Asian films: The old and the new

Has Asian cinema really reached its zenith? The answer is yes. At the end of a phase of dramatic strides, Asian films are still on a growth curve.

Has Asian cinema really reached its zenith? Going by the evidence that has been available over the past two years or so, it would only be natural for the answer to that question to be a resounding yes. Significantly, even at the end of a phase of dramatic strides, Asian films are still on a growth curve. The reason is simple: the efforts of the veterans are now being effectively complemented by the work of fresher pool of talent in various Asian nations.

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Even as established names such as Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Wong Kar-wai and Hou Hsiao-Hsien continue to further the cause of Asian cinema, comparatively younger and equally innovative Asian filmmakers like Tsai Ming-liang, Kim Ki-duk, Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Fatih Akin and Samira Makhmalbaf are winning admirers around the world. Such is the power of these filmmakers that they no longer have to go looking for recognition; it comes to them on a platter.

At the ongoing Osian's Cinefan - 6th Festival of Asian Cinema, Delhi's filmgoers have seen for themselves why Asia is emerging as such a major force in world cinema. Many of the films on view at the ten-day event are truly remarkable cinematic achievements. They blend delicate craftsmanship with inspired naturalness to create vibrant, intensely moving tapestries of human experiences and memories.

The principal strength of these films stems from their fine balance between firm cultural specificity and unambiguous universality. To what are quintessentially Asian ways of seeing, comprehending and believing that these films promote, the directors have added the perspicacity of globally recognisable modes of expression.

No wonder these films are such hot properties on the festival circuit. At the 2004 Berlin International Film Festival, Head On, a film by a second-generation Turkish-German director, Fatih Akin, won the Golden Bear, while Korean maverick Kim Ki-duk bagged the Best Director Silver Bear for Samaritan Girl. At the 60th Venice Film festival in 2003, Takeshi Kitano bagged the Special Director's Award for the stylized samurai action film, Zatoichi, while popular Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano (who incidentally played a key role in Zatoichi as well) snapped up the Best Actor prize for his restrained, brilliantly modulated performance in a remarkable Thai film, Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Last Life in the Universe.

The last Cannes Film Festival was a near-sweep for Asian cinema. By making an impression on a high-profile international jury (headed by Quentin Tarantino) in the face of competition from what was one of the best complement of films in years, Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand, Israel and Iran ensured an amazingly rich haul of awards for Asia at the world's premier film festival.
The sheer diversity of issues and themes that contemporary Asian films address has been buttressed by the steady rise of a phalanx of original voices. Among them is the iconoclastic Tsai Ming-liang. The Taiwanese director's latest film, Goodbye, Dragon Inn, follows, in real time, the last two hours of an old-style cinema hall in Taipei that is to be replaced by a multiplex. This slow-paced cinephile film is a combination of black comedy and fond homage to classic cinema.
A regular Tsai actor, Lee Kang-sheng, who has been in every film the director has crafted since his first, Rebels of the Neon God (1992), has just made his debut as a filmmaker with The Missing, about two unrelated people - a child and a superannuated old man - who go missing and the diametrically opposite reactions that elicits from their caretakers - a grandmother and a grandson respectively. It is the story of a single day and the disjointed experiences of characters whose paths are never destined to cross point to the undercurrent of disquiet that bind all lost, urban souls.

The Korean lone ranger, Kim Ki-duk, a self-taught filmmaker, never fails to stir the imagination of festival regulars with stories of social outsiders pockmarked with scenes of extreme violence staged in a highly stylized manner. Kim currently has two films, Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring and Samaritan Girl, doing the rounds of international film festivals. They are both superbly crafted essays that, at a very deep level, emphasise the director's empathy with individuals struggling to find their way around the labyrinths of life.

In Spring, Summer…, Kim eschews the tendency to go for the jugular with a chiseled piece of Zen filmmaking. Spring, written, directed and edited by Kim presents a minimalist yet moving portrait of a small cast of characters framed against a single location - a floating temple on a remote lake.

Samaritan Girl is a far more provocative film that seeks to place cinema beyond the pale of conventional morality with a tale revolving around two teenaged girls who decide to make money through prostitution in order to fund their travel plans. Kim presents the conflict between the choices individuals make and the destiny that awaits them without the slightest trace of sentimentality.

One nation that has made rapid strides in recent years as a force on the global scene is Thailand. While the movie-making industries of China, Japan, Iran, perhaps even South Korea, still dominate the discourse on quality Asian cinema, Thailand is fast shedding its image as a distant, unknown entity.

The filmmaker who is spearheading the march of the Thai New Wave is Pen-ek Ratanaruang, whose evocative Last Life in the Universe has won him many admirers on the global festival circuit. The film about two loners who develop an unlikely bonding amid death, hopelessness and loneliness really does represent an artistic peak for Thai cinema. Enriched by Christopher Doyle's idiosyncratic cinematography, Ratanaruang's Last Life in the Universe is clear proof that a fresh, engaging style of filmmaking is emerging in Thailand.

It is the spirit of innovation - the urge to explore uncharted zones of creativity - that has endowed contemporary Thai cinema, as indeed Asian films as a whole, with an impressive variety of narrative themes and cinematic formats. No wonder Asian cinema has just got bigger and brighter.