Category: Narrative

By Joe Bendel. Prepare yourself for an alt-punk Oliver Sachs kind of story. There have indeed been documented cases of musicians who retained their musical skills while suffering from amnesia. It is a bit of a stretch to call Shigeo a musician, but he sure can belt out a power grunge ballad. He has also lost his memory, but he is probably better off without it. A clean slate could be the fresh start he needs in Nobuhiro Yamashita’s La La La at Rock Bottom, which screens as part of the 2015 New York Asian Film Festival.

Upon his release from prison, Shigeo is beaten senseless by his former criminal associates, who want him to take the hint and disappear. Instead, he wakes up sans memory in an industrial section of Osaka. Somehow he staggers into the park where the hybrid-band Akainu is playing. Much to everyone’s surprise, including his own, he storms the stage and proceeds with a full-throated rendition of what will become his signature tune. Akainu is managed by the teenaged Kasumi, who inherited the motley crew along with her father’s recording studio. She recognizes Shigeo can sing, even though he looks a frightful mess, so she takes him in, appropriately dubbing him “Pooch.”

With Kasumi’s help, Pooch will start piecing together his identity. Of course, we know they will not necessarily like what they find out. There is a good chance it will all come to a head right before the big gig.

Shigeo/Pooch is played by real life Japanese rocker Subaru Shibutani of the band Kanjani Eight, whose distinctive voice would be perfect for Rush if they ever need to replace Geddy Lee. He also turns out to be a pretty good actor, playing the lost puppy and the low life creep equally convincingly. Pairing him up with the young, poised superstar-in-the-making Fumi Nikaido was also a shrewd strategy. She has a smart, charismatic presence, as well as a sense of naivety befitting her youth. The age difference also precludes any kind of manipulative romantic hogwash. They are definitely driving the film, but Sarina Suzuki adds some spicy flair as Makiko, Kasumi’s hard-drinking doctor friend.

There are no huge, huge, huge surprises in store for viewers over the course of Rock Bottom. Lessons will be learned and secrets will be revealed. Nonetheless, Yamashita plays his trump cards as close to his vest as he can. Ultimately the film is rather touching and the music is bizarrely catchy. Recommended for fans of films like Can a Song Save Your Life (or Begin Again as the distributor insisted on calling it), La La La at Rock Bottom (which probably should have been called Begin Again instead) screens this Thursday (7/2) at the Walter Reade and Saturday the 11th at the SVA, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on July 3rd, 2015 at 12:30am.

By Joe Bendel. The Pearse-Connolly Hall was sort of like a cross between Hull House and Café Society in rural County Leitrim, but with way more ideology. It was founded by Irish Communist organizer James Gralton, who was not about to let a wee little thing like the Ukrainian Famine dampen his enthusiasm for an all-powerful state. He became the only Irishman deported from his homeland, but fortunately he still had his American citizenship from his previous stint in exile. Gralton’s final Irish residency gets hagiographic treatment in Ken Loach’s Jimmy’s Hall, which opens this Friday in New York.

Throughout his life, Gralton did a considerable amount of Atlantic-hopping, agitating and fighting in the 1920s uprising, only to periodically retreat to New York whenever things got too hot. In 1932, he thought he was returning for good, in order to help his mother run the family farm. Of course, it is only a matter of time before he reopens the torched Pearse-Connolly Hall, which he bills as a community center of sorts. Boxing lessons and art classes are indeed held there, as well as militant organizing sessions. It is enough to send Father Sheridan, the parish priest into full crisis management mode.

Frankly, instead of Jimmy’s Hall, Loach should have called the film The Passion of the Gralton. Like most heroes of propaganda films, Gralton is pretty darn dull, but it is not the fault of lead actor Barry Ward, who brings an earthy, unassuming charisma to the role. Unfortunately, Loach always makes him the calmest, most rational person in every conversation. “That’s an argument for another day” he says evasively, when Father Sheridan challenges him on the Soviet human rights record. Yes, isn’t that always the case? However, there is no time like the present to settle scores with those on Loach’s enemies list, starting with the Catholic Church and the British government.

Far and away, the best sequences in Jimmy’s Hall involve Gralton’s impossible love for his now married old flame Oonagh. Star-crossed romance is tough to beat. Unfortunately, the instructive drama is appallingly stilted. Yet, despite the lengths Loach goes to stack the deck against good Father Sheridan, he cannot overwhelm the twinkle in Jim Norton’s eye. By the second act, most of the audience will be rooting for wily Father and against the Socialist sob sisters. Even more strangely, the film completely wastes the compulsively watchable Andrew Scott (Jim Moriarty in Sherlock and the voice of Tom Hardy’s high strung assistant in Locke) as the younger and hipper Father Seamus.

Loach has made some wonderfully humanistic films, like Looking for Eric and The Angels’ Share that reflect his proletarian sympathies without didactically bashing the audience over the head. Unfortunately, Jimmy’s Hall is not one of them. Aside from Gralton’s stolen moments with Oonagh, it is a rather slow and lecturey experience. Deeply disappointing, Jimmy’s Hall opens this Friday (7/3) in New York, at the Angelika Film Center, just in time for Independence Day.

LFM GRADE: D

Posted on July 3rd, 2015 at 12:29am.

By Joe Bendel. Makoto Kido is the sort of teacher who is popular with his students. He is lax about discipline and often late to his own classes. The only drawback is that he often lectures on subjects that will not be on their university entrance exams, like the procedure for making nuclear bombs. Unfortunately, it is a subject he knows cold. When he launches his campaign of nuclear blackmail, it will be up to hardnosed Inspector Yamashita to stop him in Kazuhiko Hasegawa’s classic The Man Who Stole the Sun, which screens as part of the 2015 New York Asian Film Festival’s tribute to Ken Takakura and Bunta Sugawara, two late, great, manly icons of Japanese Cinema.

Kido is kind of a hippy, but he is not very political. Frankly, he will have a hard time coming up with demands for the government to meet. Instead, he is more of your basic bored sociopath. Ironically, when Yamashita first meets Kido, he assumes the science teacher is decent enough for a long-hair, even though we know he has already started laying the groundwork for his evil scheme.

As fate will dictate, Kido’s class is hijacked while on a field trip, by a deranged man seeking redress from the emperor. Yamashita draws the case, impressing Kido with his gruff dedication to duty. After boosting some plutonium from the Tōkai nuclear plant, he proceeds to make two bombs—one to prove his skills with the authorities and one for him to dangle over the prime minister’s head. As part of the ground rules he establishes, Kido (employing a home-made voice modulator) will only speak with the confused Yamashita.

In many ways, Sun is a blast-from-the-past time-capsule of a film. Among other things, it reminds us of the time when most television stations signed off around midnight by playing the national anthem. Evidently, during the late 1970s in Japan, TV stations also used to stop baseball games promptly at ten o’clock to accommodate the evening news. It seems Kido put a stop to that practice. Running out of ideas, Kido reaches out to Zero Sawai, a DJ catering to the youth culture. She is cute as a button, but she also serves as a scathing critique of a myopic media that cannot see the dirty bomb for the trees.

Bunta Sugawara is stone cold awesome as Yamashita, an old school throwback, who would be perfectly at home in the films of Don Siegel and Sam Fuller. Yet, Takayuki Inoue’s massively groovy music might just be even cooler. It is strange that the soundtrack album has not been more eagerly sought after by crate-diggers. Real life rock star Kenji Sawada is also frighteningly convincing as the coldly detached psychopath. Watching him play Kimiko Ikegami’s naïve Sawai is especially chilling.

Co-written by Hasegawa and Leonard Schrader (brother of Paul, who also co-wrote a Tora-san movie), Sun is an ambitious, large scale film, clocking in just shy of two and a half hours. Hasegawa stages some absolutely insane action sequences, yet he dedicates most of the first act to the quiet process of Kido’s bomb-building. Frankly, this is not a film ISIS needs to see, because it is darned instructive. However, if you enjoy potentially apocalyptic thrillers loaded with attitude and funky Me Decade period detail than this is your ticket. Highly recommended for fans of 1970s cinema and crew cut cops, The Man Who Stole the Sun screens this Wednesday (7/1) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on June 30th, 2015 at 12:38pm.

By Joe Bendel. Bali is renowned for its Gamelan music and—at least in animal rights circles—notorious for its cockfights. Yuri will watch both sorts of performances on her trip. The former is much more fun, but the latter will resonate more with her, given her husband Chihiro’s terminal illness. Death will never be far from their thoughts in Kiki Sugino’s Taksu, which screens during the 2015 New York Asian Film Festival.

Already the darling of the Pan-Asian indie scene, Taksu was technically Kiki Sugino’s second film as a director, but it hit the international festival circuit just before her first premiered—with a third soon to follow. Fortunately, she also still performs as a screen thesp. After all, she is Kiki Sugino. Shrewdly, she cast herself in a major supporting role in Taksu, but it is former sex symbol Yoko Mitsuya who is asked to do the film’s heaviest lifting and rises to the occasion quite admirably.

The details are sketchy, but the words “failed transplant” says enough. Frankly, Chihiro looks done in when he and Yuri arrive in Bali. This will probably be the last time he sees his extremely pregnant sister Kumi and her Dutch husband Luke. That is a distressing fact, but they obviously have pressing issues of their own to deal with.

It is not exactly clear which stage of grief Chihiro and Yuri are on, but they are not in synch. They are both pretty freaked out, but he frequently lashes out at his naturally reserved wife, accusing her of complacency. In contrast, Yuri is profoundly exhausted and feels guilt about everything. After one of their dust-ups, she walks away, falling in with a group of Japanese expats and their beach gigolo pal, who represents the sort of commitment-free indulgence she has not experienced in some time.

There is no question Taksu will lead to more directing gigs for Sugino. It is a gorgeous looking movie, rich with sunsets and Balinese ceremonial color. It positions her as the logical successor to Cannes-favorite Naomi Kawase. That is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you feel about Kawase’s contemplative films (for the record, Still the Water is considerably better than you may have heard). Sugino also takes an unhurried approach, but she burrows deeply into the psyches of Yuri and Chihiro.

Frankly, she leaves us hanging at the end, expecting a final profundity that never comes. However, for connoisseurs of slow cinema, that is a minor quibble. On the other hand, this is obviously a tough go for crass mainstream movie audiences. Still, it does have Sugino. At the risk of sounding totally fannish, she is wonderfully expressive and aptly radiant as the super-prego Kumi. The sex scenes are all Mitsuya’s, though. They are erotically charged but not exploitative. In fact, they are part-and-parcel of her inner emotional struggle. It is a powerful performance, reminiscent of some of the mature milestones of 1970s cinema that may well shock her fans.

There is indeed a good deal of sex in Taksu, but it often goes together with death. The entire cycle of life is represented in the film, as well as a nice armchair tour of Balinese cultural attractions. Sugino knew exactly what she wanted and executed the film accordingly. Nevertheless, it would not betray her aesthetic sensibilities to give her narratives more muscular definition in the future. Still, it is achingly beautiful visually and the drama is quite sensitively rendered. Recommended for slow cineastes and Sugino fans, Taksu screens this Thursday (7/2) at the Walter Reade, as part of this year’s NYAFF.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on June 30th, 2015 at 12:38pm.

By Joe Bendel. It has been a rough couple of years for cartoonists. Although young Kiyomi Wago does not have a fatwah hanging over her head, her family banned her from drawing horror manga, scapegoating her gory images for all their problems. Yet, they constantly provide fresh inspiration with their ghastly behavior. Frankly, they need another dose of manga humiliation as comeuppance for all their acting-out in Daihachi Yoshida’s Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers, which screens during the 2015 New York Asian Film Festival.

Wago’s parents recently perished in a fatal car crash, involving an adorable kitten. Her spoiled older sister Sumika will not offer much consolation when she finally makes it home. The family had been supporting her dubious acting career, but she only has debts and burned bridges to show for her efforts. She expects to continue dominating their half-brother Shinji, because of the incestuous control she exerts over him, even though he is now married to his naïve internet bride, Machiko. Unfortunately, Sumika still blames Kiyomi for scandalizing the family when she won an amateur contest with the story of her irrational attempt to murder their now late father. Needless to say, Sumika is not ready to forgive and forget.

By the way, Funuke is a comedy, more or less. Yes, you could say it is a somewhat dark one in terms of tone. In fact, Yoshida maintains an almost unclassifiable vibe, like Ozu mixed with Sirk and a dash of John Waters and then launched on a grain alcohol bender.

You may not fully understand the term “hot mess” until you have seen Eriko Sato as Sumika Wago. She is a force, which makes it so rewarding to watch Aimi Satsukawa’s Kiyomi learn to assert her inner Daria. It is subtle, yet substantial arc of character development that she carries off quite well. However, Hiromi Nagasaku might actually be too good as earnest Machiko. She just makes you want to slap everyone around her. As a result, poor Masatoshi Nagase and his character Shinji never stand a chance. They just get buried by the stronger personas surrounding them.

In a way, Funuke is an ode to the cathartic power of artistic expression—specifically through manga in this case. Fortunately, it features a good deal of art by Noroi Michiru that is striking in its own right and absolutely perfect in the dramatic context of the film. At times, Yoshida’s adaptation of Yukiko Motoya’s novel feels excessively mean towards Machiko, but its edge is impressive. Recommended for manga fans who think the last good comedy to play at Sundance was The House of Yes, Funuke Show Some Love, You Losers! screens today (6/29) at the Walter Reade, as part of NYAFF’s mini-focus on Yoshida.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on June 30th, 2015 at 12:37pm.

By Joe Bendel. Currently, the exchange rate is 120-some Yen to the Dollar. It was something similar in the mid-1990s. Although we know we should be adjusting in our heads, the sums Rika Umezawa embezzles from her private banking clients still look staggeringly high. It is hard to sustain such recklessness indefinitely, but Umezawa will have a heck of a run in Daihachi Yoshida’s Pale Moon, which screens during the 2015 New York Asian Film Festival.

Umezawa looks a far cry from John Dillinger. The former housewife has only recently returned to the workforce, responding to the bank’s recruitment program. She is attractive, but extremely shy and reserved. Her first inherited client, a lecherous old tight-wad, might have been troublesome for her to deal with – if not for the intercession of his college age grandson, Kota Hirabayashi. Still, she manages to sell him on a few starter investments.

In the early days, Umezawa’s performance is quite promising. Yet, her husband continues to patronize and underestimate her. Of course, he just assumes she will accompany him when he is transferred to China, but she rather scandalously opts to stay in Japan. After all, she has secret affair with Hirabayashi to enjoy. She also redirected some of his Scrooge-like grandfather’s money to pay for his tuition. That turns out to be the sort of thing that is hard to stop once you start. Soon, Umezawa is falsifying documents and intercepting bank statements to maintain her lifestyle. Meanwhile, her senior colleague Yoriko Sumi starts investigating her suspicions, hoping to find something that would forestall her forced retirement.

Moon has the obvious feminist angle and the zeitgeisty financial crisis theme, but it is rather more than either sort of issue-driven drama. Thanks to Rie Miyazawa’s absolutely extraordinary lead performance, it is utterly impossible to pigeon hole Umezawa as some sort of Thelma or Louise in a business suit. Although she has good reasons to feel put-out, she is not a victim, but more of an existential heroine. Eventually she will even question the soundness of fiat currency and the legitimacy of Platonic reality. At that point, the third act takes a rather strange turn, but Yoshida lays enough groundwork so that it seems almost logical rather than jarring.

Miyazawa owns this film lock, stock, and barrel, but her greatest competition for the spotlight fittingly comes from Yuna Taira, who appears as the fourteen year old Umezawa in flashbacks. The young screen performer has no shortage of presence, yet still projects a sense of earnest vulnerability she shares with Miyazawa. Admittedly, it is tough being a guy in Moon, but Renji Ishibashi knocks us off-balance from time to time as the curmudgeonly old Kozo Hirabayashi. There is also something compellingly sad about Satomi Kobayashi’s performance as Sumi, a somewhat kindred spirit to Umezawa, who has adopted the diametrically opposite survival strategy.

Special NYAFF Guest Yoshida helms with great sensitivity and a subtly dark sense of humor, which distilled produce a truly distinctive vibe. This is a film that defies labels (is it a crime drama or a work of social criticism?) and up-ends expectations. Moon absolutely does not leave the audience in a “safe place,” but it is strangely satisfying spot to end. Throughout it all, Miyazawa is superhumanly engaging as Umezawa. Highly recommended for sophisticated audiences, Pale Moon screens today (6/29) at the Walter Reade, as part of NYAFF’s mini-focus on Yoshida.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on June 30th, 2015 at 12:37pm.