![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cjlasky7Two radically different (but equally entertaining) examples of cinematic craft for today's review! Let's dig in:
Kwaidan (1964), on its own, is radically different from other supernatural anthologies and even from the previous work of its director. Masaki Kobayashi was well known in world cinema circles for his scorchingly realistic social dramas, like The Thick Walled Room and The Human Condition. But Kwaidan is a wildly colorful and expressionistic film, as far from realism as possible. (For an American equivalent, imagine if Stanley Kramer decided to skip The Defiant Ones to make an Edgar Allan Poe movie.)
This is no Roger Corman cheapie, though; Toho Studios gave Kobayashi a staggering 90 million yen budget... and he blew through it barely two thirds into filming. But it's all there on the screen. Kobayashi converted an old airplane hangar into a giant soundstage and he used the space to construct a series of astounding tableaux: a frozen forest under a Van Gogh sky, a haunted temple, and a seaside battle between two warring armies.
The four stories of the anthology are taken from the collection of Japanese folk lore by Lafcardio Hearn. Hearn's stories are like the Japanese version of Bullfinch's Mythology; they're familiar to almost any Japanese viewer, and a few have even bled into American pop culture. (Tales From the Darkside did a version of "The Snow Maiden" with Rae Dawn Chong as a gargoyle.)
Kwaidan is not a shock-a-minute, thrill ride of a movie. It's three hours plus, and you really have to settle in and let the mood of the piece sink into your bones. But once you do, Kobayashi's incredible visual imagination will transport you to realms just outside our reality. It's not strictly a horror anthology--these are tales of the "uncanny", about how our everyday life is just a tiny step away from dark and frightening places. The unlucky protagonists of these stories take that one wrong step and are either permanently changed or lost forever:
"The Black Hair" is the story of a samurai who abandons his first wife to re-marry for money, then tries to return to his first love years later. (It reminded me of John Cheever's "The Swimmer." You'll know what I mean when you see it.) "The Snow Maiden" is the famous tale of a woodcutter saved from the cold by a beautiful (but icy) demon, who swears him to never tell a living soul about her. "Hoichi the Earless" is a blind musician recruited by ghosts to recount the epic battle that killed their entire clan centuries before. (Kobayashi's re-enactment of the battle, intercut with paintings of the same event, is a fantastic mini-movie by itself.) "In a Cup of Tea" closes things out in an appropriately meta fashion, as a storyteller is swallowed by his own tale.
This movie ended Kobayashi's deal with Toho Studios, and he went bankrupt trying to finish it. But he never regretted making Kwaidan, and it has lived on after his other movies have faded into the ether. Maybe he was recruited by Forces Beyond to give us a glimpse into those other worlds he captured so beautifully.
Hey, you never know.
(Available on the Criterion channel, HBO Max, Hulu Premium, Amazon Prime and YouTube TV)
*******************
Meanwhile, in a completely different corner of the universe, The Bob's Burgers Movie has finally reached the cineplexes.
The second of Fox's Sunday night animated comedies to go big screen, Bob's Burgers takes a slightly different tack than their "cousins" from Springfield: while The Simpsons Movie went apocalyptic with the dome and imminent nuclear destruction, the Belchers keep things relatively within the boundaries of the TV show:
Bob and Linda Belcher are one payment away from losing their restaurant (as usual); daughter Tina is really, definitely, no question going to declare her feelings to Jimmy Pesto Jr. (maybe); middle child Gene is wrestling with his musical muse; and youngest child (and agent of chaos) Louise will prove to her classmates she's not a baby, or die trying.
Oh, there are some big events--like a giant sinkhole opening in front of the restaurant, sucking away the pavement (and the customers), and a murder mystery that threatens to upend the power structure of the town. But we've seen sinkholes and murder mysteries on the TV show before.
No, what makes the movie different is how it plays on 11 seasons of accumulated knowledge about our cast of family and friends and the town they love (and barely tolerate). There are callbacks to Bob's nervous tendency to converse with his food; Tina's "erotic friend fiction," complete with lovestruck zombies and Jericho, her talking horse; Louise's collection of anime-inspired toys (including both versions of her Pokemon-ish Kuchi Kopi night light); and Gene's latest edition of the Itty Bitty Ditty Committee.
Beyond that, we get the history of the Wonder Wharf (the town's death trap of an amusement park), and the subterranean world underneath. It all adds up to a richly detailed world filled with the quirky characters TV audiences have loved for years. H. John Benjamin leads the all star voice cast as the exasperated paterfamilias; Dan Mintz somehow captures all the awkwardness and anxiety of teenaged Tina; and Kevin Kline and Zack Galifianakis work their bizarre brother act to perfection as Calvin and Felix Fischoeder.
This is definitely for fans of the show, but newbies will appreciate the sharp dialogue, the superb characterizations and a serving of vintage local Americana....
Kwaidan (1964), on its own, is radically different from other supernatural anthologies and even from the previous work of its director. Masaki Kobayashi was well known in world cinema circles for his scorchingly realistic social dramas, like The Thick Walled Room and The Human Condition. But Kwaidan is a wildly colorful and expressionistic film, as far from realism as possible. (For an American equivalent, imagine if Stanley Kramer decided to skip The Defiant Ones to make an Edgar Allan Poe movie.)
This is no Roger Corman cheapie, though; Toho Studios gave Kobayashi a staggering 90 million yen budget... and he blew through it barely two thirds into filming. But it's all there on the screen. Kobayashi converted an old airplane hangar into a giant soundstage and he used the space to construct a series of astounding tableaux: a frozen forest under a Van Gogh sky, a haunted temple, and a seaside battle between two warring armies.
The four stories of the anthology are taken from the collection of Japanese folk lore by Lafcardio Hearn. Hearn's stories are like the Japanese version of Bullfinch's Mythology; they're familiar to almost any Japanese viewer, and a few have even bled into American pop culture. (Tales From the Darkside did a version of "The Snow Maiden" with Rae Dawn Chong as a gargoyle.)
Kwaidan is not a shock-a-minute, thrill ride of a movie. It's three hours plus, and you really have to settle in and let the mood of the piece sink into your bones. But once you do, Kobayashi's incredible visual imagination will transport you to realms just outside our reality. It's not strictly a horror anthology--these are tales of the "uncanny", about how our everyday life is just a tiny step away from dark and frightening places. The unlucky protagonists of these stories take that one wrong step and are either permanently changed or lost forever:
"The Black Hair" is the story of a samurai who abandons his first wife to re-marry for money, then tries to return to his first love years later. (It reminded me of John Cheever's "The Swimmer." You'll know what I mean when you see it.) "The Snow Maiden" is the famous tale of a woodcutter saved from the cold by a beautiful (but icy) demon, who swears him to never tell a living soul about her. "Hoichi the Earless" is a blind musician recruited by ghosts to recount the epic battle that killed their entire clan centuries before. (Kobayashi's re-enactment of the battle, intercut with paintings of the same event, is a fantastic mini-movie by itself.) "In a Cup of Tea" closes things out in an appropriately meta fashion, as a storyteller is swallowed by his own tale.
This movie ended Kobayashi's deal with Toho Studios, and he went bankrupt trying to finish it. But he never regretted making Kwaidan, and it has lived on after his other movies have faded into the ether. Maybe he was recruited by Forces Beyond to give us a glimpse into those other worlds he captured so beautifully.
Hey, you never know.
(Available on the Criterion channel, HBO Max, Hulu Premium, Amazon Prime and YouTube TV)
*******************
Meanwhile, in a completely different corner of the universe, The Bob's Burgers Movie has finally reached the cineplexes.
The second of Fox's Sunday night animated comedies to go big screen, Bob's Burgers takes a slightly different tack than their "cousins" from Springfield: while The Simpsons Movie went apocalyptic with the dome and imminent nuclear destruction, the Belchers keep things relatively within the boundaries of the TV show:
Bob and Linda Belcher are one payment away from losing their restaurant (as usual); daughter Tina is really, definitely, no question going to declare her feelings to Jimmy Pesto Jr. (maybe); middle child Gene is wrestling with his musical muse; and youngest child (and agent of chaos) Louise will prove to her classmates she's not a baby, or die trying.
Oh, there are some big events--like a giant sinkhole opening in front of the restaurant, sucking away the pavement (and the customers), and a murder mystery that threatens to upend the power structure of the town. But we've seen sinkholes and murder mysteries on the TV show before.
No, what makes the movie different is how it plays on 11 seasons of accumulated knowledge about our cast of family and friends and the town they love (and barely tolerate). There are callbacks to Bob's nervous tendency to converse with his food; Tina's "erotic friend fiction," complete with lovestruck zombies and Jericho, her talking horse; Louise's collection of anime-inspired toys (including both versions of her Pokemon-ish Kuchi Kopi night light); and Gene's latest edition of the Itty Bitty Ditty Committee.
Beyond that, we get the history of the Wonder Wharf (the town's death trap of an amusement park), and the subterranean world underneath. It all adds up to a richly detailed world filled with the quirky characters TV audiences have loved for years. H. John Benjamin leads the all star voice cast as the exasperated paterfamilias; Dan Mintz somehow captures all the awkwardness and anxiety of teenaged Tina; and Kevin Kline and Zack Galifianakis work their bizarre brother act to perfection as Calvin and Felix Fischoeder.
This is definitely for fans of the show, but newbies will appreciate the sharp dialogue, the superb characterizations and a serving of vintage local Americana....
