(1) What a great opening scene. Which I (for the third time) can't believe my friend missed!!! Dude, you've missed the ENTIRE point of the film - you might as well not have watched it at all.
The deep focus also works extremely well here. Bazin would have approved.
(2) How can one not be in awe of the filmmaker's superb characterisation, his subtlety of method, his creative use of image? Consider, for example, the lengthy shots of the characters riding the motorbike (Iranian films, it seems, seemingly cannot be bereft of shots of people in some sort of transport vehicle - viz practically all Kiarostami films, and ditto the car ride in Colours of Paradise). Hussein's face, like the Terminator, never looks left or right, his stolid face solidly framed within the gap of his windbreaker shield, peering steadily out like the observer that he plays, a concretised metaphor of the window through which he surveys the class inequities and iniquities of Tehran. Ali, perched behind him, a character antithesis: his head darting left and right, his eyes roving, his chatter endless, his movements quick and fussy - taking out two cigarettes, clutching the purse, lighting the cigarettes, offering the cigarettes to Hussein, gesturing left, right, centre. Then Hussein's fianceé, the most substantial female in the story (which is not very substantial): sitting behind him, leaning her head on his shoulder, hanging over him to try and appease him (if you've ever ridden a bike before you'll know this is damned difficult!) by telling him she doesn't care for jewellery, and to try and appease herself, by asking him over and over if he was mad with her.
The first thing taught in Screenwriting 101 is Against Exposition. I had to learn that. But these guys just seem to know it by instinct.
(3) I have just returned from a holiday in Indonesia. I miss it very much still: yesterday just listening to Peter Pan's "Mungkin Nanti" brought me nearly to tears. I miss it primarily because (a) I had a great time there; (b) I had there what must rank as one of the best experiences in my life, ie, waking up in the morning in a gently bobbing boat, leaping down from the bed (set particularly high so that luggage could be stored underneath), stumbling out of the wooden cabin, lurching down the corridor (I'm not particularly good out at sea, that is, until I'm underwater), climbing the steps of the gangway and being greeted by the sight of Gunung Agung soaked in a warm, brilliant sunrise, hearing the excellent and conscientious steward call out "Selamat pagi" to me, among many, many other experiences; and (c) I was so far away from civilization the trip was almost surreal, dream-like. There are other less savoury aspects of Indonesia, of course: the economic strife, the political problems, the corrupt legacies of the Suharto regime, the record against East Timor etc. But if one were not to holiday in a country due to its human rights record, there will be very very few countries left to holiday in.
What has this gotta do with Crimson Gold? Nothing, really. Except that in Indonesia, US$1 is roughly equivalent to 10,000 rupiah (well, a little less than that, 9 thousand 2 hundred and something, I think, but 10,000 makes it a whole lot easier to calculate). The standard tip for a porter at the airport is 1,000 rupiah, ie, 10 US cents. The conversion to the pound, the euro (strengthening against the dollar) etc is even more stark. What is small change to us is a fortune to those guys. What they pick up in tips alone from Western foreigner-tourists is comparable to what an Indonesian university professor would earn. And yet these tips, relatively speaking, is pocket change to us, compared to the amounts some of us spend on other things at home. For example, there was a woman on board who proudly boasted she spent US$1,000 on a recent Barbra Streisand concert ticket. 10 cents for a porter, 1000 dollars on a concert ticket. Ok, we tipped the crew a little more than 10 cents, but you get the idea.
I am finding iniquities, inequities, inequalities and injustice everywhere I turn - class, economic, social, you name it. What to do - I'm a beneficiary of the system as much as the next middle-class person. For a long time (ever since I moved out of my country, with which I'm beginning to be increasingly chagrined) I have been ashamed of my bourgeois values. But now I am realizing I am more than ashamed - now I think something needs to be done. The materialism, the consumerism, the decadence, the degradation of liberties. Now I am realising an empathy with quarters I never thought I would be empathetic with. Now I am realising the void of action within myself, which I must face, and deal with.
Once more: what has this gotta do with Crimson Gold? I'm not sure. I quote the ending of Roger Ebert's review from the Chicago Sun-Times, because in its own way it says what I think I want to say:
But I will not discuss the opening (and closing) because they proceed with a kind of implacable logic. What seems impulsive and reckless at the beginning of the film takes on a certain logic after we have spent some time in Hussein's company. In his case, still waters run deep and cold. He has been still and implacable for the entire film, but now we understand he was not frozen, but waiting.
Because in the end, Hussein, having observed and suffered the inequities of his society, eventually commits robbery and murder. The whole point of the film is to explore why. And I am realising I understand.
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