Miyamoto Musashi (1954)/Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955)/Duel at Ganryu Island (1956)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Miyamoto Musashi (1954)/Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955)/Duel at Ganryu Island (1956) – H. Inagaki

Also known as Samurai I, II, and III, Hiroshi Inagaki’s five-hour epic (released in three parts), tells the story of fabled samurai Musashi Miyamoto (1584-1645; played by Toshiro Mifune, of course), who progresses from headstrong youth to samurai-in-training to both wise and strong. This may be a version of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey (it is from a novel by Eiji Yoshikawa) but undoubtedly Japanese in content and execution.  The young orphaned Musashi cannot control his strength or his emotions but after fighting in the Battle of Sekigahara (1600) and subsequently being captured by a monk (Kurôemon Onoe) and imprisoned and forced to study the way of the samurai, he emerges a more focused man.  Every woman in the film falls in love with him but he chooses to suppress his desire, even for his true love Otsu (Kaoru Yachigusa). Instead he embarks on a training mission – to test his strength against the warriors of the house of Yoshioka.  There are some nefarious and deceptive characters surrounding the head of this house, including Toji (Daisuke Katô) who seeks to use Musashi’s former benefactress and her daughter Akemi (Mariko Okada) against him.  But ultimately he prevails and with compassion.  However, he attracts the attention of a more willful but also skilful and power-hungry samurai Kojiro Sasaki (Kôji Tsuruta) who now wishes to challenge him to a duel to determine who will be the Shogun’s swordsmanship teacher.  Musashi declines, postponing the duel for a year, and heads off to be a farmer, protecting a small village from bandits, with a young boy and an old reformed scoundrel as disciples.  He grows in wisdom but he faces two final challenges:  the acceptance of love from Otsu and the ultimate dule with Sasaki.  I’ve omitted numerous minor characters and a few subplots from this description but suffice it to say that the end result is epic indeed.  Of course, it feels a bit bombastic as the epic Westerns of the 1950s also feel – but it is also stunning in its beauty (in Eastmancolor, but sadly not widescreen format).  Duels take place at sunset or in silhouette.  The characters and objects are laid out in harmony across the screen. The colors of the sky, the ground, the water, are subtle (if occasionally artificial), even as the costumes may be brilliant in their hues.  Mifune handles the role with his usual aplomb (and the occasional familiar mannerism from his Kurosawa films).  Although bushido (the code of the samurai) is at the heart of the film, we don’t actually learn much about it – instead, this is a drama of the heart and the sword, leaving history and philosophy behind.  Inagaki manages it all well, though one wonders how it would have looked with Kurosawa at the helm.  Less stately, more dynamic perhaps?  That said, I was fully absorbed by the beauty and spectacle on offer here.   

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) – W. Dieterle

I approached this as a horror movie and, apart from Charles Laughton’s terrifying make-up as Quasimodo (the hunchback of the title), it is clearly not.  Instead, it is an historical drama (one hesitates to say romance) drawn from Victor Hugo’s novel, detailing events at the dawn of the 16^th century in France.  Louis XI is king (Harry Davenport) and he seems open to the new era, including the printing press (and the ideas it spreads) and immigration (by gypsies and others). However, his cruel chief justice Frollo (Cedric Hardwicke) is not.  This causes problems for gypsy Esmerelda (Maureen O’Hara) who entrances everyone with her dancing but who is nearly hung on the orders of Frollo (who has killed her love interest and pinned the crime on her, to suppress and reject his desire for her).  She only escapes because of a last minute rescue by Quasimodo who she had earlier pitied and soothed when he was punished and pilloried (for attempting to capture her on Frollo’s command). That’s the main story but a significant subplot tells of a secret beggar’s kingdom, led by Clopin (Thomas Mitchell) who captures the poet Gringoire (Edmond O’Brien in his film debut) and nearly hangs him except he is also pitied and then “married” ‘in a beggars’ wedding to Esmerelda.  I wish there was more of this hidden world in the film with its claustrophobic detail and crafty denizens. Indeed, the money spent on sets and costumes here must have been extravagant; apparently the Notre Dame cathedral alone cost $250K, with its belltower a significant element of the story (Quasimodo is, of course, the bellringer).  Laughton, known for his sneering eloquence, is surprisingly mute for most of the film, instead expressing himself non-verbally, impressively under all that makeup.  Apparently this made quite an impression on those who saw it in childhood and it still has the power to bewitch today.

  

The Edge of the World (1937)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Edge of the World (1937) – M. Powell

Shot on location at Foula, one of the tiny Shetland Islands off the northwest coast of Scotland, this may be director Michael Powell’s first masterpiece. Some suggest that it is very different from the highly stylized Technicolor pictures that Powell later made with his key collaborator Emeric Pressburger (e.g., The Red Shoes, 1948; Black Narcissus, 1947) – but in truth this seems not too far distant from some of their masterpieces (such as I Know Where I’m Going, 1945, which takes place in the same general locale).  There is an almost surreal pictorial beauty here with land and seascape, flora, and fauna sharing almost equal billing with the human characters of the story (Terence Malick must have taken inspiration here).  Foula is impressive, with its steep cliffs topped by green pastures and rocky coast lashed by the sea but it is a stand-in for St. Kilda, an island in the Hebrides which was vacated by its residents after they decided that their way of life could not be sustained in the modern world.  And this is the plot that Powell pursues – he examines a community that is grappling with whether it can sustain itself as its young people choose to leave for the mainland and better jobs and less harsh conditions.  A young Niall MacGinnis (who I know best from Curse of the Demon, 1957) plays Andrew Gray who wishes to remain on the island with his father (the great Finlay Currie) and accepts a challenge from Robbie Manson (Eric Berry) who wishes to leave – the challenge is to climb the steepest cliff barehanded and the winner will decide the fate of the island.  It’s a nail-biting sequence.  Although Gray wins, his love for Manson’s sister Ruth (Belle Chrystall) drives him to leave the island (and his yet-unknown unborn son).  Soon the whole community plans to leave, but the Manson patriarch (John Laurie) stubbornly resists leaving without first gathering some rare eggs.  The plot itself is almost beside the point here because Powell’s sense of the environment, here at the nearly literal edge of the world (or at least the UK), is spectacularly mystical.  Surely, this would be a destination for reflection on beauty and on human insignificance in the grand scheme of things (some great superimposition shots suggest the same).  Powell’s focus is instead on the loss of culture and community with modernity, a subtle theme that can be traced through his work.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) – H. Miyazaki

Was this Miyazaki’s first big success?  It led directly to the formation of Studio Ghibli (which we all know is famous for Totoro, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and others directed by Miyazaki but also Grave of the Fireflies and others directed by his colleague, Isao Takahata).  In keeping with Miyazaki’s strong environmentalist beliefs, Nausicaä takes place in a post-apocalyptic dystopian future where the Earth has been destroyed and a great Sea of Decay has devoured much of the usable arable land.  The Sea is home to gigantic (mutant?) insects who go on rampages as well as plants that emit toxic spores and gases (humans must wear gas masks to enter – and Miyazaki’s masks make them look like dogs with floppy jowls).  Nausicaä herself is a princess from one of the remaining safe places, a valley tucked away between mountains near the ocean, home to powerful winds.  She has mastered the skill of riding a sort of glider that allows her to travel far and wide across the Sea of Decay, where she has learned to communicate with the insects and derive some of the secrets of the Earth.  Unfortunately, some of the other remaining humans (living at some distance from the Valley) have become (or remained) warlike and seek to take over other countries and also to destroy the Sea of Decay to regain ownership of Earth from the insects.  They seek to resurrect a giant war god in order to do this. Don’t ask me to understand the plot – it is based on a longer manga that Miyazaki himself wrote and the film undoubtedly contains ellipses that make it hard to truly grasp its details. But it isn’t necessary to “get it” all – instead, you can let the amazingly creative and bizarre imagery wash over you, knowing that it was all hand-drawn back in the early 1980s.  The landscapes/seascapes are hauntingly beautiful, filled with expressionistic flowers and scary but sympathetic bugs.  The “message” is never didactic, always implicit – even in 1984 we knew about the coming environmental collapse.  If you love Ghibli and haven’t seen Nausicaä, then it is a must, certainly ranking near the top of Miyazaki’s oeuvre.  (For the record, I watched the Japanese version).

The Woman of Rumour (1954)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Woman of Rumour (1954) – K. Mizoguchi

Sixty-five years later, it is refreshing (and somewhat disconcerting) to see how clearly Mizoguchi’s film addresses women’s plight in a male-dominated world (disconcerting because the “me too” movement suggests how little progress has been made).  Kinuyo Tanaka (one of the director’s favourite actresses and a tremendous one) runs a brothel in Kyoto and is successful enough to send her daughter Yukiko (Yoshiko Kuga) away to a good college in Tokyo. By all accounts, she is a good madam but when her daughter returns (in modern dress and short haircut), she rejects the business on principle because it subjugates women. We do see some awful drunken men groping the geishas/courtesans and a condescending rich man offering to help run the business (Tanaka’s husband is long deceased) … for a price.  But the main dynamic in the film involves a young doctor (Tomoemon Otani) who has been tending to the girls at the brothel (who have regular illnesses due to their line of work) and is also being well looked after by Tanaka.  Indeed, she is willing to pay 2.5 million yen to set him up with his own clinic, despite the fact that this will require her to mortgage the brothel and/or accept a loan from the sleazy businessman.  At first, it seems that she is trying to pair the doctor with her daughter and the two do soon fall in love – but alas it turns out that Tanaka’s madam really wanted the doctor for herself.  Mizoguchi cruelly twists the knife by having the characters attend a performance of a Noh drama that ridicules and older woman who has fallen in love with a younger man (the double standard should be more than apparent to viewers as they see the parade of older salarymen visiting the young geishas).  Of course, the doctor has been a willing recipient of Tanaka’s affection and gifts, so it feels a terrible betrayal when he rejects her for the daughter.  But late in the film Yukiko feels sympathy for her mother (or empathy because Yukiko too was rejected by a suitor and nearly committed suicide) and this extends to the young women who work in the brothel.  In a surprising turn of events, she joins their side.  I can’t quite reconcile the film’s final scenes with my thesis that Mizoguchi is an early feminist but I am trying – the brothel business continues with the daughter in charge.  Has she found that this is how she can support women because (pathetically) men and the world will never change?  Sixty-five years later, it turns out that this could be true.

There Was a Father (1942)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

There Was a Father (1942) – Y. Ozu

Yasujirô Ozu’s wartime portrait of a single dad’s self-sacrifice was likely exactly what the country wanted in order to spur young men to the call of duty.  His favourite actor, Chishû Ryû, plays the widower schoolteacher who sends his only son away to the best schools (thereby living alone without the comforts of family) to offer him the best opportunity for the future.  However, it is possible to question whether Ozu felt uniformly positive about such decisions.  Early in the film Horikawa (Ryû) gives up teaching because of a tragedy that happened under his watch, but this may have deprived a generation of students from a good teacher (later, he scolds his own son, who has grown up to become a teacher, when he also thinks about leaving the profession).  Moreover, as Tony Rayns points out, it is not too difficult to imagine the father’s dying words echoing the sentiments of Setsuko Hara (in Tokyo Story, 1953) about life being essentially disappointing; instead he claims to be satisfied that his son has turned out to be a good person and that he has found him a wife to support him. Of course, it is possible to be disappointed for oneself and satisfied for others at the same time and this may be what is/was required in Japan (although the disappointment must be accepted if it is even acknowledged).  So, the film has a tinge of ambivalence about it and this is reinforced by Ozu’s trademark “still life” scenes that punctuate the film’s major sequences.  Often, these are stone lanterns or the beautiful countryside locales where the early portions of the film (and later ryokan scenes) take place.  During these moments, one reflects.  Naturally, I thought of my own dad and the things he did/does for me, even after my parents divorced and even after I moved far away (as the son in the film does).  I also thought of myself as a dad and questioned whether I am doing enough for my two sons.  Ultimately, the wartime context could be completely ignored (and indeed the war is barely mentioned in the film, perhaps partly due to US censors) and the film would still be humane and transcendent as much of Ozu’s oeuvre was.  Worth seeking out.

The Favourite (2018)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Favourite (2018) – Y. Lanthimos

Director Yorgos Lanthimos is known for some very weird films:  Dogtooth (2009), The Lobster (2015), and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017).  These films are all very “high concept” and never less than interesting and intriguing (if not always fully successful).  So, I was surprised when I discovered his most recent film was a British period drama – the early 1700s, an era of high curly wigs and extreme foppishness (see Peter Greenaway’s The Draughtman’s Contract, 1982, for another example).  Queen Anne ruled (from 1702 to 1714) and she is played in the film by Olivia Colman who won the Best Actress Oscar for her frumpy, childish, but self-aware monarch.  Everyone else at court is trying to manipulate Anne or curry her favour, including sexually.  At the start of the film, her “favourite” is Lady Sarah of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz) who uses her association with the queen (friend and lover) to her advantage by acting for the queen in parliament and generally ruling the roost.  When Abigail (Emma Stone), Sarah’s cousin (who has lost her nobility due to a wanton father), shows up begging for a place as a servant, no one could expect the political and personal machinations that she sets in train.  Every critic mentions All About Eve (1950) which also featured a combative female rivalry between a faux-naïve ingénue and a salty veteran and it’s not far wrong.  The script here (by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara) is similarly biting but also far more ribald.  You never quite know who will end with the upper hand and the experience of humiliation is rife -- for all the central characters (including the men who race ducks in their wigs and make-up, relegated to minor parts).  In this way, Lanthimos captures the current zeitgeist where we see women moving to take and exert power, forging alliances when they need to, often acting pragmatically and cynically but sometimes acting sincerely and from the heart (those who do not get their comeuppance). In the end, it is hard to ferret whether there is a verdict about gender relations or human relations here, but it is enough to enjoy the wicked tete-a-tete (a tete) set among the beautifully set decorated environs, shot with natural light, and marvellous tracking shots. Lanthimos can’t help but throw in a few very weird moments as well.  Thumbs up!  

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Hour of the Wolf (1968) – I. Bergman

I had this on videocassette for many years but it seems almost like a different film now on blu-ray and rescued from my decaying memory traces.  I did not recall that the story is essentially told by Alma Borg (Liv Ullmann), filling in the gaps of the narrative from the details revealed in her husband’s diary (Johan Borg played by Max von Sydow).  He is an artist, a tortured artist who may be coming apart at the seams.  They are holidaying on an island in the Swedish archipelago.  During his time out painting, Johan begins to meet and interact with other residents on the island, who live in a large castle (and perhaps they represent his patrons and critics).  He develops an antagonistic relationship with them and in recounting them to Alma, he makes them sound exactly like demons.  In truth, one of them is the spitting image of Bela Lugosi and all of them seem perverse or perverted.  Or perhaps this is all in Johan’s head – we can never really be sure whether they are just figments of his imagination or not (except that Alma does seem to be present when they are around on some occasions).  Johan becomes increasingly haunted and stops sleeping at night (including during the Hour of the Wolf when it is said that more people die than at any other time).  In one of their late night sessions, Johan tells Alma of a recent experience (shot in flashback in stark high contrast bleached out b&w) where he was followed by a young boy who wouldn’t leave him alone until Johan felt so antagonised that he killed the boy; of course, it is hard not to think of the boy as Johan’s younger self and the dialogue often suggests splintering or loss of identity.  Eventually Johan has a violent break with reality, shoots his gun at Alma, and flees.  We are left only with Alma’s version of events and the diary.  One reviewer even suggested that this is all part of Alma’s imagination!  In any case, Bergman manages to wed his interest in the artist’s place in society (here an object of possibly unwanted attention and judgment) with some of the imagery of the gothic horror film (ravens make an appearance). Perhaps this doesn’t rank with the all-time classics from the Swedish master (the characters remain too distant from us) but it isn’t like anything else you’ve seen.

The Iron Giant (1999)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Iron Giant (1999) – B. Bird

Set in the 1950s, this animated film might have enough (American) references for adults as it has action designed for kids.  A 100-foot-tall robot crash lands on Earth and is discovered by a young boy (voiced by Eli Marienthal) who befriends him and teaches him to be good, not evil (“guns kills”).  It is cute and often beautifully animated (taking place in Maine with lovely fall foliage).  When the robot gets hurt, his various parts are able to crawl back together to rebuild him. With the help of a beatnik artist (voiced by Harry Connick, Jr.), Hogarth (the boy) successfully hides the Iron Giant from the American authorities, specifically the CIA agent Kent Mansley (voiced by Christopher McDonald) ... for a time.  Soon they discover that the robot has been designed to defensively destroy anything that attacks it (with laser weapons of the future) and soon the US Army shows up to do just that (believing it may be a Russian attack).  In the end, for all its violence (including an atomic bomb which scared my 6-year-old), I felt a rather hard-to-miss Christian theme – after all, the robot dies for our sins (and may be resurrected, which reassured everyone).  Setting this aside, the film’s message that it is better to be good than evil and that guns/violence are horrible is worthwhile indeed.  Still, my 9-year-old gave it only 2 ½ stars (“too boring”) but the younger boy was much more impressed (4 stars).  I enjoyed it a lot, particularly for the early scenes where the robot is learning about its environment and some silly humour.  Yes, it brought a tear to my eye but I’m a pushover.

  

The Heiress (1949)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Heiress (1949) – W. Wyler

Adapted from Henry James’ Washington Square (1880, but set in the 1840s) for the stage and subsequently this film, directed by William Wyler.  Olivia de Havilland plays Catherine Sloper, an awkward young woman who has inherited money from her deceased mother and is due to come into a large fortune from her father, a doctor played by Ralph Richardson.  Given her shyness and poor social graces (undoubtedly a product of her father’s glorification of her mother and disdain for her in comparison), she has had no suitors...until Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift) appears to sweep her off her feet (aided and abetted by her widowed aunt played by Miriam Hopkins).  Unfortunately, despite his charm and good looks, he has squandered whatever small inheritance he once had and thus garners the doctor’s displeasure.  Indeed, Dr Sloper quickly surmises that Townsend is nothing more than a fortune hunter, seeking his daughter’s hand only because of her money.  However, whether it is the screenplay, Wyler’s direction or the acting by de Havilland (Best Actress), Richardson, and Clift (the latter with a jarring accent and method technique), we spend much of the film balanced on the edge of the proverbial knife, not knowing for sure whether Townsend really does love Catherine (as she so dearly wishes) or whether he is indeed mercenary (it is very easy to suspect the latter – but he is very charming).  Aaron Copland’s Oscar-winning score (perhaps tinkered with by the production team) is strange – both minimalist and heavily accented by swelling strings – its intrusiveness actually enhanced the picture.  As things play out, we remain on Catherine’s side, wanting and yearning for her to have things work out as they should – and of course, in the end, they finally do.  In the end, that’s satisfying but it is the tension derived from the ambiguity surrounding Morris’s love and the difficulty of knowing whether to choose truth or deception (when either one or the other might actually prove more beneficial for Catherine) that really elevates the film to something special. 

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) – S. Kubrick

Watching this masterpiece again after a few years, I’d forgotten how brisk and suspenseful it is -- but its audaciousness can never fade.  Stanley Kubrick (and writer Terry Southern) took a nuclear panic thriller and turned it into a comic satire – but the underlying reality of “our life with the bomb” keeps terror and dread and sadness and shock only barely at bay; the comedy is a fig leaf on our existential horror.  The plot is straightforward:  General Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden) goes off his rocker and orders a nuclear strike on the USSR from the wing of B-52 bombers flying just two hours from their targets.  Although Group Captain Mandrake (Peter Sellers), an RAF officer serving as his executive officer tries to talk him out of it, he just gets nonsense about fluoridisation and precious bodily fluids in return. When General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott), Commander of the Joint Chiefs, finds out, he heads to the War Room to confer with President Merkin Muffley (also Peter Sellers).  In the meantime, we focus on one plane, piloted by Major “King” Kong (Slim Perkins) that is steadily making its way to the target. In fact, once Attack Code R has been triggered they can’t be contacted (except with a special code) and can’t turn back.  You can see the lines of the thriller plot here:  Muffley calls in the Soviet Ambassador and gets the Premier on the line but they soon discover that the Russians have invented a Doomsday Machine that will automatically trigger in the event of an attack and shroud the world in radiation for 93 years.  Muffley’s advisor Dr Strangelove (a former Nazi, also played by Peter Sellers) offers not so reassuring advice about living underground (and developing a new world order).  It’s all played for laughs, broad ones.  Who can forget that shot of Slim Pickens riding the bomb like a bucking bronco to its destination and the final shots of mushroom clouds played off to the strains of “We’ll Meet Again”? It’s all so pitch perfect and sadly, it can never become dated.  I guess we’ll have to laugh to keep from crying (now it’s anyone’s guess whether global warming or nuclear destruction will get us first!).