Princess Mononoke (1997)

QFS No. 157 - The invitation for November 20, 2024
We are all long overdue to be taken away to a different land. At least for a couple of hours.* And there’s perhaps no one better suited to take us elsewhere than the Japanese master of animation, Hayao Miyazaki. We have technically never selected a Miyazaki directed film, but his Studio Ghibli produced Grave of the Fireflies (1988, QFS No. 23), which was the first animated film we selected to watch for Quarantine Film Society.** Studio Ghibli films’ streaming distribution opened up more widely recently, which is an exciting development and will make it easier to see all of these great Miyazaki masterpieces.

Princess Mononoke is high on that list. In 1997, there was not yet an Academy Award for animated feature. Had there been, Princess Mononoke would’ve been the odds-on favorite to win that year. Disney, who dominates the category, had the above average Hercules (1997) and Anastasia (1997) – not classics, which is how Princess Mononoke is often described.

Fast forward a few years when the Oscar category was created, and Miyazaki takes home the statuette for Spirited Away (2001), a truly magnificent film that I’d rank among the greatest animated movies of all time. And just last year, at 80-years old, Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron (2023) won the top animated prize again. My Neighbor Totoro (1988) remains a favorite around the world. Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) are among the titles that are celebrated by anime fans and others alike – and there are dozens more.

Miyazaki’s storytelling contains magic on par with Disney’s, but I’d argue even more so with stories that are layered and contain even deeper explorations of character and the soul. His stories take on complex emotions and never pander to the audience – which we definitely saw in the post-war tale of Grave of the Fireflies. Though animation as a medium is often aimed at children, his stories cater to adults as well, often with haunting imagery and disturbing sequences. Miyazaki has elevated the medium and the genre and has made an indelible mark on the film industry as a whole.

I’m very much looking forward to finally seeing Princess Mononoke. Disappear into Miyazaki’s world for a couple hours and join us to discuss here!

*Ideally, longer.

**Flee (2021, QFS No. 69) is the only other animated film we’ve selected due to a long-standing bias among some members of our QFS Council of Excellence (QFSCOE).

Princess Mononoke (1997) Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

Reactions and Analyses:
At the end of Princess Mononoke, the victor is nature. The enraged, decapitated Forest Spirit has just decimated Iron Town, the human-made walled outpost that’s been mining ore and decimating the forest in its path. Iron Town’s ruler Lady Eboshi (voiced by Minnie Driver in the English dubbed version) has had her arm bitten off by the wolf goddess Moro (Gillian Anderson).

But San (the titular Princess Mononoke, voiced by Claire Danes) and the story’s main protagonist Ashitaka (Billy Crudup) have retrieved the head and returned it to the Forest Spirit, healing it and the cataclysm has ended. In the spirit’s wake, the Iron Town is destroyed - but it’s not the end of the story. Instead, over all the destruction, sprouts being to spring and grass grows and nature reclaims the land. In the end, nature is victorious.

Nature has reclaimed Iron Town, now a grassy hill, near the conclusion of Princess Mononoke (1997).

If there’s a central idea of Princess Mononoke - and there are several, some that were a little harder to discern for us in the QFS discussion group - it is this: nature will endure and prevail, if we help it. If we, as humans, can live in harmony with it, symbiotically.

It’s no surprise that several movies including Avatar (2009) are influenced by Hayao Miyazaki’s epic story in Princess Mononoke - from both a story perspective and also visually. But what sets Princess Mononoke apart from Western fare including Avatar is that neither humans nor nature are all entirely good or entirely bad.

Take Iron Town. The town is clearly destroying the land and exploiting its resources. Lady Eboshi is an unrepentant capitalist hell bent on ruling the world. (In fact, she holds up a newly created rifle saying that it’s a weapon that you can rule the world with.) But even she has more layers than that - she is not the villain of the film, to the extent that there is a villain of the film.

Iron Town busy extracting resources from the forest.

And using fire-laden rifles to attack the wolf spirts and wipe out the countryside.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite - she is extremely benevolent. We learn she took women out from working in brothels and gave them dignity and power - but also putting them to work in the bellows of the iron works. She’s taken in lepers who were cast out from society - but also has given the task of making weapons for Lady Eboshi’s growing empire.

Lady Eboshi has empowered the women of Iron Town, rescuing them from brothels

But also employing them in the ironworks.

In this way, Miyazaki is pointing out something that we see every day in real life. Large corporations whose business is tearing up the Earth for resources to fuel modern economy and industry, claim that they are benevolent. Sure we’re extracting fossil fuels and poisoning the atmosphere, but we’re also providing jobs, education, and look how many renewable energy projects we’re funding!

Look how happy we all are living in Iron Town - how could a place this joyful also be causing grave harm to the world? Miyazaki’s juxtaposing these two realities in fantasy medieval Japan reflects our current reality today.

All of the characters are complex in this way. Even nature isn’t all good either. The wolves are particularly nasty, threating to bite off Ashitaka’s head at any given moment. The boars in particular are brutish, headstrong and unwilling to compromise. It’s their inability to let go of hatred that brings on the demon - or something like that.

I found the apes the most unsettling of the forest creatures.

The boars - just listen to reason, please!

Which is one aspect of the film we all found confusing - the rules and the mythology. Narratively speaking, the first half of the film or so is breathtaking in its scope and clear in its vision of a journey for Ashitaka to find a cure for his arm and “to see with eyes unclouded by hate.” But in the second half, Ashitaka encounters humans at war - samurai versus Iron Town, messy allegiances, even in the forest with the animals including the apes. And in the end, after all is said and done, Lady Eboshi and the conniving Jigo (with strangely aloof voicing by Billy Bob Thornton) receive no comeuppance. Eboshi does have an arm cut off, but even when nature is restored there is nothing to suggest, necessarily, that she’s going to change her tune and live in more harmony with nature. And Jigo - whose mission was to decapitate the Forest Spirit at the Emperor’s behest - survives and shrugs it all off.

The Forest Spirit, whose head is valuable - all of this is allegory that is up for analysis and discussion.

Perhaps this, too, is Miyazaki’s point several in our group contended - that these people continue to live among us. People who would live in discord with nature, with ill intentions who are only looking out for themselves. So this balance between nature and life will continue. And it’s also true that we, as American filmmakers and viewers, expect a narrative arc or change in a character. But in the East, perhaps that’s less necessary or expected - even in an animated film. After all, Ashitaka doesn’t really change at all, if you consider him the protagonist - he begins righteous and stays righteous. If anything, he’s trying to have everyone fight against resorting to anger and destruction and he loves the people of Iron Town but also Princess Mononoke and the denizens of the forest. San (Princess Mononoke) in fact still distrusts humans and her human self and doesn’t actually end up with Ashitaka.

San (Princess Mononoke) and Moro - not all good, not all evil.

Despite this lack of a narrative arc we’re hoping for as Western audience members, Miyazaki is painting a picture of there is no good and no evil. Nature itself destroys and brings to life. The Forest Spirit saves Ashitaka but also kills plants and destroys the countryside, just as life springs forth beneath its feet.

Miyazaki has mastered the animated film. But what he’s done to elevate it is that he manages to make the fantastical feel realistic. He manages to make the world three-dimensional, as if it’s there’s a camera on that hillside filming the wolves as they carry the masked San/Princess Mononoke, dodging real rifle shots. It’s a truly remarkable experience to disappear into a Miyazaki world.

But the world he’s creating, especially here in Princess Mononoke is a mirror to our world - a plea for what he hopes is ultimately balance in a world living in the absence of that balance, teetering on mutual destruction.

Near the end of the film, Princess Mononoke/San says, “Even if all the trees grow back, it won't be his forest anymore. The Forest Spirit is dead.”

Ashitaka replies, “Never. He is life itself. He isn't dead, San. He is here with us now, telling us, it's time for both of us to live.”

“It’s time for us both to live.”

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

QFS No. 156 - The invitation for October 30, 2024
Shaun of the Dead is directed by Edgar Wright, wacky genius behind one of my favorite Quarantine Film Society selections Hot Fuzz (2009, QFS No. 29), selected in our group’s first year.

And since my involvement with zombies and zombie fare as a filmmaker has been long documented, Shaun the Dead seemed like an appropriate pick to discuss on the eve of Halloween. If this movie is even remotely as funny as Hot Fuzz, it’s going to be a very satisfying viewing experience.  

So for now let’s ignore our current apocalypse and watch Shaun of the Dead (one of the great plays on “of the dead” you can find) and discuss.

Shaun of the Dead (2004) Directed by Edgar Wright

Reactions and Analyses:
For a comedy about zombies and a zombie apocalypse, Shaun of the Dead (2004) actually has something very pointed to say about humanity – especially at the beginning and the end of the film.

That commentary begins in the opening credits which roll after the opening teaser sequence where we meet Shaun (Simon Pegg) and all the main characters. During the opening credits, director Edgar Wright shows humans sleep-walking through life, zombie like. They sway in unison with their music devices, drugged out, waiting for the bus with vacant expressions and checking their watches simultaneously. Or they go through the motions as cashiers or in the supermarket parking lot. Even Shaun, when he wakes up, lurches like the undead.

Zombies or people? Or can we even tell the difference?

In Shaun of the Dead (2004), Edgar Wright asks the question if we’d even notice a zombie apocalypse at all.

The filmmaker appears to be saying – we’re already acting like zombies. So if an actual zombie apocalypse happens, would we even notice?

The answer, for a while, is no. At least not for Shaun and Ed (Nick Frost) – roommates and disconnected from the world and occupied by their own concerns. (Or lack of them, in Ed’s case.) Meanwhile, a strange disease or occurrence is turning people into the undead. The fact is, we are so distracted and going through the motions of life that we can easily avoid knowing that an apocalypse is at our doorstep.

Shaun, moving zombie-like through the world already.

Wright cleverly continues to show us that we’re already among people who are the walking dead already. A homeless beggar asks Shaun for cash and later, when that beggar has been turned into a zombie, Shaun barely notices the difference. In another scene, Shaun looks out at the park and sees what appears to be a homeless person with mental health issues who goes after pigeons. Is he about to eat one? Before we can find out, a bus comes between Shaun and the man, and both the pigeons and the – homeless person? zombie? – are gone.

Shaun even stares, zombie-like, at the television, a television set that is desperately trying to tell him that the world is crumbling and people need to take cover because humans are mutating into some sort of animal-like undead creature. It’s an incredibly brilliant device – Shaun is flipping through the channels and each one is filling out a statement, telling us (who already know this) and Shaun (who still isn’t hearing it) that the world is ending. It’s terrifically funny and a perfectly clever coordination of exposition, character development, and plot setup.

Even when one of the undead women nearly kills Shaun, they think she’s drunk and coming on to him. It isn’t until they see her impaled and survive with a hole in her torso do they finally understand that something is very very very wrong. It’s fantastic.

Shaun still doesn’t quite get that there are zombies now in the world, even when one is literally on top of him.

He finally finally gets it.

As several us in the discussion pointed out, Wright and his collaborator Pegg are clearly fans of genres. We screened and discussed Hot Fuzz (2009, QFS No. 29) four years ago, a film that’s a perfect homage and satire of action films that could only be done by someone deeply immersed in the genre. Same goes for Shaun of the Dead – it’s clear that Wright and Pegg are zombie movie nerds. The film contains a multitude of reference and possibly my favorite one is Shaun’s mother, named “Barbara” (Penelope Wilton) which gives the perfect set up to reference a line from Night of the Living Dead (1968, QFS No. 44) – “we’re coming to get you, Barbara!” Not to mention that they can’t say the “zed word,” a reference to the fact that zombie movies and shows go to painstaking lengths to call the undead anything but “zombies.” Even the Hindi-language broadcast in the Indian-run corner convenience store is broadcasting about the zombie apocalypse - but in Hindi so Shaun doesn’t get the news.

This tactic of smearing zombie guts on your body to move among the zombies will be used later in The Walking Dead series. 

The flowers for Shaun’s mother Barbara are an example of a simple gag set up and paid off much later.

Wright’s comedic setup, timing and use of dialogue are unmatched in contemporary filmmaking, I feel. His comedy isn’t based on improv or relies on clever characters the way a Judd Apatow film might, but uses visuals and filmmaking in the way that Charlie Chaplain may have done to enhance comedic scenarios. It’s true directing to enhance a story. And for Shaun of the Dead, it’s his clever use of satire to make a sideways dig at humanity that elevates this film from something like Zombieland (2009) that’s a funny action zombie-genre film but nothing much beyond that. Shaun of the Dead is an insightful film about our current civilization – still “current” even though it was made 20 years ago. I’d argue it's even more relevant now, frankly. He’s saying – we’re already in a semi-catatonic state of detachment. How much different are we than the zombies of movie lore?

Watching useful zombies on television in the aftermath.

And what cements his apparent commentary is the film’s denouement, the final moments after the climactic finale. Humanity has now learned to live with the undead around them. Shaun and Liz (Kate Ashfield) watch TV and see that there are the mundane type of shows we have now – talk shows, game shows, news documentaries – but with one key difference. They all have folded zombie-life into their world. Zombies have been utilized to do daily labor tasks humans once did. Others are part of a game show where they’re raced or used for sport. There’s a sensationalized talk show where a woman talks about the love of her life is a zombie. It’s so perfect – humanity hasn’t so much as learned from their mistakes and made life more vibrant, they’ve just adapted to the reality of having zombies living among them.

The clincher for this is the final scene – Ed, now a zombie, is chained in a little shed in Shaun and Liz’s yard, where he’s hooked up to a video game system. Just as we saw him at the beginning of the film. And Shaun plays with him. Ed is living the same life as before. Just now, as a zombie. Which is basically what he was all along.

Shaun and Ed, living on the couch in front of a video game console.

As Ed was in the beginning - on the couch, playing video games with his friend  Shaun.

Is this a scathing criticism of people, society, of men in particular? After all, Shaun’s journey throughout the film is evolving from an overgrown child into a man who can take charge and actually prove his love to Liz. Regardless, the commentary or criticism would be nothing without humor, the performances, and the execution from the deft hand of an elite-level filmmaker.  

Sicario (2015)

QFS No. 153 - The invitation for October 2, 2024
I’m sure many of you saw Sicario (2015) when it came out or in the ensuing nine years afterwards. I, however, am not one of them, hence this pick. It’s been on my list for a while, especially because of the filmmaker at the helm.

Denis Villeneuve is one of my favorite directors working right now. Arrival (2016) is a modern classic that got short shrift at the Academy Awards that year but I know will endure the test of time (really solid movie year with Inside Out, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Ex Machina, Creed, The Martian, Spotlight, Brooklyn, The Big Short and the new Star Wars trilogy launched). For Villeneuve, I’ll go so far as to say his Blade Runner 2049 (2017) rivals or perhaps surpasses its legendary predecessor (come at me!). Dune (2021) is arguably his “worst” of those three it’s still a monumental and fantastic (half) a movie.*

All of these films above are likely vastly different than Sicario, which is what I’m most interested in seeing. He’s mastered atmospheric other worldly stories and landscapes, I’m very curious what he does with the Mexico-US border.

If you haven’t seen it or even if you have, please watch or rewatch join the Sicario discussion!

*I somehow haven’t seen Dune: Part Two (2024) yet which is why it’s left off this list but I’ve heard good things which is just as good as seeing it right?

Sicario (2015) Directed by Dennis Villeneuve

Reactions and Analyses:
Moments before the climactic sequence of Sicario (2015), there’s a shot in the film that evokes a specific genre of movie. It’s low light, the sun has set but there is striking reds and oranges and light in the distant horizon. The figures move in silhouette, in unison as the camera moves parallel to them, wide. The figures – some close in foreground and others in the back all wear military helmets and hold military weapons.

Classic soldiers-at-dusk shot in a war movie, which is how Sicario (2015) portrays border of Mexico and the US - as a war zone.

When I saw this shot, everything in the movie clicked for me – this is a war film. The shot is appropriately similar to imagery in Jarhead (2005), a film about the futility and Sisyphian nature of war – also photographed by the legendary Roger Deakins who is the cinematographer in Sicario as well. It’s a classic shot you’d see in a film about the conflict in Vietnam or in Middle East or Afghanistan. But here, in Sicario, the battleground is the US-Mexico border, not some far off world.

Not a shot from Sicario but from another Roger Deakins shot film, Jarhead (2005) - another film about war.

The composition here – as well as the narrative and themes that precede it – is no accident. The screenwriter Taylor Sheridan and director Denis Villeneuve have a thesis, and that thesis is that this conflict, this so-called “drug war” is indeed war. Full-blown war. Not a criminal enterprise of cartels and traffickers and something to be dealt with by the justice system. It is war. And thus, quaint rules of due process, legal procedure and the rule of law don’t apply. Because this is war, and your attempts to treat it differently are at best naïve and at worse a danger to the people of America. After all – look how brutal the faceless cartel is – they’re beheading people and hanging their bodies in major cities.

And in war, you must do what is necessary to defeat the enemy. To destroy these monsters, we need to become and embrace monsters. 

This thesis, if accurate, explains so much of the behavior of the characters in the film. Kate Mercer (Emily Blunt) is a proxy for the American people. An FBI agent, but she’s in the dark just as we are for most of the film, only given a little bit to know when it’s right. But the men around her – they know what’s best. Rest your pretty head, you don’t know what it really takes to get the job done, or so the message comes across in Sicario. It takes men willing to do ruthless things, bend the rules, break laws. That’s what it takes.

Kate Mercer (Emily Blunt) stands in as a proxy of the ordinary American - kept in the dark, just as she is as they cross the border here in Sicario.

Perhaps this is the cynical way to look at the film, but it feels very much in line with what Villeneuve and Sheridan are trying to say. In this way, it also feels deliberate that the character cast is a woman, unable to be taken seriously in a world where the only solution to our problems lies in bravado machismo and brazen law breaking in the service of “national security.” I hesitate to bring this up, but the only Black man in the film Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluuya) and the only woman are the only two who are portrayed as naïve wimps following “rules” like wimps do. Another way of looking at it (that one of our QFS discussion group members brought) up is that they are the only two following a moral compass. That is giving the filmmakers more credit than I’m willing to give them, but it’s valid. The other way to look at it, however, is that this Black man and White woman are diversity hires who don’t have the stomach to do what needs to be done to keep us safe. Yes, this is very much a cynical take but the evidence in the film itself suggests this interpretation.

Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluuya) and Kate are the only two people standing up for American ideals of justice. Is it a coincidence that they are also the only Black character and woman character in Sicario? There's a cynical way and a more gracious way to interpret this.

Sicario feels very much like a post 9/11 film. People entrusted with keeping America safe explicitly violated American moral values in order to do so. The film very much has that tone and I, for one, don’t love this aspect of the film. (I can disagree, of course, with what a film espouses while still thoroughly enjoying it – as I did with Sicario.) Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), after all, specifically does not want to select someone who went to law school, as Reggie has, because they know their at best skirting the law and at worst overtly breaking it.

Matt Barnes (Josh Brolin) has mastered the condescending look that "tough guys" give to people who want to follow quaint and outdated "rules" and "the law."

And throughout, the team condescends to Kate, keeping her in the dark and in the end it’s even clearer – they’re using her, including her loneliness as bait to lure in a corrupt cop (Jon Bernthal). Specifically, they’re using her status as an FBI agent to justify the CIA operating on American soil, which is otherwise against the law. But law doesn’t matter when you’re at war, as the filmmaker appear to contend.

Some in the group believed the filmmakers are just presenting the world as it is, showing what it’s really like. And here’s where I disagreed with them. It’s not just a simple expose, if you will; the filmmakers are expressing an opinion. For example, at the end Alejandro (Benecio del Toro), the shadowy international double agent of some type, has broken into Kate’s apartment to put a gun to her head and force her to sign a document saying that everything they did followed the law. But now, after Kate has seen Alejandro kidnap and kill in Mexico with impunity – in fact, he shoots her to disable her when she tries to stop him. Now in her apartment, she reluctantly signs the document, knowing that Alejandro will go through with it.

As he leaves, he says: “You should move to a small town where the rule of law still exists. You will not survive here. You are not a wolf. And this is the land of wolves now.”

Alejandro (Benecio del Toro) says here "You are not a wolf. And this is the land of wolves now." This is as close to a thesis statement as you can find in a film. 

If this is not a thesis statement, I don’t know what is. As well, the opening title card says The word Sicario comes from the zealots of Jerusalem, killers who hunted the Romans who invaded their homeland. In Mexico, Sicario means hitman.

“Invaded” and “homeland” here are deliberate, as is the framing. The Roman Empire was the ruling governmental authority, so if you swap America for Rome and the “zealots of Jerusalem” as Mexican drug dealers and drug lords – well, that’s a pretty stark interpretation. I’m not saying it’s completely inaccurate, but when you’re using those terms it definitely justifies violence for some folks out there.

Filmmakers should have an opinion, a thesis, An opinion makes a film better, gives it direction and that driving force is felt throughout the incredible craft of the film. Villeneuve is a master of showcasing scope, perhaps one of the best filmmakers using aerial photography working today. The sequence of black SUVs crossing the border from the US at Nogales into Mexico is hypnotic, ominous and incredibly effective at building tension. Similar work can be seen throughout Villeneuve’s recent work – Dune (2021), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and Arrival (2016) are masterclasses in portraying scale and scope.

But Sicario, with all the stunning craft work helmed by Deakins and Villeneuve, it still comes down to something personal. Alejandro breaks into Kate’s home and forces her to sign the document, he leaves her apartment. She gathers herself, grabs her service weapon, and rushes out to the balcony in the cobalt dusk.

She points it at him in the near distance and he turns to her, opening himself up to be shot. Kate, shaking with a bloody eye from the firefight in the tunnel earlier, is unsure what to do. Alejandro opens himself up to her, giving her a clear shot. This moment is one of the most powerful in the film. It’s where performance, cinematography, directing, story, and theme all intersect. What will she do? Will she act as they would, act outside the judicial system and be judge, jury and executioner? In the battle’s aftermath, she told Matt she’s going to report all of it to the higher ups – but will she? Is this better?

She relents. She can’t go through with it, and he walks away. It’s a fascinating scene and we all had varying interpretations of it. Some felt that Kate realizes that Alejandro is right, that this is the way it works. She may not like it, but his way is the right way. Others felt that perhaps she knows killing Alejandro will not end anything and she, herself, will become like him – a fate she does not prefer.

The final sequence is open to a lot of fascinating interpretation.

Kate, small and insignificant at the end.

I took it to mean – Kate is bound by law, by the moral code of America. If you believe she’s a stand in for us, the general public, she has an obligation to follow that code. After all, she tells Matt this after the raid and battle in the tunnel. And Alejandro knows that. He knows she’s powerless in this world. She’s not a wolf.

And in the end, is Alejandro right? Are the filmmakers right, is the drug war only winnable if we commit to it as if it is a war? One member of our QFS group is a political scientist shared that he has a mentor from Mexico that works on issues of jurisprudence in that country. To paraphrase, though she is committed to the rule of law and governance in Mexico, she entertained the idea that perhaps maybe in this circumstance – you indeed need wolves.

Perhaps. But isn’t it true that wolves beget more wolves? In a land of wolves, what happens to the sheep? Are they all eliminated? The filmmakers pay some service to the sheep, with the somewhat innocent Mexican police officer (Maximiliano Hernandez as Silvio) who transports smuggled drugs in his police car. We see his son, his very modest homelife, and you get the sense that he’s not a violent criminal but just someone who is getting by, bending the law to survive. Until he’s callously killed by Alejandro and left to die on a dark highway. In the film’s coda, the officer’s son plays soccer near the border when gunshots are heard in the distance and everyone stops and turns towards it, before resuming play.

One of the few acknowledgements of the real victims in Sicario, somewhat tacked, here near the border wall. 

This is the only nod, really, the filmmakers pay to what is happening to the sheep in the land of wolves. It feels tacked on, an afterthought and thin compared to the complexity of the other characters and their storylines in Sicario. This has all the hallmarks of American arrogance – the story focuses on the American side of it, told through the American’s point of view. Matt, after all, accuses American drug users of being the ones who are causing all the harm. The true victims are the people of Mexico, however, where the sheep are being slaughtered by wolves. Perhaps the last thing they need are even more wolves.

Godzilla Minus One (2023)

QFS No. 151 - The invitation for September 4, 2024
Godzilla Minus One (2023) is the first kaiju film selected by Quarantine Film Society. Kaiju, of course, is the film subgenre in which giant monsters destroy things. I think it’s amazing that what seems like a very limited type of film has a named subgenre, but this is where I’m wrong. There are tons of these movies and television shows varying in quality in the 70 years since Godzilla (1954) came out from Japan. I’m certainly no expert on these films, but I do enjoy a good giant animal picture now and again.

Godzilla Minus One created quite a buzz last year and I really wanted to see it. I’ve heard good things about it from a filmmaking and storytelling perspective, but also in the visual and special effects. If I’m not mistaken, they had a very slim VFX team compared to say big studio movies. And yet, they took home the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, beating out a Marvel film, a Mission: Impossible film and Ridley Scott who is no stranger to Visual Effects. The first foreign language film to win the Visual Effects Oscar, which is cool.

Speaking of, this will be our fifth selection from Japan but our first Japanese film from this century. So curl with Godzilla Minus One and watch a giant lizard break things! (#spoiler) Join us next week for Godzilla Minus One.

Godzilla Minus One (2023) Directed by Takashi Yamazaki

Reactions and Analyses:
Is Godzilla’s destruction purposeful? Does he (it, she, they) know what he’s destroying? Is it intentional? Or is the destruction indiscriminate?

That was one of my main questions for the QFS discussion group and several were curious about this as well. And perhaps, for a mega-superfan of kaiju films, this is a question that’s very basic. But for someone like myself, it seemed an important question.

Perhaps the reason why I’m curious about this is that I’m not sure how to feel towards Godzilla. In some sense, if the destruction is unintentional, there’s a bit of sympathy one can feel towards the creature. It doesn’t know what it’s doing, it’s primal and a production of human tampering with nature – then it’s almost justified in its actions. A force of nature. After all, you can’t be angry with the actions of a hurricane or a volcano because it’s something unlocked by the Earth.

Is Godzilla an avenging god, a force of nature, or something of both in Godzilla Minus One (2023)?

But if Godzilla is an avenging god, wreaking havoc on a populace already suffering from the toll of devastating global war – then, it gets a little complicated. Godzilla, portrayed for seventy years on the big and small screens, appears in Godzilla Minus One as being fueled - or at least “embiggened” - by human’s insatiable need for bigger, larger and more destructive weapons. A scene, almost a cutaway scene, depicts the US dropping experimental nuclear bombs on the Bikini Atoll – with an insert shot of an underwater monstrous eye opening and powering up. The implication is this is what humans hath wrought. Nuclear war and self-annihilation.

Or as metaphor, a giant uncontrollable lizard getting larger and larger as it destroys more and more. A stand-in for the arms race writ large.

All Godzilla films are metaphoric and perhaps cautionary, from the original 1954 version to this one in 2023, borne of post-war Japan where nuclear annihilation was not theoretical but actual. It’s astonishing to realize that only nine short years after World War II and on the heels of the nuclear bombs wiping out Nagasaki and Hiroshima, that Toho Studios would make a film about a creature that was destroying Japanese cities. I even had this feeling while watching the 2023 iteration, that these poor people had suffered enough from fire bombings and nuclear weapons – isn’t it a bit too much to also subject them to a giant destructive lizard?

Haven't the Japanese people gone through enough in World War II? And now a giant lizard monster?!

Perhaps this is where cultural tastes and takes diverge between the US and Japan, which came up in our conversation. It’s easy to imagine that if the roles were reversed, that US filmmakers would very much make a film of giant monsters attacking Japan or Germany – their enemies in that war – as opposed to attaching its own populace on the shores of the Untied States . We found ourselves pondering what would’ve happened if Japanese filmmakers did indeed decide to make a 1954 film of Godzilla attacking the US, a revenge fantasy film in the way that would make the likes of a young Quentin Tarantino proud. Retribution through art is something we’ve seen before, but the Japanese have resisted that and instead turn inward with the Godzilla films.

And especially in Godzilla Minus One. Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) was a naval flyer in the war but when we discover him, he’s abandoned his duty as a kamikaze pilot honor bound to die in a suicide attack against the Allies. Although this is shameful, culturally, in 2024 looking back the filmmakers turn this around and seem to say – yes, that was your duty then, but now we need to live and build our nation. And by ejecting just before he flies into Godzilla’s mouth with his bomb-laden plane, Shikishima saves the day, lives honorably, and lives on – even rewarded by discovering that Noriko (Minami Hamabe) is still alive. So living is worth living for, you see.

Don't do it!

Don't do it!!!

Ohhhhh....

The nationalistic pride in Godzilla Minus One evoked another recent film we’ve screened from another part of Asia - RRR (2022, QFS No. 86). In S.S. Rajamouli’s revisionist period piece, India is a place that had physical might and used violence and warfare to overthrow British rulers. Never mind the fact that this never happened and India is well known for its nonviolent moral and intellectual revolution that truly changed the world (as portrayed in Gandhi, 1982, QFS No. 100) – the India of 2022 is trying to assert a new world dominance. One that shows its military, technological and physical might as opposed to its intellectual and moral one from the past. RRR is a virulently nationalistic work of fiction that seeks to scrub that past and recast India as a mighty nation, ready to do battle. I, for one, found this appalling and will discuss further in the RRR QFS essay that remains TBW.

The violent conclusion of RRR (2022) reimagines Indian independence from the British through force and might. 

As seen here in blood splattered across an icon of the British crown.

And yet, there’s a parallel we found in our discussion with Godzilla Minus One. Japan was demilitarized after World War II and there was a sentiment that they might prefer to live that way, to build their society and give up their imperialistic past. In 2024, the world is a vastly different place. With a resurgent and belligerent China at their doorstep, is Godzilla Minus One recasting Japan’s past, to show that they have might in numbers and a national pride? And that this means their love of the Japanese country fuels their current military force for good and will keep the Chinese at bay? The former soldiers in Godzilla Minus One fight not because it’s their duty as soldiers, but it is their collective duty to build a nation of people, assembling a “civilian” navy to fight an enemy at their shores. One can interpret that this is all proxy for regional domination and moral superiority over a foe, even if it’s not overt. (Though, to me and others in the group who brought this up, it feels overt.)

The civilian feel comes together in Godzilla Minus One and can defeat monsters (which might include China?)

Saluting Godzilla's demise, having done their patriotic duty to save Japan. 

But while the film does have this national pride coursing through, there is ample criticism of the Japanese government. The former admiral Kenji Noda (Hidetaka Yoshioka) says:

Come to think of it this country has treated life far too cheaply. Poorly armored tanks. Poor supply chains resulting in half of all deaths from starvation and disease. Fighter planes built without ejection seats and finally, kamikaze and suicide attacks. That's why this time I'd take pride in a citizen led effort that sacrifices no lives at all! This next battle is not one waged to the death, but a battle to live for the future.

There you see this pride, but also damnation of nation’s leadership. It’s a fine line for the filmmakers to walk and they do so pretty well. Which got us to thinking – this is about as good as you can make this type of film, isn’t? The filmmakers balance politics, human drama, and action in a film about a giant lizard destroying everything in its path. There’s ample metaphor, there are emotional stakes – it all comes together in an science fiction film.

"Is that ... Godzilla?" is unintentionally hilarious. 

I does feel, however, of the scant Japanese Godzilla films I’ve seen, this one has taken some of the worst of American action film schlock and absorbed it, much the way Godzilla absorbs ammunition rounds. There’s the extremely cheesy lines, the overwrought emotions and overly convenient storytelling. Unfortunately, Noriko is saddled with several of these – Is your war finally over? As her first line to Shikishima when they reunite at the end feels straight out of the worst Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay collaboration. Is that … Godzilla? Is one of the more useless expressions of dialogue you’ll find in a movie but it did make me laugh out loud (unintended comedy laughter is still laughter I guess). And of course, Noriko somehow survives Godzilla’s energy breath blast giving us the happy American-style (or Bollywood-style) ending we’ve come to expect with a massive film like this. Not to mention the somewhat predictable climax, where Shikishima ejects and survives as well.

Many of the action scenes are excellent, but the flying sequences featuring Shikishima zooming past Godzilla are exhilarating. 

Are these flaws or features? Any way you slice it, to make a film about an indiscriminate killing force that destroys on a large scale, is no small feat (pun intend… small feet… never mind). But to make it memorable, you have to make it about people, not about the lizard. And even if their emotions are not totally believable, they sure are more believable than a giant monster reigning terror across a nation. The bringing together of both make for what might just be the apex in kaiju – specifically Godzilla – movie making.  

Godzilla gonna Godzilla. 

Death Race 2000 (1975)

QFS No. 146 - The invitation for June 26, 2024
The late great Roger Corman produced Death Race 2000 set in a dystopic, mayhem-ridden future. And I, for one, have been keen on seeing it for some time. It takes place in the distant future, the year 2000! What will life be like then? Who knows! Well, the late great Roger Corman will tell you!

In Death Race 2000 you’ve got the red-hot stardom of David Carradine to contend with alongside upstart nobody Sylvester Stallone. Made on a Corman-style budget, this feels like an even more appropriate Corman selection than our previous one, X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963, QFS No. 89). Corman directed that masterpiece himself. This one, he produced it on his B-movie assembly line and is one of the films that actually (sorta?) penetrated into the broader mainstream.

And this is our first return to a Corman film since the legend passed away last month. Let’s honor him by easing back on our critical thinking skills a touch and watch one of his classics. Kick back, relax, and watch the soothing tale that I’m sure is at the heart of Death Race 2000. 

Death Race 2000 (1975) Directed by Paul Bartel

Reactions and Analyses:
There was something in the air in the mid-1970s. Part of our QFS discussion about Death Race 2000 (1975) debated what could be the reason for the glut of post-apocalyptic films in the 1970s and into the early 1980s.

The filmmakers of this era grew up as children with memories of the horrors and heroism of World War II and came of age in the Cold War, a time fraught with the very real possibility of global extinction from nuclear weapons. In the 1970s, The studio system no longer had a stranglehold on filmmakers and a parallel film track from auteurs was starting to penetrate the mainstream.

So given some of these conditions, we see films like A Clockwork Orange (1970), Logan’s Run (1976), Soylent Green (1973), Mad Max (1979) and its sequels, Omega Man (1971), Rollerball (1975), Planet of the Apes (though from 1968, the film franchise continues in the ’70s), and perhaps you could argue THX 1138 (1971) and Stalker (1979, QFS No. 25) as well. And of course, Death Race 2000.

The future! New York City in the year 2000 as depicted in Death Race 2000 (1975) in what is in the running for the worst matte painting in history.

Many of those films are attempting to make a commentary about something – overpopulation (Soylent Green), reliance on fossil fuels (Mad Max), nuclear war (Planet of the Apes, presumably and maybe Stalker), totalitarianism (THX 1138).

And then you have commentary on violence in society and our fascination with it (A Clockwork Orange), how we’re inured to it and, in the case of Rollerball and Death Race 2000, how that fascination is literally turned to sport.

How much social commentary Roger Corman and director Paul Bartel are actually interested in is probably very little. The film is perhaps best summarized as one QFS called: the perfect hangover movie to watch after waking up at noon after a night of drinking. This is, of course, high praise.

The premise of the eponymous “death race” is … simple? Simple, but convoluted. Annually, as a way to appease the masses, racers speed across the continent racing from New York to Los Angeles while trying to kill as many people as possible with their vehicles. Killing the elderly or children will give racers the highest number of points. But also – whoever finishes first wins? It’s not entirely clear.

But it really doesn’t have to be. Just take one segment in particular and you can see exactly who this film is intended to reach. After the first day of racing early on in the film, all of the drivers and their navigators (who, we all agreed, are just there to “service” the drivers in all ways practical, emotional, and physical) are naked lying down getting massages. It’s so amazingly gratuitous without really any reason for its inclusion other than attracting the target audience – adolescent males. And given some of the laughable B-movie blood-splattered scenes from the race, it’s almost impossible to refute that the American male ages 16-30 are the ones Corman was after.

Violence and gratuitious nudity. Target audience: American males, 16-30.

Still, the film is engaging even beyond that demographic. The racing sequences, sped up to amply the scenes, are propulsive. Much of the action follows people in motion, the world whipping behind them. The film introduces the drivers in the most efficient manner, almost akin to a video game with each car and its unique killing apparatuses detailed for the viewer. Add to the fact that this was made on a shoestring budget, and it’s quite an achievement in filmmaking.

But with that shoestring budget comes risks. Namely in performances that lack any sort of attachment to reality - what is more simply can be described as “bad acting” – in particular from the supporting cast. But it’s not like David Carradine (as Frankenstein) or Sylvester Stallone (as Machine Gun Joe Viterbo) are lighting up the place with their performances. They don’t have to, of course, but it all contributes to Death Race 2000 feeling more like a product of its time than a trenchant analysis of American society.

Watching Death Race 2000, I was reminded of two movies that are seemingly vastly different from each other. First, The Hunger Games (2012) and its sequels and also Network (1976). The Hunger Games books and film franchise take place in a world in which a deadly game is watched by all in a post-apocalyptic agreement between nations to quell civil war, where teens are sacrificed for the sake of peace and stability. The idea of a violent sport as a way of a nation together after some cataclysm felt very similar to Death Race 2000.

Network explores the line between news and entertainment. There’s an element of watching something horrible on screen – in this case Howard Beale (Peter Finch) having a breakdown on television – and going through with it because the ratings are high and that’s all that matters. There’s something similar in Death Race 2000. Everyone is watching this national event with glee, even actual Nazis cheering an actual Nazi car in front of people in the stands with swastikas on their sleeves.  

Going back to – what are the filmmakers trying to say? At first the film seemed to be a critique against the glorification of violence. Frankenstein wants to abolish the race and return to the rule of law in the country. When he has an opportunity to kill dozens of elderly patients who were about to be euthanized – and thus getting more points – he does not. So this appears to be a point for the idea that violence is not the way or something to that effect.

Frankenstein (David Carradine) and Annie (Simone Griffeth) both want to take down the president and restore order. Or something like that. He also continues to kill people in the car so it’s a muddled message at best.

But what does Frankenstein do instead? Runs over dozens of doctors and nurses! He gets fewer points but he still goes through with killing for the sake of the race. The commentator Grace (Joyce Jameson) defends the action, saying those doctors were smug and they deserved it but the low point total might cost Frankenstein in the long run. Quite the sacrifice!

Obligatory image of the literal hand grenade.

Okay, but then Frankenstein still does intend to change things. How? By using his prosthetic hand grenade (built into his hand!) to kill the president. He ultimately kills him, with the help of Annie (Simone Griffeth). And then, in the coda to the movie, he’s now president (how?) and is about to leave on his honeymoon with Annie. But that annoying announcer Junior (Don Steele) is in the way, so he just runs him over. Presumably, old habits die hard.

So there are logical issues with the underlying desire of the main character. But there are logical issues throughout so this is par for the film. How are they watching all of the races? Why are people taking different routes when they all should take the most direct routes? Why would anyone be out at all on this day knowing they can be killed? Why again do we hate the French? How is Frankenstein president, what kind of succession plan is in the United States of the future?

The answer to all of these questions is – it doesn’t matter. Of course it doesn’t. Or Corman knows that you don’t have to answer every single logic question a movie raises, just as long as you have all the right elements for film. A premise, a world created, and speed to plow through all logic. And, of course, gratuitous nudity and violence. Is Corman criticizing sensationalism by clever use of sensationalism? It’s hard to say and perhaps that’s the lasting genius of Corman’s work in Death Race 2000 and beyond – the ambiguous nature of the theme, but the unambiguous enjoyment of fast cars hurtling across a post-apocalyptic landscape.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

QFS No. 2 - The invitation for May 6, 2020
SR note: Since this was only the second time we had a virtual film chat, the invitation format had not been standardized as this was a novel concept for all of us. Enjoy!
Thank you to all of you who joined our first ever Quarantine Film Society get together last week. It featured filmmakers, filmmaker adjacents, and civilians. It was a lot of fun and technology only failed us (well just me) once.

But it was a success in that we talked about the movie, about filmmaking, and went off topic a reasonable amount of times. So wonderful to see you all who joined – we spanned three time zones!

So this week, let’s pick something perhaps totally opposite from the elegant, graceful, fantastical imperial China depicted in last week’s selection. Since we’re all living in the apocalypse or perhaps the early stages of it, let’s watch something informational and perhaps a little cautionary.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). Yes.

Okay, two confessions: first – I truly love Road Warrior and Mad Max: Fury Road. Second – I have never seen Thunderdome save for a few glimpses on WGN while growing up in Chicago.

As perhaps with you, “thunderdome” is my stand by phrase for anything that has no rules with chaos as its only governing principle and where destruction is the norm. It entered the zeitgeist after this film and entered our collective lexicon even if you haven’t seen the movie.

Related point – if you come to our home you will see that we have our fenced-in children play area in our main room which we have dubbed “Baby Thunderdome.” No holds barred, very few rules and the only directive is “to survive.” So far, both children have. But for how long?

One of my crowning achievements as a parent is to make the term “thunderdome” part of our family’s daily vocabulary. Truly, nothing will top that. It has become canon.

Anyway, I really admire George Miller’s commitment to this kinetic and unflinching version of the apocalypse and I want an excuse to watch it – and to help prepare for our real-world version thereof. And also I’m looking for additional tips to make our baby version of thunderdome approach this on-screen version even more.

So here it is. Join us if this crazy departure is worth your time.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) Directed by George Miller and George Ogilvie

Reactions and Analyses:
Written in December 2023 - In hindsight, this seems like an odd choice for our second film. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is not exactly a work of art that has endured the test of time. (You could argue that The Road Warrior, 1981 and Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015 have.) But in May 2020, it definitely felt like we were on the brink of an apocalypse and, well, let’s prepare ourselves with the insights from a film that shows our possible near-to-distant future.

Why is this film so vastly inferior to its predecessor and its successor? It has the same basic set up and premise as those films do - a single man, in a post-apocalpytic wasteland, looking out only for himself, finds himself bound by his moral code to care about others and to guide them in their quest - despite his desire for solitary survival.

Not knowing anything about the film other than the word “thunderdome” becoming a part of the standard English lexicon and that “thunderdome” appears in the titles, it seemed as if Thunderdome would have a more definitive narrative role in film. The title prepares the viewer to imagine that that Thunderdome will perhaps represent a climactic or thematic aspect of the film. “Fury road” certainly does - a mad escape route, a main thoroughfare literally and figuratively for that Mad Max movie.

But here, Thunderdome happens almost at the beginning of the film. Very early on, Max (Mel Gibson) has to fight in this gladiatorial arena against Master Blaster (Angelo Rositto, Paul Larsson and Stephen Hayes - which is amazing that it took three people to portray this wild creation). Ultimately, Max survives, does not kill Master Blaster, but Aunty (Tina Turner) wins and exiles Max into the Wasteland.

Mad Max (Mel Gibson) swinging through Thunderdome in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) directed by George Miller. The sheer inventiveness of the Thunderdome concept is pretty astonishing and worth examining for its art direction, costume design, special effects and stunt work.

Brief aside about Thunderdome - the set piece is a true stroke of George Miller genius. It’s perfectly conceived, and I mean that in a filmic sense. It’s entirely impractical as a way of adjudicating disputes and is almost illogical in how it could’ve come to be. Setting aside that, it’s a perfect terror-dome by which all other terror-domes are measured - the art design, the filmmaking, the novelty of it - this is all pure Miller.

The rest of the film doesn’t really follow suit, in part because when you showcase your most ingenious idea up front, it’s hard to go anywhere after that. There are exceptions, of course - you could argue that the battle on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back (1981) puts its greatest set piece up front with the battle on the snow planet to start the film. Following that model, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome would have to have its emotional “set piece” at the end. It’s not a film that sets up an emotional set piece, and certainly not in the way The Empire Strikes Back does of course.

The chase sequence on the railroad tracks is also pretty spectacular so there is a companion action piece in the film. But our criticism of the film is certainly not in its action pieces, which remain top notch even when seeing the film thirty-five years after its release.

It’s entirely possible that this film is far too unusual compared to the others in the series. Road Warrior is straightforward in its concept, as is Fury Road, in its basic plot. But the plot in Beyond Thunderdome is convoluted. The film focuses far more on the world created than the plot. So then you’re forced to reckon with how unusual it all is. In that I mean - let’s start with Bartertown. It’s powered by literal pig shit. The Underworld is really a disgusting place that, even now, I’m wincing just picturing it. The interlude of the tribe of children and teenagers is long and trying to be overly sentimental but it’s odd and defies logic. They are descendants of a crashed 747 when the apocalypse began, which is a truly inventive creation - but thinking about it for a few seconds it doesn’t really make sense how they exist. I know that all of the Mad Max films stretch credulity, but there are aspects in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome where the stretch is either a bit too much or there are one too many. Throw in a weak plot, then you have a recipe for a film with astonishing visuals but very little else.

Aunty (Tina Turner) and Max in the Thunderdome. Just give us more Thunderdome, that’s all we want.

I don’t think we gathered valuable insights into what to expect or how to survive our own seemingly inevitable apocalypse by watching this film. Still - no one pictures a post-apocalyptic world as inventively as George Miller. This film reminded us just how difficult it is to create that world and how masterfully he has done it in the other iterations of the Mad Max saga.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

QFS No. 1 - The invitation for April 29, 2020
SR Note: This email invitation contains the QFS origin story - our first ever email sent out to the group that would become Quarantine Film Society. The format became slightly more standardized as we went along. Enjoy.

If you are receiving this this email electronically that means (a) society has not fully collapsed and technology still exists and (b) you have been on the list of our “monthly” gathering in LA, Wednesday Night Film Society. Or (c) you have just now been added to WeNiFiS’ risk-averse cousin …

Quarantine Film Society!

The original premise of WeNiFiS was to get us out of the house to watch a movie in the theater and then talk about it afterwards. A way to see movies in the way they are meant to be seen and also an excuse to hang out in the capital of MovieTown. We watched one (1) film this way in 2020 (Parasite) before the plague stretched across the lands. So alas no more theater outings until the plague subsides. But we can still talk … at least until the virus further mutates and renders us speechless. UNTIL that happens, here’s what I’d like to try for QFS.

I’ll pick a film for you to watch at home or in you bunker. It will either be a film recently released or perhaps we’ll revisit an old classic. It may or may not be a film you have already seen. But that’s okay – revisiting a film is wonderful and I find myself doing that so rarely these days. It’s nice to cook comfort food sometimes while also trying to bake something new. 

Anyway – after I’ve emailed the choice of film, you have essentially a week to watch it at your leisure on whatever streaming service you can find the film (or DVD/BluRay/VHS/16mm if you happen to own it). Then on, at the listed time and date, click on the provided Zoom link and we shall discuss it in a civilized manner at first followed by childish name calling and eventually direct threats.

So think of it as a book club for movie nerds. The Zoom get together will give you an excuse to wear a shirt that day, but depending on the framing of your device you could probably still not wear pants should you so choose. You could also remain intoxicated regardless of framing.

Speaking of – since we won’t be meeting at a bar or restaurant like we usually do after the movie, everyone is encouraged to drink at home and turn the music up a little too loud so you have to lean in to hear each other speak.

ENOUGH WHAT MOVIE ARE WE WATCHING?

Let’s escape the rapidly encroaching walls in the confines of our homes and disappear into - Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000), directed by Ang Lee.

It’s hard to believe it’s been twenty (!) years since Crouching Tiger was in the theater. I saw it in the first few months after I moved to Los Angeles in 2000 at an IFP screening, and have seen it maybe one more time since. Thinking about it feels comforting and appropriately escapist, so I figured now is a good time to revisit it. I’ll say no more if you haven’t seen it so we can discuss then.

I’ll send a reminder and I guess a Zoom link next week some time. Though I’ve never hosted a Zoom meeting so bear with me. Also – this may or may not work but hell, it’s worth giving it a try. At worst, you’ll have put on a shirt that day.

 Stay safe, be well, disinfect everything.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) Directed by Ang Lee.

Reactions and Analyses:
I didn’t write extensive notes during this first discussion, but I’ll reflect on the time and the nature of the get together, as well as some details I remember from that conversation. As part chronicle of our times and part film analysis, this one will lean a bit more into a chronicle of our times.

Zoom was a relatively new tool for many of us. My wife had been using Zoom for a year at this point to communicate with her staff in other cities. I had been on it a few times after everything shut down in mid-March, but mostly to talk with friends about how their lives had changed and what their fears were a few weeks into the shutdown.

Chow Yun-Fat and Michelle Yeoh in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000) Directed by Ang Lee.

I invited people to watch Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000) and to join me on Zoom to discuss. Our turnout was incredible. This was before I kept track of the numbers because I thought I was only going to do this once, but we had I believer more than two dozen filmmakers join the conversation. It’s not just because of the film or anything I did - everyone was yearning for human connection outside of their homes. It was still early and we hadn’t yet paced ourselves or gotten used to being isolated at home.

As for the film - it remains a stunning piece of filmmaking. I had not watched it in many years, but all of it showcases a filmmaker at the very apex of his powers - the cast, the filmmaking craft, the storytelling, the mythology created, it’s all riveting. It feels like a fable, like a tale from antiquity told anew on screen. The fight in the treetops is a masterpiece. Michelle Yeoh (as “Yu Shu Lien”) is as magnetic as ever on screen, as is Chow Yun-fat ("as “Li Mu Bai”), and Zhang Ziyi (as “Jen Yu”) is perfectly cast and her heartbreaking leap at the end is still wrenching to witness.

Jen’s (Zhang Ziyi) leap in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000).

Ang Lee remains one of the filmmakers I most admire. After Life of Pi (2012), an essay he wrote went around about how he nearly left filmmaking early on to get his Masters in computer science or something like that, because he was failing to break through. His wife found his acceptance letter to the program and confronted him, imploring him not to give up on his dreams. He threw away the letter and did just that, to the good fortune of us all. It’s something I think about often that keeps me going as well.

His directing is what I call “invisible.” He tells the story the best way he can with the tools of a filmmaker. He doesn’t have a style that you can point to the way a David Fincher or a Wes Anderson does. For an Ang Lee film, the story comes first - what is the best way to tell this story - the style comes naturally from that.

In addition to that - here’s an Asian filmmaker who has made films that reflect his identity but also others that have nothing to do with being Asian. He directed The Ice Storm (1997) for crying out loud - a film with all white people fraying at the seams. And it’s excellent. He directed a film about two men who love each other in a time when they can’t in Brokeback Mountain (2005) and won an Oscar for directing it. What I mean to say - he’s a filmmaker who is treated as a filmmaker, not an “ethnic” filmmaker. This, to me, is the highest praise for someone like him - and like me. As a South Asian American filmmaker, I always strive to be recognized first and foremost for the quality of my work and not who I am or what I look like. I know that’s true for most all of us, and Ang Lee represents that ideal.

Anyway, we had a fruitful discussion that was a lot of fun and gave me the idea to keep doing it. I had no idea it would continue for years - both the group and COVID. Here’s hoping the group endures longer than the pandemic.