Review - Saturday Fiction

August 7, 2023
 
Saturday Fiction – China, 2019

There was a time when a new Gong Li film was cause for playing hooky. One year, I even missed the first day of the fall semester because I simply had to see The Story of Qiu Ju on its opening day, and it was opening in San Francisco at a time when I lived in Sacramento. In other words, in my mind, one of her films was such an important experience that I was willing to pay for two Greyhound bus tickets, transportation in San Francisco, plus a ticket and snacks at the concession stand. That’s how big of a fan I was. This was during the first half of Gong Li’s career, when she worked with Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige in their prime and when her choice of roles seemed daring. In those days, a Gong Li movie was as important as it was entertaining. The same cannot be said of most of her films post-2000.

Lou Ye’s Saturday Fiction is not a return to form necessarily, but it may be the first movie in a long time in which the legendary actress gets to really sink her teeth into a role. In the movie, she plays Jean Yu, a popular actress returning to Shanghai ostensibly to return to the stage after a three-year absence. To say the timing is peculiar would be an understatement. Shanghai in 1941 was under Japanese occupation, home to thousands of Jewish refugees from Germany, and mired in poverty. It had two areas that were considered safe – the French Concession (now, the Luwan and Xuhui Districts) and the English Concession. Upon her arrival, Miss Yu goes from the airport directly to the French Concession, where she checks in at an upscale hotel operated by an eager fan who has bugged her phone and wants to be to be told the moment she makes an international call, actions that make less sense as the film progresses.

The first half of the film is devoted to creating a sense of mystery regarding Yu’s motives for returning. While she says she has returned to do a play, there’s talk of the peril her ex-husband is in and whether Yu has returned to help him flee the country. This is brought up by an obsessed fan who follows Miss Yu’s car and impresses her by demonstrating her knowledge of all of her lines from her current stage production, a la All About Eve, as well as hinting that she knows the whereabouts of her ex. We also learn Yu may be trying to rekindle her romance with Tan Na, the director of the play, with whom she apparently had an affair before she disappeared, and then there’s the attention the film gives to a Japanese official sent to Japan to inform government workers of changes in the country’s secret codes. Could Yu’s return somehow be connected to him?
 
The problem with such a set-up is obvious. Instead of characters talking to each other directly, they have to tiptoe around key topics and words. Say too much and the mystery is revealed. This results in a series of cryptic scenes that don’t ring as truthful as they need to and culminate in an outbreak of gunfire and violence that ends with dead bodies lining a busy street, several people with severe bullet wounds, and a character incredulously declaring that everything has gone as planned.
 
Fortunately, this scene announces the start of the film’s second half, which, now able to dispense with cryptic phrases, kicks into gear and delivers a series of exciting and tense scenes, each with real stakes and a growing sense of hazard. In these scenes, Yu sheds all pretenses and displays a ruthlessness that is both shocking and logical. It makes you wonder why Gong Li has never made a true action film – she clearly has the chops for it. (Full disclosure: I have not seen Operation Cougar, an early Zhang Yimou film about an airplane hijacking in which Gong Li plays a stewardess.)
 
The film is shot in black and white, likely to give it a noir-like feeling, and for the most part, it works. Scenes of rain-soaked sidewalks and Shanghai residents huddled around makeshift fires contrast impressively with the bright and clean atmosphere of the French Concession, establishing the existence of two Shanghais. There are also quieter moments during which the connection between Yu and Na is firmly established. You may wonder whether such strong feelings would still exist after such an extended absence, but the human heart can confound by suppressing feelings and desires for the one that got away and then allowing them to rise to the surface so suddenly that not to act of them seems a sin.
 
Unfortunately, writers Yingli Ma, Hong Ying, and Riichi Yokomitsu have injected the film with a plot device that is all too common in film and which never fails to lessen the amount of suspense a film can truly create. Like James Cagney’s 1945 film Blood on the Sun and Gong Li’s own 2010 thriller Shanghai, the film uses real historical events to build tension, but since audience already know how history unfolded, the outcome is never really in doubt. The question is not Will they succeed? but rather Will they get away?
 
Saturday Fiction is therefore a mixed bag. It is well made, has terrific performances from Gong Li, Mark Chao, and Tom Wlaschiha, and one of the best second halves that I’ve seen recently. However, it’s first half is clunky and hindered by its own plot structure. Among Gong Li films, it sits comfortable in the middle – not as good as some of those masterful early collaborations, yet not nearly as exhausting as some of her latter productions, such as Miami Vice, Hannibal Rising, and the overly long What Women Want. I’m glad I saw it. (on DVD in Region 1)
 
2 and a half stars
 
*Shanghai Fiction is in Chinese, Japanese, English, and French.

Review - Last Film Show

 January 24, 2022

Last Film Show (Chhello Show) – India, 2021

Early on, in Pan Nalin’s Last Film Show, a father informs his son, Samay (Bhavin Rabari), that he and his family are going to the movies. He adds, however, “For you, it’s the first and the last.” Good luck with that. Soon, we see the family at a sold out showing of a religious film, a term that for some people likely conjures up images of priests or the converted giving long fiery speeches and glowing figures signaling the arrival of miracles. Yet the film is from India, and so, in addition to the aforementioned qualities, it also contains colorful dance numbers, songs with catchy lyrics, artistic close-ups, and, apparently, captivating action scenes. The boy is hooked. When he gets home, he tells his father, “I want to make movies.” His father’s response: “Shut up.”

The boy’s family is from Chalala, a small northwestern town in India whose population in 2011 was just under 17,000. If a town’s significance can be gaged by the size of its Wikipedia page, then take this into account: Chalala’s has nine sentences, covering geography, demographics (mostly the literacy rate), notable people (there’s 1), and transportation. The latter section is a one-sentence description of where the nearest airports are. In other words, this is not a place of economic prosperity, bustling night life, or world-renowned universities. Ironically, that would likely make it one of the final (and perhaps permanent) destinations for old-fashioned motion picture reels.

Samay begins ditching classes and sneaking (often unsuccessfully) into what looks to be the areas only movie theater, the Galaxy. The theater has a ground floor and a balcony. Its screen is wide, like the ones found in the singleplexes of the past. Most importantly, it has a projectionist named Fazal (Bhavesh Shrimali), who agrees to let Samay into the projection booth in exchange for his mother’s delectable lunches. In this way, Samay is exposed to every genre of film and the directors whose artistic visions made the films possible.

If this sounds familiar, it should, for Cinema Paradiso had a similar storyline. What separates these two films is the environments in which they take place. While Guiseppe Tornatore’s film dealt with such issues as censorship under fascism and young love, Nalin’s characters cope with less political issues, chief among them poverty. This is a family that earns just enough to survive by selling tea to train passengers during brief stops. They live in an undeveloped part of the town, and their home is hardly what you’d call modern. It’s no wonder then that the advice of Samay’s teacher is for him to “learn [English] and leave." 

And yet Samay’s storyline does not show him attending extra English classes or studying for the kind of exam that would have helped him punch his ticket out of his hometown. Rather, he embarks on a journey that reflects the history of film itself. Having experienced his first film and felt the warm glow of its projector reflecting on to his hand, he is filled with existential questions, such as just how as image can be captured and projected in the first place, and, with his friends, embarks on a quest for answers. Admittedly, this is not always the most exciting adventure for viewers, and you can see the timely revelations coming a mile away. What makes it special, though, are Samay’s wide-eyed, enthusiastic reactions to his discoveries. Here is a boy discovering the way to create his own form of miracles. Later in the film, in a scene that is masterfully shot, Samay adds another innovation which harkens all the way back to the Japanese benshi and the pianists and organists that used to play along with silent movies. In that moment, we realize that Samay has created his own version of film history, proving to himself that it can be done and reinforcing his feeling that he simply must do it.

Most movies would end here or jump forward in time to show Samay as a successful director, a la Cinema Paradiso. However, Nalin shuns this predictable route, instead choosing to move the film in a direction that is so unexpected that it shocks the senses and produces feelingss of both numbness and loss. I won’t reveal it here, other than to say that the film is set in 2010, a year that marked the arrival of something that has permanently changed cinema and the way we value it.

I found myself reminiscing on the fate of most of Melies’s film and on the number of films lost in Japan’s cinematic purge in the early 1950s. I couldn’t help wondering whether a physical copy of Kamal Tabrizi’s The Lizard even exists today and if the same fate had been met by other films that fell afoul of oppressive government censors. Are old, worn-down VHS tapes all that remain of these films?

I do not know how successive generations will discover films in the future, yet one of the things that Last Film Show makes clear is the power of their discovery – the memories they create, the imagination they inspire, the communities they form, and the fun and excitement that comes as that exploration continues. Can this experience be duplicated at home on a widescreen television or in your room on an even smaller screen? Time will tell. Last Film Show, though, is a reminder of the power of the flickering lights, the hum of the projector, and the experience of the big screen. And it is a reminder of the impermanence of this experience and of just how easy it is to reduce a dream to dust. (on DVD in Region 3)

3 and a half stars

*Last Film Show is in Gujarati with English subtitles.

Review - Brad's Status

December 4, 2022

Brad’s Status – U.S., 2017

Mike White’s Brad’s Status is like the younger brother who, no matter how much he tries, simply can’t measure up to his smarter and more successful elder sibling. This is not necessarily a put-down, just a reflection of how difficult it is for modern movies to match the honesty and focus of predecessors like King Vidor’s The Crowd or Chaplin’s City Lights. These films were not afraid to leave their central characters ordinary, much to the chagrin of studio executives - and many critics - who felt that audiences preferred escapism and cheerful finales over reality. (Apparently, Vidor begrudgingly filmed a rosier, less realistic ending in which the lead characters were now wealthy). So, it’s not surprising that Brad’s Status takes a safer route than its predecessors. Its protagonist, Brad Sloan, is middle class rather than poor, his family has a nice house rather than the cramped quarters seen in earlier films, he’s happily married. Did I mention he has his own small business? In other words, Brad’s Status is not about a struggle against poverty and normalcy, but like those earlier films, it is about someone looking at his life and not exactly being content with what he sees.
 
Brad is played by Ben Stiller, one of the few actors to truly embrace the passage of time and to explore the struggles that people can have with aging. In the film, his character is 47, meaning he was born in the mid-1970s and had the advantage of graduating from college just as globalization, the internet, and deregulation were proliferating. In flashbacks, we see Brad with his college buddies, all of whom we learn have gone on to become either famous, rich, or both. And then there’s the glamour of the lives they lead – the mansions, the stunningly beautiful women that surround them, the private jets, the ability to say don’t worry about the cost and mean it. It’s no wonder he asks himself where he went wrong. I suspect most of us have asked such questions at one time or another.
 
Brad’s mid-life crisis coincides with one of those rituals that comes with having a child who is approaching graduation - the road trip (here, it’s by air) to potential universities. I took one of these myself, and as the movie progressed, I was suddenly struck by the fact that my trip was really one of the last times my father and I spent a significant amount of time together. Sure, there have been holidays and family gatherings since then, but college is often the start of one’s adult life, and family time is inevitably one of the casualties of entering this stage of life, especially if one later settles down in another city or – in my case – country. And so, as I watched it, I became aware that what I was seeing was not just a father questioning his place in life, but also one of the last chances he will have to strengthen his bond with his son (well-played by Austin Abrams). Looking back, it is an opportunity I did not take full advantage of.
 
Brad’s Status resonates in a number of ways. For many of us, his quest for status will reverberate at a time when, thanks to social media, one can easily find oneself comparing lives with friends, former co-workers, and peers with relative ease - and being disappointed at the results. Especially when one of them posts photos of dinner at a five-star restaurant the same night that you’ve eaten fast food. (My experience, not Brad’s.) Yet there’s more to Brad’s sudden discontent. I suspect that much of it stems from his distance from his college friends – both physical and emotional. He is the odd-man-out, the guy making five figures when everyone else has at least seven. In truth, how many friendships survive such differences? To them, Brad’s become the kind of person you inquire about at a party, but never actually call to check in on – despite having their phone number or Facebook page. Is it any wonder that there’s a tinge of anger mixed in with his envy?
 
And then there’s Brad’s struggle to find the right words with his son. Just what do you do when your son tells you he wants to go to an Ivy League school and the first thing that pops into your head is How am I going to afford that? How is a son to react when, despite your best intentions, what comes out of your mouth sounds astonishingly like discouragement at a time when you mean to be at your most positive? What Brad desperately needs is a chance to play hero, and here, fortune smiles on him (while frowning on his son). When his son misses the day of his interview with Yale, Dad springs into action because, as luck would have it, one of his estranged college buddies just happens to lecture there on occasion. The look on Stiller’s face is perfect.
 
Were Brad’s Status content with simply showing Brad’s last opportunity to be a hero in his son’s eyes and the power of such an experience to reaffirm his status in life, I can well imagine Brad’s Status being one of the great films of the decade. However, it errs when it seeks to elevate Brad at the expense of his former friends. In Brad’s Status, friends cannot simply drift apart or be pulled apart by success. No, wealth and accomplishment have to be shown to be the moral ruin of those that achieve them, making Brad the sole attainer of that elusive thing called happiness. Is the message here that Brad should be glad he didn’t make it? If so, it’s a hard sell. It would have been better – and truer to real life – if Brad’s estrangement from his former friends were just one of those unfortunate things that happens as people age. We don’t always make it, but we shouldn’t need others to fail to be able to find contentment.
 
Despite this, Brad’s Status resonates in a way that few films do nowadays. Brad seems real, and his thoughts and worries are easily recognizable – or at least they will be one day. Most of us struggle from time to time with who we are and who we might have become had we played our cards just a little differently. I have no doubt that one day I too will experience these thoughts as I explore college campuses with my own daughter. How will I pay for this? Why didn’t I amount to more? What happened to my idealism? And I’m pretty sure that, like Brad, at some point my daughter will look at me with a look that will make it all worth it. I can’t wait. (on DVD and Blu-ray)
 
3 and a half stars
 
*I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how impressive Ben Stiller is in this role. It makes me wish he’d done more dramas throughout his career.

Review - The Strong Man

 April 18, 2022
 
The Strong Man – U.S., 1924
 

Legend has it that Charlie Chaplin shut down production of his 1931 film, City Lights, for a year due to a terrible case of creator’s block; see, he just couldn’t explain why a blind woman would mistake the Tramp for a wealthy patron. While that length of time might seem excessive, I can understand Chaplin’s desire to get it right, and perhaps part of his obsession with finding the right rationale was due to a film released just five years earlier that must have driven coherency-focused writers like Chaplin absolutely nuts. That film was Frank Capra’s The Strong Man, starring former circus, medicine show, and Vaudeville performer, Harry Langdon.
 
In The Strong Man, Langdon plays Paul Bergot, a Belgian World War I soldier stationed in No Man’s Land. When Bergot isn’t firing at unseen German soldiers, he’s gazing longingly at the picture of Mary Brown, a young woman who has confessed her love for him in a letter he must have read a million times. When he lets his guard down and resumes gazing at her picture, he is captured by a rather large strong German soldier who whisks him away presumably to a POW camp. I say presumably because the very next time we see him, he’s the assistant of this very same German soldier and traveling around the U.S. as the marquee member of a strong man act. I imagine the story of their pairing would have made for quite an interesting film.
 
Slapstick is sometimes described as a collection of humorous scenes loosely connected to a romantic subplot that hardly seems to have been given the time needed for it to blossom and engage, and The Strong Man fits this description for the most part. In addition to the scene in No Man’s Land, in which German bullets actually do Bergot a favor by exterminating the cooties crawling over him, there’s a humorous bit involving Bergot, the strong man, and some rather large luggage, a clever bit in which Bergot unsuccessfully tries to get away from a woman who hid a wad of stolen money in his coat pocket (she initially claims to be “Little Mary”), Bergot’s attempts at putting on a strong man act solo, and finally a long scene in which he defends Mary’s honor against a scoundrel intent on making Mary one of his “attractions” as punishment for her preacher father’s campaign against sin and vice. In other words, the film has enough creative elements to work wonders. There’s even an extremely clever bit in which Bergot is tossed from a wagon only to tumble down a hill and crash into the very same wagon as it continues its way down a hill.
 
My favorite of these bits is the one involving the femme fatale (Gertrude Astor) because of its extraordinary choreography. In one clever bit, the woman keeps trying to reach into Bergot’s pocket only for him to turn at the most inopportune moment. There’s also a clever moment in which Bergot has realized the woman is not Mary (for rather old-fashioned reasons) and begun to walk away after she feigns passing out (really, that happens). The only problem is that a good Samaritan just happens to be nearby and calls out that he can’t just leave her like that, which in reality, he can’t and doesn’t. The scene culminates in Bergot carrying the woman up the stairs leading to her apartment and mistaking a number of things for steps. This part of the film is comic perfection.
 
And yet the rest of film does not work nearly as well as it should, primarily because the romantic angle is a headscratcher. So, here are two characters established in early scenes as being in love, and yet apparently they’ve never met. Perhaps there was a pen pal program during the First World War that I’m unware of, but it is hard to imagine how true love could flourish under such circumstances, especially 80 years before the idea of social media existed (and I’m still not entirely sold on the idea that it can flourish there). In fact, much of what passes as narrative in the film involves Bergot searching for Mary and knowing her so poorly that he runs in the direction of anyone whose names just happens to resemble hers.
 
And then we meet her, and the romantic pairing makes even less sense. See, Mary Brown (Priscilla Bonner), like the little flower girl in City Lights is blind, which begs more than a few questions, not the least of which is Who wrote the letters? I’ll add a few more. How did they start corresponding? Who took the picture? And finally, What was her plan for their eventual meeting? Again, the film has no answers. It seems more content to make Bergot her knight in shining armor, which is fine, yet its disinterest in justifying its characters’ deep feelings, reminiscent of the way it avoids explaining how two soldiers on the opposite side of a war could end up a Vaudeville team, hurts the film, for why should viewers invest in a couple or partnership if the makers of the film had no interest in rewarding that investment?
 
Sure, the two characters share a sweetness after they actually meet, and the film’s closing moments evoke the kind of warmth and contentment that accompanies most happy endings. However, here those feelings feel unearned, a bi-product of our natural disposition to smile whenever a princess gets her Prince Charming, even as we sense how ludicrous their pairing actually is.
 
Still, The Strong Man remains a decent film. Perhaps my misgivings have more to do with the curse of looking back, for seeing things in reverse order can make progress look like reversion, stripping a film of its rightful role as a necessary step in the development of cinema. One would hope story rises above aesthetics, but sometimes it does not, and having seen an idea done better can make another rendition of it less impressive regardless of whether one can mentally put the two films in chronological order. City Lights spoiled us, and its greatness makes similar movies – whether predecessors or successors – pale in comparison. It’s unfair, but…really, who wrote the darn letter? (on DVD as part of Kino’s Harry Langdon… the Forgotten Clown)
 
3 stars

Review - The Mikado (1960)

 April 4, 2022
 
The Mikado – 1960, US
 

You never really get over your first love, especially if what are you most known for later in life is not it. In the case of Grouch Marx, he was known for his absurdity, wit, and whimsical musings onscreen, and yet, Marx started out a singer. He had a beautiful voice, and when desperate economic times came, he was pulled out of school and sent on the road as part of a traveling musical act. To say it did not go well would be an understatement, though this was no fault of his own; he just happened to have hitched his fortunes to two unscrupulous performers, both of whom ran off with his earnings, leaving him penniless and alone in cities he hardly knew.
 
Fame came later, first from his years with his brothers in Vaudeville and on Broadway, and later from his slapstick antics in a series of wacky films, also with his brothers. He would sing in many of these film, yet his numbers were known more for their puns and absurdity than musical complexity (think “I’m Against It” from Horse Feathers and Lydia the Tattooed Lady from 1939’s At the Circus). Did audiences look forward to his musical numbers the way later ones kept their eyes peeled for Hitchcock’s brief appearances? It’s hard to say. However, I can imagine audiences being amazed by the sheer number of witticisms flying by them at break-neck speed and being perhaps a bit frustrated when some of them didn’t have the decency to stay long enough to be properly understood. By the time he made The Mikado, which aired on television as part of the Bell Telephone Hour, he was 70 years old and wealthy. He could have been easing into retirement. And yet…
 
The following quote is attributed to Marx’s daughter, Melinda Marx Leung: “It was my father’s lifelong dream to play the role of Ko-Ko in The Mikado.” Thank goodness he got his wish then – or at least part of it. After all, when an opera clocks in at two hours and forty minutes and your production of it lasts just 52 minutes, it is really accurate to say that you have done the musical? It’s a bit like saying that you played Ahab in Moby Dick when all you really did was a two-person scene during a night of amateur theater. On the other hand, can you conceive of anyone in today’s Hollywood who would perform in an opera? Jennifer Hudson perhaps, but that’s where my list pretty much ends.
 
So, just what is The Mikado, and why would Marx have been so drawn to it? Well, for one, despite its name and setting, it is not an opera about Japan. In truth, nothing in it - neither the characters nor the setting – bares any resemblance to Japan. Instead, it is a satire on British society and institutions that just happens to use Japan as a stand-in for the British Empire. The characters’ names, far from being representative of the Japanese culture, are examples of English baby-talk. For example, the lead character is named Nanki-Poo, a fun riff on the word handkerchief. And Nanki-Poo’s love interest? She goes by the name of Yum Yum.
 
In the opening scene, we learn that the leader of Japan, the Mikado (Dennis King), has made flirting a capital crime, an act that is intended to mock British regulations far more than Japanese society, which I’m not sure either Gilbert or Sullivan knew much about. I believe it is this aspect of the opera that drew Marx to it, for he must have been deeply appreciative of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ability to use art to poke fun at authority and convention. After all, he and his brothers had practically made a career out of it.
 
But I digress. This is a review, after all, and as such, the central question I should be answering is this one: Is it any good? The short answer, thankfully, is yes, and much of its success is due to the fact that Gilbert and Sullivan saw The Mikado as a comedy, and comedy – especially when it involved poking fun at authority - was Groucho’s bread and butter. As Ko-Ko, he seems aware of the absurdity even when curveballs are lobbed his way. In the film’s opening moments, we learn that Ko-Ko, a former tailor, was convicted of flirting and thus sentenced to death. However, authorities, no fan of the Mikado’s edicts and reliance of capital punishment, decide to make the next man scheduled for execution the new High Executioner, reasoning quite logically that one cannot execute himself. (It’s dangerous, we later learn from Ko-Ko, and besides suicide is a capital offense.) One guess who the new executioner turns out to be.
 
For some unexplained reason, Ko-Ko is also scheduled to marry Yum-Yum (Barbara Meister), which comes as a shock to Nanki-Poo, who upon arrival, thinking that her guardian (oh, that’s Ko-Ko also) has already been executed, quickly announces his intentions to pursue her hand in marriage. Hearing of his feelings, as well as his later intention to commit suicide due to his dashed dreams, Nanki-Poo (Robert Rounseville) makes a deal with Ko-ko. Seeing as the Mikado has just threatened to eliminate the position of High Executioner if no execution takes place within a month (in the opera, he threatens to reduce the city of Titipu to the status of a village), Ko-Ko agrees to let Nanki-Poo marry Yum-Yum, provided that he agrees to be the one executed, after which Ko-Ko promises to do the honorable thing and marry the recently widowed Yum-Yum. (Yes, this is really the plot.) Suffice to say, nothing goes right with the plan. And did I mention that Nanki-Poo is really the son of the Mikado and is fleeing an arranged marriage? Believe it or not, this is all revealed in the first 19 minutes.
 
Ko-Ko is always close enough to break in with a witty comment or a life-saving idea. Characters break the fourth wall, and lines such as “You can see how being buried alive puts a damper on things” are said with deadpan seriousness, much like Leslie Nielson and company would later do to great effect in the Naked Gun movies. Only Ko-Ko seems aware of the ludicrousness of it all, and this may be why his songs differ so greatly from those of the other characters. I cannot say with any certainty that Marx improvised any of his lines, but if he didn’t, it’s amazing how well the role suited his brand of humor and established personality.
 
We no longer have anything resembling The Bell Telephone Hour, and that’s a shame, for television can be so much more than 30-seconds of mindless distraction. Today, we have shows like The Masked Singer, in which celebrities don costumes and dance and sing. These shows may be entertaining, but are they inspirational? Will audiences walk away from them wondering what else a writing team created, or decide to give a form of music that had previously not been on their radar a chance? Groucho knew and appreciated Gilbert and Sullivan, and he used his star power to bring them to a medium that they likely couldn’t have contemplated the existence of. In doing so, he brought them to a whole new audience, an accomplishment that continues today whenever a fan of the Marx Brothers decides to watch The Mikado because it stars Groucho. I know this because he’s the reason I watched it, and for that, I’ll be eternally grateful. (on DVD from VAI)
 
3 and a half stars
 
*The Mikado was originally broadcast in color, but sadly, no color copies exist today. There are also times, particularly during a few musical numbers, when the audio is not clear.   

Review - Dragon Seed

 January 28, 2022
 
Dragon Seed – U.S., 1944
 

Let’s be honest. There was absolutely no possibility that Harold C. Bacquet and Jack Conway’s 1944 film Dragon Seed was ever going to have a more authentic cast. World War II was in its third year, the Japanese Internment Camps were in operation, and there was a belief that audiences simply would not go to see a movie starring Asian-American actors and actresses. We’ll never know if this was accurate. However, we do know that there was an interest in films about Asian characters. Seven years earlier, The Good Earth had won awards, and in the years that followed, audiences would flock to films such as Sayonara, Love Is a Many Splendid Thing, the Charlie Chan movies, China Doll and a bit later the films of Bruce Lee. Many of these films even had Asian and Asian-American actresses in lead and supporting roles. So, there has been some progress at least.
 
However, in 1944, what we were likely to get was a film about Asians that starred Caucasians or “exotic-looking” actors and actresses, and that is what we get in Dragon Seed. Make no mistake about it - the film has an impressive cast. In the lead roles, we have Walter Huston (Caucasian Canadian), Aline MacMahon (Scottish-Irish and Russian-Jewish), and Katherine Hepburn (Caucasian American). The supporting roles are played by Akim Tamiroff (Armenian) and Turhan Bey (Turkish and Czechoslovakian-Jewish), as well as Hurd Hatfield, Agnes Moorehead, Frances Rafferty, and Jacqueline deWit. All in all, a pretty inauthentic cast, if you ask me.
 
And yet, here’s the thing. If you can look past the fact that few members of the cast look or sound the part (some even resort to slowing down their speech to sound “Chinese”) and instead focus on what the characters are actually saying and doing, I think you’ll be in for a surprise. It turns out that Dragon Seed is a pretty gripping film.
 
Like many great American films, Dragon Seed is about a family dealing with changing times. The film is set in 1937, and this is significant, for it means that the family’s four children – 3 boys and a girl – were likely born in the aftermath of the Chinese Revolution of 1911. This is significant because revolutions tend to bring about both social change, as well as changes in the mindset of youngsters, especially women. This is certainly evidence in the film. In addition, 1937 brings the looming threat of a Japanese invasion.  
 
At the heart of the film are Ling Tan (Huston) and his wife (MacMahon), and one of the beautiful aspects of the film is their relationship. While we are never told whether theirs was an arranged marriage (I suspect it was), we quickly see that there is a deep connection between them. In an early scene, Ling Tan is working in the field when his wife calls his name. He utters something about not listening to women until after sundown, yet soon drops what he is doing and goes to her. After explaining that she is worried about his health, she suggests that he help her pluck some chickens instead. With a mixture of frustration and playfulness, he responds, “That is woman’s work,” but then assist her anyway. And there, in a nutshell, is their relationship – still rooted in old-fashioned beliefs about the roles of men and women, but also caring and tender. Throughout the film, they talk to each other truthfully and with their hearts, and one of them usually ends up in the other’s arms.
 
They own a sizable farm, which they run with the help of their three sons and one of their daughters-in-law. I say one because the other, Jade (Hepburn), always seems to be absent and distant emotionally. In one scene, her husband, Lao Er (Bey) describes her as “mine, and yet… not mine,” and her non-conformity to traditional norms is viewed as something hideous that must be stamped out. To this end, the family offers some rather telling solutions. Make her wait, one brother says. Another member advises what can only be described as physical violence, and while this advice is never acted upon, the suggestion is nevertheless alarming. So too are several other comments in which domestic violence is presented as both a kind of necessary evil.
 
One day, Lao Er cannot find Jade, so he goes to center of town, half expecting to find her in the arms of the man she could have married. Instead, she is listening to a speech detailing the need to stand up to Japanese aggression. It is a call to arms that only she appears willing to answer. In a later scene, her father-in-law insists there’s no need for alarm. Peace, he reasons, has always been present in the land, and it will continue to reign. If only history had heeded his words.
 
The movie follows these two parallel tracks – modernity on the one hand and war on the other. Scenes in which Lao Er and Jade seek to further develop their relationship are followed by ones in which the war intrudes. For example, in one rather sweet scene, Jade expresses her desire for a book, and Lao Er, though unsure he can truly be progressive, readily agrees to get one for her. Soon afterwards, we witness Lao Er’s uncle’s shop being looted and his products thrown into a raging bonfire. His crime: selling Japanese goods. These two storylines eventually converge in a scene that starts with Jade announcing her pregnancy moments before Japanese planes appear in the sky and start dropping bombs. The war has come, and with it undeniable cruelty.
 
The question Dragon Seed ultimately asks is whether goodness can survive such adversity, whether we can preserve our values and hopes while witnessing a string of shocking atrocities. The answer comes in the form of a patriotic and slightly propagandist monologue that is simultaneously inspiring and naïve. It is delivered by Jade and reflects the long-held hope that war can be so horrifying that it snaps society out of its propensity to hate and brutalize those we either fear or loathe for having the audacity to be different from us. If only we defeat this enemy or that enemy, then all will be right again. It is a lie we tell ourselves to preserve our own sanity, for believing otherwise would mean accepting the unacceptable.
 
Dragon Seed was written by Pearl S. Buck, and unlike The Good Earth, it is completely fictional. Buck left China in 1934 and appears not to have returned. I suspect that her books are not very well read these days, but they were incredibly influential at the time, introducing Western audiences to sympathetic Chinese characters and demonstrating that they weren’t all that different from themselves. This translated into increased public support for China during the war and likely led to more understanding of the Chinese-American community, as well as refugees from China, some of whom eventually settled in the United States. The movie adaptations of The Good Earth and Dragon Seed can only have contributed to this development.
 
These days, the film is viewed as “problematic” due to its cast, its references to abuse, and its rather one-note Japanese characters. This is a shame, for this is not Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Sixteen Candles, movies whose Asian-American characters were created solely for the purpose of being comic fodder. This is a serious, sweet, and tragic film about a horrendous time in history. Its characters are complex with each having a realistic arc and each committing believable actions. Jade and Lao Er’s romance rings true despite the studio’s apparent unwillingness to allow their characters’ lips to actually touch, and there is both a bond and a complexity to each of the other relationships. These indeed were times that tested men’s souls, and Dragon Seed doesn’t shy away from that. I can only hope that we don’t shy away from films like Dragon Seed simply because of what we wish they had been. (on DVD)
 
4 stars

Review - Tomorrow's Children

 
December 18, 2021
 
Tomorrow’s Children – U.S., 1934
 

Wallace Thurman’s Tomorrow’s Children is a movie without a spine. It is a film that purports to be an exploration of the morality of sterilization, and, to its credit, there are a number of impassioned debates about the practice. However, images always trump emotional appeal, and it seems awfully hard to make the case that you’re against something when your visuals depict the worst possible examples as its supposed victims. Even Dr. Brooks (nicely played by Donald Douglas), the hero of the film, says the death of a newborn is a blessing in disguise. The deceased’s mother, you see, would have been poor, and her siblings would have been “feeble-minded” and physically challenged. You know what they say about friends like these.
 
The film begins with a newspaper headline heralding Hitler’s endorsement of sterilization for the “unfit.” Around 400,000 “undesirables” would go on to be sterilized from 1933 – 1945, an act now recognized as a form of genocide. However, before you say the film is putting American supporters of eugenics and sterilization in the same camp as a mass murderer, remember that the film was made in 1934, and it is doubtful that its creators had any hint of the horror that Hitler and negative eugenics would inflict. And eugenics has plenty of supporters on this side of the Atlantic. The newspaper could just as easily have been referencing a quote by Theodore Roosevelt, Alexander Graham Bell, or John D. Rockefeller Jr.
 
We’re then privy to the rather forced conversations of three diverse groups on – you guessed it – sterilization. First, two government officials seem open to the practice, then a women’s group seems to be opposed, but admits the need for more information. Only an Irish-American priest stands firmly in opposition, arguing that it is an affront to religion, a sentiment that matches the imagery used in the film’s opening credits - sunlight breaking through a series of dark clouds. We are then transported into a hospital where, once again, sterilization is the topic of the day. Interestingly, most of the voices from the medical profession are in favor of the practice, partly due to their apparent disgust of their less economically advantaged patients. Again, with friends like these…
 
Consider this. The film’s idea of an unbiased look at the topic is to focus viewers on a poor family with children either in jail, infirmed, or mentally-challenged. This is the family whose dead newborn is spoken of so callously, and the deceased’s parents are either too greedy or indifferent to care about her. Later, we see a parade of those the state intends to put under the knife, and there’re hardly people designed to sway public opinion against the procedure. There’s a criminal who’s offered a shorter sentence in exchange for consenting to the operation; a violent, lecherous young man who, just before his court hearing, rips off the clothes of his nurse; and a man who stares into space and appears to not know what planet he’s on. Hardly anyone raises an objection to their sterilization, but mention it in relation to a healthy, hard-working seventeen-year-old girl, and that’s another situation entirely.
 
The young lady in question is Alice Mason (Diane Sinclair), daughter of the aforementioned couple with the “problematic” genes. She is presented as the outlier, the good apple in a batch of otherwise bad ones. She supports the family financially, has a decent hardworking boyfriend (Carlyle Moore Jr.) who wants to marry her, and is genuinely sweet. She returns home one night to find two strangers in her home, both government employees, and is informed that her parents have given their consent for the entire family to be sterilized. Alice quietly gives them the slip and goes on the lam. Eventually, she’ll turn to Dr. Brooks for assistance.
 
The film has a number of interesting moments. A scene in which a pro-sterilization judge callously denies the appeals of patient after patient is well done, showing how stacked the deck is against those who cannot afford the best legal representation. There’s also a pleasant scene in which Dr. Brooks visits the Mason family, and the way he speaks establishes the care and concern he has for children whose only fault is that they inherited defective genes. Also, the scenes involving Alice and her boyfriend successfully establish how deeply their bond goes and draw us to their side. There are also a number of scenes in which we get a good sense of the coldness with which those enforcing sterilization laws interact with those whose hopes of a family they wish to squash.
 
Had Tomorrow’s Children focused exclusively on Ms. Mason’s plight, it would have been a much stronger film, addressing questions of whether someone entirely healthy on the outside should be punished for what may exist on the inside. Instead, it tries to play both sides, showing the “problems” that sterilization can solve, while seeming arguing that it is only really a crime when someone nice and attractive becomes its target. Dr. Brooks, the supposed voice of enlightenment, goes from staunchly opposing sterilization to only really put up a fight when Alice is at risk, a fact that makes his stance against the practice one of convenience rather than true conviction. After all, if something is morally and ethically wrong, it is wrong in all cases, not just the ones that can easily elicit sympathy.
 
Instead, we get a cop-out final act that removes all pretense of the filmmaker’s intent. This is not a film about the consequences of sterilization or a serious exploration of the pros and cons of its implementation. Instead, it is a film that uses the topic to punch down at a population unable to fight back, and its hero, despite his sermonizing and his action-film inspired mad dash to save Alice’s womanhood, is ultimately a champion of one. In the end, we are meant to rejoice: the pretty girl can have her baby, and society is rid of tomorrow’s problems. We can go home happy, right? (on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino)
 
2 and a half stars

Review - The Big Chill

August 6, 2021
 
The Big Chill – US, 1983
 

I imagine most people who have attended a funeral have experienced the awkwardness of seeing a mourner you haven’t talked to in quite some time and feeling somewhat happy for the opportunity to reconnect. When the reunion eventually occurs, the conversation usually begins with expressions of sorrow over the deceased’s passing before morphing into an update on the lives of the living. It feels wrong, and yet there’s something wholly natural about it. It is as if the dead’s final act is to put the band back together, something that would not likely have occurred had death not reared its ugly head.
 
Lawrence Kasdan’s 1983 film, The Big Chill begins with a group of thirtysomethings receiving word of the suicide of their long-time friend Alex, and in a series of clips set to I Heard It Through the Grapevine, we see their varied reactions to the news. Soon everyone is meeting at a church, and even as a priest delivers a fiery sermon questioning how Alex lost hope so terribly, some of them can’t resist glancing at the faces of friends they’ve allowed themselves to become somewhat distant to. The funeral ends with one of them going to the church organ and playing Alex’s favorite song, the Rolling Stones’s “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Kasdan makes the interesting choice of playing both of these songs in their entirety, and they create an interesting paradox – melancholy mixed with toe-tapping – reinforcing the notion that sorrow can also be a catalyst for joy.
 
Following the funeral, they and all of the other attendees adjourn to the home of Sarah and Harold Cooper (Glenn Close and Kevin Kline). They eat, get reacquainted, express their condolences to the relatives of the deceased, and comment on the age of Alex’s much younger girlfriend, Chloe (Meg Tilly). As the evening winds down, the large group of mourners dwindles down to seven of Alex’s closest friends – Sarah, Harold, Sam, Michael, Nickolas, Meg, and Karen -  Karen’s bore of a husband, Richard, and Chloe. The plan is to spend the weekend together.
 
What follows is both a universal experience and one particularly unique to people who grew up in the 1960s. In these characters, we can see people we either know or used to know, and in their conversations, we can hear our own questions about life, friendship, and whether we have remained true to the person we used to be. There are heartfelt conversations, arguments over the right way to mourn, pursuits of one-night stands, as well as the kind of honesty that only people who have known each other as long as they have and gone through as much as they have together can engage in. There are also references to Vietnam and harassment by the police – indicating they were most likely involved in either the Civil Rights or the anti-war movement. Harold takes on the role of master of ceremonies and is the catalyst for what is perhaps the film’s most famous scene – an energetic, jubilant dance to “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” It is as much catharsis as it is remembrance.
 
There’s a lot going on in The Big Chill, for each character has his or her own situation to deal with. Sam (Tom Berenger), though a famous actor, has clearly had trouble adjusting to fame and the kind of acting he is doing. It is clear he wanted more. Meg (Mary Kay Place), a lawyer, is disenchanted with her career and now wants a baby despite not being in a relationship. Michael (Jeff Goldblum) is a writer for People Magazine, yet dreams of running his own club. As for Nickolas (William Hurt), a pill-popping Vietnam veteran, he is a bit of a lost soul. Once a radio psychologist, he now spends his time either stoned or on drugs, a state Harold is hoping to steer him out of. There are moments of levity, such as when Sam tries to re-enact a scene from his television show, yet there’s also the spectre of Alex hanging over them, creating questions that Kasdan wisely leaves unanswered.
 
It is a credit to Kasdan and his co-writer Barbara Benedek that each of these characters is given time to develop and explain themselves, and we grow to care about them, even while not completely agreeing with the choices they make. Kasdan shows that connections remain even as time and space create differences. Wisely, he also doesn’t create happy endings for all of his characters, and two of them leave with a severely strained relationship. It is only in the closing scenes that Kasdan and his script falter, for after structuring the film around a series of conversations and confrontations, he abruptly elects not to show one of the most consequential conversations that takes place over that weekend, choosing instead to utterly ignore all of the moral and financial complications of a couple’s rather momentous decision. And without it, it’s hard to fully believe that one so clearly dedicated to his family would consent to the proposal in the first place or that the next day would be like any other one for the couple in question. Perhaps that naiveté is intended.
 
That plotline aside, it is hard to criticize The Big Chill too much. This is a well-constructed film with amazing performances, and it fascinates and inspires introspection. It is also one of the most relatable films I’ve ever seen. We can see ourselves and people we know in these characters. We understand the elation they feel when reunited and the questions they have about who they are and who they thought they would be. And we understand the ease with which they communicate and how connected they continue to be even after all these years. Moreover, we understand the transitory nature of what we are witnessing. I doubt these characters will suddenly call each other regularly or write as often as they say they intend to, but that’s to be expected. Time may create distance, but it doesn’t always dull connections. People just need a reason to reunite – be that a wedding, a high school reunion, or, sadly, a funeral. (on DVD and Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection)
 
3 and a half stars
 
*The Big Chill was up for three Academy Awards – Best Picture, Best Actress (Glenn Close), and Best Screenplay.

Review - Blind Husbands

 July 31, 2021
 
Blind Husbands – US, 1919
 

It is said that upon its release, Erich von Stroheim’s Blind Husbands was an instant success and that the film announced to the world the arrival of a new and innovative director, one who was not afraid to tackle tough issues. Fast forward 102 years, and the question becomes how we should best evaluate the film. Should we, for example, try to look at it through the eyes of an audience member from 1919 and reflect upon what were then bold themes and creative camera techniques? Or do we look at the film through contemporary eyes and assess it based simply on its content? If, as Roger Ebert wrote, a film should feel brand new each time we see it, how should we assess a movie that we know was important historically, but which feels more than a little too dated in its understanding of the human psyche and is much less audacious than the films that proceeded it?
 
Blind Husbands is the story of Dr. Robert Armstrong (Sam De Grasse) and his wife, Margaret (Francelia Billington). They have been married long enough for the spark that initially brought them together to need a lot of effort to remain burning, and in the film’s prelude, we are asked whether an inattentive husband deserves as much of the blame when his wife strays as the outside who came between them. This notion is further enforced in the film’s opening scene. Set in a carriage, the scene presents us two contrasting couples. The doctor and his wife are one; the other is a younger couple whose hands and eyes are constantly locked and whose lips curl into joyous smiles at just the sight of the other. The doctor and his wife have long passed that stage. Well, one of them has anyway. The doctor’s eyes are buried in a book, while his young wife appears lost and lonely. Sure, her arm is in his, but that seems more indicative of her continued efforts rather than his. A question she asks him is answered by someone else. Sitting on in the opposite side of the coach is Lieutenant Eric Von Steuben (von Stroheim), whose keen eyes notice the distance that exists between the doctor and his wife. Perhaps more tellingly, they also notice the wife’s legs.
 
Just prior to this, we have witnessed something that until the introduction of the lieutenant has not made a lot of sense. A rugged mountain guide referred to as “Silent” Sepp (Gibson Gowland) has received a letter, the contents of which have produced a look of indignation. For the rest of the first half of the film, Sepp acts as a kind of restrained chaperone, always around to observe the movements of the lieutenant and inferring that what looks genuinely innocent – such as bringing Margaret a blanket - is, in actuality, anything but. The character is interesting, and moments in which he throws mental darts in the direction of the lieutenant let us know exactly how we should interpret his acts of “kindness.” The problem is that we’ve known not to trust him since he ogled Margaret in the coach.
 
Blind Husbands was revolutionary in its time. Here was a movie that acknowledged that a woman could be dissatisfied with her marriage and, even more shocking, that that displeasure could lead her to consider infidelity. But does Margaret every really contemplate that? Von Stroheim shows us Margaret reflecting on the changes that have taken place since she got married, but we never actually see mental images in which her husband has been replaced by the lieutenant. In fact, all we’ve seen from Margaret is a desire to get away from the lieutenant, and the sentiments she expresses when the lieutenant is in her room can hardly be said to have been expressed under the most romantic of circumstances.
 
So, in other words, I never thought Margaret was truly interested in the other man, and without that buy-in, you don’t really have any suspense. Perhaps as a result, the film’s final act is to add jealousy and homicidal impulses into the mix because apparently a lecherous flirt always has to be capable of murder and a man drawn into the service of others must always end up being a slave to his own foolish emotions. It would have been more realistic to present the lieutenant as a coward and the doctor as a man whose passion has been eclipsed by overconfidence. Alas. Exactly where, I can hear studio executives saying, is the drama is that?  And they’re right. Audience in 1919 flocked to the film, and if box office results are any indication of satisfaction, they liked what they saw.
 
Nonetheless, there’s no getting over the tameness of the film. This is a film what wants you to imply interest on the part of the wife when there are no real signs to infer it from. It wants to you to assume the worst of the lieutenant, but refuses to show him doing anything that would help explain why he is suddenly overrun by murderous impulses at the end, and it wants you to believe that a man as decent as the doctor could be completely undone, both emotionally and mentally, by the words of someone he only met a few days earlier. I just didn’t buy it, but then again, I’m looking at the film from contemporary eyes. (on DVD from Kino)
 
2 and a half stars

Review - Mephisto

 July 3, 2021
 
Mephisto – Hungary, 1981
 

There must be something addictive about the arts. How else can you explain the arts’ ability to make the sane irrational and the struggling obstinate? Of course, these same qualities can be viewed romantically, as implications of one’s dedication to and pure love of a craft. Sleeping in your car is thus a sign of an actors’ commitment. Living with five people in a one-bedroom shack becomes just the first act in a rags-to-riches story. Just how, though, can you explain the actions of such celebrated figures as Emil Jannings, Sessue Hayakawa, G.W. Pabst, and Elia Kazan, people who used their art as a justification for either turning a blind eye to or actively engaging in propagandist actions?  Did they fully embrace the policies of the dictators and governments their work aided, or were they simply unable to conceive of a life without the stage and the applause of the audience?
 
Istvan Szabo’s 1981 film Mephisto is about one such man. It tells the tale of a struggling actor named Hendrik Hoefgen (Klaus Maria Brandauer, here giving an absolutely amazing performance) who fancies himself as one of theater’s undiscovered treasures. He is a believer in Cultural Bolshevism, which he interprets to mean bringing art to the masses. In one scene, he envisions using every inch of the theater during a performance; this, he explains, will make the theatrical experience more inclusive. He also wants to use the stage to the explore the struggles of average people and to confront politics head on, views that were not generally shared by the National Socialist Party that would come to power just a few years later.
 
Mephisto unfolds in three parts. In the first, Hoefgen is a pugnacious actor, frustrated by others’ inability to recognize his talent and the public’s rejection of serious theater. In the second, he leaves the company that he’s made a name for himself with for the prestige of working on the Berlin stage. There, despite signing a contract that pays him less money and offers him no say as to the roles he’ll play, he is soon playing to packed house and earning thunderous ovations, partly due to his portrayal of the Devil’s agent Mepistopheles in Faust. The final act details the choices he makes after the election of Adolph Hitler and the rise of the National Socialist Party, about whom Hoefgen remarks, “I don’t have a lot of friends among them.”
 
Of these three parts, the first feels the most rushed. Other than Hoefgen, few of the characters are fully fleshed out. This includes a director who recognizes Hoefgen’s talent, a fellow actor with whom he is staging a “Bolshevist” play, and his first wife, Barbara (Krystyna Janda), who has a better understanding of where Germany is heading that Hoefgen. A fellow actor with National Socialist affiliations is equally undeveloped, so much so that when he reappears later in the film, it took a moment for me to remember his relevance. Plays begin and end at dizzying speeds, and before we know it, Hoefgen is, if not renowned, gaining in fame.
 
Fortunately, the film slows down when Hoefgen arrives in Germany, even as the women in his life remain afterthoughts to both he and the film’s screen writers, Peter Dobai and Szabo. It is then that Hoefgen begins to slowly lose his moral grounding. Early in the film, we see him stand up for the Jewish owner of a restaurant he and his friends frequent; later, he witnesses thugs beating up a Jewish man and merely looks away. He hears of writers being banned and directors being arrested and doesn’t know how to respond. When asked to participate in a protest performance, he replies, “I’d rather stay out of this now.” On a film shoot abroad, he is encouraged to flee. He doesn’t. Offered another opportunity during a trip to France, he simply says, “What could I do here?” See, there he’s a star.
 
Interestingly, Hoefgen is never a sympathetic character. We first see him staring at himself in the mirror screaming, apparently because he’s not on stage. Soon we see him dancing rather joyfully with his girlfriend, Juliette (Karin Boyd), yet their happiness devolves into a messy encounter, made all the more awkward by Hoefgen’s recitation of a Shylock-inspired monologue as foreplay and the pair’s constant hurling of insults (i.e. “You are but a comical bit of misery.”) at each other. Their subsequent attempts at wild passion are a dismal failure. In fact, throughout the film, Hoefgen never meets a woman he doesn’t then cheat on, and his relationships with his fellow actors are equally strained. He’s the kind of person you’d probably enjoy working with, but conveniently forget to invite to a cast party after a performance.
 
Indeed, Hoefgen is Faust, a man who sells his soul in pursuit of fame and opportunity. His Mephisto is the German General (played exceptionally by Rolf Hoppe) who after taking a liking to Hoefgen’s performance, decides to use him in his crusade to rid Germany of Cultural Bolshevism and sell the Nazi Party to the public. It’s quite a turnaround, one made complete in late scene in which Hoefgen publicly states to the general, “we love you as a master.” We can easily envision him later starring in the kinds of anti-Semitic productions that Jannings made. All in the name of doing what you love. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Kino)
 
3 and a half stars
 
*Mephisto is in German with English subtitles.
*The film was awarded Best Foreign Language Film of 1981.
 
*In reviewing Mephisto, Roger Ebert described Brandauer’s work in the film as “one of the greatest movie performances I’ve ever seen,” and I see no reason to disagree.

Review - Hiroshima (1953)

April 2, 2021

Hiroshima – Japan, 1953

Hideo Sekigawa’s 1953 film Hiroshima is a paradoxically potent mess. First, a little context. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the United States, led by General Douglas A. MacArthur, occupied Japan and set about its “rehabilitation.” Over the next six years, the Japanese public heard and saw little about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: photos and documentary footage were deemed state secrets, textbooks avoided mentioning  it, and motion picture studios were told to steer clear of the subject. It seems logical to assume, therefore, that two things happened. First, the public’s emotional response to the bombings lessened. In fairness, most people had more pressing needs – avoiding poverty and starvation, saying farewell to loved ones lost, rebuilding the infrastructure necessary for a society to function. Second, it made people less empathetic to the survivors of the blasts. After all, it is almost impossible to be empathetic to experiences to which you are oblivious.

I believe Sekigawa meant for his film to be a wrecking ball to these trends, to be an agent of re-education, enforcing the dual messages that it was that bad and there are still victims of the blast among us. His intended audience, therefore, was likely the domestic market, for even though it is doubtful that the citizens of other nations knew the full extent of the atomic bomb’s horrors, there are scenes in the film that blatantly seek to shame and blame the United States, including a reading of a German judge’s assessment that the decision to use the atomic bomb was a war crime.

The film begins with a narration of events on the morning of August 6, 1945, and it includes the curious assertion that Theodore Van Kirk, the navigator of the Enola Gay, had a moment of deep reflection and regret just before the bomb was dropped. From there, we enter a classroom in post-war Japan during an English lesson. There is a sudden scream – a student’s nose is bleeding. Later, at a hospital the student, tragically aware of her mortality, looks up and proclaims, “I don’t want to die.” From a doctor, her teacher, Mr. Kitagawa (played by Eiji Okada, who starred in Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima Mon Amour, a film that includes many images from Hiroshima), is given the awful news: leukemia. And if you are unaware of just how devastating that condition is, don’t worry. The movie spends the next ten minutes explaining it to you.

Heavy-handed as it is, this section of the film accomplishes two things. It adequately conveys the notion that there were victims of the atomic bomb long after August 1945 and it gives us a window into the psychological impact that the bombing had the survivors sense of security. In one scene, we hear a student tellingly voice a variation of the slippery slope fallacy, detaining a series of hypothetical events that despite starting rather insignificantly culminate in the United States once again using nuclear weapons on Japan. Thoughts like that must have been maddening.

The film then flashes back to early August 1945. School is in session, but little academic learning is being done. Students seem to be seen as either future soldiers or sources of manual labor. In one scene, they are sent to remove the rubble of a bombed-out building. It is on one such occasion when they hear the sounds of a single “B.” What should they do? Seek shelter? Keep working? Their hesitancy is magnified by the lack of an air raid siren. A teacher shields her eyes from the sun to get a better look. What follows is an unforgettable series of events, all detailing the immediate aftermath of the bombing. Students trapped under a collapsed school. The bodies of dead school girls lying in the rubble of a building that just moments earlier had been standing. A naked and burned toddler standing amidst the chaos crying. Trapped students calling out their names so their teacher knows who has survived. A husband’s futile efforts to free his wife from the debris. Processions of shell-shocked wounded survivors shakily making their way toward what they hope is help. A mother dying in the arms of a daughter not even out of elementary school. The unbroken, soul-piercing calls for mom.

It’s powerful stuff, and had Sekigawa ended the film here, I have no doubt it would be better known today. However, Sekigawa overextends the film’s scope, causing it to lose focus and diminishing its power. There are unnecessary scenes critical of the government, and new characters pop up only to be forgotten a moment later. A young boy who survived the bombing is apparently adopted. Good for him, but Sekigawa never makes us understand the boy’s feelings. Does he suffer from survivor’s guilt or post-traumatic stress disorder? We never know. There’s an interesting conversation about marriage that seems to exist just so the young woman can tell the audience that survivors of the blast can never marry. And periodically we go back to the teacher and his and his students’ steps in the learning process. The film even finds a way to weave in themes from Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux and images possibly inspired by Abel Gance’s J’Accuse.

Some of these parts are interesting, yet they never add up. You could argue that Sekigawa’s point is to give us a comprehensive experience, yet the result of this approach is detachment. We don’t feel for characters individually, and while this does not lessen the impact of the parts of film detailing the events of August 6, 1945, it does make the film’s final chapter much less engaging. We should root for characters to reunite, find love, and find homes. There’s simply no time to – the narrative changes too quickly. Another problem: Segikawa wants to educate the public, yet he shows images of long processions making their way to the Atomic Bomb Dome to pay their respects. Such images contradict the notion that the public is unaware of the scale of the tragedy.

So, as I said, the film is a mess, but in its finest moments it moves and stirs you. As I watched the film, I was struck by the survivors’ instinctual impulse to move. Here are characters wh have just undergone a truly horrifying experience, they are wounded and bleeding; their shocked expressions never waver. And yet they have the presence of mind both to move and to take others with them. They demonstrate perseverance, instead of fatalism, and determination in the face of overwhelming obstacles. Potent, indeed. (on DVD and Blu-ray from Arrow)

3 stars

*Hiroshima is in Japanese and English with English subtitles.