Sex and violence sex and violence. Sex and violence. Sex and violence.

So goes the constant refrain of one the catchier vacuous ditties by Britain's drunkard punk outfit The Exploited — titled, of course, "Sex and Violence." If taken seriously — against The Exploited's general intent, I'm sure — the song is something of a commentary on both the demand for and constant co-existence of sex and violence in society today. But the song also reminds us that The Exploited weren't the brightest bunch of Brits in 1980s punk rock;¹ by merely intoning "sex" and "violence" until the very words lose meaning, the track itself loses whatever meaningful intention it might have had. Like all ingrained social mores, it stays in your head and refuses to leave. As a joke, it's a cheap one; as commentary, it's a dumb reaction against perceived Puritanism.

In truth, sex and violence have been central to society for as god knows how long — just ask Oedipus. Or better yet, ask Japanese director Toshio Matsumoto about Oedipus. In 1967, at least fifteen years before The Exploited and halfway across the globe from England, the film director fashioned a funnier, sexier, more violent — and infinitely smarter — take on sex and violence, Funeral Parade of Roses. Criminally obscure, it's never been released in the U.S. on home video, and came to the West on DVD thanks only to the efforts of the U.K.'s Masters of Cinema. Oedipus' mythic moment of "Oops! I did it again" provides the movie's plot; and the film's opening text reads like something the old man might scream in tragedy, "I am a wound and a sword; a victim and an executioner." But otherwise, the myth — and the plot, following a queen named Eddie and a torrid love triangle at her place of employment — plays second fiddle to a discordant rock n' roll chorus of rioting students, sexy queens, gangland girls, clubbers, hippies, and dopers, who fight, fuck, shop, dance, and mourn their way through night clubs, beauty parlors, art galleries department stores, street fights, and graveyards.

It says something about my limited frame of reference that I have a hard time relating the film to anything specific to Japan, yet immediately think of two filmmakers of the West: Jean-Luc Godard and Stanley Kubrick. Despite my own limitations, I think contrasting both filmmakers and their relationship to Funeral Parade of Roses raises essential questions about cross-cultural influence and the differences between solidarity and stealing.

The influence of Funeral Parade on Kubrick is more than duly noted — it's downright obvious that certain scenes and style were lifted completely for A Clockwork Orange. Unfortunately, Kubrick chose not to mimic the spirit nor the politics of Matsumoto's film. While Funeral Parade is unequivocally subversive in its portrayal of Eddie and her environs, A Clockwork Orange's Alex and his rapist band of teenagers are nothing but myopically reactionary, no matter how cool the style, and no matter how many lessons about the State wedged into that film's final act.

Kubrick's taking from Matusmoto is all funeral, no roses; in that sense, until clues as to Kubrick's intentions are provided to me, it seems a crime. And yet, not all cross-cultural exchange is essentially theft. In The Imagination of the New Left, radical scholar George Katsiaficas argues that the struggles of the Sixties exhibited an "eros effect," a global escalation of struggles — and now I realize, considering Funeral Parade, that the same effect can be found in radical techniques in cinema. While I'm no where knowledgeable enough to know of any Japanese precedents for Funeral Parade, I do know that Godard's influence is all over the film, unmistakably.

In one instance, Eddie emerges from her apartment, fresh from primping in preparation for a night working her job at a club, only to stumble across a student protestor, fresh from a beating by the police, passed out in her stairwell. Nursing his wounds, Eddie can't help but ask, "Why run riot?" What good is all this violence? The camera latches onto the student and the apartment disappears; we are suddenly in his world as he lectures the audience, not unlike the garbage-workers in Godard's Weekend. "What matters is not admission of violence, but progressiveness of your violence. And whether the violence will stop or will last forever. In order to decide don't judge crimes of morality, which people call pure morality by mistake. Place crimes in logic and dynamics and in history, where they belong."

The film follows the same philosophy; it progresses in a haphazard manner. Scenes appear out of order, initially confusing us, only to reappear later with new meanings and context. Genders are revealed in visual tricks, initially confusing, that bring the viewer's own assumptions to question. The film's drag queen stars get to contribute; often a scene will immediately cut, asking for actor's own opinions on their role and their lives. The film even brings its own tricks into question through the guise of one Guevara, a dopy filmmaker with a collective of hippie friends who specialize in over-the-top experimental films.

In The Imagination of the New Left, Katsiaficas also writes of the Japanese student movement's "militant but controlled use of violence, much of it appearing as play." The same might be written of Matsumoto's use of both sex and violence, politically and cinematically. At a time in Japan's history when revolutionary violence was on a lot of (young) people's minds, Funeral Parade of Roses ensured that subversive sex couldn't be ignored. There's some gore and plenty of booty, but thanks to the ever-present attention given politics, it is a bloody mess intentionally made, equal parts camp and counterculture.² As an intercut television announcer exclaims in the film's final moments, "What a composite of cruelty and laughter!"

Sure, as The Exploited insisted, "sex and violence" ought to be considered together. But more specifically, it's a question of pleasure and politics: one is never far from the other in Funeral Parade of Roses, as when Eddie makes sweet love to an American GI on furlough from the fighting in Vietnam. It's all well beyond shit like The Exploited; and it's what cinema is begging for today. For the Andersons and the Tarrantinos and the Coppolas (and possibly every major horror movie released in the past five years, like the Dawn of the Dead remake, for instance) are not unlike like Kubrick — they want the style and forget the struggle animating it. What results is clever references for film buffs and conventional melodrama/coming-of-age/guns-and-girls genre films for the rest of us. They are safe because they are so accessible; they aren't subversive or challenging for the same reason. Funerals are not without flowers; roses are not without thorns. How about some cinema that makes bloodletting meaningful again?

NOTES:
¹: I always preferred Crass and their ilk (e.g. The Mob, Zounds, Flux of Pink Indians).
²: Making me wonder what Ed Wood's dreadful Orgy of the Dead could have been, were he a revolutionary. Like, how would the "Gold! More gold!" sequence be different?

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Andrew recently got a job at the videostore "Film is Truth" in Bellingham. As a result, he's putting together some posters to put up in the store and he asked me to select ten or so Korean films from the limited selection they have in stock. Although I'm no Korean film scholar, Rufus for one knows a lot more about it than I do, I did manage to put together some thoughts into a list that I think would be useful to anybody looking to get into Korean cinema.

Shiri
This film had the largest budget of any Korean film ever at the time ($8.5 million) and went on to become a titanic success (pun intended). This was a watershed film in Korean cinema and opened the doors to greater financial investment in the industry so that the following films could be produced. Although it's not a great film by any measure, it is interesting for its portrayal of the differences between North and South Korea.

Note: For more on this, read Rufus' essay about economic divisions in the two Koreas.

Chi-Hwa-Seon
This film traces the life of one of Korea's most famous artists. It's fitting then that it's directed by Im Kwon Taek, one of Korea's most prolific (he's directed over 90 films) and respected filmmakers. This film won the prize for best director at the 2000 Cannes film festival and along with Shiri helped to put Korean filmmaking on the map.

The Isle
The first film by Korean cinema's badboy, Kim Ki Duk, to make a splash (pun intended again...) on the international film circuit. Equal parts beautiful and disgusting, this film is hard to watch but yet another important film in the recent resurgence of Korean cinema.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring/3-Iron
Two of Kim Ki Duk's least "extreme" films and also his best. Both films are perfectly paced and full of beautiful imagery.

Joint Security Area/Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance/Old Boy
Three films by the most famous filmmaker working in Korea right now, Park Chan Wook. After winning the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes film festival Park shot to fame and was embraced by internet fanboys of "extreme cinema." He's a virtuoso filmmaker who's not as intelligent as he seems to think he is but he's got such mad skillz that he's one to keep your eyes on. His earlier work is much less overproduced albeit no less violent. Joint Security Area was an even bigger hit than Shiri and is essential viewing for anyone interested in the conflict between the two Koreas. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is his most violent and difficult film to watch but possibly the most rewarding as well. The filmmaking is great and his pitch black humor dissects (quite literally) the socio-economic issues in modern day Korea. Old Boy is a visceral thrill ride (sorry for the cliche). An operatic Greek tragedy starring one of Korea's best actors, Choi Min Sik. The film is often overindulgent and maybe even a bit vulgar but you won't be able to take your eyes off it either.

Memories of Murder
Bong Joon Ho seems to be shaping himself up as Korea's most intelligent filmmaker. Memories of Murder is both a dark comedy and highly effective thriller. The film's effortless shifts in tone can be a bit confusing for some but it's part of its genius. All this is set in the countryside amidst the backdrop of a patriarchal society undergoing severe political unrest as the world begins to shrink thanks to technology and the country and the city collide. A gorgeous film that captures a time and place so wonderfully while weaving in ideas and an engaging story to create one of the best films in recent years from anywhere in the world, not just Korea.

Oasis
Lee Chang Dong is one of Korea's best little known filmmakers. Oasis is the story of the relationship between an ex-con and a woman with cerebral palsy. Moon So Ri gives an amazing performance as the woman and transcends the cliche that all performances in which an actor plays a disabled person are great. This performance really is great. The directing is low key and sensitive while not shying away from lower class Korea the way most films tend to. One of my favorite scenes in film is from this movie.

The President's Last Bang
The most overtly political Korean film that I've ever seen. It's a pitch black comedy following former Korean President Park Chun Hee on the eve of his assassination. He was an incredibly harsh and corrupt leader but his cruel ways did help to make Korea the economic power that it now is. This has resulted in some nostalgia for him in Korea's current society, a disturbing trend made all the more disturbing by the fact that he has children still involved in Korean politics. A good companion to Memories of Murder if you're interested in the political turmoil that Korea suffered through in the 70s and 80s, this dark past is sometimes credited with fostering a society in which sappy melodramas and now "extreme" cinema have flourished.

Save the Green Planet
A wacky tribute to just about every famous science fiction film in existence. This film is really weird and really uneven but entertaining nonetheless. The director does try to weave in some social commentary but it's lost amidst everything else that's going on.

Take Care of My Cat
A small film might be a breath of fresh air compared to everything else on this list. The film is directed by a woman and is about five female friends struggling to find their places in the world after finishing high school. Through their relationships, issues of class and sex in Korean society are explored while never distracting from the tender tale of friendship that's at the heart of the film.

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REPATRIATION

If Shiri is the ultimate example of right-thinking propaganda cinema (as blockbusters are usually conservative to allow them to gain the maximum audience), Kim Dong-won's documentary Repatriation is on the opposite end of the political spectrum. While Shiri is concerned with making the working class and complex discussions of the problems surrounding division invisible, Repatriation relentlessly makes these marginalized sections of society visible. The heroes of this film, the unconverted long-term prisoners and the politically active communities that shelter them until repatriation, are the very elements of society the agents in Shiri seek to suppress. It is a product of the Minjung movement mentality, and the fact it is shot on video sharply contrasts the high-gloss of the blockbusters I have discussed. As it is an activist film, it is decidedly working class in its concerns and aesthetics. It openly (and forcefully) discusses the economic disparities of modern South Korean society, one of the major focuses of the Minjung movement. It takes the argument of Joint Security Area that the people are ready if only the government could get past its differences and expands it. Repatriation makes the argument that it is impossible for reunification until both Koreas can solve the problems that plague their systems of government.

From the very beginning the film positions the lower working class as more open, liberal, and willing to challenge preconceived notions and stereotypes. Bongchun-dong becomes the prisoners first home because, as the director says in his narration, that it is the only community that could accept these old men. Immediately their lower class allows them to accept the other marginalized people into their midst. The fact that they had an active interest in the Minjung movement also helped, as the three main goals that the Minjung movement began with were the democratization of the government, social justice, and the reunification between North and South Korea in mind. Their presence in the community even reinvigorates their movement, and Cho Chang-son's background as a poor farmer allows him to fit into the community better than Kim Seok-hyoung who was a well-educated intellectual. There is a sense in the film that money corrupts, and those with poor backgrounds are somehow more pure and innocent. This is directly referenced in the face of Kim Young-sik who is too honest to survive in South Korean society. He is not devious enough for the evils of capitalism, and the sweetest man in the film is shown to only follow his heart and for this he gets swindled.

The lower class is portrayed as being much more traditional and Korean, especially when compared to the overt Westernization that is present in Shiri. Again this is an artifact of the Minjung movement, which sought to define a new Korean identity and a connection between tradition and modernity. While characters sleep in western beds and eat at outdoor cafes in Shiri, the men and women in Repatriation sleep on the floor and eat Korean food. Folk songs and traditional medicine are prominently displayed. The film, being set in the invisible world that Korea does not want to show the world, creates a space in which the North Koreans can be human. We see them doing the menial labor that we only see one person (who is subsequently knocked over and out of frame) doing in Shiri. The South Korean government has failed to support all of its people, but North Korea is also at fault here. Though the prisoner's view of North Korea is a country that is prosperous and successful, it is an outdated picture. They left at a time where the communist was working, and concerned with the problems of humanity. The film displays North Korea as another failed system, which also cannot support its people. In fact much is made of the food shortage in the film, with the prisoners refusing to believe it and Ishimaro Jiro's inability to enter into North Korea because of it. We also see how the film positions the press in Korea as pandering to the upper-class conservatives. The wild accusations (and they may be true but it is doubtful) of cannibalism is also brought up in Shiri and serves as another way South Korea positions North Korea as temporally primitive and behind South Korea. Yet in this film it is used subversively to portray South Korea as afraid and insecure. There is no discussion of the United States aggressive stance (and economic stances) to North Korea as a factor in the mainstream press. Yet here is where we also get the problem with the film. By making the invisible entirely visible, it forgets the visible world and only gives glimpses into the upper class reaction (which is always portrayed as ignorant and prejudiced) to the repatriation. We get one young business man who's time with the unconverted prisoners remind him of his activist days as a student. However, he disappears from the film after this leaving these invisible spaces to go back to the visible work of his job where he can go with the flow and forget.

Menial labor becomes a political message for the prisoners, as they use it to show not only the hard working spirit of the Korean people (working hard for the reunification) but also the problems with the South Korean society. They cannot get welfare, and live in utter poverty, not only because they are North Korean but also as lower class members upward mobility is next to impossible. Only by returning to North Korea are the prisoners able to move upward, and when they do they become products themselves to the North Korean government. They are used for propaganda, showcased as national heroes. Yet there is no mention in the North Korean videos of the years that the prisoners spent outside of jail. To this video we see, it is as if they went directly from jail to being repatriated. Just as they become products in the national economy of propaganda in North Korea, images of North Korea become consumer goods in South Korea. We see blockbusters such as Shiri and Joint Security Area becoming more popular, and North Korean images being cleaned packaged and sold to the public by the South Korean media. Yet even Kim Dong-won is hesitant as to whether reunification is possible once the prisoners return to the North, their new economic status changes them in his eyes and he prefers to remember them during the years they spent in Bongchun-dong. Reunification becomes impossible in this film for the opposite reason, the lower class can accept North Korea as comrades in their struggle but see both governments as flawed and broken. If North Korea were to enter into economic partnership with the South it would merely perpetuate the problems of capitalism into a new area. For reunification to work, both systems need to be radically altered and there needs to be open discussion of topics that both governments seem to want to keep invisible.

CONCLUSION

All three films have very different views on reunification, yet they are all somehow tainted by these socio-economic issues that are so prevalent in Korean society that they always sit just at the edge of sight in Korean cinema. Somehow in each film these forces create situations where reunification becomes impossible because the mobility between the spaces that each Korea exists in (lower and upper class, military and public, past and future) becomes blocked. I believe there should be more discussion of these problems, and further analysis is needed that is much more in depth than what I was able to accomplish in this short paper. We need to look at how these issues have changed over the years and include in our studies films from the 1980s which tended to fore ground working class characters, as well as early films which seem to me much more open in talking about the economic disparities and problems of South Korea than the more recent Hollywood-like films that are popular in the box office. Also how other recent films such as DMZ (Lee Kyu-hyung, 2004), Silmido (Kang Woo-suk, 2003), Tae-gu-ki (Kang Je-gyu, 2004), and Spy Girl (Park Han-joon, 2004) portray the division as existing only in sites of military or police force. Repatriation is one of few films that depict the lives of North Koreans as every day, yet it still has touches of military action. Can the two be separated, or are the inextricably linked in the psyche of South Korea. Also I would like to do a far more in depth readings of the very films I discussed, and bring in issues of gender and how it relates to economic status and roles. This investigation is far from over, and indeed will never be complete, but it is imperative that it is discussed because these issues are not just cinematic but real world problems that plague modern Korean society.

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There was once an episode of Thunder in Paradise in which Hulk Hogan and two or three other people were trapped inside a cave that was rapidly filling up with water. It's a memory I often think of, but of the countless hours of television I watched growing up, why this moment? Is it because I was so blown away by Mr. Hogan's superhuman lung capacity and the improbable subsequent survival of everyone involved? No, it's because caves are just that scary. Scarier than submarines in fact, but only by a little bit (Das Boot had me gasping for breathe everytime I watched someone crawl into one of those cramped bunkbeds).

Regardless of all this, when I first read about Neil Marshall's The Descent I knew I had to see it. Horror film fans, including myself, are always on the lookout for the film that's going send us searching through our closets for that nightlight we thought we had grown out of. According to the prerelease buzz, this was going to be it.

The film starts off like most horror films, establishing the normal life of the protagonist(s). Although a co-worker described the film as being about "a group of nubile young girls trapped together in a dark, wet cave," in Marshall's defense, it just so happens that a normal day for Sarah and her friends is to go whitewater rafting while the husband takes care of the kid. Any accusations that he might be trying to evoke any sense of sexiness by centering the film around a group of women is thereby quashed when they come roaring down the river in life-jackets and helmets. Now, I'm not the most stylish person but I do know that life-jackets and helmets are not sexy.

Unfortunately, all the fun that Sarah is having quickly comes to a halt when her husband and daughter die in a car accident that's brilliantly staged by Marshall. Now that the main character has been saddled with the obligatory emotional baggage, we fast forward one year to a spelunking trip with her friends who are out to show her a good time and get her mind off the events of the previous year.

The cast of characters is made up of the typical types you would expect in any film about a band of people stuck in an extraordinary sitaution. There's the tough guy er... girl, the rational girl, the wild girl, and the girl who can't pull herself together until the very end when it really really matters. This film is no exception and the roles of each character are clearly defined in a short, effecient sequence taking place the night before the expedition. The sequence is refreshing in its focus on progressing the story and the fact that all the girls aren't sitting around in skimpy outfits talking about their wild sexual exploits, the sort of scene one would expect in a horror film.

In the morning, as the women hike to the entrance of the cave, the most experienced of the bunch reels off a grocery list of horrible things people experience in caves that includes: total darkness, disorientation, claustrophobia, and aural and visual hallucination. It's a warning to her fellow cavers and a manifesto directed at the audience telling us what we too are about to experience.

The thrills begin not too soon after they enter the cave with a scene in which part of the cave begins collapsing while Sarah is crawling through a particularly tight space, it will have most viewers gasping for air and nervously laughing when it's over. After that tunnel collapses it's revealed that was the only known way in and that one of the women had lied and brought them to an unexplored cave so that they could "discover it together." This brought a smile across my face, reassuring me that even women have moments of extreme idiocy and hubris. But, this also meant that they were going to have to venture further into the cave in an effort to find a way out and I would be doing much more squirming.

The rest of the film is a relentlessly paced typical (only in the sense of the plot) horror film in which the victims are picked off by strange humanoid flesh eating cave creatures. What makes the film so enjoyable is the highly effective use of the environment in which it's set. Throughout most of the latter half of the film, most of the screen seems to be enveloped in darkness leaving the viewer to actively search for visual signs while the sound design has audiences hearing all sorts of strange noises from the front, left, right, and most effectively: behind.

The (lack of) lighting is nothing short of audacious but it may have also been born out of necessity. One thing the film misses when they first enter the cave is wide, beautiful shots of the interior. This is probably because the film was almost entirely shot on a soundstage so the sparse lighting helped to obscure that fact.

The film was the most enjoyably effective horror film that I've seen since The Blair Witch Project almost seven years ago. While the film does make liberal use of the startle effect to elicit screams from the audience, it earns them through careful timing, deliberate camerawork, and clever editing patterns. As a result, you as the viewer don't feel cheated or manipulated, instead you feel like you're in the hands of a filmmaker who really knows what he's doing. Upon viewing his previous film, Dog Soldiers, it's clear that Marshall really knows how to wind up an audience and his sense of "horrific timing" (the horror film equivalent of "comedic timing") is perfect.

The Descent evokes films ranging from Radiers of the Lost Ark, in its highly skilled handling of what is otherwise essentially just a B-movie, to Aliens in its use of strong (albeit by the standards of a male-centric society) female characters in terrifying situations. Along the way, Marshall also references Apocalypse Now, Carrie and a slew of other films yet the film never feels derivative of others. This is probably due to the fact that as a horror film it's wholly refreshing, a movie that's actually scary, doesn't rely on gore to shock audiences, and isn't a remake of a classic horror film. It's an entertaining and genuinely scary B-Movie that for one brief moment when I got home to my dark empty apartment, made me wish I had a nightlight.

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JOINT SECURITY AREA

In contrast to this spatial relation of the invisible and the visible, Joint Security Area puts the division in a space of neutrality. Although it is a blockbuster at the same level of Shiri, its neutral space not only within the demilitarized zone but also the class-neutral space of the army allows the film to have a slightly more complex look of the possibility for reunification. This neutral space is in a sense the only space within the film, and the absence of spaces within either North or South Korea become so strong that the few scenes we do get to see outside of this neutral zone become all the more resonant. These forays outside of the DMZ also show how the supposed neutrality of the film is actually again positions South Korea as dominant culturally (through socio-economic class and culture, as well as technology) over North Korea. The trip from the airport Panmunjom shows Korea to be developed and secure, with highways and overpasses, which are again products of the Park regime much as the ships in Shiri and as such are linked to Korea's economic miracle. The second time we see South Korea is during Sophie's trip to an amusement park to talk to the girlfriend of one of the South Korean soldiers. Again we see the bright lights, garish costumes, and loud colors that signify this site as hyper kinetic consumer culture (as all of these large amusement parks in Korea are products of one of the large chaebol's) as well as a product of a post-industrial society. In between these scenes is a trip into North Korea. It is shown to be agrarian and pre-industrial, as well as completely run by propaganda. Sophie must drive into North Korea but unlike the impressive highways of South Korea, the North has simple roads through fields that are brown and expansive. The socialist architecture is prominently displayed by the hospital and in sharp contrast to the modern skyscrapers and hospitals that a South Korean audience knows is just outside of that amusement park. The most modern space shown in North Korea (the coroners office) is defined as a space of deception and propaganda with the inclusion of the family there to rattle Sophie. The cold anesthetic environment is also trumped by the inclusion of a mini-dv camcorder in the hands of the investigation team. There is also hardly any color in North Korea (except of course the bright red swatches because then we all know they are commies), as they are more muted earth tones that are in sharp contrast to the bright colors of the Swiss base and the amusement park.

It is hard to truly see the DMZ and the investigatory team in a neutral space as well. They exist in very Westernized offices and through the placement of books and computers (as well other technology such as mini-dv camcorders) are positioned as upper-to-upper middle class intellectuals who smoke pipes and play darts. They become South Korean by proxy and through the fact that the audience relies on Sophie (who is terrible at keeping up the façade of neutrality) to tell the story. The higherups on both sides want to contain and control the truth and help to maintain its invisibility (just as the agents must do in Shiri) for if it escaped onto either side of the 38th parallel the situation would be explosive. This decadence on the part of the top brass is sharply contrasted to the more easily neutral homosocial space that the soldiers create. Yet still problems of economic status seep into the relationship between the guards from both sides. The guard boxes and the spaces within which the soldiers exist are strongly void of any visual clues as to the socio-economic status of themselves or their respective countries. However, as in Sbiri, weapons and technology are shown as subtle visual clues. The North Korean soldiers have the same uniforms we imagine they have had since fighting the Japanese colonists, while the South Koreans are camouflaged and very Western looking. The North Korean soldiers carry the weapon of all third-world countries: the AK-47, while the South Koreans have night vision goggles and M16-A2s. Visually the South Korean army is therefore positioned as superior to the North, and as such is more prosperous economically as well as heavily modernized (which throughout South Korean film history is always connected to the visual aesthetics of the West). Even the friendship that is so pure and innocent between the four guards is marked by South Koreas prosperity and consumer culture, which creates an underlying tension that will later explode into violence.

Lee Soo-hyuk throws audiocassettes of popular South Korean music to Sergeant Oh, but a reverse exchange is never done. This is an exchange of culture yes, (even if it is more lower class than the high culture on display in Shiri) but also of economic might. Pop music is one of the many perks of living in a stable economic society, where disposable income can be spent supporting favorite artists. Sergeant Oh even asks if there are any female singers in South Korea, as if there were none in the backward North Korea. Another major gift that the South Koreans bestow upon their Northern friends is the choco pie. This little piece of consumer goods is ultra manufactured and delicious, and we are led to believe that nothing exists that is like it in North Korea. This even becomes a ridiculous argument to the North Koreans as a reason for defection: they can eat all the choco pies they want in the South (the unsaid reason?: they will starve in the North). The final item is the gift of pornography, which is the ultimate product of a capitalistic consumer society: sex for sale. It is also marked as an American import, another reference to the unsaid tension that South Korea is merely a puppet state that owes its existence and success to the American Imperialist forces. Unlike Shiri, however, these economic factors do not make reunification impossible. Actually it brings the four soldiers closer together, and it is only with the intervention of the upper brass in the North Korean army that the situation explodes. The underlying tensions come out and the Cold War mentality takes over and friends become enemies. Again they must protect the status quo and the visible world outside the area of the guard boxes. The films message is that the people are ready, if only the government could get past its differences. The film would have made a stronger argument, however, if they had not included the investigatory team. This places the audience within the space of the protectors of the status quo. We never know what truly happened in the guard box because they wish to make this situation invisible, to forget and move on, and the characters who cannot act within the rules set by both sides must die. Only Sergeant Oh is left in the end, too old and dead to the world to care.

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Sure, the Tribeca Film Festival is big but that film festival has always seemed like it's been more about quantity than quality. The other major festival in town is the New York Film Festival and this years lineup shows that in spite of its much more modest size, the NYFF is still the B.M.O.C.

The festival with open with Stephen Frear's The Queen and close with Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth.

Other films playing include Bong Joon Ho's The Host, Michael Apted's latest installment of the "Up series," 49 Up, and more from directors such as Sofia Coppola, David Lynch, Alain Resnais, Johnny To, Hong Sang-Soo, and Pedro Almodovar.

But, big names from the international film circuit isn't all the festival has in store. The NYFF is also doing a series entitled "50 Years of Janus Films." I can't even begin to describe how exciting this is so I'll just post the press release:

50 years of Janus Films at the New York Film Festival

FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES FESTIVAL DATES
SEPTEMBER 29 OCTOBER 15, 2006

New York Film Festival Retrospective: 50 Years of Janus Films
Renoir, Bergman, Ophuls, Antonioni, Truffaut, Kurosawa, Cocteau, Buñuel, Polanski return to New York in glorious new prints!

CANNES INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL May 16, 2006 The 44th annual NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL will unspool at Lincoln Center from Sept. 29 through Oct. 15, and this years Retrospective will celebrate 50 Years of Janus Films, it was announced today by Claudia Bonn and Richard Peña, executive director and program director respectively of the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

From Italian neo-realism to the French New Wave, from Bergman's existential inquiries to Kurosawa's samurai epics, this years NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL Retrospective promises to be a thrilling, encyclopedic overview of world cinema classics. 50 Years of Janus Films will open with Jean Renoir's humanist masterpiece, The Rules of the Game (1939), on Sept. 30 and will continue through Oct. 27, showcasing unprecedented survey of over 30 world cinema classics, most of them screening in pristine new prints at the Walter Reade Theater.

"This series is our chance to salute 50 years of specialized film programming in New York and the United States," says Peña, chairman of the selection committee of the NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL. "For many decades Janus Films was the gold standard for foreign film releases and much of my own film education came from following Janus film festivals presented practically continuously throughout my teenage years."

Other epochal titles in this luminous survey include: Marcel Carné's Children of Paradise (1945), Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1946) and Orpheus (1950), Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954), Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954), Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957), Luis Buñuel's Viridiana (1961), Michelangelo Antonioni's L'eclisse (1962), Roman Polanski's A Knife in the Water (1962), and François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959) and Antoine and Colette (1962).

"Our goal with this program is to make available new prints of films that were once staples of the art house revival circuit," says Film Society of Lincoln Center Associate Director of Programming and retrospective curator Kent Jones. "Many film lovers take it for granted that everyone is going to know the movies they knowthe iconic titles like The Seventh Seal and Rules of the Game and The 400 Blows and thats just not the case. These are the films we grew up with, theyre part of our cinematic DNA, but a lot of people have yet to be introduced to them. We are proud to be able to show them in new prints on the big screen and delighted to partner with Janus Films and Criterion on this historic undertaking."

Jones is also a member of the NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL Selection Committee which is comprised of Peña, Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum, Vogue and Fresh Air's John Powers and author Phillip Lopate.

The NEW YORK FILM FESTIVAL celebrates its 44th anniversary in 2006, continuing an extraordinary tradition of showing the newest and most important cinematic works by directors from around the world. The 17-day noncompetitive festival takes place at Alice Tully Hall and the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center and features inspiring and provocative cinema by emerging talents and first-rank international artists whose films are often recognized as contemporary classics.

Founded in the 1950s, Janus Films became synonymous with bringing the most notable foreign language features to the American market. While the art house revival circuit has in certain respects been eclipsed in recent years by the prevalence of home theaters, 50 Years of Janus Films hopes to reintroduce audiences to the legendary distributors canon of films in the manner in which they were always meant to be experienced, in pristine 35mm. In addition, a number of the titles in the survey are not yet available on DVD or VHS, including director Carlos Sauras rarely screened 1976 masterpiece, Cria! (Cria Cuervos). In the planning stages for over a year, 50 Years of Janus Films marks a glorious return and an inspiring reminder of our shared cinematic history.

Complete list of films

The Phantom Carriage / Victor Sjöstrom, Sweden, 1921
Haxan / Benjamin Christensen, Denmark, 1922
Zero for Conduct / Jean Vigo, France, 1933
The Crime of Monsieur Lange / Jean Renoir, France, 1935
Daybreak / Marcel Carné, France, 1939
Rules of the Game / Jean Renoir, France, 1939
Day of Wrath / Carl Dreyer, Denmark, 1943
Children of Paradise / Marcel Carné, France, 1945
Orpheus / Jean Cocteau, France, 1950
Miracle in Milan / Vittorio de Sica, Italy, 1951
The Earrings of Madame de... / Max Ophuls, France, 1953
Monika / Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1953
Sansho the Bailiff / Kenji Mizoguchi, Japan, 1954
La Strada / Federico Fellini, Italy, 1954
Death of a Cyclist / Juan Antonio Bardem, Spain, 1955
The Cranes Are Flying / Mikhail Kalatotov, USSR, 1957
The Seventh Seal / Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1957
Ashes and Diamonds / Andrzej Wajda, Poland, 1958
The Horses Mouth / Ronald Neame, England, 1958
Fires on the Plain / Kon Ichikawa, Japan, 1959
The 400 Blows / François Truffaut, 1959
Antoine and Colette / François Truffaut, 1962
Le Trou / Jacques Becker, France, 1960
Cléo from 5 to 7 / Agnès Varda, France, 1961
Viridiana / Luis Buñuel, Spain, 1961
Eclipse / Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962
Knife in the Water / Roman Polanski, Poland, 1962
The Organizer / Mario Monicelli, Italy, 1963
Kwaidan / Masaki Kobayashi, Japan, 1964
W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism / Dusan Makavejev, Yugoslavia, 1971
Cría Cuervos / Carlos Saura, Spain, 1976

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INTRODUCTION

The division of Korea is a crucial thematic issue in much of Korea's film culture. Recently this division has been literally displayed in popular culture in such blockbuster successes as Kang Je-gyu's Shiri (Swiri, 1999) and Park Chan-wook's Joint Security Area (Gongdong-gyungbi-guyeok JSA, 2000). While much has been made of the division as it is played out in terms of masculine and familial trauma, I am interested in how depictions of economic class in the newest wave of Korean cinema is crucial in defining how the viewer pictures the societies of North and South Korea. In this paper I will analyze Shiri as a film that positions South Korea as a dominant society whose techno-capitalist economy supports a population that seems to be exclusively made up of westernized, upper-to-upper middle class people while North Korea is portrayed as a brutish, savage society whose system has completely failed its people. The different spaces that the two sides exist within cannot come to terms with each other and makes reunification impossible. I will then discuss Joint Security Area as a film that attempts to create a class-neutral area within its military setting and, while it presents a more complex argument on the two Koreas, economic issues still intrude into the men's social space. To contrast these two films, I will look to Kim Dong-won's documentary Repatriation (Songhwan, 2004) as a film on the opposite end of the propaganda spectrum from Shiri. Repatriation is a film that complicates matters dealing with reconciliation between the two Koreas and the socio-economic problems are not avoided. It is a film that shows the failings of both cultures as well as shows an element of society (the lower working class) that is largely absent from current mainstream South Korean cinema. This paper will be split into three parts to make it easier to read on this website. I hope with this paper to begin an investigation into an area that I believe to be just as important, as well as being largely connected with, the depictions of gender in relation to the division culture.

SHIRI

Shiri is the first modern Korean blockbuster, drawing about 6 million admissions nationwide and surpassing the previous box office record holder, Im Kwon-taek's Sopyonje (1993). (www.koreanfilm.org) It depicts the division rather simply; returning to a Cold War mentality of a clearly defined line of good versus evil, with the North Koreans portrayed as monstrous Others. Immediately from the opening sequences the two Koreans across a technological (and therefore economic) divide. The North Korean training montage takes place either in the fields and wetlands of North Korea, or rundown buildings whose bare and dirty concrete walls and dust reminds the viewer of a poor industrial nation and rundown and abandoned warehouses. The troops are in ragged uniforms and eat a communal meal of what we can only assume to be gruel. The troops use their bare hands and knives for much of their training. Their targets are other humans, and are dispatched with methods that are pre-modern in their savagery. As technology (and through it society) evolves weapons move from the personal to the distant, as well as from killing few to killing many. Sure the North Koreans have knives, deadly hands, and a few guns, but they must travel to South Korea to get the ultimate weapon: the CTX bomb. This is important as weapons technology is inextricably linked to economic progress and power. The society who has the most disposable funds can produce the deadliest weapons. North Korea obviously cannot afford this, and their nuclear program (which was a ever growing concern at the time) is never mentioned. In the sequence where the prisoners are tied to poles and stabbed to death, as well as the sequence where the commandos and the prisoners are set against each other in the locked room, the regimented and organized violence that one usually associates with modern warfare and military training descends into a chaotic and disorganized melee filled with primal rage.

When guns are employed they are shown only wielded by a select few, and they use Styrofoam dummies and glass bottles as targets. This marks the training as decidedly low class and technologically inept. There are no computers to measure accuracy, rather felt pens and rulers. This is immediately counteracted with South Korea's introduction in the film. The montage of Lee Pang-hee's kills are displayed off of a computer display and South Korea is introduced as a (post)modern society. The music even changes from the bombastic military score used in the North Korean scenes to a techno beat that references the decidedly MTV influenced editing and visual tricks that accompany this montage. From this scene we are brought to a shipyard (shipbuilding is one of the key industries responsible for Korea's economic growth and success under the Park Chun-hee regime and beyond) and the viewer sees South Koreas answer to the North Korean commandos. The same music score returns but in contrast to North Korea's brutality and chaos these troops move in tandem and are outfitted in the most up-to-date gear. The familiar signals from walky-talkies accompany the scene as these well-trained (yet faceless) troops rush into the ship with their laser-sighted sub-machine guns. They move with the exact precision that the North Koreans were just shown as lacking, and have the technology (including rather unnecessary night vision goggles) that the commandos will not have until coming into South Korea. The task force is defined in spaces of high technology, their offices protected by an odd form of a biometric palm reader that reads the veins in the back of the hand. A technology not even available at the time, as it was just recently released by Fujitsu, so that Korea is portrayed not only as at the forefront of technology but beyond it as well.

This technological excess also comes with financial wealth. In Shiri's vision of South Korea there exists no one of lower-to-middle class background. All of the agents that work at the station wear designer suits and have trendy haircuts. In street scenes, extras are all dressed fashionably and can be easily seen carrying shopping bags bearing name-brands on them. This product placement runs rampant through the entire film, as the director emulates the Hollywood blockbuster down the constant display of consumer goods as well. While much of the products fore grounded are Korean in origin, many are decidedly Western imports. Along with the various Korean soft drinks and snacks we see the characters digest we see heavy Samsung product placement (for they did finance the film). Yet along with these Korean products, American imports are clearly displayed. The characters meet at a Bennigan's in an early dream sequence. In America, Bennigan's is a faux-fancy restaurant for the lower-to-lower middle class, but in Shiri's vision of Seoul it is obviously linked to high culture. In fact very little of this vision of Seoul seems Korean. In David Scott Diffrient's article "Seoul as Cinematic Cityscape: Shiri and the Politico-Aesthetics of Invisibility" he proposes that Shiri's vision of Seoul is post modern in that no clear temporality can be discerned as past, present and future are entirely obfuscated. The spaces within which the North Korean agents exist are behind the scenes: alleys, rooftops, control rooms, and construction sites. He calls these spaces zones of invisibility that contradict the hyper visibility of the rest of the city in which these products and advertisements are profuse within a space of Western culture imperialism. While I agree with this argument, I would like to take it further and connect these zones of invisibility to the working class, which are also invisible within the regular streets of Seoul. In fact I believe that the only time one sees any type of lower-class person is when during the first chase down the back alley of the supermarket, a vendor is knocked over. Even the invalid and sick are depicted as beautiful people who exist only in a resort like hospital on Cheju Island. These areas are the areas in which the North Koreans can hide because to the upper class agents they are literally invisible to them. These are the spaces in which they can disguise themselves as workers in order to hide the bombs, I don't even think that they would need the disguise as the rest of the characters seem determine to avoid the spaces which provide the structure to their absurdly clean and ordered world. The pipes, wires and dust seem like they are enough deterrent and the only time an agent goes into these areas they are chasing a terrorist or a bomb, and even then they need to be provoked. This economic disparity is the reason that reconciliation cannot be achieved within the film.

North Korea is positioned as both backward and traditional, yet when the agents come to South Korea they are sort of magically transformed into stylish consumers who now have access to both good clothes and transportation (how did that one terrorist get a motorcycle?) but also they have access to superior weapons as well. Suddenly the grime is gone, and this severely undermines their statements at the end about South Koreans eating cheeseburgers and drinking coke, while children starve. This cookie-cutter cry (straight out of every Hollywood film that has terrorists in it) gives both a faux-liberal argument to the film, as well as makes their real argument that South Korea is no longer Korean but largely American clear. This acknowledgement of economic disparity allows them to be able to exist within both realms of visibility and invisibility. Like the character of Lee Pang-hee/Lee Myung-hyun, they can exist within both spaces until the South Korean agents must go after them to reinsert the status quo and suppress the invisible segments of society. To exist in the Western life style where they can go to plays, eat at outdoor cafes and then laugh about the rain they must destroy any marginal sections of Korean society. It also seems that they must do away with any sense of Korean-ness and exist merely as products of a global culture. We don't see them in any scenes that have to do with traditional Korean culture rather the film instead fixes Seoul as a city that could be in anywhere. Both the interiors and exteriors are so banally Westernized the essentially become sterilized of any interest. It is only the moments of in-betweeness that hold interest, when the invisible erupts into the visible or vice versa. These are the moments of violence, as most of the action scenes in the movie takes place in these invisible spaces, something that Diffrient seems to ignore in his paper. There can be no reunification between the two Koreas because becoming partners with the North would be returning to tradition and acknowledging an economic problem that these agents seem determined to forget and ignore respectively. They are unable to exist in space in-between, where the safety of the status quo cannot protect them. They do not want to be challenged and neither does the viewer. It is an action move after all.

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Meet Anaïs, the twelve year-old, title character of Catherine Breillat's film, Fat Girl, and Elena, the beautiful, older sister Anaïs feels overshadowed by. Anaïs is a zaftig-figured, lonesome girl, whose sense of imagination keeps her distraught, sexually frustrated ego afloat. Elena is the high schooler with the svelte, fully matured body of a twenty one year old. Thanks to Elena's good looks and eye-catching body, she has attracted the attention of plenty boys. And she has gotten past every base - that is, except the last one.

In light of Elena's blossoming female physique, their sibling rivalry has since intensified. For the post-pubescent, horny Elena, the physique is equated to sensuality. Elena becomes averse to the idea of fat and to Anaïs, in particular. Elena holds no bars when it comes to expressing her disgust; she sneers whenever Anaïs munches gluttonously at the dinner table.

It is all the more ironic that sex, a coming-of-age matter, that has helped turn the two sisters into bitter rivals, is, alas, something that gives a reason for the pair an opportunity to share and confide.

Throughout the duration of Fat Girl, Breillat frames her story around Anaïs, Elena, and Elena's new boyfriend named Fernando. Elena's parents, cautious of their daughter's budding sexuality, allow her to go out with Fernando; with the exception that Anaïs is tagging along, a few steps behind the pair. As a third wheel, Anaïs is usually framed in the center with her ice cream, or teetering on the edge as Elena and Fernando touch and grope in most of the frame. Brelliat makes it clear that Anaïs is self-aware of her physical shortcomings and how her hefty weight has left her suitor-less; in stark contrast to her sexually adventurous older sister.

Anaïs' third wheel position, of course doesn't do her ego any favors. So instead of fretting over solitude, the imaginative, sexual Anaïs dreams up an imaginary boyfriend for herself, kissing pool stairs, in lieu of a real boyfriend and making up lines for both persons.

Elena's sexual relationship with Fernando is explicitly depicted, to say the least. Breillat holds behind no bars when it comes to sex, for it is the central focus for all the three main players: Elena, Fernando, and Anaïs, as well. Though it is understandable that some viewers will be turned off by generous images of skin and flesh, I'd argue that it is, indeed, the point. The sex sequences are meant to be uncomfortable rather than titillating, as an unequal power struggle between the sexes ensues.

Elena initially sways off Fernando's consummating advances. She expresses doubt about whether their relationship is truly based upon love, and hesitates when Fernando speaks of the other girls he has bedded with (she does not want to be another anonymous name on his list). But Fernando, ever the smooth talker, eventually succeeds in taking Elena's virginity by speaking in a certain vernacular that would appeal to any warm-blooded girl: touching upon the matters of the heart.

A smooth, persistent charmer, Fernando uses words to win over Elena. He softens the descriptions of anal sex ("proof of love"), fellatio ("wonderful gift") and vaginal sex ("You're the kind of girl that men dream of marrying"), implying the sentimental significance behind it. A contrast between Fernando's mellifluous words and the actual acts of sex Fernando himself imposes upon the virginal Elena is clearly established. If the soft words of "love" and "dream" and "gift" stroke Elena's romantic, estrogen-induced dreams of what she WANTS sex to be, then it is apt to say that the reality of what sex actually is crushing.

During anal and vaginal sex, we see and hear Elena crying, as the hyper-testosterone-charged Fernando shoves himself violently into her each time (in the latter scene, Elena urges Fernando to go "gently", but to of no avail). And during fellatio, Elena is presented in a submissive female role, as Breillat shoots Fernando standing from head to knee in a medium long shot; the back of Elena's anonymous head, turned to the camera, is relegated to the bottom corner of the frame.

Witnessing these volatile, sexual episodes from a limited distance is Anaïs, who lies in a bed across from Elena's. As a passive voyeur, Anaïs is placed in a tricky situation. We see Anaïs squirming in her bed during anal sex; she clearly disapproves of what Fernando is doing to her sister. But clearly, it would not be in Anaïs's best interest if she expressed her disapproval of Fernando. Elena deems Anaïs comparable to a "ball and chain". Anaïs is smart enough to know that any more interventionist moves, and she'll be considered as the perennial Third Wheel.

Wrapped under pillows and blankets, Anaïs blubbers in tears as Elena finally consummates her relationship with Fernando. Although their sisterly rivalry still brims on the surface, their love and attachment to one another, as romantic, love-lorn girls, run deeper. Anaïs' empathy for Elena's pain calls to mind a conversation the two had earlier, as they self-reflexively ruminated upon their contrasting images in the mirror:

Elena: No one would think we're sisters. It's true. We don't take after anyone. It's like we're born of ourselves. It's funny. We really have nothing in common. Look at you. You have small hard eyes while mine are hazy. But when I look deep in your eyes, it makes me feel like I belong, as if they were my eyes.

Anaïs: That's why we're sisters. When I hate you, I look at you and then I can't. It's like hating part of myself. That's why I loathe you so violently, because you ought to be like me. But at times I have the feeling you're the exact opposite.

Although Anaïs and Elena each inhabit two completely different bodies, they share the same dream-seeking, romantic - and dare I say female - soul. The irony here is that it takes a manipulative member of the opposite sex - of whom they fantasize at the expense of sisterhood - that leads to such a realization.

Those expecting this film to be a conventional love story between a male and female will be sorely disappointed; Fat Girl, whose original French title, A Mon Soeur literally means For My Sister, is, first and foremost, a (platonic) love story about two females, as they struggle with adolescence and womanhood, and a meditation upon troubling heterosexual relations, second.

It has been days since I have first seen Fat Girl, yet Anaïs' description of how violent her hatred for Elena is, still lingers on. There is a disturbing sense of violence that bleeds into Elena's intimate relations with Anaïs and Fernando. Breillat insists that love is not the flip side of violence. Rather, she argues, they interchange so quickly that it becomes difficult to distinguish one from the other.

Breillat's obsession with the dialectical nature of love and violence could not be better articulated than in the haunting last words echoed by Anaïs:

Police officer: She was in the woods. She says he didn't rape her.

Anaïs: Don't believe me if you don't want to.

Some viewers, driven by moral outrage, may see it fit to deem Breillat as a reprehensible artist to be reckoned with (the last ten minutes of Fat Girl are, indeed, graphic and disturbing). But as I see it, such concern undermines the entire point of the film: Sex lurks in mysterious, ambivalent ways - why make sense of it?

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With World Trade Center, 9/11 movies are back in theater, but I've opted to stay at home and watch another film from another decade reenacting another day in New York City history, Sidney Lumet's 1974 Dog Day Afternoon. From what I've read, WTC sticks to a conventional narrative, opting for emotion, or at least what passes for emotion in Hollywood these days. Dog Day has a similar allegiance to straightforward storytelling, but represents a time when directors mixed politics with popcorn without worrying about leaving a bad taste in audiences' mouths.

Like WTC, Dog Day is "based on a true story." On a hot one in August 1972, John Wojtowicz and Sal Naturile entered a Brooklyn bank, made an attempt at a robbery, got cornered by the cops, bunkered down and kept hostages for the next two days while trying to arrange a jet out of the country. Lumet's film follows most of the bare facts, but transforms John into Sonny (Al Pacino), a man thrown into the unfortunate circumstance of keeping eight hostages, negotiating with cops, and navigating his personal life all at the same time.

While a SWAT team would most likely waste Sonny and Sal were they to do what they did today, Dog Day Afternoon suggests that the political atmosphere is what held the police at bay back in the day. A crowd quickly forms around the police barricades outside the bank, which provides Sonny and Sal with a buffer of safety. "Attica! Remember Attica!" Sonny yells, raising the specter of the prison uprising and subsequent massacre of 42 inmates and hostages by the state of New York in 1971. When the media begins reporting that Sonny has undertaken the heist in order to raise funds for his wife Leon, a pre-op transwoman, to receive a sex change, the post-Stonewall gay rights movement joins the crowd with the chant, "Out of the closet and into the streets!"

Yet for all its sloganeering and political daring, Dog Day Afternoon, remains faithfully wedded to conventional narrative. It passes as a good film because Sidney Lumet is a consummate story teller; but like marriage itself, narrative cinema is ultimately a conservative institution. For instance, Lumet is less interested in the crowd outside than he is in the man inside, Sonny, and a series of conversations attempt to explain why Sonny is who he is. One involving Sonny and Leon is incredibly affecting - perhaps the emotional peak of the film - but the other two, between Sonny, his other (heterosexual) wife and his mother, almost suggest that Sonny's problems stem from the simple fact that women in his life just don't listen to him. The revealing of Sonny's sexuality also appears meant to play as a plot twist, and some reviews I've read even fail to mention it, lest they give away a pivotal "spoiler," despite the fact that it is essential to discussing the film with any seriousness.¹

It does make me wonder if narrative cinema isn't like the police line keeping back the cheering crowds from Sonny, disconnecting his struggle from larger movements fighting for the same things (like proper health care for trans folks, for example). In the late 1960s and into the 70s, revolutionary politics and cinema yelled to one another, goaded each other on from across the barricade, but with the possible exception of the likes of Haskell Wexler and Emile de Antonio, they remained divided and conquered. Any who's sat through Michelangelo Antonioni's hopelessly out-of-touch Zabriskie Point understands just how badly divided they were.

In this sense, Dog Day Afternoon is more than a failed bank robbery; it's a failed moment in American cinema history. When I think of politics in American cinema, I picture Christine Bergstrom wandering through an actual police riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool. The scene is more than history as it is happening; it is American cinema's political potential passing us by. Medium Cool is like an early Godard gone American: imperfect but playful — and unabashedly political — in all the right places. Medium Cool feels dated only because no one has yet to go anywhere with its ideas; it's a Citizen Kane in waiting — a Comrade Kane, if you must.² Some aspiring Leftist film studies scholar ought to give it the same contemporary reconsideration Dan Berger gives the Weather Underground in his recent book, Outlaws of America³

From what I understand, American cinema was better in the 1960s and 1970s for a variety of reasons. Financers were more open to director's experimentation, and the likes of the French New Wave were giving American directors fresh ideas about what experiments to undertake.⁴ And yet I'm willing to bet anyone top stock options at the latest Fortune 500 that it wasn't mere market forces — or a few Frenchies — that pushed American cinema in new directions. The same struggles that bristle at the barricades in Dog Day Afternoon also moved filmmakers to start addressing politics directly — not as something to be hid under the metaphorical mattress, within allegory and subtext, or worse, as vulgar concerns never to be raised at all.

To film critic Christopher Null, Dog Day Afternoon "captures perfectly the zeitgeist of the early 1970s, a time when optimism was scraping rock bottom and John Wojtowicz was as good a hero as we could come up with." I'd agree that Dog Day captures the zeitgeist, but otherwise, I have to question what Null is saying here.⁵

What heroes does Null think America was missing in the 1970s? Who was missing? Loving, caring, uncorrupt cops (no thanks COINTELPRO)? Unimpeachable presidents (no thanks Nixon)? Innocent Americans (No thanks Vietnam)? We have all these and more in World Trade Center and United 93, and the cinema is no better for it. The very day that politics fatefully interrupted Americans' lives is being purged of every possible political question for the sake of a conventional narrative, a story to tell.

Dog Day Afternoon, thankfully, does not completely succumb to this tendency; if anything it further politicizes Wojtowicz's story. Rather than the total absence of possibility, of hope and optimism, it represents possibilities yet to be realized — to get cinema out of the studio and into the streets.

NOTES:
¹I also recall an interview with Lumet I once read in Cineaste, around the release of his recent Vin Diesel vehicle Find Me Guilty, in which Lumet's showed an aversion to discussing politics of any sort — aside from a strange suggestion that wearing white socks was a sign of solidarity with the working class — and emphasized that in his work, storytelling always comes first.

²Sorry for the stupid joke, I couldn't help myself.

³ My review of which is available here.

⁴ This is what I've gathered from a few friends, mostly. Somebody point me to a book or documentary, please!

⁵ You wouldn't believe the struggle I went through not to write "I find his opinion Null and void."

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Unemployed until just recently, I have spent a lot of my time lately perusing job listings. Career opportunities abound, most out of my league, but I notice that no where does anyone appear to be offering a life in crime.

The lack of career offerings in crime leads me to believe one of two things: either crime really doesn't pay like they say, or it's simply an entrepreneurial line of work for self-starters and go-getters.¹ As my man 50 Cent is wont to say, get rich or die trying.

The thought strikes me that this might be why the crime film is so quintessentially American — in this country, our criminals are capitalists. As Scarface explained, with a patriarchal addendum, "In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the woman."

Lately, I've also spent a good amount of time watching, rewatching, and wondering about Jean-Pierre Melville's 1967 crime genre classic, Le Samouraï, a new favorite of mine. The film follows the last hit in the life of Jef Costello — a gravely handsome, stoic cigarette-smoking assassin who always creases the brim of his hat on his way out the door.

Jef is not unemployed; he kills people for a living. But Jef doesn't appear to be a capitalist, nor is he an American. Jean-Pierre Melville may have adopted the crime film, as well as his last name, from the Americans, but he's altered the motivations.² Jef's not after money, though it is certainly his excuse. He explains his hits with one-liners like "I was to be paid," and yet his apartment is decidedly drab. At a bar he pays for a drink he never touches. In only the second shot of the film, he ponders a roll of bills as if it has lost all meaning.

Perhaps that's because most meaning seems lost on Jef; money may not be what he's after, but what exactly he's after wants a mystery. The man may be impeccably dressed, but as we learn by the final reel, he is also impeccably forlorn. A master of evasion, if nothing else, Costello keeps everyone in his life at a distance, and his stone-cold demeanor betrays nothing of his emotions, let alone his reasons for doing what he does.

Melville too does little to hint at what Jef's motivations are, but he gives several clues — including the allure of a beautiful, equally mysterious pianist — that Jeff's profession is deadly, not due to its danger and courage, but rather its very coolness and lack of connection. Despite his self-control — the cool reason cultivated, it seems, in order to kill — Jef is caged all the same, much like the bird he keeps in his apartment.

Two men apart: Jef and the Superintendent

And yet the Superintendent's distance keeps him clueless, as Jef's stalwart sham alibi, Jane, explains.

Superintendant: Don't you love him?
Jane Lagrange: No.
Superintendant: Really? I'd have said you did. Laying yourself on the line for him like that, I thought you must love him.
Jane Lagrange: You're not the psychologist you imagined.

The Superintendent doesn't get it³, but he's not alone, bceause Melville refuses to extend the pleasure of understanding even to the viewer. Many interpretations of the film I have read rely heavily on the "Samourai" concept of the title, leading some to suppose that Jef's life strictly follows bushido, a code of honor.

But Jef's honor is wholly ambiguous no matter what your reading. Melville seems to have chosen the foreign motif in order to defy these very literal readings to further an exotic resonance and arouse more mystery. Indeed, the film opens with a quote that Melville credits to "The Book of Bushido," despite its having been his own invention: "There is not greater solitude than that of the samurai, unless it is that of the tiger in the jungle...perhaps..."

Questions with questions: Jef and Valérie

Jef is drawn to the mystery of Valérie's motivations. Perhaps it is in her, another enigma, that he has met his match. Smiling only in performance, she too never betrays her emotions, no matter how many questions Jef asks; she only answers his questions with questions of her own.

The pace of the film ensures that "…perhaps…" resounds from every action taken by our protagonist. Under Melville's tight and spare direction, mere gestures can be taken to mime philosophies; hallways and city streets become uncertain fates. Melville's style was decidedly slow, drawing frequent comparisons to another renowned French filmmaker, Robert Bresson, whose influence Melville always denied.

Melville himself has influenced many. From Leon Lai's codependent killer in Wong Kar-Wai's Fallen Angels, who likes his job because he doesn't have to make decisions; to Tom Cruise's campy people-hating Vincent in Collateral; to Quintin Tarantino's own camp tributes in Pulp Fiction and elsewhere; at last to John Woo's endless bombastic hymns to Melville in The Killer and elsewhere;⁴ take-offs on Melville, and Le Samouraï in particular, take on an almost spiritual force.

Kneeling before the gun

I am sure I have missed many others, but of all the films listed above with Melville motifs, I'd argue Wong Kar-Wai strikes the truest chord. Fallen Angels suggests, as does Le Samouraï, that not all careers are lucrative, and that the self-possession afforded by urban anonymity ultimately runs a deficit. It is no spoiler to reveal that the protagonist in each ends up killed, because life, at last, lies in the details, in what we do - our own personal investigations - and killing only gets you so far. For Wong Chi-Ming of Fallen Angels, it's food; for Jef, it is a woman behind a piano - only neither hitman gets far enough to see their investigations through.

Jef dies trying, but he's still fucking dead; and when you live and die like Jef, there is no one to mourn you when you're gone.

NOTES:
¹ Leaving aside, for a moment, the likes of Norwegian criminologist Nils Christie, who holds that what we call "crime" is mostly just a catch-all political term of the State (and for the record, I agree with him). See his A Suitable Amount of Crime.

² I don't know if this has anything to do with French criminals being any less capitalist (I doubt it), but their anarchists did innovate the get-away car....

³ I'd argue the State's vantage point never will, but that's too much ideology for this film, perhaps.

⁴ Woo is reportedly remaking Melville's 1970 Le Cercle Rouge.

⁵ Not to be confused with the self-proclaimed "worst Jesus slasher movie ever made," Polterchrist.

Posted by Andrew at 5:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Mystery at Mansfield Manor, an "online, live-action interactive murder mystery movie," is set on a dark and stormy night. Billionaire Colin Mansfield, lord of the titular Manor, has been murdered on the very night that he has gathered his closest family, friends, and business associates to inform them of changes to his will.

Our proxy in this world is Frank Mitchell (Ben Trister), a brilliant detective who arrives at the Manor two hours shy of a forced retirement presumably hoping to go out on a high note. Instructing his partner not to let anyone leave the sitting room in which the entire ensemble is gathered, he retires to an adjacent room to interrogate the suspects (everyone is a suspect) one at a time.

We don't precisely control Mitchell, though we do decide in what order the suspects are interviewed. We don't exactly help him solve the crime either, though we do eventually tell him which suspect to arrest and then sit back to watch the consequences of this action. Instead, our primary function in Mystery at Mansfield Manor seems to be keeping Mitchell from losing interest in the case entirely.

In a Making Of documentary included in a "bonus features" section Trister tellingly describes his character by saying, "he basically doesn't give a damn anymore. He's moderately amused by the people he sees in the mansion and hopefully will solve the crime, but he doesn't care too much about it."

Mitchell's apathy is the film's (game's?) defining characteristic. In my favorite "alternate ending" (resulting from our inability to make it past the first problem-solving stage, in which we identify which suspects are lying) he simply hands his notebook to the next shift and walks away unconcerned into the night, the case unsolved.

This isn't much different from the other endings in which Mitchell is wrong: they all end with him packing up his belongings and heading for home with naught more than a handshake and a card ("some of the guys chipped in and bought you this") to show for his efforts. Which is, for that matter, more or less what happens in the ending in which he's right.

So it's no wonder that he doesn't care. The question, then, is why should we? Well, for starters this is probably a more accurate depiction of the work of a police detective than most--Mystery at Mansfield Manor is the film that dares to be boring.

Like Sergeant Joe Friday, Mitchell is "only interested in the facts." But here that means he remains aloof from any romance, any drama. His investigation is characterized by repetition, by catching his targets in the most trivial lies. It's an interesting (if not very exciting) corrective to the romantic Hollywood image of the detective, operating on instinct, who gradually becomes embroiled in the intrigues of the characters he's investigating.

Mystery of Mansfield Manor also points towards possible future uses of the "online, live-action interactive" movie form. Here we have the concept at its most stripped down, its most basic--chassis, wheels, engine. It's not actually very interactive (what we do amounts to little more than what we do when we navigate the menu of a DVD) and it's not very filmic (the cinematography, editing, and mise-en-scène aren't used: all of the clues are in the dialogue, or in dramatizations of the dialogue), but it has now been done. A foundation has been laid, and that's something.

Finally, Mystery at Mansfield Manor is a fairly well-made film for its low budget. Producer-screenwriter Rory Scherer and director Boris Mojsovski are a B-Movie mogul's dream, coaxing fine performances from his cast in only one or two takes, saving money by shooting only interior scenes at one setting but avoiding a feeling of claustrophobia by never lingering too long in one room, and in his biggest coup effectively finding a way to use his outtakes in the finished product (the vast majority of the interrogation scenes would be cut from a more traditional film).

But if there's a lot to admire about this film (not least the fact that it exists at all), it's still not very entertaining--there's a reason why we don't see many films about the workaday drudgery of the life of a detective, why murder mysteries typically dispense with the more mundane parts of an investigation.

Mystery at Mansfield Manor is a step in the right direction towards a more creative, a more diverse cinema that utilizes the potential of the internet, and it's hopefully an inspiration to DIY filmmakers everywhere (you don't need a distributor!). It is itself only an appetizer, though, and I'm left wanting more.

Mystery at Mansfield Manor is available online at http://www.mysteryatmansfieldmanor.com. It costs $7.99 Canadian for 96 hours access to the film.

Posted by Horbal at 7:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

No, the Satellite of Love has not been re-launched. No, Mike, Crow, and Servo have not re-teamed armed with tons of cash to take on contemporary, big budget films. That would be my ultimate MST3K fantasy. But something almost as enticing has hit the internet. Michael J. Nelson, head writer of MST for its entire run and star of its last six seasons, has launched a new venture which attempts to fill the Mystery Science Theater shaped void in my soul.

Rifftrax are downloadable mp3 film commentaries from Mike himself. You can download each track for a meager $1.99. Then you acquire the DVD, upload the mp3 to your iPod, and laugh away. At least that's the idea. I have yet to try this out myself as I have just now downloaded the first two commentaries. Available right now are the very appropriate Road House, and The Fifth Element (a film I must admit I actually like).

I'll update this with a review of the product once I've given them a listen. Until then, have a Patrick Swayze Christmas.

Posted by Greg at 1:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The Film Snob*s Dictionary begins by describing the archetypal Film Snob as:

[F]amiliar to anyone who has walked through the doors of an independent video store and encountered a surly clerk--hostile of mien, short on patience, apt to chastise you for not intuiting that Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket is in the James L. Brooks section "because Brooks was the movie's executive producer!"

This might sound a tad mean-spirited, but authors David Kamp (who co-wrote The Rock Snob*s Dictionary) and Lawrence Levi (who blogs at Looker) have their tongues planted firmly in their respective cheeks. To employ an old saw of the playground it takes one to know one, and if Film Snobs (as they charge) are employing a form of "Reverse Snobbery" when they favor the "soapy, over-emotive shlock of India's Bombay-based ‘Bollywood' film industry" over the "artful, nuanced films" of Satyajit Ray, then surely the authors are indulging in Reverse-Reverse Snobbery when they embrace Spaghetti Westerns as a "Worthwhile Snob Cause Célèbre" but then reject L'Atalante as "Fraudulent."

Like those video store clerks who proudly grant their recommendations a section of their own, at the end of the day the authors of A Film Snob*s Dictionary are motivated by a desire to spread the word, to share a canon of unjustly neglected cinematic pleasures with other likeminded but unenlightened souls.

Kamp and Levi presume a certain knowledge of and interest in film history, eschewing canonical directors like Federico Fellini and Ingmar Bergman ("mere name-drops for bourgeois losers wishing to seem cultured") in favor of more obscure figures like the actor Walter Beery or the sound designer Walter Murch.

And herein, ultimately, lies the book's greatest strength--at its heart is the idea that there is more to love about the movies than simply their capacity to entertain or educate. If Ingmar Bergman is "so PBS tote-bag" then so, by now, is les politiques des auteurs. A Film Snob*s Dictionary challenges the notion that the best films are the most "intellectual," the most "important" by focusing on different aspects of the film experience: the faces, the sounds, the cinematography, the personalities.

Which is not to say that the book isn't first and foremost an entertainment. Organizing it as a mock reference text with individual entries in alphabetical order, Kamp and Levi infuse the entire proceedings with levity and humor. The entry for "meditation on," which describes the phrase as a "stock hack-crit used to bestow an air of erudition and gravitas on both the critic and the film he is reviewing" has ruined the term for me forever.

There are weak moments. Some of the inserts go on too long and wander too far afield, for instance a discussion of "confusing similarities" that starts promisingly with the easy to confuse Bibi Andersson ("the Swedish actress who appeared in several of Ingmar Bergman's most famous films") vs. Harriet Andersson ("the Swedish actress who appeared in several of Ingmar Bergman's other famous films"), but then devolves into more strained comparisons between the not-so-easy-to-mistake William Wellman and William Wyler or Howard Hawks and Henry Hathaway.

These ocassional lapses, though, are more than compensated for by the even more frequent laugh-out-loud, it's funny 'cuz it's true observations (it's "Tony," never "A.O." Scott) and genuinely interesting tidbits of information that the book contains. A Film Snob*s Dictionary will appeal the most to those with a bit of a Snob streak in themselves, but there is something here for every movie lover with a sense of humor about his or her passion.

Posted by Horbal at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Although Andrew's now back in Bellingham after a couple weeks in New York City, he's still seeing bright lights... Bright Lights Film Journal that is! Our "estimable" colleague's article on The Garpage Pail Kids: The Movie has been published by the film journal and is currently featured on the homepage.

Bright Lights has one of those fancy ISSN complicated looking number thingies which we think indicates that they're legit. As a result, Andrew's feeling pretty cool about this. Anyway, check out the site to read the article (it's been revised since it was put up here) and leave a comment congratulating our buddy.

Posted by Ben at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)