Нийгмийн шүүмжлэлийг сэтгэгчид хийж хувьсгал хийх зүрх залууст байдаг

Bande à part кино нь Францын кино урлагт Шинэ Давалгааг хэмээх хөдөлгөөнийг үүсгэсэн кино найруулагч Жан Люк Годар-ын хамгийн ойлгоход төвөггүй гэх кино билээ. Манай кино урлаг сүүлийн үед хөнгөмсөг савангийн дуурь мэт кино зохиол, техник муутай бүтээлүүдээр дүүрээд байх шиг санагдах боллоо. Хуучны алтан үеийн кино найруулга эсвэл савангийн дуурь үзэх хоёр л боломж байдаг болчихож. За тэгээд арай техник сайтайг ни үзъе гэвэл Холивуудын хэдэн блокбастер сүүлчийн сонголт болоод байгаа нь харамсалтай. Нариуулагч Годар хэлэхдээ, бид хүмүүсийн ю дуртайгаа чалчдаг эрин үед дуугүй кино узэж яг л авсан дотор банзлагдсан онгон хүүхдүүд шиг байлаа. Монголын найруулагчид маань ч гэсэн нэгэн урсгалаа дагахаас илүү шал өөр мэдрэмж хайх цаг нь болсон байх.

Rock, absence of sex and violence in Minii Muu Aav (My Poor Dad) or second chance to explore cultural identity through cinema.

About two months from now I had an opportunity to view Mongolian film “Minii Muu Aav”. At first glance the film appears as a naiveté tale of lost generation of alcoholics trying to fit into increasingly progressive and commercial society where age, gender and looks are all mobilized for the fulfillment of corporate utopia. The melodramatic narrative is built around giving this bunch of middle aged men with some serious addiction to alcohol, a second chance either in a professional or personal life which the film successfully fulfills throughout the film. However, I do not wish to critique the all too familiar and perhaps even cliché evils of commercial exploitation, such as age, gender and its lost social agenda. What compelled me to write a review about this film is its very platonic theme or absence of popular sex and violence theme. In that sense one can argue that the film is very much reminiscent of old Socialist films where ideology dominated the censorship and such carnal elements as sex and physical violence were filtered through state run film production studios. If we take into account that old Socialist system is not in power anymore, the ideology has proven to be impractical and the desire stands apart from naked nostalgia, what constitutes the necessity for such film and what is relationship of it with the audience? When I discuss the relationship of the audience and the cinema I had particularly in my mind Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy. When Nietzsche describes barbaric Dionysian forces played out in front of sophisticated Greek audience the contrast is set between decaying Greek society and moral necessity for explosive violence such as Dionysian that could overturn the social order. However, in “Minii Muu Aav” such Dionysian forces are toned down or even suppressed. Instead such elements as insatiable desire and greed is substituted; sex by platonic relationship between male and female characters, money and greed is resolved through sentimental personal relationships and family ties. If according to Nietzsche social moral decay begged for revolutionary violence as one similar to destructible Dionysian forces what necessitated desires of Mongolian audience for sort of pacifist film? Since there is no necessity for radical social change in Mongolia the only logic, for the absence of violence and sex in this film, I can think of is sort active cultural identity and perhaps approach to modernity through cultural negotiation of modern Mongolian identity. I want to emphasize here the word modern because this is perhaps one of the less explored themes in the studies about Mongolia. There is an existent and expanding field of museum scholarship about Mongolia such as anthropology, ethnology and history of Mongolia but nothing yet about Modernity in Mongolia. The rest of the world was so far successful in researching Mongolia as a sort of antique museum object but not as its peer and therefore its subjective identity. Now, how does such argument relate to the film? The key elements in the film are posters of western rock music and the nickname that the main protagonist carries “Estrad Jagaa (Show music Jagaa)”. Rock music and music in general often carry symbolic meaning of resistance and rebellion. For Jagaa was expelled from prestigious Russian university for listening to western rock during Soviet period which eventually leads to his lack of social status and eventually identification with lost generation of Mongolia. The incident that happened well over 20 years from his current life recurs in the cinema again well in his adulthood. If we can conjecture that interest in rock music 20 years ago among intellectual youth such as Mongolian students studying in universities was a form of rebellion against Soviet regime and repressed national identity what purports such theme in seemingly open and liberal society where tokens of national identity such as horse racing, wrestling and revival of traditional religion is purported and encouraged? Here, I would like to invoke again the museumization of Mongolia and transnational forces directed towards local and small nations such as Mongolia. The film therefore stands as a symbolic and newly born desire of Mongolians to stand culturally as an equal peer, someone who wants to be a peer to its neighbors and walk hand in hand with the progressive modernity that is defining the global forces today.

Tarkovsky and classical art

And here Tarkovsky features the theme in his film

Chugyeogja muses with Kafka

A while ago Korean friend gave me a dvd that probably sat dusting on my nightstand for almost a month. Besides his remarks that the movie was "good" and that it was selected for Cannes festival I remained pretty ignorant until I decided to watch it last night. The film's theme might perhaps fool you into thinking that it's cliche story about serial killer preying on prostitutes and self-conflicted cop hunting him down. We are led to believe that we know that kind of drama all too well from both real life, Jack the Ripper, and from fantasy world,"Seven". The presentation of the classical theme is built around suspense and race against time; the chaser who is trying to find the serial killer's residence, where last victim Mi Joon might still be alive, before Young-Min (the killer) is released from police station. The style that the director engages builds Hitchcockian suspense that if you have ever experienced it, leaves you numb in limbs and in cold sweat.

However, I want to discuss here the incredible parallel theme that the director adopted to show about inefficiency of bureaucracy and indidividual's helplessness and inability to challenge the system. At the beginning of the film when the chaser is about to deliver his own justice against the murderer, he's caught in the most comic and absurd scene interecepted by a street cop. The scene is played in the middle of traffic girdlock that the two have caused; both stand as if the two system anomalies were cutting the normal flow of the system's traffic. Of course such obstacle has to be dealt with and removed asap and here, the two are dragged into police station where Young-Min confessess in most ridiculous and non-dramatic way of murders that he committed. The confession is received as complete farce among the staff of police station and the murderer remains out of focus. Instead the attention ridiculously remains on the chaser who is accused of beating Young-Min. The chaser in turn tries to fight the authority and convince them of his innocence while the real murderer is ignored.

Perhaps this scene is reminiscent of Purloined Letter and Lacan's seminar on this famous Poe' piece. The murderer is precisely able to escape persecution because he laid out cards open on the table where everybody is stubbornly digging somewhere. Might be a good theme to look into...

I found one of the final scenes reminiscent of Kafka's Castle where K struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities of the castle. Kafka did not was not able to finish the Castle but the scene in the movie where the chaser is trying to enter the domain of murder and where he's held against with more than 2 pair of hands amazingly parallels with the atmosphere of surreality and invisble forces present in Kafka.

Trailer - The Chaser
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Kink in the movie:The Pervert's Guide to the Cinema

Impotentia Coeundi

Theories and researches on post-colonialism and nationalism have long discussed the embodiment of female body into the land and nation. It is often supposed that the imagined boundaries of one's community and borders are tightly administered through masculine fantasy over the female and desirous body, the body that is penetrated by phallus which in its order protected and propertied. Assia Djebar once mentioned in her novel Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade, that women of Arab berber tribes became more cloistered and more veiled under the invasion of French, than prior the colonization. In this case the invaded Algerian territory becomes tantaumont to pentrated female body, the "motherland", the direct consequence of which becomes placebo effect a.k.a. psychological impotence influence by shame, loss of masculine integrity.
The reason I invoked Assia Djebar's work is that, in lieu of my observations in recent years an active cultivation of masculinity in Mongolian society, there emerged almost blatant chauvinism, sometimes even taking form of blind misogyny directed towards women.
Along with cult-like following of Chinggis Khan, the ultimate patriarch to the nation, and endorsing of such masculine activities such as wild animal hunting which are traditionally considered masculine, here it can be observed that my nation has developed almost fetishistic obsession with phallus. The example of once shunned but resumed hunt for misplaced phallic symbol can best be depicted through much talked about exploration for ancient patriarch's remains. It was done as if invoking violent history of Mongol empire could restore the nation its virgin state previously invaded by Soviet ideology or Manjchurian oppression. Thus there is need among Mongolians to look for not recent, invaded by Manjchus, Russians, history, but to look somewhere in pre-history when the myth of the nation woven out of pure Mongol mother's womb, Maral Goo exists. It becomes the ultimate male fantasma to possess the female body and motherland.
If the nation is unable to establish its phallic ideals, the society develops external symptoms of underlying psychological impotence manifested through male frustration and hereto raised alertness towards female population. Perhaps I should recall here one of the early works by Chinese film-maker Zhang Yimou, Judo, where impotent husband is portrayed also as abusive partner who likes to invoke sadistic rituals on his wife played by young Gong Li. In the film we see feudalistic social order as the ultimate abusive but impotent factor that affects the social immobility and frustration all carried out on Gong Li's body. Whereas in our case it can be identified through shifting economic borders, where female bosy is represented as shiftable global commodity and thus male paranoia about Mongolian woman whoring herself to Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or to whoever from West.
Our contemporary world dictates certain looked at ness in women as such exhbitionism is encouraged through popularity of traditional model of femininity where women are ultimate beautiful images to cast gaze upon. Social websites with aspiring model girls, modeling agencies, and cultivation of appreciation of feminine beauty is an attempt to control national asset such as the female body and naive female attempt to gain her subjectivity through instant exposure to male gaze. In this instance Lacan was right when he said that image is pornographic. By starring in his film Gong Li, the Chinese screen goddess with Western curves, Zhang Yimou explores delicate matter of male voyeuristic tendency over female flesh, that is casting audience as collective male gaze over exposed and tortured flesh. Thus the female body becomes and object to be penetrated by male gaze and discourse.

Whenever the female body tries to gain subjectivity and tries to return critical gaze, hitherto reserved for male subjects, it threatens to undermine the patriarchial order and create male frustration. The double ended adoration of female beauty on one hand admiration, but on the other end misogyny and chauvinism, is a symptom of our social problematic that threatens our nation's progress upward.

Call it True Romance

"I had to come all the way from the highways and byways of Tallahassee, Florida to Motor City, Detroit to find my true love. lf you gave me a million years to ponder, l would never have guessed that true romance and Detroit would go together. And to this day, the events that followed all seem like a distant dream. But the dream was real and was to change our lives forever. l kept asking Clarence why our world seemed to be collapsing and everything seemed so shitty. And he'd say: "That's the way it goes. But don't forget, it goes the other way too.'' That's the way romance is. Usually that's the way it goes. But every once in a while, it goes the other way too" From film True Romance by director Tony Scott, music Hans Zimmer, story by Quentin Tarantino

Once: the cultural kitsch

When the usual cocktail topic wants to slip away from heavy headed politics, money, sex affairs, the ideal conversation usually flutters around leisurely activities. In one of these social soirees I recently found myself in heated argument about "Once" a "well-received" film by both European and American critics. Everybody seems to like that film and I find myself dumb-founded whenever I have to explain my indifference to it. For that matter I went to see "Once" actually twice to really find out what was really the problem with me?
Milan Kundera redefined the term kitsch as disgust for participation in collective happiness. Kitsch can be manifested in past Communist May Day parades or in content American man's admiration for children playing soccer on beautiful green fields. In the past it was quite usual to see in the streets of UB grand posters of workers and peasants painted, in Realist fashion, with their heads always directed toward far away distance. The underlines would often spell something futuristic as "Towards Socialism!" Nothing could disrupt such harmony except probably occasional outbreak of violence repressed in the public. It seems today is a different world where nothing is suppressed, but on the contrary augmented to the extent it loses its shock value. There aren't anymore posters shouting loud and clear instead we find ourselves often in self-celebratory existence of "I am different, I am not your average American, I am not your average Filipino, and etcetera, etcetera". In a similar sense we see the demand of cheap material in fashion. Yesterday' stone-washed jeans (that ironically cost more than it originally cost when average worker used to wear it in the dawn of the century) are replaced in these days by obviously non-luxury elements as cotton and other cheap and raw materials. In other words what we see today is the mounting to the pedestal of collective worship, not velvet, gold, and silk, but cotton, plastic, and jeans. The public is choosing to distance itself unconsciously from mainstream, only unfortunately to find itself again in the ditch of self-celebratory orgiastic ecstasy of urban, hip bliss. All right, enough then about political or cultural agenda as many may accuse me, back to the film.
Success of "Once" is a reason why Hollywood is losing its share to indie boom. Film-wise I haven't encountered anything as engaging as I would expect from any classics. The film was original no doubt about it, plot was interesting, and soundtrack was amazing. However the picture failed to tell me its story. It was shot in documentary style; some of the still shots were manipulated by montage with usual video recordings. Again, nothing breath-taking. I would rather watch Pride and Prejudice, be a hedonistic viewer rather than sacrifice the beauty of picture to the fashionable trend of being hip and "refreshing".