Pointing with Guns

Takashi Iishi's Black Angel (Kuro no Tenshi) is a stylish, yet rather fragmentary yakuza thriller. In the story, the orphaned Ikko has become of age, and has come back to Japan from the US to revenge the murder of her parents. Including well-cut hair, pointing guns at the pool and tough men with baseball bats at the local game hall, the movie proceeds from a killing to another, fueled by personal traumas, lust, greed and alliances.

In the back cover, the director Iishi is said to be "More inventive than Quentin Tarantino". However, I think that even though Ikko resembles Black Mamba in Kill bill as a vengeful and stylish heroine, and the fighting scenes are quite aesthetic, the film is not even near the ingeniously paced and coherent work of Tarantino. Despite some interesting ideas in for example in the context of action, the fighting seems to have comparatively little coreography. What is more, even the motives of the main characters are presented somewhat too briefly, and sometimes the scenes seem to change quite abruptly, in the end making the film a series of flashbacks.

While watching Black Angel, my concentration was riveted at one moment (for example due to the explicit sex scenes), yet lost the next, I felt convinced at one time and doubting the strength of the characters at another. I have not seen any more Iishi's directing, but I am curious about the yakuza film genre. I find the set of clichés from drowning men at the harbor, the neat suits and tough ladies quite faschinating. The movie seemed typical, yet promising elaboration of that genre, but to me, was not a particularly enlightening experience.

the Soft Sound on the Hotel Carpet

The name of my blog refers to one of the film experiences I have had that have created a special place within me, through its aesthetics, philosophy and characters: Lost in Translation by Sofia Coppola. With alienating music such as Squarepusher and Air it presents a leisurely paced visual representation of Tokyo, coming in contact with a foreign culture, and finding solace in the meeting of strangers.

The hotel where the characters stay in, with its bar tables illuminating the night and the people talking next to it, the TV shows in sleepless nights, lying around in bed and talking about such distant and foreign things as home, take the viewer to a timeless world. Full of daily little oddities of the Japanese, and with the focus of two characters approaching each other on a platonic level, it is entertaining, peaceful and deep at the same time.

Bill Murray and Charlotte Johansson make an interesting contrast with their age difference - but in the end, their problems are similar. The other one has not made up her mind what to do, and the other one seems to be alienated from the path he had chosen - illuminating the similarities between teenage and mid-life crisis.

For its philosophical depth, the nuanced and symbolically layered settings, creative camerawork and unusually downtoned yet interesting relationship between a man and a woman, this movie is not only my favourite Western movie taking place in Japan, but one of the best films I have ever seen.

The Land of Drowning Fish

Like the Chinese "Postman in the Mountains", watching the Korean Five Seasons (Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom) by Ki-duk Kim, despite its enchanting scenery, required patience. With very little dialogue, the story of the buddhist monk apprentice progresses through the seasons, revolving around the floating temple upon a secluded lake. Including tormented fish, a couple of open sex scenes and several suicides, the film blends the natural imagery with typically Korean psychological horror.

However, the foreign symbols and religious meanings layered in the Five Seasons present a chance to meditate. The patiently presented bowls and ponds with fish, the Chinese characters on the temple walls, and the myriad statuettes set a beautiful, yet ambivalent stage for regret, atonement and painful deeds of purification.

I have only seen two Korean films so far, the other one being the terrifying masterpiece the Isle. Some equalities between these two have made me question whether the Korean film industry has a special policy concerning animal cruelty. In the Isle, a fish was cut up and made to swim, and in the Five Seasons, a fish died from being left tied to a rock.

Some time ago, a more knowledgeable friend confirmed my intuition that Korean horror movies are often very distressing. The symbolic, cruel deeds in complex and intimate interpersonal settings, imagery of hiding the face and suicides seem to be recurring themes in Korean films. They probably reflect the strict Korean beliefs about shame, the suicide rate in this socially tightly knit country being almost as high as in Japan.

However, the Five Seasons adds up to more than a horror film. It presents a cyclic view of life through all the hardships, and eventually manages to present the concept of new beginning in the new genration. The structure follows the classical Chinese model of argumentation - starting from a saying, building the progression of the story upon it, and presenting it again in the end as confirmed through experience.

Personally, I found the cyclic argumentation pattern made the story too transparent and fatalistic to my taste - like an antique tragedy in a ruthless world of ideals where you see the characters you sympathise with inevitably ruining their lives. However, I think the beautifully presented foreign sceneries and objects, together with the unusual patience of the camerawork may generally make it worth watching.