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Reviews
Tonari no Totoro (1988)
great film, but watch it with subtitles!!!!!
Although I'm not a big fan of stories with no real conflict or character depth, Totoro was an admirable feature. I could have easily watched this film without sound and enjoyed it. The quality of the mise-en-scene was astounding. Nowhere besides in Japanese cinema do you get such images; The long shots, with little or no movement, a form of sentimentality in its most subtle form; The blending of colour so soft that the softest of sunsets cannot match this films tranquility; Combining images of normality and comfort with images of the fantastic, making us feel that even the typical is an extraordinary event. Cinema is not about story telling. The true cinematic masterpiece tells a story with images. The true cinema is a dynamic series of impressions. It is why two directors can use the same screenplay and make two completely different films. I would never view this film for its narrative merit, but would see it again simply for the power of its image. This movie is deserving of the title "Great Cinema"
Al di là delle nuvole (1995)
masterpiece
Beyond the Clouds is in many ways the weirdest film I have ever seen. Not for its Cult appeal, gore, or even for its ideas, but because of the elements that combine to make this a masterpiece of cinema. Beyond the Clouds was directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, one of Italy's most famous directors. However, if you gave this film only a quick watch-over, passively I mean, it would seem one of those melodramatic and often pointless romances. This movie deserves great attention, to the point of embracing all its cheese. By cheese I don't mean a slice, but a whole brick of cheddar! The music seems like it's from some Italian porno, the story and dialogue like they are from a corny Japanese soap, and the metaphors are so obvious you want to smack yourself on the head.
But once you get passed all this, you are engaged in an existential work of art. The cheese feeds into the subtle filming and draws our attention, perfectly, to what needs to be known. The basic plot is of four chapters, unrelated, and all about love. What we learn is that no matter what happens or what is said, people cannot communicate to each other. Instead they can only communicate through each other. I suppose that's why the dialogue and plot is so cheesy, because the conversations are overly irrational with lack of causality and people's reaction overly melodramatic.
I left that film thinking to myself; maybe all life is one big melodrama. We judge our feelings towards others as real and purposeful. I hate, because I have reason. But what does the hated think? Maybe they think that my hate is stupid and arbitrary. In other words, melodramatic.
So melodrama is actually an existential function. A corny romance is simply human interaction put under a magnifying glass, allowing us to see the futility of who we are and what we do.
This is a great film, I recommend it to all!
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
crap
This morning I was sitting in Japanese literature class, while Murakami's Novel "A Wild Sheep Chase" was being discussed, and a student so boldly suggested a number of parallels between it and "The Lord of The Rings." To my dismay a majority of the students in the class started to giggle, thinking this comment was almost a joke. What's sad about it, is that his points were valid and made perfect sense. He was comparing the Murakami novel's narrative, characters, and moral messages to LOR, and it was a most convincing comparison. Literally everything from how the characters are similar to how the plot concludes is very similar.
Based on the class reaction, I have to ask, when did Lord of the Rings cease to be literature and become another Hollywood movie? 15 years ago, if the same comparison were made, people would value it and even consider it. Before LOR became a movie it was one of the most read books in the 20th century and its readership and importance in a country like Japan was present. So why couldn't this parallel exist? After all Murakami was and is heavily influenced by Western literature.
Before this class, I only criticized LOR as a film in itself, and gave it credit for exposing people to a classic story. In fact, I'm pretty sure these movies will introduce millions more to the books. But now I feel differently. The lack of integrity these movies possess will pollute the books and therefore reduce their real cultural importance. When I watch these movies, I see Hollywood on a grand scale. I see little of what is in the novels and instead see an inverse effect from what I expected. Now when I consider the novel I can only picture the dumb-wit characters, so shallow and bland following the plot line like a trail of breadcrumbs. If I could go back and reverse the money and time I wasted watching these films I would. In fact, I wouldn't suggest them to anyone, because they in no way enhance the original work. I'm not critical of film adaptations of novels in many cases. Don't get me wrong. A great filmmaker can take a great novel and show you things about it that you could have never thought of yourself. He or she can interpret a work of literature as the original author originally interpreted reality itself. Italian and Japanese cinema seem to have a good track record of adaptations, but American cinema
Its %@#$! Please don't butcher anymore great works.Please.... Leave something for those who actually care about art.
Ba wang bie ji (1993)
'Gone With the Wind' of China
An apt functional definition of art is 'a stylistic representation of an artist's views through a given medium.' A style can take many forms, such as realism or surrealism, but what all styles hold in common is the conveyance of a message. Films like "Farewell my Concubine" are political in nature, expounding a philosophy that "the personal is political ." This movie is a high-style epic drama, which is why some critics call it "whiney " or "soapy ." Although there are melodramatic elements in the film, it should not be taken at face value, but instead as representational of Chen Kaige's deep-seated feelings about the status of the Chinese people. What appears to be a story of love and betrayal amongst tumultuous political change is in fact a criticism of the dissociation between Chinese politics and Chinese culture, causing major problems throughout an individual's life.
The dichotomy between culture and politics and the tension therein caused, is shown by three broad elements: Peking Opera representing culture, extraneous political forces, and people living in between art and politics. By examining how all three elements interact we will see the director's political views and how the personal lives of characters figuratively represent the dilemma of the Chinese people.
What lies between culture and politics is the individual. The individual, like a canvas is painted by environmental factors. For Douzi and Shitou, the principle characters, their first impression in the film is the Peking opera. The Peking Opera as an environmental factor represents culture. As the troupe leader says while the children are going through difficult training, 'the Opera is what makes us human, without it we are but animals.' As people, our culture is our humanity . Food, art, clothing, religion, and ceremony culminate to create 'culture.' Without it, we could scarcely define ourselves apart from animals. The Peking Opera represents Chinese culture, and purposely so. Few elements could capture the true complexity and nuance of a culture like Peking Opera can. The movie, developed in the last three-strip Technicolor lab , allows the colour, technique, flexibility, and more, to show the product of the cultural embellishment in Peking Opera (Chinese culture). As well, to fully integrate into a culture, one must suffer cultural hazing. Douzi undergoes many initiations. His finger being chopped off, a pedophilic encounter with an old man and continual beatings for not accepting cultural role are examples of his initiations. But after accepting the throws of culture, he finds comfort and stability within his culture. Douzi's transfer of his stage character, the concubine, into real life is an affirmation of his cultural identity. The concubine must suffer in the opera, and therefore so must Douzi. The climax of his suffering is his own death, which is the ultimate instatement of cultural identity. At the opposite end of Douzi is Shitou, a character who is far more politically oriented than Douzi. Shitou can be considered a cultural sellout, someone who sees survival as more important than tradition. At the heels of Cultural Revolution Shitou abandons his history. For example, when both King and Concubine discuss their art to the young communists in an acting class, Shitou yields to the political flame of communism, agreeing with the young communists. And as artifacts of his cultural history are being burned in the streets (books and swords), he too dumps his personal history into the flames (wife and friend). Douzi can do nothing but kill himself, out of love for king and country, because his king has lost the final battle.
The tension between Douzi and Shitou embody the tension between Culture and politics. Chen shows that one end of the spectrum must suffer at the hands of the other. Throughout the film we feel sympathy for a dying way of life, especially as we grow to know more about the nature of Peking Opera. Our sympathy for opera suggests that alien political systems antagonize the cultural system, and therefore are an object of criticism. This is most apparent during the Cultural Revolution when traditional artifacts and ways of life are brutalized. The 'culture of revolution' according to Marx should destroy a bourgeois' past, and establish social and economic equality for the masses . Instead, what the Cultural Revolution destroyed was what made all Chinese equal and great, their cultural heritage. The revolutionists may have dispelled capitalist motivations, but first and foremost they destroyed the love between man and woman, between king and concubine, the very symbols of beauty in this film.
At the end of the film there is a concession to Chinese culture, when a Peking Opera is put on to celebrate the operas 200th anniversary. In Chen's China this is reality, a country opening up to the world and to new ideas. The only way to protect itself from ideological domination from America and other influences is to protect its heritage, and part of that heritage is the Peking Opera. For China to ensure the safety its heritage, the culture that has shaped individuals for thousands of years must also shape modern politics. Openly celebrating Peking Opera in Chen's film is making the personal 'political', and merging the two dichotomous entities into a single unifying element for China.
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
eh, not terrible
Yesterday I saw Brokeback Mountain, the infamous movie that amalgamates the classic hegemonic masculinity of the American western with the feminine sensitivity of a gay Romance. Commenting on this movie is a difficult task, because it raises questions about what exactly makes a good movie good. First of all, Ang lee is generally considered one of the better directors out of Asia. His style was birthed in the hongkong cinema and eventually we came to know him in North America through such movies as 'the hulk.' But after watching his North American movies I have to ask, "where is the Chinese side of Ang Lee?" His film-making is highly Americanized. Now, because he makes American style movies doesn't make his movies bad. The American style in some cases is the best, citing Hitchcock and Hawks as examples. But they were Auteur, letting their personal style shine through the Hollywood formula. Here resides my central criticism of Brokeback; it lacks personal style. The movie has a sound screen play with great cinematography and pretty good acting. It is a story about two lovers separated by fate, that fate being the obligations they must fulfill to society at large. But if this was not about gay lovers it would essentially be like Romeo and Juliet shot in the Alberta Rockies. The movie lacks any specific social commentary, and is totally devoid of artistic integrity. It is a well-made move, but not a great movie. Not one that deserves recognition as a work of art. The movie is representational, presenting a story that is easy to fall into, but presenting little about what the writer or director actually thinks the problem or solution is. There is little ideological basis for the movie, and foremost I think people are fooled into thinking the movie has intense ideology because it deals with gay subject matter. But as I read earlier, because a movie deals with controversial subject matter, that doesn't make it a deep or good movie. So watch it, and keep in mind that you are watching a literal and uninspired interpretation of Romeo and Juliet with a hook, they are gay.