CYCLO
(XICH LO)
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1996 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *
CYCLO (XICH LO) is the second feature length film by director Tran Anh Hung. His first was the highly acclaimed and much gentler THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA. In certainly a change of pace, CYCLO is a depressing, violent, claustrophobic, and confusing tale. I tried hard to like it, but had to give up in futility. I will give it this, it is a gritty film.
CYCLO is set and was filmed in contemporary Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It tells the story of a man, played by Le Van Loc, who works as a cyclo - a bicycle with a small seat in front for carrying one or more passengers plus assorted luggage, food, animals, you name it. In the movie he is known simply as The Cyclo. As the director and co-writer Hung says in the press kit, "for me the term refers equally to the driver and his vehicle."
The Cyclo leads a tragic life. His mother died in childbirth and his father was a cyclo who was killed at work in a traffic accident. Early in the story a gang steals The Cyclo's cyclo, and he soon decides if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. He has a sister, known only as The Sister (Tran Nu Yen-Khe), who is in love with her pimp, The Poet (Tony Leung Chiu Wai).
If the film's purpose is to shock us into how bad it is now in Vietnam, then at least on that score it succeeds. The violence shown ranges from sadistic to worse. People have funnels forced down their throats, and they are almost drowned in water until they come close to gagging themselves to death by throwing up. Others take boards with large nails in them and hit people's head until they are dead as the blood spurts everywhere. In another scene a person is horribly and realistically burned with a Molotov cocktail. This is making me nauseous so I am going to stop giving examples. You get the picture by now. As an aside, there are some extremely violence films that I have loved, but here it is so gratuitous and excessive that it turned me off.
Even absent the gore, the story is a depressing one. The Sister is not just a prostitute, she is one that has to engage in shall we say some unusual activities. The cinematography (Benoit Delhomme and Laurence Tremolet) is full of tight close-ups in highly confined quarters. It makes you want to go outside and get some fresh air it is so claustrophobic.
The script contains little dialog and like the recent Iranian film, THE WHITE BALLOON, the lack of dialog is filled with the overpowering sound of traffic noise. What lines there are serve more to confuse than enlighten. Finally, the characters were so unsympathetically drawn that you do care about what happens to any of them which makes the massive violence seem all the more excessive.
I must admit, I do like the dramatic music by Ton-That Tiet. I will give the director credit for being willing to experiment. He takes a lot of risks and fails miserably.
CYCLO runs too long at 2:00. It needs much more aggressive editing than Nicole Dedieu and Claude Ronzeau give it. The film is in Vietnamese with English subtitles. CYCLO is not rated, but would be at least an R. I would only let the most mature teenagers see it. I hope Tran Anh Hung returns to films like THE SCENT OF GREEN PAPAYA in the future and leaves the ultra violence movies to directors like Quentin Tarantino who have a better sense of how to handle it. I hated CYCLO, but give it * for trying.
**** = One of the top few films of this or any year. A must see film. *** = Excellent show. Look for it. ** = Average movie. Kind of enjoyable. * = Poor show. Don't waste your money. 0 = One of the worst films of this or any year. Totally unbearable.
REVIEW WRITTEN ON: June 3, 1996
Opinions expressed are mine and not meant to reflect my employer's.
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