Wire Act
I finally made it out to see Hero last night, which M. left me to do on my own, there being too many battle scenes for her taste, but I think she ought to have come along. Although, yes, there are vast troop movements, this isn’t Return of the King or one of the usual epochal Camelot films, although there is a mythic, Arthurian quality. Instead, and in addition to the appeal of the story itself, it’s one of the most brilliantly colored movies I think I’ve ever seen, not to disparage in any way the restored print I saw a while back of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, I think, spoiled the graceful arial effects, or, at least, they didn’t come off so well in this film, perhaps because of the kind of 3D-style camera-work that was often used with them. This is not to say, however, that any of the actors were themselves ungraceful; they were, immensely so. The music was brilliant, and the story full of nuances to be mulled over and discussed for their present-day significance and universality. Something about these political creation tales, legends of the ancients, when heroes strode the world in grand, epochal fashion, resonates within us, regardless of the cultural source. War and peace, love and relationships, patriotism and partisanship . . . all these things were present and not simply glossed. The feelings, the passions, aroused within this movie are deep, with a surface polish that is hard to see past sometimes, but lets us know there is so much more beneath just the same. I kept thinking of a particular niece, too, whose present studies in Chinese language would make for some fine points of discussion, I’m sure, vis-à-vis the spoken words vs. the subtitles, perhaps some insights on the use of dialects, and the subtleties at work in the story and presentation.