Lost In Translation

God Help The Girl

I suppose I am predisposed to liking writer/director Stuart Murdoch's debut musical film God Help The Girl (2014) given that I am a fan of the music of his two bands that contributed to the soundtrack, Belle & Sebastian and the band, God Help The Girl. However, I can admit that the film isn't strong in it's narraitve, it's more like a bunch of video strung together. It lacks a strong storyline of a more cohesive musical like the solid Once, that featured songs from Glen Hansard and The Swell Season. That being said I enjoyed the film in spite of its flaws.

The Downfall Of Osen

The Downfall Of Osen (1935) is Kenji Mizoguchi's last silent feature, which is one of the four films from the 30s that Donald Kirihara discusses in his book Patterns of Time: Mizoguchi and the 1930s (the others are Osaka Elegy, The Sisters of the Gion, and The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum). It is also the second shimpa based story he adapted from Kyoka Izumi,the film before in 1933 was The Water MAgician. This film is notable for the complex flashback structure that tells the story of Osen (Isuzu Yamada) and Sokichi (Daijiro Natsukawa). When they meet Sokichi is at his wits end is planing suicide and she stops him and brings her back to the house she shares with a gang of swindlers. She is being used as bait by the gang and Sokichi is abused by the members of the house and proves to meek as a mouse. They finally break free when they foil a plan to set up a monk and are set free. There is a powerful scene where Osen puts a razor blade in her mouth and says she would rather die than continue being a member of the gang. From this point on Osen supports Sokichi as he attends medical school. At first she sells her thing sot support them,but finally resorts to prostitution to support them. After she is arrested, Sokichi secures a medical doctor as his benefactor. Later we learn he has forgotten about Osen until fate brings them together on a train platform years later (where the flashback originally begins) where Osen is ravaged by syphilis and he is unable to do anything for her. There are some interesting effects, camera movements, and tracking scenes, however, there are no long one take scenes that Mizogcuhi will be known for in the 50s.

A Touch Of Sin

A Touch Of Sin (2013) is Jia Jhangke's most recent film and was his best overall to date. It was a film that was inspired by true life events that were posted online in China and all events were concerned with various acts of violence. Throughput the film there were several recurring motifs among the four stories involving animals, people reaching breaking points for various reason internal and external. The first main story was about a man, Dahai (Wu Jiang) who is obsessed with corruption concerning a collective mine in his small town that has mad some people rich while others continue to toil away in misery. After he is brutally beaten for speaking out, he responding in an orgy of vigilante violence bring his own sense of justice to the matter. The next story concerns a man, Zhou San (Baoquiang Wang), who travels the country committing brutal robberies to support his family, but mostly just because he likes shooting people with guns. The third story is about a small town boy, Xiao Hui (Lanshan Luo) struggling to find a place in society and after a series of setbacks-one including a failed romance. And the final story is about a receptionist at a massage parlor (Zhao Tao), who is recovering from a doomed affair with a married man, stabs an overly-aggressive client. The first acts of violence have Taranatino-esque levels of gore, while those in the second sequence are sudden and seemingly unnecessary, the third story is an act of violence carried out by an individual upon himself, and the last is stylized much like a wuxia heroine, and this places the exhilarating sequence in the realm of myths rather than reality. The narrative structure and Hollywood-like violence separate this film from the director's earlier films. However the violence doesn't come across as gratuitous since Zhanghe is making a statement about contemporary Chinese society and questions the sources for these disparate acts of violence. If this film does have something in common with those earlier films, it would be the impressive cinematography and long distance shots that dominate the film giving the viewer a close look at the people and the great expanses of contemporary China. This film is certainly one of the classic of the new decade and should be remembered years from today.

Lauderdale

My first visit to Lauderdale in Roppongi Hills for brunch. I got the "Mama's Garden" omelet with basil, tomato, and Gruyee cheese, bacon, a baguette, vegetable pottage soups, and coffee for ¥1700. I think there are better brunch options in the area, but might be back for the seating on the veranda.

Map To The Stars

Deeply disturbing, creepy, but suspenseful portrayal of Hollywood and show business, Map To The Stars (2014) from David Cronenberg, who is somewhat of an expert of making "feel bad" movies. I read two raves that moved this up the list of recent films to see, one from Salon's  Andrew O'Heir, who calls it "daring, imperfect." The other review was from The New York Review of Books writer Francine Prose, who says that what is exciting about the film "is the inventiveness and ease with which it stakes out a dark corner of territory under the bright California sun."  Julianne Moore, as fading and troubled actress Havana Segrand, hits it out of the park as a significantly flawed and unlikable character. Then again it seems that every major character has problems-most of all the children, child star and recovering addict Benjie (Evan Bird) and his recently released from a mental hospital sister Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) of the against type parents: John Cusak and Olivia Williams. All of the actors pull their weight in this Hollywood nightmare. I can't say it an enjoyable film, but one that pulls you along through the darkness to see what happens next.

Miss Oyu

Miss Oyu (1951) is a Kenji Mizoguchi film that is an adaptation of a Junichiro Tanizaki story, "The Reed Cutter." I am sure I've read the story, but it was so long ago I don't remember whether or not Mizoguchi and his screenwriter Yoshitaka Yoda did justice to it. However, it feels as though it is too chaste of a treatment from the likes of Tanizaki ,who was known for his penchant for unconventional sex and death. Furthermore, there is lots of melodrama in the story, but I don't think the story is the real draw here, instead it is Mizoguchi's artistry with light and dark, exquisite framing within Japanese houses as well as gorgeous location scenes outdoors. Mizoguchi draws visual interest to the spectator's eye irrevocably towards the focus of dramatic interest with the action and the precision of the mise en scène arranged by the director. Kinyu Tanaka stars as the ill-fated Miss Oyu and would go onto have her greatest success with Mizoguchi, culminating in The Life of Ohara.

Unknown Pleasures

Unknown Pleasures (2002) is the third installment in what has come to be known as the "hometown trilogy" with previous films The Pickpocket and Platform, which were directed by Jia Zhangke. In this film, which takes place in Datong, a place which is closer to Mongolia than Beijing. Disaffected youth struggle with the future in a place with few opportunities. Places like these are in stark contrast to the images, for most of the west, where coastal China is seen as a rapidly developing area with a myriad of opportunities for success. Xiao Ji (Wu Qiong) falls for Qiao Qiao (Zhao Tao), a singer-model who promotes Mongolian King liquor for her boyfriend, and his best friend Bin Bin (Zhao Wei Wei). Bin Bin struggles looking for a future and has a nagging mother, who causes him problems as a member of the Faulan Gong religious cult. Cultural references abound: from the joy of the announcement of Beijing as the host of the 2008 Olympics to the cartoon Monkey King and Pulp Fiction, but these characters continue in their struggle against quiet desperation as the world passes them by. The film is punctuated by the post apocalyptic backdrop of the region and the usual characteristic long shots of Zhangke are the focus throughout.

Our Man In Havana (Novel)

I decided to re-read Graham Greene's classic spy novel, Our Man In Havana, after having seen the film version starring Alec Guiness and after having visited Cuba itself. I was struck by how enjoyable it was, and the film was fairly true to the novel. I had read Christopher Htichens' introduction in his book of essays, Arguably, previously and it gets to the heart of Greene's world and artistry. The cold war setting in Havana, Cuba at the time before Fidel Castro's revolution is eerily prescient as the setting in Vietnam before the decisive battle of Dien Bein Phu in The Quiet American. As Hitchens points out Wormold is living a life of quiet desperation with his naughty good-girl daughter Milly who has some expensive tastes, meeting his drinking companion Dr. Hasselbacher on occasion at Sloppy Joe's or The Wonder Bar. His life in irrevocably changed when he is recruited to be England's "man in Havana." Suddenly Wormold can afford that horse for Milly and becomes less concerned about her future. Things start to go awry once his fictitious reports start to come true. Alcohol often plays an important role in Greene's novels, and, in fact, it is included in a pivotal scene where Wormold plays the devious Capt. Secura checkers with miniature whiskeys which must be drank as they are taken. After the book has come to its conclusion, it might be said that the reader has learned a few things about the author himself, in that there is some discussion as to who people should be loyal to and in Greeneland, one's country is quite far down the list that is topped by family and friends. After re-reading this classic novel, it remains among my favorites-it has not been diminished by time.

Listen Up Philip

Overall I have to say that I enjoyed Alex Ross Perry's homage to Philip Roth and the literary world in Listen Up Philip (2014). I thought the two profoundly self-absorbed writers, mentor Ian Zimmerman and protege Philip Lewis Friedman, were expertly cast and masterfully played by Jonathan Pryce and Jason Swartzman. Of course there were some good supporting actors as well particularly Lisabeth Moss as Swartzman's long suffering girlfriend, Ashley Kane and Kyrsten Ritter as Zimmerman's bitter daughter Melanie. My main issue with the film was that it spent too much time following the lives of characters (Zimmerman and Ashley) other than Freidman to it's detriment and loss of focus and making the film too long. I think it would have been shorter and more effective if the focus had stayed on Schwartzman.

Portrait Of Madame Yuki

The 1950s would be the decade that would define Kenji Mizoguchi's career with films like Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff, and The Life of Oharu. His first film of the that era was Portrait Of Madame Yuki (1950), which has its merits but falls short of the classics mentioned above. I think most of this has to do with some of the facile dialogue and blustery melodrama that inhabits the film. That being said the visual aspects of the film are executed with artistry. Mizoguchi's eye for framing a scene or using movement with a crane on location shots. There are several masterly location shots that take place in Izu with the spectacular views of the ocean and surroundings that punctuate some of the more dramatic moments of the film. The film's climax is a sequence that is purely visual, Madame Yuki (Michiyo Kogure) makes her way to the lake, the mist of the morning envelopes the grass (see the still above). It is a powerful optical sequence, however, it is also theatrical in it’s description, and is filled with poetic feeling. It is an example of Mizoguchi’s masterly touch for visual compositions.  It is scenes like this that make Portrait of Madame Yuki a worthwhile film despite it's flaws. The film’s final scene takes place off screen, but it predicts a similar event visualized later on in Mizoguchi’s Sansho the Bailiff.