Away with Words (1999)

5/10

politic198316 December 2020

Warning: Spoilers

"Away with Words" is something of a film with no home. With the exception of Tadanobu Asano, nearly everything and every person is out of place...with even Asano not quite where he should be.

Asano (Asano himself) is a Japanese man from the remote (and very beautiful) island of Taketomi in southern Okinawa. As a boy he developed a knack for associating words with all things so that meaning became an abstract concept unique to him. Giving him a good memory, he leaves his quiet life for Tokyo to work in alcohol sales, before setting off on a ship for Hong Kong.

It is here he winds up in a gay dive bar run by Brit Kevin (Kevin Sherlock). Kevin has a terrible memory and a knack for being woken up still drunk by police officers. As part of the routine, he will call on Susie (Mavis Xu) who works in his bar. All the while, Asano has made the bar his home, staying in a velvet booth that brings him fond memories of home.

And that is pretty much that. We are treated to Kevin's ramblings to himself - a mind a mess of mis-memories and misinformation. Asano and Susie also provide their inner monologue on memories of their pasts and how they have ended up in this gay bar in Hong Kong.

Cinematographer Christopher Doyle, taking on the role of director for the first time, switches between Hong Kong, Tokyo and Taketomi...and possibly Brighton, with little in the way of linear narrative or structure. A multinational production, this sees an Australian cinematographer direct and co-write the script with a British translator and film critic (Tony Rayns) with a cast made up of Japanese, British and Australians as well as Hong Kongers.

This is, therefore, a very global and post-modern work that throws a lot in your direction, but it's a struggle for much of it to stick. Asano and Kevin's word association can be difficult to get your head around, before you realise just to go with it. This also has a large music video element with various dance scenes and performances in the bar featured throughout. It's all a little bit much and not really going anywhere.

Doyle as cinematographer, however, is comfortable in his role, and delivers his usual skilful performance doing what he does best, with photography worthy of great posters, at times reminiscent of his work on "Happy Together". But perhaps this is a little too cool. There are some very nice visuals to watch, but, much like Asano, you perhaps have to place your own meaning on to them.

What is evident here is that a lot of people are working outside of their usual realm. It is directed by someone who isn't a director; written by a cinematographer and a critic; acted by people who wouldn't really have much of a filmography beyond this. Asano is the only actor working as an actor, though in a foreign language and location, perhaps making him the perfect choice for this, often working outside of Japan.

It is clearly people who know how to make great cinema, or at least know what makes great cinema, but perhaps need some better guidance. The end credits see Doyle credit Wong Kar-wai for 'staying away.' He clearly takes a lot of inspiration from his long-time collaborator, but doesn't quite know how to put it into action.

The final scene sees Susie and Asano collect Kevin from yet another polices station. They swap chairs; the one nearest the camera allowed to speak their mind. Perhaps if cast and crew has stayed in their seats "Away with Words" would have more cohesion and work better. The two strongest elements are Doyle's cinematography and Asano's film star cool, which is them sticking to their day jobs.

This is a holiday in a guest house: it's a break from home, in somebody else's.

politic1983.home.blog

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Words, not Phrases

tedg2 March 2007

Here's the logic you might use to seek this out: To be a lucid life today means you need to understand how you use image to see yourself. That means you will end several important adventures with Kar-Wai Wong. And if you are at all alert, you'll want to explore Chris Doyle, the cinematographer in that collaboration.

Here's Doyle's project where he forms something alone. Seeing the limits of what he can each is as enjoyable as the memory flavors he can deliver.

I've said before that if you get a serious actor, you will find him or her so dedicated to what matters, they'll become incapable of actually making a film as filmmaker. May as well ask a roast to make a meal. The same is true of a cinematographer, I think. Now we're talking real films here, those that matter, those that have some valuable, effective shape as an assembly. These are rare, compared to the larger group of projects that give us pretty things, engaging characters and/or stories that charm. This business of assembly, of making the whole hour and a half or two have being that seems as big as the world, now that's mastery. Kar-Wai Wong can do this in ways that reweave parts of your soul.

The way it works, I think, is KWW intuits the way the world works, and sculpts sharp pieces from that intuition. Doyle then breathes animating magic into those bits, but what he sees is the bits, not the dream of the whole world. He's a souschef. For him to actually dance with my inner self, he needs arms that can surround my imagination whole, not in bites.

Now the fun of this. Three bodies on screen representing three realities of the collaborator Doyle needs. There's a Japanese fellow, who remembers everything, holds those memories as words and transforms each word into a vision. These are nouns not verbs, and the "visions" are all of objects. We see lots of intertitles where words and their visual assignment (denoted by a word!) are shown, sometimes dissolving. This fellow has lots of internal dialogs about the curse of memory.

There's an Australian who owns the bar. He's a promiscuous gay, and a serious beer drunk. (Doyle is Australian. I not know how he shares his body.) He's one who tastes life at the boundaries (preferring policemen), and forgets everything including his address, so he has trouble getting home every night. He openly muses on what he's forgotten

And then there's Susie, the home, the earth. A simple, accepting beauty. Patient. Forgiving. The actress has one of those faces that deeply looks like it merely looks deep. She's a seamstress, a fashion designer of significant talent.

It would be a wonderful construction if it weren't so film-schoolish in its obviousness, and so sophomoric in the way he has to explain it to us.

Never mind; you knew at the beginning of this comment that he would fail in the long form composition.

Its the way he chooses the shape of each scene to explore visual memory that's of interest. You could think of it as a "Marienbad" in small bits, each a camera-centered eye poem. He and Goddard would have eaten each other. He and Wong stream colored ribbons that tie themselves into emotions. Him by himself. Dessert.

There's an interesting insertion at the beginning, an Australian performer/singer whose gimmick is gargle-singing with a mouth full of beer. More of this, which is to say more of Maddin or alternatively Fruit Chan, would work better, would make him by himself a poet that matters.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

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8/10

three parts autism, one part auteur

squelcho29 September 2005

I'm probably barking up the wrong tree, but for me this piece reads like an exploration of autism. Asano's character seems to be a classic example of synaesthesia in action. This is sometimes associated with schizophrenia, but I've also heard it mentioned by parents of autistic children. Who knows what goes on in the mind of Christopher Doyle? Maaybe not even Chris Doyle after a night on the grog.

I'm guessing as usual, but I think the English/Aussie bar owner is playing the Doyle role, reborn every day with a slight hangover and a few fresh bruises, and attempting to show that language is just one of the barriers that humans have to negotiate in order to communicate effectively. If you can't get over it, you can always go around it. Or invent an image based filmic language for the global village.

Visually, this movie plays like a roadkill version of Fallen Angels, fractured and displaced almost at random. The soundtrack is as non-linear as the rest of the movie, crashing around like a breakbeat electro dj on dodgy pills. It makes the MTV jumpcut junkies look positively pedestrian when it takes flight, but still manages to explore the rapport between the three principals in a tender, almost polite fashion. It makes very little immediate sense, what with the language and obtuse script, but the gentle absurdity gels quite nicely upstairs in the aftermath.

I doubt that it would be possible to write a spoiler for this movie, because it's unlikely that any two people would ever see it quite the same way. I particularly enjoyed the gargling lady with the guitar, and the piggyback policewoman, although I might have just imagined them. The maguffins were delicious. My compliments to the chef.

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4/10

Beer is life!

merie22 May 2000

Warning: Spoilers

I am typing these comments while consuming a can of beer. Well suitable for a film which had 'Beer is life' for a motto :-) Thinking back to that memorable evening at the International Filmfestival Rotterdam, where Chris Doyle himself treated everyone who was left in the audience after the screening of 'Away with words', to a beer. I must admit the after screening Q&A made up for the fact that I found the film totally unintelligible. Brilliant cinematography at times (of course). Weird, but intriguing dialogues. Loveable characters. Extremely funny scenes THIS MIGHT QUALIFY AS A SPOILER? (the rapping granny was a gem!). But all thrown together, a story which for me had no beginning and no ending without the director's comment. From him I understood we should view the film as a collection of words and images, like many music videos. But unfortunately this is not what I look for in a feature film.

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10/10

away with words - exactly

dreirad12 August 2000

an amazing film by asian cinematographer guru chris doyle, almost permanent partner of wong-kar-wai. which means: amazing pictures. fuzzy around the edges, confused at times but shockingly clear at others (not just the pictures, i mean). which also means: people talking in different languages, at the same time, to each other. which in itself is worth watching if you fall for that kind of thing. another way to put it: creative, instinctive way of using words (and images etc) while on a certain level the whole thing makes SENSE. its just that doyle likes his beer often instead of cold which makes some scenes tiring.... but still. you critics out there, you´re much too "critical"..... away with words indeed.

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9/10

"Egg is an old lady and the chicken is her stick"

wobelix2 October 2004

Let's do NOT 'AWAY WITH WORDS' when texts are so full and enigmatic and fun that they can even solve the enigma of the chicken and the egg !

Or produce gems like some of the monologues of character Kevin:"Memories, that's what I forget; I remember happy things. If happy things are what I remember, will that mean that I am sad when I forget ?"

This debut film of DIRECTOR Christopher Doyle, who must be the hottest photographer of the past 15 or so years, is stunning, exciting and beautiful. And that is not only meant for the imagery, which IS indeed breathtaking.

What is this film... Hard to say, even though the post scriptum speaks of Dada and Automatic Writing, which is a hint in the right direction, I guess. The two male principal characters might very well be two sides of the same personality, or mind. And Susie, the leading lady, is Mother Nature, nurturing and trying to keep Yin & Yang together. Certainly, every theory is as good as the next one, but there might well be some truth in this:

Kevin, to Asano:"Susie says you could write a book from what I can't remember..."

This film is full of memories and mirages and, maybe, mirrors. So could this be a Tarkovsky with an hangover ? Hmmm, unlikely; and if so, would he have been drinking beer ? With Kevin ??! ...

Everything here is so varied, so divers, so haunting; the music, the imagery, the words, oh yes, the words too.

I have seen this film three times back to back and it doesn't let go for a moment. It keeps being surprising and spellbinding. Thank Goodness there are cineasts who know that a good film ought to linger on in the mind of the viewer. Some of the biggest filmmakers knew that; it's the reason why Kubrick's '2001' is a sensational classic and Spielberg's 'Close Encounters' merely a pretty good film. The first ends with a question, the latter with an answer.

Let's hope Christopher Doyle will be allowed to direct and write some more films !!!

'Not Forgotten. Just Misplaced'

PS: for those who are looking for this film on DVD: the very pleasant eBay seller 'fullhousedvd' has this title for sale from an Asian label. As he also has Doyle's cinematography work in the fabulous Thai movie 'Last Life In The Universe', as well as the documentary 'Buenos Aires Zero Degree; The Making Of Happy Together'. Well worth a visit...

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10/10

threeJane7 May 2002

I saw this film at the Sydney Film Festival, and there were three things I loved about it:

Christopher Doyle directing his own cinematography - what a visual treat (especially the bar scenes).

It was a film about linguistics, which Doyle being (at least) bilingual would be bound to be interested in. Basically if the title interests you, you'll probably enjoy this aspect of the film.

The blur between fiction and reality in the character of Kevin, playing himself I suspect, so real as the carefree scamp you love to have around/chronic alcoholic you want to get out of your life (depend on your point of view).

In the Q&A, I found the director unintelligible. Maybe he's a bit of a man's man because his gift to the audience in Sydney was Christa in an orange pantsuit, singing some breathy Monroesque tune. That was OK but he also did another Q&A for a different film later in the festival and Christa did her number again, although it had no relevance to the film. It was an annoyingly blatant free plug for Christa.

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8/10

There Are Not Only Euclidean Worlds

p_radulescu7 December 2010

A universe of psychedelic reality, in images of stunning beauty: it's like the director and his camera got drunk and filmed in trance; or maybe both director and camera were perfectly sober, just witnessing a mad planet and falling in love. Either way, it's pure cinematic poetry.

Asano: a Japanese who became a prisoner of his own memory. A gigantic memory containing words, thousands of words, in impossible associations with objects and smells and colors. Impossible to forget any word: they became his prison. He cannot accomplish anything: there is always a word obsessing him, impeding him to do anything else. One day he embarks on a ship for Hong Kong, hoping to find there solace. Once arrived, he stops at Diva Bar, where the owner is Kevin.

Kevin: an Australian (or maybe a New Zealander, you can never be sure), who keeps drinking good strong beer and cannot remember any word ever, even the address of the bar he owns (which is a gay bar, by the way). He cannot accomplish anything: there is always the lack of the necessary word, impeding him to do anything. Each night ends for him in jail (as the policemen find him drunk, wandering on the streets and incapable of telling them where he lives; and even if he'd know, he's not fluent in Cantonese). Susie comes in the morning to take him from confinement (Susie is the good angel in this absurd freaking world).

Then, what happens when Asano meets Kevin? Anybody can guess by now: you feel liberated by the stress of words, as well as by the stress of lacking the right words at the right time. It means, you can get away with words. Hence the title of this movie.

There is the world of words, and there is the world of objects, and colors, and smells: our reality. Can we consider words as reality? To paraphrase Magritte, can we smoke with the word pipe?

You can enjoy this movie, or you can get revolted to the point to say it sucks. It depends on your mood. I enjoyed it: I like to think that there are not only Euclidean worlds and Aristotelian guys.

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10/10

Very Good Film

socrates410 May 2019

AWAY WITH WORDS is a fun and insightful film that is told in a fresh new way. It's got cinematographer Christopher Doyle's signature kinetic style, which we all loved in his films he made with Wong Kar Wai. But here as director he is free to go overboard with it, and it's pure fun to watch.

The narration and characters are great too. It's not a traditional story, which is a nice change of pace. It's still very well told. I'm not sure why all the one-star ratings here. The rest of the votes are pretty evenly distributed, but with a ton of single stars, which usually signifies some sort of campaign to lower the score of the film. That being said, the film ends up being much better than the star rating here would imply, which was a very nice surprise, although I suppose there's no accounting for taste. But I loved it. Highly recommend.

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