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Good Men, Good WomenRating:
Release Date: 19 February, 2002 Retail Price: $24.98 OUR Price: $21.99 You SAVE: $2.99! Cast: |
Good Men, Good Women Reviews
This is a political film, dealing with a still sensitive topic.
I was introduced to Hou Hsiao-Hsien by "Flowers of Shanghai," an exquisite piece of work that spoke of a mature film maker, who had mastered his visual language. I imagine that it would be a similar experience to an introduction to Wong kar Wai or Almovodar with "In the Mood for Love" or "All About My Mother," respectively being pieces where a good director became a great. You finish these types of films wondering where did he (the director) come from intellectually, and where is he going.
Hou's style is subtle, an excellent cinematographer and picture taker, like many of the Asian films (whether this is from a common thread or by accident I don't know). He is not as overtly stylish as Wong Kar-Wai, but the shots he takes and chooses (perhaps the better adjective) are beautiful. "Good Men, Good Women." It's not a bad movie, really. Certainly not Hou's worst. Its main claim to greatness is its excellent cinematography, with some sections in a high-contrast black and white and others in brilliant color. Hou also decides to move his camera a bit and film from different angles. He's finally caught up with D.W. Griffith, although he still falls back on his favorite compositions again and again. The narrative is often great - there are several great individual scenes - but it's ultimately too difficult to follow.
A commentator called this style "Cinematic Masturbation", which I think is an adolescent argument. Just because the points don't hit you over the head doesn't mean they are not being made. This is a political film, dealing with a still sensitive topic. The director definitely cares about the audience. Like anything else, it's the little details that count.
One of those little details is an Ozu film being played on TV in one background shot. Hou has consciously acknowledged Ozu as an influence and his style shows it. The action, so to speak, takes place within the context of the everyday events. The points being made are observed by the routine actions, and unique touches within them.
The most solid point being the commonality of loss, and tragedy between two Taiwanese actresses of different generations. Both lose lovers, and sacrifice children to the events around them.
The other point is the simultaneous affluence and emptiness is modern day life. The actress in the older story is based on a real person, who joined the anti-Japanese resistance in China during WWII. After this, her husband is executed in an anti-communist crackdown in Taiwan. She is both pushed along by events, but shows a determination to live her life and make decisions, This is in contrast to the other story, that of the actress playing (there is a movie within a movie), who is looking back on a life with petty gangsters, drinking and drugs. In material goods she is richer than the older actress ever was, with her upper middle class life, yet poorer in far more many ways. Both are played by the same actress, who handles the two stories well.
In the Hou portfolio, I prefer this to "Goodbye South Goodbye," which I felt got a little lost in fancy camera work, but I feel that this is close to "Flowers of Shanghai."
One of the greatest directors in the history of cinema
GOOD MEN GOOD WOMEN is the third part of his Taiwan-trilogy (which is in all respects with Ritwik Ghataks refugee trilogy the greatest trilogy in the history of cinema). And this film is a masterpiece like THE PUPPETMASTER or A CITY OF SADNESS. It proofs again that Hou is probably one of the last great stylists in cinema. He re-etablished the long shots (what the French call plan sequence) and he is probably the master of this long shots. GOOD MEN; GOOD WOMEN is Hous most emotional film and a strong reflection about film making (this film is a film in a film) and his most complex film, told in at least three different time levels. And again I feel that Hou began there where Orson Welles stopped or had to stop because of his producers. Beside that, we find as well in this film one of the outstanding performances of an actress of the Nineties: Annie Shizuka-Inoh who interpreted one of the deepest female characters I have ever seen in a film by a male director. And she brings two diferent styles together in her acting: the exhibitionistic play of Chaplin and the introverted play of Ozus favorite actor Chishu Ryu. For my side it is Hous most moving film and it complets this outstanding trilogy in its deep wise reflection on history and cinema as well.
Hou is not just a good director; he belongs to the greatest directors in the history of cinema beside Ozu, Ford, Ghatak, Renoir or Hitchcock.
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