A comment on Tony Jaa's THE PROTECTOR, on World Pangolin Day

This is a post from my new blog,"The Talking Parcel". As it discusses the awesome Tony Jaa - and my favourite of his films - I'm also posting it here :o)

Today is World Pangolin Day, where those of us humans interested in the fate of the amazing, scaly creatures try to inform the rest of the world about their plight, and come together to just enjoy how wonderful pangolins are. The bestest thing about them apart from their cute-ness, IMHO, is their earthworm-like powers of soil aeration and so forth - as outlined here: pangolin's control pests

Much of the emphasis in pangolin conservation - and much of the impetus for it - comes, though, from the poor animals' unfortunate status as the most common victim of illegal wildlife trade: the article I just inserted a link to about this is highly informative, and makes saddening, sobering reading. It also has some horrifying images of pangolin bodies, inlcuding some of it served as a specialist, uber-expensive 'exotic' meal. It also has some lovely images, such as this one:

The article is excellent, and does a lot to inform about pangolins, about wildlife trade (illegal and otherwise) in general, and about the issue around why larger, more 'charismatic' mammals such as the beleagured tigers, rhinos and elephants get so much more press than smaller animals including pangolins. It doesn't address the issue of non-mammals, which also of course suffer hugely... but then, it can't cover everything, which is kind of the point of my writing this blog post at all! 

So what is my point?

I absolutely support World Pangolin Day and all efforts to conserve the pangolin along with other animals at constant and ongoing risk from the horrors of trade in wildlife around the world. But here, I just want to say a few things about the way/s in which this trade is talked about, and some of the problematic assumptions that go along with - and are sustained by - those ways of talking and thinking.

For a start, I do find it problematic - at best - that much of this discourse (at least in English!) focuses on vilifying and demonising 'the Asian' market in and for 'exotic' animals. I currently live in Korea, and have no qualms in agreeing that much of the approach I have seen to animals-as-food-and medicine is pretty horrific, and hence would never deny that 'the Asian market' is both alarming and contributes massively to the peril which not just mammals like pangolins and tigers face daily, but to the similar perils and cruelties suffered by sharks and sea cucumbers, to name just a few. Indeed, at the current historical moment (when we claim to be 'post'-colonialism, and when big game hunting is less popular than it was in the days of the British Empire), it IS the Asian market that poses the most threat. 

But what concerns me is a latter-day demonising of a new 'yellow peril', and - perhaps more importantly - the way in which this focus on 'the Asian' as a threat to 'wildlife' both elides and draws critical attention from how all humans - perhaps especially those in the 'West' - both contribute to the plight of OTHAs across the globe, and treat 'farm' OTHAs in ways that are at very least as vile and immoral as the ways in which 'the Asian' treats 'wild' animals such as pangolins, tigers, rhinos and elephants.

This adds, I think, to the worldwide refusal to address the fact that the way humans treat the vast mahority of animals is not only despicable, but tends not just to uphold a dubious human/animal dichotomy, but also even more problematic and tenuous dichotomies such as wild/domestic and protected/farm in respect of animals. Images of dead and dying elephants with their tusks cut off are horrendous, as are those of crates of dead pangolin bodies... but so are images from our abbatoirs, where it might even be argued (although it's far from this simple!) that those animals - 'domestic' animals' - have it even worse, since their entire lives from birth to gruesome death are not just in captivity, but are treated as wheels in the cogs of a machine to 'produce' (rather than hunt or otherwise obtain) food... So again, double (triple? quadruple?!) standards are maintained: we decry 'the Asian' for THEIR cruel practices against 'wild' animals, and refuse to recognise the symmetries therein with 'the West's' treatment of animals it has domesticated... and that's without even getting into how 'the West' has already decimated many of its own 'wild' animals, and continues to vilify so many of them (think here of red foxes, and badgers - both so much in 'the news' of late) - and to 'manage' even those it purports to love. 

The issue is more complex than even this lengthy blog post outlines, but I wanted nonetheless to at least draw attention to it, and say those few things.

A related point emerges from considering the film Tom-Yung-Goong, aka Warrior King, aka The Protector (aka "Where are my elephants?", at least to me; d. Prachya Pinkaew, Thailand, 2005). This film, starring the remarkable Tony Jaa and two elephants, has Jaa's character, Kham, follow wildlife traffickers to Australia when they steal two elephants with whom Kham has grown up, and with whom he and his family share their lives: it turns out the elephants are bound for a high-class but illegal 'Asian' restuarant in Sydney, where Asian gangsters cater to the 'exotic' tastes of their (largely Asian) clientele. Kham's only desire is to find and save the elephants (whose names I can't find listed in the credits...).

First, the film does of course highlight and demonstrate reasons why larger mammals such as elephants are more focused-upon than smaller, less 'charismatic' animals such as pangolins in the fight against wildlife trade: it is somehow easier to believe that elephants are part of not just Kham's 'family', but also his cultural tradition (as represented in the opening sequence of the film), that to believe that sort of role is held by a pangolin. This points to ways in which even when we choose animals to care about, much of that decision and focus emanates not just from care for the animal itself, but from what it 'means' to humans, and in the human soci-cultural and historical context. This should, in turn, make us (re-think hard about which OTHAs we choose to care about, and why. 

The film also ably illustrates why elephants are deemed more 'charismatic': they are impressive on-screen, and simply take up more space than wee pangolins, who would be dwarfed by Kham, their protector! The same applies, in many ways, to attempts to heighten 'public' awareness about the plight of endangered mammals and other species: those that are similar in size to us or larger are often chosen - especially in these ever-more visually-centred times, where more is 'known' about our fellow animals than is read.

Interestingly, though, 'even' this martial arts action film that focuses on elephants IS at pains to show us a wide range of OTHAs in cages when Khan finally locates the restaurant where the elephants have been taken: this is one reason I love this film: it may not be perfect - and it's certainly no documenary!!! - but even within the limitations of its genre, it tries to not just rethink the sharp human/animal divide held to resolutely by contemporary western culture, but does not limit that to only the more charimsatic species, visually, on-screen. (The film's discoure on race is also abslolutely fascinating - especially in its use of pitting Kham against truly gigantic and very white men in the final fights... but I can't even begin to analyse this here: it needs a dissertation to do it justice!)

Lastly, then - before I fall asleep! - I'd just like to note the main reason I love this film. When Kham arrives in Sydney, the plot has him meet up with a local cop who is also Thai, and hence with whom he can communicate verbally. Despite this, several comic moments in the film come from the cop's confusion about what Kham is telling him: Kham tells him he's looking for kidnapped members of his family, and the cop, Mark (Petchtai Wongkamlao), misunderstands this and assumes Kham is searching for humans. 

This miscommunication between the westernized Thai figure of authority and the more nationally-coded Thai who grew up alongside other-than-human family members is, for me, one of the most remarkable and lovely elements of this surprising film. To me, it means the film on some level genuinely goes beyond the ways in which western media and even most western conservationists see, conceptualise and treat individual OTHAs, as it points to the ridiculous arbitrariness of the human/animal dichotomy; to the ways in which actual, lived human-animal friendships belie such a clear-cut divide; and to the 'strange kinship' that we humans enjoy not just with each other, but with all animals...

And as these are all ideas to which I hope to return, I will stop for now! 

LIFE OF PI, d. Ang Lee, USA/Taiwan, 2012.

Finally saw this last night - it mysteriously reappeared at the local Busan cinema, just for two weekend showings!

Am not quite sure what I think of it, let alone about it, as yet. It definitely has some lovely visuals going for it, and the main character is portrayed convincingly by both his younger and older on-screen selves (Ayush Tandon, Suraj Sharma [him on the boat] and Irrfan Khan, respectively). The first part of the film is quite lovely - especially the tale of how he became known as Pi, and the amusing sequences around religion and his desire to follow (at least) three of them... However, the 'main' part of the film - the story that is meant to make us 'believe in god' - is rather more problematic, I think...

Whether or not the main tale is Pi's creation - something to blot out the horrors of the tale that involves murder and cannibalism amongst and between humans - I'm not very comfortable with the use and representations of other-than-human animals involved. On an obvious level, it's understandable why Pi might wish to blot out what 'really' happened if his 'second' story, the one involving other humans being on the lifeboat with him, and as such this reading of the tale 'works'. It's also understandable that he uses animals in this way, I suppose - to represent aspects and elements of human 'nature' and behaviour - and this may work better (and less problematically?) in writing than on-screen, I suppose (although I'm not convinced of that either; I'm reading the novel, though - which might bring some clarity there. Or it might not!). However, the reduction is not very pleasant, I don't think - not to the animals, anyway! I had kind of hoped to see filmic representations of them that said something about animals-as-persons, not as comments on humans, as it were. And in that sense, the film (the story?) was very wanting.

If the tiger was 'really' on the boat, then it's inexplicable and a shame that such a potentially interesting and animal-human relationship focused tale couldn't find more interesting ways to develop the relationship: it seemed that Pi's father's characterization of Richard Parker was too well ingrained in Pi's head to leave room for a more helpful approach to sharing space with a tiger than the one(s) attempted by Pi. If the tiger was more of a metaphor, or imagined self, then the problem was, I think, even greater: what an odd way to imagine a fellow creature in a shared - horrendously frightening! - situation. Either way, the characterization (caricature-ization) of Richard Parker as relentlessly agrressive seems limited, at best. (I'm not suggesting tigers aren't carnivrous and potetially very dangerous companions at sea(!); but this IS fiction, so something more could well be investigated - and needn't be at complete odds with a 'real' tiger, either - as contemporary work on human-animal relations as well as other-than-human animal behaviour bears out.)

I was left wondering why Pi didn't comfort the zebra, didn't batter the hyena(!), and wasn't more wlecoming to the orangutan, for sure. And while the confusion of the terrifying and death-threatening situation does much to 'explain' all this - as does the situation of its perhaps anyway being a metaphor for/to repress what 'really' happened - this doesn't detract from the way in which the story does nothing to really challenge stereotypical images of other-than-humans as defined largely by theor species characteristics, rather than by situations and relatiosnhips. So for me, it was limited when it could have done so much more. But yes, some beautiful imagery - especially at sea, and also on the 'floating island' - and some nice elements around Pi missing Richard Parker, and his feelings of being let down when he's abandoned by the tiger, and/as a part of him self. 

Film-watching in Busan...

It's not easy!

After waiting a while, both Cloud Atlas and Life of Pi opened while I was in Japan for a few days... and as I caught a horrible cold whilst there, I didn't venture to the cinema for the first week I was back here in Korea. By then, both films had gone!

The Hobbit had also gone... but it'd been on for weeks; I was just too lazy to go see it, having enjoyed the real-life New Zealand so much in December!

I'm hoping hard that some or all of these films will be on a second run or some such when I'm back in the UK from March... as I think a small screen won't do any of the three of them real justice?

Another unfortunate aspect of being here is that while Busan boasts a rather lovely new independent cinema in the city centre - the Busan Cinema Center, the main venue for BIFF (the Busan International Film Festival) - which plays all sorts of 'world' cinema, the lack of English subtitles means that I haven't been to see anything at it. Terrible waste! 
 

MARGIN CALL, d. and wr. J.C. Chandor, USA, 2011

I should revisit this review when I don't have a cold-ridden head, but right now I'm going to say that this film - about the early stages of the 'financial crisis', and set at an investment bank - is brilliantly cast, and pretty well written; it also works somewhat as a critique of those who created (or who participated in creating) the mess - although to my mind, it didn't really critique them enough.

The film has a definite feel of Glengarry Glen Ross (d. James Foley, USA, 1992) - the wonderful Al Pacino film penned by David Mamet, about a bunch of colleagues pitted against each other in a sales competition at a real estate office in Chicago. Of course there's nothing wonderful about the worlds inhabited by the characters of each film - manipulative, selfish, money-obsessed greed-driven as they are. However, both films share insightful writing about the lack of self-confidence at the base of many participants' place in such worlds, and also work to reveal the unethical nature of the world and its inhabitants without oversimplifying such criticism. 

Margin Call boasts a remarkable cast - not least of whom is Simon Baker, even if he's one of the less well-known. Jeremy Irons is particularly chlilling, while Paul Bettany is remarkable. I also think Kevin Spacey (who was in GGR!) performs brilliantly, but balked somewhat at the way his character is written for 'sympathy' in some ways: it's not convincing (not to me, anyway), and in that respect I'm kind of with Keremy Irons' character: these guys don't only know what's been happening, but have made their entire fortunes out of screwing people over - so there's little sympathy for any who might have moral pangs at this late stage(!). Demi Moore is also in this film - and her role is a pretty good one. The film doesn't fail in its gendered representation, either: she's convincingly cast, and her role pans out just as one might suspect it would in such a male-dominated 'culture', however key she might seem at some stages to the firm's ongoing success.

Worth watching just for the acting and the dialogue, I'd really recommend this one, despite its flaws. It's not quite Glengarry Glen Ross - but it's got enough of that film about it to make it enjoyable as well as depressing, I think!

MACHETE, d. Ethan Maniquis & Robert Rodriguez, USA, 2010

About as subtle in its politics as pretty much ever other film Steven Seagal's ever been in (On Deadly Ground, anyone?), this Robert Rodriguez-co-written and co-directed blood-fest has a peculiar wayof getting across its 'critique' of anti-immigration rhetoric in the United States. To my mind, it shoots itself (very bloodily) in the foot at pretty much every cinematic turn - its sexist, racist and pointlessly bloody representations do nothing to either promote such a legitimate critical stance, nor to succeed (are they meant to?) in being 'reflexive' or otherwise intelligently lampooning such cinematic 'conventions'.

The basic storyline is silly, but everyone knows that doesn't bother me: federale (Danny Trejo as Machete) has his family killed and house burned down when he tries to protect a potential witness against a gangster named Torriz (Steven Seagal). Three years later, our tale starts - when Machete is hired to shoot McLaughlin (De Niro's rabidly anti-immigration senator), but it's a set-up designed to curry favour with the voters, and to stir up trouble with 'The Network', a group of people who help Mexicans cross the border and get jobs, and the vigilante group out to stop them. It also turns out - of course - that Torrez is involved, and that Machete's brother - now a priest (oh yes) - gets dragged into things too. Throw in a few steotypical blonde bimbos and sultry latina women (including a bunch who wear skimpy outfits to strip down cars), and things can only get worse.

ALL the female characters are played by young, crazy-skinny and always-made-up women who, for the most part, just really don't fit the roles. (This is not a dig at the actresses: both Michelle Rodriguez as Luz, and Jessica Alba as Sartana are pretty good with what they're given.) The pathetic attempts at 'playing' with the overt sexualisation of all the women in the film - e.g. the close-up ofa nurse's barely-covered arse and her 'witty' come-back to the doctor ogling her - just don't cut it. Stupid 'knowing' dialogue of that nature does nothing to undercut the unimaginative 'woman-as-sex-object' visual representations replicated and enforced by this film. Ditto the 'funny' sequence in which the 'racism' of Mexicans already over the border and working (in kitchens) in the USofA aren't exactly insightful and compelling. (The sequence I'm thinking of is where a Mexican dishwasher watching TV agrees enthusiastically with McLaughlin's strategy to "close the border"; his white co-worker reminds him he crossed the border to get there, to which he replies that's why it's oay with him if they go ahead and close the border now.... blah blah blah.)

Oh, and making one its bad guys not just racist and a grug traffiker but also as somebody with incestuous desires for his daughter? Not the best writing choice.

Overall, the film's anti-anti-immigration politics might be admirable, but that's about all that is. And since it just uses them as an excuse for a particularly unpleasant stream of bloody murders, and is very very confused about the 'rights' and 'wrongs' of the complex contexts of immigration into Texas - failing dismally, in my estimation, to make any helpful or coherent commentary on the situation - I can't really recommend much of anything about this film apart from some of the acting.

My overwhelming thought was that in its use of OTT senatorial sound-bites and TV reports, as well as in its use of ultra-violence, the film tries to embody the kind of searing social satire of a film like RoboCop (or even Scarface (1983)?!). But it fails. Completely. I do get that it's an 'exploitation' movie; but really, WTF is the point - any more - of just making a bad exploitation movie? If it's for profit, then the 'critique' the film offers is completely undermined; again, it shoots itself in the foot (well, the head, really!).

I saw this, by the way, because it was playing at 9am this morning on Korean TV. The mind boggles.

Oh and I was going to say that I at least liked one line: "Machete don't text". But they ruined even that. (Later, he texts. *rolls eyes*)

LAWLESS, d. John Hillcoat, USA 2012

Decidedly unconvinced that anything (other than Transformers) starring Shia LeBeouf could be any good, I was skeptical... but this was a surprise, in that it was not only an interesting, well-crafted movie with some great acting, but LeBeouf didn't ruin it at all. He was pretty good.

Not usually prone to comment on directors, but on the films 'themselves', I'm nevertheless going to say that part of what I thought was intelligent and engaging about Lawless was its almost Verhoeven-like displays - and critique - of violence. This was coupled with an interesting martial-arts-B-movie approach to the consequences of violence, especially killing: interestingly, while I was watching it, the film struck me as being horrifically violent and nastily so - which I didn't enjoy one bit. But I realised that in fact it was - a la B-movies of Van Damme and his ilk - actually very moralising in terms of its attitude to violence, and especially to murder. It did display some horrific violence - and 'even' the sympathetic characters (the Bondurant brothers, played by Tom Hardy, Le Beouf and Jason Clarke) made me sick at times, and Hardy's character, Forrest, was particularly violent. (The baggy-cardi and knuckleduster combo was seriously alarming!) But as the film went on, it was interesting to see how the plot revolved very closely around the notion that actual death - murder, rather than 'mere' violence on bodies - was not to be tolerated, in the ethos of the film (and, it suggested, of the Bondurants and their community). In a not always entirely convincing way at times, but in quite a forceful way, the film presented the notion that while 'boys will be boys' (especially with the motivating context of Prohibition and those in power on the make), some behaviour is simply unacceptable. Since this is not the norm in mainstream action films, so often, I kind of liked this about the film: to me, its cameraderie with B-movies on this point made it far more engaging to me than most films of its genre. (The genre of Lawless, by the way, is something of a hybrid gangster-western mix.)

Of course Verhoeven's films tend to critique violence precisely by having dead bodies everywhere: Lawless doesn't do that, but what is similar is the display of excessive, extravagantly cinematic violence committed on bodies. Displays that promise to actually make one think about the actual violence committed, rather than just accept it as another narrative device. The opening image (of killing a pig) resonates far more once the film makes this clear, too: initially I just found it horrific and pointless - and the way it's echoed at the end is problematic, for sure. But at the same time, it plays well with the film's overall approach to violence, and its ... seriousness, for want of a better term.

Elements of the story are somewhat naff and tired - the 'crippled' character, the romance for our boy LeBeouf (although the church sequence is hilarious!), the ex prostitute escaping the city. At the same time, their very generic nature adds something to the film, and to its criticism of violence and what it does to people. 

Speaking of ex prostitutes, the central female character in this film, Maggie Beaumont (Jessica Chastain - who was in the horrifically awful and pretentiousTree of Life), does not get to do an awful lot. But she's crucial to us not hating Forrest, and also to his enduring legend; it's true that her character is defined almost entirely by her sexuality - she was a prostitue, she is raped, and her primary role is as a romantic interest who 'develops' Forrest's character for us. And I find some of that hard to take - especially where she ends up at the conclusion of the film. But, frankly, it could be far worse: as it is, she at least takes some control over her life - in the limited ways available to her - and the camera at least doesn't ogle her.

Hard to comment on this movie without mentioning Guy Pearce. He over-acts his socks off - and it pretty much works. He has to, really, as Gary Oldman also features (if briefly). Anyway, I did quite enjoy the contempt he expresses for all the other characters on screen, and his sense of self-importance and invincibility (opposed to Forrest's mythical inability to die). Maybe a bit over-done, but still enjoyable if you just go with it and accept the pantomime villain moments as part of his panache.

The detail in the writing of the characters is nice, and unsurprising from Nick Cave. Certainly it's a result of the precise writing, I think - along with acting that complements it beautifully - that makes the film successfully embody Cave's comment (reported in the Guardian) that "Lawless is not so much a true story as a true myth".

   

ARGO, d. Ben Affleck, USA 2012

Amazingly (to me, anyway) I loved this film! It actually succeeded in being very very funny at times (though calling it a comedy is slightly insane), which I think made it all the more powerful in terms of its telling its "true" story.

I can't quite believe it myself, but I thought it was extremely well directed - at least until towards the end, as I did think it lost it a bit when it changed from a calm, sometimes almost Michael Mann-esque pace and style to a far more mainstream Hollywood-paced cutting to make the end more "cinematic" (i.e. fake) as the journey towards the airport began and progressed. And believe me, suggesting this film - any film - has Michael Mann-like direction is a huge compliment from me. I am not entirely sure what struck me about it to make that point - I saw it a few days ago, and should've reviewed it then, not now! - but the pace and the style and the mise-en-scene all contributed, as did the use of music, the use of close-ups, and also the focus, I suppose, on the meandering threads of the central character's life... And the early sequences in the Embassy, especially, were beautifully paced and choreographed and shot. I still can't quite believe it! The sense of rising urgency, the seemingly silly (but ultimately very important) obsession with destroying documents, the looks on Embassy staff and Iranian citizens' faces... all very dramatic, very engaging, very intense - but never over-done, and without ever resorting to theatrical screams or caricatures.

It really was a shame it went a bit pear-shaped at the end. In some ways, pursuing the Michael Mann route might've saved it: i.e., had Affleck drawn out the film anther 45 minutes, he might've avoided the too-fast-paced problems, and carried on making a persuasively political and emotive film, rather than a sort of escape flick. Who knows. Maybe not!

The casting was brilliant: Tate Donovan and Zeljko Ivanek were both in it - fairly small roles, but amazing and I love them both... and, seriously, JOHN GOODMAN was in it. Wonderful! He was his usual excellent self, and worked well alongside Alan Arkin... the hostages were excellent (and I dig the 1970s clothes and hair, I have to say)... and a small highlight for me (which should embarrass me but doesn't) is that the Canadian ambassador is played by none other than Victor Garber (Sidney's dad in ALIAS!).

You'll notice I've mentioned not one actress's name. This is because there are barely any women in the film. It's about a CIA operation in the 1970s. Enough said.

I don't feel like I am doing this film justice. I thought it was moving and genuinely funny at times, that it managed to acknowledge that whatever their means of displaying it (hostage-taking not being ideal), the Iranians were far from 'wrong' in what they did, ultimately, and I do think it's a positive film to make and release in the current global, deeply racist, climate. Whether or not it'll be read and recieved that way, I don't know. But the body of the film - again, though, NOT so much the end - works for me.

The juxtapositioning of the crazy Hollywood nonsense and the hostage crisis, by the way - especially the sequence intercutting the reading-through of the fake film with the realities of life in Tehran - was really effective, really well done. It was never crass, and never ridiculed anyone. It managed to be hilarious at times, but also very poignant. Quite an achievement given the subject matter of the film, and the frippery that makes up so much of what Hollywood, in contrast, is and does.