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Cinefan 2004: Films to watch
Osian's-Cinefan promises to serve up a largerand more invigorating spread than ever before, writes Saibal Chatterjee.
Cinemaya's Cinefan has acquired refurbished feathers. Now christened 'Osian's-Cinefan: 6th Festival of Asian Cinema', it promises to serve up a markedly larger, infinitely brighter and more invigorating spread than ever before. And it not just numbers that we are talking here. The quality of the cinema that will unspool during the ten-day event, kicking off in New Delhi on July 16, is expected to be just as significant.
Although Cinefan is still essentially dedicated to arthouse cinema from the major filmmaking countries of Asia, this year the festival seems to have consciously thrown its doors open to a wider variety of celluloid essays. Films as far apart in spirit and execution as Iranian master Mohsen Makhmalbaf's individualistic ruminations, Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-Wai's acclaimed masterpieces and a clutch of entries from Arab nations like Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Tunisia will be on show.
While the festival does indeed have something for everybody, including a Guru Dutt retrospective for nostalgia buffs, very high on this critic's list of "films to watch" are three entries that have emerged more recently from what could loosely be described as the moviemaking mainstream of the countries of their origin. Japanese cult director Takeshi Kitano's homage to a well-loved and oft-seen screen character, Zatoichi, the blind swordsman immortalized by the iconic star Shintaro Katsu in as many 26 films made between 1962 and 1989, is by far his most accessible film to date.
From Thailand comes a quiet little film from Nonzee Nimibutr, the man who has spearheaded Thai cinema's unfolding commercial resurgence. Titled Okay Baytong, it is a clear departure from the spectacular films that Nimibutr has delivered in recent years. Ann Hui's Yu Guan Yin (Goddess of Mercy) from China, on the other hand, has the feel of a routine suspense thriller, but its languid narrative pace and the sustained spotlight on star Vicki Zhao suggests a female character study reminiscent of Hui's more personal celluloid essays.
Kitano's Zatoichi is a truly remarkable achievement. Katsu died of throat cancer in 1997, but his aura is still fresh in the hearts and minds of all Japanese moviegoers. So Zatoichi represents a major challenge for Kitano the director and actor: he has to obliterate Katsu from the collective consciousness of his audience. He manages to pull off the seemingly impossible with just the sort of flair that the world now recognizes as his hallmark.
He makes no visible effort to surpass the original star of the series. He proves his point simply by being himself. He puts his own personal stylistic stamp on the treatment. The result is utterly spellbinding, if typically ultra-violent. The film's tale of justice and retribution is as uncomplicated as its quick-footed action scenes.
Zatoichi (Kitano), his hair bleached, strays into a village where a bunch of mobsters has hired a detached but dangerous samurai (Tadanobu Asano) to eliminate its adversaries. The samurai turns a mercenary because he has to pay for the treatment of his sick wife. At the same time, a geisha and her brother impersonating a woman are out to avenge the killing of their parents. Zatoichi plunges headlong into the mayhem, scything down everybody in his path without the slightest fuss - or remorse.
The violence in Zatoichi is as matter-of-fact as it is stunning in its effect: every flash of aggression ends almost as soon as it begins, leaving the viewer gasping, out of breath, shaken. Each time the protagonist wields the scimitar, the film creates a pattern that is hard to resist as a spectacle. Kitano remains respectful of the material, but places the traditional core of the action within a very present-day psychological context. Zatoichi is wonderfully polished and always riveting.
The film picked up the Silver Lion award for best director at the 60th Venice Film Festival in 2003 a week before bagging the People's Choice audience award at the 28th Toronto International Film Festival. Zatoichi is a perfectly worthy acquisition for a festival that will open with the Golden Bear winner of this year's Berlin Film Festival, Head-on, directed by Fatih Akin, a Turkish director working in Germany.
The current health of the Thai movie industry is attributable to the consistent box office success that a former director of commercials, Nonzee Nimibutr, has achieved. Coming at the end of a phase that saw a spate of teen flicks send Thai cinema's commercial stocks plummeting in the face of competition from Hollywood blockbusters, Nimibutr rescued the local industry in 1999 with , a sophisticated reworking of a famous Gothic legend about a ghost-wife and her living husband. The film broke all box office records and put the Thai industry on an even keel.
Nimibutr's latest film, Okay Baytong, a part of the Cinefan bill of fare, is probably less crowd-pleasing in its approach. But its storyline - a Buddhist monk is compelled to return to a worldly existence when his sister is blown up in railway station terrorist attack and take charge of her little daughter - is informed with humour, humanism and an unobtrusive style. It is a new kind of Nimibutr and it is definitely worth a viewing.
Ann Hui's latest film is an intriguingly paced thriller that might, for some, fall between two stools: too commercial for arthouse applause and too pensive for lay viewers looking for cheap thrills. But Goddess of Mercy works at one level because plot is engaging enough and the filmmaking style has a self-assured quality that rarely wavers.
The star of the show is of course Vicki Zhao, who plays An Xin, a lowly employee of a Beijing martial arts school. A philandering Yang Rui (Liu Yunlong) falls for her charms. His ardour grows stronger in the face of her continued stonewalling. Then, the inevitable happens: An Xin lets her guard down and Yang Rui, in turn, begins to change his ways. He develops a bonding with her young son. An Xin is independent-minded, and yet prone to emotional bursts. It is quite apparent that her steely nature conceals a soul scarred by a tragic past. Zhao brings to the enigmatic character a deep sense of empathy, which adds to the film's impact.
