About a decade ago, Nicole Brenez wrote of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that academicism has never been so brilliant. I'm tempted to say the same thing of Johnnie To's Exiled, which I finally saw not long ago. How shrewdly and confidently it employs narrative shorthand! (The device of photography, frozen, suggests an entire prehistory for the film, when in fact there isn't much back-story suggested except through the ambiguous nostalgia of a picture, of sets and costumes designed to tastefully evoke spaghetti westerns.) It all works so beautifully, however. The compositions are often eye-popping, as in the two screengrabs that illustrate this post. It's very moving too; another thing I'm tempted to say is that it's the greatest gangster film since Once Upon a Time in America.
3 comments:
Food is hugely important to To, as well: consideration, preparation, enjoyment, visual representation. The scene where the gangsters "truce up" over an amazing meal is anticipated in BREAKING NEWS. Try and catch MAD DETECTIVE, which AFAIK is the only To on Blu-ray. (He codirected it with Wai Ka-fai.) It also has a key scene involving food. And THE MISSION. And...
It has Zhenyu WU in this movie. A classic HK movie. Love it cherrs
Exiled is a great film, I did enjoyed a lot, I went to see it with my girlfriend.
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