TARNATION (2003), dir. Jonathan Caouette

F for F***ed-Up? It’s All True

Caouette takes an original approach to the autobiographical documentary, mostly eschewing hearsay and dramatic re-enactment for a more avant-garde, rock video aesthetic. Utilizing home video footage, some of which dates back to when the subject was barely walking age, he assembles an extremely haunting and stylized pastiche of childhood traumas and adolescent angst. Caouette took to the camera at a very young age, his nascent obsession with capturing images on film serving as his primary means of dealing with years of institutional abuse. But as we watch him grow up before our very eyes, and experience his trials and tribulations, which include sexual experimentation, frequent rages, time in a mental hospital, and a mind-altering experiment involving marijuana dipped in formaldehyde, it also becomes apparent that Jonathan has the soul of an artist, and no shortage of talent wielding his trusty Super 8.

At various points, “Tarnation” stares down the director/subject’s Houston-based family, particularly his grandparents, whose unwavering belief in their normalcy blinds them to how irrevocably screwed-up they actually are. They could be brain-damaged; Caouette himself doesn’t seem to know for sure. Meanwhile, these chapters of unflinching realism are offset by dreamlike sister passages, as if the great David Lynch, whose work Caouette clearly was a fan of (Indeed, the funniest montage in the film documents Jonathan’s successful high school musical production of the 1986 classic, “Blue Velvet”), actually dropped in to personally direct his late night TV-viewing hours.

During these somnambulant interludes, which feature close-ups of television screen blizzards, ominous droning barely perceptible beneath the soundtrack, and the bright and shiny juxtaposed with murky darkness, the tone vacillates between calming fantasy and tweaker’s nightmare. Like any dream, however, the sleeper’s subconscious eventually finds its way into the fabric. If “Tarnation” represents a map of the director’s subconscious, what preoccupies him most is his mother, Renee. Growing up, he never got to know the “real” her, the Renee LeBlanc before the depression, before the divorce from Jonathan’s father, before those aforementioned grandparents, who were about as ignorant as they were morally self-righteous, had shock treatments administered to her, destroying her personality. The lynchpin of the movie is his enduring relationship with her, rife with wonder and frustration, which represents the impossible-to-sever umbilical connection that exists between all mothers and their children.

Renee’s dilapidated, mentally gone existence acts as a mirror to Jonathan, reflecting a future he can envision for himself. Turning out the same world-worn way doesn’t seem all that far-fetched, considering how their respective pasts are already very similar (physical and emotional abuse, drugs, burgeoning career based on physical appearances). During a “Big Brother,” reality TV-style confession that serves as the denouement of the film, Jonathan admits his fears of ending up like Renee. It’s just that, when she was his age, she seemed a lot better than she does now. But looking at things rationally, a similar kind of fate seems highly unlikely for Caouette. If his completed autobiography proves anything, it is his willingness to confront the past, to try and sublimate the pain and overcome the trauma. The mere fact that he attempts this, unlike his mother, who avoids talking about the worst times to the very end, confirms how different they really are. Yes, she is his mother; yes, like her, Jonathan Caouette may consider himself tarnished. But in truth, no one shines brighter than he, and this movie is strong evidence of that.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

GOOD BYE, DRAGON INN (2003), dir. Tsai Ming-liang

A Movie-going Experience about, among Other Things, the Movie-going Experience

Tsai Ming-liang’s follow-up to his breakthrough film, “What Time is It There?” is an absorbing visual poem about the pros and cons of going to the movies. While it is less expansive than his previous outing, it clearly belongs alongside the director’s other films. Like the rest, it features lonely characters in an urban setting, as well as long, static shots.

“Good Bye, Dragon Inn” takes place in an old-fashioned movie house, which has one screen, shows revivals of classics, and suffers from a lack of customers. The Fu-Ho Grand Theater, as it is called, doesn’t quite live up to its namesake anymore. Much of the interior seems dilapidated, and the overall mood approaches sadness.

The movie alternates between a ticket woman with a bad leg (Shiang-chyi Chen), who seems to be the only employee of this vast theatre, and a young man (Kiyonobu Mitamura) who has come to enjoy King Hu’s martial arts epic “Dragon Inn.” She happens to be away from the booth when he wanders in, so he sneaks into the theater sans ticket. The two characters remain on separate paths: she performs her nightly routine, while he attempts to enjoy “Dragon Inn." Through the course of the film, they never connect with each other. Nor anybody else, for that matter.

Practically half the movie is spent showing the ticket woman hobbling to her locker, a Herculian task given the Fu-Ho's size. Often, the director will let the camera linger until the character retreats from the frame completely. This technique slows down the rhythm of the editing, which affects the speed at which the audience perceives events. But it also emphasizes the solitude of the character, since she remains the sole subject of Ming-liang's interminable shots.

In the case of the young man, the extended takes capture his growing frustration. He does not enter the Fu-Ho Grand looking to be an island onto himself. But petty annoyances, stretched out over the course of long, uninterrupted shots, go a long way towards alienating him from his fellow movie-goers. He hops from seat to seat, but everywhere he goes, he encounters couples who make loud snacking noises, or sneakers next to his head. Occasionally, his interest is piqued by a fellow patron. Unfortunately, his friendly approach often meets a cold shoulder.

The youth never acheives any kind of connection with anyone. There are men who cruise the Fu-Ho looking for dispassionate sex, but it's dispassionate to the point of being invisible. In one scene, which takes place in the men’s room, he never realizes sexual congress has been happening in a nearby stall until the surprise appearance of the second participant. The joke is how subdued, how unimpressively muted, both parties must have been to accomplish such stealthy relations.

Somehow, the youth locates a hidden labyrinth, frequented by men who wear yearnful looks. They wander through shadowy passageways, eyeing one another, squeezing against each other in narrow spots. These shots depict friction without actual heat. The youth's standards, being higher than some, explain why he holds out until meeting someone who tickles his fancy. He approaches a boyishly-handsome stranger in a blue button-up (Kang-sheng Lee, a Ming-liang regular since 1992's "Rebels of the Neon God"). But despite early indications, this one isn’t interested either. Once again, instead of hooking up, the young man finds himself left high and dry.

The way the director handles it, however, proves strangely amusing. He waits until the moment both characters appear most intimate—the stranger having ignited the youth’s cigarette, as well as his libido. When the former leans in as if to kiss the stranger, the latter nonchalantly states the theater is haunted, then walks away. One suspects that the youth has just encountered a ghost himself, but he is too busy being sexually frustrated to heed the message.

Could the Fu-Ho really be haunted, or was the stranger simply messing with the young man’s mind? Several scenes imply the former, such as the ghostly young woman who makes eating sunflower seeds seem like Chinese water torture. There is also the appearance of two actors from the film “Dragon Inn”: Shih Chun and Tien Miao (another veteran of Ming-liang's films). They mourn how no one goes to see movies anymore, and how the images of their younger selves have faded from the public mind. In either scenario, these characters could be people off the street, or they could indeed be spectres. Ming-liang never states anything explicitly.

Personally, I much prefer the ambiguity. The suggestion of ghosts completely changes our perception of shots at the beginning of the film. Remember those opening images: Countless heads staring forward at the projection against the movie screen. In later shots, what happened to those extras? Were they ever really there, or could Ming-liang have been implying something more mystical, that human beings leave part of themselves behind, even when they go to the movies?

Upon looking back, I wondered whether the ticket woman, who never interacts with anyone, could have been a ghost. Perhaps she is cursed to haunt the corridors of the Fu-Ho, a Sisyphus-like spirit who sweeps floors instead of rolling boulders. More likely, however, she’s a real person, whose condition restricts her to menial labor. But working at the cinema allows her certain privileges: There is that wonderful moment when she walks behind the theater screen, and stares up at the giant image of a warrior woman from “Dragon Inn.” The camera cuts back-and-forth between her and the female fighter, as lights from the silver screen play off her face. Not only does this moment perfectly capture the liberating power of the cinema, it offers insight into the ticket woman. We realize that, in spite of the difficult working conditions, she might have chosen to be here all along, in exchange for moments like this one.

“Good Bye, Dragon Inn,” is noteworthy enough for being filmed in the director's signature style. It's also set in an interesting place, and has something to say about movie-going experience. In addition, everything that happens to the youth while he tries to watch "Dragon Inn" adds up to a humorous assemblage of common moviegoer complaints.

Above all, the movie takes place in a theater, which Ming-liang turns into a microcosm of big city problems. The Fu-Ho itself is an historical edifice left to rot, and contains episodes about personal space (the “noise pollution” from the snack-eaters in the viewing room) as well as social alienation (the lonely ticket woman, the silent men in the labyrinth). There is also a crime issue, as deviant behavior has creeped into a place that welcomes young children (the bathroom liaisons, the gay men cruising the labyrinth).

What caused this downward spiral? Is the decline of the Fu-Ho Grand Theater predicated by the same factors that have affected the movie-showing business in America? Too much piracy? Too many entertainment alternatives? Has their industrialized culture broken too many communities into disparate islands onto themselves, for whom the thought of sharing space, time, and experience seems unbearable?

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)

OLDBOY (2003), dir. Chan-wook Park

South Korean "Payback" Gives Decent Payoff

The main thing that sets "Oldboy" apart from other revenge movies is that the villain goes to great lengths to keep the main character alive. He does this on purpose, of course. Death, after all, brings about immediate release from pain and suffering. The bad guy in "Oldboy" doesn’t want Dae-su Oh (Min-sik Choy), the middle-aged businessman he has kidnapped, to get off that easily.

Dae-su Oh disappears one dark and stormy night, just after he steps away from a pay phone. His abductors lock him up inside what looks like a hotel room. There is a bed, as well as a shower and television. However, the room has no windows, and the door looks like it belongs on a cell for prisoners in solitary confinement. It’s made of metal, locked from the outside, and has a slot at the bottom. Dae-su Oh’s abductors regularly slide him his food through the gap.

No one will tell Dae-su Oh why he has been imprisoned, or when he can hope for release. Left in near-total isolation, his only connection to the outside world is the television. This becomes problematic when news flashes start reporting that Dae-su Oh’s wife has been brutally murdered, and that he is the prime suspect. In a creepy tracking shot that circles around his head, we see ants emerging from underneath his skin, and swarming about his face. It seems like an apt visual metaphor—the character’s fear, rage, and creepy loneliness literally devouring him from the inside-out. Dae-su Oh is never the same from this point on. Though his thoughts continue to be expressed in lucid voiceover, we get the feeling that some part of the man has died.

Dae-su Oh continues to be caged like an animal for the next fifteen years. In the interval, his once neatly-cut hair grows long, and his face, having grown sad eyes as well as a lean and hungry look, resembles a lupine under exhibition in a zoo. This contrasting of man with animal is even more fitting after the control room of Dae-su Oh’s "prison" is revealed. From this makeshift nerve center, an office that includes a bank of television monitors, Dae-su Oh’s captors, like dedicated zookeepers, keep a watchful eye over the specimens in their menagerie.

Granted, there is something wild and uncouth about Dae-su Oh from the very beginning. In the first sequence of the movie, he fights with police officers at the station where he has been detained. He attempts to "mark his territory" in the middle of booking, and makes a rude gesture upon being released. After finally escaping his prison (Actually, he wakes up to find himself mysteriously delivered to a building rooftop), he becomes like a wild animal set free from his cage. Initially overwhelmed by his newfound freedom, Dae-su Oh soon becomes hellbent on finding those responsible for his suffering, and making them pay dearly. Since Dae-su Oh has been framed for the murder of his wife, he must act as a vigilante. Before he begins doing that, however, he visits a nearby sushi bar, where he devours a still-moving octopus to satisfy his desire to eat something alive (The act of eating live flesh can be viewed as Dae-su Oh's first step towards returning to his pre-captivity state).

After lapsing out of consciousness, Dae-su Oh awakens to Mi-do (Hye-jeong Kang), a young teenage girl who took him home from the sushi bar. She wants to read the journals he had been keeping while imprisoned, but Dae-su Oh snatches them away, hoarding them like some kind of pack rat. Having been removed from human contact for so long, women now cause him great anxiety. This doesn’t stop him from trying to rape Mi-do in the bathroom. Luckily, she accepts his explanation that these urges are simply beyond his control.

Of course, Dae-su Oh’s animal urges go beyond the primal need to fuck. He has had fifteen years to foment a craven bloodlust towards whoever had him kidnapped. Having made his body stronger during his time in captivity, Dae-su Oh’s rage has become combined with the agility and ferociousness of a jungle cat. As a result, he doesn’t just stab, bludgeon, and torture the parties who participated in his degradation, or who can provide him with clues about the enemy’s identity. Dae-su Oh relishes the prospect of violence. "Oldboy" is a movie full of carnage, much of it messy, some of it difficult to watch. Director Chan-wook Park films using only light sources in the background, which give the picture an ugly sheen that only complements the ugly behavior.

But Park also introduces a novel idea during the second half of the movie. Just when we have Dae-su Oh pegged as the baddest animal in the concrete jungle, there arrives an even deadlier specimen: the very man our anti-hero has been trying to track down. Woo-jin Lee (Ji-tae Yu), it turns out, has been nursing a grudge against Dae-su Oh that makes the latter’s fifteen years in solitary look like grains in the hourglass. A sneering ghoul of a man, hate has devoured Woo-Jin whole. All that remains is a cold smile and scheming intelligence. It's doubtful he ever met a revenge formula he would consider too elaborate.

Inevitably, Dae-su Oh meets Woo-jin Lee face-to-face. One of them turns out to have an ace up his sleeve, a revelation so shocking and twisted, his opponent is left speechless. Initially, I dismissed the twist ending as a case of a screenwriter simply piling stuff on. But upon further reflection, it's not so implausible, given how deep the character's hate for his counterpart runs. He would have had plenty of time to refine the grand strategem gestating in his brain. And since these are animals mixing it up, not men, isn’t it fitting that cunning and ruthlessness, as opposed to the righteousness of one’s cause, are what decide ultimate victory? Just like in the real jungle.

"Though I am no better than a beast, do I not have the right to be happy…?"

A line repeated more than once in the movie, it takes on a surprising poignancy, and hints at man's hope of transcending his own animal instincts.

Both Dae-su Oh and Woo-jin Lee have behaved in beastly ways to people. The former has a list of enemies long enough to fill a composition notebook, while the latter has inflicted unspeakable harm on Dae-su Oh and his loved ones. If a key difference exists between these two men, however, it’s that one of them owns up to the unspeakable acts he has committed, and in admitting his own culpability, finds forgiveness and inner peace. His counterpart does not. To the bitter end, he blames his years of suffering entirely on his nemesis. He exonerates his own bestial instincts of any role they might have played in a past tragedy.

As a result, even after the smoke clears, after he has stood victorious over his enemy, he still can find no peace. No amount of retribution can take away the pain. No amount of suffering on the part of his nemesis can bring back what was lost. Here is a man so dedicated to the destruction of his enemy that, with the enemy vanquished, he loses all purpose. Imprisoned by his own bestial instincts and behavior, he can aspire to no higher emotions. All that is left for him to do is wander off somewhere, and die in solitude, like a dog.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO (2003), dir. Robert Rodriguez

The Good, the Bad, & the Digital

In 1992, Robert Rodriguez burst onto the movie-making scene with his low-budget action film “El Mariachi.” It was about a Mexican guitar player who wandered into the wrong town, and was mistaken for a hitman by local thugs. Made on a budget of less than three-thousand dollars (and with a borrowed camera, as the legend goes), “El Mariachi” became a cult hit. Rodriguez next movie, made on a larger studio budget, was 1995’s “Desperado,” a sequel to “El Mariachi.” Antonio Banderas played the title character for the sequel, which went on to become a hit.

“Once Upon a Time in Mexico” represents the third and final entry of Rodriguez’ “Mariachi Trilogy.” It re-teams Rodriguez with Banderas, and brings back other actors from the “Mariachi Trilogy:” Salma Hayek, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, etc. The movie features the over-the-top gunplay and explosions that are synonomous with the series. But “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” is probably the most mature and impressive of the “Mariachi Trilogy,” and the best film Rodriguez has made to date. It also introduces a new character to the mythos: a C.I.A. agent who wants to turn the Mexican political hierarchy on its head. Played by Johnny Depp in a brave, reckless performance, Agent Sands is a strange combination of philosopher, cowboy, and ugly American tourist. He is also quite possibly the most interesting character of all three movies.

The plot of “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” is labyrinthean. Agent Sands wants to help a druglord/general overthrow the current Mexican president. He has help on the inside from a police officer (Eva Mendes) assigned to the president’s security detail. Sands has no real interest in the outcome of the overthrow; he plans to use it as a distraction while he steals 20 million pesos from the president’s palace. The United States government, however, would prefer that the drug-dealing general not become the new leader of Mexico. So Sands tracks down and hires the legendary El Mariachi (Banderas) to assassinate the general right after he takes power.

Sands also recruits a retired F.B.I. agent (Ruben Blades), now living in Mexico, to keep tabs on the general. One of the general’s henchmen viciously tortured and killed the agent’s partner. Also, the general himself murdered two people very dear to El Mariachi.

Confused yet? Don’t worry. Rodriguez only spends the first half of the movie introducing all the characters, and occasionally bogging things down with plot. Once the second half begins, however, just about everyone is motivated by revenge. Much easier to follow. The movie culminates in a spooky set piece which takes place during the Mexican “Day of the Dead” festival. Lots of extras parade around dressed in elaborate costumes. Then the general’s soldiers arrive and begin attacking the peasants. What follows is a shootout of scale and proportion larger than anything in the “Mariachi Trilogy” that preceded it.

The acting from the three leads (Banderas, Depp, and Blades) ranges from good to amazing. It’s great to see Banderas reprising his role as El Mariachi. It is probably his best role, and the one he is most likely to be associated with throughout his career (Even more so than Zorro.) In this third installment, the character is more weary, haunted by the violence and death that have shadowed him. Not only does Banderas play him as a quieter, more strung-out version of the legendary hero, but Rodriguez frames him playing guitar in front of desolate buildings and dusty ruins. The effect makes El Mariachi seem like a ghost, a spirit, which is how Mexico seems to think of him.

If Banderas’ hero is sedate, Depp’s Agent Sands is a livewire of cockiness and bravado. For the life of me, I cannot figure out why I ended up liking this character so much. At the start of the movie, Sands is clearly a smug jerk. He condescends to those he deals with, and has no reservations about killing anybody. One of his victims is a cook in a restaurant whose only offense is really good pork. So you expect Agent Sands to become the main villain of the film.

However, things don’t work out that way. Instead of emerging as the big heavy, whom El Mariachi must have the inevitable final shootout with, Depp ends up as a kind of anti-hero. By the time he shows up at the president’s palace at the end, his partners will have betrayed him, and he will be out for blood.

Personally, I think I rooted for him to get his revenge because, while Agent Sands is a slimeball, his betrayers are also slimeballs, but they lack his sense of style and panache. Or maybe it is because Depp is having such a great year. After limiting himself over the past decade to art films (“The Ninth Gate,” “Chocolat”) and the occasional Tim Burton movie, he starred in “Pirates of the Caribbean,” 2003's top-grossing movie. If “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” also becomes a hit, Depp will probably end the year as that Hollywood rarity: a respected actor and a bankable movie headliner.

Not that “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” is a perfect movie. While there can be no doubt Robert Rodriguez had fun making this movie—the action scenes are all imaginative, and include guitar cases that double as a flame thrower and a remote control bomb, and a car chase choreographed like a Road Runner cartoon—he probably could have trimmed it down another fifteen minutes. Some of the material, though it looks great, seems unnecessary.

For example, there is a sequence involving Banderas and Hayek maneuvering down the side of a building, as bad guys shoot at them from adjacent rooftops. Banderas and Hayek are chained together by the wrist, and the manner in which they inch their way down, like a two-headed human slinky, is sweet, comical, and exhilarating. But the sequence has nothing to do with the story. It does not advance the plot. Nor does it develop the characters in any significant way. It does, however, look really cool, and I can’t help wondering if Rodriguez shot the scene, realized it was excessive, but kept it in anyway.

While on the subject of excess, Rodriguez’s editing style threatened to get on my nerves. As is the case with his “Spy Kids” movies, “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” was shot entirely on digital video. Rodriguez also edited the movie digitally, which allowed him to make super-fast cuts. Most of the shootouts are edited in a blur of fast cuts, so fast that I had difficulty figuring out what was going on at times. Clearly, this movie was more heavily edited than either “El Mariachi” or “Desperado.” At the same time, the shootouts in those movies were much clearer than the ones here.

I should also point out that those expecting a lot of Salma Hayek or Eva Mendes, both of whom could outshine the Mexican sun, will be disappointed. Hayek gets to fight and leap out of windows like an action hero in one scene, and plays with a child in another. That is about it. She only has a handful of lines, and her part does not warrant second billing in the title credits, which is what she received. As for the adorable Mendes, the movie teases us at the beginning by making it seem that her character will be an important one. Like Hayek, however, she only gets limited screen time.

Finally, blink and you will miss Willem Dafoe’s cameo as a Mexican drug lord. Mickey Rourke has a larger part, and does an interesting Nick Nolte impression as a fugitive who hooks up with the kingpin. Comic relief is provided by a Chichlets-peddling street urchin. The movie has a wealth of minor characters, who pop up at unexpected times and have surprising impact on the story. And it’s these different characters, and the different plot strands interweaving, which make “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” the best of the “Mariachi Trilogy.” While the first two installments were entertaining romps, each was really just an extended chase sequence. However, this third, most ambitious mariachi flick is about these characters, the country they inhabit, and the revolution that breaks out among them. It is also about Robert Rodriguez’ ever-continuing development as a filmmaker to watch.

Overall rating: *** (out of ****)