EXILED ssss
Most moviegoers consider Johnnie To’s gangster films efficiently made shoot-’em-ups; some owe a significant debt to the spaghetti western. And they are made with consummate skill: the action’s conveyed in carefully composed scenes, not an instant wasted. Exiled (2006), in which two gangsters try to kill former colleague Wo (Nick Cheung) in retaliation for his botched assassination attempt against their leader, Boss Fay (Simon Yam), has its share of entertaining twists and gripping action. But like many great filmmakers–Howard Hawks, John Ford, Raoul Walsh–Hong Kong-based To makes movies that are both commercially viable and animated by a powerful artistic vision. In fact To’s worldview can take precedence over the narrative. His characters (mostly male) seem oddly interchangeable despite having distinct personalities and appearances; they’re often melded by To’s constantly moving camera. In the film’s many shoot-outs, sight lines and shooting lines shift violently in the frame. Characters also make alliances or turn on one another in unexpected ways.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
These qualities set To’s work apart from the classic Hollywood westerns and gangster films his movies otherwise resemble. In those earlier works, the main characters are not only easily recognizable, they’re the focal points of scenes. Medium shots and close-ups and the way the characters’ movements are tracked by the camera or edited tend to give the protagonists heroic status. But To constantly moves his camera even when his subjects are still, creating a space that’s much larger than that surrounding an individual: one camera movement connects to the next and the next, and to the occasional static shot for contrast, creating a matrix or labyrinth. After the gangsters come to Wo’s apartment to ask his wife (Josie Ho) where he is, then leave, we see her observing them on the street. Next the camera moves around her baby in its crib as she picks it up in medium shot, then To cuts to a longer shot of her, seated with the infant, seen through an ornate piece of furniture. This quiet moment of togetherness is interrupted as the camera begins circling them, the out-of-focus foreground emphasizing the movement. The effect is to disrupt the silence and return the mother to her place in the narrative–and in fact after the shot ends there’s a knock at her door and a different gangster confronts her.
To articulates the emotional dimension of Exiled cinematically, through his compositions, camera movements, and use of light. His images are sensuous to a fault, and the beauty he finds in faces and objects and surfaces argues for a strong attachment to, not nihilistic distance from, the film’s world. He also sees that world as susceptible to destruction at any instant, which adds a melancholy note to everything we see. Perhaps the single most important moment in the film is its opening: a one-second static shot of a door, rendered quiet and nuanced by the light gently cast over it. This instant of meditative silence is almost immediately interrupted by a loudly knocking hand (as happens several times later), which takes us out of stasis and into history–a history of shifting allegiances, revenge, and bloodletting. The film’s fleeting beauties are counterposed against this reality. Lives are always caught in society’s traps, but what can be seen by the short-lived flicker of a candle flame is what makes them worth living.
INFO 773-871-6604
