Lan Yu & Winter

Today I watched Lan Yu, and I may write something more substantial later but here are some notes otherwise:


-- Much of it (especially near the beginning) was composed of quick scenes that would cut to another, jumping abruptly to the next. I wish the camera had just lingered for even just one more second. It felt like something was missing. Perhaps this is a way to convey the fleetingness of their early relationship. It became better near the end.

-- The end was melodramatic. There are too many sad movies about gay people, and I feel that this movie would've been more effective if it'd had more of a happy-ever-after ending. And even if it had to be tragic, the tragedy should have been delayed -- there should have been more happiness before it. It was over just as they had reconciled and were getting ready to live a life together. It ended too fast for the audience to really register, and wasn't as sad.

-- The dialogue was quite theatrical: actors enunciated/articulated clearly and spoke at a healthy pace. (Maybe this is because, as a Hong Kong director, Stanley Kwan wanted them to speak a little slower so he'd understand?) A couple of times, the actors sounded a little too artificial. However, I quite liked this. There was just a hint of staged-ness, as if they were reciting lines. It makes the story seem more romantic -- more Shakespearian, perhaps. I liked the idea that it didn't seem like a spontaneous film, but a more composed... /elegant/ one. (If you compare it to "Happy Together" dir. WKW, another Hong Kong film about a tumultuous gay relationship -- the latter feels more improvised and more visceral. But Lan Yu is more poetic, more beautiful.)

----

It is so incredibly cold. I'm at home and I can hear the wind whipping violently outside. The curtain in the living room is partly open and the naked branches of the neighbour's trees keep swinging around. The wind sounds like all those airplanes passing over the house, except it's constant, and dies down slightly just to pick up again, stronger. Some of it comes vertically down the chimney too, so you can hear it whirring in the hearth. When I walk the approximately 200m distance from the bus stop to home, it takes me twice as long. My entire body becomes numb rather quickly from the violent cold. The wind is always blowing at my face and knocking my hood off my head and unravelling my scarf. When it gets so strong that it starts to roar in my ear I have to stand still, turn around, and wait for it to stop beating at my back. Otherwise it's unbearable. The other night, it rained (it was less cold than it is now) and the wind hit my half-sealed blinds so that the thin metal sheets that protruded only slightly from the windowpane rattled. I woke up and had to close it. Then I had a dream that we were on an outdoor ed trip, and I was rooming with Yasmin and some others, and at night a hurricane arrived through the window. Today during mock exams, there were all sorts of weird knocking sounds all over the aula. It sounded like it was hailing. I dislike the winter.