As Tears Go By (1988)

This was Wong Kar-wai’s first film, although I didn’t see it until fairly late in my Wong-jucation (probably because it’s one of the few that doesn’t feature the wonderful Tony Leung Chiu-wai – they didn’t start collaborating until his brief appearance at the end of Days of Being Wild, which came next.)  It’s pretty far down on my list of his films, but it really is interesting and well-made.  More than anything, it’s a testament to how jaw-droppingly gorgeous some of the later stuff is that I don’t rate this one higher.

Wah, a mid-level gangster, is on the brink – of pretty much everything.  Of moving up in his organization, of throttling his “little brother” Fly before the fellow gangster gets himself or Wah killed with his reckless behavior, of exploding from all his unvoiced (maybe even unrecognized) discontentment, and even of leaving all that behind him for Ah-Ngor, his sweet and beautiful cousin.  Ah-Ngor is a provincial girl who lives off the mainland, but poor health has recently brought her into Hong Kong, where she’s been staying with Wah.  The two have a strong, simmering connection, but she worries about the danger of his volatile way of life.  Wah is thinking about going straight for her, but there’s Fly to think of.  What will happen to his friend if Wah isn’t there to look out for him?

Most of my favorite Wong films don’t fall into the gangster genre, just as a personal preference, so even though this is a very goodgangster movie, I can’t compare it to something like Ashes of Time or In the Mood for Love.  Still, when done well, I can enjoy this type of film just fine, and this one is sterling.  Even though the plots are so different, it reminds me a lot of State of Grace, maybe because of the relationship between Wah and Fly?  It’s a nice realization of why a life like that could appeal to someone beyond thrill-seeking, power, or by-any-means-necessary dough acquisition – those ties run deep.  Fly’s hot temper and dubious competence can turn virtually any situation into a crisis, but Wah stands by him through thick and thin, whether that’s pulling him out of yet another jam or trying to slap some sense into him in the vain hope of keeping him safe for once.  The film delivers nicely on the romance front as well.  The love story is a bit basic, but it’s conveyed so effectively, with Wong’s classic romanticism already on fine display in the cinematography and music. 

As Wah and Ah-Ngor, Andy Lau (who went on to do Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong precursor to The Departed) and the sublime Maggie Cheung (frequent Wong collaborator, most memorably in In the Mood for Love) are electric together.  Lau is a strong, subtle lead, and Cheung gives a beautifully introspective performance.  Jacky Cheung (he was also in Ashes of Time) is very memorable as the irrepressible Fly.

Fun fact:  this film is where I first heard the song “Take My Breath Away.”  After hearing it elsewhere, though, it took me forever to realize it was the same song, since most of the lyrics in this version are in Cantonese.  I just knew it always made me think of “that song from As Tears Go By.”

Warnings

Some fairly strong gang violence, sexual content, drinking/smoking, and thematic elements.

V for Vendetta (1988-1989)

I saw the film adaptation of V for Vendetta years ago and have only just read the original graphic novel.  It’s been long enough that I can’t clearly remember the complete plot of the movie, but I’m pretty sure there are some fairly big differences between the two.  While I thought the graphic novel was a good read, I recall enjoying the film better (premise spoilers.)

In a post-war-torn fascist England of the ‘90s (the future, at the time,) Evey Hammond, a desperate teenage girl, is menaced by corrupt government spies when she’s caught soliciting.  She’s rescued by V, an enigmatic masked man with a flair for theatrics, dramatic recitations, and social upheaval.  He has an intricate long-game plan to dismantle the government through acts of terrorism, with what appears to be some personal revenge thrown in.  Even as Evey is horrified by V’s actions and his dream of an anarchic state, she can’t quite bring herself to leave him or defy him.  Slowly, she’s drawn into his world and his dark vision of change.

As in the film, the best element of the graphic novel is V himself.  He’s pretty much a perfect comic book character:  cuts a dashing and iconic figure, has all the best lines, fights like a ninja, carries a mysterious past, and is always four steps ahead of everyone.  Besides his extreme readability, his character poses interesting, no-easy-answer questions about the line between a freedom fighter and a terrorist.  Although the world had a very different relationship with terrorism when the book was written, my 2016 eyes read it the only way they know how, and the notion of V’s ideas as grand, almost romantic, amid all the turmoil and killing, is uncomfortable in a mostly good way.  It helps, of course, that the government he’s trying to tear down is unapologetically fascist, and even then, the story is careful to portray him as both light and dark, the balance tipping either way from time to time. 

The depiction of a fascist England is mostly interesting as well.  I love me a good dystopian story, and I like seeing the effects the war and the regime change have had on the country.  The chapters that dig into the story’s past and explore what happened in the prison camps are especially good.  However, I’m unnerved by all the… let’s call it “sexual survival”… in the story.  In addition to Evey turning in desperation to prostitution at the beginning, we also have a woman forced into stripper work as a result of reduced circumstances, a woman using sexual manipulation to get ahead, and multiple instances of women offering their bodies to men in exchange for protection/stability.  I understand, obviously, that women have had a long history of sexual oppression, and I get that things like this would happen in a country that’s been ravaged by a war and is currently being run by a pretty soulless government, but I hate that we see these types of storylines for the female characters so repeatedly, the one-two punch of a woman looking for a man to save her and offering sex to obtain his protection.  While I like seeing Evey becoming stronger and surer under V’s tutelage, if this theme of sexual survival was going to be so prominent in the book, I would’ve liked to see a stronger rejection or defiance of it in the end.

Warnings

Strong violence (including terrorist acts,) sexual content (including sexual violence and reference to pedophilia,) language, substance abuse, disturbing images, and strong thematic elements.

Purple Rain (1984, R)

Welcome to today’s extra-long post.  The review will be coming, I promise, but bear with me while I get some Prince ramblings out of the way first.  For me, Prince’s death was a lot like David Bowie’s.  I’ve never been a “fan” on his – not because I don’t like him, but just because I’ve never really sought him out.  I was more aware of him as a cultural icon than anything else.  I knew that he was weird and wonderful, I knew about the love symbol, and I knew that he was a Minnesota boy, which I loved.  Truth be told, my familiarity with Prince was even thinner than my familiarity with Bowie.  At least with Bowie, I knew a handful of his more famous songs, and I knew his voice well enough that I could probably recognize him on songs I didn’t know.  But I can honestly say that the only song I knew that Prince wrote was “Purple Rain,” and 1) that’s only because I’d heard of this movie and 2) unless I heard the title in the chorus, I wouldn’t have known that’s what it was.  We’re talking very little Prince exposure, people.

But it still hit me hard to hear that he’d passed.  Like Bowie, he seemed like the sort of person who wasn’t really meant to die, a strange, ethereal creature who would just glide off to the stars when his time came (granted, Bowie hit the “alien” button a lot harder than Prince ever did, but it’s still much the same idea.)  And so, I smiled sadly when I heard about the 35-W bridge in Minneapolis being lit purple all weekend, and I read tributes and remembrances online, and I found videos to give me a better picture of this icon beyond the ruffles and heels.  This last point is the important one, because if you loved Prince, you won’t be surprised to learn that what I heard blew me the hell away. 

One of the first clips I found was his Superbowl halftime show from 2007, where he brought the house down in pouring rain.  As I looked for more, I heard about SNL’s “Goodnight, Sweet Prince” special, so I watched that on Saturday night.  I’d remembered the old “Prince Show” sketches with Fred Armisen and Maya Rudolph (it occurs to me now that these are probably where most of my original Prince education came from,) and the performance clips cemented a few things that I’d already strongly begun to suspect from my YouTube browsings.  First, Prince could put on a show.  SNL musical guests can be hit-or-miss for me, even if I’m a fan of the band in question, and it feels like many have a show-up-play-go-home vibe.  But each Prince appearance was a full-out performance, delivering excellent music, stunning visuals, and infectious energy.  Second, I’m pretty sure the name of the game with Prince was “versatile.”  Everything about him – from his writing style, to his singing voice, to his multi-instrument talents, to his signature fashions – was so varied and wide-reaching.  (Also, his guitar solos are so badass.  I’ve been thinking about this for a few days now, and there’s no other word I can use to describe them.  Such displays of his immense talent, blended with such amazing musicality.)  By the time the special got to the clip of his impromptu performance at the after party for SNL’s 40^th anniversary and I watched the celebrities in formal wear filming Prince on their phones because they were so blame excited, I was full-on grinning behind watery eyes.

This is around the time that I heard my local cinema was doing special showings of Purple Rain.  By this point, I’d pretty much decided that, if I wasn’t currently a Prince fan, I really needed to be, so I ordered my ticket and saw the movie on Sunday night.  Again, my only prior knowledge of the film was that it was a movie starring Prince with lots of popular music, which he wrote.

Plot first.  The Kid is an aspiring musician working at the Minneapolis club First Avenue.  He has an arresting androgynous style, colossal talent, and, per the club’s owner, a difficult time keeping butts in seats.  A rival musician, the smug, slimy Morris, wants to supplant the Kid by producing a new girl group, and the club owner has warned the Kid that he’s out if Morris’s group takes off.  Meanwhile, the Kid has an instant connection with Apollonia, a young singer and dancer who’s new in town and dreams of making it big.  However, for these two, music, stardom, and love are all battling for their affections, and it isn’t clear which will win out for either of them.

We’ll get the obvious critques out of the way first.  Virtually all the acting is patently ridiculous, much of the dialogue is ludicrous, and the story is nothing to write home about.  The movie deals with some heavy subject matter that’s handled with all the subtlety of high melodrama crossed with an afterschool special.  But none of that is the point.

The point is, of course, the music.  By the time I saw the movie, my Prince searching had led to a couple of the most famous numbers – namely “Let’s Go Crazy” (which I now love a lot) and “Purple Rain,” both of which were even cooler in the context of the movie.  Most of the others were completely new to me, although I’d heard many of their names in online chatter about favorite Prince songs/memories.  Throughout the movie, whenever I’d get to a chorus and heard a recognizable title line, I’d think, “Oh, so that’s‘The Beautiful Ones’/‘When Doves Cry’/‘I Would Die 4 U’!” each seemingly catchier and better performed than the last.  Because, major “duh” moment, Prince is fantastic here, as a singer, instrumentalist (mainly amazingguitar, but some nice piano, too,) and electrifying stage performer.  He’s so infinitely watchable that any gripes about the acting or the script don’t matter. 

I also like how thoroughly the movie drives home the point that he’s fabulously androgynous, stunningly odd, andperfectly sexy, all at once.  It’s interesting to see the way he took looks that were allegedly the complete opposite of male sexual appeal and proved, in essence, that the haters don’t have a clue what they’re talking about.  His dressing and visual performance are very much about inviting the female gaze, and it’s no surprise when Apollonia’s finds its way to him.  (On this subject, probably the most genuinely intriguing moment in the script, for me, is when the Kid runs off with Apollonia and Morris, perceiving the Kid as having “stolen his girl,” shouts after him that he’s a faggot.  Even though he’s just run off with Apollonia.  Who’s he’s obviously into.  Who’s obviously into him.  And Morris obviously feels threatened by him.  Having a little trouble reconciling gender expression with sexual orientation, are we?)

RIP, Prince, an incredibly original and versatile talent who left us too soon.  I wish I’d known just how wonderful he was years ago, but I have a lot of catching up and a lot of unquestionably great music to look forward to.

Warnings

Sexual content, language, drinking, violence (including spousal abuse,) and thematic elements.

A Few Doctor-Companion Thoughts

Obviously, the only way this show has been able to exist since 1963 is that the Doctor and his companions change periodically.  The Doctor regenerates, so he’s covered, but the companions have to leave.  New Who’s S.O.P. for companion exits is usually a tragic forced separation, and there have been a few deaths over the years; however, that still leaves plenty who’ve chosen to go of their own volition.  While some can’t hack it anymore and others decide to stay and help a rescued world rebuild, another big reason to jump ship is that they’ve fallen in love.

As far back as One’s era, companions have stayed behind somewhere because they’ve found that special someone.  Depending on how it’s handled, this can feel organic or tacked on, and at least once the companion’s preferred beau is presented as a sort of human substitute for the Doctor.  Though both are always sad to part, the companion says goodbye hand-in-hand with a new love, while the Doctor departs with a hole where they used to be.  Sure, sometimes there’s still another companion or two in the TARDIS, he’ll meet someone new before long, and once a companion has moved on, he rarely stops to look back.  That doesn’t change the pain of each parting.

In the final Amy/Rory episodes of series 7, when the Doctor feels them drifting away, I was struck by how this recurring situation parallels a common asexual worry:  being discarded by a friend in favor of a romantic partner (anyone single might recognize this, but it feels particularly true to me as an ace.)  Honestly, the way that era plays up that false “Doctor vs. Rory” bid for Amy’s affections follows the same theme.  I think it’s clear that the Doctor has never felt that way about Amy, and I don’t think she feels that way about the Doctor, but the show’s insistence on the comparison is about more than Rory’s insecurities.  Almost from the start, it’s telling us Amy can’t have Rory for a lover and the Doctor for a best friend.  Ultimately, one has to win out, and though she’s sad to be pulling away from the Doctor, she sees life at home with Rory as real, grown-up life.  We see this tug-of-war in series 8 as well.  Clara can’t sustain being a TARDIS traveler and Danny’s girlfriend at the same time – despite her efforts, something’s got to give, and if her actions in “Dark Water” are any indication, that something is the Doctor.

In this way, settling down with a romantic partner is viewed as a positive step, maturity-wise, that traveling with the Doctor isn’t.  Life with him is life on pause, and while it’s sad to say goodbye, there’s a sense that supplanting him is natural, inevitable; they’ve grown out of him.  This gets to me because, though he’s lived so much longer, he never grows out of them.  They’re the ones who choose to leave because the relationship they have with him isn’t.  He means a lot to them, of course, but he can’t win out over “the real thing.”  And the thing is, I think they are enough for him.  There have been other forays – Rose and River, and you could argue Eleven-Clara a bit – but at no point does his affection wane because he’s found something “truer” than what he has with them.  If the Doctor and Rory are both in danger, Amy will save Rory first every time.  I don’t think the Doctor would choose so consistently between Amy/Rory and River.

I’m not saying, by the way, that the Doctor is ace.  I tend to see him that way, with some incarnations tending more towards heteroromantic than others (especially Ten,) but it doesn’t really matter.  The point is, for all the talk in recent years about the Doctor as the man who’s always running, who never looks back, whose companions gets hurt from their time with him, he’s not the one who leaves.  Whenever it comes to it, he’s the one who gets left behind.

Top Five Roles: Christian Bale

I’ve been side-eying Exodus:  Gods and Kings for using a depressingly-white cast to tell its Egyptian story, and Christian Bale’s remarks on the subject do him no favors.  Still, whatever my thoughts about this movie, the fact remains that he’s an excellent actor who’s brought some fantastic characters to life over his long and varied career.  These are the roles that rise to the top.

Jim Graham (Empire of the Sun)

Obviously, Spielberg had a hand in this – any time someone so young gives such a performance, it’s safe to assume they had a terrific director – but it’s just sublime all the same.  Bale hits every note in this demanding role, a privileged young expat who lands in a Japanese prison camp after the war separates him from his parents.  As sheltered Jim learns to survive his deadly situation, you can’t take your eyes off of him.  27 years later, the P-51 scene is still some of his best work.

Laurie (Little Women)

This was the first film I saw Bale in, although I didn’t know it was him until years later.  I love this engaging, passionate performance as the spirited neighbor of the March girls.  Both he and the film get it just right, that Laurie isn’t a brooding, romantic hero as the girls first imagine him.  Rather, he’s a boy through and through, one with a sly sense of humor, a lust for life, and an ache for companionship.  Even as I see why Jo/Laurie wouldn’t work, I love to watch them together.

Bobby Platt (All the Little Animals)

I’d wager that this odd indie film is mainly known by fans of Bale, John Hurt, or the book it’s based on.  Bobby is a gentle young man with a TBI who runs away from his abusive stepfather.  Along the way, he meets an old loner who, like Bobby, gets along with animals better than people, and Bobby joins his work of putting animals killed by human indifference to rest.  He’s a lovely character, sweet but strong even in his vulnerability, well realized by Bale.

Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)

This one’s obvious, but that doesn’t make it any less necessary.  As the murderous yuppie Patrick Bateman, Bale commits 100% to the insanity within and without his character.  There’s the calm, matter-of-fact way he dispatches some victims and the gleeful relish with which he does in others.  There are his obsessions, his vanity, his materialism, and his absolute bats-in-the-belfry craziness, and his acting in the “Hip to Be Square” scene is one for the ages.

John Preston (Equilibrium)

I really like this sleek, dystopian action piece, and Bale is terrific as a man who’s lived a muted, artificial life but whose eyes have been opened to the full expanse of human emotion.  He’s great as first the emotionless citizen, then the lost man overwhelmed by foreign sensations, and finally the rebel whose feelings bleed through his mask of blankness.  Tons of wonderful moments, but my favorite has to be Preston, his emotions undampened, hearing music for the first time.