Detective Dee brings Tang Dynasty whodunnit to Venice
9/06/2010 11:36:00 AM
kenmouse
, Posted in
Hong Kong's Tsui Hark unveiled his latest blockbuster, a Tang Dynasty whodunnit, at the Venice film festival on Sunday while Kelly Reichardt cast her feminine eye on the Wild West in "Meek's Cutoff".Tsui's "Detective Dee and the Mystery of Phantom Flame" filled the screen at the Lido with kung fu action, intrigue and period atmospherics as Detective Dee (Andy Lau) investigates threats to seventh-century Empress Wu Zetian's rise to power.
The Vietnamese-born Tsui was not exaggerating when he told a news conference: "We tried to create a complex woven plot to really grab the audience, especially with that twist at the end.... You don't know who the murderer is until the very end, unlike other films in the genre."
Reichardt meanwhile put her focus on another woman, the faceless drudge who kept body and soul together with hard work on the monotonous trek out West along the Oregon Trail in mid-19th century America.
The idea for the film came from an unexpected quarter: the post-September 11 policies of US president George W. Bush, Reichardt said.
John Raymond, who wrote the screenplay, "saw similarities in current things that were going on - following a leader who is either ignorant or stupid," Reichardt said.
The film is a true story of mountain man Stephen Meek, who persuades a wagon train of emigrants that he knows of a good shortcut, only to lead them to near starvation in the desert.
In her research, Reichardt found that "the diaries of the women show a completely different point of view" from those of the men.
The journals, while starting out full of optimism and romance, end up simply as "lists of chores," she said, adding: "Some of the historical truths revealed themselves in the minutiae, in the labour."
Reichardt saw the project as one of "keeping the women in the same space as they would be in a western but moving the camera to their point of view."
In so doing, she hoped to stay on "the safe side of cliche," Reichardt said, noting that avoiding "the scenic, overwhelming grandness" of the US far West was an unspoken rule.
Avoiding cliche was especially difficult when it came to portraying the native American hero in the film, she said.
"As soon as you're putting a native American in front of a blue sky with beads on, you start to have a heart attack," she joked.
While paying homage to the likes of Nicholas Ray, Monte Hellman and Anthony Mann, saying, "I love the way those films are styled and shot," Reichardt added: "The point of view is very masculine; the drama is built around really heightened moments."
Meanwhile, if anyone thought Chile's Pablo Larrain intended to create a dark satire with "Post Mortem" set in the days following Allende's suicide, that is their business, the director said.
"Whether you get a laugh or not depends on the spectators," said Larrain, who won acclaim for his "Tony Manero" about a John Travolta imitator in 2008.
"We have created a poetic vision, a way of looking at it, and not just a bare telling of facts," he said of the film that takes a snapshot of the days after Chile's 1973 military coup against the backdrop of a love story that goes sour.
Using as its starting point the autopsy of deposed socialist president Salvador Allende, the film evokes one of the most dramatic moments in Chile's history.
"It's the first time in the history of cinema that the body of Salvador Allende is actually seen and shown, with his skull shattered," said Alfredo Castro, who plays the obscure civil servant who transcribes the autopsy results.
"It will probably cause a debate in Chile, even though it was done with great sensitivity," he said.
The film is Larrain's third feature and the only Latin American film among the 24 in competition for the coveted Golden Lion, the top prize at the Venice film festival, which runs through September 11.
0 Response to "Detective Dee brings Tang Dynasty whodunnit to Venice"
Post a Comment
Leave Your Thoughts & We Will Discuss Together