Being critical of Criticwire

Criticwire Question for 28 October 2013 Q: The very public feud between actress Lea Seydoux and her Blue Is the Warmest Color director Abdellatif Kechiche has become as well-known as the film itself. Should critics ignore off-screen information in reviewing a film, or do they have an obligation to deal with it?

I wasn't asked to answer this question although other writers for RogerEbert.com were given the opportunity to write in.  Only two women wrote in reply to this controversy (Alissa Wilkinson of Christianity Today and Carrie Rickey of various outlets).

Like Rickey, when I heard about the feud, I immediately thought of Maria Schneider, who decided after her role in "Last Tango in Paris" that she would no longer pose nude. Schneider was bitterly angry about how Bernardo Bertolucci and Marlon Brando exploited her.

The two stars of "Blue is the Warmest Color" are angry now and times have changed since the 1970s. If you want a brief history of the controversies surrounding "Blue is the Warmest Color," read the timeline on Vulture.com.  When it was released, "Last Tango in Paris" was also controversial.

As it happens, I had finally, watched another controversial film, also made in the 1970s.  The Japanese-French production of "Realm of the Senses" (1976) starred Eiko Matsuda as the infamous Abe Sada and Tatsuya Fuji played the lover.  This was a sensational case in which a woman killed her lover by choking him during sexual intercourse. Yet she didn't stop there. She cut off his genitals and kept them with her, fleeing the scene after carving script into his body to immortalize their love as if the corpse was a tree.  The dead are, remember, usually cremated in Japan, but Japan embraces the ephemeral, something symbolized by the cherry blossoms.

We know what happened to Abe Sada--she became a celebrity of sorts after her release. What happened to Eiko Matsuda? Her career floundered. Tatsuya Fuji remained active within the movie industry.

The movie "Realm of the Senses" came out four years after "Last Tango in Paris" (1972). What happened to Maria Schneider? She would later say, "I felt humiliated and to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci. After the scene, Marlon didn't console me or apologise. Thankfully, there was just one take." Should any actor be made to feel this way? Schneider was only 19 at the time.

It's hard to ignore the implications of another 1970s film, "Manhattan" with the writer/director/star Woody Allen presenting the best relationship in the movie between the twice-divorced, 42-year-old Allen and a 17-year-old Tracy (played by the then 16-year-old Mariel Hemingway).

The Criticwire question only came to my attention when I read the clamorous tweets by Kevin B. Lee. He wrote, "This question relates to whether a critic should be a personal shopper, gossiper, or something else." Lee thought more serious thought should be given to the matter, commenting "The two examples you gave, both essentially about culture workers and mistreatment, begs discussion of exploitation in arts."

As a woman, and someone who previously volunteered at a women's center, I don't think we should ignore the continued plight of women from Eiko Matsuda to Maria Schneider to Natasha Kinski or to Mary-Louise Parker. The movie industry and its powerful directors--inside and outside of Hollywood, including most infamously Roman Polanski, too often take young hopeful women, underage or just recently legal, and exploit them.

In many ways, what they do is little better than the pornography industry and in many instances the difference is blurred--consider the case of John Derek and three of his four wives (Ursula Andress, Linda Evans and Bo Derek). With time and pop icons like Madonna, the line between pornography and pop culture has been further blurred. Is this the kind of liberation feminist wanted or just sexism re-packaged? The question to ask would be: Are young men treated similarly?

I haven't seen the movie in question, "Blue is the Warmest Color." Yet it doesn't surprise me that a lesbian erotically charged film was produced by a man because that is a male fantasy. As an artist, a sometime photographer (my latest project) and student of art history, I know that there is still a resistance in the United States to the male nude, the full frontal male nude and men being photographed as erotic objects (e.g. Robert Mapplethorpe). As a theater critic who used to frequent productions (including the original "Naked Boys Singing") in small theaters around Los Angeles including West Hollywood, I know that male actors aren't afraid of going buff and that in part supports an industry (full body waxing).

As a female student in a photography and film department long ago, I quickly became aware of the mindset of many of my fellow students. Many male students would laugh and not in a kindly way about how they got clips of photos of women posing nude.  In one department, there would be informal beer and porn movie parties. In another art department, women would pose nude in a student movie as a way to get credits on their portfolio.

Whatever the intent of movies--student or studio, nude clips become part of a collection, existing outside of the artistic context and reduced to titillating pornography collections online and off.  That makes one wonder just how necessary nudity in the movies is at all, particularly in a culture that is so skewed against male nudity.

As critics, and as human beings, I don't think we should ignore the exploitation of men, women and children, particularly in a year when we are celebrating films that explore the exploitation of men based on race: "Daniel Lee's The Butler" and "12 Years a Slave." We should question if a movie that exploits or abuses human beings should be considered art and consumer worthy, just as some people ask if we should buy products made through slave or child labor, or, if you support PETA, products that result in the death or injury of animals.

If female nudity in movie is the result of coercion, bullying and emotional manipulation in the movie industry, then this is something that critics should consider just as critics should consider race and racism. Can a critic ever speak of "Triumph of the Will" without acknowledging the European Holocaust? Can any critic discuss "The Birth of a Nation" without considering the reality of slavery and the Ku Klux Klan?

While the director of "Blue" has ridiculed the complaints of his stars because other people suffer more, that doesn't mean his actions were right.

I have written at length about the current racism in movies toward Asian Americans. Asian Americans are an ethnic minority in the United States while ethnic Asians are a majority in the world (roughly 60 percent of the global population). Women are a bare majority in the U.S. and the world. If we as critics can be critical in the case of certain races, why can't we acknowledge problems, ethical, legal and moral, regarding the treatment of a little over half the human population.

As a disclaimer, I do not know Manohla Dargis, but I am glad she gave the industry something to talk about. As a critic, I don't believe we are personal shoppers or part of the rumor mills, but we should be giving our readers and colleagues something to think about.

'John Rabe' gives a German view of the Battle of Nanking

As part of the unequal treaties and the 100 years of shame endured by China, European companies came into China and exploited the resources--human and otherwise. One of those companies was Siemens AG under the leadership of John Rabe. Rabe's diaries recorded the atrocities of Nanking and this 2009 German-Chinese-French production, "John Rabe,"  is based on those diaries, reportedly rediscovered by the late Iris Chang.

The Hamburg, Germany born Rabe entered China in 1908, working for Siemens AG China Corporation in various locations including Peking, Shanghai and finally Nanking. Siemens was founded as Siemens & Halske in 1847 based on a telegraph that didn't need to use Morse code. By 1919, S & H had entered into the production of light bulbs and in the 1920 and 1930s, as Adolf Hitler was rising to power, Siemens was making radios, TV sets and microscopes. The company supported the Nazi Party and eventually built factories in and near the Nazi death camps. Prisoners at the infamous Auschwitz worked at a Siemens factory inside the camp. Camp factories were often run by the SS.

The movie doesn't go into the history of Siemens and the Nazi party, but the allegiance of the company is clear from the Nazi flag it flies.

The movie begins with a phonograph playing European music. We meet John Rabe (Ulrich Tukur) and he speaks in German to his female Chinese telephone operators. The movie cuts between scenes that look like archival footage and richly colored scenes of the foreigners and their life of luxury. News of the Japanese invasion begins in 27 November 1937 when Rabe writes about it with optimism. In a voiceover, Rabe explains, "They say the Japanese razed Shanghai to the ground. I just don't want to believe that." In Nanking, all is quiet although some people are running away in anticipation of the Japanese invasion.

Rabe isn't a particularly likable person.  He's been reassigned and is leaving Nanking. As he attempts to move his prized piano, he finds the Chinese workers aren't very helpful, speaking in German, he declares, "these idiots are good for nothing." He has the same opinion of his driver Chang, exclaiming "How can anybody be so dumb?"

Before the invasion, he wasn't against the Japanese invasion, writing "it wouldn't be bad if Japan gained more influence in China" because the Japanese are allies of the Nazi regime. And China isn't his concern any more as John Rabe is getting ready to leave China after 27 years and 142 days. At an elegant ball in his honor, all of Nanking's high society attend. A woman sings a Western sounding ballad about waiting for someone to return. The crowd is mostly non-East Asian.

Not all of the foreigners in Nanking are allies of Germany. American doctor Robert O. Wilson (Steve Buscemi) snidely remarks at Rabe's going away party about a Nazi being honored by a less than honorable Chinese official, "A corrupt Chinese general honors a Nazi." Yet this is balanced by the other foreign guests complaining about almost everything from the way the Chinese serve wine to the Japanese ambassador Fukuda (Togo Igawa) explaining how China should not see Japan as an enemy, "but as an opportunity." After all, "the clever must lead the simple-minded."  Sounds like the White Man's Burden has mutated in Japan.

The party clearly shows the separation of the privileged foreigners from the normal native Chinese population and even their distain for the Chinese whose hospitality they exploit. Yet things are going to change because this is late in the year 1937. After the Chinese official intones, "All Chinese must be sad today" because John Rabe "has done more for China than one could have expected from a foreigner," Rabe gets up to address all the guests, but he never gets a chance to finish his speech.

The Japanese are entering Nanking with bombs and even the foreigners aren't sheltered from the bombs. When Rabe and others including Wilson (a real person) form the International Safety Zone Committee, the American Minnie Vautrin is replaced by a fictional French woman named Valerie Dupres (Anne Consigny). The "safety zone" isn't entirely safe.

Rabe is forced to act and throughout Rabe finds his decisions questioned--not only by a more staunchly Nazi German, but also by other Germans such as Dr. Rosen (Daniel Bruhl) who have felt the dark shadows of the European Holocaust. Rabe might be the "good German" but he wasn't saintly. Likewise, the Chinese and the Japanese aren't all saints against the sinners.

The film was controversial in Japan because the Prince Yasuhiko Asaka (Teruyuki Kagawa), who was commander of the Japanese forces in China, is shown as having a decisive role in the Nanking Massacre. The film did not receive a theatrical release in Japan. While that might be a political problem with the film, the other is point of view. The movie is from a Rabe's point of view, a foreigner's viewpoint of Chinese history without a counterbalance of, say, the chauffeur's experience (Ming Li) or that off a Chinese doctor. Too often, expositions substitute for visual character development, but even this isn't too tiresome as the movie attempts to show the enormity of the Nanking Massacre.

The movie, which was nominated for seven German Film Awards, won for Best Film, Best Actor, Best Production Design and Best Costume Design. In German, Chinese, Japanese and English with English subtitles, the movie is available on Netflix for streaming.

'The Flowers of War' sells nationalistic propaganda to the world

My original review of "The Flowers of War" received a lot of negative attention. My views haven't changed, not even with so many commenters pulling the race card.

Director Zhang Yimou is known for movies that have the theme of Chinese people facing hardship such as his 1994 "To Live." That doesn't mean he hasn't directed action movies. His wuxia movies include the 2002 "Hero" and the 2004 "House of Flying Daggers." Like these movies "The Flowers of War" has a rich use of color.

"The Flowers of War" was based on a best-selling novel by Geling Yan "13 Flowers of Nanjing." One wonders if Geling Yan wasn't pandering to a Western audience with the choice of 13 because in Chinese and Japanese 13 is not an unlucky number. The bad luck vibes come from a European Judeo-Chrsitan tradition. I haven't read the novel, but this 2011 movie was the Chinese entry for the 84th Academy Awards but did not make the shortlist. It also was nominated for the 69th Golden Globe Awards, but not for Best Motion Picture. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film but lost to a movie from Iran, "A Separation."  It was nominated for a Best Film Award at the sixth annual Asian Film Awards, but lost to "A Separation." Ni Ni did win an award as Best Newcomer. The movie won an award for Best Sound Editing at the Golden Reel Awards.

Set on 13 December 1937, "The Flowers of War" takes on a mystical air with children running through the fog with an air of desperation.  The narrator is a young girl, Shu (Zhang Xinyi), and she and her classmates are running back to the sanctuary of a Christian church, the Winchester Cathedral. The pursuers are the lustful Japanese army and the flight of the girls and one boy is aided by the remnants of the Nanjing Army led by Major Li (Tong Dawai).

Bale's character, John Miller, is also heading toward the cathedral. He's a mortician and the cathedral's priest has died. John meets up with the girls and they reach the cathedral which has a large compound encircled by high solid walls and a wood gate. With the priest dead, his body blown away by a bomb, and the cook, runaway with the food, the children are alone--a dozen girls and a one orphan boy, George Chen (Huang Tianyuan).  You can see where this is heading?

John is not a good man, yet. He is a mercenary at heart and his scenes with the young girls comes across as a bit creepy. John isn't the only opportunist searching for sanctuary. A group of high-class prostitutes also force their way into the compound. They are glamorous, beautifully coiffed and made-up as if they were just taking an evening stroll through the bombed and burned city, stepping elegantly over the corpses.

John is delighted with these ladies of questionable virtue and takes a particular interest in the haughtiest, and the formerly most sought after whore, the aloof and beautiful Yu Mo (Ni Ni).

John is searching for money. The ladies are hoping he'll be able to use his Western face to get them out of Nanjing. They take over the basement. John remains upstairs in the late father's room, getting drunk. When the Japanese break in and attempt to rape the students, he at first cowers in an armoire, but eventually John emerges, dressed as a priest and attempts to bluff his way past the Japanese. The Japanese aren't quite convinced, but the noble Major Li picks a few soldiers off and the soldiers retreat to capture the sniper.

The character development of the adults is shaky. John's English dialogue seems unnatural and even after the initial creepiness of John's money-grubbing, grasping character wears off, there's still something queasy about the juxtaposition between the nostalgic sensuousness of the inner sanctum of the women's world of lingerie and laughter in the basement and the death and grittiness of war. The situation will tug at your heartstrings, but still the transformation from drunken mercenary to conscientious "father" isn't convincing.

The girls are temporarily "safe" when a good (a stiff Atsuro Watanabe) Japanese officer assures Father John that order has come to Nanjing and the Colonel posts soldiers to "protect" the girls--keeping them in. Yet under orders, the colonel "invites" the girls and not their guardian to a party where it seems assured they will be raped and then killed.

Using his mortician skills John helps replace the girls with the courtesans who nobly sacrifice themselves, but they are one person short. The young boy volunteers to pretend to be a girl. There are 13 flowers. John and the girls make their escape into an uncertain future because Chinese viewers will know the Christians weren't particularly welcome under the communists.

"The Flowers of War" is a propaganda movie coming out in a time when most of the world has moved past the simplistic characterizations of the enemy as evil and the other side as saintly. Chinese soldiers and Japanese soldiers both committed atrocities during the war and pre-World War II China was subjected to humiliation by Western nations for decades.  In 1937, consider the condition and legal status of the African American man in the Deep South and the native Africans in South Africa and you'll be able to put things in better perspective. The 1930s and 1940s was a time when inhumanity toward other men and women based on race was considered reasonable. Were the Japanese expected to be any different?

In reading history, I find that the Americans atrocities are often somewhat mitigated by accounts of Japanese torture and war crimes. I've also read, in English, similar explanations for Korean and Chinese transgressions. I seldom read that about Japanese soldiers even thought there are accounts of Chinese atrocities against Chinese and Japanese prior to Nanking, recorded by Swiss businessman Tom Simmen.  What happened in Shanghai preceded Nanking and it seems that the Chinese weren't above torture and this is something that should be remembered when historically evaluating what happened in Nanking.

What we need is a little comedy: 'Amazing Stories: Magic Saturday'

I was watching the third episode of the second season of Steven Spielberg's  "Amazing Stories." In this 23-minute episode now available on Netflix, "A boy uses an ancient Chinese spell to switch bodies with his sick grandfather so the old man can relive his former glories on the baseball field."

Now my Mandarin Chinese is rusty, and I can't even be sure if the ancient Chinese spell is supposed to be in Mandarin, but both actors recite it devoid of tones. With four tones in Mandarin Chinese that means there are so many possibilities.

The spell is: Yijing Meijing Laotsi I will be you and You will be me.

What would have been funnier is if the boy or the grandfather mispronounced the spell and things began to go so very wrong.

I think there was something to that effect (without the magic) in the of TV series "Family Affair."

Otherwise, the "Amazing Stories" suggests that Chinese is very simple for Americans (or anyone) to master (Shades of Rudyard Kipling's "Kim"?).

Creepy 'Catepillar' challenges imperialism

If just the thought of the larval form of the order or Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) make you a bit queasy, then you might want to skip this 2010 Japanese film now available on Netflix. Directed by Joji Wakamatsu the movie is based on Edogawa Rampo's 1929 anti-war oddly erotic short story "The Catepillar" (芋虫 Imomushi). 

Not everyone was gungho and ready to rape and pillage in order to have Asia for the Asians as if Asian imperialism in Asia was better than European (or American) imperialism there. That's a bit of delusion equal to the white man's burden.



Edogawa Rampo is the nom de plume of Tarō Hirai (平井 太郎 1894-1965). Rampo was a great admirer of Edgar Allen Poe hence the name. This tale, like many others written by him, is characterized by eroticism, grotesquerie and the nonsensical. This particular story was censored in 1939 which was two yars after the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese War. Censors were perhaps troubled that the storyline would detract from the war effort.

"Caterpillar" is not a bug, but a human who is reduced to nothing more than a human larva. Without arms or legs, deaf and mute with a face that is horribly scarred, he cannot communicate, he cannot eat, bathe or dress himself. He, Lt. Kurokawa (Keigo Kasuya) was not a good man during the war, having committed rape and murder and these memories come back to haunt him. Yet he still wants sex and his wife (Shinobu Terajima), though repelled by his form and greedy lust, feels duty bound to service him.

Yet eventually Kurokawa finds sex with his wife reminds him of his war crimes and he begins to find his current situation unbearable. Love of country and patriotism become empty words for both Kurokawa and his wife.

The late Wakamatsu is perhaps best known for producing Nagisa Oshima's "In the Realm of the Senses" and this movie is in keeping with his pink film legacy. Wakamatsu died in October of 2012 and "Caterpillar" is his penultimate film.

"Caterpillar" is an uncomfortable mix of erotic scenes of the attractive naked Terajima and the frightful flashbacks of the war and Kurokawa's  currently pitiful state. "Caterpillar" is not a pro-war movie but it also isn't quite erotica. "Caterpillar" can be streamed on Netflix.