Takashi Miike is in rare form, whatever that means. I liked the story, although it was a little sprawling (but it's an epic, what are you going to do). I liked how casually the movie switched back and forth between settings. I feel, though, that Miike has both an incredible sense of subtlety, and no subtlety at all. There seems to be philosophy here besides the stuff that is stated directly by characters in a setting created so they could state these things. However, it gets lost. Too subtle? The same cannot be said of his characteristic violence. I wish he could learn to use metaphor to replace shooting someone in the eye with arrows. Beat Takashi is hot, though.
Recommendations:
anything else by Miike
Showing posts with label new japanese cinema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new japanese cinema. Show all posts
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Gozu
Now, while I'm not a fan of Takashi Miike, this movie is very good. However it's not as good as a David Lynch film. It was similar, with distorted internal logic and surreal things happening with no indication that they haven't happened. But it falls victim again to Miike's “LOOK GUYS, LOOK HOW SUBTLE I'M BEING.”
Watching this with Maher and Chloe, they immediately were all over this movie's obvious subtlety, saying it was a giant thematic metaphor of birth and gender identity and all of these other things that are pretty easy to find after the fact. However what was on the screen was a Lynchian simple story accented by weirdness.
I absolutely despise scrutinizing a movie in an attempt to dredge philosophy out of it. Just because an event on the screen does not follow real world or even internal logic does not mean that you can write is off saying, “That didn't really happen, it was a metaphor.” This is a cop out. Also you can't criticize a film the same way you can a piece of literature. They are drastically different mediums, and while Stu tells me that this does not need to be said, I have found that an unreasonable amount of people seem to think this is the correct course of action.
Now, don't get me wrong. I liked this movie very much, and would recommend it. I just wouldn't recommend watching it with someone who thinks Miike is the best filmmaker in history, because he is far from it.
Recommendations:
The Exterminating Angel
Twin Peaks
Watching this with Maher and Chloe, they immediately were all over this movie's obvious subtlety, saying it was a giant thematic metaphor of birth and gender identity and all of these other things that are pretty easy to find after the fact. However what was on the screen was a Lynchian simple story accented by weirdness.
I absolutely despise scrutinizing a movie in an attempt to dredge philosophy out of it. Just because an event on the screen does not follow real world or even internal logic does not mean that you can write is off saying, “That didn't really happen, it was a metaphor.” This is a cop out. Also you can't criticize a film the same way you can a piece of literature. They are drastically different mediums, and while Stu tells me that this does not need to be said, I have found that an unreasonable amount of people seem to think this is the correct course of action.
Now, don't get me wrong. I liked this movie very much, and would recommend it. I just wouldn't recommend watching it with someone who thinks Miike is the best filmmaker in history, because he is far from it.
Recommendations:
The Exterminating Angel
Twin Peaks
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