Author: Ezekiel Yu

Ezekiel Yu is a writer based in North Texas. He graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a degree in Literary Studies. His main focuses are in literature, cinema and culture. He may be contacted at ezekielyu11@gmail.com.
Film by Ezekiel Yu
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A shot of the female lead in Steven McQueen's "Widows"

Why Steve McQueen’s “Widows” (2018) Disappoints

British director Steve McQueen’s first three feature films – Hunger, Shame, and 12 Years a Slave – can’t quite be called a trilogy, but there’s enough common thematic resonance in all of them that it wouldn’t be totally foolish to bind them together in a sort of loose trilogy, or perhaps the beginnings of a cycle of sorts. If Antonioni had his Alienation trilogy, then McQueen’s might be called Mortification, since some kind of physical denial/suppression takes centerstage in each.

In Hunger, Bobby Sands fatally denies himself sustenance in retaliation against British suppression; in Shame, the audience is left to wonder if Brandon can rein in his obsession with sex/masturbation and forge meaningful human connections; in 12 Years a Slave, the abduction of Solomon Northup into slavery forces him to repress his full humanity in order to survive. […]

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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A still of the lead actress in Ryusuke Hamaguchi's "Asako I & II"

Beauty’s Filth: On Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Asako I & II” (2018)

Stillness, aesthetic rest, relaxed pacing, static, almost banal, framing – these are all hallmarks of the great Japanese classics of Kurosawa, Ozu, and co., and even contemporary directors like Hirokazu Kore-eda. Yes, other directors from other countries deploy these techniques, but it was Japanese cinema (particularly in the early part of the prior century) that engraved them into custom and international renown. Think of the great shots in Ozu’s Tokyo Story, of characters doing nothing yet exemplifying everything within the interplay of objects in the frame: the pairs of shoes in the bathhouse, an old couple by the sea, or the father sitting alone as the ship in the distance drifts past.

Stillness, aesthetic rest, relaxed pacing, static, almost banal, framing – these are all words you can use to describe Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 2018 film Asako I & II. It is a solidly built thing, in terms of its structure (you are never lost or confused as to what is happening), but composure can be deceiving. What might be construed as elegance, an aesthetic serenity, is really just detached posing, a pretty exterior that mirrors the elfin perfection of the film’s protagonist, Asako – and just as empty, within. […]

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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A still of the two leads in Ryusuke Hamaguchi's "Drive My Car"

Vacuum of the Taciturn: On Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car” (2021)

One of the oddest things I’ve seen repeated throughout the many (usually effusive) reviews for the 2021 Japanese drama Drive My Car is the modifier “epic.” Yes, it’s a long film, but however doggedly such a running time tries the patience of the flighty-minded average viewer, it’s about as far from “epic” as films go. A work as pointedly interior and repetitive belies the great scope and range that the word suggests. 2001: A Space Odyssey is an epic. Lawrence of Arabia is an epic. In contrast, Drive My Car has greater truck with the Chekhov play it feeds off of in its narrative – a contained, moody chamber piece rather than, say, the Tolstoy tome everybody knows.

This sort of carelessness with language is indicative of the many critical misunderstandings regarding the film, chief among them being the modifier that crops up even more than the one above: “masterpiece.” Writer-director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car has already won several prestigious awards, including Best Screenplay at Cannes; and a bevy of critics prizes on the international stage. Most notably, it took home Best International Feature for this past year’s Academy Awards. Hamaguchi was the third Japanese director to win the prize, after Hiroshi Teshigahara and Akira Kurosawa – a small and distinguished crowd, to be sure. […]

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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A shot of characters walking through a garbage heap in Adolfo Alix Jr's "Fable of the Fish"

The Refuse of Desire: On “Isda”, or “Fable of the Fish” (2011)

We were constant borrowers. What we wanted, we only had for an allotment of time, and most of what we thought was ours eventually found its way in the garbage heap, in the donation bin, or abandoned in a storage unit we’d never return to. Our real possessions were the practical things: kitchenware, furniture, clothes, tools, school supplies. Like any good nomadic clan, our subsistence was largely makeshift, and when we moved, we took only what we needed, and whatever else we could carry on our backs. Leaving a trail of cramped apartments, occasional houses, and, once, a single-room office space in San Bernardino county, home was, out of necessity, a state of mind, for it was only in the realm of thought that something like permanence could be established.

Even our toys (a huge box of action figures and the like, collected over years, and more than enough to go around for five siblings – oh, the miniature wars I staged with that miscellany!) were eventually discarded, left in a shed in a stranger’s backyard, for either some random kid’s enjoyment or the rot of wear. Many people still own sentimental items from their childhood: adored playthings, little gifts from a beloved friend, and other such keepsakes that those not very given to nostalgia learn to forsake when maturity hits. I’m a sentimental person, by nature, but I have nothing from my childhood still with me, apart from what I can remember. […]

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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A shot of Tom Noonan and Karen Sillas in "What Happened Was..."

Where They Want To Be: On Tom Noonan’s “What Happened Was…” (1994)

This is a small, understated film about power. One particular power dynamic, and the exchange(s) therein, but specific enough to be drawn out across many relationships and individuals who attempt to justify their own existences to themselves and to others, and end up misleading, and being misled, by said justifications.

What Happened Was… stars Tom Noonan and Karen Sillas, and was written/directed by Noonan based on his Off Broadway play of the same title. Having been only marginally aware of Noonan from his appearances on TV shows like The Blacklist and 12 Monkeys, I knew he cut a striking figure (who can forget such an imposing, nigh-skeletal frame?) and wasn’t a bad actor, but came away from this film doubly impressed by his acting skills and newly appreciative of his talent as a writer. And as a director – an all-around artist, really.

Of course, Noonan’s been around a long time, and has starred in some big-name flicks (Manhunter, Robocop 2, Synecdoche, New York among them), with a credible background in the theater, as well. In What Happened Was…, though, Noonan really asserts himself as a legitimate auteur – and in his debut, no less! The film won a few prestigious awards in the wake of its premiere, including the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, but since then has sunk into relative obscurity. I’m thankful to the Criterion Channel for streaming it, as I’d never even heard of the movie before I discovered it by chance on the site. […]

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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A scene from Richard Linklater's "Boyhood"

Time Relaxes: On Richard Linklater’s Boyhood (2014)

he opening of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood – a cloud-crowded sky and the stare of a boy – is one of vast possibility. Here is a yet-to-be shaped visage (with Coldplay crooning about stars and how they shine for you) captured in one of those indelible moments, no doubt, when time relaxes into some afterschool daze, and no other obligation exists save to lie down, dampened by grass, and to look around, thinking.

It is a moment most of us have felt, and probably longed for, if our childhoods were as frequently troubled as Mason’s (Ellar Coltrane), the young boy whose face will change over the course of the film, over the course of twelve years, but whose eyes will still somehow retain that same lingering sense of possibility.

This is a film about moments. About time, certainly, but really about how moments build up, over time, into people, relations, and everything else. Linklater’s decision to tell the story in a series of vignettes (partly a consequence of how the film was shot, I imagine) was a wise one, for it captures this process of moment-accrual in efficient bursts, letting the viewer make the appropriate connections in the intervening elisions. […]

Poetry by Ezekiel Yu
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A winter castle, ostensibly where Rainer Maria Rilke wrote some of his best poems.

Rilke’s Late Winter

Earlier this year, exactly one century ago, holed up in his tower at Muzot, Rainer Maria Rilke was besieged by an onrush of creativity that resulted in all fifty-five Sonnets to Orpheus as well as the long-sought-after completion of the Duino Elegies. An auspicious season for the poet, certainly, and one immortalized in poetic legendry – and I use that word on purpose, for while its historical occurrence is undeniable, Rilke’s constant invocation of the seemingly divine presence that inspired him (who first arrived to him in Duino Castle twelve years before, whispering that unforgettable opening line) wreaths this vital period in semi-mythic air.

Of the 20th century Great Poets, surely Rilke is one of, if not the most, beloved. His poetry is an outpouring of spiritual open-ness, rendering it generously receptive to believers of all creeds, although Rilke had rejected the religiosity of his childhood in favor of a mystical awareness or sensitivity to all things. […]

Film by Ezekiel Yu
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A stylized shot of coal miners from John Sayles's "Matewan"

Gathering Storm: On John Sayles’s “Matewan” (1987)

In the wake of the recent unionization victories within/against corporate titan Amazon in New York, I got to thinking of the great John Sayles film Matewan, about a community of West Virginian coal miners and their families who unionize to protect themselves from Stone Mountain Coal Company and their hired guns, the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency. It is a dramatized re-imagining of actual historical events, complete with a gallery of fictional and non-fictional characters, that brought a certain level of class-consciousness to the big screen, despite years in development purgatory and a tight budget with only seven weeks of shooting. It was positively reviewed by critics for its quality writing and performances, but flopped at the box office (what else is new?), and is only now resurging into public attention – generously assisted by a Criterion Collection DVD/Blu-Ray edition in 2019.

Smart writing, good acting, low budget, poor-to-modest box office performance: these are sine qua non to a John Sayles picture. In his invaluable book Thinking in Pictures: The Making of the Movie Matewan, Sayles makes the distinction between the sort of characters a good number of moviegoers satisfy themselves with and the sort he wants to write. […]