Away with Words

Let's do NOT 'AWAY WITH WORDS' when texts are so full and enigmatic and fun that they can even solve the enigma of the chicken and the egg !

Or produce gems like some of the monologues of character Kevin:"Memories, that's what I forget; I remember happy things. If happy things are what I remember, will that mean that I am sad when I forget ?"

This debut film of DIRECTOR Christopher Doyle, who must be the hottest photographer of the past 15 or so years, is stunning, exciting and beautiful. And that is not only meant for the imagery, which IS indeed breathtaking.

What is this film... Hard to say, even though the post scriptum speaks of Dada and Automatic Writing, which is a hint in the right direction, I guess. The two male principal characters might very well be two sides of the same personality, or mind. And Susie, the leading lady, is Mother Nature, nurturing and trying to keep Yin & Yang together. Certainly, every theory is as good as the next one, but there might well be some truth in this:

Kevin, to Asano:"Susie says you could write a book from what I can't remember..."

This film is full of memories and mirages and, maybe, mirrors. So could this be a Tarkovsky with an hangover ? Hmmm, unlikely; and if so, would he have been drinking beer ? With Kevin ??! ...

Everything here is so varied, so divers, so haunting; the music, the imagery, the words, oh yes, the words too.

I have seen this film three times back to back and it doesn't let go for a moment. It keeps being surprising and spellbinding. Thank Goodness there are cineasts who know that a good film ought to linger on in the mind of the viewer. Some of the biggest filmmakers knew that; it's the reason why Kubrick's '2001' is a sensational classic and Spielberg's 'Close Encounters' merely a pretty good film. The first ends with a question, the latter with an answer.

Let's hope Christopher Doyle will be allowed to direct and write some more films !!!

'Not Forgotten. Just Misplaced'

PS: for those who are looking for this film on DVD: the very pleasant eBay seller 'fullhousedvd' has this title for sale from an Asian label. As he also has Doyle's cinematography work in the fabulous Thai movie 'Last Life In The Universe', as well as the documentary 'Buenos Aires Zero Degree; The Making Of Happy Together'. Well worth a visit...

an amazing film by asian cinematographer guru chris doyle, almost permanent partner of wong-kar-wai. which means: amazing pictures. fuzzy around the edges, confused at times but shockingly clear at others (not just the pictures, i mean). which also means: people talking in different languages, at the same time, to each other. which in itself is worth watching if you fall for that kind of thing. another way to put it: creative, instinctive way of using words (and images etc) while on a certain level the whole thing makes SENSE. its just that doyle likes his beer often instead of cold which makes some scenes tiring.... but still. you critics out there, you´re much too "critical"..... away with words indeed.

I saw this film at the Sydney Film Festival, and there were three things I loved about it:

• Christopher Doyle directing his own cinematography - what a visual treat (especially the bar scenes).

• It was a film about linguistics, which Doyle being (at least) bilingual would be bound to be interested in. Basically if the title interests you, you'll probably enjoy this aspect of the film.

• The blur between fiction and reality in the character of Kevin, playing himself I suspect, so real as the carefree scamp you love to have around/chronic alcoholic you want to get out of your life (depend on your point of view).

In the Q&A, I found the director unintelligible. Maybe he's a bit of a man's man because his gift to the audience in Sydney was Christa in an orange pantsuit, singing some breathy Monroesque tune. That was OK but he also did another Q&A for a different film later in the festival and Christa did her number again, although it had no relevance to the film. It was an annoyingly blatant free plug for Christa.

Here's the logic you might use to seek this out: To be a lucid life today means you need to understand how you use image to see yourself. That means you will end several important adventures with Kar-Wai Wong. And if you are at all alert, you'll want to explore Chris Doyle, the cinematographer in that collaboration.

Here's Doyle's project where he forms something alone. Seeing the limits of what he can each is as enjoyable as the memory flavors he can deliver.

I've said before that if you get a serious actor, you will find him or her so dedicated to what matters, they'll become incapable of actually making a film as filmmaker. May as well ask a roast to make a meal. The same is true of a cinematographer, I think. Now we're talking real films here, those that matter, those that have some valuable, effective shape as an assembly. These are rare, compared to the larger group of projects that give us pretty things, engaging characters and/or stories that charm. This business of assembly, of making the whole hour and a half or two have being that seems as big as the world, now that's mastery. Kar-Wai Wong can do this in ways that reweave parts of your soul.

The way it works, I think, is KWW intuits the way the world works, and sculpts sharp pieces from that intuition. Doyle then breathes animating magic into those bits, but what he sees is the bits, not the dream of the whole world. He's a souschef. For him to actually dance with my inner self, he needs arms that can surround my imagination whole, not in bites.

Now the fun of this. Three bodies on screen representing three realities of the collaborator Doyle needs. There's a Japanese fellow, who remembers everything, holds those memories as words and transforms each word into a vision. These are nouns not verbs, and the "visions" are all of objects. We see lots of intertitles where words and their visual assignment (denoted by a word!) are shown, sometimes dissolving. This fellow has lots of internal dialogs about the curse of memory.

There's an Australian who owns the bar. He's a promiscuous gay, and a serious beer drunk. (Doyle is Australian. I not know how he shares his body.) He's one who tastes life at the boundaries (preferring policemen), and forgets everything including his address, so he has trouble getting home every night. He openly muses on what he's forgotten

And then there's Susie, the home, the earth. A simple, accepting beauty. Patient. Forgiving. The actress has one of those faces that deeply looks like it merely looks deep. She's a seamstress, a fashion designer of significant talent.

It would be a wonderful construction if it weren't so film-schoolish in its obviousness, and so sophomoric in the way he has to explain it to us.

Never mind; you knew at the beginning of this comment that he would fail in the long form composition.

Its the way he chooses the shape of each scene to explore visual memory that's of interest. You could think of it as a "Marienbad" in small bits, each a camera-centered eye poem. He and Goddard would have eaten each other. He and Wong stream colored ribbons that tie themselves into emotions. Him by himself. Dessert.

There's an interesting insertion at the beginning, an Australian performer/singer whose gimmick is gargle-singing with a mouth full of beer. More of this, which is to say more of Maddin or alternatively Fruit Chan, would work better, would make him by himself a poet that matters.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

AWAY WITH WORDS is a fun and insightful film that is told in a fresh new way. It's got cinematographer Christopher Doyle's signature kinetic style, which we all loved in his films he made with Wong Kar Wai. But here as director he is free to go overboard with it, and it's pure fun to watch.

The narration and characters are great too. It's not a traditional story, which is a nice change of pace. It's still very well told. I'm not sure why all the one-star ratings here. The rest of the votes are pretty evenly distributed, but with a ton of single stars, which usually signifies some sort of campaign to lower the score of the film. That being said, the film ends up being much better than the star rating here would imply, which was a very nice surprise, although I suppose there's no accounting for taste. But I loved it. Highly recommend.