Shu Qi

The other night I rented So Close. I had meant to rent The Bourne Identity, but it was out. I just wanted to watch a decent action/thriller. Twenty minutes into the movie I was ready to turn it off. There were too many extraneous story bits designed merely to move the plot along, and the action proved too CGI for my tastes (they must have ordered the shattering glass effect for a bulk price for the number of times they used it). But I had no other plans, and so I kept watching.

In the end I found it depressing. Without giving away anything, I found the relationship between the sisters affecting. It's not that the film suddenly became so well written (it's actually pretty formulaic) but something about seeing the film that night made me reflective.

Last night, looking for another movie to watch, I found my copy of Millenium Mambo. Coincidentally, Shu Qi also stars in it. I had bought a DVD of it in China, but never got around to seeing it. It turned out to be the perfect film to compliment my mood, as a girl wanders repetatively through the Taiwan club scene, bouncing between similar situations. A song plays like a leitmotif throughout, and I'm now wanting to locate it. The film is beautiful, inducing an almost trance-like state.

After an hour, the DVD stopped. Ejecting the disk I found the playing surface incredibly scratched. I wiped it down, washed it with water. Now it refuses to play. And suddenly, I'm in limbo. I feel like the girl, trapped in a state of being. When she leaves Taiwan for a trip to Hokkaido, she seems most alive. Against the white snow she becomes active and involved, rather than a sallow person sleepwalking through the neon nights of Taipei. And, like her, I'm unsure what choices to make and how it all ends. Posted by eku at August 10, 2004 12:33 PM