A Look Back at Four Emerging Master Filmmakers of 2002: Park Chan-wook, Julio Medem, Jacques Audiard, and Miike Takashi

In honor of Park Chan-wook's Donald Westlake adaptation, No Other Choice, I've revived a piece I wrote for SIFF's Reel News about the festival's 2002 quartet of Emerging Masters. Park was joined by Julio Medem, Jacques Audiard, and Miike Takashi. 

I was first introduced to the South Korean filmmaker's work when SIFF programmed Park's third feature, 2000's Joint Security Area, aka JSA, and I've been a fan ever since (SIFF also introduced me to Audiard's work when they programmed his second feature, A Self-Made Hero, in 1997).  

I'm glad Park is still going strong, with eight more features since Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, the first in a trilogy with Oldboy and Lady Vengeance, though I regret that both Reel News and Emerging Masters are things of the past. (This piece has been lightly revised from the original text.)

THE LATEST CROP: SIFF'S 2002 EMERGING MASTERS 

Each year SIFF selects four directors from around the world who have, within the span of a decade or a handful of films, established themselves as potential cinematic masters. This series celebrates outstanding talents whose films reveal an original vision or point of view and a grasp of craft that sets them apart from the preponderance of filmmakers, clearly establishing them as artists of a high order.

These are directors with the ability to break into the mainstream of American filmgoers' consciousness in the near future. 

Past honorees have included Tom Tykwer (Wintersleepers, Run Lola Run), François Ozon (Under the Sand, 8 Femmes), and Michael Winterbottom (Welcome to Sarajevo, 24 Hour Party People).   

PARK CHAN-WOOK

First out of the gate is Park Chan-wook, dubbed a "giant in the Korean movie world" by The Korea Times. Park is the young director and co-writer of powerful political thriller Joint Security Area (Gongdong Gyeongbi Guyeok, SIFF '01), which became the biggest box office hit in South Korea within mere weeks of its release. JSA was also a local Seattle favorite, where it won SIFF's New Director's Showcase Special Jury Award and was a Runner-up for the Golden Space Needle Audience Award for Best Film.  

Although some critics have compared it to Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (high praise indeed), the twisty, masterfully shot (in Super 35mm) motion picture reminded this viewer more of John Frankenheimer's iconic Richard Condon adaptation The Manchurian Candidate--but with a greater sense of humor.    

Park was born in Seoul and graduated from Sogang University, a Jesuit institution, with a degree in philosophy.  He also worked as a film critic and started directing in the early-1990s (The Moon is…the Sun's Dream, Trio), but JSA was the first of his films to gain worldwide exposure.  

As The Korea Times notes, "His works have always been about socially neglected people, such as the three heroes in Saminjo (Trio): a struggling saxophone player playing gigs in cheap nightclubs, an uneducated tough guy and a single mother."  

Even before the release of JSA, Park was working on the screenplay for his latest release, riveting crime drama Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (above), which, like JSA, was shot in widescreen and, like Trio, concerns a group of "socially neglected people," and the ways in which their lives intersect. 

Sympathy reunites Park with two favorite actors: Song Kang-ho (Shiri, SIFF ’00, The Foul King, SIFF '01) and Shin Ha-kyun (Save the Green Planet!). He has cited the hard-boiled detective fiction of American writers Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammet, and Ernest Hemingway for its inspiration.   

JULIO MEDEM

Like Park, Spain's Julio Medem didn't start out in film--not formally, at any rate--but as a medical student at Basque Country University. While there, however, he wrote about film for a San Sebastian newspaper. 

Medem bridged the gap--some would say gulf--between film criticism and filmmaking by teaching himself cinematography using his father's Super 8 camera and shooting a series of inventive short films in the 1980s before releasing his full-length debut, Vacas (Cows, SIFF '92), in 1991. He was off to an auspicious start. The Basque-set historical fantasia won an award for Best New Director at the 1993 Goyas (the Spanish Academy Awards).  

From his short films to his most recent feature film, Medem has continued to reveal a boundless fascination with fate, romance, and the fine line dividing reality from illusion. 

He has become known and renowned for the sensuality, lyricism, and sophistication of his imagery, inspiring comparisons to such stylistic brothers-in-arms as Gabriel Garcia Marquez (100 Years of Solitude), Carlos Saura (Carmen), Raoul Ruíz (Time Regained), Luis Buñuel (That Obscure Object of Desire), and David Lynch (Mulholland Drive) with a little Emir Kusturica (Underground) thrown into the mix. Empire has described him as a director of "daring intelligence, stylish invention and visual dynamism."

As he explained to The New York Times' Leslie Camhi in 1999, his approach towards each film is largely visual and intuitive: ''When I'm working, if I come up with something that has a very clear and concrete meaning, I almost always put it aside.'' Medem has long been a favorite of SIFF audiences, who have been able to enjoy every one of his films thus far--although The Red Squirrel (La Ardilla Roja, SIFF '94), which was supposed to be part of 1993's slate, was, unfortunately, delayed until the following year--many would probably agree, however, that it was worth the wait. 

His other films include Tierra (Earth, SIFF ’97), nominated for the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, The Lovers of the Arctic Circle (Los Amantes del Circulo Polar, SIFF '99), nominated for a Golden Lion at the 1998 Venice Film Festival and Best Screenplay at the 1999 Goyas, and, his most recent, Sex and Lucia (Lucía y el Sexo), nominated for Best Screenplay and Best Director at the 2002 Goyas.

JACQUES AUDIARD 

France's Jacques Audiard was, essentially, born into the world of film, since his father is screenwriter Michel Audiard (The Night Affair), a favorite dialogue writer of French great Jean Gabin. Michel passed away in 1985.

His son got his start as an editor, playwright, and screenwriter before turning to directing with 1994's acclaimed See How They Fall (Regarde les Hommes Tomber), winner of the Best New Director Award at the 1995 Césars (the French Academy Awards). The intense noir received precious little exposure in the US despite the participation of Jean-Louis Trintignant (The Conformist) and actor/director Mathieu Kassovitz (Amélie).  

Like Audiard, Kassovitz is a second-generation cineaste--his father is writer/director Peter Kassovitz.

It was, in fact, the uncanny resemblance between Trintignant and the elder Kassovitz that led Audiard to again cast the veteran actor in his darkly comic 1996 follow-up, A Self-Made Hero (Un Heros Très Discret, SIFF '97). 

Kassovitz, who made 1995's La Haine, his own well received directorial debut, had already been cast as Resistance "hero" Albert Dehousse; Trintignant was added as the same character in later years. A Self-Made Hero went on to win the Best Screenplay Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

With his latest film, Read My Lips (Sur Mes Lèvres), Audiard takes a more direct, less stylized approach than that of A Self-Made Hero. The kinetic psychological thriller is marked by impressive performances from Vincent Cassel (Kassovitz's La Haine and The Crimson Rivers, SIFF '01) and Emmanuelle Devos (La Sentinelle, SIFF '93) and concerns the unconventional--and potentially deadly--relationship that develops between an insecure, hearing-impaired secretary and an aggressive, recently-paroled ex-con.  It resulted in another success for Audiard, winning awards at the 2002 Césars for Best Writing, Best Editing, and Best Actress (Devos). Audiard was also nominated for Best Director and Cassel for Best Actor.  

All the while, Audiard has continued to write for other directors, including Tonie Marshall's Venus Beauty Institute (Vénus Beauté, SIFF '00), another multiple-César winner, and Read My Lips looks set to increase Audiard's steadily growing and richly deserved international reputation.    

MIIKE TAKASHI

Last, but certainly not least, is Japan's Miike Takashi, who got his start by assisting legendary director Shohei Imamura (The Eel) in the 1980s. 

Since then, the tireless Miike has directed countless made-for-video and television productions, honing his considerable chops all the way. Starting in the mid-1990s, he has increasingly been at the helm of theatrical features, such as The City of Lost Souls (Hyôryuu-gai), Dead or Alive (Hanzaisha)--which features what must surely be one of the most infamous opening sequences of all time--and Ichi the Killer (Koroshiya 1), among others.  

The word "prolific" often accompanies mention of his name, along with other such colorful words and phrases as "graphic," "hallucinatory," "jaw-dropping," and my personal favorite: "flamboyantly weird," but don't be fooled by that first word.  As Sight & Sound's Tony Rayns, an early champion, has noted, Miike is prolific in the way that Rainer Werner Fassbinder was prolific, if closer in spirit to Joseph H. Lewis. "Almost all of [his films] are interesting and some of them phenomenal," Rayns raved.

The best way to describe Miike, however, is probably the simplest: anything goes. There's literally nothing he won't try.  

As such, he's been compared to everyone from Seijun Suzuki (Tokyo Drifter), Takeshi Kitano (Hana-bi), Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction), and, yes, even the "Godfather of Gore" himself, Herschell Gordon Lewis (Blood Feast). His themes include those associated with Japanese actioners from Suzuki's cult 1960s classics to today--primarily the yakuza and the drug trade--but a surprising number of his films are more than just hyped-up action fare, since he also takes the time to deal with discrimination against foreigners, both non-Asians and non-Japanese Asians, and other more sober topics.  

As for versatile, well, The Happiness of the Katakuris (Katakuri-ke no Kôfuku), just happens to be a family-oriented musical, though one unlikely to be mistaken for The Sound of Music anytime soon, despite the mountain-setting similarity. Zombies, stop-motion animation--Happiness has it all.   

To date, Takashi's most significant cinematic achievement must surely be the artful, if extremely disturbing Audition (Odishon, SIFF ’00), which won the FIPRESCI Award at the 1999 Rotterdam Film Festival "for its narrative freedom, technical mastery of genre and the inventivity [sic] of an important new and prolific director." (That word again!) It's the film that put Miike over the top, as it were, with raves in The New York Times and other major publications. He couldn't have been more pleased. As he exclaimed to BBC Online's David Wood in 2001, "This [success] is something I am very excited by. I like to work hard and to work fast, refining my skills, but to have a film receive such a good response worldwide goes beyond my wildest dreams." 

And, with that, here's to more powerful thrillers, wild dreams, weird nightmares, and other delights from this year's crop of Emerging Masters at SIFF: Park Chan-wook, Julio Medem, Jacques Audiard, and Miike Takashi.

Kathleen Fennessy writes about music and film for Amazon.com, All Music Guide (www.allmusic.com), and The Stranger. She has also contributed to Microsoft Cinemania, Film.com, and The Anchorage Times, among other websites and publications. She has been a SIFF volunteer since 1994. 

No Other Choice plays IMAX theaters for one-night only on Dec 8 and returns for a regular run in Jan. Images from the IMDb (Park Chan-wook with Lee Byung-hun, Shin Ha-kyun, Song Kang-ho, and Lee Yeong-ae on the set of Joint Security Area, Julio Medem and Paz Vega on the set of Sex and Lucía, and Miike Takashi in Hostel), Rotten Tomatoes (Park and Song on the set of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance), DVD Talk (Cows), Variety (Jacques Audiard / Courtesy of Shannon Besson), Metacritic (Mathieu Kassovitz in A Self-Made Hero), and Screen Slate (Happiness of the Katakuris).