The Sixth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

105 Ang Lee Quiet! The film is about to start Although Ang Lee’s oeuvre appears to be disparate and lacking a ‘signature style’, there is something that unites his films: a quality of silence. According to Whitney Crothers Dilley in her discussion of The Ice Storm 1997: ‘Silence is an actual medium of the movie — the film is all about what is unsaid — and the unexpressed thoughts fill the movie like a picture highlighted in relief’. 1 Many of Lee’s films open with visually rich, dialogue-free scenes — from his first feature film, Tui Shou ( Pushing Hands ) 1992, which opens with an elderly Chinese man calmly practising Tai Chi, while a disgruntled American tears at her blond hair in front of a computer in the adjacent room; to his Academy Award-winning Brokeback Mountain 2005, where two young cowboys wait next to an office trailer, catching glimpses of each other only when gazes are averted. Disconcertingly, when these characters do eventually speak, they have great difficulty communicating their messages. English as a second language is a source of mis-communication in a number of Lee’s films. The disconnection created by the lack of a common language is most obvious when characters gather around the table during meal times. In both Tui Shou and Xi Yan ( The Wedding Banquet ) 1993, the dinner conversation is censored by the character translating. The censor’s intention is to avoid conflict, but, of course, their actions only contribute to an escalation of the dispute. Even when characters do share a common language, there are still considerable barriers to real communication. Socially imposed silence surrounding desire, homosexuality, interracial relationships and female ambitions hinder attempts at expression. Upon breaking their silence, Lee’s characters often place physical barriers between themselves and the people with whom they speak. They speak from behind closed doors, under bed sheets, with their backs to one another or from behind masks. 2 In Se, Jie ( Lust, Caution ) 2007, Miss Wong Chia Chi is a university student posing as Mrs Mak Tai Tai as part of an espionage plot. Miss Wong contributes little dialogue to the film; she does, however, speak under the guise of Mrs Mak. It remains ambiguous whether these lies stem from the illusory web surrounding Mrs Mak, or if her expressions are the true desires of Miss Wong under the guise of a fictitious character. Just when real communication appears to be taking place, it is interrupted, severed and suppressed. In Sense and Sensibility 1995, when Margaret, the youngest of the Dashwood sisters, announces her delight with Mrs Jennings (who doesn’t limit the conversation to the weather), she is hushed by Mrs Dashwood. Similarly, when Alma confronts Ennis in Brokeback Mountain about what he and Jack did during their ‘fishing trips’, he abruptly silences her. In Wo Hu Cang Long ( Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon ) 2000, an old friend of Yu Shu Lien’s father laments the fact that Yu Shu Lien and Li Mu Bai have never expressed their feelings for one another. Li Mu Bai arrives soon after this, as he is on the verge of telling Yu Shu Lien the reason that he has come to Beijing has nothing to do with recovering his prized sword, but he is interrupted by a servant and does not finish his sentence. As conversations do little to further the storyline, Lee employs visual metaphors to carry his films. Creating mouth-watering banquets in Yin Shi Nan Nu ( Eat Drink Man Woman ) 1994 is the only way that characters in a traditional Taiwanese home are able to express their love for one another. 3 Lee’s visual metaphors extend to the landscape; in The Ice Storm , set in middle-class, suburban Connecticut, icicles cover every surface and the shattering of this ice is a metaphor for the disintegration of the nuclear family and the Nixon administration in the 1970s; while mountains with rocky outcrops, as well as vast fields, are used to materialise the isolation felt by the two main characters living in intolerant middle America in Brokeback Mountain . In reference to Hulk 2003, Lee once said: ‘So far, repression has been my biggest source of creativity’. 4 Yet, the film is concerned with finding a way to resolve what Bruce Banner has previously subdued: the character of the Hulk provides a cathartic vehicle for his repressed desires. Perhaps, part of the reason why Hulk was critically less successful than Lee’s other films is because Banner is able to discuss his problems, like a therapy session. As the characters in the other films remain silent, a visual smorgasbord fills the screen. That is what is so compelling about Lee’s films — the story is told when the actors do not speak. Ellie Buttrose Endnotes 1 Whitney Crothers Dilley, The Cinema of Ang Lee: The Other Side of the Screen , Wallflower Press, London, 2007, p.102. 2 Dilley, p.102. 3 ‘Eating is about what you put on the table. Desire . . . is about what lies beneath it, which is never available for discussion’, Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh and Darrell William Davis sum up the dining etiquette in Yin Shi Nan Nu in Taiwan Film Directors: A Treasure Island , Columbia University Press, New York, 2005, p.202. 4 Ang Lee, quoted in John Lahr, ‘Becoming the Hulk’, The New Yorker , vol.79, no.17, 30 June 2003, p.72, <http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRC&u=slq> , viewed 5 August 2009.