Fahrenheit 451 (1966) | who needs the book when you have the movie?

Based on the novel by Ray Bradbury, this Truffaut film --his 1st color film and 1st and only English-speaking film-- follows the lives of the literary protagonists, sharing glimpses of the Orwellian, totalitarian future the novel is a warning cry against. The film having been made in the mid-Sixties, one would expect to and does find the usual trappings of the era heavily influence the cultural look of the future --Julie Christie's hair, everyone's costumes, the set design-- and yet something should be said of Truffaut's ability to sublimate these surface cues to favor instead the unfolding story.

Such gravity is lent to the economic and political landscape the film inhabits, as when Bernard Hermann's intense score plays during moments of book burning, betrayal by citizen informants, or general censorship and information control. Truffaut passes on from the book the dire sense of the danger we're capable of falling in, betraying a palpable, alarmist bias against totalitarian and dictatorial mores. Inferred comparisons of Oskar Werner's character Guy Montag, with his thick German accent, to Hitler, are irrepressible . The retro-looking uniforms outfitting the firemen, of whose militaristic hierarchy Montag is a small part, become less silly, no longer kitchy, and more ominous and insidious, apropos this SS-like, state-run thought police.


dir François Truffaut

11:28 interview with Ray Bradbury discussing his take on the film adaptation.

Yasukuni (2007) | controvesial Japanese doc makes American premier last week

A slow-going yet intriguing interview with last living Yasukuni sword craftsman Kariya Naoharu gives way to a nauseatingly shaky hand-held long-take at the war shrine of the same name. Steady processions of groups dressed in war regalia make their way to the memorial to pay tribute to the war heroes enshrined there, which shockingly include class A war criminals, tried at the Tokyo Trials (akin to the Nuremburg Trials) and sentenced to death by hanging. This would include the well-known, like Prime Minister Tojo Hideki, and the more obscure though not less appalling, such as officers Mukai Toshiaki and Noda Tsuyoshi who took part in a well-publicized 100 man beheading contest with these swords en route to what would be known as the Nanking Massacre.

There is plenty of Japanese nationalistic fervor to go around, though being a Chinese production, this is set aside to explore the complaints of various groups engaged in years of active protest, including Korean, Chinese, indigenous Taiwanese, and even Okinawan groups, who each take contention with the Yasukuni Shrine for different reasons. The complexities surrounding these controversies are given ample breathing room, most readily during the parade of rare archival stills that are thankfully left to speak for themselves.

A chilling mention is made about the practice of testing the swords' sharpness by cutting through bamboo wrapped tightly in straw, with the bamboo representing bone. Worse, it is rumored that prisoners had also been used to this effect.

Of course we cannot be without the inclusion of a dumb-ass American, shown waving the stars and stripes at the Japanese monument --supposedly in support of then-PM Koizumi's controversial decision to worship at the shrine-- and does not fail to embarrass at his inability to grasp the impropriety of brandishing such a symbol in such a place. "We will never forget Hiroshima!" someone in the throng yells at him.

The highest grossing documentary of all time in Japan,Yasukuni has garnered controversy for being a critique of one of Japan's most sensitive issues, raising important questions while serving up a larger commentary on the legacy of war.

dir Li Ying
Yasukuni trailer:

Waltz with Bashir (2008) | The Persistence, Pathos, and Pain of Memory

In the same animation and geopolitical vein as Satrapi and Paronnaud's Persepolis (2007), Waltz with Bashir broaches tragedies surrounding the 1982 Lebanon War, eliciting gut wrenching pathos for the events depicted, the 3 days of the Shatila and Sabra massacre.

Waltz with Bashir draws an easy structural comparison to Linklater's Waking Life (2001). In both we find a central figure in a quest to find an Answer, which he attains though a process of interviews with various talking-heads. Whereas Waking Life explores heady philosophical issues surrounding existence and consciousness, Waltz with Bashir deals squarely with the the recuperation of director/writer Ari Folman's lost memories of war.

As Folman himself mentions, Israel couldn't pay for better propaganda, referring to his film setting the record straight as to the nature of Israel's involvement in these atrocities. Still, a lot of guilt complex is explored across a range of Israeli soldier's perspectives, people who actually lived these experiences. Nevertheless, Folman bravely explores the collective post-traumatic stress disorder of a nation's psyche. It's a classic and sad case in which the victim becomes the victimizer, such as when victims of child abuse grow up to become abusers themselves, or in this case in which the Israeli soldiers are shown as occupying the role of Nazis.

I rather like Max Richter's soundtrack which adds portentous overtones certainly, like a beautiful yet queasy feeling of unease for what's to be uncovered or revealed. It's amazing that a cartoon can portray such anguish and reveal as much, if not more than, any live action can about reality. Waltz with Bashir is a crucial look back at the past.

dir Ari Folman
official movie site
film designer David Polonky
Waltz with Bashir trailer:


Ari Folman France 24 interview:

13 Campanadas(2002) | Cheap Thrills with Chimes!

A cobbled-together work of suspense and psycho-drama, 13 Campanadas follows the story of young Argentinean-schooled Jacobo (Juan Diego Botto), returning to Spain to reclaim his family home and to put to rest issues stemming from traumatic childhood treatment at the hands of his now-deceased, artistic genius of a father. Afraid of ending up like his schizo mother, and haunted by the ghost or visions of his father, there's plenty of intense, dark moments. Unfortunately, there are also moments of incredible cheesiness, like when father transmits the artistic might of his hands to his son via a block of clay. There are limits to where we can ask audiences to suspend their disbelief, and even in these type of genre pics that traffic in the fantastic, adherence to predisposed modes are oft expected and departures from these rules of engagement are based on assumed, shared 1st principles. This film eschews all that and bravely blazes its own path though the result is frequently disjointed.

Such misgivings --including the cheap, soundstage-y feel at the start and subsequent challenged production values-- detract from what could have been a good study in the nature of the schizo-hallucinating mind, a theme explored too late but from which the film extrudes most of if not all of its suspense and drama. Still, Jacobo is kind of a cute guy, and you do get to see his butt, unfortunately for the film, one of its few high points.

dir Xavier Villaverde
aka 13 Chimes
aka 13 Curses

13 Campanadas trailer (Spanish no subtitles):

Audition (1999) | Sympathy for the Devil

Audition reads much like an anime, as in such brilliantly-contructed, dreamlike sequences beginning with protagonist Shigeharu's (Ishibashi Ryo) waking up in the hotel room the morning of his marriage proposal and continuing when after drinking from the bewitched liquor bottle, he collapses backwards in a soft, slow-motion on and into the carpet.

In this movie-within-a-movie-within-a-movie structure, these actions serve as bookends, post signs around which the dreams, fantasies, and dark fears that manifest in whirlwind fashion gain incremental meaning and depth when such convolution could easily have devolved into a confused, labyrinthine mess. Miike's genius is evident, in that adapting Murakami Ryu's short story, he succeeds wildly in transposing the literary form to the screen with deft pacing and the clever tying together of images that drives the story forward towards the clarity of denouement.

The ride there is dark, obviously so in light of the barbarous culminating scene of torturous cruelty which serves to underscore the horrors of child abuse underlying the main character-cum-aggressor Asami's (Shiina Eihi) back story. It's a classic case of the abusee becoming the abuser. For all its extreme nature --the scene is iconic in the genre of J-horror-- strangely, somehow there is sympathy built in here for her somewhere.

Of note: Murakami's book was rereleased in January of this year.

dir Miike Takashi

Audition trailer:

Tokyo! (2008) | The Triptych for Japanophiles Short of Attention

A triptych by design, Tokyo! has much to offer lovers of the short film format. Michel Gondry supplies his typical, imaginative flair in Interior Design, though not before fleshing out a multilayered, humanistic story enlivened by interesting characters in intimate if not strained relationships. Not least of these is lead Hiroko (Fujitani Ayako), who's inner dialogue plays out-loud as narration, and who becomes the locus of the to-be-expected Gondry quirkiness, an element which works suitably well in the J-pop genre, known for working this type of mind-expanded premise.

In Leos Carax' installment Merde, Denis Lavant turns in an committed performance as a grenade wielding, leprechaun-like creature inhabiting the Tokyo sewer system and striking fear into the hearts of the citizenry. In that Carax interjects reality-style, man-on-the-street reporting and innovative 3 and 4 split screens, he keeps the movie appealing, almost making up for times such as the prolonged, droll, trilingual translation. Past its shortcomings, the film poses acerbic commentary on ideas surrounding immigrants in Japanese society as well as the relationship between tv news media to city dwellers and how the former influences the way reality is perceived and experienced by the latter.

Shaking Tokyo concerns itself with what happens when hikikomori --extremly self-isolating hermit types-- fall in love. Director Bong Joon Ho's vision plays out quite like a Murakami short story, what with the symbolic timing of the earthquakes that occur, the first one fittingly when the man, (Kagawa Teruyuki), first locks eyes with a garter-wearing pizza-delivery girl (Aoi Yu), whose body is imprinted with mysterious, tattoo-like buttons. The story steadily builds to a crescendo of increasing metaphoric imagery and symbolic action, from the man venturing out for the first time in 11 years, to the strange collective behavior of the Tokyo populace, to of course the raison d'aitre of the girl's tattoo buttons. The appearance of Takenaka Naoto as the 2nd pizza delivery guy is an added treat.

Ho exhibits skillful use of soundtrack to underscore and accentuate his visual portion, whereas Gondry sometimes veers towards the purely visual, to beautiful if slightly gimmicky effect. Whereas the first and last films share unusual views of the Tokyo streets --Shaking Tokyo's robot pizza delivery man in one such shot an unexpected highlight-- the middle piece deals decisively more with the slimy underbelly of the city in terms of physical space. Though Merde buries its human elements with layers of cynical caricature and parody, Interior Design and Shaking Tokyo confront the human soul more directly, if not any less fantastically. Though one might want more movie from the other two, only Merde leaves room for a sequel.

Tokyo! official site.

Tokyo! trailer:

El Espinazo del Diablo (2001) | Like Casper, but Not So Friendly

It is refreshing to find Marisa Paredes playing Carmen, the stern-but-caring amputee headmistress of an all-boys orphanage living in civil-war torn Spain. This is, after all, an El Deseo production, made immediately apparent with the stylized credits, the accompanying images starting out blurry, deferring definition until slowly are revealed fetuses floating preserved in apothecary jars, one of these poor souls sporting the spine-shaped vertebrae of the film's title.

Soon after the arrival of child Carlos (Fernando Tielve), whose father has been killed unbeknownst to him on the front, the plot begins to thicken. He starts off bumping heads with bully Jaime (Íñigo Garcés), whom he eventually befriends, as they face the question of mystery-boy Santi's (Junio Valverde) disappearance and the presence of a ghost named "the one who sighs." The prepubescent odd couple endearingly resolve the all the film's quandaries, which doesn't go without tons of tragic explosions and the total breakdown of the established social structures, all making for a very satisfying view.

A pretty good movie throughout, El Espinazo is almost prerequisite viewing for the slightly under-whelming del Toro production El Orfanato (2007, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona). Both movies prominently feature children players as hero-protagonists. Both films also deal with the character in absentia of a boy-child ghost (Santi in Espinazo vs. Tomás in El Orfanato). Like spooky, Casper-the-friendly-ghost presences, they are source for much of both films' suspense and drama.

Tangentially noteworthy is the shared setting of war between El Espinazo del Diablo and Oscar-fetching El Laberinto del Fauno (2006, directed by del Toro). It's in the latter film that the fantastic elements of the story encroach more strongly onto the grim depiction of reality and in both serve as a counterpoint to the desperate acts these settings of war cause their players to take.

Mostly, El Espinazo sheds light on del Toro's past cinematic technical genius, showing his deft craftsmanship and an ability to create entire dreamscape realities seemingly effortlessly. It's no wonder his is one of those hot, buzzword names. A gore-fest, no, but still, El Espinazo del Diablo weaves together nuanced, thoughtful elements of suspense into a compelling, engrossing work.

dir Guillermo del Toro
aka The Devil's Backbone

El Espinazo del Diablo official site

Nice trailer (Spanish with English subtitles):

La Mala Educación (2004) | From Catholic School To Casting Couch

In La Mala Educación, Almodóvar portrays the lives of a handful of characters linked by a tangled past revisited intermittently through the dreamlike world of the protagonists as children. These scenes, infused with Catholicism drawn from the director's own background and set in a parochial all-boy boarding school, paint a soft-focus, romantic story of gay-first-love between Ignacio (Nacho Perez) and Enrique (Raúl García Forneiro) . This idyllic landscape of memory becomes marred by headmaster priest Padre Manolo (Daniel Giménez Cacho), who takes a strong liking to Ignacio, who's cherubic voice makes him a favorite of the cleric staff. The romance that develops between the two tikes and the ensuing jealous retaliation of the headmaster are both treated dramatically, save the latter comes across much more disturbingly.

Upon opening, the film's credits marry the titles and score in a collage that recalls the great Alfred Hitchcock. The resonance is fitting as the element of suspense becomes a finely wielded component managed deftly, which is a good thing, Pedro having claimed the film to be his tribute to Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity (1944), the all-time classic Noir in which the con man gets conned by the beautiful femme fatale.

In Almódovar's take we see the role originally enshrined by Barbara Stanwyck finding its parallel in the character Zahara, a tranvestí played by Gabriel García Bernal. Released concurrently to Bernal's other star-vehicle The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), La Mala Educación showcases him in his most risqué role since Y Tu Mamá También (2001), a challenge he tackles whole heartedly.




Unavoidable comparisons to Almodóvar's La Ley del Deseo (1987) are warranted. In that film, Carmen Maura plays Tina Quintero, a transsexual who also confronts past abuse at the hands of Church clergy when she was a young boy. As stated by Pedro on Educación's official web site "Carmen['s character] is a foreshadow of Zahara." In that at its heart La Ley del Deseo also features a film/play-write accosted by a psycho makes it a further compelling view, not to mention the hot, gay scenes featuring a young and cute Antonio Banderas.

In La Mala Educación, Almodóvar has mostly shed his youthful tendency to meander. He weaves together a tight, complex plot in which the story itself unfolds as its text is written and where the leads reenact their own purported pasts for the film-within-the-film. A self-reflective look at movie making --including the trap of the casting couch-- reveals Pedro is the consummate auteur and enfant terrible that he always was and shall continue to be.

It should be noted that drag queen Paquito (Javier Cámara) steals the show upon first appearance.

aka Bad Education
dir Pedro Almodóvar

Check out:
Sony Pictures Bad Education official website.
La versión en Español aquí.

La Mala Educación teaser trailer:

technorati claim

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please disregard this post everyone...just doing the do...

Y Tu Mamá También (2001)

dir Alfonso Cuarón

Much like the hormonally and sexually charged relationship between Julio (Gabriel García Bernal), Tenoch (Diego Luna), and Ana (Ana López), the film itself echoes the constant fits and starts that take place as the boys scheme game for pussy, inadvertently turning to each other. Though in the end it was great to finally see Julio and Tenoch kiss --downright hot, actually-- it seems the film winds a tedious path just to make it to this pivotal point. In this base sense, Y Tu Mamá También is an elaborately executed gay-for-pay flick. What with all the explicit sex talk between the principles --on and on and on, just do it already!-- and the flashes of bushy boys and not-so-bushy girls, the movie's definitely got one thing on its mind.

Fully considered though, Y Tu Mamá También is a coming of age story of two friends in which an older, scorned woman --the object of both boys' desires-- becomes the catalyst of an underlying sexual tension between them that, having been brought to the fore, comes to disintegrate their friendship. Though it recalls the great road-trip, buddy-pic treatise of Kerouac descent, those considerations often take a back seat to the film's other prescient drivers: for Tenoch and Julio we're seeing the yearnings of the flesh taking shape as naive, post-adolescent conquest and its attending, unanticipated emotional repercussions, while for Ana it materializes as revenge-fucking --payback to an unfaithful spouse-- coinciding with an opening up of self-discovery which belies an untold secret she carries, leading to a final reveal.

The film strives to dig deep to reveal truth beneath its depiction of the materialistic, mundane surroundings and circumstances of its characters. Despite achieving moments of sheer serendipitous coincidence and being peppered with allegories throughout, even when taken together with the warmth shared by the three principles, the work still resounds oddly dry, with unmet desires, and unquenched thirsts.

Y Tu Mamá También trailer:

A Snake of June (2002)

aka Rokugatsu no Hebi
dir Tsukamoto Shinya

This story concerns beautiful, repressed, married woman Tatsumi Rinko (Kurosawa Asuka). Spied upon by freaky Iguchi (Tsukamoto Shinya) who takes candid pictures in states of undress or masturbation. Unfulfilled by her husband Shigehiko (Kohtari Yuji) who falls asleep on the recliner seat each night, and afraid the photos will be revealed, she succumbs to the blackmailer's demands, a succession of sexualized tasks to be carried out in public with Iguchi at the helm communicating wirelessly. Rinko's social limits are pushed, particularly when forced to wear a dangerously short skirt at the mall with no panties on. Later, when coerced to shop for phallic veggies, she is wearing a remote control vibrator Iguchi activates at will. This treatment unexpectedly brings up her long held-back desires which come rushing to the fore unfettered.

Tsukamoto's grainy, blueish black and white, noir-feeling piece is quite reminiscent of Tetsuo (1989), not just in look but also in exploring the alienation of the individual within the urban setting, whether from others and their attending social conformity or caused by omnipresent technology and resulting dehumanizing modern lifestyle. Whereas in Testuo,Tsukamoto intrinsically deals humanity's fears towards technology with the literal marriage of flesh and tech, A Snake in June's focus has much more to do with individual personal sexuality and how it relates to that of others.

Further adding to the Tetsuo feel is the scene when Iguchi man-handles the Shigehiko with a suddenly-sprouted, metal, penis-snake that holds Shigehiko down while, clearly deranged, he kicks and beats him over Rinko's choice not to get a mastectomy.

For all its weirdness there is a triumphant ending. Ryuka finally gets laid and we hilariously culminate with just that, a culmination.

Check out this interview with Tsukamoto Shinya from Midnight Eye.

A Snake of June trailer:

Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion (1972)

aka Joshuu 701-gô: Sasori
dir Ito Shunya



Ito Shunya's debut film, based on a successful Big Comics manga by Shinohara Toru, introduces protagonist Matsushino Nami aka Matsu (Lady Snowblood actress Kaji Meiko) during a foiled jail-house escape she attempts with pretty, petite girlfriend Yuki (Watanabe Yayoi).

In a flashback is shown how Matsu was convinced by police detective and then-boyfriend Sugimi (Natsuyagi Isao) to go undercover to infiltrate a Yakuza syndicate. Discovered off the bat, Matsu endures a gang rape before the police, deliberately delayed, bust the criminals, now with the added charges with which to stick them. In retaliation Matsu sloppily ambushes Sugimi but gains only to land in the brink for attempted murder. Subdued by the cops, she hatches a revenge plot with ever reddening backlight, her hair stop-motioning its way on end.

In prison the ominously silent Matsu finds herself pitted against the jail house snitches, Masaki (Mihara Yoko), Katagiri (Yokoyama Rie), et al., as she allies with stoic and mysterious inmate referred to as "that bitch" (Ougi Hiroko). Sexploitation unavoidably abounds with gratuitous nudity and panty shots, exemplified best when Matsu, confined to solitary, subdues hottie Kitoh (Katayama Yumiko) with apparently amazing cunnilingus.

Torturous prison punishments are devised to break Matsu down, one such instance involving a prolonged, mass dig, resulting in a prison riot precipitated by Yuki killing a guard. During the stand-off the female prisoners hilariously force sex upon the male guards being held hostage.

Soon loose in Tokyo, donning a stylish, black trench coat and wide-brimmed pimp hat, Matsu achieves icon status as she enacts her final revenge; it's tongue-bitingly good.

Female Prisoner #701 Scorpion trailer (Japanese no subtitles):

Vital (2004)

dir Tsukamoto Shinya

The working title of the film was "Dissection Film Project," if that's any indication of what to expect here.

According to Shinya, his films study the relationship between humans and Tokyo. Human existence is seen as fading, the physical existence waning while the brain/mental capacity increases. As for his need to show us dead bodies in Vital, the intention is to wake us up to the fact of being alive and real, shaking us up from our dream-state, virtual-reality, sanitized, city-dwelling existences.

Asano Tadanobu, often described as a very natural actor, plays Hiroshi, a man with no memories who struggles to come to terms with the amnesia-inducing accident that caused his lover Ryoko's (Tsukamoto Nami) death. His stoicism works well, and though brooding and in turmoil, he plays this with a reticence that makes the role very convincing.

As in The Fountain, Vital's antihero is a practitioner of science and the medical arts who engages the techniques of the field to attempt to retrieve the departed lover. Vital's Hiroshi, fatefully tasked with the dissection of his lover's body, is based on Leonardo da Vinci, who conducted dissections in order to sketch the underlying structures to the surface that is skin. With his long hair and demonstrable sketching prowess, Hiroshi unflinchingly seeks the deeper knowledge that the brutal scrutiny and systematic taking apart and drawing of the body may give.

Like with Jodie Foster's character in Contact, Hiroshi undergoes a dreamlike sequence where he is allowed to spend time with his lost love from beyond the void of death. Super-thin dancer Ryoko flexes her skills in an over-the-top, beach dance number in which she flings her body around, throwing herself forcibly and repeatedly to the sand. Several moments of visual and aural cacophony occur, quite beautifully done, with a repetitive cymbal striking reminiscent of Japanese theatre.

When cool but pretentious med-student Ikumi (Kiki), who's into sexual asphyxiation, is unable to break though to Hiroshi, she complains to the point: "What about those of us still living?"

Check out this Tsukamoto Shinya interview by Mark Shilling on Vital.

This is the trailer:

Charles Conn in the Austin Chronicle 2001

In 2001 I approached Louis Black, the editor of the Austin Chronicle, who passed me over to Film Editor Marjorie Baumgarten. She in turn liked my writing enough to send to print 3 separate articles which I am posting here. I, in turn, am a fan of Marjorie. Her work can be found in print and online in the Austin Chronicle's Screens section --be sure to check it out.

M (1931) dir Fritz Lang

Foxy Brown (1974) dir Jack Hill

School Daze (1988) dir Spike Lee

Gohatto (1999)

aka Taboo
aka Tabou
dir: Oshima Nagisa

Symbolically summed up best at the end: "Sozaburo(Matsuda Ryuhei) was too beautiful. Men took advantage of him, He was possessed by evil." Then in one fell swoop the speaker, Captain Hijikata (Kitano "Bito" Takeshi), slices off the top of a young sakura tree in full bloom.

Samurai shudo was not unknown behavior in this time period. Rarely though does it ever does it become subject, incidental or otherwise, in this type of historical pic, with this one's genre bent towards mystery and intrigue. The gayness of the film shouldn't be seen as the sole focus though. 'Gohatto' translates into the "against the law" or "against the laws," and shudo isn't the thing out of bounds here. Perhaps it's the underlying, unspoken jealousies threatening to undo the male bonds that is in implied contention in the title.

Most conspicuous to the film is what's missing. The gay act itself, though not treated any less artistically, is displayed with a complete departure from the graphic form one may come to expect from Oshima. What we are left with are spectacularly built up moments, carefully constructed with Oshima's deft pacing; though simulations of gay sex are shown, they are secondary concerns compared to, say, when Sozaburo reaches for chaperone Heibei's (Matoba Koji) hand --truly one of those breathtaking instances encapsulating so much of the film's concerns: the hidden depths of male emotions and bonding.

It can't be understated the masculine, stoic beauty Asano Tadanobu represents in the character of Tashiro, early courter of Sozaburo in the wake of his freshly joining the close-knit social quarters of the all-male militia troops. Composer Sakamoto Ryuichi lends heavily to the tense tone.

Survive Style 5+ (2005)

dir: Sekiguchi Gen

An exercise in J-pop fluff, the movie has a strange sense of humor --standard Japanese quirkiness abounds, both in terms of story as well as look and feel. The candy coated sets are fun and kitchy, i.e. the feast of all breakfast feasts thrown artfully together into temporary glory, as it gets tackled by its intended recipient and one of many of the films' characters, Asano Tadanobu . The chef is his supernaturally gifted, ever-reincarnating, revenge seeking girlfriend whom a la Groundhog Day he sans explanation recurrently kills and buries. She comes back to get even, and he puts her back down, again, and again, and again.

For said quirkiness, the mood, while often light and airy, is tinged with underlying darkness, as in these aforementioned scenes in the woods at night, and as with the rest of characters and story-lines the film follows:

The three bumbling friends robbing houses, two of the bunch discovering more between them than just loot.

The ad saleswoman, oddly likable for being a cutthroat, sharky bitch, whose imagination is rife with silly, un-pitched ideas for unrealized products.

The oft-angry British hitman (Vinnie Jones) traveling inseparably from his translator, intently demanding of folks: What's your function?

Finally, there's the sympathetic family man/super dad who, while attending the TV taping of a talk show, gets hypnotized into thinking he's a duck.

Hilarity, naturally, ensues.

Of note: Sonny Chiba has a small role as an advertising company president.

In the Realm of the Senses (1976)

aka Ai no Corrida
aka L'Empire des Sens

dir: Oshima Nagisa

The story follows the true-life tale of Abe Sada --"a lady with a past"-- and Ishida Kichizo who show up in the public record in 1936 Japan, with Abe reportedly carrying her deceased lover's severed penis around with her for days before being caught up with by police.

Oshima's screenplay attempts to fill in the gaps left in the wake of stories run in the papers who sensationalized this scoop in its day. The resulting is Oshima's most notorious work, serving as suitable project for French co-producer Daumin's bequest to make a porno flick, a la art house of course.

If the original motive to be so graphic was to shock through transgression of the cultural norms, perhaps today the shock is more subdued. Still, there is an undeniable beauty captured rather heroically here, tense because of the tenuous line Oshima is walking, and often reminiscent of Edo-period shunga woodblock prints.

Matsuda Eiko's body is well-formed, all the right curves, her back arched over Kichizo as she straddles him. Fuji Tatsuya's face is glorious in close-up, his bone structure soft and even. In keeping with character, Fuji begins to eschew food, his body becoming increasingly leaner, described by Oshima as beautiful like a holy man.

In comparison with film's companion piece, Empire of Passion (1978), both concern couples blind to the world because they are consumed with their passion for each other, though the genre and tone of each film couldn't be further apart. Still, Fuji Tatsuya stars in both, taking on the aggressor role in Empire's pairing. Both films circumscribe a descent into the lunatic aspects of human love and lust; and for both not ending particularly well, they share that quirky narrative device: the disembodied voice of moral closure.

Empire of Passion (1978)

aka Ai No Borei

dir: Oshima Nagisa

Considered a companion film to 1976's In the Realm of the Senses (famously by the same director), Realm of Passion rehashes the same Japanese/French co-production team, on the French side represented by Anatole Dauman and Argos Films.

Both films also star Fuji Tatsuya, in this much tamer role of Tsuyoji, a vagabonding Sino-Japanese War vet living on the fringes of society, at the bottom rungs, in who's charge is his disabled younger brother. He persistently pursues married woman Seki (Yoshiyuki Kazuko) who is unable to resist some forced upon, but ultimately pretty good head. Pussy shaving is the tipping point, advancing the lovers forward with Tsuyoji's plan to murder Seki's husband, hard-working rickshaw driver Gisaburo (Tamura Takahiro).

This ghost story is beautifully shot with its lush landscapes and undeniable expression of the seasons. Revealed is the unknown drama a snow storm lends to the dragging away and hiding of a corpse, for instance. Elsewhere, the quiet presence of the red-leaf carpeted forests in Fall make themselves known.

Nature here also includes human nature (Gisaburo's selflessness; Seki and Tsuyoji's murderousness), as well as the realm of the spirits. Sex too is present heavily, and sexily so, though not (porno)graphically. As it turns out, Nature, a big theme for Oshima, envelops everything, the sexual not to be excluded.

Elements of the natural world manifests audibly as well, with the call of birds, the chirping of insects, the cries of Seki's baby. It is the ever-louder inner calling of Seki and Tsuyoji's nature, dragging them further and further down into the depths, symbolized ultimately with the lovers in the well.

Oshima describes this film's world view, including sex and love, as ultimately devoid of meaning, and consequently reality is revealed as a living hell. Even so, it is yet a source of unending beauty. Such extreme contradictions coexist though-out the work, best encapsulated by the passion that leads to the very unraveling of the protagonists.

The masterfulness with which he's been said to have elevated the pornographic in the past is definitely present this time absent the porno. Of course, this is an unequivocal testament to Oshima's dominance of the medium, clearly evident in 1999's Taboo, his final film to date.

Tokyo Zombie (2005)

dir: Sato Sakichi

To paraphrase Tadanobu himself --interview provided as part of the extras-- Tokyo Zombie is actually a love story between the bald guy --Mitsuo (Aikawa Show)-- and the afro guy --Fujio (Asano Tadanobu). Certainly there are elements of the master-apprentice relationship going on here beyond the repair-man trappings. These bushido-code loyal friends, grappling/jiu-jitsu aficionados/partners are undeniably something of soul mates.

A take on the Western buddy pic, perhaps, the movie's origin comes in the media of manga. The orginal work's [Tokyo Zonbi] author Hanakuma Yusaka, himself a fighting member of Ichibanbosi Grappling, co-wrote the screenplay with director Sato Sakichi, which picks up the tale of the two popular comic book characters, Afuro (Afro) and Hage (Baldie).

A surprisingly refreshing view, given the dystopian-future-set zombie comedy depicts future humans as (d)evolved with increased petty ego-ism, materialism, and a murderously ravenous appetite for entertainment, drawing parallels with human's thirst for blood-sport with that of the zombie's appetite for live flesh.

Done with panache and flair atypical of any of these genres taken individually, the film rises above the sum of its parts, drawing easy comparisons to the sense of humor in Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle. With an open ending one can only hope a sequel is in the works.

FADE IN

welcome to my dvd journal, a venue for the documenting and commenting of rental movies with a bent towards the not-so-run-of-the-mill selections.

your comments are not only welcome but encouraged as are debate and discussion.

i hope you enjoy,

ch.