Almost seven years after its release in 2000 and the sensation of
countless film festivals, Wisit Sasanatieng’s TEARS OF THE BLACK
TIGER is finally getting a U.S. premiere – the first official
playdate outside of a festival if I’m not mistaken – at New York
City’s Film Forum on January 12th. One of the most ambitious
productions to ever emerge from the Thai film industry, TEARS
seemed poised for international success, got tangled up in
distribution troubles and was soon forgotten by the fickle festival
audiences who thought it would be the next “Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon.” But unlike “Crouching Tiger,” it’s not a kinetic action
film at all but a rare, exotic flower that contains elements of
several genres, all of it played out in a stylized palette of
intense colors and choreographed violence that is closer to a
Vincente Minnelli musical than a Budd Boetticher oater in its
visual design. Yet there are homages to Sam Peckinpah (slow motion
gunfire), spaghetti westerns (Ennio Morricone-like musical cues),
and even “Romeo and Juliet” – Dum, the country boy hero, and the
wealthy Rumpoey, are star-crossed lovers.

The fever dream look of the film, which may remind some viewers of
Bollywood musicals, is further enhanced by the irresistable musical
score of Amornbhong Methakunavudh (don’t make me pronounce his
name). You will find yourself whistling the theme song in the
shower for days…even weeks afterwards.

But the film is clearly not for everyone and part of the problem is
that it defies easy categorization, despite the fact that it is
essentially a Western.

Edward Buscombe of Sight and Sound magazine called it a “pastiche”
but that’s not a word that is usually complimentary or does this
film justice. Nevertheless, Buscombe does get at the unique essense
of the film in this excerpt: “There’s been nothing quite like it in
the Western, with the possible exception of “Rustlers’ Rhapsody“
(1985), an unfairly forgotten Tom Berenger parody which had fun
with singing cowboy costumes and sunsets. But “Tears of the Black
Tiger” goes further. At one point Dum plays the harmonica Rumpoey
has given him (definitely an Autry touch) against a huge yellow sun
painted on a backdrop. This isn’t a set painted to deceive (as in
the ships painted in at the end of the street in Hitchcock’s
“Marnie“). Nor is it a Godard-style alienation device, reminding us
we are only watching a movie. In fact, this is more postmodernism
than modernism, producing a surface texture which is only surface.
Whereas Hitchcock and Godard subordinate the surface to a hierarchy
of discourse (in Hitchcock’s case the narrative is supreme, in
Godard’s the ideological argument), in “Tears of the Black Tiger“
there is only pastiche, a play of images for their own sake…The
action (read: fighting, shooting, killing) is tame by contemporary
Hollywood standards, nor does the film have the balletic beauty of
the best Hong Kong martial-arts movies. And it’s not standard
arthouse fare either: far from offering a commentary on sexual
politics, late capitalism or any of the other favoured topics of
art cinema, it’s a movie, ultimately, about nothing at all. But
then, so was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and look what happened
to that.”

If any of this has piqued your interest, then definitely check out
“Tears of the Black Tiger” if you get the opportunity. It’s currently available on DVD but is a better experience at the cinema.