The Green Hat (Lu mao zi) - (2004, China)
Spokane International Film Festival (Day 4) - My second day at the festival was post Super Bowl drunkenness and gluttony... Needless to say, Kat and I pounded some Starbucks to keep ourselves going for the night's screening. The theatre wasn't as full as the night before, but was still impressive for the evening of the aforementioned Super Bowl. (Side note - McNabb is an f'ing idiot! I've *never* seen a slower 'hurry up' offense... But I digress...)

Tonight's feature will be The Green Hat (Dir: Fendou Liu)which our little festival bills as a 'US Premier'. Nice idea, but actually the film was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in NYC last spring, winning the "Best Narrative Feature" and "Best New Narrative Filmmaker" awards. (Do your research people!)

The film opens with the US short film The Old Man and the Studio (2004, Dir: Eric Champnella). It tells the story of the Hollywood adaptation (read: bastardization) of Hemmingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." After countless rewrites ("Are you sold on the sea? Filming on water is just so expensive..."), the reworked "Fishing for Love" is ready to debut; at which time Hemmingway promptly 'ends it all'... Amusing enough... (Great poster in the background: Vin Diesel stars in "Great E~xXx~pectations")

The Green Hat itself was a fascinating film. As it began, it appears to be a crime story. Three companions meet on a beach at dawn and, after a little conversation, they execute a long-planned bank robbery. The story isn't really about that.

In fact, there is a robbery, a hostage situation, and a suicide all in the opening moments of the film, and the film is about none of the things. What is at the film's heart can be summed up in a question one of the robbers poses to a police officer during the height of the hostage standoff... "What is love?" The bewildered police officer's reply, "Shit man! I don't know... Just two people liking each other I guess..." The robber disagrees and gives his own vision of undying love, a love that he has just lost, before turning his pistol on himself...

It is ironic that this police officer would be asked such a question as he is trapped within a loveless marriage to a woman who seems to have never loved him. He blames this fact on his own sexual impotence... And once we see his wife lie limp as a blow-up doll during their sex, it is no wonder that he can't do the deed. In fact, in some later scenes, (*possible spoilers ahead*) the officer visits a prostitute to try out some new impotence meds, though I wonder if her pleasant demeanor and kindness have more to do with his improved performance. This is suggested to by his only request to her, "Say you love me while we do it..."

Of course, his wife already has someone new (hence the "Green Hat" term, which refers to a man whose wife is having as affair), though she doesn't love him either. She keeps telling him that it is over, but keeps coming back.

In terms of pacing, the film is quite slow, as one could expect of such a chiefly character driven venture. I found it quite remarkable that the film never shies away from silence; often we are left with time to ponder the character's words as they themselves do. In some films this might be a distraction, but this film seems to utilize this technique quite well.

The film is also remarkable in terms of its visual metaphors. The cop and his wife sleep in separate beds, with his being smaller and lower, and hers more plush and up off the ground. This makes it so that she is always in a commanding position in their nighttime encounters. Also, during one of the film's later moments, the two converse on a carousel. The rising and lowering of the horses seems to visually remind us of their sexual problems, and when his advances are rebuffed he seems to become small and limp, reminding us of his impotence.

As with many films of its type, it leaves us with more questions than answers, but truthfully when a film attempts to grasp a question so deep as "What is love?" Can an answer truly be given?

Rating: R
More Info ~~>
- posted by Stephen @ 11:57 PM