Category Archives: Film

Undercurrent (夜の河)

Posted on by
  • 夜の河 (Undercurrent)

10/11/25 (Sat)

Yoshimura Kozaburo’s 1956 melodrama (also known more literally as Night River) is another of his Mizoguchi-type female-centric films exploring the plight of women in contemporary Japan. Yamamoto Fujiko is a Kyoto kimono designer working at her family shop. Her talent and perseverance have won her success in what is seen as a dying industry (back in 1956! – fortunately that proved untrue) in an increasingly Westernized society. She missed out on the normal marriage years due to the war and is now 30 and unwed, quite old for the time. She is resolved to be her own woman, not reliant on anyone, and rejects the efforts of her friends and family to match her up. A young painter is clearly in love with her, even basing his works on her, but to his despair, she takes no notice romantically.

During a stroll into town, she happens upon a man (Uehara Ken) wearing a tie with her design. Something about him attracts her, and they strike up a friendship. Continue reading →

Highest 2 Lowest

Posted on by
  • Highest 2 Lowest

10/9/25 (Thurs)

I shouldn’t be commenting on this since I only watched a small part before giving up. I was excited to learn of this remake of the Kurosawa classic High & Low, directed by Spike Lee, starring Denzel Washington – how perfect is that? The moviemakers retain the basic plot of a businessman who must decide whether to save his employee’s kid at a devastating cost to himself, but shift the setting to a black music producer taunted by a struggling rap artist. I re-watched the original first with friends, then took in the remake.

All of us were stunned at how awful this was in just about every department. Continue reading →

Lullaby of the Earth (大地の子守歌)

Posted on by
  • 大地の子守歌 (Lullaby of the Earth)

9/15/25 (Mon)

Masamura Yasuzo’s 1976 work was playing at a retrospective of powerful film performances by actresses, and a friend spoke so highly of Harada Mieko that it piqued my interest.

It is the 1930s. An orphaned 13-year-old girl has been raised by an old lady in the happy solitude of the mountains of Iyo (Ehime Prefecture). She returns one day to find the woman dead. Extremely strong-willed, she is determined to live her life dependent on no one. She initially rejects one man who tries to recruit her for steady work, but gives in when she learns that it is by the sea, which she’s always dreamed of seeing. She is taken to a remote island, where unsurprisingly she is put to work in a brothel, though, given her age, as an assistant to the girls and not a prostitute herself.

She is headstrong and not interested in making friends or being liked. She resists limits and labels: she insists on rowing the boat that takes the prostitutes out to sailors, usually a man’s job, and cuts her hair to look like a man. She resolutely refuses to be with clients even after she gets her first period – which she only comprehends after a kind lady on the outside explains – but gives in when she realizes that the money earned can buy her way out. After first forcing a young kid to have sex with her to get that out of the way, she plunges into that world as with everything and is soon the most popular whore in the house.

Continue reading →

Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

Posted on by
  • Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean

9/7/25 (Sun)

Criterion introduced a salute to Robert Altman this month, and this 1982 title caught my eye. It’s based on a Broadway play that Altman himself directed the same year with the same starry cast. Having just seen Emilia Pérez, I was surprised to come across another transgender role, this time from eons ago (the play was written in 1976). Even more interesting, the film, similar to the much later work, was not patronizing or preachy.

Continue reading →

Emilia Pérez

Posted on by
  • Emilia Pérez

9/3/25 (Wed), plane

French director Jacques Audiard’s much-discussed flick about a transgender mob boss, played by a male-to-female transgender performer, didn’t immediately appeal to me despite all its awards and critical praise. I figured it would be a finger-wagging love-thy-trans-neighbor lecture. But a friend gave it such an enthusiastic review that I decided to give it a chance. I’m glad I did.

Continue reading →

I’m Still Here (Ainda Estou Aqui )

Posted on by
  • Ainda Estou Aqui  (I’m Still Here)

8/11/25 (Mon)

This biographical film by Brazilian master Walter Salles about one of the “disappearances” under the nation’s military dictatorship caught my interest right away after the fascinating They Shot the Piano Player, which dealt with the same phenomenon under the contemporaneous Argentine military dictatorship. (Now we need a Chilean film to complete the trilogy.) The movie is based on a memoir by the protagonist’s son.

The film unflinchingly depicts the horrors of the regime, not only the violence but the psychological trauma of the unknown. Still, the real theme is Eunice’s incredible resilience in the face of the ordeal, especially her determination to give her children a normal life as she works against all odds to learn her husband’s fate.

Continue reading →

Touchez Pas Au Grisbi

Posted on by
  • Touchez Pas Au Grisbi

8/2/25 (Sat)

Writer/director Jacques Becker’s acclaimed 1954 film, which has different English titles but translates as “Don’t Touch the Loot”, was apparently a landmark in France. It brings a more introspective take to film noir, giving new life to that genre as well as reviving the career of the aging former heartthrob Jean Gabin.

Continue reading →

Summertime

Posted on by
  • Summertime (1955)

7/5/25 (Sat)

David Lean’s 1955 rom-com, based on Arthur Laurents’ stage play The Time of the Cuckoo of three years earlier (which was also adapted by the writer in 1965 into a flop musical Do I Hear a Waltz?), comes just before he turned to the huge epics that we generally associate him with. Jane (Katharine Hepburn) is a cautious middle-aged spinster on a dream trip to Venice. Pleasant and intelligent, she is also conservative, conventional (down to her name), and unable or unwilling to let her emotions out. She’s determined to like the city: “I’ve got to! I’ve come such a long way!” But she views most everything through her camera lens. While she meets numerous couples along the way, she always refrains from joining them, afraid of being a “fifth wheel”, despite her longing to do so. Upon an encounter with the Italian owner of an antiques shop, she is wary at first, almost allowing him to get away. She finally gets her courage up and gradually gives in to his passion for her, opening herself up to the possibility of love. Then she discovers, not unsurprisingly, that he is married…

Continue reading →

Don’t Look Back

Posted on by
  • Don’t Look Back

7/11/25 (Fri)

DA Pennebaker’s 1967 documentary of Bob Dylan’s tour in England two years earlier is said to be a landmark in rockumentary filmmaking. (The title’s first word is actually spelled for some reason without the apostrophe, but I’m going with the real thing.) It follows the Nobel laureate and others in cars, hotel rooms, offices, the streets, and the concert stage, where he performs some of his numbers. He also plays snatches of songs backstage along with Donovan, Joan Baez (who he was dating) and others.

It’s a very curious film in that Dylan, who we would expect to be portrayed with reverence, comes off as a condescending jerk. Continue reading →

Suddenly Last Summer (1959 film), Suddenly Last Summer (1993 BBC)

Posted on by
  • Suddenly, Last Summer (1959 film), 7/2/25 (Wed)
  • Suddenly Last Summer (1993 BBC), 7/3/25 (Thurs)

I learned after watching Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s wild and starry movie version of Tennessee Williams’ one-act play, filmed only a year after its off Broadway debut, that the stage show itself was presented more or less unchanged on the BBC many years later. That comparison was too tempting to pass up.

Continue reading →

Belle Époque

Posted on by
  • Belle Époque

6/27/25 (Fri)

Fernando Trueba’s 1993 Oscar-winning comedy was leaving Criterion at the end of this month, and having enjoyed his innovative They Shot the Piano Player, I decided on a whim to check it out.

The light-hearted film is set in the Spanish countryside in the early 1930s when the nation is tottering on revolution. The title refers to the director’s vision of the brief interlude between the toppling of the monarchy and the start of the Franco regime. Fernando, a handsome soldier and wide-eyed innocent, has gone AWOL after an unsuccessful uprising and is wandering the countryside. He is befriended by an old bohemian painter living alone in a sprawling house. They become close, helped by the boy’s cooking skills and companionship. When the man’s family is set to visit, Fernando decides to move on to Madrid to seek a future. As he is about to board the train, however, he gets a look at the man’s four nubile daughters just alighting – and decides to hang around a bit longer.

It’s pretty clear right away where this is going, but the fun is in getting there. Continue reading →

Nagasaki: Memories of My Son (母と暮らせば , film), The Face of Jizo (父と暮らせば , film)

Posted on by
  • 母と暮らせば (Nagasaki: Memories of My Son, film), 7/26/25 (Sat)
  • 父と暮らせば (The Face of Jizo, film), 7/27/25 (Sun)

Having seen the stage versions of these shows in the past days, I was eager to catch the films. The Japanese titles, literally Living With Mother and Living With Father, make the connection clearer; they are set respectively in Nagasaki and Hiroshima just after the war and are considered part of a trilogy alongside Okinawa-based Army on a Tree.

Yamada Yoji’s 2015 Nagasaki actually preceded the stage show and I suppose is considered the original. However, it takes the material in a direction that veers significantly from Inoue’s vision as seen in the other two parts of the trilogy. Continue reading →