Poster: Chris
Sanshiro Sugata: It's true...Kurosawa sprang right out of the gate with a lot of invention and originality. Some very strange shots - as Sanshiro agrees to become the follower of the Judo master, he symbolically leaves his shoes behind as he pulls his instructor's rickshaw. Rather than leave that metaphoric gesture alone, Kurosawa shows the shoes in a variety of conditions: laying in the town square, in the rain, being chewed on by a dog (?), stuck to a fencepost, drifting down the river. It's oddly hilarious, awesome, and surely unique. Fight scenes are filmed with gusto, though with a strange bent on what looks badass - lots of tracking shots of how far someone was thrown, cracks in the wall, paper windows falling down on them. The composition in the field for the final battle is epic and overwhelming against the puny human figures - Phineas rightly notes Kurosawa (and all the classic directors)'s restpect and awe for nature - storms, wind, blizzards, rivers. Tarkovsky had that with running water...that respect for elemental nature. As will be the case until at least 1 a.m. tonight, bad subtitling render most films at least 30% baffling.
Most Beautiful: Admittedly, this is war-time propaganda, but it was rather riveting at times, even emotional. Strange to watch women performing tasks (they work at a factory that produces lenses and mirrors for the war effort) that they would probably be doing even if the camera wasn't on them. The ongoing plot of people being sick but begging their supervisors not to tell anyone (they'd be sent home to rest and, therefore, disgraced) is pretty heavy, as is the scene where one woman stays up all night to rebuild a mirror that she broke and that cost $2000 to replace. The scenes of women playing volleyball (moments of levity, moments of unity) were artfully edited, fast shots of women's gleeful faces, jumping and laughing, which again serves to remind you that Kurosawa edited all his own movies (his stint as an assistant director made him a very capable jack-of-all-trades). Subtitling on this one is awful, with the baffle ratio at least up to 40%. Damn you, Mei Ah Laser Disc Company!
Sanshiro Sugata II. Kind of missing this to update, but it's great so far...intentionally and unintentionally hilarious with its broad American stereotypes (fight-happy sailors, drunken spectators) and strange "boxing vs. karate" matches for American and Japanese spectators (as this was shot and released in 1945, one can't help but miss the significance of each and every fight...a clash of lifestyles, really). Sanshiro just pulled the "Kung Fu" gaffe of standing by, dutifully trying not to get involved in the whole sordid affair ("Boxing is no art...like dogs and chickens fighting"), but finally giving in to his anger and whuppin the hell out of American boxer William "Killer" Star. Now he's regretting it. I suspect some further life lessons will allow him to go forward and finish the job.
Fest diagnosis so far: great, but will be drastically improved after we get out of the realm of bootleg DVDs and into movies with decent subtitles, cuz SHIT! There's a lot of uses of the world "Shit!" and unexpected times, and I can't imagine that was okay at a time like this! Also, yeah, let's try to get the baffle factor down to a good solid 5 to 7% or less, cuz this constant "I don't understand what was just agreed upon" feeling after key scenes is getting a little irritating, albeit unintentionally hilarious.
More soon...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment