Sorry, I just couldn't resist the blog post title.
Last night was Halloween. I remained rooted in the editing lab, editing my new film THE WHITE FLOWER. Which, in case you don't know, starred my friends Zhu Dan and Kong.
Kong, at the meantime, had been prolific. After finishing his debut short film CENSORED (which was Zhu Dan's debut role, read here and here), he had been making his new experimental sci-fi short STARDUST MEMORIES (also starring Zhu Dan, she's really his muse, though alas, solely in a strictly professional manner). I was just whining to Zhu Dan that since she's been acting for everyone, I have to look at images of her everyday in the editing lab, not just from my computer, but also Kong's.
Two nights ago Kong was trying to finish up STARDUST MEMORIES with one last scene. My friends, Yang Yang (last seen here) and Ko-san (last seen here), visited the set too.
From left to right: Kong, Yang Yang, Ko-san and Zhu Dan
The scene's setup: Kong's previous film CENSORED was projected upon Zhu Dan, and she had to interact with the projected images.
Kong thought the whole setup was familiar.
(click here if you can't see embedded video)
I thought so too. I figured it was something Godard had done, though I had no idea which one.
Then I thought of Yoshishige Yoshida's film, EROS PLUS MASSACRE, which I watched a few months earlier. It wasn't exactly like that either.
(Although I guess EROS + MASSACRE crossed my mind because it opened with a scene of a woman sitting just like that, though without any projectors involved. And there was also a scene of the same woman watching something through a projector, so everything got mixed up)
Then Kong asked Zhu Dan to interact with the images of her from the projector. It was so totally meta, to see her interacting with images of her from a previous movie she did.
(click here if you can't see embedded video)
(click here if you can't see embedded video)
(click here if you can't see embedded video)
Of course, at the meantime, I was throwing suggestions too. Like "I know!!! Maybe she can, like, KISS the image or something!" which received "*sigh* there he goes again" looks from the rest of the gang before they went on with the shoot and disregarding my oh-so-invaluable suggestions.
(click here if you can't see embedded video)
After the shoot, as we returned to the editing room. Something struck Kong.
"I know! This was the opening of Ingmar Bergman's PERSONA! I just imitated him subconsciously!"
(go to the 4:30 min mark)
(Kong did a thesis on Ingmar Bergman when he was in Thailand)
