At the
Movies Clear choice
By JOSEPH CUNNEEN
If youve been protecting your
ears while sitting through coming attractions or been mostly bored
by what gets to your local multiplex, seek out the new Korean romantic epic
Chunhyang, and be prepared to swoon. Director Im Kwon Taek has made more
than 90 films. Where they have been hiding his talent all this time, I
cant imagine.
He has taken a classic of 18th century feudal Korea, and told it
in a lyrical presentational style, emphasizing the beauties of the landscape
and centered on the pansori singing of Cho Sang Hyun, a musical
performer famous in his country.
We see Cho in a modern theater, accompanied by a drummer, with the
audience urging him on. Its impossible to do justice to the emotional
variety in Chos voice as he sings of young love overcoming the rigid
class structure and established oppression of an earlier age.
The story begins in Namwon province, where Mongryong (Cho Seung
Woo), the governors son, takes a holiday from his studies so that his
bungling comic servant can show him the natural wonders of the area. The
subtitles tell us the young man is only 15, but he is already handsome and
self-assured. As he proceeds on his stylized journey through a blossoming
countryside, he sees the beautiful Chunhyang (Lee Hyo Jung) and tells the
servant to bring her to him. She is indignant at being ordered about but sends
back a subtle answer that reveals both her independence and literary
education.
Although Mongryong shares the arrogance of the nobility and has
been told that Chunhyang is the daughter of a courtesan, he has sense enough to
interpret her reply as meaning that it is he who should approach her. He calls
at the home of her mother at night and despite the latters reminders that
an alliance with a son of the nobility is forbidden, Mongryon proceeds through
delightfully formalized stages of courtship and overcomes Chunhyangs
resistance. She shyly insists that Mongryon declare the permanence of his love,
and the young man executes the calligraphy for fidelity on the
front of her silk robe.
Married, Mongryong remains at his mother-in-laws house, and
after a solemn undoing of many layers of clothing, there is a long, lush
sequence of fervent lovemaking. Such explicit eroticism surely violates the
canons of the movies 18th century source, but the director succeeds in
making it enchanting rather than exploitative. The couples raptures are
cut short, however, when Mongryongs father is summoned to Seoul by the
king to assume greater responsibilities, and the young husband is ordered to
accompany him. Chunhyang is desperate to go with her husband but he promises to
return after completing his studies.
Despite the obedience Mongryong owes to his father, a contemporary
audience will be rightly indignant at his failure to communicate with her for
three years. The emotional climax is reached after a despotic new governor
arrives at Namwon, and demands that Chunhyang be brought before him along with
the other local courtesans. She insists that just as he cannot give his loyalty
to more than one king, she cannot accept more than one man.
Chunhyang is languishing in prison when Mongryong is appointed a
royal emissary. He comes to Namwon disguised as a beggar, and listens to the
complaints of the peasants. When he visits Chunhyang in jail, however, it seems
unforgivable that he does not share the secret of his royal commission with his
wife. Next day, however, he comes uninvited to the governors birthday
party, and in a suspenseful scene, speaks openly of the corruption of the
administration. When the governor tries to justify the punishment of Chunhyang
as a response to sedition, Mongryong triumphantly responds, She only
wanted to be a human being.
The production ends with a return to Cho singing on stage to an
enraptured audience. By constantly reminding us that the movie is a fairy-tale,
Chunhyang is rewarded by the delight with which we believe in
it.
MGM and Universal have joined forces
to produce a predictably inferior sequel to The Silence of the
Lambs, with Sir Anthony Hopkins back in the title role as Hannibal
and Julianne Moore replacing Jodie Foster as FBI agent Clarice Starling. Based
on a later novel by Thomas Harris, the movie opens 10 years after
Lambs. Director Ridley Scott makes the material bloodier but less
scary, and the duel between Dr. Hannibal Lecter and Clarice is diluted by
excessive plotting.
The movie opens with Clarice leading an FBI team on a drug bust
that is bungled. Her boss (Ray Liotta) wants her discredited, for unexplained
bad reasons -- indeed, the FBI is presented so poisonously that one almost
wants to join the agency as a protest. The news comes to the attention of
Lecter, who is leading a polite, non-cannibalistic life in Florence.
Meanwhile we spend too much time at the magnificent estate of
Mason Verger (played by an unbilled Gary Oldman), a frighteningly disfigured
Hannibal victim who plays his role in a wheelchair. During an encounter that
took place before the movie begins, Verger, under the influence of amyl
nitrate, had been convinced by Lecter to cut off his face and feed it to the
dogs. It seemed like a good idea at the time, he tells Clarice.
Verger is prepared to spend his fortune to wreak a horrible revenge on the
doctor and believes Clarice can be used as bait.
Though all this seems so incredibly overheated as to reach the
level of tasteless humor, in Florence there are wonderfully presented fountains
and street scenes, plus the one interesting character, Rinaldo Pazzi (Giancarlo
Giannini), a police officer who hopes to collect the reward for capturing
Lecter alive. Pazzi takes his wife to the opera, where they bump into Lecter,
but Pazzi doesnt pay enough attention when the latter connects his name
with a remote ancestor who died by hanging. He fails to take necessary
precautions and reenacts in spectacular fashion the fate of the medieval
Pazzi.
Hopkins won an Academy Award for The Silence of the
Lambs. He doesnt make much of an effort this time. Unfailingly
polite, precise in diction, he seems to feel superior to everything around him
-- including his material. As Clarice says, Lecter only eats the
rude. Lecter remains interested in her psychology, and she herself
confesses I cant get him out of my mind, but the relationship
between them is never credible.
I am happy to comply with the producers request not to
reveal the ending, which does include some shockingly sinister images, as well
as others gross enough to satisfy the most jaded adolescent.
The whole movie is washed in endless choral music, a strangely
inappropriate aesthetic choice. None of this will prevent the much-hyped
Hannibal from being a hit. The most worrisome aspect is not the
exploitation of the proven popularity of horror movies -- director Ridley Scott
first made his name with Alien -- but that seeing
Hannibal tends to make us not take real evil seriously. As if the
effects of original sin are only to be found in over-the-top monsters!
Joseph Cunneen is NCRs regular movie reviewer. His
e-mail address is SCunn24219@aol.com
National Catholic Reporter, February 23,
2001
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