Cinema Talk

I’ve seen a few samurai films already, but I went into this thinking of it as somewhat of an introduction, and boy, what a way to get acquainted not only with a whole genre, but with a wonderful director in Hideo Gosha. Had I seen this film about a year ago, I probably would have hated it, but it feels like a comfortable “next step” from the powerful and personal westerns that Anthony Mann and Budd Boetticher made in the 1950s. Gosha’s style is a bit more kinetic compared to their contemplative tone, but I still can’t help but see some sort of connection. Perhaps the only relation is in the fact that all three made beautiful genre films that are ten times more complex than the works of their colleagues.

This film, unlike those Boetticher or Mann westerns, is definitely an action film. It ends with an action sequence and closes with an action sequence, yet Gosha deserves lots of attention for the careful way in which he balances his characters, their relationships, the fighting sequences within a slightly conventional plot device. Essentially the main character, Gennosuke, is running away from his revenge-hungry samurai comrades after killing their clan minister. In the mountains, he gets mixed up with a couple and their search for gold. All these elements collide in the final twenty minutes for one of the most legitimately exciting, but also beautifully photographed, action sequences in all of cinema.

I’ll admit it, this isn’t a completely arty or humanistic masterpiece. There is lot of action and plenty of plot related sequences that I would almost always be irritated by, but Gosha molds his content beautifully. In a decade filled with formal experiments, even in Japan alone, Gosha stands quite tall among a more respected director like Yoshishige Yoshida. This film lacks the superb editing of The Affair, but it does have a very similar visual style. There’s only so many ways to say a film looks fantastic, but man, this is really a fantastic looking film. Kazuo Ikehiro’s even more underrated In a Ring of Mountains would be a good reference point, but Gosha is far more mobile with his camera.

At a mere 85 minutes, Gosha’s movie feels a tad bit short and maybe even a little bit underdeveloped but I think the short scope and length plays to his advantage. As I already mentioned, this is a very energy-fueled film. There is always something interesting going on – be it the cinematography, the characters, or the absurd nature of the samurai code which Gosha seems to be poking fun at, at a sub-Buñuel level. With this in mind, we never feel setteled in to the movie, which could be a negative element in a more straight-forward character drama, but it seems to perfectly echo what Gosha is aiming for. Hopefully, Gosha’s other films are just as confidently crafted.

Christian Petzold, I hope you’re taking notes, this is how you make a simple and effective multi-character drama. More importantly, Ann Hui has finally lived up to the promise she showed in the great July Rhapsody. The other two films of hers that I’ve seen, Goddess of Mercy and Visible Secret, certainly aren’t bad, but they are definitely going in the opposite direction of the extremely gentle and real sensibility of July Rhapsody and this film. If there’s any problem I can think of Hui’s two masterpieces, it’s that they are a bit too fragile, nice, and understated but that is exactly what makes both films so special.

I suppose comparisons to Ozu are inevitable seeing as this is slow, Asian, and a movie about family, but I don’t want to make it sound like I’m selling Hui short. She’s not nearly as formally rigorous after all, even though there are a few very nice “minimalistic” touches in this film. The strength of her film has little to do with the technical, though. It obviously has more to do with the characters, all of whom are incredibly easy to understand and equally easy to like. Calling the story “undramatic” seems like an empty gesture, the simple and non-contrived way in which the characters interact is so impressive that it can’t be explained by words.

Perhaps I should back up a little bit. The film concerns itself with three characters, Cheung, her son, and an elderly women that she befriends. The dynamic between all three is fresh, to say the least, but is also one that seems so random and odd that it builds another level of realism. There’s nothing dramatic hiding underneath their conversations, like there is in Wolfsburg, because they have no phony “psychology” to attempt to explain the way they are. It’s difficult to explain why the film works, but needless to say, it absolutely does.

I hate to continue describing the tone as undramatic, and unforced as it builds a slightly incorrect image of a film that is extremely slow and inaccessible, but this is anything but. I have a hard time believing anyone would be able to find this boring, even though it is so devoid of plot. There’s many elements that look like they could go the way of being a conventional dramatic device, such as Cheung’s mother being in the hospital, but nothing ever extends to the point of being considered a typical film conflict. Maybe this would all be a bit mundane, but the sense of intimacy that Hui creates is unlike any I’ve ever seen attempted. The film feels so achingly personal, as though it was it just a project that she intended to show to only friends and family.

On a much more pedestrian note, the HD cinematography looks absolutely gorgeous here. I may still prefer good ole’ celluloid, but this film along with Jia Zhang-Ke’s Still Life and Liew Seng Tat’s Flowers in the Pocket show just how great the potential is for this format. It certainly helps in this case to have that wonderful blue-heavy saturation that all modern Hong Kong “art” films seem to inherent. As far as form goes, Hui isn’t really all that strict. She seems to juggle close steadicam sequences with gorgeous Tsai-worthy static shots. No doubt, this is one of the best-looking films of 2008 as well as one of the best overall.

While this is certainly a lot better than Christian Petzold’s later film Yella, it is also still a far cry from his great Gespenster. Watching this film was actually a much more frustrating experience than watching Yella, only because it confirmed some of my worst fears about Petzold as a filmmaker. Sure, Yella has just as many if not more absurd dramatic touches as this film, but I guess I was convinced they were just a one time thing for Petzold. Judging from the last ten minutes of this film, Petzold is just really interested in completely silly dramatic turns. To his credit, he does have these overly-dramatic sequences progress in a very unassuming manner. Still, I can only wish that his dramatic sensibility was as subtle as his visuals.

Petzold does actually set the audience up for the worst (in terms of shrill-ness) by opening his film with a sequence of the main character, Phillip Wagner, accidentally hitting a kid in the middle of an empty road. He drives off from the accident, though, and the film seems to drive off from the melodramatic nonsense with him. While the small child is left abandon on the side of the road, we are introduced to his mother, Laura. The accident, as one can expect, has a very polarizing effect on her, but her son seems to get better with time.

From here, the film gives a very unhurried examination of the lives of both characters, Phillip and Laura. There is this very genuine, unforced sense of sadness echoing through the uneventful (the opening accident aside) lives of every character. Petzold’s visuals aren’t quite up to the level with the directors he seems to be taking ques from, but there are some flashes of brilliance in a few distant static shots that seem to come out of Edward Hopper paintings. Tsai Ming-Liang can do this for a whole movie, probably, but that’s exactly why he is such a brilliant filmmaker. Petzold’s visual accomplishments are very incredible, even though they are far from overwhelming.

The last ten minutes or so are completely ridiclous and an embarrassment to any film made by a filmmaker who is as obviously talented as Petzold. It all makes sense, though. Even Gespenster had a really silly b-plot (though maybe it was the main story in Petzold’s mind) involving the main character’s parents. It seems the minor problems I’ve had with all of Petzold’s film up to this point have not been odd, unplanned lapses into melodrama, but instead planned attempts to be shocking. Bruno Dumont does this sort of thing in his films, but the difference is that his films are actually somewhat shocking, while the conclusion to Petzold’s is just laughable.

My first encounter with Alain Tanner didn’t necessarily blow me away, but it did leave enough of an impression to still be interested in more of his films. It was especially nice to see such a gentle and laidback romance after watching Ken Loach’s energetic and dramatic Family Life. Tanner’s character treatment is almost the polar opposite, perhaps to the point that the film is too fragile and/or understanding for its own good. In a way, Tanner’s formally strict sensibility and his compassionate humanity bring to mind the great Yasujiro Ozu. Perhaps once I see more from Tanner, I’ll “get” him enough to appreciate his films on the same level as Ozu’s, but for now, I just see this as a nice film.

As I already mentioned, Tanner is very strict and straight-forward with his camera movements, which gives one the feeling that the filmmaker is very confident in his aesthetic. It’s the sort of minimalism that gives certain films a type of technical foundation. Tanner sticks to incredibly slow tracking and static shots that seem to be almost accidentally capturing moments shared between two people who seem to be blissfully in love. At the same time, it’s given an almost robotic pattern of making its small movements, which does threaten to spoil much of the film’s “life.”

Thankfully, the two leads, Olimpia Carlisi and Philippe Léotard, fit perfectly into Tanner’s very downplayed and simple cinematic universe. They do become tedious when their together since almost all of their encounters, at least in the first half-hour, are pretty close to being cliché French film café talk. Indeed, one of the biggest personal problems I have with this film is its slightly “talky” nature, which clashes heavily with the extremely slow camera movements. Still, it is very interesting to watch the relationship between Paul and Adriana unfold, if only because it does so in a very natural manner. Her role isn’t all that important, but it is nice to see Juliet Berto, a Rivette alum, make a few somewhat comedic appearances.

Unfortunately, Tanner’s visual style isn’t going to get him any praise, at least not from me. It’s a shame that most of the film sticks to a dull greenish/brown-ish pallete as there seems to be so many opportunities for fantastic images. Instead, the potential is lost within the film’s dull color scheme. In a way, the visuals do remind me of the films Angelopolous made in the 1980s, but much worse. The slow tracking shots certainly don’t hurt this comparison. Whatever the case, I think there is still something interesting in Angelopolous’ visual style, but I can’t say the same for Tanner. There are a few glimpses of beauty, most of which are showcased in these screenshots, but they are certainly not the film’s norm.

A big step-up from Cathy Comes Home but I still have some problems with Ken Loach’s type of cinema. In both films I’ve seen from him, he starts out with some intriguing, if not completely successful attempts at formal experimentation, but at some point in each film, everything drops and Loach comes too comfortable in the realm of shakycam ‘n arguing. This is not a problem for me, especially when the film’s performers are as excellent as they are here, but Loach’s aesthetic seems to be completely lost on me over the certain period of time. Cassavetes could (and did) film people arguing intensely for two and a half hours, but it was still completely captivating. Loach does the same for only a hundred minutes, but has to crawl to reach the finish line.

Loach starts this film in almost the same way as Cathy Comes Home. The first twenty minutes or so, of both films, are extremely impressive. In Family Life in particular, Loach perfects this slightly odd technique of putting the dialogue over completely random and unrelated images. This sounds slightly forced, but it really saves the film from being a talkative bogged down mess, well at least it does so for awhile. Oddly enough, the tonal transition is marked by an extremely long head shot of a character answering a psychiatrist’s questions.

At this point, Loach’s interest in creative montages seem to disappear and straight-forward naturalism takes over. Again, I have no problem with this approach, but I find Loach’s borderline conventional dramatic sensibility creeping into the pacing. Sure, A Woman Under the Influence had prolonged sequences of arguing and/or fighting, but there was just as many sequences like the ones of Peter Falk’s children drinking his beer. Loach’s film isn’t consistently brutal like say, The Life of Oharu, but even that film occasionally offers glimmers of hope. One gets the sense that the protagonist here is on a never-ending downward spiral.

I suppose Loach’s status as a “socially-concious” filmmaker reflects this structure, but it would also be going a bit too far to say his characters are simply pawns for a sociological statement. At the same time, I can’t really say that he seems to care all that much for his characters, either. This is where, how, and why the actors save the film. The lead, Sandy Ratcliff as the emotionally and mentally complicated young Janice is simply amazing to watch. Nevermind the fact that she is (very) beautiful, she also perfectly reinforces the type of frustration that her parents feel. Without her superb performance, her father, played by Bill Dean, would see more like the dad in Broken Blossoms. Instead, he’s a bit closer to one in A nos amours. The film itself is tedious and certainly far from perfect, but it is worthwhile simply for some fantastic performances.