LFM: Libertas Film Magazine

By Joe Bendel. Kingo Shimura is sort of like a one-man 47 Ronin. He even references them himself. Unfortunately, Shimura outlived his times as well as his lord. The Edo Era is over, but Shimura’s disgrace continues in Setsuro Wakamatsu’s Snow on the Blades, which screened as a selection of this year’s Japan Cuts, the Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.

Lord Naosuke Ii was a high ranking Shogunate official, who was too moderate in his reformist and westernizing policies for some and too extreme for others. He cracked down on high ranking nobles who opposed him, but left plenty of disgruntled ronin at loose ends. In 1860, he really was assassinated during Sakuradamon Incident. That was exactly what Shimura was supposed to prevent as his recently appointed chief of security.

Disgraced by his failure, Shimura is forbidden from committing seppuku until he finds and decapitates at least one of the surviving assassins. Twelve of the ronin either performed seppuku there on the spot, or were accounted for shortly thereafter. That left five elusive assassins for Shimura to track. Unfortunately, as the years go by, the fugitives die off through subsequent misadventures. Eventually, the guilt-ridden Jyubei Sahashi is the only one still at large. However, formalized vengeance taking is banned during the Meiji Restoration.

Throughout all his tribulations and humiliations, Shimura’s wife Setsu loyally supports him. Similarly, Sahashi is guardedly devoted to the next-door widow and her young daughter, but he is incapable of committing to them, because he lives looking over his shoulder. It is exactly those human relationships that concern Snow more than hack-and-slash action.

Snow is a gloriously old fashioned tragedy, boasting genuine emotional depth and historical sweep. It also suggests a little bit of westernization is not a bad thing, while recognizing the value of tradition. In fact, that tension helps make Snow such a richly humanistic revisionist Jidaigeki film. Frankly, it is not hard to imagine Clint Eastwood remaking it as an early 20th century western.

As Shimura, Kiichi Nakai is appropriately both stately and hardnosed. Yet, he just knee-caps viewers in his tender scenes with Setsu, played with exquisite sensitivity and warmth, by Ryoko Hirosue. Hiroshi Abe (perhaps too closely associated with the Thermae Romae franchise) is severely reserved, yet expresses considerable angst and regret as the outlaw Sahashi. It is an impressive ensemble, especially including “Living Treasure” kabuki and screen actor Kichiemon Nakamura, making his return to film after a nineteen year hiatus as Lord Ii.

Everyone brought their A-game to Snow, including Joe Hisashi, who contributes one of his best non-Studio Ghibli scores. It is quite lovely, giving the film an acoustic vibe that is mournful but also hopeful. Sober and elegant, Snow on the Blades is a wonderfully satisfying film. Although the self-styled conflict-resolution industry is mostly bunky hokum, this really is a film that they could bury some hatchets with. Very highly recommended, its screened this past Tuesday (7/14) at the Japan Society, as part of the 2015 Japan Cuts.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on July 16th, 2015 at 11:05pm.

By Joe Bendel. Shortly after his 1989 source novel was published, author Yasushi Sato took his own life. Clearly, it did not sufficiently cheer him up. Decades later, director Mipo O has helmed a big screen adaptation, showing a pronounced empathy for that sort of dark and depressed state of being, despite her reputation for light comedy. Life is nasty and brutish for two young lovers. Any respite they find in each other’s arms will be paid for on credit with future misery in O’s The Light Shines Only There, which screens as a selection of this year’s Japan Cuts, the Festival of New Japanese Film in New York.

Tatsuo Sato has basically given up living. He shambles through the streets and pachinko parlors of the blighted Hokkaido port town of Hakodate like a zombie. Yet, for some strange reason, Takuji Oshiro will not stop talking to him. Somehow, he even drags Sato back to his family’s beach shack, where his put-upon sister Chinatsu serves them lunch, without a smile. Nonetheless, there is a bit of something that passes between her and Sato. It is even there when he drunkenly stumbles into the bar where she works as a “hostess.”

Despite several false starts, Sato and Oshiro become lovers, at least as best they can. It is safe to say they both have severe intimacy issues. Further complicating matters, the local mobbed up squid factory owner considers her his personal property. He is a violent lover, but she is stuck with his abuse, because he is the guarantor for her brother’s parole.

So, happy times. Nevertheless, it is hard to truly be depressed by a film so well acted and executed. As Chinatsu Oshiro, Chizuru Ikewaki is a staggering revelation. While in real life she is quite stunning, for Light she is glammed down and bedraggled to truly look like a cast-aside victim of life’s rottenness. Her performance is brave as hell and relentlessly honest, forcing us to watch the explicit realities of those who subsist in the margins of polite society.

By design, it is much harder to draw a bead on Gou Ayano’s distant Sato, at least until his former boss from the stone quarry (nicely played with gruff sensitivity by Shohei Hino) arrives to fill in some backstory. As annoying as his character might be, Masaki Suda’s Takuji ultimately provides the film’s tragic heart.

For the purposes of easy symbolic short-hand, water is often associated with purification, but not in Light. Instead, screenwriter Ryo Takada’s adaptation of Yasushi Sato’s novel contrasts the healthy cleanliness of the mountains where Tatsuo Sato once worked, with the predatory corruption of the beachfront town.

It is potent stuff, but absolute Kryptonite for the Academy, who declined to nominate Light in the foreign language category, even though Japan duly submitted it. They would have much better award season luck with a classy historical. On the other hand, this is a film that will speak to young and disillusioned audiences much more directly for years to come. Driven by Ikewaki’s frighteningly frank performance, The Light Shines Only There is recommended for those who appreciate uncompromisingly naturalistic drama. It screened this past Wednesday (7/15) at the Japan Society, as part of the 2015 Japan Cuts.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on July 16th, 2015 at 11:04pm.

By Joe Bendel. Poor, pitiable Percival is sort of like Larry Talbot. He is convinced he cannot be killed. However, he can be disfigured and maimed—and he has the scars from past suicide attempts to prove it. Somehow, he has developed a New Agey notion that a wildly unstable contract killer is the man who can get the job done, because of their fateful connections. Maybe it makes sense or maybe it doesn’t, but it provides the unlikely foundation of a strange pseudo-friendship in Dru Brown’s The Suicide Theory, which is now playing in the Los Angeles area.

Steven Ray kills people, when he is not wallowing in grief over his late wife’s hit-and-run death. He first met Percival when the suicidal artist took a header off a building onto Ray’s cab. At first, Ray assumes Percival’s self-ordered hit will be easy money, but alas no. Of course, he dismisses the notion that he can only whack his client when he is in such a good frame of mind, he temporarily wants to live again. Yet, in spite of his better judgement, Ray starts to wonder when Percival survives his multiple gunshot wounds to the head. As he confers with his unhappy customer, Ray actually starts to like the lovelorn, guilt-ridden, open-sore of a person. He also starts to question some of his own life choices.

“You’re lucky to be alive” is the film’s designated punch line—and it often works rather well in context. In fact, Theory is pretty darned entertaining when it sticks to the pitch black humor and grimy noir atmosphere. Oddly enough, Brown’s attempts to wrap it all up in a cosmic package somewhat dilutes the grungy fun. Still, Steve Mouzakis’s stone cold deadpan delivery gives Ray a flinty edge, even more than his voluminous tics and quirks. He also develops some decidedly distinctive buddy chemistry with Leon Cain’s increasingly battered Percival.

To be fair, Brown fits his ironic pieces together quite dexterously. Nonetheless, the film is more entertaining when reveling in its brutish urban jungle environment rather than trying to make cosmic connections. At its best, Theory is sort of like early Tarantino without the self-conscious pop culture riffing. It is somewhat uneven down the stretch, but overall, it’s not bad, even if you have seen a whole lot of indie thrillers. Recommended as a decent little VOD discovery, The Suicide Theory opened this Friday at the Music Hall 3 in Beverley Hills and also launched on iTunes.

LFM GRADE: B-

Posted on July 16th, 2015 at 11:03pm.

By Joe Bendel. Think of it as something like Bernard Christensen’s Häxan, but in color and with even more sex. While the notorious Danish silent was based on the Fifteenth Century Malleus Maleficarum, the third of Osamu Tezuka’s animated features for adults was inspired by Jules Michelet’s Nineteenth Century study Satanism and Witchcraft. The practice of the dark arts is largely a product of class and gender exploitation in the brand new 4K restoration of Eiichi Yamamoto’s 1973 cult classic Belladonna of Sadness, which screens as part of the 2015 Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film.

French peasants Jean and Jeanne love each other deeply and truly, but unfortunately their marriage requires a sacrifice to their lord. Tragically, he claims his feudal deflowering right of jus primae noctis, at which point he turns the ravaged Jeanne over to his lecherous court. Initially, Jean tries to comfort her, but henceforth they can never truly be happy together. Sensing her pain and anger, the imp-like Satan approaches Jeanne tempting her with power and exciting her lust. She slowly yields to him, inch by metaphysical inch, amassing influence in the village to become a serious rival to the lord, especially while he is away fighting a fruitless war. Naturally, this does not sit well with her ladyship or the parish priest.

Even though it is animated, Belladonna is absolutely, positively not for children—not even the particularly mature and precocious. Yamamoto’s film is rife with images of sex and violence that often bleed into each other. However, the animation is extraordinarily striking, often looking like a cross between Alphonse Mucha and Gahan Wilson. For long stretches, the pictures do not even move, per se. Rather, the camera pans over the baroquely detailed paintings.

Frankly, it is rather baffling that Belladonna never caught on more widely in its day. The trippy visuals and open invitation to identify with and even support Jeanne’s self-damnation seem pitch perfect for the indulgent 1970s. As a bonus, legendary Kurosawa and Kobayashi regular Tatsuya Nakadai memorably gives voice to the puckish Satan.

In many ways, Belladonna is a startling accomplishment in animation. It really feels like it taps directly into the ancient grievances of women who were driven to witchcraft for the sake of solidarity and resistance, which is rather unsettling. There is an eerie subconscious familiarity to Belladonna, even though it is a wholly original work. Highly recommended for mature animation connoisseurs, the newly restored Belladonna of Sadness screens this Friday (7/10) at the Japan Society, as a classic rediscovery of this year’s Japan Cuts.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on July 10th, 2015 at 4:48pm.