Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Election / Hak se wui / Hong Kong / 2005

The absence of guns and the low-key realist tone of this Hong Kong triad movie offer something of a novelty, but the whole effect is curiously uninvolving — with the sole exception of the really powerful scene where a young boy sits in the family car knowing his father is out killing Aunty in the woods. Even more curious is the host of awards (best picture etc) that this film picked up in Hong Kong and Taiwan last year. Must have been an off year.

by Ian Johnston | Source: Group Power Workshop DVD
08 Oct 2006 10:19 AM | Comments (11)

Comments / 11 total / Submit Comment

1. Edwin / 11 October 2006 / 5:06 PM

   Talk about missing the point!

   You see this film as a “novelty”, possibly because you fail to see that Election is perhaps the finest cinematic polemic about the democratic system in Hong Kong.

   In revealing with menacing detail the rites and customs of some of the oldest Triad traditions in existence. Johnny To poses to us a scathing analogy between the gangster tradition and the electoral system in place in Hong Kong.

   In a part of the world where democracy is hanging in the balance, and the 50 year rule ticks along in unrelenting fashion – this film offers a frighteningly honest and important commentary of how power struggles are universal.

   I would argue that it warrants comparison with Orwell’s most famous polemic of revolutionary Russia, Animal Farm.

   The sequel is no less breathtaking too.

2. Ian / 11 October 2006 / 7:57 PM / URL

   Well yes, the political allegory is an interesting added layer, but hardly the “point” of the whole movie. (And aren’t the detailed election rituals the triads go through pointing to their relative absence in Hong Kong, rather than drawing an analogy of equivalence?) And you can read any HK triad movie as being about the universality of power struggles; Election’s distinction is that it is rawer, more direct, and less romanticised about it. But in the end, what you found breathtaking, I found dull and a little tedious.

3. Chiranjit / 11 October 2006 / 11:18 PM / URL

   Actually from what I’ve read and heard about the two films (I couldn’t attend the screening at the TIFF), including some reviews and interviews, it does seem that To & Co. were attempting to make the political allegory the main focus of the two films.

4. Conor / 12 October 2006 / 3:28 AM

   caca. it’s art. movies don’t offer enough time to really change things.life imitates art and not the other way around. any allegory in a prestigious new film would take yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeears to develop in to a political action. To & Co. may even be avant-garde but the question remains, for what? for who? Maybe i don’t know what the fuck i’m saying but at least admit that all the time in the world would not make this film a sucessful political allegory. sure it might warm the cockles of some clever hong kong workers but it could not possibly alter their behavior faced with a fucking democratic election. maybe in 2067. but in that case their would have to be some serious dignification of what looks to me like a movie about the complexities of voting! but then novelties are a dish best served frozen.

5. leo / 12 October 2006 / 9:20 AM / URL

   I’ve only seen the sequel (and what timing!), but in that film at least, Hong Kong’s political environment is important, but does not seem to figure in the film in any allegorical sense. If anything, To seems to want to document the changing face of Hong Kong organized crime in the wake of the handover. He does not seem to be analogizing them; indeed, he seems to be placing them in opposition to one another (cf. the final scene between Jimmy and the Chinese Security Bureau Chief).

6. Chiranjit / 12 October 2006 / 1:03 PM / URL

   Well, I’m not really speculating on whether or not To is successful in making his allegory, since I haven’t seen the films yet. I’m just saying that, based upon what I’ve read and heard, he is at least attempting to make some type of political allegory. As far as how time effects To’s ability to make a successful political allegory, I’m not really in a position to admit anything, one way or the other, considering I still haven’t viewed either film, so I’m unaware whether or not To is able to accurately mirror his society’s political conditions.

   I’m also not really too sure why someone couldn’t make a film (art) that reflects the current political climate of his culture (life), considering there are a considerable number of classic films that used the McCarthy hearings as a subtext for their narratives.

7. Conor / 12 October 2006 / 5:29 PM

   istudied the handover. i wrote a white paper for the new york bar association regarding sedition in the press. basically they were trying to free up the new vacuum. i think they didn’t need new york’s help. (but then i was working under the auspices of a jesuit school at the time). i also discussd the handover with my friend jeff at vassar. there had been a writeup in newsweek. anyway, and forgive me if i am going on here like i am on the radio, all’s i’m saying is it takes time to make a true allegory in a democracy. there is no way the subtext was evident in the mccarthy hearing pictures. in the mccarthy hearings, probably were. but let’s step back. look at the academic trends of the 1960s and the intellectual scene. subtext was not exactly a full-fledged animal at that time. as far as i know, from my poor library, comparative literature and new criticism were ruling the classrooms. were there film schools, cinema degrees (sounds funny) back then? thank god, colleges started accepting women and around that time things like subtext and context and interdisciplinary studies arose from the great campuses. so suppressed for so long. these movies are great but they need time to grow and become old in the context of all the whimsical shit that this country (usa) has produced. who knows? maybe straight to dvd will burn outt the star system. but novelties like cinema and tv only come once every hundred years or so.

8. Chiranjit / 12 October 2006 / 8:12 PM / URL

   I’m sure there was a lack of adequate development of academic theory regarding subtext during the period in which the McCarthy hearing took place, and I agree that such a deficiency probably hindered a proper immediate interpretation by the scholars and critics of the era in regards to the subtext within some of the films that attempted to use the issues that arose during hearings as a catalyst for their own narratives.

   However, I’m not really too sure how either obstacle precludes a modern day filmmaker from creating a political allegory about contemporary society. Now that proper study of subtext within film has taken place, we are not prevented from recognizing to use of subtext in modern films. Perhaps the distance granted by time helps us to see allegories and narrative metaphor more precisely in certain films, but every film is its own animal in some sense. Subtext can be crystal clear in some films, while murky and problematic in others, but the recognition of such tactics by the viewer is another issue. There were a few critics that claimed The Wild Bunch to be a metaphor for the Vietnam War within a few months of the film’s release based on the subtext they perceived at the time. I can’t really claim them to be incorrect simply because they hadn’t allowed an adequate period of time to pass before making their assertion.

   Film is not the ideal medium to criticize the latest issues that arise within a society, simply because it’s not dynamic enough to react to the news-of-the-day due to the time required for production. However, for lingering issues within a society that persist over time, I don’t really see why the medium of film cannot address a topic of importance within a society, either directly or smuggled into its story.

9. Conor / 13 October 2006 / 1:38 AM

   third try’s a charm. to open an allegory—or anything—you need a smooth device with which to enclose it. to & co. cannot presume to make this device after they have wrapped their film in a camera directed at organized crime. they might try but the result is problematic. because how can you tell people how to watch a movie when the subject matter is crime or the criminal justice system. needless to say any idiot with a movie camera can make a great document of what he prefers. but piling the end of the opening or the beginning of the opening with propaganda will not necessarily make the entire vehicle grow (go?) in the indicated direction.

   i think a filmmaker can make a documentary or even a mockumentary about exactly what needs to be said in a hermeneutically coordinated or contemporary way. when i saw fahrenheit 9/11 i pulled my riches from citibank. but even documentary emulses the eye with its violent facts which blind the eye to the aesthetics (read: space and time ideas) of constitutional importance. and when was the last time someone uttered the word media in a movie. look at michael moore. ain’t we lucky we got him.

10. Chiranjit / 13 October 2006 / 8:03 AM / URL

    Perhaps a “smooth device with which to enclose [an allegory]” results is a more easily identifiable allegory by allowing a clear parallel, but I don’t think this is a firm criterion that a filmmaker must follow. Such a condition probably aides a viewer’s immediate appreciation and thus could be considered to be a “better” method of creating allegory, but I’m not ready to declare it a firm rule for filmmaking.

    I also doubt that To is requiring his viewers to only interpret his movie as a political allegory, as if there is only one way in which to view these two films. So I don’t believe To is telling his audience exactly how to watch his movie, while dismissing every other interpretation. I’m simply saying that his placement of a political allegory within these films appears to be a deliberate decision on his part based on what I’ve read about the films, but I doubt he believes that such an inclusion means that the political allegory must take precedence over every other aspect of the film. Perhaps To didn’t create a particularly successful political allegory, but that doesn’t mean a problematic allegory must be dismissed entirely.

11. edwinhmak@gmail.com / 25 October 2006 / 4:50 PM

    Political allegory in art is almost an exercise in intellectual vanity in a free and democratic society. In China and other societies where freedom of speech and mass dessemination of criticism is outlawed, it is a lifeline.

    The sequence in the sequel, which Leo identifies, is everything but an actual punch in the face to the whole governing body.

    Please watch both these films.