Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa)

To live.

"This stomach belongs to the protagonist of our story," says a narrator, who's pertaining to an x-ray image of a stomach obviously ripe with cancerous complications. And so begins "Ikiru", a meditative film of quiet power that tackles mortality and life's purpose yet also dips its fingers on issues concerning the cons of bureaucracy. The film's protagonist is Kanji Watanabe, an old man who seems to be no more alive than a dysfunctional machine.

     

In many ways, films like "Scent of a Woman" and "About Schmidt" derive from "Ikiru's" main emotional drive, which is as timeless as it is life-affirming. As what the film suggests, maybe it is only in the face of death and mortal desperation will we muster change and find true significance; indeed, life is brief. In the words of the narrator in "Fight Club": "This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time".

     

Takashi Shimura, who has previously played the woodcutter in "Rashomon" and who will later play, after this film, the noble Kambei in "Seven Samurai", plays Watanabe, a bureaucrat who, for the longest time, has led an uneventful life drained of all meaning or worth. Making his living by stamping insignificant papers for approval, he is as mechanized and emotionless as he can be. But in one ill-fated day, he is diagnosed with stomach cancer. According to the doctor, he has around six months to live. 

     

Devastated, Watanabe has never felt more strangely detached from the land of the living. His already hunched posture even becoming more contorted and his already fragmented articulation of words becoming even more so, Watanabe, as maybe what Kurosawa has intended, is the defining image of a modern man who has nothing to say about his life other than the painful fact that he has merely 'lived'. 

     

Going home, Watanabe then pitifully tries to tell his son about his terminal illness but is discouraged by the latter's coldness. Finding no sense of belongingness either in his own home (with his son being mainly concerned not with his father's well-being but with his pension) or in his work, he suddenly had this craving to just lash out. Guided by a struggling novelist, Watanabe then tries to navigate the busy, booze-laden nightlife of '50s Japan to find out whether or not it can make up for his final days. As it turns out, it does not. 

    

After his bar-hopping misfire, he then gets closer to a young woman named Toyo, an office subordinate of his who has recently tendered her resignation in Watanabe's office in favor of working in a toy factory, and whose exuberant and pure love for life leaves Watanabe in utter awe and in disgruntled fascination.

     

Miki Odagiri, who plays Toyo, has this distinct kind of energy that finely balances out Takashi Shimura's seemingly stagnant and doomed presence. By often framing Shimura's Watanabe, hunched, blank-eyed and ever-brooding, in the foreground and Odagiri's Toyo in the not-so-distant background, Kurosawa was constantly able to highlight the two characters' contrasting traits, behaviors and overall existence within the spatial landscapes of the film.     

     

"…In other words, why are you so incredibly alive?" Watanabe blurts out to Toyo, who innocently mistakes his desperate need to understand his own existence as romantic advances. Toyo answered him that all she does is work and eat. She then gets a toy rabbit from her bag, one of the many products being made in the toy factory where she's employed; "Making them (the toy rabbits), I feel like I'm playing with every baby in Japan," Kimura then said. 

     

Seemingly refreshed from Toyo's all-too-naïve yet honest response, Watanabe then sets out to do something that may hopefully make him matter. In a stunning turn of events, Watanabe transforms from an old nobody to a defiant spirit reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart's Mr. Smith determined to will through the lethargic incompetency of the city hall officials so that he can convince them to turn a mosquito-laden cesspool into a children's park.     

     

Much like "Rashomon", we then get to see another epistemological discourse on Kurosawa's part, this time not about the truth (or the lack thereof) behind a mysterious murder but about the legacy of a man who everybody never expected to have left one. And by piecing together some fragmentary moments in Watanabe's life as witnessed by his co-workers, from his brave persistence to stand up for the children's park to his starry-eyed admiration of the sunset, we then finally arrive at what Watanabe is looking for all his life: meaning and self-worth. 

     

"Ikiru", which literally means "To Live", is a an affecting film that explores man's search for existential meaning not through philosophically sophisticated means that may alienate viewers but realistically through an old man's eyes who just want to be at peace with those around him and, more importantly, with himself. Despite of "Ikiru's" apparent and sometimes much too overwhelming commentary on political bureaucracy, I'd rather remember it as an honest and reflective film about mortality and the often undermined beauty of life; simple as that. This then reminds me of a quote by Monty Python's Michael Palin: "Don't talk about living, just live".

FINAL RATING

Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais)

Affection.

Bleak, moody and scarred, "Hiroshima Mon Amour" is a film of uncommon power that treads both the emotional trauma of love and the ravages of war. Amid post-war Hiroshima, the film has maintained a deeply soulful dialogue between two lost people desperately trying to feel, to fall in love overnight, and to understand. But this isn't "Before Sunrise" here. 

     

"Hiroshima Mon Amour" is just one of those legendary films whose allure can never be easily diminished. Yes, it is a truly impressive exercise in innovative filmmaking technique (it is the film that has deeply influenced the French New Wave), but buried deep within all its picturesque framings and compositions is a beating heart and a crying soul. 

     

With a quietly affectionate screenplay written by Marguerite Duras that contains stream of consciousness dialogues that’s as romantically longing as they are emotionally detached, "Hiroshima Mon Amour" conveys its power through its two main characters' internal articulacy. They speak in a manner that transcends the limitations of the tongue. They speak as if their feelings overlap their vocabularies. They converse as if they see through each other's hearts. A French actress (Emmanuelle Riva) and a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada): the two of them represent the confusion we call love and the despairing post-romantic reality we call pain. They both know that they want each other but they just can't admit it to themselves. 

     

In the film's early scenes, we see how happy the French actress is when she's with the architect (shot in effective close-ups). But slowly and effectively, director Alain Resnais was able to construct her ironically fractured past by way of fragmentary flashbacks in Nevers, France that's as dream-like as the cityscapes of post-war Hiroshima. Sporting a haircut like that of Maria Falconetti in "The Passion of Joan of Arc" in the past, the French actress, just like the aforementioned saint, is a martyr, but not in the context of religion but of love. 

     

Resnais has highlighted the fact that, like all women, the French actress just wants to feel love more than anything else but is deeply scarred to try yet again. She consummates the meager sexual pleasures with the architect but she's too afraid to go beyond that. She wants to feel once more. She wants to erase the past, forget and fall in love again but just can't because she knows that she won't be ready yet. 

     

There's this powerful scene in the film where the actress is telling the architect the story of how she once loved a German soldier back in Nevers, France when suddenly, the architect seems to take on the identity of the deceased German lover as he identifies more and more with the story. The actress, on the other hand, lost in her own romantic recollection, unconsciously talks back to the architect as if she's talking to the German himself. Despite of her new-found connection with the Japanese gentleman, she still struggles to see herself together with other men other than her tragic lover. She's a captive of her own painful memories.

     

With a slightly upbeat musical score that seems to mock the utter desperation in the French actress and the Japanese architect's happenstance romance, "Hiroshima Mon Amour" is a film that does not scoff at the idea of love outside marriage but instead seems to mourn the idea as to why should this limitation exist. Although that's just a mere observation from yours truly, I just can't help but feel that aside from the French actress' inescapably scarred past, what may also be holding them back is the simple fact that they are both married. 

     

There's this scene in the film where both of them, standing quietly across each other in a living room, straightforwardly expressed their utmost admiration for their respective husband and wife. Sure, for some reasons explainable only by the heart, they want to be with each other, but they are also aware of the fact that their marriages are too good to be on the losing end of their intended romantic transgression. 

     

In another key scene, notice how the architect is chasing the actress through the streets of Hiroshima yet the latter keeps on moving and the former, uncharacteristic for a person who wants to catch up with someone, merely preferred to trail her. They want to hold each other yet they also want distance and space. "You're destroying me. You're good for me," the actress told the architect while they are presumably making love in the earlier moments of the film; there's the paradox of their romance right there. 

     

"Hiroshima Mon Amour", aside from being a landmark film that has launched an entire cinematic movement, is an unforgettable love story not of two people but of two longing souls who, because of circumstances, just can't be together. "You saw nothing in Hiroshima," the Japanese architect said to the actress in the film's early scenes. Maybe that's what they need to believe in to properly move on.

FINAL RATING

Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)

The long goodbye.

A second viewing.

Time and time again, it has been proven that a mark of a great film is the fact that no matter which place and what timeline you bring the core of the main story and its themes, the impact will always be the same. That claim is valid, of course, not strictly limited merely for films, but in every medium of artistic narratives as a whole, so to speak. Shakespeare's works, for example, right? Set "Hamlet" in Ancient Greece, "Macbeth" in Imperial China and "Romeo and Juliet" in Monarchical India, but the essence of their tales won't even be affected. 'Timeless', as they say.

But then there comes Sofia Coppola, armed with a little film called "Lost in Translation", a very picturesque 'Japan' to render fresh and some emotions to transcend. The aforementioned claim to greatness of films, as what was stated above, appeared to be not the case for "Lost in Translation" that made it rightfully so. Its theme of alienation and a subsequent connection in a haze of culture shock and language barrier (although were treated by Coppola's script with witty naivety that does not poke fun in the wrong places) was tackled perfectly by specifically setting the film in 'Japan'.

Putting it in China will get the same effect of misunderstanding and cultural difference, but the ideal Japanese bluish grayness wouldn't be there. Setting it somewhere in Europe may look too elegant, while locating the film somewhere exotic and infinitely tropical will be too adventurous and lively. The film needed stagnation, but at the same time, it asks for some unpredictable quirks and eccentricities. Japan is, after all, the definitive country there is. Tokyo's technologically advanced, contemporary metropolis, to be exact.

So, now that the alienating location was established, where would the film extract its romance? With the help of Scarlett Johansson's knowing yet discreet performance as newlywed twenty-something Charlotte and Bill Murray's naturally comic performance (that is one of the best performances of his career) as midlife crisis-inflicted actor Bob Harris, the film (along with its emotionally observant screenplay that won Sofia an Oscar) has further elevated the film from being a potentially lackluster travelogue-cum-romantic comedy film into a whole new height.

Granted, there were scenes that may look like cinematographic clichés for films set in foreign countries (the much used editing where a character is looking out from a car or a train's window, while images of landmarks are juxtaposing along with their wondrous stares and awestruck faces), but it was part of their characters. Beyond their situations, one tagging along with her husband (played by Giovanni Ribisi) for a job (Charlotte), and the other in there to shoot a whiskey commercial (Bob), although debilitated by cultures and places immensely different from their own, they still strive to appreciate Japan as it is, and to understand.

In some scenes, it was quite obvious that Bill Murray were ad-libbing lines mostly for comic effect, but it makes his character's bond with Charlotte much more genuine with all its tender spontaneity. To be precise, it is in a scene where they are eating in a typical Japanese restaurant of some sorts. Scripted or not, Bill Murray delivered his lines so irrevocably funny in a certain conversationally mundane way that Scarlett Johansson's laughs looked more authentic and very 'by-the-moment'. These sequences have helped to uphold their already very involving chemistry, and through that, they have achieved to inhabit the sensibilities of real people that for once, although how admittedly beautiful Scarlett Johansson is, by way of her portrayal of Charlotte, I wouldn't even be surprised if I bump into her character in a crowd of tourists all dazed and confused. Yes, she was that convincing.

There were many unforgettable scenes in the film mostly enhanced by Bill Murray's everyman-type slapstick and Scarlett Johansson's combination of ennui and starry-eyed cultural wonder. But it has got to be the final, evocative scene that easily takes the cake as the film's defining moment that exposes the silent power of love.

We see them say goodbye in the hotel lobby, but we all know that it was merely for formality's sake. After the brief farewell, Bob rides a car. Then in a busy corner, Bob Harris asked for his driver to stop. She saw a blond-haired woman that seems like Charlotte. It was her indeed. He went into her and they embraced. He then whispered to her something inaudible to us, but what Bob has said were just meager in importance. We have followed their connection, their relationship and their love close enough for the film's entirety that in that final whisper, we accepted their privacy and we gave it to them.

And as Bob returns to the backseat of his car that will bring him into the airport and then back into America, he alternately looks out the window and around him. The buildings and the highway. The cars and the skyline. At first, when he arrived in Tokyo, he looked upon them with questions in his mind, but after he has professed his love to an acquaintance in a foreign land that has unconsciously taught him to understand, he looked upon the metropolis with cathartic eyes. This time, it's with clarity, and with a hint of a smile.

FINAL RATING

Enter the Void (Gaspar Noe)

Existence in Tokyo in full, living (literally) color.

Gaspar Noe, an underground master auteur, continues his visceral exploration of raw human drama with "Enter the Void", an epic surrealist film with touches of the supernatural interspersed with unsettling colors and images going askew into a territory where despair is a way of life. Going as ambiguous as possible with the theme of 'incest' prevalent throughout the film, Noe combines the 'in-your-face' emotional gut wrench of "Irreversible" and the aforementioned theme in the psychologically disturbing "I Stand Alone".

With both approaches from these two previous films utilized, we have, in our hands, an assault to the senses that is also a dire though sweet cinematic discourse about sibling love paired with a bit of mental conflict.

The film was labeled as a 'Psychedelic Melodrama', which is of course an absolutely perfect description. But "Enter the Void" is also a perfect example of an experimental film made by a filmmaker with an imagination going through constant permutations. Its story concerns that of a deceased drug dealer named Oscar (played by new-comer Nathaniel Brown) and his transcendent observation of his sister's (played by Paz de la Huerta) life through transitions of fires and lights in the calmly transgressive night life in Tokyo.

Gaspar Noe already used reverse chronology, 'shock' filmmaking and continuous shots in his previous works. This time, he initially used first person point of view, then suddenly transforming into shots behind the protagonist's back. Not only does it provide a closer look into the film's degrading drama of sex and drugs, nor is it just a senselessly voyeuristic perception of the more sexually-charged sequences. It's also an emotional narrative device of how those people around the protagonist look to be too close to touch yet too far away to feel.

It's Oscar's sentiment; a feeling that could have been bastardized by over-exposition. But the film has captured it in a fairly simplistic manner by this unorthodox cinematic style that is also a product of an affluent dedication to the craft. Amidst the complex imagery and hovering eagle's viewpoint that explores the moody qualms of Tokyo, Japan, "Enter the Void" is also about an individual's alienation about those around him resulted by a stigmatic past and the endlessly agonizing consequences of unguided existence.

Films like these, although it may find a more positive general response from time to time, will always fall into two categorizations: Either be perceived as a pornographic exploitation wrapped in vibrant pretense or be particularly viewed as an essential piece of cinema. Either way, "Enter the Void" inspires divisiveness, which is what 'true' cinema is all about.

Modifying Truffaut, a film must either be about the joy or agony of making it. This film dealt with love and pain and strife and life. It grabs the middle ground and never lets go.

FINAL RATING

Ip Man (Wilson Yip)

Fight scene.

Film Review Archive (date seen: December 21, 2010)

('Yip Man' is the person, 'Ip Man' is the film, just so anyone who bothers to read this review may easily identify which is which)

Call it too propagandistic, call Yip Man's cinematic rendition overly romanticized, but this film is possibly one of the best martial arts films I've seen, both for its flawless fight choreography (by Sammo Hung) and riveting narrative. And yes, Screw "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" for its wires, Yip Man can cut them with a single swat.

Donnie Yen is very impressive playing the legendary title role, having the quiet capability of administering his authority and presence thoroughly felt even at the film's very beginning. Aside from being a medium for artful fistfights, "Ip Man" also treated martial arts as an engrossing cultural craze that stormed 1930's China as an unexpected fad among the higher class.

The film isn't just about the fictionalized exploits of a Wing Chun grand master formerly living in the shadows of his superstar apprentice that founded the Jeet Kune Do fighting system (you know who he is), but also an uncommon (though a bit honey-glazed, I must admit) exploration of unconditional Chinese patriotism in the midst of imperial occupation.

Before, if somebody mentions to me the name 'Yip Man', I'll immediately visualize a thin old man slowly and wearily sparring with Bruce Lee. But after watching this film, a martial arts demigod more or less.

(Note for those who have already seen the film: The image above is simply captioned 'fight scene'. Need I say more?)

FINAL RATING

The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (Takeshi Kitano)

Absorbing the rain through blind eyes.

Film Review Archive (date seen: December 20, 2010)

Being titled solely as "Zatoichi" (or "The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi"), I'm actually quite surprised to the numerous story arcs that director (and star) Takeshi Kitano has instead put his focus on, turning the eponymous masseur into some sort of a natural force on the side rather than a vulnerable hero on the center of it all. Takeshi Kitano was quite good as the title role, and considering that he's the chief villain in "Battle Royale", his 180 turn (I can't say it's 360 as Zatoichi wasn't a full-blown romanticized hero) as the mysterious wandering swordsman was impressive.

The film's plot was very "Yojimbo-like", not just because of the warring gangs and all, but mainly because it's the main element that meagerly puts Akira Kurosawa's works before into slight criticisms as being "too western". There's not much danger in the fight scenes, as there's no need to really root for Zatoichi because we, the audience, already know that he'll always come out of sword fights unscathed and clean as an obsessive compulsive man on an extreme episodic fit (a little of a "Blackadder" hang-over on that particular simile). I'm also glad that there's a great amount of comic relief in the film because it might have gone a little too grim without some of the needed laughs.

"Zatoichi" was a good film and meritorious for not taking its violence too seriously, but yes, the fights were great, the laughs were spot-on, but do we really need that final dance sequence?

FINAL RATING