The Friends of 4DK: "Do You Hear the People Sing?" by Andrew Nahem

My fellow Drive-In Mobster Andrew Nahem is a boss on Twitter and co-creator of the Webby Award winning site Elevator Moods. For this edition of The Friends of 4DK, Andrew dug extra deep to bring us a peculiar oddity from the forsaken sub-basement of arcane cinema. If I didn't know him so well, I'd think he made it up.

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When Todd asked me to contribute a post to the Friends of 4DK Initiative, I was naturally appalled. First of all, I am not a bloggist. I may have written things here and there, but nothing discernibly blog-shaped (“oblog,” in the parlance I think—but again, I’m no expert). Furthermore, while I do enjoy the cult- or B- films, my knowledge of them falls far short of the 4DK standard. What could I possibly contribute to a learned discussion of Bollywood action films or rare Malaysian ghost stories that would elicit anything more than derisive laughter from this audience? What dark byway of cinema could I illuminate for these obscurantists and international cultists?

But at last I think I’ve unearthed a bizarre offering that could perhaps use some unpacking.

Les Misérables (USA, UK, 2012), dir. Tom Hooper.

This film opens with a grand sweeping shot of prisoners in a place called France, who for their crimes (stealing various baked goods, those just under the line for capital offenses) are punished by being forced to haul giant ships around on land. Why the French Navy in 1815 has no better use for its frigates is one of the mysteries this story never illuminates.

Right away the uncanny nature of this production becomes evident. Readers of this blog are obviously familiar with the concept of the movie musical. But unlike the familiar tropes of, say, a Bollywood epic, these characters lift their voice in song while standing in the muck of sewers, getting a pixie-cut, etc. yet they do not dance. The colors, in fact, remain steadfastly dark and heavy. Further investigation reveals that the filmmakers attempted the rarely-tried experiment of having the actors sing these numbers live, which arguably increases the quality—and certainly the quantity—of the acting.

One of these bread-snatchers, Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) has attracted the notice of the chief ship-wrangler, the policeman Javert (Russell Crowe), for being insufficiently downcast during the song “Look Down.” Valjean, a narcissist who never grasps the enormity of his crime, once released, thinks nothing of breaking parole to go on a mountain tour of regional convents.

Eight years pass, and rather than emigrating to America like any sensible ex-convict fugitive, the self-involved Valjean has installed himself as a very public factory owner—and mayor of the town, where he can hardly take two steps without tripping over his old nemesis, Javert, who has not as yet recognized him. Distracted one day by one of these coincidental appearances, he allows the beautiful Fantine (Anne Hathaway) to be fired for filing a sexual-harassment claim against his factory foreman. In this society, such whistle-blowers are forced to sell their hair and teeth and are apparently infected with a kind of terminal brain fever.

One night Valjean, out for one of his daily run-ins with Javert, discovers that one of the ships he had dragged into town as a convict so long ago has finally been turned to some use—as a brothel. It is there that he and Javert find Fantine plying the old trade, but as is their wont, they hold differing views on what to do about it.

By this time the long-suffering Javert has begun to twig that “Monsieur le maire” is none other than Valjean, whom he had nicknamed “24601” back in the day. They meet up over Fantine’s corpse for a much-needed sword-fight and a song. Valjean pledges to turn himself in after three days, but characteristically decides to blow off this promise in favor of his new interest: Fantine’s young child, Cosette, whom he has decided to claim as his own and raise in hiding in a bucolic atmosphere of secrecy.

Nine years later and this France is in an uproar. A fickle group, the citizenry had previously had a king, and this had displeased them. But once they’d disposed of him, they found they wanted another. Now it’s 1833 and they are heartily sick of the whole business again. In addition, Paris is being menaced by the appearance of a giant stone elephant in the middle of the city. Unfortunately these young hotheads can think of nothing to do about all this besides throwing their furniture out of the windows and making a huge mound of broken pianos and chaises longues in order to disrupt the regular flow of traffic, thus involving the put-upon Javert, who is dispatched to set things right once again.

This naturally attracts Valjean, who—though he has no dog in this fight—can never resist toying with his old enemy. This time he drags Cosette, now a young woman, along for the fun. She, in the person of Amanda Seyfried, happens to be a symbol of love and strength and light, so she cannot but enslave the heart of one of the rebel alliance. This all leads to a series of deadly duet/confrontations between the two adversaries. Valjean cleverly manipulates the youngsters into allowing him to deal with Javert whom they've managed to capture and stage in a macabre tableau with a noose around his neck. Spiriting him into an alleyway, Valjean delivers the coup de grâce: he lets him go, thus posing a logical conundrum—not unlike those used by Captain Kirk to confound various futuristic computers in Star Trek—which Javert’s noble police mind cannot reconcile (“And does he know/That granting me my life today/This man has killed me even so?”).

A few months pass and Valjean, inexplicably aged, decides to hit the convent trail one last time, ostensibly to avoid Cosette’s wedding to the former revolutionary, an event that he’d taken as a personal inconvenience, like the theft of a favorite bauble. Nonetheless—in tribute, perhaps, to the investigative tenacity of old Javert—they smoke him out in in his God-lair, weepily singing about how he wishes Cosette were there to watch him die instead of frittering away her time on a foolish wedding. As usual he gets his own way, but not before Fantine—in one of this film’s rare supernatural effects—appears to him as some sort of demon or phantom. Cosette pleads with him to hold on to life, but Fantine grips him with the icy Hand of Death and drags him off.

We never find out what happens to France.

 

All in all, a peculiar work. The baffling approach to the music—making the tunes as unmemorable as possible in order to shift attention to the facial expressions—the strange symbols abounding in the mise-en-scène (the elephant, a mysterious eye which seems to watch the characters wherever they go, etc.), the unfamiliar societal customs which nevertheless at times appear to follow a kind of dream-logic, all these elements show Les Misérables to be the work of a singular artistic vision and a worthy object of cult affection.

The Friends of 4DK: Karate (India, 1983) by Beth Watkins

  
As I struggle to type these words with my newly affixed hooks, the guest posts continue over here at 4DK. This time the awesome Beth Watkins, author of the universally beloved blog Beth Loves Bollywood, reports back from the trenches of dodgy Indian VCDs to fill our heads with Mithun Chakraborty and his disco-socky spectacle Karate.

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Why this film is not on Youtube is one of the great mysteries of life. I understand why it does not exist on easily-findable DVD—the print is terrible, the plot and acting are absolutely standard, and none of the songs stands out as particularly hummable—but it seems like the kind of thing custom-made to exist in the medium most supportive of our ethos of pop culture instant gratification. Because when you hear that there is such a thing as a Mithun Chakraborty disco karate movie, you need to see it right now and then immediately share it with an appreciative world. The Mithun fanboy army has, perhaps, let us down. This post will humbly attempt to redress this sad oversight in our collective appreciation of early 80s Bollywood.

If you have seen Disco Dancer (which surely anyone reading this post has), especially within recent memory, it’s entirely possible that Karate will feel like a bit of a disappointment. In addition to the essential shared presence of Mithun, Bappi Lahiri, king of Indian movie disco music, does the scores of both, but Karate’s songs just aren’t as...well, magically exuberant, which is probably only fair, since a movie about a disco dancer should have unforgettable songs. Both films start out with a children working in the titular profession who then grow up to avenge wrongs done to their families. I would argue that what Karate lacks in international dance competitions and death by electric guitar it makes up for with long-lost siblings, gypsies, a more masala-y villain, product placement by Wrangler, laser technologies that somehow hinge on a particular diamond necklace, and songs set in a gym.

Basically what I’m saying is that if you like Disco Dancer, you should definitely watch Karate. And for the non-Hindi-speakers among you, I wouldn’t worry about not finding a version of this with subtitles. Any seasoned Bollywood-watcher has seen this movie a dozen times.

Earlier today I wondered aloud to a friend who has been a professional author and journalist since his early twenties why I was finding it so difficult to express my enthusiasm about Karate in writing. He proposed that the intensity of the experience does not translate well to text, and I think he may be on to something. I can tell you that Karate opens with slow-motion of two little boys doing karate on the beach at sunset [note from the editor: please hear finger quotes on all instances of the word “karate” in this piece] while an instructor shouts didactically and the background score includes a stumbling synthesizer, quavering organ chords, and another male voice yelling “Hya! Hyaaa!” and “Karate!” modulated by a heavy hand on the echo effect, but does that truly capture how engagingly loony the film’s first few minutes are?

A few seconds and some gentle parental observation later, the boys play on the shore with a little girl, Aarti (who is possibly mega-famous actress Kajol, who is credited in this film and whom I cannot place in any other role, though I can’t definitively place her as this character either), the daughter of their instructor, Jai. Then they sing a song to their mother and she embraces them both, which confirms that this family is closely bonded and thus will soon be torn apart and eventually reunited. Then evil-doer Kader Khan, who has been stealthily recording all this karate practice and emotional goop, narrates a film that demonstrates how the boys’ father (Dr. Shankar) has invented a very powerful laser weapon thingy that harnesses the sun’s power through a diamond. Shankar gives us more information about his blood, sweat, and diamond-hiding location, and Kader Khan sets their house on fire and kills Shankar. The boys and their mother are, of course, separated during all of this; one of them is raised by Jai and grows up to be karate expert Danny (Mithun), and the other runs off to a gypsy camp and grows up to be...frankly I don’t know what Desh is. Good friend Cinema Chaat says he’s a jewel thief as well as a performer of karate-themed stage shows with his friend Imran (Mazhar Khan, aka Mr. Zeenat Aman), but my Hindi and this VCD aren’t good enough for me to have picked up on that. Desh is performed by story/screenplay/director/producer Deb Mukherjee.

At this point, I need to pause for two asides. First, as a recent but fevered convert to Bengali cinema, I find it hilarious that the leads of a film called Karate are both Bengali. Admittedly, this amusement stems directly from regional stereotypes and has very little to do with the reality of Indian movie industries. Bengalis had been working in mainstream Bombay cinema in droves for decades by the time this film was made, Mithun was already a rising Bollywood star, and Deb Mukherjee comes from a massive and long-established film family.* But there’s still a fun cognitive dissonance going on here, because when you think tough fighter heroes you just don't tend to think "…from Calcutta." For readers who don't watch a lot of Indian films or aren't conversant in regional stereotypes, this is a bit like populating a kung fu movie with Woody Allen and Kenneth Branagh, actors who at least in name come from a less bombastic and more literature-based cinema culture. We are well aware that there can be action stars from Manhattan and England, but that's not our first cinematic association.

Second, I recently watched Manoj Kumar's Purab Aur Pachhim in which he is the lead as well as writer, director, and producer, so I've been thinking about whether it's possible to say anything interesting in general about Bollywood actors who feature themselves in their own films. My favorite example of this behavior is Feroz Khan (direct/produce/star), who exudes some kind of confident nonchalance that makes me absolutely approve of basically anything he does, even when it is self-aggrandizing, sleazy, or excessive in countless other ways. There's also Raj Kapoor (direct/produce/star), who is generally held up as the most respectable and artistic example, the most capital-F Filmmaker-y. On the other end of the spectrum is a man I like to think of as Bollywood's Tommy Wisseau, Kamal R. Khan, who suffers from similarly grand delusions of talent, heroic potential, and general relevance, first embodied by his debut film Desh Drohi (write/produce/star) and more recently by his reviled presence on Twitter. Unlike the first three "actors+" I listed (and Deb Muhkerjee as well), KRK, as he likes to call himself, has not worked under other directors or learned anything about presenting oneself as a leading man, or even filmmaking in general, I assume because no one else would bother with him. I think it is safe to say that all of these men have a very strong sense of self and self-importance, as well as earnestness applied in very different ways; some of them know what to do with these compulsions most of the time, but others do not.

I’m not sure where to slot Mukherjee in the scale of success of self-driven, self-featuring Bollywood projects. Karate is his only work as director and producer, so there’s not much to go on. His best decision in this film was casting Mithun Chakraborty and then stepping back and letting him do his thing. (“Mithun’s thing” is not everyone’s cup of tea, but if that’s the case, no amount of me discussing this film’s pleasures will be convincing anyway.) I’d guess that Deb and Mithun have fairly equal screen time, and their story arcs are equitable in complexity and emotional heft—for example, as adults both lose people close to them, though I think Desh does in fact suffer and gain more than Danny does—but I don’t think there’s any doubt who the principal star is. I am sold on Mithun in this film almost as soon as he enters (which, by the way, he does in absurd fashion as Jai stands facing the camera holding a cat like he’s Blofeld, then throws the cat into the air, and somehow in flight it turns into Mithun tumbling across the screen). The choreographers (fight and otherwise) for this film have a field day with him, giving him tippy-toe prancing in combat and in dance. Mithun looks like he’s having a field day in these sequences too, and for me that’s enough to make up for some other moments when he...appears less invested, shall we say. His first song, “Tum Tum Tumba,” is full of skittering strings, laser pew-pew sounds, boogeying club-goers, and Mithun swiveling his hips and dance-fighting around a bar and swimming pool in silver boots. Frankly, this sequence falls under the category “If you are not entertained by this, you are made of stone.”

Another special—or “special,” take your pick—feature of Karate is its ridonkulous bromance between Desh and Imran. You can guess by their names that there is some delicious inter-communal bonding going on; without subtitles I can’t be sure if that is mentioned overtly, but it’s reinforced visually in at least one scene that I can’t mention without spoiling the plot. There is an exchange near the beginning of the film in which Desh and Imran embrace and affectionately touch one another for at least 75 seconds, all while beginning most of their sentences with each other’s names. This is a doozy of a bromance. See them in karate-dance action in this video.

After watching over 500 Hindi films, I had a pretty good idea of approximately what was likely to happen in Karate. What I did not expect was its portrayal of the female characters. There are three to speak of: Aarti (Yogeeta Bali as an adult), Desh’s love interest (played by Kaajal Kiran and whose name I cannot for the life of me remember, so let’s just call her KK), and Zora (Prema Narayan), another member of Desh’s gypsy community. Zora is also in love with Desh, and she and KK fight over him. I’m the first to roll my eyes at anything labeled “cat fight” on Youtube clips, but Karate takes this struggle as seriously as it does any of its many others between male characters. It’s not clear to me whether KK’s combat skills have any context (she’s possibly a thief also? I think this VCD is missing some scenes, or at least not playing all of them), but I really don’t care, especially when she fights in black flares and a silver blouse that frankly I would love to slip into before dousing myself in Charlie (or Hey You!) and heading out for a night on the town. These two women have an amazing dance-fight around a campfire that starts with each tied together at one leg by a long rope, then their wrists tied together and knives clenched between their teeth, then suspended from the air. This is probably the longest and most determined fight by women I’ve ever seen in Indian cinema, and I respect the film portraying a heroine and vamp as being as strong, athletic, and talented as the men. (I should also note that without subtitles I cannot be confident that the lyrics don’t undermine all this independence and ability, but at least the visuals are good.) Some of the camera angles are a little suspect, but given that the men thrust around in tight white satin pants as often as we see Prema’s miniskirted thighs, this at least falls into the Feroz Khan camp of equal opportunity gaze. See for yourself here, beginning with the ladies’ less dance-y brawl before the music kicks in. Keep an eye out for the totem pole in the background of the gypsy camp.

Look. I don’t want to make Karate into something it’s not. It’s not a convincing martial arts film, it’s not the best brotherly-slanted masala out there, and it’s not a kitschy lotus rising from the imperfect muck. It is silly. It probably could have benefitted from a more robust budget. It seems to have mostly disappeared from popular attention (if it ever had any in the first place). But it also succeeds at what it sets out to do—tell a fairly familiar masala story focused on vengeance and brotherly love within the framework of karate and disco accoutrements—and to me it is more than adequately successful in creating a solidly entertaining B-movie within those parameters. I also realize that “more than adequately successful” does not sound like an enthusiastic endorsement, but trust me, it is.

Many thanks to Cinema Chaat for sending the Karate VCD all the way from Australia! That’s love, people.

* For the uninitiated: his uncles include Ashok and Kishore Kumar; Tanuja, Kajol, and Rani Mukherjee are more distant relatives; and he is the father of currently successful director Ayan Mukherjee of Wake Up Sid and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewaani).

The Friends of 4DK: Oriole the Heroine by Durian Dave

Weak... so weak... head crossing... eyes spinning... knees curdling... blood trembling... Must... post... but can't... But wait... what's that on the horizon? Coming to the rescue, it's none other than Durian Dave of the dynamic Soft Film blog, bringing us a  fascinating post about one of the great heroines of classic Hong Kong cinema.

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More than 40 years before Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung, and Anita Mui knocked the socks off Hong Kong movie fans with their wuxia-superhero mashup The Heroic Trio (1992), there was another trio of stylish crimefighters kicking ass on Hong Kong’s silver screen. If you listened to last year’s Infernal Brains podcast about the “Jane Bond” films of 1960s Hong Kong, you might remember us talking about a certain Oriole the Heroine and her trusty sidekicks.

THE CHARACTER

Born in 1948 in the pages of the Blue Cover Detective Magazine, Oriole (or Wong Ang) was a modern-day version of the xiadao, the righteous thief of traditional wuxia stories. The original stories published in Shanghai were patriotic spy thrillers set during the war of resistance against Japan. After the communists came to power, the magazine’s publisher fled to Hong Kong and continued publishing the Oriole stories, which proved so popular they were reissued as stand-alone editions and reprinted frequently. Over time, the stories evolved: Chinese gangsters replaced the Japanese villains; the plots became more complex and bizarre; and the writing style became more cinematic. The first official adaptation, Oriole, the Heroine (ca. 1957), came from Shaw Brothers. Two years later director Ren Pengnian and kung fu divas Yu So Chow, Wu Lizhu, and Yam Yin made a series of four films, the last of which was The Story of Wong Ang the Heroine (1960).

THE DIRECTOR

REN PENGNIAN got his start in 1919 at the motion picture unit of The Commercial Press, where he made what is believed to be the first Chinese film with choreographed fight scenes, Robbery on a Train (1920). He also directed the earliest feature-length Chinese film, a true-crime thriller called Yan Ruisheng (1921). Although he made everything from comedies to melodramas, Ren ended up devoting his career to action movies. In 1928 he and his wife Wu Lizhu founded the Yue Ming Studio and made films together up until the 60s. SWAH can be considered a last hurrah from the couple that pioneered the contemporary action film in Chinese cinema.

THE PLAYERS

YU SO CHOW as Wong Ang aka Oriole the Heroine. The daughter of Peking opera master Yu Jim-yuen (who taught the Seven Little Fortunes), Yu So Chow grew up behind the stage and by her teens was an accomplished performer specializing in female warrior roles. (Check out this clip of Yu performing with her father.) Her fighting skills alone qualified her for the crown of wuxia queen, which she proudly wore during the 50s and much of the 60s, yet I suspect it was her beauty and glamour that cinched the title. Throughout her career — from her screen debut The Double Pistol Heroine (1949) to her rare non-fighting role in Bachelors Beware (1960) — Yu So Chow possessed a cool attitude and style that found perfect expression in the character of Wong Ang.

WU LIZHU as Wu Nga. Before Yu So Chow there was Wu Lizhu, who made a name for herself as the “Oriental Female Fairbanks” in silent serials such as The Northeast Hero (1928-31) and Mistress of the Spear (1931-32). Besides traditional wuxia and kung-fu films, Wu and her husband Ren Pengnian also made patriotic films such as Greedy Neighbors (1933), Female Spy 76 (1947), and Bloodshed in a Beseiged Citadel (1948), as well as the Occidental swashbuckler Lady Robin Hood (1947). When Wu returned to the screen in 1959 to make the first of four Wong Ang films, she was 52 years old. If it’s true you’re only as old as you feel, then judging by her performance in SWAH, Wu Lizhu most have been feeling pretty young indeed.

YAM YIN as Heung At. The daughter of Yam Yu-tin (who in 1927 was the first-ever credited martial-arts director), Yam Yin starred in some 130 kung-fu and wuxia movies throughout the 50s and 60s. Although her popularity never matched that of Yu So Chow, she was a mainstay of the Wong Fei-hung series. That she never wore the crown of martial-arts queen probably had more to do with Yu So Chow’s innate regalness than a lack of qualifications on Yam’s part. Her fight scenes in SWAH show that Yam possessed an intense physicality uniquely her own.

SHEK KIN as Chiu Yee-kong, leader of the Diamond Gang. If you don’t know Shek Kin, then you don’t know Hong Kong movies. Long before his memorable turn as Mr. Han in Enter the Dragon (1973), Shek was already the epitome of villainy to Hong Kong moviegoers. “Bad Guy Kin”, as he was affectionately called, made more than 500 films in a career spanning six decades. Although SWAH doesn’t showcase his considerable martial skills, Shek proves that sometimes all a villain needs is a nefarious smile, a good cigar, and a trap-door dungeon.

There is no credited fight choreo- grapher for SWAH, but with stunt masters YUEN SIU-TIN (left), LAU KAR-LEUNG (right), and KWAN CHING-LEUNG (not pictured) all appearing as members of Shek Kin’s Diamond Gang, you can be sure the action is top-notch. Yuen Siu-tin is best known for his iconic role as Jackie Chan’s sifu in Drunken Master (and also as the father of Yuen Wo-ping). Less known is that he got his start in movies in 1930 working as a stunt man and choreographer on the films of Ren Pengnian and Wu Lizhu. The late Lau Kar-leung needs no introduction. Suffice to say that before he helped revolutionize the martial-arts genre at Shaw Brothers, he honed his chops in Cantonese cinema. Kwan Ching-leung, a disciple of Yu So Chow’s father, may not be as famous as Lau, yet he contributed greatly to the modernization of martial-arts movies with his choreography in such wuxia spectaculars as The Snowflake Sword (1964) and The Six-Fingered Lord of the Lute (1965). (For more about the groundbreaking work of Lau and Kwan, see my review of Connie Chan’s Lady Black Cat films.)

THE FASHION

Before the fists start to fly, the first thing that impresses about SWAH are the fab duds of Oriole and her pals. As I mentioned above, Yu So Chow really knew how to rock an outfit. And Wu Lizhu was no slouch either. Throughout her career, she sported a butch look that was never less than cool. Decked out in sweaters, vests, and blazers, capri pants (in plaid and houndstooth), cravats and scarves, our three heroines look so sharp that one scarcely misses the catsuit, mask, and cape featured on the pulp covers (and in the Shaw adaptation).

THE FIGHTS

Of course the main reason to watch SWAH is the fights. The story itself is nothing special and primarily serves to keep the characters in motion. As Jean Lukitsch writes in the just published first volume of Electric Shadows: the Secret History of Kung Fu Movies, “A Ren Pengnian movie really comes alive in the fight scenes.... The characters don’t change; all the dramatic energy goes into the action.” Check out the clip below and judge for yourself. If you like what you see, you can watch the entire film here.

The Friends of 4DK: Ghost With Hole, aka Sundel Bolong (Indonesia, 1981) by Carol Borden

The guest posts continue, this time with The Cultural Gutter's  Carol Borden providing an alternate take on a film that I reviewed for Teleport City way back when I was still one of you.

Director Sisworo Gautama Putra is smart enough to start Ghost With Hole with its two main draws, Suzzanna and the titular Ghost With Hole, in particular, that ghost's hole. Suzzanna is often called The Queen of Indonesian Horror, but it's an entirely different role than that of Hollywood scream queens. She's kind of like Ingrid Pitt or Barbara Steele if they were a huge chunk of the British or Italian horror film industries in their heyday. And Suzzanna has a stare that equals, if not surpasses, that of Barbara Steele. If Suzzanna and Barbara Steele had a staring contest, I am pretty sure that we would all die.

Ghost With Hole begins with a wolf howl, a shot of a a grave and Suzzanna briefly intoning, “My name is Alisa” and sharing the horror we are about to watch. Then Suzzanna uses her baleful stare as her name and then the title of the film come up to a snippet of “Night on Bald Mountain.” Then Sisworo gives us an eyeful of ghost hole, as the credits roll over the ragged, raw flesh and squirming worms in the (at least) eight inch hole in Suzzannah's lower back.

After giving us a good look, the film backtracks to recount the events that lead a young woman to become a vengeful, angry ghost with a wormy, exposed hole who utters the immortal line, “Satay. Two-hundred skewers. I'll eat here.”

Suzzanna plays Alisa, a young woman who had been a prostitute and left the life of a pro behind to marry handsome gentleman, Hendarto, played by Barry Prima. The film opens with their beautiful wedding reception. In marrying Hendarto, Alisa leaves all the nastiness of her pre-Hendarto life of smoking and wearing magnificent afro wigs behind. Suzzanna wears very respectable clothing and has very respectable hair. Everyone calls her, “Nyonya,” a very respectable, almost matronly title. Life is good. But Hendarto receives a mysterious and important letter at the wedding reception. Shortly thereafter, he sails away, perhaps as the captain of an Indonesian cruise ship dedicated to bringing love to couples (while he is tragically separated from his wife) or maybe to defeat the remaining vestiges of Dutch Colonial sponsored sorcery in the forest, since Sisworo shot Jaka Sembang the same year.

While Hendarto's gone, Alisa's madame, Mami, who really needs to blot some of her make-up, and her player sidekick, Rudy, move in. The name, “Rudy,” by itself, is a warning sign to me. There has rarely been a Rudy in film who hasn't been a jackhole. (I haven't actually seen one, but I'm willing to admit the possibility). Alisa is lured to The Rudy Boutique where Rudy becomes skeevy and Alisa has none of it. But Mami and Rudy are not the kind of people who respect marriage or consent. Rudy's gang of skeevy jerks park their mom's wood-paneled stationwagon across the road and feign an accident. When Alisa goes to check on the driver, they kidnap her. They will regret this so very much. They stuff Alisa into the station wagon's way back and drive to what appears to be a barn. She escapes when they unload her, knocking two men back into the car and kicks a third to run away in her bare feet. Then she hides behind a crate, her long hair making her look effectively like a hole. When she's finally noticed, she continues to demonstrate remarkably effective fighting before she's overwhelmed by numbers. Rudy eats a red delicious apple at her in a threatening manner. Mami refuses Alisa's pleas for help. Alisa uses her Suzzanna stare on Mami and Rudy, but, sadly, Alisa doesn't have supernatural powers yet.

Rudy rapes Alisa and then invites his band of skeevy jerks to rape her. Very little is shown beyond leering and sweating and Alisa tossing her head from side to side, which, in a lot of ways, make it more powerful. Rape and revenge is a tricky plot device for me. I've often had awkward conversations about rape in film being “upsetting.” I'm told, “It's supposed to be upsetting.” (And, just so you know, you probably don't have to remind women that rape is, indeed, upsetting). I just don't want already upsetting rape with a side of upsetting portrayal of rape. But because Indonesian authorities had clear controls on what could and could not be shown on film, we are left with Alisa, the person, suffering, and the cruelty of Rudy and his gang. Of course, I am certain it's not what Suharto intended at all.

Alisa reports the crime, but the men are acquitted at trial by a corrupt court and―despite her even more respectable and modest clothing, hijab, long sleeves and all―Alisa is publicly humiliated. And directly after the trial, we discover she's pregnant when she: 1. vomits; and 2. hemorrhages. Alisa sees a doctor who's very sorry that he can't help. The doctor apparently sort of fades into her consciousness, lecturing her even while she's at home. Alisa dreams a phantasmagoria of babies and, from the tone, it looks like she's been thinking of having an abortion. Between the lecturing, paternalistic doctor and the images of fake and real babies, some having genetic abnormalities, this part of the movie felt almost like a Fritz Lang film during his Expressionist period. When she wakes, the older woman who's been caring for her tries to buck Alisa up. But Alisa will not be bucked up. Instead, she listens and, when the woman leaves to bring her food, either dies during a miscarriage, attempts to abort the fetus herself or commits suicide in the bathroom. All are a sure path to becoming a restless spirit. And restless spirits and vengeance are what we come to Suzzanna movies for.

Hendarto returns home and, I assume, drives immediately to the cemetery to lay a bouquet on his dead wife's grave. At home, he finds the very same bouquet on his couch. Hendarto fades into an Ennio Morricone-tinged reverie of meeting and then marrying Alisa, and ending with Alisa's trip and fall on the way into their new home. Pretty much about when the movie starts. Alisa's ghost visits Hendarto as he sleeps and he awakens just as she disappears. Feeling weird, he goes for a drive and sees a döppelgänger of his dead wife with a calico cat in the road. Her name is Sinta. Despite years of stories and now youtube videos of ghosts walking along the side of the road, Hendarto drives her home, by which, I mean, to his home to talk to her about how much she looks like his dead wife. She appears to be a more girlish version of Alisa, but has no memory of their life together. They talk for a while in Hendarto's living room, among his wedding pictures. When Sinta leaves, she disappears. Hendarto isn't concerned enough to stop seeing Sinta. Meanwhile, I don't know what happened to Sinta's cat and I'm concerned.

However, ghost with hole arrives to terrify and punish her rapists. She starts off felicitously giving her first victim, Ram, a single-fingered gesture meaningful in both English and Indonesian, before drowning him. But Indonesian movies like a little bit of everything in the mix and after Alisa's terrifying visage and the discovery of the drowned body, Sisworo moves to a little bit of comic relief. As Mami grows more and more concerned about a potential vengeful ghost problem, she approaches a ritual specialist who is one of the most interesting elements of Southeast Asian films in general―ritual specialist comic relief. This gentleman talks a big game, at least at the wet bar in Mami's armored bus, but is obviously not effective, or, to be kinder, not effective enough against a Suzzanna-caliber spirit. Mami is probably better off using the spiritual equivalent of margarita mix. The levity includes not only a ritual specialist and his minion, but a pedicab driver, who has harassed Alisa's ghost into accepting a ride from him. He also hasn't received any City of Jakarta Traveler Advisories about picking up women in white walking along the road late at night. She less intentionally terrifies the operators of an all-night snack stand. Presumably suffering a sense of emptiness, she orders, “Satay. Two hundred skewers. I'll eat here.” Staring fixedly, she eats stick after stick and, still hungery, asks for soup. She drinks their whole pot with the camera following the water as it flows out her maggoty hole and down to the ground, already covered in pieces of grilled meat, thus blending the comic relief satay and soup with the horror of a ghost with a hole.

The practical effects are both practical and pretty effective. Alisa's hole is nasty and horrific and even bears the scrutiny of nearly an entire opening credits sequence. And the effects hold up pretty well as Alisa spends the rest of the film hunting down her attackers. She's frightening when she appears before one of the rapists wearing her shroud, with her eyes, nostrils and mouth plugged with gauze. I found it particularly powerful when her arms burst through a brick (styrofoam, but still) wall to crush one of the rapists. But, really, Suzzanna could just stare people to death, and I'd be fine.

Of course, Alisa's return as a sundel bolong and these killings are all part of a chain of action that began with the rape and Alisa's anger at not receiving justice. And while her vengeance is satisfying, the ghost is a problem for everybody around and is herself suffering. Ultimately Hendarto realizes he needs to do something. First, though, he shows off his Barry Prima martial arts skills in a pretty good fight with the surviving members of the skeevy jerk gang who attack him at a dockside sugar plant. But he also talks to a local official and a ritual specialist who knows what to do. The ritual specialist confirms what we all suspected, Sinta is Alisa and Alisa is a sundel bolong. Everything comes together at the cemetery, when Rudy and the surviving member of his gang decide to put an end to Alisa and Hendarto and his friends arrive to put her to rest. The final battle between Alisa and Rudy, his remaining gang members and a more competent but still not up to snuff ritual specialist involves more vengeance, kris lasers, hand gestures and staring while the soundtrack becomes remarkably atmospheric as it sounds like a radio station fading in and out.

Alisa's end is sad, because she did nothing to deserve what happened to her. At best, Alisa is “at rest.” But then, that is a huge part of the appeal of Indonesian horror; that deserve's got nothing to do with it, that it's an unfortunate confluence of events, that the supernatural and the mundane can only exist together in very circumscribed and controlled ways. And that you best treat the lady ordering 200 satays politely because she could very well be a spirit.

The Friends of 4DK: Bikinis Y Rock (Mexico, 1972) by Tars Tarkas

The cavalcade of guest stars continues here at 4DK while I nurture my budding prehensile tail. This week finds my fellow Infernal Brain and host of the jawesome TarsTarkas.NET, Tars Tarkas, stepping outside of his comfort zone.

It has come to my attention that certain people believe that I only review films with "Bikini" in the title. Nothing could be further from the truth! At TarsTarkas.NET, I strive to cover a diverse range of cinema from all corners of the square globe, regardless of words in their titles. And to prove it, this guest post will cover that Mexican music-saturated comedy, Bikinis Y Rock. Oh, son of a ---  

Bikinis Y Rock features a lovable loser and his more lovable more loser friend as they save his dad's clothing company thanks to the power of bikinis. But a rival bikini company has them in their targets. If you think this sounds vaguely familiar, that's because Bikinis Y Rock is a remake of a prior film called A Ritmo de Twist! Yes, Mexico did a reverse Rock Around the Clock/Twist Around the Clock! Both films feature famed comedian Manuel "El Loco" Valdés, brother of Germán "Tin Tan" Valdés and "Don Ramón" Valdés. El Loco starred in A Ritmo de Twist, but this time out Valdés plays a loopy cult leader along with some of his fellow tv comedians.

Bikinis Y Rock is one of those movies where bands are constantly performing at parties that go on forever and everyone dances. Unlike real parties, where people just stand around holding red plastic cups until it's time to run to the yard to vomit. Said bands and parties take place at a commune run by El Loco's guru character, who looks like a mugshot you'd find while browsing those "Are sexual predators in your neighborhood?" websites. Attending this Guru's hippie cult are Alex and his friend Lalo (Ricardo Cortés and Lalo "El Mimo"), who are instrumental in the cult having their non-stop rocking.

Alex is drafted by his father to help save his floundering clothing company, so Alex and Lalo go to play clothing designer. Which doesn't seem to involve designing clothes, but does seem to involve denying jobs to their two sort of but not really girlfriends Sabrina and Claudia (Verónica Castro and Olga Breeskin). No matter, as the two girls take secret snaps of the upcoming bikini line, which they promptly show off to their new boss, the head of a rival design company, who sets off to make her own copied bikinis.

If that doesn't sound exciting enough to get you to drive to Mexico to track down a VHS of Bikinis Y Rock, knowing that Alex and Lalo then kidnap two maids and dress up as those maids to sneak into the rival clothing designer's factory will see you reaching for your keys and passports. But don't leave just yet, there is more magic to Bikinis Y Rock...

While Alex and Lalo make their required stop into the girl's locker room and then go take a nap in an office, the maids are partying down with the cult. It is sort of surreal to see two Mexican maids dressed as stereotypical maids rocking their socks off to covers of American rock music sung by Mexican bands while the piles of hippies lie all around them, so drugged out they can barely party down. Bikinis Y Rock tackles the big issues of 21st Century America, truly a visionary cinematic spectacle!

The two rival clothing companies will face off at a local fashion show, but first Alex and Lalo's designs are stolen by their rivals thanks to the help of a tiger. Thankfully no hippies are fed to the tiger, as that would be unfair to the tiger. Will Alex and Lalo get to show off their cool designs that save their company? Eh, who cares, they're playing more rock music! Dance your cares away.

Musical director Gustavo César Carrión probably did the score to all your favorite Mexican films, because he seemed to do the score to almost all of Mexican cinema for 40 years! From El Baron Del Terror to Las Modelos de Desnudos, Carrión was the soundtrack of generations.

While Bikinis Y Rock isn't for every palate, there are a few reasons to seek it out. First being fans of the many songs performed by various Mexican garage bands, including El Ritual, a psychedelic rock group that performs American Woman. You can also find covers of We Got To Live Together and We Got The Power.

Another reason is the pair of eye candy, Verónica Castro and Olga Breeskin. Bikinis Y Rock was Verónica Castro's first film, and the young actress was married to Manuel Valdés and had a productive career in film and television. Olga Breeskin is the daughter of Russian violinist and conductor Elias Breeskin, and took up violin herself. She made a name by performing nightclub acts with her instrument and barely any clothing. Olga towers over most of the actors and actresses in Bikinis Y Rock, with her exotic pre-super model look. Both actresses have the amazing charm and attractiveness so often found in Mexican cinema, which make you wonder just why the two main characters don't want them anywhere near them. A mystery for the ages.

From the highs of surreal musical performances and comedy to the lows of making you watch filthy hippies, Bikinis Y Rock packs a cinematic experience that you won't be able to find surfing late night cable. Unless you have that really cool late night cable, the one with all the hippie channels.