As a former member of the upper-middle class, sporting a suburban background as a white male, most movies I love don't reciprocate. I guess I wouldn't have it any other way, because - and I think this is true of a lot of people - I kind of hate myself. I don't possess masochistic tendencies and I'd like to think I'm a pretty stable guy, but it gets pretty exhausting being constantly assaulted by every film I watch - because any film worth a damn is going to be rooted in it's present social context to some extent, and most likely criticize it. It’s only natural that films take dead aim at me. That said, there are infinitely worse things than this.
For instance, Cyclo (1995) made me feel like a real big piece of shit - that is, of course, within a whole myriad of other emotions and reactions. And feeling like a piece of shit isn’t a reflection of a soiled cinematic experience, but rather proof of its effectiveness. Anh Hung Tran, Cyclo's director, is a top secret up-and-comer in the international film scene, having only directed five films to date - three of which come dangerously close to achieving brilliance (The Scent of Green Papaya [1993], Cyclo, and Vertical Ray of Sun [2000]). And yet, somehow, these films seem to have slipped under the radar of most critics. Maybe this is because it’s difficult to categorize within a genre or dictate a country of origin. There is little doubt that this is a Thai film, but it’s interesting to note that Tran, originally from Thailand, fills most of his key crew positions with Frenchmen (and women) and currently resides in France. Despite this, all of his projects thus far have been shot in, about, and on Thailand.
Cyclo follows a number of nameless young adults struggling to come to terms with adulthood, attempting forget their respective pasts and move forward in life with a good economic foothold. An honest, hard-working kid stumbles deep into the Thai underworld and tries to resist the temptation and allure of death, along with other disparate characters whose paths cross occasionally throughout the film.
Cyclo hammer's it's viewers in the face. With a cinematic style close to the visual and vocal poetics of Terrance Mallick and taking narrative pointers from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Italian Neorealism, Cyclo jumps all over the thematic map - from loss of innocence to alientaed rural areas, from substance abuse to collective subconscious and more. Even then, though, Tran has the ability to bring beauty to anything he pleases with ostentatiously relaxed control. He is not afraid to break stylistic consistency in order to communicate an idea in a more efficient manner. Cyclo, at the halfway point, for a few moments, seems to drop everything it's been working towards to allot time for Tran to guide us through the dilapidated decay of the Thai country side, using the poetics of Tony Leung on top of jump cuts of children standing still as stone, who standout sharply against the piles of trash that background them.
When all was said and done, I thought about a Podcast that a friend of mine - Charles Tashiro - had published on "Liking vs. Loving Movies" It's difficult to say whether or not I "love" Cyclo, but it certainly hit me in much the same way that others have in the past. Sans Soleil or In The Mood For Love, for instance are films that I love, and it's for this reason that I don't watch them very often. They're very intense, involving films that require a lot of effort on both sides of the screen, and unless I amp myself up for a good little while, I most likely won't choose to watch it. Lost in Translation, on the other hand, is a film that I enjoy very much. A film I can pop in at any time and watch endlessly, until my eyes bleed and I unknowingly sit in a pile of my own excrement.
But if films were people, then I'd say that most of the films I love would hate me - that is if we met at a party and shook hands, and then began to judge each other from across the room. If we were to actually sit down and shoot the shit, I'm sure we'd become great friends. As things stand now though, I have yet to chit chat with any of the films I love.
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