Udine Dispatch. 8.

The special panel on China in Cinema was dedicated to the two actors of You and Me, directed by Ma Liwen - veteran Jin Yaqin and debutant Gong - and the director of Loach is Fish Too, Yang Yazhou. Both were very popular films at the festival. You and Me is a touching drama about the meeting of an elderly woman and young university student. Granny, a former soldier, rents an inexpensive room to Xiao Ma but they become more than landlady and tenant. Every inch of territory is debated and marked, often resulting in total exasperation yet they both continue to co-exist through four seasons. Ma Liwen said she chose the story because intergenerational meetings between women have seldom been approached in film. The treatment of the relationship goes beyond merely setting up an observant camera and many scenes, such as a video project Xiao Ma makes of Granny, are artfully arranged. The strength of the relationship endeared this couple to the audience in a profound way.

According to director Yang Yazhou, the situation in Beijing of migrant workers from Northern China - over 140 million in all - has also been rarely treated in film, though does Guo Xiaolu tackles the subject in the excellent documentary, Concrete Revolution. Loach is Fish Too is the story of the hard life of these workers. In the massive modernization of the city, inhabitants have been known to say that they leave their house in the morning only to find it gone when they return. Yang shows such events in more than one scene. The main characters are a divorcée Niqiu (Ni Ping), who has twin daughters, and a widower also by the name of Niqui (Ni Dahong). Their name refers to a low-status fish and symbolizes how they are treated. An overwhelming momentum builds on the screen from the first moments. Migrants arrive on a cattle train and are herded into the Forbidden City for hard labor such as ditch-digging. But in between all the harshness are several ephemeral scenes of warmth. One scenario involves a taking care of a bedridden elderly man. Niqui dedicates herself vigorously to the task of making him happy in his final days. Class differences are revealed through the instructions given by his daughter, adding another dimension to the plight of migrant workers. Gender relations are explored as several men try to molest Niqui and a seedy photographer tries to exploit her daughters. Loach is Fish Too stands out as a very strong and important film, with excellent editing, music, art direction and cinematography.

Udine's FEFF offered several entertaining and well-made South Korean films this week. Choe Equan's Voice, shown on horror day, departs from the conventions of the other films. Both Choe's film and All for Love, by Min Ky-dong, were the only films at the festival with minor gay/lesbian characters, albeit closeted (if you discount the stereotypes in the campy Tokyo Zombie (Sato Sakichi, Japan 2006). All For Love presents a multi-arch of interesting characters whose complicated lives and conflicting desires intersect with one another, though they are not intimately related. Examples are a landlord enticed into selling his building, which houses a movie theater and a fast food stand run by a women who loves Audrey Hepburn. In a moment of cinematic magic, Henry Mancini's "Moon River" is the soundtrack to a home video the landlord has made of his tenant. Then there are next to impossible relationships, such as a macho cop and a smart-mouthed psychologist or a wealthy closeted gay man and the butler he hires to take care of his boy. Although not all the relationships are sufficiently fleshed out, the film works.

Two high school films about gangs challenging outsiders feature some of the same actors: See You After School, by Lee Seok-Giib, and Art of Fighting, by Shin Han-sol. Through luck and a bit of smarts, a transfer student learns how to beat the bad guys and get the girl. He also elevates the status of "losers," and wins the acclaim of his classmates. The thugs who attack him become lovers, according to the end credits, which has been known to happen in the homosocial world of gang fighting.

Art of Fighting is less successful. It features the lead of Kim Ki-duk's 3 Iron, Jae Hee Song, this time as a teenager who needs to learn how to fight and defend himself - but in this film, he doesn't play golf. Byung-tae forces his "Dirty Harry" neighbor, Pan-su (a commanding Baek Yoon-shik), to help him, a man who knows how to fight with sensual and cool detachment and who teaches him everything he needs to know.

Murder Take One is an interesting cop film with a spiritual dimension. The influence of game shows and crime scene investigations are presented through a murder investigated live on TV. The opening crane shot, filmed with a "spyder-cam," vividly reveals the macrocosm of the crime scene. When the story shifts to the ground, widescale pandemonium breaks loose. This great beginning and the carefully arranged scenes that follow are ultimately winning. Even psychics have their place in CSI-type shows.

Welcome to Dongmakgol, by Park Kwang-hyun, the closing film of the festival, shows what happens to soldiers from the North and the South during the Korean War who arrive in a kind of Shangri-la. Dongmakgol is an oasis where the inhabitants don't know war. The naivety of the villagers, including Yeo-il (Gang Hye-jung, the poster girl of the film), seems odd to these soldiers familiar with the CGI-orchestrated carnage of weaponry and instruments of mass destruction. They are glad - and lucky - they are still alive, but instantly take the villagers as prisoners. Soon, though, they learn that the innocence of Dongmakgol is the right antidote for them and wind up hanging the laundry. The cinematography is excellent and the message of the film has particular significance today at a time when pacifists are considered unpatriotic.

Posted by dwhudson at April 30, 2006 10:21 AM