Cinema Talk

A very minor film in Hiroshi Shimizu’s filmography, but still a fairly good film none the less. It gets a lot of watchability points for being interesting, as opposed to legitimately great. Any film that has a young Chishu Ryu as a soldier in training is almost inherently entertaining, at least to me. There’s plenty of the usual Shimizu formal goodness to go around as well, but it never comes together than being an exceptional formal exercise for one of cinema’s most under appreciated geniuses. It’s probably a bit too light-hearted for its own good, though. Shimizu’s work tends to be extremely likable, but I think this was a bit uneventful, even for his standards.

The little dramatic tones that are present are mostly build around a seemingly non-violent rivalry between Ryu and Shuji Sano. This rivalry is fueled by Ryu’s own desire to be the faster runner of the two. Towards the end, things get a bit more complicated when Sano begins spending time with a woman who may or may not be a prostitute, but in the end, everything works out and the two rivals seem to have a more friendly relationship. It’s a very Shimizu sort of story: there’s a conflict, a very undramatic one, and he somehow manages to create wonderful moments within something so devoid of typical storytelling elements.

Watching this did remind me how much of a “comedic” director Shimizu really is, and how he is probably my favorite type of filmmaker. This may be underselling his technical brilliance but I think he deserves to be mentioned alongside Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. Placing him with Jacques Tati is a little more accurate, though Shimizu was far more prolific than Tati and probably not nearly as meticulous. Whatever the case, this film is really quite funny and it is so in a way that is so unique to Shimizu’s type of cinema. His gags are rather difficult to explain and I don’t really feel like giving them away for a film that is only 64 minutes long, but they are really quite memorable.

Adding another dimension of comedy is the fact that this film was actually Shimizu’s response to Shochiku’s demand for a propaganda film. There are many films that were made as “propaganda” but were obviously intended to be the exact opposite. Such films make one think “how did the studio not notice this was not at all what they were looking for?” but part of this film’s charm is how slyly Shimizu masks his jokes as pro-government sentiments. It’s subversive, but it is still easy to see how it was mistakened as a government-approved depiction of military life.

Masahiro Shinoda’s film marks the second part of my on-going and informal samurai mini-marathon. It is every bit as great as Hideo Gosha’s Sword of the Beast, but it is almost a completely different type of film. Judging by his (highly enjoyable) interviews, Shinoda is definitely something of a cinematic scholar. He just seems to have a good deal of cinematic knowledge, which he doesn’t mind displaying throughout this film. It’s not that he indulges himself in any “tributes” or “homages” a la Tarantino, but this film just feels like the work of someone who truly loves film.

Where Gosha’s film is certainly energetic, if not a sponteanous experience, Shinoda’s is a bit more contemplative. Both films have lovely visuals, but Shinoda seems to have devoted a lot more attention to his compositions. His very montage-driven editing style seems like it would be going against the grain of a film filled mostly with precise long static shots, but it works in this case. Calling this a Wong Kar-Wai samurai film might be a little of a stretch, but it certainly evokes Wong’s unique romantic aesthetic more than a few times. In fact, the aforementioned precise static shot seem to anticipate Wong’s 2046, if only in a very minor way.

Shinoda, again unlike Gosha, seems to devote a lot of time to giving his characters some substance. Taking this and the slower pace into account, Shinoda’s film comes a lot closer to being the Japanese version of Anthony Mann or Budd Boetticher. They were my own critical starting points for Sword of the Beast but the only real similarity lies in the concept of making an arty genre film. Shinoda is clearly operating on his own wavelength here, but it is easy to see that the influence of the American has impacted him.

Unfortunately for the film, it’s formal experimentation is all a part of a very dry and complicated story involving an endless cast of characters talking at an almost non-stop rate. There are some very nice moments where Shinoda has the characters shut up in favor of his wonderful compositions, but soon the next plot point comes up and there’s another fifteen minutes of nothing but talking. It doesn’t make the film an outright failure, but it does prevent it from reaching its potential. Whatever the case, this is easily the most impressive effort I’ve seen from Masahiro Shinoda. I’m definitely a lot more interested in seeing his other work now.

All of the strengths and some of the weaknesses of Ichikawa’s An Actor’s Revenge apply here. Overall, I’d say this is definitely the better movie, though it is unfortunately nowhere close to being on the same level as Fires on the Plain. Formally, the film represents Ichikawa at the most formally assured point in his career, as well as the high point in his writing collaborations with his wife, Kogo Nada. The cast is pretty fantastic too, but I guess there isn’t really enough “substance” there for any emotional impact to be felt. It is pretty good, but perhaps slightly hallow as well.

This is none the less, a very watchable movie. It is suppose to be a “dark comedy” of sorts and even though it isn’t nearly as funny as say, Ozu’s funniest work, it does manage to bring its own sort of absurd complicated humor. There are shades of Buñuel, but there isn’t quite enough comedy there to ever make it feel as though the film is actually all that satirical. I am a big fan of “gallows humor” and even though the subject matter requests some serious thought, this is nothing all that “dark.” In a way, this makes the film somewhat more realistic, but not more likable.

For as visually stunning as the film occasionally is, it’s the performances that really carry the weight. It’s not exactly an actor-driven movie, but it isn’t exactly a formally-driven movie, either, which gives it a slightly middle-brow (by the standards of Japanese art films) feeling. It is definitely impressive how Ichikawa composes his shots. Every once and awhile he will resort to Ozu style shot/reverse shots, but I guess that is the perfect lead-in for the biggest problem for the film overall. There is too much telling, not enough showing.

The most frustrating aspect of the plot-driven sensibility Ichikawa provides is that it is masked under an exceptional visual style. It’s as though he has the tools to elevate his film beyond the level of a purely contrived premise but chooses to wallow within the simplicity of his story. In all honesty, this doesn’t seem all that different from something Todd Solondz would do. To Ichikawa’s advantage, he shows a compassion for his characters that is much more respectable than Solondz’s condescending outlook. On the other hand, though, why wouldn’t Ichikawa just go and make a full-blown Ozu imitation? If he really wanted to make a cynical dark comedy, then he should have shown some signs of cynicism. I get the feeling he and Wada were far too nice to ever see their characters in a negative enough light for this film to really work. I’m glad this is the case, but I have to wonder why Ichikawa would bother with a story so shrill and potentially snark.

Anybody who has bothered to read at least a week worth of posts on my blog will know that I absolutely love Yasujiro Ozu. He’s not unquestionably my favorite director ever, but he’s definitely the first response in my head whenever such a question is posed. This is why I’m a tad bit embarrassed about the fact that only now have I gotten around to one of his most acclaimed films. Even more embarrassing is the fact that I would perhaps even go to the length of saying this film is underrated. Sure, it is well respected as one of the most familiar works of Japan’s silent era of cinema, but it is so much more than that.

As with many of his silent films, including the 1935 masterpiece An Inn in Tokyo, crafts his drama within the atmosphere of the lower class. It’s been documented that as Ozu’s career progressed, the financial state of his characters got better. There’s very little that the young family in this film superficially shares with the one in say, Tokyo Story. Even with the potential of social commentary looming, Ozu delivers one of his most complete pictures. It sounds a little hokey to attempt to sell the film from this angle, but it really does have everything. Well, at least everything that I personally look for in a film.

Needless to say, the performances here are all pretty great. Tatsuo Saito, a figure in prewar Japanese cinema, plays the father of the film’s prepubescent protagonists. Of course, Tomio Aoki plays one of the boys. This might be the defining role in his entire career. Essentially, he does the same sort of thing in An Inn in Tokyo, but I couldn’t care less. It sounds a little weird, but there is definitely something bizarre and fascinating about his face. Even one of his schoolmates observes this – “he looks like a bug.” In that sense, it’s easy to think that Harmony Korine probably watched this movie a dozen times before making Gummo.

It seems like it has been awhile since I’ve brought up Korine’s masterpiece, but it really owes a great deal of the dynamic between Jacob Reynolds and Nick Sutton to the one here between Tomio Aoki and Hideo Sugawara. There’s one particular scene in which the boys find a cigarette bud and proceed in smoking it, the sort of thing that would make Korine smile. I don’t want to underscore Ozu’s film by constantly comparing it to a movie that wouldn’t be made for another 65 years, but perhaps such an extended time span is reflective of this film’s genius.

Of course, there’s plenty of other things worth mentioning, such as a nearly perfect example of Ozu’s later aesthetic with only a few brilliantly placed tracking shots here and there. In fact, these tracking shots seem to perfectly compliment the whole “kinetic” feeling that normally is the polar opposite of the tone of an Ozu film. Obviously, both approaches work for me, but was still extremly exciting to see one of the best directors ever attempt something slightly different than usual. There’s other things worth mentioning too, like the fact that the film is seriously one of the funniest things ever. It’s a comedy, but in the exact opposite way that a silent film should be a comedy and I say that in the best possible way. There’s some Keaton-inspired gags, but they are beautifully masked in Ozu’s universe. If I haven’t made it clear yet: this is absolutely one of the best movies ever made.

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.