Dreamer Easy

Watched Cast Away (2000). I enjoyed its cleverness very much -- I even picked the director, although I couldn't think of Robert Zemeckis's name for quids -- until the interminable series of endings. Anyway, what struck me was that Chuck is obliged to recreate civilisation piece by piece to fulfil his basic needs: blades, fire, art, religion. What made me think of this is an article which I can't find, which compares Shamhat's seduction of Enkidu in The Epic of Gilgamesh, which is intended to civilise him, with a mother bringing up a child -- got it! It's Rivkah Harris's chapter "Images of Women in the Gilgamesh Epic". What does Chuck drink first? Milk, of course.

Someone could probably get a thesis -- probably has got a thesis -- out of this tale of a lone, heroic white man creating the civilised world anew. (He looks like a caveman, then a "native".) This brings me to another thing: the reality show Alone (2015-), of which I have watched a few episodes on demand from SBS. Ten white men are plonked down in the chilly Canadian wilderness to do or die. At some point I thought to myself, "This is how people used to live." But of course, that's nonsense! People live in groups, sharing and passing on skills and equipment. (Would Chuck have survived without the packages?) This is not to say that hermits never happen, but this man-on-his-own narrative doesn't reflect any human social arrangement. Another thesis there, perhaps on the horribly destructive idea of "independence".

Watched both of these in rapid succession. The Omega Man has such a powerful style, but -- of course! -- with Charlton Heston as the star, the big twist has to be lost, as well as the vulnerability displayed by a dewy Vincent Price. Now on to I am Legend and we'll see what Will Smith manages.

ETA: Oh, by all means, give the loneliest man on Earth a cute goggy pal so the audience doesn't have to feel bad. Cheez Louise.

What goes up must come down. I'm feeling pretty awful right now. Nothing to do but get on the sofa, fire up Stan (which we have at the mo for Twin Peaks), and see if they have any Korean movies. Not many, but there's something called "Age of Shadows". Oh, and Lee Byunghun's in it - one of my favourite Korean actors (and a honey to boot). And - a particular shot through a car's windshield gave this away - it's directed by Kim Jee-woon, whose work I admire, if perhaps not exactly like.

The movie (its Korean title is 밀정 "Spy") is set during the Japanese occupation of Korea. The main character is a Korean working for the Japanese police. From the start, he's played as unexpectedly sympathetic; the plot hinges on whether this double agent will eventually choose one side over the other.

The direction is elegant and sometimes beautiful. It's a visually striking period (compare The Mystic Nine), with so much Western influence alongside traditional Korean and Japanese dress (spot the gat in the courtroom scene). I wonder if the handful of white faces in the movie are there for exotic colour! (I wondered this about Mystic Nine, too.) The action extravaganza that opens the film typifies this, with dozens of Japanese police in Western-style uniforms swarming through the streets and over the tiled roofs of Seoul like black ants. The use of Ravel's Bolero later in the film was hair-raising! There's a far bit of blood and a severed toe, but nothing like the rivers of gore in "A Bittersweet Life" by the same director.

In most but not all of the Korean movies I've seen, women have been marginal (this may partly be because I've seen so many gangster movies!) - the story revolves around relationships and questions of loyalty between men. Given the content of "I Saw The Devil", in which naked women are literally cut into pieces and consumed, on the whole I'd rather Kim Jee-woon left female characters out as much as possible. In that film, as in "Age of Shadows", women suffer in order to motivate the men; the fiance of the hero of "I Saw The Devil" (Lee Byunghyun again) is literally fridged so that he can pursue the cannibalistic baddie for private vengeance, getting two women sexually assaulted in the process (there's an unforgiveable shot of a schoolgirl's body as the cannibal molests her); in Kim's movie "A Bittersweet Life", the female character is caught between a gangster boss and his underappreciated lackey (Lee Byunghyun again - are you seeing a pattern here?). To come back to "Age of Shadows", Yeon (Han Jimin) is given a badass moment before being tortured and dying to feed the guilt and grief of our heroes. At least the director didn't get her waps out.

I've seen enough Korean movies now that I'm starting to recognise actors from other things. The lead, Song Kang-ho, was also in Shiri, Joint Security Area, and The Good, the Bad, the Weird. (Yoo Gong, on the other hand, is in things I haven't seen yet, like Train to Busan and the Kdrama Goblin.)

Well, my mood can't have completely collapsed if I have the energy to write this. The movie took me out of myself, for which I am duly grateful. Now perhaps an episode of 파수꾼 ("Lookout" / "Guardian").

Re-watched "The Egyptian" (1954), which I first viewed in the early 90s as "research" for Set Piece. There are some good lines, including some fun comic relief provided by Peter Ustinov, but mostly it's pretty dreary. How'd they make ancient Egypt look so dull? Despite some intrigues, it's not even sexy. Plus the story gradually winds down from the moderate excitement of hunting lions, abusing tarts, inventing iron, etc, to characters standing around making looong speeches about God. I suppose it was expected in a sword-and-sandal epic. This movie's characterisation of Akhenaten as an epileptic peace-loving visionary is partly the reason I made him a cunning bastard in the novel.

"Our initial image of Marion is as a woman who is physically tough and mentally determined. Furthermore, she is a 'presexual tomboy', the ideal companion for Indy, whose masculine quests would only be undermined by any love interests in the peripheral plot... Showing no remorse for placing Marion into these precarious situations, Indy criticises her for wearing a dress given to her by Belloq. His criticism is, in fact, a criticism of her blossoming femininity. 'Whereas Indy treats Marion like an irritating kid sister,' Biskind states, 'Belloq treats her like a woman.'"

- Biber, Katherine. The Emperor's New Clones: Indiana Jones and Masculinity in Reagan's America. Australasian Journal of American Studies 14(2) December 1995, pp 67-86.

(I periodically find my photocopy of this article in the piles of paper about the place, and get something new from it every time I re-read it.)

I'm going to compile a list of the movies I've identified amongst the welter of unlabelled clips which make up the marvellous but frustrating compilation of British comedy movies, To See Such Fun. I'll add more as I puzzle them out.

The Man in the White Suit ("Do you think we should try it now? Or wait until after lunch?")
Monty Python and the Holy Grail ("We're coming with you!")
London Town (the sissies; the golf game)
A Home of Your Own (Ronnie Barker and the cement)
The Rebel (Tony Hancock the artist)
Carry On Henry
Over She Goes ("Side by side!")
I See Ice ("In My Little Snapshot Album")
Top of the Form (cheats in the schoolroom)
Very Important Person ("Scottish swine!")
Doctor in the House ("What's the bleeding time?")

Found on YouTube, another TV memory from my childhood: Eddie Cantor singing Keep Young And Beautiful, from Roman Scandals (1933). If The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari had been a musical written by Al Jolson on acid, it might have looked something like this.

Caught the trailer for the new Sherlock Holmes avec Robert Downey Jr. It looks like lots of fun, and whiny Watson gave me the lol. Somehow, though, I don't think this one's exactly going to pass the Bechdel Test, either. (Bit of a shame given the numerous kickass women in the Canon.)