Not rated, but this movie involves the murder of a little girl. Also, there's a weird sexual sequence involving blood that I really can't explain. Yeah, this movie should be R-rated, but also has the tone of confusion, which makes it seem somehow more scandalous. Honestly, if I could beat-for-beat explain what was going on in this movie, it wouldn't be that bad. Most of the movie is the protagonist walking around, delaying revenge. Oh, and the death of Yan is pretty intense. There's some animal cruelty in the film as well.
DIRECTOR: Yermek Shinarbayev Oh man, there are so many things that I want to do way before writing about Revenge. This is another entry in the Martin Scorsese World Cinema Collection from Criterion. I think Revenge exactly nails what most of these movies feel like. My gut reaction is so disrespectful that it isn't even a little bit fair. Part of what I honestly feel is that I'll probably forget every single movie in this collection. Scorsese's right. These movies need to be shown to the world. Just because we haven't heard about these movies doesn't mean that they don't add to the cinematic canon. But there's also something about these movies that almost feels like homework. Revenge kind of nails that vibe perfectly. One of the coolest things about Revenge is that it is a fairly modern movie that looks gorgeous. Most of the things that Americans associate with Kazakhstan is what we get from Borat. It's kind of why the joke works so well in those movies: we have no idea what Kazakhstan is actually like. In my mind, it is mindblowing that Kazakhstan, Korea, and Russia aren't that separated. I'm going to admit that I'm not used to Asian cultures speaking Russian throughout the movie, let alone the fact that Shinarbayev was trained at the VGIK. Ultimately, the thing I like about Soviet era cinema is the very specific tone that is nailed in these movies. I'm always kind of impressed by how they manage to get an epic scope with a bleak tone throughout. That sounds like I'm dogging the film. I'm not. But I did say that this did feel like homework and that often comes from the fact that the movie dances between experimental film and traditional narrative. From a traditional narrative perspective, a lot of Revenge works. I don't know what it is about the chapter format when it comes to movies, but I like digestible stories that lead to a larger whole. Mostly this works. But there are parts that are either completely abstract and unproven or just a mess. The film wants to get to the point of whether or not the young protagonist, Sungu, should actively pursue a revenge that fundamentally isn't his. That's a really nifty story. All of the stuff with Sungu is the stuff that makes you think and question morality. A good revenge story should do that, by the way. It's critical of the one getting revenge. But this is a story that really spends a lot of emotional and philosophic real estate trying to get us to question Sungu. So the middle of the movie, while sometimes abstract, is well-developed. Getting there and getting out of the movie are weirdly raw and make not a lot of sense. The film starts out with Yan, a teacher, just murdering a little girl. The class is lightly giggling at his attempts at classroom management. He then resorts to slaughtering this little girl who did nothing wrong. Now, that's pretty weak. But as a character, we're meant to believe that he didn't want to kill this girl. He was pushed too far on the wrong day. (All off my complaints about this movie are silly and superfluous. I know this story isn't about the narrative. I'm just complaining because these moments irked me.) Okay, it's weak, but I can live with that narrative. I invest in that moment. But in Book Three or something, Yan visits Sungu. He's there to brag. What is his entire intention for doing this? I know that Tsai failed to kill Yan when he had the chance, but it seems really out of character for him to intentionally hunt down the elder Tsai and remind him that Yan killed his daughter and there's nothing that he can do about it. The crux of the film is that Sungu would have made a great poet. He was this kind boy who was literally bred for revenge. He never knew his sister (although even that is kind of betrayed later in the movie when he sees the ghost / hallucination of his sister outside of Yan's home). The frustrating thing is that Tsai gave up, something that also didn't make a lot of sense to me. Tsai pauses when it comes to killing Yan because the healer distracted him. But he kind of just...stops? The married couple comes up with this idea to impregnate a mute concubine and that Sungu should be the vessel for revenge? It's all...odd. I get the notion. We wanted to have a naturally good person searching for a revenge that wasn't his. But also...how did we get there? There are all of these moments that are a bit of a bridge too far. The insane thing about this is that the parts that are good are actually great. Much of the movie is just this exploration of a life abandoned. Again, that is a movie I can get behind. The worst part of me complaining? That's most of the movie. Most of the movie is about Sungu, taking a right when he should have turned left. It's not even about this kid who is fully devoted to murdering Yan. It's not that he avoids his destiny. It's just that he's in this holding pattern for the majority of the movie. Instead of being a poet and living with his mother, he works in a saw mill and lives a hard life. He could have bee-lined it for Yan. I suppose a lot of that comes from the fact that he lives in a pre-Internet society and he's not trained to be the World's Greatest Detective. But a lot of that is just the notion that the Sungu that was meant to be cannot exist. Even when he wants to find comfort in sexuality, there's the image of the bleeding genitals. It's a weird moment guys and I'm unpacking it as I write. While this moment is meant to tell that Sungu is suffering from the same ailment that killed his father, I get the idea he's just not allowed to have a moment of happiness. It reflects the curse that his father placed upon him: no joy or sorrow. The thing is...he feels a lot of sorrow. The entire movie? Sorrow. It's a terrible life. He's just this guy who floats his way through life because he's living someone else's life. Now, I thought that this was going to be a movie outright commenting on the folly of revenge. I don't think the movie gives me that kind of satisfaction. Through Sungu's tarrying to kill Yan, Yan lives a far worse life than you could imagine. The coolest part of this movie is that Yan spends his entire life looking over his shoulder, expecting retribution for the murder he created (coupled with a weird boasting that just made things worse). He leads a terrible life as an alcoholic that is bullied by school children. (Also, these school children confirm my theory that children in foreign films are real psychos and make American children in movies look like saints.) A flaming rat (yup) catches the barn he's sleeping in on fire and he burns to death, alone and drunk. It's a lot. That's a cool ending. The weird part is...that's where the story of revenge should end. Then...Sungu gets revenge even though Yan's burning to death seems like it's a way better revenge than sickle murder. The woman that helps him, the healer, with whom he bonds, is somehow killed by a truck towing some absurd piece of metal? Then he cuts that lady's head off using the sickle. What? Why? That's not an ending. That has little to do with the story. At best (AT BEST!), I can see it in the sense that she was married to Yan and the closest thing to killing Yan would be killing the wife that hated him? Or maybe because she interrupted Tsai's initial attempt to kill Yan? Either way, kind of a messy ending and I'm going to go as far as to say that it was there for shock value. I don't know. I told you. The beginning and the end of the movie are a mess. I do still think that it is unfair that I'm poo pooing this movie as hard as I am. It's just that, as good as the good parts are, so many moments are a mess. The funny thing is, the next movie on the same Blu-ray is pulling the same card. For as many pretty moments are in the film, there are some that are sloppy and rough to watch. I wish that I was really sold on these movies as being classics. But they do feel like homework. I guess I'm glad I watched them, but they are a bit of a burden. |
Film is great. It can challenge us. It can entertain us. It can puzzle us. It can awaken us.
AuthorMr. H has watched an upsetting amount of movies. They bring him a level of joy that few things have achieved. Archives
October 2024
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