by Jason Suzuki
“Even if it goes your way, don’t be happy.”
-Nellie McKay
Now onto the films. Some of these are double booked on the Batsu blog. It’s just a click away but I tried to avoid redundancy. Also some - possibly all - of the gifs suck. Working on it.:
Under Your Bed - Most likely due to misogyny this masterpiece came out of nowhere for me. I did a profile of Asato before, focusing on the two films of hers released in ‘14. She was a bright spot in the post-Kurosawa arthouse J-horror field but with this she’s well past easy classification. The scenario is riveting: a housewife is brutally abused by her husband nightly and the only one who sees her pain is her stalker (Kengo Kora), whose point of view shapes the narrative. It’s territory meant to unease and its absence at most Asian/Japanese/genre centric festivals suggests its “ickiness” gets under the skin.
Kajillionaire - Savor a new film by Miranda July. Possibly her most accessible but most love stories are. There are still shades of It Chooses You here, the space travel of walking through other people’s homes. Her film sits where the otherworldly and reality can co-exist. There’s nothing quite like it. The way she portrays the world feels like its distilled and this is what’s left when you take out all the other bits. Side-note: Why is The Future and this DVD only while Tammy and the T-Rex gets a 4K release?
To the Ends of the Earth - This is Kurosawa’s most “movie magic” type film. The type of affecting expression of existence and human connection that could only be done in the movies. A TV host and her crew are filming a travelogue in Uzbekistan. Once the cameras are off we as the audience are shown the beauty of human kindness but also the terror of other people when the shoot is over. The film’s not judgmental however, there’s a desire for understanding even when someone is acting from misguidance. Maybe that’s where the movie magic ideal comes from, an empathy that seems fantastic. Speaking of magic at the movies, someone’s breaks into song in the film.
Dancing Mary - jam, while enjoyable, felt more like a a throwback for Sabu. Characters running around all over the place, hurtling from one coincidence to the next. Dancing Mary is along the lines of a Blessing Bell or Happiness. Gentler pacing, tonal whiplash. Just as much of a journey as earlier works but instead of step-counter stats the distance covered is more inward. Interacting with a series of wanderers while passing by give it a road movie feel. To be even more reductive about the film: ghostbusters and corporate bureaucracy.
i-Documentary of the Journalist - The joy of watching a journalist hold accountable those in power and not just when it benefits their team. It sounds like yesteryear Hollywood fantasy but here it’s thankfully a down to earth reality. Sort of a picaresque documentary of the adventures of Isoko Mochizuki but speaks to larger issues of how the ruling class attempts to control media in Japan and elsewhere.
Tenet - “Don’t try to understand. Just feel it.” As a guiding principle it’s pretty experimental for a film of this budget. Exposition is meant to obscure. Empathy is used to guide the plot’s trajectory despite feeling so coldly/heavily plotted. Score swallows the scenes you’re supposed to get the gist of. The time theatrics and Nolan’s reputation have become the audience created smoke and mirrors, distracting from the very relevant metaphor for how we have waged war on the future.
David Byrne’s American Utopia - Every aspect to the performances of these songs welcome scrutiny. Every choice feels like it has been carefully considered for meaning and unlocking it is another viewing away. Byrne’s genuineness makes me think it’s not weird for weirdness sake of art for the sake of art. He wants to say something. Even more direct messages have staying power. A projected image of Colin Kaepernick, the lyrics: “How am I not your brother? How are you not like me?”
Leap of Faith - William Friedkin on The Exorcist - Essentially Friedkin’s recounting of the making of The Exorcist is a starting point for his view on everything else under the sun (life, the universe, everything). His recollection is amazing. Even if something is misremembered - which I doubt - it’s all fascinating and what he speaks to works in general for any pursuit be it art or truth or salvation. More than just a a long form interview the use of footage from the film let’s us compare in real time how something actually turned out to how Friedkin describes it. Going film by film would make for a great series. Nicolas Refn should direct one of them.
Spontaneous - For young people when all signs point to that they’ve been left a world beyond saving the healthiest coping mechanism is irreverence and pop nihilism. For real-world examples look up ironic memers on TikTok, many of which have since been banned from the app. This feeling has been adapted as a YA romance. High school students start gusher popping and all bets for the future are off. Detention in 2011 portrayed a similar instability of tomorrow. At least there’s a sense of humor about it and the tiniest of glimmers of hope exist through agency. It could be worse, the kids could be shooting each other instead (speaking of YA novels…).
The Hunt - So controversial that certain high ranking government officials tweeted about it. In the film it’s the conservatives who participate in the whiny cancel culture and the liberals that exhibit fascistic tendencies. Both concepts I agree with, making The Hunt perfect for the echo chamber I am creating. While it could have gone farther with the “fuck everyone” mentality, the sentiment is appreciated.
The Third Day: Autumn - Facebook Live, an exhibitor of transcendental cinema. The show bits that bookended this 12-hour event eventually fizzled out (as shows do), but this made the HBO Max worth it. From interviews I get the sense that this was what got J Law to sign on in the first place. The live chat off to the side while the ritual was happening is what odd couples are made of. People complaining about the slow pacing, yet sticking around for its entirety. You can scrub through if you want or be go on the ride. Freedom.
Sunless Shadows - My first film seen by Mehrdad Oskouei. A follow-up to Starless Dreams (Sunless Shadows is the stronger title), he returns his attention to a female juvenile detention center this time focusing specifically on those girls involved in some way with a murder of a man. Fathers, husbands in an arranged marriage, and brother-in-laws are the victims. These girls are the real victims when looking at the society they were born into or how now incarcerated they are at the mercy of whether their male family members will forgive them, which could involve a monetary settlement. Accomplice mothers/sisters on death row are at this mercy as well. The camaraderie of the girls reminds me of One Flew Over. One of the girls hints at disappointment with the outside once she was let out. In both films the question is “Who’s really free?”
Disappearance at Clifton Hill - Niagara Falls. A woman decides to investigate the child abduction she saw when she was a kid. It’s gear is low-key mystery and the film bathes in it. This mood can’t even be upset by annoying retro tech fetishizing which to be fair is offset by the inclusion of a local podcaster with his own agenda (David Cronenberg). The modern noise is a mixture of nostalgia and new-media. The mystery is both a way for the character to confront a past trauma and acts as a distraction from herself. So down the rabbit hole she goes meeting all sorts of odd characters. This really captures what makes the genre fun. Also the joy of taping names and articles to your wall is accurately portrayed.
Other stuff I enjoyed:
1BR; A Good Woman is Hard to Find; Assassins; The Babysitter: Killer Queen; Bacurau; Beasts Clawing at Straws; Blood on Her Name; Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island; Days; Deerskin; Dick Johnson is Dead; Extra Ordinary; First Cow; The Gentlemen; The Human Voice; I’m Really Good; The Invisible Man; Ju-on: Origins; Konotora; Labyrinth of Cinema; Let’s Scare Julie; The Lodge; My Sweet Grappa Remedies; The Painter and the Thief; Possessor; Reiwa Uprising; The Rental; Run; Shell and Joint; Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue; Synchronic; Tamaran Hill; Tesla; There is No Evil; Tokyo Girl; The Trip to Greece; The Trouble with You; True Mothers; The Truth; The Turning; Under the Open Sky; Undine; The Woman Who Ran; World of Tomorrow ep. 3; The Wretched; Zappa.