Day 0: "God Man Dog"

All participants of the Talent Press were asked to write a review on one and the same film, God Man Dog (Lui lang shen gao ren), the second film of Taiwanese director Singing Chen (2007), presented in the International Forum of New Cinema.

Ben Cho, A Network of Fallen Angels, Taiwanese-style
Dilek Aydin, I Touched the Ceiling, And I Lost My Faith
Suchandrika Chakrabarti, "God Man Dog" Review
Shaibu Husseini, More Than Just God, Man And Dog
Ezequiel Schmoller, Sadness in Pink
Martyna Olszowska, The Fortune-telling Poem
Natalia Ames, Questions About Spirituality

A Network of Fallen Angels, Taiwanese-style
By Ben Cho

The popular genre of cinema featuring the "network narrative", the film where a number of disparate plot strands diverge and converge often relying on chance or screenwriter-ish convenience, has had its highs (Pulp Fiction) and serious lows (Babel). For Singing Chen's sophomore effort God Man Dog (her debut Bundled, another panorama of Taiwanese society, earned praise on the festival circuit), the co-writer/director employs a similar narrative strategy with mixed results. When firing on all cylinders the film captures the moods, anxieties and geographical locales of up-to-the-moment Taiwanese society with a vividness and emotional resonance which suggests an emerging talent with one eye on social observation, the other on elegant visual compositions. But then there's the unfortunate need to schematically do for Taiwanese spiritualism what Paul Haggis' wretched Crash did for L.A. racism, even going so far as to depend crucial plot convergences on a car accident. That's when the film loses some of its impact and becomes less about each character's personal struggle and more about an overarching concern with the issues of the day (take your pick: alcoholism, class, religion, depression, death).

The film's gallery of citizens covers a neat spectrum of ages, beliefs and classes: a model (pop star Tarcy Su) and her husband, an ambitious architect, struggle with the death of their child; a low income-earning alcoholic is struggling with sobriety as his daughter is away studying martial-arts; a one legged guy (Jack Kao, frequent collaborator with Hou Hsiao-hsien) travels around the country attending to statues of Gods; and a young runaway kid earns his keep by entering into noodle-eating contests.

The most likely Taiwanese precedents to this type of thing would be Edward Yang's The Terrorizers, A Confucian Confusion and Mahjong which all found the pulse of contemporary Taiwanese society with alarming accuracy and precision and while Yang's aesthetics is quite different to Chen's, you can't help but feel echoes of these films throughout God Man Dog and it has more to do than the nifty piece of casting with Jonathan Chang (most familiar as the young kid in Yi Yi). More recently it might be tempting to even place God Man Dog alongside Cheng Yu-chieh's equally ambitious, multi-strand Do Over but Cheng's film was far more concerned with the magic in society that could have existed anywhere from New York to Paris, whereas Chen seems strictly focused on a Taiwanese milieu.

The key with the network narrative is balance and all of Yang's films mentioned found that perfect equilibrium between strongly investing in characters and handling a complicated, intersecting narrative. Chen's film possesses a number of virtues in the Yang-ian mould but never quite obtains the psychological depth or sociological insight that it often hints at achieving. Intermittently compelling and quite humorous, if you had to place it on a spectrum between heavenly and howlingly bad it would certainly fall somewhere above the average: fittingly for its subject matter — man — a fascinating mix of strengths and weaknesses. (Ben Cho)

I Touched the Ceiling, And I Lost My Faith
By Dilek Aydin

God Man Dog welcomes its audience with a very promising scene; a man in a truck carrying his religion, his hopes and life, then we see a pile of billboards of women's faces without showing the eyes (the souls!) and of some body parts. The film starts in an atmosphere embodying loss, mourning and a deep melancholy in our subconscious as it deals with human nature in a world of coincidence or maybe in a world of there-is-no-such-thing-like-coincidence.

Trying to express this coincidental world with many characters is of course a way that has been taken by many other filmmakers all along cinema history, still it became quite popular in the last decade especially recent releases from South America, if I really remind you of Amores perros (2000). For sure, a critical eye should question what it is new, inspiring or refreshing about God Man Dog, and its way of telling its story. What is it that makes a film really worth seeing and talking about later on, or urges us to watch it again and again? Especially now, when cinema has quite a history which makes us more experienced and provides us with a better equipped collective (visual) memory. Singing Chen being aware of that makes good use of cinematography ending up with a smooth and visually rich picture. We sense the film as a picture just like the feeling the film gives at the scene of the car crash, the peaches rolling over the road from the van, changing many lives, so meditative and transcendental. Still Chen again, fails to keep the same subtle effect for the plot, telling the stories of her characters. She makes us 'see' their drama in many ways at the same time. She just doesn't let us follow our free sense and intuition to realise their dramas but she somehow thrusts it to our minds. The truck driver who needs a new prosthesis leg makes a fake leg for his Buddha statue or two teenage girls, one is a masculine boxer, the other one longing-to-be a model, have their conversation under a huge underwear billboard of a woman's body. They are really alerting perception, but do we really need those formulated details that have been already repeated many times in different films to understand or to sympathise with the characters' dramas? Isn't it a little too much to force the audience not to be themselves for such a mystical, meditative film that has concerns of finding oneself?

God Man Dog sets huge walls for us to follow our sensations but it makes us follow the palindromes (or even anagrams) of our other film experiences. At the end, Chen makes us watch her beautiful images with beautiful music; still she can't go beyond making us experience empty dramas with good acting. It ends up like jumping to the sky in ecstasy, but landing afterwards with great apathy. (Dilek Aydin)

"God Man Dog" Review
By Suchandrika Chakrabarti

Singing Chen's Taiwan-set film is beautiful to watch, with affecting performances, but ultimately unsatisfying. The arresting beginning shows promise, with the camera peering over the shoulder of a Buddha statue, as the road unfolds behind, keeping the audience in a state of anticipation. Then – cut — someone's playing the piano. Then — before anything really happens – it's on to the next story for another abrupt introduction. Unfortunately, the film carries on in this staccato way, stopping us from ever getting into the characters' minds, and so feeling much sympathy for them.

God Man Dog takes in four stories, most of them about people hoping for change. A-xiong wants his wife, Ching, to be herself again after the death of their baby. Biung and his wife Mei want to quit alcohol so that they can regain their family life. Their daughter Savi wants that too, and pounds away her anger in San Da Combat training sessions. Only Yellow Bull seems happy with his lot, rescuing discarded Buddha statues and stray dogs; he even tries to hang onto his prosthetic leg, which has been in use for "about a decade or two".

The climactic collision between the separate threads never really arrives, and the characters' inner lives remain remote from us. Although Tarcy Su gives a memorable performance as the increasingly distraught Ching, her refusal to speak to A-xiong, along with her alarmingly blank expression, keeps the audience out too. A-xiong himself becomes increasingly repetitive in his attempts to draw her out of her silent despair, but the effect is to stunt the promising storyline with long silences and a frustrating lack of insight.

The fact that the car crash at the centre of the strands doesn't lead to the characters meeting each other is the fault in the film's composition. The intercut narratives seem to be leading to such a gathering, but the characters experience the accident while staying firmly put in their own bits of the storyline, and then leave the scene without their paths ever crossing. Instead, there is the odd random encounter, such as Biung stumbling past Yellow Bull's broken-down truck and giving them his can of petrol, that seem like token gestures towards pulling the strands together.

Perhaps disconnection is the major theme of God Man Dog, and it is simply impossible for the characters to really step into each others' lives and influence each other in any way. Perhaps the point is that things are that bad. However, the constant weaving in and out of narratives suggests that this is not the case. Chen's film has too many intriguing ideas weighing down a flawed structure. (Suchandrika Chakrabarti)

More Than Just God, Man And Dog
By Shaibu Husseini

Nothing makes a movie tick than when sound and action sync. Nothing makes it even more pleasurable than when a director exhibits a firm grip and control of his or her materials. Singing Chen's second feature-length film, God Man Dog ticks. The aptly titled movie has all the trappings of an offering that was painstakingly done and a movie that was produced with just enough professionalism.

A nervy story with a myriad of themes, the main narrative strands involves the bereaved but celebrated model Ching who needs time to smart off the pains of her bereavement. There is Biung, who needs more than a divine intervention to quit alcohol and then the itinerant truck driver whom fate twins with Xian the gluttonous but clever 'homeless' chap. The lives of all this archetypal characters take a different turn as a result of a car accident caused by a stray dog that has remained on the 'wanted' list. Through them and quite a number of experiences like that of Savi (Biung daughter) and Ching's battle with her workaholic husband Axion, Chen raised a number of questions on the fundamental nature of love, destiny, dual belief, on purgation, fate, restitution and on the much coveted salvation which she at the end, left for the viewers to answer.

Indeed Chen's God Man Dog is more about the mind. It dots too on the family, pain, expectations, the archetypal culture of dual religion and belief. Chen also explores the contradictions people face in moments of trial and tribulation and offers a deep narrative that shed light on how people waiver and most times doubt even their own very existence.

Interspersed with visuals of wandering dogs and lined with moments of genuine emotions like when Ching would rather be left alone that succumb to the smooching advances by Axion, the 119 minutes account isn't predictable. But it is paced slowly which makes it difficult to follow the film most times with much interest. It snarls up at some point and this keeps your eyes at some point on some other stuff.

But Chen pulls a good cast that gives the movie some of its credits. The lead acts shine in their roles. But Ching should get much of the acting credits because she got us empathising with the stern nature she lived her part. The supporting acts put up a splendid performance too particularly the chap who lived the role of Xian. He was believably in character. He is likely to brace the finish tape fast if he continues to work with directors like Chen who are apt and creepy.

God Man Dog isn't unwatchable. Chen delivered the goods and provided ample acting and cinematic substance. See this for some moments of a director's craft and for some life lessons too. (Shaibu Husseini)

Sadness in Pink
By Ezequiel Schmoller

"I'm afraid it's time for everyone to pray", sings Leonard Cohen in "Field Commander Cohen" and it appears that Singing Chen, the director of God Man Dog, felt exactly the same thing. In his film almost every character is either praying or searching for the right god to pray. Crucifixes, churches, Budha statues, baptisms and prayers constantly pop up in God Man Dog: religion underlies the film. And not only religion. If the characters are not praying, they are boxing (actually, sanda combating), doing yoga (actually, Seven Color Property Stone) or drinking (actually, getting drunk). Everyone's life is crumbling apart and the solutions never seem right. In fact, the solutions tend to aggravate the problems. But Singing Chen goes one step further than Leonard Cohen: not only does he believe that it is time to pray; he believes that praying will not be enough.

God Man Dog is thematically similar to films like Short Cuts (Robert Altman, 1993) and Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999): many characters united by suffering. Desperation in the film transcends social class, race, and religion. Nobody is immune to it. In Singing Chen's film, the symphony of suffering is composed by: a woman suffering a depression during her postpartum period, and her husband; a man trying (and failing) to stop drinking, and his wife; a lonely truck-driver who is lame on one leg; a solitary boy of about twenty travelling around Taiwan hidden in bus luggage compartments; a girl of about twenty who lost her brother, and her friend… who, oddly enough, seems relatively happy.

Although throughout his film Singing Chen formally stresses the mood of the characters (greyish colours, violins out of tune, characters "crushed" by the frame), at times many situations and objects lighten the sad atmosphere of the movie. The colourful windows of a church, the peaches rolling down the road, the spaghetti-eating competitions and especially the truck transporting glowing religious statues on the highway serve as a counterpoint to the sadness, and also generate a sense of the absurd, decompressing the otherwise heavy and dark mood. A similar effect (contrasting a sad atmosphere with colourful and bright objects and strange, rather unusual situations) was attained two years ago by Tai-sik Kim in his film Driving with My Wife's Lover, a story about strong jealousy accompanied by watermelons, neon signs and karaoke. Life is harsh, Singing Chen seems to be saying in God Man Dog, but there is still room for surprises, colourful coincidences and peculiarly happy moments. (Ezequiel Schmoller)

The Fortune-telling Poem
By Martyna Olszowska

Smooth skin, a slender figure, long-fingered and delicate hands, long legs — in contemporary culture, man is divided into different parts. We don't exist as one whole. An outstanding package is the most important thing but in this beautiful body there is also a lost soul and mind.

In the latest Singing Chen film, God Man Dog, people find themselves, as it is in the title, between god (or gods) and dogs as a symbol of the dead world of ghost. Each of Chen's characters has to face his/her own sickness — alcoholism, disability, depression. They are all lost in the reality. Finally, a car accident caused by a stray dog changes their life.

Like a life of a disabled truck driver who retrieves Buddha statues that nobody needs any more. It affects a family destroyed by the father's alcoholism and a prowler boy — Xian who left his home or teenage girls who pretend to be prostitutes and steal their "clients" money. Finally, it changes the life of a young couple that cannot get over the death of their baby. They are rich and beautiful (she is a hand model) but their life is empty which is highlighted by the perfectly pure, blue and cold shots. SPA, meditations, yoga or manicure — this is a way to make their bodies and minds healthier. They are always pretending and hiding their emotions to fit in with an image produced by an ailing culture.

But God watches over this world and all of these people who seek Him too — either in Buddhism or in Christianity. "You cannot sit between Gods" — one man says to Xian in a bazaar when a boy stays near the actors in a disguise of Buddha. This is only a symbolic costume. It is impossible to find God in figures or buildings, because He is in other people's hearts. And this is the power of Chen's film. She observes contemporary society — both rich and poor — and its sick soul. She doesn't bring one religion over the other, because in both she finds something that connects them – love for other people as the most important foundation. What are fervent prays for when a mother is unable to talk with her son and a father with his daughter? What are meditations for if a husband can't understand his wife?       

They expect help from God closed in plastic figures, forgetting that He is in the people they love. Finding a way to communicate with each other is a real fortune-telling poem. When they understand this, they will become winners in the lottery of life. (Martyna Olszowska)

Questions About Spirituality
By Natalia Ames

God Man Dog, the second film of Taiwanese director Singing Chen, offers a variety of paths of interpretation because of its peculiar style to depict its situations and characters in a strange mixture of distance and empathy. We could understand Dog Man Dog as a very respectful yet deeply analytical approach to the diverse manifestations of religion. But we can go further in our insight.

If we compare this movie with a recent film, we might find a resemblance to Amores perros, by Alejandro González Iñárritu, because of the constant presence of dogs and the mixing of the different stories (in this case, we find a hand model depressed after giving birth to her daughter and the terrible consequences of this state, a drunk Christian who has joined the AA having conflicts with her daughter, a young athlete preparing to compete, a kid who lives on the road, a truck driver with a prosthetic leg who searches abandoned statues of traditional gods).

But the similarities only reach this point because, while in the Mexican movie the cinematic style was daring, violent and gaudy, in Chen's film the rhythm is slower, more contemplative and attentive to the internal state of mind of the characters even when it is hard to understand what is happening to them, like in the case of the hand model. Although there are colourful elements like the scenes with the gods dancing, the giant statue of Buddha and the amusing moments when the two adolescents abandon their victims, the movie is covered with a shade of sadness, of restlessness caused by the lack of answers.

And then, what are the questions? We can notice Singing Chen is very concerned about subjects like spirituality and family values, in a few words, the relationship with different kinds of authorities. That is the reason why she even includes a character with no bonds, not religious nor blood-related (the street kid), who shows the lack of these relationships and the final encounter with something similar to a family.

Like we said in the beginning, this is not a movie which admits a unique interpretation: Chen leaves the door open to see the characters without judging them, without taking them as objects of study, but portraying them as human beings abandoned in an uncertain world where sometimes they can communicate with their gods, but it is a difficult path to discover. (Natalia Ames)
 

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