An astonishing melodrama that is masterfully constructed and emotionally affecting, Umetsugu Inoue's The Champion is a beautiful work that stands alongside the very best of Douglas Sirk's oeuvre in its ability to masterfully illustrate emotional depth through visual construction. The tone and texture of this film are simply entrancing. Inoue's acute direction brings the film to life by masterfully deploying blocking and framing that brilliantly elucidate the understated desire and general sense of longing that envelopes this story. Gender normative vocations - boxing and ballet - provide a wonderful juxtaposition. The surface level occupations of Shuntaro and Mari end up being trivial when viewed through the ontological pursuit for acceptance. This provides the perfect thematic backdrop for this smoldering romantic melodrama, one that is highly acute when it comes to understanding the philosophical underpinnings of love and companionship. These characters have different perspectives due to being molded from different environments, their incongruency is a matter of personal desire but they couldn't be more similar from a larger ontological perspective. Whether the rugged, wild Shuntaro; the elegant, ascetic Mari; or Eikichi, who rests at the fulcrum of this story as a man who ultimately sees a version of himself in Shuntaro and Mari, every character is in search of a form of acceptance, from others but also from themselves. Their desire for respect, their budding romantic inclinations, their general confusion about their desires, all stem from a desire for acceptance which has become increasingly difficult in a society where social and personal worth is tethered to economic value. This leaves these characters struggling to contend with the fine line between pride and personal dignity that can be easily conflated or misconstrued under such social-economic levers. A beautifully conceived effective melodrama that is as thematically rich as it is emotionally resonate
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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