Blade Runner Blade Runner
Sep
13
2006

TIFF Report: Invisible Waves Review

Posted by Todd Brown at 12:10pm.

Posted in Film & DVD Reviews , Drama, Asia, Toronto Film Festival 2006.

invisiblewavesstill.jpg

[TIFF info page here.]

Though it is quite painful to say so Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s Invisible Waves stands as very likely the director’s weakest film to date, and also one of the poorest outings ever from ace cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Reuniting the key cast and crew from Ratanaruang’s much loved Last Life in the Universe - with the notable addition of Gang Hye Jung of Oldboy and Welcome to Dongmakgol fame - Waves aims for a variation on the themes that made Last Life sing but it fails to find the heart that would tie the whole enterprise together.

Tadanobu stars as Kyoji, a Japanese chef employed by a restaurant in Macau where he is having an affair with the boss’ wife. This would likely be cause for trouble on a personal level but nothing hugely life changing if not for the fact that Kyoji’s boss is also a powerful gangster. When the wife ends up dead at Kyoji’s hands he is forced to flee to Phuket in Thailand, a place where he has no personal connections and is forced to rely on underworld connections who may or may not be hostile towards him.

Invisible Waves follows the same sort of rhythmic, drifting path and did Last Life but where that film was filled with a dreamlike grace this one is a much darker, murkier affair filled with gray skies and oppresively run down little rooms. This murky tone is very much captured in the camera work which, in itself, would be a good thing but Doyle takes it to such an extreme, everything bled of color and light, that things become dark and indistinct to the point that many scenes are difficult to make out. It is to such an extreme that it would be nice to put it down to a flawed print or a projector lamp dimmed by age but it appears to have been a fully intentional choice.

On a script level the film simply appears to be a draft or two shy of completion, dialogue sparse and stilted almost to the point of satire, the flaws made more evident by a cast working largely outside of their native languages and uncertain of rhtyhm and pronunciation. In Last Life this struggle for language was a central part of the narrative, a grace note that brought the key relationship to life, but here - with characters who supposedly conduct a great deal of theie daily business in English - performances often feel distractingly clumsy. Asano and Gang, in particular, simply don’t have a strong enough grasp of the language to convey what they needed to in English.

Now, given the overall strength of Ratanaruang and Doyle’s body of work labelling this film a weak entry still leaves plenty of room for positives, and those certainly are present in the dry humor, some truly beautiful images, and particularly Ken Mitsuichi’s performance as a karaoke singing gangster. Weak in this case means disappointing more than bad, a surprising step backwards from one of Thailand’s very finest directors.

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Reader Comments

  1. crazybee 09/13/2006 @ 3:20pm

    I really like this one.

  2. Todd 09/13/2006 @ 3:40pm

    There are parts of it that I really like but it just never quite clicked for me. Maybe on repeat viewing farther down the line ...

    Did you find the cinematography dark, bee? It seriously struck me as bad enough to be a problem with the print or projector but never having seen it elsewhere I’ve got nothing to compare to ...

  3. BtoFu 09/13/2006 @ 4:57pm

    I haven’t enjoyed anything more than this all year..definitely improves with each viewing. I wasn’t expecting something of the same ilk as Last Life outwith the tone and we didn’t get that either. Certainly more morose than the previous outing, but I hovered right along with it and dug it completely.

  4. iamNataku 09/13/2006 @ 5:48pm

    Saw this on the Thai DVD release. Loved it even moreso than Last Life, which says something since Last Life is one of my all-time favorite films (although it was still a bit too “light” for my tastes). As for the cinematography, I’ve always felt that Doyle’s greater strength is in how he handles the camera, not necessarily in the “look” he creates for each film.

    He shoots each scene almost like he’s a naive child trying to understand what going on around him, which I’ll admit is either a strong negative or positive depending on your viewpoint. (I didn’t find the film image dark or murky at all so it might have just been the print you saw.)

    Growing up in a similar coastal setting, the world of Invisible Waves just felt so much more alive and real than Last Life. It’s a slow burner of a film that increases in power after every viewing.

  5. Andy 09/13/2006 @ 7:46pm

    I ordered the thai dvd weeks ago. Still waiting for it...I wanna see this!

  6. crazybee 09/13/2006 @ 9:43pm

    The cinematography is gloomy (to go with the mood), but I didn’t find it so dark that I couldn’t see. Maybe it was the print after all.

    I can see how some may call this a step back for Pen-ek, but I don’t feel that way. It isn’t a step forward either, but rather an extension of the themes and moods of Last Life. In that regard, I personally view it as a sort-of sequel to that film. I love them both!

  7. Applecart 09/13/2006 @ 10:53pm

    where do you guys get the thai dvd? does it have english subtitles? i looked at http://www.ethaicd.com but those discs dont appear to have english subs :(

  8. crazybee 09/14/2006 @ 1:49am

    No subs on the Thai DVD, but the Singapore DVD has them. It can be found on EBay. And yes, it is legit. Anamorphic, English subs, no extras.

  9. Douglas Roy 09/15/2006 @ 4:06am

    Having just watched the Thai DVD I tend to agree with you Todd with the weaker points of this second feature by Ratanaruang. I too felt the film meanders too much away from its plot points along with its meandering camerawork by Christopher Doyle. (The dvd’s image is bright and clear, so it might be the print/projection you witnessed).

    Speaking of photography, on my Thai dvd the nude scenes are optically fogged along with random shots of the gun that Tananodu wields in certain scenes. I might understand the nude scene alterations but what’s up with the guns being optically covered????

    Is this typical of Thai films? Would the subtitled Singapore release be different with regard to this fogging/censorship? I’ll assume the 35mm print shows all.

  10. crazybee 09/15/2006 @ 5:03pm

    It isn’t the director’s second feature though, it’s his fifth.

    And if you have the Thai DVD, there is an option to view the film uncensored. Check “Invisible Scenes” on in the subtitle menu options. The majority of Thai films recently are heavily censored. Usually smoking is blurred, nudity, as well as aiming of weapons at people in close proximity.

    The Singapore DVD release is uncut, and is rated NC-16 there.

  11. gh 04/25/2007 @ 9:19am

    very good

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