previously published on Asian Movie Pulse
In
his debut feature "Ohong Village", the director "Luke"
Lim Lung Yin aims to give a voice to the voiceless by portraying
a milieu of a remote fishing village in the times where the nature
and the economy are about to ruin its prospects. From a description
like this, it sounds a bit like a bog standard "social issues"
type of festival cinema, but it is more unusual and meditative than
that. Nevertheless, the film should have a healthy festival exposure
after the premiere at Jeonju and official selection at Taipei.
However, we obtained it through our Submit Your Film initiative.
The
film opens with two friends, Sheng (Lin Yu Hsu) and Kun (Chen
Hsin Tai) on a motor-powered raft, approaching the beach where
the abandoned Buddha statue is surrounded by trash. Sheng poses as a
successful man, coming back from Taipei for his sister's wedding,
dressed smartly and talking the big talk. The only one who does not
buy it is his father Ming (the only professional actor in the cast,
King Jie Wen), a man who has certainly seen some hardships in
life. And he is right: Sheng is currently out of work and his life in
Taipei was never idyllic.
Sheng's
family was once considered rich and prosperous in the village with a
huge land and water base for oyster farming. Those days are long gone
now, the whole village is sinking, the salt fields providing jobs to
many were the first to go and the oyster business is shrinking.
Ming's idea of fighting to survive consists of constant visits to the
medium supposedly connected to the General deity, while Kun has an
idea for tourism-oriented business which is not bad and wants Sheng
on board. The time of festivities approaches, unexpected things are
about to happen and the villagers will expose themselves, for better
or for worse.
In
his film, Lim combines a number of influences, from Neorealism and
the different schools of New Wave (mostly French, Japanese and
Czechoslovak), to poetic realism of Andrei Tarkovsky. The
European feeling a viewer can get watching "Ohong Village"
is not by far strange and accidental, since Lim studiead at the famed
FAMU in Prague. In his film he is interested in surroundings as it is
in story and that shows as the film goes one, especially in scenes of
festivities and rituals filmed in long takes.
The
cast of non-professionals for most of the roles serves the purpose as
the first-timing actors blend in perfectly to the social landscape
and keep their composure since their job is more to "be"
than to "act". However, for a person that carries the most
of the emotional weight, Ming, Lin needs a proper actor and he finds
one in King, also known as Hsi Hsiang, seen in numerous
Taiwanese films and TV shows from mid-70s to mid-90s and in the last
ten years. He is more than capable to carry the weight of a man who
has possibly lived his life in vain.
On
the technical side, "Ohong Village" is not just a competent
film, it is pretty artful. Analogue camerawork by the young Russian
DoP Alexander Elagin is pure poetry especially because it is
rare nowadays to find something filmed on 16mm tape in all of its
natural warmth and richness. Another thing to pay attention to is
sound design that combines the natural sounds of a certain place that
is no stranger to some extreme weather and the music score made of
traditional folk tunes, a splash of modern pop and slow, droning
electronic noises written by Paul Scar.
"Ohong
Village" might not be everybody's cup of tea and it is a hard,
demanding watch. But as a proof of craft and determination to fulfil
the artistic vision, it most certainly works just fine.
