Set during the final days of World War II, Kon Ichikawa's The Burmese Harp follows a group of exhausted, war-worn Japanese soldiers is Burma who have just learned of their countries surrender to the British. Private Mizushima, a well-liked member of his unit who is known to his comrades for his skills on the harp, finds himself sent on a solo mission to persuade another Japanese battalion to surrender as well. On his arrival, Mizushima has little luck persuading the company to surrender, which leads to the battalion being bombarded once again by the British, leaving all the soldiers, including Mizushima presumed dead. Surviving the bombardment, Mizushima decides to disguise himself as a buddist monk in order to venture across the countryside undetected, though he underestimates the power of the new role he has assumed in the process. On its release, Kon Ichikawa's The Burmese Harp was heralded as an essential anti-war film, being a seething statement of wartime mentality and lyrical examination of the death, chaos, and destruction it brings. While i'd argue that by today's standards The Burmese Harp is a bit didactic in approach, given the storyline that finds a soldier take up Buddhism, it is hard to deny the powerful, heartfelt message of Kon Ichikawa's The Burmese Harp, a film that is oozing with humanism. There have been many anti-war films, but not many deal with the aftermath quite like this film, where the surrender of Japan and ending of the war are merely a temporary reprieve from the great loss of life and destruction the war itself brought. The film highlights the troubling nature of wartime mentality even after peace is declared, where pride and nationalism blurs the perceptions of soldiers who want to continue fighting instead of focusing on rebuilding and reinvigorating their country and fellow man in the post-war landscape. Masculinity certainly plays a role in this dissection by Ichikawa as well, focusing on the desire to "be a man, not a coward" and how it more so than not, leads to more meaningless death. Ichikawa's camera becomes fixated on the hundreds, if not thousands, of abandoned and/or unburied soldiers, using Mizushima's decision to stay behind and tend to their remains as brutal condemnation of post-war mentality. While The Burmese Harp confronts the viewer head-on with the human cost of conflict, the film also finds hope within the great darkness of conflict, with Ichikawa showing optimism about humanities penchant for respecting life. While a little preachy or at least didactic at times, Kon Ichikawa's highly regarded The Burmese Harp is without question a powerful, humanistic look at the effect of war on the human condition.
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Eric England's Contracted is a simple, effective horror/thriller that is more than happy playing for gross-out thrills, unfortunately missing the opportunity to deliver a more resonant message pertaining to societies' perceptions of beauty and sexuality. The film is centered around Samantha, a 20-something female, who is struggling to get her life together. Living at home with her mother and struggling to get over her recent break-up with her ex-girlfriend, Nikki, Samantha finds herself at her friend Alice's party, drinking away her problems. Samantha finds herself in an encounter with the mysterious BJ, who hands her a drink he claims she dropped. At this point Samantha is too drunk to realize what is going on, which leads to her having unprotected sex with BJ. The next day Samantha wakes up suffering from a terrible hangover, but as the days progress, Samantha begins to realize that her illness may be something far devious and dangerous than any hangover or STD. Contracted is another film in the 'body horror' subgenre that follows the slow deterioration of a woman who is dying from the inside out. For a main protagonist who is suffering a slow, grotesque fate, Samantha as a character isn't particularly likable, being a character that seems to blame everyone in her life for her failings, instead of herself. I believe this unlikable quality is by design, as if the filmmakers are commenting on the importance of inner beauty. Samantha is a beautiful woman, and the way she slowly falls apart in front of our eyes could be argued as a vague allegory about the importance of being a good, beautiful person inside. Samantha's inner ugliness, the way she treats her mother and friends who simply want to help, slowly manifests itself in her quickly deteriorating exterior appearance in Contracted, with the disease itself serving as the metaphor. Unfortunately, I may be giving the film a little too much credit, as this idea is exists but is half-baked and never fully developed, as I'd argue the filmmakers never went quite far enough to make Samantha unlikable enough as a character. They certainly could have made her likable instead, opting solely for body horror thrills, but with a character that teeters in between, Contracted lacks an overall purpose to it storytelling, as Samantha is not likable enough to root for, nor hated enough to pull off its metaphorical qualities. The film also seems to have something to say about men in its storytelling, with nearly every male character being an oppressive force, with BJ being the most obvious example of this, as Samantha's sexual orientation presents absolutely no barrier to BJ's forceful desire for sexual intimacy. Eric England's Contracted is a film that can be enjoyed as a simple, well-made body horror film, but it is unfortunate that the film's more interesting ideas centered around inner beauty and female sexuality are never fully developed enough. Francois Ozon's subversive The New Girlfriend is a film that defies conventional genre description, being part adulterous melodrama, part psycho-sexual thriller, and part gay romance, as the talented filmmaker uses these constructs to deliver a fascinating and profound study of sexual identity. The story itself is centered around Claire, a young woman who has just lost her best friend since childhood in Lea to a terrible accident. One day she drops by on her Lea's husband David, to see how he is doing, only to discover him dressed up is his deceased wife's outfit, feeding their young baby. In shock at first, Claire is reassured by David that Claire knew of his penchant for this sort of thing, and the two quickly become close, creating a female persona for David named Virginia. As time passes by, David finds himself able to identify much more with Virginia, leading to bewildering and adverse feelings in Claire. A film that seamlessly shifts between playful comedy, melodrama, and psychological horror, The New Girlfriend is a satire of sorts, as Ozon uses his subversive style to present a vivid exploration of sexuality, identity, and gender roles. Instead of being a film that screams "message" loud and clear to its audience, Ozon uses the various tropes of these genres, particularly melodrama and psychological horror, as a tool to comment on the absolute absurdity of our predefined gender roles in society, as the filmmaker almost seems to mock these ideals at times, with The New Girlfriend eventually becoming more of a subversive comedy than anything else. The two core performances by Romain Duris and Anais Demoustier are a key reason why this film succeeds on many levels, delivering sensitive performances that only help Ozon's film deliver an understanding film about the complexities of sexuality as it pertains not only to attraction but also identity. Ozon takes full advantage of themes and structure of this story-line, deceiving the viewer and playing with perception at times as he effectively blurs the lines of identity. In the end, the film has a conventional but important ending, which finds Claire introducing David, as Virginia, to her husband- an important indicator that Claire has fully embraced David's identity as Virginia, pinpointing the paramount importance of acceptance by others in these types of situations. Christopher McQuarrie's Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation begins with United States disbanning the IMF, fed up the organizations lack of checks and balances which have led to the government having to explain the destruction left in their wake. This disbandment of the IMF has left Ethan all alone and a wanted man by the CIA, though Ethan continues to work in the shadows, determined to discover the truth behind the Syndicate, what he believes is a secretive organization of highly skilled disavowed agents from all over the world. Ethan believes this Syndicate is hellbent on creating a new world order, using carefully placed and designed terrorist attacks to do so. Gathering his old team, Ethan sets out to stop this powerful organization, though it becomes increasingly difficult to know who can and can't be trusted. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation is another solid entry in the long running series which effectively transports the viewer back into the highly secretive world of global espionage. Having a good understanding of what is expected from by its audience, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation is full of plenty of high-tech gadgets, world-hopping, international intrigue, and questionable alliances to keep any fan of the spy genre satisfied. What really stand out the most about this entry is the strong supporting characters, particularly disavowed British Agent Ilsa Faust, a character who plays a very important roll in the narrative of this entry. Ilsa is a very strong character whose underlying allegiances and intentions are made quite unclear for most of the films running time, but what surprised me is just how much depth she is given as a character when it becomes apparent that she is just a chess piece being played by much more powerful people. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation's narrative isn't wholly original by any means, but the film does a great job at capturing how men and woman like Ethan, and other agents, are more so than not simply cogs in a much larger machine, serving the interests and agendas of men/women in more powerful positions. Featuring some fun action set-pieces, in particularly the motorcycle chase scene, and enough intrigue for appease the spy-junkie, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation is another fun, though-out entry in the Mission Impossible franchise. James Ponsoldt's The End of the Tour chronicles the relationship that unfolded between Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace during a five-day interview. Taking place across the final days of Wallace's book tour for his groundbreaking novel, Infinite Jest, The End of the Tour is very much a tale of two Davids, two men who share the same profession, but are at different places in their lives, with different perceptions of exactly what their ambitions are as artists. Having never read Infinite Jest, and having no understanding of who David Foster Wallace was as a person going in, I can't be the one to comment on the film's ability to capture this man, but what James Ponsoldt has created with The End of the Tour is an insightful and humorous exploration of the psyche of an artist, most notably a writer, as these two David's mentally spar with one and other over a series of days. The film captures strange dynamic that could almost be described as a power struggle that exists in any interview/interviewee relationship, with these two men playing an intricate mental game with one and other, as they slowly let their respective guards down and reveal their moments of weakness related to personal satisfaction, as it pertains to both artistic and financial success. The film's exploration of the writer's mindset is particularly fascinating to me, with The end of the Tour capturing the various mental constructs writers can create as they struggle to express themselves. Through these two characters the film captures the need for some form of validation that all individuals need, most notably writers, and how the world we live in can be strenuous for a depressive character like David Foster Wallace, with the sensationalist media romanticizing his addiction and suffering of an artist. The End of the Tour could be described as a love letter to the writers and importance of the craft, but it also doesn't shy away from touching on some of the darker aspects of the profession, such as the elitist mindset it can breed, this feeling of superior intelligence due to their ability to voice themselves through writing. Through David Foster Wallace, The End of the Tour argues against this idea of intellectualism, the perceived notion that writers having simply more intelligence than their audience being a complete sham, arguing instead that writers simply posses a unique and important skillset to express themselves through paper and pen, showing how showing how automatically assuming potential viewers aren't intellectual enough is more a construct of the writers own insecurities. The film is full of fascinating insights into the psyche of a writer, but I think one of the most profound is simply that the most skilled writers are truthfully like most people, simply having the gift of expression and the ability to put their perspective on paper for the world to digest. Many of these observations and insights about the life of a writer are very fascinating, but the true strength of The End of The Tour is its nuanced examination of loneliness and depression, The End of the Tour argues that as an artist you must create for yourself and no one else, and in that honesty is where David Foster Wallaces discovers his true audience, and more importantly the fact that his feelings and emotions about life aren't simply his, but are shared by many. Featuring an impressive lead performance by Jason Segal, James Pondsoldt's The End of the Tour is an insightful and heartfelt examination of two writers at different points of their careers, each of which is still trying to make sense of their lives and art. Living a seemingly calm life in the countryside of Northern Spain, Pol, a reserved teenager, spends most of his time with Deerhoof, his stuffed teddy bear and best friend. Pol's deep friendship with Deerhoof is a secret to the world around them, but for Pol, his friendship with this animated stuffed teddy bear represents one of his few relationships where he can truly be himself. All that changes with the arrival of Ikari, a new student, who Pol finds himself instantly drawn too. Marcal Fores' Animals is perhaps a film that is best served if the audience goes in completely cold, as an plot description imaginable is sure to pale in comparison to the cinemic language the film is able to create. Blending horror and drama elements, Marco Fores' Animals is a surrealistic, psychological coming of age story which leaves a lot up to the viewers interpretation. Featuring beautiful cinematography that seems to completely take place during magic hour, Animals creates a dreamy aesthetic that perfectly coincides with its surrealist storytelling, as we follow Pol as he tries to make sense from the world around him. While there is a lot in the film that is up to much interpretation, Animals' core ideas are unquestionably centered around the budding sexuality of Pol, a young man who is struggling to let go of the emotional attachment of his teddy bear. For me, Deerhoof's role in this strange story is really two-fold, being a symbolic representation of Pol's homosexual desires in which he feels must remains secret from everyone around him, but also a symbolic representation of Pol's emotional attachment to childhood, as he shows an inability to take responsibility at school and with his brother. In Animals, the surrealism and absurdist aspects are conducted with such matter-of-fact confidence, with Fores' understanding that his story doesn't have to exist in reality but only in the emotional logic of his characters. While Animals is a beguiling experience at times which may leave some viewers a bit confused, what Maro Fores has created is a psycho-sexual coming of age story that never falls victim to the typical tropes and trappings of fantasy, coming of age, or lgbt cinema constructs. |
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June 2023
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