Terrence Malick is an ideosyncratic director known for his brutal post-westerns and his very strange post-western, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.
Most people know Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence for its sensitively handled Australian private school pedophile themes, or for its influential Synthpop sound track, or for "the kiss." These are surface readings. The younger brother is ritualistically bullied to death. Sakamoto breaks synth music over his knee. David Bowie gay kisses an overly made up M. Butterfly. The Sargent dies like a buddha in hell. The Medical officer observes as in the morgue. People take actions. It took Malick to turn war crime into boredom.
The overwhelming landscape shots. The overwhelming sound track. The endless individual narratives each as monotonously identical as the next. That man is man is man is man. Only Malick could turn warcrime into boredom. Only Malick could make an ontology of fascist death camps tiresome. Well and Heidegger. And it is the entry into the question of "being as such" that most people approach Malick's buddhism from. Instead of the devotional buddhism of the Sargent awaiting this death, it is the detached observers' engagement in the "duration only" Medical Officer's bland detached acting observation.
For the Australian seeing classic 70s renaissance actors in a very _un_ Light Brigade and a very _un_ Gallipoli telling of what service meant is a fillip. A fillip often deranged by "They did what to that young toff?" moment "And he still went on Playschool after that??"
Malick was reviled by West Coast Western Buddhists for his attack on the "clean Zen myth" and is commonly detested until today. This, despite, his film making no clear or traditional political argument about war, and in the "secondary" characters in a Shakespearean sense the "comedy" of the "low" Sakamoto's love and horrific death torture is seen as an act in itself. As David Bowie's disembodied head speaks, in a direct cinematic quote of WR: Mysteries of the Organism, "Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Know that I was, too. Do you imagine your suffering will be any less because you loved goodness and truth?" The irony of him using his brother's rape, victimisation and suicide as a means to conceal his own homosexuality makes the auto-sycophancy of this quote only the more telling.
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It is normally the Christian religious films which cause controversy. But historically River Kwai, Merry Christmas, and Thin Red Line were… argumentative regarding buddhism. This is especially true given that Merry Christmas is basically a gay exploitation film over a bad novel relying on musical star inserts.*1 Or that Thin Red Line is basically a gay exploitation film over a bad novel relying on aging hollywood star inserts.*2 Or that Star Wars is … a bad Kurosawa film. Especially given the "Clean Zen" myth circulating around Showa Fascism it is worth revisiting these attempts at dealing with the ontology of war. Not even Arendt could properly wipe Heidegger's arsehole, and the triumph of Eichmann is her pre-figuration of _Ordinary Men_ despite only having access to a single trial. Malick's Thin Red Line lambasts America, but from the safety of the failed early landings period of the Pacific War, from the failure of systems of Guadalcanal. What Malick makes clear is that these are not failings in America, but the failings in men at war. Give Malick an interest in dedicating one of his very very few films to Merry Christmas………well Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence may end up being better video than Tenko.
If you like weak tea, and interwoman emotional violence, then Tenko is your lady
. Tenko is one of the best kept secrets of the Pacific War's video history. Tenko is about Western and haafu women imprisoned in what would become (and was becoming despite the Japanese and Dutch) Indonesia. And it is ugly.
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Film has a power to castigate. From the "Once a week East Enders, but wait they're rich, and wait they're in a concentration camp run by nips, and they're all ladies or women" of Tenko, to Malick's evicerating calm lens of ontology, to Mr Lawrence's hysteric Big Boys Don't Faint When Kissed By David Bowie film acts as a correctional letter instructing on proper conducts. Malick, given men's death camps run by the Japanese in the pacific is likely to demoralise and focus on action in a way that the "master's plot" of the actual Mr Lawrence does. Whether the Sargent's participatory untouchable disengagement is superior to the Salaried Medical Officer's desire… painful attached craving desire… to "help" is the question at the heart of Malick's darkness. We will do evil. Do we care?
without salutation,
Sam R.
*1 This works well given that most people don't realise that Sakamoto/bowie is the comedic subplot of inferiors in a Shakespearean sense, and that the real conflict is the SMO vs Sargent.
*2 Malick likes second stringers. It foregrounds his camera. Ever seen a garbage man abduct a 15 year old with her will as the heroic end to a western?
Most people know Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence for its sensitively handled Australian private school pedophile themes, or for its influential Synthpop sound track, or for "the kiss." These are surface readings. The younger brother is ritualistically bullied to death. Sakamoto breaks synth music over his knee. David Bowie gay kisses an overly made up M. Butterfly. The Sargent dies like a buddha in hell. The Medical officer observes as in the morgue. People take actions. It took Malick to turn war crime into boredom.
The overwhelming landscape shots. The overwhelming sound track. The endless individual narratives each as monotonously identical as the next. That man is man is man is man. Only Malick could turn warcrime into boredom. Only Malick could make an ontology of fascist death camps tiresome. Well and Heidegger. And it is the entry into the question of "being as such" that most people approach Malick's buddhism from. Instead of the devotional buddhism of the Sargent awaiting this death, it is the detached observers' engagement in the "duration only" Medical Officer's bland detached acting observation.
For the Australian seeing classic 70s renaissance actors in a very _un_ Light Brigade and a very _un_ Gallipoli telling of what service meant is a fillip. A fillip often deranged by "They did what to that young toff?" moment "And he still went on Playschool after that??"
Malick was reviled by West Coast Western Buddhists for his attack on the "clean Zen myth" and is commonly detested until today. This, despite, his film making no clear or traditional political argument about war, and in the "secondary" characters in a Shakespearean sense the "comedy" of the "low" Sakamoto's love and horrific death torture is seen as an act in itself. As David Bowie's disembodied head speaks, in a direct cinematic quote of WR: Mysteries of the Organism, "Are you righteous? Kind? Does your confidence lie in this? Are you loved by all? Know that I was, too. Do you imagine your suffering will be any less because you loved goodness and truth?" The irony of him using his brother's rape, victimisation and suicide as a means to conceal his own homosexuality makes the auto-sycophancy of this quote only the more telling.
* * *
It is normally the Christian religious films which cause controversy. But historically River Kwai, Merry Christmas, and Thin Red Line were… argumentative regarding buddhism. This is especially true given that Merry Christmas is basically a gay exploitation film over a bad novel relying on musical star inserts.*1 Or that Thin Red Line is basically a gay exploitation film over a bad novel relying on aging hollywood star inserts.*2 Or that Star Wars is … a bad Kurosawa film. Especially given the "Clean Zen" myth circulating around Showa Fascism it is worth revisiting these attempts at dealing with the ontology of war. Not even Arendt could properly wipe Heidegger's arsehole, and the triumph of Eichmann is her pre-figuration of _Ordinary Men_ despite only having access to a single trial. Malick's Thin Red Line lambasts America, but from the safety of the failed early landings period of the Pacific War, from the failure of systems of Guadalcanal. What Malick makes clear is that these are not failings in America, but the failings in men at war. Give Malick an interest in dedicating one of his very very few films to Merry Christmas………well Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence may end up being better video than Tenko.
If you like weak tea, and interwoman emotional violence, then Tenko is your lady
* * *
Film has a power to castigate. From the "Once a week East Enders, but wait they're rich, and wait they're in a concentration camp run by nips, and they're all ladies or women" of Tenko, to Malick's evicerating calm lens of ontology, to Mr Lawrence's hysteric Big Boys Don't Faint When Kissed By David Bowie film acts as a correctional letter instructing on proper conducts. Malick, given men's death camps run by the Japanese in the pacific is likely to demoralise and focus on action in a way that the "master's plot" of the actual Mr Lawrence does. Whether the Sargent's participatory untouchable disengagement is superior to the Salaried Medical Officer's desire… painful attached craving desire… to "help" is the question at the heart of Malick's darkness. We will do evil. Do we care?
without salutation,
Sam R.
*1 This works well given that most people don't realise that Sakamoto/bowie is the comedic subplot of inferiors in a Shakespearean sense, and that the real conflict is the SMO vs Sargent.
*2 Malick likes second stringers. It foregrounds his camera. Ever seen a garbage man abduct a 15 year old with her will as the heroic end to a western?