Falcon Lake is an interesting directorial debut that explores a boy's experience of first love on a summer holiday. The story is very atmospheric, taking place around a mysterious lake. The young boy, only 13, arrives with his family and meets a 16-year-old girl, with whom he falls in love. This is a rites of passage story with all the usual events, such as drinking alcohol, taking drugs, and falling in love for the first time. The young actors give strong performances, open and honest in their emotional vulterability. The director makes wise choices, such as staying with the children and leaving adult actions in the background or slightly off screen. This is an engrossing, charming, slightly disturbing film. The only minus point is the ending, which opts for ambiguity when a more plausible and realistic ending would have had more emotional punch. Well worth seeing.
Reviews
397 Reviews
Bashing
(2005)
unrelenting misery
28 September 2022
Society turns against a woman who was kidnapped while doing volunteer work overseas. This is certainly plausible in Japan where cyberbullying and social ostracisation are gold-medal standard. However the execution of the concept is dire. The color pallet is a dull green and the resolution primitive. Shots are hand-held for reasons that can only be budgetary rather than aesthetic. The heroine is hated by everyone and hates everyone. People are fired on a whim. No one shows even a hint of compassion or kindness to anyone else. The heroine mopes about in one-note angst. The action is inauthentic - has anyone ever really, truly, ripped a phone out of a wall and thrown it out a window?
Interesting cast list. Apart from that, there is not one iota of cinematic merit here.
Interesting cast list. Apart from that, there is not one iota of cinematic merit here.
Nope
(2022)
incoherent
28 September 2022
Warning: Spoilers
An alien presence above a ranch threatens the lives of those below.
Plot holes galore add up to sink this film about two-thirds of the way through. Like so many other people, I came to this Jordan Peele film wanting to like it, but just couldn't find enough redeeming factors. The film opens with objects such as keys and coins raining down from the sky, causing at least one fatality. Why did this happen? We are told the official reason was "probably an airplane." What, the authorities weren't interested? No proper investigation was ever carried out?
From this sloppy beginning we learn later that the Steven Yeun character knows what he is dealing with, and thinks he controls it, in order to cash in. And he cashes in by.... staging a nightly show to a dozen customers. The man has literally made contact with extra-terrestrial life, and this is all he can come up with to monetize his breakthrough? Any remaining shred of plausibility for this storyworld is lost in this moment.
There are a few laughs, Daniel Kaluuya is a brooding and engaging presence, but that is scant reward for the ticket price. The sister is loud and annoying. The alien is super clever, then super dumb. It all fails to cohere around any credible narrative spine. Everyone turned up, but they forgot to write the damn movie.
Plot holes galore add up to sink this film about two-thirds of the way through. Like so many other people, I came to this Jordan Peele film wanting to like it, but just couldn't find enough redeeming factors. The film opens with objects such as keys and coins raining down from the sky, causing at least one fatality. Why did this happen? We are told the official reason was "probably an airplane." What, the authorities weren't interested? No proper investigation was ever carried out?
From this sloppy beginning we learn later that the Steven Yeun character knows what he is dealing with, and thinks he controls it, in order to cash in. And he cashes in by.... staging a nightly show to a dozen customers. The man has literally made contact with extra-terrestrial life, and this is all he can come up with to monetize his breakthrough? Any remaining shred of plausibility for this storyworld is lost in this moment.
There are a few laughs, Daniel Kaluuya is a brooding and engaging presence, but that is scant reward for the ticket price. The sister is loud and annoying. The alien is super clever, then super dumb. It all fails to cohere around any credible narrative spine. Everyone turned up, but they forgot to write the damn movie.
The Childhood of a Leader
(2015)
a film lacking in any premise
29 March 2022
A child is brought up in a home where tenderness and affection from parents seems in short supply. But the material circumstances are favorable, and he is comfortable, and has servants and tutors who care for him and emotionally support him. Nevertheless, the kid acts up. On good days, he is a handful. On bad days, he is violent and out of control. Structurally, the film offers up three tantrums. This all takes place against the backdrop of negotiations that will lead to the infamous Treaty of Versailles, which I suppose is supposed to hint at thematic concerns. The thumping, ponderous music implies a great evil is being enacted. In the end, the boy becomes man and leads a fascist army.
The period detail is impressive, the child actor is plausible, but no question is being asked here, no premise is explored. The material suggests we should be looking at nature versus nurture, but the execution does not run with that. It is, in the end, all a bit emperor's new clothes. "You just didn't get it," some will say, but after watching the film and reading around, I still don't see what there is to get.
A very annoying wee boy grows up to be a bad man. That's it. How dull.
The period detail is impressive, the child actor is plausible, but no question is being asked here, no premise is explored. The material suggests we should be looking at nature versus nurture, but the execution does not run with that. It is, in the end, all a bit emperor's new clothes. "You just didn't get it," some will say, but after watching the film and reading around, I still don't see what there is to get.
A very annoying wee boy grows up to be a bad man. That's it. How dull.
100 Yen Love
(2014)
Ando let down by absent premise
15 March 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Sakura Ando gives an outstanding performance in a film that fails to match her levels, and ultimately frustrates. Director Masaharu Take seems unsure of the journey our protagonist Ichiko is on. She is introduced to us as a recognizable hotchpotch of archetypes from recent Japanese cultural output - the slacker, the parasite single, the socially withdrawn hikikomori, the thirty-something virgin, the dame-ren unable to hold down regular employment, playing video games all day instead. When her family has finally had enough and turfs her out, she finds a dead-end job in a 100-yen convenience store. Her boss is over-bearing, and a particularly creepy co-worker takes a sinister interest in Ichiko. When she spots Yuji (Hirofumi Arai) at a local boxing gym, she finally shows a spark of interest in life beyond just existing.
These are the ingredients, but it is uncertain that writer Shin Adachi knows how to combine them into a satisfying dish. The creepy co-worker rapes Ichiko, an episode that is simply glossed over. Tonally, there is too much uncertainty around this incident. Does the film not examine it in order to offer up the banality of evil? Or are the filmmakers simply glib and tone deaf?
This is indicative of an unevenness, a cartoon-ish approach to cause and effect, that permeates the film. Ichiko is kind, offering expired food to hungry beggars, but these beggars are more Dickensian scamps than social commentary on contemporary Japan. Yuji abuses Ichiko terribly, yet she meekly goes off hand-in-hand with him at the end. Are we supposed to think that this woman who has been abused by the only two men she ever dated has now turned her life around? Ichiko's failure to break free at the end, taken at face value, is Chinatown bleak indeed. Despite her acquired prowess in boxing, emotionally she is worse off than when the film started.
It would be interesting to see what female filmmakers would have done with this protagonist. Ando's performance is faultless, but that is not enough to save this film against the mountain of problematic elements.
These are the ingredients, but it is uncertain that writer Shin Adachi knows how to combine them into a satisfying dish. The creepy co-worker rapes Ichiko, an episode that is simply glossed over. Tonally, there is too much uncertainty around this incident. Does the film not examine it in order to offer up the banality of evil? Or are the filmmakers simply glib and tone deaf?
This is indicative of an unevenness, a cartoon-ish approach to cause and effect, that permeates the film. Ichiko is kind, offering expired food to hungry beggars, but these beggars are more Dickensian scamps than social commentary on contemporary Japan. Yuji abuses Ichiko terribly, yet she meekly goes off hand-in-hand with him at the end. Are we supposed to think that this woman who has been abused by the only two men she ever dated has now turned her life around? Ichiko's failure to break free at the end, taken at face value, is Chinatown bleak indeed. Despite her acquired prowess in boxing, emotionally she is worse off than when the film started.
It would be interesting to see what female filmmakers would have done with this protagonist. Ando's performance is faultless, but that is not enough to save this film against the mountain of problematic elements.
The Blood of Wolves
(2018)
Retro homage fails to rise above
15 March 2022
Kazuya Shiraishi pays homage to classic yakuza cinema is a film that promises much but fails to be any more than formulaic. Newbie cop Hoika (Tori Matsuzaka) is partnered with veteran-cum-legend Ogami (Koji Yakusho). Idealistic newcomer bumps up against pragmatic, corner-cutting realist - a combo we have seen in countless iterations. Both Matsuzaka and Yakusho inhabit the archetypes fully, and Yakusho is especially engaging. The challenge for this film is to revive the genre in a way that provides the comfort of the familiar, while surprising with new elements and directions. Unfortunately, the film only delivers on the former. The gang feuds, schlock violence, gaudy neon and chintzy interiors will tick many boxes. Some elements that could do with updating are left unreformed, most notably the lack of complexity in female characters. The talents of Yoko Maki are woefully under-utilized here. It's not a horrible film, but you might find yourself wishing you had spent your time re-visiting the classics rather than watch them re-hashed.
Zokki
(2020)
disappointing
18 February 2022
The problem with manga adaptations is they result in cinema that is manga-esque. There is some gentle comedy here, and some touching scenes, and the seamless (for the most part) way the stories are woven together is quite clever. But the characters are mostly one or two note, and we never really get to know anything about their internal lives. Ryuhei Matsuda's character is frustratingly enigmatic. He joins Jun Kunimura's work crew for no real reason, and they turn out to be a bunch of grown men behaving like bickering infants. There are some panty and poop jokes so beloved of local TV comedy, but that went out with Benny Hill overseas. Given the wealth of acting talent here, both on screen and with the three directors, this strikes one as a project that was probably more fun to make than to watch.
The Light Shines Only There
(2014)
great performances
18 February 2022
Great acting all round, especially Masaki Suda in a challenging role that could be grating or sentimental if dialed too high or too low. The story, however, does not stretch to cover contemporary social concerns, and the characters seem to mope around in a melodrama detached from present-day Japan. Whatever Kore-eda manages to capture in Shoplifters seems to evade Mipo O here. The writing, also, relies on too many contrived set ups. Tatsuo is wallowing in self-pity after causing an accident at work, and avoiding everyone - but we are supposed to believe he obsequiously goes home to have dinner with the family of a mentally diminished man he bumped into at pachinko? Chinatsu is street smart and world weary, but she falls instantly in love with the stranger who follows her brother into her living room? The same lazy contrivance sees Tatsuo wander into the very bar where Chinatsu is turning tricks. (And he always manages to leave without paying...). There is something in this story, but it is under the surface, and ultimately under-realized. Lots of good elements, but it doesn't quite gel.
Gururi no koto
(2008)
love
18 January 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Kanao and Shoko chart their way through married life, enduring infidelity, grief, mental illness, interfering in-laws, and much more. While their love is tested, it never breaks.
Stunning performances by Lily Frankie and Tae Kimura elevate this film above its prosaic storyline. Life is cruel, as Kanao is constantly reminded by the defendants he draws as a court artist. Based on actual cases from the mid-nineties, this montage of human evil make the small kindnesses the couple share shine much more brightly. A bowl of rice porridge cooked and shared, an ice lolly on a summer day - the everyday moments are where contentment is found.
Shoko's breakdown is perfectly calibrated in a stunning depiction by Kimura. Frankie's stoicism and calm stands in contrast, a performance all the more impressive given that it is his debut.
The film indulges the audience by letting us share episodic time with this engaging couple. Yes, some sequences could do with a bit of trimming, but the journey moves at an easy pace and never feels forced. The film is, at heart, a love story, and one worth spending time with.
Stunning performances by Lily Frankie and Tae Kimura elevate this film above its prosaic storyline. Life is cruel, as Kanao is constantly reminded by the defendants he draws as a court artist. Based on actual cases from the mid-nineties, this montage of human evil make the small kindnesses the couple share shine much more brightly. A bowl of rice porridge cooked and shared, an ice lolly on a summer day - the everyday moments are where contentment is found.
Shoko's breakdown is perfectly calibrated in a stunning depiction by Kimura. Frankie's stoicism and calm stands in contrast, a performance all the more impressive given that it is his debut.
The film indulges the audience by letting us share episodic time with this engaging couple. Yes, some sequences could do with a bit of trimming, but the journey moves at an easy pace and never feels forced. The film is, at heart, a love story, and one worth spending time with.
Drive My Car
(2021)
Hit and miss film
15 January 2022
Actor and theatre director Kafuku discovers a secret about his wife, and when he fails to confront her, regret eats away at his soul. Some time later, he is assigned a young woman driver on a project in Hiroshima, and her own tale of regret opens up a space for him to finally confront his feelings.
There is a lot to admire about Drive My Car, but the runtime is not one of them. The critics claiming the three hours flash by unnoticed are being disingenuous. The gentle pace of the film feels organic in the first half, as Hamaguchi allows motives and emotions to gradually reveal themselves. But the second half flags, reviving only in the final 20 minutes, and the story ultimately is one that could have been told in under 120 minutes. Going way beyond that is simply self-indulgence by the director.
It is a major flaw, but not a fatal one. The performances are outstanding, especially Toko Miura as Watari, the young woman assigned to drive Kafuku. She politely but steadfastly resists the attempts of the older, higher status Kafuku to power harass her out of her role. Kafuku, to his credit, is prescient enough to accept Misaki, then gradually warm to her. The carefully crafted structured absence of Kafuku's wife is felt in every scene, but it is the more subtly depicted structured absence of his daughter that proves telling in his opening up to Watari. Had his daughter lived, she and Watari would be the same age.
The film poses questions and avoids easy answers. When Kafuku casts his wife's lover in an unlikely role, is he simply out to torture the young man for revenge? Or does he have an elaborate plan to achieve closure? Can a multinational, multilingual cast really provide a cathartic rendering of 'Uncle Vanya'? Undercutting all this fine-tuned drama are scenes where characters reveal themselves in a rush of exposition. The film also indulges in sentimentality at times, such as Kafuku's visit to his Korean collaborator's home for dinner, where a secret is cloyingly revealed.
A Japanese film with prominent Korean, Taiwanese and other Asian characters is to be applauded. And the inclusion of a Korean mute actress (a mesmeric outing from Park Yoo-rim) who delivers her lines in sign language in especially intriguing. That casting choice proves vital in the cathartic final scenes. However, it is less iconoclastic than some critics claim, given that Iwai Shunji's 'Swallowtail Butterfly' pushed the boundaries of on-screen Japaneseness and linguistic mixing almost three decades ago.
The car, both visually and as a space for the characters to interact, is a casting masterstroke in its own right. The shot of the two main characters holding their cigarettes aloft has sent some critics into raptures, but it is hyperbolic. The constant dialogue with a cassette tape is, however, hypnotic.
Lots to admire then, but also too many detracting elements. A decent enough film, but by no means the masterpiece many claim it to be.
There is a lot to admire about Drive My Car, but the runtime is not one of them. The critics claiming the three hours flash by unnoticed are being disingenuous. The gentle pace of the film feels organic in the first half, as Hamaguchi allows motives and emotions to gradually reveal themselves. But the second half flags, reviving only in the final 20 minutes, and the story ultimately is one that could have been told in under 120 minutes. Going way beyond that is simply self-indulgence by the director.
It is a major flaw, but not a fatal one. The performances are outstanding, especially Toko Miura as Watari, the young woman assigned to drive Kafuku. She politely but steadfastly resists the attempts of the older, higher status Kafuku to power harass her out of her role. Kafuku, to his credit, is prescient enough to accept Misaki, then gradually warm to her. The carefully crafted structured absence of Kafuku's wife is felt in every scene, but it is the more subtly depicted structured absence of his daughter that proves telling in his opening up to Watari. Had his daughter lived, she and Watari would be the same age.
The film poses questions and avoids easy answers. When Kafuku casts his wife's lover in an unlikely role, is he simply out to torture the young man for revenge? Or does he have an elaborate plan to achieve closure? Can a multinational, multilingual cast really provide a cathartic rendering of 'Uncle Vanya'? Undercutting all this fine-tuned drama are scenes where characters reveal themselves in a rush of exposition. The film also indulges in sentimentality at times, such as Kafuku's visit to his Korean collaborator's home for dinner, where a secret is cloyingly revealed.
A Japanese film with prominent Korean, Taiwanese and other Asian characters is to be applauded. And the inclusion of a Korean mute actress (a mesmeric outing from Park Yoo-rim) who delivers her lines in sign language in especially intriguing. That casting choice proves vital in the cathartic final scenes. However, it is less iconoclastic than some critics claim, given that Iwai Shunji's 'Swallowtail Butterfly' pushed the boundaries of on-screen Japaneseness and linguistic mixing almost three decades ago.
The car, both visually and as a space for the characters to interact, is a casting masterstroke in its own right. The shot of the two main characters holding their cigarettes aloft has sent some critics into raptures, but it is hyperbolic. The constant dialogue with a cassette tape is, however, hypnotic.
Lots to admire then, but also too many detracting elements. A decent enough film, but by no means the masterpiece many claim it to be.
Ainu Mosir
(2020)
beautiful, engaging, mystical
28 February 2021
Fourteen-year-old Kanto is a typical teenager in rural Japan, bored by provincial life, finding escape in playing with his rock band and watching Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters on TV. He is also Ainu, a burden he is thinking of shedding. His Mum runs a souvenir store in a tourist town that is pretty much an Ainu theme park, and Kanto, with thoughts of his recently deceased Dad in his mind, is thinking of moving on to something else. Something different.
At this point, a community elder Debo takes Kanto out to the mountains and gently socializes him into Ainu ways. He shows him how to greet the mountain and dispense offerings, and relates legends of a village of the dead beyond mysterious boulders. Kanto is nonplussed by all this, but when Debo shows him a bear cub he has been secretly raising, and asks Kanto to help, the boy comes alive. What Debo doesn't tell Kanto is the reason why he is raising this bear cub. When Kanto discovers the truth, it sets the two generations of Ainu at loggerheads.
Ainu Mosir is a film to immerse yourself in and experience. It manages to showcase Ainu music, customs and culture without sentimentalizing them. Writer-director Fukunaga casts Ainu non-actors and achieves a process whereby the story and performances feel rooted in authentic concerns and experiences. Debo Akibe as Debo is a brooding presence, a man as much in conflict with his identity as the young teenager he takes under his wing. His wish to resurrect a dormant custom, one which may put the community in collision with wider Japanese and global society, provides a focus for wider contemplation of the plight - and it is a plight - of indigenous people everywhere. The Ainu, a proud people long constrained and confined by another culture, suffering a slow death, perhaps need to find traditional if brutal symbolism to express their plight. That may be my personal reading of the fate Debo has in mind for the bear. One of the many joys of this film is that it offers up many readings.
The compact 84-minute running time reveals deft storytelling skills as Fukunaga takes time to show music and dance, feasting and sorrow, and make social commentary as tourists compliment their fellow Japanese Ainu on being good at Japanese, But none of this distracts from Kanto's journey of awakening, as his mother, Debo, musical pals and even the bear cub, offer up a gaze onto his journey that invites him, and us, to question who he is and where he is headed.
Ainu Mosir is a beautiful, lyrical film, and a confident sophomore outing for Fukunaga. One suspects that representations of Ainu in Japanese cinema will be measured against this film for many years to come.
At this point, a community elder Debo takes Kanto out to the mountains and gently socializes him into Ainu ways. He shows him how to greet the mountain and dispense offerings, and relates legends of a village of the dead beyond mysterious boulders. Kanto is nonplussed by all this, but when Debo shows him a bear cub he has been secretly raising, and asks Kanto to help, the boy comes alive. What Debo doesn't tell Kanto is the reason why he is raising this bear cub. When Kanto discovers the truth, it sets the two generations of Ainu at loggerheads.
Ainu Mosir is a film to immerse yourself in and experience. It manages to showcase Ainu music, customs and culture without sentimentalizing them. Writer-director Fukunaga casts Ainu non-actors and achieves a process whereby the story and performances feel rooted in authentic concerns and experiences. Debo Akibe as Debo is a brooding presence, a man as much in conflict with his identity as the young teenager he takes under his wing. His wish to resurrect a dormant custom, one which may put the community in collision with wider Japanese and global society, provides a focus for wider contemplation of the plight - and it is a plight - of indigenous people everywhere. The Ainu, a proud people long constrained and confined by another culture, suffering a slow death, perhaps need to find traditional if brutal symbolism to express their plight. That may be my personal reading of the fate Debo has in mind for the bear. One of the many joys of this film is that it offers up many readings.
The compact 84-minute running time reveals deft storytelling skills as Fukunaga takes time to show music and dance, feasting and sorrow, and make social commentary as tourists compliment their fellow Japanese Ainu on being good at Japanese, But none of this distracts from Kanto's journey of awakening, as his mother, Debo, musical pals and even the bear cub, offer up a gaze onto his journey that invites him, and us, to question who he is and where he is headed.
Ainu Mosir is a beautiful, lyrical film, and a confident sophomore outing for Fukunaga. One suspects that representations of Ainu in Japanese cinema will be measured against this film for many years to come.
under-stated low-budget gem
20 September 2020
Iwai Shunji utilises magic realism and sly comedy to fashion a tale that starts out whimsical but slowly builds towards deeply moving. Sato Takumi watches empty days spread before him during Covid-19 lockdown, and decides to buy a kaiju capsule and raise it as his own. In this parallel universe where kaiju and aliens are everyday occurrences, Sato tracks the progress of his oddly evolving kaiju through a video blog. He also takes notes from a YouTuber growing her own kaiju, with better results. Higuchi Shinji pretty much plays himself, a kaiju expert advising Sato on the various stages of his project. The plot is given dark shades when it seems the kaiju may actually become something that could hurt, rather than help, humanity.
Sato carries this film with a note-perfect performance that is, on reflection, quietly hysterical. His range here is broad but subtly conveyed, his expressions to camera always plausible, including 'kaiju-envy.' The final evolution of the kaiju reveals the 'message' of the film, though not in stark terms, so you'll be discussing quite what it all means with your movie-going partner after it ends.
Not everything works. Two cutaways don't quite come off. The first, shots of an elevated camera trawling empty streets are mundane. If the effect is to show how Corona has emptied the city, then choosing streets that are regularly empty is rather self-defeating. The second, Iwai's music as BGM to experimental dance, is slightly more cinematic, but largely underwhelming. Sato's performance is simply brilliant, but Higuchi is also charming in his bemusement. Moeka Hoshi delights in a parody of the YouTuber aesthetic, delivering commentary from a bathtub. Rena Nonen holds her end up, but So Takei is less convincing.
Godzilla often shows up to show humankind the errors of our ways, and in sci-fi the aliens often play the same role, Or simply save us. In real life, we have to look to ourselves to overcome the threats we face. We all need a gentle reminder of that truth from time to time.
Sato carries this film with a note-perfect performance that is, on reflection, quietly hysterical. His range here is broad but subtly conveyed, his expressions to camera always plausible, including 'kaiju-envy.' The final evolution of the kaiju reveals the 'message' of the film, though not in stark terms, so you'll be discussing quite what it all means with your movie-going partner after it ends.
Not everything works. Two cutaways don't quite come off. The first, shots of an elevated camera trawling empty streets are mundane. If the effect is to show how Corona has emptied the city, then choosing streets that are regularly empty is rather self-defeating. The second, Iwai's music as BGM to experimental dance, is slightly more cinematic, but largely underwhelming. Sato's performance is simply brilliant, but Higuchi is also charming in his bemusement. Moeka Hoshi delights in a parody of the YouTuber aesthetic, delivering commentary from a bathtub. Rena Nonen holds her end up, but So Takei is less convincing.
Godzilla often shows up to show humankind the errors of our ways, and in sci-fi the aliens often play the same role, Or simply save us. In real life, we have to look to ourselves to overcome the threats we face. We all need a gentle reminder of that truth from time to time.
Family Romance, LLC
(2019)
shallow exotica
9 August 2020
Herzog goes full Orientalist in this dismal, stilted look at an obscure element of Japanese society. The first thing to know about renting out people to impersonate family members is that the concept is as bizarre and alien to the vast majority of Japanese as it is to Westerners. This story doesn't say anything about "the Japanese" or "Japanese society." It does say a lot about Western filmmakers and audiences who want to represent Japan as some exotic and unfathomable 'other.'
Ishii Yuichi is CEO of Family Romance, a company that loans out amateur actors to play family members. For example, a young woman is having her wedding but cannot invite her alcoholic father for fear that he will wreck the event. Instead, she turns to Family Romance and hires a man to play Dad and help her save face.
This story strand is plausible, and the idea of family roles as performative is certainly one rich with potential. The Japanese refer to their spouses as 'Mama' and 'Papa' even when the children aren't around, so the Japanese aspect of family role as performance is one worth highlighting. Herzog, however, isn't interested in that, and instead sacrifices story in order to shoe-horn into the frame everything weird and artificial he finds on his Japanese sojourn. Robot receptionists in a hotel? Let's accommodate them in a bizarre tangent to the story. Young people practicing samurai swordplay in a park? Let's have our main characters stare at them for an interminably long time. An actual oracle? We can shove our main character on a train to go and meet her for no narrative reason at all. A train employee employing someone else to apologize to his boss on a public platform? Hell, it would never happen, but let's shoot such a scene anyway because my lead prostrating himself on the platform looks so cool and weird.
If you have Japanese friends, ask them if they have hired someone to play a family member, or checked into a hotel staffed by robots, or been to a hedgehog cafe, or kept a robot fish in a fish tank, or traveled half the country to talk to an oracle. Or maybe don't ask them, if you want to stay friends.
Decorating your frame with Japan and the Japanese simply as 'exotic other' is bad enough, but Herzog also casts the actual CEO of Family Romance as his lead. Ishii Yuichi can't act. The poor amateur is out of his depth and his improvisation is just cringe-worthy. He has one facial expression the whole movie - tense. Herzog says he did not need translation as he could sense when a moment was 'authentic.' Sorry Werner, but you really couldn't.
It seems the other actors came from Ishii's company, which explains why they are just as wooden. The mother of Mahiro, the young girl who Ishii pretends to be a father to, is one-note. Only Mahiro looks to have any depth and complexity. Herzog's process seems to have been to make up the scenes on the hoof, then get the actors to improvise on location. The sets are bare and look like show-rooms rather than lived in spaces, and characters sit at awkward angles to each other to accommodate the straight-on camera. There is no thought for framing or composition. The whole effect is one of a glorified home video.
The final shot, a child in blur against frosted glass, is an apt closure to the thematic concern. So three stars for that shot, but three stars is generous, given the blithe disregard for the society and culture depicted.
Ishii Yuichi is CEO of Family Romance, a company that loans out amateur actors to play family members. For example, a young woman is having her wedding but cannot invite her alcoholic father for fear that he will wreck the event. Instead, she turns to Family Romance and hires a man to play Dad and help her save face.
This story strand is plausible, and the idea of family roles as performative is certainly one rich with potential. The Japanese refer to their spouses as 'Mama' and 'Papa' even when the children aren't around, so the Japanese aspect of family role as performance is one worth highlighting. Herzog, however, isn't interested in that, and instead sacrifices story in order to shoe-horn into the frame everything weird and artificial he finds on his Japanese sojourn. Robot receptionists in a hotel? Let's accommodate them in a bizarre tangent to the story. Young people practicing samurai swordplay in a park? Let's have our main characters stare at them for an interminably long time. An actual oracle? We can shove our main character on a train to go and meet her for no narrative reason at all. A train employee employing someone else to apologize to his boss on a public platform? Hell, it would never happen, but let's shoot such a scene anyway because my lead prostrating himself on the platform looks so cool and weird.
If you have Japanese friends, ask them if they have hired someone to play a family member, or checked into a hotel staffed by robots, or been to a hedgehog cafe, or kept a robot fish in a fish tank, or traveled half the country to talk to an oracle. Or maybe don't ask them, if you want to stay friends.
Decorating your frame with Japan and the Japanese simply as 'exotic other' is bad enough, but Herzog also casts the actual CEO of Family Romance as his lead. Ishii Yuichi can't act. The poor amateur is out of his depth and his improvisation is just cringe-worthy. He has one facial expression the whole movie - tense. Herzog says he did not need translation as he could sense when a moment was 'authentic.' Sorry Werner, but you really couldn't.
It seems the other actors came from Ishii's company, which explains why they are just as wooden. The mother of Mahiro, the young girl who Ishii pretends to be a father to, is one-note. Only Mahiro looks to have any depth and complexity. Herzog's process seems to have been to make up the scenes on the hoof, then get the actors to improvise on location. The sets are bare and look like show-rooms rather than lived in spaces, and characters sit at awkward angles to each other to accommodate the straight-on camera. There is no thought for framing or composition. The whole effect is one of a glorified home video.
The final shot, a child in blur against frosted glass, is an apt closure to the thematic concern. So three stars for that shot, but three stars is generous, given the blithe disregard for the society and culture depicted.
Sea of Revival
(2019)
Disappointing tale tramples on post-tsunami sentiments
14 July 2019
Nagi Machi seems to be a vehicle to show off the edgy acting skills of post-SMAP Katori Shingo, shedding his 'idol' skin to play a paunchy gambling-addict who manages to create more guilt and regret in his already over-burdened life. That aspect is the film's one successful element. Katori has range and depth, and does a sterling shift here potraying the complexity of a man filled with self-loathing and unable to break free of addiction, or overcome regret. The character is cut from the same cloth as Casey Affleck's in Manchester by the Sea.
The problem is, all the other elements beyond Katori's performance are woefully inadequate (with the exception of the acting by other principals, which mostly holds up). The script meanders along and lacks any sense of pace. It is both strangely un-involving and sentimental. There is a murder, but the characters interact in roughly the same tone and emotional level in scenes before and after the murder. If you pluck a scene at random and ask someone who has not seen the film to guess if the scene came before or after the murder, they would be baffled. There are cartoonish one-note yakuza, a taciturn old fisherman who lacks any sense of reality, and a schoolgirl daughter who seems to make only one friend, and only because he recognizes her from childhood. Katori's character battles gambling addiction, but the scenes of him betting are cookie-cutter, repeating the same information and in no way growing or progressing the narrative. There is the cliched, drink-too-much-and-fight-too-many-guys scene of self-destruction, taking place at a summer festival. No doubt the festival was re-created to add colour and culture, but nothing else in the film says 'summer.' The murderer is depressingly easy to spot. The cops are as sloppily written and as one-note as the yakuza. The camerawork goes hand-held too often and for random reasons. Slow-motion is employed at inappropriate moments, most noticeably when the characters react to the murder. The music at this point is also wildly unsuitable.
In a truly sinful movie, the most egregious sin is setting this in post-tsunami Miyagi, and yet giving no sense of how people are coping - or failing to cope - with the aftermath. Every now and then the film nods at 2011, such as a comment about a sea defence wall being built, but most of the time this film could be happening anywhere. That rich present-day Tohoku storyworld is under-utilized, or more accurately ignored, and it feels like a violation. The end roll plays over real-life underwater footage of the wreckage from the town that now litters the sea bed. This is a final nod to the location and the tragedy that feels too little too late, and is tonally out of sync with the banal melodrama we have just witnessed.
In short, a decent addition to Katori's showreel, but otherwise uninteresting.
The problem is, all the other elements beyond Katori's performance are woefully inadequate (with the exception of the acting by other principals, which mostly holds up). The script meanders along and lacks any sense of pace. It is both strangely un-involving and sentimental. There is a murder, but the characters interact in roughly the same tone and emotional level in scenes before and after the murder. If you pluck a scene at random and ask someone who has not seen the film to guess if the scene came before or after the murder, they would be baffled. There are cartoonish one-note yakuza, a taciturn old fisherman who lacks any sense of reality, and a schoolgirl daughter who seems to make only one friend, and only because he recognizes her from childhood. Katori's character battles gambling addiction, but the scenes of him betting are cookie-cutter, repeating the same information and in no way growing or progressing the narrative. There is the cliched, drink-too-much-and-fight-too-many-guys scene of self-destruction, taking place at a summer festival. No doubt the festival was re-created to add colour and culture, but nothing else in the film says 'summer.' The murderer is depressingly easy to spot. The cops are as sloppily written and as one-note as the yakuza. The camerawork goes hand-held too often and for random reasons. Slow-motion is employed at inappropriate moments, most noticeably when the characters react to the murder. The music at this point is also wildly unsuitable.
In a truly sinful movie, the most egregious sin is setting this in post-tsunami Miyagi, and yet giving no sense of how people are coping - or failing to cope - with the aftermath. Every now and then the film nods at 2011, such as a comment about a sea defence wall being built, but most of the time this film could be happening anywhere. That rich present-day Tohoku storyworld is under-utilized, or more accurately ignored, and it feels like a violation. The end roll plays over real-life underwater footage of the wreckage from the town that now litters the sea bed. This is a final nod to the location and the tragedy that feels too little too late, and is tonally out of sync with the banal melodrama we have just witnessed.
In short, a decent addition to Katori's showreel, but otherwise uninteresting.
Born with It
(2015)
quietly powerful
3 March 2019
Warning: Spoilers
An elementary school boy leaves the big city in Japan to live in a provincial town with his mother. At school, the other children find him exotic and wonder why he can speak Japanese, even though he does not 'look Japanese.' But, of course, he is. Events then take a sinister turn when one of the boys realizes his new classmate is black, and his textbook about AIDS only shows black people, and so assumes his new classmate has AIDS.
This is a clever set-up for the narrative and the second-act complication is both amusing and disturbing, as one eminently sensible classmate tries to convince the new boy that he most assuredly does not have AIDS. The new boy looks for answers and reassurance from his mother. His efforts, and predicament, are conveyed naturalistically and are persuasively authentic.
The open-ended resolution is low key and perhaps this is most appropriate, as the film leaves you with questions rather than attempting to force pat answers and provide pithy resolution. The film explores universal questions of belonging, and frames them in a timely and pertinent context with regard to modern-day Japan. This is mature, subtle filmmaking, both enjoyable and thought-provoking.
This is a clever set-up for the narrative and the second-act complication is both amusing and disturbing, as one eminently sensible classmate tries to convince the new boy that he most assuredly does not have AIDS. The new boy looks for answers and reassurance from his mother. His efforts, and predicament, are conveyed naturalistically and are persuasively authentic.
The open-ended resolution is low key and perhaps this is most appropriate, as the film leaves you with questions rather than attempting to force pat answers and provide pithy resolution. The film explores universal questions of belonging, and frames them in a timely and pertinent context with regard to modern-day Japan. This is mature, subtle filmmaking, both enjoyable and thought-provoking.
Shoplifters
(2018)
Koreeda at the top of his game
9 June 2018
Warning: Spoilers
On the day I watched Shoplifters, the news in Japan was dominated by the story of a 5-year-old girl, beaten and starved by her parents, writing messages in her notebook begging for love. An eerily similar storyline is threaded through Shoplifters, but Koreeda's prescience is no accident - he engaged with similar stories in his 2004 film Nobody Knows. Family, in various degrees of warping, is the focus of Koreeda's opus.
Shoplifters concerns a three-generation family living on the fringes of society. Dad apprentices his son in the art of shoplifting, telling him things on a store shelf do not actually belong to anyone. He also tells the boy that only stupid kids have to go to school, which is why he doesn't. The older daughter performs in a seedy red-light peep show, and Mum works in a low-paid laundry job, searching pockets for any stuff she can pilfer. They live with granny, though any time a visitor comes they all have to hide themselves.
This warm but abnormal family is slowly revealed to be conjoined in ways we did not expect. The catalyst for this is Dad and son bringing home a neglected 5-year-old girl they come across abandoned on an apartment balcony on a freezing winter night. The girl comes home with them, and slots into the family, a pattern, we slowly realise, that has been repeated in the past. Granny was 'picked up,' and the son seems to have arrived by similar means. Their warmth and humanity is at odds with the illegality and disregard for social mores. Society judges such people, but by allowing us intimacy with them, Koreeda shows how society is also judged by them - and found wanting.
The slow revelation of the family's background, the naturalistic interactions, the judicious spacing of shocks and surprises, are all evidence of a master filmmaker in perfect sync with his material. The performances are sublime. Franky Lily and Kirin Kiki are Koreeda regulars and both are tonally perfect here. Koreeda shows that he still has a deft touch with child actors, first seen in Nobody Knows, a film that garnered a Cannes acting award for 12-year-old Yuya Yagira. Jyo Kairi has resonances of Yagira, both in his physical characteristics and his mannerisms. The maturity of his performance is stunning. Sakura Ando is outstanding as the mother-figure, made wise by bitter experience but also upbeat in her approach to life. Her threat to kill a minor character is chilling. One scene, where she performs straight to camera, answering a question on what her 'children' called her, rips your heart out.
There are many set pieces to enjoy here. A sharing of noodles on a humid summer day was one favourite; listening to, but not seeing, a firework display was another (what a metaphor for this family's peripheral status!). But the joy comes from the way the whole thing gels and shimmers, and provides steely insight on contemporary Japanese society, and the human condition. These are flawed individuals and Koreeda does not avert a critical gaze from their individual responsibility. The film explores big questions on living a good life and taking responsibility in an uncaring society. A simply stunning film.
Shoplifters concerns a three-generation family living on the fringes of society. Dad apprentices his son in the art of shoplifting, telling him things on a store shelf do not actually belong to anyone. He also tells the boy that only stupid kids have to go to school, which is why he doesn't. The older daughter performs in a seedy red-light peep show, and Mum works in a low-paid laundry job, searching pockets for any stuff she can pilfer. They live with granny, though any time a visitor comes they all have to hide themselves.
This warm but abnormal family is slowly revealed to be conjoined in ways we did not expect. The catalyst for this is Dad and son bringing home a neglected 5-year-old girl they come across abandoned on an apartment balcony on a freezing winter night. The girl comes home with them, and slots into the family, a pattern, we slowly realise, that has been repeated in the past. Granny was 'picked up,' and the son seems to have arrived by similar means. Their warmth and humanity is at odds with the illegality and disregard for social mores. Society judges such people, but by allowing us intimacy with them, Koreeda shows how society is also judged by them - and found wanting.
The slow revelation of the family's background, the naturalistic interactions, the judicious spacing of shocks and surprises, are all evidence of a master filmmaker in perfect sync with his material. The performances are sublime. Franky Lily and Kirin Kiki are Koreeda regulars and both are tonally perfect here. Koreeda shows that he still has a deft touch with child actors, first seen in Nobody Knows, a film that garnered a Cannes acting award for 12-year-old Yuya Yagira. Jyo Kairi has resonances of Yagira, both in his physical characteristics and his mannerisms. The maturity of his performance is stunning. Sakura Ando is outstanding as the mother-figure, made wise by bitter experience but also upbeat in her approach to life. Her threat to kill a minor character is chilling. One scene, where she performs straight to camera, answering a question on what her 'children' called her, rips your heart out.
There are many set pieces to enjoy here. A sharing of noodles on a humid summer day was one favourite; listening to, but not seeing, a firework display was another (what a metaphor for this family's peripheral status!). But the joy comes from the way the whole thing gels and shimmers, and provides steely insight on contemporary Japanese society, and the human condition. These are flawed individuals and Koreeda does not avert a critical gaze from their individual responsibility. The film explores big questions on living a good life and taking responsibility in an uncaring society. A simply stunning film.
Heavenly Forest
(2006)
well-worn J-cinema fairytale pap
19 March 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Two university students meet and form an unlikely friendship, that throws up the possibility of an even more unlikely romance.
Heavenly Forest is a perfect example of how the TV aesthetic is strangling Japanese cinema. All the acting is over-acting, with Miyazaki signified as 'cute' by virtue of the fact that she bobs her head ever so slightly after she talks, chews her bottom lip, and does not know what a hairbrush is for. Tamaki raises his eyebrows in shock and surprise, and lowers them when mystified or concerned. All these young people look wonderful, and are suitably backlit and rendered in soft focus. Tamaki gets in with the 'in' crowd who all seem to smile, camp, swim and have fun without any real world concerns or connections. Tamaki's burden is a rash on his side, for which the only medicine he can get carries an anti-social stench. Given that eczema in the form of 'atopi' is practically an epidemic in Japan and that many medical treatments exist, this particular representation is borderline insulting to the sufferers. Tamaki is never put right regarding his self-stigmatization. Miyazaki also suffers a mystery ailment that stunts her growth and eventually proves fatal. Shockingly lazy scripting that just conjures up a medical condition rather than strive to inject some authenticity or societal resonance to the narrative. In short, pure fantasy and escapism. The lack of plausibility in medical terms is symptomatic of the whole narrative, that forces conflict from unlikely coincidence rather than character choice, and resonates to absolute no sense of modern-day Japan. The university they go to is a strangely antiseptic campus, and the friendships seem robotic and perfunctory, like two people on a date in a mouthwash commercial.
In the climactic scene, Miyazaki is revealed to have been beautiful all along and capable of mastering the use of a hairbrush, a 'revelation' that has emotional impact only if you have never seen Miyazaki outside this film, or have never, in fact, seen a film. As is often witnessed in J-cinema, a character is dragged half-way round the world on very little information, only to be told someone has died. Email and the internet, like extended family and real-life problems, do not exist in these fairytale narratives. Tamaki's reaction to the photos, to plod lead-footed and open-mouthed across a gallery floor, is unintentionally comical. Glycerin tears abound. The music is plinky-plonky nonsense that batters your ears non-stop.
Saccharine, twee, and annoyingly aiming for 'cute' on every single beat, this film could be the flag-bearer for the ugly mutation TV has inflicted on Japanese cinema. The one caveat is that Miyazaki actually looks like she could act given better direction and a script that carries some intelligence. Picture postcard photography of beautiful young people in a mindless, shallow story.
Heavenly Forest is a perfect example of how the TV aesthetic is strangling Japanese cinema. All the acting is over-acting, with Miyazaki signified as 'cute' by virtue of the fact that she bobs her head ever so slightly after she talks, chews her bottom lip, and does not know what a hairbrush is for. Tamaki raises his eyebrows in shock and surprise, and lowers them when mystified or concerned. All these young people look wonderful, and are suitably backlit and rendered in soft focus. Tamaki gets in with the 'in' crowd who all seem to smile, camp, swim and have fun without any real world concerns or connections. Tamaki's burden is a rash on his side, for which the only medicine he can get carries an anti-social stench. Given that eczema in the form of 'atopi' is practically an epidemic in Japan and that many medical treatments exist, this particular representation is borderline insulting to the sufferers. Tamaki is never put right regarding his self-stigmatization. Miyazaki also suffers a mystery ailment that stunts her growth and eventually proves fatal. Shockingly lazy scripting that just conjures up a medical condition rather than strive to inject some authenticity or societal resonance to the narrative. In short, pure fantasy and escapism. The lack of plausibility in medical terms is symptomatic of the whole narrative, that forces conflict from unlikely coincidence rather than character choice, and resonates to absolute no sense of modern-day Japan. The university they go to is a strangely antiseptic campus, and the friendships seem robotic and perfunctory, like two people on a date in a mouthwash commercial.
In the climactic scene, Miyazaki is revealed to have been beautiful all along and capable of mastering the use of a hairbrush, a 'revelation' that has emotional impact only if you have never seen Miyazaki outside this film, or have never, in fact, seen a film. As is often witnessed in J-cinema, a character is dragged half-way round the world on very little information, only to be told someone has died. Email and the internet, like extended family and real-life problems, do not exist in these fairytale narratives. Tamaki's reaction to the photos, to plod lead-footed and open-mouthed across a gallery floor, is unintentionally comical. Glycerin tears abound. The music is plinky-plonky nonsense that batters your ears non-stop.
Saccharine, twee, and annoyingly aiming for 'cute' on every single beat, this film could be the flag-bearer for the ugly mutation TV has inflicted on Japanese cinema. The one caveat is that Miyazaki actually looks like she could act given better direction and a script that carries some intelligence. Picture postcard photography of beautiful young people in a mindless, shallow story.
Sweet Bean
(2015)
bean paste, leprosy, and learning to live again
19 March 2016
Warning: Spoilers
The manager of a small pancake stall finds his product is suddenly a neighbourhood sensation after an old woman shows up and changes his recipe. But old prejudices rear their head to scupper short-lived happiness.
This is a relatively prosaic outing for writer-director Kawase, a film that eschews the lyricism and frustratingly enigmatic self-orientalising tropes of Moe no Suzaku or Mogari no Mori, for a greater concern with narrative cause-and-effect. Masatoshi Nagase is suitably brooding and mysterious as the weary manager of the stall, tolerant if not indulgent of the inane chatter of schoolgirls who occupy his workplace like a clubhouse. Kirin Kiki is her usual charismatic and maverick self, managing to bring humanity and pathos to a role that could easily have been cloying and maudlin. The storyline of the older women bringing hope to a man with a crushing past works well, Tokue proving a catalyst to stop the manager going through the motions and start living again. The film also functions as an educational piece on the discrimination historically meted out to sufferers of Hansen's disease, or leprosy, in Japan. This part is less effective, following the well-worn trope of having a schoolkid come along so the adults can relate the hidden history she knows nothing about. Heavy-handed and flat, it ill-serves the narrative, and slightly trivializes an ugly but fascinating aspect of Japan's social history.
Kawase does not totally leave behind her shamanistic/animistic leanings: there are the usual hand-held shots of sunlight glinting through treetops, and some cod-philosophy on the power of the moon. She hones excellent performances from Kirin and especially Nagase, whose edges seem all too brittle and authentic. A small film with a big heart, that makes a quiet but powerful point.
This is a relatively prosaic outing for writer-director Kawase, a film that eschews the lyricism and frustratingly enigmatic self-orientalising tropes of Moe no Suzaku or Mogari no Mori, for a greater concern with narrative cause-and-effect. Masatoshi Nagase is suitably brooding and mysterious as the weary manager of the stall, tolerant if not indulgent of the inane chatter of schoolgirls who occupy his workplace like a clubhouse. Kirin Kiki is her usual charismatic and maverick self, managing to bring humanity and pathos to a role that could easily have been cloying and maudlin. The storyline of the older women bringing hope to a man with a crushing past works well, Tokue proving a catalyst to stop the manager going through the motions and start living again. The film also functions as an educational piece on the discrimination historically meted out to sufferers of Hansen's disease, or leprosy, in Japan. This part is less effective, following the well-worn trope of having a schoolkid come along so the adults can relate the hidden history she knows nothing about. Heavy-handed and flat, it ill-serves the narrative, and slightly trivializes an ugly but fascinating aspect of Japan's social history.
Kawase does not totally leave behind her shamanistic/animistic leanings: there are the usual hand-held shots of sunlight glinting through treetops, and some cod-philosophy on the power of the moon. She hones excellent performances from Kirin and especially Nagase, whose edges seem all too brittle and authentic. A small film with a big heart, that makes a quiet but powerful point.
I Have to Buy New Shoes
(2012)
under-realised characters, poorly executed film
26 January 2016
A brother and sister travel to Paris, but the sister has a hidden agenda. When the brother is left stranded, he bumps into a fellow Japanese and an unlikely holiday romance blossoms.
At the 75-minute mark, this film takes a new, interesting direction. Miho Nakayama at that point reminds us that she is a formidable actress, and Osamu Mukai as the stranded Sen gives subtle, nuanced reactions to the new developments. Very few viewers are likely to get to this point though. The first five minutes are tough to get through - a ridiculously clunky set up sees Sen abandoned by his sister at the banks of the River Seine, followed by an equally incredulous, almost slapstick sequence where Nakayama slips on Sen's passport and pantomime falls to the ground. From then on we have basically a Paris travelogue with two highly implausible characters. There is no shading, sub-text, or sense of lives lived off-screen with these characters. There is no need to wonder what they are thinking - they tell us, talking to themselves in empty rooms and on the streets, in brazen spouts of exposition. There is no need to wonder what they are feeling: Sakamoto's plinky-plonky score is layered on wall-to-wall throughout, even over dialogue, of which there is lots. There is no will-they-won't-they suspense built up between the potential lovers, more a resigned sense of "Jeez, get on with it!" Paris is photographed home video style, no use of light or shadow. There is no discernible colour palette. The director favours hand-held shots and for the most part framing and composition are shoddy and sub-par. Technically, it looks like beginning student filmmakers got to shoot with an A-list cast.
Shunji Iwai's name is connected to this, but it is an Iwai plot with no Iwai poetry, or Iwai visual flair. Sen's infantile younger sister has her own playpen drama with her boyfriend in a slightly annoying sub-plot. The whole thing remains frustratingly unresolved.
The introduction of Aoi's backstory in the final third hints that there was an engaging story to be told with these characters, but the filmmakers missed the chance. In sum, a mishmash of ordinary made-for-TV aesthetics and amateurish screen writing make this instantly forgettable.
At the 75-minute mark, this film takes a new, interesting direction. Miho Nakayama at that point reminds us that she is a formidable actress, and Osamu Mukai as the stranded Sen gives subtle, nuanced reactions to the new developments. Very few viewers are likely to get to this point though. The first five minutes are tough to get through - a ridiculously clunky set up sees Sen abandoned by his sister at the banks of the River Seine, followed by an equally incredulous, almost slapstick sequence where Nakayama slips on Sen's passport and pantomime falls to the ground. From then on we have basically a Paris travelogue with two highly implausible characters. There is no shading, sub-text, or sense of lives lived off-screen with these characters. There is no need to wonder what they are thinking - they tell us, talking to themselves in empty rooms and on the streets, in brazen spouts of exposition. There is no need to wonder what they are feeling: Sakamoto's plinky-plonky score is layered on wall-to-wall throughout, even over dialogue, of which there is lots. There is no will-they-won't-they suspense built up between the potential lovers, more a resigned sense of "Jeez, get on with it!" Paris is photographed home video style, no use of light or shadow. There is no discernible colour palette. The director favours hand-held shots and for the most part framing and composition are shoddy and sub-par. Technically, it looks like beginning student filmmakers got to shoot with an A-list cast.
Shunji Iwai's name is connected to this, but it is an Iwai plot with no Iwai poetry, or Iwai visual flair. Sen's infantile younger sister has her own playpen drama with her boyfriend in a slightly annoying sub-plot. The whole thing remains frustratingly unresolved.
The introduction of Aoi's backstory in the final third hints that there was an engaging story to be told with these characters, but the filmmakers missed the chance. In sum, a mishmash of ordinary made-for-TV aesthetics and amateurish screen writing make this instantly forgettable.
The Drudgery Train
(2012)
Damaged humanity
9 January 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Kanta is a young man working as a day manual labourer, a role he drifted into after leaving school as soon as the law allowed. Living hand-to-mouth, stuck in a cycle of drink abuse, visits to prostitutes, and dead-end jobs, a glimmer of hope appears when he is befriended by Shoji, who offers up catalyst opportunities with the cute girl in the local bookstore. However, the demons Kanta carries inside him are not so easily exorcised.
Screenwriter Shinji Imaoka offers up a fascinating character study, superbly executed by Mirai Moriyama in an outstanding performance. From beginning to end, we are forced to shift our understanding of Kanta. You cannot help but pity a man - at 19 still in many ways a child - who has had to carry the burden of having a convicted sex offender for a father during his formative years. But then he does something disgusting like lick a girl's hand and you begin to suspect nature may win out over nurture. Aimless, amoral, conniving and at times misanthropic, Kanta is nonetheless human and frail. You see few paths for redemption in a modern Japan where Kanta's coworker is summarily dispensed with when a workplace accident renders him disabled, and for Kanta, the only avenue of negotiation for rent disputes are threats and insincere apologies.
Director Yamashita keeps it all plausible and authentic. At times Kanta's excesses evoke visceral disgust, as his various methods of ejecting bodily fluids - and one attempt at solids - are framed in close-up. At other times there is a light, jaunty tone to proceedings, often dictated by the music which may just be deployed ironically, given the hopeless drudgery of Kanta's day-to-day existence. The comedy is threaded in nicely, and never done for its own sake. Kanta's re-union with his ex-girlfriend and her new beau is funny and terrifying in equal measure. Kanta seems to have the worst life imaginable, till we meet his ex and glimpse the hellhole existence she endures.
Kengo Kôra plays Shoji as a guy trying to do his best for a friend while never losing his wariness. His patience is admirable, and the loss of it forgivable. Atsuko Maeda as love object Yasuko injects a difficult role with an element of mystery. Quite why such a well-balanced, intelligent young woman would indulge a shifty, creepy NEET is an active question that Imaoka's writing and Maeda's acting skill make come alive. In the hands of lesser talent, this would appear a flaw in the narrative. In modern-day Japan isolation, loneliness and withdrawal from society is practically an epidemic, and all three characters in some way embody elements of this.
In the end, Kanta may have found an escape. Or we may be seeing the dream that is the regret of a dying man in a rubbish heap. The film fittingly concludes with questions rather than answers. The social commentary is apt and incisive, but it is the character of Kanta, as unfathomable and memorable as Travis Bickle, that stays with you long after the final credits.
Screenwriter Shinji Imaoka offers up a fascinating character study, superbly executed by Mirai Moriyama in an outstanding performance. From beginning to end, we are forced to shift our understanding of Kanta. You cannot help but pity a man - at 19 still in many ways a child - who has had to carry the burden of having a convicted sex offender for a father during his formative years. But then he does something disgusting like lick a girl's hand and you begin to suspect nature may win out over nurture. Aimless, amoral, conniving and at times misanthropic, Kanta is nonetheless human and frail. You see few paths for redemption in a modern Japan where Kanta's coworker is summarily dispensed with when a workplace accident renders him disabled, and for Kanta, the only avenue of negotiation for rent disputes are threats and insincere apologies.
Director Yamashita keeps it all plausible and authentic. At times Kanta's excesses evoke visceral disgust, as his various methods of ejecting bodily fluids - and one attempt at solids - are framed in close-up. At other times there is a light, jaunty tone to proceedings, often dictated by the music which may just be deployed ironically, given the hopeless drudgery of Kanta's day-to-day existence. The comedy is threaded in nicely, and never done for its own sake. Kanta's re-union with his ex-girlfriend and her new beau is funny and terrifying in equal measure. Kanta seems to have the worst life imaginable, till we meet his ex and glimpse the hellhole existence she endures.
Kengo Kôra plays Shoji as a guy trying to do his best for a friend while never losing his wariness. His patience is admirable, and the loss of it forgivable. Atsuko Maeda as love object Yasuko injects a difficult role with an element of mystery. Quite why such a well-balanced, intelligent young woman would indulge a shifty, creepy NEET is an active question that Imaoka's writing and Maeda's acting skill make come alive. In the hands of lesser talent, this would appear a flaw in the narrative. In modern-day Japan isolation, loneliness and withdrawal from society is practically an epidemic, and all three characters in some way embody elements of this.
In the end, Kanta may have found an escape. Or we may be seeing the dream that is the regret of a dying man in a rubbish heap. The film fittingly concludes with questions rather than answers. The social commentary is apt and incisive, but it is the character of Kanta, as unfathomable and memorable as Travis Bickle, that stays with you long after the final credits.
the death of screen writing
1 January 2016
Warning: Spoilers
In an age where film-making is ever more commercialized and insulting of people's intelligence, The Force Awakens comes along to put the final nail in the coffin of bold, imaginative screen writing. These writers were given a golden opportunity. A beloved franchise had lost its way with a trilogy of ill-conceived prequels. A hiatus ensued that allowed for critical reflection, and time enough to prepare a script that honoured the mythology of the earlier episodes, while marking a fresh departure in terms of new characters, story lines, surprises and updating for the children who are coming to the third trilogy that will be their Star Wars. That was the mission: clear and unmistakable.
The response? An embarrassing rehash of Episode 4 with gaping plot-holes and a blatant disregard for any of the above concerns. How bad must the story ideas that were discarded be if a thinly-disguised re-boot is all they could manage? I suspect the ideas were not bad, but deemed too risky in our risk-averse times. The Internet is riddled with analysis of the plot-holes and so need no analysis here, but I have never felt so world-weary in a cinema as I did watching those X-wings attack a Death Star aiming for a porthole that is a fatal structural flaw. The equivalent in the real world is visiting an elderly relative who tells you a story she has forgotten she told you a hundred times before, though part of you suspects she knows she told you and doesn't care that you have to listen to it again.
As for disrespect of all that has gone before, and shoddy filmmaking, the appearance of Luke takes the biscuit. Why is he just standing on a cliff (of a planet far, far away that could only be Ireland) waiting to turn round? We are told he is rumoured to be in an ancient Jedi temple, so a glimpse of some artist's idea of what an ancient Jedi temple looks like would have been greatly appreciated here. Instead, Luke is rushed on-screen in clumsy fashion, to ensure we all turn up for Episode 8.
I get that they have to sell toys, and can forgive the light saber tweaks. I get that times have moved on, and applaud the gender and colour diversity in casting. I also get, depressingly, that they knew we would turn up in droves no matter what story they gave us, and so the screenplay was a less than major concern for them. This is not the only Hollywood film to desecrate the honourable craft of screen writing, but it is the most conspicuous, and possibly egregious. Disappointed is not the word for the emotion evoked by The Force Awakens - 'swindled' would be more precise.
The response? An embarrassing rehash of Episode 4 with gaping plot-holes and a blatant disregard for any of the above concerns. How bad must the story ideas that were discarded be if a thinly-disguised re-boot is all they could manage? I suspect the ideas were not bad, but deemed too risky in our risk-averse times. The Internet is riddled with analysis of the plot-holes and so need no analysis here, but I have never felt so world-weary in a cinema as I did watching those X-wings attack a Death Star aiming for a porthole that is a fatal structural flaw. The equivalent in the real world is visiting an elderly relative who tells you a story she has forgotten she told you a hundred times before, though part of you suspects she knows she told you and doesn't care that you have to listen to it again.
As for disrespect of all that has gone before, and shoddy filmmaking, the appearance of Luke takes the biscuit. Why is he just standing on a cliff (of a planet far, far away that could only be Ireland) waiting to turn round? We are told he is rumoured to be in an ancient Jedi temple, so a glimpse of some artist's idea of what an ancient Jedi temple looks like would have been greatly appreciated here. Instead, Luke is rushed on-screen in clumsy fashion, to ensure we all turn up for Episode 8.
I get that they have to sell toys, and can forgive the light saber tweaks. I get that times have moved on, and applaud the gender and colour diversity in casting. I also get, depressingly, that they knew we would turn up in droves no matter what story they gave us, and so the screenplay was a less than major concern for them. This is not the only Hollywood film to desecrate the honourable craft of screen writing, but it is the most conspicuous, and possibly egregious. Disappointed is not the word for the emotion evoked by The Force Awakens - 'swindled' would be more precise.
human frailty
11 December 2015
A handsome high school boy begins an affair with an older married woman. When their sex tape ends up on the internet, various lives are changed forever.
The themes of adolescent coming of age, socioeconomic class divisions in Japan, and family dysfunction, are all common concerns of modern-day Japanese cinema. Protagonist Takumi, too damn good-looking for his own good, seems surrounded by women - a doe-eyed classmate, his married sex friend, and a single-mother at a home which doubles as a Natural Birth clinic. Takumi gets to have the unusual experience for a teenage boy of experiencing the sweat, stench and tears of life coming into being first-hand.
The sexual politics are wryly observed and the sexual encounters framed in a manner that strips them of their eroticism and makes them touching and vulnerable. Tomoko Tabata as Anzu is perfect as the needy housewife trapped with a useless husband and a (slightly overdrawn) domineering mother-in-law. Another story intrudes late in the narrative, that of Takumi's friend Ryota (Masataka Kubota). Less blessed in the looks department than Takumi, and with a mother who cares little about her offspring, unlike Takumi's devoted and wise mother, Ryota's fickle mix of jealousy and loyalty towards Takumi proves destructive.
The characters are strong and engaging and the story would draw you in, were it not for the odd decision to structure this as a triptych, with an overlong final third devoted to Ryota's plight. This leaves Takumi and Anzu off-screen for a good half-hour right when we are most interested in seeing their reactions. Cut by at least 20 minutes, and telling all these characters tales chronologically, this would be a much more involving film. As it is the structure is a massive flaw in an otherwise mature and admirable film.
The themes of adolescent coming of age, socioeconomic class divisions in Japan, and family dysfunction, are all common concerns of modern-day Japanese cinema. Protagonist Takumi, too damn good-looking for his own good, seems surrounded by women - a doe-eyed classmate, his married sex friend, and a single-mother at a home which doubles as a Natural Birth clinic. Takumi gets to have the unusual experience for a teenage boy of experiencing the sweat, stench and tears of life coming into being first-hand.
The sexual politics are wryly observed and the sexual encounters framed in a manner that strips them of their eroticism and makes them touching and vulnerable. Tomoko Tabata as Anzu is perfect as the needy housewife trapped with a useless husband and a (slightly overdrawn) domineering mother-in-law. Another story intrudes late in the narrative, that of Takumi's friend Ryota (Masataka Kubota). Less blessed in the looks department than Takumi, and with a mother who cares little about her offspring, unlike Takumi's devoted and wise mother, Ryota's fickle mix of jealousy and loyalty towards Takumi proves destructive.
The characters are strong and engaging and the story would draw you in, were it not for the odd decision to structure this as a triptych, with an overlong final third devoted to Ryota's plight. This leaves Takumi and Anzu off-screen for a good half-hour right when we are most interested in seeing their reactions. Cut by at least 20 minutes, and telling all these characters tales chronologically, this would be a much more involving film. As it is the structure is a massive flaw in an otherwise mature and admirable film.
Our Little Sister
(2015)
thin and airy slice of life melodrama
13 November 2015
When their estranged father dies, three sisters decide to take in their younger half-sister to live with them in Kamakura, despite the fact that she is the daughter of the woman who wrecked their parents' marriage.
Koreeda seems intent on paying homage to Ozu here. The rhythms of family life are laid out in detailed scenes on cooking, funeral rituals, and memorial services. The more traditional landscapes of Kamakura, including heavily foregrounded cherry blossoms, feature prominently. And nothing much happens, which is the film's most damaging failing. Sachi (a one-note Haruka Ayase) seems content with her married lover. Any conflict she may feel over her situation is buried deeper than the audience can see. Yoshino, exuberantly played by Masami Nagasawa, always picks the wrong guy, ending up broken-hearted and out of pocket. A possible redemptive story line with an under-used Ryo Kase is left unexplored. Kaho may or may not have a romance going with her boss (we never find out). And the waif taken in, Suzu, (a charismatic Suzu Hirose) knows more about their father than any of them, but merely hints at complexity, and never mines it.
Shinobu Ohtake shows up as the recalcitrant mother about an hour in, bringing brief hope that her appearance might bring about a volatile mix. The situation, however, is snuffed out as quickly as it flares up, and we are back to wistful looks off-camera and bike rides through softly falling cherry blossom petals.
Koreeda faithfuls Kirin Kiki and Riri Furanki show up in roles that are practically cameos, unfortunately reminding us that Still Walking and Like Father, Like Son are so much more powerful and complex.
This is a light, delicately observed film, so much so that it is too slight and so simply floats and vanishes rather than takes root. Like Air Doll this is, unfortunately, simply Koreeda in an indulgent moment.
Koreeda seems intent on paying homage to Ozu here. The rhythms of family life are laid out in detailed scenes on cooking, funeral rituals, and memorial services. The more traditional landscapes of Kamakura, including heavily foregrounded cherry blossoms, feature prominently. And nothing much happens, which is the film's most damaging failing. Sachi (a one-note Haruka Ayase) seems content with her married lover. Any conflict she may feel over her situation is buried deeper than the audience can see. Yoshino, exuberantly played by Masami Nagasawa, always picks the wrong guy, ending up broken-hearted and out of pocket. A possible redemptive story line with an under-used Ryo Kase is left unexplored. Kaho may or may not have a romance going with her boss (we never find out). And the waif taken in, Suzu, (a charismatic Suzu Hirose) knows more about their father than any of them, but merely hints at complexity, and never mines it.
Shinobu Ohtake shows up as the recalcitrant mother about an hour in, bringing brief hope that her appearance might bring about a volatile mix. The situation, however, is snuffed out as quickly as it flares up, and we are back to wistful looks off-camera and bike rides through softly falling cherry blossom petals.
Koreeda faithfuls Kirin Kiki and Riri Furanki show up in roles that are practically cameos, unfortunately reminding us that Still Walking and Like Father, Like Son are so much more powerful and complex.
This is a light, delicately observed film, so much so that it is too slight and so simply floats and vanishes rather than takes root. Like Air Doll this is, unfortunately, simply Koreeda in an indulgent moment.
Entourage
(2015)
glib, nasty, dumb
13 November 2015
Knowing nothing of the TV show I wandered into this film expecting a parody of celebrity culture. After viewing, I got home and Google-ed 'Entourage misogyny.' The results of that search confirmed that I am not alone in wondering how such a stream of women-hating invective made it to our screens, attracting big-name cameos along the way.
Apparently the filmmakers think constantly referring to women as broads and chicks, and having the four leads tell us who they would and would not f#*k, is acceptable because "It really is like that in Hollywood." I am sure it is, but the point is how you frame it. You can satirize it, you can excoriate it, but this film tamely lauds and celebrates it - unless, of course, the whole thing is a massive trick on the audience, though I don't think Ellis and cronies are clever enough to attack a massively exploitative medium through a massively exploitative film. 'Drama' continually goes on about who he would or would not bang. Ari (such a shame to see the massively talented Jeremy Piven indulge this toxic waste) wishes his wife's tits were bigger. One character has unprotected sex with two women on the same day. The "consequences" in terms of unplanned pregnancy and STDs are brought home to him - except it is all a joke! Phew! Back to slo-mo shots of jiggling bikini-clad eye candy.
I struggle to find anything positive to say about this film. Haley Joel Osment has evolved into a decent adult actor. Two of the cameos - Liam Neeson and Thierry Henry - are funny (though it is Piven who drives the humour in those scenes). The rest are bad, with some truly awful. Mark Whalberg gleefully plays nudge-wink with his drug-dealing, race-baiting past, while Kelsey Grammar is clunky. Ronda Rousey is especially culpable in an extended cameo, mimicking the guys' vocabulary by going on about who she will "let f#*k me." Really Ronda? Really?
This is a dumb film made by dumb filmmakers aimed at an audience they believe dumber than themselves. Unbelievable that such levels of misogyny are celebrated on screen in 2015, ironically in the same year Suffragette is released. Shameful.
Apparently the filmmakers think constantly referring to women as broads and chicks, and having the four leads tell us who they would and would not f#*k, is acceptable because "It really is like that in Hollywood." I am sure it is, but the point is how you frame it. You can satirize it, you can excoriate it, but this film tamely lauds and celebrates it - unless, of course, the whole thing is a massive trick on the audience, though I don't think Ellis and cronies are clever enough to attack a massively exploitative medium through a massively exploitative film. 'Drama' continually goes on about who he would or would not bang. Ari (such a shame to see the massively talented Jeremy Piven indulge this toxic waste) wishes his wife's tits were bigger. One character has unprotected sex with two women on the same day. The "consequences" in terms of unplanned pregnancy and STDs are brought home to him - except it is all a joke! Phew! Back to slo-mo shots of jiggling bikini-clad eye candy.
I struggle to find anything positive to say about this film. Haley Joel Osment has evolved into a decent adult actor. Two of the cameos - Liam Neeson and Thierry Henry - are funny (though it is Piven who drives the humour in those scenes). The rest are bad, with some truly awful. Mark Whalberg gleefully plays nudge-wink with his drug-dealing, race-baiting past, while Kelsey Grammar is clunky. Ronda Rousey is especially culpable in an extended cameo, mimicking the guys' vocabulary by going on about who she will "let f#*k me." Really Ronda? Really?
This is a dumb film made by dumb filmmakers aimed at an audience they believe dumber than themselves. Unbelievable that such levels of misogyny are celebrated on screen in 2015, ironically in the same year Suffragette is released. Shameful.
Woman in the Dunes
(1964)
Learning to love our chains
2 October 2015
A teacher carrying out research on a remote beach finds himself caught in a trap engineered by local hicks. The teacher is an intellectual: he feels sure his wits will enable him to manufacture an escape. But release gets ever further away, and his surroundings draw him in more and more...
In film school, a teacher told me a story about narrative. A man, obsessed with crossing a hole full of water, works feverishly at the undertaking. He has no success, until one days he wakes and finds the scorching sun has evaporated the water. The man goes to the tap and re-fills the hole. Woman in the Dunes is that premise on a grander canvas.
Jumpei is a sophisticate who, while grateful for the hospitality afforded him by the locals, also takes that gift as his social right. The woman who is his host has no such airs and graces, but her self-awareness and social awareness are far more refined than Jumpei's.
The world the film creates is both uncanny and all too familiar. Sand has never seemed so complex, so seductive, so intimidating. Jumpei and the woman are forced to shovel sand to survive. Aren't we all? Jumpei and the woman come together as a couple because of limited options. Many couples will sympathise. Given the chance to fundamentally change his life, Jumpei opts for the status quo. The choice is momentous and banal, and universally understood.
Eiji Okada as Jumpei is outstanding, all bombast and outrage, and then quietly confounded. Kyôko Kishida as the Woman is simply mesmerising, comely and beguiling in the mode of the English milkmaid in British Victorian novels, but with a more aquatic air (the proximity of the sea is deliciously hinted at in this arid world of sand). The story is incredibly simple, almost a parable, but inhabited with authentic characters who give it three dimensions.
We all, at some point, settle. We all compromise. We all give in. This film takes that bleak reality and presents it to us wrapped in cinematic beauty.
In film school, a teacher told me a story about narrative. A man, obsessed with crossing a hole full of water, works feverishly at the undertaking. He has no success, until one days he wakes and finds the scorching sun has evaporated the water. The man goes to the tap and re-fills the hole. Woman in the Dunes is that premise on a grander canvas.
Jumpei is a sophisticate who, while grateful for the hospitality afforded him by the locals, also takes that gift as his social right. The woman who is his host has no such airs and graces, but her self-awareness and social awareness are far more refined than Jumpei's.
The world the film creates is both uncanny and all too familiar. Sand has never seemed so complex, so seductive, so intimidating. Jumpei and the woman are forced to shovel sand to survive. Aren't we all? Jumpei and the woman come together as a couple because of limited options. Many couples will sympathise. Given the chance to fundamentally change his life, Jumpei opts for the status quo. The choice is momentous and banal, and universally understood.
Eiji Okada as Jumpei is outstanding, all bombast and outrage, and then quietly confounded. Kyôko Kishida as the Woman is simply mesmerising, comely and beguiling in the mode of the English milkmaid in British Victorian novels, but with a more aquatic air (the proximity of the sea is deliciously hinted at in this arid world of sand). The story is incredibly simple, almost a parable, but inhabited with authentic characters who give it three dimensions.
We all, at some point, settle. We all compromise. We all give in. This film takes that bleak reality and presents it to us wrapped in cinematic beauty.
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