Is this a dagger I see before me?

Maybe I'm too white and stiff for my own damn good, but I just don't get it. I thought Hero was a crap movie from the get-go, and while House of Flying Daggers was visually beautiful, I'm thinking Zhang Yimou needs to cut back on the ethereal and rediscover the wonderful world of plot.

I have never been a fan of surrealism, whether it's Bunuel, Fellini, or even David Lynch, really. I deplore excessive symbolism or metaphor when used simply for their own sake. I've got to say, clarity and concision turn me on, and I never get satisfaction on those counts when it comes to "obscure" cinema.

I don't need a story spelled out for me. I do enjoy complexity, but a story should be like mathematics. Plot points should add up, and there should be a reasonable conclusion you can reach once you do the math. I don't even mind films that end without resolution, and in fact, love a good interpretive drop-off. After all, life doesn't have pat endings either, but shouldn't you be able to at least surmise where it might be going?

Granted, HoFD was fairly straight-forward. Maybe it's more unreal than surreal, and meaningless but purty, but it's still got me miffed.

I should say that I absolutely adored Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but the last couple of Yimou movies have left me sadly wanting. I love photography, since I not only took it in college but both worked in and managed photo labs for several years, but I don't think photo/cinematography should ever compensate for story. Yimou, though, worries about flash and not substance, and instead uses surrealism as a cop-out. But then again, most films that are "eye candy" tend to be way heavy on filler.

I've been woefully disappointed with the last year or two in cinema, but I'm more disappointed with the critics. I feel like film critics of late have forgotten what a story really is. In this age of computer generated special effects, judging is based on looks, not content. That even film critics are falling prey to this shallow approach to cinema really leaves me concerned.

Perhaps it's just another symptom of our image conscious society, but I hope like hell we start figuring out that there really are writers among us, and that some of them have even managed to conjure a workable plot or two.