After my biggest source of nervousness (the screening I attended with O) was over, I felt like I had much more energy to devote to my own screenings of the Berlinale, so I decided to go to this horribly late screening which I had been unsure about all week. It started at 10.45pm but at least the trains were running all night on a Friday so I was able to take the train all the way back home and get there by 2am. Could be worse!
Nevertheless, from my previous experiences I knew that by 10.30pm I was typically so tired that I was waiting for the screening to end and be able to get home (which was usually the last half hour of a film). Apart from the unusually late start time, the film was also extraordinarily sleep-inducing! I was half awake and half asleep throughout most of the film, but every time that pretty background music, I felt myself slipping into sleep. It happened so many times that I fell asleep almost on cue. I got the impression that I woke up yet again in time to see most of the important story-related parts (mostly towards the end when the mystery was finally revealed).
Honeygiver among the dogs
Bhutan 2016, Dechen Roder, 132′
Besides falling asleep, what affects my impression of the film the most is probably the fact that both Loris and I thought the “femme fatale” strangely looks like a former fellow student of ours back in high school. It’s not just her appearance, but also the way she composed herself and especially when she smiled. They both uncannily have the same mouth shape. The actress is arguably very beautiful and did a very good job conveying an air of mysteriousness, but oh boy was that overdone. Within the film it makes sense because she is supposed to be this spiritual figure, but in real life I cannot imagine any man actually falling for this woman who keeps walking through the woods like she’s on a catwalk, except much slower and more respectful towards nature (or whatever that was supposed to be). It is remarkable that the female character in your usual film noir is a male fantasy, whereas here it is clearly a female fantasy. I know I shouldn’t lump all men in this world together, but men, whoever they are, are not into this type of mysterious woman; if I had to describe it, I’d say she is totally not sexy, not in any way.
The look and the style of the main female character reminded me of women’s fashion magazines. They may be hollow and superficial but if you look at them more in depth, they show that the typical woman does not actually try to look like how men want her to look like, but how her peers or she herself wants to look like. That is why you see women caked in make-up, wear huge loose-fitting frumpy clothing, dress up in weird girly styles or starve themselves such that they look more like a super model and less like Marilyn Monroe. Women’s magazines may be backwards, and all these trends may seem horrendous to you, but dressing weirdly like that actually give women a space in which they assert themselves and their womanhood instead of allowing themselves to live in the eye of men. However, this film is all about a man doubting his own world and perception because he’s fallen for a woman, except the woman does not convince me for those reasons above.
For all of you who know me, I also disliked the spirituality of the whole thing. While I like certain flavors of spirituality (perhaps the cute character designs of “Kamichu!” and the likes inspired me to like shintoism), most are strangely disturbing to me. I am really into a yoga these days, and grateful that it has become such a trend that you can easily find material about it that avoids both a strong reverence to its original roots and so much inappropriate ignorance that it borders on cultural appropriation. I admit I know very little about religion in Bhutan, but whatever I saw in the film was rather off-putting. It was beautifully photographed in the film for sure, but the atheist in me was revolting and I cared very little for that “protecting the land” concept.
Now that I spent so much time complaining about the film, it is important to note that if you don’t mind the main character nor the religious aspects, it’s a perfectly good movie. As I mentioned, it looks beautiful and the slow pace is not a problem if you can enjoy the lush greenery (and the associated spirituality), and the story is suspenseful and engaging and leads to a satisfying conclusion with a lovely plot twist. I’m not surprised that the film was popular with the audience, and just like “Bai Ri Yan Huo”, this film is a great hommage to those film noir classics.
PS. I am really into that plot crucial gho that Kinley wore for parts of the film. The traditional outfits are very nicely styled and carefully draped and worn in this film, unlike what you see in most Google image results for “gho”.