We're all going east in this week's belated Hidden Treasures article. Off to Asia, to discover what under-seen, underrated and under-appreciated cinematic gems there lie. One of which is directed by an American. And another by a French. Fuck's sake...
CENTRE STAGE (1992) - STANLEY KWAN
The film that confirmed Maggie Cheung as one of the leading lights in 90s and 00s Hong Kong cinema, Stanley Kwan's biopic of 1930s silent film star Ruan Ling Yu is a thoughtful, tasteful and psychologically ambitious period piece. In his multi-layered exploration of Ruan's life in the years when she was at her most famous, leading up to her suicide, and Cheung's challenges in bringing her to life, he purposes Centre Stage (also known as The Actress) into a study of womankind, with Cheung carrying such heavy responsibility with ease and grace. Seek out the director's cut, though the original cut is lost (rumoured to be located in the archives of some Australian TV network).
ENTER THE VOID (2009) - GASPAR NOE
Another film where you'd do well to watch the director's cut, since the initial Cannes cut was considered even by director Noe himself to contain swathes of extraneous material. An intoxicating, enveloping, dazzling story of the lengths we go to for the love of our family, a bond of enormous resolve, in an ephemeral, digital, impalpable world. Noe jettisons the natty self-consciousness of Irreversible in favour of his incredible sensory ingenuity. Young Emily Alyn Lind gives a momentous, though small, performance.
SITA SINGS THE BLUES (2009) - NINA PALEY
A recanting of true events, and of obviously untrue ones. The making of a movie, the breaking of a relationship, and the retelling and reconstruction of a centuries-old narrative, picked to pieces and reassembled with sensational musical sequences featuring the inimitable voice of Annette Hanshaw. One of the best animated films I've seen. That's all!
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