Charulata

One of the interesting aspects of watching people’s reactions to one another when they meet is to see the extent these reactions are shaped by unacknowledged emotions: tiredness, prejudice, suppressed resentment lead to condescension, flattery, anger and other subtexts which colour the consciously controlled verbal exchange.

While some great writers (Flaubert for instance) have examined these subtleties, very few film makers have. Even the great Junichiro Ozu steps back, as it were, and observes personal interactions in a social context. Satyajit Ray is almost alone in presenting what goes on beneath the surface of a persona, and as a result his characters are among the most richly realised in cinema.

This explains partly the comparative neglect that Ray’s films have suffered. Many of them have never been available on disk. (True, this neglect is also partly due to Ray’s carelessness about preserving his work, over which he had almost complete artistic control). But consider the context in which we see films. Action dominates the cinema world: our powerful reactions of fear, anger and lust are well catered to. On the sidelines are the human emotions, with actors registering the basic ones: love, fear, joy, despair, hate – and this is seen as an accomplishment, made by those actors who can act. And then there is the cinema of Satyajit Ray, where a commonplace phrase can say so much, and a dozen expressions cross an actor’s face before they reply. Ray is not more realistic than others, he just shows more. We may know this is happening with the people around us; we’re not used to seeing it in films.

So a plot summary of a Ray film will often not tell us what it is about. In Charulata, a good, intelligent, politically involved but emotionally obtuse man gives his wife’s brother the opportunity to steal from him because he wants to trust him, feeling that responsibility will steady the man. And he throws his lonely wife together with his young cousin so that their shared literary interests will give them companionship. The man, Bhupati (Sailen Mukherjee), feels he is doing good, but because he is only aware of his own benevolence he becomes horribly disillusioned by the end of the film.

Everybody acts in ways they can justify to themselves. Even the thief feels he is stealing from a fool. There is no betrayal except of illusions, no passion that is not disguised as friendship. The husband Bhupati hides his tears behind his kindness. The only casualty is trust. Yet how much is being said!

The film is doubly qualified in terms of context. We are watching Bengali upper class people in the late nineteenth century go about their relationships. We may be unsure if what goes on is uniquely Bengali, whether it relates to other Indian cultures, how much it reflects the morality of the 1870s or the customs of the wealthy. Gradually we see that what is depicted is the constants in human nature, unchanged since the Stone Age perhaps. Sidestepping the usual method of holding our interest in matters such as these by means of melodrama, Ray shows us how a human being can feel two powerful emotions at the same time, how our intellect can misinform our brain what our heart is feeling.

Ray was a consummate film maker with an uncommon command of the elements of film making. Charulata excels in its sets, lighting, camera movements and music. But the chief resource Ray has is the faces of his actors, and in particular that of Madhabi Mukherjee.

Madhabi is best remembered for her role as Charu. She started as a child actor and is a famous Bengali actor with many roles to her credit, including ones in two other Ray films, ‘Mahanagar’ and ‘Kapurush’. How often in Charulata the screen is filled by a close up of this face, and the tumult of emotions crossing it. This is no virtuoso act; Madhabi always remains in character, and when she doesn’t know what she is feeling, neither do we the viewers, yet we are moved just the same. I wonder if Ray directed Madhabi in this role the same way he reportedly directed the 14 year old Sharmila Tagore in Apur Sansar, telling Sharmila, lean this way, hold your head to the light, narrow your eyes – be damned to the Method and all its actors when doing things this way gets such results.

Despite other elements in Charulata: the vividly realised and perhaps excoriated milieu; the use of symbolism – we see Charu on a swing several times, one of which is also a famous virtuoso camera sequence; the satire of gender roles – all, including Charu, think she would be more satisfied had she had children, yet in a passion she easily excels Amal as a published writer; experimental sequences, such as the montage of images from Charu’s childhood, which were new in the 60s and unfamiliar to Ray; some of Ray’s finest music, and charming songs by Rabindranath Tagore (whose novella Nastanirh is the source of Ray’s screenplay and which has reputedly autobiographical elements); still the play of human emotions, and the way people become aware of them, remain the focus of Ray’s work, in Charulata as elsewhere.

Perhaps this is why there is no resolution to the story in Charulata. Plots and the other devices of drama are a psychic necessity for us precisely because they don’t exist in real life. We separate good and evil into heroes and villains in a story precisely because good and evil are confusedly mixed in real life. So anyone who wants to depict human emotions must deal with ambiguity. In a way emotions cannot be resolved: they just are. Does Charu love Amal or is she just lonely? Is Amal dutifully following Bhupati’s instruction in encouraging Charu to write or just preening himself on his own literary abilities, or trying to seduce her? What does Amal’s departure reveal about his feelings for Charu or is it merely cowardice? When Bhupati and Charu reach hands towards each other at the end of the film will those hands touch? We can’t know any of this, just as the characters cannot and this tells us more than any resolution could.

One of the words used to describe Ray’s films is humanistic, referring to an old and now somewhat outmoded philosophy which hasn’t worn too well after two world wars and the dominance of media generated opinion all over the world. In fact the word humanism is most often used now pejoratively by those who think they have a radical political agenda. The basis of all institutions however, political or religious or social, is human nature. The examination of human nature is the business of any art worthy of the name and the films of Satyajit Ray are an outstanding contribution to this activity.

©2009 Original material copyright Phillip Kay. Images and other material courtesy Creative Commons. Please inform post author of any violation.

Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye

The Inner Eye by Andrew Robinson, (I.B.Tauris 2004) is an attempt to deal with an unusual problem: a writer, composer, artist and film maker, of world stature, who created in a relatively obscure language and whose works risk misrepresentation and oblivion without some sort of interpreter, both of the works and the culture which gave them birth. Before looking at the book we have to look a little at the problem.

Satyajit Ray is a name to mention when compiling lists of great film directors, but when you ask around, not that many people have actually seen his films. The early Apu trilogy of films are well known, but Ray made 37 films and most of these are unknown, in India and in the West. The reasons are not far to seek. Ray was a Bengali, a Calcutta man to his core, and he preferred to, needed to, make his films in Bengal, spoken in Bengali. He thus missed out on the millions to be earned in the Bollywood film industry: Bengali is a minority language, and few Indians understand it. On the other hand Ray’s films were influenced by Western cinema, and his films have been shown there, but nuances, allusions and references obvious to Bengalis pass unnoticed or puzzle the Western viewer and cannot be conveyed in subtitles.

Another way to consider this situation is to look at Ray as a Bengali might. This is not my viewpoint: both Western and Bengali cultures are alien ones to me. I am merely using my imagination. In Calcutta, one finds, there is not one Satyajit Ray but many.

Ray is a best selling and enormously popular author who excelled at detective, science fiction and children’s literature, and made his living by writing it. His stories and characters are not just popular, but are known, in a way only possible where an oral culture lingers on. Western influence was strong on Ray, who admired the great British writer Arthur Conan Doyle enormously. It is said one can find fans of the stories who don’t even know Ray made films. Ray was also a critic, whose writings on cinema, including his own cinema, is as perceptive as his films.

Ray had an earlier career as a graphic designer. His typefaces are still used, his book jackets are famous. As well, many of his stories are accompanied by his own illustrations, which are loved in their own right. He was an excellent calligrapher and many viewers are familiar with his work through the titles of Ray’s films. Each one of his films was first created in a storyboard format with each scene sketched in: each book a work of art.

Ray is a prominent composer fluent in both Western and Indian modes and self taught. He composed the scores of most of his films and is one of the major artists in that genre. Ray was also a song writer of genius, something he could have turned into a fortune by writing for the Bollywood market, but didn’t. Song is something hard to classify: the place of song, filmi song, in Indian culture is quite unique. Ray’s songs are sung in the streets by those not swamped by Western rock music.

Ray was a man of two cultures and his art is the product of their meeting and at times their conflict. Like the Anglo-Indian of Kipling’s time he fell between two cultures, not Indian enough for the Indians, too Indian for the Westerner. To the isolation of genius was added the breadth of cultural interests that few could share with him. To the lovers of the all singing, all dancing Indian film and the Western action film alike, Ray’s films are too slow: not enough songs or fantasy for one, not enough car chases or exploding buildings for the other.

Robinson’s book tackles the job of interpretation as well, and as badly, as one might expect. It is a very difficult job he has set himself. It has the advantage of including many personal interviews with Ray and his actors, and includes the usual scholarly appendages: notes, bibliography, glossary and filmography.

The bulk of the book is devoted to the Ray most Westerners know, the film maker. Robinson looks at all 37 films chronologically, though some are grouped thematically: comedies, musicals, detective and documentaries. We also learn about some unmade films, including the film that became E.T., the script of which was stolen from Ray and ended up, several years later, on Spielberg’s table (Spielberg didn’t feel the guilt that Lucas felt for appropriating Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress and denied any connection between his and Ray’s film: not cultural imperialism but agressive business practice).

Half a dozen pages outlining each film’s action, while hardly redundant, seemed unsatisfactory to me. The impact of Ray’s films is not primarily made by the events that are depicted but by delineation of character and the exploration of each character’s reaction to events and other people. Of course these precis are not intended to substitute for viewing the film but they’ll be forgotten long before you see it. What they try to do is give a verbal picture of each film’s ambiance and provenance, something that viewing a single frame could do more powerfully and evocatively. Other facts, such as the novel or story from which Ray’s script evolved, how the actors were cast, who financed each film, how certain scenes were shot, all this is fascinating for the films you’ve seen and loved, not so much for ones you haven’t seen. My overall feeling about this section of the book is that reading about films is a poor substitute for seeing them. I found most valuable those comments that explain cultural contexts that aren’t familiar in the West, such as the expected relationship between wife and husband’s ‘brother’ or close male relative who becomes something like the wife’s own brother, overcoming conventions of purdah where appropriate. This adds a dimension to what happens between Charu and Amal in Charulata for example. I would have liked to read more of this kind of thing. But I realise summing up an entire culture in an aside in a chapter of a book is not possible. Best go there and live there for a while: you’d learn a lot more a lot more quickly. I began to realise a lot of my dissatisfaction was inherent in the actual written form. There was nothing more Robinson could do having decided to write a book (rather than, say, film a documentary).

One thing that did emerge was the extraordinary stature Ray had in the culture. Despite his achievements he was very much the junior member of a very highly esteemed family; his father and grandfather are still household names in Bengal. The second thing emerging from the details Robinson gave was that Ray’s was an uncommercial cinema, meaning there was rarely a big budget. When Ray wanted a big star, like Uttam Kumar in Nayak, he got one (Kumar apparently accepted 10% of his usual fee for the chance to work with Ray) but usually he didn’t want a big star. Stars became big by working with Ray. Ray’s films in certain respects (including production) can be compared to Bergman’s or Woody Allen’s. Because of his stature Ray was given autonomy over how the films were made, but at the same time he wasn’t risking millions of dollars either. The third point to emerge was Ray’s amazing range of talents. He had autonomy because he could script, compose, design sets and publicity material (including titles), cast, direct, photograph, edit footage and act – and do all of these as well or better than anyone else on the project. It made sense to give him autonomy. And lastly one can see that Ray needed autonomy because the films were personal. They expressed his views, philosophy, culture and knowledge of human nature. Not many artists have explored human nature so deeply (a fact totally irrelevant to the folk who go to the cinema to see what it’s like when a machine gun bullet goes through someone’s eyeball and out the back of their head: the depiction of which Ray would consider a time wasting non-event. But there you go; different strokes for different folks).

The remaining third of Robinson’s book is partly biographical, partly a critical summing up. His early life, relationship to his mother, early career, relationship to Tagore, personal hobbies (collecting books and Western classical records, reading scores). There is a chapter on Ray as writer (some of his books are now available in English translation). And one on Ray as film maker.

Overall the book is as comprehensive as it needs to be. I would have liked more detail of Bengali cultural mores and more on Ray’s books and less on Ray’s films, which really need to be seen to be appreciated. But I realise you have to start somewhere. Perhaps Robinson’s book will alert readers that Ray made more than the Apu films (though leaving them with the frustration of finding copies in good condition with readable subtitles). Summing up a genius offers poor rewards. Robinson’s book is a starting point, an observation I have a feeling would please him, but Ray needs to be seen and read through his own works. He can himself teach you most of what you need to know to appreciate his achievement.

Personal cinema is not unusual (though always unlikely given the form). Bergman’s psychodramas, Fellini’s trips to the subconscious, Ozu’s vignettes of social interactions that offer unbelievable subtleties of nuances of behaviour – and Ray’s films, with the most complete depiction of human emotions ever attempted in cinema: not the yelling and screaming that others see as profound, but emotions like dismay, trust, indecision, veiled contempt, the stuff that drives our day.

Most of us are interested in the rest of us; people watching is fun. And Ray’s films are entertaining, once you realise that they’re about real people, not cardboard cutouts (which are entertaining too of course). They say that when Ray died, Calcutta almost came to a standstill. That’s a big thing, this is Calcutta we’re talking about. Let’s hope the rest of the world realises what a good thing it’s lost.

©2009 Original material copyright Phillip Kay. Images and other material courtesy Creative Commons. Please inform post author of any violation.

Recommendations in Asian cinema

This is a survey of Asian cinema I have enjoyed. The emphasis is on drama, not on martial arts or special effects (the staple of cinema all over the world) or all singing, all dancing Bollywood. As ‘Asian cinema’ must consist of about 80% of all cinema, films that focus on drama, interpersonal relationships or character studies are even more likely to be lost in the crowd than in the West. There are few if any surprises in my choices: many of these films are accepted classics of cinema. My point is to link older ‘classic’ films with more recent ones that I believe will survive. All these titles are worth a viewing. If you’ve missed the great ones I hope my list prompts you to watch them; if you’ve enjoyed the great ones, my list may suggest some new names to watch for. If you love Asian cinema you’ll hate my list, just as I’d hate yours (but isn’t it great to check these things out?)

Seven Samurai
Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 masterpiece, the top of my list for a long time and regarded as one of the best films ever made, incredibly manages to combine character study, social commentary and magnificent action. Watch the director’s cut: 160 minutes of subtitles has never been less painful.

Ikiru
Kurosawa made this two years before Seven Samurai and both starred Takashi Shimura. Kurosawa had reached a crisis point in his life and wanted to make a film to express what he thought was important in living. ‘Ikiru’ means living; here it means more exactly how to live. It’s serious, moving and able to transform.

Apur Sansar (The World of Apu)
Best seen as the third of Satyajit Ray’s films about Apur, this has one of the most convincing relationships ever depicted on the screen, with one of cinema’s great performances by Sharmila Tagore. Compassion, insight and storytelling blend to make this one of the finest of films.

Aparajito
The second of Ray’s Apur films tells the story of growing up, striking out on your own, and the pain of leaving beloved parents behind. The vulnerability, the strident under confident hopes and ambitions are what we all know. Few have expressed them better than Satyajit Ray.

Pather Panchali
Life in an Indian village in its poverty, the nourishment of its ancient traditions, its faith and its strong sense of community is the subject of Ray’s first Apur film. The film in its simplicity comes close to documentary. It is this very simplicity than make it in the end, sublime.

Two Daughters (Teen Kanya)
This 1961 film by Satyajit Ray was originally three short films but was cut to two for western release. Ray once again shows that Indian issues (arranged marriages, poverty and isolation in a backward village) can have overwhelming relevance wherever you live. Again he delivers the whole package: story, direction, music. Beautifully acted, extremely moving.

Charulata
Ray’s 1964 film is about the bond that grows up between a wife whose husband neglects her for the idealistic notion of bringing out a democratic newspaper and a young relative who shares her love of literature. Everybody acts honorably, the acting is superb: it is an intensely moving drama, one of Ray’s best films and his favorite.

Tokyo Story
Yasujiro Ozu made a penetrating account of the generation gap, the human condition, the weaknesses and strengths of human beings: then he cut it down to an account of less than two hours, elicited perfect acting from his cast, and created one of the best films ever made.

Kohayagawa-ke no aki (The End of Summer)
Ozu’s second last film, made in 1961, is one of his most entertaining. He became a great dramatist in the course of his career, capable of writing a part and then of directing a talented actor to interpret it so as to rival that great dramatist William Shakespeare. No exaggeration, no kidding.

Last Life in the Universe
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s 2005 film gives you the idea of what an impact Godard’s Breathless made in 1959, before it became a film classic. Stylish, with superb photography by Chris Doyle, it’s Romeo and Juliet for the cyberpunk age. Pen-Ek manages to imitate everyone and yet be astonishingly fresh and original. Stars the ice cool Tadanobu Asano and has an incredible first performance from Sinitta Boonyasak.

Salaam Bombay
Krishna lives on the streets of Bombay and survives the best way he can. Mira Nair’s 1988 drama is rooted in documentary and uses street children, not professional actors. It’s uncomfortable watching because you know it’s really happening, in many cities, but it’s colorful, fast, moving and exhilarating as well.

Love Letter
Shunji Iwai, graphic artist, actor and pop star made a breakthrough in 1995 with this story of two relationships with the same man that take place in the memories and through the contact of the two women who loved him. Elegant and visually beautiful, it preserves a perfect balance between the pitfalls of sentimentality and pretentiousness.

Chungking Express
Wong Kar Wai’s delirious and beautiful 1996 film telling twin stories of unrequited love features the camera of Chris Doyle and the acting and singing talents of Faye Wong and with several Asian superstars as well. It’s funny, fast and fabulous. It’s for people who’re in love with cinema: ask Tarantino.

Zhou Yu’s Train (Zhou Yu de huo che)
Zhou Sun’s 2003 film stars Gong Li and is the story of Zhou Yu’s journey (on an Ozu train) to find what she wants without ending up under anyone’s thumb, without losing the love of the men she loves. Caught between a romantic poet and a pragmatic, ironic vet who sees into her soul, it’s not an easy journey.

The Namesake
Mira Nair’s 2007 film deals with the plight of emigration. The situation of those who live within two cultures is not  just all about finding a better life: something’s gained, something’s lost, and as the film shows, that which is lost is sometimes heartbreakingly eleusive. A beautifully acted and directed film.

My Blueberry Nights
Made in 2007 by Wong Kar Wei, this film is in English and stars Norah Jones and Jude Law, so how ‘asian’ is it? Well, if you liked Chungking Express you’ll like this one. And it has a great soundtrack (just like Chungking Express).

2046
Doesn’t everyone want a place where dreams can come true, where you can be the person you want to be, where you can have the love you want to have? We have these places: generally we call them the future or the past. In 2004 Wong Kar Wai made a film about this place: he called it 2046. Rarely has melancholy been so beautiful.

April Story
A film about that very first time you fell in love, Shunji Iwai’s 1998 film succeeds by its astonishing delicacy of touch and its visual beauty as much as through the acting of Takako Matsu. Nothing much happens, Nireno and the man she pursues are both inarticulate, nothing is resolved at the end: sound familiar?

Swallowtail
Sometimes given the sci-fi tag, this sprawling two and a half hour episodic drama from Shunji Iwai stars the charismatic Chara (one of the world’s greatest pop singers). The plot has a cassette tape found in a grisly hiding place that gives the code for replicating high currency notes from street corner change machines, as well as Sinatra’s My Way (believe me, they sing it their way). About half way through it begins to dawn on you you’re watching a masterpiece.

Late Spring
Banshun was made by Ozu in 1949 and stars his regulars Setsuko Hara and Chishu Ryu in their finest roles. Ozu’s rigorous understatement makes this story of love and loss between father and daughter believable and heartbreakingly moving. As always, Ozu leaves it to us to fill in the bits he doesn’t show: as always, we get deeply involved.

The Power of Kangwon Province
Hong Sang-Soo’s 1998 drama about a failed relationship tells the story first from one viewpoint, then from the viewpoint of the other person. This allows us to see how each party in the relationship is able to justify their divergent emotional path yet also be aware how similar their needs and behavioural patterns are. The recreational area at Kangwon is where they might meet again, but somehow don’t. Insightful writing and original photography make this one of the great films out of Asia in recent years.

Monsoon Wedding
This 2001 film by Mira Nair proves that not all Indian cinema is all-singing, all-dancing. The film depicts the mosaic of relations that develop before and during the wedding, with participants coming from Texas and Australia and everywhere in between. The acting is stellar, with a cast of famous Punjabi names. Exhilarating, with wry comments on the global cultural mix, of which it is an example.

Eat Drink Man Woman
Ang Lee made his reputation with this touching and mouth watering story of moving on, getting old and the rejuvenating power of love: if you like, about the food of love. Family traditions are celebrated, matchmaking is delighfully satirised, the master chef’s daughters come of age. Happens all the time, rarely so heartwarmingly.

The Wedding Banquet
Made the year before Eat Drink Man Woman, in 1993, this is Ang Lee’s hilarious comedy about a gay couple, one of whom has to marry (a woman) to placate the parents who arrive from Taiwan prepared for a traditional wedding. Its a marvellous celebration of relationships (of any kind) and a tribute to the bonds of family.

Abhijan
Satyajit Ray made this film in 1962 and it proved one of his most popular. It is the story of a man who clings to his caste because he has nothing else to cling to and how he slowly abandons his prejudices in the face of the predicaments he finds himself in. In anyone else’s hands this could be dull: in Ray’s it’s absorbing, exciting, and with magnificent performances from Soumitra Chatterjee and Waheeda Rehman.

An Autumn Afternoon
Ozu’s last film, made in 1962. It’s both a poignant story of the loss we all suffer as we age, and also an extrememly funny and satirical look at self deception and selfishness (disguised as nostalgia and procrastination). Ozu was not just a great filmmaker: he was a great teacher as well.

Ran
Kurosawa was in his seventies when he made Ran in 1985. It is about the chaos (ran) that follows the abdication of a feudal leader caused by the feuding between his sons among whom he has bestowed his power. The story is similar to Shakespeare’s King Lear though based on incidents in Japanese medieval history. Both a caustic and despairing take on human nature and the greatest action spectacle ever made.

Ruang Talok (6ixtynin9)
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang sprang to everyone’s notice with this 1999 thriller, a comedy about the numbers 6 and 9. The story is familiar: woman finds a mob stash, tries to keep it and is pursued by heavies. What is astonishing is how fresh and original Pen-Ek is with this material. It’s exciting, funny and profound.

Rashomon
Rashomon is Kurosawa’s breakthrough film, about a crime whose story is told four different ways. No version is exactly ‘true’; no version can ever be. This is a film that camera work and editing make a great one (though you don’t think of that while watching it). Mifune’s acting is tremendously powerful.

Ashani Sanket (Distant Thunder)
The distant thunder is WWII. The more immediate calamity is the famine which caused many Bengalis to starve to death as Indian crops were confiscated by the British Army. The on screen battle is between the need to survive and the priestly role played by the protagonist, a bumbling, idealistic, ignorant brahmin. In Satyajit Ray’s hands this is an absorbing, moving account.

City of Glass
Mabel Cheung’s 1998 film is about a 20 year long love affair between two people, married, but not to each other, discovered by the children of their marriages after a fatal car accident. Slowly, bit by bit, the history of the relationship is uncovered. Strong on nostalgia and very, very tender, this is a heartfelt tribute to romantic love.

All About Lily Chou Chou
Shunji Iwai’s bleak account of internet chat as some kind of compensation for neglected, threatened schoolboy lives started as a graphic novel and was developed by contributors to an internet chat room. Lily is the singer they all adore. Uncomfortable, perceptive, startling, original: it pays re-viewing.

Hana and Alice
The story of the bond between two schoolgirls as they develop relationships with boys, this Iwai film began as an ad, was tremendously popular and then developed into a film script (remember this is Japan). It’s perceptive, wry, and apparently schoolgirls love it.

Picnic
An early film from Shunji Iwai, in Picnic, made in 1996, three mental patients go on one in order to watch the world end. Tadanobu Asano, Chara and Koichi Hashizume happen to be the patients, which is pretty insane. In anyone else’s hands this would be a stiff ‘art’ film; in Iwai’s it is simply beautiful.

Undo
In this 1994 short film by Iwai, Moemi slowly unravels as her husband Yukio withdraws into his writing. She attempts to hold everything together, with string, and eventually enmeshes Yukio in her web. A cinematic fable that succeeds by quite brilliant acting that keeps you constantly involved.

Rouge
Stanley Kwan’s 1988 ghost story is almost perfect. By the time we learn the first part of the story, about the forbidden love between a prostitute and a wealthy heir and their resolve to commit suicide in order to stay together we have no need of supernatural special effects: Anita Mui comes on screen and we know she has died for love and is seeking her old lover. This just works: a special film.

Early Summer
Ozu made this film in 1951 and it is largely about the post war impact of western culture, especially on the status of woman. But Ozu’s subject was human nature, and the larger subject is how we can come to terms with achieving our aims without harming others. Setsuko Hara and Chishu Ryu are brilliant (again).

Flavor of Green Tea over Rice
Why want what you haven’t got and may never get? How much wiser to appreciate what you do have. Ozu’s 1952 film is as simple and uncomplicated as that, just like the meal referred to in the title.

Days of Being Wild
Wong Kar Wai’s early masterpiece is reputedly unfinished. Unlike Ozu’s film just mentioned it is full of people who all want what they don’t have. Unrequited love, misplaced love, inability to love are all developed in a melancholic ambience that foreshadow Wong’s later films.

Xiu Xiu the Sent Down Girl
Joan Chen made this film in China in 1988. It details a personal tragedy occasioned by an excess of the Cultural Revolution. A willful teenage girl is used and abused, both politically and physically, and fails to perceive the love of her companion (who also has been used and abused). Beautiful photography and powerful performances from Lu Lu and Lopsang make for compelling viewing.

In the Realm of the Senses
Nagisa Oshima was a powerful force in Japanese cinema. This 1977 film about sexual obsession (based on a true story) has received a lot of wrong attention because it depicts the sexual act uncensored (ie as we all experience it). Here, passion has become psychotic, and the result is tragedy. Oshima builds tension from contrasts between vibrant ukiyo-e colors and the closed world of the lovers. The US DVD has (concealed) censorship.

Abnormal Family
Masayuki Suo made this film in 1983, long before Shall We Dance? It’s a pinku (softcore) parody of Ozu’s Tokyo Story, lots of nudity, nearly as much sexual deviation as in your typical soap opera, and it’s beautiful, funny and absorbing.

Scoutman
Matato Ishioka’s 2000 film is about two teenagers who get involved in Tokyo’s porn industry (scoutmen chat up likely looking girls they see in the streets). It’s accurate about the industry, poignant about loss of innocence.

Lies
Lies is a 1999 film by Jang Sun-Woo that explores just how we conceal uncomfortable facts. The subject is sex, the style is documentary. Jang shows the action (sex, S & M), draws back the camera to show the sets, shows the actors affected by their scenes, is interviewed, until we see the subject is not sex, it’s us the viewers, it’s the lies we tell, it’s the way we prefer to watch others that Jang examines.

Centre Stage
The story of Ruan Ling Yu, a famous silent film star, is told with enormous feeling in Stanley Kwan’s 1992 film.

Fruit is Swelling
Man Kei Chin’s wise fable on the absurdity of sex is funny, wise and sexy.

Yojumbo
Kurosawa’s (A Fistful of Dollars, Last Man Standing, The Magnificent Seven, Star Wars) innovative and funny 1961 samurai film.

Women’s Private Parts
Relax, it’s a documentary made by Barbara Wong in 2000. Chinese women are interviewed about sex. Enlightening.

Peking Opera Blues
Hark Tsui’s 1986 film has everything, in a chaotic HK style that moves you along like a whirlwind: thrilling espionage plot, unbelievably good fight scenes, comedy, and Chinese Opera. Entertaining.

12 Nights
Audrey Lam’s 2000 movie documents the gradual breakup of an affair by selecting 12 nights of failing interaction. Good dialogue and acting make this very believable.

©2009 Original material copyright Phillip Kay. Images and other material courtesy Creative Commons. Please inform post author of any violation.