Eiga Nights 　映画の夜

A Time to Kill

2009-12-22T15:55:00.000-08:00

“A Time to Kill” was not about the trial of a man who committed a murder, but was an exploration into the blinkered society we may live in. Of course the African American Carl Lee (Samuel L Jackson) killed the two rapists of his ten year old daughter, and naturally he was guilty of that, and you would think that as we are watching a courtroom film about whether he was guilty or not, that he would have no chance of being acquitted….but that’s just it, it’s not a film about whether he is guilty, and so people should stop judging it on basis that it ignores the facts. The best way to make a courtroom drama dramatic is to heap as much evidence up against the defendant that the viewer is rooting for, and that’s all they done here (to the maximum).

The vigilante murder by the grieving father was just a catalyst and the courtroom was just the setting. They were just tools used to drive the message of the film, which is pretty much summed up in lawyer Jake Brigance’s (Matthew McConaughey) final speech when he says, “now imagine the girl is white”. The film, like some reviewers seem to be saying, is not implying that the white jury are inherently racist against black people and that they’d be more horrified by a white girl being raped than a black girl. What it’s saying is that the jury would maybe sympathise or relate (and I use these terms loosely) to it happening to a white girl as they would be able to picture it more as if it were their own daughter who had been violated, rather than a poor black girl of a crazy (enter racial slur here___).

To support this, Carl’s little pre-judgement day talk to Brigance lies at the heart of this final speech when Carl tells Brigance in his prison cell that through no fault of anybodies, they have been divided as white and black, that they are from different neighbourhoods and that their kids won’t ever play together. In a sense this would have been true, especially if you take into account the time the film was supposed to be it set. The whole point was explicitly verbalised to the viewer when Carl asks Brigance to make the jury see through his eyes, or in a more literal sense befitting the film, through his heart and that’s what he did.

Don’t rip this film apart for being illogical to facts or irresponsible, because it is obviously not claiming to be. Having said that, we shouldn’t forget that in his final speech, Brigance did tell the jury that the psych doctor (who gave evidence in support of Carl) who was charged with statutory rape in his past, had actually been innocent as the girl was 17, on top of which he married her and had kids with her. This would make him not a felon and his statement that Carl was insane at the time he committed the murder entirely credible. So who knows, maybe the jury agreed Carl was insane and acquitted him based on that alone.

In any case, it is made clear that this is an emotional drama that seeks a truth that sometimes real logical justice does not provide. It deals with heavy subject matter such as racism because racism hurts people emotionally and so is a perfect way or pulling the audience in, and if it’s done its job then you should have shed a few tears (or more) at the conclusion of it

Taboo

2009-08-04T19:14:00.001-07:00

Taboo is a film directed by Max Makowski and written by Chris Fisher (director of Donnie Darko sequel S.Darko) about six friends who weave themselves into a daring game of stab or be stabbed, lie or be lied to, cheat or be cheated….well, you get what I’m getting at. The synopsis on the back of the DVD case reads like something you may have seen in a sexual/dramatic/thriller film of the early nineties such as Blown Away (which just ended up descending into amateur porn) or the more notorious Basic Instinct. If I were to categorise Taboo I would say, think House on Haunted Hill meets Cruel Intentions.

The film begins in the midnight hour with the camera sweeping across the outside of a mansion estate, built with the usual long winding driveway and shrubbery, whilst a voice over of Piper (Amber Benson) defines the meaning of the word taboo. The shot then cuts to the interior of the dimly lit house where we see the “sophisticated” gang of friends making idle chit chat over decanters of whiskey and wine, until Elizabeth (January Jones) suggests they play a little game for some fun; this fun little game being the catalyst for the subsequent events and themes of betrayal, blackmail and murder.

The film does well initially in managing to setup a sense of mystery and suspense through the isolated location; the music which is kind of camp in its attempts at being spooky; the stormy weather which has the rain beating against the house; and the group of friends who are unknowingly about to be drawn into a game which will reveal their deviant sexual fantasises. The game begins by each friend receiving a piece of paper which has a taboo question written on it such as “would you have a threesome” or “would you sleep with a relative” etc. They each write down a response to the question they have been given of yes or no and the paper is then put onto the table and shuffled amongst the other pieces to preserve their anonymity. They each then pick a piece and read out the question and the answer. This entire scene has an air of decadence to it in the same way you might think of a secret fraternity/sorority society with its combination of indulgence and tests of character.

The credits then role and the film picks up on New Years Eve, one year after their game of taboo. The friends are reunited having dinner at the new mansion of Christian (Nick Stahl) but things are not as they were, as there is more hostility and bitterness between them because of changed lovers, failures and envy. If you are unfamiliar with slurs such as “bitch” or “slut” you won’t be by the end of this film. It is not long before the electricity suddenly cuts due to the reprisal of bad weather and there is a loud knock at the door. After going to investigate, Christian returns with a package which will set the previous year’s game of taboo back into motion. Paranoia ensues as the friends become suspicious of one another and direct the majority of their uncertainty toward Elizabeth due to her snobbish attitude (which isn’t as much snobbish as it is virtuous). She is the only sinless one (still being a virgin), or at least she appears to be, amongst a group of sinners. However what they perceive as condescension or judgement is really just the assertion of her own beliefs. I won’t go any further into events that occur so as not to ruin the surprise of what develops as there are a few twists and turns that you may or may not see coming.

To sum up each character in a nutshell I would describe Christian as the upright, gentlemanly host; Elizabeth as the frigid, morally superior lady; Adam (Eddie Kaye Thomas) as the insensible and blameworthy juvenile; Piper as the cute self-aware alcoholic; Benjamin (Derek Hamilton) as the easy-going, fun loving joker; and Katie (Lori Heuring) as the shameless, fowl mouthed nymphomaniac. Now if this collection of clashing personalities isn’t enough to cause a few murders I don’t know what is. Out of the gang the two characters that stood out for me were Piper and Adam. I loved Piper’s Zany, clueless direction, and the way in which she played the alcoholic made every scene she was in a pleasure to watch. Of course this is less down to the character and more down to Amber Benson’s talented ability at upstaging her fellow cast. On the other hand I would say the appeal of Adam’s character was primarily because of the lines he had and the amusing, dubbed over feel they had to them. Like Finch in American Pie, Eddie Kaye Thomas brought to this character a dry, sarcastic wit with a confident air of comic indulgence.

Taboo is by no means a great film; it’s not really even a good film, though it is entertaining and worth watching, if only for the performances of Benson and Thomas of which made the short 77 minutes runtime seem shorter still. The premise of the film is a good one and even the twists are reasonably clever, so why is it that the finished product doesn’t deliver as well as expected? For one the dialogue was pretty bad in that it didn’t flow but just seemed as though one person said something and then another person did, without the feel of an actual conversation taking place. Another thing that let the film down was there was no connection created between the viewer and the characters which meant that when something happened to them I was just left feeling like, oh well. Each character was also effectively defined by their own personal taboo, which consequently limited their ability to act differently and so left them as a jagged stereotype.

The film seems to deal with the idea of taking a stand for something; attempting to be moral whilst avoiding being a hypocrite. However as we learn, hypocrisy is in the eye of the beholder, as anyone who is in the least bit an individual will know that sex, lies and murder do not necessarily make the sinner but are all judged by ones own standards and capacity to live. Some of the questions asked in the taboo game and the responses given will probably cause you to join in and ask the same questions to yourself. In fact, just go by your initial gut reaction to when they are read aloud and then you’ll see just how much of a good person you think you are heh heh. Unfortunately though the questions that are raised are never really addressed in much depth and so all I can say is that Taboo has much unfulfilled potential.

Scoop

2009-08-04T19:09:00.000-07:00

Scoop is a media satire about a dippy magician who teams up with an aspiring reporter, who has been tipped off by the spirit of a recently deceased reporter, to investigate, or maybe I should say snoop around, a wealthy, British aristocrat of whom is supposedly the Tarot Card Killer, a dastardly homicidal criminal. Sounds like there’s much wacky fun to be had, right? Well yeah, I’d say so, despite its biting reception…
…It seems a tough life for an artist. They spend its entirety creating brilliant things; pouring themselves into their work, only to be slaughtered by critics who don’t think their new material is funny enough, or ridicule them for continuing to write parts for themselves. Well for the record, Woody Allen is a wonderful actor and I’ll never equate him with Victor Frankenstein; condemning him for creating some monster persona that can’t be destroyed.

Scoop is the second film of Allen’s to be filmed in England and was produced in association with the BBC; something which is evident through the choice of locations (city pubs and country mansions), set design (the afterlife, boating sequences are meagre and amateur; nothing like that of Love and Death) and all the British extras; plus a little cameo by a certain London, Nescafe whoring, supernatural-librarian watcher.

Even though Scoop should not really be compared to Allen’s earlier films, as they belong to different eras of his career, it is hard to ignore that Scoop is a glossy film, and does seem to be tainted with that refined, British, Brigitte Jones’ Diary style makeover, disposing of the concrete jungle of cluttered myriad New York streets, smoky bars, motley but sincere characters and chiaroscuro cinematography for generic, wealthy, urbanites; pastured mansions and glass house architecture, something to do with art deco and postmodernism…I haven’t a clue. It is also hard to dismiss the fact that Scoop seems to almost be a pastiche of some of Allen’s more recent works (by recent I mean those from the early nineties onwards), most notably Small Time Crooks, Manhattan Murder Mystery, with flashes of Crimes and Misdemeanours.

Scarlett Johansson plays a bespectacled, highly-strung, peppy, geeky, ambitious reporter named Sondra Pransky; a woman who also has a randy vixen streak which she isn’t afraid to indulge in should her duty as a reporter require it of her. After all, a reporter can’t just dig through the dirt but must roll around in it to, using their sexuality as a weapon as vital as the pen and the pad. It is a departure for Johansson who has been known to play cooler, mocking, more composed roles i.e. Ghost World as the apathetic miscreant Rebecca or the wry, contemplative Charlotte in Lost in Translation. It is certainly nice to see her making full use of her vocal chords, moving away from the whole monotone voice thing to something with a little more spark; at least to save her from the same fate as Keanu Reaves and his mono-expressional reputation.

Woody Allen plays a second-rate magician called Sid Waterman or ‘Mr Splendini’ (his stage persona). This could be Allen paying homage to himself as he was once known to be quite the entertainer when he was a child; performing magic tricks in his neighbourhood. His character of Waterman in Scoop seems to be an imitation of another of his creations, Danny Rose from Broadway Danny Rose, where Allen played a struggling talent agent; as they both speak in the same New York, Brooklyn accent; both use the same artificial ‘showbiz’ expressions (i.e. “you’re an incredible audience and I mean that from the bottom of my heart” and “God bless ya’ sweetheart”); and both share an endearing pathos. Strangely enough Waterman, as though in a parallel universe to Rose, could easily have been one of Rose’s acts that he would have hired for Broadway.

Waterman’s blundering, clueless ability to fit into the culture of high society, when he and Pransky go to Peter Lyman’s (Hugh Jackman) garden party, matches that of his character Ray in Small Time Crooks. The scenario is painfully similar (well not as painful as it was in STC), as both stand out with their brash accents, and almost like ‘Del boy’ attempting to sell a hooky toaster to some Lord who has never even heard of toast, you are sitting on the edge of your seat, as you see them showcase their uncouth, streetwise personalities, waiting for them to get ‘escorted’ off the premises by a bodyguard named Jones. Another scene in which they resemble one another is that of Sid’s attempt to enter Lyman’s coded music room whilst at the party, and that of Ray’s attempts at stealing a valuable necklace whilst at a high class party in SMT.

You must also keep your ears de-waxed, as there is a bit at Lyman’s ‘doo’ that we get a snippet of the classic Woody, denominational neuroses, which will be refreshing for fans of his older more self-obsessed films. Whilst talking with some of the guests he says, “I was born into the Hebrew persuasion but when I got older I converted to narcissism”, probably the best line in the film.

Scoop also seems to resemble Manhattan Murder Mystery in many ways though MMM is far superior in both acting (difficult to even compare the revered Allen – Keaton dynamic with the latest Allen – Johansson one) and plot of which combines intelligence, suspense and comedy, and is delightfully woven into Larry and Carol Lipton’s relationship, producing Larry’s reluctance (like Sid’s initial reluctance) to enter anything to dangerous and Carol’s desperate curiosity to play the sleuth.

There is something fractal about Woody Allen’s style as each new film seems to be derivative of an older one and also seems to be affected by it in some way. As though if Annie Hall had killed that lobster that got stuck behind the fridge, then that may have somehow caused Carol Lipton to be murdered by the Manhattan killer, which in turn would have caused Sondra Pronsky to forget how to swim. I’m sure that even Joe Strombel (Ian McShane) - the deceased reporter who we see at the beginning of the film trying to bribe the Grim Reaper with money to let him escape - is taking action that is suggestive of an action Allen, due to his preoccupation with death, has probably imagined taking many times when his death cargo sails in to port Woody to carry him away.

Scoop may not be as thought provoking, intricate or damned hilarious as some of Allen’s other works but it is certainly entertaining and shows that an ageing man possessing a filmography rich with some of the darkest emotions, can still see life with humour as he did when he made his gut-busting debut, Take the Money and Run.

Sweet and Lowdown

2009-08-04T19:03:00.000-07:00

Sweet and Lowdown has a film style like that of other Woody Allen period pieces set in the 1930s such as Radio Days and Bullets over Broadway. All three films share the same gangster suits, intimate restaurant-clubs and nostalgic Jazz music in the score as well as showing Allen’s passion for Jazz music, for he is a dedicated player of the clarinet and a long time member of a New Orleans Jazz band. He originally wrote the film in the late sixties under the name of The Jazz Baby but the executives at the time wanted more of a comedy from Allen and so he put it on the back-burner and wrote Bananas instead. Thirty years later he rewrote that script and called it Sweet and Lowdown.

In Sweet and Lowdown Allen writes and directs a film following the highs and lows of a fictional Jazz musician called Emmet Ray. Ray played by Sean Penn, is a virtuoso genius on the guitar with an equally impressive tolerance for booze. The film begins talking heads style in that several esteemed aficionados of Ray (including Woody Allen playing himself) are interviewed and retell stories about this Jazzman which then segue into the past and to a roadside bar where we get to see these stories played out firsthand.

Ray is introduced to us not as a legendary Jazzman but as a pool hustler and as a pimp, who being a feebly paid musician, despite his talents needs to make a little dough on the side. He is an egomaniac, never shy of tooting his own horn and so cocky you’d think he’d found some inconspicuous way of concealing his comb, beak and wattle; though this confidence would soon disappear if his idol and only musical superior Django Reinhardt were in the vicinity; for whenever he is so all blood and oxygen are soon drained from Ray’s brain leaving him as an unconscious heap of awe. Throughout the film Reinhardt seems to be sort of an elusive spectre that Ray is trying to both capture and outrun, for not only is he Ray’s hero but he is conversely someone who reminds Ray of his weaknesses.

Due to Ray’s irresponsible and careless nature he is a liability to the clubs he plays at but if you could play the guitar like he does then you’d probably give in to the temptation of taking liberties when you could. He knows that he is the main attraction and that when he plays it is as though all his former disgraces have been forgiven as he manages to hold his audience in the moment. Seeing him play reminded me of the mannerisms of Charlie Chaplin as he sports a dim-witted but charming grin and kicks his legs out with a similar frivolity and slapstick joy. Oddly enough Sweet and Lowdown plays out in the fashion of a Chaplin film as Ray’s second love interest in the film is a sweet, bashful mute who with a societal dysfunction like that of ‘A Blind Girl’ in City Lights seems to be grateful for the attention and that she is being considered at all. Unfortunately for Hattie (the mute played by Samantha Morton) her benefactor is not a lovable, caring, gentile fellow like ‘The Tramp’ but a self-obsessed, emotional infantile musician who has a strange passion for watching trains and shooting rats at the dump; activities he enthusiastically does with reluctant dates. In his first ‘relationship’ of the film he tells the girl “I let my feelings come out in my music,” to which she replies, “Well maybe if you let your feelings out in real life, then your music would be even better.” This fact we eventually discover is the one thing that keeps Ray as an inferior player to Reinhardt of which he is told by his third love interest Blanche played by Uma Thurman. Blanche is a writer who is constantly asking Ray questions, evaluating him and trying to understand how his insides work.

Throughout the film it becomes clear that Ray has trouble dealing with his emotions and rather than sort them out he tries to replace them with the drive to succeed. If he cannot confront and control them he is just as determined not to let them control him and his abilities, but sadly the revelations about what is important to Ray come a little too late leaving him not with just a broken guitar but also a broken heart.

I didn’t think the film played out like you’d expect a story to as it seemed more like fragments of a man’s career both on and off the stage, put together quickly to sum him up. I think it may have been to do with the nature of the film, as like Walk the Line or any other autobiographical film (fictional or not), when you are trying to retell and capture specific moments of a celebrities career it’s going to be difficult to lets say make one event run smoothly into another when editing is needed and so the many relationships the star has with those around them can seem hasty. Although in Sweet and Lowdown it may have been the case that Ray’s romantic relationships were just a tool for understanding Ray better and the kind of man he was rather than the actual details of how they got on or what they did. All in all this is another enjoyable film from Woody Allen and Sean Penn gives a very convincing and amusing performance as an unpredictable, well dressed vagabond.

The Crossing Guard

2009-08-04T18:59:00.000-07:00

The Crossing Guard follows the story of a man named Freddy Gale (Jack Nicholson) who is finding it very hard to come to terms with the death of his daughter who was hit by a car six years earlier. John Booth (David Morse), the man who was responsible is now to be let out of prison, and after an initial failed attempt by Freddy to kill him, he threatens that he will be back in three days time to get his revenge.

The film is written and directed by Sean Penn who I think has created a film that is reflective and personal, which shows the symptoms of grief as being arbitrary; that a person should not be expected to behave in any particular way after the death of a loved one. The film doesn’t just show the pain from Mary, the mother (Angelica Houston) and father’s point of view, but also that of the offender who as the film shows is not a hardened criminal but a man who made a mistake, albeit the worst kind you can make caused by careless drink driving.

Freddy is introduced to us as someone who is not enjoying life despite the fact that he frequents strip-clubs and drinks heavily on a daily basis. His face is stern and unforgiving and slow motion shots, which are used quite liberally, create sensations of a man trapped within time, unable to move on and deal with his grief, who is instead forced to go through the motions one agonising second at a time. He wakes up in the morning to find yet another stripper in his bed but it is clear that any pleasure that was had was purely enjoyed by the lady.

Shortly after, a man is released from prison to be greeted by his parents (Piper Laurie and Richard Bradford). At first this feels like Penn is trying to antagonise the viewer because (if you are aware of the synopsis of the film) we can infer that this is the man that has killed the girl. To see a sensitive remorseful man, who is leaving prison to return to the comfort and loving environment of his parents’ throws you off guard when you are expecting some callous or wicked man of whom is unsympathetic to the harm he has caused. From this moment on it is clear that this isn’t going to be a clear black and white revenge film where the bad criminal is to be justifiably killed by a loving, grieving father. No far from it, in fact, it is often Booth who seems to feel the pain of the girl’s death more than Freddy and at times the viewer maybe be confused as to where their sympathies lay. Freddy chose a path of destruction as we will see, showing no consideration to his now ex-wife and their two existing children, not visiting his daughter’s grave for closure and instead living like an animal letting his own heart become weaker and colder. It is Booth who after leaving prison immediately gets a job, begins a genuine relationship with a woman named Jojo (Robin Wright Penn) and even goes to his victim's grave with flowers. This conflict is the driving force of events and it is Freddy who must come to the conclusion that what happened was an accident, and that his desire for revenge is a way of satiating his own pride more than anything else.

Another thing that is made apparent in this film is how men and women deal with their grief in polar opposite ways. Mary has chosen to move on and remarry but this is no slight against her ability to care about her deceased daughter. At the beginning of the film, parallels are created using cross-cutting to show Mary at a group counseling session for those who have lost loved ones, and Freddy at the strip-club with his buddies. Later we see Mary at her daughter’s graveside, sat peacefully as though she has slowly come to terms with what has happened but has put the effort in to do so. Like I said before, neither of the parents’ way of coping is illegitimate it’s just that, without generalising, it is just natural for men to dwell in the negative and tempestuous side of things, hitting the bottle and feeling sorry for themselves whilst women may be more fearful of letting that pain turn to hate. There is a point in the film where Freddy tells Mary that she’d be lying if she didn’t feel “pride and relief” in hearing that John Booth had been killed. Freddy thinks he is being honest about his vendetta and hatred and that Mary is just in denial or to afraid to admit it and on a surface level that might be the case, however the moving ending of the film teaches Freddy and the viewer that he was the one who was to afraid to face his true feelings, trying to convince himself that killing Booth was the only way he could move on.

The Crossing Guard is a satisfying film to watch because it is one that will leave you hypnotised even if just for a few moments during the rolling of the end credits, with Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Missing’ providing a complimentary haunting sensation as it blends in with the final scene of the film. The performances are good ones all around; Houston looks great and even though her and Nicholson’s on screen time together isn’t huge, they have a good chemistry, both communicating passionately whether in a volatile or sensitive manner. Nicholson is great as always, probably drawing from his own personal experiences in his ability to live on the edge as he does in this. He has also been given an opportunity in this film to expand on his usual repertoire of the slick, sharp, relaxed man of the world, as this is the first time I have seen him so despondent as to break down into tears. David Morse does well in playing with strength, intensity and solicitude, showing signs of Russell Crowe and Michael Madsen in his performance. I think that The Crossing Guard is definitely an achievement Sean Penn should feel proud of, similar in theme and tone to Mystic River, a film in which Penn was the one to play the grieving father and may have even influenced.

Through a Glass, Darkly

2009-08-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

“I sat in the wreck, holding Karin, when reality cracked… reality…cracked, and I fell out. It’s like in dreams, anything can happen. Anything!”

Through as Glass Darkly is the first in a supposed Faith Trilogy (which also include Winter Light and The Silence), written and directed by Ingmar Bergman about God making contact. On an island called Faro a schizophrenic woman called Karin (Harriet Andersson) lives with her husband Martin (Max Von Sydow) and brother Minus (Lars Passgard). The father David (Gunnar Bjornstrand) is a novelist who visits his family on the island for the first time in a long while (possibly because of Karin’s recent release from an asylum), and it is his detachment from his children (Karin and Minus) that anchors the film’s emotional tension.

The core of the film revolves around Karin and the voices that speak to her, which one night lure her to an attic room in their chateaux, and to a door in the wall which Karin comes to believe is a gateway to heaven. She begins the film as a joyful, comforted girl who draws on the genuine love from her family to keep sane. However as things progress and her guilt for the burden she is to her husband becomes sharper, her mental state degenerates until she finally has an encounter with the God that she has been looking forward too. Unfortunately the God that greets her is an arachnid with a cold stone face.

Karin’s psychotic illness has not only afforded her the ability to subjectively tap into God’s line, but also to become more discerning and thus more sensitive to the repressed difficulties that exist in her family. Her fits/outbursts are like explosions of these difficulties that are trying to assimilate both the spiritual connection she believes she has and the anger towards her father’s abandonment. Throughout the film she is referred to as a child which suggests that like a child is said to be able to perceive preternatural things because of their open mind/gullibility (you choose), so can Karin because of her mental degeneration sense God around her, having the knowledge of his supposed existence to decode the messages He/She is sending her.

The two men of the film Martin and David speak of the weather conditions in such a familiar way, that they sort of personify them as though they were people who had a very important bearing on their lives. As though these conditions were parts of the character’s souls. The cinematography, as per usual in a Bergman film, is of high quality and enhances these conditions of the cold and the wind through grand shots of the ocean, sky and beach of pebbles as well as the crumbling chateaux and its annexed statues and pillars of rocks that all add to the usual feelings of isolation and clarity and create a remarkable sensation of rapture and vulnerability. The darkly grey clouds, thunderstorms and tumultuous waves circulate this. The sound of a passing ship’s foghorn becomes Karin’s “spidey-sense” as it intermittently pipes out with the squawking of seagulls; sounds that pierce the deadly quiet and take Karin away from the warmth of her shared bed with Martin and to a confused state where it is the wallpaper’s whispers and not love that promises her peace of mind. All these natural constructions are like traffic signals that aid in the characters’ movements and nature of conversation, whether it be the temperature or God.

Whether Karin’s connection to God is real or only in her imagination is left ambiguous as the viewer sees and hears what Karin does but Martin, David and Minus do not. Karin is caught between two worlds, reality and dream and because of her schizophrenic condition; her experiences are not taken seriously by her family. It is possible that Bergman is commenting on the hypocrisy of faith whereby Karin is diagnosed as insane because she has an actual connection with God when most believers follow blindly with no evidence. There seems to be a catch 22 situation when having faith, as nobody is actually seen as worthy enough to bask in God’s glow and so those that say they have are ridiculed or persecuted. Karin’s increasingly manic preoccupation with the wallpaper God is also the cause of the pressure that is being exerted on her relationship with Martin. This is not the first time that Bergman has linked faith to the failure of human relationships; neglecting the goodness or “Godness” in people for something that is unattainable.

A great scene is a trademark Bergman one, where two characters analyse one another’s virtues or lack there of. In this example we have Martin reproaching David for being a selfish and inconsiderate father who is a disgusting human being for wanting to exploit his daughter’s illness for novel material. It is these kinds of scenes that push the viewer to be self-reflective, although it is very hard to feel shame when you’re enjoying the sharp, assassinating dialogue that reveals Bergman’s misanthropism.

Max von Sydow gives a confident and reassuring performance as Karin’s stalwart husband who sticks by her side no matter how crazy or paranoid he believes she is becoming. Lars Passgard plays Minus well, showing his desperate need for affection and efforts in understanding the nature of mature relations, trying to make the transition from being a young man into an adult. Gunnar Bjornstrand is brilliant as David, a man who is self-assured but aware of his major character flaws, but who nevertheless dearly loves his children and has a long awaited but conclusive talk with his son in the final scene. Harriet Andersson is sweet, charming and in the depths of despair, playing Karin with a great affinity for her situation.

Through a Glass Darkly is about God communicating, albeit to a singular person, and how that person uses this contact in her relationships to people. Whilst this aspect is not really explored in an optimistic light (it never is with Bergman), this message is understood by David and Minus who come to realise that God is love and if Karin is in fact surrounded by God, it is because of their enveloping love for her. Karin’s disappointing and frightening encounter with the stony Spider-God of faith seems to symbolise the necessity to reject this type of faith as all it has done in this case is disturb an already disturbed young woman.

Fun Facts

Bergman originally planned to film on the Orkney Islands because of their stony landscapes but the film studio wanted to shoot somewhere closer to home and thankfully someone suggested Faro, which Bergman would also make his real-life home.

The title Through a Glass Darkly alludes to the biblical quotation, “for now we see through a glass darkly”. In an interview Bergman and Bjornstrand shed some more light on the title’s meaning when they said it referred to the fact that in Roman times, people didn’t have glass mirrors and so they used ones made of bronze metal which cast only a very dim/vague reflection.

Won an oscar for best foreign film.

Bande a Part

2009-08-04T18:51:00.001-07:00

"I'm just talking, I'm fed up, it's impossible to get anywhere", says Arthur, the delinquent leader of the trio of misfits known as the band of outsiders. This sentiment is what resonates throughout a film which suggests that to be truly liberated, one must give in to life; prizing the free spirit over any expectations of success. Jean-Luc Godard is known for his free-spirited and subversive style of filmmaking, as a pioneer in fresh aesthetic techniques that translate to the screen as attempts at trying to wake the audience from a zombified resignation that comes when the expected is delivered.

You may be thinking that Bande a Part is not the kind of film that is going to entertain you on a boring, rainy afternoon because it's just another one of those odd foreign films that makes life more complicated than it needs to be. Well I'll tell you this is not so. For if you want a film experience that is going to make you say things like,"I can't believe that just happened", or "this is brilliant I've never seen anything so absurd", then this is the film for you. Without giving away to much, the smallest gestures from the movement of an arm, to the puff of a cigarette and even the wiggle of a bottom bring a heart-warming sensitivity to the viewer as this is a film that is all about the small things in life; the things we take for granted that cause our restlessness.

Masculine, Feminine

2009-08-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

Masculine, Feminine is essentially a film that chronicles the lifestyles and opportunities available to a selection of Parisian youths, who represent the dichotomy not just between male and female but also between politics and popular culture; passion and superficiality; and obstinacy and caprice. More closely it documents the relationship between yet another Jean-Luc Godard beauty by the name of Madeleine (Chantal Goya); a woman of fashionable tastes and Paul a man who like other Godard heroes is possessed of a rebellious nature that finds an outlet through an anarchist demeanor. Like the character that Anna Karina has been known to play, Goya imbues her role with the same sexy, aloof, self-satisfied lethargy. She is a woman of Haute Couture who, because of her work, is not estranged to the glamorous, celebrity lifestyle, of which she so desperately wishes to be a part of. Paul on the other hand is a man who though bereft of educational resources is not deterred to instigate some societal changes; driven to succeed given his stint in the military. Unlike Madeleine, Paul has tasted the hardships and suffering of life and is desperate to escape the dispiriting routine of work, eat and sleep to a more rewarding profession where his reflective nature can flourish.

Such differences between the two seem appropriate given Godard's style of casually striking up a romance out of the blue between two disparate strangers. In this instance it begins with a man in a cafe, randomly conversing with a woman of whom he has noticed there before. Moreover it is not long before the relationship evolves almost without any real substance, in that Godard seems to skip the whole "getting to know you Bulls**t" and jumps straight into the ferocious candor that is the true test of any relationship. In an early scene, Paul is trying to connect with Madeleine and express his awareness of the deeper levels of tenderness and the importance of love as necessary to human survival; however she is slippery, questioning his motives, whilst touching up her looks and flippantly teasing him when he gets to serious. Later in the film Paul proposes to Madeleine and shortly afterwards the shot cuts to him angrily throwing a magazine at her that she was reading, eliciting nothing but a burst of laughter, furthermore showing how girlish fantasies of fame and fortune are too important to her to give any consideration to a genuine love that Paul is offering.

In his film, Godard deconstructs the French female stereotype into three categories. The proletariat woman, who due to working a nine to five job is too depleted of energy to have a social life; the chic, vogue obsessed manicurists and hairdressers who mimic the latest trends; and the trapped intellectual who though well educated, ends up being alienated from the real world. Of the categories it would seem that Madeleine shares the profile of the second of the three as she is a woman who is excessively concerned with her appearance, frequently combing through her hair, powdering her face and looking in the mirror every chance she gets. She conducts herself with the same heirs as the models in the photographs she is paid to organize. Her aspirations of being a "ye-ye" singer have led her to lose herself in vanity and develop a narcissistic obsession to become like those women of whom she sees day after day in the fashionable magazine that she works for. She puts on a front of an experienced and confident woman but her immaturity and naivety shines through when she giggles and scoffs at the direct, sexual, candor of Paul.

Despite Paul's romantic nature there is still an element of chauvinism and testosterone running through his blood, which spurts out when he is with his politically, militant like-minded pal Robert. When women walk by they whistle, make vulgar comments and rate their breasts. Unlike Paul though, Robert is unwilling to succumb to the superficial interests of women in money over love. Robert is a more pragmatic character who cannot accept the apathy of the females when it comes to matters of government regimes and conspiracies. An example of such apathy prevails when Paul interviews a "Miss.19" model for a teenage magazine and discovers that she idolizes the American way of life for its exciting, fast paced lifestyle and its liberal treatment of women. The irony here being that at the time the American government were responsible for a gross violation of freedom given their involvement in Vietnam. Though to no surprise, when he asks her if she is aware of any wars that are going on she replies that she is not. It has been said that this scene, as well as the other interview style scenes, was shot off-the-cuff, giving to it the authentic, hesitant and unsure responses.

Paul is a man who is more intellectually independent than Madeleine. He is more aware of the world around him and of issues that go beyond his own selfish desires. He has come to a maturity that she hasn't because of his realizations of the importance of forming ones own opinions. However he has still yet much growing up to do as the ways in which he goes about trying to spread his ideological messages, (graffitying slogans on cars and walls), amount to nothing more than petty vandalism with no real changes being affected.
Ultimately Paul and Madeleine are two French youths trying to carve out an identity that reflects the political and cultural developments of the time. It is a battle of the sexes between the masculine attempts at heroism, rebellion and dominance versus the feminine desire to be part of the American Hollywood glamour scene of riches and fame. Both sexes however seem to share the same obstinate and impulsive egoism.

At one point during the film an inter-title states that the film could have been called "The children of Marx and Coca-Cola" It would seem that Godard is again creating a distinction between the masculine socialist revolutionaries who are concerned with matters that have crucial humanitarian implications and the feminine culture junkie whose "I want it now" attitude and adoration of America has materialized in the form of a product that would be the benchmark for all other endorsements to follow. Amusingly, when Madeleine is asked if she is part of the Pepsi-Cola generation by a reporter she responds, “I love Pepsi-Cola!"

It would be unfair however to conclude that Paul and the male gender that he represents are the noble, objective leaders of tomorrow, as he is just as guilty of being unable to see the world from anything but an arbitrary perspective as the females are. His cross-section of questions from politics to sexuality aimed at deciphering the collective unconscious led him to a similar conclusion as that of Bruno Forestier in "Le Petit Soldat", that each man must come to his own decision when trying to develop a moral centre and, not rely on native concepts that are more concerned with nationalistic pride which only aims to gain territory rather than promote utilitarian change.

King Lear

2009-08-04T18:34:00.000-07:00

Jean-Luc Godard’s “adaptation” (emphasis on the quotation marks there) of William Shakespeare’s King Lear is more avant-garde and experimental than his other more notable films, possibly because King Lear belongs to Godard’s second wave of cinema where he was less concerned with social and political trends. I warn you that it can be extremely demanding of the viewer and for someone less familiar with his work, advisably, this may not be the best film to begin with. I would skip this for now and mosey on over to something like Bande a Part or Alphaville, which would introduce you a little more smoothly into the mind of this marvelous madman.

Okay, now to try and decrypt this film so as to try and give you a slight insight into what this film is trying to communicate. King Lear is supposed to be set in the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster which unfortunately for our young protagonist, William Shaksper Junior the Fifth (Peter Sellars not Sellers as I was disappointed to discover), has obliterated every last shred of art (including literature, films and paintings) entrusting him with the responsibility of rediscovering and rewriting that which has been lost. Whether his specific task is to recreate Shakespeare is unclear, but after hearing mafia kingpin Don Learo (Burgess Meredith) and his daughter Cordelia (Molly Ringwald) quote straight from the original text, he is inspired and tries then to articulate some poetry of his own. Even though Godard has used names straight from the play this is not an adaptation of Shakespeare’s vision but is a study (as the end inter-title says), an interpretation, and I would say a defamation (which I will explain later on) of it. The film makes little attempt at following conventional filmic techniques (even those conventional by Godard’s standard) that would be used by other directors, for example, Akira Kurosawa and his faithful adaptation of Hamlet in Throne of Blood, when adapting Shakespeare. The plot of the film is very thin as there is little in the shape of things that occur. Narrative is confused for there is no real chain of events or cause and effect of any kind. There is absolutely no character development, or construction for that matter because most of the dialogue that would usually set up the character is used to ask philosophical questions about the evolution of art and nature. As far as drama of which we would expect elements of romance and tragedy, there are deep touches of it, though it is not the kind of romance between two people but more Shaksper Junior’s affair with ideas. His burgeoning fascination of how art is created when there is no art to refer to leads him to fall in love with nature. The tragedy lies in the realization that words are needed to make things exist for without them we would be ‘nameless’.
Ultimately it is an aesthetic film for it doesn’t really consistently keep the viewer engaged but provokes him/her with disparate montages of Godard’s heroes and inspirations; abstract sounds of seagulls, crows and pigs which are used almost like a weapon, as an aural onslaught expected from directors like William Burroughs; and a cinematography that seems muddy, dusky, and earth-tone, frequently having the effect of causing the characters to blend into the image. At times I felt the dialogue was superfluous and just used to antagonize the viewer for it offered little understanding of anything and was sometimes muffled to the extent that it was inaudible. Whilst I appreciate the inter-cutting and simultaneous use of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds and dialogue to create conflict, here it just sought to confuse the viewer even further, as some of the voice-over musings were hard enough to decipher on there own, without the extra brain candy coming from the Don and Cordy. However there are moments when some of the philosophical spiel is crystal clear and worth the wait. An example being the mechanism of cinema and how, ironically, it is used to ‘direct’ people; telling them where to look etc. ground the film as one that is trying to instruct people rather than distract. Another idea that is suggested in this scene is that art is not about the image or sound but the emotion that that image or sound evokes in the viewer. Given this, it could be concluded that Godard’s own interpretation of Shakespeare is a representation of the emotions he felt when he read the original play. All I can say is that he must have been tripping on paint thinner when he read the damn thing for I would describe King Lear as an arbitrarily acidic mutation of Shakespeare’s work.

Another scene which stands out is that which Godard himself is acting in as the eccentric, spaced out, philosophy professor who Shaksper Junior talks with in trying to acquire help in how to reconstruct his ancestors work. The scene’s audio is interrupted with the crowing of crows, and the crackling of a fire they have built. They discuss the birth of words that have been destroyed by fire and which as though from the fire of Prometheus will be reborn. The dialogue seemed almost randomly dadaesque as though maybe Godard had thrown darts at his copy of King Lear to choose the lines. However this seems inconsequential to him, as his objective is to confront the sounds that speech makes rather than the meaning of the actual words. It is our ability to hear that reassures us that life is real. We talk, not to say anything important but just to let people know that we are alive. The sounds of the seagulls, crows and fire etc. reiterate this notion; even the silence of Cordelia represents a different kind of sound; a “No Thing” sound.

The fact that no art exists any longer suggests that in order to create it from the beginning, Shakesper Junior will have to think like pioneering artists thought. Art that is derived from other art doesn’t require this primordial approach but as there is no art left for him to draw inspiration from, he must go back to deconstructing the basic elements of life and interact with the natural world. That is why he can be seen strolling through the woods, sitting on the rocks that line the ocean and letting the waves crash over him

The words “show not tell” are spoken later in the film and I would say pretty much encapsulate Godard’s philosophy, where, as in other films of his, he celebrates silence, encouraging ‘the cessation (not abolition) of images’ for truth. When he says “show not tell” he does not mean that sound itself is useless. To Godard sound is something that can be shown also. If you close your eyes whilst listening to a sound you can conjure your own visualization of what you think the sound is rather than having it explained. This is why shortly after saying those words he dubs the squawking seagulls over responses made by Don Learo and Cordelia. He is trying to illustrate that the composition of sound and image doesn’t have to be coherent and that we create our own associations between the two. He is saying that the grass isn’t necessarily green and the sky doesn’t have to be blue. This returns to his original point whereby just as a piece of art cannot exist objectively but is dependent on our reaction to it, neither can nature, which as Godard “teaches” us is the basis for the former.

I said earlier that King Lear was an attack on Shakespeare rather than a tribute to him and hopefully you don’t think I am saying that haphazardly. Shakespeare was a man of words, someone who used poetry as a lingua franca between nature and man so that man could look more honestly within himself. Godard on the other hand was a man of images who if I may say so, had a distrust… a disdain… a downright homicidal contempt for how reckless words can be. What better way could he have chosen to make this point than by butchering like a heretic, one of the most respected plays by the most immortal legend of words.

Oh yeah, and Woody Allen is in the last ten minutes.

La Mepris

2009-08-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

Le Mepris is a film about filmmaking. It is also a film about God. About Godard as God. About control. About love, lust and desire all printed onto celluloid and rolled into a nice discus shaped reel, to be tossed our way by the powers that be.

The story follows a writer named Paul Javal who is offered the opportunity, by a producer named Jerry Prokosch, of re-writing a script for Homer’s “The Odyssey”, which is being directed by Fritz Lang. Confused yet? The film basically concerns the difficulties encountered when conflicting ideas are proposed by the film’s makers, because of different ideas regarding what the film’s ultimate purpose is as an end-product, i.e. is it being made for profit, to reflect the modern society or for self-fulfilment in creating something that offers both a faithful interpretation and a reality that the writer himself appreciates.

In the first scene we are told by the opening voice-over that Le Mepris is based on a novel by Alberto Moravia. It goes on to tell us who stars in the film, who makes it etc… Whilst he tells us this, the camera films a cameraman tracking vertically towards “our” camera which is filming a woman reading from a script. This immediately suggests that “Contempt” is a film about filmmaking. I think Godard chose to film the filmmaking process to show how naturalistic the process (of cinematography at least) is. At this moment he is showing us just the camera and reality with nothing in between the two. However what is captured is then changed at the decision of the makers (as is shown in the subsequent scene in the production room where they review the film so far) and modified through editing using cutting, music, montage etc… to suggest certain things and make associations. The process of editing is a form of distortion, another issue the film is concerned with via materialisms distortion of nature, as it distorts the truth which the camera has filmed. The voice-over then quotes Andre Bazin saying “film substitutes a world that conforms to our desires”, responding by saying that Le Mepris is a story of that world; a sentiment echoed most notably in Paul who wants to substitute his own reality with Homer’s for he holds a very romantic, idyllic and utopian perception of the text.

In a subsequent scene set in the production room where Lang and his cohorts are sat reviewing the film as it has developed so far, he comments on how each picture should have a definite point of view, as “The Odyssey” is a fight between the individual and the circumstances, Ulysses versus the gods. He describes Minerva as being Ulysses’ protectress and Neptune (Poseidon) as his enemy; as he does the camera goes to shots of sculptures of each of these gods. He further comments on how Gods have not created man but man has created Gods. This solidifies Lang’s vision of how he thinks the film should be. It seemed to me that the most striking feature of Le Mepris is that of God and man, filmmaker and film, with the common denominator of creator and creation. Lang re-creates “The Odyssey”, Godard creates Le Mepris. Lang re-creates characters Ulysses, Penelope, Neptune and Godard creates Paul, Camille and Jerry. Godard is synonymous with Lang; both are directors/creators. Both have control, both are ultimately gods. The fact that the characters of Le Mepris have adopted the roles of those in “The Odyssey” seems to pose the question of whether art controls life and the way we choose to live it, or whether in fact we really do have any choice at all but are instead being directed by Gods just as the characters of Le Mepris are being directed by Godard

Still viewing the film, Jerry sees a naked woman (a mermaid) swimming in a pool – and like the clichéd producer that is concerned about there being a decent amount of tits and ass in the film - he becomes animated, or should I say deranged, and sports a dirty smile that decorates his even filthier laugh. Despite this Jerry is still unhappy with the direction Lang has chosen to take the film in saying “that’s not what is in that script”. He has a violent outburst as he picks up some film reels and tosses them as though he were a discus thrower in the Greek Olympics, setting him up as a God; an imitation of Neptune of whom we see pulling a similar athletic pose of the time with one arm pulled back and the other stretching out in front of him. Jerry is even heard saying I like Gods, I understand them. After successfully attempting to bribe Paul to re-write the script, offering him a cheque to do so of which Paul hesitantly accepts, Lang compares his approach of using money to Hitler’s (another man of God-like status) use of a gun in his dictatorship. This gives us a glimpse into the way studios and ‘God-like’ producers “persuade” filmmakers to change scripts to make them more accessible. It seems as though Godard is putting his own “contempt” for the production of his film into Le Mepris, for he had difficulties with the producers during shooting who wanted more nudity, and he was becoming increasingly frustrated with the actors, most notably and ironically Jack Palance (Jerry) who would become the figure of contempt for Paul and Fritz. The only person who he could suffer was Fritz Lang, one of his heroes and the character of whom Godard would use as a disguise for himself. Strangely enough, Woody Allen used a similar formula for disguise in his film Celebrity where Kenneth Branagh would adopt every aspect of Allen’s persona, from mannerisms to intonation of voice, whilst scouting the celebrity lifestyle.

At times the film seems to exhibit intense elements of drama where maybe there shouldn’t be using a captivating score by Georges Delerue, called “Theme de Camille” (of which Scorsese used in Casino). The score, like most, is melancholy yet uplifting but is used at a point where casual conversation continues and Camille, through a sequence of jump cuts, recollects what happened only in the previous scene as though it were of some importance. It seems a little presumptuous of Godard to insert a flashback sequence so soon into the film, when the viewer has yet to comprehend to a reasonable extent what is happening between Jerry, Camille and Paul. But then again, since when has Godard been a reasonable man? Joke; if reason had a reason to take corporeal form, I’m sure it would choose Godard as its host. However, to the viewer the music and flashback seems a little random. An even more, dare I say, humorous example (for I may be misinterpreting this) of his use of the score comes when Paul and Camille are arriving home. Paul is reading the newspaper, talking about films that are on at the cinema, and discussing trivial matters with Camille such as who has the key, yet the score continues to float and sink intermittently as though something extremely profound is happening. It is possible that Godard just wanted to use the music as a segue from the beginning to the middle part of the film or maybe to counterpoint sound and image as he is known to do. Or maybe the score, as it is devoted to Camille, is just about her personal feelings. So if at times it feels incongruent with things that are happening externally it is because it changes in pace or pitch in compliance with the beating of Camille’s heart.

The tracking shot that is filmed in the initial scene is one that Godard used frequently himself in creating Le Mepris. It seems the reason for this is to say, “Hey viewer, this is how a film is made.” So by filming the filmmaking process and then using that same process in his film Godard could be suggesting that the moments of production within the film, including the negative aspects such as dealing with producers (things that are as necessary in making a film as camerawork), parallel his own experience in making films. Please excuse me for using the word film so much. The Cinema Verite camera work itself is very fluid in the film using long takes and crawling dollies as well as incorporating sweeping movements, whereby the camera swoops around its characters and retreats backwards (into bushes) and continues to film them giving the feeling of someone spying on them. It seems to me that again Godard is trying to express his own tribulations that were caused by the Paparazzi, of whom kept harassing Brigitte Bardot during filming. The movements of the camera are synonymous with those of a Paparazzi reporter; swooping in to a star with their microphone, only to retreat back into the bushes and spy on their prey in an attempt to get a juicy scoop.

The film documents Paul and Camille at a turning point in their relationship. Like Camille’s flashbacks, we are introduced to the couple with no back-story, so to see Camille become increasingly hostile, frustrated and petulant we are forced to ask why. Even Paul is confused as to his wife’s sour attitude towards him. However it is Camille who thinks Paul has changed since he became more involved with the film industry; making more money. To be fair, we get the impression that Paul has “sold out” as he used to write thrillers which he had passion for and has now been swayed by a larger pay cheque and the pursuit of a nicer home to compromise his artistic intent. However his desire to cling on to his old-self seems to be represented by the fact he never once takes off his bowler “detective” hat. As he ascends into a corrupted world that is more sophisticated than his own, it is evident that Paul wants to maintain his integrity, using the industry as only a means to an end. His hat acts as a reminder of where his roots lay. There is an opposition between classical tragedy, where man was victim to a fate designated by the gods, and film noir thrillers that were more secular in nature and dealt with more realistic and less deterministic themes of crime and human relations (of which lasted because of integrity and weren’t destroyed by Roman decadence). Like Paul, Lang’s roots influence the gritty, honest, down-to-earth approach, proven by his citing of “M” as the favourite of his works. He criticises crimes of passion or any impulsive acts such as murder in the name of revenge because of its tragic consequences. Ultimately Lang holds contempt for fanciful invocations of Gods who exact revenge on instinct, and instead, appreciates “The Odyssey” for its growth with nature, unlike Jerry who revels in the iniquitous elements of it.

The use of location shooting enhances the linear narrative of beginning, middle and end as it gives each of the three “acts” a distinguishing environment of its own. In the first instance shooting was done at Cinecitta Studios which was the setting for Jerry’s Chateaux; antiquated with Roman art. The second at the interiors of Paul and Camille’s cold and sterilised contemporary flat. The third at Jerry’s villa, the Casa Malaparte on Capri Island; a house on a cliff surrounded by a forest of cypresses and rocks, and framed by the Mediterranean Sea, showing the sensuality and beauty of landscape and location, acting as a counterpoint to the turbulent natures of the characters and a means of bringing “The Odyssey” to life.

However, there is a duality in the mise-en-scene of these locations; a dichotomy between contemporary and 8th Century Roman art. The lurid, fluorescent orange and blue hues of the furniture, that match Camille’s towel and Jerry’s jumper and car, versus the ornate furniture, portraits, harp, sculptures of Roman deities and perverse images of sexuality and so on. Almost as though Godard were invoking Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, the characters seem to be influenced by the lifestyle and colours of this art, just as they seem to impersonate the roles of those in “The Odyssey”. For example, the flowers, sofa and towels in Paul and Camille’s flat all seem to be purposefully colour co-ordinated. This has the effect of stagnating Paul and Camille’s relationship that seems to have deteriorated for lack of vitality and spontaneity. This is made apparent by Camille’s childish and mocking attempt at offering impromptu sex to Paul who rejects it angrily. In fact, in one of the first scenes we see Paul and Camille having an intimate discussion in bed, the shots of which are filtered with orange and blue hues. It could be that these filters which match the colours of their furniture are meant to have a foreboding effect hinting at the negative influence their furniture (symbolic of materialism) will have on their relationship. Even though it is clear that both Paul and Camille are complex and interesting individuals, they have already begun to become trapped by convention that seems to be sucking the life out of them. This arc contemplates age-old theories of life imitating art which has been inspired by life.

However it is not just the furniture that would exercise power over the couple but the conniving producer also. Just look at the way he sips on his wine and playfully tilts his sunglasses whilst giving Camille a cajoling smirk. Jerry sees himself as the modern equivalent of a Greek God; exercising financial power over Paul (in giving him his cheque) and erotic power over Camille (who we see enraptured by visceral images of fornication and sodomy that are contained within Jerry’s Roman “art” book). Never are the couple in control over their own lives, but instead are subject to the whims of this glorified Poseidon. Like Paul and Lang he envisions “The Odyssey” in a self-serving manner though his has more realistic and tragic consequences as his desire is to split Paul and Camille’s relationship. It has already been inferred that the characters of Paul, Camille and Jerry are synonymous with Ulysses, Penelope and Neptune and so when Jerry says that Ulysses loves Penelope but she doesn’t love him, he is insidiously saying that Paul’s love is not reciprocated by Camille. He further distorts “The Odyssey” for his own gain by suggesting to Paul that the reason Ulysses took so long to return home (10 years) was because he was unhappy with Penelope. He is trying to plant seeds within Paul’s mind that make him doubt his own relationship. However, as though acting out an auxiliary role as Minerva, Lang reassures Paul that Ulysses would not have undertaken such cowardly action, if that were the case.
Jerry clearly represents Godard’s contempt for Hollywood. Jerry who only gets excited at the sight of naked women in pools, who has a greed for power possessed only by gods, convincing women to take off their clothes, sweet-talking and bribing those around him and driving off with other men’s wives in his sports car. Fritz Lang however is the antithesis of this. His passion for “The Odyssey” develops from his belief, as he says in the film, that “Homer’s world is a real world but the poet belonged to a civilisation that developed in harmony with nature, not in opposition to it…The beauty of “The Odyssey” lies precisely in this belief in reality as it is.” It is an objective reality that cannot be distorted. It is a reality free of materialistic desires which are disharmonious with nature. It is a reality which lives because of people’s ability to breathe life into it without the aid of respiratory devices. The problem seems to be adapting a story that was a product of its civilisation to a modern civilisation which has different values, making it anachronistic. For “The Odyssey” to succeed it can no longer remain as it is.

Le Mepris is thus an amalgamation of different epochs. The difficulty in adjusting “The Odyssey” (whilst incorporating conflicting ideals from these epochs), acts as the embodiment of the struggle during radical changes that have occurred throughout civilisations. The film’s turbulence stems from a European vibe, which is more of a tremor or a quake, of beauty, art and money, and being able to balance the three. It is a crisis similar to that of Marcello Rubini in “La Dolce Vita” or Sandy Bates in “Stardust Memories”.

In the final scene between Paul and Lang, Paul says he is returning to Rome to finish his play. He then asks what shot Lang is filming and he replies that it is the one where Ulysses sees his native land for the first time, concreting the comparison of Paul with Ulysses. The film ends with a tracking shot of a tracking shot, similar to the beginning, only this time from a horizontal perspective; the linear movement of each complimenting the linear structure of the film and the triumph of one interpretation/perspective over another.

Le Mepris confronts the viewer with the fact that there is a mechanism behind cinema as it shows us the filmmaking process (and its consequences); from the tracking of the camera, to the disputes between producer and filmmaker to the effect of being a writer and what strains that puts on the writer’s relationship. Just like man can be comforted by a Godless world, this film is saying there is a god (as god in this film is synonymous with the filmmaker) and he does direct things. Whereas a film that is only an end-product without any reference to its means can comfort the viewer as they can indulge with impunity in a reality that just exists without fear of consequence. It all allowed for cause and effect and created more complex themes of determinism, providence and life imitating art in the form of the tragic development of Paul and Camille’s relationship and the dynamics of adapting a film within an industry

La Chinoise

2009-08-04T18:19:00.000-07:00

La Chinoise is a commentary by Jean-Luc Godard on the social uprisings of the 1960s including the Cultural Revolution instigated by Mao Zedong; the (yet to happen) student riots in Paris as well as America’s involvement in the Vietnam War; seen through the lives of five unique, student communist revolutionaries (Guillaume, Veronique, Henri, Yvonne and Serge) who decide to open their own subversive “Red Guard” school in the apartment of some wealthy bourgeoisie people.

La Chinoise was released in 1967, almost with a sense of immediacy given that the Paris student riots were to occur the following year. It seems almost to be a premonition of the revolts of students who with indignation at the class discrimination and a politically controlled education system, marched into anarchy in an attempt to bring down the De Gaulle government using Maoist, Marxist teachings as a tool for destruction. It was a movement responsible for more liberal institutions of equality, sexuality and human rights replacing the more reactionary, religious and patriotic ones.

“We should replace vague words with clear images” says the first slogan of the film that is written on the wall of what looks to be a found art exhibit of a dining room in a bourgeois household. Later in the film we discover it is the place where Guillaume Meister and Veronique sit to drink tea and relax, whilst discussing their plans. It seems to juxtapose the comfort that these rebels enjoy whilst trying to scheme revolutions. One running theme of La Chinoise is the lack of comprehension that these “kids” have when it comes to the implementation of a strategy in the real world, given their lack of real experience and disconnection from the working class who they are fighting for. These are ultimately insurgent enthusiasts from bourgeoisie backgrounds. However the slogan that is written is one that summarizes Godard’s filmmaking approach, most evidently in the editing, in La Chinoise. Much of the speech coming from these students is extremely convoluted as they will intertwine politics, poetry, philosophy, science (and more) which causes them to lose sight of where they are coming from. This is why I think Godard uses montage lavishly here, more so than I have seem him do in any other film. He uses rapid cuts between successive images of everything from pop art, propaganda art, historical photos, mug-shots of demagogues, comic book superheroes, newspaper clippings, his characters own reenactments of historical events using costumes and toy guns etc. The soundtrack ranges from machine gun fire to cut between a juxtaposed image of Sgt Fury and Captain America with a close up of Batman; suggesting Captain America’s likeness to American Imperialism compared to the more vigilante and defiant approach of Batman (who is being compared to the students maybe?); to classical pieces by Vivaldi and even a delicious propaganda pop song called “Mao Mao”, which is used to usher in the second “Movement” of the film and acts as a personal reintroduction of Veronique who we see studying over a passage of time through jump cuts, whilst her environment changes. The song seems to be like a soundtrack to her personality; to her absolute surrender to Maoist thought as by this point in the film, Veronique has replaced the once eclectic range of books that were in the library, solely with copious volumes of Mao’s red book. Like the library, Veronique’s thinking will become more streamlined and conform to one solution, as she becomes more fanatical in her ideas about the revolution.

Guillaume Meister is named after Wilhelm Meister a character in a novel by Goethe who reaches a state of enlightenment after failed attempts at theatre and a desire to escape the empty life of a bourgeoisie businessman. The Bildungsroman sensibilities are seen through Guillaume as well as the other students, initially as they move away from conformity and a conflict is established in them versus society. For Guillaume it is was avoiding becoming like his parents (his father runs a holiday resort designed as though it were a concentration camp; seems to me like a valid driving reason to be there), for Veronique it was educating herself on Marxism, for Yvonne it was emancipation and for Henri it was peace (consequently splitting away from the group that would begin to adhere to fundamentalist ideals). At the beginning of the film Henri proposes that in order for a mass revolution to be possible they need to create a revolution that is subjective and objective; one that suits the individual and the greater good. The working class can’t go in guns blazing expecting the bourgeoisie to relinquish power. They all go through a grueling process of trying to place themselves within a Maoist social order to eventually letting go of this desire and becoming a worker of some sort.
The students of La Chinoise have designed their own school which they have put together in the bourgeoisie apartment of a friend’s parents. Whatever the cause, you have to admire the way they have made the environment their own through the sloppily painted red and blue doors, the slogans written over the walls, the pinups of Maoist communist art and philosophers, the chalkboards they have erected and the hundreds of copies of Mao’s Little Red Book, heaped in piles or stacked on shelves. There is something very exciting about this idea of independent education that incites the viewer to want to join them, as they take turns to teach lectures to each other, holding the attention and respect of the group as though they were an actual professor. This setup seems to be inspired by a young Mao who had a limited education and so spent much time studying independently. Each student (except Serge for some reason) also gets their own interview similar to that of Masculine Feminine whereby they are asked about their backgrounds, of which seem to be an important factor of the film as each character comes from a unique one and whatever it is seems to have bearing on the roles they take in the group. The interviews seem to be something of a reprieve from the otherwise fast paced nature of the film (due mostly to the quick montage and rapid explanations of complex ideas), and give us an insight into the character allowing us to put their political beliefs in some sort of context. Each interviewee is questioned in an environment or with a background suited to their personality.

Behind Guillaume during his interview, is a blackboard and in one corner of it is a large newspaper clipping about Mao and on the other an illustration sketch of another hero of his (possibly Lenin); showing his Maoist tendencies and artistic streak (for he is an actor). He is the character most passionate about the arts (most notably theatre and poetry) and how it reflects life; with his lecture being theatrically themed and extremely droll and compelling to watch. In his interview he recounts an incident that occurred when a Chinaman used theatrics to convey theatre as a reflection of reality like that of Brecht or Shakespeare, but that it was misconstrued by the media. He sees himself as a theatrical tool used in a play of global proportions. He is a vessel, just as the Chinaman in his story was and is imbued with the flair for poetry and philosophy that Mao himself possessed.

When it is his turn to teach the lecture he begins by discussing films that were created as fantasies and by the imagination (George Melies) versus films that documented real life (The Lumiere Brothers) and how it was the former who made films that reflected current events more than the Lumieres even though his were only reenactments. However, like Melies reenactments, Godard’s prove to be the most striking section of the film, as we are confronted with a childlike rendition (using toys and costumes) of a war that has cost thousands of lives. Coming from the second part of his lecture Guillaume discusses the Vietnam war problem, describing the American’s as the actors in a play that was staged there. From a set of five multicolored novelty sunglasses on his desk he picks up the white pair (white America) and puts them on, revealing that each lens has been painted over with the stars and stripes. He proceeds to pick up each pair, (each representing the countries of Russia, China, England and France) giving a pithy explanation of the actions taken by that country. After a pupil asks if Vietnam was an actor, Guillaume clicks his fingers at the screen and the scene cuts to Yvonne dressed as a Vietnamese soldier eating (rice?) from a bowl with chopsticks, stood in front of a mural of a tiger standing on a petrol dispenser that has been renamed napalm whilst a pair of delta daggers dangle from the ceiling by string about to attack the unsuspecting victim. Following this is a clever montage of comic book superheroes; Yvonne barricaded behind a fortress of Mao’s Little Red Books (despite being in fear of the communist North), shooting with a toy radio that holds a dual purpose by being able to morph into a gun; a picture of a giant red hand clenched into a fist and squeezing the life out of a US soldier and then back to Yvonne who turns the gun back into a radio which tells of the ten puppet soldiers that have been killed and captured. The entire reenactment speaks volumes about Godard’s intentions and his opinions of American Imperialism. How the entire war effort was just a farce, akin to a theatrical play of which the latter would have probably had more reliable information than the lines that were given to US troops to convince them that their participation was for a worthy cause. His doubling up of the radio as a weapon seems to show his distrust of the media and especially wartime propaganda broadcasts such as the “Radio Peking” one he uses in the film. During the lecture Godard uses Guillaume to stab at the revisionism of the Soviet Union. He does this by suggesting that communism is split into two types; dangerous and non-dangerous. The Soviet’s became less dangerous once they revised their Marxist beliefs to conform more with America’s ideals and so America “thanked” them by helping them institutionalize and industrialize Europe, whist concurrently bombing Vietnam because their form of communism posed to much of a “threat”.

Behind Yvonne during her interview is a sky blue wall (nature, the fact she used to work under open skies all day) with two very small newspaper cut-outs; the headline of the one at the forefront reading “La Paysanne Francaise Aujourdhui” meaning “The French Countrywoman Today”. She is a simple, uneducated but hard working young woman who grew up on a farm where she would have to wake up at the crack of dawn to light fires, milk cows, clean stables etc. Despite her difficult life she is content, being the most easy-going of the group. She has gone from one hard job to another (farmer, cleaner, prostitute) and is the most working class of all, yet the least bothered by how exploited she has been. During her interview Godard uses classical music to distinguish her new found “freedom” with her student activist buddies from her labored jobs; when she talks about the former the music starts but then abruptly stops when she starts talking of her old labored life. However, even in this communist sect she has joined she is still stuck washing the pots, serving tea and shining shoes whilst the others are learning. Like the model in Masculine Feminine, when asked for political definitions she is stuck for words. She seems to represent the imbalance of knowledge and hard labor that exists in the class struggle. In order to back a successful political idea you must know your external world and interact with it. Oddly enough it seems it is Yvonne who has all the real life experience yet none of the power and it is Veronique and Guillaume who are the most disconnected from reality that seem to be leading.

Veronique is interviewed in their library with books surrounding her, the most prominent one that looms above her head being that on Marxist-Leninist theory. As we are introduced into her dialogue a picture of Alice (from Alice in Wonderland) peeking behind a curtain pops up with Veronique saying “what made me discover Marxism”, suggesting she holds a curiosity to that of her fictional counterpart. Though just before this scene we are shown the cold realities of weathered farmland (like Yvonne’s home) and an industrial site with the current student “Professor” saying we must not use our imaginations but look to the laws that govern life that act as guides for answers. Godard is creating one of many contradictions for his characters by suggesting this and then setting up Veronique’s dialogue and juxtaposing her with the picture of Alice. Furthermore it seems to be Yvonne who is key in understanding reality yet ironically nobody takes much notice of her. Veronique explains how she started to look into Marxism as Nanterre bored her because of the surrounding slums. She describes herself as belonging to the philosophy “class”, covering both her position as a philosophy class teacher and part of a class in the social hierarchy. Veronique is disdainful of the gentle approach that art takes and says she would love to bomb Le Louvre if she had the guts. Despite her acknowledgment of the difficulties in life, her upbringing has been very different from Yvonne’s as Veronique says of how she is disconnected from the working class as she grew up in a family of bankers. Moreover, the subsequent scene shows her and Guillaume sitting in the dining room like a lady and lord at the table drinking tea from what looks like fine china. Through these contradictions is Godard suggesting that the comfort that these students enjoy holding them back from any real understanding just like the politicians and clergy who spoke about human liberation, but did so from the chains of reactionary dogmas.

Veronique has a problem with teaching and institutions and seems to be an embodiment of the spirit of the Red Guard and 1968 riots; though she does proclaim to be a teacher herself. Her disgust at the university system is like that of Private Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) in Platoon. Both of these characters come from bourgeois backgrounds and both want to get their hands dirty. After doing a stint picking some peaches, Veronique came to the realization of the importance of empirical experience. Taylor dropped out of university so that he could make an actual difference by fighting side by side in Vietnam with a platoon of average Joe proletariats. Veronique says of how the only reason she passed her exams in the first place was because of the manual labor she put in picking peaches the term before. When she took exams without this experience she failed. So the message of the film continues that a balance is needed. A point needs to be reached were proletariat and bourgeois lifestyles converge and transcend to another class. In order to feel like education is a worthwhile thing the student must interact with reality as well to put their knowledge into a practical context. This is why her conclusion of wanting to bomb the university is ludicrous; not because it can’t be done, but because she has neither the resources nor the practical ability to pull off such a feat. She has no conception of the consequences of her actions because she has been living in a world free from consequences; filling her mind with communist mono-political solutions, that don’t take the fact that she is living in a capitalist society, into account. The communist system isn’t necessarily more ethical than the capitalist one; it’s not as simple as China good, America bad; as “class struggle doesn't disappear under proletarian dictatorship. It takes on other forms.” Like the character of Veronique, Mao also faced almost identical frustrations. Whilst working (not studying) at the Peking University he developed his “violent revolution” theory which seems to have inspired Veronique’s violent conclusion, as he proposed to subvert imperialism and feudalism using proletariat violence under the supervision of the communist party. Unfortunately like Veronique, the industrial workers who would make up these proletariat insurgents made up only a small portion of the Chinese population and so he couldn’t feasibly succeed. During the rendezvous with her old professor in which these issues arise, he tells her that the lessons she has learnt from the situation in China are abstract, which I would say sums up Godard’s own creation well. After all, the film has documented from start to finish a group of self proclaimed communist students who have made their own classroom, take turns in lecturing, put up pinups and pictures of their idols all of which has been sporadically put together through a hodgepodge of montages and ridiculous reenactments. The lessons the viewer learns are just as abstract as those learnt by the students.

Henri’s dialogue takes place after he has been excluded from the group for not agreeing to vote for an act of terrorism. As the film develops it is Henri who becomes the embodiment of the compromise that the message of the film is striving for. He is both the proletariat (showed by his romantic pairing with Yvonne) and the bourgeoisie (emphasized by his intellect). He is the pacifist (the only true political stance worth anything) and explains how his new plans involve finding work in a laboratory and then joining another communist group.

La Chinoise is full of socio-political rhetoric that at times just goes on and on, jumping from one topic to another or one notion to the next, sometimes without any means of bridging the two. The use of montage, as well as enforcing Godard’s speeches, helps to break them up and has the affect on the viewer of being slapped round the face by a giant orange hand, whilst simultaneously having a raving ex-bank teller with a green face give you a power wedgie. For the politically inept like myself I would still very much recommend this film because as with all Godard films, the performances are hypnotizing, the editing as I have played down is relentless and the use of metaphors to expose contradictions, provides sharp satire at the expense of our student heroes.

Marebito

2009-08-04T18:08:00.001-07:00

Have you ever had the desire to see another side of life but at the risk of losing your sanity? All you have to do is submit your imagination to the devil and allow yourself to spiral out of realities polished grip into a subterranean world of mythology and lore that has its place in the minds of the most twisted creators in the fictional field. This is the desire of Masuoka (Shinya Tsukamoto), the star of Takashi Shimizu’s (Ju-on, Ju-on 2) Marebito, who is desperate to see the horror that becomes hidden by the naked eye. Armed with a camera, Masuoka leads the life of a freelance cameraman, who in his spare time indulges in his voyeuristic tendencies by setting up cameras that peep into the lives of others, whilst he watches from his cyber-styled black-hole of an apartment that is kitted out with numerous computers and television screens.

Masuoka is a man obsessed with the concept of fear and how it manifests itself in people who are in seemingly life and death situations (he seems to choose people on the brink of society i.e. drug users, masochists etc). Being a voyeur doesn’t satisfy in him some sexual perversion of seeing anything erotic, but gives him the opportunity to look into the faces of those he watches for fear and what it is that has caused it. He is a man who is searching for fear because he has yet to experience true fear himself.

After capturing footage of a recent subway suicide, by a man who sought the same things as Masuoka, he becomes entangled between intersecting dimensions, set off by his visions of “Deros” (creatures from the netherworld), and begins his descent into the truth he has been seeking. Starting with the Tokyo metropolis subway where the suicide occurred he is led deeper down via M.C. Escher stairways and dark passageways into a world of H.P Lovecraft Mountains of Madness, developing a mystique that shares similarities to Guillermo’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Here he will find a girl who will link him to this world after he returns with her to his own, and of whom he will keep as a pet whilst trying to teach her how to be a human. Unfortunately or fortunately (probably the latter knowing him) for Masuoka, he discovers that his new found pet girl is only satiated by the taste of blood, preferably human; and so begins the plot of a film that will have you simultaneously cringing with revulsion and gazing in wonder at images that are both sick but sweet (aided by the adorable Tomomi Miyashita).

Whilst the events that occur do raise many unanswered questions about the subjectivity of what is happening (i.e are the supernatural elements and the “Deros” real or just extensions of Masuoka’s “de-prozaced” imagination and does his “surface” life exist as we are led to believe it does), this never seems to matter because the film is all about Masuoka’s journey into fear and madness and not the reliability or filling of plot holes.

Marebito has a filtered, gritty, mokumentary filmmaking style, it was shot all on digital video, and can be a little disorientating at times (though not as much as Tsukamoto’s own Tetsuo The Iron Man, which remains undefeated champion for creating that dizzy sensation). In hindsight though, this was probably one of the goals of the film given that we are seeing everything from the perspective of a deteriorating madman. Marebito is a refreshing achievement as it moves away from the whole trapped-ghost-with-a-grudge formula that seems to have established itself as solid as a rock since Ringu, and uses psychological fear that is rooted more in the fear of oneself and the false truths we hold onto to keep us sane (which I think is far more frightening than Ringu, a film which I love but not because of its scare factor). The acting by Tuskamoto is first rate as he makes the viewer feel as though they were right there with him and always on his side, hoping that he will find the answers he’s looking for, and sinking in despair with him as he makes his suffering palpable.
All that is required though for you to enjoy this film is that you be a fan of weird, violent and depressing as hell films about fear, loneliness and being dead inside. This is J-Horror spiralling forward.

Kuchisake-Onna (Carved)

2009-08-04T18:03:00.001-07:00

Kuchisake-Onna or Slit-Mouthed Woman aka Carved is a 2007 film by Koji Shiraishi based on an old Japanese legend. The legend tells of a beautiful maiden who after arousing suspicions in her samurai husband that she was being unfaithful, was disfigured by having her mouth slit from ear to ear by her raging spouse who swore she would never be beautiful again. From this tale an urban myth has been continued by the Japanese people about a woman wearing a surgical mask and carrying a blade of some sort, who wanders the foggy streets asking passer-bys if they think she is pretty. If they say yes, she lets them go on their merry way. If they say no, she will slit their mouth into a similar style as her own.

The film plays pretty much to the same tune as the legend in that a woman with a slit-mouth wearing a mask goes around asking others “watashi kirei” or “am I pretty?”, except it also incorporates a real life panic that stuck Japan in the late seventies when sightings of a woman hunting children were accounted for and spread like wildfire.

Kuchisake-Onna begins in the spirit of its J-horror predecessors in that it introduces us to the urban legend the film is based on through rumours. The first ten minutes of the film jumps from a set of schoolgirls gossiping about the ghost to a trio of boys walking home from school to a father and his daughters, recounting of how the woman’s origins were in their very town. Suddenly an earthquake hits this small town startling the townsfolk as we cut from one group of people to another with the words “am I pretty?” echoing throughout, and then finally to the slit-mouthed woman who seems to have awakened from her tomb in the forest. I think that one of the best things the Japanese have going for them in the horror/suspense department is their ability to create a depth and mystery to a character through back-story. By relating to the viewer that there is something frightening on the horizon, it entices you into their world and creates a feeling of an evil that is ancient and haunting. It is like sitting around a campfire in the dead of night whilst someone attempts to put the heebie-jeebies in you by telling you there is a serial killer that is known to roam the very forest you are camped in.

The fear definitely seems to come from the fact that, like a disease, it is transmitted through the rumours the people spread amongst themselves building mass hysteria and pushing it to such a point that it would seem the earthquake they experienced was just as much an eruption of their collective unconcious as it is of the slit-mouthed woman’s awakening. The Yurei’s get their power from a tradition of storytelling that has become irresistible to the people and it is easy to see why, as a ghost story is a great way of making a town seem more exciting than it is.

Though it is a populated town, for the most part the streets are bereft of people, the roads are without traffic and the houses are quiet creating the sensation that this is an actual ghost town. It seems that the residents expect the slit mouthed woman to appear at a certain time, and so like a curfew has been enforced, the children are told to walk home in groups and nobody leaves their house after five. The time is certainly nigh for her appearance as she comes wielding a pair of extra long shears to abduct her first child.

The appearance of the slit-mouthed woman lends to her the profile of a serial killer more than a ghost, as she wears a long buttoned up grey trench-coat and wields a pair of shears like they were a butcher’s knife. That she stalks and stabs rather than haunts also suggests that Shiraishi is trying to blend two types of horror (ghost and slasher) into one which I think he does very well. One film Kuchisake-Onna did remind me of quite a lot was Wes Craven’s Scream. Both films use a small town made eerie where rumours are spread amongst school kids that some killer is stalking and killing their peers and both films create scenarios that are shaped and affected by events that happened in the past of that town concerning the death of a woman. Oddly enough it is Scream in which a real serial killer adopts the visage of a ghost and Kuchisake-Onna which has a real ghost possessing the form of a serial killer.

The main theme running through this story is that of abusive mother-daughter relationships. Parallels are created between Mayumi Sasaki a parent of one of the pupils, Kyoko Yamashita the schoolteacher and the Kuchisake-onna ghost all of whom were abusive or neglectful of their daughters. Many J-horror films deal with child abuse, suggesting it is a sort of epidemic in Japan (hence the coughing and surgical masks in the film?). The often vengeful female ghosts who are trapped in this world usually are so because of some spousal or filial abuse that occurred in their previous life. It is the schoolteacher Yamashita who the film follows and her remorse at the failure of her family plays a motivating part in her involvement in searching for the missing children.

The score is dark and sombre as you’d expect. For the first ¾ or so of the film a spooky, minimal piano phrase is repeated at moments of tension as well as what I can only describe as what sounds like two hollowed out bells ringing inside a morgue. For the last part of the film the score becomes much darker as it still uses bells and such but now much more metallic and sepulchral in tone with trembling symbols. This section of the film reminded me of scenes from the Silent Hill game; dark, dank basements, creeping movements and ghouls trying to kill you with sharp objects. The sound FX are just right and enhance the violence which isn’t to bad (except for a couple of scenes), conveying the disgusting, slushy, squelching sounds of a blade penetrating flesh.

The film doesn’t have any shocking plot twists and doesn’t constantly keep you in suspense but it is a really good rendition of an old legend and deserves extra points for combing the ghost and slasher genres so well. The slit-mouthed woman herself possesses all the disturbing factors needed from makeup to clothing to movement that make a frightening monster in a horror film and her method of attack is one that will make you think twice about how sweet you think Edward Scissorhands really is. The locations are great and utilise space effectively to create feelings of being trapped in desolation (the town seems quite large yet everything seems closely connected) and the spearing use of hand held cameras that sort of dive into the action during confrontations give a realism to the film akin to something you might see on Most Haunted or in a snuff film.

If you do want to see this and you get a copy off the Internet, be warned that the subtitles that come with it are not all that accurate so you’d be better off buying it from Amazon (it’s only £6 odd and worth it).

Apartment 1303

2009-08-04T17:57:00.000-07:00

Apartment 1303 is a J-horror ghost story by Ataru Oikawa whereby each new female resident who comes to rent the apartment of the same title meets a smacking end, by jumping off its balcony 13 storeys up. It is thought to be nothing more than suicide by the police until the apartment takes its fifth victim; a sweet, happy, and popular girl named Sayako of whose sister Mariko is adamant that she would never have committed suicide. So the film follows Mariko as she investigates the apartment and does some research upon it and finds out that once upon a time, an abusive mother lived there with her daughter both of whom are now dead.

Mariko’s character is one who in front of others is a little cold, detached and uncaring, an impression we get from her stoic attitude at her sister’s funeral and dysfunctional relationship with her mother. However when she visits the apartment of her recently deceased sister, she spends time looking through old photo albums and through the pictures on her sister’s phone, until she finally breaks into a hysterical fit of tears whilst watching a stand up comedy show on the television. There is a lot of pressure on the youth of Japan to succeed and be specific types of responsible citizens and it seems that Mariko is an example of the type of Japanese girl who responds to these pressures by detaching herself from them. She is not the cute and lovable Japanese stereotype…no that would be her sister. Markio is the cigarette smoking, hardass who restrains herself from showing her vulnerabilities in public and as a result is branded as heartless. Parents have high expectations of their children and in a society that seems to split youth into two categories, when a child disappoints their parents they often end up falling into either the Sayako or Mariko stereotype.

Apartment 1303 is a film that has once again employed a similar cause and effect reasoning as other J-Horror ghost stories. What we have is a disgruntled girl who wishes to take revenge on other females, this time by possessing them and throwing them off the balcony, as a way of passing on the abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother. Predictable clues are also left within the apartment, such as an earring, a chewed up water bottle and a foul stench that emanates from the closet, which are then explained during a dismal flashback showing the disturbing relationship that Yukiyo had with her mother. Again a parallel is created between the protagonist Mariko and her mother and Yukiyo and hers as both daughters are objects of contempt to their mothers and the verbal abuse that Mariko receives from her mother is on a par with that of Yukiyo; whilst Mariko receives no physical abuse from what we can see (she is woman in her mid twenties now anyway), it can be inferred that when she was younger she may have, given her mother’s erratic temperament. There is also a woman and her young daughter who live in the apartment next door to the haunted one, and given the slovenly disposition of the mother and the sinister, introverted nature of the daughter (who seems to have some connection to the deaths that take place), it is fair to say that all is not well between them either.

I can’t say that this film is at all that frightening however it does have some pretty cool moments such as when the ghost of Yukiyo makes her self present and proceeds to have about 50 or 60 tendrils explode from her hair and grab hold of a trio of girls who have been partying in the apartment. There is one particular scene that has to be one of the best of the film and it is a high angle shot coming from behind Yukiyo, who is made to tower over Mariko writhing on the floor, with her hair extensions shooting off either side of her head, like spiders legs. Another nice touch is Yukiyo’s creepy vocal filter, which makes her sound like the demon grandmother from The Evil Dead 2 film.

Compared with its brothers and sisters within the genre Apartment 1303 comes across as a more diluted version of stories that have been told with a greater depth in terms of back-story and character development. For example, about the only history we really get of the apartment is of the minimal conversation Mariko has with the police inspector about it and the 5 minute flashback sequence. There is no real great build up of events that surround the apartment, which would cause it to induce more fear in the viewer and the two initial deaths are too sudden in there execution. As far as characters go there’s nothing new, though Mariko does show some depth of emotion and an unpredictable mixture of solicitude and disinterest that makes her one reason to watch the film. Apartment 1303 doesn’t rank up with those of a similar style such as The Grudge or Dark Water, but what it lacks in storytelling and FX, it slightly makes up for in its solid acting, melancholy score and irresolution.

Strawberry Shortcakes

2009-08-04T17:52:00.000-07:00

Strawberry Shortcakes is a film that revolves around four independent yet vulnerable women growing up in contemporary Tokyo. To give you some idea, I would describe describe it as The Joy Luck Club meets Lost in Translation. For women especially, Japanese society has become a fast paced environment to try and adapt to because of developments that have changed their place in society in the last sixty years or so. Women played a predominantly subservient role in Japan as it was pre World War II and the feudal system gave them very little say in the way in which they would be allowed to live their lives (though at least they are security). However since US Occupation and the influx of western values that have insidiously weaved their way into the hearts and minds of the newer generations, women have accomplished a lot more as autonomous beings, but have also been left to pick up the pieces of their shattered identities and try and fit together dusty old jagged pieces with new cutthroat ones. Many women fail at this and get left off the bullet train going 200mph into a future where old and new must gel together, resulting in a superwoman that can both have the dinner ready and juggle the stock-market.

Hitoshi Yazaki the director of Strawberry Shortcakes is trying to show us in a very quiet, slow-paced, easy-going way that the heroines of his film all have the same thing in common and that is loneliness. This factor is made so much more apparent by subtle aesthetic techniques such as the soft ticking of a clock in the background or the sound of the Shinkansen rushing by at frequent intervals which emphasize the passing of time and the holding pattern of life in the film. Shouldn’t it be odd that the film deals with themes of loneliness and alienation in one of the most buzzing cities in the world? Everything looks as though it is on top of each other with the Shinkansen running right through small neighbourhoods and not far over the heads of people. If anything you get an overwhelming feeling of cosiness running through these shanty town areas of Japan, where even at night things are lit up to give a feeling of life running through it. So why is it that everyone feels so detached and alone and on the constant search for a loving relationship?

The first character we are introduced to is Satoko (Chizuru Ikewaki) whose main objective is to fall in love. She wants this so badly that her introduction shows her clasping at the feet of an ex-lover begging him to take her back. Unfortunately in rock n’ roll style he kicks her away and tells her to get lost leaving her in a puddle of tears but the stronger for it, as she shortly gets up and vows success. Secondly we have Akiyo (Yuko Nakamura), the most listless and despondent of the women. Her entrance into the film shows her shifting the lid off her coffin-like-box for a bed, only to reach for her pack of cigarettes and begin the day by lighting up from within her confinement. It has much impact as before we even get a glimpse of her, we see puffs of smoke being blown out of her box that is centred in her dingy little flat. Heaven’s Gate is the name of a prostitute agency that employs both Satoko, as the receptionist; and Akiyo, as an experienced hooker.

The next woman along is Chihiro (Noriko Nakagoshi) who has a job working as a temp, serving tea and making copies of documents for her superiors. She will take the role of polite obedience with aspirations of being a loving housewife. She is roommates with Toko (Kiriko Nananan), the final female and the one with the artistic talent, also making her the housebound, workaholic with a certain disorder that provides some of the more unsettling shots in the film. Their pairing is a little strange, though I suppose convenient as Toko can make a mess which the flakey Chihiro is happy to clean up.

The film aims to give an insight into the casual, everyday activities of people who commit to the same old routine of getting up and going to work, having a meal or performing some kind of idiosyncratic ritual. The stasis of the film is emphasized by such things; examples being Toko and her painting methods, Chihiro and her lover, Akiyo meeting her friend in the pub and Satoko, who preys to God at her mini shrine for love and then cracks open a beer which she drinks whilst watching the moon from her balcony. The film beautifies these rituals by showing them in their simplicity and is stylistically similar to the films of Kim Ki Duk; most notably Bin-Jip, Samaritan Girl and The Isle. Like Ki Duk, Yazaki likes to play around with the contrast of strong images with extended periods of silence allowing things to sink in and provoke a more powerful response.

The film is about showing how people fill the emptiness in their lives. Sotoko is desperate to fill the void with love and Akiyo longs to have a relationship with an old friend but in the meantime just has sex for money to satiate her lust for death. Chihiro wants convention and to keep active, spending her free time trying to appease some lacklustre male and Toko dedicates herself to her work which she values more than anything else. Worthlessness seems to be etched into the characters, because as the viewer, it is hard to ignore the fact that their fates are likely to be nothing more than those of objects, used for the purpose they provide rather than living for their own human spirit where maybe happiness can be found. The only time Akiyo is not just going through the motions is when she is having a beer with her old friend in the pub. In these scenes she is like a different person, the rest of the time she is like a zombie and her coffin-box bed which seemed quirky at first, we see is more of an extension of her lifeless existence.

However the passing shots of the city lit up at night give an impression of infinite possibility and grandeur. The many picturesque shots of the landscape seem to establish a connection between the women and their environment. One such instance of this is when they are shown to be connected to each other by the moon as the camera cuts to each woman looking up at it and wishing for similar things and then cuts to the next. The film has a way of dissipating the loneliness by showing that they are all doing the same thing and that even though they are far apart, they are connected. Another more artificial way of creating this connection is television. In the film The Tokyo Tower (which is responsible for broadcasting TV and radio signals), a symbol of communication, is often included as a passing shot in the film which seems most appropriate as a contrast to the fact that Strawberry Shortcakes utilises silence (or at least minimal dialogue) to emphasize disconnection. The fact that the Tower is shaped like the Eiffel Tower, a symbol of love and romance also provides a kind of bittersweet irony in that our characters seem to experience everything but romance. Nevertheless, the shots of this wonderful construction, lit up against the night sky are truly amazing, not unlike those used in Lost in Translation. In fact I recommend you see Strawberry Shortcakes if you want a more personal and heartfelt approach to themes that were dealt with in Lost in Translation, of which showed less insight into realistic struggles that city people have, as it was concerned with the foreigner’s perspective of loneliness in Tokyo.

Welcome to the Quiet Room

2009-08-04T17:48:00.000-07:00

Immediately Suzuki Matsuo, director, screenplay writer and original novel writer of ‘Welcome to the Quiet Room’ of which this film is based, lets the viewers know that a film that is titled after a method of submission used in psychiatric wards is not going to be as melancholy as you’d expect. Enter room; man sitting in chair being interviewed by two female reporters from a television magazine studio. He begins by blowing up a balloon and then popping it in an attempt to make an artistic statement. He certainly is an unusual character not least for the fact that he has a safety pin pierced through his right ear where you’d be expecting to see an earring. What does he have to do with the events that are about to transpire? Absolutely nothing. After this initial scene the film swiftly establishes that one of these reporters is to be our anti-heroine as she splits off from her colleagues to go to her next interview; or at least that’s where we think she is going. In actuality none of this has happened.

Asuka Sakura (Yuki Uchida) has in fact been taken to a psych ward after having overdosed two days ago on the suicide cocktail of choice; alcohol and sedatives, and is only pulled out of this dream world after receiving a text message from her roommate/boyfriend. I say roommate/boyfriend because the relationship she has with Tetsuo Yakihata (Kankuro Kudo) is one that is never firmly established in its nature. This isn’t surprising given the carefree and irresponsible traits that they both possess. Anyway, after being pulled out of the meeting she thinks she’s in, and back to reality, Asuka finds herself being pushed along on an emergency hospital bed of which she is strapped to and breathing through an oxygen mask. Various close-ups and acute angles show the bewildered look on her face as she takes in the cold, white walls that surround her and the blinding light that is shining down from the ceiling.

After gathering her bearings a little Asuka is informed that she is under suspicion of attempting suicide given the state she was found in by Tetsuo. She however has no memory of any of this and is adamant that she is not suicidal. Regardless of her appeals against this assumption, she is told she is to remain in the psych ward for further analysis and treatment. Apparently she needs to be cured of something, but as the film unfolds we discover there is no cure for the ailment she has except the solitude of the quiet room.

The head nurse of the ward is called Eguchi and I would describe her as being a cross-breed of Mrs Danvers, Miss. Hardbroom and Nurse Ratchet. The way she slides the window across her reception counter whilst giving out a stern look of disapproval immediately reminded me of Ratchet’s identical action when refusing the requests of R.P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Eguchi is very curt with her new patient and certainly a stickler for protocol but is never really given enough screen time to make that much of an impression on the viewer. The nurse that appears to be Eguchi’s assistant is Yamagishi and her temperament is the typical, humble, overtly polite and gracious sort; cut with a wide smile and a voice as gentile as a sakura blossom.

The film has great flashes of absolute hilarity when you least expect it as a casual situation will suddenly be interrupted by an unusual or clumsy occurrence. Tetsuo, a man who comes across as half geek and half awkward stoner revolutionaire, is a good provider of some of such truly inspiring comic moments. After arriving to visit Asuka, he begins to recount to her the story of how she came to be where she is via flashback and voice-over. This allows for some pretty humours anecdotes and close calls that make up the lives of these two misfits. His job is that of a television writer, though as you’ll see it is his bottom and not his brain that he uses as his greatest asset.

Welcome to the Quiet Room could be compared to a number of other films that situate themselves in a psychIatric unit such as Girl Interrupted, Ginger Snaps: Unleashed, 28 Days and of course One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Each of these films revolves around a new admission who we discover does not actually have a problem like the other residents. Whereas the others have seriously debilitating mental illnesses, the likes of Asuka, Susanna, Brigitte, Gwen and McMurphy are all just individuals with a lack of direction, who because they are too untamed for society have ended up in the only other place that can offer them some time to adjust. None of them belong in hospital but it seems that, like Tyler Durden in Fight Club, they need to see and live with those who are truly on the outskirts of sanity, so they can find some stability within themselves. These films try to transfer the complexities of psychiatric illness into eccentric behaviour, friendship and a satirical chuckle; with the exception of Ginger Snaps: Unleashed, which is just depressing, but brilliant, the entire time. They also seem to use the same psychological profiles for their residents as well. There is the skinny manic depressive bulimic Miki, the plump violent bulimic bully Nishino, the idiot savant pre-pubescent piano prodigy Sae, the completely bonkers Kinbara and the maternally sensitive Kurita. It is Kurita who like Miki seems to develop an immediate liking of Asuka, claiming that they are very similar people. Kurita isn’t rowdy, unbalanced, and views the pain of her peers with a poet’s insight. She doesn’t have a large role, but when she does make her presence known, the atmosphere changes from farcical and light-hearted to serious and melancholy.

I have already mentioned the use of flashbacks, though it cannot go unknown that they take a vital form in this film (especially as we get to see Shinya Tsukamoto in a cameo, performing a party trick that has the most hazardous of consequences). It is through the flashbacks in the film that we get to know the real Asuka as once she has been admitted to the ward, for the most part she is meek, helpful and considerate, which is not the real her at all. In fact it seems that the process of getting to know her through flashbacks happens in coordination with her gradual outbursts of anger in the ward. Just as the viewer is carried along smoothly by the narrative of the present, they are jerked back into a personal history lesson of Asuka who we discover is not only a slob of the biggest proportions, but also an alcoholic, parentally rejected, selfish liability. Being around such damaged people as she is forced to be certainly has a positive affect on her while she is there, but this doesn’t last as unfortunately a callous ending shows the empty shell she really is and that any positive lessons and emotions she may have learnt during her stay were only temporary.

Sakuran

2009-08-04T17:39:00.000-07:00

Sakuran is a Japanese Edo-period drama film released in 2006 starring model-J-Rock artist-actress and all around badass Anna Tsuchiya. The film is based on a manga series by Moyoco Anno and was adapted to the screen by photographer turned director Mika Ninagawa. Given that this is Ninagawa’s directorial debut it is remarkable that she has managed to visualise another period of time and assemble it with such clarity, accuracy and creativity as she has done. Apparently in interviews she has commented on the fact that she went through a vast amount of Ukiyoe (woodblock) prints to get to grips with the visual style of Yoshiwara (a famous district for prostitution) and based a lot of her modern, colourfully illustrated designs and patterns on the classical art of Edo.

Sakuran utilises lush and juicy colours to express the elegance of the Tamagikuya (brothel) establishment as well as the courtesans it houses, who dressed in outfits of fluorescent oranges, reds, yellows, purples and blues; with thickly painted faces, appear doll-like more than anything else. Murials of dragons and flowers; and stained glass windows of the same hues enshroud these women who are knelt, smoking their pipes and gossiping, awaiting the attention of some Samurai or Taros. There is one woman who seems to gain more attention than any of the others, standing out because of the nonchalant way she drags on her pipe, her inviting eyes and indifferent smirk as she whispers “come in, come in” to a prospective lay. This is Kiyoha, the first of several names she is given denoting her position on the hierarchical ladder, played by Anna Tsuchiya. Though prior to this she has only had two other starring roles in Kamikaze Girls and Bashment, she has never looked as gorgeous or had as much sex appeal as she does in Sakuran, making a move from the cool but cutesy Ichigo to the voluptuous and composed (well most of the time) Kiyoha.

After the brief introduction of the seventeen year old Kiyoha, the film travels back in time to her as a child making her first steps on the road to becoming the courtesan she is today. As with all of them, she was sold off at an early age (around seven) by her parents to a brothel, this one in particular being the Tamagikuya household based in the Yoshiwara district, a famous ‘Akasen’ or red-light district in Edo now known as Tokyo. During the Edo period, the Yoshiwara district was the culmination of increasing rates of prostitution in cities such as Kyoto, Edo and Osaka, which the Tokugawa shogunate wanted to restrict. It was here that she would undergo training, almost as though she were going to a finishing school of sorts; entering as a scruffy, dirty faced, little runt who is told she is now the property of the brothel. She is to be an apprentice to the head oiran (the highest and most respected of all the courtesans) called Elder Sister Shohi (Miho Kanno), who after training her, becomes the jealous rival in that Kiyoha ends up surpassing her in terms of popularity with the customers.

Feeling disgust and vexation at the hell-bound heathens around her; and to save her from the same fate as them, the scowling young Kiyoha uses her strong will to make vain attempts at escape from the Tamagikuya quarters. As she gets older she keeps trying, which only results in her being reprimanded; tied around a rock, whilst slapped in the face and beaten in the stomach with a wooden paddle. Still undeterred she vows to leave the quarters when the cherry blossom tree that is in the garden flourishes. Unfortunately she is told that the tree is incapable of doing this Given the comparison between Kiyoha and the cherry blossom tree, with the frequent splicing of cherry blossoms in some shape falling in the film, it can be said that the tree is symbolic of Kiyoha’s freedom and maturity into becoming a woman. She holds the naive belief that she can be better than those around her and that she is a diamond in the rough. Tsuchiya’s character has already become a Kiyoha and does not want to descend (morally speaking) a step or maybe I should say leap further into becoming an oiran. At one point she asks why there is a lack of cherry blossoms falling in the quarter. There is no explanation for the tree’s stunted development but it seems to suggest the lack of innocence and purity of the household given the professions that its inhabitants hold. After all, in Japan the cherry blossoms are an anticipated and cherished aspect of the culture for the way they herald in a season and add beauty to the landscape. To have them bless a den of debauchery such as the Tamagikuya household would be a defamation of the tree’s purity and cleanliness. However they also symbolise the transience of life because of how short it is which does seem appropriate for women who are not only in a line of work that holds certain health risks, but which also makes them decay inside. The idea of mono no aware or “a pity toward things” of which the Sakura (cherry blossoms) are associated exemplifies this bittersweet sadness of women whose job it is to provide love for money; to develop a soul and exist as a refined, elegant woman of sorts given their training, only to use these talents for something as demeaning as selling their bodies and ultimately their hard earned souls. Mono no aware would certainly be an accurate way of describing the way I felt towards these courtesans who live the definitive contradiction. This is especially true when we see Tuschiya’s tough outer shell crack, giving way to her emotions when she has an intimate moment with a romantic interest named Sojiro (Hiroki Narimiya). He comes across as a compassionate and sensitive individual not like the dirty old men that are her usual bread and butter.

The other significant use of symbolism in the film is goldfish swimming around in their bowl, protected yet constrained from the harsh realities outside of it. Like the shots of Sakuras which are interposed into the film at various intervals, so are shots of goldfish which seem to be happy enough living their simple, unthreatened existence. The courtesans are these goldfish and the Tamagikuya household is their water filled bowl, without which they would not be able to survive. During the Edo period most of the courtesans were in heavy debt and so were effectively prisoners of the brothel. The only realistic way they could escape would be if they were bought by some wealthy man who would keep the woman as his personal concubine. In Sakuran Tsuchiya gets this opportunity when a Samurai takes an interest in her and insists on taking her out of there; though he makes it clear that she would not become his concubine but more of a companion. This Samurai called Lord Matsumoto is also another source of jealous conflict between Elder Sister Shohi and Kiyoha as the former had been in love with Matsumoto for a while and had once been his favourite lover.

After the current oiran (Shohi) dies in a freak accident, Kiyoha is asked to take her place as the new oiran as she is the most beautiful and popular of all the courtesans. She is reluctant to do so, though not because of her earlier attempts at wanting to escape this lifestyle. She says, with a hint of sarcasm, that she is worried that by becoming an oiran she will be deprived of her bitching privileges, and ascending the ranks would probably give her the riches she would not be able to complain about. Kiyoha eventually accepts the proposal and moves up the sex chain, being introduced on her promenade like a debutante making her first appearance as a woman amongst her elitist society. It is a heavyish rock ballad that ushers Tsuchiya in as the new oiran, now named Higurashi, signifying a new era in its movement away from the traditional Shamisen styled music used for her predecessor.
Everything in the brothel is done with the utmost respect and civility, making prostitution out to be just another custom. Things ranging from tea-ceremonies to sensual massages are all executed with style and grace, unlike a back-alley bang which is the more common form of the game in areas such as Kabuki-cho or Shinjuku as described in novels like Grotesque or In the Mizo Soup. Nevertheless it is prostitution all the same and still has the same consequences for the women involved. The veneer of finesse that seems to make it innocuous and acceptable has the effect of putting a tuxedo on a bear. On the other hand, the functional use of colour in Sakuran almost removes the depravity and licentiousness from the sex act and replaces it with a heart full of warmth. These women don’t sell themselves on street corners and their agents are not pimps, like in Kiss of the Dragon, who exploit them. There is discipline and etiquette to the way they sell themselves and whilst some may say prostitution is prostitution no matter how you dress it up, Sakuran surely reflects a different side to the business, albeit a possibly over-glamorised one. If any of you have seen the Firefly episode “Heart of Gold” then you will probably understand what I mean.

The fashion of Yoshiwara was also a key element to this lifestyle, and traditionally they were meant to wear simple blue robes, however, as can be seen in Sakuran this is clearly not what happened. The established women would want to wear the most popular fashions of the time, which would consist of colourful silk kimonos, obi and ornate hair decorations. In the film, almost as a rite of passage a hair pin is given to Tsuchiya by her orian, which she then passes down to a young apprentice of hers at the end of the film. The hair pin was special in its nature as none of the other girls had one like it, and it seemed to symbolise the fact that Tsuchiya would always be the most fashionable courtesan who the customers preferred and of whom would receive the most gifts and attention, making her a figure of contempt in the eyes of her peers.

One other character to look out for is Seiji (Masanobu Ando) who has been in the service of the Tamagikuya household his entire life, as his mother was once a courtesan there. He occupies the role of Kiyoha’s guardian/big brother as he is always not far away, ready to offer friendship and emotional support should things get too much for her to handle. Even though he appears as a guardian it is obvious from his behaviour and the way he longingly stares at her that his affections run deeper; though his feelings are never requited mainly because he never makes them known to Kiyoha but instead remains stolid and proud.

The soundtrack was an eclectic mixture of jazz, pop, rock and diegetic use of a classical Shamisen (three stringed instrument) which successfully blended old and new vibes in much the same way as Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette did. Both directors are re-imagining the past in the present world, and the music which instigates both rebellion (which is played out by Kirsten Dunst and Anna Tsuchiya respectively) and adherence to cultural customs, acts almost as a canvas in which the two heroines try to paint their freedom. Ironically the Shamisen was an instrument used a lot in the Edo period, especially to accompany Kabuki and Bunraku. The fact that the women actually look like dolls too, suggests that the director is hinting at a Bunraku performance not least because of the courtesans’ similar languid movements and lack of autonomy.

If you enjoy being visually satisfied by films and feel like learning a bit about Edo culture then I recommend this film. The acting is pretty solid and there are no superfluous characters or plots; if anything I thought the various relationships Kiyoha had with those around her could have been fleshed out a bit more as her development as a courtesan did seem a bit hasty. There is some insightful symbolism in Sakuran and the dialogue is never dull or mundane. I believe you can buy this off yesasia.com but it is a bit pricey so maybe you might want to consider other avenues of seeing it.

Gojira (Godzilla)

2009-08-04T17:18:00.000-07:00

Thundering beats of Gojira’s footsteps inaugurate Ishiro Honda’s film that most of us have heard much about but yet are still moved with feelings of uneasiness. Then comes the roar of a monster that has been trivialized by numerous incarnations, but nonetheless strikes fear in the hearts and minds of those who choose to see Gojira in his ultimate glory.

The first shot is of bubbling waves which segues into a group of sailors, one of them playing the harmonica and hoping for a pleasant voyage…Suddenly blinded by thunder and the now roaring waves, the ship is annihilated, as flames caress the sky and the S.O.S beeps wither into the night.

The military element of the film is a hinting allegory of the H-bomb droppings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why is this the case? Well, Gojira, the creature causing all this initial disturbance is the horrific mutation of a gorilla (‘gorira’) and a whale (‘kujira’) due to atomic radiation from nuclear tests taking place in the Pacific Ocean. What I’d like to know is how a gorilla got to the Pacific in the first place.

For a film that has been described as “amateur” I would defend that it had far more impact on me than the 1998 Godzilla variation starring Matthew Broderick. When will Hollywood learn that CGI is fine when you are doing Sci Fi or Anime, but when it comes to monster movies handicraft wins all the way. Sure recent films such as King Kong and Cloverfield did incredibly well in gripping the audience, but in the latters case this was because of the minimal screen-time of the monster and the intimate style of camerawork; it’s success had nothing to do with CGI, except for maybe the shot of the decapitated Statue of Liberty which I’m not even sure was done with computers anyway. Maybe the sky is the limit and there are more options available when you can make the monster 1000000000000 feet tall and blend the slightest hints of green and brown together to get that perfect tone, but do you really care about that. Doesn’t it dazzle you more when you’re watching a human being dressed in a rubber suit towering above a carefully crafted model of a city and tearing it apart, whilst stumbling all over the place.

When I first saw it I wasn’t expecting such a large human element but the way Gojira was presented reminds me now of films by Akira Kurosawa, especially with the timely use of wipe cuts. It also contained trademark Kurosawa morality crises, even considering the rights of Gojira to be left unharmed for he was a wonder of nature and should be studied and understood according to zoologist Yamane-hakase (Takashi Shimura). Then there is the tormented professor who has developed an oxygen bomb that can kill Gojira, but which may also be used by military powers as a weapon against mankind. These and other examples reek of Kurosawa’s familial approach in films of his such as Yume (Dreams), Stray Dog and Ikiru whereby a social/global devastation is often in the hands of one man who maybe in a conflicting position when it comes to his loyalties to his government and his natural duty to nature/personal salvation.

After the initial uproar and damage the townsfolk are in a frenzy, desperate for answers, but as usual the officials try to calm them by denying their inquisitory insecurities as they know no good can come of telling them the truth. Ominous is not a powerful enough word to describe the early provocations of Gojira. These townsfolk, kept in the dark, look curiously over the ocean as though expecting some sort of divine intervention or at least a signal from maybe one of the millions of dead samurai that supposedly dwell there. However, some of the old people already know the legend of Gojira and try to educate the younger, but for what purpose but to scare them even more. They speak of female sacrifices to placate the monster as we watch a ceremony taking place to exorcise Gojira’s ill will to mankind. A terrifically atmospheric sensation of hopelessness and fear is created in some of these scenes blending together local traditions and humble gatherings with crashing waves and fierce hurricane style winds. The tension never stops building and the emotional turmoil of these people never seems to reach its peek.

I think that Gojira has an unfair reputation because of its low budget production values and the fact that your preconception of the film is that of a poorly constructed monster stamping and stomping for an hour and a half. This couldn’t be further from the truth though, and as soon as the opening credits roll with the introductory sound effects and music, you will already be snapped out of any coma like status you may have programmed your brain to before pressing start.

Memories of Matsuko

2009-08-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

Memories of Matsuko is a film by Tetsuya Nakashima about a woman named Matsuko Kawajiri (obviously…well I guess it could have been a man…anyway) and the key stages of her life from when she was a child to her death. The story is "told" from different perspectives including her brother Norio, an old friend/fellow convict/pornstar Megumi Sawamura (played by Asuka Kurosawa who you may have seen in A Snake of June) and Yoichi Ryu an old pupil of hers from her school-teaching days. The purpose of this journey into Matsuko’s past is to teach her nephew Shou Kawajiri (son of Norio) a thing or two about life and to help him not make the same mistakes as she did. You see, at present Shou is a nineteen/twenty year old waster whose full time occupation, besides trying to be a guitarist in a rock band, is drinking alcohol and watching porn.

But wait, I get ahead of myself. The film begins as a pastiche of modern Millennial Generation Japan with rapid visuals of a lurid techno pop-culture universe consisting of plasma screened buildings tooting the latest J-pop icons, rainbow neon lights, break beats and a cross-section of the youth, whilst a message of hopelessness exposes the true fate of all these naive faces. The message is simple and is the premise of the film; a few will realise their dreams whilst the rest of us resign ourselves to the mundane or even worse, the despairing, sweeping up the shards of our broken dreams and choking on them until our inner selves reflected in their shiny surfaces are too much covered in blood to know what we really are. This may sound a little extreme, but you’ll see if you watch this film (which you must) that there is a fine line between innocence and debauchery.

After being dumped by his girlfriend Shou is shown, through another rapid sequence of shots; stumbling around drunk, dancing in a high-tech-discotheque to what I guess to be the latest music of the conveniently named “Dream” a new J-pop sensation, only to end up in an xxx shop. The film is not subtle in its approach of illustrating the disenchantment that comes with growing up and the transition of getting there. How many girls “dream” of being the next Madonna and how many guys aspire to be the next Guns n’ Roses? The reality is that many of these girls will probably end up as pornstars and the guys will be the ones watching the porn as does our paradigm of masculine youth Shou. It seems that Japan is a dangerous place to incubate any kind of idea as you are likely to believe that it will actually mean something to someone because of the media’s constant encouragement to dream big.

Following a Disneyesque opening credit sequence we are introduced to Matsuko as a child, who we see standing on a riverbank making wishes to the sky. Then we go back to the future where Shou is being visited by his father as he brings news of Matsuko’s death. Norio doesn’t seem to be very buoyant about his sister’s life describing it as having been meaningless, which seems to strike a chord with Shou. Norio asks his son to go and clean out his aunt’s flat and in doing so he starts to learn more about Matsuko, finding an old photo of her amidst a flat that is full of garbage. Matsuko’s last days were not pretty let me tell you and are echoed in the lifestyle of her nephew. At this point we meet an interesting character called Shuji who is/was the next door neighbour of the recently deceased. He is a hardcore punk rocker with all the usual decorations from a Mohawk, to numerous piercings, tattoos from head to toe and an overall fugly presentation. He is a lively guy bordering on psychotic, making an immediate and intensely animated acquaintance of Shou. Beneath the intimidating exterior though is a friendly and sensitive guy, unfortunately he doesn’t have a large part in the film.

Matsuko’s history begins from the period in her life when she was a teacher. Seeing her here as a conscientious, caring educator it is hard to believe how far she will eventually fall. This section of the film is full of cartoonish parody and slapstick humour ranging from Matsuko’s trademark face that she pulls when in an awkward situation, a teacher with a giant wart that has one strand of hair growing out of it, a teacher whose white teeth sparkle like he were Superman each time he runs into Matsuko (who has a crush on him) and a headmaster who is basically just the typically corrupt, slimy creep. In fact if you have ever seen a J-Drama then you will notice a similar style and theme to such shows as Gokusen where a highly optimistic young female schoolteacher is put in charge of a class of misfits and delinquents. It is Matsuko’s attempt at covering for the misbehaviour of one of her students that is the initial catalyst of all her troubles to come.

Sometimes the visuals of the film are like that of The Wizard of Oz, using stark, rich colours; painting every part of the landscape (such as the grass, pathways, sky and the hills) in yellows, greens and purples. Memories of Matsuko is effectively a fairytale musical for adults as it takes all the aspects of a fairytale and makes them darker and uses surreal musical sequences and sexualises them amongst other things. Even though the tempo is constantly upbeat, energetic and vibrant, like the ritzy glamour side of Japan’s advertising industry, this is just a show but this film takes us behind the scenes to the suffering of the kind of women that make up these models that the youth idolise. The film takes the initial setups of dreams and destiny and filters them through Matsuko, causing a prism effect with fewer shades of rainbow and more of granite and coal.

The musical sequences are outrageously flamboyant and seem to be yet further parody of musicals such as Chicago and even utilise the surreal elements to invoke such ridiculousness such as takes place in the famous scene in The Big Lebowski, where “The Dude” is tripping his nuts off and falling into a vast abyss of what can only be described as S&M bowling. I think that these segments in Memories of Matsuko are also used to show how Matsuko can make the best out of the worst situation and make a fairytale out of a Nightmare, even if it only exists in her own mind; something along the lines of Lars Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark or John Schlesinger’s Billy Liar.

We learn as Matsuko’s lifestory progresses that she had a difficult relationship with her father, due large in part to the fact that he gave most of his attention to his other terminally ill daughter Kumi. There is one occasion however where her father takes her to a carnival whereat she first imitates the trademark face she pulls from an act. It is only when Matusko pulls this face that she is able to get a positive reaction from her father. It is possible that their failed relationship is yet another precursor to her bad taste in men. After breaking away from her family due to her teaching troubles and jealousy towards her ill sister, Matsuko just drifts from one abusive relationship to another going from being the girlfriend of a writer who frequently beats her up because of his own writing inadequacies, to being the other-woman of a salary-man, to becoming a showgirl in the adult industry, associating only with people who wish to take advantage of her. Her innocence isn’t as much lost as it is stolen or beaten from her but she will do anything to be free of loneliness even if it means that she gives love which is requited with cruelty.

This film is funny, sad, sexy, cute, and freaky; basically everything and more that you could possibly want from a viewing experience. The moments when it does get particularly sad are suddenly broken by flashes of unexpected behaviour, and sentiments that you know should be distressing to you become mingled with feelings of delight because of the whimsical mise-en-scene or erratic displays of character. One example of this is when Matsuko, after waiting many years for a certain someone (I will not say so as not to spoil anything) to be released from prison, comes to the gates with flowers only to be punched out by her lover whom then runs off out of the shot screaming hysterically as he cannot cope with her intense feelings of love, leaving her on the floor with a bloodied nose. This scene leaves you clueless as to whether you should laugh at the ex-con’s hilarious reaction or cry at Matsuko’s misfortune and injury. Moreover I would describe the unfair things that happen to Matsuko as tragic but the film itself isn’t tragic or depressing at all (though melancholy at times). It is an existential indy film very stylistically similar in terms of its approach to storytelling as Nakashima’s other foray into the development and maturity/immaturity of the female psyche Kamikaze Girls.

As I have mentioned, the objective of these recounted memories is to get Sho to hopefully live a more meaningful life (though I would hardly say that the life Matsuko lived was vacant and pointless) and ironically it is Megumi the pornstar who advises Shou and gives him an insight into his aunt’s activities and the kind of woman she was.

This film gives the viewer so much, that at times you feel extremely overwhelmed and almost guilty that you cannot fully assimilate and appreciate to the full extent even the lesser aspects such as the choreography (which is brilliant) and the camerawork (a gorgeous shot at the end reminded me of the sweeping, spiralling camerawork used in Irreversible). Thus multiple viewings are probably going to be a necessity but not until you’ve had at least 30 hours sleep beforehand and have time for another 30 hours afterwards as the film is draining as well as clocking in at a substantial 130 minutes.

Tokyo Decadence

2009-08-04T17:02:00.001-07:00

The subculture of BDSM is vast in its categorisation being that the acronym stands for bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, masochism, master, slave all of which explode in Ryu Murakami’s dark, sometimes comic sometimes sweet but always vulgar film Tokyo Decadence. The outline of the film is that of a subservient 22 year old woman named Ai who works as a mistress, servicing all kinds of clientele from controlling mafia or corporate bosses to hedonistic rich but extremely nutty/flamboyant layabouts to pathetic salarymen who crave humiliation.

The opening pre-credit scene is just a taster of what Ai is to go through, as we see her tied up, mouth gagged, eyes blindfolded and legs spread, being complimented by the client for her tolerance for this sort of treatment. Before the opening credits roll there is a close-up of Ai’s face which is held for several moments, allowing the viewer an intimate opportunity to acquaint themselves and connect with her. The shot utilises a technique that Ingmar Bergman is famous for and is most notably reminiscent of his films Persona and The Life of the Marionettes; two films which not only deal with figures of unstable sexuality and identities but also have violent and possibly sadomasochistic tendencies.

The film is loaded with fascinating and odd characters just like you might expect from the master of fascinating and odd, David Lynch. The prime example of this would be Ai and Dorothy Vallens from Blue Velvet. Though they both have different temperaments, the latter being volatile and borderline psychotic whilst Ai is tame and mild, they are both emotionally disturbed and dependent women, succumbing to being treated as slaves to overcome the loss of a loved one; Ai has lost a lover and Dorothy her son. Dorothy’s desperate attachments and need for punishment is reflected in Ai though isn’t as obvious in her attitude; largely because Ai has no attitude. Then there is the sadism of Frank Booth which is mirrored in Tokyo Decadence, not by another aggressive male figure but by a female dominatrix named Saki who Ai befriends. The way she treats her subject dubbed “Turtlehead” is despicable, forcing him to drink Ai’s urine and sodomising him with a strap on. Sigmund Freud thought masochism was so inherent in female sexuality that it couldn’t be distinguished as a separate preference however given Saki’s inclination to sadist behavior and refusal to submit, is this really accurate.

Another more subtle example would be an old fortune teller who Ai goes to see to pass time before an appointment. The location of the teller seems to be a tunnel of some kind and her appearance is foreboding and sinister. She has a pale face and lips painted crimson. Her clothing is ancient but elegant (think Ascot) and instead of looking into a crystal ball to prophesise, she uses a magnifying glass to examine what looks to be a mushroom; a distorted version of the Twin Peaks Log Lady meets Lost Highway’s Mystery Man maybe. She goes on to tell Ai, that in order to keep safe she must put a telephone directory under her television, avoid art galleries in the east and where a ring on her finger made of precious pink stone. I liked this segment a lot because it added an element of horror to what I thought was just going to be an S&M drama, but unfortunately it did seem inconsistent and unnecessary given that it was a standalone scene with no impact on events that occured

Characters are not the only thing that Tokyo Decadence has in common with Lynch. Themes of sadomasochism, love pushed to the limits in a dark universe, desire and perversion as well as ambient but chilling lighting and a confused female protagonist who sinks deeper and deeper into organised chaos, are all present and as tight as a whip.

If you are easily offended by filthy language then this film may push your buttons a little; though it is subtitled so it can be avoided with accurately synchronised blinking. It is not that there is bad language throughout, but particular scenes (most notably the initial hotel one) suggest that maybe Murakami was watching some pretty hardcore porno before he drafted them. As for the music, well, it’s pretty atmospheric most of the time but at points a funky but creepy bassline hits, with the wah wah peddle being replaced with minor organ notes.

The camerawork does well in inducing voyeurism and disconnection. What I mean by this is succinctly described in a particular shot whereby the camera is placed outside and at a great distance from a high-rise hotel window, with Ai scantily clad in her bondage gear pressed up against the window and wiggling her hips in a very slow and sensual motion. From this angle the viewer is peeking into one of a number of experiences happening that night; into a world which pushes the viewer’s imagination but also separates them from Ai, making her someone unreachable and lost to us. However then the shot cuts to the room’s interior and the camera completes a 180 degree tracking shot (left to right) of Ai still wiggling, overlooking a panorama of binary lit windows and the nightlife of Tokyo, where you can imagine other dirty bars and strip-clubs in the famous districts of Shinjuku and Kabuki-cho are offering similar services to the white-collar worker, whilst this coked up Kingpin enjoys Ai all to himself. On the other hand you could see it as a juxtaposition of the vibrant, social life of Japan that exists down below and the dark corner of a hotel room where a man indulges in material excesses and satisfies his perverted fantasises. The atmosphere of the section is electrifying.

Don’t go into this expecting Secretary because they belong to two different niches of BDSM. Whilst seeing Mr.Grey (James Spader) smack the cellulite from Lee's (Maggie Gyllenhaal) buttocks or toss himself off over them may have had a smidgen of entertainment shock value given the two actors celebrity status, the play scenes in Tokyo Decadence are not for amateurs and are only beaten in their ability to confront by Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo which features coprophilia (if you don’t know what this is then it might be best you don’t look it up).

Another way in which this film differs from Secretary is that of the reasons as to why Lee Holloway and Ai become submissives. Lee at first is a shy woman like Ai but with mental difficulties that resulted in self-mutilation. It is only when she starts to work for Mr.Grey that she discovers this new side of herself in which she can derive pleasure, in an erotic but sensitive way, with a man that she has fallen in love with. It becomes a fetish for her and a means of becoming more confident and self-assured. She eventually starts voluntarily setting up situations where she can receive punishment. However for Ai, I don’t believe it to be a natural way for her to find an identity but a means of wallowing in self hatred and emptiness. There is no sense of consciousness to Ai’s behaviour which is destructive and you get the feeling she just does it to make ends meet. Moreover, in a very Woman in White way, she descends into delirium whilst trying to seek out her ex-lover, a sequence which leads her to meet another eccentric female who tries to help her out.

Like Freud Havelock Ellis believed sadism and masochism worked in emotional harmony with one another, though in his opinion sadomasochistic tendencies were done in love and not cruelty. Pain is used to initiate violence in order to express love. Given that the protagonist’s name (Ai) is Japanese for love, maybe her actions should be seen as a way to vicariously reconnect with her lost lover, dealing with the rejection through the violence and degradation put upon her. At one point with the sadistic mafia/businessman she falls to her knees and in tears hugs him tightly as though she thought he were someone else.

In today’s generation sadomasochism has branched out into areas of fantasy and role play moving away from psychological stigma. This is thanks to the advent of film which has made the subject more identifiable and given people an opportunity to see where it’s coming from and understand it as a healthy way of building relationships. Tokyo Decadence however doesn’t really show it in this light but in a darker more destructive one, still not everything has to be done to express or understand and sometimes just plain old sin is all that’s sought.

Tokyo Decadence really is quite decadent, the title being done justice by graphic sexual indulgence, alcohol and drug abuse and a perfect moment, where the wife of a businessman who joined her husband and Ai in a threesome, is seen playing a Gameboy shortly after their session. To see an adult woman casually playing videogames after having re-enacted some perverse fantasy has to make you smile as it is the height of idleness, and shows the constant need for stimulus.

The Machine Girl

2009-08-04T16:55:00.001-07:00

The Machine Girl is one helluva film and when pitted against other similar gory Tokyo Shock releases such as Versus or Ichi the Killer it definitely comes out the squelchiest. In fact I’m willing to bet pounds for pennies that they actually soaked the film stock in blood before shooting. Blood spurts, sprinkles, pours, explodes, sprays, sprays and sprays even more from gashed arteries and severances, the bodies of which are turned into super-soakers (yeah a decapitated body is actually used as a water pistol) The amount of blood isn’t really what makes this film special though, it is the ingenious murder methods, the outrageous use of weapons, the choreography and the feeling that this is what a j-drama would be like if it was made by insanely sadistic ninja-demons who when they’re not going on killing sprees, like writing scripts about going on killing sprees. Wait, there’s also the dynamic characters such as the lead school-girl she-devil Ami Hyuga (Minase Yashiro) who is hungry for the revenge of her dead brother; Miki (played by a 22 year old pornstar named Asami) a really tough but beautiful mom who wants revenge for her dead son; and a marriage made in Yakuza lunacy with the two main villains of the piece, Ryuji and Violet Kimura being so merciless but ridiculous that it’s hard to despise them for being so nasty because they are so compellingly unhinged for parents.

The film is about a parentless teenage girl named Ami who seeks revenge against a group of bullies, the leader of which is the son of the Yakuza, for murdering her younger brother Yu. After finding her way to the Yakuza household she makes a brave attempt, fighting past ninjas and their arsenal of Shurikens, to kill Sho (the son) but unfortunately is unsuccessful, leaving her to be tied up and sliced at will by Ryuji the father and master, a finger at a time. Needless to say Ami ends up losing her left arm but manages to escape only to collapse outside a mechanics shop. The mechanics shop is run by the parents of Takashi (Yu’s friend) who was also killed by these bullies, and after some initial animosity between Ami and the mother Miki, they put their differences aside and decide to team up to get their pound of flesh (putting it mildly) from those that have taken their loved ones. Miki’s husband helps by stitching up Ami’s severed arm and building for her a machine gun that causes so much entertaining havoc.

As the film goes on and reaches it’s end you’ll really wonder how Ami was able to have her life destroyed, undergo fatal bloodletting (the more blood she loses the more focused she seems to get) and go from a sporty, pacifist achiever to a black belt, killing machine with little training, within the space of a couple of days. Oh, I apologise, it seemed I was trying to take this film seriously, something that is impossible to do if you are to enjoy it in the slightest. Don’t go trying to figure out where Ami gets her superhuman strength from either or why her amputations/mutilations just stop bleeding whilst everyone else that suffers inferior wounds dies immediately. You will only do yourself harm if you try to rationalise The Machine Girl, what’s better is to see it as Noboru Iguchi’s take on 1 Litre of Tears but with an obvious adjustment.

It may seem like there is nothing new going on with this film, what with limbs being replaced with weaponry, vixens on the hunt for vengeance and a nice big gang of bad guys to be slaughtered, but breaking new ground isn’t the film’s objective and the absurdity, due largely to the cultural idiosyncrasies of the Japanese in film, is what makes it outshine other efforts it has been compared to like Grindhouse, more specifically Planet Terror and dare I say The Evil Dead. This is because what we’re seeing are exaggerated action voices, facial expressions that range from rockstar to cute puppy and ordinary folks such as a schoolgirl, some average parents suddenly turn terminator even when it comes to a slight provocation. One scene that illustrates this well is where Ami goes to the house of one of the boys that was bullying her brother (and helped in his eventual death) to have a civilised talk, but what she gets is an encounter with a seemingly sweet and frail housewife and a proud father, the former of which cackles like a hyena whilst trying to deep-fry Ami’s hand in Tempura and the latter becoming a ninja Nick Faldo, brandishing golf clubs like a pair of Sai, when all she wants is answers (well at this point that all she wants). Also, the actual execution of death scenes will leave you breathless as you will become so enthralled by them breathing may be demoted to being a tertiary function. There is even a throwback to Tetsuo the Ironman whereby a pneumatic drill for a penis is replaced in this instance with Violet’s steel bra that has drills on each cup. To see it rip through Ami’s breasts while she screams bloody murder was definitely the most uncomfortable scene for me.

All in all The Machine Girl is just a cooler and more stylish film than those action/horrors that have preceded it, because it not only has you nodding your head going “that was mental” or in shock at how deranged Noboru Iguchi makes even normal characters to be, but also because it can take ideas that have been recycled over and over and make them fresh again, as though you were seeing someone being shot, stabbed, sliced or decapitated in film for the first time.

Shikoku

2009-08-04T16:44:00.000-07:00

On the island of Shikoku a mother wants to revive her deceased daughter, so she can inherit her place as the next high priestess. As a result, dark powers are being awakened that have been sealed for many years to keep the dead from inhabiting it.
The story begins with three childhood friends who live on the island called Hinako, Fumiya and Sayori. One day Hinako spies through a crack in the door, something happening to Sayori. It is a Shinto ceremony of some sort, alluding to the opening scenes of a girl being what looks to be exorcised. Sayori makes Hinako promise not to tell anyone what she has seen, not even Fumiya, threatening to end their friendship if she does. This won’t matter much anyway as Hinako is soon to move away from the island, leaving her friends and the memory of this event in the past.

After Hinako’s departure the subsequent scene shows her returning as an adult in the hope of reuniting with her old friends. Having seen a peer from her school days, Hinako (Yui Natsukawa) is told that Fumiya (Michitaka Tsutsui) still lives on the island but Sayori (Chiaki Kuriyama) has passed away in a drowning “accident” that happened whilst in High School. It is from this point that things start to get a little strange in Shikoku as Sayori makes her ghostly presence known to Hinako, haunting her till she is given corporeal form by her mother’s pilgrimage to all 88 temples to restore her.

The island of Shikoku is like a microcosmic world of its own, steeped in folklore and tradition and disconnected from the modern Tokyo lifestyle, which Hinako returns from when she revisits her childhood home after the fifteen or sixteen years that it has been. It is a place that houses a portal in a cave beyond a gate that the villagers are afraid to go through because it gives access to an underworld called ‘Yomi’, where it is said that the dead still have bodies. It is here that Sayori’s mother will end her pilgrimage, with the agenda of resurrection in mind.

The story, sound effects, location and architecture reminded me very much of the Project Zero/Fatal Frame computer game trilogy. The story that ran through this game series dealt also with the occult in Japanese superstition and folklore including shrine maidens who were sacrificed in villages and ghosts in kimonos who sauntered around haunted mansions begging to be reunited with lost loves, whilst you the player investigated the mystery behind it all (with a camera as a weapon...cool no?). In fact the resurrection of Sayori leaves her in a similar kimonoed state as these ghosts, in search of Fumiya who she loves, pleading with him in a very languid and delicate manner as she slowly approaches. There are plenty of shrines and temple like buildings amongst the valleys, forests and rivers within the shanty towns of Shikoku. Pastures that intertwine with roads, dirt paths and gates all bear resemblance to the design in Project Zero. The film is even haunted by the meticulous light clicking of ceremonial bells and chanting every now and then, to create a seance like ambiance. However these similarities are probably not that unique as I’m sure that such characteristics are inherent in this style of ghost story; nevertheless it needed to be acknowledged.

The film isn’t really a horror though it does have all the elements that you’d expect from one such as the suspenseful investigation of the folklore through journals and interviews, that don’t do too badly in trying to follow in the footsteps of Ringu. However Shikoku doesn’t have the tension, the sense of foreboding or the intrigue that Ringu did not only because the storytelling wasn’t as interesting, but also the cinematography was not bleak like Ringu which gave it its power. Having said that, the cinematography in Shikoku is beautiful, especially the last scenes of the film. The lighting is magnificent whether it is beams of light breaking through the glades, the flickering shimmering reflections of the ponds and rivers on the characters, the apparitional pale blue hues that glow from Sayori (remember Mr Burns in The Springfield Files), the orange torch light and other artificial light that illuminates eerie contrasts with the blues and turquoises, all of which emphasise characters or ceremonies and create a really moody and hypnotic fantasy effect. The camerawork is also nice, positioned to give the feeling that Sayori is watching Hinako and Fumiya from beyond the grave, whether it be nestled in a tree, creeping up behind them or peering round from a corner.

Being not much of a horror horror, what is it? To me it seemed like a story about friendship and memories; the melancholy that comes with being nostalgic and the laying to rest of “demons” that plague those who have been killed before their time, such as Sayori or have uncauterised emotional ties such as Hinako. It is also about a sincere romance that develops, between Hinako and Fumiya, from a friendship that doesn’t seem to have been weathered by absence or time. It builds up subtly and even the intimate scenes are not overdone or exploited for shock value. It’s as though by uniting themselves they can move on from Sayori’s death, unfortunately this seems to only incite jealousy in her, which produces the dramatic tension of the film’s conclusion.

Finally, reasons to watch are for the great location, cinematography, authentic mythic ambiance and of course Chiaki kuriyama’s short but sharp performance as (adult) Sayori, who you may remember as Gogo Yubari from Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

Josee, The Tiger and The Fish

2009-08-04T15:31:00.000-07:00

Josee, The Tiger and The Fish is not a spin-off of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but is the story of the relationship that develops between a handicapped paraplegic young woman named Josee (played by the ever-so cute Chizuru Ikewaki – Strawberry Shortcakes) and a university student named Tsuneo (Satoshi Tsumabuki – Dororo). Tsuneo is a run of the mill university student as he enjoys to drink, party and sleep around when he is not studying or working at his part time job at a mah-jong parlour. One day at work he hears some customers talking about the strange old lady who is seen pushing a pram around town, when supposedly her child died ten years prior. This leads to various speculations as to what is being concealed in the pram, and guesses range from a mummified version of her dead child to drugs. It is Tusneo who is the first to find out, as when asked to take out his bosses’ dog for a walk he steadies the pram of which the old woman loses grip of. He peaks inside only to have a young woman thrust at him with a knife. This is Josee and apparently she has the knife to defend herself against any curious onlookers who decide to “attack” her. This meeting is the first step in a very touching relationship as after being invited back to Josee and her grandmother’s run down house, Josee makes him some food which Tsuneo finds delicious, although Josee at this point is very curt and disdainful towards the student, possibly because of her isolated existence, kept company only by a withering grandma and the hundreds of books that she collects for Josee to read from their neighbours’ rubbish bins.

As Tsuneo begins to visit Josee on a daily basis he must also contend with his life outside of that little household, moreover with a girl he has started to see romantically named Kanae; who by all standards is very sweet and considerate. In fact it is her ambition to be a social worker that leads her to advising Tsuneo on renovating Josee’s house at a discount, but her good will doesn’t last long as Josee steals away Tusneo from Kanae leaving her bitter and with sharpened fingernails.

Other characters include Koji a man who was at the same orphanage as Josee and of whom he ran away with as a child. He is a very obnoxious and rude character, and when he is visited by Josee he constantly threatens to kick her ass and to shut up, not because of any genuine hatred for her but more along the lines of a sibling disharmony, and the fact that he is still an immature vandal. There is also Tsuneo’s younger brother who plays a kind but cool guitar shop employee, making sure his older brother is well fed whilst dating girls who aren’t afraid to parade their right to be nude in front of others. One last noteworthy character would be ‘the pervert’ who is Josee’s next door neighbour. He is a desperate man who will take out your rubbish if you let him feel your boobies.

Josee is obviously a fighter and has had to be because of her condition and this has left her with a lack of social skills made up for through her strong character and resolve. She is not the kind of girl who relies on others, except for the necessary things, and has a quiet dignity that initially shields her from Tsuneo’s affable attempts at small talk. However once he breaks through that shield leaving Josee in a fit of tears and pleading for his eternal companionship, the real Josee is let out of the box and we see a beautiful, happy but inexperienced person introduced to the world and all the things she has been missing out on. Trips out with Tsuneo let her confront her fears (see the title) and see things, such as the sea, which leave her exasperated and grateful to be alive just to be able to take in its majestic beauty. Being concealed from the world, or at the bottom of a seabed as she puts it, has made Josee unwise, despite all the knowledge she has from her books.

Tsuneo is genuine and passionate throughout, becoming more and more hypnotised by Josee’s discreet charm and allure which motivates him to do all he can for her (whether it be to get her a book she has desired for a long time or show her the world); not out of pity but out of a true desire he has to spend every moment he has with her.

Josee, The Tiger and The Fish is a film I heartily recommend you see, and if you search the Internet you’ll find I am not in the minority in saying this. There is nothing negative to say about it as it manages to dance the line dividing a meaningful drama from silly humour. Seeing Josee become more able to feel comfortable with her need to love someone is gratifying; as just as alluring it is to see her brood, it is even more appealing to see her smile and giggle in the throes of a love she never thought she would experience. As with most J-films the pacing is slow and steady, aided by the naturalistic choice of symbolism, the occupations (both literally and figuratively) and the basic plot driven narrative.

Eiga Nights 映画の夜