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Tran Anh Hung on ICWR, Cyclo and Norwegian Wood
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mary



Joined: 23 Oct 2008
Posts: 251
Location: Ireland

PostPosted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:59 pm    Post subject:

[quote="Safran"]
The discussion "what is art" and "who is an artist" is endless - I only know:
Artists are especially sensitive people and have perhaps a sharper and better sensibility for thinks in life we "ordinary" people have no sense for -like animals have some special senses. They can better see or recognize whether something is "art"- or not - (critics are for the "market" ) Sometimes it touches unconscious parts in us and we feel comfortable or uncomfortabe.........or find it simply beautiful or terrible and
disgust
Art should always be free - otherwise it ends one time again like the Nazi´s burned "forbitten art"

Hi Safran
I agree to discuss what is art and whose an artist is endless. An opinion on art is totally personal. We could all be looking at the same piece of artwork some may like it some may not and everyone would have a different reason on why they like or dislike it. Art should be free, freedom to create it and freedom to discuss it. At some point in history most if not all cultures have destroyed art, a terrible crime.

Artists are sensitive people. They have this tremendous urge to create share their feelings with us in the form of art creating things we would never imagine ourselves. I'm sure most firstly create for themselves releasing this energy, praise and recognition for their work is secondary but appreciated or not as the case maybe. There are some who need the thoughts and approval of everyone through their work. Whichever category an artist comes under it takes courage and determination to put your work out there to be praised or ridiculed over your creation.

Art like beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I'm sure at some point we have looked at something and thought how stupid a child or myself could have done that. But the artist did do that they took that simple idea we called stupid and turned it into their piece of artwork. We can have the opinion of not liking it but should not judge it just because of this. The artist took courage in creating something and put it out there for the world to see. Whereas we didn't so this fact should be appreciated.

Naturally, as you wrote Safran there are some black sheep whose work makes us uncomfortable but may stretch our minds. There work should also be classed as art.We would get bored if everyone churned out the same lovely cosy artwork. Realism is sometimes needed as life often makes us feel uncomfortable. Somebody has to create controversial artwork so as ideas can keep carrying forward.

I am not an artist or an expert on art but I can admire someones work either I like it or not. Sometimes I may not understand it or may feel uncomfortable by it even though I am quite open minded. There is one thing I always appreciate is the fact that someone had the imagination and talent then made the effort to put their idea into an art form be it a painting sculpture or light installation etc ...(maybe that was more than one thing sorry I droned on)...best wishes...mary
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mary



Joined: 23 Oct 2008
Posts: 251
Location: Ireland

PostPosted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:21 pm    Post subject:

Hi Safran
Forgot to say thanks for the film recommendations you posted.
I have seen some of Park Chan-Wook's movies via television and the internet.
I enjoyed I'm A Cyborg But That's Ok as Kat commented it is a poetic movie.
I have to admit to also enjoying Old Boy and Sympathy For Lady Vengence. Not films for people with sensitive dispositions but I found them interesting. He doesn't shy away from controversial stories. I will watch Sympathy for Mr Vengence at some point.
I hope Thirst comes here as I would like to see one of his movies in the cinema. It seems to have another controversial storyline involving priesthood and vampires.

I havn't seen the others you mentioned but will try to find them...best wishes...mary
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mary



Joined: 23 Oct 2008
Posts: 251
Location: Ireland

PostPosted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:27 pm    Post subject:

Hi Everyone
Sorry but some more text about art.

I love reading artists biographies as well as seeing there art. So many had complex minds or lives. As already agreed with Eri this doesn't make their art any better or worse than people with what maybe classed as a normal life. But hearing about their life helps (me anyway) understand and appreciate their work better.

Van Gogh -what a tortured soul that man was. In his lifetime never appreciated it's tagic he never lived to see his fame (but then we don't know how he would have coped). When you see his work you get the feel of what he must have been feeling it jumps off the canvas.

Frida Kahlo the Mexican artist suffered pain all through her life. She had polio as a child then in adult life was in a bus crash that left her with serious injuries inflicting pain for the rest of her life. The fact that she couldn't have children also influenced her art as did polio and the crash. Her paintings are quite vivid in expressing her pain and anguish not always appreciated as people found them too gruelling. She was creating her inner most thoughts finding some fame while alive but more so years later after her death

Keats the poet had a lost love suffered bouts of terrible illness died so far away from home. (kat the house he died in is at the foot of the Spanish Steps was lucky to visit it the first time in Rome). Even though he died so young he manged to create art with his poetry.

Oscar Wilde a brilliant playwright and poet had a complicated life because of his homosexuality. During his lifetime his work was appreciated but before he died his name was dirt not becuse of his work but because of his preferred lifestyle. His grandson lectures round the world, when he came to Ireland I went to hear what he had to say. He gave a marvelous account of his grandfathers life telling how the family were humiliated and changed thier surname from Wilde to Holland so as nobody would associate them with the poet. Merlin Holland never met his grandfather as he died before he was born but his father was badly affected by the scandal. Oscar has left a legacy of work which is now fashionable and appreciated today.

Thats my art lecture over I could go on there are so many I admire or find their stories fascinating but I will stop here before I start to bore anyone (maybe it's too late I know I go on and on seeming like I know it all but that's what makes me, me. BTW I do realise I don't know it all so much still to learn)

Look forward to hearing about artists you like...best wishes...mary.
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Eri



Joined: 28 May 2004
Posts: 589
Location: Japan

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 1:29 am    Post subject:

Dear Mary,

Thanks for your comments.
I think there are some (maybe financial ?) Irish and British involvement according to the credits.

I am also interested in artists' lives and experiences, so I try to gather information as much as possible, if there is someone I am interested in.

We all agree about "Art should be free".
And in my case, as long as they don't harm other lives.

After reading Yuka's "There were more deleted scenes with the animal (I can say that now, it was a dog)" and Mr. Tran's example about the rabbit in the interview, I am now worried about what happened to the dog.
I hope he didn't hurt the dog, just to make his art more realistic. Crying or Very sad
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Safran



Joined: 22 Mar 2006
Posts: 1322
Location: Austria

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:35 am    Post subject:

Hello Eri, Mary....

I have not seen the ICWTR , so this discussions are very theoretic and I cannot refer to the movie. Must be very "hard" and controversial - I am curious about!

You are right Eri: Art should sometimes challenge and provoke, go to borders and maybe sometimes over......must not be comfortable for us BUT - If innocent and helpless other beings have to be tortured for - no doubt it goes too far and cannot be excused with "art".

Yesterday, after a long time, I watched "The Scent of the Green Papaya"
again - wonderful this beauty of slow down - you feel the sultry......and yet
as in "Cyclo" (the Gecko and the fishes) here the sons of the family are treating animals too -
I guess Tran wants to show us this bad treated animals to make clearer the suffering and pain of the people themself ? - or/and
The hidden, dammed-up aggressions behind the smooth faces - if you always have to keep a "cool heart" in communication ?
How far it can go !

-Hope really you understand what I mean
Friendly Greetings
Helga
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Yuka



Joined: 11 Jan 2008
Posts: 382
Location: Tokyo

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 6:28 am    Post subject:

Hello, everyone,
I enjoy reading comments posted here. But for today,
I have to scroll it down ,down and down to read all comments !!

I hope I’m not misleading some of you who haven’t watched ICWR, yet,
by throwing information bit by bit .
But as idiom says “Picture is worth a thousands words.”
I hope you’ll get to see the movie in your country.

For a change (?)I’m going to watch “The Reader” next week.
Has anyone watched this movie ?

Kat, I saw “The Passion” in the same theater where ICWR Premiere was held.
There were 4 Sisters sitting in front of me!!!!! I thought “ OH, my God ! Oh my God !….. Shocked
They must be leaving the theater in the middle of the movie….."
But I was wrong, they seemed to accept the movie as it is.

With ICWR, I saw some people leaving the theatre in the middle of the movie.
They didn’t come back.. I guess some people may find some scenes too shocking…
So Safran, if this movie is to be released in Europe, some of the scenes may be deleted....

Hello Mary,
Thank you for your comment. Very Happy
I didn’t know about Harvey Milk until I saw the movie.
Harvey in real life must have charismatic charm that I can see from the scene where he’s
making a speech.
I like Gauguin’s picture very much . His life style is eccentric though.

Hi Eri,
I don’t think animal protection groups will allow if live animal is treated in that way…. Sad
Usually, in the end-role , there’s a statement about the use of animals in the movie .
I don’t think I saw the statement . May be I just didn’t notice it.....??
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Paul



Joined: 29 Mar 2005
Posts: 144
Location: Tokyo

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 8:40 am    Post subject:

katwoman64 wrote:
I wonder, would have it been better if he told us a story about Jack the Ripper? What would have made it better? Wouldn't we have felt bored to death for "the umpteenth story about Jack the Ripper"?

Not in the slightest bit boring as it would have likely been very different to anything we had seen before. It would be Tran's own interpetation of Jack The Ripper. Some people might look at Jack the Ripper and just decide to make a typical slasher movie. Others will see something more complex to it like Alan Moore did.

Yuka wrote:

Kat, I saw “The Passion” in the same theater where ICWR Premiere was held.
There were 4 Sisters sitting in front of me!!!!! I thought “ OH, my God ! Oh my God !….. Shocked
They must be leaving the theater in the middle of the movie….."
But I was wrong, they seemed to accept the movie as it is.

I think they accepted it since it's biblical scripture and has meaning to them as it's Christ suffering for people's sins.

Quote:
So Safran, if this movie is to be released in Europe, some of the scenes may be deleted....

I don't think scenes are that shocking, the camera pulls away from showing a lot of the more extreme moments of the Movie. But I could see the scene with the Dog being cut. I'm afraid animal protection isn't the same everywhere and real animals are still used in some movies that way. But I hope it wasn't a real Dog.

Quote:
Harvey in real life must have charismatic charm that I can see from the scene where he’s
making a speech.
I like Gauguin’s picture very much . His life style is eccentric though.


I loved the scene in "Milk" where Harvery got a phone call from the boy in the Wheel chair just before he went outside to protest. Very powerful scene and just nails people's preconceived conceptions to the wall.

Mary, Van Gogh is my favorite artist.
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katwoman64



Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 662
Location: roma, italy

PostPosted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 3:05 pm    Post subject:

Hi Paul,

Not a big talker, but when motivated you go for the kill!!

Ah, beat me!

My question was rethoric. I meant: what is it that makes this film so terrifying (i.e. more than a film on Jack the Ripper)? The ironic, but sensible answer would have been: because it's new.

So, I am waiting to see ICWR, it's not released in Italy still but it has to be soon. Anyway, from what I've gathered so far it seems that the director made good to his will to show us, <...the reality is that lots of blood is flowing. I want my film to make you experience that in new ways...>

About Passion, I think that the director had a great material that he did a bad use of. Of the whole what I most remember are drops of blood flying everywhere.

Milk gives me the chance to tell a story about me and my position about gay rights.
I married in 2000, after living with hub 17 years.
He was sick. I thought that I could follow him in the ER just because people around us were kind and were not strict on the application of the law. It was their kindness, not my right.

Likewise, if he was unconscious, docs would have to ask to his mother or brother (with whom he didn't live for years) the permission for surgery.

But we were a heterosexual couple, so we married and had all the rights in the right place.

So far today I can't not ask myself why there are citizens like me, that pay the same taxes as me, that have a vote exactly like mine but still can't reach the same guarantees I have.

In the same direction is my convintion about gay couples adopting children. I ask myself: where are the scientific evidences that they would be worst parents than some etherosexual ones I know?

In the roman Gay pride there was a stahl dedicated to the parents of gay children. Some of the readers of hub newspaper wrote him criticizing the fact. He asked me for advice on the best, more balanced answer. I told him that support our children is what parents do. And that we all need to think that there is someone out there that loves us no matter what (the same goes for career choices and all the decisions we take to reach our happiness and self realization).

I turn my doubts to everyone. What do you think?

Bye Bye, a Kiss
Mimma
_________________
“I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world”

Sadako Sasaki
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Paul



Joined: 29 Mar 2005
Posts: 144
Location: Tokyo

PostPosted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 11:56 am    Post subject:

katwoman64 wrote:

My question was rethoric. I meant: what is it that makes this film so terrifying (i.e. more than a film on Jack the Ripper)? The ironic, but sensible answer would have been: because it's new.


Well I don't think it's terrifying. It's uncomfortable, it gets under your skin. It's 40% imagery and 60% psychological, rather than showing something terrifying it plays on our own mind and creates an atmosphere in which we are imagining something worse than what we are actually shown. I don't think it being new has much relevance to that.
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katwoman64



Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 662
Location: roma, italy

PostPosted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 12:38 pm    Post subject:

Have to see it

Bye
K
_________________
“I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world”

Sadako Sasaki
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Eri



Joined: 28 May 2004
Posts: 589
Location: Japan

PostPosted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 2:19 pm    Post subject:

Paul wrote:
katwoman64 wrote:

My question was rethoric. I meant: what is it that makes this film so terrifying (i.e. more than a film on Jack the Ripper)? The ironic, but sensible answer would have been: because it's new.


Well I don't think it's terrifying. It's uncomfortable, it gets under your skin. It's 40% imagery and 60% psychological, rather than showing something terrifying it plays on our own mind and creates an atmosphere in which we are imagining something worse than what we are actually shown. I don't think it being new has much relevance to that.


Hello Kat and everyone,

I agree with Paul.
I think what makes this movie very scaring is that even though some of the extreme scenes were deleted or not shown, we just use our imagination and create the images which might be much worse than actual scenes.

Also all the main characters are very persistent and maniac. It is frightening to know when a person is attached to something or someone too much, he goes beyond the border so easily.
Even Shitao's persistent act of enduring pain is also scaring.

And for me, the fact that person like Director Tran who seems so nice and gentle, wanted to express such cruel violence and fierce pain is also fearful. I would like to ask him why did he have to shoot these (including deleted scenes) so persistently ?
His answer might be "You don't know what I've been thru". (That's very frightening.)
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Yuka



Joined: 11 Jan 2008
Posts: 382
Location: Tokyo

PostPosted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 6:16 am    Post subject:

Hello everyone,
Paul wrote:

Well I don't think it's terrifying.

I don’t find it terrifying, too.

Eri wrote:

And for me, the fact that person like Director Tran who seems so nice and gentle, wanted to express such cruel violence and fierce pain is also fearful. I would like to ask him why did he have to shoot these (including deleted scenes) so persistently ?
His answer might be "You don't know what I've been thru". (That's very frightening.)


He looks so gentle and kind when I saw his interview in French. (I think actually he’s a gentle person in real life)
He was born in Vietnam and exiled to France during the war when he was in his teens,
so I guess his experience in his childhood is reflected in
“ You don't know what I've been thru"
This film is shot outside Vietnam but his background and experiences may potentially affected in his film making.

He said in the interview he’s not trying to express Christianity, but he’d like to describe
cruel modern world which is physically and mentally painful. He tried to capture the violence seriously
and wanted audiences to feel the pain realistically.
It’s said that a man in the bag may be derived from the tortured prisoners at Iraq POW camp.

I’d like to ask him many questions on ICWR and Norwegian Wood, too !! Smile
I heard he’s been shooing in Japan, now.
I wonder if he's using English /French/Japanese scripts at the same time ?
It must be difficult finding and creating locations and sets which has 60s image.

Have a nice weekend ~ Smile

Yuka
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katwoman64



Joined: 14 Apr 2008
Posts: 662
Location: roma, italy

PostPosted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 6:23 am    Post subject:

Hi Eri and Paul and all who follow this post,

The rule to put a "dark screen" it's the oldest trick in the book of thrillers and all sorts of scary movies. The dark beyond the hedge, so to speak. We don't know what lies beyond, so we can imagine all sorts of horrors and monsters in waiting for a victim, project all our deepest fears on that dark surface.

The same can be done in the opposite direction: if a woman meets a man for the first time she doesn't know him and she can imagine all sorts of good qualities in him. She projects on the beautiful smiling (void) face all her dreams. Then the follow up can show that she was badly mistaken.

Anyway I think that what makes some directors great is to show, and foresee, the evils to come. Director Tran made a precise statement about all the blood flowing in the current years. IF (it's abig IF) ) his characters were meant to show a story about a power blind to compassion and bloodthirsty maybe he did right. MAYBE. Or maybe not.

[I think we are living in a sort of New Middle Age. The West is decadent. Few ideas, all old and musty. Abject to the big push toward the possession of things as a measure of success. Meanwhile there is the lowest interest to schooling. Uneducated people tend to choose "strong" personalities to represent them politically. Strong being very often greedy and violent.]

I think I have to precise that I am trying to understand what Mr Tran meant in the intervew above. I think that when someone answers questions his speech is not well organised so I think he just talked about how he got to the serial killer personality and why he did such a truculent (sorry, I think this word has different meanings in english and italian. In english I think it means aggressive, in italian means full of blood and terrifying) film.

Eri, I remind you that Tony himself is a very kind, softspoken person. Even so he portrayed some very violent characters. There's no neeed to think to the director's life history. I think he was past inspired in the Vietnam Trilogy and now he is looking to the future. Also the fact that the cast is international shows a big change, and so it is the location in HK. Maybe he bowed his story to money needs, but it is a whole new job for him.

I am still waiting to see it.

Bye and a Kiss
M
_________________
“I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world”

Sadako Sasaki
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Yuka



Joined: 11 Jan 2008
Posts: 382
Location: Tokyo

PostPosted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 3:37 pm    Post subject: Japan Times article

Japan Times Friday, June 5, 2009 By KAORI SHOJI

<spoiler alert> (May be too late, again ....sorry...)
************************************************************

Blood is the new black

Vietnamese filmmaker Tran Anh Hung has a distinctive, high-contrast track record.

Tran's debut feature "The Scent of Green Papaya" (1993) was a Vietnamese/Proustian rush of Saigon nostalgia circa late 1950s when life was slow and contemplative, and not so entrenched in war.
Two years later his eagerly awaited second work caught fans off guard — thinking they were in for another impeccably languid depiction of old Vietnam, instead they were assaulted by a brutal fable called "Cyclo" (1995).
Then five years went by and Tran came out with "The Vertical Ray of Light" (2001), gemlike in its perfected attention to detail, about three Hanoi sisters immersed in impossibly romantic lives.
It followed that film No. 4 would probably be an exercise in Asian edge once more. Indeed, Tran adheres to that alternating pattern of beauty-beastly-beauty, with the monstrous "I Come With the Rain" premiering in Japan tomorrow.
To describe "I Come With the Rain" as violent would be a miss-service. It's horrifically, perversely brutish, wallowing in a cloying blood pool of sado-masochism. At the same time, the film is spankingly stylish and heavily philosophical — Anh (now in his late 40s) was a philosophy major in college and a certain questioning pensiveness (albeit one wrapped in designer threads) has always permeated his stories. "I Come With the Rain" is like that. Though it deals with religious symbolism (at one point a man is crucified on a makeshift cross after the contents of an automatic are emptied at close range right into his gut), the story cross-examines rather than makes any giant leaps of faith. And for all the references to Christ and the New Testament (the rather obvious appearance of an Asian Mary Magdalene is a prime example), there's never a single mention of a Higher Power.
There is however, a Father — unseen and heard only over an intercom speaker.
This Father lords over a pharmaceutical conglomerate but a phobia of contamination restricts all forms of communication, even with his only son, Shitao, whom he has not seen in person since the boy was 10. Now in his 30s, Shitao (Takuya Kimura) has gone missing in the Philippines where he had been helping in an orphanage. The father-son relationship is only hinted at but it seems that Father had spent his life avoiding mankind while Shitao had done his best to get as close as possible to people and their pain.
Temporarily shelving their differences, Father hires ex-LAPD cop Kline (Josh Hartnett) to go get Shitao.
Kline has nightmares of his own: Memories of a serial murderer whose specialty was dissecting his victims' limbs while they were still alive, then reassembling them into installation sculptures. But he flies out to Asia and the trail takes him to Hong Kong where a former buddy cop Meng Zi (Shawn Yue) promises to help. But they're both distracted in the search by mafia boss Su Dongpo (Byung Hung Lee), who's making trouble for the underworld, triggered by an overriding passion for his junkie girlfriend Lili (Tran Nu Yen Khe).
Typical of all Tran's films, the plot is almost beside the point — "I Come With the Rain" is a triumph of ambience over content. The viewer tours a netherworld drawn up to the exact aesthetic measurements of Tran Anh Hung where everything — from the peculiar texture of a single noodle strand to a blood- spattered wall surrounded by jungle botanica — is a precisely matched puzzle piece that forms a whole, discernible mood. That the mood instigates nothing but a queasy terror is purely intentional — Tran aims only to disturb and disgust. The capper is an execution scene of man made to step into a plastic body bag, neatly zipped up and then beaten to death with a hammer. No mess, no fuss: a sardonic combination of Asian efficiency and Cartesian, time-saving logic
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Eri



Joined: 28 May 2004
Posts: 589
Location: Japan

PostPosted: Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:53 pm    Post subject:

katwoman64 wrote:


The rule to put a "dark screen" it's the oldest trick in the book of thrillers and all sorts of scary movies. The dark beyond the hedge, so to speak. We don't know what lies beyond, so we can imagine all sorts of horrors and monsters in waiting for a victim, project all our deepest fears on that dark surface.


Eri, I remind you that Tony himself is a very kind, softspoken person. Even so he portrayed some very violent characters. There's no neeed to think to the director's life history.




Dear Kat,

I know this is not fair to say until you've seen this movie yourself.
But it is not "dark screen", we can see everything clearly. It is because of people's imagination about what happened when it wasn't shown (by editing or left open to the audience's imagination).


Also, I am not saying that he is a violent person in real life. I am just saying "imagining what kind of experiences made a person like him to shoot this movie" is frightening.
I thought it was so painful and realistic (that's what he wanted to express), so I got a feeling that it was not only from watching world news on TV like most of us.
Also because of the key word in the movie.

And for Tony, we all know that he is very gentle and kind person in real life, but also he really gets into the character when he acts (do you remember how Tony was distressed physically and mentally after "Lust Caution" ?), so (although sorry for Mr. Tran) I thought it was good and safe for Tony not to take any role in this movie.
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