Recent Posts
Josee, The Tiger and The Fish Poster
Josee, The Tiger and The Fish is not a spin-off of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but is the story of the relationship that develops between a handicapped paraplegic young woman named Josee (played by the ever-so cute Chizuru Ikewaki – Strawberry Shortcakes) and a university student named Tsuneo (Satoshi Tsumabuki – Dororo). Tsuneo is a run of the mill university student as he enjoys to drink, party and sleep around when he is not studying or working at his part time job at a mah-jong parlour. One day at work he hears some customers talking about the strange old lady who is seen pushing a pram around town, when supposedly her child died ten years prior. This leads to various speculations as to what is being concealed in the pram, and guesses range from a mummified version of her dead child to drugs. It is Tusneo who is the first to find out, as when asked to take out his bosses’ dog for a walk he steadies the pram of which the old woman loses grip of. He peaks inside only to have a young woman thrust at him with a knife. This is Josee and apparently she has the knife to defend herself against any curious onlookers who decide to “attack” her. This meeting is the first step in a very touching relationship as after being invited back to Josee and her grandmother’s run down house, Josee makes him some food which Tsuneo finds delicious, although Josee at this point is very curt and disdainful towards the student, possibly because of her isolated existence, kept company only by a withering grandma and the hundreds of books that she collects for Josee to read from their neighbours’ rubbish bins.
A withdrawn Josee
As Tsuneo begins to visit Josee on a daily basis he must also contend with his life outside of that little household, moreover with a girl he has started to see romantically named Kanae; who by all standards is very sweet and considerate. In fact it is her ambition to be a social worker that leads her to advising Tsuneo on renovating Josee’s house at a discount, but her good will doesn’t last long as Josee steals away Tusneo from Kanae leaving her bitter and with sharpened fingernails.
Tsuneo with Kanae
Other characters include Koji a man who was at the same orphanage as Josee and of whom he ran away with as a child. He is a very obnoxious and rude character, and when he is visited by Josee he constantly threatens to kick her ass and to shut up, not because of any genuine hatred for her but more along the lines of a sibling disharmony, and the fact that he is still an immature vandal. There is also Tsuneo’s younger brother who plays a kind but cool guitar shop employee, making sure his older brother is well fed whilst dating girls who aren’t afraid to parade their right to be nude in front of others. One last noteworthy character would be ‘the pervert’ who is Josee’s next door neighbour. He is a desperate man who will take out your rubbish if you let him feel your boobies.
Josee is obviously a fighter and has had to be because of her condition and this has left her with a lack of social skills made up for through her strong character and resolve. She is not the kind of girl who relies on others, except for the necessary things, and has a quiet dignity that initially shields her from Tsuneo’s affable attempts at small talk. However once he breaks through that shield leaving Josee in a fit of tears and pleading for his eternal companionship, the real Josee is let out of the box and we see a beautiful, happy but inexperienced person introduced to the world and all the things she has been missing out on. Trips out with Tsuneo let her confront her fears (see the title) and see things, such as the sea, which leave her exasperated and grateful to be alive just to be able to take in its majestic beauty. Being concealed from the world, or at the bottom of a seabed as she puts it, has made Josee unwise, despite all the knowledge she has from her books.
Tsuneo is genuine and passionate throughout, becoming more and more hypnotised by Josee’s discreet charm and allure which motivates him to do all he can for her (whether it be to get her a book she has desired for a long time or show her the world); not out of pity but out of a true desire he has to spend every moment he has with her.
Josee, The Tiger and The Fish is a film I heartily recommend you see, and if you search the Internet you’ll find I am not in the minority in saying this. There is nothing negative to say about it as it manages to dance the line dividing a meaningful drama from silly humour. Seeing Josee become more able to feel comfortable with her need to love someone is gratifying; as just as alluring it is to see her brood, it is even more appealing to see her smile and giggle in the throes of a love she never thought she would experience. As with most J-films the pacing is slow and steady, aided by the naturalistic choice of symbolism, the occupations (both literally and figuratively) and the basic plot driven narrative.
Shared on
“I sat in the wreck, holding Karin, when reality cracked… reality…cracked, and I fell out. It’s like in dreams, anything can happen. Anything!”
The Faith Trilogy
Through as Glass Darkly is the first in a supposed Faith Trilogy (which also include Winter Light and The Silence), written and directed by Ingmar Bergman about God making contact. On an island called Faro a schizophrenic woman called Karin (Harriet Andersson) lives with her husband Martin (Max Von Sydow) and brother Minus (Lars Passgard). The father David (Gunnar Bjornstrand) is a novelist who visits his family on the island for the first time in a long while (possibly because of Karin’s recent release from an asylum), and it is his detachment from his children (Karin and Minus) that anchors the film’s emotional tension.
The core of the film revolves around Karin and the voices that speak to her, which one night lure her to an attic room in their chateaux, and to a door in the wall which Karin comes to believe is a gateway to heaven. She begins the film as a joyful, comforted girl who draws on the genuine love from her family to keep sane. However as things progress and her guilt for the burden she is to her husband becomes sharper, her mental state degenerates until she finally has an encounter with the God that she has been looking forward too. Unfortunately the God that greets her is an arachnid with a cold stone face.
Karin’s psychotic illness has not only afforded her the ability to subjectively tap into God’s line, but also to become more discerning and thus more sensitive to the repressed difficulties that exist in her family. Her fits/outbursts are like explosions of these difficulties that are trying to assimilate both the spiritual connection she believes she has and the anger towards her father’s abandonment. Throughout the film she is referred to as a child which suggests that like a child is said to be able to perceive preternatural things because of their open mind/gullibility (you choose), so can Karin because of her mental degeneration sense God around her, having the knowledge of his supposed existence to decode the messages He/She is sending her.
Martin, Karin and David
The two men of the film Martin and David speak of the weather conditions in such a familiar way, that they sort of personify them as though they were people who had a very important bearing on their lives. As though these conditions were parts of the character’s souls. The cinematography, as per usual in a Bergman film, is of high quality and enhances these conditions of the cold and the wind through grand shots of the ocean, sky and beach of pebbles as well as the crumbling chateaux and its annexed statues and pillars of rocks that all add to the usual feelings of isolation and clarity and create a remarkable sensation of rapture and vulnerability. The darkly grey clouds, thunderstorms and tumultuous waves circulate this. The sound of a passing ship’s foghorn becomes Karin’s “spidey-sense” as it intermittently pipes out with the squawking of seagulls; sounds that pierce the deadly quiet and take Karin away from the warmth of her shared bed with Martin and to a confused state where it is the wallpaper’s whispers and not love that promises her peace of mind. All these natural constructions are like traffic signals that aid in the characters’ movements and nature of conversation, whether it be the temperature or God.
Whether Karin’s connection to God is real or only in her imagination is left ambiguous as the viewer sees and hears what Karin does but Martin, David and Minus do not. Karin is caught between two worlds, reality and dream and because of her schizophrenic condition; her experiences are not taken seriously by her family. It is possible that Bergman is commenting on the hypocrisy of faith whereby Karin is diagnosed as insane because she has an actual connection with God when most believers follow blindly with no evidence. There seems to be a catch 22 situation when having faith, as nobody is actually seen as worthy enough to bask in God’s glow and so those that say they have are ridiculed or persecuted. Karin’s increasingly manic preoccupation with the wallpaper God is also the cause of the pressure that is being exerted on her relationship with Martin. This is not the first time that Bergman has linked faith to the failure of human relationships; neglecting the goodness or “Godness” in people for something that is unattainable.
Wallpaper Whispers
A great scene is a trademark Bergman one, where two characters analyse one another’s virtues or lack there of. In this example we have Martin reproaching David for being a selfish and inconsiderate father who is a disgusting human being for wanting to exploit his daughter’s illness for novel material. It is these kinds of scenes that push the viewer to be self-reflective, although it is very hard to feel shame when you’re enjoying the sharp, assassinating dialogue that reveals Bergman’s misanthropism.
Max von Sydow gives a confident and reassuring performance as Karin’s stalwart husband who sticks by her side no matter how crazy or paranoid he believes she is becoming. Lars Passgard plays Minus well, showing his desperate need for affection and efforts in understanding the nature of mature relations, trying to make the transition from being a young man into an adult. Gunnar Bjornstrand is brilliant as David, a man who is self-assured but aware of his major character flaws, but who nevertheless dearly loves his children and has a long awaited but conclusive talk with his son in the final scene. Harriet Andersson is sweet, charming and in the depths of despair, playing Karin with a great affinity for her situation.
Minus and Karin
Through a Glass Darkly is about God communicating, albeit to a singular person, and how that person uses this contact in her relationships to people. Whilst this aspect is not really explored in an optimistic light (it never is with Bergman), this message is understood by David and Minus who come to realise that God is love and if Karin is in fact surrounded by God, it is because of their enveloping love for her. Karin’s disappointing and frightening encounter with the stony Spider-God of faith seems to symbolise the necessity to reject this type of faith as all it has done in this case is disturb an already disturbed young woman.
Fun Facts
Bergman originally planned to film on the Orkney Islands because of their stony landscapes but the film studio wanted to shoot somewhere closer to home and thankfully someone suggested Faro, which Bergman would also make his real-life home.
The title Through a Glass Darkly alludes to the biblical quotation, “for now we see through a glass darkly”. In an interview Bergman and Bjornstrand shed some more light on the title’s meaning when they said it referred to the fact that in Roman times, people didn’t have glass mirrors and so they used ones made of bronze metal which cast only a very dim/vague reflection.
Won an oscar for best foreign film
Shared on
On the island of Shikoku a mother wants to revive her deceased daughter, so she can inherit her place as the next high priestess. As a result, dark powers are being awakened that have been sealed for many years to keep the dead from inhabiting it.
Shikoku Poster
The story begins with three childhood friends who live on the island called Hinako, Fumiya and Sayori. One day Hinako spies through a crack in the door, something happening to Sayori. It is a Shinto ceremony of some sort, alluding to the opening scenes of a girl being what looks to be exorcised. Sayori makes Hinako promise not to tell anyone what she has seen, not even Fumiya, threatening to end their friendship if she does. This won’t matter much anyway as Hinako is soon to move away from the island, leaving her friends and the memory of this event in the past.
After Hinako’s departure the subsequent scene shows her returning as an adult in the hope of reuniting with her old friends. Having seen a peer from her school days, Hinako (Yui Natsukawa) is told that Fumiya (Michitaka Tsutsui) still lives on the island but Sayori (Chiaki Kuriyama) has passed away in a drowning “accident” that happened whilst in High School. It is from this point that things start to get a little strange in Shikoku as Sayori makes her ghostly presence known to Hinako, haunting her till she is given corporeal form by her mother’s pilgrimage to all 88 temples to restore her.
Sayori haunting Fumiya
The island of Shikoku is like a microcosmic world of its own, steeped in folklore and tradition and disconnected from the modern Tokyo lifestyle, which Hinako returns from when she revisits her childhood home after the fifteen or sixteen years that it has been. It is a place that houses a portal in a cave beyond a gate that the villagers are afraid to go through because it gives access to an underworld called ‘Yomi’, where it is said that the dead still have bodies. It is here that Sayori’s mother will end her pilgrimage, with the agenda of resurrection in mind.
The story, sound effects, location and architecture reminded me very much of the Project Zero/Fatal Frame computer game trilogy. The story that ran through this game series dealt also with the occult in Japanese superstition and folklore including shrine maidens who were sacrificed in villages and ghosts in kimonos who sauntered around haunted mansions begging to be reunited with lost loves, whilst you the player investigated the mystery behind it all (with a camera as a weapon...cool no?). In fact the resurrection of Sayori leaves her in a similar kimonoed state as these ghosts, in search of Fumiya who she loves, pleading with him in a very languid and delicate manner as she slowly approaches. There are plenty of shrines and temple like buildings amongst the valleys, forests and rivers within the shanty towns of Shikoku. Pastures that intertwine with roads, dirt paths and gates all bear resemblance to the design in Project Zero. The film is even haunted by the meticulous light clicking of ceremonial bells and chanting every now and then, to create a seance like ambiance. However these similarities are probably not that unique as I’m sure that such characteristics are inherent in this style of ghost story; nevertheless it needed to be acknowledged.
Project Zero Still
The film isn’t really a horror though it does have all the elements that you’d expect from one such as the suspenseful investigation of the folklore through journals and interviews, that don’t do too badly in trying to follow in the footsteps of Ringu. However Shikoku doesn’t have the tension, the sense of foreboding or the intrigue that Ringu did not only because the storytelling wasn’t as interesting, but also the cinematography was not bleak like Ringu which gave it its power. Having said that, the cinematography in Shikoku is beautiful, especially the last scenes of the film. The lighting is magnificent whether it is beams of light breaking through the glades, the flickering shimmering reflections of the ponds and rivers on the characters, the apparitional pale blue hues that glow from Sayori (remember Mr Burns in The Springfield Files), the orange torch light and other artificial light that illuminates eerie contrasts with the blues and turquoises, all of which emphasise characters or ceremonies and create a really moody and hypnotic fantasy effect. The camerawork is also nice, positioned to give the feeling that Sayori is watching Hinako and Fumiya from beyond the grave, whether it be nestled in a tree, creeping up behind them or peering round from a corner.
Being not much of a horror horror, what is it? To me it seemed like a story about friendship and memories; the melancholy that comes with being nostalgic and the laying to rest of “demons” that plague those who have been killed before their time, such as Sayori or have uncauterised emotional ties such as Hinako. It is also about a sincere romance that develops, between Hinako and Fumiya, from a friendship that doesn’t seem to have been weathered by absence or time. It builds up subtly and even the intimate scenes are not overdone or exploited for shock value. It’s as though by uniting themselves they can move on from Sayori’s death, unfortunately this seems to only incite jealousy in her, which produces the dramatic tension of the film’s conclusion.
Finally, reasons to watch are for the great location, cinematography, authentic mythic ambiance and of course Chiaki kuriyama’s short but sharp performance as (adult) Sayori, who you may remember as Gogo Yubari from Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.
Shared on
The Machine Girl Poster 1
The Machine Girl is one helluva film and when pitted against other similar gory Tokyo Shock releases such as Versus or Ichi the Killer it definitely comes out the squelchiest. In fact I’m willing to bet pounds for pennies that they actually soaked the film stock in blood before shooting. Blood spurts, sprinkles, pours, explodes, sprays, sprays and sprays even more from gashed arteries and severances, the bodies of which are turned into super-soakers (yeah a decapitated body is actually used as a water pistol) The amount of blood isn’t really what makes this film special though, it is the ingenious murder methods, the outrageous use of weapons, the choreography and the feeling that this is what a j-drama would be like if it was made by insanely sadistic ninja-demons who when they’re not going on killing sprees, like writing scripts about going on killing sprees. Wait, there’s also the dynamic characters such as the lead school-girl she-devil Ami Hyuga (Minase Yashiro) who is hungry for the revenge of her dead brother; Miki (played by a 22 year old pornstar named Asami) a really tough but beautiful mom who wants revenge for her dead son; and a marriage made in Yakuza lunacy with the two main villains of the piece, Ryuji and Violet Kimura being so merciless but ridiculous that it’s hard to despise them for being so nasty because they are so compellingly unhinged for parents.
Miki and Ami are ready for battle
[ Click here to read more ]
Shared on
Tokyo Decadence
The subculture of BDSM is vast in its categorisation being that the acronym stands for bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, masochism, master, slave all of which explode in Ryu Murakami’s dark, sometimes comic sometimes sweet but always vulgar film Tokyo Decadence. The outline of the film is that of a subservient 22 year old woman named Ai who works as a mistress, servicing all kinds of clientele from controlling mafia or corporate bosses to hedonistic rich but extremely nutty/flamboyant layabouts to pathetic salarymen who crave humiliation
[ Click here to read more ]
Shared on
The Crossing Guard Poster
The Crossing Guard follows the story of a man named Freddy Gale (Jack Nicholson) who is finding it very hard to come to terms with the death of his daughter who was hit by a car six years earlier. John Booth (David Morse), the man who was responsible is now to be let out of prison, and after an initial failed attempt by Freddy to kill him, he threatens that he will be back in three days time to get his revenge.
[ Click here to read more ]
Shared on
Memories of Matsuko Poster
Memories of Matsuko is a film by Tetsuya Nakashima about a woman named Matsuko Kawajiri (obviously…well I guess it could have been a man…anyway) and the key stages of her life from when she was a child to her death. The story is "told" from different perspectives including her brother Norio, an old friend/fellow convict/pornstar Megumi Sawamura (played by Asuka Kurosawa who you may have seen in A Snake of June) and Yoichi Ryu an old pupil of hers from her school-teaching days. The purpose of this journey into Matsuko’s past is to teach her nephew Shou Kawajiri (son of Norio) a thing or two about life and to help him not make the same mistakes as she did. You see, at present Shou is a nineteen/twenty year old waster whose full time occupation, besides trying to be a guitarist in a rock band, is drinking alcohol and watching porn.
[ Click here to read more ]
Shared on
Sweet and Lowdown Poster
Sweet and Lowdown has a film style like that of other Woody Allen period pieces set in the 1930s such as Radio Days and Bullets over Broadway. All three films share the same gangster suits, intimate restaurant-clubs and nostalgic Jazz music in the score as well as showing Allen’s passion for Jazz music, for he is a dedicated player of the clarinet and a long time member of a New Orleans Jazz band. He originally wrote the film in the late sixties under the name of The Jazz Baby but the executives at the time wanted more of a comedy from Allen and so he put it on the back-burner and wrote Bananas instead. Thirty years later he rewrote that script and called it Sweet and Lowdown
[ Click here to read more ]
Shared on
Gojira – 1954
Thundering beats of Gojira’s footsteps inaugurate Ishiro Honda’s film that most of us have heard much about but yet are still moved with feelings of uneasiness. Then comes the roar of a monster that has been trivialized by numerous incarnations, but nonetheless strikes fear in the hearts and minds of those who choose to see Gojira in his ultimate glory
[ Click here to read more ]
Shared on
Sakuran is a Japanese Edo-period drama film released in 2006 starring model-J-Rock artist-actress and all around badass Anna Tsuchiya. The film is based on a manga series by Moyoco Anno and was adapted to the screen by photographer turned director Mika Ninagawa. Given that this is Ninagawa’s directorial debut it is remarkable that she has managed to visualise another period of time and assemble it with such clarity, accuracy and creativity as she has done. Apparently in interviews she has commented on the fact that she went through a vast amount of Ukiyoe (woodblock) prints to get to grips with the visual style of Yoshiwara (a famous district for prostitution) and based a lot of her modern, colourfully illustrated designs and patterns on the classical art of Edo.
Sakuran utilises lush and juicy colours to express the elegance of the Tamagikuya (brothel) establishment as well as the courtesans it houses, who dressed in outfits of fluorescent oranges, reds, yellows, purples and blues; with thickly painted faces, appear doll-like more than anything else. Murials of dragons and flowers; and stained glass windows of the same hues enshroud these women who are knelt, smoking their pipes and gossiping, awaiting the attention of some Samurai or Taros. There is one woman who seems to gain more attention than any of the others, standing out because of the nonchalant way she drags on her pipe, her inviting eyes and indifferent smirk as she whispers “come in, come in” to a prospective lay. This is Kiyoha, the first of several names she is given denoting her position on the hierarchical ladder, played by Anna Tsuchiya. Though prior to this she has only had two other starring roles in Kamikaze Girls and Bashment, she has never looked as gorgeous or had as much sex appeal as she does in Sakuran, making a move from the cool but cutesy Ichigo to the voluptuous and composed (well most of the time) Kiyoha
[ Click here to read more ]
Shared on
|
|
|
Add Comments
Comments (8)
Read More
Comment by Nathan 1
on What would you do if you knew you were dying?
Film Banana