We're down to our last few Fantasia reviews and here's Philippe Gohier with his thoughts on a film we've talked about a bit here in the past: Three Extremes.
Working with the theme of artistic egoism and the ravages it causes, directors Fruit Chan of Hong Kong, Park Chan-Wook of Korea, and Takashi Miike of Japan each contributed a short film to Three…Extremes. Although each director's segment showcases their considerable artistic vision and ability, the film ultimately fails to become something more than the sum of its unfortunately disparate parts.
Chan's Dumplings, the most unsettling and capitvating of the three, examines the depths to which some will sink to indulge their narcissistic desires. It is the story of Ching Lee, a retired TV actress who wants eternal youthful beauty and seeks out the secrets of the beautiful and sensuous Aunt Mei. Mei's secret ingredient in the dumplings which are her font of youth – the discarded abortions from a local clinic – prove to be more disturbing to the audience than it is to Lee, whose desperation to regain the attention of her business-minded husband drives her to disturbing lengths.
Chan's segment succeeds because it delivers its most gruesome scenes without ever indulging in adolescent gross-outs. The focus stays on Lee's desperation rather than shifting to her unusual method of relieving it, and thus avoids over-emphasizing the role of the foetuses themselves. In minimizing the viewer's interaction with the abortions, the film consistently delivers a creepy ambiance by mixing suggestive settings with shocking imagery, like the scene in which Lee seeks the most potent of recipes and succumbs to her increasingly narcissistic temptations in her bathtub.
Park Chan-Wook's Cut is, surprisingly, the weakest of the three films. The recently-crowned winner of the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or for his brilliant and stunning Oldboy presents a story about a disgruntled extra holding an impeccably famous movie director, his wife and a child captive in his living room. The director, Ryu, is given the option of killing the child or watching his pianist wife's fingers get cut off one by one.
Stylistically, the film is a remarkable success. The elaborate entanglement that traps Ryu's wife at the piano is particularly phenomenal, as is the living room set itself. Where the segment fails to grasp the viewer's attention is emotionally. Neither the disgruntled actor, nor the director Ryu manage to spark any sentimental interest into their plight. Ryu comes across as arrogant and petulant, unable to connect with others in a way that is not self-beneficial. And the extra fails to convince the viewer that he is anything but bitter and sanctimonious, seeking to thrust his existential defeat onto a moral high ground.
Takashi Miike's Box is the most refined of the three segments. Relying on gorgeous, atmospheric photography, Box is the story of Kyoko, a celebrated author seeking to reconcile the success of her current life with the horror of a past one. During a childhood spent performing with her twin sister as one half of a contortionist act for a travelling carnival sideshow, Kyoko became jealous of her adoptive father's attention for her sister and eventually plotted her gruesome death.
Disorienting and confusing for most its duration, Box relies on the emotional impact of its images to transform what is a sparse, loose script into a lush and engaging short film. Its slow pace and unfamiliar imagery draw the viewer into Kyoko's sadness, rather than her rage and jealousy. Whereas Chan's Dumplings and Chan-Wook's Cut seek to shock the viewer out of complacency, Miike's Box strips the viewer of the defensiveness generated by the shocking imagery in the Chan's and Chan-Wook's works. The end result is a successful reflection on the nature of guilt, and the torment it can produce.
Perhaps it is the weakness of the narrative thread around which the segments were constructed that prevents Three…Extremes from blossoming into a cohesive unit. It could also be that the films sought to pull its viewers in vastly different directions: Dumplings and Cut are like an existential alarm clock, jolting viewers out of moral complacency, while Box is more of a guilt-ridden lullabye, meant to humanize the base depravity that characterizes some of our external relationships. Despite its narrative flaws, the masterful direction at work in all three short films makes Three…Extremes an essential primer on Chan's, Chan-Wook's, and Miike's work.
Review by Philippe Gohier.