Dark Water

As is so often the case with tag lines for movies, "the most shocking film yet" is a misleading entry point into Dark Water. While it is undeniably a horror, it's not the scream-a-minute shocker you might be led to expect, but rather a sustained mood piece in the tradition of classic horror like The Haunting. You can tell Nakata is a cineaste: there are direct references here to The Haunting (the sudden, unnatural bulging of the surface of the water tank) and The Shining (liquid cascading through open lift doors), but the main thing he has assimilated from both films is the brilliantly sinister evocation of the supernatural; as a rarely glimpsed but ever-present menace.

Dark Water is almost literally saturated - outside, it's always raining; inside, the grey, dank, mournful interiors threaten to buckle under the weight of turbid water. There's a sense of creeping dread, building drip by drip to an inexorable cascade.

The story centres around Yoshimi Matsubara, at first as a small child waiting forlornly to be picked up from nursery, then as a young woman, sitting in a solicitors' waiting room, before being ushered in to discuss divorce proceedings. This is a nice cut sequence that lays the groundwork succinctly for the film's recurrent themes of neglect, fear of abandonment and loss. We learn Yoshimi now has a child of her own, Ikuko, whom she is fighting for custody of; together, Yoshimi and Ikuko move into an old apartment block and into the world of Mitsuko Kawai. Darkness, inevitably, follows.

Something that did strike me, as when reading The Amityville Horror was - why didn't they just leave? Sure, there are impediments - Yoshimi being embroiled in a custody battle and trying to hold down a day job, not wanting to unsettle Ikuko again - but there are more than enough warnings early on that this is not a good place to be. The question is facile though; obviously Yoshimi can't leave, a/ because it would ruin the film and b/ because she is subconsciously drawn to the apartment block - she needs to find some kind of resolution for the ghosts of her own past. Ultimately that comes through Mitsuko and not her own child Ikuko. On a logical level, Yoshimi's wilful transition to the astral plane is a bit of a stretch, but taken another way, it's symbolic of a reconciliation with the spectre of her own past - not an altogether uncommon trope in tales of the supernatural.

One small detail remains puzzling - I'm sure I remember a scene in the theatrical release with the ghost of an old man in the lift. This doesn't feature in the DVD release though... it leaves me wondering whether it was simply cut or if I'm making up ghosts of my own.

仄暗い水の底から
Dir. Hideo Nakata, 2002

Sansho the Bailiff

It's a real privilege to watch a film like Sansho on the big screen; to soak up the rich atmosphere of Mizoguchi's epic story in the way it was intended.

Remarkably for a film almost half a century old, it's dated very little. By today's standards of course, the characters are somewhat archetypal and the transformations they undergo a little jarring, but the acting is still of a high quality; measured and poignant. The cinematography is a revelation, evoking the haunted, mystical landscape of rural Japan with a quiet mastery.

Set in medieval times, Sansho is essentially a morality tale about a governor who takes a stand against the moral bankruptcy of feudal lords and their exploitation of the peasant classes. For his beliefs he is exiled, and his wife and children, Zushio and Anju, set off on a journey to find sanctuary in another province. When they are brutally separated, the children are sold into slavery and Sansho, a merciless landowner and tax collector, becomes their master. After a decade of captivity, at the prompting of his sister, Zushio resolves to escape and follow in his father's footsteps: to attain a position of power and right social injustice through the abolition of slavery, exerting his revenge on Sansho in the process.

There are certain thematic parallels with A Man For All Seasons but for me, this is much the better film. While displaying the same conviction, Zushio and his father are possessed of a more human, less obtuse nature than Thomas More. Sansho encompasses human tragedy on a grand scale rather than in the intriguing but ultimately hollow clash of Church and State. Given that it's dealing with heavy emotional material, Mizoguchi's film is strikingly unsentimental; he doesn't shy away from depicting the brutality of Sansho's house or the cruel ironies of fate to which all characters are hostage.

山椒大夫
Dir. Kenji Mizoguchi, 1954

The Grudge

Halloween occasions the watching of a scary film and this year it was the turn of Takashi Shimizu's Grudge - the original. Now I'm not exactly up to speed when it comes to The Grudge franchise; I know it extends to about a dozen movies, but this was my first experience of the creaking woman and elusive boy who may or may not be a cat.

Was it scary? Hell yeah! As scary as Ring? Well... no, not really. That's partly because there are some familiar motifs, essentially lifted from Ring: mutated faces in photographs, television pictures breaking up freakily, apparitions getting up close and personal on screen, lank haired dead women, the corporeal supernatural, even the curse itself. That creaking though... jesus.

My problem with the film is actually nothing to do with its originality or lack thereof, it's that it doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense. Apparently anyone who goes into the Saeki house is afflicted with a curse and will be haunted and ultimately killed by the ghosts of his murdered wife Kayako and son Toshio. Anyone who hasn't been into the house can't see them (as the scene in the restaurant with Rika and Mariko shows). That being the case though, how and why is the security guard in the social service office killed by Kayako? By the logic of the film, he shouldn't be able to her see her. Is it that anyone who comes into contact with anyone who's been in the house is also affected? Maybe. But then what about the people they come into contact with? Are they OK? Other things that had me scratching my head: Izumi ages about 5 years in no time at all. Her friends suddenly turn into zombies. Mariko is inexplicably relocated to the house, calling for Toshio... The fact the chronology is constantly shifting around doesn't help - it makes it very hard to keep track of what's going on and causes character arcs to become a tad disjointed and confused. The end sequence is puzzling too - it seems to be suggesting Rika is somehow a reincarnation of Kayako, but it's not clear why.

To a greater or lesser extent you can chalk any inconsistencies in plot up to general weirdness; it's quite possible that it's an intentionally disorientating ambiguity on Shimizu's part - drawing on that peculiar kind of twisted dream logic that informs much J-Horror. The real acid test of a good horror film is how effective it is at scaring you and on that level The Grudge definitely succeeds. It maintains a nail-biting level of tension throughout and has plenty of genuine scares, that stay with you after the end credits roll. In a world where horror can all too often be corny and predictable, that's no mean feat.

悪意
Dir. Takashi Shimizu, 2002

The Big Tits Zombie 3D

Second up at The Barbican was The Big Tits Zombie 3D and what a steaming pile of shite it was.

Now you could say "what do you expect from a film called The Big Tits Zombie 3D" and you'd be right, but even so, this plumbed new depths of cinematic incompetence. Not only was the 3D intermittent, meaning you had to fiddle about with your stupid 3D glasses every 5 minutes, but when you did don the hallowed specs the 3D didn't even work - it simply revealed a murky triple-imaged version of the same drivel you'd just been watching.

I accept that Nakano, whose previous 10 films have been straight to video pinkies, was probably working with less than a shoe string budget here, but there's still no excuse for actors who would struggle to act their way out of a shampoo advert delivering turgid dialogue on sets lit less atmospherically than your average supermarket aisle. Frankly I've seen in-game cut scenes with more going for them than this movie.

巨乳ドラゴン
Dir. Takao Nakano, 2010

Robo-Geisha

The first film I've seen - the first of several that will feature here over the next couple of months - in The Barbican's Aspects of Japanese Cinema festival, kindly pointed out to me by Al.

It was pretty much what I was expecting: a low-budget, comic book-style knockabout starring bionic geisha girls and gallons of fake blood. Robo-Geisha made me smile (occasionally) but never entered the realm of laugh-out-loud funny that it did for some of my fellow cinema-goers in the back row (although I think they'd had so much booze you could have shown them a documentary on Hiroshima and they would have pissed themselves).

It may seem like a strange thing to say about a film featuring girls with hinged heads, rotating saw blade mouths and eyes with optical zoom, but the dialogue and slapstick humour are rather conventional; a bit Americanized even - it put me in mind of films like The Naked Gun at times and made me think that Iguchi has one eye on DVD sales overseas. Basically, Robo-Geisha is not very good, but it offers a bit of harmless fun if you're into this sort of thing.

ロボゲイシャ
Dir. Noburu Iguchi, 2009

Cold Fish

My enjoyment of Shion Sono's remarkable new film was soured slightly by being physically assaulted in a McDonalds afterwards. This incident confirms what I've long suspected about Leicester Square; despite outward appearances, it truly is the armpit of London. Still, bruised rib aside, I've lived to tell the tale.

So on with the review. Shion Sono's Cold Fish is the only Japanese film I managed to get tickets for in this year's London Film Festival. Naturally I wanted to see Miike's 13 Assassins, but it sold out faster than a whippet on a travelator. As it happens, I don't think I got the short straw: Sono will have enhanced his reputation no end with this highly unusual thriller come gorefest, based (loosely you would have to think) on a true story about a serial killer. The film charts the descent into madness and brutality of the meek family man, tropical fish shop owner and eponymous cold fish of the piece, Mr Shamoto. Miike himself would have been proud of this; in fact, in many ways, it's not a million miles away from Visitor Q. A solid 4.5 film to my mind, but since I'm feeling generous I'll give it a 5.

As he proved with Suicide Club, Sono has a deft touch, both visually and in terms of plotting, but with Cold Fish, he's switched it up a gear. The film never drags - even though it is slightly lop-sided and will undoubtedly be too over the top for many - it's cleverly edited and chock full of inventive, unpredictable dialogue, with an attention to detail that warms my heart. Be warned though, this is not for the weak-stomached nor the easily offended; the last act has scenes of butchery that would make a an abattoir blush. But there's more to Cold Fish than savage black humour. After drawing you in with some nicely acted exchanges, outlining his protagonists' motivations, and allowing you to think you understand what will turn out to be their redeeming qualities, Sono gradually lets the reins of sanity slip. The characters' arcs are pushed to their extreme conclusions, seemingly in the face of logic. In so doing, he tears into the assumptions underlying a shared notion of 'humanity' and points to the beast, barely tamed, lurking just below the surface in all of us.
冷たい熱帯魚日本
Dir. Shion Sono, 2010

The Dark Myth

Piss poor anime about the arcane - an unnecessarily complex and stultifyingly dull account of the rebirth of ancient gods of darkness in modern Japan.

There is one thing worth seeing this for though and that's the potted history of the Kikuchi clan, which sounds like some kind of bizarre tongue twister...

Watch the full splendid minute right here.

"The present head of the Kikuchi clan, Kazuhiku Kikuchi is the 73rd Kikuchiko in the dynasty." Easy for you to say mate.

Dir. Takashi Anno, 1990

Memories

A collection of three short films curated by Katsuhiro Otomo. To say it's a mixed bag might give the impression that it contained a gem amongst the straw but ironically, the closest thing to luster here is Stink Bomb - a somewhat amusing take on biological warfare, with a lowly research employee wreaking havoc across Japan by literally becoming a human dirty bomb. The sight of a gormless idiot on a scooter trailing a cloud of toxic fumes behind him whilst being torpedoed by an armada of jet fighters, all set to a bebop jazz soundtrack is actually pretty awesome. However, the short does end with a forehead-slap-worthy punch line straight out of 100 Greatest Biohazard Jokes.

Not too much to say about the others. Surprisingly, Otomo's is the worst of the three - deploying a primitive style of animation more reminiscent of Monty Python than Akira and again, giving range to his obsession with an antiquated future world full of cogs and pistons and steam (see Steamboy) that leaves me cold. It's probably trying to say something about the futility of war... but who isn't? Finally we have what is really the centerpiece of Memories; Magnetic Rose - a dull and vaguely pretentious ghost story needlessly set in space, which rips off variously 2001, Alien, The Matrix and any haunted house movie you care to name.

In a word then, no.

メモリーズ
Dir. Koji Morimoto / Tensai Okamura / Katsuhiro Otomo, 1995

The Happiness of the Katakuris

I first saw The Happiness of the Katakuris at Frightfest in London, back in 2002. It's fair to say I wasn't quite so gobsmacked on this viewing, but that's mainly because I knew what to expect the second time around. I was still grinning like a fool for the duration of this feel-good surrealist horror musical pastiche - a berth it doesn't share with too many other bedfellows.

It takes a lot for me to enjoy a musical of any kind. I hate musicals with a passion, but here it just works. It's full of imaginative whimsy and distinctively Miikean touches (with a nod to Jan Svankmajer) - like the opening sequence with the small fellow being forked out of a bowl of soup and stealing the diner's uvula - inspired! In a nutshell, Katakuris is about a family's quest to find happiness in their new life together and the struggle to attract guests to their idyllic, but remote guesthouse in the lea of a volcano. The few guests who do manage to find the place are invariably dysfunctional and have a hard time making it through the night.

This is a slight film for Miike, a comedy farce essentially, but a uniquely enjoyable one nonetheless. He also hits on an ingenious way to save money on expensive special effects - cut to clay!

カタクリ家の幸福
Dir. Takashi Miike, 2001

Akira

Mind-blowing, jaw-dropping anime that set the benchmark almost
20 years ago and remains the jewel in the crown. Adapted from his original manga and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo.

Quality seeps through every pore of Akira. The visuals are stunning - from cataclysmic explosions to the infinitesimal detailing of smoke wreaths and ghost flares from bike lights - everything rendered with style and precision. The score is eerie and atmospheric, but never obtrusive. The scale is epic; Tetsuo's transformation at the end of the film and the subsequent fallout is a wonder to behold.

Thematically, it's in a league of its own: you could write pages on
the meaning of Akira... an imagining of the future evolution of Man, in the vein of 2001, as much as it is a reflection of Man's nuclear past; about the mysterious, transformative power of the atom as much as its potential for destruction. Akira is a film that retains its enigma and fascination through repeated viewings.

Perhaps the greatest thing about it though, and something that merely good anime like Ghost In the Shell lack somewhat, is that kinetic energy and drive - never a dull moment, or any sense of expository overload. It's the kind of film that reminds you why anime, at its best, is unique. When it's done as well as this, with a seriousness of intent you'd normally only find in feature films outside of Japan (especially at the time of its release), it tells you a lot about the way comics and animation are deeply embedded in Japanese culture - seen as a valid, mainstream medium, not just the flickering-light basement preserve of geeks and misfits.

アキラ
Dir. Katsuhiro Otomo, 1991