Wayward Wooster: (s)Wallow Watermelon

I walked out of the Wooster Group's Hamlet at St. Ann's at intermission -- even after having purchased the tickets practically 6 months in advance. I should have known better than to expect more than a barrage of layered, refracted, de/re-construction of every manifestation of Hamlet since the invention of recording devices. Maybe that's satisfying for some people? As some kind of intellectual exercise? Christ. Maybe I am just old-fashioned (?!) but honestly, may I not expect something more immediate and emotionally engaging in the theater? Why does everything need to be so goddam removed or ironic or "in quotes"? I mean, I don't mind that, in and of itself, but that must that be the be-all and end-all? So often I leave the theater saying, YES... AND?? ok that was a clever thing you just did, but I am not moved by form itself. ('Where is the "'GHOST' in the 'SHELL'"?')

Anyway what I really want to talk about is Wayward Cloud by Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang which I just saw last night at Anthology Film Archives. An (un)erotic/poetic, imagistic portrayal of love in a time of drought. Water is scarce this unbearable summer in Taiwan, but abundant are watermelons -- the sweet sticky juice of which cannot really replace the cleansing purity of good old H2O. A girl recognizes the boy from whom she purchased a wristwatch many years (films) ago. Boy is now a porn star and sex for him is far from an expression of human connection. There is hardly any dialogue at all (much of the text I recall is from the TV newscaster reporting on the consequences of the rising water prices) as this delicate and uncertain relationship unfolds through home-cooked meals and midnight walks. The juxtaposition of the tedious mechanics of porn-fucking and the boy's inability to have sex with the girl he actually fancies leaves an echoey hollow in the story -- which is filled by uber-campy explosive, colorful musical dance numbers. A parade of people with watermelon umbrellas swarm inside a dragon-tunnel; boy in big plastic penis costume is chased around a public toilet by scary women with traffic cone boobs; boy as crooning glittery mer-man paddles in the rooftop water supply. The final and excruciating scene of the film shows the porn film crew shooting boy fucking unconscious Japanese co-star -- while girl peeps through a window in the wall. The fucking is sad, exhausting and disturbing, until boy makes eye contact with girl. Suddenly despite the physical obstacles and distance between them, something snaps into place -- and somehow boy and girl are (metaphysically) fucking each other passionately, and in the moment of boy's orgasm he shoves his unconscious partner and video crew away to ejaculate in girl's mouth, through the window. Then a long shot of his butt clenching and unclenching in climax, followed by profile of girl's face buried in boy's pubic hair. A tear rolls down her cheek. The music swells over the final ridiculous image of girl standing in the hallway with boy's groin up against her face through the window.

Watermelon shakes (esp in Thailand) have always been my favorite summer drink but I'll never drink it the same way again.

---> one more thing! I think sex is really tricky on film and can often go wrong. But WWC was lovely in that it depicted the sex act through a journey from titillating eroticism to panning out to show the menial side of the porn industry to a desperate burst of true passion. Compared to the very strange blow job in Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny that seemed an unfortunate ending to what could have been (stretch stretch) a poignant meditation on love and loss (and rape and motorcycles and bad boyfriends and the oh-so-thin line between reality and film), Wayward Cloud definitely earned its cumshots.