Cinephilia 101

Oniroku Dan, 79, RIP (Video NSFW)

2011-05-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

Oniroku Dan, the celebrated author, well-known for his bondage-themed novels, many of which were adapted by directors such as Masaru Konuma, Koyu Ohara, and Katsuhiko Fujii, has died. His stories, and the films made from them will especially be remembered for bringing actress Naomi Tani into the spotlight. She was the most famous actress of adult-themed, "pink films" in the 70's.

More recently, after a brief retirement and business ventures, he has returned to the writer's chair, with more books in Japanese and the first English translation of his stories. Director Ryuichi Hiroki, who started out in pink cinema, made an indirect biopic of him, I Am an S&M Writer, detailing the problems his work must have caused with his wife. The author and the era, will surely be missed.

R.I.P.

(below is the film, Rope and Skin, uploaded onto Video Google by a user––it has adult content, NSFW)

Cherry Blossoms (1988)

2011-05-01T14:43:00.001-07:00

The second film by HK director Eddie Ling-Ching Fong, husband and collaborator of Clara Law. This is a biopic of the youth of author Yu Dafu, whose stories also inspired Lou Ye's Spring Fever, released in 2009.

Farewell China (1990)

2011-04-30T14:33:00.000-07:00

Clara Law's third feature film.

Trailer

Book Report: "Korean Film Directors: Jang Sun-woo", by Tony Rayns

2011-01-28T11:19:00.000-08:00

Tony Rayns, the leading English-language critic on East Asian cinema, in collaboration with the Korean Film Council, has presented this introductory volume on the work of director Jang Sun-woo, the so-called Bad Boy of Korean Cinema. It is one of many books in the series "Korean Film Directors": slim volumes meant to introduce the English-speaking world to the best film makers in South Korea. Each volume is presented by a different critic. Rayns has separated the book into three distinct sections: his opinions, presented in the book's most lengthy single article; the opinions of Jang Sun-woo, being excerpts from interviews with Jang, taken from Rayns' documentary "The Jang Sun-woo Variations"; and the opinions of others, segments from English-language articles, and translations from noteworthy Korean critics, such as director Lee Chang-dong's insightful reaction to "Lies".

Even though we are very lucky to have these English translations of Korean film articles available, I cannot give it a 5 out of 5 because there really should have been more discussion on "Bad Movie", which is one of his very important works, the crux of his trademark nihilism. A lot more time seems to have been given to "Passage to Buddha", "To You, From Me", and "Lies". While I don't mind this at all, it would have been more enjoyable had it been balanced. Giving a little more analysis to "A Petal" would have been beneficial as well, since I think that an English-speaking audience would not have the background in Korean history to dissect it. But overall, this is a MUST-HAVE book if you are even slightly interested in Jang Sun-woo. The info and analysis on his early films, "Seoul Jesus", "The Age of Success", and "The Lovers of Woomuk-Baemi" is much-needed as well, since all but Seoul Jesus (which has recently turned up on the web) seem to be completely missing from market circulation. While I have been able to locate VHS copies of these films, including To You, From Me, sans subtitles, the sites which they are available on are unreliable.

In the introduction, and throughout the book, Rayns and others suggest that while this director may bring controversy everywhere he goes, he exists because he brings to light the many contradictions of modern Korea, which even the amnesiac consumer culture cannot ignore (the book's very self-critical tone of society and the individual within it are welcome and quite needed today). Yet, his real reason, of course, for being in the industry, and not an outsider in the underground/experimental realm, is the fact that his work is profitable. So, it is very understandable that he, like many Korean directors, it seems, is punished with silence when he is not able to make a commercially successful work (the new censorship). The financial failure of "Resurrection of the Little Match Girl" is reflected on in the book's most memorable article, an interview with Jang on his Elba, of sorts, the mythic Jeju Island, where he appears to be regretful of artistic mistakes (which I don't think are as grave as he or others believe), but hopeful to re-enter the industry with something better. He has yet to make another feature after his big-budget, wire-string sci-fi Match Girl, but is still trying.

* 4.5 out of 5

The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989)

2010-09-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

Hatred. Fear. Jealousy. Scorn. Anxiety.

The intellectual often feels these emotions when asked to be a participant of bourgeois society, for the shallow, commercial culture of the global order pleads that he cast away his mind which he so cherishes. It tells him to love his slavery, and take the pleasures of the flesh and the transience of laughter for comforts. In time, he finds such aversions dissatisfying and continues on in anomie. He fights the world through scientific method and literary analysis, hoping that triviality and banality will not infect him, that somehow stupidity and acquiescence will not pollute his cerebral fortress.

But soon, he finds himself forlorn. Loneliness is no longer a sanctuary, but a prison. And as society provides no support for his development, he seeks the thing that is most socially encouraged: a relationship. After observation, it discourages him at first, the lowly state to which women have been forced into. Many of them, through the industrial precision of patriarchy, have been reduced to little more than showing concern for the material comforts of the day. This depresses him. Love, he thought, was one’s last chance. It is the way to integrate into the fold, to no longer be outside.

But he shortens his chances, as many do. If (as many of his kind are), he is a thinker from the middle classes, he may come to shun the hypocrisy, the complacence, the lifelessness of the women of his station. And though the working classes, as he observes, are still imbued with the lifeforce and creativity that drives mankind, they are lacking in traditions, devoid of the elegance which he detests, but secretly admires. Looking further into society, he finds his object: the bourgeois woman. Her qualities show that the petit bourgeois of his class are nothing but imitations of their masters.

His mind, of course, loves this new woman for her well-payed-for education and sense of leisure. From the comfort of her class, the world becomes still for him. It is temporarily no longer a chaos in his thoughts. Yet, there is another wall between him: class boundaries. he could attain his object in mere enjoyment, but feelings of possession take hold of him.

However, she cannot have him, as she is, rather. Upon scrutiny, he understands that what he is facing is a whole system. She does not belong to her class by choice, but by forces, and these influences made and continually reinforce her character. What he loves was made by design. And the small emoluments that sustain him cannot alter her inclinations. To have her, as she is, she must provide what she is accustomed to, or instead risk a change. It is, in a simple term, preservation. And for this, he grows more and more unfit for the world, more willing to change it. Desire drives his dream of overthrow. But the dream of owning factories or investment banks is an inconceivable as the Christ myth to him. And his hatred for the figureheads of patriarchy couldn’t possibly lead him to mimic the very system which chokes out his existence. So he decides to make the world go upside-down. He cannot beat them, and certainly will not join them. He will, rather, make them obsolete.

It is this impetus which I feel drives The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover. While my introduction heavily politicizes the film, behind Greenaway’s baroque adornments lies a direction towards the radical. The man I described, in his acumen and uncertainty, is Michael, the Lover. Though he is portrayed as a victim of a raving lunatic’s brutality, his crime is that he sought to upset the order through the sexual act.

He cannot, in this world, engage in free love and have the bourgeois woman he so desires. She is, for the restaurant owner and the higher classes he represents (think of the building’s interior opulence and Georgina’s deluxe, ever-changing wardrobe), part of an exclusive society, in so much as this social unit views her as property, that is, more specifically, reproductive property. Her main function, in the eyes of the husband, Spica, is to abide in his home, represent him and stay faithful to him, thereby preventing her from fornication, and hence, humiliation for him and the further matter of ambiguous parentage.

Michael has a firmly rooted position as a thinker by his actions. While Spica and his minions are gorging themselves, Michael is seen reading (with no coincidence) a book on the French Revolution (subversive ideas are always on loan from foreigners). He probably prefers revolution in its French incarnation and not its Russian one, as he is not quite ready for full equality. And for this breach in expectations, the husband disrupts his book reading (for the model citizen should be frivolous, not brainy), throwing the book on the floor and cursing him.

The husband, Spica, is seen through Michael’s eyes, and not Georgina’s. Western film is often more manipulative than its Eastern counterpart. The Occident is concerned with identification, while the East prefers observation. In the West, Christian concepts of good and evil influence choices in narrative. Michael is good, for he is a martyr. Jesus against Rome. The husband, the bad one, is executed for his sins. And his barbaric behavior and personification of all things evil is represented by his red and black raiment – purely diabolical.

Given the timing of the film’s release, there can be speculation that the thief, the husband, is a stand-in for the UK’s corrupt, Thatcherite dictatorship. This follows the same line as my argument and is useful, but the cultural specificities of the UK and Margaret Thatcher are not. I see the film as expressing the eternal theme of the pre-revolutionary stage: corruption.

Corruption is the by-product of stagnation, when normal, decent democracy must be perverted to keep the ruling classes happy. Life as they knew it can no longer be replenished through legal means, for there are too many barriers. It is here that we see power encroach itself further into private life by means of the state (i.e… wiretapping, deregulation, police repression, the ramping-up of the criminal codes [such as the 10-20-Life policy in the state of Florida], and stricter drug laws). Now, corruption, in the common sense, is seen as a private matter, being that of markets, business, and industry, yet it can be traced back to the state. Once the state, in its Engelian function, fails to keep class antagonism from volatile levels, and starts to support power to the detriment of the governed, then it opens the doors for the abuse of power, by power – for corruption.

The world saw a crucial moment in the 1980’s with the rise of a new Conservatism, seen in Reagan and Thatcher, here in the West, and the subsequent attack on progressive gains, most notoriously displayed during Reagan’s first few months in office, when he gave a crushing blow to the strike of the government-employed, air traffic controllers. In the U.S., the governed were also sold out by the state which protects them from power. Tax incentives given to megacorporations, which then used the new boon in capital to penetrate foreign markets, assisted in the deindustrialization of the U.S., and the mass layoffs in the labor market.

Further encroachments on liberty had to be made, abroad and at home, as Reagan and U.S. power sought to defeat their existential enemy, the USSR. Greenaway’s film was made at the horizon of this victory. For America, and its bulldog Britain, no longer would there be a Red, second world to protect the vulnerable third world. And it is at this stage, when the West could still profess itself as having a destiny, that it can be, to its citizens, admirable. Manifest Destiny (here transposed to the entire globe) was complete, and the U.S. (Britain too) had no more future to sell to its children. And with “smooth” world, and the opening-up of previously unpenetrated markets, the population could experience a new, undreamed of decadence. But with no goal in mind, the need for great diligence and obedience was no longer necessary. Social liberalism can thrive. And the world as it was, was a completed construct. The ousting of “bad guys” like Milosevic and Saddam is not an expeditionary, imperial campaign, but rather, a disciplinary action. No other nation can fall out of line in this fixed world.

Therefore, Michael’s sexual defiance, is more intolerable in this stage in history, than were he to diddle Spica’s wife once the mission had been completed (when it’s time to laissez les bon temps rouler). Such trangressions are expected, but not encouraged, once an era of enjoyment falls upon the earth (such as the world of the flapper and the petting parties of the Roaring 20’s).

The wife, while seeking a more meaningful love, is still part of these historical forces. Helen Mirren, not as personality, but as an object (she is the only woman seen in the nude, the only one that desire is focused upon), is completely necessary. She represents a dying class, one that is about to see its success (world domination). Death, also, is a theme in this film. Richard, the cook, gives a speech on how black foods represent death, and in consuming them one can conquer mortality (from keys to the quiche). And it is around so much death, from Michael’s, to Spica’s, to the hapless employees’, that we must surround ourselves with life. A restaurant, fine dining in particular, is a celebration of life and sensuality (something the English should learn more of). Eating, like sex (seen in the film expressly) remind man of his impermanence, which reinvigorates his sense of life. Only in realizing death can we start to truly enjoy life. The set designers, knowing this, draped the restaurant’s interiors in warm, yonic reds, representing sex, the flesh, and ultimately, demise. It is in this coming end (so quietly suggested in Mirren’s, or Greenaway’s, refusal to let Georgina use the makeup brush – an aging woman belonging to a soon-to-be obsolete class), that the film so lavishly gorges on all things representing life, whether destroying it or attempting to create it.

Lakeview Terrace (2008)

2010-08-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

Lakeview Terrace (2008)

This was on Starz or one of those movie channels when I got up this morning. I had seen a few scenes from the middle of it before, but never had a chance to view the whole picture. The writing was above par, so I stayed tuned, but it ended in a predictable way based on mainstream American beliefs about race relations.

As one would expect, the picture, though dealing with the race problem, was made by a white guy, Neil LaBute, who has done commercial pictures for fifteen years.

The premise is enough to spawn a mixed reaction: Samuel L. Jackson plays an older police officer who soon grows jealous, or rather hostile, to the interracial couple next door, played by Kerry Washington, who is in fact, in an interracial marriage with a Jewish man, I believe, and the stud-looking guy from Little Children, Patrick Wilson.

Within about thirty minutes, Sammy tells the couple that he doesn't feel right with them "doing whatever they feel like" in his neighborhood. Meaning that he doesn't want to see a seemingly happy black/white couple just prancing around his ville.

Now, right here, at this moment, lie all the film's deficiencies. We are basically witnessing the postmodern miracle: reverse racism. Something, which really doesn't exist in this country, as all the chips are still in the same hands as they were before the Civil War.

Throughout the film, the director posited that Jackson was the main source of the conflict in the film, and I agree that he is, but through its duration, LaBute had no interest in broadening his character to help understand his impetus. He did what is normal for a modern thinker: to make an individual out of his actions. Samuel L. Jackson's actions are seen as having no connection to the world around him, or the world that was around him. He is just seen as someone having crazy ideas that seemingly came from no place. This is what America does to flush out its critics. It calls them madmen, pushes them out by exclusion, and of course, the system remains in tact, but behind the walls, the invaders multiply.

To have a wider understanding of America, one must know that a large reason why the upper class is so successful in keeping power is that they keep us ignorant. The main concealment of knowledge is in the field of history. As long as Americans are encouraged to forget, and "get over it," then the populace can be more easy to control. And this urge to forget has been pushed upon the blacks with the most force. The very race that built this country, literally from the ground up, since before independence, has been told that it has to let go of its grievances, and join into the white system which was basically constructed based upon their degradation. So, still America is doing what it has always done, and can revert to so easily: pointing the finger at the black man, while holding the black woman in the other arm.

Samuel L. Jackson is seen as the bad guy, but his feelings are really part of a specific, generational ideology. Black people his age lived through segregation as children and young adults. They were the last generation to witness America's violent policy of division. And their anger is even more intensified as we moved out of the age of segregation in the 60's, and now are in the era of nationwide, de-facto discrimination. Now, racism is a private matter. The government has left it up to Wall Street and the Fortune 500. It no longer enforces it.

So, a director who is Neil LaBute's age, now about 47, is actually young enough to be uninformed about the past. He is, and I may trademark this, part of the Obama generation. The rise of Barack Obama marked an era of a new rewrite on racial ideology, but it is still one that leaves the blacks out, but only this time it is willing to absorb more of the good ones into its net. Though this term and this theory were being cooked up long before Obama came on television, he preached the message for the layman, and it made it understandable. Today, we are in an era of color-blindness, but the standards that apply to this new, blind judge don't really take black history into account. For instance, if a black person, like Jackson in this movie, still had grievances about the very history that drives social life today, then he would be considered a reverse racist, or called childish (what they've always been calling us), and told to get over it. So how is it possible that such an ideology could have been created but by the very people who have sought to dominate since the Shot Heard Round the World?

But the movie ends, unsurprisingly, with Jackson, the Bad Negro, being taken away, and the otherwise happy, status symbol-seeking mixed couple can be left to their good, productive lives. It may be an improvement that at least a movie can be made about race and still be mainstream, but I think this one points us in the wrong direction (which is really, in the end, a direction that evades criticism and makes it so that whites can still stay on top... of many things), but of course, by saying this, this means that I myself, am a black racist. :P

Girlfriend: Someone Please Stop the World (2004)

2010-07-04T23:37:00.000-07:00

Girlfriend: Someone Please Stop the World (2004)

It started with Vibrator, then Tokyo Trash Baby, now this!

Ryuichi Hiroki, who started out in the pink film industry to learn his craft, is now making some of my favorite pictures from Japan these days. Each of the Hiroki films I've seen deal with people who aren't very much represented in cinema: the powerless, the ordinary, the outsiders. And this picture, like the others, shows how these people can reconnect with society through positive relationships.

The beautiful Aoba Kawai, playing the character of Miho, is very much this type of person. Beneath a pretty exterior, one can see a persistent sadness. Her glum face is very much like the look Aoi Miyazaki donned in Harmful Insect. Her problem in the film is the lack of a relationship with her father (Tomorowo Taguchi), who left the family when she was an adolescent. Drowning herself in her work, as a hairdresser, or surrounding herself with her three roommates, cannot quell this problem. She tries to deal with it on her own, but to no avail.

Miho one day unwittingly runs into the quirky, short-haired Kyoko (whose reminiscent of Mami Nakamura's character in Tokyo Trash Baby, as both are so peculiar), played by Kinuwo Yamada, who asks to take her picture. Kyoko is a professional photographer and Miho is the only person who accepted to model for her photos, in the nude. Miho accepts as a way to release her anger over her father. The two women, completely unalike, slowly bond over their problems with men, and attempt to resolve them. Kyoko finds artistic inspiration in Miho's complexity, and together, they seem to act as a positive and negative part of a whole.

Hiroki's films show a maturity that is direly missing from a capitalist cinema, geared to entice our basest emotions. His work in pinku eiga may have been necessary as he fully understands the role that sex and relationships play in empowering, damaging, even ostracizing individuals. While he has received critical acclaim, despite the appearance of a few DVD's in Region-1, I don't think his films have yet to find a wide audience, just mostly the cyber-fed cinema geeks like myself and festival insiders. But in a way, I almost prefer for Hiroki to work as he does, away from the glaring lights of international stardom. He certainly has no place in the Academy, making national epics or bolstering the egos of a few star actors. His work is more what art should be: personal expression, not cultural/national justification. His characters are ones that I always tend to connect with, people whose personalities highlight the contradictions of modern society.

Japan, at this stage, has acquired many features similar to America, especially in the urban context, and it is this newer form of social relations that Hiroki sees and understands, despite the fact that he doesn't write his own scripts. It is very fitting that a white character, played by Jason Gray, is portrayed alongside the Japanese without much ideological emphasis through the use of cutting techniques or by giving him some exaggerated character traits. What I'm saying is, because at this stage, since Japanese life is not too different from life in other imperialist nations, we see an even deeper similarity in narratives. These young, highly urban characters come with all the sexual hang-ups, family troubles, economic restraints, vanity, shallowness, and ennui of any figure in a modern film from the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, etc...

Chinese film, especially the recent Lost in Beijing, is taking the same route. The way people live determine the way they think, and the way they write and express themselves. With this new connectedness, reinforced by an ever-entangling global financial system, I tend to wonder just how much one country or another can attest to having traits distinct to its "national cinema".

Tokyo Trash Baby 東京ゴミ女 (Tokyo Gomi Onna, 2000)

2010-05-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

Ryuichi Hiroki is quickly becoming an international star for his intelligently-written romances. Well, as far as I know, he hasn't written a single film (none of which I've seen), but each one delves into the specifics of urban relationships. This film is a tale of obsession and timidity that seems to accompany the experience of living single in a megalopolis. Miyuki, played by NAKAMURA Mami, is a waitress at a nondescript Tokyo café, who finds it easier to rummage through the trash of a guy she likes rather than talk to him. How she reached this point is not given, but it is certain that Miyuki lives in a world of her own. She's a very cute and quirky girl, but somewhat childlike (not altogether different from the American hipsters). As she collects the guy's trash, a musician that lives on the floor above her, she slowly begins to think that she knows him, and uses his scraps to create an idealized image of him. Writer OIKAWA Shotaro has made a very unique film on how we misunderstand the people we fall in love with, and the portrayal of Miyuki, as a girl who cannot quite fit in, hence her being alone most of the time, is very convincing. Her fixation on the guitarist eventually leads to a meeting at one of his gigs, where her ideal may not meet his reality.

Miyuki acts as a foil to her co-worker, Kyoko, played by SHIBASAKI Kou, a woman who appears slightly older and is more integrated into social norms, hence her daily boasting at work of her rampant sexual encounters. It is strange to say that this is a gem in the film world for its originality: it is a film about normal people in normal situations. No one is exceptional, talented or special. Though Miyuki is the type of girl who one would imagine as the black sheep in a traditional family, being the self-absorbed, creative one, she is presented as trying to reconnect with the world through love, and her persona is not so extraordinary as to negate her existence in a real, ordinary setting. She's the "weird girl" that you went to high school with.

This film was the first entry of six DV features in the 'Love Cinema' series, which also includes SHIOTA Akihiko's Gips, and MIIKE Takashi's Visitor Q.

Runin: Banished るにん (2004)

2009-07-14T19:28:00.000-07:00

Runin: Banished - was a bit maudlin, but enjoyable. I like films about people at the bottom of the barrel. Eiji Okuda impressed me with Shojo, and I knew that he would create something great with time. I love when filmmakers build upon older works, and here he expands the legacy of Shohei Imamura. It’s about that lowest tier society. The characters in question are assorted criminals who have been banished from Japan and sent to a small island to fend for themselves. Like in an Imamura film, there is a lot of sex, and all emotions in general run wild. The performances are so impassioned, similar to the older films. One truly gets a sense of the strength of humanity, as these people who have nothing use all they have to survive, sometimes destroying, sometimes saving each other. It’s not flawless by any means, but this is a special moment in world cinema. There is a certain freedom of expression here that is so often stifled in the larger market. In time, it will be valued tremendously.

Noriko's Dinner Table 紀子の食卓 (2005)

2009-07-12T19:01:00.001-07:00

Noriko's Dinner Table - I really don't remember what I thought of Suicide Club. Maybe that means it wasn't worth much. The ending was very bizarre, very crazy. Sort of satanic, in a way. SONO Sion impressed the hell out of me with Strange Circus. Like Blind Beast, it's one of those films that I have to love in secret, lest I lose even more friends. Yeah, it's not really safe for your normal types. He should have made an addition to that instead of that trite circus. I knew, going into it, that NDT would be somewhat better than Suicide Club. The big running time made me assume that he would build an intricate story, which he did, even if it feels a little bit bloated (not that the film is too long, I have patience, but the length doesn't really mean it's going to be better - this isn't A Brighter Summer Day). I kind of loved the eponymous protagonist, for looks and identification. She matches the strong, intelligent woman that can so easily be found in Japanese cinema, though she is incredibly naive in such youth. But lo and behold, she's ripped from my enjoyment, and Sono delves into the silly stories of the father and the friend and the sister. I thought this was just going to be about Noriko, the other characters aren't nearly as interesting. But what Sono did, and badly at that, was weave a domestic drama over bizarre events. Yet, it's not a profound domestic drama the way The Sting of Death is, or I'm hoping so dearly, the way Okaeri will be (if you read this and no where I can find it, then I'll be indebted to you for life). It's just more national ethos, you'll get it if you've learned the vocabulary. Nothing new here, mixed with the old female worship too. *6 out of 10

Love Talk 러브토크 (2005)

2009-07-12T18:58:00.001-07:00

Love Talk - is the second film by Lee Yoon-ki, director of the so hallowed picture reviewed above. As you guessed, it's a romance. Not a romcom, more like a romdram. (Did I just write that?) It's very bland, but a better LA film than anything I've seen from an American director. The whole diversity of LA is found here, unlike the LA that Rob Altman saw in Short Cuts. There isn't much to say. It's very boring. The characters are affable while watching, but I may forget them after closing this review. I'll have to watch Ad Lib Night when I find the will. *5 out of 10

Moe no Suzaku 萌の朱雀 (1997)

2009-07-12T18:50:00.000-07:00

Moe no Suzaku - is one of the ten most beautiful color films. All of Kawase's work (from what I've read) seems to be a great celebration of the family and of furusato. Watching this is like flipping through an old family album, remembering little details of relatives. Indeed, the patchwork-like compiling of the scenes creates this effect. It is realism that becomes poetic simply from the perfection of the natural settings, those pristine, quaint Japanese mountain villages. You'll want to lay forever in the warm colors and walk around the village for the sights. This is also very much a celebration of nature. Quite simply, it's the most artistic family film you could find.

Mes Petites Amoureuses

2009-07-12T18:41:00.000-07:00

One of the saddest moments in the cinema was the early death of Jean Eustache. The Mother and the Whore is still the best film I've come across, and I believe that this was his second and last feature. Like that first masterpiece, this film presents the most real and wrenching emotions in a simple way. Eustache is somehow able to dig through and find those harsh feelings that we try to walk on top of in everyday life. Quite simply, it is story about a boy who is growing up. He lives in a smaller French city, the name escapes me, although I seem to remember looking it up when I watched it last week. The boy comes from a humble family. They are normal people, far unlike the overprivileged scoundrels that asphyxiate the cinema.

Watching this film, one can tell that it is heavily autobiographical. He's opening up his life for us, something that the French may do too often, but is welcome when the results are fair. Obviously, this is a must see for anyone in these circles. It has the simple poetry from the previous film, and is altogether more sincere than anything you'll find elsewhere.

Sleeping Man 眠る男 (1996)

2009-07-12T18:35:00.000-07:00

Sleeping Man - Unfortunately, I didn't have subtitles, but the images contain the spirit of the picture, so I feel an understanding with the material. It seems to be another film supporting the national ethos. As one critic said, a shared history gives people a psychological foundation, and the presence of SE Asians, here welcomed and not castigated, displays humanist concerns. There were a few youngsters who became awkward at the presence of Christine Hakim's character, Tia, but YAKUSHO Koji's character, Hamamura, seemed to welcomed her, and occasionally correcting her Japanese: "Anata wa doushite?" Like KAWASE Naomi, OGURI Kohei praises simplistic, village life, or would rather not see it destroyed like most (hopefully). It's a serene and comfortable family film, and a HUGE influence on The Taste of Tea. I would recommend watching them together.

Yokubo 欲望 (2005)

2009-07-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

Yokubo - After falling completely in love with ITAYA Yuka in Tokyo.Sora, I decided that it wouldn't be too bad to watch this before calling it a night. Of course, it had come to my attention that she bared all in this picture, so even as bourgeois and phony as this movie is, it wasn't a complete waste of time. Actually, it's a bit impressive, even if that goddamn choral introduction makes you lose control of your emotions. These chick flicks are like mind-control. They present us with a world that is so dreamy, so much more wonderful than the dreariness of real, industrial life. To begin with, Itaya is a woman whom it is very easy to fall in love with (due to her immense beauty), so watching it, you're beginning to love her as well. And being a woman's picture, she is centralized in the narrative, having autonomy and general dominance over the men. The men, mostly all of them, are quite pathetic. There is No-se who's married, but is sort of brutish and obviously can't commit to her, and then Itaya's character, Ruiko, falls into the arms of Masami, who is completely impotent. So, the world rests on her shoulders. But overall, it is very mature romance, but the Hallmark quality makes it worth skipping. (I wish my life was always in soft focus.)

Bright Future アカルイミライ (2003)

2009-07-12T18:29:00.001-07:00

Bright Future - Just as a general rule, it's not that hard to tell when you'll be impressed by a film. Usually, a simple plot synopsis will reveal everything. If it sounds original and interesting, then most of the time it will be so. Also, the enthusiasm that others show directly relates to the possible goodness of the film in question. Looking at reviews of Noisy Requiem, everyone seemed so taken with it, but I have yet to see it. This film was the same, just the screenshots piqued my interest. It looked so strange, and then reading as little as possible, for fear of spoilers, learning that it was a film about alienation from a horror director prompted me immediately. And yes, it's all validated. This is an extremely well-written and well-executed film about the thing that we try to avoid: the supermasssive black hole within the soul of modern man. Not being too existential, it deals with it directly, without expounding too much, but such a topic is welcome because it hardly ever gets mentioned. Beginning in understandable territory, Kurosawa presents us with the utter pointlessness of daily labor and the near impossibility of self-fulfillment in such a bog, and through the characters of Yuji and Mamoru, ODAGIRI Joe and ASANO Tadanobu respectively, he shows us how people escape this purgatory. The two guys in question are basically adults who never really grew up. The silly distractions such as pets and video arcades, along with the multitude of time wasters present in an urban sprawl, are seen as deterrents from confronting reality. Tokyo's neon wasteland must produces hundreds of thousands like these two, alienated from any real goal, left with nothing to accomplish. It's the problem with the first-world. And Odagiri is the definition of star quality. He has it all: looks, talent, charisma. Joe is the Will Smith of Japan.

Tears 눈물 (2000)

2009-07-12T18:23:00.000-07:00

Tears - IM Sang-soo strikes again. These teen rebellion pictures have a long legacy going. I think Rebel Without a Cause started it all. This particular bad teen film is far more visceral than what you would normally get. Shot on MiniDV, right in the Garibong-dong, it makes it feel nearly too real, but it doesn't elevate itself into documentary. You always know that you're watching a film, although it's very convincing. DV does have a certain immediateness that film does not retain. And while it's basically a good drama, above average definitely, in dealing with such a grim topic, personally, I am far more interested in the social forces that push these kids towards vagrancy than the physical workings of their daily lives. Maybe I'll have to make that film myself, but it may end up not being fictional. And if you want to see the apex of the teen rebellion genre, then watch a little Singaporean picture called 15: The Movie by Royston Tan.

This Charming Girl 여자, 정혜 (2004)

2009-07-12T18:18:00.001-07:00

This Charming Girl - Very charming indeed. Where did they find her? This is another reason why that little country below China (no, the one even below the so-called oriental, totalitarian nightmare) is on top now as far as cinema goes. The reviews were glowing for this one, and seeing as how those reviewers were the competent ones, I believed them and was rewarded. This was very impressive, even more so because it was an original script. It has the depth that is usually found in literature, and as this quality so rare to find in film, I hope it continues, as the cinema so obviously has the potential to supersede any literary achievement. The charming girl we follow is a humble office worker, and in a format so compelling, reminding me of Soseki's novels, her character is slowly peeled away as we watch her go through the quotidian routine. This obsession with domesticity, hence the abundant feminine presence, is what is so fascinating about East Asian fiction. They aren't the Ancient Greeks. Their artists have always been concerned with the home. After all, that is the foundation of society. A more stable existence is possible if public life were more grounded around the home. But... Lee Yoon-ki somehow gave us one of those gems. A little masterwork (not piece) that seemed to come out of nowhere. The verisimilitude is leaps and bounds above what is found normally. I would even argue that maybe it's a little bit too real, but this is necessary. He's pointing future filmmakers in a new direction. *9 out of 10

Wife to Be Sacrificed 生贄夫人 (1974)

2009-07-12T18:15:00.001-07:00

Wife to be Sacrificed - I watched this immediately after Flower and Snake. The previous film, in all honesty, does retain a campy quality, and one may feel cheapened afterwards, but I can say that this does something different. This is a more intelligent exploration of twisted desire (yeah, it is twisted if you have to do all that to a woman for satisfaction). Konuma's form is much more precise here, and he really made something of an erotic gem. I really do believe that if the sex were normal then everyone would be praising it as some classic, but only because it's perverse has it been excluded. Once they watch it, they'll understand. It'll be placed right up there with your Oshima, Bataille, Nin, Miller, de Sade, Masoch, and the like. Of course, the film's success greatly lies on the audience's feelings towards Naomi Tani. I could imagine nothing but an all-male audience viewing this, and more importantly a male audience in their 30s. Tani has a mature look that is usually unacceptable by film standards. She really does look like a woman and not an over-developed teen like some of the young actresses that are introduced into films to get press coverage. One critic said the secret behind her appeal is that she looks very much like a typical Japanese mother, and the audience would indulge in their repressed Oedipal fantasies while viewing her films. I couldn't go that far, but one will notice her fully grown-up look, pale skin, and fleshy exterior. It all adds to a very mature and intriguing film that I hope has been emulated again (and again) in her filmography. A subversive gem.

The Road to the Racetrack 경마장 가는 길 (1991)

2009-07-12T17:38:00.000-07:00

The Road to the Racetrack - There is a general consensus now for the few who have seen this: it IS the Korean answer to The Mother and the Whore. But have I told you: The Mother and the Whore is MY favorite film. You can't just go copying it all willy-nilly unless you have something fantastic up your sleeve. Though while it isn't a carbon copy, the influence is obvious from the beginning. This is a film about talking about relationships. It's what the French do best, and now the Koreans have mastered it as well. The couple in question is on rocky territory: he's married with two brats and she's a bit younger and quite well-off, to his "I can barely can get by." It begins with him returning to Korea after obtaining a doctorate in France, where they cohabited for over three years. Of course, upon returning to the home country, he's very interested in continuing the relationship, but it seems that France (or Korea) has changed them both, and things cannot go so smoothly. What I like most about these films is that they are honest depictions of life. It's easy to find the more solid truths of life when analyzing relationships, which is why it is such a repeated subject. The bulk of the film is simply the discussions between the couple - R (him) and J (her). J picks up R in her car and they talk in bars, cafes, hotels. Although they seem to want to have a deep bond, his intellectual coldness and her hypocrisy stop this from growing. I don't mind imitation, as long as you imitate the best. *9 out of 10

Tokyo.Sora (2002)

2009-06-14T23:16:00.001-07:00

Tokyo.Sora - was released a year after Take Care of My Cat, and they are both very similar, but I'm far more impressed with the Japanese rendition of urban womanhood. Yet, just as in ISHIKAWA Hiroshi's next film Su-Ki-Da, this presents characters more unusual than anything else I've seen. I understand that it is a culture of politeness, but his characters display a reservedness far greater than in other films. I can definitely say, no characters from the older films of the 60s and 70s were ever like this. Ishikawa's urbanites can hardly get a word out. But it has such a light touch as to earn respect, though as pretty as the film is with its transparent 16mm color, the themes that we're dealing with here aren't that profound. If only the script were more detailed, delved deeper into certain issues, then maybe I would grant it higher praise.

Camel(s) 낙타(들) (2002)

2009-06-14T23:13:00.000-07:00

Camel(s) - is the most faithful expression of realism I've seen. I thought it had the potential to be pretentious, but the verisimilitude goes to the degree of discomfort (because it's all too real). It becomes hard to watch as you realize that one half of amorous couple could very well be your own parent (pick one, and you can literally see them, a couple in an extramarital affair, drowning in guilt through their eyes). Without the use of artifice, Park is able to get to a few really hard truths about our suffocating, industrial society and the distance between men and women. And while this may all sound like exactly what HONG Sang-soo has been working on for over 10 years, this analysis of the subject is all the more subtle, and completely lacking the comedy that allows Hong's films to be palatable. I'm definitely taking another look at this one in the near future, and am going to get my hands on Motel Cactus.

Tree Without Leaves - SHINDO Kaneto (1986)

2009-06-14T23:10:00.000-07:00

Tree Without Leaves - It may be impossible to render a more affectionate expression of love for one's mother. The only other works of art I've come across that approaches this are the initial pages of the "Combray" section in Swann's Way, and well.... Mother by Naruse. It is very convincing and makes me assume that Shindo added autobiographical elements. The starring family and their status as the village's patricians give it a more classic feel, as the old stories were always about the king and his kin. In addition to the expression of love for the mother, played by Shindo's wife OTOWA Nobuko (in one of the greatest roles ever), a large part of the drama deals with the families declining fortune (very old school, huh?). It may not be a film about people we can all identify with, but the technical perfection is unavoidable. Shot in such a crisp, clean black-and-white, I greatly wish that I can one day see this on 35. It's sort of strange that the movie won no awards because it's basically perfect. Maybe Shindo had lost friends that year.

The Sting of Death - OGURI Kohei (1990)

2009-06-14T23:07:00.000-07:00

The Sting of Death - I first heard about the director of this film, OGURI Kohei, in my professor's book. In her critical study of Oshima, she compared one of Oguri's films, Muddy River to The Sun's Burial(both about the poor-as-shit residents that can still be found in Osaka). Locating a copy of Muddy River isn't feasible at the moment, but there are inexpensive Hong Kong DVDs of this film, The Sting of Death, which, in the brief criticism on Oguri that is actually available, has been touted as his masterpiece. It is difficult to tell whether or not this is a masterpiece, but like any work of art that makes people pay attention, it takes itself extremely seriously. Like Maboroshi no Hikari the camera is almost completely immobile and generates an uncomfortable intensity during the scenes of the couple's marital downfall. Here, we see the story of a writer's conflict with his wife over his infidelity. For nearly two hours, we have to put up with their psychological battle, and they (and the audience) are driven ever closer to insanity in the process. There just really aren't too many other Japanese films that delve into a subject so deeply. Interspersing the marital duels, there are scenes that are terrifyingly funny, and the framing is also very beautiful, almost providing an escape from the morbid drama. Once again, MATSUZAKA Keiko proves that she was the greatest Japanese actress of that time period. Some may criticize her for overacting, but the power she brings to her performances usually matches the circumstances. For me, she represents the older generation of actors, worldwide, who just put more feeling into their performances than the young people do. In that respect, acting has shifted.

Shinjuku Ecstasy

2009-02-17T14:28:00.000-08:00

All My Dreams Came True

Mandala 曼陀羅 (1971)

2008-06-10T18:14:00.000-07:00

Jissoji’s second film with the Art Theater Guild outperforms what was accomplished in Mujo, but perhaps I’m only saying this because Mandala contains much less dialogue, and is easier to follow than his first film, for the English-only crowd. Again, Jissoji returns to religious philosophy, as we are presented with a film about a Buddhist cult. This aspect, for me, already makes the film unique, because I can’t think of other titles that take the viewer directly into the day-to-day activities of a cult. Koreeda’s Distance comes to mind, but from the reviews I’ve read on it (haven’t plunked down the $10 for the HK disc), the topic is simply on the aftermath of cult activities. This film deals with the entire religious and recruiting processes of the cult. The cult in question seems to assault people to make them join, and as this is a 70’s film, there is plenty of rape. No, seriously, there must be at least five rapes in this film - the record goes to Jissoji. All violence aside, the pure strangeness and imagery in this film makes it worth watching, and Jissoji madcap camerawork is a little bit more sober than what I found in This Transient Life. Did I also say that the ending will surprise you?

This Transient Life 無常 (1970)

2008-06-10T18:08:00.000-07:00

My anticipation for this film was so high after Roland Domenig likened it to the work of Bresson and Dreyer. Well, Bressonian and Dreyeresque it is not, but it’s an interesting, if not somewhat pretentious Japanese film in its own right. I was so enamored with the review that several months ago, I went out and bought the Geneon disc without English subtitles, something that I don’t regret doing because it’s never been translated, but much of content in this dialogue-rich film has evaded me. But still, though the film is flawed because of its highly unnatural camera setups (something which has been praised, but tends to be a problem), Jissoji is unique in that he is maybe the only Japanese director to analyze Buddhism with such a high degree of concentration. There are many long dialogues in the film, ones which I can’t quite be sure of at this stage, but I’m sure delve deeply into Eastern philosophy. Also, like so many other Japanese films, incest is a main theme, and happens to be the motif that drives the plot. I would love to watch this again, but the second time through, I need my subtitles.

Death by Hanging 絞死刑 (1968)

2008-05-21T00:04:00.000-07:00

In the tradition of Richard Wright's Native Son, Nagisa Oshima's Death by Hanging follows the story of a young second class citizen condemned for a crime to seem at first against an individual, but as an audience we find out that is an attack against a nation.

The film begins with the traits of all New Wave film-making, by showing an actual prison ground. Oshima's camera is attached to a helicopter and makes a descent upon a rather quaint building that is truly an execution chamber. Our narrator is Oshima himself, commenting on frighteningly true realities of public opinion on capital punishment. 71% of the population want to uphold capital punishment, but Oshima poses an unorthodox, but simple question. You who are in favor of capital punishment, have you ever witnessed an execution? This inquiry in itself to me sums up Oshima's purpose in his early work. Identifying and challenging hypocrisy. Something that many people are unwilling to do.

The victim of the punishment is a young Korean man named R. His crime is the murder and rape of 2 Japanese high school girls. R is hanged, but he lives. When he comes to, he cannot remember anything. His name, his family, his nationality, or the men who killed him. He appears to be completely enlightened in the Buddhist tradition of Nirvana. He does not behave like a criminal at all, in fact he is much more adjusted than the self-imposed superior Japanese prison wards. The man are shocked and the chaplain believes his body is empty and his soul has left. The prison wards believe that is nonsense so they want to hang him again. But they can't hang a man who isn't self aware or competent of his surroundings. So in a deeply biting satire, they act out the known facts of his life trying to get him to remember so he can be hanged.

This is where the narrative becomes interesting. Oshima uses satire to comment of Japan's marginalization of their Korean neighbors. Very similar to the way African Americans were treated in early America or Jews in Venice. R is the product of extreme degradation and exploitation. At one point the men are trying to play the part of his family. One man is playing the part of R's mom and she has to cry. Pretending, the man starts crying, but his colleague says that it's not right, and he should do it more, "Korean". He says by Korean, he means more vulgar. It is this condescendence towards Koreans that can be compared to many other people around the world and to many points in history.

In the conclusion, R understands what his former self did. Being a second class citizen, he was not allowed to have the things that his Japanese peers did. He soon became enveloped in fantasy. He didn't have fresh food, so he imagined he did. He didn't have new clothes, so he fabricated that idea. He couldn't have a Japanese girl, so he fantasized that he could. But he knew he couldn't have this girl in a normal fashion due to his race, so he constantly projected in his mind the act of rape. His constant cerebral denial of everything he hoped for lead to his real life act.

I respect Nagisa Oshima for being unpopular among his countrymen in order to shout at the world. I wouldn't call him a moralist, but he strives to eliminate hypocrisy in the world. This film is just as much an anti-capital punishment essay as it is a race relations thesis. I have always been against capital punishment ever since I was aware of the idea of politics. I was as shocked just as Oshima was when learning about the public opinion of capital punishment in my own English class. Most of my 16/17 year old peers supported death. R's response to his nation's stand on his fate is this. "The nation says that I should die for my crimes. But I don't understand the idea of a nation. How can an abstraction kill me?"

Inferno of First Love 初恋・地獄篇 (1968)

2008-05-20T23:48:00.000-07:00

Susumu Hani's unique film funded in part by the Art Theatre Guild, an organization which supported the filmmakers of the Japanese New Wave who were excommunicated from the Japanese studio system. This film is so truthful, dangerous, and spellbinding that it's hard to find words in the English language to describe it. Only a minuscule number of films can pull so much out of your soul in an hour and a half. Susumu Hani tells the frighteningly authentic story of a young man named Algebra, and his struggle to find himself within the suffocating environment of post-war Tokyo. Algebra works as a goldsmith in a ridiculously repetitive workplace and lives at home with his sexually abusive father. He is very repressed sexually and emotionally, and even once took laughing lessons to relieve his troubles. His abuse as a child led him to repeat his father's mistakes. A casual walk in the park leads to an all too comfortable relationship with a random young girl. A man sees him with the girl and yells "pervert, pervert" and rallies other neighbors to chase him down. Algebra doesn't serve any jail time, for nothing intimate happened, but he does visit a psychiatrist who hypnotizes him. Algebra's is hypnotized in conjunction with watching a movie screen that depicts images of his subconscious. Surprisingly, Algebra wants nothing to do with his dark hobby afterward and begins a heightening romance with a female prostitute with whom he had a failed liaison with earlier in the film. Her name is Nanami, a nude model that works in a peep show-esquire establishment. Nanami takes on her own quest in the film, from a normal peep show girl to doing S&M photos for mysterious clients. She is Algebra's only anchor in the world. The remainder of the film depicts the blossoming of their relationship, and Algebra's personal awakening.

The narration does appear to be typical: a young outgoing girl stabilizes the shy young man, but this film is all about the unique use of storytelling and the employment of a cinema verite style of photography. Yuji Okumura employs a liberated, documentary-style camera technique that brought memories of Sergei Urusevsky's work in I Am Cuba. I have seen few urban environments filmed so masterfully, yet simply in black-and-white. The film also has a theme of nostalgia for childhood and innocence, much like The Spirit of the Beehive. This theme is reinforced through Algebra's flashbacks of childhood set to a subtle, melancholic score.

This is a very important film. It may upset some viewers for its harsh depictions of reality, but it could be inspiring nonetheless for those who seek a better version of the truth. Susumu Hani took a cue from Italian Neo-Realism and hired non-professional actors for most of the roles. This choice makes the film the more poignant. It peels away the layers of fabrication that a studio project would leave on and leaves us with a story that few can imitate or forget.

Crazed Fruit 狂った果実 (1956)

2008-05-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

Crazed Fruit is a very risky film in terms of what was considered acceptable for Japanese cinema. It follows the sexual bullfight of two privileged brothers competing for an older, married woman (who is actually married to a foreigner, an American, which fuels the anti-American sentiment supported by the author, Shintaro Ishihara). The older brother, Natsuhisa, is played by Shintaro Ishihara's real brother, Yujiro Ishihara, who went on to become a famous actor and recording artist. Natsuhisa is brash and remorseless, unlike his younger brother, Haruji, who is also filled with the same primordial desire, but displays a sort of innocence which progressively diminishes. The siren that the brothers compete for, who echoes memories of Helen of Troy, Eri, is played by Mie Kitahara, who later married her co-star, Yujiro Ishihara. Eri soon becomes the odalisque of the two brothers, acting as the receptacle for their phallic nature. Without ruining the plot, I will leave the finale vague, but I most note another performer in this tale of juvenile fury. Frank, played by the Belgian-Japanese, Masumi Okada, is a very memorable character. He is the de facto leader of this affluent tribe and he has a striking appearance on film. He seems more at home in the Rat Pack with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin than in a Japanese film, but he fits in well with this group despite his diverse background.

This film is very important for anyone looking to make sense of the film movement in Japan known as 'Nuberu Bagu' (romji for the French term, Nouvelle Vague). The slowly crumbling, Nikkatsu corporation produced this film in an attempt to appeal to a new, young audience which previously received no representation in Japanese cinema. Nikkatsu wasn't the first studio to appeal to a youth audience. Kon Ichikawa's Punishment Room was also released in 1956 to the reception of much controversy. This new literary and cinematic genre depicting lustful, rich and violent youth was known as the Taiyozoku (literally Sun Tribe). Sun Tribe referred to young people who had the money and the time to leisurely enjoy the sun, such outdoor activities as boating and water skiing. However, this culture of recreation was not a representative of reality, for even by 1959, 1 out of every 131 Japanese citizens owned automobiles. This more reflects the lifestyle of the author and harbinger of the Taiyozoku genre, Shintaro Ishihara (current mayor of Tokyo), who wrote the story/screenplay for this film, as well as the stories which inspired Kon Ichikawa's Punishment Room and the short story and film version of Season of the Sun.

The production of the film is quite extraordinary as well, shot in 17 days with a low budget, it is surprising how well-arranged all the shots are. Ko Nakahira (who was mentored by the rebellious director, Yuzo Kawashima, who was also a great influence on Shohei Imamura) masterfully displays lessons learned from French auteurs such as Jean Renoir. This is definitely obvious in the very impressionistic final sequence. Despite my adoration of this motion picture, this may be Ko Nakahira's only great work, besides maybe 2 or 3 other modern pictures for Nikkatsu. He suffered from alcohol abuse and was not able to free himself from the conveyor belt conventionalism present at Nikkatsu. Eventually, he had to expatriate to China, and use a pseudonym to make films for the Shaw Brothers. It is sad because this film had a such an outstanding ripple effect in Japan. The great financial success of Crazed Fruit spawned many other Taiyozoku films, and inspired the Japanese New Wave towards its epoch. To paraphrase Nagisa Oshima (who was greatly inspired by this debut effort), "the sound of the motorboats and the ripping of the woman's skirt heralded the sound of a new Japanese cinema."

Talking Head

2008-05-20T19:55:00.000-07:00

I discovered this film when I bought the Mamouru Oshii Cinema Trilogy Collection boxset, available from Bandai. Like many anime enthusiasts, I was interested in Mamoru Oshii after viewing Ghost in the Shell and its sequel, Innocence. It turns out that these 3 films are not metaphysical, cyborg action dramas, but rather comedies and satires of the whole film world, as well as the anime industry. Talking Head's "storyline" is about an anime feature that must be released in 2 months, but there is no director. A "migrant technical director" is called in to replace the missing director. His skills include being able to perfectly mimic anyone's style while still being able to make innovations to that style. The story takes a turn when the crew members begin to die, one-by-one, Heart of Darkness style. Talking Head is the best of the 3 films in the trilogy, combining the film-within-a-film elements of Federico Fellini's 8 1/2 with a deliberate abstraction of film reality by exposing sets and lighting set-ups (Oshii did the same thing in The Red Spectacles). Oshii is a talented creator; he distorts our assumptions of the imposed reality of film while giving us a lesson in film history. He also has his characters giving numerous speeches about the way films must be made, but Oshii himself breaks these self-imposed rules in his own storytelling. The link of the trilogy is Chiba Shigeru. He plays the lead in all 3 films of the trilogy, and speaks with a standard Japanese accent, but the seriousness in his voice adds to the satire that Oshii is trying to convey. Talking Head is a great film for anyone who wants to know what goes on inside a director's head.

The Moon in the Gutter

2008-05-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

Jean-Jacques Beineix is a curious director. Throughout these last two years, I've been delving deeper into art house features, but watching Beineix's films is a flashback to the commercial cinema that I grew up on. Not to imply that one market is better than the other, but the independent/art house world and the commercial industry have two different mindsets. With Beineix's first three features, it is obvious that he is trying to reach a wide audience, but there is a small, almost imperceptible tinge of personality placed into each of his films. Yes, he may just be an auteur. The most obvious aspect I've noticed in these first three features (Diva; The Moon in the Gutter; Betty Blue) is the persistent sense of longing. All three features have strong, believable romantic themes, and Beineix, like so many French artists, has a slight obsession with finding and defining love.

The Moon in the Gutter is based from the book of the same title by David Goodis. Like most Americans, I never even heard of Goodis until watching Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player. Some may have also seen him parodied in Godard's Made in U.S.A.. In Beineix's adaption of Goodis' novel, Gerard (Gerard Depardieu) is a stevedore who falls into a romance with a wealthy woman, Loretta (Nastassja Kinski). In this French adaption, the setting is switched from Goodis' hometown of Philadelphia to the ports of Marseilles. Gerard's neighborhood is quite squalid, reminding one of the slums in Jean Renoir's Les Bas-fonds.

Aligned with these lowly settings and romantic sentiments is a plot; Gerard plays a man who can be perfectly described as the strong and silent type. His emotion has been stripped from him after the death of his sister, raped and forced to suicide. Every night, he visits the bloodstained crime scene and broods over his existence, wishing to have a chance to leave the ports. Almost anchoring him down to his muted life is his lover, Bella, brilliantly and passionately played by Victoria Abril. She accepts her social standing in the slums, but for him, committing to her would mean accepting a life that he does not care for.

Gerard's luck may begin to shift when he encounters another melancholic, yet well-dressed and seemingly out of place man at the town bar. He grieves over the past like Gerard, and is only consoled when his gorgeous sister, Loretta enters the room. Fans, like myself, of Nastassja Kinski's flawless performance in Paris, Texas, will not be letdown in this film. Not only is she undeniably gorgeous (quite a force to be reckoned with in curls, scarlet lipstick, and dark garments), but Beineix, like Wenders, doesn't dare interrupt her performance with a flurry of shot-reverse shot editing. Her introduction into the picture may have been a bit overdone, with a close-up that could have distinguished nasal hairs, and a fan turned up too high, but when she speaks, one is wholly absorbed. Like her peepshow reunion scene in Paris, Texas, I had thoroughly lost myself in the scene when she and Depardieu ride and reminisce through the docks.

Following the dock ride are dreams and/or alcoholic binges. Gerard continues his reluctant courtship with Loretta, as she is the more active side of the relationship, while fearing that she may reach the same fate as his sister. Bella continues to be a comfort, yet somewhat of a nuisance for him, creating a threatening problem for him, and through all that he may have just found the man who drove his sister to death.

A small amount of research will show that this film was thrashed by critics upon release. Roger Ebert even seemed to not have much interest in it. It understandably had a cult following after its release, and would probably be just as polarizing today if it had an official DVD release in the States. Beineix doesn't really resolve anything in this film, but he is one of the few directors who has enough stylistic merit to make a good film without a fully coherent plot. For some of the lunacy in his cinema, like the ice-biting and the banana warehouse fight in this film, Beineix comes off with a certain charm that I can't ignore. He fully believes in his colorized recreation of film-noir (this film owes a lot to the aesthetic choices of 40's American cinema), and I have a respect for his enthusiasm, even if it didn't come off with perfection. This fixation with the director's work may just be a passing interest, but I would like to follow-up this experience with a viewing of Roselyne and the Lions. It seems that Beineix has simply fallen out of favor these days; most of his films are only available in France, and he hasn't released a feature in 6 years.

Eros Plus Massacre エロス＋虐殺 (1969)

2008-05-14T09:25:00.000-07:00

I've been waiting for a year to see this with English subtitles, and have finally received the chance, but as life would have it, I was only able to see the theatrical cut, which runs about an hour shorter than the director's cut. My plans were to write about this in the cinema blog (surprise! surprise!), but the curtailed length made it obvious that several foggy plot points were probably expounded upon in the longer version. Basically, this is the story of the Amakasu Incident, when Japanese police killed anarchist Sakae Osugi, his lover Noe Ito, and Sakae's child nephew, in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake. The climate after the quake was one of pure pandemonium, as I've read accounts of Koreans being attacked by Japanese mobs after spurious accusations of poisoning the water supply. The film has nothing to do with the temblor itself, but the events in Osugi's life leading up to his death. It is a frame story: a group of college students envision the life of Osugi and his anarchic friends, while living in their own climate of the 70's economic boom in Japan. It would seem that the students are living in a world where many of the ideas that Osugi was arrested and exiled for have come to fruition, yet in the portions of the story where we flashback to the 1920's, Osugi and his friends know that their ideas are far ahead of anything that could applied on a national level. In their discussions, they speak of rallying for government assistance for peasants in Kyushu, and Osugi talks about his being expelled from school.

The images in this film will stay with me for quite some time; I've never seen such intricate framing and blocking. It is quite amazing that Yoshida was able to create such a high quality film on the usual, low-budget of an Art Theatre Guild production. The world in which Osugi lives is quite subjective, as if everything arranged itself through his mind: there is Christian imagery throughout (a religion he had much interest in) and many oneiric sequences of his imminent murder. As for the title, "Eros" refers to the students, as it seems that is all they are interested in. There is a young woman at an art school, also earning wages as a commercial actress, who is falsely accused of prostitution by a policeman. She seems to be willing to bed any man, as is a playboy friend that she is seen with in the opening scenes of the film. This lothario has a brief encounter with a married woman, who appears to be suffering from some sort of mental illness, all before hanging himself in the most cinematic way possible at the film's conclusion. There is also another young student who accompanies the actress, reciting poetry as he observes things, while remaining coy in his advances at her. The students and their compatriots all suffer an existential malady, similar to the problems characters faced in Terayama Shuji's Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets.

"Massacre" refers to Osugi's life, one which the audience knows will end in violence. In one of my favorite scenes, where one of Osugi's lovers is threatening to stab him, he tells her that he accepts death if she is willing to dispense it. It seems that Osugi is wrapped around three women: his wife, Yasuko, who is mentioned but never seen; Itsuko, a journalist who is supporting him and his wife as he cannot find work after being branded as an anarchist, and Noe Ito, another anarchist whom he has become enmeshed with. The film's longest sequence involves Itsuko's attempt to take Osugi's life, and Noe Ito's attempt to stop it. The menage-a-trois struggle against each other for what seems like an hour, each party bringing into play their own histories, thoughts on Osugi, anarchism, and the zeitgeist. Yoshida films this and every other sequence in the film in a theatrical form (taken form kabuki, noh?), one which is ultimately successful unlike Kinoshita Keisuke's attempt at doing something similar in The Ballad of Narayama.

Although I still can't quite proclaim that this work matches the genius seen in the films of Kobayashi Masaki (who came too early to be part of the movement) or Teshigahara Hiroshi, Yoshida Yoshishige has definitely become one of my favorite directors of the Japanese New Wave because no other director in that movement took himself as seriously as Yoshida. He presents a serious historical observation, compares it with the situation of his current time, and fuses it all with a perfectionist aesthetic. The direction of the film could throw some viewers off because it is very avant-garde. Yoshida has no interest in depicting anything in a straightforward way, this is even obvious by his highly unnatural camera placement. Though having a few minor errors, this is quite a masterpiece, another gem in an era of Japanese cinema that the world has decided to ignore.

Mother Joan of the Angels

2007-12-28T14:25:00.000-08:00

Every blue moon, I stumble across a rare gem. Occasionally, I am so impressed by it that I feel an obligation to make noise on the subject in an effort to lift it out of its obscurity. This is the case with a Polish film that I watched yesterday, Mother Joan of the Angels.

I first read about the film in an essay on the Art Theatre Guild. The ATG was chain of arthouse theatres in Japan, which was founded in the early 1960's. Mother Joan of the Angels was the first film to play in an ATG theater. For those unfamiliar with the ATG, along with being a chain of cinemas, it was also responsible for producing several masterpieces of late 60's/early 70's, independent Japanese cinema, such as Funeral Parade of Roses, Death by Hanging, Double Suicide, Eros Plus Massacre, Throw Away Your Books: Rally in the Streets, Inferno of First Love, Ecstasy of the Angels, This Transient Life, and A Man Vanishes.

Mother Joan of the Angels is very unique because of its rarity. Like the Japanese movement known as Nuberu Bagu, which includes the directors of the above-mentioned films, the group of filmmakers known as the Polish Film School have yet to receive a great deal international representation. Andrzej Wajda is the forerunner of this movement. His war trilogy of the 1950's is quite well-known, and he, along with many of Poland's best directors, were educated at the Lodz Film School. The director of M.J.A., Jerzy Kawalerowicz, is also associated with the Polish Film School, but I was unable to determine what film school he was trained in. Yet, there is a high possibility that it was at Lodz.

This Polish production from 1961 is a sort of anachronistic sequel to Ken Russell's The Devils. Although Russell's film was released in 1971, this motion picture chronicles events that took place after the death of Father Grandier. Grandier was burned at the stake on accusations of witchcraft by the Church, and Mother Joan of the Angels deals with the further attempts to exorcise the demons from Mother Joan and the nuns of her convent.

The protagonist of the film is Father Suryn, an exorcist who has been called to the convent because of his experience. He, unlike Father Grandier, is a very pious, humble priest, and is confronted by a faith-challenging atmosphere immediately upon entering the town. Although based on a true story in the town of Loudon, this film redistributes the events in an undisclosed Polish village. During Father Suryn's first encounter with Mother Joan, the director creates a palpable sexual tension between them, a problem which will continually present itself throughout the course of the film.

Further information will have to be curtailed, as I intended this summation to be for those who have not seen the film. The themes of exorcism may appear morbid for some, but the author's concerns lie more within human pathos than the supernatural. This almost represents the Eastern European link between such austere, religious auteurs as Dreyer, Bresson, and Bergman. Kawalerowicz's fluid, subjective camera, and masterful montage is sure to leave many viewers amazed. There are many fascinating ideas presented about the cause of possession, but I will leave the viewer to discover them.

Also, I must warn the reader not to purchase the Region-2 Second Run DVD. Based on the screenshots from the review on DVDBeaver.com, the Facets DVD, the version I viewed, is of much higher quality. The world must really be upside-down when Facets is the company to make the superior DVD. Their track record leaves much to be desired, to say the least.

I was extremely impressed by this feature, but I hesitate to call it a masterpiece, for the simple fact that I haven't seen anything else by Jerzy Kawalerowicz. It was also quite coincidental that I saw this film on the day that he died. Polart has released several of his features in Region-1, and there is a Region-2 release of his 1966 film, Pharaoh, which is stirring up quite a bit of anticipation within me.

Pierrot le Fou - New 35mm Print Via Janus Films

2007-06-24T10:39:00.000-07:00

I'm so jealous, particularly because Godard's film won't be playing in a cinema anywhere near my part of the country. I had to resort to an old VHS to see it, but it was worth it. The film was funny, intelligent, and idiosyncratic. In the 60's, Godard's talent was steadily augmenting, and he reached an aesthetic apotheosis with Weekend. May 1968 had a crippling effect on Godard. His earlier creative muscle went away with de Gaulle's government. His subsequent work seems to be more didactic, even more so than what he did in the 60's. Watching films like For Ever Mozart or In Praise of Love is more like sitting in a university lecture hall than being in a cinema. But I admire Godard for going in this direction because at least it shows some cinematic evolution on his part. As much as I love Antonioni, sometimes he just repeats himself. But Antonioni is the best facsimile of himself because he has learned himself better than anyone. Watching his segment in Eros, "The Dangerous Thread of Things", was enjoyable, but ultimately felt like self-indulgence on the auteur's end.

Well, it's time to close my critical evaluation of these European cineastes. Pierrot le Fou is being re-released in theatres, and I predicate that a new, gorgeous Criterion DVD will be here in the States by this time next year.

Mondo candido (1975)

2007-06-23T23:13:00.001-07:00

This movie has it all! There's sex, violence, and philosophy. It's an epic surreal arthouse/exploitation/comedy adventure. Most noteworthy about the film is how littered it is with gorgeous yet cartoonish symbolism and props. It's like something out of El Topo combined with Monty Python. The humor in the film is lighthearted, intelligent, and morbid at the same time. I really can't describe this movie in words and do it justice. It's an amazing experience that has to be seen to be believed. The plot is simple, it's just about a guy searching literally the whole world for his lover but so much craziness goes on in between. From my understanding this film was inspired by a Voltaire novel too. There's no official release of this movie that is attainable. The only release you can get is a bootleg, which has custom subtitles since no other version was ever translated. You can order it off this place: http://www.lfvw.com/mondo_candidodvdr.html

Update: Clips from Akio Jissoji's Mujo

2007-06-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

Now, I finally have the equipment needed to play import DVD's, and seeing these clips confirms my choice for which discs will be my first purchases. There is a large boxset of Jissoji's early films available in Japan. I believe it is an 8-disc set, and includes all his films with the Art Theatre Guild. I will attempt to write a thorough review on these films once I see them, but my most recent obligations are to write "homemade retrospective" essays on Toshio Matsumoto and Shuji Terayama.

Some of these clips might be quite dark, and sorry, no English subtitles.

Follow-Up to the Akio Jissoji Post: Trailer for Mandara (1971)

2007-06-16T00:29:00.000-07:00

iskander80 is now my favorite YouTube user. He has uploaded the trailer for Akio Jissoji's Mandara, and I have e-mailed him to request more trailers from Jissoji's early art films. And now, thanks to Paul Berry at the University of Washington, I have found an article on Mandara, along with other articles on Nuberu Bagu films, all concerning sexuality in 70s Japanese cinema.

Warning: This trailer contains nudity.

Xala (1975)

2007-06-11T20:29:00.000-07:00

Today, June 11 2007, African filmmaker Ousmane Sembene passed away at the age of 84. I just remembered I've seen one of his films, Xala, a long time ago. I'm sketchy on details (cause it's been so long since I watched it) but it was a really good political satire comedy from what I remember. There was a character with impotence, which I believe was an allegory about the system and power. The end is very disgusting yet so hilarious and probably the one thing that you'll remember the most after watching this film. It's not the most challenging film, but the viewer does have to stay focused to really get into it. If you want a really strange African film though to see how complex African cinema could be, I'd suggest "Touki Bouki", which I didn't understand and was confused by. Well anyways, Xala is pretty accessible cause it is a comedy at the core but not too simple, that's a good thing. It's a nice start if you want to get into Sembene's films. This one is out on DVD in the US, although I see the DVD cost around $20 so try to rent or borrow it if you're low on cash.

Looking for Akio Jissoji: The Early Films With the Art Theatre Guild

2007-05-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

Avid film fans will always confront the same dilemma at one point or another: many of the films we wish to see are not readily available. This happens far more times than necessary when searching for foreign cinema, and it is an axiom with Asian cinema. By far, the director whose work I wish to see most is Akio Jissoji (1937 - 2006). Jissoji would probably be completely unknown in the West, if it were not for his direction of the extremely popular Ultraman series.

I first became aware of Akio Jissoji through Roland Domenig's review of his first feature film, This Transient Life. Domenig likened this film to the work of Robert Bresson and Carl Theodor Dreyer. The reviewer constructed these comparisons from a religious context because Buddhism is a major theme in This Transient Life. Jissoji applies the use of perpetually moving camera to convey the Buddhist idea of transience. The film did acheive some international recognition when it won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival. It also became successful in Japan in the cinemas owned by the Art Theatre Guild. Consequently, Akio Jissoji joined the ranks of Kazuo Kuroki and Shuji Terayama, and the three became the most popular directors in the Art Theatre Guild in the 1970s.

Akio Jissoji went on to direct three more films with the Art Theatre Guild: Mandara (Mandala, 1971), Uta (Poem, 1972), and Asaki Yumemishi (Lived in a Dream, Life of a Court Lady, It Was a Faint Dream, 1974). Unfortunately, there are no professional reviews of these three films, albeit a reader review on the IMDB of Mandala. There is very little information available on his last two films with the ATG. According to the above-mentioned review by Domenig, Poem contains religious and philosophical themes, and the BFI database page describes Life of a Court Lady as a Kamakura-period piece with religious themes.

Although this filmmaker has been forgotten in the West, there is some hope for those who are interested. Pioneer and Geneon have released Region 2 DVDs for most of his films, but as with many Japanese releases there are no English subtitles. Because of Jissoji's recent death, there have been eulogies written on certain science fictions websites, but these are mainly concerned with his work on Ultraman. Possibly, one day we will read about a Jissoji retrospective occuring somewhere outside of Japan. Japanese new wave cinema hasn't received much attention internationally, but recently there have been a few sparks of hope. Yoshishige "Kiju" Yoshida was honored with a complete retrospective at the 27th Sao Paulo International Film Festival in 2003. Earlier this year, the Febio Film Festival in Prague featured several Nuberu Bagu films including Kazuo Kuroki's Preparation for the Festival. It may take a long time, but I feel that Jissoji and his contemporaries will receive the appreciation that they deserve.

Here is a link to find some beautiful screenshots from his early films.

Unlucky Monkey (1998)

2007-05-13T21:18:00.000-07:00

Why isn't director Sabu more well known? Every movie of his I've seen is "Top 10 favorite movies of all time" worthy for me. The most popular thing he's ever done was an acting part in "Ichi the Killer". That's a shame because "Unlucky Monkey" is a way better movie on so many levels! For those of you unfamiliar with him, Sabu's films mix dark humor, screwed-up drama, ironic situtations, philosophy, and some bloody action/violence. Also his stories are not linear, as in it doesn't follow the "plot A to plot B, the end" formula. Rather, the entire movie starts with a character who's one action triggers a continous unpredictable chain reaction that eventually snowballs into an over-the-top strange moment. In the case of "Unlucky Monkey", this chain reaction starts off with a bank robbery. Only 1 of the 3 robbers survives and gets away with the crime. This one survivor accidentally kills a woman though as he ran like hell with a knife in hand. He never got caught for the murder either but his guilt gets the best of him, giving him depressing psychological turmoil as he tries to rationalize the whole ordeal. Somehow his path crosses with some yakuzas that were in some pretty deep shit. You have to discover the ironic twists of fate and how these characters coincide with one another on your own because all the fun is in seeing the unpredictable mess of a life these guys have unfold and crash. Sure there is a decent amount of bleeding throughout the film thanks to gun violence, even a guy's crotch get shot, but don't expect a non-stop Jon Woo style gunfest. A large percentage of this movie's strength is from the philosophy explored in a very natural way that anyone alive can relate to, not just some pretentious scholars. If you haven't seen a Sabu film yet, this ones a good one to start off with.