An Actor's Revenge (1963)

Hämndhistorier lyckas sällan engagera mig. Jag får huvudvärk av förutsägbara schematiska narrativ som bygger på att en moralisk frestelse i berättelsen nitas fast till allmänmänsklig logik. Men så finns det undantag och i dagarna bekantade jag mig med ett av dem. 

Ramen är 1830-talets Edo och en kabuki-skådespelare, Yukinojo, som har ägnat sin karriär åt kvinnliga roller, jag lär mig att en sådan aktör kallas onnigata. Han ägnar hela sitt liv åt att hämnas på dem som förorsakade hans föräldrars död. Det här är en människa som ständigt visar nya sidor, inte minst när han trakterar svärdet och förbluffar sin motståndare. Av sin omvärld möts han av förakt (ses av vissa som effeminerad och svag) men också av kärlek och beundran, män och kvinnor kurtiserar honom hejdlöst. Detta senare blir en täckmantel för att genomföra en delikat hämnd som riktas mot tre mäktiga män i staden. Ovetande om detta är en av deras döttrar (Ayako Wakao) som är hett förälskad i skådespelaren, som vet hur han spelar ut hela sitt register som den ödmjuka konstnären. Ja och så har vi tjuvarna som vi möter redan i filmens inledande scener, i publiken på teatern. En av dem, Ohatsu (Fujiko Yamamoto), är även hon betuttad i den androgyne Yukinojo, och också hon besitter ett slags skådespelartalanger. Och så har vi den andra tjuven, Yamitaro. Han fungerar som Yukinojos dubbelgångare och spelas av samma skådespelare, den i japansk film oerhört flitigt förekommande Kazuo Hasegawa. Pointen: tjuvar och skådespelare är på sidan om, men på olika sätt. Och relationen mellan dem får sen i slutet en underbar erotisk twist.

Det rör sig om filmen Yukinojô henge, An Actor’s Revenge, som regisserades av Kon Ichikawa. Jag hade inte ens hört om den förut och slogs av dess konstfullhet och många skikt. Det finns en annan filmatisering av samma berättelse från mitten av 30-talet med regi av Teinosuke Kinugasa (som gjorde den ganska experimentella stumfilmen A Page of Madness). Anmärkningsvärt är att Hasegawa spelade huvudrollen, rollerna, även i den tidiga versionen.

Skådespeleri är ett tema som regissören lekfullt laborerar med. Vi har här att göra med en remake av en 30-talsfilm (som jag inte sett) där form och innehåll sällsynt elegant går i dialog med varandra. Vi har teaterscenen, och livets stormiga scen där Yukinojo filar på sin plan, och så har vi ju filmens egen rumslighet, som Ichikawa elegant (och med ett mästargrepp om färgerna värld) stiliserar för att efterlikna teaterns effekter och para dem med filmmediets möjligheter. 

En synnerligen påtaglig (och fin) aspekt här är köns- och förförelseperformansernas teater. Det manliga och kvinnliga är rörligt och böjligt och förekommer i olika krångliga konstellationer. An Actor’s Revenge visar sig vara en queer pärla, hämndberättelen tuffar på mot sitt deterministiska öde men det sociala består av idel roller, spel, lek, överlevnadsstrategier, ett öga för situationens växlingar. Och onnigata-skådespelaren har många äss i sin skira ärm. Kazuo Hasegawa bär upp detta superbt genom sina två roller, den flinka och rörliga tjuven och den hämnddrivna skådespelaren har båda gemensamt att i sina liv och i sina verk sträva efter att undvika att bli avslöjade, de är någon och de är ingen. 

Kritiker har associerat både till Hamlet och till Ozus Floating Weeds. Jag har bara sett den senare versionen från 1959 där flera skådisar från denna film också är med). Referenserna har fog för sig. An Actor’s Revenge öppnar för olika läsningar och tolkningar och utöver det är den sällsamt njutbar att se, med ett Edo som är skuggor och dimma, svärd som glimmar i natten och rum fyllda av overkligt ljus som påminner om berättelsens stomme, ingen är det de verkar vara.

En annan intressant sak med filmen som gör den sevärd är att den tycks innehålla kritik mot ekonomisk ojämlikhet. Berättelsen utspelar sig under det som kallades tenpō-eran och dess naturkatastrofer, svält och uppror. Bland karaktärerna finns mäktiga handelsmän och Kashindan-administratörer som utnyttjar svälten och de höga priserna på livsmedel till att köpa upp lager och hösta in vinster. Filmen visar (lite i förbigående nog) ursinniga människomassor som kräver sänkta priser, men girigheten vet inga gränser. Mot dessa herrar ställs tjuvarna, som stjäl där de kommer åt för att kunna dela med sig. Och skådespelaren vet hur man möter taktik med taktik, deras självblinda girighet ser han genast igenom och kan spela ut, det är en svaghet hos dem han bemästrar. Med andra ord: en skådespelares hämnd.

Maru (2024)

När Helsinki Ciné Aasia offentliggjorde sitt program blev jag glad att hitta Naoko Ogigamis film i programmet. Hennes filmer upptäckte jag förra året efter att jag såg henne Hamon (Ripples) på bio, också då på samma festival. Efter det såg jag tre andra av regissörens filmer, inte minst Kamome shokudô (2006) som utspelar sig i Helsingfors. Jag blev betagen av Ogigamis kluriga, hjärtliga stil med roliga infall och färgstarka, men vardagsnära, karaktärer. Så detta är den femte filmen jag ser, och inte är jag besviken. Maru är en vackert gjord meditation som chosefritt lufsar fram genom sitt ämne. 

Maru är ett av de ytterst få japanska ord jag kan och det hänger självfallet ihop med det gymnastiska underverket, katten Maru (en äldre gentleman vid det här laget) som demonstrerat att en rund form kan bli fyrkantig eller triangulär om det vill sig. Det runda är ledmotivet i Ogigamis film och allt börjar när en ung man, Sawada (Tsuyoshi Dômoto), får foten som konstnärsassisent (själva konstnären verkar vara en stropp). Han skadar sin hand och tar sikte på ett annat liv. En dag sitter i sin lite sunkiga lägenhet och stirrar framför sig. Han ser en myra irra runt och genom ett infall ritar killen en cirkel runt myran. Så en till, och en till. Penningar är det kärvt om och när han säljer olika sorters krääsä i antikvitetetsbutiken (we are not a pawn shop!! säger innehavaren ilsket) åker några av hans cirkelmålningar med i högen. Allt på det här runda klotet är ju ganska absurt och mitt i allt blir Sawada kände och uppburen i en hårt kapitalstyrt konstvärld.   

När Sawada jobbade som assistent fick han kritik för att vara underdånig, för att leva ett liv som går i cirklar; nu anklagas hans konst av vissa för att sakna originalitet. Andra älskar dess "ursprunglighet", men det måste se exakt rätt ut och ge den räta virala feelingen. Originalitet, kopior, stjärnor och efterapare. En cirkel är en cirkel. Frågan är vad den fylls av.

Snarare än Ruben Östlunds ironiska The Square påminner Maru om Wim Wenders mjuka och reflekterande Perfect Days. Ytligheten och ihåligheten (men inte som en rund enzo) finns med på ett hörn men i centrum står Sawadas liv. Han har börjat jobba i snabbköp och av sina f.d. konstkolleger får han höra att det inte är ett respektabelt jobb. Hemmavid får han knappt en lugn stund med sina målningar eftersom den excentriska och sushiälskande grannen (Ayano Gō), som själv hoppas på att bli erkänd manga-konstnär, gör att det är i liv i luckan.

Cirklarna står för harmoni och laddas med allehanda betydelse. Jaja, resten kan du kolla på upp Wikipedia, som en zen-munk säger till Sawanda. Hans egna cirklar är åtminstone rubbade. När jag sitter och håller utkik efter de ampra tanter som Zinaida Lindén nämnt att brukar förekomma i Ogigamis filmer uppenbarar hon sig: det rör sig om hyresvärdinnan (Mari Hamada) som strängt påtalar att det finns ett runt hål i Sawadas vägg (som den osaliga grannen ställt till med). 

Ett matematiskt snille på en parkbänk, ett filosofiskt affärsbiträde från Myanmar, en socialistisk konststuderande med megafonen nära till hands; Maru kryllar av udda existenser men varenda en är kärleksfullt tecknad, just som det brukar vara hos Ogigami. Och när jag går ut ur filmsalongen kan jag inte låta bli att lägga märke till de runda former som omger mig. Filmens uppmärksamhet smittar av sig, faktiskt mera än i Perfect Days som var nog så sympatisk men som ändå inte för mig steg mot höjderna. Maru stiger nog inte någonstans, det gör den inga anspråk på, men en fin liten film som närmar sig tillvaron med ett eget grepp är den. Inte minst påminner den oss om att existentiella frågor angår oss alla och att de uppenbarar sig oberoende om vi jobbar i butik eller är konstnärer, ingendera är finare, allt handlar om vad vi gör med våra liv.

Pulse (2001)

Michi (Kumiko Asô) har just börjat jobba i en blombutik. Hon verkar social och mån om att lära känna människor. Men stämningen är dyster. En dag är Taguchi, som vi lärt känna som en datanörd, försvunnen. Michi trotsar de sociala konventionerna och tar sig in i hans bostad. Och upptäcker där att allt absolut inte är som det ska. Parallellt introduceras Ryosuke som studerar ekonomi. Han försöker bli vän med Harue (Koyuki) som jobbar med att programmera datorer. Men hon odlar en filosofi om att vi alla är ensamma. Men frågan är om hon står för det.

Och sen dyker ruggiga saker upp, först i samband med internet, som Ryosuke (datorointresserad) dristar sig till att logga in på. Den primitiva grafiken leder honom genom olika dialogrutor som han slött klickar bort. Sen slocknar skärmen, och han själv speglar i rutan genom något som ser ut som en bilderna genom en skruttig webbcam också, och så ser han en annan gestalt dold av mörkret.

Spöken dyker upp men det är mestadels ledsna och deppiga spöken som, inser jag, är skrämmande lite på samma sätt som en väldigt ensam människa kan te sig skrämmande. 

Kiyoshi Kurosawas film Pulse handlar för att uttrycka saken lite fyrkantigt om den urbana ensamheten och vad den gör med människor givet teknologins möjligheter. Konturerna i berättelsen bär skräckfilmens markörer, men bara på ett ganska vagt sett, men i övrigt tänker jag ofta på Tsai Ming Liang och hans bostäder och städer fulla av ensamhet och kontaktlöshet (som i filmen där flera personer bebor samma lägenhet utan att tyckas veta om varandras existens).

Bilderna badar i ett gråbrunt ljus. Den värld vi kastas in i består av öde gator, betonghus rum där ensamheten verkar sitta i väggarna. Det är ofta så mörkt att vi knappt urskiljer mer än konturer. Ofta skuggas saker av gardiner eller märkliga plastupphängningar. Allt är beslöjat.

Det märkliga med Pulse är att budskapet om det farliga internet och den hemska ensamheten bultar in med hammare i korta dialoger. Men det är som att filmen också existerar på ett plan bortom de här fånigheterna, när den uppgår i rumsligheten och hur den förmedlar relationen mellan människor. Det är något med kameran, hur den rör sig, med färgerna som andas hotfullhet & varsel, något med tystnaden och ödsligheten, på något sätt blir det en inte bara snygg (den tidiga internetgrafiken väcker rentav nostalgi) utan också på något sätt slående film av detta, som i slutet kanske närmar sig ett ytterst obehagligt stråk i Japans historia. 

Och när jag stänger av datorn efter att ha sett Pulse via Criterion channel tycker jag att min skärm ser besynnerlig kuslig ut....

Onibaba (1964)

One of the movies that have really struck with me in a way that I can't really explain is Woman in the dunes, the strangely evocative film (directed by HiroshiTeshigahara) about an entomologisk who is stuck with a woman who lives in a pit. Onibaba, directed by Kaneto Shindo and released in the same year, has a similar dreamy and mysterious quality - and they also share a focus on the sensual that never strays from the mysterious tone. Nothing is explicitly explained in these two movies. We are taken to places - in the latter case, a wild and rugged-looking grassland. The time: feudal, pre-modern. The story of Onibaba has mythical qualities, but none of this has the effect of distancing. Basically, the tension that builds up between the characters pours from basic emotions, erotic jealousy. And gruesome, almost cosmic, revenge (the story is said to be based on a Buddhist parapble, but no explicit references of this kind are obvious to this viewer.)

A woman lives in a swampland with her daughter-in-law. Most of the people they meet are soldiers. But these are not the meek kind. They are killers who murder samurais and sell the goods they scavenge. Their cozy little routine is threatened when a man tells them that the son/husband is dead. The man asks all kinds of questions. The older women suspects that the daughter-in-law will engage in both business and other affairs with this man, and tries to offer her own services to him. This is the starting point of a series of hostile and also genuinely scary events. A demon's mask will have a significant role.

The reason why Onibaba is actually a frightening film is that it so closely takes us to a specific place - we are, so to speak, dragged deeper and deeper into the world of the movie. The place - with sword-like grass and compact, thick nights - almost becomes a character in itself. One could say that it is a family drama that lapses into a horror story immersed in erotic tangles and fears. A family drama that is the opposite of "genteel". Onibaba is all about lust, blood and darkness. Along with sweaty, matter-of-fact acting that really enhances the grimness of the gothic tale.

Shindo has made lots of movies. I haven't seen many of them, except for the marvellous, haunting documentary-like Naked island that was made a few years before Onibaba. Both films attend to a ritual-like form of existence, even though they show extremely different existential modes.

Late Spring (1949)

Ozu's Late Spring is perhaps the most striking film I have ever seen about the relation between father and daughter: Ozu focuses on the quiet tenderness between the two. How often do films capture that particular closeness between members of a family? I mean: closeness that bears no hint of neurotic claustrophobia. There is also another unusual thing that sets Ozu's films apart. Rather than delivering a bleak, pessimistic image of modernization, his films show people dealing with rapid changes; even though he shows the lack of understanding that may occur between generations, he never seems to be inclined to force upon us a verdict on "the modern life".  

Noriko is in her mid 20's and her widowed, professor father worries about her. She should get married, it's about time, he thinks. His scheming sister is also eager to marry her off. But the father also appreciates the life he has with his daughter. Both of them seem to thrive in their present situation. Many scenes chronicle their routines, their feeling at ease in their home. But there is this obligation, this social expectation. As a way of talking her into marrying, he tells a lie: he announces that he will re-marry. Through an encounter with a family friend in a bar, we learn that Noriko is extremely opposed to the idea. But why is she so disgusted? Is the disgust a rationalization of her grief? -  Some has interpreted the film in psychosexual terms, so that an undercurrent of the tensions would revolve around repulsion and sex, but I don't know. A suitor, the professor's assistant, is presented to Noriko. They seem to enjoy one another's company (we see them on an American-looking bicycle ride), but Noriko does not marry him (the circumstances remain open-ended). A new suitor appears. He is said to look a bit like Gary Cooper. Like in Early Summer, we never get to see this suitor (very successful move).

Setsuko Hara, who plays in several Ozu film as a woman named Noriko, is brilliant. In one of the films, she goes to see a noh play with her father. The camera lingers on the play, the audience. Suddenly, Noriko notices something, the woman her father is supposed to marry. We see the sadness in her face; anger, perhaps, as well. That's a stunning scene.

Many of the central feelings in the film are only alluded to, shown in their indirect expression. The loneliness they both experience when their living situation changes remains a private thing: they cannot show it to the other. They put up a brave, smiling face and go through with what they see as the things to be done. So what is the film about? It seems wrong to say that it is about two people who do something they do not want because they want to comply with a set of socially accepted standards. The film seems to explore different meanings of 'family', what it means to take care of one's parents and that there might be a point in one's life at which there are certain things one has to let go of. Rather than working with dichotomies (traditional/western) Ozu gives us a nuanced pattern of emotions, decisions and perhaps also confusions. This makes it, I think, wrong-headed to label the film as a story about what somebody wants or does not want.

My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

Once in a while I think about how few films about goodness. Most film are considered deep because they delve into the darkness of the human soul or dare to look evil in the eye. My Neighbor Totoro is basically about help and the friend you need in hard times. The much needed friend in this case is a huge, round cat-like troll. The film was released in 1988, the same year as the much sadder but equally captivating Grave of the Fireflies (directed by Takahata). The story is very simple. A father and his two daughters are moving to the country. Their mother is hospitalized and the grown-ups only half-admit how seriously ill she is. However, unlike many other movies about kids (and for kids) My Neighbor Totoro is not structured around alienation between grown-ups and children. Miyazaki creates a world in which fantasy and reality need not be clearly demarcated. This is also a film in which nature is depicted as inviting and kind rather than scary and threatening. One of the daughters explore the close surroundings of the house and she is lead by a small bunny-like figure through the woods, into a tunnel that takes her to a huge creature. Neither the creature, nor the woods, is seen as dangerous. If the film has a message, it is an ecological one. If anything, the film inspires a sort of wonder. Instead of expressing contempt for its viewers by piling adventure on adventure My Neighbor Totoro is a rather quiet movie that tackles big emotions and situations. It is also one of the very few movie I know of that in a way that does not seem sentimental places reverence and moments of communion and togetherness at its center.

Early Summer (1951)

It's a cliché to say that Ozu is the master of capturing the everyday details of family life. Yet, it's true, and Early Summer reminds me of what a perfect sense for drama Ozu has: he highlights deep-going tensions, without overstating his case. Like other of his films, the story is set in a society that goes through drastic changes. Noriko is the single woman living with her parents, her brother and his family. They all think that she has reached the age at which she must find a husband. Noriko has an office job and hangs out at cafés with her friends: she seems to enjoy life. Her parents grieve the death of the son they lost in the war and they place high hopes upon Noriko that she will finally settle down. Her boss has find a suitable match, a wealthy business-man, a few years older than her. A brilliant move from Ozu's side is that we never get to see this suitor. Rumors, pictures and talk take the place of the real guy - for a film that to such a great extent revolves around images (the image of the right life) this is really such a wise cinematic choice.

The film gently shows how well-meaning intentions can be oppressive. Noriko's brother epitomizes the old society: he wants things to be as they always have been and all the time there is a disgruntled look on his face. He's working all the time and at home he spreads an air of worry. Their parents are thinking about moving away to the country, but not until their daughter is married off. Their relationship is depicted as loving, yet also filled with quiet sorrow. Conflicts are played out in an almost gentle way. Noriko is not the type of person who confronts her family with fierce opposition. This does not mean she chooses her own path. Many issues surrounding love relations are merely touched on. There is a sub-plot about a suspicion that Noriko might fancy women. Perhaps she has a relationship with her friend Aya. At least, they form a sort of alliance against their married friends. It is not clear how one should understand the end. One could say that Noriko chooses her own path, marrying a widower she feels comfortable with. Her parents are not immediately happy about this solution. One could also describe what happens as submission.  

When one reads about Ozu's film one sometimes gets the impression that he makes very austere films. That is perhaps right but what one then forgets is the humor they showcase. In Early Summer, for example, Ozu has included the two most terrible pair of kids on the planet, and he allows much space to their rambunctious play. This is also a film of contrasts. We see glimpses of hip Japan on the one hand - the modern office and the relaxed space of the café - and the intimate and sometimes intimidating family surrounding. Noriko belongs to both of these spheres and by watching her demeanor in  various relational settings, we see different angles of for example ideas about marriage as they appear in a boss-employee relation, among family members or among close friends. Ozu's reputation of being a chronicler of the home should not be exaggerated. Early Summer features many beautiful scenes that takes the character to the beach. In one of them, we see Noriko running with her supposed sister-in-law. There is so much wistfulness and happiness in that scene.

Like Father, Like Son (2013)

Hirokazu Koreeda is one of the contemporary directors I have plenty of respect for; his films show a tender attention to ordinary life and the general mood is that of hope and openness. Like Father, Like Son is a characteristic film in many ways - Koreeda has made several films about family life - but still, it had some surprising flaws. Whereas other Koreeda films are only loosly tied to a story, in this film, the story comes to be central in a way I find problematic. Two families receive the news that their children have been switched in the hospital when the children were born. The parents, coming from very different social backgrounds, start to contemplate "switching back" and this brings several deep-going conflicts to the surface. We never really get an understanding for why such an arrangement occurs as a possibility on the radar, it just does. This is perhaps the major flaw. The story is also unnecessarily centered on dramatic turns and peaks (not exactly tear-wringing clashes and resolutions but still - more on the conventional side), and this is not at all characteristic for Koreeda's films. What still speaks for the film is its examination of class and how class is constructed in how people relate to place. One example of this is an arranged meeting between the two families. The place is some sort of fast food parlor with a section for toys. The parents of one of the kids remain distant and awkward; they have good manners and try to keep things 'polite'. The father of the other kid talks and plays with the rambunctious kids; he moves about while the other parents shyly watching him. Koreeda shows a keen interest for this kind of situation and it is in these quiet, understated moments where nothing particular happens that the film is at its best.

The question about biological kinship is treated delicately and sympathetically: the point seems to be that concerns about biological kinship arise within a social setting in which the question already has a certain point, it comes from a certain place, it is expressed within tensions and conflicts; there is no fundamental level at play here. In this case, the conflicts revolve around the father who works too much and who is disappointed about his 'unambitious' kid. This observations are good but the problem in the film - which was, by the way, beautifully filmed - was that it tended to play on the obvious. More than before, Koreeda appeared to be in the business of 'making points'. And in my view, that's never a good thing. Still, what I liked about Like Father, Like Son is the way people's interaction is highlighted in a way that is the opposite of cynical. It is as if Koreeda always has an eye for the openings, the possibilities, the way a problem may not be ineluctable.

Distance (2001)

I was a bit sleepy and inattentive during the first 20 minutes of Hirokazu Koreeda's Distance. I had basically no clue about what direction the film were to take or even what it was about. At one point I also had a quite uncharacteristic moment of anxious frustration: what the hell is going on??? What I saw in these first sleepy moments was an urban drama transmuting into something which resembled the tropes of the horror films and then the film shifted gears again. There were a bunch of people doing different stuff and all of a sudden we see them celebrating some kind of mournful anniversary. Gradually, the contours of the story became clearer. The central characters are relatives to people in a Japanese sect which committed a horrible act. There is nothing sensationalist in this slow-paced film. Koreeda focuses on flashbacks in a way that actually works. The loosely associated scenes are a collection of stories about people who have trouble coming to terms with their families or with themselves. A handheld camera follows the events that conjure up an everyday urban world in which the horrible can't be revealed directly. Instead, Koreeda approaches what is painful through people's memories and the relations that evolve between the people who have come to mourn in this anniversary. Distance is not a perfect film and sometimes I feel that a sharper perspective could have been carved out. However, the fragmented and a bit peculiar way of telling this story was striking and even a long time after watching the film I remember several scenes that made an impact on me without rubbing my face into the tragedies evoked. There are many aspect of Distance which I think prominently demonstrate some of Koreeda's strenght and personal interests as a director. Not only do we see lots of scenes with trains (it seems as if Koreeda builds almost all of his stories around trains) - the film features his combination of compassionate evocation and patient observation. Among the themes tackled in the film, I appreciate the way family relations are connected with corrupt critique of 'the establishment' and what it means to exit from 'the establishment'. At the same time, Distance holds up the images of conflicts and alienation and it provides no easy solution for anything. Thumbs up also for Koreeda's excellent understanding of images: as in many other of his films, he shows the edges of urban life, the situations in which urban life are unsettled and questioned.

Departures (2008)

Departures (dir. Yojiro Takita) opens with a meaningless transphobic scene involving a funeral ritual and a bunch of bereaved relatives who fight about the deceased person's life. That didn't give me much hope about the movie. But the quality of the film improved for a while, so I watched the whole thing. It turns out that the main character is not the person in the coffin, but the young man, an unemployed cellist, who is preparing the body in the ritual. We learn that he has returned to his home town and applies for a job despite not knowing what the job is about - it has to do with "departures", maybe a traveling agency. When he is in the know, it's too late - he was hired on the spot by his elderly boss. In Japan, we learn, this profession is considered to be shameful and the young man doesn't even reveal the nature of his job to his wife. The film follows his initiation into the profession: this is by far the best part of the film where we stick to the work routines and the small workplace. The last part of the film takes a dramatic turn and the movie goes down the drain as there is an attempt to tie all threads together into a neat bundle. Departures is interesting while it observes the Japanese rituals of preparing corpses for death in the presence of the close family and it shows how gracefully and skillfully these two deal with the deceased. I start to think about the strange reasons for why their profession, undertaking, is taboo - in the ritual, death itself is not at all taboo as the corpse is prepared in front of people and they get to say their goodbyes. Here, the film was a quite subdued affair and kept close to its subject: the young man gets accustomed to his job and learns to develop a professional attitude towards it under the guidance of his wise and experienced boss (I liked their scenes together - moving, somehow). But apparently this topic alone was not relied on - something more dramatic seemed to have been called for (why? I don't see this) and at this point Departures assembles the Big Musical Score and the Panoramic Nature Images in order to drive home the points about family secrets and forgiveness.

Naked Island (1960)

It's always risky to re-watch a film that has made a great impression on you; will it hold up, will it let you down, will you be abhorred about your own bad, bad judgment? Watching Naked Island (Kaneto Shindo) again was not painful at all - the film is as marvelous as it was the first time: repetitive, strange, beautiful. Even though a description may make this film seem like a formalist experiment (a slow study of work and habits), there is nothing studiously experimental about Naked Island, nothing self-important, nothing contrived.

The basic set-up of the film is the daily toil of a family of four who inhabit a small island on which they have crops that need tending to and water needs to be fetched from another island. Without sentimentality or overblown emphasis on scarcity, the movie follows the family members' everyday life, the rowing, the fetching, the carrying of water, preparing food, etc. All this is chronicled in flowing images that place the human being in her environment. We start to look at the environment, the sea, the island, the city, from the perspective of the character's active gaze, from the perspective of their activities. But we also start to focus on the way these human beings lives are formed by and conditioned by the environment. Few films contain this meditative attention to methodical action - the only comparison I come to think of is Akerman's Jeanne Dielmann, but that film is done in a completely different spirit and the latter film gives us a very different image of the role of routines in human life. In Naked Island, routines never seem soul-crushing or monotonous. The camera follows the woman and the man carrying water in buckets. We learn to recognize the paths they laboriously have to climb, and we see them gently pouring the water on the crops (these images do not conjure up the illusion of real time, but they make us feel the duration of what is done). The same chores are repeated over and over again, but through a cinematic technique that all the time shifts angles and perspectives, we sense that their toil is a way in which their life continues, and life is never the same.

Its interesting how work and repetition is rendered so radically different on film, depending on what angle the director chooses and more importantly how work is conceived, or rather, in which connections work is placed.

Shindo pays close attention to survival, not as a primitive mode of merely "living" in a naked sense (the island may be naked, but life is not), but as a form of life, a form of life that is contrasted with the life of the city which is hinted at as the family members sell a fish, dine out on a restaurant, look at a dance performance on TV, and take a trip with a ropeway (the life on the island is hard to pin down in terms of historical periods, but the city life reveals specific models of cars, technology and fashion). Up till now I haven't mentioned one of the peculiar traits of Naked Island: it is a silent film. Not in the sense of music-and-intertitles but in the sense of there being no dialogue. I am surprised that this doesn't appear like an eccentric ploy a desperate director comes up with trying to think of something new to sell his latest flick. The silence is almost always an organic part of the film; instead we hear the rain, the thundering wind, steps, flowing water and so on - or the distant chatter of city-folks. And then there's non-diegetic music, a beautiful score that frames the on-screen drudgery magnificently. We learn to know these people, the family of four, on other terms, and I never experience the lack of speech as a lack, or as something that forces me to guess at what is going on. I don't think the point is to make the islanders' life look 'primitive' or 'changeless' - we see their lives changing, there are sudden breaks in the everyday rhythm of work (one scene in particular is a jolt) and we see subtle strains in their relations, and speech is not needed to convey that. 

Ugetsu (1953)

Ugetsu (dir. Kenji Mizoguchi) is a relentlessly pacifist movie. A village is about the be attacked by an army. The villagers know about this. But the film's two main characters are too self-involved to take this seriously. One of them is a craftsman who makes pottery. He is obsessed with selling as many pots as possible. The other one has made up his mind that he wants to enlist as a soldier, a samurai - he wants to be honored, no longer a nobody, no longer a village fool. There's nothing wrong with the film's message: ambition will make people walk over bodies to get what they want. The chronicle of the two characters (admittedly, these remain types) is ingenuously intertwined with the story about war. The village is attacked everybody flees. The craftsman is separated from his wife and ends up being lured into the arms of a wealthy aristocrat. The mysterious femme fatal is here taken to the next level, one might say. The wannabe-soldier joins the troop and pretends he has collected a war trophy. We learn that in this world, nothing really matters beyond keeping one's name clean; ambition and the ability to elbow oneself into the first ranks are the primary virtues here (no stately samurais with an admirable code of conduct can be found here: the samurais in this films are country people who want to create another life for themselves). Mizoguchi's perspective could be described as a form of humanism: he shows how his characters are doomed because of their view of life and the persons who have this view become virtually unstoppable because they are completely convicted that they are right. The potter's frenzy can be compared to the gold-craze in Greed. There are some remarkable artistic qualities of the film as well. Mizoguchi breathes life into the feudal world the film portrays: the film wanders from the village to marketplace as well as very minimally decorated interior sets. In the middle of the film, events take a surprising turn and I think it is the subdued style of Ugetsu that prevents this turn from becoming ridiculous. 

Funeral Procession of Roses (1969)

On paper, Funeral Procession of Roses (dir. Toshio Matsumoto) sound like a film I simply have to love: this experimental film tracks the underground gay culture in Tokyo. Somehow, the film failed to impress me. Technically innovative, yes, but the use of interesting cinematic technique, pop-art sensibility and genre-hopping was not put to use in a way that made me see the world differently, it was just technically endearing (the links to Godard, not exactly my favorite director, abound). Instead of the rather detached use of tricks, I would have like to get a closer view of the people in the film, or the community, or Tokyo, or something. The minimal frame of the story is the relations between a club owner, a go-go dancer and an aging drag queen. There's a lot of partying, erotic adventures, stylized fighting, eerie conversations (about Jonas Mekas for example) and some unnerving memories/fantasies. Maybe somebody would claim that I just not get it: the film is supposed to look scrambled and impressionistic, more disparate tableaux than a story. And generally, I tend to like that kind of thing, and it's not as if the subject lacks interest. But if there's something I like about Funeral procession of roses it's its incessant play with gender and sexuality. This is undoubtedly a queer film that mocks standard gender interpretations and that contains many ironic performances of gender stereotypes. Maybe its the twists involving Oedipus and inner demons that for me makes the film flounder. Extravagant - yes. But this time around I was not thrilled by the extravaganza on display.

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

I can imagine that some would say that Grave of the Fireflies (dir. Isao Takahata), an animated film about the horrors of WWII that has now become a classic, is sentimental and that it relies too much on metaphor. I did not react that way. Instead, I would say that beauty was not used to relieve the horror shown within the film, beauty was not mere decorum. The story is set at the end of the war. Japan is bombed and people suffer. The main characters, two children, are orphaned and they have to find somewhere to live and food to eat. Grave of the Fireflies follow them from a relative's home to a desolate bomb shelter by the river. The animation (which a film like Waltz with Bashir is somewhat indebted to) works brilliantly to capture the children's world of gloom but also moments of magic. Strangely, Takahata insisted that the film was not anti-war. This is extremely hard to understand, considering the film's extremely bleak exploration of the ruins of Japan during the war. The film - at least as I interpreted it - also focused on the accusations and false images of heroism that war breeds. The message? No heroism, just people who survive or do not survive.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011)

From the first frame to the last, Jiro Dreams of Sushi (dir. David Gelb) is an absorbing documentary. OK, stylistically, the film may not have excavated new territories, but its presentation of the main character, sushi maestro Jiro, was exquisite, thrilling, even a bit unnerving. I disagree with those reviewers complaining that the film reveals too little of the human drama and the rifts between the members of the family; for my own part, I must say that I liked the quite strict focus on work, the routines, the learning and the future of the business. Jiro is a man for whom life is work and work is life. His small and seemingly - but only seemingly - unpretentious restaurant (drenched in Michelin stars) is a stage for this man's calling: to make the perfect sushi. He is 85, still active, still trying to achieve his goals. For him, the perfect bite of sushi means an almost-Platonist attempt to reach an ideal, or to materialize an ideal. This requires hard work. Jiro is hard on himself, and he his hard on everyone else, too. The film crew follows Jiro, his two sons and their apprentices. We are taken along to the fish market, where we learn what a good fish looks like. We see the crew in action, preparing the delicacies (just watch watch the kind of effort the ... massaging of a tuna-fish requires. It's quite unbelievable if you haven't seen it.) For Jiro, ten years are nothing. To become a master takes time, a bloody amount of time. Repetition is the essence of how he presents work - that, and attention.

I liked the film because it provides no interpretation of Jiro's work ethic. You have to look and judge for yourself: how could this sort of dedication be understood? Is it about work? What does work mean here? Is it mania? And what would you say about Jiro's stern striving for perfection?

I would not like to work for a guy like Jiro, nor would I like to eat at his restaurant (the waiting list is three months): I can't imagine what it is like to eat those bites of sushi while you are scrutinized by Jiro's eagle gaze. This is nonetheless a documentary that held me in its spell and raised some important questions about work and dedication to work.

Nobody Knows (2004)

A bunch of kids are left at home while their mother goes off to work. She is gone for several weeks, and then she comes back for a few days, indulging the kids with presents and funny games (or coming home drunk, encouraging her sleepy kids to eat sushi in the middle of the night). After that, she doesn't come home at all. The kids don't go to school. They are told not to leave the apartment, but of course, it's impossible to live that way, so soon enough, they venture out on adventures of their own. The arc of the film is that of tragedy,  but the film rarely leaves the kids' own world - the story is told from their point of view, immersed in their world, in their understanding, or lack of understanding.

Hirokazu Kore-eda is a director with a voice and an eye of his own. I've written about several of his films here, and they all have made an impression on me, and from them I've learnt much about the possibilities of film-making. An important aspect of Kore-eda's films is their attentiveness to how we experience the world with all of our senses - his movies evoke smells, touch and sounds. The stories he tells are situated in a Japan that is not romanticized. Street junctions and non-places are usually given a prominent role - it is often in this kind of mileu that the characthers' lives play out. This is the case here as well. The cramped, solitary, increasingly messy apartment is contrasted with the bustling world outside: streets, a grocery shop (where a kind clerk gives them something to eat now and then) and a park with real flowers and soil.

Nobody knows does not seek out the sensational. The tragedy of the story never flies in your face - what we see is rather hints of despair, loneliness and disorientation. The abandoned kids are not presented as mere victims. Instead, Kore-eda conjures up their desperate attempts to fend for themselves, to make do, to survive. Gradually, they become aware of their gruesome situation - but to an equal extent, this is a narrative about phantasy, about dreams and ways to escape. What is most striking is left for the viewer to ponder on her own: why did things turn out this way? Why did nobody intervene, why did no grown-ups acknowledge the severity and impossibility of the situation? This may be a political film about lack of responsibility, but Kore-eda chooses subdued images rather than a shrieking appeal to THIS IS A TRUE STORY!!! In this way, moralism is dodged and the film is all the more troubling as a result. Even though the camera sticks close to the kids, their small adventures or their idle moments, Kore-eda's approach is not suffocating or intrusive (he is not Ken Clark). The main character, Akira, the kid who, in being a few years older than the others, has to take care of and protect his siblings, is a character who remains quite mysterious. We see his sadness, his worries and his caring manouvres, but the director stays at a distance from him. This is not to say that the film creates no understanding of the kids. What I mean is rather that Kore-eda is not interested in an all-encompassing psychological perspective. This makes his film-making unique: he treats kids as human beings, not as stereotypes equipped with one-dimensional characteristics or a bundle of cute quirks.

Kikujiro (1999)

The first minutes of Kikujiro (dir. Takeishi Kitano) perfectly illustrate what kind of movie this is. Cute music. A kid is running through a very matter-of-fact landscape. Is this a hallmark production or a Kore-eda inspired movie? This tensions is kept throughout the film, and in my opinion, its a tension that works extremely well. A kid lives with his grandmother in a small town. The kid is bored, and he wants to visit his mother. Strangely, one of grandmother's friends - a thug - promises to take him there. The friend, played by the director himself, is one of the most memorable characters I've seen on film for a long time. A social catastrophy, he offends everyone he sees, but somehow he has taken to the boy and tries to go through with his mission. Kikujiro turns out to be a roadmovie, a strange one, involving a paedophile, a well-behaved motorcycle gang and a string of mishaps and adventures. I love the film for several reasons, the major being its style: things just happen, as things happen in real life - but this is life from the beckettian angle. Conventional action is kept to a minimum. The magic here is that the events have no particular narrative intelligibility - we never know what kind of story this is or what kind of story it will develop into. I think I have seen one or two of Kitano's hard-boiled gangster movies. Kikujiro is miles from that. It's a sensitive little film that treats social life with a certain open-endedness and wonder that makes it one of the rare examples of film succeding in taking a child's perspective seriously, without enforcing an adult rationality or moral logic. This is an adorable movie and I hope I will get to re-watch it sometimes. Very few movies mix the creepy and the cute and the naturalistic in this way. The humor often works through situations that are not really funny, but rather scary or repulsive. --- But it is a little bit strange that I liked this film, taking in account the vanity with which the director shows off himself and his cinematic quirks. Well - I let myself be gulled into liking this one, perhaps against my better judgment.

I Wish (2011)

I reviewed Kore-eda's Still Walking a while ago.  I was blown away by that film and I Wish is just as powerful. The film is unusual in many ways. Kore-eda's interest in existential questions is never heavy-handed, or tragic. The two films I've seen by him have both been life-affirming, but without a trace of the shallow and ideological feel-good structure that the American indie 'gems' tend to wallow in. Another unusual thing is the film's non-sentimental perspective on children as beings with full-blown lives with all the ambiguity and tension that involves. The story is a simple, yet quite erratic, one. Two brothers live apart from each other as their parents have split up. They talk on the phone and we follow the brothers in school and at home. One of the brothers live with his grandparents and his mother in a rural area next to a volcano. The other kid lives with his dad, who plays indie rock music. Both brothers engage in a tale about wish fulfillment: if one watches two particular trains intersect, then one can make a wish and the wish will become true. The kids take their friends with them to that place where the trains intersect. A third things that makes I Wish an unusual film is how the lighthearted style puts a frame around the existential concerns of the film. That style is, I would presume, not chosen in order to sugarcoat the story for the impatient viewers. Kore-eda shows how life goes on, despite all the sad things that occur in our lives. As I said, there is never a hint of tragedy in the film. The children's lives are seen from a perspective of joy and curiosity. The dialogue wanders off in ever-surprising directions. The kids are shown as both caring and brutal beings, insightful at times, immersed in fantasy most of the time. But Kore-eda never chooses to treat the kids' dreamy world from a grown-up perspective of disenchantment: the dreams reveal something about the world we all inhabit, kids and adults. The lack of sentimentality is evident on the kind of surroundings Kore-eda places his protagonists in: a matter-of-fact world. Urban life is compared with rural life, but neither is treated in a romantic way. A kid messes with a plant, but there is no hint that this is supposed to be the big Revelation of the fragility and mystery of existence. The jolly musical score co-exists with Kore-eda's wonderful (that's my opinion) fascination with the mundane look of infrastructure: roads, train stations, noises, telephones. I Wish is a film to marvel at by a truly vital director whose approach to film is one I am highly sympathetic with. I am happy that this kind of film gets done and that so many people are interested in watching it (I attended a film festival in Helsinki and the cinema was packed). 

The Human Condition I & II (1959)

How is a good man to act in a corrupt system? This seems to be the question that haunts Masaki Kobayashi's The Human Condition. Considering that the two first films were made in the late fifties, it is surprising how critical they are of Japan and Japanese politics and traditions. The Human condition can be placed in a humanistic tradition of films that take a raw and yet humane perspective on the human lot. This tradition is one-dimensionally associated with European directors such as de Sica and Visconti but obviously this tradition gained a footing also in non-European film. The first two films in the three-part series constitute an immense outcry against cruelty defended in the name of nationalism. What still confuses me is how Kobayashi felt about Japan and nationalism - and what perspective is expressed in the films. In some segments, especially in the second film, set in the army, it seems as if the director would grant the possibility of non-fascist nationalism. Militarism is heaviliy criticized, but it is unclear whether the discipline and pennalism of army life is considered as a corruption of sound Japanese values.

The story of the first two films is a simple one despite the fact that they span more than six hours of packed drama. Even though there are some bombastic scenes (with big, grand and desolate-looking landscapes), the big gestures do not feel empty. The viewer can see a real form of anger and an attempt to reveal truth. Kaji, an engineer, is the main character, around whom the narrative revolves. Being the good man who struggles against the darkness of his times, it is the tension between Kaji's reactions and the reality of the situation that form the moral heart of the film. In the first film, the man is sent (his wife accompanies him) to work as a manager in a prison camp/mining company in Manchuria. He has written a tract on labor conditions and now he sets out to transform his humanitarian words into practice. Of course, his superiors don't let him go through with the progressive reforms, but he won't let himself be bogged down. He is a strong-willed man who cares about people as much as he also seems to care about how he perceives himself. What we see the end is both a tragedy for a human being and a tragedy in history. The conditions of the times are such that one man's moral stand won't have an impact in the long run. The structure of the story in the second film is similar. The man has departed from the mines and is now conscripted to army service, where he is first an ordinary recruit and then he leads a group of new recruits, trying to represent a more decent form of leadership than the one characterized by cruelty and sadism. His group is sent to the front and the front is not a cozy place. 

One ambiguity in the film, that concerns the question about what it means to be a good person, is Kaji's moral character and how it is portayed. (Even though Kaji wants to do good, he is also shown to be slightly self-righteous.) In the worst interpretation of the first two films, it seems as if the major moral tragedy is not the cruel treatment of Chinese prisoners or the horrible deeds committed in a war, but the tragedy seems to stem fron an incongruity between principles and reality. In this reading, Kaji is above all a man of elevated principles - a man that wants to have his hands clean and to act as consistent as possible. Here, the constant tension is that between strength of character and the loss of control in an impossible situation. In another reading of the film, the director, a bit clumsily, shows how a human being's perception of reality is kept intact or how it is broken down. In the first reading, the meaning of 'reality' is neutral. Reality pops up its head and trumps over moral initiatives. In the second reading, 'reality' is moral reality so that losing one's sense of reality is also losing one's moral orientation, one's moral perception. In the first interpretation, morality is personal decency that can be retained or lost - in the second, morality is something we live with others.

For all its flaws, the Human condition is truly hard to watch because of its emotional harshness. Stylistically, it is a film that explores the catastrophe with a lofty camera perspective, so that the scene is often filmed slightly from above or from a distance. Sometimes, it is as if the characters are swallowed up by the majestic landscapes. The style of the film is well in sync with the emotional power of the story.

Still Walking (2008)

It is a rare gift for a director to have the ability to render the rhythm of ordinary life on film. Hirokazu Kore-eda clearly has this gift, and for this reason it is tempting to compare Still Walking with the films of Ozu. I think this is a fair parallell, as Kore-eda takes a similar interest in the dynamics of family life. Characteristic for these both directors is a complete lack of sentimentality. This is not the kind of film that turns family into ideology and nor does it approach the story from the perspective of dystopia. In Still Walking, we see people, some of whom know each other extremely well, being irritated by one another's ideosyncracies, which doesn't take away love and respect. The story of the film is centered around a reunion that marks the 15th anniversary of the death of the eldest brother. The film follows the family in ordinary rituals: eating, taking a walk, preparing dinner. Nothing very drastic happens, but there is always tension in the air. Kore-eda wants us to scrutinize the small things, gestures, an exchang of intentive glances, silences. As with Ozu's films, the camera is kept on a low level, staying close to the family. I have rarely seen a film that exudes such intimacy as Still Walking. Where other contemporary directors (Haneke for example) choose to see intimacy as something that almost always verges on violence and dread, Kore-eda's approach is gentler, without this implying that he settles with cozy and rosy images of the close relations of a family. Intimacy, here, can mean as different things as the coy discussions while preparing food as the mother of the family putting on the record that she listened to while in love with her husband as a young girl. Small moments mean a lot: a father that welcomes the appearance of his son at the house with a neutralized grunt, 'so you're here'. There is a lot of discomfort in the way the family members interact with each other, but we never see explosions or ruptures - this is the kind of movie that makes hints about things that people rarely talk about, but boils under the surface, the kind of emotions that are rarely verbalized in a direct way.

To a large extent, the film focuses on the relation between the oldest son, Ryota and his parents. Ryota has married a widow with a son, and his parents make a fuss about this, at first not really treating his wife and son as members of the family. Ryota is unemployed, "between jobs", and this is clearly treated as a  shameful matter as he makes up stories for his parents to hide this fact. His father is a retired doctor, and has strict ideas about what constitutes 'a worthwhile occupation'. Kore-eda manages to bring up big ideas and emotions and still let the story drift, unwind through the twists and turns of ordinary discussions. Kore-eda has a superb understanding for the strange bond between parents and children. A mark of what makes this film so great is that the locations actually come to look like a home, or the surrroundings of a home. This is not an easy task, as 'locations' in films tend to be reduced to a neutral prop. Here, the home is partially constituted by a sensitive attention to how the characters move in and out of rooms, how they sit down or stand up.

Still Walking is the best film I've seen in a long time.