The title of Hong Heng-fai’s film alludes to a character’s declaration of undying love in The Seagull, the Anton Chekhov play which figures prominently in Kissing the Ground You Walked On. But the fiery feelings and the schmaltzy sentiments these words might evoke are largely absent in the Macau director’s feature-length debut. In a good way, though: revolving around the encounters between a creatively-blocked writer and a confused first-time actor, the film is a subtle and appropriately sultry chamber piece that extends way beyond its romantic roots to explore how artists – and people in general – should grapple with reality so as to make their work and lives whole.
Unfolding over a few sweltering summer weeks and largely indoors – things happen in an apartment, a rehearsal space and an office – Kissing the Ground You Walked On oozes with suppressed emotions at every turn. Belying his modest resources, Hong and his team manage to conjure up a defiantly immersive experience through excellent mise-en-scène, delicate camerawork and exquisite sound design – in fact, the cinematography and sound attained recognition when they nabbed nominations at Taiwan’s Golden Horses Awards last year. Nominated for a Best New Director award himself, Hong now has the potential (and of course the cinematic eye) to become the talisman around which a generation of Macau filmmakers can rally for exposure and critical appreciation abroad.
Sharing both the understated aesthetics and certain narrative components with Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Japanese Oscar winner Drive My Car, the current film is destined for a well-deserved long march on the festival circuit after its appearances in Rotterdam (in the Bright Future sidebar) and the recent Hong Kong festival, where it won the Best Director prize in the Chinese-language competition.
At the centre of Kissing is Chao (Wong Park-hou), a hard-boiled, divorced real estate agent working out of a small, nondescript office in downtown Macau. While business is brisk, his indifference to the job is palpable. Having once drawn critical acclaim and commercial success from the local literati for his first novel, Chao finds himself literally at a loss for words for a follow up. Being desperate for inspiration, he finds his real estate business offers him not just a way to earn a living, but also the opportunity to collect real-life intel about how other people live, thanks to the surveillance cameras he places in the apartments he leases out.
Families and migrant workers abound among this clientele, but the one who catches his eye is Chong (Lam Sheung), a young stage actor who moves into a spare room in his old apartment. Recently cast as the lead in a local independent production of The Seagull, this new tenant is at once charming, cocky and curious – a wide array qualities which unnerve and titillate Chao in equal measure. His fascination with Chong deepens as the pair converse about life and art. Chao starts dropping in to work on his perennially unforthcoming second novel in a room in the flat.
What irks and intrigues him is the way that twenty-something Chong can let all his emotions and ambitions hang out and win in life, while he himself – a one-novel wonder tottering towards middle age with his family life in tatters – can’t reconnect with the world or articulate his feelings, his orientations (in all senses of the word) or his prose properly. But soon enough, Chao discovers the young man is living a lie, too. As the actor’s relationship with his jealous theatre director sours, his career spirals downward to a point of total humiliation – a payback, perhaps, for not being not careful enough about the personas he has built.
During one of their chats, Chao expresses his admiration for the way Chekhov, who trained and worked as a doctor before dedicating himself to his writing, dissects his characters like corpses. One might say Hong takes a similar tack with his protagonists, though hampered by a script that appears uneven in some parts and stilted in others (like the afore-mentioned conversation about Chekhov’s modus operandi).
What drives the film forward is instead the intangible and the unspoken: bodily gestures which reveal desire and disdain, doors and spaces (or lack thereof) which speak of the intimacy and distance between characters, the delicate soundscapes highlighting the confused mindsets of men living in a city drenched either in oppressive heat or heavy rain. Often filming through doors and in cramped spaces, Charlie Sou Wai-kin’s cinematography teases out the layers of stifling doom hovering over Chao and Chong – especially in the apartment scenes – while Ellison Lau’s score often offers a much-needed counterpoint to the needlessly excessive wordplay.
It’s perhaps ironic, then, that a story about a man’s struggle to write is blemished by words. But that’s one of the few aspects one could fault in Kissing on the Ground You Walked On. Bolstered by evocative turns from both Wong (a veteran thespian and drama teacher in Macau) and Lam (who was until now best known for his leading performance in Nights of the Shemale: A Mad Man Trilogy Part One), Hong’s first feature offers enough promise for a possible next step away from an artistic-cultural backdrop that could limit his growth.
Director, editor: Hong Heng-fai
Screenwriters: Hong Heng-fai, Emmy Ip
Cast: Wong Pak-hou, Lam Sheung, Chen Fei-lek, Jenny Mok
Producers: Gene Yao, Hong Heng-fai
Cinematography: Charlie Sou Wai-kin
Production design: Paula Lo Pou-i
Music: Ellison Lau
Sound design: Ellison Lau
Production companies: Dayday Studio
World sales: Swallow Wings Films
Venue: Hong Kong International Film Festival (Firebird Awards, Chinese-language Competition)
In Cantonese
94 minutes
