Change Your Image
daiskeyoshida
Reviews
Lost in Translation (2003)
We'll always have Tokyo
I thoroughly enjoyed this film. Some viewers say it ridicules the Japanese, but it's the most honest portrayal I can recall about the experience of visiting Japan; to me it was a little like going home. It truly captures the country's combination of beauty in many different forms (neon, temples, bars) and impenetrability (same). This provides the ideal setting for a story about two people who feel alienated from their spouses and the world around them; Japan provides a nice expression for the alienation because it is *so* different, but this also leads our two protagonists together. The film is not really about Japan, but about the joy of miraculously finding emotional connection with a total stranger, and the sad realization that the feeling cannot last. The film's success in capturing this fleeting emotion -- the knowledge that there really cannot be "More Than This" as Bob sings in a karaoke booth -- displays a much deeper appreciation for Japanese culture, than if the film unnaturally were to include politically-correct balancing by, e.g., providing a tall Japanese guide who is fluent in English and can pronounce "R" and "L."
I don't know whether the humor in this film will translate in Japan (actually, the Japanese interpreter's ineptitude, the "conversation" with the old man in the hospital, and the TV show are even funnier in Japanese), but I imagine that people everywhere can appreciate the odd romance at its core.
Santa Sangre (1989)
This One Stays With You
I remember seeing this movie in 1990 in a tiny cinema in London, on a date. As we walked from the theater and got on the tube, neither of us said a word for 20 minutes. Finally, she said, "you have a strange taste in films."
Back then, I was heavily into Luis Bunuel. This was one of the few post-Bunuel movies that embodied the essential creepiness and odd humor of the Surrealists (the other one that comes to mind is "Videodrome"). There's the obvious Freudian stuff, the obvious shock stuff, but leaving all that aside, there are indelible moments of cinematic poetry. The elephant; the son's arms; the final shot. It feels, more than 10 years later, like a repressed dream/nightmare.
I don't consider this a "horror" movie, in the sense that there are no slasher, monster, alien, demon, zombie, cannibal, haunted house, supernatural, dread disease, or giallo elements. I don't remember this movie being particularly scary or gory; just creepy. Maybe it's in a similar genre to "Eyes Without a Face," but only in the sense that both movies deal with mutilation and revenge. (Then again, I remember seeing "Un Chien Andalou" and "In the Realm of the Senses" in the horror section of a video store -- a sign of either ignorance or insight, I could never figure out.) This one truly belongs in the Foreign Films section, but not just for being non-Hollywood.
Metropolis (1927)
2002 Restoration
(Based on the version shown at the Film Forum, NY, July-August 2002.)
Kino International has released a brilliant digital restoration recreating as much as possible of the original 1927 Berlin premiere. Gottfried Huppertz's orchestral score performed at the Berlin premiere has been reunited with the film, to tremendous effect. The print, in large part based on original negatives found in the German film archives as well as best-available prints from around the globe, has been digitally cleaned and looks sparkling new; no dust or jumps. The B&W contrast is great (none of the color tints from the 1984 Moroder version). This version is 127 minutes -- much closer to the 153 original release. The scenes that could not be recreated are described by short intertitles, and are not obtrusive. This is the definitive version of the classic.
NOTE TO PARENTS: This version has a fair amount of sexual content -- scantily-clad courtesans, "exotic" dancing, references to the "Yoshiwara" pleasure district (even though the "Yoshiwara" scenes themselves were irretrievably censored)) -- and scenes that may be disturbing to small children -- children being abandoned by parents (in a moment of political hysteria), children seemingly facing certain doom, and a creepy scene in a catacomb.
****SPOILERS AHEAD****
This version finally clarifies the missing plot elements and the motivations of the characters -- which is somewhat unfortunate, because it highlights the film's shortcomings. The story is, on one level, the story of an ill-planned labor action. It is also a pedantic piece of anachronistic propaganda; the business about how the "mind" (the thinkers) and the "hand" (the workers) must be mediated by the "heart" (the Leader?) presages Nazism. (This was said to be Hitler's favorite film.) There is also a fair amount of criticism against Weimar decadence, which just doesn't stand the test of time; the "Whore of Babylon" is very literally represented as, of all things, an uber-stripper. Actually, there's a lot of virgin-whore business generally: Dr. Rotwang creates the world's first cyborg, and makes her into -- ROBO-HO. Huh? This part of the movie is embarrassingly funny. Then, the movie just becomes increasingly ridiculous, with chunks seemingly culled from "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," "The Phantom of the Opera," and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." The sight of Dr. Rotwang hauling the unconscious Maria up to the cathedral rooftop as the citizens of Metropolis look up in horror is so inappropriate that it's laugh-out-loud hilarious. You could almost imagine a studio exec, after a test screening, putting his arm around Lang and saying, "we LOVE it, Frizty baby, BUT..."
But, in spite of all this, the visual magnificence of the movie, particularly in the first 40 minutes (the "Prelude") is spectacular and makes it well worth the price of admission or a DVD. This movie remains the font of SO much of today's cinema, particularly of what we still consider "breathtaking" -- e.g., Coruscant in Star Wars or the blighted cityscape in Blade Runner (and, to a lesser degree, Madonna's "Express Yourself" video) -- that it can only be described as visionary. The opening sequence and the "Moloch!" sequence reminded me of what it felt like seeing movies for the very first time.
Road to Perdition (2002)
Great Acting and Cinematography but Cold
This movie has a self-consciously artistic look, and if movies can be judged on looks alone, this is one of the finest. The lighting, colors and composition borrow heavily from Edward Hopper. The movie also borrows Hopper's distinctive mood: lonely and quiet. But somehow -- and in spite of understated, taut acting by a great cast, and music that accentuates but never overwhelms -- "Perdition" doesn't go beyond that. It never quite achieves the artistry that it alludes to.
Some reviewers talk about the moral ambiguity represented by having Tom Hanks play a mob hitman. This ambiguity is set out in the opening line of the movie: whether Michael Sullivan (Hanks) was a good man, or had no good in him at all. But there's no real ambiguity. Hanks has become such an archetype for the "decent everyman" that everything he does seems justified -- by his sense of loyalty, and the need to protect his family -- not driven by some dark kernel of evil compelling him to kill. Jude Law and Daniel Craig, by contrast, do great jobs of portraying the dark undercurrent in people who, in varying degrees, enjoy killing. This movie would have been somewhat more interesting (and its ambiguity more genuine) if Sullivan had more of a kinship to either of those characters, and even a touch of their evil. But their evil only serves to highlight his goodness. I think the lack of emotional resonance has something to do with what feels like a lack of depth in Hanks' portrayal of Sullivan -- he is too innately decent.
For all its faults, "Perdition" is worth seeing for just the acting. Paul Newman's eyes alone speak volumes more than the lines he's given, and Stanley Tucci manages to exude intelligence, mob honor, Macchiavellian pragmatism, menace, and an odd sort of decency in about three minutes of screen time. At the end, I didn't care about whether Michael Sullivan was a good man or not, but I did want to see more of Tucci playing Frank Nitti (VERY different from the how the character is portrayed by Billy Drago in The Untouchables (1987)).