Hero
Zhang Ziyi as "Moon" in Hero
Daniel said he was bored, and we hadn't done as much as we'd liked together this summer, so we set out to see a film. I talked him into seeing Zhang Yimou's new filmHero, no mean feat, seeing that we were going to have to read sub-titles.
Jeffrey Overstreet wrote in his review that "If you miss seeing Hero on the big screen, you have missed one of the peaks of cinematic spectacle-on par with 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Apocalypse Now, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy." I'm not sure I'm willing to go that far, but I will say that it's the biggest aesthetic "wow" I've had in a long time.
The story of Hero is one thing--it's glorious cinematic beauty another. Hero tells a story set against the backdrop of China's period of warring states, in which the kingdom of Qin is locked in a war to unifiy the land in a single empire. The Qin king (Chen Daoming) has been the victim of numerous assassination attempts and offers great reward--and a personal audience--to anyone who can rid the land of China's most lethal threat, three extraordinary assassins. When a man simply called Nameless (Jet Li) appears before the King bearing the weapons of the three assassins, making his claim that he has killed them all, the King grants the reward. The King is curious about how Nameless overcame these great warriors, and as Nameless tells his story of the epic battles, the King sees that he must now engage in a different sort of battle, a battle of wits, if he is to survive yet one more attempt on his life.
As the conversation between Nameless and the Qin King proceeds, conflicting versions of the story of Nameless' defeat of the three assassins--Sky (Donnie Yen), Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung Man Yuk), and Broken Sword (Tony Leung Chiu Wai)--are told in flashback fashion, a convenient device that allows for the same battles to occur over and over again, each time with a new twist, displayed with some of the most stunning visual sequences I've ever seen.
There is something in this aesthetic that penetrates my soul. (Now that's the kind of thing I never say...) The color calls to me. This is no natural world, it is a world of gods, a world of where immortals might truly run. What are the colors of heaven, I've often wondered, and this film catches images of what comes to mind. The battle between Flying Snow and Moon is my favorite, wind vs. wind, as if we're standing on the inside of an impressionist tornado, the autumn colors whirling, excited as if in celebration. Maybe on a more literal level, it's a distortion, this marriage of beauty with violence, so that the more tight-spirited among us might say it's the wrong kind of glorification. But then look at Broken Sword and Nameless running and skipping on water, or the moment when the wind and sand heightens the grief of Snow as she sits with her fallen love...image after image stunned me with its beauty. (This isn't terribly coherent, is it?) Okay, I'm gushing, but what a gift to see a simple story told so gorgeously.
The first thing I've seen that reminded me of what is still the apex of my theatre going experience: Richard II produced by Ariane Mnouchkine and Le Theatre du Soliel back in 1984 at the LA Arts Olympics. Towering color, shimmering images of characters warring against god-like forces, artistic out-on-a-limb climbing...I want to do something like that.
Go see it...
9:24:39 AM 
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