'From Up On Poppy Hill', 'Only God Forgives' and 'Blackfish': review round-up

Not seen a lot of movies of late, but here's a round-up of some recent cinema trips. I won't review 'Red 2' (above) - because I only saw the first half - but thought I'd mention the fact that it was (from what I saw) so empty, lifeless and insipid that it was the catalyst for my second ever walk-out. Everyone, most especially Bruce Willis, was just going through the motions. Mary Louise Parker was watchable enough, but the constant misogynistic comments about her from Willis ("you don't give the girl a gun!" and "you don't bring the girl along on a mission!"), whose character talks about her to others constantly whilst she's standing right there, were grating to say the least. I'm sure Willis' character learns some valuable lesson about trust and/or sharing by the film's end, but I couldn't face another 45 minutes waiting for a grown-up to learn that women are people too. Anyway, it just wasn't funny, it was really slow, the action was deathly boring and at one point there was a lingering close-up of a tube of Pringles. There are obviously worse films, but very few are this lacklustre.

The first film I ever walked out of? Since you asked, I couldn't stomach Richard Curtis' interminable 'The Boat That Rocked' - even though I had been allowed to watch it whilst on the clock at a cinema. I was having such a bad time with that one that I left to go and Brasso some door handles instead. One major reason for this was that I'd just encountered a comic scene in which a man committed statutory rape - sneaking into bed with a woman in the dark, pretending to be her partner (which I felt was less "cheeky" than it was "creepy" and "sexual assaulty"). But the main reason was that I checked my watch, expecting to be halfway through this 135 minute epic, to find I'd been sat there for only half an hour. Just over an hour and a half left to go! No thanks, Curtis. No thanks.

'From Up On Poppy Hill' - Dir. Goro Miyazaki (U)

A colleague of mine aptly described this one as "minor Ghibli", and it certainly is one of the less significant entries in the Japanese animation house's filmography, but that's not to say it isn't entirely pleasant from start to finish. It's gentle, charming and life-affirming without being overly cheesy. It's also a damn sight better than director Goro Miyazaki's (son of Hayao) first attempt following his move from landscaping to filmmaking: the uncharacteristically dull and unpolished 'Tales From Earthsea' - sections of which felt like limited TV animation and a far cry from the finesse of 'Spirited Away' or 'My Neighbour Totoro'. The animation here is much better, though still not up there with the work Miyazaki senior or Isao Takahata, Ghibli's other master - responsible for the studio's most mature (less magical) works 'Only Yesterday' and 'Grave of the Fireflies'.

'Poppy Hill' - adapted from a 1980 manga by Tetsurō Sayama and Chizuru Takahashi - is a wistful and nostalgic 60s-set story about two school kids who fall in love only to find that they are likely brother and sister: both having the same sea-faring father, who perished during the Korean War. This small-scale character-driven plot runs against the backdrop of more typically active movie fare, as the kids try to organise the student body to persuade the authorities not to demolish the old clubhouse and replace it with a newer building, in a rapidly developing Japan looking to eradicate reminders of its recent history. The clubhouse - home to a myriad of wacky extra-curricular activities, all taken extremely seriously by the student body - is reminiscent of something out of Wes Anderson's 'Rushmore' and is as fun a place to be as that suggests.

Perhaps the story reaches an all-to-sudden and convenient conclusion in the last few minutes, but it's genuine and heartfelt and difficult to be too cynical about. Filler until the next big Miyazaki masterpiece, maybe, but there are less winsome ways to spend an hour and a half.

'Only God Forgives' - Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn (18)

Hmmmmmmmm. And there I was thinking the last collaboration between Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn and star Ryan Gosling was all style and no substance. Well, say what you will about the hipster-baiting self-styled "instant cult classic" 'Drive', but compared to 'Only God Forgives' it's a nuanced character study and a hi-octane crime thriller of the highest order. This one sees Gosling play an American living in Bangkok, who runs a boxing club and whose nose is put very slightly out of joint when a cop allows a victim's father to kill his murderous rapist brother. The main thing you need to know about this character is that he looks pretty good in a suit - choosing to fight whilst dressed like a particularly trendy barista.

At my weary, bored-to-tears best estimate, around 80% of 'Only God Forgives' consists of Gosling sitting in the semi-darkness, staring into the middle distance, somewhere off camera (a friend suggested somebody on-set was waving something colourful) emoting nothing at all. Ignoring the bit where he shouts at a prostitute in a slightly weedly and accidentally comic way, his acting range in this film goes between expressions of acute indifference all the way up to moderate contemplation. There's a method writers employ to assess whether their characters are fully formed which requires them to be able to describe any given character without mentioning the way they dress or what they do for a living. Try doing that here, with any of the characters, and get back to me if you manage it. And "has penis-envy of his brother and wants to fuck his mum" doesn't count, because the film just outright, explicitly tells us that (several times) via Kristen Scott-Thomas in her ground-breaking against-type role as middle-aged-women-who-says-cunt.

Vithaya Pansringarm plays a brutal cop that many are calling the highlight of the movie, but this is another non-character. Or at least it's a movie stock character: a walking cliché - the violent killer with a code, whose capacity for ultra-violence sits in contrast to a peculiar affectation and/or hobby (in this instance karaoke). This character has been in every Quentin Tarantino film ever made, for instance. Where the film appears to think it has something to say is in relation to the Oedipus complex: it's all tracking shots down red hallways, Gosling's disgustingly literal urge to return to the womb, his apparent lust for his mother and the detail that he apparently murdered his father. But what the film is saying about all this is beyond me. In 'The Man Who Wasn't There' ace lawyer Freddy Riedenschneider tries to bamboozle a jury by claiming they should not look at the facts but the meaning behind the facts, and that the facts have no meaning. He might as well have been reviewing 'Only God Forgives'.

As a visual/sensory exercise though, it's obviously a piece of world-class work - the stuff of a real virtuoso. As with 'Drive' and 'Bronson' (the one Refn film I uncomplicatedly like) before it, 'Only God Forgives' shows Refn as a supremely visual storyteller and a real stylist. I eagerly await the next time these qualities once again combine with the urge to tell an actual story of some substance.

'Blackfish' - Dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite (15)

I write this every time I review a documentary, but it's difficult to separate what you think of the film's point of view from the quality of the film itself. Especially when said film is such a polemic, highlighting facts and cherry-picking interview subjects to arrive at a previously determined conclusion (however valid said conclusion might be). In this case, I overwhelmingly agree with the basic premise of and majority of the arguments in 'Blackfish': for what it's worth, I think the process of gathering cetaceans for commercial use is cruel and the evidence seems to suggest that life in captivity is detrimental to the animals' well-being.

That said, I don't think 'Blackfish' says anything that 2009's 'The Cove' didn't say far better and in a more slick and cinematic way that better delivers that point to an audience. 'The Cove' also looks at the subject in a much broader way - considering international whaling lobbyists, the anti-whaling movement and other things - whereas 'Blackfish' looks at SeaWorld very specifically. Aside from specific accounts of incidents at SeaWorld parks, involving the injury and death of employees working with orcas, I didn't find it particularly illuminating. It also takes a lot of things for granted and doesn't hold its subjects, mostly former SeaWorld employees, up to any amount of scrutiny. For instance, non-scientists make statements such as "scientists are reluctant to say whales have language but it's clear they have language" which go wholly unsubstantiated in the film and, at one point, one of the most vocal collaborators confesses "I know nothing about whales".

For those in the dark about the issues raised here, it may be a far better and more effective piece of filmmaking than I found it to be. It's a laudable and worthy film, for sure - and I hope a lot of people see it, as it could do some tangible good in the world (apparently it's already caused Pixar to re-write the end of their 'Finding Nemo' sequel) - it doesn't tell you anything you couldn't glean from skim-reading a couple of Wikipedia articles. However, it should perhaps be required viewing for those thinking of visiting a SeaWorld water park.

'Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai' review:

I don't usually do "spoiler warnings" but if you're incredibly sensitive about plot details then don't read this review. I would hate to spoil this outstanding film for anyone, but it's difficult to talk about properly without mentioning certain events.



That Takeshi Miike has already released his follow-up to last year's remarkable '13 Assassins' should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the Japanese director's career. Prolific would be an understatement for a filmmaker who has made at least two films a year since the mid-90s - indeed, according to the IMDB, he has two films in post production right now. But what is surprising is that his latest film - the first 3D film to play "in competition" in Cannes - is every bit as accomplished as that ultra-violent epic, retaining the feudal Japanese setting but telling a very different type of story. There are thematic similarities between the two, but this is more period melodrama than 'Seven Samurai' styled war film - yet it's no less compelling.

'Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai' begins with a lone rōnin (a lordless and therefore jobless samurai) arriving at a wealthy lord's estate, begging permission to use the courtyard to perform hara-kiri - the highly ritualised form of suicide that involves opening one's stomach with a sword, ideally without showing pain, before having your head cut off by a trusted second. We are told that the higher the status of the premises on which the act is committed, the more honour the act will restore. At a first glance it is this belief in proper social order which brings the sombre Hanshirô Tsugumo, played by veteran Kabuki theatre actor Ebizô Ichikawa, to the estate determined to end his life.



But before granting the request, Kageyu - a sort of head caretaker whilst the lord is away on business, played with trademark intensity by Kôji Yakusho - tells Hanshirô a chilling story in order to test his resolve. In the first of two long backflashes which form the bulk of the film, he tells the warrior about another rōnin, a young man named Motome (Eita), who came by recently with the same request - and whose end was extremely unpleasant (as depicted viscerally). Motome, it is soon revealed, did not truthfully come seeking death, but charity - hoping that the lord's house would sooner give out some food and a few coins than go through the inconvenience of assembling the household staff for such an elaborate ritual. However, he is shocked when the house agrees to meet his request in order to make an example of him and deter future "suicide bluffs".

Hanshirô hears this story and is given the chance to withdraw his request. He declines and, in front of the assembled house, reveals that he has his own story to tell. Of course it barely qualifies as a spoiler to say that Motome and Hanshirô's stories are linked and that the former's death has something to do with the later's arrival on the estate, though I will say that how the two stories link is heartbreaking.



With '13 Assassins' Miike playfully mocked Japanese tradition and criticised the country's historic cultural values. He questioned why honour and death are so often linked and had his heroes kick dirt in their enemies faces - fighting for survival rather than as part of some slickly choreographed pageant. Here these criticisms are foregrounded. Social class, poverty and a culture of obligation are targets, as well as the wisdom of bushido. And just as the child-murdering, woman-deforming lord in '13 Assassins' represented all that's contradictory about a society which saw swordplay as equivalent to penmanship and poetry - outwardly representing all that was considered beautiful - in 'Hara-Kiri' such vanity is attacked again.

Here honourable men refuse to be seen in public after having their topknots cut off, yet are quite happy to watch a boy disembowel himself with a blunt wooden stick. In this society the wealthy would rather see the poor gut themselves than break tradition by asking for help. For the poor (or at least for a poor samurai), trying to live in spite of hardship is seen as a shameful practice. Here the vain pursuit of precise, formal beauty has the effect of destroying that which is genuinely beautiful. That Motome is driven to desperation by a lord's cruelty (he becomes rōnin due to a petty dispute between two nobles) and is destroyed by social convention, expectation and tradition leaves the viewer in no doubt that he is an unlucky pawn in a game played by the ruling class.



When a climactic scene of what could be termed "cool" violence does arrive, Hanshirô is totally non-lethal and his only goal is to force his enemies to commit acts of taboo and break from their preciously held codes. He's shown to be a sane man in an otherwise mad world, ruled by oppressive and ultimately meaningless tradition. Whereas '13 Assassins' arguably contradicts its message by staging such a shamelessly entertaining 45 minute massacre at the climax, here the fight itself is framed as the rejection of violence recalling the sudden brawl in Kurosawa's otherwise sedate 'Red Beard'.

Hanshirô is challenging his attackers to slaughter him in cold blood and, in showing that they can do this without threat to personal honour, underlines the futility and madness of the entire social structure - and even of his own public suicide. It's a brilliantly esoteric triumph but one that is every bit as futile as the social structure he abhors. That Kageyu and his underlings are more frightened and moved by Hanshirô's iconoclastic scattering of a elaborate suit of armour than his sad story - or his doomed appeal to reason - is Miike's final sick joke in another thoughtful and resolutely anti-traditional film.

'Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai' is not yet rated by the BBFC (though it'll be nothing less than a '15'). I saw it at the Brighton's CineCity Film Festival at the Duke of York's Picturehouse, though a limited release should be expected in 2012.

Blu reviews: variety is indeed the spice of life...

Pretty much every Monday I have Blu-ray reviews up at WhatCulture! and often a DVD review in the Saturday edition of the Telegraph newspaper - and I don't usually make a song and dance about it here, save for putting links up on the "Reviews" pages.

However, this week I was struck by how, being a "film critic", you can go within hours from writing a review of Season 3 of 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' - a fantastically fun and very silly CGI animated series for Cartoon Network - to penning a much more dry and academic sounding appraisal of the works of Nagisa Oshima. Two of Oshima's films are released today: late 70s sex thrillers 'In the Realm of the Senses' and 'Empire of Passion'.

Somewhere between the two, I also wrote about the earnest 2009 Oscar nominee 'The Messenger', belatedly released in the UK today, and low-budget thriller 'Retreat', which was released in cinemas on three days ago.

I don't know what this variety of movies and critical styles says, but it seemed interesting to me anyway! I think it's the only way I can maintain doing this. If I had to write exclusively about high-handed arthouse fare or mindless blockbusters I'd probably pack it in.

'Arrietty' review:

Studio Ghibli, the beloved Japanese animation house behind 'Spirited Away', 'Grave of the Fireflies' and 'Ponyo', have had two directors to thank for their artistic and commercial success. Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki have, between them, accounted for twelve of the studio's sixteen theatrical features (thirteen of seventeen if you count the latter's 'Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind': pre-Ghibli but now considered part of the canon). In the last ten years, increasing concern that both men are in their seventies has seen the studio push younger talent into the spotlight, usually with a noticeable drop in quality.

Hiroyuki Morita's 'The Cat Returns' was a made-for-TV movie which ended up receiving a cinema release in order to cash in on the runaway international success of 'Spirited Away' back in 2002. It's a charming and watchable film but it doesn't hold a candle to 'Whisper of the Heart', the film of which it is a nominal sequel. That under-appreciated gem, written and storyboarded by Miyazaki, was another attempt to get young blood to take over in the mid-90s - but it came to nothing when promising director Yoshifumi Kondō died of an aneurysm at 47. The real nadir of this quest to replace Miyazaki was reached in 2006, when producer Toshio Suzuki convinced the great master's son Gorō to give up his career in landscaping to direct the awful 'Tales From Earthsea'. Yet long-serving animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi has provided a ray of hope, directing 'Arrietty': a delightfully pleasant and beautifully detailed adaptation of The Borrowers.



As you may have guessed from the film's source text, 'Arrietty' follows the adventures of a family of "borrowers" - folkloric little people who live between the walls and beneath the floorboards of houses, keeping just out of sight of "human beans". However 13 year-old Arrietty, the precocious and determined daughter of the family, gets seen by a sickly young boy named Shō and her parents decide it's best to uproot and find a new home. But not before the the maid of the house, the creepy and slightly mad Haru, discovers their presence and calls in the exterminators. Along the way Arrietty also contends with insects, birds and a mangy old cat.

Chief among the film's accomplishments is the great sense of scale Yonebayashi maintains, as borrowers interact with (to them) enormous everyday objects and animals. Scale is considered a notoriously difficult challenge within animation circles, there is consistently a sense of awe - most memorably when the girl enters the human kitchen for the first time (her hair rising with her spirit in the established Miyazaki tradition). The characters' use of mundane objects, such as earrings and sellotape, is also really fun to watch and terrifically inventive.



It isn't exactly at the hi-octane end of the Ghibli spectrum, being a slowly paced and gentle yarn rather than an epic in the mould of 'Princess Mononoke'. Though it nevertheless held my attention from its enchanting beginning to bittersweet conclusion, mostly thanks to some of the most elegant, neatly observed character animation in the history of the studio and some breathtaking backdrops. I suppose it's style over substance, though 'Earthsea' had neither so I'm loathe to be too critical. One crucial absentee here is veteran tunesmith Joe Hisaishi whose scores never fail to invoke a sense of grandeur and earnest emotion. French singer Cécile Corbel instead provides the film's music which is chintzy and all too fay.

'Arrietty' is a work of promise. Yet, as promising as the film is, the studio aren't quite out of the woods yet. Miyazaki played an active role in shaping the project, even co-writing the screenplay which is riddled with his DNA - from the goggles on the father's head to the resolve of the titular heroine. But Ghibli's youngest feature director, Yonebayashi has really given a measure of hope to fans that the animation institution can outlive the two old men. It's as pleasing on the eye as anything Studio Ghibli has made and the story, though slight, is as innocently joyful a way as you can spend 94 minutes at the movies.

'Arrietty' is out now in the UK, rated 'U' by the BBFC.

'Norwegian Wood' Blu-ray review

Today the Japanese Murakami novel adaptation 'Norwegian Wood' was released in the UK on Blu-ray. It's a lovely release from Soda Pictures which I've reviewed over on the site formerly known as Obsessed with Film. You can read that review here.

I re-watched the film, having seen it last year in Venice, and liked it rather more this time around - so I contradicted my earlier festival review quite a lot. I also re-read that original review, written on a phone sometime late at night on the Lido by a tired and confused man, and found that it was barely coherent drivel. So hopefully I've done the film more justice this second time around!

Obsessed with Film is in the process of re-branding itself this month as What Culture.

Satoshi Kon (1963-2010): Anime director loses battle with cancer at 46

The world of animation has been rocked by news of the sudden death of the pioneering Japanese director Satoshi Kon, who died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 46 yesterday.

Kon was the anime equivalent of Charlie Kaufman, his four finished films were multi-layered and their concerns were generally introspective and psychological, with questions of identity usually in the foreground. In no film was this more apparent than in his most recent finished film: 2006's 'Paprika'. Four years before Nolan's 'Inception', 'Paprika' involved a device that allowed people to enter other people's dreams and the film blurred the lines between the dreamworld and reality.



But the anime film-maker had played with similar themes since his 1997 debut as a director, 'Perfect Blue', which amidst the now familiar questions of identity also explored celebrity and the (then) new dangers presented by Internet chat rooms. A Hitchcockian thriller, 'Perfect Blue' follows a young J-Pop star as she decides to change her image and try to make a living as a serious actress. A fact which angers some of her fans.



Then came perhaps his seminal work: 'Millennium Actress', released in 2001, was the story of an old actress looking back at her life through the parts she played, with reality and fiction becoming blurred. The actress, who has not been interviewed in years and has completely retired from public life, was loosely based on Setsuko Hara - the actress most famous for her starring role in Ozu's so-called Noriko trilogy of the 40s and 50s. The film plays with genre as a number of different epoch's of Japanese cinema are lovingly recreated, from Ishiro Honda-style monster movies to 'Throne of Blood' era Kurosawa pictures.



2003 saw a slight departure, with the release of 'Tokyo Godfathers', the story of three homeless people who come across an abandoned baby one Christmas and resolve to find her parents. There is one brief dream sequence and one of the homeless could be said to be in conflict with their own identity (the homosexual male Hana wishing to be the child's mother), but otherwise 'Tokyo Godfathers' is slightly more grounded in a solid reality compared to his other work - at least until the buildings start dancing over the end credits. Instead, much in the same way that 'Perfect Blue' and 'Millennium Actress' looked at issues of fame and celebrity, 'Godfathers' subtly questions Japanese society and its attitudes towards those who slip through the net. This isn't done via any grand soliloquy, but rather it is demonstrated by some of the obstacles that come between the trio and their goal. As Hana recites a number of Haiku, which enter the frame in elegant calligraphy, perhaps Kon was also satirising the Japanese traditions of formal beauty which exist in contrast to the reality of these people's lives.



Sandwiched between this oddity and the more conventionally Kon-esque 'Paprika' was the dynamic and experimental television series 'Paranoia Agent', a story of a mysterious, possibly imagined, juvenile thug told over thirteen episodes and from the perspective of as many characters. Kon saw the show as a way to make something which could utilise a number of his ideas which he felt did not fit into any of his features, and as such the show is richly filled with imaginative and memorable scenes.



Kon was known to be working on a fifth feature film, known as 'The Dream Machine', up until his death. It remains unclear whether this project will surface and in what form. Hopefully the late animator had finished the project, which he described thusly:

On the surface, it's going to be a fantasy-adventure targeted at younger audiences. However, it will also be a film that people who have seen our films up to this point will be able to enjoy. So it will be an adventure that even older audiences can appreciate. There will be no human characters in the film; only robots. It'll be like a "road movie" for robots

But whatever comes of 'The Dream Machine', Kon's legacy is not only the great imagination and psychological depth of his four existing films, but also the tone. Kon's work is an antidote to anyone who thinks anime is about cute, fetishistic school girls dancing around with giant robots, or whatever. Kon's films took a serious, gritty, non-exploitative tone and dealt with subjects usually found in live-action, but which could not have been realised in live-action (at least not without a huge budget). He used animation to the fullest and exploited all its possibilities in a way seldom seen inside of Japan or out.

And yet Kon is almost always overlooked when naming the great contemporary animators. When the definitive book is written on the last twenty years of animation, and sections are being given to Hayao Miyazaki, Sylvain Chomet, Brad Bird, Michel Ocelot, John Lasseter, Jan Švankmajer, Richard Linklater and Nick Park - let us hope space is reserved for Satoshi Kon. A true visionary and a master animator and a life cut tragically short. Tonight I will raise a glass to Kon-san.

Book review: 'Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men' by Peter H. Brothers

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a fan of Japanese cinema. Whether I'm banging on about the work of Kurosawa, looking forward to the next Kitano film or getting evangelical over the latest Miyazaki animation, I have written a fair bit about film-makers from that part of East Asia. So when I heard that there was an English language book on one of the most popular and influential - yet curiously most overlooked - Japanese directors, I was genuinely excited to read it.

That director is Ishirō Honda (1911-1993), the man most closely associated with the monster movies of the 50s and 60s: most notably 'Mothra' (1961) and the original 'Godzilla' (1954). Despite being one of the most commercially viable Japanese directors of his day (most of his monster movies made it into American theatres - albeit with changes) serious analysis of his work is hard to come by in the West. Stepping bravely into that void is Peter H. Brothers, with his comprehensive, film-by-film volume Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda.



Although, as Brothers himself points out, Honda was not exclusively a maker of fantasy movies (at least not early in his career) this book focuses on those films for which he was best known. Mushroom Clouds covers no less than 25 of his films in detail, looking at their production as well as providing decent analysis of their content and often their political context. These passages are, happily, bookended by chapters on his life before, during and after the monster movies. These chapters are written in the form of a narrative in chronological order and help to provide a decent context in which to put the films, as well as proving perhaps the most compelling read as they look at Honda the man.

Almost equal attention is paid to several of Honda's most frequent collaborators: his producer at Toho, Tomoyuki Tanaka (1910-1997), his longstanding composer, Akira Ifukube (1914-2006) and, most significantly, the man behind the visual effects, Eiji Tsuburaya (1901-1970). Ifukube's scores are deconstructed in some detail by Brothers, whilst Tsuburaya is afforded a lot of praise for his work and influence - heralded as the Japanese equivalent of Ray Harryhausen and Honda's "true mentor". As a result, the book is just as informative about Japanese cinema of the period and the studio system as it is about Honda himself.



Brothers clearly has a great knowledge of these movies and seems to know the supporting actors and crew members from this era of Japanese film as well as anybody. However, his appreciation of Honda's movies can at times make the book seem fannish, rather than academic. This is not necessarily a criticism, as sometimes it is nice to read something so celebratory, but the level of enthusiastic praise reserved for even the campiest of these films at times left me incredulous. Instead I rather enjoyed the book as a narrative history told by an enthusiastic guide. There is certainly an element of melancholy in the story of Honda's life as a director which is never really addressed by the author.

Honda was, like many Japanese people of his generation, a very loyal company man. He never worked for anyone but Toho all his life and seemed to feel very restricted by the monster movies he was contracted to make - ironically the very films Brothers book celebrates as it is equally guilty of marginalising his other work. He also found his career interrupted by military service and when he returned found that many of his subordinates had been promoted above him. As a result it took him far longer to become a director than some of his contemporaries, including his friend Kurosawa, for whom he worked as an assistant (at both ends of his directorial career). There is an unspoken feeling, reading between the lines, that Honda was never allowed to become the film-maker he could have been. Although Brothers chooses to celebrate the care he put into his fantasy work and finds lot of examples of how his monster movies are far more humanistic and character driven than they were really required to be.



Some interesting themes are left unexplored, such as the sexpoitation aspect of the 1957 film 'The Defense Force of the Earth', the plot of which involves aliens capturing Earth women for cross-breading, and the significance of the US title change of the 1956 'Radon, the Monster From the Sky' to the less overtly metaphorical 'Rodon! The Flying Monster'. And whilst Tsuburaya's work was evidently amongst the best effects work of the day - and the most influential (prior to Tsuburaya, Japanese studios didn't even have dedicated visual effects departments) - his work has not aged well compared to that of his American contemporary Harryhausen. For instance, comparing the model work from 1953's 'The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms' with the laughable man-in-a-suit work seen in 'Godzilla' a year later does not favour Tsuburaya.

That is not to demean Tsuburaya, but just to say that the level of praise reserved for his work in the book is difficult to take seriously, especially the claims made to its realism, with audience members apparently asking Honda where he got all the military equipment from after one film. As upbeat and sanguine as Honda seems to have been, one can't help but wonder whether he really saw himself as the director of film's like 'MechaGodzilla's Counterattack' (1975) or whether he privately yearned for more.



But then I think that is the point of Brothers' book. Rather than apologise for these campy movies, he has chosen to find the good in them. He has looked at them and is trying to bring to our attention the things of value that Honda was able to bring about within these fantasy pictures. And he does so with palpable love of his subject and real verve, which as a result prevents the book from ever being dull or too dry (at least for anyone pre-disposed to read about Japanese movies). Brothers manages to locate some genuine humanity and even some poignant moments in all of these increasingly absurd films, which is laudable in itself. Perhaps in doing so he is a brave defender of all the easily dismissed fantasy films of the 50s and 60s.



Perhaps a definitive, more sober look at the cinema of Ishirō Honda is still yet to be written. However, Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men is a long overdue celebration of a much-maligned film-maker with an equal claim to fame and influence as his better known contemporaries. Perhaps, given more opportunities and with more good fortune, Honda would have emulated Kurosawa and made more than one great film ('Godzilla'). After all, he directed entire segments of some of Kurosawa's later films, most notably two whole segments of 'Dreams' in 1990. The director once told a colleague: "Unless your film is caught in the critic's net, it will be washed away into history." If nothing else, Brothers' book is the first necessary step in ensuring that does not happen to the films of Ishirō Honda.

Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda by Peter H. Brothers is available now here.

'They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail' review: A brief, but thoroughly enjoyable, early Kurosawa film...

Here is a follow-up to yesterday's post regarding my trip to see a very rare early Kurosawa film at the BFI Southbank. I didn't know quite what to expect from the 1945 film 'They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail' but I was really pleasantly surprised by what I saw tonight. One of the few things I knew about the film before going in was that it based on an old 12th Century Japanese tale and uses aspects of Nah and Kabuki theatre adaptations in its telling. I worried slightly that this may be alienating or (frankly) boring to watch, but actually the film was really well paced and consistently entertaining. Of course, it helped that it ran at a brisk 58 minutes in length.

'They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail' really feels like the simple, effective telling of an age-old tale. What surprised me the most was that, despite the fact the film pre-dates his "golden period", many of Kurosawa's trademark shots and techniques are visible here. There are screenwipes, quick cuts between multiple protagonists and even many of his consistent themes are invoked (humanist values, criticism of traditional values and the emphasis on male characters). Furthermore, the film features a number of actors he would later rely on such as Masayuki Mori ('Rashomon', 'The Idiot', 'The Bad Sleep Well'), Susumu Fujita ('Yojimbo', 'The Hidden Fortress') and the great Takashi Shimura (too many to mention, most famously 'Ikiru' and 'Seven Samurai').

As I wrote yesterday, I couldn't pass up the chance to see this rarely screened film which is unavailable on DVD (at least in the UK). I wondered what the quality of the print would be like for this movie and when it started it was plain to see not only that this piece of film had been around since the film's US release in 1952, but that it was an American version. For one thing the subtitles looked like they had been scratched directly onto the film and, more obviously, the opening credits and titles were all in English. There was also a three page forward giving the context of the story and telling us that "this is a story which is loved by the Japanese". Sometimes the sound went and even the picture cut out at other times, but I found that strangely charming. After seeing the remastered splendour of 'Rashomon' the week before, it was sort of nice to see what a used and abused print looked like. It was a great advert for the likes of Martin Scorsese, who tell us frequently about the need to restore and maintain older films. Hopefully somebody will do the same for this movie before it is worn out of existence!



This is not to criticise the BFI at all. They deserve kudos for finding and screening such an unsung and obscure film as this as part of their Kurosawa season. The screening (admittedly in one of the smaller screens) was pleasingly quite well attended too and the movie played to a good atmosphere, with the comedy of contemporary comedian Kenichi "Enoken" Enomoto going down a storm. Enoken is really exaggerated and campy throughout but his porter character (introduced to the tale by Kurosawa) is what makes the film satirical, as he undermines the heroism and traditional values of the party of soldiers he is in service of. Displaying all the cowardice and opportunism of the lowly pair later seen in 'The Hidden Fortress', the porter delightfully contradicts the earnest Bushido of the rest of the film.

I don't usually go in for plot synopsis here, but seeing as this film is so hard to come by it might be a good idea. Basically, a group of warriors are disguised as travelling monks in order to escort their lord safely into another territory as he is on the run after a dispute with the ruling clan (in another plot element reminiscent of 'The Hidden Fortress'). However, they are expected at the checkpoint barrier and the film mainly involves a stand-off between the head warrior (Captain Beneki, played by the wonderful Denjiro Okochi) and the barrier guard (Togashi, played by Fujita) as he attempts to convince him that the group are the monks they claim to be. It is sometimes funny, sometimes actually very tense and always gripping stuff.

When the barrier guards recognise one of the porters as the wanted lord, Beneki trashes his master with a stick, supposedly to discipline him for being slow. Convinced that a warrior would never beat his master the barrier guard agree to let the men pass. Apparently the debate among Japanese fans of the old tale is whether Togashi knows that Beneki is lying or not, perhaps deciding to let him pass regardless. However here, in this telling, I believe Kurosawa has Togashi convinced by the beating, so stuck is he in an old code of honour now obsolete. Or at least, if not wholly convinced, Beneki breaks all the rules and Togashi is socially unable to accuse another man of his class of that dishonesty and ultimate shame. To deal with his shame at beating his master (in order to save his life) Beneki is shown to drink a barrel full of sake, much like Toshiro Mifune's Kikuchiyo does in 'Seven Samurai' after his own shameful episode.



Despite its brevity there is a lot to take in after watching 'They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail', a complex and thoroughly entertaining film. I had expected to find myself appreciating it more than liking it and had hoped to see the genesis of some of Kurosawa's later work represented in this early film. Instead what I was treated to was a film full of such moments, but which also worked completely in its own right. It was made quite cheaply and is entirely set-bound (with painted exterior backdrops), but it is quite atmospheric all the same thanks to Kurosawa's direction and the photography of Takeo Itô (who later worked on 'Drunken Angel'). Enoken's rampant over-acting may grate with some, so (intentionally) at odds is it with the rest of the piece, but if you get the chance to see it some time in the future then I would recommend you spend 58 minutes watching 'They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail'. Especially if you appreciate Kurosawa's later work.

'They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail' is currently exempt from classification by the BBFC. However, with the complete absence of shown violence or any bad language it would comfortably receive a 'U' in my opinion.

Remember when I told you I would shut up about Kurosawa? I lied!

On Monday I said that my recent flurry of celebratory posts about the films of Akira Kurosawa would com to an end with that review of the incredible reissued print of 'Rashonmon'. Well, predictably I am banging on about Kurosawa again. This time to say that I am going back to the BFI Southbank tomorrow to see a rare wartime film of his which I know precious little about: 'They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail'. The earliest of Kurosawa's films I have seen to date is 1948's 'Drunken Angel' (his first film starring Toshiro Mifune and the film on which he felt he'd discovered himself as a filmmaker). Most of the films which came out after 'Drunken Angel' are readily available to buy on DVD in the UK and so out of his 30 films I have been lucky enough to see 20 to date. However 'They Who Step on the Tiger's Tail' will be the first of his 6 "early period" films which I will have seen. I'm really excited by this rare chance to see a film which is completely unavailable to buy in this country.

Amazingly, although the film was shot in 1945, it wasn't released until 1952 as it was banned by the American occupation (a fact Kurosawa attributed to a "mean-spirited" censor rather than the content of his film). I can't wait to see what all the fuss was about.

On a separate note (but still on the subject of Japanese cinema) I received a book in the post today by an American writer called Peter H. Brothers. He has written a comprehensive book in celebration of the overlooked godfather of the monster movie, Ishiro Honda (best known for the original 1954 'Godzilla'). The book is called 'Mushroom Clouds and Mushroom Men: The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda' and I can't wait to read it and review it here. Incidently, Honda was a good friend (and one-time assistant director) of a certain Kurosawa. In fact he is known to have directed huge parts of Kurosawa's 1990 film 'Dreams' and was ever-present on the set during his final films.

Here is the trailer to the fantastic 'Godzilla' which stars the great Takashi Shimura and is a much better film than the campy series that followed would lead you to think:

'Rashomon' re-issue review: A much needed big screen outing for a true classic...

I have recently written a fair bit on this blog about the work of Akira Kurosawa. Jon and I recently recorded a special Kurosawa-themed Splendor Cinema podcast, whilst I have also written here about my favourite of his films and about some of the re-makes he inspired. On Friday I visited the BFI Southbank in London where I took advantage of their awesome world cinema shop to purchase a copy of his splendid autobiography and also fill some the gaps in my DVD collection: I found copies of ‘The Idiot’, ‘The Bad Sleep Well’, ‘Drunken Angel’ and ‘High and Low’. Most importantly, I took the opportunity to watch his international breakthrough, the Golden Lion winning 1950 film ‘Rashomon’, now in a glorious restored print which has been re-issued at selected cinemas nationwide.



‘Rashomon’ had previously been a film I admired more than enjoyed. I appreciated how significant it was in opening the eyes of western critics to Japanese cinema and I also understood its influence, the narrative structure (focussing on four subjective accounts of a rape and murder) has been copied by a countless number of films and has also been adapted by science and philosophy – the so-called “Rashomon effect”. But when I saw it on Friday it marked the first time I had seen the film on the big screen and its impact on me was much greater.

Partly this was down to paying the film greater attention than I had possibly done in the past. In a cinema it is just you and the film. You can’t pause it. You can’t look at your phone. You can’t go and get a drink and you hesitate to leave for the toilet. It holds your complete, undivided attention.

This time I noticed the virtuosity of Kurosawa’s camera work, often panning and swooping in elaborate long takes. Just as often it is still and patient with the director allowing the action to move in and out of the frame. It is in many ways a masterclass in how to shoot a film, especially action sequences. Like his hero John Ford, Kurosawa is able to make everything look deceptively simple and made his films with great economy. The film feels tight, disciplined and is basically as close to perfect as any movie could hope to be.



The performances are also fantastic. Toshiro Mifune is at his most cat-like as a snarling bandit accused of murder, whilst Takashi Shimura gives a great turn as a woodcutter who reports the crime, with some scenes of emotional poignancy to rival his more celebrated role in ‘Ikiru’. There are also roles for lesser known Kurosawa regulars such as Minoru Chiaki (who plays a troubled priest) and Masayuki Mori (above) as the murdered samurai. There is also Machiko Kyō, who almost steals the show as the samurai’s wife. Kyō cries and screams with an intensity which renders her performance unforgettable. Like almost every female in a Kurosawa movie, she is also called upon to be somewhat conniving and manipulative which she does with some gusto (representations of women are not Kurosawa’s strongest suit, for that see Mizoguchi, Ozu or Naruse) .

But more impressive than its stars and the great craft of its master director is its typically humanist portrayal of the characters. During the varying accounts of the central murder, what struck me was that the emphasis is not on the practical differences between the accounts, but on something subtler. It is the difference in tone, the different emotional reactions to the event and the changes in meaning which shape this tale and give ‘Rashomon’ its depth. During the trial scenes, in which the characters gather to give their testimonies, the judges are unseen. We are only shown the storytellers themselves talking to camera. Therefore when they lie the implication is that they are only lying to themselves (and perhaps to us).

The bandit wants us to believe he is a hard man, a skilful swashbuckler and a user of women. Watching him speak you feel he has succeeded in convincing himself. The samurai (whose testimony comes via a medium) gives an account in which he dies an honourable death by suicide to compensate for the shame he feels at seeing his wife raped. However the woodcutter’s story (in all details but one final twist taken to be the “true” account) reveals that both men were cowardly: that they fought but that it involved a lot of falling over and scrambling in the dirt. During the encounter Mifune pants loudly: out of breath and full of fear.



They never really cross swords (as in the bandit's version above); instead they swing wildly and run away from each other. The samurai’s final words are “I don’t want to die”. The truth is pathetic, not heroic or romantic. The truth is human. Kurosawa’s point is not that all people are bad or that all people are cowards, but that people are flawed. That we should be suspicious of those who portray themselves as honourable, just as we should of those who promote the idea that they are the opposite. That people are not caricatures: they are complicated.

Happily, for Kurosawa and ‘Rashomon’, there is just as much good as bad in the world. The priest’s faith in humanity is restored by the woodcutter’s decision to adopt an abandoned baby and defend it against a man who seeks to rob it of its few possessions. The woodcutter is told by the man that all people are selfish and that being selfish is necessary to survive (a popular view among capitalists). But the woodcutter rejects this assessment of humanity and, although he already has six children, he takes on the responsibility of another. This final moment sees Kurosawa at his most sentimental, but it is the necessary conclusion to the story and one which gives us hope.



It is hope which is an important final message for Kurosawa and Japan in ‘Rashomon’. Made in the aftermath of the Second World War in a battered and defeated nation, the film is in part allegorical. It opens on a broken gate, a relic from a period of prosperity and cultural richness. The woodcutter and the priest find shelter under this ruin as a heavy rainfall lashes down throughout the film. When the woodcutter adopts the infant the rainfall stops and the duo are able to leave the broken past behind and walk into a more hopeful future, for Japan and for the world. Fitting for a film which heralded a similarly bright future for Japanese cinema.

I, obviously, highly recommend seeking out ‘Rashomon’ in a cinema near you. It is playing at the BFI Southbank until the 8th of July on an extended run and is rated ‘12A’ by the BBFC.

'Ponyo' Review: The beauty of Miyazaki

I’ll make it known from the off: I’m a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki’s work. Because of this, I probably have a little bit of trouble evaluating his latest film with much objectivity. I quite simply can’t see what anybody could dislike about “Ponyo”.

Miyazaki’s first feature since 2004’s ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’, ‘Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea’ (to use its more picturesque Japanese title) will be enthusiastically devoured by fans of Japanese anime, by fans of traditional hand-drawn animation in general, as well as by fans of its legendary filmmaker. Indeed, it will be a film welcomed by all of the above all the more enthusiastically as it comes in the wake of Studio Ghibli’s last, rather lacklustre, 2006 effort ‘Tales from Earthsea’ (directed by Hayao Miyazaki’s son: Goro).

‘Ponyo’ is the story of a fish who desires to become a human after falling in love with one. In this way it is essentially an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid”. However, that is not to say that the film does not bare the auteurist stamp of its director, as all of Miyazaki’s usual preoccupations are on show here: Miyazaki transforms Andersen’s mermaid and prince into two young, self-sufficient children; the film has similar environmental messages to ‘Princess Mononoke’ and ‘Spirited Away’; our hero saves the day (spoiler!) by overcoming trials of the heart, rather than tests of physical strength (see any of Miyazaki’s heroes); and Miyazaki again displays his fascination with people at work – here seen in the sections featuring the men at sea or the young boy's mother tending to the old women of the nursing home.

All of these motifs are echoed in this film, but there is a far more important one which is also present here. Miyazaki carries everything off with his customary lightness of touch and effortless charm. The characters in his films are unfailingly good-natured and there are never any bad guys to speak of (perhaps with the notable exception of Muska in ‘Castle in the Sky’), as he refuses to deal in straightforward good versus evil. It's heartening, that the villains in Miyazaki are never too far from redemption, often befriending the heroes.

As is to be expected by now, the film is superb from an animation standpoint. The animation is colourful, fluid and detailed throughout, whilst nobody in the history of the art form has so effectively captured the spirit of childhood through the depiction of children in motion. Like ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ before it, ‘Ponyo’ features some of the most sensitive and poignant animation of children I have ever seen and it is here that the film really excels.



However my enduring memory and perhaps my favourite moment of the film was its depiction of a downcast and rainy early-afternoon. I have never seen any film (animated or live-action) so accurately evoke that time of day and the feeling that comes with it. As you can no doubt tell from this review: I loved ‘Ponyo’. It was purely and immensely joyful and if my fandom of Miyazaki has in any way compromised my judgement and rendered me unable to find any negatives in this film, then I am entirely happy with that outcome. In an age where most children's films have a post-modern, knowing cynicism about them, it is really refreshing to find something so sincere in its unabashed enthusiasm and childish naivety.

'Ponyo' is playing all week at the Duke of York's Picturehouse in Brighton (in subtitled and dubbed versions) and is rated 'U' by the BBFC.

Ozu monogatari: Mark Cousin's stares into the void

According to Kurosawa, Yasujirō Ozu made films of “dignified severity”. He meant it as a criticism. In terms of the films they gave us, the two men could hardly have been more different: you certainly couldn’t confuse the horse chase sequence in ‘The Hidden Fortress’ or the titular ‘Seven Samurai’ running through the tall grass to save the villagers (both conveying an urgency and a sense of speed) with the famous stillness found in Ozu’s work. The most famous examples of his work are slow, small-scale family dramas like ‘Early Spring’ and ‘Tokyo Story’ (though, as Tony Rayns points out in last month’s Sight and Sound, he made many other types of film in his long and prolific career at Shochiku).

Yet Ozu’s films are no less compelling than Kurosawa’s. They delight with their attention to detail. In Ozu’s films, pauses are emphasised, shots linger, often with the camera close to the ground or looking in at the “action” from another room. External shots of trains going by are a common occurrence and seem simply to mark the passing of time and require patience. They are formal, beautiful and poignant: emotional, yet never mawkish or sentimental. Ozu never had wife or family of his own, yet he told stories about families which speak a universal truth, such as when the well-meaning elderly couple of ‘Tokyo Story’ find themselves to be an unwelcome inconvenience when visiting their (now grown up) children, who have jobs to attend to and children of their own to raise. None of the people in these stories are wrong or bad: they just are.

I am writing about Ozu because there has been a lot of attention paid to his work recently. This has partly been due to the fact that this month sees a programme of Ozu films playing at the BFI Southbank (until February 27th) and partly because similarities between Ozu’s work and that of Hirokazu Kore-eda are being drawn in reviews of his new film ‘Still Walking’ (Sight & Sound’s Film of the Month for February). Noted film historian David Thomson has also seen fit to contribute a snobby and pompous article about Ozu versus ‘Avatar’ for the Guardian newspaper. But the piece that caught my attention was a tribute paid to the great man by Mark Cousins during BBC Radio 4’s Film Programme. During the programme, Cousins described not only his appreciation for Ozu, but also his experience visiting Ozu’s grave recently. He describes how the man he sees as the “centre of film history” is represented by a tombstone without a name or any dates, but simply the Chinese character “Mu” which he translates as “emptiness” or “the void”, but which can also be read as “the space between all things”. "Dignified severity" indeed.

Surrounded by tributes of alcohol (like Kurosawa, Ozu was a notorious alcoholic) this grave is somehow the ultimate monument to a man whose films faced the facts of human existence, however apparently bleak, without any need to sugar coat them. He didn’t even want to romanticise his own passing from this Earth. That takes a special kind of dedication to the “truth” so often talked about by artists. Yet Ozu was not a pretentious artist. He was a company man. He was loyal to one studio his whole life and made a great many films (from the silent-era onwards) as a hired gun. He was disciplined and demanding, a perfectionist, but not at the expense of his humility. And whilst his films are not sentimental, they are not without sentiment (‘Tokyo Story’, for one, is a real tear jerker). He was, for me, a real humanist with a deep understanding of, and affection for, life’s smaller moments. He is survived by his films and not by a piece of stone.

Apparently Mark Cousins visit to the grave was made as part of an upcoming documentary on Ozu’s life and work. I, for one, look forward to a closer look at this fascinating 20th century artist if and when it is released. I will keep an eye out.