CJ7

directed by Stephen Chow
written by Stephen Chow and Chi Keung Fung
Hong Kong 2008




Stephen Chow has always made grown-up movies that appeal to kids. Or maybe it's kids' movies that appeal to grown-ups. Or maybe his brand of unabashed stooge slapstick, a commitment to the campiest of visual effects, and an eye for the contemporary despite leanings toward a cultural universality (literally this time), are just the elements that happen to get results across the age spectrum. Chow's grown up characters, most notably the ones he himself plays, act in many ways like children, while his children fill the opposite role. And there are enough smarts, formal attention, and cinematic references included in the overall zaniness to keep the arthouse snobs coming back. It might sound a little like I'm describing the Pixar regime, but (thankfully!) there's an essential difference between Chow's work and that steaming pile of pandering Disney crap. Pixar films play to the lowest common denominator through a diffuse self-censorship made up of market research, focus groups, and tested material. Stephen Chow's films, despite their whimsy, take a large amount of risk, as many of the jokes don't land, the effects are at times over-the-top, and even narrative flow is interrupted in the name of whatever greater cinematic awesomeness seems to fit at the time. Where Chow's recognizable themes are used to sell a formal--and often personal--cinematic vision, Disney's sale is not quite as noble.

But CJ7 doesn't succeed the way Shaolin Soccer and certainly Kung-Fu Hustle do. For one, there's a morality tale happening, structured something like an Aesop Fable, that is never reconciled with the story. A remarkable and hilarious Jiao Xu plays Dicky, the kid whose adherence to a working class ethical code is blown apart with the introduction of a high-tech toy. There are some beautiful (and funny) allusions to the corrosive nature of power, but ultimately the moral material, which was loaded on so thickly from the outset, is either lost to melodrama during the father's accident, or a messy plot wrap-up during CJ7's exit. As usual, though, Chow's best moments come when he detaches from a conventional structure (Ieaving Pixar in the dust), and uses the elements of film like a kid would a Lego set. The closet-to-galaxy sequence is incredible, part DirecTV commercial, another part Flight of the Navigator. Dicky's father's 12 by 12-foot shack in the junkyard is ridiculous yet picture perfect (All the shots are from overhead! There's literally nowhere to put the camera! Amazing..). But Chow's struggle with narrative reconciliation is a losing battle. The attempt to ground such playful segments like Dicky's fantasy victories into a kind of plot framework is futile, and what was hilarious a second before suddenly becomes jarring. As usual, the supporting cast is perfectly side-splitting, and in this case gold stars go to Shing-Cheung Lee's role as the pathetic Mr. Cao. Chow's move away from the ensemble conventions is in this case what muddles the film, though there's a touching personal story in there somewhere.

Maldeamores

[written for Global Nomads at http://www.janera.com/]

directed by Carlos Ruiz Ruiz and Mariem Pérez Riera
written by Jorge Gonzales and Carlos Ruiz Ruiz
Puerto Rico 2007

Three twisting love stories make up Maldeamores, the most recent offering from a small Caribbean island not exactly known for its film scene. The Puerto Rico Film Commission would like to see that notion changed, though. Boasting the largest tax incentive of any community in the Caribbean, the PR government offers a 40% break for producers of cinema, television, and original soundtracks. How wonderful it is, then, that the first project born of this new plan is about as native Puerto Rican as they get. First-timers Carlitos (as he's affectionately billed) Ruiz Ruiz, and wife Mariem Pérez Riera not only direct this gem but appear in a comical opening sequence, laden with the kind of subtextual angst that only a married duo could muster. A silly argument over gum quickly results in near catastrophe on a mountain highway. The film continues without the pair, and follows three unconventional love stories on different parts of the island. The film's title translates into English as "Lovesickness", but what this film brings is certainly not the kind of sappy sentimentality with which that word is usually associated. A better translation would probably be "sickness from love." This opening bit is just a taste of the struggles to come, and if the kind of dark humor that absolves jokes involving neck braces isn't your cup of café con leche, perhaps you'd better steer clear of this one.

In story one, we're introduced to a grieving family. Well, at least Lourdes (Teresa Hernández) is grieving over her recently passed grandmother. Her adolescent son (Fernando Tarrazo) struggles with his tears in the back seat, more interested in putting on a big front to impress a darling cousin. Lourdes' husband Ismael is played by the only recognizable actor in the ensemble, Luis Guzmán, a Hollywood mainstay and PR native. A usually vibrant Guzmán this time only blandly fills the role of the unfaithful Ismael, but the standout is easily the exchange between Ms. Hernández and Norman Santiago, who plays her brother-in-law Macho. Santiago's clumsy ne'er do well is as vacant as the sun-bleached neighborhood, and Lourdes' temper only shortens. The relative obscurity of this cast certainly doesn't affect its impact, though. Next up is easily the shining star of the vignettes, a septuagenarian love triangle that depicts a hilarious exchange between a saucy--yet sensible--old flirt, her curmudgeonly companion, and to complete the trifecta, the most cavalier of ex-husbands, a model of that smoothly benign Caribbean machismo. His 70 years of likeability are quite infectious, and this lovely triangle resolves itself extremely well despite the difficulties. Silvia Brito's Flora, through obvious faults of her own, finds herself in the middle of a battle for her highly regarded attentions. On one side is Cirilo (Chavita Marrero), the mean-tempered but endearing live-in mate of Flora's. On the other side is Miguel Ángel Álvarez's charming Pellín, his abject advances--despite decades of delinquency--are only justified when he asks Flora an interesting rhetorical question, "Have you ever considered the fact that we're all going to die?" Love and death, some would say, are the only two questions to ask. It's in these moments that the film takes leave of its comic lightness and breaks into more interesting territory. For young filmmakers, Ruiz and Riera are tackling some very sophisticated themes.

The third vignette continues on the theme of love and death. The story centers around a daily bus passenger, Miguel, played by Luis Gonzaga. Despite an overly attentive mother, his loneliness drives him to an obsession with Marta, the driver (Dolores Pedro), and a suicide attempt becomes a hostage situation. Fortunately, Ruiz and co-writer Jorge Gonzales keep things on the lighter side and the situation devolves into a kind of wedding. Love, death, and hostages. Ruiz and Riera certainly don't shy away from depicting the omnipresent Virgin Mary watching over the affairs in supremely Catholic Puerto Rico. Maybe we're all hostages when it comes to love, and perhaps the filmmakers are posing the question as to whether maybe the Virgin isn't better off?

Despite some clunks, the three narratives complement each other well. An adulterous man loves too much, a bus driver too little, and three elderly socialites reflect on lives that included a little of both. Eduardo Alegría's and Omar Silva's score is marvelous in its simplicity, the piano an artistic accent rather than an emotional cue. Ruiz, Riera, and cinematographer P.J. López again rein in the arthouse indulgence on the photographic style, instead opting for a realistic impressionism that highlights performance and drama over heavy-handed camera work. This style, though, allows for those small observational details to translate nicely into some beautiful, yet fleeting, visual moments. It's almost as if the photogenic Caribbean beauty can't help but escape into the frame. Though in a film that centers around love, death, and hostages, perhaps escape isn't such a surprising thing.