classic japanese cinema
It is at this point I have to confess: I have never liked the work of Kenji Mizoguchi. Teshigahara’s work is always nuanced enough to appear at arm’s length whilst silently clawing beneath with its skeletal fingers and his 1966 masterwork comes the closest to revealing its true nature: Bringing the director’s ominous compositions and stark horror imagery right into metropolis and gazing out into its urban abyss with the same detached vision that so vividly brought Travis Bickle to life in Taxi Driver a decade later. It’s a film brave in its loneliness- depicting wartime situations in a vacant landscape absent of life and teeming with the emptiness of dread, each corner bearing another Odyssean figure set to either accompany or destroy our weathered hero. I have a respect for the cheapness its creators dealt in to achieve the most mortifying experience possible: Shocking with their pounding sound mix and grimy monochromatic visuals that cast what we know into the realm of enigma. The resultant experience is a glorious blast-furnace of fun. The fact it was his final film lends a certain dignity to the man’s endeavours- a suicide mission striking at a funny bone you’d have to be comatose not to feel prickle at least once or twice throughout. Its portrait of an asylum lacks the nuance or profundity of something like Titucut Follies or even the humanity of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in fictitious form- however the transcendent takeway from this 1926 milestone is a widened appreciation of Japanese pre-war cinema outside of dramatic titans like Ozu, Mizoguchi, Yamanaka and Shimizu. Transposed from long-running collaborator Kōbō Abe’s celebrated source novel, Teshigahara’s almost malicious method is at both its most spitefully and torturously compassionate here. A shimmering, neon-laced landmark of Japanese animation and its infiltration of the international centre-stage, Akira marks a revolutionary point from anime and impresses even today in its glittering colours, cute futurism and amorphous, abominable title character’s grim transformation. An incomparable exploration of sensuality and physical essence, Blind Beast tracks the relationship between a blind man and a woman he takes captive, trapped in a laboriously designed labyrinth carpeted in sculptures of the human form- with walls covered in eyes and lips whilst the floor is netted with an inavigable tangle of limbs. Samurai Rebellion (Masaki Kobayashi, 1967). The tribulations and sufferings he witnesses convince him to follow a different path of life, running away from everything that might remember him of such war. The far-reaching aesthetic pull of Kaguya isn’t quite eclipsed by the story- but its luminous cinematic compulsion is still inescapably intoxicating from beginning to end and demands attention from any fan of animation. His style is a lot less direct, somewhat reminiscent of Taiwanese master Hsiao-Hsien Hou’s technique yet still even more detached. Immediately making matters difficult for itself, Go Go Second Time Virgin hits off its 65 minute runtime with one of several uncomfortable rape scenes. The longest single film on this list, S’s Eureka stretches on for s- and I feel it would be unforgivable to divulge any one of its plot-lines. Shohei Imamura’s longest film, Profound Desires of the Gods is also perhaps the movie that most fully exemplifies his style. The film is overloaded with a stunning sea of unique designs and memorably crafted characters that all move and speak as expressively as the leads. Something as simple as a person approaching a piano, extreme disparity in focus underlining the importance of the scene, works wonders in giving the audience tiny, evocative glimpses into the minds of his characters. Time will tell. Endearing, enlightening- and an impossibly absorbing little experience. What we have here is a source of their still-running river of cinematically challenging, stylistically provocative and intentionally dangerous pieces of work that is all the more fascinating with this gaggle of tragic artists in mind. by pvt joker 30 must see Japanese film classics. In the end Imamura’s principle question to me was hard to manage: Is it easier to accept that our gods are cruel, or that we are? Shinoda is never going to be held up as one of the greats, at least by the general public- but I hope at the very least that people are driven to discover his cinema from this crucible of criminal perfection: A work as raw and unchained as the overstimulated romps of excessive counterculture and at the same time as profoundly delicate and controlled as any movie I’ve ever seen. Case in point: Grave of the Fireflies would not be as universally appreciated or even notable if it were to have tackled said story in the realm of reality. What is always impressive about the work of Takeshi Kitano is the way he lends levity to even the most gruelling scenarios. To make it funnier, three friends work in each of these companies and work in their respective publicity departments and, although being competitors, they discuss each company’s sales techniques and ideas on a prize to boost sales. A delight. A direct evolution of the terrifying Ringu, Hideo Nakata’s Dark Water represents the director’s second and perhaps only other hit- and one that manages to bring his style even further. Sufficed to say: This little-seen New Wave gem is an absolute must. On the surface it lacks the nuanced but nonetheless overwhelming power of Seven Samurai, as well as the slow burning inferno that rages in mortifying silence at the end of Late Spring. Maybe years from now I’d put Mizoguchi’s work higher on here- one can only hope. The audience are sat down with the characters- quiet voyeurs to a family slowly shutting the gradually degrading older generation out of their lives. No matter how close its protagonists come to escaping their supernatural attackers- nothing is ever safe. It’s a metaphysical piece that allows itself to make horror real- that pushes the boundaries of traditional animated features for something altogether more dark and disturbing for its bravery. An Autumn Afternoon is the perfect close to his shimmering oeuvre. Japanese cinema is a kind of its own: progressive, out of the box, intriguing and unique in style. The novelty of the plot is the appearance of a soldier who falls in love with the younger woman, but also the inclusion of paranormal features that affect the older woman and her “association” with the younger women, having daring consequences. Kiyoshi Kurosawa has steadily punched above his class under the weight of his familiar namesake with a fantastic string of ominous efforts- but none have quite eclipsed the overwhelming vacancy of 2001’s Pulse. All rights reserved. Humanity and Paper Balloons (Sadao Yamanaka, 1937). It’s a shame that the series never quite overcame the limp length of the book, nor the forced humanism that can occasionally stunt the otherwise strong form of its director: However without these stilted moments we would never have been gifted with an overwhelming collection of beautifully realised scenes that could have made a masterpiece all on their own. It is without a shadow of a doubt the finest Horror Anthology ever made: With the undiluted voice of an exquisite film-maker sounding off loud and clear that J-Horror is something to be feared. It’s a selection of warm character pieces with tantalizing action and humor to eclipse any formalities in narrative- all worth a watch and more than worthy of forging their own space here. See what’s playing. An oddly timed film considering it co-insided with Isao Takahata’s own treatise on the human toll of the nuclear bombs dropped at the climax of WWII and deals in similar themes, Black Rain’s inferiority to the wonderful Grave of the Fireflies in no way means it is to be disregarded. Of the three movies, it’s the best written one, and despite its plot not being defined for its complexity and creativity, it does provide a great perspective of the samurai code of honor and struggle to survive in a Japan from the Edo period. I think Kurosawa’s voice contributes little new to the exceptionally strong canon of cinema about ageing and generally fails to hit the revelatory heights of Wild Strawberries or The Life & Death of Col. Blimp despite their comparative lack of cinematic immediacy- however none of that detracts from the stunning resonance of AK’s work here. Yet it is the imagery of Throne of Blood that makes it so massive. High & Low is an inherently impossible cinematic undertaking. The first is a hairdresser but also a con-man who likes to organize gambling parties in his house, which goes against the slum leaders, who are gangsters and control the slum in an autocratic fashion; the latter is a masterless ronin, which by the 18th century was considered as a great dishonor for samurai Japan. Nothing is sacred. An odd contender for the king of comic-book franchises, Lone Wolf and Cub tracks an exiled executioner and his young son through a seven-part series of flicks all of which make up this spot on the list. 40. Whilst it moves at a sluggish crawl that begins to undermine the breathless tension Kiyoshi Kurosawa has been able to breathe into the piece, Cure is still a more than worthy addition to his strong cinematic canon. Revelation is, in its own way, a form of healing- and Kiju Yoshida’s Confessions Among Actresses works wonderfully as a debate on that idea. Not just a definitive J-Horror film- but also a classic of world drama in the late sixties. Kurosawa’s rain drenched multi-camera climax doesn’t quite eclipse the prophetic profundity of Ran’s castle siege but it continues to inform the way we cut together action sequences, even if contemporary editors might fail to notice it’s influence. Don’t read any synopses- Don’t look into it- Just see Eureka. It’s a film terrified of what it sees in the human condition, something that so clearly pains Kurosawa to put on screen- and it is his fluctuating current of creative self-repression that secures its venerable importance. His fragmented storytelling technique puts even further strain on less open audiences’ desire for a totally cohesive narrative experience- but the indefinable delights that lie within Yoshida’s warped world do justice to their precedent over tightly structured storylines. But I think, above all of this, Onibaba’s enduring status as a classic of Japanese Horror cinema stems from one shot: A single image that packs so much visceral energy into its paralyzing stillness that I was physically taken aback by it- discouraged from venturing back into Onibaba in fear of encountering that same terrifying presence. It follows the lives of a group of people in a Japanese slum, but it mainly accompanies the lives of two characters, Shinza and Unno. Hey Hitler! The film’s fiery influence notably marks their editing and approach to action- not dissimilar to the way Goddard’s interminably excessive Breathless continues to shape the way we cut. Directed by Teinsuke Kinugasa, most famous for his 1926 landmark A Page of Madness, it’s a tightly wound tale that takes about two tries to fully appreciate, especially for Western reviews unfamiliar with the honour-bound code of Feudal Japan- but rewards with a richly crafted twist and sinister hints at the supernatural menace to which it’s title alludes. The Japanese cinema was only then getting acquainted and getting famous internationally, but also we have to consider the political era in which Japan was involved. The connection as a family seems to break with the running of the plot, breaking down completely toward the end. There is nothing here. After all, what could be more terrifying than death confirmed by our own inescapable curiosity? The mutualistic relationship on display here speaks of Hayo Miyazaki’s profound talent as a film-maker- and that his work is more than dazzling creativity run riot. 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