kweejibo stories, November 2012

NOV : La Vie Sans Principe, film: Another Cut from Shortcuts?

(Life without Principle) by Johnny To, 2011 Hong Kong

as seen at MK2 BEAUBOURG, across from the Centre Georges Pompidou

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Life Without Principle

Director Johnny To can borrow from a long line of films who descend from Robert Altman's Shortcuts. Short stories woven loosely together. Some characters from different story-lines bump into each other, just in passing, without necessarily forming some sort of relationship. The separate stories mostly stay separate.

Events from one story may influence another story, but the essential plot lines move along their own pathways, like separate unconnected roads.articles author art journal Book Murakami designer film review movie director actress actor Europe France French Paris street-life fashion photographer show mode models graffiti Haight Japan local magazine manufacture icon literature Group music news performance writing style short story-ies seventies video

When Robert Altman introduced his film Shortcuts in 1993, people were astonished that it had a duration of a complete three hours. Everyone expected to fall asleep during the film. Therefore, when we did not fall asleep, we were terribly excited and impressed. We were all too relieved that we had not slept through an important cinematic event, to analyze too deeply what we had seen. These opinions were repeated so often, that one film reviewer remarked, "I do not know if I want to watch a film in which... the fact that viewers did not fall asleep is the best thing that anyone can find to say about it....!"articles author art journal Book Murakami designer film review movie director actress actor Europe France French Paris street-life fashion photographer show mode models graffiti Haight Japan local magazine manufacture icon literature Group music news performance writing style short story-ies seventies video

However, Shortcuts is indeed much more than a film that distracts you from regarding your eyelids. It is based on a series of nine short stories and a poem by Raymond Carver, skillfully woven together by Altman. Shortcuts is history in the making, as one of the earliest examples of this kind of film, especially on a large box-office level. Shortcuts features an inspired cast including the likes of Julianne Moore, Frances McDormand, Lily Tomlin, Tom Waits, yes..Tom Waits and much much more...sorry for those of you, who were infants at the time. One of a long line in Altman's career of beautifully-managed, big star ensembles*.

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Like a number of films since 1993, La Vie Sans Principe has at least four separate story-lines with a series of coincidental links. A gangster, Frère Panther, steals cash to save his friend, a stockbroker, from financial ruin. Panther steals from the ruthless moneylender who is taking advantage of his friend's desperation for funds. In a separate story, Teresa, a young banker, happens to be holding a large stash of cash as part of a withdrawal by the same ruthless moneylender. He runs out to get more profits and dies in an untimely fashion, before he can fill out all the proper paperwork for the withdrawal. Hmm? Rather naive footwork on the part of said moneylender? Consequently, the banker is able to keep his cash because no one is the wiser. Since, he was a jerk, therefore, that always makes it okay to steal...? To be unscrupulous in turn, en revanche?

There are a few naive story line resolutions here, as well as a bit of jejeune acting, which can be amusing. I enjoy especially a minor character, a young woman who, in her own separate drama, is trying to steal the moneylender's stash of cash. I like it when actors sometimes appear to have escaped from another film; in her case, a possibly high-profile Hong Kong soap opera. However, this does not detract from the fact that Johnny To knows how to move excitement around from one action to another. No desire here to run off and buy peanut M&M's for 5 euros, because I never know what I might miss.

At first, the main driving force here appears to be money, greed...all these events witness the change from traditional business practices in Hong Kong to a hyper speed world of risky stocks and an eventual stock-market crash. The third story is based on a cop whose wife is pushing him to purchase a really nice apartment, which he feels that he cannot afford. articles author art journal Book Murakami designer film review movie director actress actor Europe France French Paris street-life fashion photographer show mode models graffiti Haight Japan local magazine manufacture icon literature Group music news performance writing style short story-ies seventies video

If La Vie Sans Principe is a story of moral parables, one can note that the most scrupulous character is the gangster, Frère Panther, played by Lau Ching-wuan. He makes an interesting study of this character, all twitchy eyes, face and body. The career of this Hong Kong actor is something to watch. Lau Ching-wuan was originally rejected for being, quite frankly, too "ugly" and also rather dark-skinned. Of course, Lau Ching-wuan is now an established Hong Kong actor, who is known for his extreme work ethic and loyalty to the industry that eventually discovered him.

Lau Ching-wuan's Frère Panther is also loyal, even to a fault, an odd genre of knight in a Roundtable** of gangsters. He never wavers from loyalty to his "family". He seems on an endless quest yet again to help a friend, a mafioso who is always in trouble. Panther's affection and devotion to his friends is palpable. He absolutely refuses to take extra cash from his boss, even when offered. He seems pathetic, but is almost the only one in this film who lives up to his own convictions, or who even appears to have a code.

Frère Panther and his compatriots engage in violence, as is the case with most action films. Yet, La Vie Sans Principe avoids the fate of so many action films characters with a lot of guns, where so many faceless people seem to die off with a kind of brutality born of carelessness.