Anyway, I just wanted clean up a little list of albums and films I had that I feel I could write about but won't get round to doing anyway. In the music department, I mention: Björk's new Medúlla album which is nowhere as strange as everybody seems to claim it is; it sometimes seems even more approachable than some of her earlier stuff. Then, for contrast the 5678s, bringing us light-hearted noise from the 1950s.
Then there are Soulwax with their album Any Minute Now which may just have the best cover art of the year and rather good music as well; Buy it on vinyl as the cover will be larger! Then come The Dresden Dolls. Modern Piano and singing Old-School stuff; Not too bad. Then The Arcade Fire who got overwhelming reviews everywhere; Not bad at all; But that overwhelming? Yes! Then there are Bloc Party; Nice, accessible stuff; Not overwhelmingly original, perhaps. Then, from a completely different and more acoustic universe, Ben Kweller who sings along to his guitar. Then, from a similarly acoustic, but more musical universe, José González. Then, there's Feist's quiet and sympathetic record Let it Die with two extra tracks on the UK/iTMS version; She also sang some songs with the Kings of Convenience. Then, more on a classical theme, are Max Richter's Notebooks; Quite different and interesting, that one. Then, for more fairly standard indie tunes are Dogs Die in Hot Cars; Not exceedingly brilliant, perhaps, but good music for happy days. Then – and finally – Brian Wilson's SMILE should be mentioned; Both for broken capitalisation and that it's OK to listen to despite its age; Not exactly my cup of tea, though.
Right, that was that. At your service as unenlightening as I can possibly be. Next, let me mention the names of a few films, beginning with Before Sunrise and Before Sunset; Those are a sweet idea and the whole 'sequel' thing didn't work too badly; It's cool how a film can consist of continuous movement and talking only; On the other hand I found it a bit too exhausting; Too much talking, with people not having too much to say anyway. Then there is the German film Was nützt die Liebe in Gedanken (Love in thoughts); A strange 1920s era film starring Daniel Brühl and August Diehl who are probably among Germany's best young actors; Sex, drugs and tragedy in short; Not a happy film, not exactly my cup of tea though. Then, on the more factual side, we have The Corporation which is as depressing as its title; With its three parts adding up to a total of well over two hours it's a bit too long as well. In a similar spirit, there is Outfoxed, another documentary; Not art either, not nice. Then, on more artistic but not necessarily more uplifting backgrounds work some Asian films, such as Taboo directed by Nagisa Oshima which features a slightly sleepy Takeshi Kitano but seems to be mainly about a pretty boy who joins a troupe of slightly gay samurai; Right, it's not quite as absurd as that but I am tempted to claim that the story could've been better; good enough to match the nice imagery perhaps. Then there is the Korean film Seom, The Isle which completely takes place in little one-room holiday flats on a lake; People are quite weird as well and we see fishing, prostitution, other killing and suicide attempts. Then there is the completely different, very strange and painful Old Boy; A very harsh Korean movie, that. Then there is Hero which is stunningly beautiful and I liked very much. Then there is Cinema Paradiso which is fifteen years old already but very nice. Finally there is The Bourne Supremacy which is a poorly filmed instantly forgettable story.
I think that's it for the moment. I may just want to add a note that (during an outage of our network) I found out that I can use our neighbours' wireless network from my room. But funnily the reception signal strength varies greatly. Moving the Powerbook by a few centimetres will let the signal go from none to three bars in the Airport menu item. Very odd.
]]>The story is about a blind samurai, Zatoichi - played by Takeshi Kitano with bleached hair - who gets by as a masseur and gambler (according to the dictionary zato (座頭) can mean both blind man and masseur in Japanese – and the same letters but pronounced zagashira can mean 'leader of a troupe' which might explain the dancing), hiding his proficiency with the sword. His successes in both fighting and gambling are based on the alertness on his remaining senses which server him rather well. Arriving at a small village he gets to know the local 'mafia' and ends up killing all the bad guys. On the way there we see quite a bit of sword fighting, complete with splashing blood and victims who look 'more dead' than in other films. Only few limbs are removed and most people are slain quickly an unspectacularly.
Still, those scenes are quite intense, with Zatoichi always looking as if he is in pain when drawing his sword, which doubles as a cane, and slaying his opponents. Everything is beautifully filmed once more and I found the film looking quite 'light'. Despite being gory, the fighting never looked grave and certain scenes were very rhythmic. In fact, at a few stages the film looked a bit like a musical: Peasants plowing in the rhythm of some electronic blips and beats being played, the rain joining into that rhythm when the beat reappeared and finally the whole film ending in a big stomping and tap-dancing scene the purpose of which isn't clear to me.
You'll probably enjoy this film if you are into the whole Kill Bill thing. However, the emphasis on the fighting and its choreography isn't as strong in Zatoichi than it is in Kill Bill. The whole story seems to be well known in Japan, btw, and is set to play in past times (there must have been a TV series in the sixties on the topic).
]]>
After not having been at the movies for what feels like ages, I was happy to see that Takeshi Kitano's Dolls / ドールス [official, IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes]was on at a local arts cinema. After having seen Hana Bi and Brother before, I was quite keen to see this film as well.
In fact I feared that the film wouldn't be screened in Göttingen at all and had already downloaded a copy through the wonders of file sharing. But seeing that the film was being screened after all, I could save myself the effort to track down the matching subtitles file and watch a properly subtitled film on the big screen instead – or what is considered a 'big screen' in a small cinema anyway. And it was well worth it: The film is great, slowly paced and has fantastic colours and filming that would have been lost when watching a compressed version on a computer anyway.
Judging from the other two films I had seen, I expected there would be some Japanese mafia action again. And while this wasn't absolutely absent, I should stand corrected. Instead, the film contains three separate tragic stories that focus on love and persistence.
One of them is about a couple that is split when he wants to marry his boss' daughter instead. She tries to kill herself, he learns about it at her wedding and takes her slightly demented self from the hospital. They walk the country tied together with a rope – an image strangely reminding me of The White Stripes' video for Hotel Yorba.
But I don't want to tell everything that happens here – it's not a lot anyway, despite the film being 114 minutes long. Long in a good way. And in a strange way: While it certainly was slow at times, it wasn't slow in a boring way. Just imagine the length – and perceived length – of a scene where two people are filmed from a distance and walk all the way across the screen. That's a long time for little action.
However, the images are so gorgeous that you don't want the scene to end. The colours are incredibly intense – and not in an artificial way like in One Hour Photo, say, but in a way that makes the reds look redder the greens greener and the whites whiter – naturally. In a few scenes they walk through valleys that are full of red-leaved trees.
Looking further than the colours, the rest of the film is good looking as well. Be it the reassuringly solid sounding doors, the boldly yellow car (did it inspire Kill Bill or didn't it?), the ever-so-clear and perfectly rolling tears and raindrops, or the subtly stylish clothes. Those things are there to be looked at twice.
]]>