The latest Senses of Cinema is up. Issue number 40 contains articles about Preminger, Pekinpah, and Melville, just to name a few, but what really caught my eye was an article about the Jean-Luc Godard exhibit at the Centre Pompidou (Paris' museum of modern art).

Apparently the exhibit traces his development as an artist and was designed by JLG himself. It opened back in April and is running through August 14th. To accompany the exhibit, the museum also screened every single work JLG has ever created and a collection of television interviews with him as well. According to the Pompidou's website, that's 215 films!

I've been to the museum and it's great, it's too bad this show wasn't going on when I was there in April of 2005. Oh well. If you've been looking for an excuse to run off to Paris sometime in the next two weeks, this is it. Otherwise, you can just sit at home like me; reading Senses of Cinema and moping.

Posted by Ben at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Brian DePalma is back with an adaptation of James Ellroy's book about the infamous murder of actress Elizabeth Short. Like Ellroy's L.A. Confidential, the film is set in Los Angeles but, instead of the restraint that Curtis Hanson displayed in L.A. Confidential, you can probably expect a fiendish series of twists and turns. Then again, this being based on a true story maybe DePalma will reign in the troops and make a relatively straight forward film.

Unfortunately, the trailer isn't providing any clues.

DePalma's infamous stylistic flourishes are present but it's hard to tell whether this is leaning toward Body Double or Casualties of War. Either way it'll be a site to behold. For every DePalma hater out there (and I know there are quite a few) there's somebody like me, anxious to see what else he has rolled up his sleeves.

The trailer for Martin Scorsese's much talked about remake of Infernal Affairs is also up today. The film is called The Departed and the trailer looks pretty shitty. I had read that Scorsese was unfamiliar with the original film but that seems hard to believe as a lot of the shots are disgustingly similar to the original's. Nevertheless, it's got a star studded cast and Scorsese's name attached to it so I suppose it might be worth watching.

Posted by Ben at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Ben and I were among the thousands sprawled across Prospect Park for Celebrate Brooklyn, a Summer-long performing arts festivals. Brooklyn's great, sure — Ben lives here after all — but we were there less to celebrate the neighborhood than catch an outdoor screening of 1931's Dracula to the live tunes of Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet.

Really, the film is so dull in parts you'd think it's Bergman or Bresson — but no, it's all Bela here (IMDB trivia tells me the use of only diegetic sound is "because it was believed that, with sound being such a recent innovation in films, the audience would not accept hearing music in a scene if there was no explanation for it being there"). The audience rightfully greeted the appearance of Bela Lugosi with a hearty Brooklyn — not Bronx — cheer, but also chuckled at every accented line out of the poor man's mouth, bringing to mind arguments I once had with Lucid Screening's own Greg Ryan on the bus home from highschool. Greg, I recall, was adamant that Lugosi was, in a word, "euro-trash." Whatever that is, it hardly sounds fair — and I offer this post as a forum for Greg to take it back.

While all I know of Bela personally comes from Tim Burton's Ed Wood — and that's hardly enough to judge the man — his performance as Dracula certainly strikes a timeless chord. Backed by Glass and Kronos, that chord becomes a chorus, and new meanings echo off the screen. As Dracula remarks, as if cognizant of the world off-screen, "Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make." For a few brief moments, we're no longer in the company of camp, but something that feels that much more profound.

At least from what I saw of the film tonight — for alas, New York's summer weather was feeling even more profound. Suddenly, unexpectedly — well, unless you'd read the weather report — thunder, lightening, and then torrents of rain conspired to cancel the screening. Such bad weather actually makes for an even more fitting soundtrack to Dracula than Glass's score, it turns out, but I suppose it's hardly fitting for a city-sponsored event: potential liability was everywhere.

But, the camp did not end there — in fact, as we rushed out of the Park, just ahead of the throng, the camp began piling up like the never-quite-finishing finales in Keanu Reeve's Speed (on our way, in fact, Reeve's Point Break (Straight up masterpiece —Ben) arose in conversation). Ben and I are both sort of out of shape, but we decided to shuffle/jog down the sidewalk anyway. With the lightening striking all around us, thunder roaring in our ears, huffing and puffing, it felt rather reminiscent of Ghostbusters.

Then something — I'd like to think it was illuminated by the lightening — caught Ben's eye. Along the street, propped against all sorts of miscellaneous trash, fresh for the garbage man to collect, there was a frame. No, a framed poster. Wait, no, a framed poster of Psycho. Then the tagline, "Check in. Relax. Take a shower." Sigh, never mind, just 1998's Psycho remake. But suddenly — as the thunder booms above — a realization: this poster has been signed by none other than helmsman of the remake, Gus Van Sant himself.

We know not what transpired, why this poster fell out of love with Leelee and into our hands, but it did. Funny also to note that Ben's apartment features another move poster signed by that Psycho's cinematographer, Chris Doyle.

"To Leelee, love Gus Van Sant."

"Rats and thunder, wind and hail…" singsongs Anthony Manzini, casting a futile spell as Cap'n Manzini — a similar performance to that of Lugosi's, I'd argue — in The Garbage Pail Kids Movie. Camp? Horror? Chappelle? (There's a cockroach involved too, but that's another story). Just another night in NYC, Cap'n.

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A druggie is forced to pick up the pieces after her rockstar lover has fatally OD'd on heroin. Things, of course, shall never be the same. But will she — and can she — adapt to the changing conditions, and make a new life for herself? Or will she never change? That is the central internal conflict of director Oliver Assayas' latest work, Clean, which, at times, transcends the by-the-numbers Behind the Music plot synopsis by exploring our protagonist's Everyman need for redemption.

Clean starts out chronicling Lee Hauser's last days. Lee (played by real-life musician James Hauser) has not only experiencing a professional slump, but a lack of passion in his relationship with a long-time love - the Courtney Love/Yoko Ono-two-in-one combo - Emily Wang, as of late.

After a night out in her car (she and Lee were quarrelling the evening before), Emily returns to Lee's apartment the next morning — only to find cops circling on what appears to be a forensics' playground. Although she is not considered — in any way — responsible for Lee's death, Emily is, nonetheless, charged with possession of cocaine and later sentenced to six months in prison.

Upon release, Emily is faced with an uncertain future. Deemed financially (she is not legally entitled to any of the posthumous royalties from Lee's records) and mentally (substance abuse) inept, Emily and Lee's child, Jay, remains in the custody of Lee's parents, Albrecht (Nick Nolte) and Rosemary (Marthy Henry). Assayas shuffles back and forth between Emily's new life in Paris, and Jay's cozy domestic life with gramps in Vancouve during the two thirds segment of the film.

When Assayas turns his lens on Emily's downtrodden life in Paris, the film, unfortunately, loses any emotional power it had in the first place. Assayas attempts to construct an alienated, spiritually-lost metropolis (reflections of glass windows and walls, car and train surfaces are recurring visual motifs) that mirrors Emily's interior state, as she experiences acts of betrayals from old friends in and inevitably suffers from symptoms of drug withdrawal, but the images somehow come off as too detached for its own good [1].

That Emily is played by Maggie Cheung does not help Clean steer from the detachment department. Although I usually consider Cheung as a wonderfully visceral actress (she is one of my favorites right now), here in Clean, she delivers more of a studied rather than soulful performance. It is respectable in execution, but feels inferior, especially in comparison to the rest of her earlier work [2].

In contrast, the film feels more emotionally involving whenever Jay appears onscreen. Perhaps it is because in a redemptive tale, we, as the viewer, need a more grounded metaphor to cling on. Emily's quest to make new of herself (get a decent job, attire) — in order to gain back custody of the son she had abandoned all these years — enters a tangible realm that many of us can relate to.

As Jay's grizzled, aging guardian (Lee and Emily were bohos, not parents), Nick Nolte surprisingly adds a touch of emotional nuance that lifts the film out of its cold stretches. Nolte's Albrecht is naturally protective of Jay's welfare. He wants his grandson to lead a relatively stable life, shielding him away from the hedonistic lifestyle that destroyed his own son. But after his wife, Rosemary — Jay's grandma — falls critically ill, Albrecht begins to question his own morality. Who will take care of Jay once anything happens to Rosemary, and better yet, him?

It is a testament to Nolte's compelling performance that the film — which falters midway through — regains its humanistic composure in the final third act. In Nolte, we see how hard it can be to forgive and forget; Albrecht is not sure if Emily will, indeed, change for Jay's sake. Yet as Nolte gradually begins thinking more about Jay's future — and not as much upon the grudge he bears on Jay's mom all this time — he is able to give more than he can ever thought possible: to Jay, a mother he never knew, and to Emily, a second chance at life.

Notes
1. I do, however, want to note that Assayas does kind of redeem himself, aesthetically, in the last ten minutes of the film. The visual contrast between the enclosed recording studio setting Emily had just worked in and the expansive outdoors of San Francisco, she walks out of, thereafter, is pretty divine!

2. Cheung fared better in Irma Vep (1995), her first collaboration with Assayas. I also recommend seeing her in all those Wong Kar-Wai films [As Tears Go By (1988), Days of Being Wild (1991), In the Mood For Love (2000)] (she IS heartbreaking in every one of her WKW collaborations) ... But then again, what do I know? Cheung won the Best Actress award at Cannes for Clean. Do consider checking out these aforementioned films though.

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Let me just say that I may be the world's biggest Star Trek fan. Mind you I'm not going to sit here and tell you that every hour of Star Trek is science fiction at its best, or even that every hour of Star Trek is worth watching. And I've never been to a convention. I'm not that kind of fan. Only in certain moods am I an apologist for the most recent series: Enterprise, and I really never had any use for Star Trek: Voyager or the last two TNG films. In recent years the production value of the franchise has gone steadily up while the quality of the writing has gone steadily down. For the most part it's become uninteresting. Seemingly unwilling to take any risks or stop recycling old episodes, Star Trek has become flat and tired.

Still, I have seen (and own) all 700 some hours of the various shows and movies. And over all I do take the franchise pretty seriously. So I am naturally very curious/excited about where it's all boldly going next. Actually, I've known for some time that the next installment would be the eleventh feature film. However, just what that would be has changed quite a bit over the last year since the cancellation of Enterprise. What information has come out has been scanty and in small timed release capsules. So I have waited until today to update/punish the readers of Lucid Screening with the rundown on Star Trek XI.

Why now? This weekend at Comic Con and at STARTREK.COM, Paramount unveiled the above poster for the upcoming film. This marks the first tangible evidence that any of the leaks, hints, or rumors were true. In fact it is the best evidence so far that this film will actually happen.

Obviously there is not much here. It does tell us that they are planning a release for 2008. By the 23 century Star Fleet insignia we can surmise that this is in fact a Kirk & Spock prequel as the rumors have suggested.

On that subject I have some thoughts. To me the idea of casting other actors as a younger Kirk, Spock and possibly McCoy and Scotty sounds more like a cheap gimmick than a solid attempt at a great sci-fi film that could revitalize the franchise. What is less assuring is the rumor that Matt Daemon is being considered for Kirk. So far this is unconfirmed. If it's true I think it would further illustrate the gimmick approach to this film. The only way to take a film like this seriously would be to cast unknowns as the existing characters. It's hard enough to buy into another actor as an existing character, but if you cast a huge face it's hopeless. They should go the way Singer went with Superman. I thought Brandon Routh was totally believable as Christopher Reaves' Superman.

There has also been some talk/assumption that this prequel will take place during the characters' time at the academy. The idea of doing a Kirk and Spock cadet movie comes from a script from the late eighties that Harve Bennett has been trying to get made for over a decade. Bennett, who produced Star Trek films two though five, felt this was a good way to get some more mileage out of the classic characters. While it's clear that they will not be using the same script, and that Bennett will not be involved, it still seems likely that they will be using the academy concept. Again, this just sounds too cute to me.

This whole concept has only come out in the last several months. For the last year the official story from Paramount has been that Rick Berrman, long time Trek producer, would do the next film with a script by Band of Brother's writer Erik Jendresen. Apparently this script featured all new character's not previously introduced in a TV series. The story surrounded the founding of the United Federation of Planets and the first war with the Romulans in the 22 century. These are events long hinted at in Trek lore and long awaited on the screen. I was very exited about this, but it's not going to happen. When Paramount and CBS went thought there recent shake up this concept (and Mr. Berrman) were abandoned.

This brings us to the one piece of this puzzle that I would say I find generally encouraging: the people who are making this film. J.J. Abrams of Alias, Lost, and MI:III fame is producing, writing and probably directing. He's currently writing the screenplay with his co-writers from MI:III, a film that I enjoyed and thought was one of the best shoot ‘em ups I'd seen in a while. What is also unique about this approach is that the reigns of this film are totally in Abrams hands and not in the hands of the other Trek producers who have been with the franchise for fifteen years. This means this film will probably look and feel like a real movie and not like an episode of Star Trek on the big screen. Abrams and his team will almost certainly bring a new take on the universe to this film.

So I'm open minded. I try not to be one of those fans who decide well ahead of actually seeing a film that it will piss them off. It could be good, it could suck, you'll hear the verdict from me here in 2008.

Posted by Greg at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Cars is the first Pixar movie to be released since the studio was acquired by Disney, but it's a watershed moment for the studio for another, more important reason--it marks their first significant departure from the basic premise of their first six full-length features.

From Toy Story (1995) to The Incredibles (2004), Pixar films have always been set in our world. Each plot unfolds in a contemporary American universe, inhabited by human beings. Each of these films explores a part of this world unseen in everyday life: Toy Story and Toy Story 2 imagine our toys coming to life whenever our backs our turned, A Bug's Life's drama occurs on a scale too small for our eyes to perceive, Monsters Inc. takes place in a universe that parallels and intersects with our own, Finding Nemo takes place under water, and The Incredibles fleshes out the secret lives of super heroes that walk amongst us.

In Cars, for the first time, human beings are absent. Except, of course, they're not. Here is a world in which the rock formations of the American southwest resemble tailfins, in which "cows" are tractors, and in which even the bugs are miniature Volkswagens with wings. But where did these cars come from? What God wrought these creatures in His (or Her) own image?

In one telling scene Radiator Springs' oldest resident Lizzie (Katherine Helmond) gestures towards a picture of her husband, the town's founder Stanley (like Lizzie a Model T Ford). This begs a question: what where Stanley's forefathers? Horses? As in last year's Robots human beings might be absent from this world, but their presence looms over it hauntingly.

The first six Pixar films are effective at fueling young (and young at heart) imaginations because they operate in much the same way. They make sense of the wider, unfamiliar world by imposing a child's understanding of human society on inanimate objects, animals, and nightmares. They take lessons from the World I Understand and apply them to the World I Don't.

And this is why these films are so magical: they reinforce a child's natural inclination to play make believe, compliment a childlike sense of wonder. Cars, though, is a bird of a different feather. Unlike its predecessors it entirely reimagines our world, and instead of making some part of it seem more real, more familiar it instead creates a strange, alien, and even disturbing universe of its own.

Much has been made of Pixar's decision to buck the tradition of equating an automobile's headlights with its eyes and to locate them on the windshield instead. The problem with this approach to anthropomorphizing the characters is typical of a problem with the film as a whole.

The headlights are typically used as eyes because the front of a car resembles a human face. By downplaying this similarity the animators are accentuating the differences between these car-creatures and the vehicles that we drive in our own world, just as re-landscaping desert plateaus emphasizes the difference between the geography of the world in the film and the corresponding area in our own.

This creative decision carries with it a number of unintended consequences. In previous Pixar films there was a certain logic to the characters' use of familiar words--they learned them from the humans. Here, though, the use of names like "Route 66" or "Los Angeles" are at best strained and at worst vaguely post-Apocalyptic.

It also draws attention to the limits of the filmmakers' imagination. To go so far towards creating a whole new universe but then to include such obvious gags as a Hummer as the "Governator" seems cheap. One-note jokes like this fill the movie and feel wearying like pandering to parents and guardians.

But if Cars represents some of Pixar's weakest writing to date, this shortcoming is almost entirely compensated for by some of the most breathtaking animation that I've ever seen.

The backgrounds are rich, sumptuous, even textural. Both the smallest details (small pebbles kicked up by cars racing around a NASCAR track) and the largest expanses of sky and the desert are rendered with astonishing beauty and realism. I'd like to draw attention to one moment in particular because it's the single most satisfying "cinephiliac moment" I've encountered in quite some time.

It occurs during the scene in which Sally Carrera (Bonnie Hunt) is showing Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) the abandoned Wheel Well motel. There's a medium shot of the pair talking outside, "shot" from inside. Suddenly we become aware of a small insect (one of those VW "bugs") tracing lines in the dust at the bottom right-hand corner of the frame and of the window.

This only lasts for one brief second, but at that precise moment we become aware of the faint film of dust that covers the window which, in turn, makes us aware of the "camera" placement. It's a glorious, subtle, artificial "artifice" that made me swoon.

This moment demonstrates, I hope, the care and attention paid to the animation throughout the film. There are other, grander, achievements, such as the successful rendering of metal and speed, long the bane of animators digital and hand-drawn alike. It's with these little touches, though, that the filmmakers really steal your heart. And they are alone worth the price of admission.

With their next film Ratatouille, about a gourmet food-loving rat living in Paris, Pixar seems ready to return to the tried and true formula they've perfected by wondering what goes on under our table as we eat. It's for the best, I think. A Pixar film is ambitious enough already without the burden of trying to create an entirely original universe.

Cars doesn't quite succeed in its attempt to breath life into this new world. But were it so that all failures worked this well or were even half as beautiful! It's hard to hold anything against a film this good-looking.

Posted by Horbal at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

The following is taken from The Industrial Workers of the World.

Shattuck Cinema Workers Prepare for Contract Negotiations; Support Rally on Saturday June 22, 2006
By Mary Loritz - July 14, 2006

Workers from Shattuck Cinemas emerged victorious in their fight for a union after voting 22-2 in favor of unionizing with the Industrial Workers of the World. Their union drive became public on May 8th, and a little over a month later, on June 16th, they had a union.

Congratulations! It was a fast process that wouldn't have been possible without community support. The Shattuckunion is an inspiration for cinema workers everywhere who are receiving poor pay with little or no benefits. However, many of the workers' biggest concern was never whether they would gain recognition as a union, but how the company would respond during contract negotiations. Landmark Theatres has been generally unresponsive to the campaign -- they've been unavailable for comment whenever questioned. Their attorney recently responded to the union's demand to bargain letters, and both sides are now preparing for contract negotiations. The union's main objective right now is to get a fair contract - and in a reasonable amount of time.

"We know from prior attempts to deal with the company in this way that they are prepared to stall out talks indefinitely, leaving my fellow workers and I in the lurch," says theater worker Jason Ramsey.

One other Landmark cinema--the Kendell Square Landmark in Cambridge, Massachusetts--recently organized a union with the UFCW, and they've been in contract negotiations for nine months now. Nine months is far too long for workers to wait while not making a living wage! Furthermore, in letters sent to Shattuck workers during the union drive, Landmark stated that there were no unionized Landmark Cinemas--indicating that they aren't taking the Kendall Square union seriously. As Fellow Worker Ramsey says, "The Landmark CEO, Bill Banowsky, is currently travelling the nation to convince our fellow workers not to organize. To them, we are a threat to their continuing exploitation and assault on low wage theater workers nationwide."

We want to make sure that the Shattuckunion is taken seriously, and that the workers get not only a swift contract, but a good one--so we're going to keep the pressure on the company, and one of the best ways to do that is a demonstration of solidarity from the community.

For an establishment that caters to the progressive community, showing independent films, it is only consistent for Landmark to treat their workers fairly, and respect their right to organize collectively. We hope that their customers and supporters from around the Bay Area will let them know this by coming out and joining the workers for a rally in front of the theater on Saturday, July 22nd at 2pm.

For more information, please visit: http://shattuckunion.iww.org.

Posted by Andrew at 8:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Author's Note: I was personally ecstatic when Anthony Kaufman reported in his blog that Hou Hsiao-hsien's latest, Three Times, made $10,000 at Chicago's Music Box — one of the biggest openings of the year for that theatrical venue. As Kaufman astutely pointed out, all the major Chicago-based critics went ape-shit crazy for Three Times: Jonathan Rosenbaum (Reader), Roger Ebert (Sun-Times), and Michael Wilmington (Tribune). Such news is always welcoming, but perhaps it is even more so, in light of honcho Harvey Weinstein's recent acquisition of Wellspring. Anyway, while I concede that I have nowhere near as much talent or leverage as the aforementioned critics to convert a lot of people to seeing Three Times, I would be delighted as hell if the following paragraphs help convince one or even two folks into seeing this masterpiece.

In the opening chapter ("A Time for Love") of Hou's time-traveling triptych, we are transported to 1966, Kaohsiung. The Platters' slow, romantic number, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," is playing overtime in a pool house jukebox - it is only inevitable that upon a game of pool, the hostess and the young soldier, soon to depart on draft, fall in love. But like one of those romantic pop tunes, its duration is fleeting: the music ends, and the soldier goes his way, and the hostess hers. Hou intercuts the almost static images of the pool hall with shots of speeding bikes, boats, and trains. For Hou, human memories simply cannot keep up with the pace of modernity. Nevertheless, the soldier, resolute to find her, attemps to keep her within time's grasp. To the melancholic tune of Aphrodite's Child's "Rain and Tears", the young man ventures cross-country, on a modest bike, no less, in search of the hostess he left behind.

For the middle chapter, "A Time for Freedom", we retrogress to 1911, Dadaocheng, where an activist diplomat forms an emotional attachment to a concubine, amidst the tightly enclosed setting of a brothel. The concubine pleas to the diplomat that he save her from her oppressed conditions. But alas, the activist denies such a plea - he is not "masculine" enough. How can he set her free from the shackles of oppression when he is still oppressed, himself? His motherland, Taiwan, is currently occupied by Japan's military. The segment ends on an incomplete note, as the diplomat and the concubine find themselves rendered helpless in a patriarchal society.

But if "A Time for Freedom" feels too downbeat, consider it to be more romantic than the final, enclosing chapter, "A Time for Youth", in which Hou flashforwards to modern Taipei, 2005. An epileptic singer is embroiled in a messy love triangle. She falls in love with a male photographer — much to the suspicion and dismay of a female live-in lover named Micky. The irony is that our heroine here — more sexually liberated than her predecessors in the previous chapters (in 1911, our heroine is a concubine; in 1966, a hostess, and in 2005, a pop singer — all are entertainers, who receive more autonomy within each progressing period) — does not feel truly free. Maybe too much of a good thing is a bad thing. The singer seems aimless (she even tries to sell her soul on the Internet, for godsake!) Whereas the concubine and hostess are restricted in their personal and professional choices, the singer does not really know what she wants, let alone what road to take.

Hou deftly binds the exterior sights and sounds of Taipei to the singer's confused interior self. Even in Hou's slow, long takes, we are still able to sense the confusion — and frustration — that arises from a life governed by speed and impulses. When the singer does not return her female lover's cell phone calls immediately (she text messages, instead — a decision that can be construed as both impersonal and slow), the lover is saddened and jealous.

Gilles Deleuze once observed that memory divulged more about the present than the past. Deleuze's abstract concept could not have been better actualized than here onscreen in Three Times. Hou's self-reflexive nature is most evident in the silent film aesthetics in "A Time for Freedom" (intertitle cards and instrumental piano music) and the recurrence of actors (Shu Qi and Chang Chen play the lovers in all three stories) and pop tunes and communication devices (letters, poetry, and e-mail and cell phones) throughout the periods — he basically reaffirms his position as a present-day individual trying to make sense of the intertwining struggles of love, freedom, and youth in the contemporary era, and trying to link it to the past.
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Mis-en-scene plays a crucial role in the binding of the past and the present. The mis-en-scene of "A Time for Youth" — a segment derided by a fine share of folks as the "worse" — is intentionally atmospheric and lonesome. Catchy electronic lights scatter urban streets (i.e. motorcycle, car lights, neon signs), indoors (nightclubs, bedrooms with laptops and cellphones) in darkness. Capitalism does not seem as promising as it once did. Compare the alienated youths in 2005 segment to the optimistic, pair of lovers in 1966 of "A Time for Love", and what you have here is sociologically-charged emotions projecting itself onto the screen. The Taiwan of 1966 had broken free from Japanese occupation (as depicted in "A Time for Freedom") and the communist Chinese regime, and has since evolved into its own new, individual identity - with a dynamic capitalist economy, to boot. The hope and optimism, sprung from such a time, is perfectly realized in romantic landscapes (falling in love amidst a game of pool; the departed lover traveling the waters on steam-powered rafts; a lovers' reunion in the rain).

In a bold (one that would be deemed unsatisfying to most) but thought-provoking move, Hou chooses to close "A Time for Youth" — and Three Times — with a shot eerily similar to the shot that opened the third segment: the singer holding onto her male lover's waist, whilst speeding on his motorcycle. We don't know much more about the characters now as we did in the beginning. Since history IS actually about the present, our present remains even more open-ended than the ever-revisionist past.

Considering that Hou is at his most self-reflexive here in Three Times - ruminating not only upon the past and the present but examining cinema's own relationship to the past and present, it is probably the highest compliment that I can pay to say that Three Times is Baudry-esque in its transcendental use of mirroring time and space. The wonderful Reverse Shot critic Elbert Ventura pretty much articulated my emotions best when he wrote about the spacial limitations and the permeable portal of time the film paradoxically evokes:

In "A Time for Freedom," Chang's writer reads a poem: "Although this place has torn my heart asunder, it is wrenching to leave it." It's an epigram that sums up Hou's project, finding sorrow in the limits of human experience, but solace in its timelessness.

Posted by Tram at 7:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

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