切腹 (小林正樹, 1962) 4
Harakiri or Seppuku (Masaki Kobayashi, 1962)
On 35mm at the Pacific Film Archive, with Lucía, Dick, Ben, Sunny, Barbara, and Oscar, on 3 December, 2006, at 18:40.
In Seppuku, Kobayashi does a good job of having his cake and eating it too. The film is a withering critique of samurai ideals, of ideas of nobility predicated on position and circumstance rather than character, of making life-or-death decisions based on snap judgements and character generalizations rather than the situation at hand, and even of accepting the truth of history as it is handed down to us. Yet at the same time, we are given top-notch swordplay and bloodshed and a good and noble character to root for. What more could we ask for a film? In this case, I feel that Kobayashi managed to take the premise and work through it to utmost effect. The layers are unpeeled slowly over the course of the film, giving great weight to the kernel inside. In many ways I was reminded of Hero, only I felt that the way that the story slowly worked its way out like a Rubix cube was much more engaging (Hero I found pretty tedious), and the kernel itself was something I felt much more valuable (in Hero we learn that it’s worth sacrificing lives for… the one true China?).
If there’s a better samurai film out there, I don’t think I’ve seen it.
(***)
リリイ・シュシュのすべて (岩井俊二, 2001) 1
All About Lily Chou-Chou (Shunji Iwai, 2001)
at home on DVD, with Lucía, Margarita, and Ana. 04 September, 2006, at 23:00 or so.
It’s hard not to compare Lily Chou-chou to a number of other films. Like Kids (and A Clockwork Orange and Los olvidados and probably a number of other films), it focusses on out-of-control children destroying each others’ and other children’s lives with what seems pretty close to a total absence of auth0rity. Like 400 Blows, it’s a film that fairly intensely follows the development of a child’s psyche and sense of self as he grows up without any compelling adult role models. I’m sure I’m not even close to being the first person to make these comparisons.
The main character observes and somewhat passively participates in a number of atrocious events (including, famously, the ongoing coerced prostitution of a fellow classmate), mostly because he is pushed upon by an older, stronger, more charismatic boy that he feels an affinity for. He is able to distance himself from real-world events through his obsession with a pop artist (Lily Chou-chou) for which he runs and online community.
Even if I didn’t like the film much as a whole, there’s a lot to like in the film. It explores topics of alienation and severe bullying and violence amongst schoolchildren, which I’m to understand is a very serious problem in Japan these days (whether it’s significantly on the rise, or whether people are becoming more aware of it is a matter that I’m unclear on). It views these events very much from an internal perspective. Kids does too, in its own way, but it seems to intend neither to show us why the characters behave the way they do nor to draw us to sympathize with or understand their lives and choices. Lily Chou-chou, on the other hand, draws us into the whole psychological development that sets these situations up, which is valuable, as it gives us a kind of plausible explanation through which we can see how such horrific events can come about.
Where I part ways with the film is in its extremely conventional approach to storytelling, particularly when it jars with any realist value that I see in the film. The ending, as some review I read pointed out, could have come from a Hitchcock film. The character of Hoshino, who leads our protagonist down the garden path, conveniently comes to personify some combination of evil and insanity, and we are given a cathartic release from all the bad that he is done. When the film comes to a close, people still have to pick up their lives, and they may never succeed, but at least the reign of terror is over, and there’s a lot of release to be had from that.
I always appreciate symbolism, metaphor, irony, and other clever literary virtues in films, probably because I feel clever when I detect them—but I can’t stand their unrealistic application in a work that seems to want to tell me something about the real world. It’s as though the director were winking at me; I find it detracts from the representational value of the film, which feels like it is supposed to be the most important aspect of Lily Chou-chou. So when I see that Hoshino has destroyed Hasumi’s CD, or that Hoshino has effectively expelled Hasumi from the glorious ether by giving him an apple, I get kind of annoyed. They are clever tricks, to be sure, but what are they doing in a film about struggling to come of age when you have no way to make the right decisions and no one to turn to (or rather, the person you turn to turns out to be the worst of all)?
I do like the non-professional piano on the soundtrack. I’ve always been deeply bothered by really slick musicianship from amateur characters in films.
So what does the film leave us with, in my view? A pretty good telling of a pretty interesting story about a very important topic. It could have been done much better in a million ways, but the fact that it hasn’t been means that the film occupies an important niche.
(**)
ドールズ (北野 武, 2002)
Dolls (Kitano Takeshi, 2002)
at home on DVD with Lucía. 21 August 2006, at around 21:00 or so.
When I go crazy from a failed suicide attempt, those around me will neglect their own personal hygiene in order to better provide me with designer clothing and to keep up my regular hair-lightening schedule at the salon. I will repay them by being ridiculously pathetic and cute.
Certainly the oddest Kitano film I’ve seen. I rather liked the slow pacing and the tremendously pathetic ways in which the characters behaved.
雨月物語 (溝口健二, 1953)
Ugetsu monogatari (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953)
on 35mm at the Pacific Film Archive, with Lucía, Ruchi, Aman, and Yuko. 18 August, 2006, at 20:45.
Quite a beautiful film, with virtuosic camerawork. Mizoguchi goes out of his way to impress with shots like the one in which the general commits seppuku just out of view of the camera (behind a tree), and when the camera comes around, his body has been replaced with a headless dummy. Or when Genjuro returns home to find his house dark and empty–the camera pulls outside of the house, follows him as he walks out the back door and as he walks around and back in again, this time with his wife sitting there in a pool of light. I’d have to see them again to be sure, but I remember them being single shots.
The story feels as though it was pieced together from old fables. Clearly Mizoguchi is trying to impress upon us the way that men destroy women’s lives (or let them be destroyed through their own selfishness and delusions). Clearly there is a message about accepting one’s lot and not letting ambition get in the way of family and more practical matters (such as preparing for the arrival of an invading army). Also, one should not let oneself be seduced by ghosts, unless one is willing to go through with them fully into the other world.
浪華悲歌 (溝口健二, 1936)
Osaka Elegy (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1936)
on 35mm at the Pacific Film Archive, with Lucía, Dick, Aman, Ruchi, Ben, Yuko, and Roberto. 18 August, 2006, at 19:00.
A woman cannot convince her suitor to take care of her father’s 300円 debt, so she lets the company president (who is eager to jump into bed with her) take her on as his mistress. When that dries up (his wife finds out), and she finds out that her brother needs 200円 to finish school, she coaxes the money out of another executive, though the father gambles it away, presumably—it never gets to the brother. When she refuses to sleep with him, she is arrested and her name scandalized. Her family kicks her out because of the shame, and thus ends another Mizoguchi fable. I love these old Japanese films, and this one has the added benefit of strong Osaka dialect (ほんまや!).