Pale Flower (1964)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Pale Flower (1964) – M. Shinoda

Muraki has just been let out of prison for a gangland killing but finds that his boss now has a truce with the enemy gang.  He shrugs it off, as his interest it taken up by a mysterious lady gambler who is bored enough by life to try anything. Muraki tags along, sort of drifting through the underworld. Masahiro Shinoda creates a stylish “new wave” environs for this tired hard-boiled yakuza to haunt, all moody high contrast B&W.  The gambling dens where they play hanafuda (a sort of Japanese blackjack with wooden cards) are just parts of the void where time and money disappear. In the end, to an English-language opera by Purcell, Muraki carries out one last job, to show his lady gambler true nihilism. This film created the mould that later Yakuza films would seek to fill.

The Last Wave (1977)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Last Wave (1977) – P. Weir

This is Weir’s white western take on the dreamtime, the aboriginal spiritual plane.  He doesn’t purport to understand and he passed the script through some tribal elders and added material that they suggested.  The indigenous actors here, apart from David Gulpilil (who famously appeared in Walkabout), are non-professionals brought in by Nandjiwarra Amagula who plays Charlie, the elder with the magical powers. Richard Chamberlain is the protagonist with whom we identify as he makes contact with a secretive Aboriginal group through his involvement as their lawyer in a murder case and with the dreamtime through a series of premonitions and visions.  The film is full of foreboding from start to finish and a persistent low rumbling on the soundtrack keeps viewers on edge. A very mysterious film, filled with beautiful images, that ties up some loose ends, but leaves an ominous feeling in the mind. Perhaps this has something to do with white destruction of indigenous cultures?

Kundun (1997)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Kundun (1997) – M. Scorsese

Here we have a biopic of the early life of the current (14^th) Dalai Lama – from his selection as the reincarnation of the 13^th when only a child to his upbringing by Regents (with his own previously poor family given a privileged place) and spiritual training to his growing awareness of politics and the threat of the newly communist Chinese (who subsequently invaded).  Although the film tends to drag in some of the early phases (with the D. L. played sequentially by four different non-professional Tibetan actors, some related to the 14^th himself), it picks up momentum as it progresses, aided by Philip Glass’s score, until I ceased to notice time passing (a good thing).  Of course, the fact that the actors were made to speak English (undoubtedly a concession to the American audience) is annoying, but in other respects Scorsese acquits himself admirably. Indeed, he manages to create a sort of spiritually aware state with intercut images from dreams or visions and, importantly, calls attention to the ongoing plight of the Tibetans. In fact, this Dalai Lama is still in exile in India, hoping to return to Lhasa. Moreover, the film looks beautiful, as photographed by Roger Deakins.  Don’t confuse this with that Brad Pitt film (as I seem to have done in waiting so long to view it).