Ang Lee

[poliphilo]

Ang Lee is a world maker. You believe in the mythical, medieval China he creates in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; you believe in the Wyoming he creates in Brokeback Mountain. In Ride With the Devil he creates the most convincing account ever of rural America in the Civil War era.

His characters are victims of their place and time. In Crouching Tiger Chow Yun Fat and Michele Yeoh are stifled by the code they live by. It's the same with the two boys in Brokeback Mountain. We, the audience,  can see there's an escape route- that there's nothing absolute about the values that imprison them; they can't.

Lee creates a world. He deconstructs it. You see how it works and how it fails. Running under everything is the implication that people can escape their destiny if they choose. The walls that hem us in aren't real but man-made.  There's something else out there, another reality. All we have to do is go through the gap.

Out of the multiplex into the street.

Zhang Ziyi takes a dive from the walls of the mountaintop fastness, Tobey Maguire walks away from the war, Heath Ledger decides he will go to his daughter's wedding after all.

Comments

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

That's a good description. His earlier, Chinese movies are the same way. (Eat, Drink, Man, Woman and The Wedding Banquet.)

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

i feel that in Brokeback Mountain the walls are real AND man-made. yes, they are stifled by the code they live by, but their only other choice is death-- where would they go and how would they survive if they stepped outside these walls? at best, they'd never be hired by anyone and at worst they'd both wind up like jake gyllenhaal's character. it's also worth nothing that the values that imprison them are also the values that they'd be embracing if they broke free. heath ledger can't quit his children any more than he can quit jake gyllenhaal.