FILM REVIEW: RIVER OF EXPLODING DURIANS

River of Exploding Durians (2014) is the astonishingly assured debut film from Malaysian director Edmund Yeo that heralds the arrival of a major new talent in world cinema. The film is a complex and poetic portrait of youthful love and idealism, and the struggle for personal and political revolutionary change. The film River of Exploding Durians most recalls is Edward Yang’s A Brighter Summer Day, and like that film, it explores how a country’s history shapes the course of the growth of a group of youth.

Set in contemporary Malaysia, the central event in River of Exploding Durians is the construction of a rare earth plant in a small, coastal community, which leads to fears of radiation poisoning among some of its residents. The three main characters whose lives are most affected by this plant are Ms. Lim (Zhu Zhi-Ying), and her two students Hui Ling (Daphne Low) and Ming (Koe Shern). There are two central stories in River of Exploding Durians which parallel and intersect each other: the troubled love affair between Ming and Mei Ann (Joey Leong), and Ms. Lim and her leadership of a group of revolutionary students, which includes her students Hui Ling and eventually Ming. These parallel stories lead up to an emotionally devastating yet hopeful conclusion that recalls the similarly tragic ending of A Brighter Summer Day.

Like Yang’s film, River of Exploding Durians is an epic yet intimate portrait of a country and its people. Throughout the film, Yeo focuses on breathtakingly beautiful images of the lush, verdant tropical landscape of Malaysia, whose environment is very similar of that to Yang’s native country of Taiwan. Not only does Yeo highlight the visual beauty of Malaysia, but also the rich auditory soundscape of the country, with the calming and vibrant noises of crickets at night, and the lush flows of its many waterfalls and lakes. Indeed, the audio and visual components of Malaysia almost become another main character on the film.

Aesthetically, Yeo constantly experiments with the narrative form, flowing in and out of the interior thoughts of his many characters, in an almost James Joycean manner. In a particularly inventive scene, as Ming and Mei Ann are traveling together on a bus, we hear various snippets of dialogue from them which appeared from another time, but interlaced with them sitting silently in the bus, enjoying each other’s company.

Yeo bifurcates the film neatly into two halves— the first half is an intimate portrait of young love, as Yeo explores Ming’s and Mei Ann’s burgeoning romance, while the second half portrays the attempts by Ms. Lim to lead her students into increasingly violent and unstable protests against the building of the rare earth plant. Both halves of the film begin with the characters filled with hope and promise, but eventually succumbing to tragedy.  Yeo masterfully weaves the two halves of the film together in a touching coda set during a Chinese Lunar New Year Festival, as two of the youthful leads from the film briefly reunite in a moment of pure hope and optimism.

While the first half of River of Exploding Durians very much focuses on nature and youthful love, the second half deals more with the growth of youthful idealism into adult bitterness and disillusionment, as embodied by the character of Ms. Lim. It is in this second half of the film that Yeo employs some of his most radical cinematic experimentation. He stages a series of scenes of students recreating historical events rooted in revolution that recalls the film of Jean-Luc Godard from the 1960s, such as Le Petit Soldat, La Chinoise and Week-End. The use of color and the staging of these student revolutionary recreations most directly recalls similar scenes from La Chinoise. Like Godard, Yeo is exploring how cinema can portray history and revolution in more dynamic and innovative ways.

What makes River of Exploding Durians such an aesthetically accomplished work of art are its poetic moments of pure and at times shocking visual beauty, such as a field of burning durians that morph into a burning pig, a paper lantern rolling into the frame under flowing white curtains, and a flurry of papers on fire that turn into burning books. It is refreshing to see a film such as River of Burning Durians which so confidently combines so many innovative cinematic elements into a seamless, coherent whole. With his debut film, Yeo has breathed new life into cinema, and it will be exciting to see how he continues to expand the language of cinema in future films.

BEST FILMS OF THE DECADE

Now that the second decade of the twenty-first century has officially come to a close (although some still argue that the decade doesn’t begin until year one instead of year zero), it is now time to consider what I think are the best films of this decade. Of course, all these lists are by nature subjective, so instead of thinking of this as the best films of the decade, feel free to re-word it as my favorite films of the decade. My list consists primarily of late career masterpieces by cinema legends, and also two debut films from a pair of promising filmmaker. So, without further adieu, here are my choices.

1. Shoplifters (Hirokazu Koreeda)

Throughout his career, Hirokazu Koreeda has explored the nature of family, and has questioned traditional notions of the family unit. Shoplifters is perhaps Koreeda’s purest distillation of this inquiry into the family unit, and it is definitely his most powerful and emotionally impactful film since Like Father, Like Son. Shoplifters is a searing portrait of a family both brought together and ultimately torn apart by the demands of a harsh, uncaring society. I chose Shoplifters as the best of the decade because it’s the film that most resonated with me on a purely visceral and emotional level, and it also makes us think of what it means to be a family in modern society.

2. Silence (Martin Scorsese)

Martin Scorsese has made plenty of cinematically powerful films throughout his career, but Silence is the most effective of his recent films (although The Irishman was almost just as incredible, but more on that later). What makes Silence such an accomplishment is Scorsese stepping outside of his comfort zone to tell a less flashy and more creatively disciplined, pared down film. By reigning in his more extravagant impulses, which can result in admittedly great but also exhausting films like The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese is able to make his themes and dramatic gravitas more incisive in Silence.

3. River of Exploding Durians (Edmund Yeo)

River of Exploding Durians is a modern day A Brighter Summer Day. Like Edward Yang’s masterpiece, Edmond Yeo’s film is a complex and poetic exploration of how a country’s history shapes and affects a group of youth. With homages to Godard and the French New Wave, and various other cinematic allusions, Yeo creates an astonishing work of art that is also entirely his own, unique creation. Like the greatest works of cinematic art, River of Exploding Durians envelopes the viewer in a completely new vision of reality. The fact that it’s the first film from Yeo is even more astonishing.

4. The Dance of Reality (Alejandro Jodorowsky)

Alejandro Jodorowsky is most well-known for his highly surrealistic, hallucinatory early films Fando and Lis, El Topo and The Holy Mountain, but nothing he has made so far matches the dramatic impact of The Dance of Reality. The Dance of Reality, along with Endless Poetry, is Jodorowsky’s most personal film as it deals with his own youth. However, what separates The Dance of Reality from his other films is the unbridled passion felt in each and every frame. Watching The Dance of Reality almost puts you in an altered state of consciousness, as its poetic and powerful barrage of incredible set pieces and imagery flows in front of your eyes in a trance-like rhythm. I have seen many films throughout my life, but I have not really thing anything quite like The Dance of Reality.

5. The Great Buddha + (Huang Hsien-yao)

Sometimes you discover a great film which comes out of nowhere with little to no fanfare, and The Great Buddha + was one of those films. Although it was shortlisted for the Academy Awards Best Foreign Film category, The Great Buddha + never got a wide release or even much notice outside of its native country of Taiwan. This is unfortunate because The Great Buddha + is one of the funniest and most poignant films I have seen all decade about class consciousness (yes, I think it’s even better than the similarly themed Parasite). If you can find it, please seek out this film, as I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised. It mixes dark comedy and social critique like the best films of Spike Lee and Billy Wilder. Huang Hsien-yao is surely a new talent to keep an eye on.

6. The Irishman (Martin Scorsese)

Martin Scorsese is well-known for making brutal and powerful gangster films, but no mafia film he has directed before has been quite like The Irishman. Unlike his previous crime films, The Irishman is a much more introspective and reflective film. While films like Goodfellas and Casino were almost celebratory in their depictions of gangsters (albeit in a cautionary way), The Irishman is Scorsese’s first film in which the lead character actually attempts to come to terms with the errors of his ways. In this way, The Irishman is Scorsese attempting to move away from the violent world of his prior films, and into a more enlightened realm.

7. Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow)

Throughout her career, Kathryn Bigelow has proved herself to be among one of the best action directors of all time. With Zero Dark Thirty, Bigelow has found a real life story that provides an epic backdrop for a harrowing tale of a woman determined to complete a single, history making mission against all odds. In this way, Zero Dark Thirty is like the Moby Dick of war films, and like Herman Melville’s epic story of obsession, Bigelow’s film is a labyrinthine, complex experience that has the feel of classic literature. Zero Dark Thirty culminates in one of the best action set pieces of all time, and solidifies Bigelow’s position among the pantheon of greatest directors of visceral cinema.

8. A Tiger in Winter (Lee Kwang-kuk)

Lee Kwang-kuk created one of the most realistic and bitterly funny portraits of the artistic process with A Tiger in Winter. Like the literal tiger that has escaped from the zoo of the film’s title, the two protagonists of A Tiger in Winter are self-adsorbed artists who destroy the lives of everyone in their paths. Lee understands that oftentimes great art comes from unpleasant and self-destructive personalities, and he both skewers and celebrates this bitter truth in his mordantly funny film.

9. Gone With the Bullets (Jiang Wen)

Gone With the Bullets, along with Let The Bullets Fly and Hidden Man, forms a trilogy of films by Jiang Wen that is probably the closest thing to modern day Federico Fellini that we are likely to see. Wen has proven himself to be a formidable filmmaker, and with each successive film, he has honed and developed his voice further. With Gone With the Bullets, Jiang Wen finally made perhaps the purest distillation of his claim as our new Fellini (along with Emir Kusturica). Like Fellini, Wen’s Gone With the Bullets is a carnivalesque celebration of life that is filled with exuberant set pieces and over the top characters. Wen’s outrageous characters and situations almost resemble commeddia dell’arte, with their delightfully rendered absurdity. This may also be the reason why Gone With the Bullets was not well received when it was released, as Wen is making films that recall an earlier time when art was more pure and less polluted by pointless cynicism.

10. Hanatagami (Nobohiku Obayashi)

Nobohiku Obayashi shocked the world with his debut film Hausu, which broke all cinematic conventions in the horror film genre, and his late career masterpiece Hanagatami is just as explosively innovative. Hanagatami is about a group of youth in a coastal Japanese village, and the effects of World War Two on their lives. However, the way Obayashi tells this intimate story is quite unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Hanagatami is pitched at a frenzied pace, and for over three hours Obayashi constantly experiments with narrative structure and visuals, creating a surrealistic portrait of youth that would have made Dali proud. Its experimentation with cinematic form reminds one of Seizun Suzuki’s Taisho Trilogy (Zigeunerweisen, Kagero-Za, and Yumeji), and like those films Hanagatami forms Obayashi’s own trilogy of films (along with Seven Weeks and Labyrinth of Cinema) which expand the language of cinema in exciting ways. From films like Hausu, Sada, and Hanagatami, Obayashi shows us the possibilities inherent within cinema for new methods of narrative form.

FILM REVIEW: KUNDUN

Martin Scorsese has always shown a deep reverence and appreciation for Asian cinema, as reflected in his championing of Asian auteurs like Edward Yang, Tian Zhuangzhuang, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Through his World Cinema Foundation, Scorsese has rescued and restored many important Asian films, including A Brighter Summer Day and The Housemaid. With Kundun (1997) Scorsese made his first Asian themed film, and the result is one of his emotionally resonant and moving films.

Kundun is a biopic about Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama. The film explores the Dalai Lama’s life from his youth in Tibet up to his exile to India in 1959. Like Scorsese’s other spiritually themed films The Last Temptation of Christ and Silence, Kundun explores the topic of religious persecution. After the Communist government of China took over Tibet, atrocities against the Dalai Lama and his followers were committed, forcing the Dalai Lama to flee to India.

Throughout Kundun, Scorsese shows the struggles the Dalai Lama faced to maintain his practice of non-violent resistance. As the spiritual leader of his followers, the Dalai Lama has to protect his own people against the violent and oppressive actions of the Chinese invaders. Since the Dalai Lama obviously does not have access to a military or arms to defend himself, he tries at first to meet face to face with Mao Zedong to negotiate a peace deal.

This results in Mao furthering his prosecution of the Tibetan natives, and lecturing the Dalai Lama about how religion is poison. This is similar to the Japanese Inquisitor in Silence chastising Andrew Garfield’s Jesuit priest about how “the tree of Christianity withers in Japanese soil” because it has been poisoned. Indeed, both Kundun and Silence explore how peaceful protagonists confront and deal with oppressive, violent outside forces which view religion as something to be eliminated.

In a Scorsese gangster film, the protagonists naturally will counter violence with even more violent acts, resulting in a vicious circle of incessant death and destruction. Kundun is Scorsese’s first attempt to explore how one can fight violence with peaceful protest and compassion. Amidst the brutal oppression of his times, the Dalai Lama hopes that his example of compassionate resistance will result in peace.

We never see explicit depictions of the violence committed against the Tibetan people, except for one brief vision by the Dalai Lama of the corpses of his fellow monks. Instead, Scorsese fills Kundun with quiet but visually astounding imagery inspired by Buddhist philosophy, such as a breathtaking scene of an elaborate sand mandala being created and blown away. Kundun is an almost ethnographic exploration of the Dalai Lama’s culture, as Scorsese faithfully depicts the many rituals and traditions of the Tibetan people.

Throughout the film, Scorsese emphasizes the fragility of the Dalai Lama’s peaceful existence. The film’s earlier, more elegiac scenes of the Dalai Lama’s youth contrast with the more disruptive, frantic scenes of the Chinese army and government gradually infiltrating Tibet, such as an astonishing scene of the Chinese army marching ominously through the streets. This temporal nature of existence is emphasized throughout Kundun, as Scorsese is showing how life itself is transitory, and so are violence and suffering.

The last act of Kundun, as the Dalai Lama escapes to India, is an almost wordless sequence of events that depicts both the tragedy and ultimate hope of the Dalai Lama’s life. Just as he is about to cross the border into safety, he speaks these haunting words, “I think I am a reflection, like the moon on water. When you see me, and I try to be a good man, you see yourself.” Following the example of these words by the Dalai Lama, Scorsese emphasizes images of peace instead of violence in Kundun in the hopes of reflecting human nature’s deeper good.