Dune

Dune (2021). Director: Denis Villenueve

沙丘是改編自美國科幻小說家Frank Hurbert 在1965年出版的同名小說。40年前，名導 David Lynch也試過把沙丘的故事搬上大銀幕，但結果並不成功¹。David Lynch這個跟頭栽的並不冤枉；沙丘是一個非常難改編的故事。至於Denis Villenueve這次的嘗試，我認為是很成功的。

 

小說的沙丘

 

沙丘最經典之處，我認為並不是在『前景』的故事情節或是角色刻畫 – 雖然沙丘在這些地方也不差 – 而是『背景設定』。首先，Frank Hurbert 非常詳實的創造了fremen，一個生存在沙漠中的民族，也給了他們生動的生態與文化。Hurbert的創意融合了與現實中人類學與科學的靈感。Hurbert筆下Fremen穿著既能保濕又能回收水分的隔離衣，住在像蟻巢般的石穴中，透過大通風口般的設施來集中夜晚的濕氣，這些都是Hurbert的想像力與科學知識融合的結果。也因為水是無比珍貴，死去的fremen並不會被埋葬或是火化，而是會被化成水來滋養同胞。Arrakis極端惡劣的環境讓fremen演化成戰鬥力絕佳的民族²，卻也同時非常迷信。這兩種特質讓他們被Bene Gesserit姐妹會編造的救世主神話利用。這些，則是Hurbert 從人類學出發的想像。

 

另一個精彩的設計則是Bene Gesserit姐妹會。Hurbert對於姊妹會的構想揉合了遺傳學 的靈感，以及宗教和政治如何一起操弄權勢。姐妹會透過育種不斷精進心智能力，與20世紀前期曾熱門一時的優生學如出一徹。在各個原始的民族裡散播日後可利用的救世主神話，則是把政治跟宗教結合的絕佳設計。值得一提的是，故事裡潔西卡夫人違背姊妹會的指令而生下保羅，打亂了姊妹會的育種大計³。潔西卡對於保羅混合著愧疚和畏懼的母愛、保羅能力逐漸覺醒，接受自己的『天命』後心境的變化、保羅與潔西卡的親子關係的演變，都是我覺得非常出色的地方。

 

從小說到電影的挑戰

 

沙丘的故事情節整體來說並不特別高潮迭起，多數角色的『成長』或『蛻變』也有限。雖然說沙丘故事的背景世界非常迷人，但 Hurbert眾多精彩的設定都伴隨著架空的繞口名詞，加上片斷的解釋，往往必須參考書末的註釋、網路上的導讀、或拼湊散佈在故事各處的資訊來了解。我仍然記得當初被某些橋段深深困惑。這些特色讓沙丘在閱讀時已不容易，如果要變成一部電影，如何呈現這些特色會是非常艱困的挑戰。

 

電影的沙丘

 

2021年的沙丘成功之處就在於對這些挑戰都有找到好的解決之道。首先是在視覺上完全呈現了小說中Arrakis的樣貌，對於一些原著描寫較為不足的地方，例如機械，建築，服裝的細節等等，電影則將它們具象化。我個人很喜歡沙丘電影的視覺美學，有很多我看原著時無法想像的事物，電影給了我很好的著力點。對於一些較難以理解的設定，例如Bene Gesserit背後的動機和算計，電影透過潔西卡夫人以及姐妹會聖母間的對話不露斧鑿之痕的向觀眾做出解釋。對於一些可能不適合用對白呈現的元素 (例如沙漠的生態)，則用影像簡單交代(例如沙鼠的場景)。更值得一提的是，沙丘的配樂與影像非常的契合，在聽覺上也補足了文字媒介無法給予的經驗。在選角上，演員們也都是一時之選，對我來說實在沒有可以挑剔的地方。

 

在看過『異星入侵』以及『銀翼殺手2049』後，我就覺得Denis Villeneuve是一個非常懂得拍科幻片的導演。他偏慢的敘事步調也很合我的胃口，所以聽聞他要將沙丘改編成電影的時候心裡就十分期待。電影也沒有讓我失望。衷心期盼沙丘電影第二部能夠順利問世。

 

註

¹  David Lynch 是我自己很喜歡的導演。他在訪談中承認1984年的沙丘是一次失敗的改編，也是他所有作品中唯一令自己失望的一部。因爲太心痛了，他甚至不願意看Denis Villeneuve的沙丘。

 

² 帝國皇帝的特種部隊 (Sardaukar) 是沙丘世界裡戰鬥能力最強大的軍隊。與fremen相似，他們超凡的戰鬥能力也是(人為)極端環境的結果。Hurbert對逆境如何透過選汰來提昇人類潛能似乎頗為著迷。

 

³  姐妹會的育種計劃原本將會在Atreides 家的女兒與Harkonnen 家的兒子結合時完成。保羅的誕生讓姐妹會被迫將計劃提前了一個世代，讓保羅有了成為『天選之人 Kwisatz Haderach』的機會，後續也產生了諸多波瀾。

 

The Green Knight

The Green Knight (2021). Director: David Lowery 

高文與綠騎士的故事

某年除夕¹，亞瑟王正與王后及圓桌騎士慶祝新年。一名綠色的騎士²突然闖入大廳。綠騎士一手握著一柄巨斧，另一手卻高舉著象徵友誼的冬青樹枝。綠騎士邀請亞瑟王玩一場友善的『砍頭遊戲』³：亞瑟王先向綠騎士的脖子砍一斧，綠騎士則會在一年之後還一斧。亞瑟王正要答應，但年輕的圓桌騎士高文搶著代替亞瑟王接受了綠騎士的邀請。高文一斧砍下了綠騎士的頭，但本該死去的綠騎士卻提著被砍下的頭揚長而去，只提醒高文一年後前往北方的一座教堂赴約。

 

一年後，高文踏上旅程。途中經過一座城堡，受到堡主夫婦熱情款待。堡主提議，接下來的幾天會把每天打獵的收穫獻給高文，但是高文在離開時必須把得到的其他東西給予堡主。高文答應了。之後的每天晚上，堡主夫人誘惑高文，但高文沒有動搖。堡主夫人最後只央求高文收下她的綠腰帶，並宣稱腰帶可以讓高文不受傷害。高文想到與綠騎士的一斧之約，於是答應收下。離開城堡時，高文沒有依約把綠腰帶獻給堡主。

 

高文到達綠騎士等候的教堂。綠騎士砍向高文的脖子，卻只造成輕傷。但一斧已受，砍頭遊戲就此結束。綠騎士原來就是城堡堡主。整件事是與亞瑟王亦友亦敵的女巫 Morgan le Fay 對圓桌騎士的試煉。綠騎士告訴高文他本應毫髮無傷，脖子輕傷是因為高文沒有對領主誠實的緣故。雖然如此，綠騎士仍然稱讚高文的品德。高文返鄉，並從此繫著綠腰帶以提醒自己要誠實。

 

電影的綠騎士

 

綠騎士是美國影人 David Lowery 根據高文與綠騎士的故事加以演繹與改編的電影。與原始故事不同，電影裡的高文還不是圓桌騎士，而是一個未經世事的年輕貴族。我個人滿喜歡這個改動，讓高文變成一個沒那麼成熟，道德上也不那麼高潔的角色⁴。David Lowery讓電影裡的高文在赴約的路上經歷了其他的事件，在此不多做敘述，但是這些事件讓我們了解高文個性中的善、未經世事的天真、以及道德上的懦弱。我很喜歡電影的收尾，在手法上有點類似電影『魔鬼代言人』。雖然與原著不同，但強調品德的精神是一致的。電影的結尾也許更強烈些，藉由高文對未來的觀視來強調如果沒有品德與榮譽心，眾叛親離、身首異處的下場終將來到。這些設計讓高文的試煉與原著相比更為深刻。有趣的是，高文在電影裡的母親正是 Morgan le Fay ，與原著不同。電影中的亞瑟王與王后已是風中殘燭，在原著中亦不是如此。這樣的亞瑟王與王后帶來了一抹蒼涼感，與電影的風格相映，我也很喜歡。

 

這部片的視覺設計相當值得一提，從高文母親招喚綠騎士的儀式、綠騎士的造型到亞瑟王與王后的衣著都非常棒。David Lowery在訪談中有提到，綠騎士的造型完全沒有任何電腦後製的成分，把綠騎士的造型加入植物的元素個人非常喜歡。亞瑟王與王后的王冠在頭後方的圓形設計，據David Lowery所說是要模仿基督教宗教畫中聖徒所擁有的聖光，給兩人一種高尚的氣質。與兩人病態的氣色相對應，確有一種衝突的美感。人物之外，光是電影中的場景就讓本片值得收藏。拍攝地點都在愛爾蘭，也讓我想去一遊。

 

綠腰帶

 

關於綠腰帶的象徵意義有許多解釋。有一說是高文面對色戒的動搖，另一說是高文對上帝信念的動搖。但不論如何，綠腰帶代表的是對品德與榮譽的妥協與淪喪。電影中的綠腰帶原先是由高文的母親給予的，是保證高文能毫髮無傷、功成名就的私心。電影中更安排高文必須屈服於堡主夫人的誘惑後才能再得到之前因故遺失的綠腰帶，與原著相比是一個更加嚴苛的道德試煉。

 

註

¹新年在亞瑟王的時空（六世紀英國）是12月25日，與聖誕節同一天。

²在原版故事裡，綠騎士不只盔甲，連皮膚都是綠色的。在較晚的另一版本裡，綠騎士只是身穿綠甲而已。

³原文『Beheading game』。是中世紀騎士故事裡常見的情節。

⁴電影中高文屈服於堡主夫人的誘惑後，夫人如此嘲諷高文：You are no knight。字面上是指高文不是個騎士（尚未受封），但雙關的意思是高文不配當個騎士。

 

維基百科的相關文章

 

https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/绿骑士

https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/高文爵士与绿骑士

 

導演的訪談（英文字幕）

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyn2wWwrwwU

The Wind Rises

The Wind Rises (2013). Director: Hayao Miyazaki

With a career spanning across half a century, Hayao Miyazaki announced his retirement last year. If he was serious about it this time, The Wind Rises could be his last animation. Of course there is no way for me to know if Mr. Mayazaki had deliberately chosen to tell this story as his last, I do believe that this story must be dear and near to his heart. The Wind Rises is not necessarily Mr. Miyazaki’s finest work, but it does set itself apart from many of his previous films in a number of ways. In the case that this will indeed become Mr. Miyazaki’s last feature-length animation, I want to write down my thoughts and dedicate them to him and his work.

Most of Mr. Miyazaki’s films take place in fictional, steampunk universes that border between realism and fantasy. Even in those with more realistic settings such as My Neighbor Totoro and Porco Rosso, surreal elements still form the heart of the story. In those films, supernatural things are just part of the storyline; they don’t even appear as dream sequences or assume the form of metaphors. In The Wind Rises, however, Miyazaki uses surreal elements to trace the stream of consciousness of the protagonist and make them merge seamlessly into the reality. Since the story is loosely based on the biography of Jiro, a Japanese plane designer, those fantay-esque sequences trace thoughts and emotions of the main character vividly and make them unfurl in front of the audience. I think The Wind Rises demonstrates Mr. Miyazaki’s masterful way of using fantasy elements to enhance the reality of a story. 

I also appreciate the way this film honors dedication to one's passion as a virtue. Perhaps this is why Mr. Miyazaki chose to tell this story as his last. Watching this film, I couldn’t help seeing Miyazaki himself in Jiro on the screen; how they both dedicated all their lives doing something they felt passionate about. Jiro spent all his life designing and perfecting airplanes, and Miyazaki animations. I would like to think of The Wind Rises as Miyazki’s salute to a man, or a way of living, that he relates deeply to. 

I don’t know if Miyazaki’s announcement of retirement will come true. If it does, The Wind Rises will be a heartfelt farewell from Miyazaki to his beloved animation, and we as audience should tip our hats to the ideal that this film honors and to the master behind its making.

Like Father, Like Son and Philomena

Like Father, Like Son (2013). Director: Hirozaku Koreeda

Philomena (2013). Director: Stephen Frears

Family tie is a curious thing. It is like a tangled ball of yarn, with distinct yet inseparable fibers interweaving from the core and all the way out. Recently, two movies coincidentally explore the meaning of family ties, and each tries to disentangle the intertwined fibers in its unique way. They are Like Father, Like Son, a film that tells a story of two Japanese families discovering that their sons were switched at birth, and Philomena, a film adapted from a true story, where an Irish mother tries to reunite with her long lost son.

In Like Father, Like Son, a successful architect, Ryota, and his wife found out that their son was switched with another baby at birth and that they and another family have been raising each other’s sons for six years. This situation forces Ryota to weigh the value of bloodline against his emotional investment for somebody else’s son during the past six years. Unable to choose one over the other, Ryota considers the possibility of taking the custody of his real son and the son that he’s had for six years. However, Ryota later decides that bloodline is what really matters for a family and persuades the other family to switch the boys. Having his real son back doesn’t make Ryota happy, and through his own struggling with the meaning of a family, Ryota realizes that he never truly knew what it means to be a father. 

Like Father, Like Son approaches the question of what it means to be a family from a father’s perspective. I argues against the traditional, patriarchal view that bloodline is ultimately what constitutes a family. A few dialogue, happening during Ryota’s struggle with who is really his son and delivered from mothers’ point of view, offer excellent counterpoints to this value. When Ryota is troubled by the prospect that the son he’s had for six years will eventually start to look after the parents from the other family, his mother tells him that people who live as a family will eventually start to look like one another, just like married couples do. Unfortunately, this doesn’t give Ryota consolation. Another such dialogue happens when the wife of the other family tells Ryota that he cares so much about whether his “son” looks like him is because he has no real connection to the boy as a father. Being a strict father and reserved man for almost the entire movie, Ryota expressed his love and regrets to his son in scene at the end that is undoubtedly the most touching moment I’ve seen in movies for a while. 

It’s not a flaw in any way, but one thing that is somewhat missing from Like Father, Like Son is how Ryota’s wife feels about the whole situation, as she is hardly the focus of the narrative most of the time. In a way, Philomena provides just such perspective. After giving birth to a son out of wedlock, Philomena is forced to give him away for adoption. She keeps the secret for fifty years but eventually embarks on a journey to the U.S. to find her son with the help of a journalist. Without spoiling too much of the story, Philomena doesn’t get to reunite with her son but finds out, to her great comfort, that her son never forgets her and has also been trying to find her. The story of Philomena illustrates the bond between mother and son from a female perspective. Because it is based on a true story, this film makes moves the viewers with an everlasting connection between a mother and her son, even though their time together as a family only represents a small fraction of their lives. 

Back to the yarn analogy at the beginning, the two movies together give us a good look at the essence of family ties by tracing different fibers to their very roots. But they also let us realize that perhaps we ought to leave the ball of yarn as tangled as it is, because that is how it should be.

The Lives of Others

The Lives of Others (2006). Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Many fantasy stories feature a theme where some adventurer wakes a golem from its slumber, often by reaching into some “core” beneath the golem’s stony skin. Whoever first came up with the idea of golems perhaps meant it to be a metaphor for ourselves. We all have a core of humanity within us. Most of us, for one reason or another, are conscious about the existence of our humanity and use it to guide our actions. However, under certain unfortunate circumstances, people can grow oblivious to what makes us human in the first place and bury the core of humanity under a crust of cruelty or naivete. Those people become golems, whose salvation in not in some adventurer’s hand, but in their own. The Lives of Others tells a story of such a golem, who finds his buried humanity and eventually awakens from within. 

The golem’s name is Wiesler, a secret police (Stasi) captain in East Germany in mid 1980s, a few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The film opens with Wiesler giving a lecture to a class of Stasi officers-in-training on interrogative strategies, using a person who helped his neighbor escape to West Germany as a real example. Immediately we are convinced about Wiesler’s unwavering belief in communism and his country as a utopia of socialism. It is not yet clear what his character is, as there is little emotion being conveyed out of the efficiency and effectiveness with which Wiesler does his job. Soon after, Wiesler is ordered by the Minister of Culture, Hempf, to perform full surveillance on a famous playwright, Georg Dreyman, and his actress girlfriend, Christa-Maria Sieland, as the authority suspects that Dreyman might have been in contact with the West. Wiesler sets out to perform this assigned mission as usual, but it isn’t long before he realizes that the mission of surveying Dreyman is nothing but Hempf’s dishonorable maneuver of coercing Christa-Maria into being his mistress. 

This finding shakes Wiesler’s long-held belief in the whole political system from the vary foundation. Moreover, the 24-7 surveillance brings Wiesler very close to Dreyman. As his doubts toward the whole operation solidify, Wiesler begins to sympathize towards Dreyman and Christa-Maria. As a viewer, it is wonderful to watch the seed of humanity germinate in a very self-controlled Wiesler as the story progresses. Just as waking a golem doesn’t make it human, this freshly germinated humanity doesn’t give Wiesler a different demeanor, only that now he operates under a different guideline. Only when he is alone do we get to see Wiesler the golem peel off his old stony skin and reveal the soft new flesh underneath. However, there are a few scenes that mean to tell us that Wiesler’s transformation goes beyond his sympathy for Dreymand and Christa-Maria. A scene with a neighbor’s son in the elevator is one example. The son naively asks if Wiesler is the Stasi asshole that his father mentions in private. Years of training prompted Weisler to ask the boy what his father’s name is, but he stops himself before finishing the sentence. He immediately finishes the question by asking instead what’s the name of the ball that the boy is carrying. It’s hard not to smile.

The Lives of Others is one of those films with an ending that holds you at the moment long after it is over. Suffice to say that Wiesler tries to save Dreyman and Christa-Maria, but his attempt is only partially successful. An unfortunate turn of events ensues, and Wiesler pays a dear price for his actions to protect his “friends”. Not long after the Berlin Wall falls. Wiesler now delivers mails for a living. The film doesn’t tell us how Wiesler feels about his demotion and his fall from significance. My guess is that Wiesler considers everything as serving his sentence for being part of, or failure to prevent, the tragedy. The last scene of this movie, however, provides us with a most gratifying recompense in the form of an ode, with a name of A sonata for a Good Man.

The Hunt

The Hunt (2012). Director: Thomas Vinterberg

How much would truth matter if no one believes in it? The Hunt allows us to feel the weight of this question with the story of Lucas, an ordinary man living in a small Danish town. Lucas is a well-liked man in the community and works full-time at a kindergarten. At the beginning of the story, Lucas has just put a recent divorce behind him, and his life is looking to get better in many ways. However, Lucas’ life takes an abrupt turn for the worst when one of the kindergarteners, Klara, who is also the daughter of his close friend, wrongly reports to the staff that Lucas sexually molested her. Lucas knows the truth, but when weighed against the testimony of an innocent little girl, Lucas is shocked to see how quickly his truth becomes irrelevant.

What follows, until almost the end of the story, is how Lucas suffers from a ruined reputation. Lucas’ torment highlights the absurdity of a battle that truth loses to public belief. Up to this point, The Hunt reminds me of Camus’ The Stranger, in that both use a tragic story to show how empty the truth about a person can be and the absurdity that arises from it. For this purpose, it makes sense that the story brings Lucas’ life to the lowest of low, even to the point of being somewhat unrealistically so. Aside from the absurdity, the other thing that is very much worth appreciating is the performance of Mads Mikkelsen as Lucas. He does a wonderful job giving layers to Lucas’ misery, from shocked disbelief to anger and then to despair without being melodramatic at any moment. 

The story takes another turn near the end of the story, where Klara’s father overhears her confessing the false accusation when she falls asleep, and Lucas’ name is finally cleared. A year goes by, Lucas’ life seems to return to what it used to be before the incident. People seem to believe that it was all a mistake and accept Lucas into the community once again. Right before the story comes to an end, however, it presents us with one final twist. At the very end of the story, Lucas goes hunting with other townsfolk to celebrate his son’s admission into a local hunting society. During the hunt, he gets distracted and falls behind. From somewhere unseen, a shot is fired at him but barely missed. Turning around, Lucas sees a man running away but is unable to identify who the man is, and the story ends there. 

I like the ending very much, because it shows once again how elusive the idea of truth is. Even after the truth is revealed by Klara’s confession, the other “truth” will never really go away. Instead, it takes the form of doubt and lives on. Lucas doesn’t do anything to incur his tragedy. He is simply the victim of a crime without any true criminals, trapped forever in the crevice between the truth and what people believe in.

Harold and Maude

Harold and Maude (1971). Director: Hal Ashby

I know that some movies are not made to please the audience, but I don’t know how many movies dare to challenge the viewers the way Harold and Maude does. This 1971 movie uses acute dualities as building blocks to create a story that is both intriguing and unsettling. The male protagonist, Harold, is a young man fascinated by the idea of death; he performs fake suicides and has a hobby of attending funerals. In a stagnant life controlled by his self-centered mother, observing and “practicing” death perhaps gives Harold a taste of freedom, a morbid pleasure in his boring life. Harold becomes friends with a 79-old woman, Maude. Maude is a free spirit who believes living life to its fullest and in doing so often disregards the rules and regulations of the society. The two main characters represent the very first contrast of this movie: the young is an admirer of death, and the old an admirer of life. From this first contrast, there unfurls a story that defies convention in almost every possible way.

The connection between Harold and Maude are so strong that they eventually develop a romantic (and nonplatonic) relationship. The relationship between Harold and Maude daringly upholds the idea that nothing other than the connection between two human being matters, and it challenges the convention through celebrating this “unhealthy” coupling. It even mocks such conventional thought by having a priest express his disgust toward the relationship between Harold and Maude in a comically exaggerated way. Looking at Harold, I wonder if the director deliberately makes him look almost underage to sharpen the contrast between him and Maude. Regardless, even though it only makes sense that Harold and Maude fall in love, as a viewer I do feel uncomfortable when the story progresses as such, and I admire the filmmaker for challenge the audience this way. The story takes a sharp turn soon afterwards on Maude’s 80 birthday, when she tells Harold at the birthday party he prepares for her that she has decided to end her life at the age of 80. Maude dies, and Harold performs one last fake suicide acts by driving his car off a cliff. The movie ends with Harold walking lightheartedly away from the top of the cliff and playing on his banjo a song that sums up Maude’s philosophy of life: “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out.”

Another sharp contrast is not in the story itself, but in the storytelling. This movie is a mixture of dark comedy and heart-felt drama, and the way the two elements are combined is far from smooth. I wonder if such rough mixture is intentional, because the resulting tonal inconsistency is very visible. The first half of the movie, before the dramatic element starts to kick in, is almost too quirky to my taste. Without the knowledge of Maude’s backstory (of which not much is said), it is very difficult to make sense of and therefore like her seemingly eccentric and self-centered behavior. However, once the dramatic component starts, facilitated by excellent performances from the two actors, the film soon takes flight and everything falls into place. Released in 1971, this movie is perhaps a representation of the Hippie movement, as there are several subplots that clearly have anti-government or anti-war feel to them. 

All in all, the story of Harold and Maude is one of rebellion, where Harold rebels against life by being drawn to death, and Maude rebels against everything deterministic by living (and ending) life solely at her own will. It might also be a rebellion of the filmmaker against conventional story, storytelling and conventional viewing experience.

No Country for Old Men (and a little bit of Fargo)

No Country for Old Men (2007). Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen

Near the end of the movie Fargo, as a police chief is bringing a murderer to justice, she sighs for her inability to comprehend the actions of taking five lives away for a relatively trivial amount of money. The chief’s remark introduces an intriguing idea about the essence of evil and how incomprehensible the concept of evil may be in the eyes of justice. As capable as she is, the police chief in Fargo is only able to catch the murderer out of sheer luck. The murderer is not a person with cunning wits. The reason why the chief does not catch the murderer is because those murders are not the results of careful calculations of pros and cons, but a result of the murderer’s violent and impulsive nature. Reasoning, especially reasoning done by a person with a sense of justice, simply does not work. Although justice prevails at the end of Fargo, the ending clearly points us to a much darker alternative, where evil thrives on its incomprehensibility to the minds of justice.

Eleven years later, the same directors made No Country for Old Men, a movie that might be regarded as a conceptual continuation from some of their earlier films, such as Fargo, that touch on the concept of evil. While Fargo is a movie about how ill-intended actions can quickly devolve into disasters, we only get a few glimpse of evil as it catalyzes all the tragic turns of events. No Country for Old Men, on the other hand, explores the idea of the obscurity of evil in the eyes of justice and takes it further. In No Country for Old Men, a man named Llewelyn comes across two million dollars from a gone-wrong drug deal. Llewelyn takes the money for his own, not knowing at the moment that the smell (or to be precise, the sound) of the money will eventually lead him to his downfall. A hitman named Anton Chigurh is hired to track down Llewelyn and recover the money. Watching Anton go about doing his business, we see Anton’s evil radiates from his contained pleasure to murder and his cruel indifference as he muses whose life to take.  

At the same time, Texas sheriff Ed finds himself always staring at the leftovers of Anton’s feasts, without any clue where the next feast might be. Ed’s lament on feeling “overmatched” echoes with the remark made by the police chief in Fargo, as both stem from encountering something that’s beyond their comprehension. However, Ed’s frustration tastes far more bitter than the confusion of the chief in Fargo. She gets the bad guy after all, and Ed doesn’t. When the story concludes, Anton Chigurh walks away from his murders untouched by justice. Ed decides to retire because of a realization that he is helpless in front of an evil that he doesn’t understand. The ending, where the prospect of justice prevailing seems very dim, is quite unsettling but at the same time fascinating as it shows how the paths of justice and evil may never be brought to cross if chance doesn’t allow it. Ed’s lament about a time that’s being lost to old men like himself is the epitaph for the death of his justice, and for the chances that he doesn’t have to cross swords with the embodiment of evil.

Abstract thoughts aside, Anton Chigurh is by far the best villain I’ve seen in movies. The character itself and Javier Bardem that brings this cold-blooded hitman to life are both excellent. I’ll even go as far as to say that the performance by Bardem alone would be enough to make this movie worth watching, as disturbing as the viewing experience might be. 

Watchmen

Watchmen (2009). Director: Zack Snyder

Despite being millenniums old, stories from Greek mythology still intrigue many of us today. What makes those stories so fascinating is perhaps not what the Gods of Olympus are capable of, but the fact that those Gods, just like us, are troubled by the same emotions and desires as ours. Millenniums after the birth of Greek mythology, we now have created stories of characters, which we call superheroes. Our superheroes in most cases are simply humans with uncanny powers or physical prowess. With their identities not being God, creators of superhero stories perhaps have more freedom in taking advantage of human weaknesses for the sake of character development, more so than those who write stories of Gods. Much like what makes Greek mythology so fascinating, the best superheroes or superhero stories in my opinion are those that not only bring satisfaction for our wishes of having super powers but also ground their superheroes with the multitude of humanity.

And that is exactly what makes Watchmen my favorite superhero movie: the inner struggle of superheroes. The Watchmen is a group of vigilantes that take care of sorts of nasty problems work under the employment of the US government. When the story begins, there are six of them. Except for one member, Watchmen are just ordinary people with superb physical prowess; none of them really possesses any kind of superpower. After being forced to retire and return to their civilian lives, some of them have drawn the meaning of life so heavily drawn from being vigilantes that life after retirement has become an issue. One Watchman, Nite Owl, visits the previous Nite Owl every week and listens to the same old stories that his predecessor repeats. This perhaps can be seen as a manifestation of the Nite Owl camaraderie, but I think that also represents the only way that Nite Owl can anchor his bland civilian life to his former vigilante one. However, in one occasion Nite Owl finds himself unable to perform sexually if not in his vigilante outfit, which I think is a brilliant revelation of Nite Owl’s identity crisis. Another Watchman, Rorschach, deals with the same issue by refusing to accept his new civilian identity. After so many years of being Rorschach, he has regarded this vigilante role as his true identity; he sees his civilian form the disguise, his civilian outfit the costume. A different, more extreme way of dealing with the same identity issue, but equally brilliant.

And there’s Silk Spectre, who succeeds the identity from her mother. Although the struggle of Silk Spectre is not as thoroughly depicted in the movie as Nite Owl and Rorschach, we can still clearly see that the young Silk Spectre has lived under the shadow of her own mother as the predecessor. In fact, it is out of utter selfishness that Silk Spectre’s mother wants her to be the successor. A very interesting issue. I only hope that there’s more to it in the original comic. The most interesting character, in my opinion, is Doctor Manhattan, a government-hired scientist who is transformed into a supernatural being after an accident. Doctor Manhattan is the only true superhero among all Watchmen, as he transcends time and space and all limits of physical law. Doctor Manhattan is probably as close to a true God as any superhero can be. Interestingly, this character is intriguing because of his lack of human emotions. The immense power and immortality makes everything in the human world transient and therefore insignificant to Doctor Manhattan. Although he has no hostility toward the earth, he gradually stops caring about everything in his former world and removes himself from it. The indifference that grows in Doctor Manhattan is a great psychological twist that I admire the creators of Watchmen for. To put it in Spiderman terms, it is greater aloofness that comes with greater power, the exact opposite of greater responsibility. 

In addition to the non-cliche characters, the plot itself has a political bearing that is dark and thought inspiring. It describes the change of the public idea about the existence of government-employed vigilante, from reliance when the society is in chaos to mistrust, even resentment and fear when the world has become more peaceful. The mistrust and fear toward superheroes is something that’s unique in this movie. We’ve seen similar plots in many other superhero movies, such as the X-Men series. Watchmen sets itself apart from movies that have such plot lines in that it handles it with a kind of dark realism when we see former Watchmen being eliminated, either by the public they used to protect or by the government they used to work for. Unlike most movies of this genre, where superheroes fight villains, Watchmen fight under a looming sense of insecurity, while at the same time battling with their own issues as persons. There may have never been more fragile superheroes, but there may also have never been superheroes with such depth of characters that originates from the creators’ wonderful grasp of humanity.

An Education

An Education (2009). Director: Lone Scherfig

An Education tells a story of Jenny, a smart teenage girl who is bored with her life as a high school student. Just like her classmates, Jenny works hard so that she can get into a good college. Unlike her classmates, however, going to college is not just an end for Jenny, but a means to leaving her ordinary and bland life behind to begin a new chapter; and Jenny really can’t wait. With her talent, Jenny is in a good position of getting into Oxford, the first step of her ticket to a great life. Then she meets David, a mature and charismatic businessman. Jenny sees everything she wants for her own life in that of David. Drawn by the prospect of having the life that she always dreams of, Jenny abandons her plan to go to college and starts a relationship with David, only to find out eventually that David has been deceiving her about many things.  

As the title says explicitly, this movie depicts a life lesson for Jenny, who seeks to change her life so desperately that she falls victim to David’s deception. Up to some point, we can perhaps take a more sympathetic standpoint and blame Jenny’s misfortune to her naivete. However, as much as Jenny is a victim, she is not at all innocent. There are several occasions where Jenny clearly sees David’s shifty nature and immoral deeds. Although she is shaken, even repulsed by such finding at first, she eventually chooses to close an eye to it because she wants to hold on to the wonderful life that comes with David. What makes Jenny eventually confront David is the discovery that he already has a family and therefore cannot marry her as promised. David leaves her life, and Jenny realizes that her dream of a wonderful is her own responsibility to pursue. 

I like this movie for many reasons. The acting of course is excellent, especially Carey Mulligan’s performance as Jenny. Another thing that I like is that this movie delivers a very much overused “there’s no shortcut in life” message in a fresh and genuine way. In addition, with such a message, it is easy to imagine long dialogues, most likely delivered by a teacher or a parent, that reprimand Jenny and preach against her folly; this movie has very little, if any, of those. On the contrary, it uses just the opposite to provide a sharp contrast to Jenny’s immaturity. Jenny’s parents, after realizing that the likable David is a fraud, are very heartbreakingly guilty for not being able to see through David’s disguise sooner. A school teacher, who treats Jenny as her favorite pupil, extends her helping hand when Jenny asks if she would tutor her for the entrance exam, even after Jenny’s earlier comment on the teacher’s life being as good as dead. The most harsh judgement on Jenny perhaps comes from herself, which is beautifully delivered in a one-sentence line, where Jenny says to the teacher that after all that happened, she “feels very old, but not very wise”. 

When the story concludes, Jenny is admitted to Oxford and her life is back on the original track, with new understandings to life and scars that come with the lesson learned. Jenny’s narration at the very end, about pretending to have never been to Paris (David took her there once for her birthday) to subsequent boyfriends in college, sounds old, wise and poignant all at once.  

Rudy Sparks

Ruby Sparks (2012). Director: Valerie Faris, Jonathan Dayton

Ruby Sparks tells a story about a struggling young writer, Calvin, who discovers one day that he has the power to create this girl, Ruby, from his imagination and make her whatever he wants her to be simply by writing down his wishes down with paper and a typewriter. So Calvin creates Ruby, a girl tailored to his own projection of a soul mate, and starts a relationship with her. Just like every relationship, things are really good at first. Then problems arise. Calvin eventually succumbs to the temptation of “fixing” Ruby with his super power, but that only makes Ruby into a broken, if obedient, person. At last, Calvin feels ashamed if himself and decides to set Ruby free. 

I like this movie for similar reasons as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Besides a great script and wonderful acting, the story develops around a surreal premise which the movie uses to explore something about relationships. What Ruby Spark tries to explore, in my opinion, is insecurity, something that everyone must experience at some point of a relationship. Our insecurity has its root in the uncertainty of the other individual. It arises because no matter how well we know the other individual, we can’t get inside their heads and know what’s on their mind. And this makes us insecure. Ruby Sparks magnifies and highlights this issue of ours from the perspective of Calvin, a neurotic person with low self confidence. Every personal space that Calvin permits Ruby to have makes him jealous and insecure, so when Ruby, bored from a lack of her own life, has a taste of freedom and seems to start breaking away from him, Calvin decides to do something about it. What Calvin does here is a realization of something we might wish to but can never do, which is to only allow the other individual to live in one universe: ours. 

Is Calvin happy after he fixes Ruby? Ironically, no. The idea that this movie tries to get across is that an unhealthy controlling desire suffocates both parties. After fixing Ruby, her complete dependence makes Calvin feel very secure, but it doesn't take long before it becomes unbearable, for he now carries two lives on his shoulders. As a result, Calvin decides to change Ruby again, but this time things get really serious. The fight scene just before the finale is very intense and quite unpleasant to watch, but it nonetheless depicts the Calvin’s maturation. Calvin realizes that his insecurity and obsession toward Ruby has turned him into a monster, and that is even more unbearable than those negative emotions that he’s experienced. He decides not to let his insecurity nurture the monster within anymore and sets Ruby free with his typewriter. 

Although the message that Ruby Sparks tries to deliver might be a little unpleasant, on great thing about this movie is that it has lots of lighthearted and cheerful moments in it to balance the somewhat negative tones that Calvin emits. Great performance and chemistry between the two leading actors also makes Ruby Sparks a wonderful movie to watch. Among tons of movies that build themselves around relationships, Ruby Sparks is definitely a rare gem that not only blows us a breath of fresh air but also has the power to make us reflect upon ourselves. 

Short Term 12

Short Term 12 (2013). Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Short Term 12 tells a story of a young woman, Grace, who runs a halfway home for teenagers from dysfunctional families. However, as the story progresses, we realize that the seemingly strong and capable Grace has issues of her own. By helping those teenagers, it is as if Grace went back in time to save her teenage self. Ironically, this job also seems to bring a comforting intoxication that allows Grace to look away from her own issues. The arrival of a new girl, who reminds Grace of her dark past, cracks the system that Grace has had working inside for years. Grace finally realizes that she needs just as much help as those teenagers under her wings and that she has to confront her dark past before she can put it behind. 

There are movies that are great because their plots serve as beautiful metaphors for something about human nature; there are also movie that are just as great by taking the opposite route. Those movies tell straightforward stories, but do so with such sincerity and emotional authenticity that they grip the audience from the beginning to the end. Short Term 12 is just one such movie. With a story that is truly emotionally riveting, Short Term 12 successfully avoids resorting to sensationalism, both in terms of script and acting. The script is fantastic, especially the humor that is sprinkled here and there throughout the movie; it provides a nice balance to the sometimes heavy story lines and makes us like the characters more. The acting, which so wonderfully delivers the genuineness of the script on screen, is a big reason that makes the movie so emotionally gripping. 

Every once in a while, a movie would come along that sweeps you off your feet in the most direct way possible, with no fancy tricks and no gimmicks. In the time of cinematographic innovations, where making a simple movie has actually become harder, I particularly appreciate films that have great stories and tell them sincerely. Short Term 12 is a movie that will pinch your heart with its plot yet bring the warmth back by the time the credits start to roll. I truly recommend it.

Sideways

Sideways (2004). Director: Alexander Payne

Sideways is a film directed by Alexander Payne that came out in 2004. It belongs to what’s called the “road movie” genre, where the story unfurls along some sort of trip that the main characters embark on. In Sideways, Miles, a dejected English teacher who has been struggling with his dream of becoming a writer and with getting over a failed marriage, takes his best friend Jack, an actor who is well past his prime, to a wine-tasting tour before Jack’s upcoming wedding. However, the two friends set out for the road trip with different things in mind. Miles wants to have a good time with his buddy; Jack on the other hand just wants to have one last fling before getting married. Things happen along the trip, and we get to know this contrasting duo more. Interesting enough, Miles and Jack together, each flawed in his own way, make Sideways one of my favorite movies of all time. 

One great thing about Sideways is the characters of this pair of friends, especially Miles. He is depressed, gloomy and weak-willed. But all the negative qualities that make Miles ordinary (or sub-ordinary even) also make him perfectly relatable; he represents a little bit of you and me with his flaws and weaknesses. Compared with an antihero that wins an impossible battle at the end of the story, Miles’ story may be less victorious but is absolutely more comforting. Despite all those loser qualities in Miles, there’s indeed something good about him, and that is his gentleness and sensitivity. And of course his knowledge in wine. One very touching moment in the movie is when Miles is explaining to a love interest why he is so obsessed with Pinot, a grape that has a very tender nature and therefore can only survive with constant care and attention. The similarity between Miles and the grape he likes cannot be more obvious, although it seems to me that Miles doesn’t intend to use Pinot as a metaphor to reveal anything about himself at that moment. During those few minutes, Miles the loser shimmers from within, which I find immensely moving. Another of my favorite Miles moment is when he find out his re-married ex-wife is now pregnant, he opens the wine that he’s been saving for years for a non-specified special occasion (presumably when his ex-wife comes back to him) and savors it at a fast food restaurant with a burger and some onion rings. There is no tear, and Miles doesn’t even look sad. But that’s one of the most heartbreaking scenes I’ve ever seen. 

Jack provides a sharp contrast to Miles. He is everything that Miles is not: cheerful, impulsive, selfish, shallow and, most importantly, almost nothing troubles him. Jack makes all the troubles and gives us the laughs along the trip. He is the comedic element in Sideways and balances Miles’ misery with his recklessness. Jack is like the sun, but the point is not to show you how bright he is, but to bring your attention to the shadows, and that is Miles. Although I like Miles more and has much less to say about Jack, the story will nevertheless be much inferior without him. I’d like to think that Miles and Jack likely present two people with contrasting qualities for the audience to relate to depending on their own personalities. Who would you rather be? Miles or Jack? 

I am glad that the story ends on a positive note for Miles, and that is the comfort I mentioned earlier. Miles may be a downright loser by various definitions, but there’s something about him that is worth appreciating. At the end, he finds someone to appreciate him for who he is, and I find comfort in that Miles, who is not a hero (or antihero), finds a good ending. 

Amour and The Sea Inside

Amour (2012). Director: Michael Haneke

The Sea Inside (2004). Director: Alejandro Amenábar

Amour and The Sea Inside are two movies made ten years apart, the former a French film and the latter a Spanish one. There might not be any obvious connections between them. However, when I saw Amour recently, it immediately reminded me of this other movie that I saw almost ten years ago. Although this two movies are different in many ways, both inspire lots of thoughts on one same sensitive issue: if the dignity of living is degrading, would terminating life be a sacrilege to life itself? The two movies leave their own footnotes on this matter, and I would like to write down my thoughts here. 

The Sea Inside bases itself on a true story of a man named Ramon, who has suffered quadriplegia after a diving accident and his 30-year fight for the right to end his own life with dignity. Amour, on the other hand, tells a poignant story of an elderly couple after the wife suffers a stroke that both paralyzes one side of her body and makes her mind deteriorate. In The Sea Inside, the man eventually has his wish granted; he ends his own life when in his opinion there is no grace left. In Amour, the husband ends up smothering his wife with a pillow when he sees that all the elegance she used to have has left her. Two deaths, both for the lost of dignity and grace of life. 

The voice in The Sea Within is quite critical. It supports the idea that everyone should have the right to end his or her own life when there is no longer any dignity in keeping on living. What I think is missing from this movie is the other side of the free will coin: the choice of keeping on living, but the movie does come close. In the movie, a catholic priest, whose limbs and torso are also paralyzed, comes over one day and tries to dissuade Ramon from conducting an act that in his opinion is disrespectful to God. This priest could have been a perfect counterpoint if he (or the director, because I don’t know how close this part is to the true story) had not based his whole reasoning upon biblical teachings. It would have generated more spark if the main character in The Intouchables could have been there to have a conversation with Ramon. 

Amour, a movie with much less intention to criticize, is a lament to the loss of grace as a consequence of both illness and age. It isn’t trying to argue that what the husband does is not a crime. In my opinion, it simply wants to present an irony, where taking someone’s life can be an act of love, as cruel  as it might seem. 

As different as their standpoints and agenda, Amour and The Sea Inside both point out how much we humans value life but also how much we demand from life. When the grace of life deteriorates, some of us might honor life by putting an end to such disgrace. Maybe it’s hard to argue sometimes whether this is an act of bravery or cowardice, or whether this is taking responsibility of one’s own life or escaping from life when it brings more hardship than happiness, but we as humans must contemplate on such situations and should have the free will to make a choice when faced with one. 

* As an interesting side note, I was very impressed by the performance of the leading actor in The Sea Inside, only to realize years later that he is Javier Bardem. No wonder.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). Director: Michel Gondry

After all these years, I can still remember seeing Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the very first time, and how much I was deeply moved and blown away at the same time. A long time has passed, and many things have changed since, but my fondness for this movie remains undiminished. It is one of my all time favorites and absolutely deserves a note.

There are many things I love about this movie, but the first has to be its wonderful plot and an equally wonderful screenplay. Although the story is set in the present time, the plot builds upon something that is somewhat surreal, namely the ability to erase particular components of a person’s memory. However, the creators of this story didn’t do this for the sake of convenient storytelling; they didn’t allow the possibility of erasing memories in the story to facilitate twists in the plot that otherwise will not make sense. Rather, the possibility of erasing memories serves as a hypothetical prerequisite, with which those ingenious writers can illuminate to us the nature of relationships, how it happens and how it might run its course. 

As the male protagonist Joel goes through the procedure of erasing his memories of his former girlfriend, Clementine, what we see is actually the process of how we get over somebody that once meant something to us, starting with the most recent memories that more often than not are associated with all sorts of negative emotions. But the process of moving on (or in this movie’s wonderful metaphor, the procedure of having memories erased) eventually brings us to an earlier time, when things were at their most pristine stage, unpolluted by understandings and the changes those understandings might bring. What is left to Joel, and probably to many of us, is a mixture of nostalgia, regret, sadness and thankfulness. It is at this very moment in the story, almost at the end of the procedure, when Joel realizes that he doesn’t want the memories of Clementine erased. He then goes on an inner adventure, trying to preserve those memorable moments with Clementine by running away with Clementine to places in his memories where she doesn’t belong. This is perhaps my favorite part of the movie. And what a beautiful metaphor. 

However, what the creators of this story use to set up the metaphor is meant to tell us something more profound. If the ability to erase the memories of someone did exist in real life, so that everyone can have a truly clean break or fresh start, will the same two people, who have their memories of each other completely erased, fall in love should they meet again? There is obviously no correct answer to this question. However, this movie apparently wants to highlight the determinism of how people fall in love. Although it might be overly romantic to say that this determinism is all there is to it, what attracts us to somebody in the first place is often times a glimpse of his or her personality that we happen to see. As much as we can try to make sense out of such attraction, it is just equally inexplicable as to why we are drawn to that particular quality. And what we think we know at that moment is often proven quite inadequate. In the movie, erasing memories takes away the understandings that ultimately leads Joel and Clementine’s relationship to its disintegration and resets everything. That’s why when they happen to meet again, likely because of some residues in the core of their own memories, they still fall for each other. What will happen will happen, for better or worse. 

The finale of this movie is quite open-ended. Joel and Clementine decide to try again. Maybe they are doomed to repeat the same relationship that will eventually fail, or maybe they’ll learn something from the past (which they receive as tape recordings from the memory-erasing clinic) and make things different this time. I personally see the ending in a more optimistic light, but who really knows?

Moonrise Kingdom

Moonrise Kingdom (2012). Director: Wes Anderson

What makes kids different from adults besides something biological, such as age? Perhaps one such thing is a kind of steadfast, even irrational, determination. Some grown-ups would call such obstinacy naive or even stupid for ignoring the power of reality; others would call it romantic for the exact same reason. Moonrise Kingdom is a recent film by Wes Anderson that in my opinion salutes this naive obstinacy, and, as an adult that also praises such naivete, I would like to write down my thoughts about it. 

Moonrise Kingdom is a story where two lonely young teenagers Sam and Suzy, who find connections with each other that they have never found in anybody else, decide to run away from this unfriendly world and start a new life together. The story is as much about Sam and Suzy’s adventure as how other people, kids and adults alike, are gradually moved by their resolution and lend their helping hands. The story is as naive as the naivete it pays tribute to, but that is exactly the point. One of the things I love about this movie is its children’s book-like quality, both in terms of the story itself and of how the movie looks. Being a big fan of children’s books myself, I appreciate this a great deal. It is also amazing how well Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola remember what is was like to be young teenagers. There are moments in this movie where I simply can’t help smiling because what the characters are doing reminds me of myself years ago. Actually this movie is loaded with this light and childlike humor that it is impossible for me not to adore. As a fellow adult, I tip my hat to those two gentlemen for bring out the kids inside them to create this wonderful story. 

All the characters in this movie are adorable (except for the villain, who is not a real villain because she doesn’t act out of ill will). The “love”, if you will, between Sam and Suzy is very heart warming to watch. It reminds me of a kind of young love some of us once had, where all we care about is to be with somebody. Whether it’ll work out from a realistic point of view is somehow irrelevant. Watching Sam and Suzy, a part of me wants to tell them, with a fatherly sympathy, that they know too little about love, about life, about everything. But a part of me wants to withhold my “advice” because what Sam and Suzy has is so innocently beautiful that even if they’ll end up breaking their hearts, it’ll still be worth it. So I smiled when I see other characters, just like me, transformed by Sam and Suzy’s resolution and move one after another from the camp of “reality” to the that of Sam and Suzy. The actors in Moonrise Kingdom are all very good, but I would like to single out Bruce Willis here. I do so not because he gives the best performance, but because he plays a character that is so different from what he’s played before that it is very refreshing. I also love his character because he feels a connection with Sam the unpopular and is among the first to treat him as an equal. 

Something to say about the music. I normally don’t have an ear for music in films, but the music in this movie is just wonderful; it goes so well with the story and the overall cinematography. It is also my first time hearing orchestra pieces with commentaries explaining instruments involved as the song goes along. It is just downright cuteness.  

The ending of this movie is another wonderful thing. I don’t want to describe how the movie concludes in detail. But here is my thought: it’s true that things may not stay the same forever for Sam and Suzy, maybe not even for long. But seriously, it doesn’t even matter anymore. What matters is that there was once a Moonrise Kingdom, and it was beautiful. 

Only God Forgives

Only God Forgives (2013). Director: Nicholas Winding Refn

Only God Forgives is a recent movie made by Nicholas Winding Refn, the director that made Drive. It also stars Ryan Gosling. This movie stirred up some fuss right from the beginning. It got booed by the audience at its premier at Cannes Movie Festival for explicit and cold-blooded violence. Many who have seen it also view it in a more negative light. I had been excited about seeing the chemistry between Nicholas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling one more time, and all the controversies made me even more curious about this movie. After finally seeing it, I want to write down my thoughts about it.

I can understand why this movie was not well received, both by the general viewers and by the critics. First and foremost, it is a movie loaded with explicit violence. Even when violence is not happening on screen, there is always tension building up, which eventually leads to another incidence of violence. The often dark red lighting, combined with the fact that there is very little dialogue throughout the movie, makes it a very intense viewing experience. Moreover, the same general tone persists throughout the movie, which means there is basically no break from the intense, ominous atmosphere. It is not a pleasant movie to watch, but not because it is bad. It’s the cinematography and story that make it so, and I was not surprised that some people hated it.

However, I do appreciate this movie for a few reasons, and I think some criticisms are not entirely fair. First of all, it is very tempting to compare Only God Forgives with Drive, or at least to see the former as some sort of extension of the latter. But Only God Forgives is simply another movie made by the same group of people. There are shared elements between those two movies, obviously, but I think the director tries to do different things in these two movies. Drive is a much more character-based story, whereas Only God Forgives tries to create a distinct atmosphere with very stylish cinematography. Although I am indeed disappointed by the lack of character development in Only God Forgives, I also understand that presenting fully fleshed-out characters might not be something that the director cares about this time. As the director has said himself, Only God Forgives is a story about a man trying (vainly) to fight God. Given such premise, I would say the director does a good job creating a looming sense of despair throughout the movie. Interestingly, this sense of despair is not delivered through dialogue. Instead, I see it through the struggles within Ryan Gosling’s character Julian.

As little character development as there is, it is clear that Julian wars with himself about standing up against an extremely intimidating existence, and he deliberately avoids confronting this godlike man despite pressure from all sides until it is absolutely unavoidable. Julian wavers not just because of fear, but also because he doesn’t have justice as a cause to back him up emotionally. This brings me to talk about this godlike man that Julian has to fight. This man is respected and awed as God because he punishes injustice with merciless violence and that he is unbeatable, but realistically so. Watching this character reminds me of the human forms of deities in Hinduism. Those mortal incarnations of gods descend upon this earth and walk among mortals. Their appearance might not be intimidating or even impressive, but enraging them means absolute catastrophe. The Thai actor that plays this character does a wonderful job conjuring a godlike aura whenever he appears. The director also adds this amusing contrast about this character by making him do only two things in the movie: killing and singing karaoke. The performance of this actor is probably the brightest spot in this movie. 

Good things aside, there are a few things that the director could have done better with this movie. Although the cinematography suits the story very well, I do think that the director goes too far down the path of styles. The result of that is sacrificing the flow of the narrative for the sake of the atmosphere. I would also like to see Julian being fleshed out more. The obligation to fight an overpowering opponent is a very interesting material with which one can build a character. It is a bit of a shame that the director doesn’t really take the full advantage of the potential for inner struggle to give the movie more depth. Overall I still enjoy Only God Forgives, although it is not a movie that will please most people. However, I respect the director for this daring attempt after the success of Drive, and I will still look forward to his work (especially in collaboration with Ryan Gosling) in the future.  

Drive

Drive (2011). Director: Nicholas Winding Refn

Ten minutes into the movie and I knew that Drive was going to be great. Although I was not wrong in expecting a fast paced story with well made action sequences, what really surprised me was how much more Drive had to offer. The surprise, I believe, had everything to do with its main character, Driver. 

By day, Driver was a car mechanic and occasionally did some stunt driving gigs for movie sets. By night, he picked up robbers from heist scenes and drove them to safety. He was an enigmatic figure whose past was completely unknown to us. We didn’t even get to know his real name throughout the whole movie. Driver lived a life of solitude and kept almost everything to himself. His life changed, however, when he met Irene, a young mother whose husband was serving a sentence in jail, and her son Benicio. Driver started to care about them and gradually assumed the role of a guardian in the face of incoming threats. Quite obviously, the plot of the movie wasn’t all that original, and a main character in such stories could easily fall into a bland stereotype that lacked depth of a real human being. Not our Driver here. The director and Ryan Gosling did such a fantastic job portraying a quiet, reserved man, who possesses a gentle heart but at the same time a violent streak. Looking at Driver reminded me of Leon, the protagonist in Leon the Professional (another wonderful movie). They were variations of the same type of character that I always have a particular fondness to: men who don’t express themselves through eloquent speeches but instead revealing their gentle and selfless nature by the things they do. Therefore, I related to Driver right away because he fit so perfectly into this “gentle giant” category. 

With a character that I could relate to, the storytelling did every justice it could to develop Driver to its fullest. The story took its time revealing Driver’s inner world, showing how Irene and Benicio made ripples to his universe as they became part of his life. Driver’s affections for Irene and Benicio were justified, as were his selfless actions to protect them from harm. With his emotions and motivations well explained, Driver thus had depth. What made Driver even more fascinating as a character was the duality within his personality. The director used the action scenes in Drive to depict one pole of such duality, giving those scenes more profound meanings than mere entertainment or narrative necessity. Those action scenes were there to shed more light on the dark side of Driver, to offer a sharp contrast between his selfless resolution to protect Irene and Benicio and his violent actions to achieve that resolution. As sympathetic as the Driver’s darkness may seem, I liked it that the story let us see clearly that dark deeds begets dark consequences. This brought me to my favorite scene in the movie, where the duality of the character was presented, along with the consequence of such duality. In this scene, Driver realized he and Irene were in the elevator with a hitman sent by the villain. Upon knowing the hitman’s identity, Driver slowly pushed the girl behind him, bent down to kiss her on the mouth, turned around to knock the hitman down on the floor and stomped his head to a pulp. This brutal act clearly terrified Irene, and she ran out of the elevator as soon as the door opened. When she turned to look back, she saw Driver, who just came out of his murderous fury, looking at her from within the elevator. Now came the best moment in the entire movie (in my opinion at least). Although he just saved Irene’s life, the look on Driver’s face was one of the deepest sorrow, because he knew that from now on Irene would always have this image of him as a murderer imprinted in her head. To protect her, he had no choice but to unleash the darkness within and watch it poison their relationship. The next second, the door of the elevator closed, separating the Driver and Irene, as if eternally.

Those were the things that set Drive apart from those action films that feature a hero and a damsel in distress that needs to be rescued. Drive may have a plot backbone that is shared with many other such films, but the depth of the main character and the way the depth was revealed and presented to us nevertheless make this movie a real gem.