The Sun (Сóлнце) - A. Sokurov

Russian film, Japanese history. Director - Alexander Sokurov, who is best known for his epic Russian Ark -- a film done in 1 take, 1 shot, which would highlight him as slightly more adventurous than most directors we know today. The film is set during the final days of WW2, and is part of a series of films that centre around political figures -- the others being Hitler and Lenin. The Sun's political figure is Japanese Emperor Shōwa Hirohito.

I don't know much about Hirohito, or why he talks really weirdly in this (even when talking Japanese) -- as if his tongue's too big for his mouth, which is intriguing. Perhaps a type of etiquette? The film epitomizes character study. The directory himself claimed not to be interested with politics and what you'd be taught from, say, the History Channel, and so those subjects are partially ignored. Hirohito's in a bunker (as they all are), yet in the Imperial Palace, which is quite cozy, rather than claustrophobic hell. He reminisces not so much on the past, but on his and the future of Japan -- or lack of it. 

It's a film that requires a lot of input from the viewer, introspection on this level is better suited to novels, but Sokurov's work will appeal to (and impress) certain audiences. Refraining from spoiling the plot -- or giving you a history lesson -- this is a film about what the man was or might of been feeling at the time (and throughout his life), his responsibilities, and his reflection on possible war crime accusations, which lead to awkward meetings to dictate peace terms with an American commander. Therefore, this is a film so many viewers will be either bored with, and perhaps bitterly disappointed that they weren't getting a historical romp or a heavy political showing.

Issei Ogata is the best Japanese actor I've seen -- especially in a role like this. What makes this role even more impressive in scale and to accomplish from Ogata's perspective is the fact that this wasn't screened in Japan due to right-wing extremists getting angry over the portrayal of Hirohito, yet Ogata and the other actors still had the guts to work with Russian director (and cinematographer) Sokurov to make this wonderful exploration of a 'human being' in an incredible situation. To think we as individuals, governments, uniting bodies and every country in the world fear atomic warfare -- this was the Emperor of a country watching his world burn before his eyes -- something even the Emperor, who was considered a deity in Japan -- a God amongst men -- couldn't control, or perhaps even understand; little of us can.

雨月物語

My 50th post. Never thought I'd get this many.

Ugetsu is a Japanese film made in 1953 by Kenji Mizoguchi. It's hailed as one of the most important films of the Japanese Golden Age of Cinema and is therefore one of the directors most celebrated films.

I decided to get this because on the Andrei Tarkovsky's wikipedia page there is a list of his top 10 films which includes Ugetsu, as well as another by Mizoguchi.

From what I've read Japanese cinema has always gained a lot of respect from western critics, especially in recent years. It seems to have become quite a trend. This it seems is due to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai inspiring a lot of westerns. I nearly signed up for a Film Studies course, and a lot of that looked at Japanese cinema. I wouldn't consider myself a fan of this era of Japanese films at all mainly because I haven't seen enough, and it doesn't appeal to me.

Ugetsu isn't a Samurai film, but has some elements of it. It's quite a traditional story, and is based on some short stories from Japan. It's based in 16th century Japan.

The film itself is somewhat interesting. The version I have the picture is quite muddy, and the lightning makes some scenes very dark. The subtitles seemed ok, but the sound seemed out of sync. The acting wasn't realistic. I think that all comes with the era that the film was made.

Personally, I think it was quite an average film, nothing to get excited about. I imagine it's an essential Japanese film, and they would probably cover it on that Film Studies course. I think this is more of an 'important' film, rather than a good one. I found it interesting enough to gain enjoyment from despite what would by today's standards be considered major flaws. It gives it a sort of charm along with the traditional storyline. I suppose that what connotes to 'cultural'.

Herz aus Glass

Heart of Glass is a German film directed by Werner Herzog in 1976.

It's set in 18th century Bavaria. As to not spoil the story, a tiny village in Bavaria makes glass and the man who ran the glassworks dies and therefore the village loses vital knowledge: how to make ruby glass.

There is also a guy that makes predictions who comes from the mountains. The entire cast were hypnotised, so this is said to be one of Herzog's experimental films. It's a very strange film with crazy characters as you can imagine.

This film does require viewers to be awake. It can be interpreted as why people follow others. The blind leading the blind. Throughout the film, there is some fantastic scenery from Yellowstone Park in America, and the Skellig islands in Ireland.

Тіні забутих предків

This is a Ukrainian film from 1964 by Sergei Paradjanov called Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. This was the directors first film which won him international acclaim. The amount of colour and the craft and detail of the costumes in this film is stunning.

This film centres around 1 male protagonist and concentrates on Hutsul culture. You will see family warfare, hear unique, wonderful music, and become somewhat accustomed to the traditions of the culture.

This isn't just some family-orientated boring domestic film. I actually watched about 15mins before realising I didn't have the subtitles on. A lot more happens in it than that. This is film is one big visually stunning phantasmagoria. Also... Copious amounts of folklore.. and sorcery!

Memories of Underdevelopment

A Cuban film from 1968 based on the novel.

Wealthy bourgeois lives post-Cuban revolution. A film about alienation and the history of Cuba. He just seems to be bored all the time. I was as well.

It doesn't really go too deep into cultural realms and mainly centres around this guy. His wife left for USA, so he sleeps with a younger girl and gets in trouble for it. Or nearly does.

Not really a bad word said about it online. It's possible to portray alienation from a whole country without making the audience bored, right?

Apparently there's a lot of people (or was) in Cuba like this guy who didn't adjust to life at the time. The author has just recently published "Memories of Overdevelopment".

"The film is told in a highly subjective point of view through a fragmented narrative that resembles the way memories function."
Someone on wikipedia.org wrote that. If the film manages to hold your concentration, I imagine they're probably right.

I felt that with the revolutionary and Cuba being independent the protagonist felt everyone was all the same; dull, lifeless.

Soy Cuba

This is a Soviet/Cuban film from 1964 by Mikhail Kalatozov. It wasn't received very well at the time from either of those countries.

Whilst being shot in B&W it has colour filters that exaggerate contrast. This makes clouds, trees, and other such materials look a bright white, and darker stuff very black.

The camera work in this is really impressive "always moving and soaring over the sugar fields, swooping in and out of urban buildings, following characters down narrow streets."

It has 4 short stories ranging from farmers, students, prostitution, revolution. It's not propaganda, but a beautiful film.

It's difficult to go into much depth. I don't have a degree in film to tell you about the cinematography or Russian history, and you don't need either to watch this. All I can give you is my opinion; this is one of the most gorgeous films I've seen, so much that I went out and bought another by the same director.

Ivan's Childhood

This is a Russian film from 1962 directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.

It's about a Russian boy whose village is destroyed by the Nazis, and he becomes a prisoner. He manages to escape and ends up convincing the Russian army that he'll spy for them, and he does.

This is a fantastic film, and Tarkovsky's first. Apparently, he's not even credited in this. I can't say much about this film without spoiling it.

It's about the loss of childhood innocence. I knew when I was watching it that if I wanted to say something about it, it would just ruin it.

A lot of directors were influenced by this film (Bergman etc), but Tarkovsky itself wasn't pleased with it. I can understand why to some degree, as there's only small bits that emphasise his style.

Oh, if you've seen Come and See, this is similar, although not as terrifying.

AllMovie Link
imdb link

Andrei Rublev

This is a Russian film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky made in 1966. It spans 2 DVDs and is 205 minutes long, and has 7 chapters.

Andrei Rublev was a great 15th century Russian icon painter. This film depicts the lives of people in 15th century Russia, and Tatar invasions.

It's a very difficult film to analyse, as are most Tarkovsky films; there's so much content involved in them. It's quite religious, but it's more about artistic value than religion. It's more a film about the value and power of art and how Rublev deals with all in madness at the time. I've only seen Stalker, but I also plan to see Solyaris, The Mirror, and Ivan's Childhood by the same director. Andrei Rublev is hailed as a master piece. I really want to watch it again, I found it very interesting.

This is a very slow-paced, beautifully photographed film, and really does make me think. I think a lot of the ignorance portrayed in the film, and the fact that it's from USSR 1966 is still relevant in our society. So we don't (usually) resort to outbursts of violence and total slaughter, but people probably would if they could. The Sun thoroughly encourages such behaviour - "GOT HIM!"

My copy of the DVD from Fopp.



Here is a link to a gallery of screenshots I have taken using smPlayer.

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The Bothersome Man

A very average Norwegian film from 2006. However, I felt that it did draw on quite a theme that I'd like to see challenged today. It's about a guy who is alienated from the rest of society. We've seen and read about all that before though whether it be Catcher In The Rye, 1984, dystopias, utopias...

A guy finds himself in a world that has no soul or emotion, and everyone is happy, and everything is 'nice'. He has a corporate job, he goes to bars, he has an attractive partner and home. He tries to escape. That's not totally spoiling I hope? I knew a lot of people that just had to have a 'relationship' for the sake of it. It's a requirement. I wonder if everyone will conform to that eventually. What choice will there be?

I was watching the news once at college and some guy got angry at the Catholic church for disallowing some woman to be a priest or whatever because she was a lesbian. Did he get angry, or was he told to get angry? "They shouldn't be allowed to do that it's not fair" Why not consider that if the religion openly discriminates, having the freedom to do so, as it's a religion -- a set of ideas and beliefs that billions of people have conformed to -- that the woman is just scumming herself anyway? Why be part of it?

I wonder if there are any other films like this? Forget that art house stuff, I don't want to have to pretend messages exist in overly-long, tedious takes. We know there are many utopian films and literature. How many of them are challenging modern society in general though? It's either extremist governments, societies that stray too far from the truth it becomes fantasy/sf, teen-angst, boring contemporary literature, old Soviet-era stuff that was banned, tonnes of books written by female authors about how a girl gets raped and murdered at 15, pretentious you-need-a-degree-to-read-this, etc. There's 'alternative music', there's 'alternative film' and alternative XYZ but is anyone actually directly showing that a lot of people just don't seem to have the qualities that we passionately consider to make us human? Why does so much of this 'cultured' rubbish have to be inaccessible?

Whilst this film has a lot of black humour and portrays the extremes of this 'nice' society I'm definitely someone who can see that it isn't different from the society and people I tend to experience. Whether or not that was the intention of the film... every time I thought it was going to clarify that, it didn't.

Materialism: T.V. adverts, women's magazines, soap operas, 'talent' shows, tabloids... Everyone says that the aforementioned has so much power, but then this implies that the majority of people are mechanical. All of this just ends up suppressing the emotions people have because it's depicted as being inhumane. I was in the supermarket the other day and I saw a woman on the women's magazines. She was on there because she looked "tired" -- are they saying you shouldn't look tired in public, and try and alter that fact with covering yourself in a tonne of makeup? Course they are. And that's what, metaphorically, people have done since magazines and the media have gained power like that.

IMDB link