A second vision allowed me to evaluate a little better the richness and value of this film… The opportunity to counter-criticize my own advice !
The fatigue inherent to the middle of the festival and this does not help, many have criticized THE ASSASSIN ‘s timeline, confused and unreadable… Actually : the policy implications may remain unclear, unless you have done a thesis on the History of China of the 8th century ; this is obviously not my case but in my opinion, not really important : the context is a backdrop, and in the first plan, the real issues are, ultimately, quite intimate and accessible. Love, betrayal, passion, disappointments, etc
The characters who stand out are those, to be emotionally involved. A certain melancholy that seems to be the direct, cause of the duration outliers of the wonderful plans the setting value. We will, obviously, Nie Yin niang (Shu Qi), a protagonist or central, or manichean, as in Mad Max, is just a tool man with his own motivations – to find, for example, a kind of redemption at the heart of its tasks for an assassin. A character emotionally cursed, the dumb observer associated to his talent as a martial almost unbeatable, gives it an international class.
The context exposed, what is left ? ALL.
The directing (which won the award dedicated to the Cannes film festival) is truly monstrous. Many things make it up ! The aesthetic rendering is, for example, that A facet. THE ASSASSIN uses all of the ingredients specific to the Wu Xia Pian – decor rich, grandiose and splendor, colorful costumes, typical, natural environment varied, fighting “air”… But the difference is the way of filming of Hou Hsia Hsien.
The director imposes a rhythm ultra-hypnotic (as some may call it ultra-slow 😉 ) where the camera doesn’t accompany the action, but on the contrary, takes the remote, and freezes. But far give the film a look of cold, this gives her an aura of captivating peculiar… As a documentary, which would be particularly sensitive to certain things… landscapes, expressions, decisions, actions. It is to me, a posture completely unique and original for the wu xia pian, or even for the action movie.
“A landmark film, also inaccessible, and the radical and exceptional.”
And then, there is the question of the composition and of the duration of the plans ; their length so criticized is not only a bourgeois intended to annoy the viewer… on The contrary. This seems to be logical, within a mise en scene exciting. Each plane is so incredibly rich, not only in the interiors (which is relatively normal for this kind of film) but also in its exterior; in a general way, Hou Hsiao Hsien y puts his camera, and we propose to observe a long time on the minute details of each environment, place, characters; we absorb them. And then suddenly, there is this concrete element which redefines all, until the initial tone of the scene. Crying, anger, a slow, a spell “voodoo”, a punch, a comic off-topic, a murder… in Short. Surprise and emotions lurk in the elongation, but it must first be willing to let them go.
The director manages in the end to give it real emotional power in every moment : it is almost a miracle. Simple : I wanted to applaud what I saw at almost every end of the plan. Whether it’s a dance show, a surprise attack, of a dialogue, sponsoring an assassination (the first scene of the film), a sunset… Or the famous scene of the mountain :
A plan is absolutely perfect and amazing, located in the end of the film – it’s a little spoil.
The camera, stationary, we first shows the bottom of a valley. Then zoom out ; this valley, which appears as crushed by majestic and green mountains. Suddenly, the camera rotates to the right to follow vaguely a cloud of mist which goes up gently along the walls-forests. Going faster than that, the camera ends up by losing sight of… Until you focus on something that was initially difficult to distinguish, but whose aura leaves soon more doubts on his identity : “the nun”. Standing, right, a few feet of the camera, at the pass of the mountains. A white statue in the middle of this scene of ill. A detail of black moves in the lower right, approximate ; it is Nie Yin-niang. She comes to announce something important : she decided not to kill his target. And, BATTERY AT THIS TIME, pass the cloud of fog that we had seen earlier… Illustrating as a divine message, this statement full of meaning. PWAAAAAH.
This scene was recorded live in my top 10 moments film the most powerful ever… genre : between the train journey in spirited away, the transition match/desert in Lawrence of Arabia and when Brad Pitt opens the box in Se7en. BOOM.
Not to mention the sound score is perfectly fused with the image ! One never really knows if it is perceived within the film or present to the viewer (intra-or extra diégétique) but pace – often against-time – every shot in the film. Engineering.
Which is singular with THE ASSASSINis that it is the directing vector of emotion, and it spreads through every other aspect of structural (scenario, writing, interpretation). The movie of Hou Hsiao Hsien has joined other monuments sensory of the selection official, who must be felt and does not relate to : Mad Max: Fury Road, The Son of Saul, Sicario. Another proof of the consistency of this Cannes 2015, and then a certain revival of the way of seeing cinema.
THE ASSASSIN, prix de la mise en scene at Cannes film festival edition 2015.
If I had been The Jury, THE ASSASSIN, CAROL and SICARIO would have been golden palms, ex aequo.
Georgeslechameau
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