Pocket Money

Pocket Money, Francois Truffaut's 1976 effort concerning a small rural town, the pupils of the local school, and a couple of its teachers, is an engaging, empathetic film that crystallises all that Truffaut seems to think about children, one of his favourite subjects; namely, that they're all little miracles, and they all deserve paying attention to, because you never know what secrets they're concealing, and what truths they're discovering.

The film is loose and ramshackle, in a way that reminded me of the similarly episodic ode to youth "Amarcord", and it's told in a faux-documentary style. There is little plot to speak of, and the film was shot almost entirely with unknowns and amateurs. This makes sense. There are kids we come to know a little better than others, such as Patrick (Georges Desmousceaux), who is beginning to learn the meaning of attraction to the opposite sex, and Julien Leclou (Philippe Goldmann), the bedraggled, scruffy kid with an apathetic attitude who can't help falling asleep in class, and who has a rough home life, and Martine (Pascale Bruchon), who isn't allowed to take the handbag she wants to a meal and is left at home, resulting in a very funny sequence where she gets her neighbours to lower food into her apartment through the open window.

Yet when they are in the classroom, or trampling through the streets, or fighting over seats in the local cinema, the kids become a multi-limbed mass, an indistinct blur, face after face after face, and it is this energy that Truffaut captures with precision. It's an idealised view of childhood to be sure, but childhood is basically unfettered idealism, and Truffaut understands this. It's childhood as we remember it, not necessarily how it happened, but since we don't really remember how it happened, this approach pays off.

Some sequences stand out; there's a bravura piece near the beginning that would work as a short film on its own, concerning a young single mother and her little infant Gregory, who is left alone in the flat so the mother can look for her lost purse. It's a masterclass in observation; the camera follows Gregory around as he burbles and shrieks, plays with the cat, and eventually falls out of a very high window. It's tense, but in this world we don't feel like there is all that much danger; and true to form, Gregory lands without a scratch.

This leads a parent to observe that despite the fact that children bump into everything they see, they nevertheless retain a certain "grace". This must be a sentiment held by Truffaut, since this film is 100 minutes of finding the grace in children's bumbling natures.

There is another moment near the end that, we gather, is an echoing of a truth that Truffaut believes deeply. It occurs just after the authorities have uncovered just how bad Leclou's home life really is, and the school is in a state of shock. It is a monologue delivered by the teacher Monsieur Richet, a new father, and it stands as the films' centrepiece. As Richet talks about how an injustice enacted against a child is the unfairest injustice of all, and of the way we must love those around us, and of how all he wanted was to provide a better childhood for those in the room than he had himself, Truffaut gently spells out his own humanism, and we cannot fail to be moved.

And just as it acts as a summation of Truffaut's own feelings, it also sums up the film as a whole; endearing, gentle, kind, funny, truthful, and basically faultless.

Air Doll

All those people all those lives, where are they now?

With loves, and hates, and passions just like mine,

They were born and then they lived and then they died,

Seems so unfair,

I want to cry.

*****

Hirokazu Koreeda's film "Air Doll", based on Yoshiie Goda's manga, has a synopsis that, at face value, could inspire titters, which is a great shame considering the end result produces anything but. It tells the simple story of a man, Hideo, (Itsuji Itao) and his sex doll, Nozomi, (Doona Bae), who comes to life and develops a "heart" of her own. The initial scenes juggle pathos, as Hideo looks bereft in a supermarket, and comedy, as Hideo addresses Nozomi as if she were alive and makes love with a startling tenderness.

But one day, as Hideo leaves for work, Nozomi's eyes move. She looks around the room, and gets out of bed. She places her hand underneath a railing which is dripping with rain water, and she goes from being completely plastic to something approaching human. She does this slowly, and initially its clear that its an animatronic doll, but at some point the doll becomes the actress. This is cleverly handled, and establishes the quiet physicality that Bae maintains for the remainder of the film; stiff limbs, slow jerky movement, a head that never quite moves comfortably.

Soon Nozomi finds herself on the street, and it's here that the film turns from a curious piece of magical realism into a broad and pondering metaphysical exploration of the meaning of human existence. This is not exaggeration. Scene after scene follows Nozomi as she does things like interacting with children, getting a job, talking to that old dishevelled guy on the bench who you just know probably has an interesting life story, taking her first trip to the restaurant, to the beach, learning what it means to cling onto someone on the back of a motorbike.

The film is basically a parable on learning what it means to be a part of this world. Doona Bae is the perfect actress for this; her eyes are endlessly wide, drinking in the sights of the world with all the fervour of a parched man in the desert. The film transports you back to when you were a child, and calls to mind Wordsworth's idea that heaven lies about us in our infancy. This is an unfussy film that asks little of the audience, other than to take in what Nozomi takes in, as she takes it in.

The film is unconcerned with the specifics of her status as an ex-sex doll. There is a moment midway through where she cuts her arm on a hinge, deflates, and has to be blown back to life by her co-worker, but even this isn't handled as a piece of comedy of the kind one might expect with a sex doll, but instead (and later on in the film also) as a metaphor for the way we want to breathe life into the people we love (and that these attempts can often be so ruinous).

There is just so much to observe with this film. It's crafted with all tenderness of a soft kiss, from the gentle sound design by Yutaka Tsurumaki, to the dreamy and creamy urban cinematography from Ping Bin Lee, which finds a kind of visual poetry amongst the small local shops and big skyscrapers stacked high up past our field of vision, and the streets with black washing lines dangling like bars on sheet music. It is a subtle exercise in empathy, as we find ourselves marvelling at the world in the same way Nozomi does.

The score, from World's End Girlfriend is a blissful affair. There are several moments where Koreeda leisurely gives way to a montage, flitting from person to person that Nozomi has observed as they face either joyous elation or downtrodden despair, that feel like they were edited to the music after it was composed.

Of course, after the initial rush of giddiness, we develop notions of unfairness, cruelty, and sadness. As Nozomi eventually observes, "having a heart has been so heartbreaking". But even these revelations are observed gently, and with little force. Compared to Under The Skin, another film about an outsider reacting to humanity for the first time, this is much more hopeful, and optimistic.

This is a film that understands what it means to exist. Koreeda's eye for detail is unrelenting, and he has turned what could have been a forgettable comedy into a film I doubt I will ever forget. Like the works of Alain De Botton, it configures everyday truths into miniature works of art. As Nozomi quietly observes, "why is it that the world is constructed so loosely?"

It's a question that we'll never know the answer to. But it's healthy to ask things like that every now and again, and the act of asking, of recognising these truths, constitutes some form of an answer all on its own. This film, along with everything else, gets that.

Review of Mommy (2014)

Xavier Dolan has long been one of the premier auteurs working in the cinema, a Quebecois maestro whose films are often barnstorming, bruising, blistering achievements of emotional content married to extremes of stylish form. Ever since his debut in 2009 with the tour-de-force "I Killed My Mother", one of the great, and most devastating, portrayals of parenthood that I've seen, I've approached each Dolan film afterwards with an almost spiritual expectation such are the depth that his films seem to reach into my soul and stir my innermost feelings.

His films are so soulful, and come from a place of such sincerity and feeling, that each successive effort hasn't failed to transport me to a world that only the greatest films can, where every action on the screen holds you in rapture, where the characters fill you with love and contemplation, where the visual style is so in tune with the themes and thought; his films are whole, they are events, and they transport the viewer, this viewer, to a world that is often painful to leave. They are the cinema working in full force.

So for me to say that Dolan's latest film, "Mommy", is by far his most emphatic work to date, his most alive and vibrant, and his most mature and complete, then, is a compliment of the highest order. But few films have enraptured me so, even including films of his own oeuvre. From the very opening, in which we are introduced to Anne Dorval's Diane ("Die") in a car crash which doesn't leave her injured so much as leave her swearing and angry, we can immediately sense her irrepressible spirit.

She's on her way to a meeting with a counsellor in a detention centre who tells her that her son, Steve (Antoine-Olivier Pilon) has set fire to a canteen, causing another child to be hospitalised. A faulty walkie-talkie reveals a barrage of crude cursing, insults, swearing. Die smiles; this is her mother's son.

The following scene was one of the best of the film, because it did what it was trying to do so simply, and with such skill in the writing; as we follow Die and Steve on their way home, their relationship is drawn out in full. He is a profane, almost violently exuberant young man who is nevertheless filled with a love for his mother that is almost overwhelming. She, equally, loves his son to the end of the world, but there is tragedy to how she is regards his energy; she knows this is him, she accepts him, but she is also scared of how that energy can sometimes overflow into violence. His actions, loving though they are, have a roughness to them, a force, which comes directly from his overabundance of feeling.

This is all down to Pilon's performance, which is a masterclass in movement. His whole body is his own puppet, and he is in complete control over it. You sense he has gone away and thought about his character, reflected on him, and then inhabited him completely. The performance, and hence the character, is organic, real, home-grown. His violence is not a tic or a cheap acting trick; it feels so real, and hence the tension between them also feels incredibly real.

And on, and on, their relationship, incredibly intimate, almost Oedipal (Steve doesn't shy away from his masturbation habits in front of his mother) is carefully defined before us. On an afternoon where Steve and Die's play-fighting becomes something more serious, however, a neighbour, Kyla (Suzanne Clement) from across the street who has only waved at Die before now enters the house, and almost instantly has a calming and embalming effect on their dynamic. She dresses a cut on Steve's leg, reveals her quiet, stuttering nature, and leaves. Die is in awe; someone like this is sorely needed in this loving but volatile environment. She takes a bottle of wine over as thanks (poured from a cardboard carton in the fridge), which is received by her taciturn, enigmatic husband.

Soon, Kyla is a regular fixture in their house, a teacher on Sabbatical (we sense a breakdown, but Dolan doesn't paint this out) who is drawn in by the pair's energy and enthusiasm.

From here, the film is nothing more and nothing less than one of the most whole, funny, touching, heartbreaking character studies I have seen, observing the behaviours of these three misfits through highs and lows, peaks and troughs. If it all sounds very soap-opera ish, then maybe there is a case to be made that it is, but this is elevated soap-opera, with every frame imbued and embellished with feeling and care; Dolan wants us so deeply to love these dysfunctional people, and we do. Their pair have such rapport, and care so deeply about us, that our feelings are stirred and we too become involved in their fates; we want nothing more than for them to be okay. Think about the last time you cared about characters in a film to this extent.

A word must go to frames, however, as this is easily, on a technical level, the most audacious film Dolan has yet made. Shot in a 1:1 aspect ratio (the film is a square), what could have easily been a gimmick is the film's coup-de-grace. In isolating each character, it is as though they are singled out whenever they are on screen. It allows us to focus on them and consider them untouched by others, and so on whenever each character is placed centre-forward. It's a daring trick, but it works brilliantly.

This is also the most visually beautiful and direct of Dolan's films, a smorgasbord of colour, action and activity, where almost artificially blue skies meet never-ending grey roads, and character bounce along the middle on bikes, skateboards and with shopping trollies. There is an almost cartoonish sense to the film, as if heightened reality, allowing the emotions to take on a palpably prescient quality. This is amplified through the cheesy songs on the soundtrack; even Oasis's Wonderwall is used well. (yes, the most overplayed and over-rated song maybe of all time is used effectively).

And that's the film. I have no flaws, nothing to pick apart. I laughed and cried with ferocity and in equal measure, and I didn't want to leave this world. This is a fairly long film at over two-hours, and Dolan uses that length to startling effect. It is a whole and complete work, and one that lingers in the mind and the spirit for some time afterwards. I am grateful that Dolan made it, because it is more than a film, it is a lesson in empathy and a treatise on the irriducibility of the human spirit.

I, as ever, await the next work by this great master, and if he manages to top this towering piece of work, then he may just cement himself in the pantheon of masters for good; that is, if he hasn't done so already, and I'm certainly arguing his case.

Review of Kelly + Victor (2012)

Kieran Evan's "Kelly + Victory", based on the book of the same name by Niall Griffiths, opens with a sequence in which the eponymous Kelly (Antonia Campbell Hughes) watches a moth fly against a window. She is passive. does she empathise with the moth? Is she torturing it? Enjoying it suffer? We don't know, and will never know. Already an ambiguous tone is set here, in which we are shown the actions of characters without being told what they symbolise. The next scene, where Kelly meets Victor (Julian Morris) in a night-club on his birthday also highlights perfectly a certain poetic realism the film tries, and succeeds, and juggling throughout. Deep, romantic cello music plays, signalling a romantic union, but it also fades into the thumping 4/4 beat of traditional club music. The scene is also shot in a way that recalls a similar scene in Xavier Dolan's "I Killed My Mother", all red-lighting and smoke. In a sense, we are being given a real view and a romanticised, stylised view.

This, bravely, does not let up throughout the entire film, this expert balance of feeling and description, the simultaneous poeticisation and commitment to realism. It works brilliantly.

We follow Kelly and Victor home. They flirt. Talk. There's a certain spark here, and it's testament to the actors that we feel it ourselves. They are even comfortable enough around each other to take drugs. As sure as night follows day, they are making love, in a wonderful, beautiful scene. And before we know it, in the throes of their love-making, she has slipped her hands around his wrist and is strangling him. Wordlessly. There's something at the outer fringes of communication going on here, a mutual bond happening before us.

I've described up until about ten minutes into the film, and won't describe much more other than to say that, as you have probably guessed, their relationship is charted from this point onwards, and that the film is equal parts dual-character study and wonderfully rendered love story. I was impressed at the length to which Evans allows us to come to know the pair, and as a result the length to which we come to care about them. I have rarely become so invested in the fate of two characters, and a great, quivering, fragile emotional intensity is achieved by the final frame. There's a master's touch at work here, and it surprises me that this is Evan's first feature. This is the kind of masterpiece a director can only really dream of achieving.

What it hinges on, primarily, is its presentation of human sexuality, and whilst you may be thinking from what I have described that this is a document of an S+M relationship, this is no British '50 Shades of Grey'. Look at the scene where Kelly goes to an actual dominatrix's dungeon, and is visibly uncomfortable, where surely she should be in her element from how she's treated Victor. Instead of being about sadism and masochism in the traditional sense, the film is a document of two people who happen to satisfy each other in the most peculiar ways. The film is more of a rumination on the ways we psychologically medicate and express ourselves through sex.

It also, lovingly, describes British life in a way I greatly related to. I loved the scenes set in pubs, pub gardens, art galleries, and the countryside. Victor so adores the countryside is a lovely little touch that draws out his character and inspires awe in the viewer; we almost feel as one with nature as we watch it. Cinematographer Piers McGrail, who had worked in short films before this, has drawn a picture of the world as sensuous as the kind found in a Malick film, and as sensual as the kind found in a Marquez novel. And he has composed two masterful shots which will stay with me for some time; I won't say what they are, but they are climactic scenes in more ways than one, and focus on the solitude of the characters at respective points. Even picturing them in my head stirs deep emotions in my heart.

This is a rare, rare film. It's a cruel, harsh, wonderful, tender piece of work that with skill and precision uses two actors and their bodies to highlight the minutiae and great wonder of human sexuality. I was reminded of a number of other masterpieces of sex; Crash, Secretary, Shortbus, Shame, and in fact this film stands among them. It is a poem, requiem, hymn, soliloquy to the human body and the things we are capable of doing to ourselves and others.

It could even be one of my films of the decade come 2019, and believe me reader, that is not something I say lightly.

Review of Tyrannosaur (2011)

"Tyrannosaur", a sophomore directorial effort expanding a short film made four years prior, from that most gifted of British actors Paddy Considine, is principally a film about dichotomies. It presents two visions of hell, one terrifying, and one sad, and almost seems to let them battle it out against each other. It also concerns a man with a fractured psyche who has a deep wellspring of rage within him, but enough of a conscience to know that his actions are abhorrent. There's something Nietzschean, or perhaps Freudian, to his character, such is the intensity of the war ongoing between his id and his ego.

This man is called Joseph and is played by Peter Mullan in a naked, brave performance. The very first scene sees him stumbling out of a pub, drunken and rambling, angry at some trivial thing or another. It doesn't take much to set him off. His dog whimpers at him, and he kicks it. The dog dies. The next day, he buries it in his back garden.

Described here, one could very easily hate Joseph, but Considine seems to be telling us that to do so would be taking the easy way out. There's something to his grief, and tenderness, the way he caresses his dogs' paw after the event conveying a deep regret at his actions, and a deeper regret at his inability to stop himself from performing them.

Joseph's world is the sad vision of hell.

Events place him in the company of the timid, Christian, charity shop worker Hannah (Olivia Colman). There is no easy rapport between them to begin with, and theirs is not some love story. Her innate goodness results in her trying to console him, but he lashes out and deeply insults her. Later she returns home to a pleasant suburban house, quietly drinks a lot of wine while sat on the sofa, and when she has passed out her husband James (Eddie Marsan) returns home and urinates on her.

Olivia's world is the terrifying vision of hell. A wedding photo of the pair hangs large in their living room, almost as a reminder of how dire her situation has become and how much has been lost in her life.

Indeed, for me the film's strongest and most affecting writing came in the presentation of their abusive relationship. James decides to beat her up, and when Hannah comes into work the next day, her assertion that she "slipped in the bath" feels as well-rehearsed as an old stagehand performing the role of Banquo. Without ever, really, saying so Considine conveys the rise and fall and stagnation of an entire relationship. James' pitiful apology to Olivia, a scene I had to look away from, is so devastating because it implies a vicious ongoing cycle, and also because it subtly shows James wheedling Olivia into the perpetrator, and him the victim.

These two worlds are presented side by side, with Joseph and Olivia's relationship the focal point in the centre. They are both so hurt, and so wounded, that they see a little of themselves in each other, and hence against their natures get drawn towards each other.

They key to the film's success is that it is so accurate and rings to true about the characters and situations it depicts. I have met people like Joseph, whose lives revolve around rage, alcohol, and self-pity, with just enough humanity to know that if he really, really tried they could turn it around a little. I have met people like Hannah, who carry inside them a small glow of goodness which touches all they speak to. I have even, from afar, observed the actions of people like James, who defy understanding, in the way we can understand Joseph, and appear to have been born into this world as just pure evil.

A vision of the world this bleak needs an accompanying visual design, and thankfully Considine hired cinematographer Erik Wilson, one of the best working today, and he creates an oppressive and dreary atmosphere greyer than the M5. A couple of outdoor scenes I assumed were set indoors; that's how overcast the film is.

At this point you may be wondering why you'd want to see a film like this. A not entirely invalid question, since although this is a first-rate production it is in the service of a miserable plot. Yet... I can't say it transcends the misery, but there's so much artistry surrounding it and so much essential human truth at the centre of the film, and it conveys the themes so cogently and effectively that I can't help but recommend it most highly.

Films like this, I think, are best for allowing us to observe worlds which we may not come into contact with, and hence it deserves respect. Bad things like this do happen, and just as we should not ignore them when they do, so, too, I don't think we should ignore this film.

Review of Lilting (2014)

Few films have made me really consider the nature of communication the way Hong Khaou's masterpiece "Lilting" has, a film in which a fair half of the conversations are ones in which a translator repeats what we just heard in a different language, and then waits until the other person has said what they have to say, and translates it back into English for us. About a quarter of the Chinese dialogue in the film is subtitled, as a result of this. The approach is fascinating because it induces a sense of tranquility in which we study the faces and the intonations of in the languages we understand, and don't, for clues. This is also the only film I think I've ever seen where a character forgets what he's about to say, pauses, forgets, searches for it and then when he realises says it that little bit triumphantly. Think about how often that happens in real life; think about how you never see that in movies; you now have some kind of indication of the level of nuance this film is working at.

The plot is simple, reveals itself slowly, and I won't ruin any of it here because the nature of past and present, memory and events which happened some time ago yet impact the now are integral to the structural precision of the film. All I will say is this- there is an older Chinese woman living in a care home called Junn, played by Cheng Pei-Pei, a man called Richard, played by Ben Whishaw, who is the lover of Junn's son Kai (Andrew Leung), a translator called Vann (Naomi Christie), and Alan (Peter Bowles) who is Junn's potential suitor in the care home. 

All five performances are perfect for the film, but the two stand outs are Whishaw and Pei-Pei- they are the bedrock of this film and the film knows it. Shots are very content just to regard their faces for a little while, and the film does prove the old assertion that the human face is the most interesting thing you can have in a film. Both performances have their modes- Whishaw has a deep rooted sadness forever on his face, which is a marked contrast with Pei-Peis twinkly eyes which occasionally becomes sternness. 

There are so many little things about this film I adored. It is tackling big themes such as the grieving process, love, and the nature of relationships between mother and son, yet it is unafraid of going for big laughs (and getting them). It also manages to be compelling not because of the plot, but because it allows us to be invested heavily in the characters and makes us wish them well. Conversations go on and on and we listen intently, because the characters are actually talking about things that matter, and listening to what the other person has to say. Note how characters will say something to the translator, think about it and rescind it, rephrase it- the film explores how we tailor our words to those we are saying them to. 

Maybe I've made this all seem terribly dull and heavy- it's not. This film has a light, almost jolly tone considering, which is in part down to the rhapsodic cinematography from Urszula Pontikos, and predominantly due to the fierce wit which is a strong undercurrent (there are even penis jokes). 

A special mention must also go to the sound department, Anna Bertmark, Matt Johns and Joakim Sündstrom, whose work allows the film that final element which brings it to life. In various places sound overlaps, along with the occasional time-hopping the film does, and there is always the feeling of a tight control over what we can and can't hear. We become inspired to think about this, and why we are hearing what and what that means, and as a result the film is that bit more immersive. 

It's an ultimately noble enterprise, concerned with fundamentals of human experience, a deeply touching film of sensitivity and depth that lingers long after the credits, for creating real people and allowing us to care about them. It's one of the very best films this year, I adored it and cannot wait to see it again. 

Review of You, The Living (2007)

One cannot review Roy Andersson’s “You, The Living” without first taking into account the manner in which it is made, and I understand that a description of this sort may make the film seem dull, or reduce it in some way, so don’t be put off. The film is nothing more than a series of fifty vignettes, or tableaux, detailing the lives of various characters in one small Swedish town. The camera doesn’t move, or when it does it doesn’t move very much, and that’s in not much more than five of the segments anyway.

It sounds like an experiment, or perhaps the kind of thing that might be better suited to an art-gallery, or an installation somewhere. But where the film sidesteps being gimmicky is in its rigorous and meticulous construction and unwaveringly sympathetic eye towards human nature. It is, by turns, unsettling, funny, warm, inviting, bleak and strangely hopeful. It s a film that does no more than invite you to be alone with your thoughts for a while, and it induced in me a certain strange serenity. Despite the various odd elements here, no film has put me at ease as quickly as this one.

The vignettes that the film is comprised of… Let me describe the first couple. The film opens with a man lying asleep on a settee in a fairly uncomfortable manner. The camera is still, and an unseen train rattles the apartment. The man awakes suddenly and tells the audience that he dreamt he was being bombed. Already, we are gripped; what films break the fourth wall so early on, in such a bizarre manner?

The second vignette, and one of my favourites, concerns a woman on a bench telling her boyfriend to go away, that nobody understands her, that she is miserable. It’s clear that she’s attention seeking, but just when you think all possibilities of the sketch have been exhausted, she breaks out into tuneful, upbeat song.

And so on, and so on, leading on from each other, or not, until the film reaches an ominous yet beautiful and startling conclusion. It’s as if Richard Linklater’s “Slacker” was directed by a metaphysical poet. It’s a gorgeous experience, and each tableaux could be a complete short film on its own. Some are funny, some are scary, some are plain sad, and the film flirts with Kafka in one memorable sequence where a man finds himself placed in an electric chair after his attempt to whisk a tablecloth from out under the table goes awkwardly, horribly wrong.

The film too has a certain dreamy, creamy quality which bolsters the effect that Andersson seems to be going for. The cinematography by Gustav Danielsson is delightful, relishing in the clear, composed images that Andersson has devised. The set design, too, is angular and slightly off-kilter, with Magnus Renfors and Elin Segerstedt having created a world where the images are constantly “not right” in the way that we scrutinise them constantly for details we might not be missing. Yet, every element is right there on screen for us to see; sometimes things will happen which jolt our perceptions, sometimes we stay focussed on one character doing nothing much at all. But we are always gripped.

Perhaps the major strength of this film is how Andersson seems to understand human nature, and is presenting a cross-section of us as a race. We are all here, with our lusts, love, self-loathing, joy, melancholy, our art and our attempts at making each other happy. One sequence, for example, sees a particularly nasty thunderstorm set into the town, and characters start peering out the window and stopping their business just to listen to it; and, believe it or now, I found myself enjoying the thunderstorm as well. This is the kind of film that it is; one which makes you a participant in the actions as much as the actors that Andersson has hired. You cannot help but be involved. This is helped by the jubilant, buoyant Dixieland score, which results in a certain tuneful tone to the film.

There is, no doubt, masses of subtext and ways in which the film can be read that I have missed out on; but I don’t think I’ve missed out on too much, because for me the film is first and foremost a treatise on human nature. That’s no small achievement. Above all, as a series of images, it represents a stripping back to the bare essentials of film, an exercise of formality that manages to draw the viewer in with quiet confidence. It’s a unique, blackly funny film that I cannot recommend enough, for its deadpan, rather sublime vision.

(you may note I have not listed any actors by name; there are so many in this film and their jobs are all so crucial that to name one would mean I would have to name them all. Instead, I shall compromise and link you to the cast IMDb page. They deserve their credit as much as the director- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445336/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast)

Review of Hana-Bi (1997)

Shockingly gruesome violence and moments of genuine love and tenderness make oddly comfortable bedfellows in this brutal yet touching film from Japan’s Takeshi Kitano (or “Beat Takeshi”). The film follows an ex-cop called Nishi, played by Kitano himself, who is no longer on the force due to an incident resulting in the deaths of his co-workers. The film takes a while to arrive at these plot points, however, and marks itself out principally as a terse examination of this character. Take the first scene, where he makes two louts clean his car. When one of them falters, he kicks him to the ground. As with a lot of the characters Kitano plays in his other films, violence is something that comes naturally, too naturally. He’s a more unpredictable variant of the Clint Eastwood “Man With No Name” type.

Yet somewhere, buried deep, he has a heart. We learn that his wife is seriously ill, dying, and through his interactions with her we see that he is a man capable of warmth, love, good humour. One very crucial scene has him robbing a bank to pay for them to take a trip away together, and where another, perhaps lesser film, would have dwelled on the excitement of the heist, Kitano plays the scene off cooly, showing only the elements we need to know. He walks in dressed as a police office. He points the gun at the bank clerk. She understands what to do, hands him the money, and then Nishi leaves.

This stripped back style, which amounts to a tranquillity, pervades the film from beginning to end. The film occasionally comes across as using montage. Take the notorious scene early on where Nishi stabs a man in the eye with a pair of chopsticks. It is a brutal scene, yet it is played in such a manner where we see no actual violence. Nishi picks up the chopsticks, and gestures. We hear a scream. Blood falls onto the table in front. The man, chopsticks in his eyes, falls to the floor. But we never see the chopsticks go into the eyes, and the scene is effective primarily with the power of suggestion. It proves Eisenstein’s theory of montage, that the human mind will make connections between random images.

That’s not to say that there isn’t other, more graphic violence in the film. This is one of those films where when people are shot, they die, and we watch them die. It calls upon the viewer to reflect on the senseless nature of killing. It approaches violence in a manner I found agreeable, not exploitative but instead contemplative, befitting perhaps a Michael Haneke film. It also has a good line in guilt, as we scrutinise Kitano’s expressionless face and find, deep down, a sadness.

Yet for a film concerning itself with much killing, death and anger, what struck me as most moving were the moments of tenderness Kitano peppers his film with. The relationship between Nishi and his wife Miyuki, played by Kayoko Kishimoto, struck me and actually takes up a majority of the second half of the film. I came to admire how Kitano observes Nishi’s capabilities for tenderness. There’s a scene where the pair are playing a guessing game with playing cards. Miyuki is holding the cards up, and time after time Nishi is guessing them correctly. Nishi can see them reflected in the mirror behind Miyuki. It’s a beautifully played scene with a sublime little payoff, and it adds brilliantly to the curious tone Kitano is going for. There is also a scene where Miyuki is putting dead flowers in a jar of water, and a man observes that she must be mad to do so. Nishi beats him half to death as a result. The scene, whilst brutal, I nevertheless found moving because of Nishi’s fierce commitment to his wife.

There’s also a subplot involving Nishi’s ex-partner Horibe, played by Ren Ohsugi. Paralysed from the waist down and abandoned by his wife and children, he is despondent and hopeless, suicidal. Nishi gets him some art materials, and a fair portion of the film is devoted to observed his efforts at artwork. It might seem superfluous, but I liked how it brought into focus the twin peaks of his film, brutality and beauty.

It may not please all people. I came to appreciate the juxtaposition of violence and loveliness, because the two seemed to accentuate each other, but some may find them ill-fitting. The film has a non-linear construction which some viewers may find odd or off-putting, and admittedly the film does take a while to settle into what it’s actually doing. But I found it, above all, to be a poetic and sublime film with a purity to the camerawork and a refreshingly pared back approach to the emotions, which run deep. It’s the antithesis of gangster movies which measure their emotions purely in body-counts and it makes me very eager to see more of Kitano’s work. As a study of guilt, hurt, male rage and love, you won’t see many better examples than this one.