Lincoln (film)
5/18/13 (Sat), Tokyo
I didn’t have high expectations for this film given the political sensibilities surrounding blacks and slavery along with Spielberg’s sappy PC tendencies. Still, while those fears were realized within about three minutes of the opening, the film as a whole proved enlightening and entertaining at the same time. Continue reading
女が階段を上る時 (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs)
2 March 2008
Keiko (Takamine Hideko) is the mama-san of a Ginza hostess bar in the late 1950s. In an image repeated many times throughout the film, we first see her climbing the narrow stairs to her establishment, a dreary ritual that she says in an overdub that she hates. Nevertheless, she notes that, once she’s up, she can handle anything. She was widowed quite young and at age 30 is standing dangerously on the brink of her sell-date. But she has pledged chastity to her late husband and is intent on maintaining respectability, adamantly refusing to mix sexually with the wealthy businessmen who patronize the bar. She stands up for the old values, for example continuing to wear a kimono unlike the Western dress of other hostesses. Her dream is to open her own place in Ginza, which would give her independence. But for that she would need a patron – and such patrons would be hard to come by without sexual favors. Meanwhile, her boss is complaining that she is losing business, and indeed several of her hostesses quit and steal her customers. Pressured by the expenses of keeping up a good front (perfumes, kimonos and such), falling revenues, the day-to-day grind of the business and family medical needs, she gradually allows her high morals to slip away.
January 6, 2008
「放浪記」(A Wanderer’s Notebook or Her Lonely Lane) was one of the Naruse films that have recently been re-released on DVD. I loved his 流れる (Flowing) and 浮雲 (Floating Clouds), both of which were based on stories written by this film’s subject Hayashi Fumiko, and was interested to see more of his work. Continue reading
The Birdcage
29 January 2008
(From an e-mail exchange with a friend. We were apparently comparing Birdcage with its original French version La Cage Aux Folles.)
You thought “The Birdcage” was a better film than the French original?? Mon Dieu! Continue reading
Hairspray (film)
3 November 2007 (Sun), Tokyo
The previews of the movie had actually discouraged me from seeing it because of what seemed to be a strangely subdued performance by John Travolta, which suggested a take on the show that I wasn’t going to like. But curiosity got the better of me, and I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. Continue reading
The Wiz Live!
12 January 2016
I was excited right away by the idea of The Wiz as the now-annual live TV musical. It’s a family show with great songs and plenty of great visual and dance potential, and the Oz setting should be familiar to pretty much anyone in the US who’s been a kid. I was especially happy to hear that they were going to use an all-black cast as per the original rather than the multi-racial version done in New York, which by all accounts was bland – an ironic but broadly true comment on multicultural shows in general, I think. They gathered an impressive all-star cast of singers and rappers and actors, which makes a lot of sense for a name that doesn’t resonate like The Sound of Music. They’re also using new staging, choreography and orchestrations, which could go either way – I loved the funky 70s sound of the original, and dance pieces like the cyclone number were pretty hard to beat. But an update could work well if done right, a big if. Continue reading
笑いの大学 (Warai no Daigaku) (DVD)
A 2005 film version of Mitani Koki’s most famous stage piece. I had never seen the show on stage, but will be seeing a British adaptation called The Last Laugh next week and wanted to catch a production in the original Japanese first. I’ve always had problems with Mitani Koki’s shows since they tend to be a bit contrived. The ones I’ve seen have all been elaborate farces with numerous quirky characters and complicated plots that all get tied up a bit too nicely in the end. I’ve always felt like he simply gives the characters the traits they need for his story or for a particular moment rather than creating natural human beings, and the stories themselves can be pretty artificial, though he does have a nice way of juggling multiple plot strands. I had been curious about this show since it only has two characters, a far cry from anything I’ve seen by him before, and the show next week was a good excuse to rent the movie. Continue reading
Persona Non Grata: The Chiune Sugihara Story (杉原千畝)
20 November 2015 (Fri), Tokyo cinema
I coincidentally happened to be reading about Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who saved thousands of Jewish refugees during the war, so the film caught my eye. Sugihara’s story has been dramatized before, but this was a major Toho release that is obviously being aimed at foreign markets; for one thing, it’s directed by an American, albeit a half-Japanese guy born in Japan, and a good part of it is in English. The clips I’ve seen of previous stagings (Japanese TV drama, Australian play) were long on the melodrama, which the story lends itself to in lesser hands. That made me wary of another version. But a friend was so effusive in her praise that it raised my hopes. Continue reading
Gion Bayashi (祇園囃子)
14 November 2015 (Sat), DVD
A Mizoguchi film about the plight of women after the war, as usual, but painted on an intimate canvas. A girl who has been subject to the loss of her mother, abandonment by her father and abuse by her uncle goes in desperation to the mother’s old geisha house and begs to be trained as a maiko, her only hope for survival. The geisha, whose lack of a patron makes her financially unstable, hesitates to take on the high cost of a trainee, but eventually gives in, borrowing the necessary money from a powerful madam in Gion. After a long apprenticeship, the girl makes her appearance as a maiko, but her ideals quickly meet reality when she discovers what the men are really after. Her refusal to give in – she nearly bites an important client’s tongue off – forces her mistress, bound financially to the madam, into a difficult decision. Continue reading
Victim
11 October 2015, YouTube
An amazing British film from 1961 about a secretly gay magistrate who pursues a gay blackmail case at the his risk of his own outing. And that’s back when homosexuality was a criminal offense in the UK. I imagine this was pretty controversial in its day, especially as it questions a widely held view and basically advocates that the law be rescinded. But aside from the politics, the story is a taut thriller that works very well on its own terms. Continue reading
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