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 Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 3:34 pm |
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Guest
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One thing I wish were changed for the benefit of the Western viewer
are better
subtitles. By Tony Rayns preferably. The present version has
slightly better
subtitles than before -- the seasonal title cards help, and some
blatant errors
are corrected, such as the the wind blowing west rather than south.
But I thought
indicating who is speaking would be great, particularly because half
the time the
speaker is off screen. To make things more difficult, in the middle
of a conservation
a character would launch into a soliquoy (in his/her head only), and
those could
be clearly indicated. Those are among the most poetic moments of the
film,
by the way; Wong is to be applauded for not being afraid to make the
film so
difficult. As I've mentioned once, the characters hardly ever look at
each other,
they speak to each other's backside 99% of the time, just like in
_Persona_.
The camera work is beyond majestic. Chris Doyle would yank his camera
angle
down to accentuate a swordsman's demise. Later on the same technique
is
used to follow Maggie Cheung plunging her head into a pillow as she
finally
breaks down and cry! The camera move everywhere is unbelievable.
From a
technical standpoint this film will never be surpassed, not even by
Wong himself.
It is just not possible. Just as_Last Year at Marienbad_ cannot be
surpassed.
There will be other great films, great in their own ways, but not
"better."
With _Ashes of Time_ Wong, Doyle, Willian Cheung, and the cast have
achieved the absolute pinnacle of human achievement. And that is the
one
thing that we long for in cinema or literature or any form of art,
isn't it. |
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