The Taiwanese-born, American-based director Ang Lee has shown great versatility since his first small-scale Chinese-American dramas, turning his hand to heritage, U.S. suburbia, western, martial arts, super-hero, and gay themes, with generally great critical acclaim. He has, however, had his failures, particularly with his version of "The Hulk". Here with "Lust, Caution" he is attempting to add an erotic tale to his palette, and while I am sure this film will be generally admired, I think this is another misjudged movie.
Set in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation during World War II, Wei Tang is a regular at the mah jong table of Joan Chen (again), the wife of arch collaborator Tony Leung. Flash back to Hong Kong four years before where Wei Tang is the youngest member of a university drama group who fancy themselves as revolutionaries and who decide that she should seduce Leung so that they can assassinate him. However first she must lose her virginity to one of their number so that she can successfully pose as an experienced married woman. However before she can establish any sexual relationship with Leung, he is posted back to the Mainland, and their plan is only resurrected some three years later. This takes up the first half of a very long and meandering movie; the second half, when they eventually reconnect consists of some very graphic sexual encounters -- semi-porn for the art-house set -- all of which ends badly for at least one of them. While nicely filmed and beautifully set, the relationship which starts with a violent rape is never totally believable and the movie does seem to go on forever.
In the opposite corner I give you another London Film Festival goodie -- a rediscovered print of Erich von Stroheim's 1919 melodrama before it was cut to ribbons for its subsequent release five years later. Widely known as "the man you love to hate", von Stroheim was an undisciplined yet imaginative director, constantly battling with the studios to get his grandiose visions on the screen; as an actor (and he appears in a number of his own silents -- to say nothing of his subsequent roles in others' talkies), he is unforgettable. In this movie he is in his favourite role as a seducer -- all comic military costume, monocle and duelling scar -- trying to have it away with the ignored wife of an American doctor on holiday in the Tyrol. The doctor is the blind husband in much the same way that Joan Chen was the blind wife in Ang Lee's tale, but fortunately we are spared any graphic sex in the earlier film. Instead we can be delighted by von Stroheim's silly wooing of the wife, the serving wench, the village lass, and anything else in skirts. And of course he gets his comeuppance.
Guess which movie I thought was more fun!
1 comment:
'Lust, Caution' could have been a very good film but the po-faced approach that
Tony Leung had towards the young 'wife' whom he fancied made one wonder why
she had sex with him. After the violent first time, presumably her duty to the
resistance movement that had suborned her kept her going. The overly graphic
intercourse was remarkable only for the contortions though which the pair of them
were put by the director. As a shorter, more tightly framed thriller a la 'Black Book', this might have lived up to the settings and cinematography.
'Blind Husbands' was ignored by me in favour of the Catherine Breillat entry 'La
Vielle Maitresse', another sexual intermission but one where the passion blazed
from the screen thanks to a flamboyant performance by Asia Argento. The actor
playing her lover (she being the mistress) seemed rather too young and pretty but she made up for this. Roxane Mesquida as the young heiress who is wronged
was just the right level of innocence both in appearance and performance and her
grandmother in a vital but small role was excellent as was the ever reliable Michael Lonsdale. Much the better film but unlikely to receive the praise that Ang
Lee quite frankly does not deserve
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