Cinematic Concerns

[Reminder: All opinions are subjective. They always are.]

Just watch one. Forget the others. (Okay, that's not a very democratic suggestion. Watch them all to make up your own mind about them. But if you want to save time, then yeah, take this recommendation.)

Just watch Quek Shio Chuan's GUANG.



You see, for years in Malaysia we've been suffering through (mostly, but certainly not entirely) purportedly symbolic or metaphorical arthouse short films that are pretentious in a muddle-headed manner, or else moralistic and didactical short films that shallowly portray what (the filmmaker thinks) is good and what is bad without a serious attempt in actually telling an engaging story. Repeat finalist Tan Ce Ding's short film "How To Say I Love You" is one such example.

Or, as you can find in themed short film competitions like BMW Shorties, contestants often produce not a narrative short film but what is really a visual essay that addresses a theme – they often consist of monologues laid over some images, or have lots of title cards that try to be poetic. Repeat finalist Moh Chee Leong's "Let The Plastic Fly" is one such example. (Malaysian Chinese filmmakers love doing this, to my disappointment. It's an import from HK and Taiwanese filmmaking. "Bringing others joy is the happiest thing in life." "Finding happiness is more important in life than chasing after money." Siiiiiiiigh.)

Is there a story? A little bit, perhaps. Nothing that would satisfy me though; I look for stuff like setups and payoffs, conflict, rising stakes, etc. (Not these elements by themselves, but working together to tell the story.) And these are inevitably absent when directors look at the theme, "Joy", and simply think of what words or what images can be associated with it and just added those things together as if it's arithmetic, with less emphasis on character and plot.

Which is why GUANG pleased me so much – I've been waiting for a short film like this to emerge from Malaysia for so long.

GUANG basically takes what I think of as the Hollywood approach – a balanced and synthetical marrying of theme and storytelling (without making it on the nose; you certainly don't go through the short film thinking about "Joy", it's just inherent in the scenes). Watch the film till the end - did you notice the editing and the sound editing? I didn't. Now watch it again, see how smoothly it transitions from shot to shot, from one scene to the next? Pacing is just nice, not too indulgent, not too rushed. Did you notice the cinematography? It looks beautiful at places, when it counts, but it doesn't try to look stylistic in every shot. You would've noticed the rainbow colours in certain shots – there, that's the director inducing a theme into his film without having to comment on it. The camera movement isn't flashy, but unlike so many Malaysian short films they are also not static.

And of course, the story touches your heart. A very good reason for that is because it's the director's own story – that old adage, start with what you know. But he didn't make the easy mistake of making it too autobiographical, or at least, it didn't feel like it. It's not a diary, it's a story.

Quek Shio Chuan will go far in his career if he keeps this up, even if he doesn't win this thing. But, if he and his team don't sweep all the awards à la Titanic or Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (except for the actress category which it wasn't nominated for) then it's a travesty. I've seen all the nominated short films (disclaimer: some I only skimmed through because they were just too blah to sit through), and almost without contest this was the best film in all the categories – Actor (my, so naturalistic, so buried into the role), Cinematography (more than the other nominees, it was all about telling the story through the camera ... how on earth did "Come Home" get nominated here?), Editing (didn't notice it, unlike the other nominees), Sound Design (didn't notice it, unlike the other nominees), Production Design (just works), and Screenplay (tells a narrative tale and uses many film storytelling tools to great effect, right down to details like the setup of the 'retarded brother' line; how on earth did "Come Home" get nominated here?).

I would be very interested to see what Quek does with the RM75,000 when he wins that. And I hope, for once, that it's a short film that improves on the winner's entry sent in for BMW Shorties and that it looks like RM75,000 was spent on it.

Alright, now, to be fair, of the remaining nominees THE LONG DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP was a reasonably well-made short film as well, so after watching GUANG do check that out. Can't say the same about most of the other ones; I'm sorry to say that I felt that this year's crop of nominees were not as interesting or engaging as last year's.

And, of course, clearly some of the cast and crew behind GUANG were experienced industry people (the DP for this was also the DP for Yeo Joon Han's Sell Out! for example), which almost all the other productions probably did not have access to and are thusly disadvantaged. But you work with what you have.

And to give credit to BMW Shorties, their format for the nominations where not just the top 10 finalists but any of the 107 entries can potentially be nominated for the smaller categories makes a lot of sense, makes it a bit more Oscar-like. They should stick to it next year.

 I just love how the title sounds in the other languages:


Anyway, on the movie itself, Tintin fans worldwide will definitely get the film, thanks to the copious references to all things Tintin, like the random appearances of the tin can with the crab with the golden claws, the unexpected appearance of the Milanese Nightingale, wall plaques on Tintin's flat displaying his articles on adventures past, which for non-Tintin-fans would just register as "oh, he's a reporter", but for ardent Tintin fans each of those wall plaques are an entire 62-page comic book adventure in itself. Then there's the very affectionate cameo of Herge in the beginning. I hope the late Monsieur Remi is pleased.

Which leads to the point that I'm not entirely convinced that non-Tintin-fans will necessarily enjoy the film. In fact, the film is 50% Herge's Tintin and 50% Spielberg, with his trademark style of progression storytelling (this happens, so protags need to get this from there, then that happens, then that happens, then that happens, then that happens, etc) and John Williams score. So the Spielberg part, those audiences might enjoy. The rest of it, I have a feeling that they wouldn't be able to see what the fuss is all about this oddly-named boyish European reporter (who never seems to file a report nor report to any newspaper editor for his work).

They might come out saying that the main character is bland. That the story lacks emotional connection.

Totally agree. It's one of the reasons that I don't seem particularly elated or enthusiastic after having watched the movie, which, mind you, is the only comic book adaptation I can ever get excited about since the bookshelf of my childhood comic-reading days consists only of one single comic book series. Strangely enough, that's fine. It's fine that my mind isn't blown away by the film adaptation.

If there's any disappointment at all, however slight, it's that there's too much Spielberg in it. I know, sacrilegious, eh?

The obvious problem with being a Tintin fan, of course, is that you've been reading the comics all your life and you have a set of voices assigned to each of the characters already, which is ingrained and hard to dissociate from the Tintin that you feel you know so well. Certainly, on paper, the decision to cast Jamie Bell and Andy Serkis and Simon Pegg and Nick Frost can't be faulted, excellent choices in fact. But then as soon as they start speaking, even though some (not too many) of the dialogue were lifted straight off the speech bubbles in the Tintin comics ("Here! ... I'm downstairs already!"), I couldn't help but nitpick -- that's not how Thomson and Thompson should sound like!

Or take Captain Haddock's swearing. One of the most enjoyable parts of Tintin for me was when Haddock is greatly frustrated and irritated and launches into extended tirades that includes "Pithecanthropus! Diplodocus!" or "Sea gherkin!" or "Thundering typhoons!" or "Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles!" I've always heard them in my head as a continuous stream, without stopping for a pause (not quite comparable to Stephen Chow but that comes to mind), whereas here Serkis delivers it slowly and with pauses in between each one.

Or take Bianca Castafiore. I have always wondered how her Jewel Song from 'Faust' actually sounded like. "Ah! My beauty past compare ... These jewels bright I wear ... Margharitaaaa!" In my head I imagined it as a descending tune before exploding into a high-pitch, ear-shattering blast. Unfortunately, she sings here but doesn't sing the Jewel Song.

Which illuminates this little insight: perhaps everyone imagines the Tintin characters a little differently from everyone else. Which means that there is no way Spielberg and team could've created a film that satisfies everyone, or even just a significant minority. But I also think, Tintin lovers generally being sensible, considerate, knowledgeable and more matured types, they've been rather forgiving with the film, as I was. Hence Tintin fans have, by and large, embraced the film, whether they felt the Tintin they saw was a good replica of what they had in mind or not (at least, that's my impression).

Crucially, the problem with the Tintin characters having actual eyes is no longer a problem.

As for Spielberg, now that the shackles and constraints of live action filmmaking have been taken away, he gleefully went into overdrive mode with his sweeping motion camera moves. He's always been good with those but used them sparingly, partly because it's difficult to do them in the real world without encountering problems like shuddering, or figuring out a good (or at least possible) way to lay the dolly tracks.

The best thing he did here, though, is the soon-to-be much-talked-about 5-minute long uninterrupted shot of an insane action setpiece that, in 3D, comes closer than any film I can remember in simulating the amusement park ride sensation in a cinema, as well as outdoing Alfonso Cuaron's then-mindblowing long tracking shots from Children Of Men by a friggin' mile ... just coz he can. (Performance capture with full CGI, fuck yeah!) That sequence more than anything makes me want to go back and watch the movie again. In 3D again.

John Williams' music does nothing for me, except that the intro music reminded me of Catch Me If You Can. Felt a bit rarefied.

In the end, not the glorious adventure with the romantic, nostalgic European feel that one hopes for when one wished for a Tintin film, but not a terrible adaptation either. Given that Peter Jackson will be pre-occupied with The Hobbit, I don't know how many years will pass before we get to see the next one. (Don't forget, the performance capture work for this was done back in April 2009. That's how long it takes.)