the most basic level, Salt is a throwback to the Cold War espionage films of my childhood. There's mystery and intrigue and elaborate world domination plots and evil Russians and secret, training facilities in Siberia and you're never quite sure who's on whose side. If you focus on this basic plot and premise, Salt is fun.
And I think if Salt had been made 40 years ago, it would have been a really neat movie. Unfortunately, it was made today, and so it falls victim to an industrial movie-making machine hungry for franchises. Instead of being a twisty thriller like those of days gone by, Salt tries to be the next Jason Bourne, and she fails to measure up.
The Bourne movies are my favorite film trilogy since the original Star Wars films. Beneath the frantic and fantastic fight and chase scenes of the Bourne movies beats a strong heart of genuine emotion. Jason Bourne's is a compelling story because he is a character on a journey for real redemption, and each film in the trilogy grants him a bit of that redemption. The climax of the third film gives it to him completely.
Eveline Salt (Angelina Jolie) wants redemption too, and I don't think I'm ruining your film-going experience by saying that the story keeps it from her, kinda, though there doesn't seem to be any reason to deny her some redemption except to provide an excuse for a sequel. Sigh. I miss the days when they knew how to make movies with endings.
That being said, if you're in the mood for a good almost-throwback, Cold War era espionage thriller with some modern car chases and fight scenes thrown in for good measure, and if you think you might be interested in watching the further exploits of Eveline Salt in the soon to be produced sequel(s), this is the movie for you.
Otherwise, hold a double-feature in your living room with The Day of the Jackel and The Odessa File, and savor sweet story resolution.
Oh! And aren't I supposed to have something faith-related to say about this movie? I don't think so. Every movie doesn't require theological reflection. Sometimes a story is just a story, and that can be ok.
As long as the story ends!
Elijah Davidson Jul 19, 2010
There was a moment while watching Inception that I thought, "This is the most amazing movie I have ever seen," and my next thought was, "Did I just think that?"
If you haven't yet seen this film, I encourage you to stop reading my review, and go see it. Right now. Finish this paragraph if you must, but please don't read the rest. I won't be giving any spoilers, but I honestly believe that the best way to enter into the world of Inception is with as little preparation as possible. Briefly, the movie is excellent. It is a tautly wound, enthralling film, well acted on every part. It is akin to other psychological thrillers, and yet more ambitious and daring in its plot structure. It is rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action throughout, and deservedly so, but it does not deserve a more adult rating at all. Thematically, the film questions reality, how we perceive it, and how to live accordingly. Once again, I can't recommend it highly enough. Stop reading this review, and go see it now. Then come back and read the rest of what I've written.
Ok. Now that you've seen the film, we can continue on together.
At it's most basic level, Inception is a heist movie, like Ocean's 11, The Italian Job, or The Great Escape. I adore heist films, because I love when people with different gifts assemble to do something none of them could have done alone. In every heist movie, I see a picture of the Church. When Paul writes about apostles and prophets and teachers and miracle workers and healers and helpers and administrators and tongue speakers, I read "masterminds" and "forgers" and "scroungers" and "tunnelers" and "manufacturers." What is the Church if not a group of people with different gifts and skills who have come together to do something none of them could do alone, namely, to bring the love and grace of Christ to the world?
But that's beside the point really, because Inception isn't about that at all. It is a heist movie though. The story concerns a group of people who break into people's dreams and steal what they know. "Inception" refers to the act of placing an idea into someone's mind, a much trickier task it turns out, and this task provides the action for the story. Group leader Cobb's (Leonardo DiCaprio) past complicates things a bit though, and the film uses that conflict to explore matters of existence and epistemology (a seminary word for "how we know what we know").
And that's all I'm going to say about the plot. Like I said before, I don't know when I was so thoroughly engrossed in a movie as I was while watching Inception, and the little knowledge I thought I had about the film kept pulling me out of the story as I tried to make fit what I thought I knew. I don't want that for you, in case you didn't heed my warnings and continued to read this review without seeing the film first.
When I was 17 years-old, I saw The Matrix for the first time. It was a few years after it was in the theaters, and my pastor invited me to come to our church one evening. We watched the movie on the big projection screen in the sanctuary with the church sound system turned on. It was a wonderful experience, one I'll never forget. That night, I felt like I was seeing something unlike anything I had ever seen before. The stunts and special effects were revolutionary, and the Wachowski brothers' work inspired a wave of innovation in science fiction filmmaking.
As I watched Inception, I found myself hoping that this film will inspire a similar wave of innovation, not in special effects, but in storytelling. Christopher Nolan has crafted a story of unbelievable detail and complexity. Inception's world obeys very particular rules. It must for the story to hold together, but the story is such that it could oh so easily have slipped out of Nolan's hands, fallen to the earth, and crashed into a million confusing pieces. He somehow maintains the narrative, though it is a breathless endeavor. The story concerns (and questions) multiple realities, and yet somehow it is accessible and understandable. Like a delicate chandelier, Inception is magnificent.
Christopher Nolan is one of a few filmmakers whom I feel represent the post-modern inclination in current, mainstream cinema. Quentin Tarantino, Tom Tykwer, the Coen brothers, and Charlie Kaufman also come to mind for various reasons - Tarantino because of his use of intertextuality (drawing meaning from the juxtapositioning of otherwise unrelated sources), Tykwer because of his meditations on life, death, and love, the Coen's for their affinity for absurdity and irony in the face of the apparent meaninglessness of life, and Kaufman for his determination for purpose amongst the inevitability of heartache.
Nolan's post-modern leanings fall into the realm of, as I mentioned before, epistemology, or how we know what we know. He often accomplishes this through the manipulation of time. Memento tells its story backwards, Insomnia occurs in a place where the sun never sets and it therefore without time, The Prestige happens all out of order, and Inception, well, if you've seen it, you know.
Post-modern thought is all but defined by it's questioning of what we profess to know. It is for this reason, I think, that so many in the evangelical world are threatened by post-modern thinking. After all, the evangelical flavor of Christianity is characterized by a profession of what we believe to be true. Post-modernism questions whether or not we can truly know anything to be absolutely true. Post-modernism doesn't question the existence of absolute truth; it questions whether we are capable of grasping that absolute truth.
Nolan has wrestled with this question again and again, and in my opinion, it is not outside the scope (or responsibility) of Christianity to deal with these same questions. Yes, we are beholden to the Ultimate Absolute Truth, but we would do well to be a bit more humble in our affirmations of what we know about God and how we know God. If the popularity of certain movies is any indication of the thoughts and inclinations of our society at large, this conversation about how we know what we know is one we'll be having more and more in the coming years.
And even if you aren't interested in such philosophical matters, I still think you'll enjoy this film. Inception is breathtaking.
But if you've made it this far in the review, I trust you've already seen it, and you've already found that out for yourself. ;)