Film reviews in 500 words or fewer

Tag: Absolute cinema

  • Flowers, fire, blood, Joe Hisaishi: Takeshi Kitano’s Hana-bi (A review)

    Flowers, fire, blood, Joe Hisaishi: Takeshi Kitano’s Hana-bi (A review)

    This review contains mild spoilers.

    Man commits a crime for the sake of his beloved is a tale as old as time. But Takeshi Kitano took this familiar narrative and flourished it with painful, understated, and at times violent beauty to set off a spectacle worthy of the title Hana-bi (Japanese for ‘fireworks’), his Golden Lion-winning 1997 masterpiece.

    The title itself reveals two of the film’s prominent motifs: flowers (花, hana) and fire (火, hi/bi), more specifically, gunfire. Hana-bi, usually tagged as a “crime drama” in reviews and synopses online, almost fetishizes these motifs if not for the curious and quietly visionary way that Kitano directed this work.

    A great example of what I’m talking about is a scene in the film’s second half where the camera pans over a painting of tiny yellow flowers that are also the kanji for “hikari” (光, ‘light’). It then zooms out to reveal the flowers falling into a serene snowscape. The calmness is jolted when the word “suicide” is revealed to be painted in big, bold, scarlet kanji, marring the pure landscape. The film then moves to a bloody real-life scene, before returning to the painting, now splattered with scarlet paint as a character pulls the trigger of an unloaded gun. This seamless blend of serenity and violence, present throughout the film, culminates in a finale that is one for the books.

    My thoughts on this film wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Joe Hisaishi’s score. I might be biased because I am such a big fan of his wonderful work with Studio Ghibli. But it was so satisfying to hear a familiar style right at the opening sequences and be pleasantly surprised to see Joe Hisaishi’s name as the scorer. Hana-bi, it turns out, was already his fourth collaboration with Kitano.

    The effect of Hisaishi’s score is heightened by how camera movements were so sparse that even “action” sequences were stylistically plain. With this, the score became instrumental in dictating “movement” and not just mood. It was equal parts pensive and brooding, giving the feeling that something is brewing that will explode and shock.

    And shock it did. The ending is as ambiguous as it gets, leaving the audience postulating what happened. And in that final shocker lies the X factor as to why this film is a cult favorite, in the vein of Fight Club. Hana-bi seemed to have treated death and violence flippantly, but it is not a film to teach about morals. However, it is not hollowed of substance, either.

    Indeed, in Japanese culture, the word used for the phenomenon called “double suicide”, shinjuu, is formed through the characters for “heart” and “center/inside” (心中), reflecting the inextricable link between the participants of such sad endeavor. It’s an open question whether this was the fate of some of the characters, but such oneness reminds us that life and death, and beauty and violence, are not just intertwined—they are inseparable.

  • Not a review: An initial survey of Japanese cinema

    Not a review: An initial survey of Japanese cinema

    Full list here with ratings and short reviews for each film: https://boxd.it/CUx1G

    One of my movie-watching goals this 2025 is to dig deep into Japanese cinema. I thought about going the auteur way (i.e., watch movies by director) but I felt like I wanted to do a proper survey that covers the diversity of what Japanese cinema has to offer in terms of style, themes, genre, and form. With that in mind, I thought that going over all the winners of the Japan Academy Film Prize Picture of the Year award would be a good start.

    I understand the limitations of this approach. In terms of historical scope, the Japan Academy awards has only existed for 48 years. I view this positively as I didn’t want to dive head on into older works while I try to get used to how the Japanese create films, both in form and content.

    Secondly, film academy awards such as the Oscars and the BAFTAs are not always viewed positively for a myriad of reasons, and the Japan Academy Film Prize is not an exception. However, I chose to watch this list first, and not, say, Kinema Junpo’s list of Best Films (annual, not the top 100), because the fact remains that academy awards are unique in that they are chosen by those who work in the film industry itself–producers, directors, actors, editors, cinematographers, etc. I’m always fascinated by how artists view theirs and others’ works, vs. non-artists, critics and the masses (all of which are also equally important constituencies). I think this kind of reflexive exercise is all the more important in the motion picture arts, which almost always involve more than one person in the creation process.

    Are these movies the best that Japanese cinema can offer? The word “best” is always contentious, and admittedly, some of the works in this list I personally thought were undeserving given the competition they had during the years they were given the award. Some were downright disappointing. Curiously, it doesn’t have one film by one of the two “winningest”** directors in Japanese cinema, Akira Kurosawa, although he wrote the screenplay for one. (The other winningest director, Shohei Imamura, has three in the list).

    But some have also been universally acclaimed, within and outside Japan. There lies the other thing I was thinking why I wanted to begin with this list. I felt like this is a way for the Japanese film industry to say which films are best for them, that is, according to their own terms and not the terms of the West or Hollywood. Throughout the history of Japanese cinema, Orientalism has been a consistent issue both within the industry and among critics and scholars. Japanese cinema has been curiously seen as “the Other” in contrast to Hollywood/Western cinema, and outsiders have tended to simplify what kind of good should be expected of films from Japan. So while I personally think that Akira Kurosawa is really up there among the great filmmakers of the world and of all time, the fact that he is not in this list is less about him not deserving it but more of recognizing works and filmmakers that have not necessarily made a name in the West but have made significant achievements in appealing to the sensibilities of the local Japanese film audience and industry.

    Still from Departures, dir Yojiro Takita (2008)
    Still from A Taxing Woman, dir. Juzo Itami (1987)
    Still from Shin Godzilla, dir. Hideaki Anno (2016)
    Still from Confessions, dir. Tetsuya Nakashima (2010)
    Still from Spirited Away, dir. Hayao Miyazaki (2001)
    Still from Black Rain, dir. Shohei Imamura (1989)
    Still from My Sons, dir. Yoji Yamada (1991)
    Still from A Man, dir. Kei Ishikawa (2022)
    Still from Our Little Sister , dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda (2015).
    Still from The Ballad of Narayama, dir. Shohei Imamura (1983)
    Still from The Twilight Samurai, dir. Yoji Yamada (2002)
    Still from Princess Mononoke, dir. Hayao Miyazaki (1997)
    Still from Begging for Love, dir. Hideyuki Hirayama (1998)

    The films on this list are a very diverse bunch. Aside from two animated movies (both from the legendary Hayao Miyazaki), it has two Godzilla movies, family dramas, a head-spinning psycho-horror, films about dancing, films about dying moms (among five total films about old age!), coming-of-age films, and of course period films and samurai films. I think Ken Ogata has the most lead actor appearance in these films. Some of these are thoroughly entertaining, some requires much patience with the long takes and sparse dialogue and plot that would ultimately be satisfying in the end.

    These are 45 movies and can take a while to get through, but if you’re interested, here are my favorites from each decade:

    1970s-80s

    • A Taxing Woman, dir. Juzo Itami (1987)
    • Black Rain, dir. Shohei Imamura (1989)
    • The Ballad of Narayama, dir. Shohei Imamura (1983)

    1990s

    • My Sons, dir. Yoji Yamada (1991)
    • Princess Mononoke, dir. Hayao Miyazaki (1997)
    • Begging For Love, dir. Hideyuki Hirayama (1998)

    2000s

    • The Twilight Samurai, dir. Yoji Yamada (2002)
    • Departures, dir. Yojiro Takita (2008)
    • Spirited Away, dir. Hayao Miyazaki (2001)

    2010s

    • Our Little Sister, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda (2015)
    • Confessions, dir. Tetsuya Nakashima (2010)
    • Shin Godzilla, dir. Hideaki Anno (2016)

    2020s

    • A Man, dir. Kei Ishikawa (2022)

    Have you watched any of these 45 films? What are your thoughts and favorites? Let me know in the comments!

    *I can’t find any way to watch Half a Confession (2004) and Rebirth (2011).
    **Obtained the most number of Best Film awards from the five longest-running film awards in Japan since 1946: Kinema Junpo, Mainichi Concours, Blue Ribbon, Hochi, and Japan Academy. Both Kurasawa and Imamura have seven.

  • Maborosi, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda (1995)

    Maborosi, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda (1995)

    Light is the language of cinema, and this work is an embodiment of that fundamental truth about films. In Hirokazu Kore-era’s first full-length narrative feature, light is not just what goes into the camera—it is a character of its own masterfully directed to play a silent but important role in the story of a quietly unfolding grief. The film, after all, is called Maboroshi no hikari, or an illusion of light, and while that refers to an important plot point, it is nevertheless an appropriate reflection of the way Kore-eda worked low-key magic with how he wielded light in this film.

    This film is patient, and it is smart about where to spend what kind of shot and for how long. As such, it requires the same patience from its audience. Sequences and scenes are not lingering here, they are downright long in a way that the passage of time fills you. The story is actually very, very simple and is captured in a penultimate scene but I believe that the point of the film is to elucidate humanity in sadness through visual storytelling. 

    That the film is full of long takes doesn’t mean it’s boring. On the contrary, I think this is one of Kore-eda’s most beautifully shot movies. From the raw but cleanly composed urban scenes of Osaka, to the breathtaking wide-angle sweeps of the ocean in a coastal town along the Sea of Japan, this movie has that signature Kore-eda polish while still somehow looking very grounded. Masayuki Suo’s Shall We Dance? and its similar mise-en-scene that is almost feels unstaged came to mind while watching. My favorite is the funeral procession scenes, both the overhead shot and the ultra-wide shot backgrounded by the sea and a dark sky. They are unassuming but they are two of the most memorable I’ve seen so far in Japanese cinema. 

    As I’ve been tracking year’s best Japanese films based on awards from the 40s to the present, I thought that Maborosi would have a place among those honored for 1995. But that year was dominated by A Last Note of veteran director and screenwriter Kaneto Shindo, winning all best film honors from the five longest-running awards that year and deservedly so. (Maborosi was very hot in the international festival circuit though). I think it’s always futile to compare which is the better film in context of awards because of myriads of reasons (incl. differences in awards constituencies, etc.). However, if one wants to know the best films in Japan in 1995, Maborosi would definitely be among them. Heck it was in Roger Ebert’s year-end best-of-the-year list.

  • Tampopo, dir. Juzo Itami (1985)

    Tampopo, dir. Juzo Itami (1985)

    You know that Scorsese meme that says, “Absolute cinema?” This film is one of those that deserves to be called that. If for Scorsese cinema is

    about revelation — aesthetic, emotional and spiritual revelation…about confronting the unexpected on the screen and in the life it dramatized and interpreted, and enlarging the sense of what was possible in the art form

    then this film can be counted among the most “cinematic”. Far and wide surely there are more entertaining films, more popular films, and even greater films (however you measure greatness) than Tampopo. But watching it from the start you know it is a tour de force of the medium.

    This film is unmistakably about food (ramen in particular) but it goes as broad and deep as it can to portray an “aesthetic, emotional, and spiritual revelation” about food in a way only cinema can bring. Watching Tampopo, you’ll get to taste and savor through your eyes—the spectacles of food and passion is raw and delicious, even delirious at times. There is a certain spiritual quality in the way food and sex are juxtaposed and not in the sense that these are gods or idols that humans “worship” but that both food and sex (and in one scene, food in sex) bring about such a sensory element to self-actualization.

    It may sound abstract but these are all potently brought to life by the comedy and the teamwork of Juzo Itami’s frequent collaborators, his wife Nobuko Miyamoto and Tsutomu Yamazaki. This is my 3rd Itami-Miyamoto-Yamazaki film (the other two being The Funeral and A Taxing Woman), and I can say that I’ve grown fond of the three, especially the chemistry between Miyamoto and Yamazaki. I’m really glad that I watched A Taxing Woman before this although this one is an earlier work. All I can say that there is magic when the two are together in a scene (the final scenes between the two in both films come to mind), and I’m setting out to watch more of their works together (I think there are three more).