Cinematic genius of Asia finds Jakarta

Cinematic genius of Asia finds Jakarta

East Meets East

Starting today (Dec.28) through Saturday (Dec.31), The Jakarta
Post will present a number of articles reviewing the films,
performing arts, art exhibitions, music and fashion trends and
other cultural affairs from the year l994.

By Jane Scott

JAKARTA (JP): To the distant observer, that is to the Western
film-goer, Asian films are now performing something of a "second
coming". The films spike the pickled and jaded tastes of the
regular movie viewer with the sharp flavor of the unexpected and
new, that is emanating from countries like Taiwan, China, and
South Korea. While you expect fruit, your palate tastes meat --
like what happens when a westerner eats durian? Such surprises
can cause pleasure or displeasure.

Startling moving pictures -- strange images, sounds,
narratives -- are now tumbling out from new cultural sources
while Western filmmakers must constantly reinvent themselves and
their environment. Sometimes this is a real achievement. The
imagination that created the world of Mad Max out of the desert
of Australia and the vision that created a new sub-genre in the
low-key, off-beat suburban melodrama, like Sweetie from Australia
and Trust from America, are re-investing icons of familiarity
with dark new meanings.

In the 1950s, the cinemas of Asia distinguished themselves
through the work of fine directors like Satyajit Ray of India
(Pather Panchali, The Chess Players, The Middleman), and Akira
Kurosawa (Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood and Dersu Uzala) of
Japan. In 1951 Kurosawa's Rashomon was unexpected winner of the
prestigious Golden Lion award at the Venice International Film
Festival. He won a Silver Lion on another occasion for his Seven
Samurai. it also won an Academy Award. Satyajit Ray won the Jury
Prize in Cannes in 1956 with his Pather Panchali -- another
landmark event for Asian cinema.

Akira Kurosawa's films did more than please the tough critics.
In one of the most famous adaptations of cinema history the Seven
Samurai was remade by director John Sturges as The Magnificent
Seven, an American western of 1960. In both films, seven hard-
headed warriors (gunmen in the western) seem compelled to defend,
at their own peril, the people of a small village from marauding
bandits. Heroes despite themselves. Thirty years later the
ricochet effect can still be seen today with Western interest in
the brilliant hyper-violence of films from the Hong Kong
directors and a general interest in the high-flying energy of
kung-fu movies.

In recent years a new Chinese cinema has risen with films from
Chen Kaige (Yellow Earth, Farewell My Concubine) and from Zhang
(Red Sorghum, Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern). Zhang Yimou's
latest film, To Live, was officially selected for Cannes '94, and
yes, Gong Li is in it too. A new wave of Korean cinema has
quietly emerged, with a bit less fanfare. It is headed by films
from veteran director Im Kwon-Taek. International audiences are
also interested in cinema from Taiwan and the work of director
Ang Lee (The Wedding Banquet, and Eat, Drink, Man, Woman) in
particular.

Old, new

This year audiences in Jakarta were offered something old, and
something new. Two festivals, a retrospective from the Japan
Foundation of the cinema of Kenji Mizoguchi (1898 - 1956) of
Japan and a perspective on the contemporary cinema of Taiwan,
from the Taipei Economic and Trade Office, were the highlight. Of
course the Kine Klub maintained its prominent place. Audiences
were also offered something borrowed, the endless succession of
cheapies from India and China that lurk in downmarket city
auditoriums.

Mizoguchi's film is popularly regarded as cinema about women,
a body of work exploring the role of women in a society driven by
forces to both modernize and to conservative. In the rush towards
a new economic order in postwar Japan, the traditional masculine
virtues of action and agency, doing things and getting things
done, seemed to have far more relevance than the traditional
feminine virtues of sensitivity and passivity. What, then was the
role of women?

There are interesting views relating to Mizoguchi's personal
life as to why he chose women as his particular subject -- his
own sister was forced at a very young age into becoming a geisha.
It was also the case that censorship under the Americans in
postwar Japan was such that films about social emancipation and
the role of women were acceptable while other themes were
definitely not.

In the 1930s, long before Betty Freidan or Germaine Greer were
heard of, Kenji Mizoguchi was focussing on the lives of women.
Does this make him a feminist or a proto-feminist? Probably not,
if you equate feminism with women's rights movements or look for
gestures towards liberation, as in the rather problematic way
that Thelma and Louise has its heroines wield guns. The thought
of a woman wielding a samurai sword to defend her honor in a
Mizoguchi film is unthinkable. The thought of her stepping
outside the law is unthinkable. Then again, is she not in The
Ugetsu Story, in some way
the "Law" itself?

Winner of the Silver Lion in Venice in 1953, The Ugetsu Story
is a major film in any Mizoguchi retrospective. It is set in
sixteenth century Japan, at a time of feudal warfare, when two
men, Genjuro and Tobei, brothers-in-law, leave the fold, their
wives, a child and domesticity to set out on a journey to the
town market to sell ceramics. The trip translates into a
picaresque journey in pursuit of their dreams of fortune and
worldly success. But the world that opens up beyond their homes
is peopled by figures of desire and portents of danger, some who
are well-wishers and some who are mischief-makers. The figures
who offer advice -- the dying man in the boat, the stranger
outside the market -- are the voices of the imagination in
material form that prompt the men to either follow their instinct
or to observe their consciences. It is a harsh world, beyond the
love and care of a woman, where the landscape is overrun by
samurai warriors and bandits who rape and pillage the poor
innocents in their path.

With Genjuro and Tobei absent, dreadful things happen to their
families. The perfect wife and mother, Miyaki, who never
quarreled with her husband but supported him in his work as a
potter, is dealt the cruelest blow of all, and her sister-in-law
becomes a prostitute. While awful things are happening, Genjuro
and Tobei must deal with the events that beset themselves, as
their fantasies materialize and they encounter objects of desire
on their journey towards wisdom. Ultimately, the price of
knowledge and understanding is very high, with the loss of
Miyaki, but she is alive in spirit at the end of the film. One
hopes that the little girl now alone with her father at the close
of Ugetsu Monogatari will benefit from the loss of her mother.

In an expression of hope at the end of The Ugetsu Story the
camera lifts and floats away, birdlike, above and then beyond the
little settlement, in a movement mirroring the flourish of its
entrance at the film's beginning. Poise and a gentle movement of
the camera mark The Ugetsu Story. It suits the film's humanism.

Another excellent film of the festival was The Life of Oharu,
1952. It is another critique of feudalism centered on the life of
a city prostitute in seventeenth century Japan. It was awarded
the International Director's Prize at the Venice International
Film Festival.

Hyperactive

In contrast to these sharply observed but gentle films from
veteran filmmaker Kenjo Mizoguchi, there were the hyperactive
contemporary films at the Taiwanese Film Festival in October.
Oddly, the festival's opening film was Little Shaolin Boxer
(which was called Little Shaolin Monks in the film's credits), a
treatment of myth with children as protagonists -- and with
childish humor to match. It was scheduled for the opening
evening, a matinee screening could have suggested it would work
for a young audience. Moreover, Little Shaolin Boxer (Monks?)
did not point to the production or thematic sophistication of
other films lined up for the festival.

It was a pity that the films didn't include at least one
international prize-winner, though I can see that this might be
the point. The films screened represented the achievement of
normal Taiwanese film. But Taiwan now has an international
reputation, led by director Ang Lee for his work The Wedding
Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman.

I thought that The Noblest Way to Die was good and that it had
interesting things to say about past relations between countries
in Asia. It is a visit to the Japanese occupation of China during
World War II through the eyes of a Japanese intermediary. He is
the grandson of an elderly man who had been a young officer in
the Japanese Imperial Army.

The old man may have been among the ranks of the aggressors,
but he was an unwilling participant in the gratuitous cruelties
that accompanied the Japanese occupation. The former Lieutenant
Inagawa is a Buddhist who hated his countrymen's brutality. The
heaps of screen time devoted to the details of torture and its
outcomes was off putting. The Noblest Way to Die, however, has an
integrity which other equally violent films lack, not to mention
splatter movies.

Garin Nugroho's Surat Untuk Bidadari (Letter for an Angel)
took a bow for Indonesian cinema this year, as did Ucik Supra's
Badut-Badut Kota (Clown of the City). Both have yet to be shown
to the wider English-speaking audience in Jakarta. Interest
should be considerable because films have been very successful at
overseas international film festivals. Sadly, this imprimaturs
too often seems the necessary and only seal of product quality to
which audiences will respond. Anyway, Surat won prizes in
Germany, Japan and Italy this year. Badut won a prize in
Australia. We might even get to see them here.