Fortissimo Films at MoMA: Warriors of the Rainbow—Seediq Bale

For the aboriginal peoples indigenous to Taiwan, decapitating an enemy’s head in battle was an essential rite of manhood. In the early Twentieth Century, the occupying Japanese began the systematic suppression of aboriginal culture. It cost them a whole lot of heads though. Originally well over four hours long, Wei Te-sheng’s Warriors of the Rainbow: Sediq Bale (trailer here) is exactly the sort ambitious personal vision Fortissimo Films has a reputation for supporting. Appropriately, the two and a half hour international cut opened In Focus: Fortissimo Films, MoMA’s tribute to the influential film company.

Mouna Rudao was one of the fiercest Seediq warriors ever. When the Japanese confiscate his collection of skulls, they are duly impressed. Unfortunately, as chief he must watch as the old ways atrophy under their oppressive rule. The tattoos of manhood are becoming scarce. However, that all changes with the 1930 Wushe Uprising.

It started with a misunderstanding between Mouna’s family and the local Imperial authorities, snowballing from there. The Seediq forces strike first, ambushing the Japanese at a major sporting exhibition. Things only get bloodier thereafter. Frankly, Mouna knows their revolt is doomed to fail, but at least the young Seediq men will die as warriors, crossing over the Rainbow Bridge to their equivalent of Valhalla.

Submitted by Taiwan as their official foreign language Academy Award candidate, Rainbow will be released as two films in most Asian markets. However, the edited and cobbled together international version makes perfect sense from a narrative standpoint and includes plenty of Braveheart style action. One suspects the axe fells disproportionately heavily on the female cast, including the great Vivian Hsu, who are rarely seen in the 150 minute cut until a devastating scene late in the picture.

It is too bad Mel Gibson went more or less insane, because he would have been the perfect celebrity “presenter” for Rainbow. There are death-scenes that will make you exclaim out loud. Yet, despite the frequent references to the Rainbow Bridge, there is little mystical or New Agey about the film, at least in its international configuration. It also resists the temptation to glorify Seediq traditionalism, unequivocally suggesting tribalism undermined their efforts to defeat the Imperial Japanese with a united front.

Lin Ching-Tai is all business as the steely old Mouna. He might just the best middle-aged action hero since the Eastwood of decades ago. Yet, young Lin Yuan-Jie might be the most engaging member of the cast. There is absolutely nothing cute or cloying about his riveting work as Pawan Nawi. Japanese actor Sabu Kawahara also somehow manages to elevate the role of the stereotypically severe General Kamada Yahiko, while Chie Tanaka is memorably vulnerable as the wife of a somewhat sympathetic officer.

Rainbow parallels the pronounced trend in recent Mainland and Hong Kong films to depict Japanese characters in explicitly villainous terms. Indeed, the impulse constantly refight WWII is becoming rather suspicious. Be that as it may or may not be, there is no denying Rainbow delivers the epic action goods. This is a big, bloody picture, worth serious consideration for the foreign language Oscar and a perfect example of the bold filmmaking fostered by Fortissimo. One hopes the full epic will soon be shown in New York (it seems a logical fit for next year’s NYAFF), but for now, the international cut is definitely recommended when it screens again this Sunday (11/20) at MoMA.

Fortissimo Films at MoMA: Springtime in a Small Town (2002)

For years, filmmaker Fei Mu was considered politically incorrect in China, by virtue of being insufficiently political. Yet, due to the apolitical nature of his masterpiece Spring in a Small Town, a remake would ironically become a viable comeback vehicle for Tian Zhuangzhuang. Often at odds with censors, Tian was officially blacklisted by Chinese authorities after his prohibited 1993 Cultural Revolution drama The Blue Kite leaked out to the West. It was Fortissimo Films who shepherded his long awaited return to filmmaking across the festival circuit and global film market. Appropriately, Tian’s Springtime in a Small Town (trailer here) screens this Sunday as part of In Focus: Fortissimo Films, MoMA’s tribute to the unerringly tasteful film company.

Once glorious but now crumbling, Dai Liyan’s family house serves as a metaphor for his family. The defeated Japanese occupiers have retreated and spring is in the air. Yet, Dai is sick in body and spirit. He lives quietly with his spirited younger sister Dai Xiu, the loyal family retainer Old Huang, and his increasingly unhappy wife Yuwen. She dutifully tends to him, but her passive aggression is unmistakable. Things appear to have reached an uneasy equilibrium, until his childhood friend Zhang Zhichen pays a fateful visit.

It turns out Zhang also has quite a bit of history with Yuwen as well, having nearly been engaged years ago. Inevitably, sparks flare up again between the two frustrated lovers, despite their efforts not to hurt Dai. Further complicating matters, Dai Xiu also seems to have eyes for Zhang, which would be a match her brother would like to make. It all eventually unravels in a Chekhovian drama, featuring characters too tired for melodrama.

Clearly, Tian understood what made Fei’s film so exquisitely beautiful, recreating the original step by step, if not shot for shot. Like the source film, Tian’s Springtime is about regret and longing, not anger or lust. Indeed, the palpable sense of restraint is what makes both films so powerful.

In a remarkably delicate performance, Hu Jingfan is devastatingly brittle and conflicted as Yuwen. Arguably, she is the one member of Tian’s ensemble who eclipses the work of their great predecessors. Still, as the sickly Dai Liyan, Jun Wu notably conveys a depth of pathos that is quite compelling and acutely human. Si Si Lu is also a genuinely luminous presence and surprisingly moving as Dai Xiu. Only Bai Qing Xin risks disappointing those familiar with his forebear, never quite achieving the tragic nobility Li Wei brought to Zhang. (Perhaps one could also argue Tian lets his pivotal scene of drunkenness go on a tad too long.)

There is something wonderfully sad and lovely about this story that holds up perfectly a second time around. Largely set in the decrepit family home, Springtime could easily be adapted for the stage (though Tian and cinematographer Mark Li Ping-bing strikingly capture the crumbling grandeur of the city wall, which becomes a key meeting place for Zhang and Yuwen). It is all the more poignant when we speculate what lies ahead for these characters of faded “bourgeoisie” lineage in the chaos following 1949. Artful and profoundly humane, Tian’s Springtime is highly recommended during MoMA’s tribute to Fortissimo and Fei Mu’s original is even more highly recommended, under any circumstances. The former screens this Sunday (11/13) and Monday (11/21) as part of a first class showcase of some of the finest Asian film of the past two decades.

Fortissimo Films at MoMA: Beijing Bastards

They are singing about revolution. They are not really doing anything about it, but that was still more than enough for the Communist government. Considered by many the first Chinese indy film, Zhang Yuan’s Beijing Bastards has been censored, banned, and roundly condemned, but thanks to Fortissimo Films, the international independent film production and distribution company, it reached a global audience. Still gritty and subversive after nearly twenty years, Bastards screens this Saturday in New York as part of MoMA’s new retrospective series, In Focus: Fortissimo Films.

Cui Jian is one of China’s most famous underground rockers. In Bastards, he plays himself or a thinly fictionalized version. He has fans but no gigs, because he cannot secure a venue for a prospective concert. He also lost the lease on his rehearsal space for no apparent reason. Though never outright stated, it is clear the powers that be want to close him down.

Karzi owns a venue, but his rock bar is no great shakes. Neither is he. His pregnant girlfriend Maomao disappeared after he insisted she have an abortion. He doggedly hunts for her, subjecting her friends to outright harassment, but more for reasons of ego than love. Morally ambiguous, Karzi is not the image of Chinese youth the government likes to project, but in 1993, he was the shape of go-go me-me things to come.

A contemporary of Jia Zhangke, Zhang is considered one of the godfathers of the Chinese independent film movement and a forefather of the Digital Generation. In fact, Bastards bears a strong aesthetic affinity to the subsequent dGeneration films. Shot guerilla-style with most of the director’s friends serving as the ensemble cast, the film follows its roundabout narrative from a fly-on-the-wall perspective. This is a street level film, unvarnished and unsentimental.

Perhaps one of the most frustrating aspects of the film is Cui Jian’s music, which is pretty good by the standards of late 1980’s and early 1990’s rock & roll, but clearly not kosher with the authorities. It is a film ripe for reevaluation, foreshadowing the spiritual malaise and mounting popular dissatisfaction so pronounced in the work of dGeneration filmmakers. Unsettlingly raw and historically important, Bastards is well worth seeing during MoMA’s Fortissimo film series, aptly demonstrating the company’s commitment to genuine independent cinema. It screens this Saturday (11/12) and the Monday after next (11/21). For something lighter but no less distinctive, also check out Wisit Sasanatieng’s visually dazzling, wonderfully idiosyncratic Thai western, Tears of the Black Tiger, which screens during MoMA’s Fortissimo series this Friday (11/11) and the following Thursday (11/17).