Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Lust, Caution
Email to a friendPrint this article
If you thought the sex scene between Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN was rough, be prepared for something even more graphic and vicious in LUST, CAUTION. The latest film from BROKEBACK director Ang Lee, LUST, CAUTION just might cement Lee’s status as reigning master of on-screen sex, a distinction long held, in this reviewer’s opinion, by Bernardo Bertolucci.
Bertolucci’s THE LAST TANGO IN PARIS, despite an X rating, was a monstrous hit all over the world. Pauline Kael’s review in the New Yorker, though extreme, reflects its cultural significance:
This must be the most powerfully erotic movie ever made, and it may turn out to be the most liberating movie ever made, and so it’s probably only natural that an audience… confronted with this unexpected sexuality and the new realism it requires of the actors, should go into shock…
So, it was especially disappointing when later works by the Italian director with equally sexualized themes such as STEALING BEAUTY and THE DREAMERS came across as forced and contrived in comparison.
Ang Lee has also had an impressive career making powerfully erotic films. Think back to the subtle simmering sexual tension in both THE WEDDING BANQUET and EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN, the repressed passion in SENSE AND SENSIBILITY and the exhilarating tension between femininity and ferocity in THE HULK and CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. And of course, there is BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN.
With LUST, CAUTION Lee approaches a genre and setting as different from BROKEBACK as possible. An espionage thriller - in as much as Ang Lee abides by genre conventions - adapted from a short story by Eileen Chang, LUST, CAUTION takes place in Japanese-occupied China during World War II. The plot revolves around the plans of a student acting troupe, full of wide-eyed nationalists, that conspires to eliminate Japanese sympathizers. They group zeros in on Mr. Yee (Tony Leung of Wong Kar Wai’s IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE and 2046), a pro- Japanese magistrate who is married to the beautiful Mrs. Yee (Joan Chen) but desires Wong, a young member of the troupe, posing as the wife of a wealthy industrialist. Deception, anger, passion and fear fuel dramatic tension between them as they embark on a dangerous affair. Lee is famous for raising the stakes to the highest heights for forbidden lovers; LUST, CAUTION is no exception.
The sexual entanglements of Wong and Yee are angry, athletic and shot so tight by Lee’s cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto, that at times it is difficult to distinguish whose body parts are whose. The scenes are often more pornographic than erotic, yet compelling and riveting. It’s impossible to avert the eye – Lee’s direction is full of beauty and wonderment even in most shocking moments.
The line between masquerade and truth blurs as the purely sexual connection between Wong and Yee evolves into something deeper, more revealing and more complicated. Can she, or will she, love Yee? Can she kill him? The director lets wisps linger in the aftermath of the tragic denouement, haunting yet for me ultimately unsatisfying. After the almost three hour odyssey propelled by pathos, I needed more of a cathartic purge. It was a similar hunger to the one that gnawed on me after seeing STEALING BEAUTY. But with Ang Lee, we can rest assured he will be back to get our hearts beating again.
Comments