Here’s the latest installment of Hidden Treasures.

(click on MORE below to view clips / trailers from this week’s films)

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Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
One of early Hollywood’s most influential personalities, Cecil B. DeMille was renowned for making “big” movies, which boasted larger than life stories and casts grand enough to support them. Initially, one might be reluctant to place his 1942 adventure Reap the Wild Wind in the same category as the great director’s other works, yet I believe it is a movie as ambitious in scale as any of DeMille’s more popular epics, and certainly deserves a place among his most exciting tales.

In 1840, the business of America was conducted by sea, and the waters surrounding the Florida Keys were among the most traveled in the country. Along with the merchants, the area also had its fair share of pirates and profiteers, men who found quick riches in the salvage of ships lost at sea. Loxi Claiborne (Paulette Goddard), a Captain of her own salvage ship, rescues Capt. Jack Stuart (John Wayne) and his crew, whose vessel has struck a reef. While Loxi is busy rescuing the crew, the areas most notorious profiteers, the Cutter Brothers (Raymond Massey and Robert Preston), make off with Stuart’s cargo. To end the tyranny of the Cutters, Stuart must team up with Steve Tolliver (Ray Milland), the second in command of the shipping company for which they both work, a partnership that is complicated by the fact that both Stuart and Tolliver are in love with Loxi..

If you’re looking for excitement, then Reap The Wild Wind will surely give you your fill. The film starts strongly, with the extremely tense shipwreck described above, and continues at a similar pace throughout, culminating in a nail-biting underwater battle with a giant squid. The many scenes at sea are especially thrilling, with DeMille showcasing his flair for both action and high drama every chance he gets. In true Cecil B. DeMille style, Reap the Wild Wind is a good, old-fashioned Hollywood spectacle.

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Quest For Fire (1981)
A good movie draws its audience into the world it creates. The fact that Quest for Fire achieves this does not in itself make it a unique motion picture; the fact that it’s set eighty thousand years in the past, recreating a time and place when mankind was unable to communicate verbally, does. I admit that I was skeptical going into this film, wondering how director Jean Jacques Annaud could possibly pull off a narrative story set in so primitive an environment. Would I even be able to follow what was going on? Well, not only did Quest for Fire keep me in tune with its story, it did so in a manner that was awe-inspiring. Quest for Fire is a remarkable achievement; a film to watch in stunned silence.

Quest for Fire is the story of a prehistoric tribe that, like all others, needs fire in order to survive. When their only source of fire is accidentally extinguished, three members of the tribe; Naoh (Everett McGill), Amoukar (Ron Perlman) and Gaw (Nameer El-Kadi), set out on a quest to bring back more. On their journey, which is both perilous and fascinating, the three meet up with a strange woman named Ika (Rae Dawn Chong), a member of an advanced tribe that has mastered a way to make fire, just one of the many mysteries of life Ika introduces to her three new companions.

The most basic of human emotions, such as fear, anger and desire, which have their roots in man’s most primitive past, are captured quite effectively in Quest for Fire, yet there are much deeper feelings at play here as well. In unison with the primordial, Quest for Fire also sets out to give us a glimpse into the beginnings of mankind as a sentient being, aware of his own possibilities. There’s even one scene where we witness what is best described as a very early occurrence of self-defined morality. After days of going without food, Naoh, Amoukar and Gaw stumble upon the remains of another tribe’s feast, and begin gnawing at the bones left behind. Suddenly, Naoh lifts up a human skull, and the three realize the meal they’re enjoying is the leftovers of cannibals. Upon this discovery, Amoukar spits the food onto the ground in disgust. In that moment, the primitive feeling of hunger is overtaken by a more personal judgment of what is right and what is wrong. Obviously the other tribe had no qualms about eating human flesh, thus laying out for us what is perhaps the earliest example of societal mores. In moments such as these, which includes the exploration of love in a monogamous form, Quest for Fire takes on a deeper purpose than a simple tale of our primitive ancestor’s fight for survival; it gives us mankind at a crossroads, revealing the emotional and social struggles that will hamper humanity’s existence for thousands of years to come.

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In The Mood For Love (2000)

“Out of our quarrels with others we make rhetoric. Out of our quarrels with ourselves we make poetry.” – William Butler Yeats

Lost love can be devastating, but not nearly as distressing as true love left unexplored. In The Mood For Love examines two people who have lost loves, yet in each other find consolation, reassurance, and, eventually, much deeper feelings, feelings that their personal moralities prevent them from acting upon. They have doubly suffered; first losing love, and then failing to grasp it when it was again within reach. While exploring turbulent emotions, In The Mood For Love is simultaneously heartbreaking and poetic, flowing as smoothly as a sonata composed by a maestro.

Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung) is renting a room in an apartment building in 1960’s Hong Kong. Her husband is often away on business, so she spends a lot of time by herself. Renting a room in the apartment right next door is Mr. Chow (Tony Leung Chiu Wai). Mr. Chow also spends a lot of time alone, as his wife frequently works late hours. Soon, each one begins to suspect that their absentee spouses are having an affair, and upon comparing stories and situations, learn that the ‘other woman’ sharing Mr. Chan’s bed is none other than Mr. Chow’s wife.

From this simple story, In The Mood For Love develops a complex emotional tale of how convention and ethics can give way to loneliness and betrayal. Wong Kar-Wai, whom I consider to be one of the most dynamic directors working today, enjoys dabbling in themes of lost love. His earlier film, Chungking Express (a movie I adore), follows two separate stories of failed romance. With In The Mood For Love, he brings two injured parties together, yet does not follow the standard plot line by having them become romantically involved (at least not on a physical level). In unison with this fascinating tale of unrequited love, the cinematic style of the film is quite impressive. To artistically capture the exquisite settings and costume design (which perfectly present the look and feel of 1960’s Hong Kong), Wong Kar-Wai employs a manner of photography that comes across as lyrical, almost trance-like. As the scorned duo make their way through the lonely Hong-Kong streets, the director follows their movements via a very fluidic slow-motion, as if they are walking along in a dream state. These slow-motion shots, aside from stylistically enhancing the film, also work towards developing the characters of Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow. As the world around them passes by, they are either unable or unwilling to keep up with it.

(click on MORE below to view clips / trailers from this week’s films)

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