"Soundless Wind Chime" centers around a new immigrant to Hong Kong from China, Ricky (Lu Yu Lai), who works as a delivery boy while living with his prostitute aunt (Wella Zhang). He is pickpocketed by aSwiss thief, Pascal (Bernhard Bulling) who is in an abusive relationship with his con artist boyfriend (Hannes Lindenblatt).
Deciding to leave him, Pascal has a chance encounter with Ricky and the two begin a romantic relationship. The couple struggles through good times and bad, forcing them to determine if their relationship is based on love or dependence on one another.
Several years later, Ricky searches Switzerland for signs of Pascal, eventually encountering Ueli (also played by Bulling), a timid antique store owner who looks the same as Pascal, but who has a vastly different personality. As Ricky and Ueli's relationship deepens, the truth of Pascal and Ricky's relationship is unraveled as the film progresses through glimpses of the present and the past."
I remember a few cardinal rules of childhood about safety:
1. Never run with exposed sharp objects, in either hand (this covers No. 2 Mongol pencils, scissors, butter knives, bamboo barbecue sticks, Zesto plastic straws, etc.).
2. Never put sharp objects in the pockets of your pants (you've heard about that poor guy with a single testicle, right? Remember the slick, bushy-browed brother in "While You Were Sleeping"?).
Appropriately enough it's called "Running With Scissors". I came across this through the new Youtube interface. They say Youtube is now aligned with the more social ecosystem of Google+. In short, a machine, somewhere in Kansas (let's call her Dorothy) is profiling me and has just cheerfully suggested this film. Wonderful. Cue in Twilight Zone theme.
More on this in later posts but Dorothy is getting very uncanny about her tips. She knows exactly what I like. She's like a friend, innocuously lurking online, ready to cash in on me--- per her master's bidding who is somewhere in sunny California.
I'm taking that red pill, Neo.
I vaguely remember a bargain book of the same title tucked somewhere in Booksale limbo. I was too chicken (nay, cheap. But at Booksale!? Sheesh.) to buy it, although, I found it interesting, past three or so odd pages. Regret can give a hefty kick in the mind.
The movie has a Yalie shrink and patriarch who lives with a family of women who are dancing on the edge of their sane universes. Did I mention that their universes are as frayed and as unsettling as the pink mansion they call home? Augusten, the protagonist, is a junior high truant who was adopted by his mom's shrink after his parents (Annette Bening and Alec Baldwin) abandoned him when their marriage OD-ed on emotional blackmails and psychological abuses.
I'm only halfway through now but the movie is populated by a progressive, fractured lot. It's a hedgehog world careening, with all it's stakes and spines, into entropy. Social, moral and other conventions, circa 1970, just didn't seem to lubricate much of their existence and interactions. Their run down, crowded house is a good candidate for a Clean House makeover. Not unlike them, it's an oddball screaming in a suburb of manicured lawns, respectable nuclear families and Church-going community. Yeah, misfits can generate really engaging characters. Somehow there's relief in seeing a bit of our stained, but secret lives in them (we're not alone with our demons) and yet there's still some safety because we're much less deviant (we're not too skewed away from the center of the bell curve).
During a "confrontation" with Augsusten about a pederastic relation with his adopted son (Joseph Fiennes), Augusten admitted that he did not fit in. Hence, he wanted out of school, out of his misery. Dr. Finch wryly noted: "Where would we be without our painful childhood?".
Much later, in one of his depressed moments, while recovering from a staged suicide to finally get off from High School, thanks to Dr. Finch's idea, the weird (an understatement)and zoned out zombie, kibble-nibbling matriarch gave him a book on Cosmetology. He confided earlier that he wanted to study Cosmetology and to build an empire like Vidal Sassoon. Then in one rare gift of lucidity, she consoled him, "It's good to have dreams, Augusten. Dreams get us through the hard times."
It is beautiful.
Oh, incidentally Ryan Murphy of Glee directed. No wonder Gwyneth Paltrow and Kristin Chenoweth make their appearances here, too.
Remember our operational definition of mash-ups? Let’s review, kids. “Mash-up is what happens ‘when you take two songs and mash them together to make an even richer explosion of musical expression. In other words, two songs that might not initially seem to belong together are blended, the process of which reveals unexpected connections between the songs and might even yield an even stronger work than either one is on its own.’”
But what if it’s a Bizaro mash-up (you know, Bizaro? That freak who’s the anti-hero of Superman, the positron of an electron or the anti-gravity of, well, gravity.)? In short, it’s something that results in the opposite of an intended effect. You mash the pair up and kaput! Disaster! And your name shall be “Happy Together.”
I remember this film well, not just because it’s Wong Kar Wai, but because it gave me a headache.
Two lovers from Hong Kong, explode together in Argentina and seem forever poised to fight the predestined consequences of their natures. One is flighty, another, an anchor. A la Holly v. Paul of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (but without the happy ending and full orchestra to cap it off). Opposites attract, yes, and yet, there is ever the danger of annihilation.
Here’s to love.
A brief write-up of the movie, “Happy Together,” says:
“In high school freshman biology class I asked a question that exposed my ignorance of all things sexual. After having seen so many Hollywood movies in which lovers always seemed to click, I asked a teacher why everyone didn't take the same amount of time to reach orgasm. "Everyone is different," she said.
And that is the ultimate truth of relationships. Rarely are two people in synch. But when it does happen, it's amazing. Perhaps that's what makes Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together such an amazing movie. It highlights the fact that we are rarely in synch with each other.
The plot of the film is relatively simple. Lai Yiu Fai (Tony Leung) and Ho Po Wing (Leslie Cheung) are lovers in a tumultuous relationship. But they are passionate when they are together. Getting away from Hong Kong which is on the verge of its historic repossession by the Chinese government from British rule, they end up in Buenos Aires. As they search for Igazu Falls, they end up angering each other, and Wing breaks it off. "Maybe sometime we can start again," he says, as they so often do. But Fai has had enough of stopping and starting and this time, he's tired of all the games (even though he plays them too).
Fai takes a job as a doorman at a tango bar, and Wing turns to a life of hustling. Their paths cross again, and when Fai sees Wing's new lifestyle, he is destroyed. But their paths continue to cross until a violent client breaks Wing's hands, and Fai takes him in. Eventually they become lovers again, but Fai still cannot stand Wing's waywardness and coyness. Fai eventually kicks out Wing. Fai finds a new job at a restaurant and befriends a young boy named Cheng (Chan Cheng), who has the distinguishing characteristic of having very good hearing. As Fai has reached a low point, the youth's enthusiasm brings him to a better place, though he is filled with melancholy and a longing to make good with his family. Fai, to quell these desires, starts having sex in anonymous bathrooms and porno theaters, something he thought only Wing does. Eventually, Fai makes a third effort to find Igazu Falls, and this time succeeds. Then he returns to Hong Kong, where he makes a short stop at the Cheng family's market. Fai sees Cheng's picture and at last feels confident that he can visit his old friend, though his relationship with his own family remains rocky.
Simply put, that's the story of the film: Two lovers break up, try to get back together, and fail miserably. This is the flip side of Sunrise. As Sunrise told the story of a married couple that survived their differences and boredoms, Happy Together suggests a sense of alienation and difficulty in all relationships of getting into synch together. As is the case in most of the time with Wing and Fai, they are never able to bend to the other's need until it is too late. They both want to make each other happy, but not for the sake of their individualism and their pride.” (http://www.cinemonkey.com/reviews/houxhappy/houxhappy.html)
The problem with dreams is that, sometimes, you believe they will come true. That's the consequence of falling.
"Boys break down each other’s walls. It’s an exercise in patience, getting a man to surrender to you, but when they do, their body explodes with feelings. They lock themselves up and when someone finally opens the floodgates, a whole lot of everything comes out. They’re a piñata and you’re carrying the bat.
People always seem to marvel at men who unravel and show their sensitive sides. A woman delights at seeing such a change. It’s such a victory to see a male become unchained to their machismo. When it happens between two men, however, it’s truly magnificent. The sight of two boys loving each other like they’ve been taught not to do is a revelation.
We know what you think of us. We know that there’s this image of gay men just being detached and hungry for sex. There is that. There is a lot of that. But there’s also thoughtfulness, concern, monogamy, Sunday afternoons in bed, I love you babe, I love you a lot, and you make me so happy. There’s so much of that and it’s never really talked about. It’s the secret lives of boys who love boys. Let’s blow the lid off of it, okay? Let’s expose every sweet moment, every kissed neck, every intense hand holding session." (Secret Lives....)
