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Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: XI YOU [JOURNEY TO THE WEST] (2014)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Kang-sheng Lee, Denis Lavant

PLOT: A Buddhist monk moves slowly through the streets of Marseille, until a local joins his pilgrimage.

Still from XI YOU [JOURNEY TO THE WEST] (2014)

COMMENTS: In a disused church in Halberstadt, Germany, a project is underway to perform John Cage’s ORGAN2/ASLSP (As Slow As Possible) in a manner befitting its title. With the help of a specially built instrument, this interpretation of the work is expected to last a total of 639 years, wrapping up in 2640. Cage, an avant-garde rebel probably best known for the expectation-shattering composition 4’33”, has the heart of a comedian, so naturally his piece begins with a rest, which means that for the first two years of the Halberstadt performance, playing the tune involved no melody at all.

While you’re waiting for the next note to be played (set a reminder for August 5, 2026), you could theoretically squeeze in 16,000 screenings of Xi You. It would be an appropriately Zen thing to do, considering how this is essentially a film about doing one thing with intense focus and dedication. In this case, that thing is walking, as Lee’s monk moves in careful, deliberate slow-motion, oblivious to the speed and tension that surrounds him. Like the long-term John Cage recital, it feels like a stunt, a lark at the expense of the cinema of rapid-fire edits and cacophonous explosions. But also like the Halberstadt performance, there’s a purity and a beauty in watching the monk go through his slow-paced paces, achieving a contentment unknowable to most of us.

We’re 15 minutes in before we first see Lee in relation to others (in this case, the people of the city of Marseille). He ambles along the waterfront where passersby are in an awful hurry to get somewhere else. Then he takes a steady jaunt down a busy street, where the only thing stationary is a store mannequin, price tag prominent. Most compelling is the monk’s descent down the steps to a subway station (a mode of transportation he can’t possibly be intending to take) while the camera tilts down to follow him into darkness. It’s the moment that proves there’s moviemaking going on. Tsai didn’t just set up the camera and walk away; our hero is being filmed. The effect is a kind of inversion of Koyaanisqatsi; in that film, we sat still while the world moved around us at breakneck speed. Here, the usual pace of life feels wildly sped up thanks to our focus on the painfully deliberate monk. (Shout-out to the wisenheimer who posted a 6-minute speedrun of the film, as though Tsai had turned the reins over to Godfrey Reggio).

Amazingly, this is but one entry in the Slow-Moving Monk Cinematic Universe. Tsai has released 10 films featuring Lee’s walker since 2011. (The latest, Abiding Nowhere, premiered this past February.) Xi You is noteworthy as one of the longest entries in the series, but it also stands out for the dramatic contrast it presents with Lavant’s character, a despondent man who eventually seeks some measure of solace by adopting a meditative frame of mind. The movie opens with an intense focus on Lavant’s craggy, disconsolate features, as Tsai demonstrates that pain and grief can be equally slow, equally all-consuming. But Lee serves as an angel of hope, almost invisible but omnipresent in Lavant’s darkest moments, so that when we see Lavant trailing the monk in the penultimate scene (there are 14 shots in the course of 52 minutes), his embrace of the hyperfocused life becomes a moment of triumph.

Tsai’s film was not the only one to come out around this time borrowing a title and inspiration from the legendary Chinese epic. While Stephen Chow’s action/comedy is considerably faster-paced, Tsai’s is arguably just as eventful. Xi You feels strange because its sense of time is so out of sync with the world, but that’s precisely the point. Will the monk ever get where’s he’s going? Maybe he’s on his way to Halberstadt to catch John Cage’s grand finale. Even if it takes that long, the thrill will be in the journey, the patient and deliberate journey.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… a sort of poetic zen burlesque, halfway between Buster Keaton, Andy Warhol, performance art and Jacques Tati…” – Jorge Mourinha, The Flickering Wall (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by Brad. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Stray Dogs / Journey to the West - 2-DVD Set ( Jiao you / Xi you ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - France ]

Stray Dogs / Journey to the West - 2-DVD Set ( Jiao you / Xi you ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - France ]
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Capsules

CAPSULE: TOKYO TRIBE (2014)

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DIRECTED BY: Sion Sono

FEATURING: Kunihiko Kawakami, Young Dais, Nana Seino, Ryôhei Suzuki,

PLOT: When crazy Buppa releases the Waru gang onto the streets of Tokyo, the tribes unite and fight for survival to the sick beats of gangster rap.

Still from Tokyo Tribe (2014)

COMMENTS: If Tokyo Tribe came from any other director, I’d probably say he was trying too hard. However, having seen a few Sion Sono films now, I can see that this is just how the man operates: on a plane with far more mania and extravagance than we mere mortals. Minutes after opening on two urban youths playing with sparklers, dreaming about making a difference, we become fully tuned in to the manga world of Santa Inoue’s serialized epic. Live-action comics, rap battle exposition, and the silliest feud imaginable—Sion Sono delivers all this with his own amped up brand of gusto.

The mean streets of post-post-modern Tokyo are riddled with crime, prostitution, bootleg tapes, ineffectual cops, and close to two dozen gangs of themed thugs. The biggest and nastiest of all the gang lords is Buppa, a man of staggering vulgarity and true psychosis (performed by Riki Takeuchi as if he were a brain-damaged John Belushi). His prime henchman, Mera, holds a grudge against Kai, the leader of the “peaceful” gang, the Musashino Saru tribe. Kai offended Mera in a sauna some years back, and that’s all we’re told. The catalyst for action is the disappearance of the virginal daughter of the High Priest, who needs her for a sacrifice. The plot I’ve just provided is superfluous, and any more would force me to ramble on for some pages. Suffice it to say, you should just check your brain at the door and run with it.

Tokyo Tribe isn’t a weird movie—it is far too accessible for that (and yes, it is a bit weird how accessible this movie feels). But it does stand as one of the most ridiculous films I’ve ever seen (which is something I say neither lightly nor disparagingly). The glorious excess of Sion Sono’s vision of an alternative Tokyo has more than its share of hard R-rated shenanigans, but is somehow approachable throughout (although by the end, we’ll have seen a beat-box tea maid, balloon sex corridors, a case of cigars and fingers, and a black ninja giant who says only, “Bring me! To a! Sauna!”) While Tokyo Tribe doesn’t break the weird ceiling, it does lustily gouge at the plaster.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Words can never do justice to the awe-inspiring, brain-eating weirdness of Sion Sono’s Japanese dystopian hip-hop kung-fu musical Tokyo Tribe…  should all be either horrifying or hilarious — or, less generously, ridiculous and offensive — but somehow, it’s not. There’s a strange power to Sion’s filmmaking that goes beyond the midnight-movie oddness of the plot.”–Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine (contemporaneous)