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I like the whole mood of this film.
I like its look.
And I like the slow way it unfolds.
It has a serenity and a simplicity that is quite unusual,
uncharacteristic even, of Takeshi Miike's films.
Narratively, it consists of little more than the journey
of two Japanese men to a remote Chinese province. The younger,
a businessman, has been sent by his company to evaluate the
viability of mining a rare strain of jade that has been found
in a village high in the mountainous Yun Nan valley. The
other, a middle-aged yakuza, has been sent to take possession
of the jade as payment for an overdue debt owed by the businessman's
company. In The Bird People in China this
simplicity has, at least initially, an inherent quality of
surprise for no other reason than Miike's whole oeuvre mitigates
against it. The film's early flirtation with formalistic
manipulations of rapid editing and accelerated camera motion
to convey the hectic pace of modern life gives no hint of
its unpretentious presence. It is first sensed – I
first sensed it – in a scene directly following the
yakuza introducing himself to the young businessman. The
businessman's ignorance of his company's debts to the yakuza's
boss results in the yakuza loosing patience and dragging
the young man into a nearby derelict pool hall. In the altercation
that follows we have no doubt that the businessman is about
to receive a severe beating. Our suspicions are confirmed
when the yakuza begins to lay into the businessman with a
few well-placed blows. And when the yakuza turns in frustration
and grabs hold of a cue-stick we know, from countless cinematic
representations of this type, what to expect. But we are
wrong just when we think we are right. The yakuza's frustration
suddenly changes its centre of gravity and seems deeper than
mere annoyance with an intractable 'client', seems to turn
and pivot somewhere deep down in the yakuza himself. As this
scene plays out, as the yakuza paces back and forth like
a trapped animal, it is possible to discern the invisible
outlines of a cage created by his own life, a cage that he
is carrying around with him. And this scene's element of
surprise lies in the fact that we are aware that Miike's
primary interest here is not in an over-the-top gangster-based
violence that we are familiar with from his other films but
in a different species of violence, a hidden internal violence,
an invisible pressure, bottled-up in the form of the yakuza's
deeply-felt need.
And in this lies another facet of the film's simplicity:
the ease with which the outer journey to a remote village
reflects the yakuza's inner journey to the end of himself.
This last sentence may be misleading as The Bird
People is not just about a yakuza's inner journey,
but about both men's inner journey. Thus, Miike
positions the Japanese businessman as the film's narrator,
and whilst this narration is only overt in the film's opening
and closing scenes, it is, nevertheless, continued throughout
the story in the form of the businessman's spoken diary entries
into his hand-held recorder. This positioning of the businessman
as narrator gives his character an initial weight that is
never quite erased but is continually challenged by the simple
fact that the yakuza is able to come to the end of himself,
and the businessman is not. And I found this fact the most
interesting dynamic, the most interesting tension: as the
story develops, even though it would be fair to say that
both protagonists are always equally focused upon, nevertheless,
it is the untangling and unknotting of the yakuza's inner
frustration that quietly usurps our attention.
I also found in this simple fact the film's most interesting
concept, what might be called 'the coming to the end of oneself'.
From the broadest thematic perspective,
the entire film could be thought of as wrapped-up in the
concept of a return to origins. Firstly, and in its most
obvious sense, this concept is seen in the link that Miike
makes between the ancient rock-carvings of bird-like humans
or humans with wings, (the very first images the audience
sees), and the villagers of the Yun Nan valley who live
almost untouched by the 20th and 21st centuries, (we are
informed that one old villager has never heard the name
Mao Tse-tung – a
sufficiently telling fact to establish the old fellow's dislocation
from the last 100 years of modern Chinese history – sufficient
also, perhaps, to make some viewers long for the innocence
of such ignorance). The villagers of the Yun Nan valley send
their children to 'bird school' to learn the ritual of flying – and
I use the word 'ritual' because no-one in the village, including
the beautiful young teacher has yet to turn theory into practice – the
young teacher does, however, stand on the edge of the village's
perilous mountain crags with flimsy materials tied to her
outstretched arms exuding a great deal of grace and poise).
Secondly, our protagonists are expressly told by a passing
Japanese traveler that certain myths identify the valley
of the bird people as the cradle of Japanese culture. Miike's
cinematographic direction further extends this idea by tending
to stress the tranquil 'uncarved', (to borrow a Taoist term),
quality of the valley's mountainous topography. Certainly,
the misty aspect of the mountains and their sheer ruggedness
are evocative of some vaguely defined originary place, a
place that seems to exist in a state that is not so much
outside of civilization as before civilization.
Finally, the narrative development itself is used to convey
the concept of return to an originary point: thus, the travelers
begin their journey in a plane, then transfer to a train,
then to a beat-up old van that is literally (and comically)
falling to pieces. Their arrival at a bridge spanning a torrent
marks their reaching a threshold, a line drawn by the surge
of the river that states more clearly than words could that:
'Civilization ends here'. Beyond this point the travelers'
clothes and possessions become increasingly useless to them – and
the final leg of their journey is made on a primitive raft
drawn by turtles in harness, (a fantastic note that lends
a mythic tonality to this scene). And it is a narrative sequence
that establishes, beyond any doubt, that a return to origins
must go side-by-side with a shedding of all that civilization
stands for.
Perhaps the most original image that Miike uses to communicate
the concept of a return to origins is the image of the tail-section
of an antiquated plane jutting-up vertically from the surface
of a placid lake. This image manages to evoke a number of
quite different meanings. It suggests that a return to the
primal waters of the Origin involves the death of civilization,
or perhaps more accurately, the sinking back of civilization
into its own beginning. This sinking back is constructed
as both positive and creative: the plane here is not only
an image of ruin but also, (as we learn towards the film's
end), the source of the villagers' present belief in their
power of flight. The sacred nature of this power is expressed
by the presence of the lake itself, but it could also be
read in the cross-like configuration of the tail fin. Bothimages,
lake and cruciform tail-fin, combine the concept of beginnings
with the concept of a renewal. And although it is valid to
think of this concept in terms of civilization in general,
(and there is in this film a certain rhetoric concerning
the destructive effects of civilization despite the technological
benefits that it brings), Miike's main interest
lies in how this reaching the end of oneself plays out in
the interior space of his protagonists' personal psychology.
Miike's entire narrative movement
is, in fact, woven under the influence of this interest,
but there is one scene in particular that stands out in
my mind. The Japanese businessman and the yakuza are emerging
from their hut and walking the short distance it takes
to reach an outside latrine. The trilling of unseen crickets
suggests a mild summer night. They pull down their trousers
and crouch side-by-side talking casually about the diary
of the flying teacher's grandfather, the Englishman who
crashed his plane into the lake. The businessman translates
an entry: "This is the end. From tomorrow
the morning's will be different." The yakuza repeats
these words. They discuss what they mean. The businessman
suggests that, probably, from the very next day her grandfather "ceased
to be English". The yakuza ponders, then says, "That's
a real man". The film cuts to an image of the Englishman's
plane standing out of the midst of the dark moonlit lake.
This moment is characteristic of Miike's approach in this
film: everything is happening but nothing is really seen
to be happening by the viewer. And this is the moment in
which the yakuza reaches the end of himself and finds the
beginning of himself. How do we know? The very next scene,
the yakuza's "very next morning", shows him running
wildly on a hillside, large wings strapped to his arms, smiling
and laughing in a way that makes you think that he might
have lost his mind, (a opinion his Chinese guide is later
to offer), and surrounded by a throng of winged children.
From this point on the yakuza appears different in both dress
and behaviour. The young businessman on the other hand, continues
translating, recording and observing, always at a certain
clearly discernable distance established by his inability
to let go of himself. And yet, while this evaluation of the
young businessman is not incorrect, it really does not do
justice to the complexity of Miike's film. Did I say his
film was simple? Well, it is. It is in its total effect.
But it is also constructed, I used the word 'woven' before,
with a great deal of intricacy and an eye for detail. It is true
that the young businessman never truly lets go of himself – a
fact that his ever-present recording device makes us unable
to ignore – but it is also true that he almost let's
go, almost comes to the end of himself, almost
flies. I'll say nothing about this scene of "almost
flying". You can enjoy it for yourself without the prejudice
created by critical interference. One of the most interesting
formalistic qualities of this film's complexity-in-simplicity
is the skill with which Miike balances scene against scene.
Many scenes, in fact, seem to be duplicated. The latrine
scene I described above is an example. It echoes an earlier
scene in which the yakuza sits on an open outdoor latrine
in the pouring rain and laments the primitiveness of rural
China . When the businessman comes to see what the yakuza
is doing, the yakuza forces him to stand by his side holding
the umbrella above him. In paired scenes such as these Miike
is able to communicate a great deal about his characters
unseen inner transformations by showing how their behaviour
in similar situations takes on different forms.
The film's final scene is worth
mentioning. It seems to have lodged itself in my imagination,
not because it possesses a superior expressive power, but
simply because I don't feel that I understand it. If I
divided this scene into two parts the first could be said
to breathe reality and the second to breathe fantasy. In
the first part we see the emaciated back of an old man
with long thin white hair – the
elaborate tattoo on his back identifies him as the yakuza – he
stands facing the edge of a mountain – we don’t
see his face – spreads the wings strapped to his arms – and
jogs with a weak tottering gait down the path that ends at
the edge. We see his foot on the edge and then hear the tinkle
of the tiny bells that the villagers tie to their wings – a
sound which suggests, without our having to see anything
further, that he is flying. In the second part of the scene,
the film cuts to a longshot of the mountain surrounded by
the flying and gliding shapes of distant people. I can't
help wondering why Miike chose to end on this note of pure
fantasy and not on the just audible tinkle that preceded
it. This tiny high-pitched tinkle has an ethereal quality,
a liberating quality that sums-up with minimal effort, the
theme of self-transcendence that runs throughout the film.
No doubt Miike has his reasons. When you start taking apart
a film that looks as simple, and turns out to be as intricate
as The Bird People in China, is it surprising
that youhave trouble finding a place to put all the pieces?
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