Jiro Dreams of Sushi (2011)

We've missed International Worker's Day by a week, but so be it! We are here today with an excellent film for you: a film about work, and Zen, and sushi.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi is, on the surface, a documentary about a Michelin-star sushi chef working out of his legendary sushi restaurant at a subway station in Tokyo. Jiro Ono is nearing 90, an implacable perfectionist who creates symphonies with raw fish. We meet some of his entourage: his elder son, Yoshikazu, who is the eternal chef #2 at the legendary joint, and younger son, Takashi, who's opened up a second outlet in one of Tokyo's upscale neighborhoods.

Throughout the documentary, we learn about Jiro's upbringing, his philosophy on work, we follow Yoshikazu as he goes to the fish market every morning, we have a few musings on how to cook the perfect rice or the perfect egg sushi, and, in general, there are a lot of loving shots of glistening sushi settling on the plate in gloriously narrow focal depth. With, we should note, a gorgeous score by Philip Glass and other minimalists.

So, it's very nice. Definitely.

But that's not what the documentary is really about, not for us. Because the doc is really a Zen meditation on the glorious pointlessness, the non-passionate passion of pursuing work - any work. Any thing really. This doc - and Jiro's life - is like zazen (a seated meditation style used in Zen). Just as the Sōtō Zen school thinks that - you know - wanting Enlightenment is a big mistake, and maybe there's nothing beyond this, there's nothing beyond just sitting, so too does Jiro advocate working just to work. That is, you just sit. You sit for the sake of sitting. Not for any reward, not for any benefit. You make sushi just to make sushi. You try to make the best sushi you can, not because your father was a master sushi chef (Jiro's wasn't), or because you dreamed since childhood of fish (Jiro didn't), but because - now that you find yourself behind the sushi counter - you just do it.

It's a powerful message, and it's refreshingly austere and refreshingly anti-"do what you love". The "do what you love" mantra is a very post-1980s American work ethic which claims that everyone should, step 1, identify something which they're passionate about (ideally involving poor African children), step 2, pursue this passion with all their energy and zeal and drive while in their nomadic 20s and 30s, and, step 3, bask in their pure feel-goodness. The "do what you love" mantra manifests itself in, for example, a friend of the PPCC's guffawing when the PPCC (very seriously!) mentioned "salary" as one of the reasons she does her job (seeking a good salary is, after all, antithetical to "doing what you love"). It also manifests itself in the abuse of zero-wage labor, the ridiculousness of the academic job market, and the abandonment (suppression, even) of traditional labor rights issues. It's also, we think, very much perpetuated by those who benefit from The System - i.e. old, rich, white dudes.

Oh, we at the PPCC have MUCH TO SAY ON THIS ISSUE. But we'll spare you.

"But Jiro seems quite passionate!" you might cry. And there's the difference. It's about which comes first: the passion to do job X, or job X. Jiro's philosophy seems to be: find job X, pay bills, do job X well. There's no "finding yourself", there's no thinking about what you "really" want to do. There's just doing. Just sitting. Such Zen! We love it.

Anyway, even if you disagree with our labor rights philosophy (which we will, from now on, call Zen careerism), you will still enjoy Jiro because, well, everyone loves Jiro. Seriously, this is a hit with everyone we've ever seen it with. We've never met anyone who doesn't love this doc. You will love it too. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the fish.

Highly recommended.

Ghost in the Shell (1995)

Ghost in the Shell blasts onto the screen with haunting, Melanesian-esque choral music, post-human spinal tubing and lots and lots of arching breasts. We were kind of terrified in the first few minutes, but eventually settled down to really enjoy this innovative, brilliant, bizarre cyberpunk anime.

They say there are no new stories to tell, but surely all that 1980s early Internet sci-fi and Singularity stuff was new! Designing our own evolution for a transhuman future, etc. Because while Ghost in the Shell is talking about ancient Descartesian problems of defining consciousness in a world of epistemological doubt, it's also approaching those 17th-century questions with very 21st-century post-human answers. In particular, in a world of networked computers and biological augmentations, the division between meatspace and cyberspace is blurred. And this redefines everything - as Battlestar Galactica's philosophizing Cylon, Caprica Six, put it: "Are you alive? Prove it." Because, for all you know, you're a machine brain living in a virtual reality. Everyone thinks they're human.

Major Motoko Kusanagi (voiced by Atsuko Tanaka), she of the arching breasts which we will be seeing a lot of throughout the film, is a fully cyborg, detective-type badass killing machine (literally). She works for the Japanese government's Section 9, a sort of cyberpunk police squad. Their current target is the criminal hacker, the Puppet Master, who hacks into people's "ghosts" - that is, their consciousnesses, which these days are often embedded in brains permanently connected to the Internet. The Puppet Master's motives are nebulous, and some havoc is wreaked on the garrish, dilapidated, rainy downtown streets. That is, until a rogue cyborg claiming to be housing its own ghost appears. And then everything - especially the definition of life - is thrown into question.

But not before we squeeze in some evocative, meditative sequences. Even in moments of crisis, such as during a high-tech/high-speed car chase across nighttime Tokyo, director Mamoru Oshii slows the emotional pace down with somber, spacey music and lingering shots on the details of this very strange, brave new world. Though there are some grisly moments of violence (is this rated R? it should be!), the tone of the film is more cerebral than action-oriented. Characters often spend their time expositing the themes and ideas. This is excusable as they are running an investigation, and so explaining things to each other makes sense. It's also excusable because those ideas - do you grant human rights to a thinking machine? how did that ghost appear? - are so clever.

We really enjoyed it. We liked that, while there is the token human male character (sporting some very 1980s hair and shoulder pads indeed!), the film is brave enough to keep our focus on the non-human female protagonist, Motoko. Motoko's existential angst is resonant. It feels real (point of the movie, maybe?). When she talks about how being some biomachine superlady with access to infinite bits of data only makes her realize her limitations, we were moved. Oh, Pinocchio! Or as Rudyard Kipling once said, in a quote which has already been pilfered by sci-fi people for post-human themes, "Let them fall, Mowgli. They are only tears."

Is this THE cyberpunk movie of all time? Can it be topped?! We don't think so. It's more cyberpunky and smart than the oft-cited Father of the genre, Blade Runner! Highly recommended.

Kaze no tani no Naushika (1984)

We kind of can't accept that Battlestar Galactica is over for us, and so we're desperately clawing at any possible debris which could have a BSG-related smell to it. Firefly? Hmm, kind of like BSG - only without the war and weird mythological stuff. But it'll do! Bob Dylan? Hmm, All Along the Watchtower is an important part of the BSG mythos. Very well! Hayao Miyazaki? Hayao Miyazaki?!

Yes, the transcendental visions of Hayao Miyazaki have a vague BSG connection in that:

1. Edward James Olmos AKA Old Man Adama voiced one of the characters in one of the films. 2. When we were still watching BSG, we visited a part of Uttarakhand that reminded us of Hayao Miyazaki vistas. Okay, sort of unrelated, but whatevs. (By the way, the Uttarakhand Tourism Board wants you to visit too!)

So, here we are, at the shores of Nausicaa and the Valley of the Winds. Before we begin: did you know that Nausicaa is the young princess who finds Odysseus washed up on her island and asks that fine naked man (played by Sean Bean in our head, always) to explain both his nudity and his lack of ship? And so begins his telling of... the Odyssey! Great.

But this Nausicaa is different, and much more Miyazaki-fied: the princess of a small, agricultural kingdom, the Valley of the Wind, she is one of the rare humans who can make peace with the oversized insects which crawl from the Toxic Jungle and threaten to override the little human settlements struggling to survive. One thousand years ago, giant soldiers laid waste to all the cities and took civilization down with it - after these "seven days of fire", a sort of un-Genesis, the Earth's environment was shot to pieces, and the remaining humans made a life clinging to the tiny pockets of land that didn't totally suck or poison them. Now two of the larger kingdoms - Tolmekia and Pejite - are warring over a powerful new weapon, and the Valley of the Wind is caught in between. It's up to Nausicaa, with her badass glider and Pikachu-type thing, to fix everything before Earth is ruined (again).


Some spectacular vistas.


Cannibalized WW2 bombers in an un-subtle but still powerful visual statement about Japan's post-war perspective.

Now, we haven't watched or reviewed a Miyazaki film in a long time, but the fact remains: you've seen one, you've seen them all. But that only means he's an anime auteur - every single film, while resembling the others in its environmentalism, feminism, ambiguity, mysticism and obsession with flight, is an enchanting, mesmerizing variation. The fantastic imagery is so palpably strange and beautiful! Here, we get glimpses into bizarre underworlds of petrified forests crumbling into sand, or rolling hills of undulating grasses. It's absolutely gorgeous!

Apart from being a visual treat, the music is similarly evocative (and sometimes even amusing). Heavy on 1980s synthesizer, it often sounds like a Ray Manzarek solo, though there are moments of such gut-wrenching, operatic emotion - when we arrive at the ruined kingdom of Pegite, for example - that you feel your heart beating in your throat. Yay!


That's Adama on the left, Captain Picard on the right.


Nausicaa: when not rescuing attractive, stranded Greeks, she's rescuing THE PLANET.

We enjoyed this movie very much and are considering it one of our favorites from Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli. The narrative storms forward with a compelling urgency that is sometimes lacking in Spirited Away or Castle in the Sky; yet we still find time to maintain that air of reflective meditation that characterizes all of his films. The voice acting is fine - Shia LeBeouf's being particularly distracting, but also heartbreakingly earnest - and there was a special pleasure in hearing Adama's voice complain about those crappy Tolmekian ships. Nothin' like the Bucket, eh!? Another enjoyable character was the smug, cartoonish Kurotowa (voiced by Chris Sarandon), who described himself as an "old, lazy soldier" and resembled an aging Lupin (the thief, not the sensitive werewolf) and provided some of the few genuine moments of comic relief.

The film's urgency also extends to the meta level - apart from the obvious environmentalism, the film is a plea for nuclear disarmament. The giant warriors resemble Godzilla in their vibe of post-nuclear mutant beasts, and Nausicaa makes constant demands for the Tolmekian and Pejite communities to lay down their weapons, once and for all. It shows how war ultimately scars the Earth, perhaps irredeemably, and the message is particularly harrowing in a post-Trinity world with very few Nausicaas indeed.

Barefoot Gen (1973)

Okay.

So we have a backlog of Star Trek and Hindi and Tamil and Italian films, but - dammit all - we're not going to address any of that today. Today, we want to talk to you about our new favorite media: the graphic novel. And since most graphic novels are turned into films eventually, we figure its totally within our mandate to turn the PPCC into the CBG for today. Or this month...

Our rabid desire to consume ALL GRAPHIC NOVELS EVER PRODUCED IN THE HISTORY OF THIS PLANET NAY GALAXY all started with Keiji Nakazawa's Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen) - which, incidentally, is a film (we just can't find a copy). We picked it up a few weeks ago, intrigued by the cover and description: a graphic novel about Hiroshima. Having just finished a fabulous biography about J. Robert Oppenheimer - American Prometheus, which you must all drop what you're doing and go read NOW - we were very curious to see the same topic - the atomic bomb - treated from a dramatically different perspective in a dramatically different medium. American Prometheus is the mother of a biography: nearly a thousand pages, and full of Pulitzer Prize-winning writing about all the fascinating details of being Oppenheimer. How could a graphic novel (we were still calling it a "mere cartoon" two weeks ago) compare?



Well, the best - and most startling - thing about Barefoot Gen was that it held its own against the Oppie bio (and how!), offering an insightful, provocative and deeply affecting portrayal of a working class family from Hiroshima struggling to get by in the last days before city was bombed. Told from the perspective of the family's middle child, Gen ("Roots"), the story follows the quotidian joys and sorrows of being poor and pacifist when everyone else seems to have caught war frenzy. Gen's father, a tough-yet-kind patriarch drawn in heavy, block-like lines, is stubbornly pacifist - and this brings endless grief to the family, who are humiliated and attacked again and again by the other townspeople for their beliefs. Eventually, this even drives the oldest son to join the Imperial Navy in a last-ditch effort to alleviate the family's shame. This son's experiences then form an important anti-war subplot in this already very anti-war book - with one of the most powerful moments occurring when he runs into a pair of kamikaze pilots on one last, desperate bender before they fly out the next day.

Our edition of the book has an introduction by Art Spiegelman, who has some interesting reflections on the book: the Disney-like drawing style for Gen and his little brother, the blunt storytelling, the ambiguous attitudes towards America. This is all true: Barefoot Gen offers a very straightforward portrayal of Japan during the war. Its only accusations are inward: against the bourgeoise, xenophobic attitudes of the wartime Japanese elite. And it goes to great pains to reveal the cultural pressures that drove so many soldiers and citizens to support the war and Emperor unquestioningly. From a national perspective, it's a biting, cynical criticism of "patriotism" and "valor in war". Interestingly (even eerily), from an international perspective, America isn't present at all. In light of slightly more recent evidence which shows that President Truman dropped the bomb after learning that Japan would surrender (see American Prometheus for a lot more on this), this book's attitudes towards the US seem too forgiving. But enough of politics.



The narrative structure is blunt and lacking in nuance, but the story still remains incredibly affecting. Partly this is because we know the story is semi-autobiographical, and the weight of the topic is enough. Also, while the storytelling isn't subtle, it is very skilfull - the use of the burning sun to mark the passage of time, like a countdown to the bomb we know will soon drop, steadily builds the tension. Indeed, the bombing itself occurs in the very last few pages, and the impact is enormous: by this point, we had become so immersed in Gen's life that we had almost forgotten about the bomb! Plus, we had become incredibly invested in all the characters - watching the inevitable catastrophe occur was devastating!

Another great (and very cinematic) moment occurs earlier in the book, when the oldest son, after an argument with the father, leaves town to join the Navy. Everyone - the mother, the other children, the PPCC - are freaking out, because this might be the last time the father sees his son. We have a few short panels of the son in the train, thinking about his family, and then, just as the train speeds up out of the station, he sees his father standing in the field by the train tracks, raising his arms and yelling, "Banzai!" (Live long!) It's a wonderful moment which lends itself perfectly to the screen, reminding us of some of those epic sequences from Steven Spielberg's early film about wartime Asia, Empire of the Sun.



In conclusion, this was just great. We read this on a packed airplane, stuffed between two large men, and bawled into our tray table (before storing it in an upright and locked position). We also discovered a whole new world (a new, fantastic point of view!) - the graphic novel - and learned yet more about things which fascinate us (Japan, Oppenheimer, etcetera). Definitely check this out.

(PPCC Readership in Japan: Anyone catch the 2007 live action TV drama of this?)

Rashomon (1950)

It's not every day that a film is so philosophically and psychologically astute that it inspires a turn of phrase, but Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon is one of those films that's widely considered a Perfect Film and its influence, hence, is very wide. It is philosophically provocative, aesthetically intelligent, and just plain fun. The PPCC should also say that this was the first film we saw by Akira Kurosawa, and the first film we saw with Toshiro Mifune, and it made us zealous devotees of both.


Check out that composition!

Rashomon is the story of a rape and murder, as told in a series of conflicting flashbacks. Sound familiar? Yes, they still make Rashomony films today. The basic facts (though these are subject to change!) are that, one sunny day in 12th century Japan, a samurai (Masayuki Mori) and his wife (Machiko Kyō) were walking along in the forest. At one point, they ran into the notorious bandit Tajōmaru (Toshiro Mifune), and then a series of ambiguous events occurred which resulted in the samurai's death and the rape of his wife. But who killed the samurai, and whether the rape was really a rape, are all thrown into question. Three characters tell the story as a flashback-within-a-flashback: a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura), a Buddhist monk (Minoru Chiaki), and a peasant (Kichijiro Ueda). The three protagonists - the samurai, wife, and bandit - also have their say. And with each flashback, we become more convinced that the flashbacks preceding it were false and this one, no, this one, is the right one. Of course, in the end, even this conviction is questioned, and we are left confused and adrift in a sea of possibilities.


Machiko Kyō as the samurai's wife, kicking butt.


There are lots of visual triangles in this film.

While the trope of an unreliable narrator certainly didn't start with Kurosawa, using several unreliable narrators to present conflicting views of the same event - while never actually hinting at which narrative is the "true" one - is certainly unique. The few facts that remain constant in every version - the dead guy stays dead (though, in one of the best sequences, he too gets a chance to tell his story thanks to a "medium", and we learn that apparently dead men can lie too), the fancy dagger that gets lost, the hat in the trees - are even then thrown into question, as Kurosawa's main aim in the film seems to be, "With so many versions, what is reality?" The Criterion Collection copy of this film has an excellent commentary by Donald Richie, who says that Kurosawa's main aim was showing that every version is real, in that people's subjectivity influences their memories (e.g. in the bandit's memory, he's a fearsome warrior, in the woman's version, he's an infantile idiot), and there is no other reality apart from people's experience of it. Sound a bit like the proverbial lonely tree and other mind-bending kōans? Indeed!

If epistemology sounds a bit fancy for you, fear not! This film a rollicking good time, and no philosophical thinking is required (it's just a bonus!). Kurosawa is infinitely impressive for balancing lovely technical details (he was one of the first directors to shoot straight at the sun, and his overall use of lighting is amazing) with just meaty crowd-pleasing moments, such as the creepy medium or the crazy bandit.


Toshiro Mifune: our favorite actor, of all time, of anywhere, forever.

While everyone is very effective in the film, the standout performance is Toshiro Mifune. Compared to his other roles - such as in Yojimbo or Hell in the Pacific - this is a zany, over-the-top performance, and he chews up the scenery much like Gary in The Professional. Toshiro Mifune is our all-time favorite actor (hence the Dance Offs are actually deciding the second best actor), and his screen presence is so incredibly magnetic. In the very first moment we saw him, we immediately exclaimed, "Who's that guy?!" His awesomeness just cannot be contained. It's like Kung Fu Panda exclaims, "It is said that his enemies would go blind from over-exposure to pure awesomeness!"

Overall, we cannot recommend this film highly enough. It is one of the best films ever made, technically flawless, inventive, profound, and fun. Go, go! Watch it!

(Actually, you can. Because the internet is a many-splendored thing, and because it's old enough to be in the public domain (apparently), you can view the entire film online at Google Video.)

Zatôichi to Yôjinbô (1970)

Yojimbo follows Zatoichi in order to taunt him.

Zatôichi to Yôjinbô (Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo) is one of those movies that gets better and better with each time you watch it. This is especially true for viewers unfamiliar with popular Japanese cinema, as much of its delight comes from watching two iconic figures - the blind masseuse/bad-ass Zatoichi (Shintarô Katsu) and the grumpy samurai/bad-ass Yojimbo (Toshiro Mifune) - circle each other and clash. The plot is also told in a leisurely, non-linear way, so that important points are sometimes revealed fairly late in the film. And if you're unfamiliar with the tropes of samurai cinema and the general history of feudal Japan, you might feel a bit lost at first, as these are obviously assumed cultural reference points for the home audience. But, we at the PPCC can guarantee that, once you do become familiar with the genre and its cultural references, the movie becomes very, very enjoyable.


Zatoichi decides he needs an umbrella.


A very funny moment.

The film opens with Zatoichi, our protagonist, killing some dude in a field. It is, of course, raining. Zatoichi hides away in a shed, and meanwhile some other men steal the dude's money and run away. This establishes the first and most prominent theme in the film: greed. Zatoichi decides he's sick and tired of all this ("I've got blood on my hands," he says, and later, "I've had my fill of hell"), and dreams of returning to an idyllic village he passed through years ago. Picking his way through the beautiful countryside, he returns to the village and finds that it's gate now has over a hundred jizo statues outside - that is, tombstones. And Zatoichi soon learns that not all is well in his personal paradise. The town is (as per samurai usual) overrun by gangs, and a nameless yojimbo - yes, THE Yojimbo - has been ordered to put Zatoichi's head on a platter.


Thankfully Yojimbo spends most of the time wasted and is hence less of a threat.

It's kind of a stretch, but the very first time we saw this, we thought about the Zatoichi/Yojimbo parallels as something of an Apollonian and Dionysian split. . If you don't feel like following the Wiki link: the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy is an idea mostly used in aesthetics, where Apollo represents clarity, order and discipline in making art, and Dionysus represents intoxication, inebriation and primal inspiration. Obvious examples of Dionysian artists would be Jackson Pollock, Rumi, or Oh-won. Apollonian artists would be Andy Warhol or George Seurat or anyone whose art depends crucially on not making mistakes. They say the best art comes from the combination and tension of these two drives, art that speaks from both the intellect and guts. Anyway, we thought this about the movie mostly because the sober/drunk dichotomy between Zatoichi and Yojimbo is often emphasized, with the former routinely calling the latter "an animal". Furthermore, Yojimbo's drives are intense and primal - he drinks, he pines for the prostitute Umeno (Ayako Wakao), he rages and roars. In this film, Yojimbo is very much out of control. Zatoichi is Zen-like, by comparison. While he too has his scruffy moments, when contrasted with Yojimbo, he is methodical, focused, almost lofty - while he too pines for Umeno, his love is more poetic than physical. He likens her to the scent of plums, he marvels at the soft texture of her hand. Yojimbo, instead, barks his requests: "Lie with me."

(Of course, this whole out-of-control Dionysus vibe is completely undermined when Yojimbo reveals himself to be a spy called Sasa. We at the PPCC choose to completely disregard this part of the plot, since we think the filmmakers just did it to avoid laying claim to a character created by Akira Kurosawa. And also we just love Yojimbo so much, we can't accept that he lied to us for so long.)


This guy's a total idiot.

The Greek feel can also be found in the film's major theme: greed. Throughout the film, all characters are consumed by this greed, and the only morality comes from how much they let greed make them do evil things. Zatoichi and Yojimbo are the last ones to go for the gold that everyone is searching for, and this final scene establishes them as - for all their ambiguities - primarily good. But this quest for money is shown to lead to patricide, filicide, forced prostitution and treachery. This is where the Greek stuff comes in: the dennouement definitely feels like something out of Aeschylus or Sophocles, with father and brothers in open warfare, while Zatoichi, Yojimbo and the frightening Kuzuryu (Shin Kishida) act as a Greek chorus looking on. In fact, this was our favorite part in the film: when the characters slowly follow each other to the gold, alternatively bleeding and dragging themselves, and Yojimbo declares, "You take it from here. I'm sick of this. I'm going to throw up." Indeed, the film is screaming "look what greed does!" at this point, but its presentation is wonderfully stylized and archetypal, so it doesn't feel too didactic.


Our favorite moment in the film. Wonderful composition, aesthetically, and a wonderful way to create tension within the story. The evil Kuzuryu spots Yojimbo.


Kuzuryu is tres evil.

An interesting thing is how the gun-slinger in these samurai movies is always presented as such a creepy, unquestionably evil character. In this film, Kuzuryu is the samurai with the "secret weapon", and, as usual, he has that sick, sinister smile of a total psycho. Indeed, because the gun-slinger undermines all the nobility and hard work of an ancient tradition - it's like the West corrupting the cultural heritage, because now all it takes is a gun and an idiot to pull the trigger to bring down even the craftiest swordsman. You can see another such Evil Gun-slinger in Yojimbo.


And for more Zatoichi fun, see the previously PPCCed Zatoichi (2003).

Anyway, despite all this heaviness, there are some very light touches - the comedy between Zatoichi and Yojimbo is particularly funny. They tease each other, to the point of playing practical jokes, and one of our favorite moments in the film is when, after reconciling, their familiar banter resumes: Yojimbo puts out his leg to trip Zatoichi, and Zatoichi steps on his knee. Yojimbo barks: "Freak!" And Zatoichi responds: "Animal."

Machibuse (1970)

He just got bonked in the face by the lantern.

Jazzy and stylish, Machibuse (Incident at Blood Pass) features a fun ensemble of varying low-lifes and losers, helmed, as usual, by Toshiro Mifune's gruff and contradictory nameless Yojimbo (bodyguard) character. Like the original Star Wars films, here we are introduced to a whole new world from the bottom-up. That is, society as seen from the very edges of it, from the point of view of the dregs and outcasts.


Bimbo and Gambler. OMG Gambler was so adorable.

The story is winding, but never difficult to follow. In the beginning, the nameless Yojimbo (Toshiro Mifune) is given a task from a nameless employer. The employer explains that Yojimbo must go to a mountain pass and "wait for something to happen". Yojimbo, ever unflappable, heads for the pass. On his way there, he saves a woman, Okuni (Ruriko Asaoka), from her abusive husband. He helps her to flee and drops her off at a nearby teahouse, run by a bimbo (Mika Kitagawa) and her grandfather. At the teahouse, we meet a handsome, young gambler (Yûjirô Ishihara) and a Discredited Doctor (Shintarô Katsu, of Zatoichi fame). A detective (Kinnosuke Nakamura, from Samurai Banners) barges in, dragging a thief in tow; both very wounded, they collapse onto the floor. The gambler meanwhile slaps Okuni, sparking Yojimbo's rage. The doctor refuses to treat the wounded men. Okuni is falling in love, hard-core, with Yojimbo. Hilarity ensues.


The foreground is eavesdropping on the middleground.


Your requisite movie allowance of bad-ass samurai action.

But things become hairy for Yojimbo when he finally learns what his task is. In true individualist, everyone-be-damned style, Yojimbo decides he'll do whatever he damned well pleases - and ends up surprising spectators left and right. This delicious ambiguity is a source of much pleasure and jocularity: oh ho ho ho. Lovely! And while this film's Yojimbo is a lot mellower and more mature than the cynical, hard-drinking, grimy Yojimbos of Yojimbo, Sanjuro, and Zatoichi Meets Yojimbo, he's still got that particular Yojimboey charm. And that Toshiro Mifune-y ability to look archly skeptical, dismissive, ironic and uncomfortable - ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Magnificent!


Toshiro san, like a beacon of light!

See, because the fun of the Yojimbo character is just that: he is a cynic surrounded by idiots, and he both loves and hates being right all the time (kinda like the Jeff). At times, the world seems so damned awful that poor Yojimbo must retreat into a sake bottle and issue his grumblings from there. (This is especially the case if women are involved, though, Yojimbo, like Amitabh Bachchan, was usually much too manly for romance.) At other times, he finds it quite funny - in a sarcastic, black humor sort of way. And all the time, Yojimbo proves himself to be a bad-ass, insanely aggressive and yet very sane, always expelling the minimum energy required to dispatch an idiot enemy, always smirking into his shoulder, sharing a joke only with himself and with the audience.

And what's even better - Yojimbo is morally ambiguous! While the PPCC would argue that the core of Yojimbo is highly ethical, he is not above stealing or betraying or punching people in the face. And people make lists about Chuck Norriss, tut! In Incident at Blood Pass, this moral greyness is on display: we are genuinely unsure of whether Yojimbo is going to betray everyone or not, and then, when he decides what to do, he further confounds us in how he treats the Demented Doctor. This will all make sense when you watch it. And the last scene, when the Officer says, "I think you might want to say something to Okuni," and Yojimbo's reaction - priceless!


Katsu in a very un-Zatoichi-like role.

But, as we said at the top of this review, the joy of this film is its ensemble of archetypes. Everyone is fun and perfect, filling their own little niche well. Stand-outs include Yûjirô Ishihara as the young gambler, who was just as scrumptious as a slice of pie, and Shintarô Katsu as Discredited Doctor, who was almost Toshiro Mifune-like in his ability to be SO fundamentally different than from his usual Zatoichi character.


A note about the music: it's great.

A note about the DVD: This DVD can be bought as part of the Toshiro Mifune: The Ultimate Collection - a very good buy, since it includes five lovely, non-Kurosawa Mifune classics, and every DVD comes with liner notes that explain the historical context. So awesome!

Dare mo shirani (2004)

The four abandoned kids.

The plot of Dare no shirani (Nobody Knows) is straightforward and intriguing: once upon a time in an apartment complex in Tokyo, four children aging 4 to 12 were abandoned by their waifish and possibly demented mother. These kids then have to survive on their wits, almost entirely guided by the eldest, the 12-year-old son, Akira (Yūya Yagira).


Great urban aesthetics.


Yūya Yagira carries the weight of the film as eldest child Akira.

The film itself has an external sheen of beauty; we watch sunlight drip through the leaves onto clean, white pavements. There is a sense of tranquility. Most of the scenes are quiet, without any sound except for sneakers scuffing the sidewalk. Some scenes feature little to no action at all. If you didn't know it was about such a terrible case of child abuse, you would think it was quite beautiful, in a peaceful way. Indeed, the initial scene is set up just for this purpose: when you don't understand what's happening, it's serene and aesthetically pleasing. When the scene is repeated at the end of the movie, and you know it's significance, it becomes terrible.

That's when the aesthetic turns into something else: amidst all that sunshine, the abandoned children's dirtiness only comes out more starkly, everything seems stale. The slow pace then becomes like a subtle gnawing. When will the mother return? The money soon runs out and we watch in horror as the food runs out too. Amidst all this stifling non-action, there are moments of powerful poignance: mostly when Akira tries to normalize his existence by making friends, playing baseball. These scenes are emotional enough to make your guts churn, yet no characters are crying or necessarily upset. But it's the pain of watching Akira be denied something so banal as a normal childhood. Argh! In fact, props went to Yūya Yagira, who won the Best Actor Award at Cannes for this film. (At only 14 years old!)


Momoko Shimizu as Yuki. Aww!

The film's grisly ending seemed outrageous to us, and we were horrified to learn that the real story was even worse! What then demands explanation is the film's hyperrealist presentation. A story like this naturally warrants moral chastisement, and yet the film - perhaps to greater effect - only tells it like it is, giving no embellishment, casting no blame. True, the mother seems worryingly irresponsible, but the camera is mostly mute in its treatment of the characters. That is, there are no emotional cues to guide us, and hence we are left disoriented, slowly piecing the story together ourselves, drawing our own conclusions. This brings us back to the first and last scenes, when Akira is on the subway with the suitcase. Nothing aesthetic about the scene tells us about its horror and sadness, it is only when we are informed by the facts that we can understand it.


An early scene of normality.

Fuurin kazan (1969)

All hail! The best actor in the universe!

Man, Toshiro Mifune was da BOMB. He was absolutely, unconditionally, unparalleledly DA BOMB. If he was a number, he'd be infinity to the infinity.


Toshiro, you were da bomb.

The magnificence of Toshiro Mifune was sometimes complimented by the surroundings; such as in the case of the epic jidaigeki samurai swashbuckler, Fuurin kazan (Samurai Banners). This is a film full of pageantry and glamour. The battles are large, the costumes precise, we have sweeping shots of gloriously large mountains. Set during 16th century feudal Japan, it tells the story of Kansuke Yamamoto (Toshiro Mifune), a ruthless and ambitious samurai who became a legendary general in the Kai domain. Under the lordship of ruler Takeda (Kinnosuke Nakamura), Kansuke dreams of conquering all of Japan - uniting the country from sea to sea. For a man who professes to dream of peace, however, he's an awfully violent guy. The prologue establishes him as a man whose ambitions often outweigh his scruples: betraying a fellow samurai and killing him in order to get a job.

After advising Takeda to overthrow the nearby kingdom of Suwa, Kansuke finds the now fatherless Princess Yu (Yoshiko Sakuma) about to kill herself. Yu's maid is insisting that she must, out of honor, but Yu - who reveals herself to be as powerful and single-minded a figure as Kansuke - outright refuses. She does not want to die, so why should she? Instead, Kansuke takes her prisoner and delivers her to Takeda, who takes her as a concubine. It takes more than a little convincing on Kansuke's part to get Yu to agree to be Takeda's concubine and bear him a son. All the while, political and military machinations aside, Kansuke is falling a bit for the fiery young princess. The feelings seem reciprocated, until, after giving birth to an heir, Yu declares that she both loves and hates Takeda, and will forever be consumed by these conflicting feelings. Kansuke is understandably disappointed.


Kansuke advising Takeda.


One of the large-scale battles.

All of this culminates in the famous battle at Kawanakajima, which, if you know your Japanese history, should come as no surprise. The PPCC knows nothing about Japanese history apart from what Toshiro has taught us, but we do know our narrative structure, so we weren't that surprised. But it was still magnificent and sad.


This was one of those movies where they have little diagrams explaining battle strategies.

Apparently the Kansuke of legend had a bad eye and a bad leg, and Toshiro thus manages to infuse Kansuke with an air of hardened gruffness but also fairly obvious vulnerability. At least, there are several moments when Kansuke's physical difficulties are obvious, and yet he still maintains an almost exaggerated aggressive quality. It reminds us of Kurosawa's only critique of Toshiro: that his voice was too "rough". The scenes with Princess Yu are a good juxtaposition, in that suddenly he is diminished and becomes almost servile: "Anything you wish is my command," and several variations thereof. We at the PPCC liked Princess Yu's character very much - she was a lady in charge! - though we didn't find Yoshiko Sakuma particularly charismatic. The same goes for Kinnosuke Nakamura, who played Takeda, and generally came across as slimy and unlikable. Takashi Shimura, another Kurosawa alumna, appears in the background - but apart from being a comfortingly familiar face, he doesn't have much to do at all.

We should note, however, that while the filmed is filled with sweeping shots of beautiful landscapes, and often the geometry in the scenes is admirable, there was a certain emotionally cold quality. At least, we had difficulty at times following all the historical twists and turns - no doubt this would have been an easier film to follow for someone who had some background knowledge. Similarly, the non-relationship between Kansuke and Princess Yu leaves a lot to be desired. "For the love of God, just say it!" we often cried, but to no avail. Also, while we've often enjoyed the music in such similar samurai swashbucklers as Rashomon or Ran, the music here seemed to drift between emotional cues.

Anyway, it's all lovely if you love Toshiro, which we do. Also, the sheer awesomeness of the setting and costumes is great fun - one of the few films which succeeds to bring out an independent universe, so that we could believe that there is much more that we are not seeing.

Clip - Samurai Banners
Uploaded by AmberCeca

An excellent scene: the assassination of the ruler of Suwa. The best moment is in the end, when the assassin kneels before the ruler of Suwa and declares, "Sir, I have been ordered to kill you."

Hell in the Pacific (1968)

Not really a war movie, not really arthouse, Hell in the Pacific occupies that fertile middleground where chances are taken at the risk of alienating more conformist viewers. The presence of a World War II-era icon, Lee Marvin, no doubt attracted a fair share of American viewers keen on the next rousing war movie. What they got instead was something stark and stylized, a film with barely any dialogue, long uninterrupted scenes of the sun or a man thinking. This is a film for the patient, and - as with many tasks requiring patience! - you reap great rewards.


Introductions.

The plot is straightforward. Somewhere in the Pacific during World War II, an American soldier (Lee Marvin) and a Japanese soldier (Toshiro Mifune) end up stranded on an uninhabited island. At first, they continue the war on a man-to-man scale, but, as the harsh reality of their isolation sets in, they join forces in the fight for survival.


Patience, patience...

A film like this begs for interpretation, and it may be too early for anything too deep. An obvious moral of this fable seems to be man's unity against the elements, and the superficiality of ethnic distinctions. Mississippi Masala seemed to be making the same point: clinging too much to a nation or a culture can be ultimately destructive. Indeed, the final scene (there are two endings to the film, and the PPCC prefers the starker, more sudden one) is a pretty powerful remark: a painstaking process of building trust between two "enemies" comes crashing down when their intolerance and rage comes forward, when they retreat back into Me vs You mentality. The most poignant moments are when the companionship between the two men seems genuine and no longer only a need for survival. For example, there was something touching about Lee Marvin's surprised, "Oh, it's you! I thought you were a Jap." Without realizing it, he has called his new-found friend a slur. Without realizing it, he has forgotten that his friend is his enemy. All the early scenes on the island, when Marvin and Mifune's characters continue their war on the ground, demonstrate how senseless their behavior is: they are posturing for each other, continuing a war because they are expected to. We could not deny a certain warm fuzzy feeling when they began to treat each other as friends.

A movie like this also demands immediate comparison with the later Cast Away. In a way, the films are quite similar. They use the deserted island construct as a means of investigating more philosophical questions: man's place in the universe, for example. In both films, there is a pervasive feeling of loneliness and senselessness, it's all a bit existential. But Cast Away's Tom Hanks was alone except for his volleyball head friend, Wilson, and even Wilson was just an extension of the protagonist's self. In Hell in the Pacific, we have the more comforting - and more realistic - presentation of man faced with another man, where that other person may seem initially foreign and strange, and only with shared experiences can these differences be seen as superficial as they are.


Man and the elements.

Both Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune are powerful screen presences. Mifune, in particular, was long ago dubbed by the PPCC as the Best Actor in the Universe. There's a certain ineffable quality about him - an enormous charisma coupled with an ability to appearing fundamentally different in each of his roles, even as he seems superficially the same. That is, there were no gimmicks, but there was a definite, deep-rooted difference in his essence in each role. We have trouble explaining it, but there's something about Toshiro san that we think is remarkable and unique. At least, he has an uncanny ability to project different emotions at the same time: only Toshiro, for example, can look both terrified and terrifying contemporaneously.


You can see the wheels turning.


Also the ability to look defeated and archly skeptical at the same time. Awww man, we love you, Toshiro Mifune!

In terms of filmmaking, the contemplative shots of a lonely island are gorgeous. Similarly, the cinematography of the action (some does occur) is handled well, building up and releasing tension as the two characters alternatively are almost killed by each other and by the elements.

Throne of Blood (1957)

Oh, the universal Bard. First, Will took a trip to modern-day India. There, he rubbed elbows with the "I wear my sunglasses at night" kingpins of Bombay's criminal underworld. And we were much entertained and impressed. Now Will's taken a trip to fuedal Japan, and he's put the brain of Macbeth into the head of Toshiro Mifune. Oh, this monochromatic tale has set off multicolor fireworks in our aesthetic pleasure center. Someone hide our joy before we implode!



We used to have samurai action figures very similar to these.

"What does that mean?!" you demand. We don't know. It's been a long day.

And it's been a very Macbethy month. Just a week ago we reviewed the Indian adaptation, Maqbool, which we thought was a clever reinterpretation of the bloody Scottish tale. Now we've come to review Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece, Throne of Blood, a more straightforward, but also much more strikingly beautiful, adaptation.



Shakespeare's fog! Check.


The Mac and his Lady. Check.

Instead of Castle Dunsinane in Scotland or Abbaji's mansion in Bombay, we're in Cobweb Castle somewhere in a very foggy region of Japan. Macbeth is called Washizu (Toshiro Mifune), his best buddy Banquo is Miki (Akira Kubo), and there's only one witch (Chieko Naniwa). The story follows the original very closely; in fact, the only thing that's missing is, well, the English language and the Scottish dress. Everything else is the same, par for par.

Fresh from victorious battle, Washizu and Miki ride triumphantly back to Cobweb Castle. They get lost in the aptly-named Cobweb Forest and, after a lot of horses neighing and fog rolling, they come upon a very creepy androgynous type person who sits spinning thread (spinning fate, dare we say!) and singing in a drone. Clearly we have met a witch. The other two must be on a lunch break. The lone witch lays the prophesying smackdown: Washizu, you'll soon be master of Cobweb Castle (cackle), but Miki's sons will inherit it (wheeze). A riddle! Uh oh.



CREEPY.


Washizu and Miki, chilling.

Washizu and Miki go, "HA HA HA!" in all-too-transparently-false bravado. They ride back to the Castle and try to shake it off. But it's hard for Washizu to shake anything off, especially when his Ice Queen of a wife (Isuzu Yamada) keeps filling his head with evil plots full of ambition and blood. Washizu tries the "lay off me, woman!" routine, but his manly resolve fails, and sooner rather than later he's holding a blood-stained spear in his hands, and the King is dead. Double uh oh.



You're crazy.

A note on Macbeth: it tends to peak early. The best bits, in our opinion, are the ones when Macbeth and Banquo are riding around, heads filled with frightful notions of what might be and what it means. Will Mac let fate take its course? Or will he change it, ruthlessly, and inevitably condemn himself? For us, the climax is when Macbeth kills the King and stumbles back to his wife with hands covered in blood.

MACBETH: Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep', the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast,--

LADY MACBETH: What do you mean?

MACBETH: Still it cried 'Sleep no more!' to all the house:
'Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor
Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.'

Ooh, we love it. Panic! Panic! Exciting! The rest of the play just watches the sad degeneration of the Mac and his Lady as they fall further into despair and craziness. By the last scene, we're usually like, end it. End it now. Ugghhh.

Throne of Blood, however, manages to maintain that giggly horrorshow excitement of the beginning throughout the entire film. For this reason alone, we were very impressed. The end, where we have been known to get impatient and glance at our watch in other productions, was so surprisingly scary that we almost started screaming along with Toshiro.

As the protagonists, Toshiro Mifune and Isuzu Yamada are wonderful at conveying the precarious sanity which make Mac and the Missus so uniquely who they are. What a couple! And it's interesting that Kurosawa chose to portray their love as something so cold and, well, nonexistent (Macbeth seems more scared of his wife than he was of the witch!); usually the Mac and his Lady are passionate hotheads. Instead, these two speak through powerful stares and meaningful silences. It makes everything feel cold, inhuman, and yeah, pretty awkward. Their transformations then, are especially creepy, as they essentially go it alone. (In other productions, it's like, at least they have each other!) Mifune's Washizu goes from a boastful, charismatic military commander to a wild-eyed and desperate loon. The final scene, especially, was amazing. Yamada's Lady Washizu slow mutation from calculating to mentally shattered was equally disconcerting.



Calculating. No problem.


Shattered. Many problems!
In terms of imagery, the film is beautiful. But we expect nothing less from Kurosawa-san! We were even happy to see it was black and white; everything took on this fascinatingly textured appearance, and we ended up marvelling at the shiny scales of Washizu's armor, the silk sheen of Lady Washizu's kimono, the polished wood of the interiors. Very pretty.

Conclusion: Required viewing for any self-respecting esthete.