Millennium Mambo
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Movie Reviews of Millennium Mambo
Movie Review: The smoker
Summary: 4 Stars
Directed by Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsien, Millenium Mambo is a compelling portrait of anomie in modern day Taiwan. The lead female, Vicky, played by actress Shu Qi, is seen endlessly lighting cigarettes which quickly comes to represent her lack of direction, her uncertainty about her life. She basically does not know what to do so to substitute something halfway "concrete" for this lack of direction, she lights a cigarette.
In addition, as is true for Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Barren Illusion (not available domestically on VHS or DVD), the director peppers the film with references to Western culture that have pervaded the culture of Taiwan; the implication is that this counts in large part for Vicky's alienation and, by extension, that of her friends who are also bar girls and also that of her boyfriend, Hao Hao.
Hsien uses time splicing to tell his story and this is a subtle use indeed. We see a back and forth of events, some of which Vicky narrates in voiceover, some of which she does not. She goes to Japan to find her new boyfriend Jack after she breaks up with Hao Hao; Jack is a gangster, another oblique reference to Western culture that has corrupted, or at least changed Taiwanese culture. But she also goes there to find two brothers, whose names escape me at the moment, who are half Japanese and half Taiwanese. While there, the camera languidly passes by a long series of posters illlustrating movies both Western and Asian alike. This is Hsien's way, no doubt, of indicating the context of this film itself; it is, after all, only a movie. Or maybe it is, more than anything else, a movie. Who can tell?
Hsien is known for his seemingly ambling, plotless style, and this film is no exception. But here he subtly manages to get Vicky's psyche to burrow under our skins, and the effect is, as many have said, hypnotic. This is as well underscored by the ceaseless techno music, an aspect of the film about which Hsien comments in the interesting interview that comprises one of the special features on the disk.
Hsien's style lends itself, more than anything else, to an intensely subjective view of what he is trying to accomplish with his film(s). For me, this was far more compelling than Goodbye South, Goodbye, a film in which the actor who plays Jack in Millenium Mambo, Jack Kao, also plays a gangster. But here in Millenium Mambo, Hsien wisely focuses instead on a young woman whose emotional isolation, whose anomie, resonates far more fully and deeply throughout the film than was true in Goodbye, South, Goodbye.
There is a gradual momentum that build in Millenium Mambo and it is, I feel, truly intriguing.
Highly recommended.
Movie Review: Lost Souls in Taipei: Visually Stunning, But Emotionally Too Detached
Summary: 3 Stars
In the neon-saturated city of Taipei lives a young woman named Vicky. She is living with her boyfriend Hao, but he isn't working now and moreover, is a very jealous guy. Vicky is also attracted to Jack, a man living in underworld and running a night club.
Acclaimed Taiwanese director Hsiao-hsien Hou's film is all about Vicky played by Qi Shu, but "Millennium Mambo" is nothing like eventful "Transporter." In short, nothing "big" happens here. So if you happen to read Vicky's story and expect something dramatic and romantic in "Millennium Mambo," probably you will be disappointed.
Not that the film is total failure. On the contrary, this quiet film, which employs such techniques as long, continuous shots or non-linear timeline, is what exactly we should expect from the director of "A City of Sadness." The difference is "Millennium Mambo" does not deal with Taiwanese history, but modern life of young people of the land represented by Vicky. Whereas in "A City of Sadness" one historical incident plays a key role, in "Mambo" the life of Vicky has nothing to say, or suggest, except ... Vicky, who is not particularly interesting presence per se as she embodies what the young generation of Taiwan is all about, according to the director.
Some would think naturally that the film is tedious and boring. After all, the director is not interested in Vicky's story itself. Curiously Vicky herself tells the story of herself, looking back from ten years after the events described in the film. The strange voiceover makes Vicky all the more detached from us, making herself part of the scenes of everyday life in Taipei.
And probably this is what Hsiao-hsien Hou intended. He is always good at capturing the atmosphere, or air of the places where the characters are living, and in this he does not disappoint. He also successfully makes a great contrast between the stifling rooms in Taipei and the chilling, snowy landscapes in Yubari, Japan, where Vicky looks most cheerful and lively. (This film was really shot during the film festival in Yubari City, in February, 2001, and the old lady working at the Japanese bar was really running the place.)
For all these merits, I couldn't bring myself to like this film because, in spite of the visually stunning cinematography, it is hard to keep watching the life of someone depicted in an emotionally detached fashion. Hsiao-hsien Hou's touch is not cold, rather compassionate in his own way when showing Vicky and Hao, but once we realize what he is trying to, we are to keep watching him making the same point over and over again for the rest of film.
Movie Review: Look out, something fermented this way comes!
Summary: 3 Stars
Shu Qi looks dear and is fortunately in nearly every scene. I would say that this character must have been written for her. There are many girls attractive and desirable but with no power in the economic tiger that is Taiwan. I sense no culture where girls carry a sense of their innate worth. Anywhere else, she would have developed into a chic but colder type but on Taiwan island, she is sweet and somehow dowdy in cheapened trendy attire despite her gamine skeleton. It's not that women in Taiwan are weak but they seem to be undervalued. That's the only reason I can see for the posturing and presumptuousness of her immature BF. Her tolerance and accommodation have nothing to do with any superiority of the male or the benefits of his chivalry and protection. I found myself boggled by the behavior of the deadweight in this movie and the defeated corrupted version of machismo of his competitor. Kick them to the curb and get a job at a Club Med.
This world seems shallow in a cultural way that predates consumerism. It's like something got erased perhaps by choice and this creeping disaster is the result. These small problems created for themselves ufortunately equal heart break but there's no way these people can explain that about themselves because they don't believe in their own honesty. They don't have the ability to communicate sincerity to themselves nevermind seek help outside of their situation. These people are in trouble but they can't say so. It's not just the Taiwanese accent but the Taiwanese phrasing and vocabulary choices that seems to be about affectation but also denial of any meaning. There's no truth telling in the words used for injury. All these arguments and struggles that aren't really expressing the problem. I think this is big trouble if this is not uncommon.
This movie gave me the shivers several times.
Movie Review: the cure for insomnia
Summary: 3 Stars
I gave it 3 stars because the cinematography is beautiful as photography.
Also if you suffer from insomnia, get this. I tried to watch it 3 times 3 evenings in a row and had to go to bed before I finally finished it the 4th afternoon.
The slowest paced movie I have EVER seen.
It makes "Lost in Translation" seem Action-Packed.
The score is similar to "Lost in Translation." Could switch them and not tell the difference. But "Lost in Translation" has a lot more going on.
I don't know exactly what happened in this movie. The girl, Vicki, is very beautiful. She has a boyfriend who is mean to her. She leaves him and Jack, a Yakuza type, takes care of her. What happens, I'm just not sure.
I watched the extended scene that was availabe in the Special Features and that didn't help clarify much.
Everybody is beautiful to look at and nothing shocking happens. The snow landscapes are lovely.
Movie Review: "a distant sequence of images flashing on the screen."
Summary: 2 Stars
Millennium Mambo (Hsiao-Hsien Hou, 2001)
I've been trying to write this review for a month, forcing myself to mull this movie over in my head, because everyone and their mothers raves about the films of Hsiao-Hsien Hou. Now, I'm more than willing to admit that I'm just thick most of the time, but I'm not entirely sure that's the case here. Maybe I don't get it because there's just nothing to get.
Millennium Mambo is a slice-of-life film about a bunch of youth. Sex, drugs, and what in slightly earlier days would be rock and roll (but instead, is the pale imitation known as techno). The cast is ensemble, though Vicky (Qi Shu of Sex and Zen II and The Transporter, among many others) is as close to a central character as we've got. She's got a boyfriend who DJs and a pretty nasty drug habit, and much of the film is spent following her around to various clubs and the like. She eventually meets gangster Jack (Jack Gao), who promises her a way out of the endless wheel in which she's trapped, but does she have the courage to take it? And even if she does, is it truly a way to a better life?
There is some good acting to be had here, and there's no doubt Hou is a gifted director. I read a comment on IMDB's message board for the movie that rings true (and reminds me of comments I've read about a number of other movies of this stripe I just didn't get, most recently Spun): "If you have lived the 'clubbing life' anywhere in the world, you would maybe better understand the movie." I've never seen the appeal of the clubbing life, even as a casual clubgoer. Millennium Mambo hasn't changed my mind, either to give it more substance or to give it less (which would certainly be another valid interpretation; I might find it more attractive were is sufficiently soul-destroying). Another comment in that same thread: "You either watch the film and "live" it and relate to it, or it is a distant sequence of images flashing on the screen. As the latter the film fails miserably. As the former, it is one of the best movies I have ever seen." Obviously, for the person being quoted, the film was the former. As I found no way to relate to it, I found it the latter, and his succinct, clear analysis is spot on. * ½
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