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Film: The Living And The Dead
Year of production: 2007
UK Release date: 21st February 2011
Distributor: Kaleidoscope
Certificate: 15
Running time: 87 mins
Director: Kristijan Milic
Starring: Filip Sovagovic, Velibor Topic, Slaven Knezovic, Marinko Prga, Borko Peric
Genre: Fantasy/Thriller/War
Format: DVD
Country of Production: Croatia/Bosnia and Herzegovina
Language: Croatian
Review by: Anastasia Catris
In 2007, Kristijan Milic swept the board at the Pula Film Festival, winning 8 of the 14 categories, with his Bosnian war film The Living And The Dead. His first full length production, having previously directed shorts such as Sigurna Kuca and 24 Hours, this was an ambitious project for Milic.
Based on the novel by Josip Mlakic, The Living And The Dead follows two corresponding story lines separated by fifty years. Both in 1943 and 1993, we are presented with two very different military companies of soldiers, as they fight in separate Bosnian territorial wars: the partisan struggle of World War II and the liberation war of Bosnia and Herzegovina of 1992-5.
As the two plot lines interweave with one another, we watch the 1943 soldiers on their journey through the ‘Graveyard Field’, dealing with desertion, execution and matters of class and authority. A group of Muslims are captured by Croatian fascists and one of the soldiers, Martin (Filip Sovagovic) loots a souvenir from one of the fallen hostages. This keepsake is the only material link between the soldiers of 1943 and 1993 as Martin leaves it to his grandson, Tomas (also Filip Sovagovic), one of the modern day soldiers. Though the soldiers of 1993 follow a similar path to that of their predecessors, including that of the ‘Graveyard Field’, they are far more carefree and, oftentimes, cowardly in comparison.
As the two companies’ stories converge in their tragic fates and their realisation of the inanity of war, supernatural elements begin to surface. Figures of fallen men appear, distracting the soldiers and leading them to their own deaths, while the soldiers of 1993 are often haunted by the images of their 1943 counterparts…
Despite concentrating on two small contingents of soldiers, the characterisation of the cast in this film is minimal. Many of the modern soldiers seem to correspond to archetypes created by films such as Platoon and Apocalypse Now, which, though allowing an audience to connect via familiarity, dilutes any emotional connection they may have with them.
The emotional connection and sympathy comes through their actions and expendability rather than their individual characters. The modern characters are far more human in their occasional incompetence, fears and childish behaviour, while the soldiers of 1943 correspond more to strict authority and class structure. The one character of note in the 1943 segments is Ferid, a man who has lost his whole family to typhoid and is still expected to carry on fighting, whose emotional state leads to much of the platoon’s misfortune.
However, what the film lacks in characterisation it makes up for in atmosphere and production value. The juxtaposition between the two timelines is highlighted by the filtered lighting which appears green and blue in the present and sepia brown in the past. The sepia tones of the 1943 scenes serve to create a desiccated and dry atmosphere which amplifies the harshness of the action. The present, meanwhile, appears lush and sheltered, most of the scenes taking place under tree canopies as the platoon travel through the forest. The lighter atmosphere of the present is also highlighted by the platoon’s actions in their joking, jibing, personalized uniforms and casual drug taking. This makes the tragedies they face all the more horrifying, as we have seen moments of lightness and amusement which distract the audience from the harsh reality of their situation.
The sound in this film is graphic and exaggerated. The simple sound effects, such as leaves crunching underfoot and the clicking of guns and mechanics, are amplified, which serves to create a truly engulfing atmosphere. The music is a repetitive strain switching between a jovial and carefree staccato to a dire and haunting undertone with electronic static. This mixes well with the actions of the modern day troops, who switch between fun and care free scenes of camaraderie and poignant scenes of death and loss.
The film has been classed in the ‘fantasy’ genre by a number of different websites and journalists, yet the supernatural element in this film is minimal. It is not a ghost story or horror, rather it is a film influenced by a haunting conscience. The appearance of ghosts and spectres within the plot serves as a way to tie the two story-lines together but also accentuate the guilt of the soldiers and psychological damage of war.
Though the initial concept of the plot may seem complicated, the theme of the film is simple. It is a hopeless and negative view of war and conflict from the view of soldiers who serve as puppets to their orders. This is a story of history repeating itself and death being inevitable. The humanity of the film is not in the individual but the platoon, united by their mortality and tragic fates. Whilst some war films try to focus on the politics of the war in question, or relating both sides of the story, this film could have taken place during any two wars and still had the same impact.
Whilst an understanding of Bosnian history may enlighten you to the actions behind the two plot lines in this film, the message and theme of it is not difficult to grasp. This is a film of hopelessness and mortality that manages to be both gripping and enjoyable despite its serious message. AC
Film: Amer
Year of production: 2009
UK Release date: 31st January 2011
Distributor: Anchor Bay
Certificate: 18
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani
Starring: Cassandra Forêt, Charlotte Eugène Guibeaud, Marie Bos, Bianca Maria D'Amato, Harry Cleven
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Format: DVD
Country of Production: France/Belgium
Language: French
Review by: Anastasia Catris
Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s Amer is a French homage to the Italian cinematic genre of giallo. Stemming from the Italian word for yellow, giallo refers to the series of paperback crime, mystery, horror and erotic fiction novels with trademark yellow covers. This unique genre veered towards psychological horror with emphasis on madness, alienation and paranoia; themes explored with graphic vividness in Amer.
Amer follows the three ages of Ana and her encounters with death and sexuality. The first chapter sees Ana as a curious child (Cassandra Forêt) who is haunted by her family’s spectre-like house keeper. During this chapter, she encounters the corpse of her recently deceased grandfather and walks in on her parents engaging in sexual intercourse. There then follows a brief symbolic transition into the second chapter.
This chapter follows Ana as an adolescent (Charlotte Eugène Guibeaud) as she accompanies her mother on an errand to the local hairdressers. After abandoning her mother in the town, she comes across a gang of motorcyclists, before being found and subsequently punished by her mother.
The final episode accompanies Ana as an adult (Marie Bos) as she returns to her childhood home where her strange sexual fantasies and traumatic memories collide with a violent and ambiguous present…
The film itself is notably short, but nevertheless crammed with stylistic visual imagery consisting of sympathetic lighting and colour, extreme close ups and highly sexualized cropped shots. This makes for a disturbing film experience. The transitions between each of Ana’s ages are handled in a highly explorative and sexual way, including close up shots of various body parts, often accompanied by close ups of men to symbolize her sexual awakening. This is also alluded to by the heightened sound of breathing and rough, rasping soundtrack.
Each chapter is dealt with in a very different style. The initial chapter, exploring Ana’s childhood, is obviously of the horror genre, from the veiled, dark figure of the house keeper to the grungy, shadowed set of the house against Hitchcockian flashes of red. Ana’s experience of discovering her grandfather’s corpse reveals occult imagery, such as the ritualistic adornments in his room, a dead bird in his coat pocket and crystallized salt being placed under his bed. This is also the most surreal chapter of the film in terms of lighting and colour, as Ana’s traumatizing experience of witnessing her parents having sex causes the screen to flash from blue to orange to red. All of these fantastical elements combine to create a truly effecting barrage on the senses.
The first chapter may be likened to Guillermo del Torro’s early work in its horrific content, as well as its haunting soundtrack and accentuated sound. This, however, dissipates in the second chapter and we are left with a far more French, rural image of adolescence, akin to Lolita. Whereas the previous chapter deals with Ana’s experience of sexuality in a terrifying way, associating it with death, horror and decay; this chapter is more about adolescent curiosity and naiveté.
While the fear of rape is alluded to through Ana’s disgust at having a lollypop forced into her mouth, and her eventual meeting with the motorcyclists, the only real sexual experience in this chapter is one that is in fact symbolized. A young boy, attempting to kiss Ana, is rejected and she instead follows him outside to watch him play with his football. Both of them then chase the football down a darkened tunnel and out into the light of the town outskirts. The heightened breathing of the two characters as well as the vacillating motion of them as they run, paired with the extreme close ups and physical exertion implies their sexual experience without showing it. Whilst only being alluded to symbolically, this is the only example of an untainted and innocent sexual encounter in the whole film.
The final chapter of the film is the most disturbing. While not openly engaging with the theme of horror as in the first chapter, this time-line deals more with realistic horror and the giallo theme of crime and death. Perhaps the fact that the first chapter is so openly fantastical while the other two chapters are more realistic in their view of horror and fear, is a comment on the traumatizing effect of memory.
Films such as Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou are alluded to through Cattet’s employ of insect imagery and the slicing of various body parts. Homages to Bava and Argento are also unsubtle in their approach.
This is the definition of an art house film and as such warrants more than one watch to truly understand what is happening. The ending is ambiguous, allowing us to draw our own conclusions from the violent imagery and iconic final shot, solidifying the fact that this is a film attempting to elicit an emotional response rather than created of enjoyment.
Despite all of the thought provoking imagery and art house styling, however, it is noteworthy that nothing truly happens within the film. Whilst dealing with Ana’s strange mind, and her experiences of sexuality, we never truly see into her character as we are merely a voyeur. The sexualisation of her character is done through the camera’s eyes, not hers; and we realize quickly that we know nothing about her as a person or character, only what the director wants us to see. This leaves us with a disturbing and voyeuristic feeling at the end of the film that does nothing to quell our curiosity about the strange little life that has just been revealed to us.
This is a film to be analysed for analysis sake. The Freudian influences are obvious and bring out the amateur psychiatrist in the audience, but this is where the mystery ends. Neither can it be said to be entertaining, as the art house style is overly familiar to us through its allusions to greater directors and artists. While this is an interesting exercise in Freudian filmmaking, it is hardly original, and seems to rely on the sexuality and violence of the plot to sell it as meaningful, when it is in fact empty. AC
Film: The Silent Army
Release date: 19th November 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 93 mins
Director: Jean Van de Velde
Starring: Marco Borsato, Abby Mukiibi Nkaaga, Andrew Kintu, Thekla Reuten, Jacqueline Blom
Genre: Action/Drama
Studio: High Fliers
Format: Cinema
Country: Netherlands
In the heart of the African jungle, an ever-growing army of child-soldiers are on the rampage. As the trail of slaughter grows, it’s up to our hero to rescue the brain-washed children and put an end to the bloodshed.
We begin by following Abu, a child who is dragged from his home by The Holy Army and quickly indoctrinated to a life of militaristic murder. The leader of the army insists that the children call him Daddy, and isn’t above forcing his disciples to kill their own parents or provide him with sexual pleasure. Soon Abu is helping to plant land-mines, massacre other villages, and kill his friends.
In the meantime, Eduard Zuiderwijk, a white cook, is trying to recover from the death of his wife. When his son begins investigating the loss of his missing friend, Abu, the two begin a journey to find him. This takes them to a refugee camp where Eduard finally decides to go and find the rebel army himself and bargain for Abu’s release.
Deep in the mountains, the rebel-leader has arranged to pick up more ammunition, and soon the scene is set for a gun-blazing, action-packed finale which will test the children’s loyalty to their new ‘Daddy’…
The first thing that strikes you about The Silent Army is its pacing. The first half-hour is like watching a film in fast-forward. The average shot is less than ten seconds long, which makes it difficult to be bored, but even harder to care. Eduard’s wife is killed in a car-crash six minutes into the film, by the half hour mark Abu’s entire family are dead, Eduard has travelled half way across Africa and the audience are left struggling to keep up. It could be argued that the film is placing us in the children’s mind-frame. The situation these children are put in is illogical, frenzied and horrid. But cinematically this pacing is un-engaging. We cannot be expected to mourn the passing of a character who we have barely been introduced to. Characters need to earn our sympathy, our respect. In the absence of any real characterisation, or dramatic tension, all we are left with is a series of war-crime re-enactments, filmed with all the frantic editing and cold precision of a music video.
When the film finally does begin to slow-down, it simply falls apart. Ignoring the glaring plot-holes, self-important lecturing characters are given no emotional justification for their actions. It is never explained, why Eduard decides to take on an army of dangerous gun-touting rebels, or, for that matter what it is that the rebels are hoping to achieve. The leader, Michael Obeke, seems aimless and pantomimic. The female aids-worker we meet at the midway point serves no real dramatic purpose - by the end it never becomes clear what the film is actually trying to achieve.
The finale finds our hero take on the guise of the ‘Hollywood vigilante’, using weaponry to blow his enemies to pieces, and ends with a credit sequence urging us to do our bit to help the plight of real child-soldiers. Yet the film makes every effort to tell us that charity, good-will and ‘white moral-superiority’ are not the answers. The only thing that seems to work is a semi-automatic and a crate of grenades.
What we are left with is a sense of bewilderment. The only thing that achieves any semblance of emotional response is the violence against children. What The Silent Army doesn’t realise is that the reason why films like City Of God are so effective is because we are allowed time to get to know the victims of such violence. Here violence is a means to an end. We have no sense of what has been lost. We are left with a sub-standard action movie in which the answers to all of life’s problems are found at the end of a white-man’s gun.
An exploitative action movie that uses the pain of others to hide its own vacuous nature. AC
Film: Vigo – A Passion For Life
Release date: 19th April 2010
Certificate: 15
Running time: 105 mins
Director: Julien Temple
Starring: Romane Bohringer, James Frain, Diana Quick, Jim Carter, William Scott-Masson
Genre: Biography/Drama
Studio: Park Circus
Format: DVD
Country: France/UK/Japan
This is an English-Language release.
Most know director Julien Temple for his music documentaries but in this 1999 film he gives us a larger-than-life drama chronicling the life of classical French film director Jean Vigo.
We begin in a sanatorium where, while being treated for Tuberculosis, Jean Vigo meets the love of his life, Lydu Lozinska. After convincing her to leave the asylum, the two enjoy a passionate affair which culminates in marriage.
Meanwhile, Jean is uncovering the secrets of his past. It transpires that his father, who he believed committed suicide while in jail, was actually murdered by the state. As Jean’s film career beings to take off, he is held back by his father’s reputation as an anarchist and traitor.
As news of his lineage spreads, his films become marred by censorship and state control. As he fights for his creative rights, his health takes a turn for the worse and soon Jean is fighting for his life...
Vigo - A Passion For Life is classic melodrama. The central performances from James Frain, as Jean Vigo, and Romane Bohringer, as his long suffering wife, consist on bellowing passionate proclamations around gothic sanatoriums, darkened hallways and barely lit poor houses. Director Julien Temple highlights this further by exhibiting a strange expressionism. Flashes of unnatural colour, bizarre close-ups and disorientating angles appear all too infrequently, but, when they do, they elevate the film above its formulaic narrative structure. Despite this, Vigo - A Passion For Life just feels too familiar.
This is biographical filmmaking by-the-numbers: The tortured genius who has to battle an indifferent world; the wife that is loved and then ignored; the kindly producer who sticks by our ‘genius’ despite his radical ideals. The storytelling becomes so clichéd that as soon as a scene begins you can guess exactly where it is heading. Boredom very quickly sets in.
There is also a strange assumption on the part of the filmmakers that its audience knows who Jean Vigo is. Anyone entering without any prior knowledge is left in the dark about his achievements. Many of the major plot-points remain ambiguous and emotionally un-effecting unless you have seen Jean Vigo’s work, which, considering Vigo was an independent French filmmaker from the ‘30s, is unlikely. It is never explained why A Propos De Nice caused audiences to riot, or why Zero De Conduite was banned - we are simply told that they were. This has another unfortunate effect on the film.
As an audience, we are given no evidence that Vigo was a genius, or even that his works were any good. This renders the main character’s dedication to his art as selfish, his outbursts tantrums, rather than the actions of a man pushed to the edge. Vigo does still manage to entertain, and this is mainly to do with Julien Temple.
Temple’s direction mostly involves letting the action unfold, but just occasionally, as has previously been stated, a flash of overt visuality unfolds. For example, near the end, Vigo begins to imagine ‘Death’ as a top-hat wearing man, playing his accordion. In one dream-sequence, Jean and his wife tie up Death with lines of celluloid. At the end of the movie, after both are dead, we see them dancing, as ghostly apparitions upon a barge. Through an interesting use of symbolism, Temple suggests that cinema is a way to fight against the logical order of things; even the inevitability of death. But by this point it is too late. We are asked to mourn for self-important characters that have spent the majority of the film predictably moving from plot point A to plot point B.
An entertaining melodrama hampered by its use of recurring cliché. Julien Temple’s direction shows an understanding of cinematic conventions that far outweighs the quality of a dull, by-the-numbers script. AC
Film: Sons Of Cuba
Release date: 20th September 2010
Certificate: E
Running time: 88 mins
Director: Andrew Lang
Starring: Yosvani Bonachea, Cristian Martinez, Santos Urguelles
Genre: Documentary
Studio: Mr Bongo
Format: DVD
Country: UK
Sons Of Cuba documents the pupils of The Havana Boxing School as they are subjected to a physically demanding training regime. Despite having an average age of 8, the pupils are pushed to their very limits - told that victory in the sport is not just a matter of personal pride but of national duty.
Cuba, 2006 and Fidel Castro has just taken ill. Paranoia begins to spread that the Americans might try and attack while their beloved leader is incapacitated.
As their country stands on a razor’s edge, a group of young boys are being indoctrinated into athletic acts of violence. The boys are told that failing is not an option, and that far from being merely a sport, boxing is Cuba’s opportunity to show that their country is the best, and that the revolution was an unmitigated triumph.
While the film focuses on a larger group of boys, our main protagonists are Cristian, a boxing prodigy, Santos, a boy whose passion for pastries stands in the way of his boxing success, and Junior, lovingly referred to as Dalmatian because of the bald spots found on his scalp.
As the day of the Under-12’s championship approaches, the training becomes more extreme, the punishments more harsh, and it soon becomes apparent that the sport, far from being a simple matter of national pride, is actually becoming detrimental to the stability of the children involved…
Sons Of Cuba ignores the emotional bombast and political posturing of so many modern documentaries. The film’s resistance to caricature and moral absolutism allows us to emotionally engage in all the characters involved. It is this skill that elevates Sons Of Cuba from other films of its ilk, leading to a movie that has genuinely aimed for a balanced account of events, allowing for opinion; both political and emotional to form at the viewer’s digression. That’s not to say that what is shown is vacant - quite the contrary. Its ability to invoke an open-ended discussion is derived from just how rich the images are. We hate seeing these children being reduced to tears by their environment, but we are allowed no villain to pin the blame on. The coach is shown as a loving and gentle man, and Castro himself is a ghost, appearing as an image on the wall, a reflection on TV screen - a holy icon. With no scapegoat in sight, we are forced to concentrate on the matter at hand, which is the children, and the relationships that they form.
This refreshingly humanist approach is aided by Andrew Lang’s beautiful images. Storms forming over Cuba, ripples in the puddles outside, and close-ups of the boys crying all invoke emotional responses as multi-layered as the political issues they explore. Images of nature, water in particular, mix the threatening (the storm clouds) with the fragile (the tears), which culminates in the ring - little children as innocent and confused as any children being forced to unleash torrents of violence and choreographed abuse (these visuals allow us to see the politics as being almost inconsequential).
While Castro and the revolution are imprinted in every part of their culture it has become so second nature that it is given no great importance. The real tragedy here is the growing link between innocence and responsibility. These are boys that are being made to take on the reasonability of men, which is not just a Cuban problem, but a worldwide one. When Santos lies cuddling into his grandmother, it is a visual reminder that these people are just children, and it is to our shame that their youth is easily forgotten in the faux-maturity they have been forced to exhibit.
But Sons Of Cuba is by no means a tear-jerker. The images that stay with you after the film’s end are images of warmth. The boys comforting each other, mother’s crying with pride. Here we have a documentary that is all the more important for focusing not on a single ideological vantage point, but on the human experience.
A beautifully shot and well considered documentary that is as emotionally engaging as it is informative. Andrew Lang’s film exhibits a fragile beauty that is never allowed to indulge in the sentimental. A filmic experience not easily forgotten. AC
Film: Videocracy
Release date: 27th September 2010
Certificate: E
Running time: 90 mins
Director: Erik Gandini
Starring: Silvio Berlusconi, Flavio Briatore, Fabio Calvi, Rick Canelli, Fabrizio Corona
Genre: Documentary
Studio: Dogwoof
Format: DVD
Country: Sweden/Denmark/UK/Finland
Italian president Silvio Berlusconi has built a media empire that allows him to control the output of ninety percent of the country’stelevision. However, instead of focusing on the man himself, Videocracy concentrates on the culture that his propagandist, sexually exploitative enterprise has created.
We follow the lives of people who have been seemingly corrupted by this fantasmatic world. There is obsessive TV fan Ricky Canelil, who openly admits that his desire to be on television has taken over his life, as well as Lele Mora, one of Italy’s top agents, and a man happy to admit that he is a ‘fan’ of fascist ideology. The film then begins to concentrate on the paparazzi ‘Robin Hood’, Fabrizi Corona, a man who insists that his snapping of celebrity hi-jinks is a form of punk rebellion.
But behind these men is the ever present Veline’s, the seemingly logical conclusion of female objectification. A group of women who are hired to stroll around TV studio’s in revealing outfits and are directly prohibited from speaking while on air…
During the opening of Gandini’s documentary it is genuinely difficult to tell if what we are watching is real or an elaborate prank. The characters seem so delusional; the sexism so pronounced that it is all too easy to assume that they are simply comedic caricature. To complicate further, Gandini, like Herzog in Grizzly Man, mixes found-footage with intricately staged, and impeccably detailed mise-en-scene, which does nothing but add to the surreal nature of what is being described. When Gandini’s film-crew are allowed into Berlusconi’s illustrious TV studios, the film becomes a carnival of disorientating angles, hideously bright colours and awkward framing. This otherworldliness is sharply contrasted with our chosen protagonists, who struggle to live in reality, when television offers them such tantalising perfection.
The difficulty is that over time the ‘un-reality’ of the situation becomes distancing. While the footage shot by Gandini is artfully constructed, this very construction distances the audience further from a story which is already hard to believe. This problem is not helped by a musical score that trades in sentimentalised bombast, or an editing style that seems as exploitative as any of Berlusconi’s out-put. Canelil’s dream of being a TV star is openly mocked, Mora comes across as being monstrous, and Berlusconi is portrayed as being nothing short of demonic. This extracts any humanity from the film, and soon it becomes a rather mechanical exercise in political posturing, and one that comes across as not just looking down on its subjects, but actively sneering at them.
It is in the portrayal of the Veline’s that the film is most successful. A camera stands completely still as hundreds of women audition, willing participants in their own objectification. The auditions quickly become a ritualistic form of sexual humiliation, the women grinding their hips directly towards the camera, and hence the audience. The image is mirrored when Fabrizi Corona stands completely naked in a shower while explaining, in voiceover, that to be famous you must be willing to become completely exposed. It is in moments like these, when the role of the audience is brought into question, that the film transcends it’s rather cold and judgemental filmic style, but these moments are few and far between.
What begins as a darkly comedic look at the camp nightmare of Italian television becomes something all the more nihilist. It portrays a country of delusional morons, run by an institutional evil, where women are condemned to objectification, and the men either work for the media or are on the outside looking in.
An interesting documentary that is marred by a simplistic and overtly judgemental morality. Gandini’s filmic style, while undeniable artful, is simply too distancing, a problem furthered by an over-the-top score and unlikeable protagonists. AC
Series: Bleach: Series 05: Part 01
Release date: 30th August 2010
Certificate: 12
Running time: 199 mins
Director: Noriyuki Abe
Starring: Johnny Yong Bosch, Masakazu Morita, Fumiko Orikasa, Yuki Matsuoka
Genre: Anime
Studio: Manga
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
The first part of Bleach season five arrives on DVD, bringing with it more of the animated chaos, pseudo-spiritualism and complex mythology that has gained it an eager and ever-growing fan base.
Ichigo continues his role of Soul Reaper, but this time an evil pack of renegades have broken into the Soul Societies’ inner sanctum, bringing with them a tidal-wave of violence . The ability of the group to hide their own ‘Soul-pressure’ renders them invisible to the high-ranking reapers detection making their presence all the more dangerous.
Soon after the initial breach of the cities walls, the renegades seriously injure one of our main protagonists. As the battle between good and evil mounts, vengeance becomes involved in the mix. But it soon becomes clear that the seemingly endless battles are actually a distraction for an impending terrorist attack.
Amongst all the ancient feuding and political friction, there is a magical race of stuffed animals who are used to detect ‘Soul Pressure’. As well as providing some of the comic relief of the series in season five, they start to become fully-fleshed characters of their own, with the protective bird creature, perverted lion and sarcastic green faced man each taking it in turns to help, distract and amuse our main group of heroes…
It is important whilst watching Bleach to note just how astonishingly popular the series is. In the United States, it is rated as one of the top ten most popular anime series’, and, in its native Japan, the manga, on which this is based, sold over sixty-one-million copies.
In the original season, Ichigo was thrown into battle with a horde of demons, giving its audience a new demented enemy every week. The popularity of the show was simple; it worked on the same level as a freak-show. People would tune in looking for the latest unsettling monstrosity and sit back as it was punished and contained by the forces of good. But that simple structure has now been replaced with an ever more complicated series of narrative arcs, which stem from the characters and their placing in the imagined hierarchy of the afterlife. This would be welcome if the characters provided were as fascinating as the demonic entities they faced. But the simple truth of the matter is they are not.
The plot is too familiar, too clichéd to engage. As the endless dialogue clunks on, it leaves you rolling your eyes and sighing loudly, wishing the writers had been brave enough to bestow us with something resembling originality.
But in fairness maybe what a crowd are really looking for here is kinetic battle sequences rather than a cerebral, or indeed comprehendible, plot. Baring in mind just how popular this show is, it still manages to looks amazingly cheap, visually unappealing and hugely uninteresting. The fight sequences consist of large light orbs firing randomly, characters moving very quickly, and not a lot else. They contain none of the spark or energy needed to keep you on the edge of your seat - it is, most of the time, difficult to figure out who you are meant to be rooting for, and when you do, it is even harder to care. In a seeming attempt to make sure the audience gain as little enjoyment from these events as is possible, they will grind to halt for some more clunky dialogue and failed attempts at wit. Which leads us to the subject of comic relief.
In a blatant attempt to create more merchandise, the heroes are all teamed with a set of annoying stuffed animal creations that, we are left to presume, are meant to be funny. But this attempt at humour is nothing more than an increasingly offensive assault. If the idea of a sexually-aggressive lion stalking woman and ogling their breasts is funny then so be it, but the rest of this ‘cute’ mob spend the rest of the show squawking loudly or just getting in the way. When they appear on the screen, usually in scenes that are quite separate from the larger storyline, they stop all plot-progression and just make for a show that is tonally messy, part ineffective drama, part un-amusing farce
This is for the converts only. Its huge cult-following masks a show that overindulges in cliché, leaving no space for originality, interesting characters or a drop of humanity. Cold, ineffective and wildly incomprehensible. AC
Film: The City Of Lost Souls
Release date: 18th November 2002
Certificate: 18
Running time: 103 mins
Director: Takashi Miike
Starring: Teah, Michelle Reis, Kôji Kikkawa, Mitsuhiro Oikawa, Patricia Manterola
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Studio: Tartan
Format: DVD
Country: Japan
Takashi Miike’s films polarise audiences around the world. From the Freudian nightmare of Visitor Q, to the rom-com turned torture porn of Audition, Miike’s films are deliberately difficult. His films misbehave, so The City Of Lost Souls was never going to follow a traditional ganster plot-line.
The film concerns a Japanese/Brazilian killer for hire, Mario and his relationship with Kei, a Chinese hairdresser, who he saves from being deported. Quickly becoming lovers they soon get married and decide that the only way for the two of them to be happy is to leave the country.
What initially begins as a plan to procure passports spirals out of control until they become entangled with local gangs, one in particular who, though it is never explained precisely why, is obsessed with Kei, and plots to tie her up for his own sexual gratification...
Like most Takashi Miike films, the main plot is a springboard for an innumerable series of sub-plots, ranging from the terrifying to the demented. While the local television presenter and his dwarf companion seek to expand into the cocaine industry, a local cockfighting pit plays regular host to atrocious CGI chickens who battle to the death in pantomimic Matrix-homages. We also have the man who casually has sexual intercourse with pigs, the break-dancing assassins, the brothel containing a blind girl with mystical powers, and the bumbling police men who have the mafia bugged, but chose to never actually intervene in the ensuing insanity.
While the film’s enthusiasm for chaos is infectious, it is marred by its own post-modern sentiments. Its knowingly ironic shoot-outs and references to other films recall all too readily the Tarantino-inspired films of the 1990s, while it’s pre-occupation with bodily fluids becomes grating rather than amusing. Most obviously the film reminds the viewer of the Oliver Stone directed Natural Born Killers, which makes similar points about the media portrayal of violence, uses flash-cuts and MTV inspired pacing, and shares the same narrative formula of couple-in-love on the run. While in Natural Born Killers Juliette Lewis and Woody Harrelson created characters that were as likeable as they were obscene, here we are presented with two boring protagonists that are given no back-story or personality with which to connect.
To focus purely on plotting and character-development is to perhaps miss the point. The visual style of the film is what the main attraction is, and while a lot of the effects and ideas have dated, this still makes for a dizzying viewing experience. Much like his film Ichi The Killer, Takashi uses a range of generic conventions and filming styles to create a movie in flux.
At the beginning of the film, we are shown a scene which is a clear homage to Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy, before delving straight into a Hollywood-esque car chase sequence; when one of the many sub-characters visits a prostitute, the film becomes a grainy hand-held affair; the cock fighting sequences are lacklustre animation; and the film is full of disorientating visual tactics such as the looping of a single frame/scene as if the film has simply stopped working.
The film’s clever use of experiential camera techniques and knowing humour grow tiring when there is no human element to attach it to. The plot becomes muddled and confused, the characters are two-dimensional, and it all seems too familiar. When you consider this film was made by the same director of the tightly-plotted Audition, or the gruesomely effective Gozu, its faults become all the more unforgivable. This film is a narcasstic act of showing, in which the audience’s pleasure is down to whether you are prepared to forgive a total lack of plot for a spectacular cinematic frenzy.
Takashi Miike’s post-modern western creates an intense visual experience which, with joyful abandon, revels in cartoonish ultra-violence and gratuitous toilet humour. Self-indulgent but undeniably affecting, he creates an assault to the senses that will delight his cult-following, but will appear dated and childish to others. AC
Series: World On A Wire
Release date: 17th May 2010
Certificate: U
Running time: 204 mins
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Starring: Klaus Löwitsch, Barbara Valentin
Genre: Sci-Fi/Crime
Studio: Second Sight
Format: DVD
Country: Germany
World on A Wire has rarely been seen outside of its native Germany, yet with recognition of its influence on the likes of David Cronenberg and The Matrix, the two-part feature-length series has being awarded a more general release in the UK, over thirty years after its original television debut.
It is the near-future, and Dr. Stiller is in charge of The Simulacron, a virtual reality machine which contains a fully functioning universe - an entire population of living projections existing within the confines of one supercomputer. The inhabitants of this reality have complete freewill, and are none the wiser to the true nature of their lives.
However, in the real world strange things are happening. Dr. Vollmer, one of the original creators of the machine, is found dead. Not long after this, one of Dr. Stiller’s co-workers Gunther Lause disappears mid-conversation, and is seemingly wiped from collective memory. The problem is Dr. Stiller remembers, and is perceived by all around him to be slowly going insane.
When one of the virtual-reality creations escapes from the computer and into the real world, it begins a chain of events that sees Dr. Stiller arrive at the realisation that the lines between the real and the non real are not as concrete as first assumed...
This plot will seem familiar to any fan of modern science-fiction; however, this is an atmospheric and visually inventive film that delves into the theories of ‘reality as projection’ with a straight-faced seriousness, negating the use of cheap post-modernism and knowing irony. What begins as a noir-ish crime investigation becomes a more interesting investigation into the nature of identity, memory, reality and the strange role that cinema plays in defining the above.
Fassbinder’s World On A Wire is a knowing un-reality, a Bretchian display of construction, which suits the plot perfectly. Long tracking shots are interspersed with strange high and low angles. Bunsen burners are held under the camera so the picture warps and swirls, the lighting subtly morphs during scenes, casting strange shadows and nauseating movement. In this way, the ‘reality’ in which this story exists (the filmic reality) is shown to be a construction, much like the world of The Simulacron.
By way of its self-referential visual flair, we as an audience are never allowed the comfort of ‘cinema as escapism’; we are forced to de-construct the film, and more disturbingly, the world around us. To further this point, the mise-en-scène is populated with falsities, versions of ourselves which, while convincing, are merely the projections of our egos onto the inanimate. This is a world of mirrors, statues, paintings and shop mannequins, wrapped in celluloid and projected onto our television screens.
While this could have so easily descended into the realm of ponderous debate, World On A Wire is in fact an engrossing thriller. Klaus Lowitsch’s performance as Dr. Fred Stiller allows us a believable, and more importantly likeable hero who shares our confusion and dismay as the world around him unfurls, becoming nothing short of a suffocating nightmare. The pacing keeps the element of chase and danger prominent, while allowing for the more cerebral elements to come through, a trick that was sadly lacking from the similar, but lesser-quality, Matrix sequels.
The use of music in the film is another way in which the tension is allowed to build. The soundtrack is one which shifts from beautiful classical to Krautrock sirens and electronic noise - a shifting which happens with alarming regularity and speed. Combining a disorientating use of camera with a disconcerting soundtrack, World on A Wire creates a fully immersive audio/visual experience.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s dystopian fantasy explores the link between perception and reality by dismantling the constructive nature of film. Its view of the future will seem dated, and its plot will cause many a viewer to experience strong déjà-vu, but World On A Wire goes deeper then it’s modern re-hashes, and will inspire many an audience member to join in the philosophical debate. AC
Film: Afterlife
Running time: 118 mins
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Starring: Arata, Erika Oda, Susumu Terajima, Takashi Naitô, Kyôko Kagawa
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Country: Japan
This title has not been released in the UK.
Hirokazu Kore-Eda deals with themes of memory and death with a subtle realism that relies on the ability of his cast to provoke a hypnotic but highly emotional cinematic style. With Afterlife, he continues to explore these themes.
Afterlife works from the premise that when you die you are transported to what resembles a Government office building. Once there, you are given a week in which you have to choose your perfect memory. Once decided; the team assembled work tirelessly to re-create your memory on film, before screening it in a specially constructed cinema. The screening process then transports the viewer into that chosen memory for all eternity. Heaven is a film of your perfect moment looped forever.
The film charts one week in the various offices of the building. The recently deceased sit ponderously, charting their memories for their perfect moment. Some remember that perfect breeze, others trips to Disneyland, and some simply cannot/refuse to choose. But this week’s new arrivals start to provoke debate amongst the people that work there.
It transpires that the office building is staffed by people who could not decide on their perfect memories. It becomes clear that Shiori, the only female counsellor is in love with her fellow co-worker. However, when the object of her affections decides he has discovered his perfect memory, Shiori has to come to terms with the fact that death is not the end of heartbreak. That even the dead can lose someone…
Kore-Eda handles this supernatural premise with a realistic flair that means the fantastical nature of the story does not get in the way of the real human emotions of the film. The hand-held camera, natural lighting and semi-improvisational performances allow for the cast to create fully-rounded, likeable characters, which means that the odd flash of the supernatural, the misty entrance way, and the chiming of the funeral bells are all the more effective.
This is a film not interested in action, but on memory - on the nature of the mind. A large majority of the film is one camera staying in unflinching stillness, as the interviewees trace their memories back to their perfect moment. The camera becomes an instrument of confessional, the audience being spoken to directly. This is not a ponderous narcissistic art-project, but a film that deliberately tries to engage with its audience. The film ends with the same shot repeated on an empty chair; it is here that we are encouraged to think about our own memories, to take part in the discussion. This is a film which does not actively seek to alienate but rather encourages participation.
However, Afterlife will polarise its audience. It’s slow pace and lack of spectacle will seem intellectually stimulating to some and boring to others. But looking closer at the film reveals a rich use of symbolism, which not only discusses memory, death and love but also the very nature of film itself. One of the sub-texts of the film is Kenji who is a man completely unable to choose his perfect memory. To assist him, he is screened hours of videotape that seem to be a documentation of his entire life. What becomes apparent is that the staff at the facility could very easily just take the actual videotapes, the recordings of the actual event, and screen that. But they don’t. Instead they indulge in memory, how the event is remembered, not how it actually happened. Cinema becomes, as it has for decades, a way to idealise the past - an ethnographic study of the imagination, in which cultural, personal and political identity is constructed not from any degree of truth, but through imaginings, feelings and personal interpretation. The films pace may be slow but its interest in humanity stops it becoming ponderous. Its anchor is a study of memory and what that means to us. The suggestion here is that memory, like film, is illusionary, and yet beautiful.
Even the love story between the two consolers is allowed to slowly emerge from the sub-text, becoming part of the main narrative arc without a grand melodramatic show of emotion. The relationship is one of quiet un-requited love, and is all the more affecting because it refuses to indulge in the tears melodramatic cries that most Western audiences are used to. It emerges over time, and then disappears - leaving only hurt and empty space.
Without using morbid sensationalism, or the spectacularly grotesque that haunt so many other films about the afterlife, Kore-Eda has created a film that is a subtle and absorbing celebration of life. A celebration which shows cinema as a pathway between worlds and loss as a necessary, even beautiful part of life. AC
