ECLIPSES (2012, Daniel Hui, Singapore, A+30)
The reasons why ECLIPSES is my most favorite film I have seen so
far in 2013 include:
1.I just feel that the wavelength of this film suits me very well.
Hahaha. It is very difficult to explain about this topic—the wavelengths of
films. But sometimes when I see a film, and the film unexplainably makes me
feel very great, I think it is because the wavelength of that film matches the
wavelength of my own. ECLIPSES is one of the films that make me feel that way.
I’m not sure why almost all the scenes in this film make me feel very
great. I love the scene in which we see
the heroine (the grieving woman) descending a stair. I love the scene in which
we see the blurry figure of the old man coming out of a toilet. These scenes
make me feel very great or make me feel sublime, and I’m not sure why. Maybe it
has something to do with my subconscious.
It is certain that the wavelength of each viewer is different from
one another, so each viewer is unexplainably impressed by different films.
2.There’s a scene in ECLIPSES which unexplainably makes me cry.
It’s a long scene in the early part of the film in which the heroine takes a
train. I don’t know why this scene makes me cry. I don’t think the director
intends to make the audience cry for this scene. I just know that this scene
attacks me very forcefully. This scene inspires me to imagine about the grief
of the heroine, the sadness of a woman who has lost her dear husband
prematurely, or imagine about other kinds of sadness, the sadness of an
ordinary person who must try to live on no matter how much grief he/she has
inside. This person must go to another place in order to perform his/her daily
tasks. She must go on living. Persons who are close to her also must go on
living. The train keeps moving on, and will keep moving on no matter how
sorrowful any passengers may feel.
What I’m interested in this scene includes the fact that this scene
doesn’t show the sadness directly. I just imagine the grief of the heroine by
myself. I feel very much involved in this imagined grief. I can’t stop this
feeling, and ultimately cry for this scene. I’m sure there are many viewers who
don’t feel anything for this scene. This scene just touches me personally, and
I am not sure why this scene can overwhelm me like this.
Maybe one of the reasons is because this scene reminds me of
myself. When I saw the heroine in this scene, it reminded me of myself when I
took a skytrain in Bangkok. When I take a skytrain, I may think about many
things or may have some strong feelings inside, but I don’t show them on my face.
Sometimes when I take a skytrain, I may feel extremely sad, may be
contemplating suicide, may be in great despair, may feel a lot of hatred for somebody,
or may be in great joy, but I don’t express these feelings verbally, because I
don’t talk to myself on the skytrain. Hahaha. I also don’t express these
feelings on my face on the skytrain. I suppress these feelings and show a calm
face, no matter how strong the feelings I have inside.
Thus when I saw the heroine of ECLIPSES in this scene, it reminded
me of myself. It makes me think about the conflict between “what you see on the
face of a person” and “what that person actually feels”. That’s why I like this
scene very much, because it allows me to imagine about the grief of the
heroine. This kind of scenes is rare, because most films like to show the grief
of the characters explicitly. Most films also don’t have a scene which can
inspire my imagination like this.
(While ECLIPSES unintentionally makes me cry, my second most
favorite film of the year 2013, which is A HARDSHIP OF A LAMP, TRYING TO BE
LIKE THE SUN (2013, Thanapruet Prayoonphrom, 63.53min), unintentionally makes me cry, too. This Thai
film makes me cry for the dialogue of the hero in the last scene of the film,
and the slow fading to black at the end of the film. There are some
similarities and differences between ECLIPSES and this Thai film. I will write
about them later.)
ECLIPSES also reminds me of another Thai film that I like very much,
This film is RAW SILK COCOON, SIAM, SAD BANYAN TREE (2013, Teeranit Siangsanoh,
38min), because RAW SILK COCOON unintentionally inspires me to imagine about
the grief of some characters, and makes me cry a lot for this imagined grief,
too. These two films have the same kind of effects on me. RAW SILK COCOON shows
us some labourers who are doing their jobs and walking around, and focuses on a
beggar who plays a violin for the song “SAD BANYAN TREE”. This film doesn’t
show a glimpse of sadness of these labourers and the beggar, but this film
unexplainably inspires me to imagine about the hardship in the lives of these
people and how they might feel about their lives in this indifferent capitalist
city of Bangkok. This film doesn’t give any information about the labourers and
the beggar. Contrary to what I imagine, these people may not feel sad at all.
But I couldn’t stop the tide of sad feelings inside me which was caused by my
own imagination, and that’s why I cried a lot for RAW SILK COCOON.
In conclusion, both ECLIPSES and “RAW SILK COCOON, SIAM, SAD BANYAN
TREE” make me cry, because both films unintentionally arouse me to imagine
about the grief of the characters. These imagined griefs are very powerful for
me, much more powerful than the griefs which really exist or are shown explicitly
in other films.
3.ECLIPSES belongs to a group of films which I like very much. I
always like films which show that “each character has some strong feelings
inside, including some frustration, some anger which is difficult to express.
Each character has his own problems. Each suffers in his own way. Each
character lives his own life. Each character’s life does not exist just to “support”
the main characters. Each character has a full life of his own.”
ECLIPSES belongs to this group of films, because ECLIPSES does not focus
solely on the grief of the heroine, unlike such films as RABBIT HOLE (2010,
John Cameron Mitchell). ECLIPSES shows that no matter how sorrowful the heroine
may feel, other persons around her still live their own lives. Their lives don’t
exist just to support the importance of the life of the heroine. These persons
have their own lives, have their own sorrow. Some of them may have even
experienced more sadness than the heroine, or have experienced much more
difficulty in their lives than the heroine.
That’s why I like the way ECLIPSES treats people who appear in the
film. While ECLIPSES inspires me to imagine about the grief of the heroine (by
not showing the grief straightforwardly), ECLIPSES also shows me that no matter
how sorrowful the heroine may feel, she is not a special person. She is just an
ordinary person like everybody else. And some other ordinary persons may have
sadder stories to tell, or their lives may even be much more interesting than
the heroine’s life.
ECLIPSES reminds me of another film which I like very much, which
is BUNNY (2000, Mia Trachinger). BUNNY presents a sad life of the heroine, and
I cried a bucketful of tears for her sad life. But BUNNY also shows us that the
heroine is not the only person who has a sad life, because there are many
characters in BUNNY who have sad lives, too.
4.I like the fact that ECLIPSES focuses on daily lives of some
people, or lets us see things which seem to be insignificant, or things which
are likely to be overlooked or deleted from other films. For example,
4.1 The lives of some people who work in a school canteen, and the
atmosphere of this canteen
4.2 The work of a maid and her singing
4.3 The scene in which a middle-aged woman elaborates on a pension
fund or a stock fund, which seems to be an important thing in the life of this
woman.
I like the inclusion of this scene in ECLIPSES. In other films,
scenes about a financial topic like this are usually included because “the
scenes are important to the story, or will lead to other events in the film
which will alter the lives of the characters”, such as in LIFE WITHOUT
PRINCIPLE (2011, Johnnie To). But in ECLIPSES, this scene and some other scenes
are included, not because they are important to “the story”, but because they
present “an aspect in the life of a person,” and that reason alone is enough to
make it worthy to be presented in the film. We don’t have to create “a story”
to support the showing of that aspect of life. We don’t have to overemphasize
or exaggerate that aspect in the life of a person. We just present it as it is.
4.4 If I remember it correctly, there is one scene in the film in
which we see a character moves out of the frame, but the camera still keeps
rolling on, and we see an unknown woman walks into the frame to buy something
in a market, and the camera keeps on recording this activity for a short while.
I like this kind of scenes very much. It reminds me of films made
by Teeranit Siangsanoh, who is one of my most favorite directors. Teeranit
likes to record “daily lives of unknown ordinary people” in his films. His
films are full of scenes like this: scenes which tell no story, scenes which
seem to present nothing significant at all. We see unknown ordinary people
perform some daily tasks in his films. But somehow Teeranit can create an
overwhelmingly poetic experience out of these scenes. ECLIPSES has roughly this
same kind of effect on me, too.
This scene in ECLIPSES also reminds me of A HARDSHIP OF A LAMP,
TRYING TO BE LIKE THE SUN, because in A HARDSHIP OF A LAMP, which presents the
hardship in the life of the protagonist named Bew, and which employs long shot
in many scenes, we often see “unknown ordinary people” walking into and out of
the frame in front of a 7-eleven shop. These ordinary people appearing on the
screen are living their daily lives. We see these unknown people living their
lives no matter how much sorrowful or joyful Bew might feel in the same scene.
Even though Bew’s dreams are shattered in the scene, we still see these unknown
ordinary people living their own lives. They still keep on going to buy
something at 7-eleven, because they have the lives of their own. Their lives do
not exist just to be “supporting characters” for Bew.
That’s why I think my most favorite film of the year (ECLIPSES) and
my second most favorite film of the year (A HARDSHIP OF A LAMP, TRYING TO BE
LIKE THE SUN) so far have something in common. Both of them presents the
sadness of the main character, but also shows us that people who are around
this main character have the lives of their own. The life of the main character
is not the center of the universe in which other characters must revolve
around. The differences between these two films are the methods they use.
ECLIPSES shows us the interesting lives of other characters by using extreme
close up and monologues. A HARDSHIP OF A LAMP, TRYING TO BE LIKE THE SUN uses
long shots in which the main character doesn’t occupy large space in the frame,
but occupies as small space as other characters.
5.I like the monologues in ECLIPSES very much, including the
monologue of a man from Bangladesh who talks about his life, the monologue of
the old man who talks about his life, the monologue of the heroine, and the
monologue of the middle-aged woman. The monologues of these two female
characters remind me of some writing in stream-of-consciousness style. I think
all of these monologues are very powerful. I feel as if the person who talks in
each of these scenes sends some powerful feelings towards me directly. At first
I intended to go to see this film for the second time in the festival, partly
because I wanted to remember more details in these monologues, but
unfortunately I got sick and couldn’t go to see it for the second time.
The monologues of the old man and the man from Bangladesh impress
me in the same way as the film MODERN LIFE (2008, Raymond Depardon). Because I
think that the monologues in ECLIPSES and the interviews in MODERN LIFE can capture
“the souls” of the interviewees very powerfully. This is in contrast to some
documentaries in which the interviewer can only get “the information” from the
interviewees. MODERN LIFE and ECLIPSES are extraordinary, because what they
present is not only the information, but the souls of the persons.
If I have to screen ECLIPSES with another film, I may choose to
screen it together with MARITIME (2012, Dean Kavanagh, Ireland, 12min).
MARITIME seems to show a small moment in the life of a man, but somehow the
film can give me an extremely sublime feeling or some powerful indescribable
feelings. This indescribable quality, this focus on daily or mundane activities,
and this baring of the soul of the character are the reasons why I would like
to show these two masterpieces together.