Tuesday, June 9, 2009

feeling innocent

Hi.
I missed you. Have you missed me?

Well, lots have been on my mind, and new developments have occurred.

What's been on my mind a lot recently is a certain person with whom I've been quite enamored and have embarked on a "something" with. It's fun and delightful to explore the underbelly of the surfaces of the person that I have known for some time but am getting to know on a deeper level.

Up until recently, I wondered if I could ever be in an angst-free relationship that didn't involve unrequited love, guilt, or whatever dark and heavy element you can name. Now, I am struck by how simple, peaceful, good, and just plain pleasurable this experience has been.

I became more aware of this new outlook of mine when my neighbor asked me the other day if I would play my music for her wedding. When I thought about it, I actually felt like I wanted to write a new song about love for her wedding, and that after so many years of writing sad songs, I was actually inspired to write an uplifting song for once.

I apologize for the gushiness. But I have to confess that I am happy that I can even be that way now. It's as if I've reached a new stage of my life where I don't have to be too cool to think about "those" types of things.

Anyways, that's what's going on with me.

I thought I'd transition to a film review that I've been wanting to share for a while now, but was waiting for the right time. Some of you know that I watched and heard Ang Lee speak at a screening of "Lust, Caution" at this year's SF Asian American International Film Festival and that I really liked it. I thought about this movie again because I went to a theater performance this weekend and good performances always get me thinking about other good performances/art. Also, I think this movie portrays an intriguing, unconventional, complicated love story -- one that is a huge contrast from what I just described what was going in my life right now, but is still a story of human connection and one that I think is interesting to revisit.








(*mild spoilers*)


First of all, I don't think this movie should have gotten the less than stellar reviews that it received. I thought it was a masterpiece. (My dad, who calls every so-called Oscar-worthy movie "interesting," actually came up with a different adjective for this film by calling it "powerful" - which says a lot.)

I simply couldn't get over this story of a lonely young woman's search for meaning and finding it in patriotism for her country and ideals, but in doing so, sacrificing herself. Here, the protagonist Wong Chia Chi (played by the amazing Tang Wei) is abandoned by her family in war-time China and decides to become a spy for the Chinese Nationalist resistance, propelled by the actions of her college comrades, who are her only family. In doing so, she becomes the mistress of Mr. Yee (played by Tony Leung), an interrogator of spies. How this relationship transforms is what is gripping about this movie. The movie is rich in so many other ways, too, like how Ang Lee masterfully portrays the loss of a girl's innocence, not so much sexual innocence, but the innocence of having a loving family and living in a world without war.


Also, the film compelled me to ponder the relational power of sex. Unlike most movies, the sexual progression of the main characters here helped tell the story, as opposed to sex being a culmination of a relationship or an obligatory element of a movie. (You may argue that Lee's better known movie, "Brokeback Mountain" used sex similarly as a storytelling tool. I would disagree -- in that movie, the sex was the story. Not so in "Lust, Caution.") One striking comment of Ang Lee, among others, was his discussion of how the protagonist, Wong Chia Chi, tried to avoid the gaze of the enemy, Mr. Yee, when having sex, while he persistently tried to look at her and look at her reactions. Being lied to every day in his official capacity as a government interrogator of spies, Mr. Yee, sought to see Wong Chai Chi's reactions, seeing that as probably being the one thing in his life that could not lie to him. "The body does not lie," said Ang Lee, yet acknowledging that "One of the most profound questions in life is 'Can I make her come?'" and if she does, is it for real?

Normally such talk would make me shift uncomfortably in my seat, but maybe because it was Ang Lee speaking and because he has that filmmaker mastery of presenting an idea to you without any judgment (and probably because I idolize him), I could appreciate Lee's journey of exploring these questions, which he struggled with ("weeped" during shooting of the love scenes, according to him) and transcribed into a film that others could partake in the depth of his journey.

Lastly, the score from this film is haunting and beautiful, and I found myself playing it all the time in my head or on the keys after hearing it for the first time...

My "review" doesn't really do the film justice. In any case, if you want to see a beautiful movie from start to finish that will move you, I recommend this one.