Cinema Talk

It’s rather difficult for me to assess this because I just seem to have a particular bias towards early 1960s Antonioni rip-offs. Calling this a rip-off is a little harsh, but it definitely can be categorized with a group of films that clearly came from a post-L’Avventura filmmaking world. Many Eastern European directors seem to have been extremely impressed with Antonioni because it seems like a good amount of the cinematic catalog from that part of the world falls into this category. This relatively unknown (and unloved) gem came a year before the first “real” film from the much more well-known auteur, Miklós Jancsó. His film is wonderful, but I have to say that this one is probably even better.

The story revolves around the break in the relationship between two alienated youths, Fajolo and Bella. The emotional climax of their relationship comes when a solar eclipse, the first in a hundred and twenty years, occurs. This is a particularly traumatic time as Bella’s mother is blind. There is some implication that the eclipse will have a big impact on everyone, and it does, well sort of, but it is quickly tossed aside. Fajolo goes to the country to make a living and in the process, falls for Jane. Bella, meanwhile, tries to cheer herself up with a much more confident and outspoken individual by the name of Pete.

The already mentioned motif involving a solar eclipse seems like a potential for laughable symbolism, but thankfully, it becomes burried beneath everything else. On the other hand, the whole “eclipse” section of the film is one of the most visually impressive stretches I’ve seen in any one film. It probably even tops its reference point (Antonioni, if you lost track) in terms of pure visual beauty. Stefan Uher seems more keen on montage than Antonioni, let alone Jancsó but he still succeeds in creating the same sort of tone. On the other hand, he isn’t quite as great as Bertolucci is in Before the Revolution when it comes to rapid-fire editing. I’d say that Uher formally exists somewhere between early Bertolucci and Antonioni, which needless to say, is definitely a very good thing.

If there’s worth complaining about here, it is that the characters, while all reliatable and (at the very least) somewhat likable, are a little bit underdevloped. Inevitable, I suppose, in a film with only a running time of ninety minutes. If you’re going to follow in Antonioni’s formal footsteps than you’re probably going to have to pace the film to the point that it is at least a little bit longer. I guess this would collide with Uher’s more montage-y technical style, but there is no doubt that this could have been a tad bit longer. Again, though, this is very minor compliant, and the quick pace doesn’t really the weigh the film down at all. For the most part, it is amazing.

Much, much better than Endless Desire, which is the only other Shohei Imamura film I’ve seen. While that was rather second-rate JNW crime drama sort of film, this film is about a hundred times more accomplished, and also about a hundred times more interesting. It doesn’t at all resemble my expectations for it, but that doesn’t really matter all that much anyway. I expected a shaky-cam jumpcut filled elliptical experience, a la Yoshishige’s The Affair, but what I got was much more deadpan and minimalistic. In a way, this does anticipate Oshima’s Shonen but ultimately, it doesn’t end up being nearly as formally rigorous. On the other hand, it is much more natural than Oshima’s film and it actually has a sense of humor, something absent in many other Japanese new wave films.

With all that said, this is unmistakeably a Japanese new wave film. Plenty of transgressive content all around, from a girl breastfeeding her father to a man sucking puss out of a woman’s leg. More importantly, there’s plenty of musical cues that are obviously intended to be jarring, but come off instead, as incredibly silly. Watching a film like this really makes one appreciate Tori Takemitsu’s musical achievements present in many of Hiroshi Teshigahara’s films. It could be argued that all he did was create abstract sounds that clashed with what was going on screen, it becomes clear when watching an imitator (like in this film) how much of a genius he was, not to mention how important he was to Teshigahara’s success.

This is only a small problem for Imamura’s film, though, as the music is only particularly obvious during the freeze-frame transitions. This is another “extremely JNW” formal element, but I’m not sure where I’ve seen before, or if I have seen it before. Regardless, Imamura’s use of still photographs is very impressive, though they are far from the scrapbook aesthetic of Harmony Korine, or even Peter Watkins. Speaking of Watkins, the obligatory demonstration footage here reminds me a little bit of him. No Japanese director in the 1960s is going to get originality points for this motif, but Imamura seems to use the footage a lot better than Oshima or Wakamatsu.

I should mention again that Imamura goes a somewhat different stylistic route than most of his peers. While Oshima would go on to make films with longer static shots than the ones in this film, his films wouldn’t have the naturalistic tone of Imamura’s. While the film is composed in the vein of Tsai and/or Kaurismaki, the story itself unfolds in a much more dialogue-driven way. There’s lots of talking here, which would be a problem if the performances weren’t all around fantastic. It’s especially impressive when one considers that the film spans more than forty years, yet does so in a way that is not completely gloomy or sluggish. In a way, the story is a little bit like Mizoguchi’s Life of Oharu. As beautiful as that film is, I’ll always find the consistent dark tone a little too much. Imamura is not nearly as relentless in displaying his dramatic turns.

One of the reasons why the emotionally violent outbursts don’t bother me here is because Imamura’s purely observational camera gives said outbursts a slightly pathetic humor to them. This isn’t a Paul Morrissey movie, but it does feel like one at certain times, even with the  obvious dictohmy in formal qualities. Fittingly enough, there is a scene here where a secondary character shoots up heroin and it is oddly humorous because it happens in a completely natural way. Calling it a Tsai version of a Morrissey film is an exaggeration, but the work of both directors came to my mind many times during the viewing. Hopefully, Imamura’s other films have the same sort of brilliant balance between the comedic, the tragic, and the formal.