The Fine Art of Tactical Retreat

10:03 am - Bride of Three Films Make A Post

House of Bugs (2005): Part of a series of short movies based on horror manga by the glorious Kazuo Umezu. This one was directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (whose tone is usually quite the opposite of Umezu's) and tells the story of a broken marriage that climaxes in a metaphorical or not so metaphorical bug transformation by way of Kafka and Rashomon. It is very much a Kurosawa film with his typical subtle aesthetic and the director's usual themes (alienation, the inability to empathize, broken families etc) and therefore quite excellent.

The Bounty Hunter (1954): The story of an infamous bounty hunter played by Randolph Scott coming to a small town to catch three robbers about whom he knows next to nothing and making the whole town more than a little nervous in the process feels a little slight, even though it has its share of darker flourishes. The plot just works out a little too pat, making this most certainly not the best cooperation between director Andre de Toth and actor Randolph Scott. Not that it would be a bad Western, it's just that de Toth and Scott seem to be coasting on their talents instead of straining them.

Dead & Breakfast (2004): A bunch of dweebs on the way to a wedding strand somewhere in Texas. "Comedy" ensues, until the locals get possessed by demons and zombified, which leads to the sort of gory "comedy" that would very much like to see itself standing in the tradition of early Peter Jackson or Sam Raimi, just with the minor drawback that it is about as funny as Bela Lugosi meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. At least I have a new example now when trying to explain the phrase "painfully unfunny". Oh, and the people who compare this to Shaun of the Dead will be taken care of soon, a dark and ancient power promised me.

09:39 am - In short: The Guard From Underground (1992)

I don't think art expert Akiko Narushima (Makiko Kuno) has pictured her new job in an only slightly older department of a Japanese firm this way: her boss Kurume (Ren Osugi, once more supporting my theory that he is in every single Japanese movie made in the last twenty years) is a leering creep and ineffective sexual harasser, the rest of her colleagues has not the slightest clue about art (which could be a problem in the art trade, I think), the Human Resources manager Hyodo (Hatsunori Hasegawa) is by turns weird and asleep. But the brand new security guard Fujimaru (Yutaka Matsushige) soon turns out to be even more strange than everyone else. At first, the giant only kills people his colleague in the security office has problems with, but he soon develops a slight fixation on Akiko and a very strong dislike for everyone else.

One night, he and his trusty iron pole begin to lower their employer's overtime costs.

The Guard From Underground is part of the early phase of its director's Kiyoshi Kurosawa's career. As such it is quite different from, although not a lot more commercial than, his later works. We can already see the beginning of the framing techniques that became so important for Kurosawa's films later on, as well as his interest in/obsession with alienation in modern (Japanese) society and the life of incurably sad people. The plot may belong to much more of a thriller than we are used to in Kurosawa films, yet the way the film is told seems quite disinterested in it being thrilling.

Much of the film is carried by the strange, surrealist (or is it just non-realist?) kind of humor you may remember from Doppelganger or even Charisma, while never really leading into the disturbing or near-incomprehensible areas those films touched. That of course is Guard's problem - it is already too far away from the standard horror film its script wants it to be and has at the same time not arrived at the crossing of genre and art house its director's later films inhabit better than just anybody else's.

Still, Guard is a kind of treasure trove for Kurosawa nerds like me, as long as one doesn't expect it to be a masterpiece or a very effective thriller.

Current Mood: awake

06:36 pm - Sweet Home (1989)

A small TV crew ventures into the long deserted house of the famous artist Mamiya to restore and film the last fresco he had made before his death.

Unfortunately the locals decide not to warn producer Kazuo (Ichiro Furutachi) and his friends about the the fact that the mansion is as cursed as it looks.

It doesn't take very long until at least his co-producer Akiko (Nobuko Miyamoto) realizes that something is very wrong with the estate. Soon their presenter/restorer acts ever stranger, finally digging up a mutilated baby corpse buried in the garden.

Not everyone will survive the following hours. Even when Akiko and Kazuo finally realize what the vengeful ghost who directs the carnage (and it will be bloody carnage) wants, they can't just give it to her, when "it" is Kazuo's daughter Emi (Nokko).

Fortunately the local gas station owner knows a little bit about exorcism (and singing).

Sweet Home is Kiyoshi Kurosawa's first horror film. Stylistically it is a very different beast from his usually slow and brooding later work, possibly thanks to the influence of its producer Juzo Itami, who was a kind of Japanese blockbuster machine in a time when few Japanese films were commercially successful. If I believe what I have read, Itami's influence on this production was heavy, some even go so far as to call him the real director of the piece.

To my mind, Sweet Home looks like the work of a highly talented but inexperienced director in commercial mode. The film is much faster and less subtle than anything else I know of by Kurosawa, but never so fast as to ignore his talent for moody lighting (including some uses of shadow that remind me of Val Lewton) or his interest in his (here somewhat melodramatic) characters. If you are looking at it from the right direction, the film even shows an early interest in one of the main themes Kurosawa has explored again and again - loneliness. Although, this being a much less personal production, here loneliness is something that is very much surmountable through struggle, a position far from Kurosawa's later pessimism.

That said, this is not a lost classic. Too often the film shows the carnival ride tendencies that make Poltergeist and similar films so decidedly non-spooky, and is very much at odds with its more effective, creepy moments. The Poltergeist comparison is apt in another way, too. Both films are a sort of paean to the bourgeois family unit, with the Japanese movie as the more progressive piece that emphasizes choice over tradition.

Current Mood: hungry