https://youtube/watch?v=OvwC7uoumdw Initial thoughts on the new Wong Kar-Wai; strange that it should be presented as his most commercial effort to date when it in fact is not only far removed from the simplification processes of commercial cinema, but rather removed from everything that usually resembles a movie. The Grandmaster is essentially a series of aesthetically-rich portmanteaus held together by the thinnest semblance of a plot; it is rather akin to a gallery exhibition unified by the recurrence of some theme, or a concert performance whence arises a gently persistent leitmotif. It reduces its series of images to the undulations of sensuous experiences, losing out on the level of thematic unity, gaining equally in the magnificent poetry of the image. And it also manages to incorporate this sequence which stands as one of the most thrilling battle sequences in the history of cinema; two Zhangs in a snow-wracked train station, the detritus of an ancient honour system cloaked in the modernity of industrialisation; but their final, fateful combination show this is no sentimental paean to an imagined lost paradise. This is a poetry of brutality, and it must allow for the grinding of bone against metal just as surely as it allows the silhouette of Zhang Ziyi majestic amidst the falling snow.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 19:49:56 +0000
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