not lost in translation, but found
23 Dec 2010 12:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouSofia Coppola's Lost in Translation was a hushed and poignant film about the experience of being lost in an unfamiliar world, where all communication fails: between the male protagonist and his estranged wife, between the female protagonist and her ambitious boyfriend, between the two American protagonists and their inability to bridge the language gap with the people around them. In one light, it both specified Tokyo via its use of specific places within the city, and at the same time used its distance from the average (American) viewer to riff on the stranger-in-a-strange-land trope. In another light, it's also an exceedingly problematic film, in that Tokyo and its denizens are exoticized as something so foreign and incomprehensible that no translation could ever truly be possible.
If you've ever wondered whether the East had an answer to that multi-layered movie that Othered both its environment and its own protagonists, it just might be The Longest Night in Shanghai. If Coppola's story posited that isolation -- being lost with no meaning -- is an unavoidable aspect of life, this story posits that communicating -- finding the translation -- is the key to gaining one's meaning. (And it does it without requiring that anyone be Othered.)
A joint Japan/China production, directed by Zhang Yibai (Spring Subway, Curiosity Killed the Cat), it's nearly pan-Pacific in its casting: Vicki Zhao (PRC), Motoki Masahiro (Japan), Dylan Kuo (Taiwan), Sam Lee (Hong Kong), and other Japanese, PRC, and even a few American bit players. From the DVD description:
Unfortunately for her plans, he's walked out of the convention center without his bag (containing his ID and passport), his cellphone, or any idea of the name of the hotel where he's staying. He hadn't planned on not going back, but now he's lost somewhere in Shanghai, and despite the taxi driver's multiple attempts to foist him off on someone else (a low-rent motel, the police station, etc), each time she ends up going back for him, unwillingly sympathizing with this lost soul in her city. They're both lost, really: Mizushima's relationship with his partner/lover, Miho, is strained and too business-like; Lin Xi harbors a secret long-term love for her best friend, a mechanic at a local garage.
He understands no Mandarin; she speaks no Japanese. The one language they have in common is (ironically, to me) English, but it's pretty limited, even then. But in that way all people have when faced with someone who is a stranger and doesn't understand what you're saying, the honesty that each begin to express reveals communication despite the lack of translation between them. And, eventually, transcending it; in the end, unlike Coppola's protagonists who are permanently lost somewhere in the translation (including a final line between them that's not even audible to the audience), Zhang's protagonists find themselves in, and despite, translation.
(sorry it's so low-quality; no one's uploaded anything higher in quality.)
The pivotal element in Longest Night differs from Coppola's focus. Where Coppola seemed to be saying that speaking makes no difference, that one may remain not-understood, Zhang seems to be saying that to remain silent (to avoid possible misunderstanding) is a far worse thing. To speak, to say what one is thinking and feeling, to communicate -- to commune -- requires that one take the risk of that mistranslation. Where Coppola's characters seem to always hover at the edges, never entirely saying really what's in their hearts -- and allowing Tokyo's different-ness to distract them from their internal silences -- Zhang's script lets the characters talk, and talk, until they come to an understanding despite the language barrier.
In both cases, there are comedic points, and I wonder if this is because the question of whether we can ever truly communicate with another is so fraught that stories cannot face it head-on, unending, but require humor to leaven the melancholy of that apparent isolation. Coppola's humor felt too forced, to me, in that it played on old West-to-East stereotypes. Zhang's humor is far more organic, even witty, like the conversation between Lin Xi's little brother, Didi (with his very rudimentary first-year Japanese) and Mizushima. To really get the mistranslation going on, you'd need to see it, because the conversation uses Chinese grammar with Japanese words, mingled with English words when Didi doesn't know the Japanese word.
Didi then reports that Mizushima is a tourist, and has lost his memory. After Didi remembers how to ask, "what is your name," he then proudly informs Lin Xi that Mizushima has regained his memory, and that his name is Miso-shiru... miso soup. Mizushima attempts to correct this mistranslation, but the two siblings are too pleased (unaware they're mis-pronouncing) to realize the correction.
But this mistranslation drives the story into its turning point, when Mizushima draws the first character for his name -- mizu -- and Lin Xi translates it. (You can see her half of the in-air conversation at 2:26 in the trailer.) From there, the barriers begin to fall, as they begin air-drawing characters to explain themselves.
The use of music underlines a lot of the barrier/distance between them: with the exception of the duet that plays over the closing credits, nearly the entirely of all soundtrack music has English lyrics. (That said, from what little I can glean from the intarweebizens, only one of the singers is American; several are East Asian or South Asian.) If you keep in mind that music is one of the hardest things to translate (hell, I have trouble understanding some songs that are in my native language, sometimes), then the music is a subtle reminder of the overall themes, of getting only a sense but not knowing the words. And if you do know English well enough to understand the language when sung, you'll discover realize every song is pitch-perfect for the respective scene.
The first three or four minutes of the movie (unsubtitled version) will really give you a feel for the melancholy, yet gorgeous, sense to the film. (The sound is really quiet on this particular video, so you'll probably need to turn it up a bit.)
Translation of Mizushima's voiceover at the start (from my subtitled version):
That opening shows you two of the main protagonists: Mizushima, and Shanghai itself. I find it noticeable that Lin Xi is not seen for a good part of the opening minutes, because in a way, her introduction is what breaks the melancholy self-enforced silence in which Mizushima operates. He really only comes to life once things have to get rolling for the Music Awards, and suddenly a seemingly reticent, indifferent man is springing to life and shouting in a mix of Japanese and English, exhorting everyone to get a move on. Shot after shot, he's shown cosseting and prepping various faces, and each time he repeats, "beautiful," to the person. It seems sincere, and from the reactions, it's taken as sincere. But as soon as the frantic energy of the Awards Show is over, Mizushima withdraws once again.
Lin Xi appears to be his polar opposite; she's brash, uncaring (or just unaware) of her rather disheveled appearance, like the fact that she spends most of the movie with her shirt buttoned wrong. (Even when Mizushima points it out, she only gives him an abashed grin, shrugs, and leaves it.) Her voluble conversation -- despite Mizushima's non-comprehension -- covers the fact that she, too, has not communicated in the ways that really matter, on the things that really matter, such as being in love with her best friend. Even when she does speak of him, she says, "we can tell each other everything," yet the one thing that matters (that she's in love with him), she's never found the strength to say.
If Lin Xi's trade -- that of taxi-driver -- is the literal vehicle that moves them from point to point in the story, it's Mizushima's trade -- of make-up artist -- that becomes a tool for communication. Not in the make-over sense you might expect, but as literal communication: in one of the most beautiful scenes in the film, Lin Xi brings out a tube of lipstick and writes on the taxi's front window as make-shift subtitles for what she's trying to say. In response, Mizushima uses a second tube to write his response. At first hesitant, then with growing enthusiasm, the two write and speak the depths of their hearts: on the taxi's windows, on the windows of a building along the street, then on the building itself, then on the sidewalk, out onto the street, up the taxi's side, even on its tires. In the end, the street is covered in brilliant red characters overlapping and mingling.
(There may also be an underlying message, too, in this: in that the shared use of hanzi/kanji create a foundation for communication... but also act as illustration of the root of misunderstandings. The same character -- 水 -- and Mizushima says mizu while Lin Xi says shui. The apparent conflict in the names for things is only the appearance, when the reality is that more is shared than different. Ironically, watching the film with English subtitles prompts an equivalent impression as if you knew the character being drawn in the air: the subtitles split to show each character's response, thus the subtitle line simply says, "water water", as the two say the character-name out loud. And then, begin to shift, repeating the other's language-name for the word, which is then repeated by the opposite person, and back again. If it is a political statement, it's one that works on the level of expressing hope for communication based on equal exchange.)
For the duration of the drawing-with-lipstick scene, though, no subtitles appear when the camera pans across the remains of their written discussions. (Note: if you're used to quality fansubbing, are some pretty inadequate subtitles at best, not to mention off by several beats, though it's really only obvious to an English-speaker in the subtitles where characters speak in English). Later, the two assistant make-up artists happen to come down the same street. Each reads out loud as they walk, and their recitation echoes the first significant Japanese phrase Lin Xi learns from Mizushima: how to say, do you love me, in Japanese, and Lin Xi's return lesson of how to say, I love you, in Mandarin. These two minor characters are a sort of chorus giving voice to the silent conversation drawn everywhere: do you love me, I love you, do you love me, I love you.
The other characters echo the protagonists' journey in different ways. One make-up artist assistant finds a smoky jazz bar (again, with all-English songs) and chooses to while away the night. Another pair of assistants wander the city on foot together in search of Mizushima, bickering all the way, a note completely at odds with the fact that they're the ones to discover the repeating declarations of, and questions about, love. The hired translator goes in search on his own, and ends up having his own charming, if completely whacked, bonding moment with a Chinese policewoman. In an amusing side-note, the two couples -- the two assistants, the translator and the policewoman -- each bond over their love of movies: the first for Morricone's soundtracks, the second for Bruce Lee flicks. (I guess some interests are truly transcendental.)
Mizushima's girlfriend/manager, Miho, is also searching, while simultaneously fending off (yet not entirely dis-inviting) the attentions of a young man who clearly wishes she'd leave her unhappy relationship and be with him. Miho in particular dances around saying outright what she wants, or perhaps she's simply undecided, anyway, and wanting a change but uncertain how to ask for it. Their conversations are the only ones of where the native language is shared, yet they seem to be the worst at talking at cross-purposes, a lot of speaking without actually listening.
The snippets of scenes with the assistant at the bar to really highlight the communication (or lack thereof); he strikes up a conversation with the jazz singer, a dark-skinned Westerner. Their chats are stilted, and it's obvious the actress is inexperienced, but it also works (if you don't speak English, at least) -- because her inexperienced delivery meshes with the flat delivery of the Japanese actor, who is clearly not fluent in English. (That flatness is a big sign of only basic comprehension of what one is saying; true fluency requires knowing where/when to emphasize or inflect). Beyond that, their actual dialogue is almost text-book hollow bar-talk; they exchange statements but the communication never goes farther than superficial. If the two assistants clash but eventually come to an understanding via giving voice to someone else's hopes, and Miho and her would-be new lover can't bring themselves to say what they're really wanting, the bar-room pair's banality is the final contrast.
I've seen reviews of Vicki Zhao's work -- for this film, and others -- that decry her as being continually type-cast as the cheerful, tomboyish girl-next-door character, or that say she plays such roles because that's the limit of her range. For this film, at least, I think she's note-perfect, not just in her tomboyish headstrong barrelling through despite barriers (be it the metaphor of language or the physical of street signs and fire hydrants), but also in her ability to express vulnerability in the silent spaces between. I've also seen complaints that Motoki Masahiro is too wooden -- but then, such a reticent character, against Zhao's determined cheerfulness, would seem flatter-affect, anyway -- but he manages the right balance between the occasional humorous moments, where over-acting would be too easy... and the gradual warmth as he begins to trust Lin Xi, or at least to realize that if he's to make himself understood, he must first speak up. As he opens up more, there are minute changes in his expressions, his posture, his reactions; he inhabited the character well enough to know that not everyone is hammy and over-the-top, and a withdrawn personality would evince the internal changes in subtler ways.
(For all that, the physical humor -- which requires no language to understand -- is very well-done, and several times made me laugh out loud. Normally I'm not one for slapstick, but it worked well in this film.)
For me, the pinnacle moment is when Lin Xi stands outside the bridal shop and watches her best friend try on his tux alongside his beautiful bride. So effervescent and self-assured previously, Zhao struck exactly the right notes of vulnerability, revealing quiet anguish and longing. After her range of expressive (if mostly noisy) emotions, that long stretch of silence showed only flickers of emotion, revealing how much she'd been hiding within her cheerful sound and fury. Her return to Mizushima is marked with some attempt at her former nonchalance, but his silent acceptance of her heartbreak is bittersweet. More importantly, the moment illustrates the main theme's corollary: that when one does understand, no words are required.
When Lin Xi does finally get up the nerve to speak to her soon-to-be-married friend, she still holds back. Trying to joke, she's asked about his impending wedding, and he assures her that when he met his bride, he just knew it was her. He seems oblivious to Lin Xi's undercurrents, cheerfully fixing the taxi's damage, and getting ready to leave as though it's just like any other day of being her mechanic. Just as he's about to go, she calls out that there's something she needs to say to him -- and then, with Mizushima watching silently from the background, Lin Xi says what she's been holding in all along. Do you love me? ...I love you.
And she says it in Japanese. The mechanic pauses, confused, and she repeats it. With his face turned away, she can't tell that it's dawning on him what she must be saying (and perhaps he may not know precisely, but again, perhaps it's that true communication translates regardless of little details like language) -- but when he turns around, she retreats, saying it was something her client (Mizushima) had taught her, and she knows a phrase in Japanese now, isn't that cool? For her, it's enough to have said it, and like much of the rest of the communication in the film, it's not communication that is ultimately the most important. What's important is speaking even when there's no hope of, or perhaps even wish for, a response.
Mizushima learns the lesson himself, and in his reunion with his girlfriend, when she starts to speak, he insists that he needs to be the one to say it. He's kept silent, letting her do all the talking for so long, that he owes it to her (and himself) to become active, to attempt to communicate, despite the risks of misunderstanding. In the last scene of the film, Mizushima picks back up his role of make-up artist, but this time, the film doesn't treat his actions with a frenetic, jumpy-editing cut, but grants his actions (of doing hair, makeup, etc) a gentleness, with long fades in and out of darkness. What had been cursory and perfunctory in his exchanges the first time we see him at work, has become a near-sacred, worshipfulness of the person before him. Such that when he says, beautiful, the sincerity -- the value of the communicated words -- is obvious.
And in the final line, I think it's also saying that for Lin Xi, to ask what she asks -- and the language used to ask -- indicates that she's also moved forward. Each of them broke free of previous silence to speak their hearts, even knowing that doing so was the first step towards closure -- but Lin Xi's speaking, at the end, takes that moment of ending and turns it into a beginning. Out of communicating as noise, and into communicating as a means to truly comprehend -- and to want to be understood, in return -- with another.
The Longest Night in Shanghai: wikipedia entry / yesasia listing, HK version / amazon listing, JP version
If you've ever wondered whether the East had an answer to that multi-layered movie that Othered both its environment and its own protagonists, it just might be The Longest Night in Shanghai. If Coppola's story posited that isolation -- being lost with no meaning -- is an unavoidable aspect of life, this story posits that communicating -- finding the translation -- is the key to gaining one's meaning. (And it does it without requiring that anyone be Othered.)
A joint Japan/China production, directed by Zhang Yibai (Spring Subway, Curiosity Killed the Cat), it's nearly pan-Pacific in its casting: Vicki Zhao (PRC), Motoki Masahiro (Japan), Dylan Kuo (Taiwan), Sam Lee (Hong Kong), and other Japanese, PRC, and even a few American bit players. From the DVD description:
Japanese makeup artist Mizushima Naoki (Motoki Masahiro) is in Shanghai on a job. Wandering by himself at night, he takes a knocking from reckless taxi driver Lin Xi (Vicki Zhao), but is luckily unharmed. After some language confusion, Naoki gets into the taxi, mistaking Lin Xi's insistent friendliness as an invitation for a free tour of Shanghai. Little does he know, Lin Xi is planning on taking this well-heeled foreigner on a very roundabout tour of Shanghai, with the meter running. As Naoki's worried colleagues set off in search for him, Lin Xi and Naoki slowly develop a bond that transcends their language gap.
Unfortunately for her plans, he's walked out of the convention center without his bag (containing his ID and passport), his cellphone, or any idea of the name of the hotel where he's staying. He hadn't planned on not going back, but now he's lost somewhere in Shanghai, and despite the taxi driver's multiple attempts to foist him off on someone else (a low-rent motel, the police station, etc), each time she ends up going back for him, unwillingly sympathizing with this lost soul in her city. They're both lost, really: Mizushima's relationship with his partner/lover, Miho, is strained and too business-like; Lin Xi harbors a secret long-term love for her best friend, a mechanic at a local garage.
He understands no Mandarin; she speaks no Japanese. The one language they have in common is (ironically, to me) English, but it's pretty limited, even then. But in that way all people have when faced with someone who is a stranger and doesn't understand what you're saying, the honesty that each begin to express reveals communication despite the lack of translation between them. And, eventually, transcending it; in the end, unlike Coppola's protagonists who are permanently lost somewhere in the translation (including a final line between them that's not even audible to the audience), Zhang's protagonists find themselves in, and despite, translation.
(sorry it's so low-quality; no one's uploaded anything higher in quality.)
The pivotal element in Longest Night differs from Coppola's focus. Where Coppola seemed to be saying that speaking makes no difference, that one may remain not-understood, Zhang seems to be saying that to remain silent (to avoid possible misunderstanding) is a far worse thing. To speak, to say what one is thinking and feeling, to communicate -- to commune -- requires that one take the risk of that mistranslation. Where Coppola's characters seem to always hover at the edges, never entirely saying really what's in their hearts -- and allowing Tokyo's different-ness to distract them from their internal silences -- Zhang's script lets the characters talk, and talk, until they come to an understanding despite the language barrier.
In both cases, there are comedic points, and I wonder if this is because the question of whether we can ever truly communicate with another is so fraught that stories cannot face it head-on, unending, but require humor to leaven the melancholy of that apparent isolation. Coppola's humor felt too forced, to me, in that it played on old West-to-East stereotypes. Zhang's humor is far more organic, even witty, like the conversation between Lin Xi's little brother, Didi (with his very rudimentary first-year Japanese) and Mizushima. To really get the mistranslation going on, you'd need to see it, because the conversation uses Chinese grammar with Japanese words, mingled with English words when Didi doesn't know the Japanese word.
Didi: I am... hotel?
Mizushima: I forgot the name of my hotel. Where was the Shanghai Music Awards at..?
Didi [to Lin Xi]: He likes to sing.
Didi then reports that Mizushima is a tourist, and has lost his memory. After Didi remembers how to ask, "what is your name," he then proudly informs Lin Xi that Mizushima has regained his memory, and that his name is Miso-shiru... miso soup. Mizushima attempts to correct this mistranslation, but the two siblings are too pleased (unaware they're mis-pronouncing) to realize the correction.
But this mistranslation drives the story into its turning point, when Mizushima draws the first character for his name -- mizu -- and Lin Xi translates it. (You can see her half of the in-air conversation at 2:26 in the trailer.) From there, the barriers begin to fall, as they begin air-drawing characters to explain themselves.
The use of music underlines a lot of the barrier/distance between them: with the exception of the duet that plays over the closing credits, nearly the entirely of all soundtrack music has English lyrics. (That said, from what little I can glean from the intarweebizens, only one of the singers is American; several are East Asian or South Asian.) If you keep in mind that music is one of the hardest things to translate (hell, I have trouble understanding some songs that are in my native language, sometimes), then the music is a subtle reminder of the overall themes, of getting only a sense but not knowing the words. And if you do know English well enough to understand the language when sung, you'll discover realize every song is pitch-perfect for the respective scene.
The first three or four minutes of the movie (unsubtitled version) will really give you a feel for the melancholy, yet gorgeous, sense to the film. (The sound is really quiet on this particular video, so you'll probably need to turn it up a bit.)
Translation of Mizushima's voiceover at the start (from my subtitled version):
I was in love once before. Deeply in love with a woman. I thought... we could share a dream, and be together forever.
When I was young, I always dreamed of creating beauty with my own hands, and going on to achieve things I wanted. At least, I thought so. But in fact... things didn't turn out that way. I lied to myself every day... about everything. I was living in fits and starts, watching time fly.
That opening shows you two of the main protagonists: Mizushima, and Shanghai itself. I find it noticeable that Lin Xi is not seen for a good part of the opening minutes, because in a way, her introduction is what breaks the melancholy self-enforced silence in which Mizushima operates. He really only comes to life once things have to get rolling for the Music Awards, and suddenly a seemingly reticent, indifferent man is springing to life and shouting in a mix of Japanese and English, exhorting everyone to get a move on. Shot after shot, he's shown cosseting and prepping various faces, and each time he repeats, "beautiful," to the person. It seems sincere, and from the reactions, it's taken as sincere. But as soon as the frantic energy of the Awards Show is over, Mizushima withdraws once again.
Lin Xi appears to be his polar opposite; she's brash, uncaring (or just unaware) of her rather disheveled appearance, like the fact that she spends most of the movie with her shirt buttoned wrong. (Even when Mizushima points it out, she only gives him an abashed grin, shrugs, and leaves it.) Her voluble conversation -- despite Mizushima's non-comprehension -- covers the fact that she, too, has not communicated in the ways that really matter, on the things that really matter, such as being in love with her best friend. Even when she does speak of him, she says, "we can tell each other everything," yet the one thing that matters (that she's in love with him), she's never found the strength to say.
If Lin Xi's trade -- that of taxi-driver -- is the literal vehicle that moves them from point to point in the story, it's Mizushima's trade -- of make-up artist -- that becomes a tool for communication. Not in the make-over sense you might expect, but as literal communication: in one of the most beautiful scenes in the film, Lin Xi brings out a tube of lipstick and writes on the taxi's front window as make-shift subtitles for what she's trying to say. In response, Mizushima uses a second tube to write his response. At first hesitant, then with growing enthusiasm, the two write and speak the depths of their hearts: on the taxi's windows, on the windows of a building along the street, then on the building itself, then on the sidewalk, out onto the street, up the taxi's side, even on its tires. In the end, the street is covered in brilliant red characters overlapping and mingling.
(There may also be an underlying message, too, in this: in that the shared use of hanzi/kanji create a foundation for communication... but also act as illustration of the root of misunderstandings. The same character -- 水 -- and Mizushima says mizu while Lin Xi says shui. The apparent conflict in the names for things is only the appearance, when the reality is that more is shared than different. Ironically, watching the film with English subtitles prompts an equivalent impression as if you knew the character being drawn in the air: the subtitles split to show each character's response, thus the subtitle line simply says, "water water", as the two say the character-name out loud. And then, begin to shift, repeating the other's language-name for the word, which is then repeated by the opposite person, and back again. If it is a political statement, it's one that works on the level of expressing hope for communication based on equal exchange.)
For the duration of the drawing-with-lipstick scene, though, no subtitles appear when the camera pans across the remains of their written discussions. (Note: if you're used to quality fansubbing, are some pretty inadequate subtitles at best, not to mention off by several beats, though it's really only obvious to an English-speaker in the subtitles where characters speak in English). Later, the two assistant make-up artists happen to come down the same street. Each reads out loud as they walk, and their recitation echoes the first significant Japanese phrase Lin Xi learns from Mizushima: how to say, do you love me, in Japanese, and Lin Xi's return lesson of how to say, I love you, in Mandarin. These two minor characters are a sort of chorus giving voice to the silent conversation drawn everywhere: do you love me, I love you, do you love me, I love you.
The other characters echo the protagonists' journey in different ways. One make-up artist assistant finds a smoky jazz bar (again, with all-English songs) and chooses to while away the night. Another pair of assistants wander the city on foot together in search of Mizushima, bickering all the way, a note completely at odds with the fact that they're the ones to discover the repeating declarations of, and questions about, love. The hired translator goes in search on his own, and ends up having his own charming, if completely whacked, bonding moment with a Chinese policewoman. In an amusing side-note, the two couples -- the two assistants, the translator and the policewoman -- each bond over their love of movies: the first for Morricone's soundtracks, the second for Bruce Lee flicks. (I guess some interests are truly transcendental.)
Mizushima's girlfriend/manager, Miho, is also searching, while simultaneously fending off (yet not entirely dis-inviting) the attentions of a young man who clearly wishes she'd leave her unhappy relationship and be with him. Miho in particular dances around saying outright what she wants, or perhaps she's simply undecided, anyway, and wanting a change but uncertain how to ask for it. Their conversations are the only ones of where the native language is shared, yet they seem to be the worst at talking at cross-purposes, a lot of speaking without actually listening.
The snippets of scenes with the assistant at the bar to really highlight the communication (or lack thereof); he strikes up a conversation with the jazz singer, a dark-skinned Westerner. Their chats are stilted, and it's obvious the actress is inexperienced, but it also works (if you don't speak English, at least) -- because her inexperienced delivery meshes with the flat delivery of the Japanese actor, who is clearly not fluent in English. (That flatness is a big sign of only basic comprehension of what one is saying; true fluency requires knowing where/when to emphasize or inflect). Beyond that, their actual dialogue is almost text-book hollow bar-talk; they exchange statements but the communication never goes farther than superficial. If the two assistants clash but eventually come to an understanding via giving voice to someone else's hopes, and Miho and her would-be new lover can't bring themselves to say what they're really wanting, the bar-room pair's banality is the final contrast.
I've seen reviews of Vicki Zhao's work -- for this film, and others -- that decry her as being continually type-cast as the cheerful, tomboyish girl-next-door character, or that say she plays such roles because that's the limit of her range. For this film, at least, I think she's note-perfect, not just in her tomboyish headstrong barrelling through despite barriers (be it the metaphor of language or the physical of street signs and fire hydrants), but also in her ability to express vulnerability in the silent spaces between. I've also seen complaints that Motoki Masahiro is too wooden -- but then, such a reticent character, against Zhao's determined cheerfulness, would seem flatter-affect, anyway -- but he manages the right balance between the occasional humorous moments, where over-acting would be too easy... and the gradual warmth as he begins to trust Lin Xi, or at least to realize that if he's to make himself understood, he must first speak up. As he opens up more, there are minute changes in his expressions, his posture, his reactions; he inhabited the character well enough to know that not everyone is hammy and over-the-top, and a withdrawn personality would evince the internal changes in subtler ways.
(For all that, the physical humor -- which requires no language to understand -- is very well-done, and several times made me laugh out loud. Normally I'm not one for slapstick, but it worked well in this film.)
For me, the pinnacle moment is when Lin Xi stands outside the bridal shop and watches her best friend try on his tux alongside his beautiful bride. So effervescent and self-assured previously, Zhao struck exactly the right notes of vulnerability, revealing quiet anguish and longing. After her range of expressive (if mostly noisy) emotions, that long stretch of silence showed only flickers of emotion, revealing how much she'd been hiding within her cheerful sound and fury. Her return to Mizushima is marked with some attempt at her former nonchalance, but his silent acceptance of her heartbreak is bittersweet. More importantly, the moment illustrates the main theme's corollary: that when one does understand, no words are required.
When Lin Xi does finally get up the nerve to speak to her soon-to-be-married friend, she still holds back. Trying to joke, she's asked about his impending wedding, and he assures her that when he met his bride, he just knew it was her. He seems oblivious to Lin Xi's undercurrents, cheerfully fixing the taxi's damage, and getting ready to leave as though it's just like any other day of being her mechanic. Just as he's about to go, she calls out that there's something she needs to say to him -- and then, with Mizushima watching silently from the background, Lin Xi says what she's been holding in all along. Do you love me? ...I love you.
And she says it in Japanese. The mechanic pauses, confused, and she repeats it. With his face turned away, she can't tell that it's dawning on him what she must be saying (and perhaps he may not know precisely, but again, perhaps it's that true communication translates regardless of little details like language) -- but when he turns around, she retreats, saying it was something her client (Mizushima) had taught her, and she knows a phrase in Japanese now, isn't that cool? For her, it's enough to have said it, and like much of the rest of the communication in the film, it's not communication that is ultimately the most important. What's important is speaking even when there's no hope of, or perhaps even wish for, a response.
Mizushima learns the lesson himself, and in his reunion with his girlfriend, when she starts to speak, he insists that he needs to be the one to say it. He's kept silent, letting her do all the talking for so long, that he owes it to her (and himself) to become active, to attempt to communicate, despite the risks of misunderstanding. In the last scene of the film, Mizushima picks back up his role of make-up artist, but this time, the film doesn't treat his actions with a frenetic, jumpy-editing cut, but grants his actions (of doing hair, makeup, etc) a gentleness, with long fades in and out of darkness. What had been cursory and perfunctory in his exchanges the first time we see him at work, has become a near-sacred, worshipfulness of the person before him. Such that when he says, beautiful, the sincerity -- the value of the communicated words -- is obvious.
And in the final line, I think it's also saying that for Lin Xi, to ask what she asks -- and the language used to ask -- indicates that she's also moved forward. Each of them broke free of previous silence to speak their hearts, even knowing that doing so was the first step towards closure -- but Lin Xi's speaking, at the end, takes that moment of ending and turns it into a beginning. Out of communicating as noise, and into communicating as a means to truly comprehend -- and to want to be understood, in return -- with another.
The Longest Night in Shanghai: wikipedia entry / yesasia listing, HK version / amazon listing, JP version
no subject
Date: 25 Dec 2010 02:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 25 Dec 2010 02:40 am (UTC)Longest Night doesn't take that route, because its humor doesn't rely on stereotypes of "Japanese-ness" and "Chinese-ness". Instead, it relies on a fair bit of physical humor (which both Zhao and Motoki prove to be really good at), and on mistranslations -- which isn't the same as making fun of someone for mispronouncing someone else's language; it's making fun of someone misunderstanding. I guess it would be like if, in Lost, a Japanese character had said, "hai," and Murray's character had responded with, "hello," each time. We would've been laughing at Murray for not understanding the other's language, not at the Japanese for trying (and failing) to speak English. It's a subtle point, but somehow it seems like an important one to me.
Anyway, the Japanese (all-region) version is really hard to find, and I think the HK version is region3, but there are a few places to get a d/l copy. It might help to have a Japanese speaker nearby, however, because some of the Japanese lines don't get accurate or full translations, so I think the English subtitles are coming off the chinese subtitles. Not really sure. Most of the time it doesn't matter, but there are a few times that a better translation (like, oh, the quality you'd get from a good fansub group, sheesh) would give a better idea of what's going on.
But if you can watch it on as big a screen as possible, do... the night-time shots of Shanghai are just breath-taking.
no subject
Date: 27 Dec 2010 09:20 pm (UTC)Hmm yeah... I do see what you're saying. Is it the characters who think those thoughts, or is it really the movie that thinks them? It's definitely problematic on certain levels, the whole "Asia is so inscrutable that it's unknowable" thing.
I found Longest Night listed on Netflix; it's not actually *available* yet but I saved it in my queue :)