MovieChat Forums > Qian xi man bo (2001) Discussion > People who do not love Hollywood crap an...

People who do not love Hollywood crap and still didn't like it

posted 12 years ago by Sophitia36
3 replies | jump to latest

Whenever someone criticizes a very artsy-fartsy film like this one, the first answer they get is "go watch some Hollywood crap".
Well, I do hate silly people who watch this kind of films and then come to the board only to say "booooring" "nothing happened in it", etc.
But still, it is perfectly possible to be somewhere in between those positions.

I do not hate slow movies. I have seen all of Wong Kar Wai's movies and loved them. I have seen Kim Ki-Duk's "Spring, Fall, Winter... and Spring" and loved it.
But Millenium Mambo... To be honest, I did find it very boring. I would be a snub if I pretended otherwise.

I can see that there's some artistic and visual ambition there. And I'm sure that to people who know a lot about camera angles, etc, some of the shots must be of great interest.
But generally, it's just not an enjoyable film to watch. I get it, he wants to show the boring life of boring people. So basically, you know, we can't complain that it's boring, because it's supposed to be boring.
OK but still, it is dreadfully boring to watch, if you see what I mean? ^^

The thing is, if it were really a groundbreaking idea to show the lives of ordinary, unremarable people, then it would be different.
But a great number of artsy movies choose to show us the dull, boring, depressing sides of society and of people's lives. It's almost a cliché.
In Wong Kar Wai's Fallen Angels, for instance, the characters are definitely lost, aimless, lonely, and yet there is something else than this.
This is more realistic, to be sure. But I never thought realism was such an interesting aim... I like to be surprised, to see original ideas, perspectives on life that I never would have thought of... This movie just didn't have that, in my opinion.

[–] Eva_Yojimbo 12 years ago

WKW doesn't make slow movies and Kim Ki-Duk isn't all that slow either. Hou, Kiarostami, Tarr, Tsai, and a handful of other filmmakers make movies that could truly be called "slow". All of them also share in common a rigorous mise-en-scene style that uses imagery to relate infinitely more than what is possible only through plot, conflict, and character development. All of Hou's films--and Millennium Mambo is no different--is about aesthetics first, thematics second, and plot/character/conflict all are a distant third. But Millennium Mambo moves at a lightning pace compared to Five, The Man From London, or Goodbye Dragon Inn.

This film is not about the "boring life of boring people," it's actually about how Hou views modern Taiwanese youth as living vacuous, self-involved lives that crack under the slightest pressure. Vikky's life isn't especially "boring;" she has a boyfriend, frequents nightclubs... but she has nothing substantial to hold onto. When her boyfriend leaves she's devastated, as if she's lost everything. That shot of her in her bedroom, a static TV reflecting in the window as a train passes by outside is the perfect metaphor for her life (her being stuck in a room on "static" while life goes on around her).

WKW is a stylish filmmaker who clearly has a firm grasp on the technique of cinema. He's very much the Tarantino of the East in how he knowingly mixes film genres in endlessly inventive and fresh ways. But like Tarantino it's all show and no substance. I actually think Fallen Angels is his best film if only because it's the one where I think the plot and characters lend themselves to a kind of stylistic excess where the lack of thematic substance and subtlety doesn't hurt it like it does, say, Ashes of Time.

But Hou is an infinitely subtler, sophisticated, and complex filmmaker than WKR. He's never going to come out and flat-out tell you what he's going on about. There's always a distance and restraint and a sheen of realism that can only be cracked by very carefully studying the mise-en-scene and the meanings forged by the editing. Flight of the Red Balloon is an ever greater exhibition of his masterful command over this most nuanced form of filmmaking, not to mention his masterpieces of the 80s and 90s (A Time to Live and Time to Die, Dust in the Wind, A City of Sadness, The Puppetmaster, Flowers of Shanghai). FWIW, Millennium Mambo is not my favorite, nor is it considered to be one of Hou's best films. Though I tend to find that it's quite underrated, with people not quite understanding the social juxtaposition that Hou has made by his transition from looking at Taiwan's history in his early films to its modern life in his more recent films.

http://www.cinelogue.com/
http://fpscinema.wordpress.com/

[–] IEatWords 11 years ago

"That shot of her in her bedroom, a static TV reflecting in the window as a train passes by outside is the perfect metaphor for her life (her being stuck in a room on "static" while life goes on around her)."

Yeah that was scene was subtle like a punch in the gut. It was so subtle that the director extended the scene, made the actress look at the static in the window and then after it was over, panned back one more time to the static to make sure everyone and their dog saw it's "subtle brilliance". Garbage.

[–] Christopher_Smilax 11 years ago

I didn't like it either. I enjoyed Hsiao's other film, Café Lumière, but I found this one to be pretty boring. It's been a couple of years though and I guess a re-watch is needed but still...

Veteran of Psychic Wars