Asian Invasion

[Marty Mudd]

speaking of southeast asian cinema, what is the general impression of people
who have seen Anh Hung Tran's new "a la verticale de l'ete" (at the height
of summer)?  i was very impressed by his "scent of green papaya" and even
more by "cyclo".  he is definitely a notable standard-bearer for
french-vietnamese cinema.  in my opinion, his films' cinematography rivals
that of "maborosi" and "hana-bi".

also, does anyone know anything about his new film in production "je viens
apr?s la pluie"?  

cheers,
marty


-- 
Martin Mudd
Williams College
Martin.D.Mudd at williams.edu

> From: Edward Fowler <ebfowler at benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu>
> Reply-To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 15:39:25 -0800 (PST)
> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Subject: Re: Asian Invasion
> 
> Joe:  point well taken!  I like your reference to Chinese cinemas as
> a "field" and not a "pole."  It was certainly NOT my intent, however,
> to boost Korean cinema at the expense of other national cinemas
> (for that would be falling into the same trap), but only to expand
> the discussion in a direction that I thought Kehr's article could
> be leading us.  (It really didn't dwell THAT much on Chinese cinema
> if you took out all the references to 'Yi Yi,' the film that it was
> clearly boosting.)  And you're right, there are other Asian cinemas
> to be on the lookout for, not just in South Asia, as Aaron has pointed
> out, but in Southeast Asia as well, as Kehr mentioned in passing.
> Where does this lead us?  From 'KineJapan' to 'KineAsia'?  Or to some
> other configuration?  To the detriment of any advocacy of a national
> cinema?  Or its enhancement?  But then, just what is 'national cinema'
> in this day and age of global financing and global audiences?  (Surely
> someone like Darrell Davis must have some thoughts on this.)  Again,
> I don't have answers....  Ted Fowler
> 
> On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Joseph Murphy wrote:
> 
>> Ted, that's a good point and I would like to hear more about Korean
>> film on this list.  But I didn't really feel that you hit the right
>> undercurrent for the omission. Here's a couple reasons why.  First,
>> as you note, because Chinese cinema includes a number of national
>> cinemas, Hong Kong, Taiwan and cinema from the Republic of China, at
>> least, it really doesn't constitute a pole, but rather a field.  i.e,
>> it sort of undoes that polarity from the start, and you're already
>> caught up in a question of representation among a variety of cinemas.
>> Chinese cinema comes to the fore in this discussion because of the
>> undeniable influence of Hong Kong cinema on the 90's wave of action
>> movies, and the success in an international commercial market of
>> directors like Ang Lee, Jackie Chan, and John Woo, and actors like
>> Chou Yun Fat, Maggie Cheung, etc.  Despite the unquestionable merits
>> of Korean cinema, I don't think there is any similar commercial
>> visibility. If this were a perfect world in my view we would spend
>> all our time talking about Masumura Yasuzo and Kim Ki-young, but this
>> is precisely about how a messy knot of commercial considerations tied
>> up with the dominance of Hollywood and the problem of subtitling
>> trumps aesthetic and political considerations that might be more
>> important to us as academics. But beyond that, I think from the start
>> we brought up Kehr's article because there was a sense that whatever
>> its principles of composition, it was not just more of the same. I
>> think the premise of the discussion is that it is precisely the
>> exaggerated position of Japanese film in the western critical
>> imagination up till recently that has prevented vibrant cinema from
>> countries like Korea from receiving the consideration it deserves
>> (others please correct me on this if it doesn't speak for you).
>> Aaron's posts bring up the question of South Asian cinema as well. I
>> mean, there's been a certain ironic gesture to boosterism, but please
>> take it with a grain of salt.
>> J. Murphy
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> 
>> ***************************************************
>> Joseph Murphy
>> E-mail: <urj7 at nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu>
>> TEL: (352) 392-2110/2442. FAX (352) 392-1443
>> <http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jmurphy>
>> University of Florida, Box 115565, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
>> ***************************************************
>> 
> 
> 
> 
>