Existentialism At It's Best

Austrian director, Belá Tarr, is a curious film maker.  His films are known for long takes (we're talking a 1000 ft film magazine for one take long), eschewing color film stock, and telling stories about people in the depths of personal and human struggle.  At age 58 he announced that he was retiring from film making, but not without leaving one last film for the critics and audiences.

The story is about a Cab Driver, His Daughter, and the Horse that Friedrich Nietzsche threw his arms around begging for mercy in Turin, Italy 1889.  It is known that Nietzsche succumbed to a mute madness and died in the care of his sister, but it is not known what became of the Horse.  Utilizing his characteristic real time long takes, we follow what may be the final days of the small family who are surrounded by a terrible wind storm.

To explain any key scenes would merely give away the film, so at the risk of giving myself away, I'm only going to talk about the philosophical concepts of existentialism as presented.  This film, is existential to the core.  The family is surrounded by an impartial windstorm and drowns in their own depressed repetition.  The Horse that Nietzsche "rescued" was originally being beaten by the Cab Driver because of its refusal to move and it becomes clear early on that once the horse makes it home, it does not intend to move any time soon.

Our family is poor.  They live on an old farm with no real neighbors to speak of and nothing to eat but boiled potatoes.  Nothing good happens, nor does anything truly evil.  At the core, there is only nothing, a growing void that has always been there and threatens to swallow them whole at any moment.  This is Tarr's metaphor.

His cinematography only heightens this.  At the beginning the film is relatively bright, but by the end, the father and daughter are slowly consumed by an inescapable darkness.  This darkness, manifested here as a physical entity, is all part of the existential underlining.

While I will admit that watching the film will be daunting to those who are easily distracted.  Long takes are the ADD generations enemy, unless they're coupled by suspense and violent action.  I myself found myself getting restless myself after watching the two humans eating potatoes for the third time.  Ultimately though, this film is a metaphor for the larger concept that there is nothing.  

When I say nothing, I mean that we are nothing in the eyes of the universe.  We are an insignificant speck to the greater vast space all around us and nature does not have the human concept of empathy.  When surrounded by the elements we only have ourselves.

Not for the average viewer, but it is beautifully shot.  While it garnered relatively positive reviews from critics, most audiences just plain didn't get it or were bored by the, sometimes agonizingly, long takes.  I can't say that I truly liked it, but I also can't say that I truly disliked.  I will say this: After watching The Turin Horse I have not found a day where something from the film hasn't entered my conscious thoughts in some way shape of form.  I have mentioned this film in casual conversation every day for the last three weeks and I can only assume that is because it affected me in some way.  Give it a shot if you think you're up to it.

"If There Is No Love, Make Him Pay For It"

I love Japanese Cinema. If it weren't for Japanese Cinema, I doubt I would've gotten interested in working in the film industry. That said, my favorite of the contemporary Japanese Directors is, without a doubt, Sion Sono. Most people know him, if they're aware of him at all, for The Suicide Club a bizarre trip into psychological horror.  Over the past couple of years he's been making his films at break neck speed, producing a minimum of 2 films a year, which makes this review almost dated.  Luckily, the film I'm going to talk about is relatively hard to find in America, so in that way this review will hopefully be relevant.

Based on true events, Guilty of Romance is the third and final part of Sono's "Hatred Trilogy" which began with his 237 minute epic, Love Exposure.  The film opens with a blurb about Love Hotels in Shibuya (a district in Tokyo) and prostitutes who frequent them.  It then launches into a mystery about a murder in which a parts of a body were found fused with the plastic arms, legs, and head of a mannequin.  Sono tells us his story via past and present tense revealing the past tense details in time with their discovery by the present tense detectives.  What unfolds is a sort of negative hero's journey in which the lead character Izumi Kikuchi (fantastically performed by Megumi Kagurazaka), a bored housewife living in a very chaste relationship with her husband is drawn into a seedy world of depravity.  Ironically, it is this depraved world that allows her to express herself fully, putting somewhat of a skip in her step.  Until...

Everything starts spiraling out of control.  Izumi is mentored by another woman Mitsuko Ozawa (Makoto Togashi.) Literature Lecturer by day, prostitute by night, Mitsuko teaches Izumi methods to take control and further gain confidence in herself.  Mitsuko is an enigmatic force with questionable motives that will keep the viewer guessing up until the end of the film.

Sono has become a master of finding poetry in the dumpster.  Here we have a story about the rejection of decency and the headlong dive into the obscene and yet there is a sense of tragic beauty in his characters.  Are they completely to blame for their present condition or are the norms of society so strangely defined that they are pushed in one direction or another?  Sono doesn't entirely answer this question.  While at moments it feels like he is taking one side or another, it's almost always a red herring.  He leaves it up to the audience to decide, rather than try to instill some sort of ideology.

The one moment where it seems like Sono is making a statement is at a bizarre dining table scene.  The scene speaks loads about societal class division and he advertantly critiques the way of underhanded politeness in Japanese society.  While his seem is very on the head, full of frank dialogue, the characters are all smiles and laughs.  In many of Yasujiro Ozu's films, such scenes do NOT contain the frank stabbing dialogue.  Instead, while a character may be chastising or criticizing another, they use polite language in a most passive aggressive manner.

Upon completing the film, I discovered that the cut I watched is also 30 minutes shorter than the Japanese release.  This, of course, has me curious and I will definitely seek out the longer cut to compare the differences.  That is not to say, that I didn't enjoy the international cut, but I am a stickler for watching the absolute closest thing to a true "Directors Cut."  Regardless, Guilty of Romance, may very well be considered a poem of depravity.  As beautiful as it is disgusting, Sono has once more tapped into the not so hidden dark side of an overtly polite and clean society.