"I gave you the wrong address. But you went to the right one."
The Departed
Director: Martin Scorsese
Main Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Vera Farmiga
Year: 2006
I should not be the only one finds Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon are pretty look alike, but it is until Martin Scorsese finally brings them together in The Departed as Ingmar Bergman comes up a new face in Persona with half of Liv Ullman’s face and half of Bibi Andersson’s. Martin Scorsese has no way to make a shock, but he presents a Persona-story to be understood more easily.
Every Hong Kong people knows The Departedis adapted from Hong Kong’s Infernal Affairs. Martin Scorsese keeps almost the same original story but deletes the approach as a Buddhist fable, and quotes Sigmund Freud to say Irish is a race that cannot be analyzed by psychoanalysis. Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon both share similar appearance, always act like Talented Mr. Ripley and finally fall in love with the same psychiatrist. Such story development becomes a bit more sensible with the backup of Freud’s Oedipus Complex. Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese plays down the role of psychoanalysis, minimizes melodramatic moments but focuses the charisma of typical American gangster or police as what happened in Goodfellas. Martin Scorsese almost makes no change on the original story, but already makes The Departed as one of the trademark films of the director.
In this film about a policeman pretends a gangster and vice versa, there is one very paradoxical line - "I gave you the wrong address. But you went to the right one." In such a simple line but we already don’t know what is right or wrong. While Mark Wahlberg meets Matt Damon again in the final scene, right or wrong is really something nobody knows.
The Conformist is about repressed memory. For the character, it’s about memory of pedophilia and homosexuality; for Italy, it’s about memory of Fascism. Bernardo Bertolucci bridges queer and dictatorship in one of the most complicated films I’ve ever watched.
I would like to compare the ending of Bertoucci’s The Dreamers with The Conformist. In The Dreamers, Michael Pitt finally reveals himself that his identity as a stranger from USA in May 68 march happened in Paris. His cinematic dream is awaken; the ending of The Conformist is the fall of Fascist regime led by Mussolini. Jean-Louis Trintignant, a former fascist spy, denounces his friend who is blind but also a fascist member publicly. Then a group of marching people celebrating the fall of Mussolini divides Jean-Louis Trintignant and his blind friend, who disappeared with the marching people.
Such incident actually happened beside a RomanTheatre. At the very end, Jean-Louis Trintignant turned back to gaze at a male prostitute under the arch of the theatre. For Italy, it seems like a moment tracing back the ancient history; for the character, it is a moment merging with pedophilia memory at past and identity crisis at the present. The Conformist by Bernardo Bertolucci is such a masterpiece that I would like to keep thinking and questioning about how repressed memory is, and whether my sensual experience for The Conformistwould internalize to be my personal repressed memory.
Main Cast: Hayato Ichihara (市原隼人), Shugo Oshinari (忍成修吾), Ayumi Ito (伊藤步), Yu Aoi (蒼井優)
Year: 2001
What fearful about the loss of adolescence not only about unable to regain the time, but we do not understand this period anymore. In All about Lily Chou-Chou, the world of teenagers is totally beyond our understanding, as their idols Lily Chou-Chou, which we’ve never seen but only understand her through an Internet forum.
Shunji Iwai, also the director of Love Letter, achieves a poetic balance with unstably handheld digital camera, usual countryside landscape and pop music with a female voice similar to Tori Amos or Faye Wong (the director has admitted for referencing Faye Wong for the character Lily Chou-Chou). This poetic balance is setup as a cinematic background for an extraordinarily cruel and violent story. Facing with such cruel youth, Greek director Theodorous Angelopoulos let a little girl being raped in such a landscape in the mist; Shunji Iwai lets us indulge in dreamy music score for us exploring kindly of devilishly enjoyment while a girl is suffering something most unfortunate in her life. We are listening chorus while the girl is screaming and resisting relentlessly. Sound of silence is rarely that cruel.
"What only impressive is Cheang learnt the music taste of Wong Kar Wai."
Accident (意外)
Director: Poi-soi Cheang (鄭保瑞)
Main Cast: Louis Koo (古天樂), Michelle Ye (葉璇), Lam Suet (林雪), Fung Shui-fan (馮淬凡)
Year: 2009
Accident is the first film for Poi-soi Cheang after joining Johnnie To’s (杜琪峰) Milkyway Image (銀河影像). Accident is one of trademark themes by Johnnie To. However, Accident is not as surprising as Expect the Unexpected (非常突然), Poi-soi Cheang is also less outstanding and less personal than usual. What only impressive is Cheang learnt the music taste of Wong Kar Wai. The bossa-nova soundtrack masterfully simmers the atmosphere.
The underperformance of director is compensated by several actor’s performance. Performance of Louis Koo is the most mature I’ve ever seen. His role is so convincing to play a role who is always thinking in every second; veteran comedy actor Fung Shui-fan plays a role who suffers from dementia, which is also one of few serious thoughtful characters Fung ever played; Michelle Ye’s performance feels so familiar. She plays and talks like in her previous TV dramas. But her TV drama mode pretty fits this film and reminds me she actually is one of the most attractive actresses in Hong Kong.
