Tag: Mark Lee Ping-Bing

Air Doll (空気人形, Hirokazu Koreeda, 2009)

Posted on by

“Was everything you saw in this world sad? Was there something, anything, what was beautiful?” the heroine of Hirokazu Koreeda’s exploration of urban loneliness Air Doll (空気人形, Kuki Ningyo) is asked by her creator though he can offer her few answers for the strange mystery of her life. Like a child, she takes beauty where she finds it yet much of what she sees is indeed sad as she reflects on the disconnected lives around her, the emptiness and futility of life in the contemporary society where everything is just a substitute for something else which cannot be obtained. 

As for herself, she is quite literally empty inside, an inflatable sex doll owned by middle-aged family restaurant waiter Hideo (Itsuji Itao) who has given her the name of his ex, Nozomi (Bae Doona), which ironically means hope, wish, or desire though not generally of the sexual kind. Yet one day she suddenly wakes up and begins to explore the world rejoicing in its new sensations feeling the rain on her hands and the wind that sounds the chimes as she watches her neighbours go about their daily routine. Dressed in the French maid’s outfit picked out for her by Hideo she gets a job at a local video store and begins living a more independent life while learning how to operate in human society. She feels herself out of place but is repeatedly told that there are others like her, mistaking her literal emptiness for their spiritual despair. 

Yet that sense of emptiness and futility is evident from Nozomi’s first forays into the human world in that the first act of mundanity she witnesses is the bin men sorting rubbish for disposal. “Unfortunately they’re non-burnable” Nozomi’s creator explains when she visits him in search of answers revealing he throws out the broken dolls that are returned to him once a year, “after all, once we die we’re burnable garbage. It’s not such a big difference” he adds, though as it turns out it is quite a big difference to Nozomi in ramming home to her that she can never become human and will always be something else, an inorganic “substitute” for something perceived as the “real”. 

“Your only flaw is that your body’s so cold” Hideo ironically laments as he warms her up in the bath, something she is told repeatedly to remind her that though she has discovered a heart it does not beat and she is not “alive”. Yet an old man (Masaya Takahashi) seeking a different kind of comfort later remarks that those with cold hands often have warm hearts as he reflects on his own life as a “substitute” teacher while she looks over the pictures of the many dogs he’s had through the course of his life as substitutes for the traditional family that have only left him feeling lonelier through their inevitable absences. There is perhaps in this a slightly conservative and uncomfortable implication that the loneliness we see in everybody that we meet is partly caused by the decline of the traditional family itself partly a consequence of the shifting gender roles of the later 20th century society. When they first meet, Nozomi has been rejected by a group of local mothers for inappropriately cooing over a baby in a pushchair the old man comforting her with a tale of the mayfly which is itself empty inside existing only to give birth and then die its own life defined by futility. Nozomi can never truly be human, but more than that she can never truly be a woman because she cannot reproduce as signalled in her final exchange with a little girl in her neighbourhood who swaps her beaten up and broken doll, a substitute for her absent mother now symbolic daughter to Nozomi, in exchange for her ring, a symbol of adulthood. 

In this way Nozomi becomes herself a symbol of something that is broken, an active barrier to societal happiness in providing a way for men like Hideo to escape the responsibility of the traditional family by satisfying his sexual desire through a fantasy of intimacy with an inanimate substitute. When Nozomi throws her pump away, Hideo buys a new model and when she confronts him he asks her to go back to being a passive doll because he finds all the human stuff “annoying” and only wants a woman who can be a selfless embodiment of his desires, will never talk back, challenge him, or hurt his feelings. Meanwhile, when her boss at the store (Ryo Iwamatsu) who seems have experienced a recent familial breakdown of his own blackmails her into having sex with him in the bathroom he is conversely annoyed by her passivity while tearfully calling out his wife’s name. Even her innocent love for coworker Junichi (Arata Iura) has its darkness, not only does she suspect she’s merely a substitute for his ex, his fetishisation of her revolves around his ability to take control over life by letting out her air and then permitting her to live by blowing his own back into her. 

“I am an air doll. A substitute for sexual desire” is how she introduces herself, preoccupied with her literal emptiness yet along with a heart discovering a sense of self as she interacts with others, beginning to wear her own clothes rather than those purchased for her by Hideo. At a moment of crisis she is surrounded by all the treasures she’s collected which ironically include a number of ornaments intended for a doll’s house including a tiny simulacrum of a cake which reappears in her imaginary birthday party suggesting that the only true happiness is to be found in wishful fantasy while the “real” will only ever disappoint. Nevertheless, she uses her last breath to bring happiness to all she can, uniting the old man with a lonely old woman (Sumiko Fuji) who confesses to random crimes just to have someone to talk to. Shot with unusual fluidity by Mark Lee Ping-Bing, Koreeda captures a society in flux in which the easy convenience of disposable consumerism has begun to replace human relationships and left us all empty inside. 

Air Doll in in US cinemas and on VOD Feb. 4 courtesy of Dekanalog

Trailer (English subtitles)

Anima (莫尔道嘎, Cao Jinling, 2020)

Posted on by 1 Comment

“The trees are not yours. You can’t protect them” an adopted son is repeatedly told, except they are his to the extent that they belong to everyone and the consequences of not protecting them, as he will sadly discover, may prove catastrophic. Set mainly in the 1980s in the remote Inner Mongolian mountain region of Moerdaoga National Forest Park, Cao Jinling’s timely eco drama Anima (莫尔道嘎, Mòěrdàogá) asks what happens when you pull the pegs out of the earth and then take them to market, linking the ‘80s economic reforms with the advent of environmental destruction, but eventually finds a kind of serenity in the beauty of the natural world and man’s innate connection with it. 

Linzi (Wang Chuanjun), so named because he was found abandoned in the forest as a baby, recounts his tale as a letter to the son he has never met beginning with the moment of childhood trauma which forever altered his destiny and set him at odds with adoptive brother Tutu (Si Ligeng). Out playing one winter while the grownups hunted, Linzi fell into an ice cave and found himself face to face with a bear. Though he felt sure the bear would not harm him, it panicked on hearing his mother’s cries. Hoping to save his brother, Tutu shot the bear but their mother was also killed and, as bears are sacred to the indigenous Ewenki tribe, finds himself an outcast for this act of spiritual transgression. The three remaining family members move to the edge of the forest in order to evade the bear’s curse, eventually joining the local logging industry though Linzi finds himself conflicted in his love of nature while all around him are content to ride roughshod over its majesty. 

While Linzi remains a guardian of the forest living a traditional rural life, Tutu is modernity personified falling in with a gang of shady gangsters running an illegal logging and smuggling operation. While the smugglers might be thought of as the bad guys, the logging company are little better. Linzi’s boss expresses exasperation with his reluctance insisting that if they don’t cut the trees down the smugglers will while constantly banging on about his quotas. Obsessed with making money and fearful of an oppressive social order, no one is thinking very much about the long term consequences of deforestation even as Linzi tries to explain to them that it takes a long time to grow a tree and they’re in danger of running out. When the literal flood comes, it will have devastating consequences for all involved. 

Aside from their differing views on the tradition/modernity divide, the relationship between the brothers further declines when Linzi encounters a feisty widow living alone in the forest (Qi Xi), herself transgressively killing bears for reasons of revenge seeing as her late husband was eaten by one. Linzi shyly falls in love with her, but so does Tutu who finds it difficult to accept the idea that his awkward younger brother has got himself a wife. “I am cursed forever” Tutu dramatically cries after having committed a double transgression of killing another bear and presenting its pelt as a wedding present, and then attempting to rape the bride. So traumatised is he by a sense of spiritual corruption that Tutu no longer feels connected to nature, an exile from the natural world, and self-destructively embraces the worst aspects of modernity believing that he deserves no better. 

Yet even Linzi finds himself betraying his ideals in order to feed his family, falling victim to the “tree breath spell” after participating in the removal of a great old tree. People keep telling him that he doesn’t own the trees and therefore has no right to decide what is done with them, but like everyone else he’s a man of the forest continually displaced while his world is dismantled all around him. He tries to warn the loggers they’re going too far, but they don’t listen to him until it’s already too late. The authorities attempt to fix the problem with a program of “reforestation” but if the price of untempered capitalism is the destruction of the natural world it is nothing more than an act of intense self harm. Linzi attempts to hold back the tide, but is himself exiled from modern society, a sprite bound by the forest unable to leave its boundaries and condemned to watch over it for all eternity as if in penance but also in deep love for the wonders of the Earth which few are now privileged to see. 

Anima screens on Aug. 8 at Film at Lincoln Center – Walter Reade Theater as part of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

A Summer Trip (川流不“熄”, Feng Keyu, 2021)

Posted on by

Societal change and rising economic prosperity threaten the foundations of the family in Feng Keyu’s charmingly nostalgic intergenerational adventure A Summer Trip (川流不“熄”, Chuān Liú Bù “Xī”) elegantly lensed by Mark Lee Ping-Bing and boasting a typically whimsical score from Joe Hisaishi. In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, the nation is in a celebratory mood but in a society where everybody works all the time something may be in danger of getting lost. Young Xiaosong (Hu Changlin) is going off the rails (in a fairly minor way) with both the school and grandpa, often left with childcare duties he feels might not quite be his responsibility, leaning towards blaming the parents who are simply not present enough in his life to be able to offer much in the way of guidance. 

A Korean War veteran, grandpa Zhang Dachuan (Yang Xinming) is beginning to feel as obsolete as the discontinued parts he needs to repair his ancient jeep. He can’t get his head round mobile phones, forever pressing hang up when he means to press answer and causing accidental offence in the process. Resenting the implication that he’s not got much to do all day, he finds himself enlisted by his overworked son to represent the family when his wayward grandson Xiaosong gets into trouble at school. This particular time, it’s apparently because he’s been bothering a female student by taking photos of her with a professional DSLR camera (the teacher later gives Dachuan an envelope to pass to his son and daughter-in-law which turns out to contain a love letter Xiaosong attempted to pass to the object of his affection). Slightly annoyed to be seeing Dachuan again instead of the boy’s parents, the teacher makes herself clear that the cause of Xiaosong’s poor behaviour and declining grades is most likely a lack of parental attention. Chastened, the parents discuss finding a cram school but nothing is really done about his problematic approach to romance, especially as they each need to return to work soon after dinner leaving grandpa sitting alone at the table. 

Perhaps strangely, Xiaosong seems to have forgotten that his grandpa even has a name, hanging up on a caller thinking they’ve got the wrong number only to realise they wanted grandpa and redial upon which Dachuan discovers that his greatest wartime friend has passed away in Beijing and the funeral is in a few days’ time. Though Xiaosong had technically been “grounded” for the summer, the idea was that grandpa was supposed to supervise him while he stayed home and studied. So begins their awkward road trip, passing first through the home of Dachuan’s daughter Ling (Dai Lele) in a town closer to the capital and a lengthy train ride away before pressing on to the city. 

As his opening voiceover explains, Xiaosong never really understood his grandfather thinking of him as a grumpy, stubborn old man stuck in the past. Yet as grandpa later sadly laments reflecting on his friend’s final days, people talk about the past a lot when they’re unhappy in the present. Everyone is always keen to pay respect to Dachuan and his wartime generation, though not all of them have good intentions such as the overfriendly young man they meet on the train who enthusiastically listens to his stories, or the older woman (He Zaifei) who reminds Dachuan of his late wife but leverages his desire to show off by getting him to pay for an expensive lunch. For his part, Dachuan resents his declining capacity and finds himself at odds with the modern world, unable to access technology or understand the changing nature of society. His quest to get to Beijing under his own steam is a way of rebelling against his age, proving he’s still capable and independent though his slightly narcissistic can-do attitude often backfires, his offer to fix a broken-down bus exposing his lack of acumen while his petulant decision to leave finds him stubbornly insisting on walking the remaining 30km to the capital. 

Highlighting the corporate obsession, meanwhile, another stranded bus passenger makes constant phone calls to his less than understanding boss to explain the delay. While Dachuan and his grandson experience set backs on the road, the boy’s father Jianguo (Tu Songyan) chases a reluctant client who won’t sign a contract and returns late to a dark and empty home while his wife (Yang Tongshu) works the nightshift as a surgeon at the hospital. Unbeknownst to Dachuan, Ling and her husband (Gong Zheng) are about to split up apparently because he spent too much time at work and the relationship has fallen apart as a result. Young Xiaosong says he wants to be a photographer to “document all the beautiful things and moments” lamenting that they never took a family photo with his late grandmother. In the absence of his father and son and forced to humiliate himself repeatedly at work, Jianguo comes to regret having deprioritised his family life and recommits himself to repairing their fractured bonds perhaps with a family holiday lamenting that they never got round to it while his mother was alive. The Olympics Opening Ceremony becomes, its own way, a second New Year with the TV broadcast taking the place of the Spring Gala as the family finally come back together again having gained new understandings of themselves and others through their various summer adventures. Society might have changed, those exciting KFC “family buckets” from the city apparently not going quite as far as you’d think, but the family can apparently still be saved with a little mutual understanding and a dose of self-reflection.

A Summer Trip screened as part of the 2021 Osaka Asian Film Festival.

Original trailer (Japanese subtitles only)

Crosscurrent (長江圖, Yang Chao, 2016)

Posted on by 1 Comment

crosscurrent poster“Time, like a river, flows both day and night” as the narrator of Yang Chao’s poetical return to source Crosscurrent (長江圖,  Chang Jiang Tu) tells us early on. Like the crosscurrent of the title, ship’s captain Chun sails forth yet also in retrograde as he chases a love he can never truly embrace. Truth be told, the philosophical poetry of a lonely sailor condemned to sail a predetermined course at the mercy of the winds and tides is often obscure and confused, like the half mad ramblings of one who’s spent too much time all alone at sea. Yet his melancholy passage is more metaphor than reality, or several interconnected metaphors as water yearns for shore but is pulled towards the ocean, a man yearns to free himself of his father’s spirit, and mankind yearns for the land yet disrupts and destroys it in its quest for mastery. Often frustrating in its obscurity, Crosscurrent’s breathtaking visuals are the key to unlocking its meditative sadness as they paint the beautiful landscape in its own conflicting colours.

Gao Chun (Qin Hao), a melancholy young man, is mourning the death of his father in all the ways the river expects. Taking over his father’s cargo boat, Chun dutifully catches and keeps the blackfish that is the keeper of his father’s spirit, only once it starves to death will his spirit be free. Though the boat is a large one, Chun has only two other members of crew – his uncle, Xiang, and longstanding deckhand Wusheng. They have little business but Wusheng has managed to find them a new client who needs something or other transported on the hush hush. Once the mysterious cargo has been loaded, Chun manages to negotiate some extra hush money seeing as there’s obviously something not quite right here.

Part way through their journey up the Yangtze River, Chun finds a mysterious ledger hidden away on the boat which contains a number of poems each annotated with the name of a particular harbour. Linked to the book, Chun also encounters a mysterious woman, An Lu, and eventually strikes up a relationship with her during one of his infrequent returns to shore. Chun and An Lu are travelling in the same direction yet also through and past each other. Meeting and parting the pair re-encounter each other on land or make do with fleeting glances from sea to shore but An Lu (Xin Zhilei) is no ordinary woman, each time the same yet strikingly different as she too makes her way towards the origin of all things.

The name of the mysterious woman is “An Lu” – “safe land”. Chun, a sailor adrift on the wide river is always looking for safe harbour and generally finds it waiting for him, even occasionally put out at his lack of arrival. What or who she is remains obscure. An Lu is at once a harbour girl, prostitute, nun, hermit, and lover of all mankind who belongs to no man but refuses no one. Chun yearns for her, slowing the passage of his boat to look for her among the thick foliage of cliffside pathways. Yet there are reasons why they can only be together for short spaces of time. As the sea and the shore, theirs is a relationship of permanent though frustrated, ebbing connection.

As he follows An Lu, Chun reads his poetry like scripture and travels the river against the tide heading for its origin. The life giving river becomes a kind of metaphor as Chun witnesses how its gifts have been misused and subverted by man who wants to master it rather live with its obvious beauty. Passing through ruined villages, Chun eventually makes a gruelling two day passage through the Three Gorges Dam. This giant, manmade structure cleaves the land in two, leaving our two lovers forever separated as the past from the future. The river which flows both day and night, no longer flows at all.

Equal parts spiritual and geographical odyssey, Crosscurrent is a tale of man and landscape, of nationhood, history, and memory all condensed into a wide flowing river. Lyrical yet obscure, its truth is opaque and difficult to discern yet no less deeply felt. Shooting on 35mm and using mostly natural light in harsh conditions, Mark Lee Ping-bing’s cinematography is nothing short of extraordinary, capturing all of this infinite sadness with an eternal aesthetic beauty. China swims against the tide as Chun and An Lu draw closer only by pulling further apart but all there may be at the end of the journey is the anxious comfort of eternal waiting.

Crosscurrent was screened as part of the 7th Chinese Visual Festival.

Original trailer (English subtitles)