RE-CYCLE

Hong Kong, 2006, 109 minutes, Colour.
Lee Sinje.
Directed by Danny and Oxide Pang.

The Pang Brothers have shown that they can do tough (Bangkok Dangerous) and they can do spooky (The Eye). At first it looks as though this time they are doing some genteel drama leading to spooky. A moody novelist is at the press conference after the screening of the first adaptation of one of her books. The title of the next is announced: Re-cycle. However, she has not really begun it.

Back in her apartment, water overflows from a bath (the Pangs have seen Dark Waters), the phone rings mysteriously (the Pangs have seen the Ring films). Is this what they mean by ‘re-cycling’? Then the ghosts start to appear and we find that we have been misjudging them altogether. What follows is a cinematic tour-de-force of imagination and effects.

If you want to know what a phantasmagoria is and see a very stylishly produced one, this is it. At the end, reincarnation is mentioned and mysteriously visualised. The phantasmagoria is akin to Dante’s tour of the inferno and the purgatorio (not very much paradise at all), an other-world divine comedy. The impact is overpowering, overwhelming. There is a pounding score and sound engineering to match.

At the core of the journey, where our novelist is advised by a grandfather figure and then led out of mazes to ‘The Transit’ to this world by a little girl is the neglect of ancestor worship. The novelist experiences a horrendous attack by ghoulish spurned ancestors. More central is her journey through a blood and fiery red environment like blood cells and the womb. It is here that aborted babies survive and grow. This segment is frighteningly powerful.

What begins as ‘we’ve seen this before’ moves into a film that we’ve never seen before, quite a cinematic achievement.

1. The career of the Pang brothers? Their observations on social life in Thailand, Hong Kong, China? Their interest in the horror tradition? Their blending these two themes in Re-Cycle?

2. The title, the obvious meaning of recycling and using old things again? As applied to the horror genre – the flooding water from Dark Waters? The phone calls from The Ring? The mysterious presences in The Grudge? The first half hour of the film seemingly recycling old trends? The film then breaking through into new dimensions?

3. The Hong Kong settings? Apartment – ordinary and then mysterious? The press conference? The ordinary social life in Hong Kong?

4. The contrast with the imaginative sets for the fantasy? The apartment, the transition from the apartment into the ruins and the old building, the transition into the interior of the human body with its red colour, its shapes, its suggestions of physical organs? The babies in this scene? The transition to a more peaceful time? The old man and the sitting giving advice? The transition to the land of the dead, the special effects for the ancestors, their coming to life, threatening? The terrain, the mountains? The different landscape? The overall effect of this fantasy?

5. The significance of the musical score, its atmosphere, the booming, the sound engineering, the ominous sounds at the back of the fantasy?

6. The portrait of the writer, her success with her romance novels, the fact that one of them was filmed, her going to the press conferences? The questions about her personal life? Her saying that the central character no longer lived? The irony of her meeting him on the steps? His pursuing her, their going to the restaurant, the discussion with her friend about him? His divorce, his wife being pregnant? Her not wanting contact with him? Her ordinary life, the editor of the books, the plan for the next novel, her wanting to do something about ghosts and the supernatural? Her scepticism, the questions about her own experience? The revelation that in her relationship with the man eight years earlier she had become pregnant and had had an abortion? The consequences for her?

7. Her working in the apartment, writing the manuscript, the pages, the computer? The computer taking over? The appearances of the ghosts?

8. The fantasy and the journey, her strength of character, her fears? The relationship of her experiences to the novel she wanted to write? Her own subconscious, her psychology? The pursuit by the ghosts, her in the never-never-land, her fears, the ugliness, the booming sounds, the colours and images? Her breaking free, the old man, his advice – the grandfather image? The appearance of the little girl, her following her? The reality of the aborted foetuses, their growing in this land? The explanation by the little girl? The revelation that she was her aborted daughter? The issue of whether the mother loved the aborted child or not? The effect on the writer, her conscience, her fears, her love for her daughter? The daughter leading her to escape this particular terrain? The discovery of the ancestors, the ancestors being neglected? The importance of this reverence for ancestors in Chinese religion? The visual appearance of the ancestors, so many of them, their being vengeful? The offering of the flowers as a tribute? There not being enough flowers? The paper money and its distribution? Rituals for the ancestors? The little girl leading her on, out of the clutches of the ancestors? The barriers? The Transit? The little girl not being able to go any further, having led her mother to this point, her mother making the transition? The grandfather and his advice and her understanding it?

9. Having to leave her daughter behind, coming back into life? The finishing of the novel? The irony of the reincarnation of her self? The living and the dead? The two women confronting each other? Who was the author and who was not? Who was the authentic character?

10. The background of Chinese religion, traditions, worship of the ancestors, the reality of killing of children and foetuses? Reincarnation?

11. How will did the Pang brothers combine plot, characterisation, religion and tradition, horror, and imagination on a grand scale?