moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Meyer) (05/28/85)
AH YING (Hong Kong, 1983)
Director: Allen Fong
Screenwriter: Sze Yeung-Ping, Peter Wang
Cast: Hul So-Ying, Peter Wang, Hul Pul, Yao Lin-Shum, Chen
Chi-Hung, Hul Wal-Hon, Hul So-Lin.
First, before you get into a rather round-about discourse on foreign
films, I recommend _Ah_Ying_ (along with _MacArthur's_Children_
and _Restless_Natives_) as one of the best films I've seen at the
festival, and worth viewing if they come to your area. I suspect
that _Ah_Ying_ may have very limited distribution, but if you see
a Hong Kong Film festival in your city (or hamlet, though it's less
likely), take a chance -- I think you'll be very satisfied. This film
ranks along-side of _Fame_ or any other film about young actors
(actually, I can't think of an English-speaking film which treated
the subject so well). And now, for the harangue:
There's something I've wanted to talk about for the last few weeks,
because I've found it crossing my mind quite a bit lately. What do
you go to see a movie for? Well, if you're like me (and, I suspect,
most of you are in this case), you've gotten home and are a)
exhausted, b) bored, c) wanting some visual entertainment instead
of reading or something physical, and d) not bored enough to watch
TV. So you grab the local Style/Entertainment/Tempo/Nightly
section (anyone think of other cliche newspaper sections containing
movie ads?) and look through to find something that will be
*ENTERTAINING*! My eyes rarely hit the art or foreign movie
houses -- I'm looking for something that will be neither boring nor
depressing, and you can rarely tell from the ads what the subject
matter will be for these movies. All they have are quotes from the
Village Voice telling us why the film is *so* much better than
American Cinema. Here in Seattle we have the misfortune to have
the major film critic (one John Hartl) be a knee-jerk small picture
man -- if it was made for under $1 million, it *must* be good. And
the other newspaper critics tend to be more mainstream, so if I
want to find out what a film is about, or find a critic's opinion I
trust, I have to wait for Roger & Gene at 6:30 on Sunday.
So why in the hell have I spent the last 3 weeks (and the next 2)
holed up in a pair of theatres showing mainly foreign films?
Good question. Damn good question. Well, not for pretentiousness
(I have enough of that already), though there are quite a few I
know who use it for this purpose -- "We see foreign films because
we have elevated consciousness" or some such drivel. I suspect
that people like this are probably the main reason why foreign of
films haven't caught on in the US (thought these people are
admittedly one of the main sources of income). No, I go to foreign
films hoping to see a good movie, just like any other picture; but
I'm willing to forego some of the entertainment value for other
features which are found in most good (by my definition) foreign
films. Rather than simply listing these, let me examine this in
context with a film I saw last weekend called _Ah_Ying_, from
Hong Kong; it is one of the three excellent movies I have seen at
this years festival. Almost all of the "special treats" I look for in
foreign films were to be found in this movie.
_Ah_Ying_ tells of a 22-year-old girl who works in Hong Kong at
her family's fish stand, along with 8 other brothers & sisters. She
has just broken up with a boyfriend, and is in a depression. She
notices a note for acting & film appreciation classes taught by a
local film institute. On a student permit (she works at the institute
doing gofer work), she begins taking these classes, and under the
guidance and friendship of the instructor -- an American-trained
Chinese-American film writer -- opens up a new world for herself.
Numero uno: This is a good picture by any standards. The
characters are well fleshed-out and familiar, and we have the
pleasure of watching them transform through the film's progress.
The situations are realistic -- there are points which seem like a
documentry (I am sure that the film-maker character represents
someone in the Hong Kong film-making community). And the
acting is wonderfully under-played, so that the characters are
etched with a great deal of reality (in fact, the main character in
this film, Ah-Ying, is played by a woman named Hul So-Ying, and
all the members of the character Ah-Ying's family are played by
Hul So-Ying -- very well, too (realistic annoying older brothers :-) ).
But, as I said at the beginning of the article, there are many
features of this film which you generally find only in foreign films.
One is the "travelogue" value. A foreign film allows you to see life
in other countries in ways that you never are allowed during
travelling, or during "travel" television program ("Here we see the
friendly natives saying goodbye with their quaint native chant
`Fifteenpercentiplease'."). During much of the film I was struck by
the huge apartments people live in (this is also true in Scottish
films, which have tenements straight out of Orwell), and also, that
EVERYONE in Hong Kong seems to wear T-shirts with American
slogans on the front! As if they all visited J.C. Penny's at a
clearance sale (anyone know why this is?). Secondly, of course, I
get to see a culture different than my own, and while I am sick of
being told by various Knowledgeable People that this is a Good
Thing (it is, I suppose, I just don't like being told to do it), it is also
very interesting to note. Third, foreign films tend to get the mind
chugging quite a bit more than your average American film (as I
said, not something I want to happen every evening, but...) --
you're having to interpret and examine much of the information
coming at you across the screen (especially if there are sub-titles),
and the possibilities for theorizing are endless (take a film class at
the University of Washington if you don't believe me :-) ), as
opposed to most native films which are much easier to follow and
absorb since the common language (slang, idiom, etc.) and culture
are usually present.
Finally, something that has been noted so many times that it has become
brittle with over-use. Until you see it on the screen, and realize that
nothing, NOTHING, is as great a communicator of the things which are common
to all human beings than film. You see characters who were living in an
entirely different culture and speaking a completely different language at
the beginning of the film, but now seem as familiar as any character in
American cinema (in many cases, more familiar). Subtitles sink into the
subconscious (dubbing generally does not), and the common factors appear
clearly. Sure, these are things that we know, since we are not subject to
the most dangerous ignorance, prejudice; but sometimes, these things should
be emphasized, and to see and hear evidence that people in totally different
parts of the world cry, laugh and live for the same basic reasons that we
do, is a gift that ten thousand lectures on human nature cannot due. As I
watched Ah Ying discover an entirely new side to herself, and the place she
lives in, I could not help but look back on my own life, and see the
parallels. And when you can see yourself in a person, or a people, who are
as separate from the sphere of our existence as human beings can be
(remember the opening shots of bushman life in _THE_GODS_MUST_BE_CRAZY_?) --
that is fantastic! It is _E.T._, de-fantasized and deflated, but made all
the more incredible for its basis in reality. And it never, ever fails, to
liven my step a little on the way from the theatre to the bus-stop.
"I have no talents. I have genius or nothing. But all genius is
distorted, even my own."
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc.
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