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This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

entry arrow9:11 AM | No Chimes Here



The problem with Wing Kit Hung’s Soundless Wind Chime [2009] is that it wants to be poetic and engaging, but refuses to commit itself to the emotional core that would have brought those qualities on. It is an attempt to ponder on the themes of death and memory, love and loss — but mistakes long shots of people endlessly looking sad [or sleeping] for profundity. Which is a shame, because the story — about a young Chinese food delivery boy in Hong Kong and his Swiss lover — has a potential for an explosive exploration on interracial romance. But that is not even the biggest problem with this film, which was nominated for the Teddy Award in the Berlinale. Hung’s use of intercutting time frames as well as merging of reality and memory are audacious and applaudable — but he never for once makes us believe in the bond between the lovers. They share passionate embraces and they move well together, but there is not a single spark of intimacy between them. And so, when we are finally asked to consider their tragedy in the end with the fullspring of pathos, it just does not come, and we are forced to end the film having realized we have wasted too much time rooting for people who does not care about being rooted for in the first place.

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