Rowan Sullivan, Author at FilmRoot

491

A Touch of Sin – The Erosion of Chinese Society

A Touch of Sin Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

A Touch of Sin is great. Anyone with a remote interest in contemporary China should watch this. It’s a politically charged painting of the erosion of Chinese society. Jia Zhangke weaves together four narratives from rural townships to life in the big cities. For a critique of society in contemporary China, this one is a must watch.

From: China, Asia
Watch: Trailer, Rent on Amazon, Buy on Amazon
Next: Have a Nice Day, Wild Tales, Amores Perros

492

Princess Mononoke – Film Analysis (Introduction to Japanese Film – Week 3)

Hayao Miyazaki is Japan’s most famous animator and probably the world’s best living animator. Along with Isao Takahata, he founded Studio Ghibli in 1985 after the success of Nausicaa. Eight of Studio Ghibli’s films are among the 15 highest-grossing anime films made in Japan. The Academy Award winning Spirited Away still holds the box-office record in Japan, sitting comfortably above Titanic. However, despite box office glory, his films are remarkably beautiful and clever, as we will see with Princess Mononoke.

Princess Mononoke

Miyazaki’s films have contained many progressive themes, such as pacifism, environmentalism, and feminism whilst being critical of capitalism, globalisation, and modernisation. After making the happy worlds of Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service Miyazaki wanted to make something more powerful with Princess Mononoke. In his own words:

“We’ve made many films in the past, and our goal with those films has been to send a message of hope and the possibility of happiness to growing children. What we realized was that by continuing to make movies that only taught them about hope and happiness, we were in fact turning a deaf ear to their very urgent needs and pleas, and that if we did not make a movie that directly addressed their needs and pleas, we no longer would have the right to make films that would encourage them to be hopeful and happy. So we made this film knowing that we would need to step outside the boundaries of what you call entertainment; we made this film from a sense of mission.”

Princess Mononoke addresses many issues absent from Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service. It was his return to the more political realms of Nausicaa and Laputa, of films which promote awareness of global issues such as discrimination, global warming, and war.

Industry vs. Nature

To understand the context a little better, let me tell you that Miyazaki chose to set this film in the Muromachi Period (1336-1573). Japan had always been fairly closed off from the rest of Asia, but the Muromachi period was around the time when new ideas (religion) came to Japan. Whereas before, people worshipped nature, they now sought to tame it. Hence the deforestation around Iron Town to fuel the growth of civilization.

As we will explore throughout this analysis, Miyazaki somewhat impartially poses nature against human civilization. Yes, the iron cannon balls that caused the great boar at the beginning to turn to a demon were from Iron Town, showing that humanity doesn’t care enough about nature. But juxtaposing that, the leader of Iron Town is a strong woman who takes in lepers and former prostitutes, giving them jobs and food. Nothing in Princess Mononoke is good or evil. Hatred is what drives bad actions. The animal god’s hatred for human deforestation of their forest is justified as much as Lady Eboshi’s hatred for the animals that threaten her town and people.

You may be thinking otherwise. Of course nature is the victim in this film! Well you’re probably right. Miyazaki, like Yasujiro Ozu (Tokyo Story), held a bit of disdain towards industrialisation and modernisation. (After all, his intentions with Totoro were to encourage kids to venture outside.) But thankfully Miyazaki cleverly does not overtly favour nature in this film. Think about it. The apes want to eat the humans, the wolves want to chew their heads off, and the boars just want to wipe out Iron Town. Unlike singing animals in Disney films, these animals are more human. They debate, they argue, and they fight. Only those animals that do not speak are portrayed positively (think of the Forest Spirit and Ashitaka’s trusty elk steed Yakul).

It is only by portraying each side (nature vs. civilization) that Miyazaki can demonstrate that they can coexist. For human viewers, there would be no point in showing that we are completely evil; telling children that they are better off leaving nature alone is not what Miyazaki wants. Miyazaki wants people to care about nature and respect it. Similarly the film teaches us to respect and to try to understand everyone else; whether that is Lady Eboshi or Princess Mononoke.

2. Ashitaka and Jesus

Do I sound crazy? I kept thinking that Ashitaka’s role as the voice of peace and friendship was a definite allegory of Jesus, or at least reminiscent of a religious prophet. Well, here’s my reasoning in bullet points.

Ashitaka like Jesus has to leave his family in order to answer a higher being (tree spirit)
He has to resist hatred in the same way that Jesus had to resist temptation (infected arm)
He is a good Samaritan – he saves two men from Iron Town despite them being from what might be classed as the ‘enemy.’
- He also saves two enemies from killing each other (Lady Eboshi & San)
He is saved by the nature spirit, in the same way that Jesus rises from the dead. What’s more, is that his wounds, like the crucifixion marks of Jesus do not disappear at this point.
He preaches love. He seeks to protect each and every living thing – everyone is equal no matter what. He like Jesus, sees the good in everyone and respects everyone.
Yet Ashitaka, like Jesus, suffers for everyone. He is shot by the people of Iron Town, he is bitten by the wolves, and attacked by Princess Mononoke.

Ashitaka also seems to know exactly what he is doing the whole film. The usual ‘hero’s journey’ monomyth described by Joseph Campbell in his excellent book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, is that the protagonist receives a ‘call to action’ which they initially refuse. Think of Rey in the latest Star Wars, not wanting to leave her home planet or of Frodo Baggins initially refusing the burden of the ring. In Princess Mononoke Ashitaka’s ‘call to action’ comes in the form of the boar which puts a curse on him which forces him to leave his town. However, unlike the usual ‘hero’s journey’ story, Ashitaka never doubts his path or hints that he will not try to locate the forest spirit. This decisiveness and purpose, to me , make him seem even more prophet-like. It is like he carries omnipotence (all knowledge) along with his benevolence (all loving character). Adding in his faith (in finding the forest spirit and spreading love and respect) makes him appear like a religious prophet or saint.

3. Don’t Underestimate Animation!

Isn’t the animation beautiful? I cannot imagine this film being shown in any other medium.

Miyazaki favoured animation because he could create whatever he wanted. There are no limits of reality those live-action confines directors to. Talking animals do exist in Babe, but to have a shimmering night walker in CGI will end up looking like a giant monster from Predator. Animation is the perfect medium for Princess Mononoke just as much as Princess Mononoke is the perfect story for animation. Without animation, the fantastical world would not work – especially given the technology in 1997.

In Princess Mononoke Miyazaki manages to blend hand drawn animation with computer generated animation seamlessly. The bulk of the film was hand-drawn but scenes with progression are smoothed over with computer generation. Think back to the scene where Ashitaka kills the boar god at the start of the film, and after it issues an omen to Ashitaka it decays before our eyes. This scene used technology to blend these hand drawings together smoothly and seamlessly. Similarly, this occurs right at the end of the film when greenery returns to the landscape as grass and plants grow. Unlike the technical leaps made by Pixar in animation, Miyazaki is a master of hand-drawn animation. Whilst Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle employed aspects of computer animation, Miyazaki returned to hand-drawn feature films with Ponyo. Therefore, think of him as one of the true auteurs of animation. He made an effort to review every frame of his films, and always maintained a hand in every aspect of film-making.

I really hope that after this film, you do not just think of animation as for kids! There are so many incredible animations that I will have to revisit in the future.

In context to Introduction to Japanese Film

Here’s to a quick few comparisons between Princess Mononoke and the two films we have looked at in the last two weeks.

How is Princess Mononoke like Like Ran?

Miyazaki uses high numbers of characters for blockbuster effect – just as Kurosawa used massive casts to emphasise the importance of key moments, Miyazaki drew a large boar army, large samurai armies, and masses of tree spirits for blockbuster effects.
Strong and important female characters! Lady Eboshi and San in Princess Mononoke, Lady Kaede in Ran.
Landscapes feature in both films to empower nature and the divine. (think of the tree spirit dominating over his landscape in comparison to the Gods in the sky in Ran).

How is Princess Mononoke Like Tokyo Story?

Miyazaki’s characters are well developed. As in Tokyo Story, we see their motives, their flaws, and their goodness.
Both films appear anti-modernisation. Tradition is the victim in Tokyo Story and nature is the victim in Princess Mononoke, both at the hands of modernisation and industrialisation.

What’s Next for Week 4?

We will take a look at one of the most famous Japanese film icons. Godzilla! Remade and remade again, Godzilla spawned the great monster blockbuster film. This is for all you fans of Pacific Rim, Jurassic Park, or King Kong. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy entertainment at its most glorious (without all the crazy CGI effects).

493

The Lobster

Film Difficulty Ranking: 3

Greek director, Yorgos Lanthimos creates a darkly funny dystopian like you have never seen before. With 1 part Napoleon Dynamite, 1 part Gattaca, and 2 parts art-house, The Lobster deserves its recognition at the Cannes Film Festival 2015.

Why watch The Lobster?

You have watched loads of dystopian films like The Hunger Games, Bladerunner, and The Matrix and want to see a refreshing turn in the genre.
For laugh out loud awkwardness throughout.
What’s your spirit animal? Now’s the time to think of it!
Look ma… no subtitles!

A long shot of a woman driving starts of this slow burner from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos. We watch her driving, with the sound of windscreen wipers and the car engine being the only sounds we hear. She stops, gets out of the car and walks over to a deer or horse and shoots it dead. Bam – the title credits appear! Welcome to another art-house film!

The premise of this one is intriguingly unique. Being single is banned. All ‘loners’ are taken to this Hotel where they have 45 days to partner up with one of the other temporary residents there. If you fail – you are turned into an animal of your choice (Colin Farrell wants to be… a Lobster). Sound fun!? You’ll find out some of the other strange rules as you watch and you’ll also notice the hilarious awkwardness of everyone there. Single people can be hilarious!

To heighten the awkwardness director Lanthimos uses a few camera techniques. Firstly he uses still long-takes to make everything feel awkward. Just as in the editing in Androids Dream emphasises the absurdity of everything on screen with fixed long-takes The Lobster makes everything look darkly comedic by making you look at the dancing/singing/hotel masturbation for longer than you need to. Secondly, most obviously in the hunt, Lanthimos uses slow-motion to emphasise the absurdity of what the whole hunting event. The people look even more stupid running around with tranquilizers in suits in slow motion. What’s more is that this slow-motion is accompanied by orchestral music, making it all appear even more like a weird ritual or charade.

Lastly, the actors and actresses top off the awkwardness with their speech. Every line is uttered clearly and quickly, and is always followed by a brief silence before the person being talked to actually replies. Their conversations are stunted and artificial which makes their relationships look artificial as well.

For a dystopia like you’ve probably never seen before (unless you’ve seen previously reviewed sci-fi Androids Dream) I’d definitely recommend this one. Just don’t expect a fast-paced thriller – expect an artistic and innovative take on the genre.

494

Ran – Film Analysis (Intro to Japanese Film – Week 2)

If you talk about Japanese film it is impossible to avoid talking about Akira Kurosawa. Kurosawa has been one of the most influential film-makers in the history of film. He inspired Star Wars (Hidden Fortress), made the original Magnificent Seven (Seven Samurai), and influenced many American westerns, therefore it was no surprise that he was given a the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1990.

More reasons why you should pay attention to Kurosawa!

He’s an artist first and foremost! He was infamous for waiting weeks for the right cloud formations!
His Samurai epics are, well, EPIC!
His admirers include Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Hayao Miyazaki, Satyajit Ray, Ingmar Bergman, Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, Spike Lee… (probably easier to mention the non-admirers if there actually are any).
If you want to get into Japanese film you must have seen at least one Kurosawa film!

what’s great about Ran?

Ran is the film that Kurosawa always wanted to make. He even said that the character Hidetora was himself, a director nearing the end of his career trying to end it well. The film translates roughly as Chaos or Turmoil which reflects Kurosawa’s life preceding it’s release in 1985. He had faced loads of trouble trying to get financial backing for his ‘perfectionist’ films and many of his younger rivals boasted that he was finished. A suicide attempt was evidence of Kurosawa’s fall from grace. Ran and the massive $12 million budget granted by French producer Silberman (biggest in Japan) became Kurosawa’s curtain call.

Tribute to Shakespeare?

As many viewers have commented, Ran is the Japanese version of Shakespeare’s King Lear. However, Kurosawa only noticed the similarities between his story and Shakespeare’s when he realised the similarities between King Lear and the story of Mori Motonari (the Japanese warlord that originally inspired Ran). After noticing the similarities, there can be no doubt that Shakespeare influenced Kurosawa – the evidence is permeated in many of the characters. However, Kurosawa definitely adds a lot of grit to Shakespeare’s version.

Firstly the addition of new characters bring new dimensions to the story. Taro’s wife Lady Kaede for example is one of the most interesting characters in the story, playing a revenge crazed wife to both Taro and Jiro. She can whip out some knife skills just as well as she can manipulate those she draws close to her. There is also the religious Lady Sue (wife of Jiro) and her brother Tsurumaru, who was blinded by Hidetora years ago in war. Lady Sue, Tsurumaru, and Lady Kaede are symbols of the world that Hidetora has created through violence. A world that is slowly returning his evil deeds.

The backstory of Hidetora is also much more complex than King Lear. Hidetora won his fortune and fame in violent conquest, whereas King Lear’s background is undisclosed. Therefore whilst King Lear has done no evil, Hidetora is a monster. We witness his destruction through Lady Kaede and Tsurumaru, through his forces, and later through his regret at what he has done. This extra dimension to the lead character makes Kurosawa’s version even more epic. We witness the downfall of the once feared Japanese Warlord into a insane peasant.

Lastly, Hidetora’s Kyoami is an interesting addition. Whilst King Lear does have the company of a fool in King Lear, Kyoami is different. As written on Jim’s Reviews, Kurosawa ‘made a fascinating decision to make Kyoami sexually ambiguous. The character is played by transgender Japanese pop star Peter and becomes the healing opposite of the chaos of the film by balancing both masculine and feminine energy, great courage as well as flexibility and tenderness. As we see, those qualities are especially important in a rigidly hierarchical society, founded on machoism, like the one disastrously promoted by Hidetora.’

2. Landscape is Divine

The Landscape in Ran plays a central role in the film right from the start. The landscape is the television for the Gods above, they watch everything that happens from the sky.

Starting on the plains of Japan’s wild Southern Island Kyushu, Kurosawa cuts between still horseman surveying the vast landscape. The deep green grass of the plains contrasts with the light blue sky, marking the divide between the earth and the heavenly realms. The use of a telephoto lens (zoomed in from a point far away) also emphasises the division between the horsemen on the earth, and the gods watching in the sky. The telephoto lens therefore offers the same point of view as the gods in the sky. The clouds gathering indicate that the Gods are getting restless, an ominous sign for those horsemen, lit up by sunlight, that something may happen to them.

As in the opening scene, there are many scenes filmed from far away. We are given the viewpoint of a fly on the wall. We don’t sympathise with the characters as they always appear distant. Even Saburo (the only son that loves his father) is deliberately made to appear like a spoiled child so we do not sympathise with him. Our role is to view this film as if we are Gods. Only then can we see the selfishness, greed, and violence of humanity as if we are looking in the mirror.

One of the most powerful scenes in the film is the first battle. The entire battle is filmed without diegetic sound (sound where the source is visible on screen). Instead the entire battle is accompanied by Toru Takemitsu’s haunting score. In the same way the telephoto lens detaches us from the characters giving us a God-like perspective, the lack of diegetic sound detaches us from the battle on screen. The violence appears both shocking and inevitable, we cannot hear it, but we can see it and feel it’s devastation in the orchestral score. The view point again emphasises human violence and destruction.

Kurosawa’s use of long camera lenses (to zoom in from afar), division of the sky and earth, and silence in the battle puts the audience in a god-like perspective. We see humanity how the Gods would, without sympathy and attachment, showing humanity as greedy, selfish, and violent.

3. Kurosawa’s use of BIG casts

Obvious in Ran as much as any other of Kurosawa’s films, Kurosawa has become a master at exploiting movement in film. Just think back to the battle scenes in Ran and think of how the impact of the battle might have changed if there had only been 20 extras on each side.

As a break from reading, I encourage you to watch this excellent video from Every Frame a Painting showing you how Kurosawa exploits movement in his films.

What’s Next for Week 3?

Next week we will delve into another Japanese master, Hayao Miyazaki. This master of animation has won global acclaim for his highly imaginative films which have stretched the boundaries of animation and storytelling. Whilst his most famous animation may be the incredible Spirited Away, I’m excited to share with you my favorite next week. It’s beautiful, emotional, and must have helped inspire Avatar, bring on Princess Mononoke!

See you next week for more analysis and our next assignment!

495

Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight For Freedom

Winter on Fire from Netflix is a perfect example about how technology is helping to catch some incredible footage of popular protests that might not have been captured before. I recommend this film to anyone with or without a Netflix account!

Why watch Winter on Fire?

For an insight into the current situation in Ukraine – do you want to know why Ukraine descended into chaos in late 2013?
To understand what it means to be European and part of the EU (pretty relevant today with the Brexit vote looming).
Peaceful protests – what can they achieve?
To see how film-makers can influence you!

In the opening minutes we are introduced to a 16 year old standing amidst dead bodies and gunfire who says that he belongs on the front lines. This is our baptism of fire – we can immediately see that the country has descended into chaos. Cut to a very brief introduction to Ukraine and President Yanukovych pictured alongside the word ‘criminal.’ From there we are taken to the first gatherings of the crowd at Maidan after the President declared he would not enter the EU.

First off, the footage of the whole protest from late 2013 to early 2014 is incredible. Afineevsky had a team of 28 cameramen and camerawomen shoot clips throughout the protests and of many people involved. We are introduced to kids, religious figures, and men and women from an array of backgrounds. The scope of the protests are matched by the scope of the footage.

Even the action captured is incredible and extremely hard to watch at times due to the violence. Nothing from the protests seems to escape the camera.

On the other hand, Afineevsky masterfully influences the viewer. After the film I felt compelled to do something to support Ukraine and the people’s fight for freedom. The footage of large groups of people singing and working together to build a make-shift community successfully gets viewers on the side of the protestors. Even the music rouses us to support the protestors – it builds when crowds gather and start working together, and turns more dramatic when the people are met by the police.

The whole film becomes a battle of ‘the people’ vs. violence and corruption. Obviously we are going to choose the people! The people interviewed and the narrators all support the protestors. In this respect, it would have been nice to have another point of view. Evidently there were people against the protestors goals, but there is no attempt to give them any voice.

This is the second powerful documentary that Netflix has produced showing big city protests, the first being The Square (2013) showing the Egyptian Revolution at Tahir Square. Both Winter on Fire and The Square were nominated for Academy Awards. Both show protests against the government and how they progress. Both are recommended viewing!