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Review
by Kozo: |
Avoiding
possible spoilage of Diary? If so, you should
probably read something else, like the liner notes
of (Note: blatant cross-promotion ahead) "Ho Hoo Tan",
the latest CD from those ubiquitous Twins girls. Directed
by the equally ubiquitous Pang Brothers, Diary
is a psychological thriller that delivers heavily
on the psychosis. Charlene Choi stars as Winnie Leung,
an adorable perfume counter girl with a major problem:
she suffers from delusions, with an option on full-blown
schizophrenia. When we first meet her, she's preparing
dinner for her boyfriend Seth, who never answers his
phone and seems to be having a hard time finding his
way home. Once the meal has grown cold, Winnie realizes
the awful truth: Seth has left quietly, taking his
belongings elsewhere rather than suffer another day
from Winnie's claustrophobic attentions. Winnie commiserates
with her pal (Isabella Leong in a rather small role)
before looking all over the place for Seth, who still
can't be found. Did the guy just drop off the face
of the earth?
No, because Winnie's account
of her daily life is heavily flawed. Director Oxide
Pang reveals early on that Winnie isn't mentally healthy;
her delusional/schizophrenic tendencies are explained
in a clinical voiceover, which accompanies a series
of "A/B comparison" shots of Winnie reacting to stuff
that may or may not be there. We see Winnie cowering
in fear from nothing, gazing in wonder at the sky,
and being startled in a completely empty room. Pang
then repeats the shots with inserted CGI and sound
effects; in Winnie's mind, she's cowering in fear
from a black cloud approaching through her window,
she's gazing at an imagined snowfall, and she's frightened
by giant puppet clambering through her flat just a
few feet behind her. We also see Winnie visiting Seth's
workplace, where she's informed that he's quit. A
few minutes later, the scene repeats in black-and-white,
except this time the receptionist states that nobody
named Seth works there. Clearly, Winnie's account
of things cannot be trusted.
However, the filmmakers can't
be trusted, either. Oxide Pang does tell us that Winnie
is a few miles south of reality, but he neglects to
set up consistent rules as to what is trustable and
what isn't. Winnie's delusions are seen in color,
and reality in black-and-white, right? Maybe not,
because many of the "real" shots appear in color,
and some of the "fake" ones in black-and-white too.
Winnie never finds Seth, but she does pick up Ray
(Shawn Yue), a nice fellow who takes a shine to the
emotionally-troubled girl. The two start a romance,
but things seem disturbingly uncertain; Winnie keeps
bringing up Seth, which sometimes pisses off Ray.
Sometimes, while listening to Winnie talk about Seth
or her feelings, Ray starts getting a noticeable "deer
in the headlights" look, as if he just realized that
he's dating that girl from Audition. However,
at other times, Ray is sullen and morose, like a guy
who's had the life sucked out of him by overexposure
to EEG-funded sweetness. What's really happening here?
Well, nothing may be happening,
because again, Winnie isn't telling the complete truth.
One of her hobbies is writing in her personal diary,
which purportedly contains the real truth - or so
we're led to believe. At one point, it's even suggested
that Winnie's reality is being created by her diary
musings. Cue massive lightbulb - of course it is!
Regardless if the truth in the diary is the real one,
it's obvious that Winnie is the sole manufacturer
of her daily experience - ergo, the audience is getting
a faceful of Winnie-created reality. Once the audience
figures out that it's the world according to Winnie - and they should fairly early - Diary quickly
becomes a game of "what's real and what's not." Was
Seth real? Is Ray real? How about pal Isabella? These
questions seem larger in the beginning, but as the
film progresses it becomes fairly obvious what's being
produced by Winnie's overactive imagination. The question
then becomes where all this is headed.
Duh, it's headed for the
big reveal - or the big twist, as we normally call
it. Well, the Pangs deliver more than one big twist,
which is where the film goes from intriguing to annoying
and then finally unfulfilling. Winnie's delusions
eventually hit their peak, and when things finally
give, we get...the Pang Brothers' screen credit! Bizarrely,
the prolific directing/producing duo choose to deliver
their screen credit a full hour after everyone else's.
The effect is basically that they pause the film to
triumphantly remind us, "This is a Pang Brothers film,
and don't you forget about it!" However, the unorthodox
self-congratulation also damages the film's suspension
of disbelief, which until then was quite potent. The
common reaction when seeing their screen credit appear
is probably to check your watch, thinking that the
film has reached its end. Actually, it hasn't, and
is only gearing up for its final third, which delivers
a couple of haunting twists, some labored explanation,
and then a final twist that's bewildering in its sheer
lack of necessity (at least to non-EEG fans). All
the ending really demonstrates is that Winnie is more
than just deluded - she's SUPER deluded. Do we really
need a twist to explain that?
Probably not, but perhaps Diary needed a little padding because it's
a fairly slight film. Basically, the film is one long
illusion followed by the multiple explanations as
to what was real and what wasn't. On a deeper level,
it's an unsettling portrait of schizophrenia vis a
vis intriguing details, decent acting, and some fine
filmmaking technique. As Winnie, Charlene Choi is
very effective, using her squeaky-clean demeanor to
mask a disturbing instability. The performance is
sometimes too obvious in its showy tics, but Choi
carries the film well, and is aided and abetted by
Oxide Pang's exemplary use of image and editing. Sometimes
Pang hints at far greater horrors than the film's
IIB rating would likely allow, and though he doesn't
always deliver, the unsettling nature of what he's
presenting does sink in. Diary works best when
it allows the viewer's imagination to run wild. The
dark atmosphere and sometimes icky imagery can certainly
help the easily frightened scare themselves. If you
find Charlene Choi mildly frightening, then a viewing
of Diary would undoubtedly intensify that
feeling.
Diary's technical prowess
is what prevents the film from becoming a total loss.
The film is basically told with one set and a few
minor locations, and it's impressive how much the
crew can get out of such simple environments. The
cinematography, art direction, sound, and general
atmosphere all bring an artful edge to an otherwise
minor production. Diary looks and feels like
quality stuff, and Oxide Pang's direction goes a long
way in making that quality almost real. There's a
tangible tension and expectation built-up by the direction
and the performances - but the film unfortunately
falters when it can't deliver anything beyond the
obvious. Basically, everything that occurs demonstrates
that Winnie is, indeed, quite disturbed, which we
basically discovered only ten minutes into the film.
The final twist takes us beyond her psychosis and
into the realm of Sixth Sense-type audience
manipulation, but the twist is pointless because it
has absolutely no narrative impact, and could even
be seen as pandering to the ultra-demanding Twins
fanbase, who may not enjoy watching their idols in
such dark and disturbing cinema. Those that do enjoy
such twisted stuff may be happy with what Diary delivers - that is, until the Pangs deliver their
egregious screen credits midway through the film.
Once "Directed by Oxide Pang" finally flashes
on the screen, it's all downhill. (Kozo 2006) |
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