Feature: MIFF Diary, Day 4: On the problem of relating to films
Last week I referred to Straub-Huillet’s Class Relations as a relatable film. However, this idea of “relatability” troubled me yesterday after seeing the terrific film Norwegian Wood, an adaptation of Murakami’s novel by the director Tran Anh Hung. Outside the Greater Union cinemas on Russell Street, I heard two filmgoers dismissing the film (about a 19-year-old’s fraught relationship with two women, something like a Japanese Some Came Running) as a 50-year-old’s attitude to life projected onto a teenager. It brought to mind fellow blogger Thomas Caldwell’s recent negative comments about the film:
I’m not sure whether Norwegian Wood was too weighed down by its literary origins or if Tran was too self-consciously trying to make a worthy art-house film, but I lost interest after the first hour… [T]he long running time and lack of empathetic characters make it increasingly laboured for me.
Here is the question raised by this comment: Are empathetic characters a prerequisite to a good film? In my opinion they are not. In fact, the very idea of “relatability”, our desire for “empathetic” characters always contains a cultural bias. The presumption is that what happens on screen needs to conform to our understanding of the world. The logic is not so far removed from that of a right wing populist politician such as Pauline Hanson calling for more cultural integration by migrants.
Sometimes, it is the film’s need to render its characters empathetic that is most problematic. In Tears of Gaza, for example, we are asked to sympathise with the Palestinian cause by the empathy we feel for little children. One child tells us she wants to become a lawyer to defend her people’s human rights. Another tells us he wants to become a doctor. What this film needed to be a truly honest about the situation was to confront us with a child who expressed a desire to fight the Israelis, to bring vengeance upon them. This kind of unsettling image would be the true test of our sympathies for the Palestinian cause.
Let’s flip the tables here and imagine that the characters on screen are the spectators and we in the audience the characters of some mundane art film. They scrutinise us, have trouble reading our thoughts and motivations. In the end, they judge us and dismiss us as boring, unrealistic and difficult to empathise with. The problem becomes clear here: What if the problem is not a film’s “lack of empathetic characters” but rather the spectator’s lack of empathy? To return to those two people I overheard out on the street, isn’t the problem with their point of view the idea that they could know with certainty what the Japanese experience of young adulthood is? Isn’t there a problem with universalising our own experience and judging films through the narrow prism of our individuality?
This is an issue which may be central to our experience of the Melbourne International Film Festival where many of us are seeing more foreign films, more challenging art films than we are used to seeing the rest of the year round. The choice I see here lies between seeing films as a duty in which we are forced to watch challenging films but retain the freedom to dismiss them with our judgement, and seeing films as an opportunity to broaden the horizons of our understanding and, yes, our empathy.
Today I saw Vera Chytilova’s Fruit of Paradise, a fairly challenging avant-garde retelling of the story of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the garden of Eden. While I can understand how the audience might lose patience with this film which contains no relatable characters, it is nevertheless an impressive film for the way its irreverential manner is elevated to an organising principle (in a similar way to Godard’s Weekend).
Happy Together is an intensely beautiful film by Wong Kar-wai that I have seen several times, a tale about the impossibility of love as experienced by three gay men. There are many things to love about Happy Together—its beautiful photography, its poetic script, its soundtrack, that shot of the waterfall—but most pertinent to today’s discussion is how it insists on the instability of romantic relations. We aren’t given a happy bourgeois couple that we can identify with. Love is always going somewhere and can’t be pinned down.
I finished my night with Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins, an excellent and very fun samurai film. What struck me in the superbly choreographed final battle was the way it played with the notion of relatability. While we are in no doubt as to who the villain of the film is throughout the film, when it comes to two men crossing swords, each death is about as heroic and pathetic as every other.
FILMS WATCHED:
- Norwegian Wood — Tran Anh Hung
- Fruit of Paradise — Vera Chytilová
- Happy Together — Wong Kar-wai
- 13 Assassins — Takashi Miike
PREVIOUS DIARY ENTRIES:
- Day 1: Drinking games, anticipation
- Day 2: On the value of film festivals, love, outcasts
- Day 3: The indignities of employment, the importance of caffeine
Michael
25/07/11 - 3:25 PM
Great write-up. I love your take on films being ‘relatable’ and audience member’s capacity for empathy. I saw A Separation last night, one of the most emotionally harrowing movies I’ve ever experienced, and I was amazed at how many in the audience couldn’t resist chuckling at little cultural differences throughout. I find that an odd reaction in the context of an international film festival I have to say.
I hope you review A Separation, it was an amazing film if a little hard to sit through. I also hope you see Tuesday, After Christmas, which is a truly remarkable relationship drama, as intimately observed as any film I’ve ever seen.
Yosh
25/07/11 - 7:54 PM
Speaking as someone who likes relatable characters, I think the comparison with Pauline Hanson is going a bit far. I agree that the desire for narrowly-defined ‘empathetic’ (or should we simply say ‘virtuous’?) characters is limiting and close-minded, but to ‘broaden the horizons’ of our empathy still implies a relationship with characters who are, by definition, empathetic, albeit unfamiliar or challenging. (Which is not to say I think a good film *needs* empathetic characters … that’s just what I happen to like!)
For instance, ‘Downfall’ expanded the horizon of my understanding by allowing me to empathise with Hitler and his goons.
Hmm … did I just violate Godwin’s Law?
Ani
25/07/11 - 9:45 PM
Too bad. The book is much more… ‘relatable’, and a beautiful emotional gallop. This movie, however, left me cringing at the back of the theatre.. I gave up my seat to a latecomer (being a friendly volunteer) and I was glad to. As much as I wanted to watch the whole film, I just couldn’t stand how much all the moments felt devoid of the feelings I gathered from the book. It was very disjointed too.. But the colours and the scenes art were a treat -_-
goran
26/07/11 - 12:02 AM
I wouldn’t say empathetic characters are a prerequisite for good cinema, but compelling characters are. All other reviews led me to believe that Norwegian Wood featured neither. (And during MIFF season, I just can’t afford to commit to a 2hr+ title that’s been getting such violent reviews.)
Brad Nguyen
26/07/11 - 12:16 AM
Hi Ani, thanks for commenting. I felt that the whole film was shot through with emotion, it just didn’t register as obvious actorly gestures. I actually haven’t read the book but I imagine from what I have read of his books that he would be quite straightforward about describing the characters’ inner life. This is the advantage of literature. In the film though, there is so much emotion but it is expressed in utterly cinematic ways. This goes to that whole pickle of how to judge film versus how to judge literature.
Brad Nguyen
26/07/11 - 12:22 AM
Goran — For the purposes of my argument, using “compelling characters” as the reference point for a good film presents just as much of a problem as using the term “relatable characters”. Isn’t what we find “compelling” a socially/culturally determined phenomenon? Are we out of compassion for non-compelling characters?
I’m not coming down on any side of the fence as to whether the characters of Norwegian Wood are compelling or not. But even if they are “uncompelling characters”, their story is definitely presented in a compelling way and this is what makes it a good film.
James R Douglas
26/07/11 - 12:23 AM
That’s a nice little thought about relatability in 13 Assassins.
I was struck my a similar issue during that final battle as well. The good and evil of the characters is largely defined by their posturing on the issue of violence; the rigid ‘honour’ of the samurai versus the maniacal cruelty of Naritsugu. But by the end of the film, when they’re all in the shit together, their putatively opposed temperaments have blurred. Naritsugu sees, in his own inimical way, the joys of the samurai’s path, while they in turn are become avatars of slaughter.
Brad Nguyen
26/07/11 - 12:27 AM
Yosh — I don’t mean “relatable” as in “virtuous”. I mean “relatable” as in fitting into the Australian/Western idea of how humans behave.
Also, I’m not suggesting that people demanding relatable characters (as I’ve just defined them) in films are racists like Pauline Hanson. But the same logic is at work i.e. using one’s specific cultural values as the centre around which judgement is dispensed.
Thomas Caldwell
26/07/11 - 4:50 AM
I don’t think empathetic characters are a prerequisite to a good film. Of course they aren’t. However, in the specific case of Norwegian Wood it just happened to be that the lack of empathetic characters AND the long running time were the main things that prevented me from engaging with it in the end. There were other reasons too, but since that was more of a capsule review (which wasn’t all negative) I just wanted to mention the main points.
Yosh
26/07/11 - 7:57 AM
I’m still uneasy about the Hanson comparison. I guess in my experience I can’t *not* use my own cultural values as a starting point, as the backdrop to my experience of a new text. I don’t experience texts in a vacuum. So in that sense I feel my own values are the centre of my experience as an audience member. But I don’t think that is the same as applying those values rigidly, rejecting anything alien, etc. I try to be open-minded. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a default position.
Brad Nguyen
26/07/11 - 11:27 AM
Yosh, I agree with you. I’m arguing against the rigidity you mention and in favour of a level of humility in spectatorship.
Brad Nguyen
26/07/11 - 11:31 AM
Thomas — I don’t have any issue with the fact that you didn’t like Norwegian Wood. What I am questioning is the premise of your judgement: that the film is “laboured” because you spent too much time with characters you didn’t empathise with.
rob
26/07/11 - 12:19 PM
Great article, the one thing that annoys me the most at MIFF is the film snobbery, it’s almost like most people who see the more ‘arthouse’ films prefer to hate on them rather than like them because that seems the ‘cooler’ or more educated thing to do. Being a critic doesn’t mean you know anything about film, it’s far easier to write a review dismissing something than liking it -and people far often comment when they feel negative instead of when they feel positive about something.
Micaela
26/07/11 - 12:21 PM
Beautiful commentary brad. Would love to talk to you about tears of Gaza: really a missed opportunity but for more reasons than you’d time to cite.
Kate
26/07/11 - 12:42 PM
I really enjoyed reading your thoughts on Norwegian Wood Brad. I adore the book, and while reading it, thought it would make a beautiful film, but one that would be difficult to pull off because it is all about our complex perceptions of the feelings we experience with others, what constitutes love and how we connect. Love being one of the experiences in life that is the most difficult and challenging for us to understand or control. Its all about empathy and isolation. I read it while living in Japan, a country were I’ve heard many pushy foreigners critise the Japanese for being emotionless, detached, humorless, when in fact they are anything but. The culture just means they express themselves differently to what we expect, they are highly sensitized people that tend to observe rather than judge experience. On the other hand harsh judgement, and lack of ability to absorb the subtly of our experience with others is why I found Thomas Cardwell’s review so predictably shallow and Australia. This country is great at cruelly bludgeoning anyone who tries to express anything of gentleness. Maybe that’s why our own films are soaked in harsh violence and high drama… that to me is the truly boring stuff, because it gives us nothing of the heart.
Thomas Caldwell
26/07/11 - 2:15 PM
But I didn’t dislike it Brad. If I had to commit to a like/dislike position of sorts then I guess I can say I was sympathetically indifferent. Does that work?
In this one specific isolated case, losing interest in the characters was one of the reasons I didn’t embrace the film in the end, despite still liking many other aspects of the film up until a point. Perhaps ‘empathetic’ was simply the wrong word for me to use. I’m happy to concede that.
Regardless, it’s an interesting issue that you’ve brought up and I think audiences who only see films with characters they can personally relate to will miss out on a lot of fantastic cinema. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than only seeing films that confirm my immediate understanding of the world.
Brad Nguyen
26/07/11 - 3:52 PM
Kate – Totally agree with you about the difficulty foreigners have in understanding how the Japanese express themselves. For a film directed by a non-Japanese person, I found the film to be really excellent at capturing the nuances of Japanese communication.
Brad Nguyen
26/07/11 - 3:58 PM
Thomas – Again, I’m not at all interested in whether you did or did not like the film or were “sympathetically indifferent” to it. The point I’m making is one of language, about how our inability to engage with a film immediately produces the conclusion that there is something wrong with the film rather than acknowledging there simply being a gap between one’s self and the film that requires work to overcome.
Thomas Caldwell
26/07/11 - 5:00 PM
OK Brad, but I think you’ve misrepresented me in the way you’ve selectively quoted what I wrote and the way you’ve commented on it.
My response to this film was a personal one as part of the blog-a-thon, rather than an actual review, where I deliberately wrote in the first person to explain why I didn’t connect with the film, rather than make a definitive value statement about its overall worth.
I do think you’ve raised some interesting ideas here that are worth exploring, but I won’t engage further for now. I’m glad you got what you did from the film and maybe one day I’ll re-evaluate it for myself.
Fiona
26/07/11 - 8:29 PM
Michael- I’m really confused by your comment about A Separation. I chuckled in parts but it wasn’t because I was culturally insensitive to the film. In fact, I found that one of the strengths of the film was it’s ability to transcend cultural boundaries through humor. Of course, it is also a very serious film dealing with complex issues concerning law and expression. Unfortunately, one part in the film that had me lost was the conversation between father and daughter about Old Persian.
Jack. H
27/07/11 - 12:50 AM
Brad, I’m not sure which I find more disconcerting here, the casual manner in which you’ve cast aside any ethical responsibility towards another author’s work by deliberately omitting a key aspect of their argument. As Caldwell states in his article:
“…It does contain several wonderful moments, especially when the music and cinematography blend together to evoke memory…”
Or the blunt refusal to engage this qualifying statement (in spite that critic’s repeated assertion in these comments that he didn’t dislike the film), for the purposes of your own reductive argument.
Or most problematically, that you’ve done so in response to the issue of a film audience’s (or dare I suggest it, a reader/writer’s) “lack of empathy”. Maybe your next piece could be a self-examination on the critic and empathy, since that is what seems to be lacking in your approach to this piece.
Unless of course (to borrow your analogy) those particular tables are ones you’re not comfortable having turned?
Brad Nguyen
27/07/11 - 1:04 AM
No need to be disconcerted Jack, for I did not attack Thomas for not being able to say anything nice about the film. I of course will concede that he said something nice about the film. But I am more interested in the structure of the sentence that links a lack of empathetic characters with a statement that the film is therefore laboured. This article is about the premise of that sentence, not about Thomas’s position on Norwegian Wood.
But what do you find problematic about me discussing lack of empathy in the audience? (Note: This was not a general observation. I’m merely pointing out that this is the obverse of the statement “I can’t relate to the characters therefore I am bored.) Is your problem with this article that I seemingly hypocritically lack empathy for people’s lack of empathy?
Brad Nguyen
27/07/11 - 1:18 AM
Jack – So yeah, I just think that “qualifying statement” doesn’t resolve the problems of the sentence I was pre-occupied with. Let’s imagine an anti-Semite who says, “Jews are stingy but they make good bagels”. The second half of the sentence doesn’t lessen the problem of the first half. If someone complained after hearing this sentence, it wouldn’t be satisfying to hear, “BUT I LIKE THEIR BAGELS!”
Jack. H
27/07/11 - 10:25 AM
Brad, your refusal/inability to acknowledge the ethical shortcomings of your approach (do you seriously think it is acceptable to omit significant portions of someone’s argument without contextualisation simply to service your own – and no, ‘I was only interested in one part of their sentence’ is a ludicrous justification) and your adolescent reduction of debate into spurious claims regarding One Nation or antisemitism (issues which have nothing to do with the example being discussed) demonstrates a clear lack of empathy (for the work of others) and cuts to the heart of the point I was making.
According to your logic it would be acceptable for someone to write an article citing your above comment and to claim that, Brad Nguyen declares that, “Jews are stingy”.
For the record, I have no problem with your position on the empathetic identification with screen characters but your careless (and counter-intuitive) approach.
Brad Nguyen
27/07/11 - 10:47 AM
You didn’t really follow my logic, Jack. My point was if someone makes two mutually exclusive claims, one claim is not going to relevantly effect the other. The problem with your example is that I never claimed that Jews were stingy. That is a flat out lie. Thomas did actually claim that a lack of empathetic characters made the film laboured for him.
Methinks you are being too defensive on Thomas’s behalf. This article isn’t really about him, nor is it an indepth analysis of his article. Read the article again and you will see I make a mere passing reference to him. Apologies if I have hurt your feelings, but everything I’ve written above is sincere. If quoting only a part of someone else’s work is unethical I apologise for that too.
Kate
27/07/11 - 4:22 PM
Gee, it’s quite amazing to see people jumping to Thomas’s defence just because Brad has brought attention to the fact that he quite obviously didn’t like the film. There is nothing unethical about that Jack. It’s a discussion. Seems you struck a raw nerve Brad. I find it interesting that people choose to focus on a trivial defensive argument, rather than on the layers of meaning in the film. The fact people don’t like it, or are bored, without being able to clearly articulate why is the sign of powerful work of art triggering deep reactions. Boredom usually meaning we are uncomfortable facing something, which seems to be a plague in our current times, with our planet and the human race facing unprecedented challenges. Depression is epidemic, and empathy stifled as no one wants to acknowledge that this is a perfectly natural human response to the overwhelming challenges we face. I managed to get a ticket to the Forum screening last night and loved every moment of it. Tran Anh Hung, has handled one of the worlds most well loved modern stories with great sensitivity, intelligence and heart.
jessie
03/08/11 - 2:14 PM
There is nothing remotely new or interesting about the idea that Brad is proposing here. The frisson emerges from his decision to propel it from a veiled barb shot in the direction of a fellow critic. Last year Brad criticised MIFF, this year he is sponsored by them. This year Brad criticised his fellow critics, next year he will be one.
Brad Nguyen
03/08/11 - 2:30 PM
Yes Jessie, I’m criticising Thomas Caldwell so that I might one day write for the hallowed pages of Caldwell’s personal blog, Cinema Autopsy! Your powers of deduction are outstanding.
Brad Nguyen
03/08/11 - 2:32 PM
Your facts are wrong by the way. It is Lauren Bliss who wrote last year’s article criticising MIFF’s lack of support for intellectual discourse. She is not, as far as I know, working for MIFF this year in any capacity.
jessie
03/08/11 - 3:43 PM
You published it.
Obviously you wouldn’t want to write for Thomas’s personal blog- after all, you have an “online film journal”.