Help Me Eros

After being roped in by the lyrical, lovely, and provocative teaser trailer, Lee Kang-sheng’s Help Me Eros became one of my most anticipated films at this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival. I even bumped Roy Andersson’s You, the Living off the schedule to see it–and I adore Songs from the Second Floor. Even so, I had no idea what it was supposed to be about, or what themes it would deal with (other than neon lights and naughty-costumed pleasure district workers). Now, after viewing it, I’m still not sure how I would describe the plot or issues tackled to the casual reader. It doesn’t have much in the way of either.

Lee’s film is concerned, first and foremost–if not entirely–with visual poetry. Somewhere in the haze of marijuana smoke, nude bodies and the aforementioned neon lights, there’s a wisp of a narrative. A male slacker (played by Lee) on a downhill spiral, who we’re to believe was once living the good life in a fancy apartment until his girlfriend jumped ship; he now spends his days growing and smoking weed, and calling a help line about his suicidal tendencies. There’s also the help line worker herself, an overweight, sex-starved lady whose chef husband is barely-secretly gay, and having an affair quite literally right under her nose. And, as the Elizabeth Shue to Lee’s Nic Cage, a pretty yet personality-devoid girl who mans the betelnut stand (in various skimpy, sex-fantasy outfits) he frequents. Together they drift through a gorgeous, dreamy wasteland–by turns entwined in a messy, acrobatic threesome with designer label logos projected onto their bodies, sharing a three-pronged pot pipe, or submerged in a bathtub full of live eels.

Sure, it could be said that “urban loneliness, drugs and oversexed culture never equals a happy ending” is the film’s theme, but I’m standing by my whole excuse-for-iconic-imagery interpretation. Help Me Eros may be all that meets the eye and nothing more, but maybe that is the point. With the Louis Vuitton references, and the depictions of our generation’s obsession with image (and I don’t just mean the oft-attacked superevil media–I mean egotistical myspace or facebook photos, fashion trends, etc.) as evidence–Lee’s film could almost be viewed as a moving, elaborate example of the image-is-everything mindset of today.

Every single frame here is painstakingly thought-out, as well as every outfit worn, and every sign or poster shown. Even more than the most superficial, easy-target Hollywood movie, or Warholian art piece, Help Me Eros is simply all image. Maybe this is what happens when that’s the only thing film is concerned with. And if that was the intention, it’s a brilliant experiment.

Or I’m giving it too much credit, and any depths it actually was shooting for were mostly lost in the gloss for me. But hey, it looked good. Did I mention that?

Sakuran

I–for reasons including: Shiina Ringo’s score, liking Anna Tsuchiya, and seeing positive buzz–expected great things from the manga-based Sakuran. Regrettably, while I was defensive of my husband’s “this looks kinda like Memoirs of a Geisha” opinions at first (they’re Oiran, not Geisha!), it turned out to be only marginally better than that by-the-numbers piece of frivolous girl power/love story confectionery. And without Tsuchiya’s wild child persona and charisma as the title character, it wouldn’t even have that going for it.

First time director Mika Ninagawa has a rich visual pallette, but squanders it on a dozen too many goldfish-in-a-bowl metaphor shots, and lovely but highly unoriginal sequences of cherry blossom petals, falling poetically to the ground. I haven’t read the manga, but I would venture a guess, going off the movie’s myriad cliches, that she followed it very faithfully. It seems the biggest, if not only, risk she took was having Shiina Ringo compose the film’s score. And, I must admit, hearing “Gamble” blaring over Sakuran’s coronation was perfect in execution and song use. Unfortunately, the pros end here.

Sakuran‘s ending can be guessed within the first ten minutes of the film; all that’s left to do is sit back and (try to) enjoy the imagery, whilst ignoring the many genre trappings Ninagawa and co. fall into. Though it’s been compared to Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette in its excessive costume fetishism and modern touches, that film felt fresh and approached a story we all knew from an interesting angle. Sakuran takes a story most of us didn’t know, and made it one that was painfully familiar. And when all is said and done, no matter how captivating the lead actress is, or how breathtaking the cinematography, that makes for a mediocre movie at best.