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Movies Forum Index » International Movies Forum » _Ashes_ & _Searchers_
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| monterone |
 Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2003 1:51 pm |
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I've read that _Ashes of Time_ was influenced by Ford's _The
Searchers_ -- I don't know where Wong said this or if he discussed it
any further. There certainly are some peripheral resemblances.
"Psychological epics" ... portraits of obsession ... genres
transfigured. Settings and sombreros, "doorways" and landscapes,
years and seasons. Encounters with mutilated bodies. In some
accounts the embittered Wayne character is thought to have been a
mercenary killer, like Leslie Cheung's. Perhaps the most notable
connection is that the Cheung character, just like Wayne's, is in love
with his brother's sister. (Does this derive from the source material
at all?) When Jacky Cheung (whom Leslie Cheung has taken under his
wing, a surrogate son -- recalling Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter in _The
Searchers_) discovers that his wife has followed him into battle and
sends her away, I was reminded, as she trudged off, of Jeffrey Hunter
and his Indian "bride," "Look."
Now that the film seems to be in circulation again, maybe a new DVD
will emerge with a revealing audio commentary by WKW... |
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| septimus |
| Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2003 3:42 am |
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monterone wrote:
Quote:
I've read that _Ashes of Time_ was influenced by Ford's _The
Searchers_ -- I don't know where Wong said this or if he discussed it
any further. There certainly are some peripheral resemblances.
"Psychological epics" ... portraits of obsession ... genres
transfigured. Settings and sombreros, "doorways" and landscapes,
years and seasons. Encounters with mutilated bodies. In some
accounts the embittered Wayne character is thought to have been a
mercenary killer, like Leslie Cheung's. Perhaps the most notable
connection is that the Cheung character, just like Wayne's, is in love
with his brother's sister. (Does this derive from the source material
at all?) When Jacky Cheung (whom Leslie Cheung has taken under his
wing, a surrogate son -- recalling Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter in _The
Searchers_) discovers that his wife has followed him into battle and
sends her away, I was reminded, as she trudged off, of Jeffrey Hunter
and his Indian "bride," "Look."
Now that the film seems to be in circulation again, maybe a new DVD
will emerge with a revealing audio commentary by WKW...
Very true. I rewatched _The Searchers_ on video just to refresh my
memory.
It has been so long ago I've forgotten most of it.
One difference might be that John Ford's landscapes are real; his
weather-beaten rocks and vast desert plains are tangible (if static)
characters that ultimately outlast the human cast. The landscapes in
_Ashes of Time_ are more like mental projections, extension of the
characters' imagination and even their bodies. The most graphic example
comes after that extraordinary sequence where Brigitte Lin's character
caresses West's body for several minutes. After that ravishment, she
leans back against a barren tree, panting, her mouth hanging open, her
hands reaching back for the jagged branches. Those sensitive, loving
hands have touched another human being for the last time, and they may
as well be mutilated; they are hidden among the stump-like tree branches
which become extensions of her limbs, reaching out to the sky in
defiance
or protest. (The image calls to mind Edvard Munch, Max Beckmann, and of
course Titus Andronicus all at once) This sense of enlargement, this
maximalism principle permeates every scene; the characters' longing,
anxiety, and fate are painted in the sky, reflected in the lakes and
seas,
writhing with the willows, blasting in the wind. Emotional states
become
one with the external world. This evocative, sympathetic relation
between
characters and their surrounding is not new -- I keep thinking of van
Gogh
and "The Starry Night" when I think of _Ashes_ -- but Wong uses it
so insistently in it should really be considered one of his trademarks.
Having seen _Ashes_, one should not be surprised that _Happy Together_
begins and ends with widescreen, turbulent images of the Iguazu
Waterfalls,
that Chen Chang's character goes to the "end of the world" at the
southermost tip of Argentina to leave his sorrow behind, that _In the
Mood
for Love_ ends with Tony Leung's enigmatic visit to the Angkor Watt, his
sorrow and sense of loss reveberating in the ruins. But there is
something
else too. Wong obviously emphasizes and identifies with his
marginalized
characters -- all eight of nine of them in _Ashes of Time_. (And if he
doesn't I certainly do.) In _Ashes of Time_, at least, this
romanticizing
of his characters is not achieved by isolating them from the world (as
Tom Tykwer would), but by making man and nature resonate so powerfully
that there is no more distinction between them. (A while ago I clumsily
tried to describe this as some sort of "expressionism.") Great works of
art
make the ordinary exemplary. Through his unique brand of metaphysical
enlargement, Wong validates his marginal characters' inner lives by
turning
them into world-sized monuments.
The landscape images in _Ashes of Time_ are indeed adopted and
translated
from a thousand sources--Ford of course, and Sergio Leone, but also the
martial arts novels from which _Ashes_ was adapted, novels which
invented the
mythical "Snowy Mountain" and "White Camel Hill" and made them household
names. There are no mountains or snow in Hong Kong; these are exotic
objects glimpsed in travelogues and foreign films. (I'm sure there are
images of vast snow fields languishing somewhere in the unused footages
of
_Ashes of Time_.) As for the seasonal changes--well, Hong Kong doesn't
have real seasons, either. Ford's New Mexico sees more temperature
variation in a single autumn day than the ex-colony experiences in an
entire year. Unless Wong has good memory of his Shanghai childhood (and
his films betray no such affinity), his movable land- and time-scapes
are,
in more than one sense of the phrase, the stuff of dreams. They don't
transport the audience (at least the audience from Hong Kong, if I may
pretend to speak for them in this one instance) into foreign landscapes,
but reflect the physical, cultural, and political yearnings (and
barriers)
that define the relationship between the two.
I lived in the ex-British colony for 19 years. As far as I am
concerned,
_Ashes of Time_ has expressed everything that needs to be said about
Hong Kong to its fullness and logical conclusion. Philosophically and
spiritually speaking, there is absolutely nothing about my birthplace I
can add to _Ashes_. _Days of Being Wild_ and _In the Mood for Love_ wax
nostalgic about the city's past; _Fallen Angels_, _As Tears Go By_, and
_Happy Together_ make its present brim with life. Hong Kong is no
longer my home. I don't know what to make of the SARS virus or the
hundreds of thousands marching in protest against draconian new laws.
I have no idea how I would feel about _2046_, which will supposedly deal
with the city's future. But I have a hunch that it will be magnificent
(particularly now that the Japanese and Korean pretty boys in the cast
seem to have been replaced by Wong's old hands, the Carina Laus and
Maggie Cheungs). Somehow I think that _2046_ will be another huge
breakthrough, a quantum leap as big as that between _Days of Being Wild_
and _Ashes of Time_. At least that is my fond hope. |
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