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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Hero

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Tryphena Absent

15:14 / 29.09.04

Ah, so rather than read all of the works of the author, you argue that each should be taken entirely on its own? I mean Zhang Yimou has made a variety of films about closed communities and Chinese oppression. Jack Fear you are arguing for the text above the authorial voice. You're only reading one part of the film, it may be the dominant part but it is only one part.

Hero is not a reading of a text—it is the text

But it's also based on a history, a very limited piece of it and Zhang Yimou has stated that the film is about the emperor and his purposes. That doesn't mean he necessarily agrees with the emperor, he simply wanted to state the intentions of the man as he read them. So to then argue that the opposite view is completely ignored in the piece isn't completely accurate, it simply means that you paid the most attention to the dominant theme and not to the clues provided by the visuals and other characters- which isn't a particularly astute reading of the text.

15:31 / 29.09.04

Thanks for the clarification, Arms, and apologies for my excessive foaming earlier on: I'm just a bit fed up with the wilfull misreadings and apologetics put forth by well-meaning ding-dongs who would have us believe that to see Hero as anything other than a humanitarian masterpiece is a slap in the face to its long-suffering director.

But to reduce this troubling and ambiguous movie in such a way (for such it is, as you rightly point out, a house divided against itself) seems to me to be a far greater insult to the man's artistry—and it's the artistry, not his personal politics, that are the issue here.

There's some interesting background in this New Republic piece. Not sure if you'll be able to access it—it was available to non-subscribers for a while, but TNR seems to change their policies at whim. Extracts of interest...

"...Zhang has never fully embraced the "dissident" label that Western critics seemed eager to slap on him. His films from the late 1980s and early 1990s... [though they were] popular among Western audiences, [were] banned in China, a response that fueled the myth of Zhang's artistic martyrdom. Despite his glowing international reputation, the director has hardly relished his marginalization at home. Zhang in recent years has made explicit his desire to work above ground and with state approval."

Also:

"In an interview with Time Asia upon the film's completion, Zhang himself all but acknowledged its compromised nature, conceding, 'I've made adjustments to accommodate the spirit of the times.'"

I don't find that quote as damning as the TNR guy does, and it seems to me he overstates his case a little. But still...

I'm not saying anything about Zhang Yimou's personal politics, or passing judgment on him as a person: but I think it's telling that he feels a need to distance himself from the work in this way. I'm getting echoes of Leni Riefenstahl insisting she never really was a Nazi—when in the end it didn't matter whether or not she was a fascist, because what is indisputable is that her films were hugely successful as fascist propaganda.

15:45 / 29.09.04

Anna: So to then argue that the opposite view is completely ignored in the piece isn't completely accurate, it simply means that you paid the most attention to the dominant theme and not to the clues provided by the visuals and other characters- which isn't a particularly astute reading of the text.

But that's not what I'm arguing at all. When I said that "Yimou plays fair with the characters and with the audience," it's precisely that he gives equal time—even majority time—to the opposing viewpoint, before flipping the script at the conclusion. He sets the individual against the State throughout the film, and succeeds in making individualism look very attractive; the would-be assassins are all beautiful, passionate, highly-capable people—far more attractive to us than a paranoid autocrat skulking in his empty throne room.

And even in the end, the crushing of the individual by the State, though it is shown as necessary, is a regrettable necessity—Nameless is executed, but then given a hero's funeral.

But it is shown as a necessity, however regrettable. That conclusion seems to me inescapable.

I'm not ignoring anything; I'm simply disagreeing with you as to what it all means when taken together.

16:34 / 29.09.04

Also:

Ah, so rather than read all of the works of the author, you argue that each should be taken entirely on its own? I mean Zhang Yimou has made a variety of films about closed communities and Chinese oppression...

True dat. But yeah, I think the film has to be judged as a thing in itself. I mean, the same DW Griffith who made Birth of A Nation also made Intolerance; John Galsworthy, in the early books of The Forsyte Saga (written when he was a young man) was a bitter critic of the Establishment, while in the later books he defended it. People change their minds.

Or perhaps more accurately, sometimes they change the views that they express publicly, if not their personal views: again, I'm not saying that Zhang Yimou is himself an oppressor, simply that he has made a film that justifies an oppressive State.

The film is the film and the man is the man. But by the same token, we shouldn't let our feelings about the man prevent us from seeing the film for what it is.

20:08 / 29.09.04

wilfull misreadings and apologetics put forth by well-meaning ding-dongs

Me, for example? Man, I'm getting shit on in every forum lately. Maybe I should go to the Head Shop for a really good final spanking.

09:52 / 30.09.04

I saw this yesterday (in a Spurlock double bill). It was okay, but after a while I felt like I was trapped watching a home video of somebodies holiday photo's that was occassionally interrupted by their teenage kid playing some beat-em-up on playstation. I must admit to noddy dogging a couple of times (ie falling a little asleep, jerking head awake) - I really liked the bookend moments, but bits of it just felt like a filmed American Cinematographer article (the fight on the lake springs to mind).

Spurlock was good though, even though every review and article has kind of told you everything that happens in it.

09:25 / 03.10.04

I watched Hero last weekend and wasn't quite sure what to make of it. It reminded me a lot of those highly stylised Japanese (I think) dramas with drum-beats and painted symbolic actions, particularly if you think of the combat as not even trying to be 'realistic' but instead being an attempt in dance to represent different styles - to suggest combat if you will. If you think of it in this way then it's nothing that couldn't be put onto the stage and is a highly formal piece of an incredibly traditional form.

The other thing it reminded me of was the Oresteia by Aeschylus - a trilogy that looks at revenge and justice - particularly between family members. If I remember correctly, first Clytaemnestra kills her husband Agamemnon because he sacrificed their daughter to the gods - then their son Orestes kills his Clytaemnestra to get revenge for the murder of his father, and then finally the "Kindly Ones" / Eumenides (basically gods of revenge) come after Orestes for murdering his mother. But in the last play the standard tenets of revenge are superceded by the concept of Justice and instead of blind blood-vengeance, the court of the Areopagus is established. Revenge and murder -> civilisation. This seems to be a fairly common trope in ancient or traditional cultures where perhaps the institutions of society and the processes of society are not well bedded in or where there are seem to be people to whom they do not apply. The Oresteia is also a highly traditional tale and has the same sense of a formal structure. (you can even see really clear similarities with greek drama in the chorus like advisors shouting for his death towards the end of the film)

So both of these similarities made me enjoy Hero more. Unfortunately they still didn't stop me getting slightly bored at times, particularly towards the end. It seemed much more slow and ponderous than I was expecting and there were about six places where it felt like the film could have ended and recaptured a spritely energetic feeling - each of which they choose to throw away. All in all, a beautiful, interesting, formal and almost ancient film that didn't quite cut the mustard for me in terms of being an engaging two hours cinema.

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