Unusual Teshigahara film, probably a rather conscious break from his modernist 60s. Not a complete success, the matter-of-fact style does not suit the director's ornamental strengths, and the script is a bit too on the nose at times (see the rape scene as a "response" to military drill). Still impressive in its special brand of nihilism that has to do with cultural differences, but also with a political helplessness that is very much of its time. The frustration of the…
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Last Shadow at First Light 2023
Good performances (both leads work in extremely different registers and still fit very well together), good eye especially for Japan's decidedly mundane beauty, and, well, just extremely not for me. Every bit of impressionistic detail - the shadow of a bicycle, the grain of a wooden chair - being strictly subservient to an all-encompassing arc of trauma and redemption (yes, families are broken and yes, they must heal, I get it, please stop telling me this, cinema!), which makes itself…
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Afire 2023
I keep thinking about Leon's tattoo. The way the framing and his partially unbottened shirt again and again lay bare its edges, without ever allowing us to take in its entirety. In a way the mostly hidden tattoo it is a perfect cinematic object: on the one hand it is a device of audience control, because it keeps up our interest in the protagonist and especially in his body, which is never exposed (unlike Devid's and Felix's) and which also…
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