Love & Peace (2015)

Ever watch a film that suddenly reveals itself to be a Christmas movie?  When I say, "suddenly reveals itself" I mean that sincerely, because it comes as such a sudden surprise in Sion Sono's thoroughly wacky and incredibly endearing Love & Peace that, much like an anime character who is thoroughly confused, I had to blink a few times before I realized what had just happened.

Centered on a failed rock and roller turned salaryman, Ryoichi (Hiroki Hasegawa), the theme of Love & Peace quite literally is the summation of it's title.  Following a bizarre series of events Ryoichi, flushes his pet turtle, Pikadon (probably the only friend he has) down the toilet.  Pikadon winds up in the strange home of a mysterious vagrant named, Pa (Toshiyuki Nishida), and a whole gaggle of abandoned toys that Pa has somehow brought to life.  After mistakenly giving Pikadon a wish candy, Pikadon's love for his master grants his master's wishes to become reality with some unintended consequences.

This might be the most accessible of Sono's career while still manages to contain the delightfully bizarre stylistic elements that keep it true to his ouvre.  It's story teaches one of optimism and hope despite self-induced terror and an apathetic society where unconditional love is a virtue above all things.  Beyond it's surface of zany talking toys and a turtle that slowly becomes a kaiju is a tenderness and faith in the goodness inherent in humanity.  It's a subtext that has slowly been poking it's way up in his films since Love Exposure.

None of this, of course, marks any major change in the underlying themes of Sono's work.  If anything, he casts his ire upon an apathetic youth society that worships pop idols but doesn't remember the atomic bomb.  With wit and a devious sense of humor he makes the discarded his heroes and the consumers his villains.  In a fashion almost typical of his films his characters are all over the top, but each little element comes together so well that it hardly even matters.  Definitely worth a watch for the intrigue alone.

Violence, Bloody Violence: "The World of Kanako"

Last year at Beyond Fest, the rapidly steam building genre festival at The Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles, a film called The World of Kanako was screened.  At the time I had tried to watch it, I had drank just one too many beers and the rapid cutting of the opening sequences gave me just enough motion sickness feeling that I had to walk out and curse my stupidity for drinking that last beer.  So imagine my lack of surprise that the film still hasn't received US distribution.  I then turned to my usual alternative methods of finding the film.  Lo and behold, there is a Hong Kong DVD release with English Subtitles!  So let's get to it shall we?

Kanako is a story about a mentally unhinged, violent, ex-cop Akikazu Fujishima (veteran actor Koji Yakusho) who is asked by his estranged wife to find their daughter, Kanako, who has gone missing 5 days ago.  The story unfolds in a time jumping fashion where we slowly get closer and closer to the truth of Kanako's world; a world where innocence is lost and violence, secrets, and lies are the common core.

This film is, to put it simply, intense.  From the beginning with it's fast paced editing and it's chronological jumping we know that we're about to dive into a perversely dark world and the main question immediately becomes, who is the worst monster?  In that sense, the movie is incredibly mean spirited, with most of the main cast of characters being overly cruel and at times incredibly sadistic.  But there's something arresting about this cruel world and its inhabitants.

In an almost voyeuristic fashion the audience is pulled into the story and it's hard to look away, no matter how disturbing the scene may be.  In this way, the film is an almost candid look at the nature of violence in a society that tends to hide behind the veil of politeness.  The brashly violent Akikazu, in that way, is the perfect antidote for the otherwise passively scheming group of people he encounters.

The film features some very slick direction, camera work, and editing, but it is definitely not for the feint of heart.  It is unrelenting in it's violence, which is portrayed in almost every gamete, from physical to mental.  Characters are beaten savagely, murdered, raped, you name it, the film has pretty much got it.  In that way it's almost a testament to the violence and corruption that occurs in every level of society, from the police force, the Yakuza, to the school yard and behind the closed doors of one's home.  The film's original title is Kawaki which literally means thirst.  Given the style of the film, this is an apt title, as each character seems to go through the story driven by an unquenchable thirst, be it for answers, for love, or for retribution.  Worth a watch, but it might not land many repeat viewings for most.

"Do you ever die in your own dream?": Shunji Iwai's Vampire

Often when a director comes from abroad to North America to make a film, the result is lackluster, panned by critics who previously screamed with praise, or misses out on wide release because distributors fear anything that smells remotely of monetary loss.  It's the age old battle of art versus product and Shunji Iwai's newest film is an English language piece that falls into the sad latter of the three.

Vampire opens with two people, a man and woman, meeting up in an undisclosed location with the express intention of committing suicide together.  They drive through the rainy Canadian weather talking about their reasons and their disconnects with life trying to have a good final day before ending it all.  It becomes apparent, however, that one of them has an ulterior motive.  The woman doesn't want to feel any pain so the man suggests blood draining.  He offers to assist in her death first before doing himself in.  Obviously we wouldn't have a film if they both die, so it's safe to assume that he's not going to kill himself.  Rather, he lives up to the title of the story.  Simon (the protagonist of the story) drains Jellyfish (her online name) of her blood via needs and bottles, and when the process is complete he gorges himself upon one of the bottles.

So is Vampire a horror movie?  No.  At least, not in the typical archetype of horror.  Is it then a story about a serial killer?  Perhaps, but the film is more than even that.  Any good film is multifaceted.  Rather than shoving meaning or ideology in your face, a truly good film with allow you to follow it on a journey and give you an idea to ponder.  It will inspire thought.  Everything else is just surface value.  I could pontificate on the ideas of spiritual isolation and addiction that are present in the subtext of this story, but I would also be giving too much of it away in the process and since I want you all to go out and find this movie by whatever means necessary and WATCH it, I think I'll take a break from that.

What I do want to talk about is how this film is a rare example of a director being capable of maintaining his artistic sensibilities while filming outside of his country.  It's debatable whether or not any Hollywood studio would fund a film like Vampire (the film was produced and shot in Canada) given Iwai's body of work.  Iwai is not a throw it in your face kind of film maker.  Rather, he is an artist, a poet, and a painter with a camera for a brush.  His body of work includes Love Letter, PiCNiC, Swallowtail Butterfly, All About Lily Chou Chou, and Hana and Alice to name a few.  These films are known for their intense emotional honesty, creative camera and editing work, and experimental poetic story structures.  They do not play on our more visceral senses, but speak more to our hearts and minds.

By all rights, Simon should be looked at as a villain, and yet by the end of the film, you love him.  Iwai takes us on a journey side by side with Simon in which we see that his fragile state of being is something he is out of empathy rather than a sadistic desire to feed on the blood of others.  It dares to ask a difficult question about human connection.  Is it possible, as Iwai stated at Sundance, for a victim and perpetrator to see each other in the light of moral understanding and acceptance? Food for thought.

Throw in superb lighting and honest performances and you've got one hell of a film.  Another striking thing about the film is that none of the characters remotely resemble each other.  They're all uniquely played by the actors.  Look for a strangely obsessive performance by Rachel Leigh Cook and an understated brilliance from Amanda Plummer, the two bigger names on the film, but there is something so arresting about Kevin Zegers' performance of Simon that I just couldn't part from him.

This film is a hard one to find.  It is in English but currently there are no official channels to purchase the DVD in America or Canada.  The only way to currently purchase it is through the Pony Canyon Shopping Club, which is linked on the film's website.  While Navigating the Japanese site may be a semi-daunting task, it is a worthy one.  This film, is easily one of the better films I've seen in the last couple of months.  Not for those who just want mindless fun and entertainment.  Vampire is an intriguing and captivating story that begs the question, are we all just waiting to die?

"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.

The Serpent and the Spider

If you know me, you know that I'm an avid fan of asian cinema, particularly the cinema of Japan.  I go to great lengths to find films that are otherwise impossible to find in America, simply because I like the Director's work.  This is achieved through websites like Yes Asia and various other means, such as bootlegs and torrents.

One Director, whose work I come back to somewhat frequently, is Kiyoshi Kurosawa (no relation to master film maker Akira Kurosawa).  Most of his films which have received release in America fall into the supernatural, horror, and thriller genres, but some of his lesser known films were genre pieces.  Like many director's cutting their teeth in the late 80s and early 90s, Kurosawa made his fair share of Direct to Video/TV Movie features.  Films like the Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself series, or Door 3 are examples of this.

When he moved to Horror/Thriller, with Cure, the story about a bizarre link in a series of killings, he was on the cusp of leaving "product films," but at the challenge of a producer friend of his he made two more, in the space of 1 and 1/2 weeks.  Not an easy feat, let me tell you.

Those films are The Serpents Path and Eyes of the Spider.

Both films are revenge stories and both films involve a character named Nijima (played by Sho Aikawa), and yet completely different in pace and tone.  The Serpents Path, for example, plays like a traditional revenge/detective procedural with a few interesting twists along the way.  Nijima is a math teacher who helps a low-level yakuza track down a group of people who were all involved in the rape and murder of said yakuza's 8 year old daughter.  We are drawn in because we do not understand until later why Nijima is helping this man.  He has an enigmatic quality about him.  Why would a man who teaches math at a cram school to students young and old (one of which is an 8 year old prodigy) risk his life and his career to help a low-level thug?  Is it out of empathy or does he have an ulterior motive?  Does he NEED to have a motive?  These questions kept me hooked, regardless of my small laptop screen and awful speakers.

On the other hand, Eyes of the Spider, is completely different.  It misleads the viewer into thinking it is going to be another standard revenge procedural when instead the revenge aspect of the story is resolved within the first 10 minutes of the film.

The core premise is the same, with a few important differences.  This time, Nijima, who is NOT a math teacher, but some kind of salaryman, is the father of the victim.  An average man, he goes to the extreme and finds his daughter's killer himself after 6 years of searching.  After satisfying his revenge, his life becomes devoid of meaning and he drifts through each day until a chance meeting with an old high school friend has him leave his salaryman life and enter that of a low-level yakuza gang.  The film has a much more philosophical tone and Nijima has to deal with issues like the validity of life and the effect of his actions on his own soul.  What is right and what is wrong when the whole world seems to be absolutely insane?  And what about consequences?

The world, as we know it, always finds a way to give consequences to our actions.  It is no different in films than it is in life.  Spider does an excellent job of showing the consequences to all the characters actions, whether they are physical or metaphysical in nature.

Despite these glaring differences, their are also structural similarities that needn't go unlooked.  Each film starts with the revenge plot, each film has a bloody climax, and each film has an open ending that begs certain questions from the viewer.

Unfortunately, these films still do not have domestic release, but if you're internet savvy, you can find a way to see them.  Definitely worth the watch.

Note: I am in no way, shape, or form, condoning piracy to the readers of this review.  As such, I will not be held responsible for the individual actions that any person who reads this review makes.