Friday, May 27, 2022

A Little TLC(w): Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait (2016)

I’ve been aware of this Bhutanese movie’s existence for a while now, but until recently, I didn’t have a bead on how to find it. While it wasn’t the only Tony Leung Chiu-wai movie I couldn’t find, most of the others that elude me are from the earlier years of his career—it’s less typical to get those mysterious IMDb entries in his later work. But as it turns out, Hema Hema is available to rent or buy on Vimeo! It’s certainly one of the more unique films in Leung’s filmography.

Every twelve years, an assortment of men and women are handpicked by an Old Man to take part in a peculiar series of revels. Wearing clothes that disguise their figures, their faces hidden behind elaborate wooden masks, the participants enjoy the freedom of anonymity. For the length of a moon cycle, they perform spiritual rituals and indulge in baser desires. Expressionless, young man participating in the event for the first time, starts out hesitant and uncertain, but he soon gives himself over to everything he’s capable of when no one knows who he is.

Even though the story and the way it’s told isn’t a common one, the premise feels familiar to me. The first thought that sprang into my head was the attempted bacchanal in The Secret History, a group of people unleashing their desires in the woods. Weirdly, I also thought of the modern internet. At the start of the revels, the Old Man warns, “Being anonymous is intoxicating. It brings out the reckless side of people.” Hearing that, I was immediately reminded of trolls who are emboldened from their safe vantage point behind their keyboard.

Of course, emboldening can be either a good or a bad thing, and the film explores both. There’s an odd unity in the sight of all these masked people dancing together as they watch spiritual plays about life and death, and participants are freer to indulge in drinking or sex without judgment. But at the same time, there are those who use their anonymity to satisfy urges toward violence. The revels are somewhat-better monitored than social media—all the participants have whistles to alert the roaming guards if anyone threatens them, and anyone caught breaking the established rules is swiftly dealt with—but that doesn’t mean the participants are entirely safe.

Just generally, it’s an interesting way to tell a story. Most of the characters wear wooden masks for nearly the full length of the movie, and there’s not a ton of dialogue. So without facial expression and with few lines, how does the story come across? It has the sensibility of a short film, drawing connections across small moments. Someone watching behind a curtain here, fingers brushing there, a turn of the head to search the crowd for a particular mask. In amid the larger collection of revelers, each of the small group of main characters is given definition and narrative.

I’ll be honest: going into this movie, I wasn’t sure if I’d even be able to figure out who Leung was playing. Everyone’s wearing masks, and what little dialogue there is is in Dzongkha, so his performance is dubbed. Armed with his IMDb credit as “Deer / Serene Mask,” I kept my eye out for any mask with antlers. Unfortunately, there are more than one.

And yet, it’s quickly apparent which in one is Leung. In his first scene, where Deer protects Expressionless from some thugs, there’s a close-up shot on the opening in the mask where he can see through it, and those are absolutely Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s eyes. From there, it wasn’t hard to keep track of him.


 So who is Deer? As with all of the characters, we don’t know any hard facts about him, but we get an impression of the sort of person he is. Like I said, he protects Expressionless early on, and he’s prepared for any trouble he might encounter at the revels. Some of the other participants are doing the whole “free love” thing, and he’s with them to a point, but he’s only interested in doing it monogamously. Deer is there with his wife, and they appear to be spending their time making love in various locales. The setting and situation lends an extra thrill to it for them, but they’re not especially interested in getting to know anybody else.

The character comes through in little ways, like the assured stance he takes when he shoots a bow or the way he saunters away from a ritual to rendezvous with his wife for a little afternoon delight. I can understand why Leung might have been drawn to the unusual acting challenge of creating a character out of such spare input.

Recommend?

In General – Maybe. This story calls for a lot of patience, but it’s an interesting experiment that ultimately tells its story effectively.

Tony Leung Chiu-wai – Soft maybe. It’s not a must, and there isn’t a ton to this character, but I feel like it’d still be interesting to see at least once.

Warnings

Sexual content, violence (including rape,) drinking, gross-out images, and thematic elements.

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