roundtablet Reviews

In This Corner (and Other Corners) of the World (2016)

A heart warming slice-of-life of World War 2 Japan, with a lot of dark unspoken themes mixed within

[10/10 · 23 February 2024]

I think what describes "In this corner of the world" best is: being in the eye of the storm. It is somewhat calm and relaxing, has many slice of life moments and the main protagonist Suzu tries to be happy and joyful despite her situation, but there is the anticipation of the worst, yet to come. There are many undertones in this movies and things unspoken, things that are only slightly hinted at, things that later forgotten, because it would be too cruel to be reminded of them, to be reminded what has been lost and what could have been. The movie reaches deep into the dark abyss containing the horrors of war, at least if you catch up to its drift, while still having heart felt moments giving a tiny glimpse of hope and joy. I think it's the best anti-war movie I have watched in a long time.

As I eluded before, we follow Suzu a young girl from Hiroshima (speaking of anticipation) who is being married off to a family of a nearby town and has to get used to her new surroundings. She seems to always has her head in the clouds and keeps her thoughts to herself. She is not good at what she is expected to do, that is do the household, but she likes to draw. She always seems joyful and happy, or at least she tries to be. I really like Suzu, you can tell that she doesn't tell you everything she thinks and wants and the more suffering she has to endure the more you can peek behind the facades , she just feels so genuine and real, while at the same time unique and interesting.

All the other characters, while maybe not being as deeply developed as Suzu, still feel refreshing and real. Most of them are not stereotypes as you often see in war dramas. They feel like real people with their own struggles, motivations, regrets and growth, while at the same time also not being totally open to read.

Another point I think it sets it apart from other war movies is its unpredictability. While in other war dramas you usually know what you will get, how the story progression will likely be and so forth, however in "In this corner of the world" many things happen so suddenly without foreshadowing. It is reminiscent of the abruptness of war.

The art style and sound track, as well as voice acting are phenomenal in my opinion, both in the Japanese and English dub. The art style is simplistic and somewhat childish and it gives the movie a unique charm, while having many artistically beautiful and interesting moments, such as depicting plane gun shots as blobs of paint from a brush, as seen through Suzus eyes as an artist.

Overall this movie is full of heart-warming scenes that may make you giggle, but also depressing scenes that make you feel empty inside. It's a roller-coaster of emotions and you have to hold on tight, otherwise you will be thrown off and realise that all has been for none. As the character in this story must realize, that all their suffering has been for none, even if Japan would have won. Such is the nature of war. Because only a fool would think that losing your loved ones could be justified with anything.

Chernobyl (2019)

masterpiece of film but a horrifying propaganda piece spreading misinformation and fearmongering

[7/10 · 4 March 2022]

The HBO miniseries Chernobyl presents an indulging tale of drama and horror. The first episode (of five in total) especially gripped me with its consistently building tension. The episodes were well paced, the acting phenomenal and the cinematography stunning. So overall I can only recommend it to everyone. It was long since I enjoyed watching a series as much as I liked watching Chernobyl. And it led me to investigate more about the accident and its fallout.

Doing so however led me to discover that the miniseries, in retrospect, has a huge amount of fearmongering in it. This reaches from exaggerations to blatant misinformation about the situation. Now normally if a show is not as accurate, it wouldn't be a big deal. A short version of history that also wants to be compelling is bound to bend the truth at least a little here and there. You know, the cost of truthfulness have to be paid in order to have a narratively cohesive work of art that tries to capture people and not bore them to death. Normally everyone understands that, I think, however the HBO's miniseries Chernobyl has such a high production value and paid a lot of attention to detail many people believe that the miniseries presents a well-informed unbiased view of the events, which in fact it does not. There are many things wrong in this series which all seem to go into the direction of making the disaster and nuclear energy look worse (so it doesnt just randomly gets things wrong here or there but it seems more deliberate), which lead to people being misinformed about radiation and Chernobyl, which consequently can lead to many people making bad decisions for their lives and others.

These claims are for example: misreporting the actual death counts, stating unverified stories as fact (the bridge of death), stating physically impossible speculation as fact (the molten core thermos nuclear explosion), exaggerating the effects radiation has on the human body, misinformation about ARS( these kinds of untruths of unborn babies getting "infected" actually led to approx. 1 million unnecessary abortion in Europe after the Chernobyl accident and many children without parents suffering from ARS were rejected by society because people believed that they could "spread" their illness), not actually understanding how the nuclear reactor of Chernobyl works (their whole demonstration with the control rods and the reason they think the control rods are designed like that is utterly uninformed) and basically not giving any perspective of the situation but only focusing on the individuals that suffers (would you have guessed that 106 out of 134 first responders who got acute radiation sickness (ARS) survived it and some are still living to this day?).

As you can see, some of the believes that the HBO miniseries teaches can be quite harmful and are solely based on unscientific fear about radiation and nuclear power. Not to mention that the rejection of nuclear power today (which is one of the cleanest, safest, cheapest and best energy sources) and the consequent use of coal and gas, prolongs the reduction of carbon gases and will lead to a larger fallout of global warming, which is part due to propaganda pieces such as this.

So in conclusion the HBO Chernobyl series is a masterpiece of film but a horrifying propaganda piece which probably leads to opinions and believes that hurt people much more than the actually Chernobyl disaster ever could.

1917 (2019)

Visually pleasing but overall very generic action flick

[6/10 · 4 February 2020]

1917 is overall a very generic war movie. The only redeeming quality is the "all in one shot" thing, which at times was able to build up tension and make for an interesting and unique shot composition. I would say that the first half of the movie uses it to its advantage while after a certain point of the movie everything went downhill, with lots of cheesy moments, plot conveniences, weird character choices and overall not being able to keep up the tension. But the second half at least tried hard with having some nice shots and sets.

The movie also feels more like a typical action flick, instead of a proper portrayal of WW1. I mean it does a better job than ridiculous movies such as "Hacksaw ridge" or "saving private ryan" do with WW2, but it has this typical feeling of "character making it out against all odds" and if someone dies it must be an elaborate set piece, which feels just so unlike real WW1, where the horror was rather the unseen enemy, the mustard gas, the constant artillery shots, the rats keeping you awake at night. It doesn't have this realistic feeling of WW1 like "All quiet on the western front" or maybe "Paths of Glory" has. It also doesn't help that a year earlier the very nice documentary "They shall not grow old" came out which gives a by far better vision of WW1 than this movie could ever do.

I am also not a fan of the idea of trying to make a movie in only 1 shot. I didn't like it in "Birdman" and I didn't like it in any movie I have seen it in since. There is a reason movies have cuts in it and its not only a technical one. A story normally needs things like: different sets, time in between scenes, scenes following each other with vastly different tones to build or reduce tension, etc. Ofc you could make a movie that still is enjoyable to watch even if it has only 1 shot, but is it difficult to achieve? Yes. A rather character driven story like "Birdman" only suffered from it and the idea of everything being one shot was not an artistic vision benefiting the movie, it was basically the gimmick that tried to sell tickets. The idea of one shot was utterly pointless and made the movie even more boring. "1917" however seems to be the best example of a movie that tried to do the "one shot" thing, since it actually achieved something with it. Like I said before it did a decent job of creating tension in the first half. The problem is 1917 would have been better if it had a few cuts in between some long shots, but it seems even more in this movie that the " one shot" gimmick was heavily used to promote the movie rather than being a much needed addition to the film. Oh and just to point it out, the advertisement of just being in one shot was also a lie because it cut to black half way through the movie.

So in conclusion the movie has a pretty interesting opening sequence and later some great sets, but story wise its boils down to a generic war drama which cant keep up the tension all the way through to the end. It involves many cheesy moments and overall nothing really challenging or anything to wrap your head around. Its entertaining though, and at times very visually pleasing.

Parasite (2019)

mediocre and forgettable

[5/10 · 1 December 2019]

Parasite is in my opinion a very Korean movie. What do I mean with that? Well, I will get into that late, but firstly; it was directed by Bong Joon-ho, who is best known for his English language movies "Snowpiercer" and "Okja". Both movies while being overall pretty overdramatic and simple, they at least try to have an atmosphere. They also have a clear message, which however show a very naïve perspective on reality. Even his previous Korean language movies like "mother" and "the host" are very similar in that fashion. "Parasite" however doesn't really show much of that regard. Neither does it have a clear message nor any sort of atmosphere, which in my opinion is very reminiscent of many of the Korean movies I have seen (with the exception of the masterpieces "Burning" and "April snow"). "Parasite" however does have an interesting idea behind it which makes it in my opinion the most bearable of the Bong movies. But that's the only thing good about the movie however, maybe besides the production value. The movie has nice set design and has some good shots in it. It is lacking in many other departments however. The characters, for example are terribly written. They are basically shallow and in some cases only 1 dimensional exaggeration of a single character drope making the movie sometimes feeling dragging and boring, because of its focus on the characters. The soundtrack is lacking with only a few classical pieces and they are not really well placed in the movie in order to create atmosphere, often time being played behind dialog conflicting with the exposition scenes (which shows that the production value wasn't well spend in all places). The acting is decent, considering the director. Nothing bad, but also nothing extraordinary. The story consists of many plot conveniences and a lot of shock factor which ruins the whole idea behind it and makes it very confusing.

So overall I would say this movie was pretty mediocre, that's why I said its pretty Korean. It had a nice idea but doesn't do much with it and only uses it for shock value. It has very uninteresting character and sometimes feels very boring because of it. It is ultimately a very forgettable movie and the only reason I will probably remember it is because it is overhyped by many (kinda like the Korean movie "Oldboy")

Side Job. (2017)

painfully realistic and depressing

[8/10 · 19 June 2018]

"Side Job" is a hard movie to digest. It deals with very depressing subject matter and with characters whose motivations and emotions aren't really clear to the audience. The movie is overall very subtle and very big changes are made nearly unrecognizable. The story is about a woman called Yuki from Iwaki, a town in Fukushima near the atomic power plant where the recent catastrophe happened. The woman commutes between Iwaki and Tokyo to work as a hostess on weekends without anyone knowing. She as a character is quite interesting because we dont fully understand her and it is quite a unique experience to have characters that says things that are probably not in their mind in a movie. It gives it such a realistic touch that you don't get to really know someone. You can just imagine what this person might think and want.

I am still not quite sure how I should look back on this movie. It definitely made me think and I appreciate it for that. It has its problems, especially the mindset of the town was covered rather one sided in my opinion and it didn't really go deeper beyond people being sad about losing their lost ones. It's beyond its clouded surface very shallow in themes, at least in terms of the catastrophe and I think it does put a lot of emphasis around it. So all the side stories besides Yukis were in my opinion rather lackluster, but then again the main focus of the movie is clearly Yukis story.

Side Job. (2017)

painfully realistic and depressing (spoiler version)

[8/10 · 18 June 2018]

"Side Job" is a hard movie to digest. It deals with very depressing subject matter and with characters whose motivations and emotions aren't really clear to the audience. The movie is overall very subtle and very big changes are made nearly unrecognizable. The story is about a woman called Yuki from Iwaki, a town in Fukushima near the atomic power plant where the recent catastrophe happened. The woman commutes between Iwaki and Tokyo to work as a hostess and a call girl on weekends without anyone knowing. Although going from working as a hostess to being a call girl (which she first didnt want to do) is one of the upper mentioned big changes which happen without the movie really telling you about it. Her motivations to even work in such a business are very little explained and open for self-interpretation. Does she want to escape the depressing mindset of her hometown, with her memories of her deceased mother, her gambling addicted father living a sore lifestyle and pulling her emotionally down and her ex, who we know very little about, bugging her to get together with him again? It could also be money problems from the gambling of her father, but we don't quite know. In my opinion the first answer is the much more realistic one. She as a character is quite interesting, because we dont fully understand her and it is quite a unique experience to have characters that says things that are probably not in their mind in a movie. It gives it such a realistic touch that you don't get to really know someone. You can just imagine what this person might think and want. She uses her dubious side job as an escape path so that her ex leaves her alone but I think when she finally says "i am pathetic" she rather ment that she cant just tell him that she doesnt like him anymore, instead has to pretent to life a shamefull life when she probably rather enjoys it and finds it exciting. After all we never see her smile when she is in Iwaki but often do see her smile while she is in Tokyo doing her "shamefull" work. But still after all this why is she still living in her old hometown, instead of moving to Tokyo? Is it the connection to her parents she doesnt want to lose? Well the movie is quite open.

I am still not quite sure how I should look back on this movie. It definitely made me think and I appreciate it for that. It has its problems, especially the mindset of the town was covered rather one sided in my opinion and it didn't really go deeper beyond people being sad about losing their lost ones. It's beyond its clouded surface very shallow in themes, at least in terms of the catastrophe and I think it does put a lot of emphasis around it. So all the side stories besides Yukis were in my opinion rather lackluster, but then again the main focus of the movie is clearly Yukis story.

The Human Condition III: A Soldier's Prayer (1961)

devastating brutality

[10/10 · 15 June 2018]

The third and final part of "The Human Condition" series is the most brutal, breathtaking and deeply disturbing movie of the three. All the beating you saw in the second part cant even come close to how physically, but especially psychologically brutal and disturbing this movie can be. This movie ultimatly playes with the idea that no matter how much of a good person you are, which in the case of our main protagonist, Kaji was shown throughout the last 2 movies, you will always been judged by steriotypes and clichee rather than on your actions and what you have been going through. Is it right to torture and treat people the same way they treated others, even if they have been forced by the military and the zeitgeist of the moment? Is it morally justifiable? This is something everyone has to answer for themself, this movie just shows you this idea in an objective manner not really taking any sides.

With watching this series Masaki Kobayashi, finally made the case for him being the best japanese director of the last century in my opinion. And it also made the case for Tatsuya Nakadai being the best actor of the last century. The emotions this man can convey with this performance by far surpass anything I have seen from any other japanese actor of the last century. The character development Kaji endured throughout the series but especially through this final part was written perfectly and absolutely believably portrayed.

Twenty-Four Eyes (1954)

good but not perfect

[7/10 · 14 June 2018]

The movie is a great example of japanese war dramas and definitly worth watching.

However, I think this movie could have been a bit better and I will use this movie to talk about 2 things it and many other movies do wrong in my opinion. For one, the movie uses extensive crying scenes to convey to the audience that the characters are sad and that we should feel bad about them. The funny thing is that the movie has great drama. I mean its war time, people are being cencored, people are dying and everything has this very depressing tone already. Seeing your characters burst out in tears during normal conversations is in my opinion cheesy and nothing else. It is basically the idea between showing the audience sadness directly and implying it and only making the audience feel sadness through the tone. The latter one being hard to achieve but when it hits, it hits hard. The first one feeling more easy and forced in my opinion and therefore can not convey the same emotion. Of course there are some great drama scenes with people screaming and crying heavily but everything has its place and time to make it believable and subtle.

This movie has this great moment, when after the war the teacher was on a boat with her son and told him one of her former students wanted to row the boat for her as well and then she mentioned that he died. It was a great moment because it implies that not only that one boy but many of her students died during the war and since the audience knows them cares about their deaths, even if we dont know every of her student by name, the lose of the war is implied... but then a few minutes after that they show her infront of the graves of EVERY single lost student of hers, crying while showing their name. One of those 2 drama scenes is done right and the other is forced and cheesy.

The second idea i want to talk about is when to end your movies. Its a compromise between delivering a finished package, framed with perfect edges, or having it a bit raw and unformed open for the imagination or even interpretation. You know making an ending that is open but not too open is very hard, but so is having it complete but not too drawn out. I myself like it more when things are unfinished and I have the longing for more, because I know if I had gotten more I would have wished it had been shorter. Often times films dont know when to stop and miss the perfect opportunity, which I find very frustrating. In "twenty-four eyes" you have this perfect scene at the end where the teacher is in her classroom again, seeing faces that look very similair to the children she tought 18 years ago (for one because they were to same actors, but storywise they were the children of her former students) This was right after the drama scenes that hammered in the loss this war created. Now we have this scene that conveys this message of hope and familiarity. The idea that there is a future and not everything is lost. Basically the perfect way to end. ....Execpt it went on for like 15 minutes with a reuniting scenes with all the former students and the teacher. It felt to me like the movie really wanted to hammer home the anti-war message more and show the audience how much the characters lost, even though we know that already. As if I was a child who has to be told that for like half an hour in order to understand it. You know this anti-war message is nice and all but dragging on your movie because of it and ruining the perfect ending for it really doesnt seem like a good idea.

It must seem like I hated the movie, but I really dont. I dont give 7 stars out to every movie I see, you can see that by my scoring system. But i get really frustated when a very, very good movie get torn down by such small things.

Early Summer (1951)

mediocre

[5/10 · 14 June 2018]

This review also has some mild spoilers for the movie "An autumn afernoon", you have been warned:

"Early Summer" is a movie very similar to Ozu's later work "An Autumn Afternoon" which I saw a bit earlier than this movie. Both deal with families that somewhat break up because the daughter of the family is marrying into someone else's family and you see how the family member deal with this situation. While they have a similar theme I ended up really enjoying "An Autumn Afternoon" while I found "Early Summer" rather boring, it had a little bit going on but especially towards the end it became increasingly bland. I think this comparison is very good in showing the interest I get while watching some of ozus movies ("An Autumn Afternoon and "floating weeds") and the boredom I get while watching others (Tokyo stories, late spring). Early summer pretty much falls right in between them. For comparison: An Autumn Afternoon is a movie clearly dedicated to the change the father of the family experiences while considering giving up on his precious daughter who cared for him since his wife died. There are a lot of hints in the movie about the father being fond of the good old times and not wanting to let go on some things. Ultimately all the character who are at first against change have to realize that it is the best for everyone and cannot be avoided and everyone matures in that regards towards the end of the movie. I also find nice that the daughter could not marry the man she actually wanted to marry. You know, not everyone could choose back then and this gives you a bit of a touch of realism. The movie also had a bunch of character with actual charisma. You had the friend of the father who always boasted about how nice it is to have a wife that is 20-30 years younger than he is. You have the old teacher who has a little bit of a drinking problem. You got the wife of the son who is always snapping and complaining about money. "Early Summer" on the other hand has very little of that. The focus of the story is not the old father who loses his daughter but the daughter, and the movie doesn't really have a message it tries to tell by hinting at its audience. There is no sense of maturing from any of the characters and the ending felt rather abrupt. You also don't have the magnitude of charismatic and interesting characters. The only few character interaction I found rather special where the conversations between the old school friends of the main character, some of whom are married and some of whom aren't and you got a little bit of a fighting there. So overall I would say that Ozu definitely became a better filmmaker towards the end of his life, with "An Autumn Afternoon" probably being the best of his movies. His very similar early version of the same idea named "Early summer" is a nice watch but resembles rather his earlier movies (Tokyo Story and Late spring) rather than the complex take on family life that is given in his later work. Also an Autumn Afternoon had better actors with Shima Iwashita and Marko Okada being excellent actors who establish themselves outside of Ozus movies while Setsuko Hara most famous works all seem to have centred around Ozu and I don't find her to be that good to be honest.

Audition (1999)

Symbolism done right

[9/10 · 14 June 2018]

For some movies it is best to know nothing about them before you see them. No review, no trailer, no reading synapsis and in the case of Audition not even looking at the movie poster. Since you already did the mistake of searching for this movie and started to read a review about it I can tell you why.

At first glance "Audition" seems to be a pretty straight forward story, which it kinda is. If you read the synapsis you know that it's about a guy who lost his wife a while ago, having an audition in order to find new love. Its tagged as horror and the movie poster shows a girl holding a syringe of some sort.. I wonder what's going to happen.... Some might say it's the most straight forward story there is, that is when you rule out the ending of the movie. Now I want to go into spoiler territory since I want to talk about the ending of the movie and go deeper into analyzing it, because that is actually why I am making this "review"... I want to analyze the ending. If you haven't seen the movie I highly recommend doing so and then come back and finish this analysis.

The movies straight forward element kinda got mixed up by 2 inclusions that were made. For one the Symbolic imagery in the dream sequence the main character "Aoyama" experiences after supposedly drinking poisoned alcohol and the second one being the scene near to the end where he suddenly wakes up after being tortured. In this waking up scene it seems like all of the previous events were just a dream and the girl he fell in love with isn't a psychotic maniac who likes to torture people. Now after the scene, they continue with the torturing scene, or at least what's been left of it and you see the psychokiller version of Asami (the girl I mentioned before) dying because she fell down the stairs.

I read a few reviews online claiming that the "waking up'-scene was just him (the main character) falling asleep, or fainting in the heat of the moment and he later wakes up and the events at the end occur in the real world. I couldn't disagree with that more. It for one doesn't make any logical sense, since he wouldn't just fall asleep in a moment where his son is in danger; he also doesn't strike me as a guy who would faint... the guy endured his foot being cut off a few minutes ago. Also this theory would also make that all the symbolism in the dream sequence was utterly meaningless. You know all the imagery shown, Asami as a child giving a crippled man her own vomit to eat, the reason you see her as an adult willingly getting tortured by her uncle, the reason why you see Asami killing her uncle while he plays the piano. All of this would be utterly devoid of meaning if we look at this movie from this angle.

You see, there is another interpretation I have for this movie, maybe you have it as well, I haven't seen it anywhere online so I think it is rather unpopular: That all the events after Aoyama slept with Asami until the moment he woke up at the end, where just his imagination, him dreaming If you will. Now why would that be and what would that mean? It first of all means that Asami is not a psychokiller, that Aoyama just imagined her being a psychokiller. In order to understand why he would imagine her to be a psychokiller we first have to understand his character and for that, lets recall everything we know about him:

Aoyama, the main character is the one we actually know the most about. The important parts are that he (of course) had a wife who had some sort of training (i imagine she played the piano) and that this was obviously a trade that he liked about her. Having a training or a skill such as "playing the piano" or "dancing ballet" is admirable for him and he feels himself drawn to such people (maybe because of his wife, maybe he liked it before he knew her). We also know that he likes Asami because of that reason, so it is rather logical to assume that he likes Asami because she reminds him of his former wife. This is also where our main source of reasoning comes into mind. The later shown imagery highly suggest that one part of his inner psyche is not over the death of his wife and feels guilty for trying to replace her with this younger version of her. This inner self of his tries to prevent him from finding love with his new relationship. Asami is just a normal girl basically, one with her own past experiences, the things she doesnt talk about. This is why this fear of her being a psycho killer comes into place. You see it is very easy to make yourself believe that something is wrong with someone if said person is very introverted and doesn't talk much about herself. This is why Aoyama is frightened to open up to her. What if she is a psychokiller who will eventually kill me, or worse even hurt my son? What if I am doing the wrong choice in finding new love? I shouldn't be so selfish if it ends up hurting me. This movie has a clear turning point of him being exited and full of longing of Asami and then being repulsed and disgusted by her. And the dream sequence of his is exactly this turning point.

Basically the dream sequence purpose is the inner fight between the 2 personalities Aoyama has. His damaged self, represented by the man in the bag, scarred from the loss of his wife, searching for nourishment and closure. Which makes him do things he later regrets like sleeping with his coworker, or having sexual thoughts about his sons underaged friend. And on the other side you have his side that loves his wife and what she represents, that fears for his family and for the unknown. This side is represented by Asami's foster father. The side that would stop at nothing to make him stay loyal to his dead wife that doesn't want him to find someone new. The side that even would create an image of an abused psycho killer to make Aoyama leave his new found love. And through this dream you see which side is winning the fight. You see Aoyama being disgusted and shocked by his damaged side and the moment his abusive side repeats his own words (where he says "ore wa subarashi" or "you are amazing"), while playing the piano you know which path he has chosen and which side he has killed in the process.

Everything after that comes as he wants it to come. He is being tortured by Asami because in his mind that's what might happen if he stays with her and his son being killed by her which would also be inevitable in his mind.

And in the continuation of his dream at the end, where Asami is later killed, it is basically the continuation of his relationship with her. His fear for himself and his son's life will lead him to abandon her, wanting to never see her again. The things she says at the end would make a lot of sense if they are said after she hasnt heard of him for a long time and maybe met him by accitend on the street. It also works as a reminder of what he lost because she repreats a few lines she already mentioned.

I could go deeper here and really take apart each shot and each dialogue spoken, but I just intended to give you a general idea of the symbolism of the movie and I hope I inspired you enough to do that yourself the next time you watch this fascinating movie.

The Tale of The Princess Kaguya (2013)

unlike other ghibli movies

[7/10 · 14 June 2018]

"The tale of the princess kaguya" is an anime that really needs more attention, though I have to say that it's not a movie for everybody, especially not for the average anime fan. It's a movie drama that presents what a noble woman has to go through in the mediaeval times of japan in order to be socially accepted and be called beautiful. It goes even a bit father and touches the controversy of the mediaeval believe that woman only need to be beautiful and to get a noble husband to be happy. But don't expect a deep psychological approach on this aspect, since it only barely goings into this topic. However, what you do see is the story of a little girl that tries to refuses these norms and that tries to be her old self which doesn't succeed and she becomes more and more that, what she didn't want to be.

Story

The story is about a girl that magically comes into life and grows up on the countryside of japan with her father being a bamboos cutter, who then later realized he wants her daughter to grow up in the capital learning "the ways of a noble princess". This decision was made way too late leading to the girls unhappiness, since she had already seen the opposite world of joy and laughter on the countryside, which obviously is the one little kids will like more, but she still tries to, since she wants to make her father happy, who desperately believes her happiness lies in becomming a "noble princess". Now getting taught how to act as a noble woman and how to dress, she more and more wants to get back to her old home. The story is maybe similar presented as the american movie "Memorie of a Geisha" with only the main protagonist NOT wanting to become a beauty.

The story itself starts off very slowly, especially with her being a baby. The childhood feels uninteresting at first but is later appreciated because of the built up to her emotions and the part with her being in the capital was made in a fitting pacing to keep you interested.

Character

The main protagonist, the little girl who slowly grows up over the duration of the movie is by far the most interesting character of the film (kinda understandable since she is the focus). You see her laughing, crying, getting angry, getting depressed and even as an emotionless doll. You see her developing from a country kid to a well taught adult who sees no happiness in how the world wants her to be. Her father and her mother are the 2 second most important character, on the one hand, the mother giving her confidence and supporting what she wants and on the other hand the father who wants her to become a princess not seeing what really makes her happy. In my opinion was the father-figure too little portrayed, but at least they had a few conflicts between her and her father in the movie.

Sound / Artstyle

The sound and artstyle are probably the reasons why this movie gets so emotional. What especially impressed me that the already unique arstyle changes with the tone of the show, making emotional outbreaks even more gripping. It has a very nice soundtrack attached to it with a main theme played on the koto (so in the style of the mediaeval japan), which was very fitting to the drama parts. The sound changes as well perfectly with the tone of the movie. The animation is very fluid and shows great effort (it's a movie after all) ,the arstyle is hold simple, like in previous Ghibli works such as "My neighbors the yamadas".

Conclusion

If you want to see a movie similar in style to other Ghibli firms this one wont be it. This is a drama movie with the intention to show you a sad story about a girl and her conflicts with society in the mediaeval japan. It got a very interesting way of storytelling and a perfectly fitting arstyle and soundtrack to get you emotionally connected to what is happening. And if you enjoy those kind of thing, then I highly recommend watching this movie.

Rail of the Star (1993)

childish and bland

[3/10 · 11 June 2018]

There are so many war drama anime out there (Barefoot Gen, Grave of the fireflies and Himeyuki to call a few) that you nearly even can call them cliché, but since everyone that I have seen have big differences in the part they focused, I wouldn't recommend calling them cliché at all. So we got the war dramas that focus on the probably most famous tragedy, the nuclear explosion of Hiroshima (Barefoot Gen), one that focused more on the survival after a bombing without parents (Grave of the fireflies) and so on. In this case, Rail of the Star we got the focus on the, in Korean living Japanese during and after the war, which is a pretty interesting setting. Sadly the movie itself wasnt so interesting basically because it wasn't made that well.

About the story: We got a few main protagonists, but the most screentime I guess was spend on chiko a young girl whos father leads a coal mine in Korean( propably to support the war). Chiko also got a younger sister and a mother. The start of the show focused more on the time during the war and wanted to show the suffering of the Korean and the torture the Japanese inflicted onto them, but since its on the one had a movie for children and on the other hand on the Japanese side the whole "toture" part is limited to a few Japanese kids beating up a Korean kid. So the start was rather showing the kids play to create a emotional connection to the audience, which wasnt made that bad, but aslo not very suprisingly in any way.

Later on we see the end of the war (Korean celebrating) and the gloomy Japanese which know that they should go back to their homeland as soon as possible. It's a typical for such a show to let the Russian military appeal to the audience as the "bad guys" and the Japanese refugees appeal cute (chiko) innocent and "good". For me this representation is pretty naïve but like I said before since that movies target group seemed to be children it's kinda logical to go that way.

The characters itself were a pretty poor part of the anime as well. There wasn't any depth to any of the characters. Chiko was maybe the only one with a bit more depth, but she was just a plain kid, not much to go into anyways. The other characters where shallow, shown with only the typical character interaction between them for such a show.

The art wasn't much outstanding but it wasn't bad. It looks like a children movie with cute characters and it's a bit older as well.

Soundtrack was ordinary, not much to say about it. There were some nice dramaparts followed by fitting music but that's just normal.

So over all this movie isn't very special. The premise was quite interesting but the movie overall was filled with only very few consequences, no mature storytelling and no depth into characters. If you are completely into these war dramas it is watchable, but it's not recommended for getting into these kinds of movies.

Murer: Anatomy of a Trial (2018)

tense

[7/10 · 10 June 2018]

Murer is a very intense movie. the movies tone is very thrilling throughout the entirety of the movie. Its over 2 hours long but I didnt really feel its length because it was very well paced. It focused primeraly around the case of Murer and a few side stories or backgrounds would have been nice to see. The movie also tried to be a bit artistic at some times, with its camera shots, sometimes they worked wonderfully, sometimes they didnt.

The biggest positiv of the movie was its acting. Some phenomenal performances were in this movie and quite believable, as if the people you see were the real deal, rarely have I seen a movie who could achieve such a task.

The music department lacked a bit. The movie was pretty quiet, but that somewhat added to the tention, but I would have enjoyed more emotional, music driven scenes within the movie.

So overall I would recommend the movie. It has a bit of a left leaning political point of view but the historical aspects of the movie makes it very interesting to say the least.

Three... Extremes (2004)

Japan is best

[5/10 · 10 June 2018]

Takashi Miike's "Box" 7/10- Definitly the most interesting of the three. It deals with the concept of being scarred by your past has a bit of symbolism in it, that, for me felt a bit too obvious, but the idea would have made a really good feature lenght movie, probably even one of Miike's best.

Fruit Chan's "Dumpling" 5/10- This movie is more disgusting than anything else. The storyline only shows key events and therefore doesnt come around as coherent. The main protagnists relationship with her husband is rather vague and so is her motivation. It was a decent watch but nothing too special.

Park Chan-Wook's "Cut" 3/10- As in all Park Chan-wook's movies, the characters are terribly written, without motivation or any kind of consistancy. The dialoges are mostly uninteresting and is sometimes interrupted through unecessary filler (in this case idiotic comedy scenes that ruin the tone of the movie). Park Chan-wook mostly relys on over the top storylines to keep viewers interested but I just think it comes around as silly and utterly shallow. I am really not a fan of his works and he proved himself again here.

Tears for You (2006)

typical melodrama, but a fine watch

[5/10 · 10 June 2018]

With a title like "Tears for you" you kinda already know what you are getting at. All though I think that the translation is a bit tricky from the original title, which was originally the title of a song from a Japanese pop band. Like hinted in the synapsis of this movie, it has elements of an incest love story between two siblings in it, but they are only very subtle and not really fleshed out. Besides the incest, this movie has some other elements which give it a nice Japanese touch. For example they had a really nice traditional Japanese song supported with shamisen (Japanese string instrument) music at the end which was pretty nice. It also shows the islands of Okinawa. The story itself felt a bit cheesy. Some drama elements felt just so over amplified and out of proportion. But when you compare it to some drama, where a random catastrophe happens or someone gets some kind of illness (basically the reason for the drama comes from some uncontrollable source), I think "Tears for you" is more down to earth with its representation since it plays a bit with the idea that we ourselves are responsible for our own demise. I'm not quite sure if it was intentionally or just a plot device, but it felt refreshing to see an ordinary drama movie have such interesting plot elements. Also the acting in this movie makes the drama parts endurable. Especially Masami Nagasawa made a nice performance here. So overall I would say, if you are a sucker for Japanese culture, or you like shows with a bit of melodrama, I would recommend this movie for you. If you really can't stand cheesy stories then you should stay away from this movie.

The Wind Rises (2013)

dissapointing, inconsistent and no charm

[3/10 · 10 June 2018]

I watched "the wind rises" for the first time back when it came out and i remember beeing very dissapointed with it. Now 4 years later I finaly rewatched the movie and I have to say, my opinion didnt change at all.

I think the movie has 2 major problems. One is that the movie has no focus. The movie is about 2 hours long and tries to cover the life of plane engineer Jirou Horikoshi, with his childhood, his experience with the Tokyo earthquake of 1923, his travels to europe, his plane building career and his love life with his wife. In addidtion to all of that the movie has a lot of dream sequences. I think of all these aspects only the dream sequences seemes finished, everything else is just an unfinished product, cut short of what its suppost to be. Take his wife for example: they spend so little time introducing his wife and his relationship to her that ultimately we, as the audience dont care about her and everything that happens to her. I mean, really , what do we know about his wife?... that she likes to paint and loves the main character... thats it. The parts the movie should have focused on (the plane building parts) where cut short and rushed to find time for unecessary "slice of life" elements half way through the film. This completely ruins the tone of the movie.

The second major problem is the main character. He is too unemotional and boring. His life goal is to create planes, but did we ever see him get upset when one of his designes didnt work, or really happy when it does? Sure Japan has a more emotionless culture but at home when he is not under people there should have been at least a few scenes where we can see his frustration or joy. Nothing is seen from this character. He succeed in so many parts that he as a character seems so unrealisticly anyways( he is a genius plane designer, speaks multiple languages, is physically strong, etc). All characters around him have more emotion and feel more realisitc than this guy.

The art of the movie was fine, it was the usual ghibli style but I find unusual that many scenes seemed kinda weird, either out of propotion or unrealisitic stuff happens (like the earthquake).

The sounddesign was not so fine, the soundtrack itself was fine and the voiceacting as well, but often backgroundnoises where cut to such a minimum that the whole scene seemed unrealisitc. Its such a weird design choice.

So now I go into a few minor things that bug me about this movie. First of all, at the start of the movie the main character defends a young kid, which kinda tells you he has some sense of justice, which then later was completely contradicted by the fact that he builds warplanes. Sure I can understand him for just building plane for the purpose of building planes, but activley helping a nation that kills millions of people in war (an he should know that, I mean he hangs around foreingers all the time) is at least worthy of discussion. In my opinion they should have given his sister this sense of justice and SHE should have confronted him with this dilemma... he then defends himself and we understand him as a character better. The way it is, the main character hardly ever talks about his point of view or his opinion about MANY things going on around him, which is weird since the movie is a biography about the dude.

Second point: In the japanese version his wife yells "Nicu catchu" in the scene where he catches the umbrella. A very weird thing to say and it more reminds me of Japanese spoken in modern times than back then. Sure she has been around foreigners, but then she would have a better accent. Its just something I saw in no other movie depicting Japan before WW2, which is btw a lot.

Third and last point: the ending is very unfulfilling and weird. The dialoge spoken in most of the dream sequences is utterly idiotic and shallow but the ending takes the cake. They always speak about Japan blowing up, the millions of life it will cost isnt even worth wrapping your head around, it seems. Then the Italien says something like: "Why would the pilots want to come back from war anyways?"... I dont know, maybe to live their lifes? It seems like the dreamsequences wanted to be profound and symbolic but it came around as more shallow and idiotic in my opinion.

So in gerneral: This movie was terrible. If it wasn't for the sudden inclusion of slice of life romance half way through and the idiotic ending I could have accepted it as a decent shallow movie about an emotionless character building planes. The movie would have been pretty boring for everyone not interested into planes or technology in general but it would have been a nice watch for me. Now the only thing that makes this movie watchable was the artstyle and maybe the premise, but you sure notice that the premise tricks you into such a flat storyline.

Eraserhead (1977)

awful

[1/10 · 10 June 2018]

I think that Eraserhead is what no movie should be. That is because this movie revolves around two things: Its heavy usage of pretentious symbolism and its imagery being mostly gore. This movie has nothing more to offer than seeing disturbing imagery while listening to jarring noises. I saw many people say its about the experience, but honestly if I want a 1,5 h long experience about gore images, I can also watch a documentary about the holocaust, or some other cruel part of our history. In this case I actually learn something and care about what is happening, because it happened to real people. This movie doesn't manage to make me feel anything, other than being bored and a little disgusted. I don't know if the movie is supposed to make me feel anything but I think there are only 2 reasons to watch a movie: 1.to feel some kind of emotion. Can be anything, fear from a horror movie, sadness from a drama, excitement from an action movie. I guess that is the main reason why people watch and enjoy movies. The other reason which I personally think is more important is to watch movies to learn something. By that I don't only mean actual knowledge. Learning new perspectives of looking at things, new ideas that may be meaningless in actual life, but keep you awake at night. Now you might say that's what "Eraserhead" is trying to do, but like all Lynches movies and like all of these, "over the top" symbolic movies are their messages too hidden behind symbols. Sometimes it's even not clear if the movie even has a meaning behind its symbols, something the writer actual intended. You know you don't learn something new by interpreting symbols, you only learn what you already know, because YOU yourself are interpreting what is going on. That is my biggest concern about Symbolism. Sometimes it can be quiet interesting to have symbolism in your story. It can make the experience feel unique because it depends on the viewer. But I think that only works if you have a story line as a base to begin with, something to care about. There are some movies, like Eraserhead where this isnt the case.

So does "Eraserhead" at least have a meaning behind its images? I don't really know. While watching the movie it seemed to me that with including all this gore he wanted to portrait life as being this inherit ugly things, or if you turn it on its head, that being creeped out is something irrational because it is normal and all around us, because there are a few scenes that show rather unusual, probably even disgusting scenes and all the character react as if it was the most normal thing in the world. He shows events that may occur in anyone's life at some point. Mostly events that can be very unnerving, such as a dinner with your partner's parents while finding out that said partner is pregnant. Or later in the movie it portraits the many sleepless nights a young couple must endure after having a baby and the psychological stress this inflicts onto a person. The movie takes those realistic scenes and sets it in a world full of strange and creepy occurrences. For example, the meal they eat at the dinner is a moving half sized chicken that spills blood constantly, or the baby the story focuses later on is some sort of alien looking creature. But I don't really see that message portrayed at the end with all the overload of gore and the main protagonist's reaction to all of it, which makes me unsure what this movie was all about.

Now I watched a few of Lynches other movies. For example "Lost Highway", which is equally meaningless, but at least had some nice cinematography, a few interesting lines of dialogue and something you might even call a story. Eraserhead however had none of it and was a very disappointing watch.

Kyojin to gangu (1958)

could have been a masterpiece

[7/10 · 10 June 2018]

Giants and Toys is a movie with lots of very interesting ideas and if the movie would have been done right it could have easily been a 9/10 for me, which, if you know me, is not a score I give a movie for free. The directing of this movie however missed the point and there was no focus which made the movie seem like a bit of a mess and after you finish it, rather than a coherent picture only bits and pieces stick with you which were the great parts and ideas of the movie.

The tone for example was all over the place. It started off as a fast paced comedy and then later introduced dramatic and thought provoking concepts that deal with the ruthlessness of business and the suffering people have to endure to succeed. Those 2 tones don't really mix well and slowing down your pacing in order to really capture your image of business would have helped to really convey the idea.

The movie also deals with the idea of how people change and become monsters when they become inclined in the nature of business, but sadly didn't manage to capture that with their most important character, the protagonist. He starts off as a naïve young guy new to business and ends in the same way while everything around him changes. I sadly very rarely see in Japanese movies this sort of character development where a good guy is turned into some sort of monster through his environment (you have a few movies which go somewhat in that direction, such as Akira, but you don't have those character developments in Japanese movies as you see in: Citizen Kane, the shining, lord of war, blow or prestige). This sort of character development that can really hammer home the ideas behind the movie is sadly missing in some movies that would really need it, most noticeable this movie. So yeah, Giants and Toys is a good movie, its entertaining well-acted, nicely shot, has a lot to say about businesses and how they are run and is surely worth a watch, but with the right focus to what this movie actually should be, it could have been way better (but ofc also way worse depending on the focus).

Fitzcarraldo (1982)

the best epic

[10/10 · 10 June 2018]

This movie is, to put it in one word, powerful. Powerful in the sense that if there is the will to do something it can be accomplished. But this message is treated with such a respect in this movie. It basically is an epic where our main protagonist faces bad odds and has to go through a lot of challenge and consequences to arrive to the end. And its basically the best epic there is. Cinematography, acting, soundtrack, everything was done very nicely and especially uniquely, but this movie will stay in your memories mainly because of its impactful message, at least this was in my case.

The Fossil (1974)

enjoyable but a bit monotonic

[6/10 · 10 June 2018]

Its probably not one of Kobayashi's best works, but it's still quite an enjoybale watch. Overall I would say the story is very human, maybe a bit monotonic, but in its essence its a character story about a guy facing death and considering how his life has gone, what has left and what he wants to do, and it does that pretty well. Its quite a long watch but the movie includes a lot of european culture (art, architectures and even a spanish dance performance) that makes it interesting to go through. Its worth a watch especially when you are a fan of Kobayashi and want to see some of his lesser known works.

The Fool (II) (2014)

chilling and profound

[10/10 · 10 June 2018]

I am surprised that this movie didn't get more attention. "The fool" is such an interesting and unique movie, set in a poor town in Russia, where corruption is a big issue. This movie focuses a lot on the characters motivations and morals, even though the topic of political corruption is so often made into a "evil big politics vs good poor people" theme, this movie tries to be more grey in its depiction. Instead of just showing you political higher ups that are just assholes for the movies sake, it goes deeper and presents its whole system as flawed and as a result people only caring about themselves. The plot revolves a lot around the question of responsibility and sacrifices. The characters are relatable and the movie can create so much tension, the acting is good overall and in some scenes it really shines. The atmosphere created by its music and camera shots was perfectly fitting to the scene, from long drawn out shots with jarring noises that makes you feel the cold of this Russian winter, to conversations in conference rooms which makes you feel claustrophobic. Overall I would say that this movie is perfectly made, from its very gripping story to its interesting questions about morality.

For Those We Love (2007)

a unique perspective

[8/10 · 10 June 2018]

"For those we love" is quite a different take on a war drama. Instead of showing the suffering people went through caused by the war, it shows the last days of the people who went willingly into their own death to die for something they believed in. This movie can be pretty depressing depending on how to look at it. I saw these characters presented in the movie as products of their time and being indoctrinated to give up their young lives to a cause utterly meaningless. But then again, so it is for every soldier in a war. The difference here is that we see everything from the perspective of the Kamikaze pilots, which after the war ended, became a pretty bad image, mainly because japan lost and like they say: "history is written by the winners". On top of seeing the war from another perspective I found this movie to be very sad at some parts. It needs a bit build up and may be a bit repetitive, but I enjoyed it and I can only recommend it.

The Last Princess (2016)

fine but a bit too pandering

[5/10 · 10 June 2018]

The movie was quite entertaining and well made, had good acting, nice pacing, and solid sound design and was well shot. Sadly I couldn't really relate to the characters, especially the princess which ruined all the drama happening in the movie for me. Also I found this movie a bit too much pandering and it invented way too much stuff to make the actual original story interesting, so I can't really give this movie the bonus of being historical.

An Autumn Afternoon (1962)

definitly Ozus best work

[8/10 · 10 June 2018]

I am not a big fan of Yasujirou Ozu's works. His more famous works, Tokyo Story and Late Spring are both quite bland and didnt age well in my opinion. Ozu's story telling style which is rather simplistic and dipicts rather the avarage life of people than any kind of more important event is not bad per se, but when you combine it with very dull written characters the movie gets somewhat unwatchable, especially when the message (in the case of Tokyo Story) is also nothing really complex to wrap your head around. "An Autumn Afternoon" on the other hand shows that his simplistic story telling style with life lessions attached to it can be done in an entertaining and interesting way, when you add characters with actual personality. In this movie you have a number of those and a lot of character interactions that keep you interested throughout the film. This movie also deals with getting older and not letting go of your memories and the people close to you, not wanting to be alone and forgotten. I think this idea is implemented perfectly in this movie. Soundtrack and Cinematogrophy where also made in a rather simplistic way. The Cinematogrophy didnt always suffer because of it, sometimes there were some nice shots between characters but the soundtrack was rather boring and at the end of the movie I got pretty tired of the same old tune. But overall it was quite a nice watch, way more recommendable than his other works (besides maybe "Floating weeds" which was also an enjoyable watch)

The Great Wall (I) (2016)

definitly a miss

[3/10 · 10 June 2018]

I normally think you should judge a movie not by what you wanted to see, or what you expected but by what you actually got, but god damn we are speaking of a movie here made by none other than Zhang Yimou, not only one of the best directors of china but maybe even the whole world. This man made more masterpieces in my opinion than any other director I can think of, so it's natural that I expected some quality. Surely he made his bad movies, every director did, but Great Wall is on a whole other level of bad.

I think most of Yimous movies share 3 traits that he uses very well in his better movies. I want to go over those 3 and see how he uses them in his newest movie, "the great wall".

So firstly, many of his movies have incredible visuals. They have at least some shots that are breathtaking. He likes to but famous natural sights in his movies but he also knows how to handle lighting and architecture. The best examples I can name is his works with colors and leafs in "Hero", or the incredible atmosphere he created with the red lantern in the movie surprisingly called "Raise the red lantern", 2 movies which are nothing other than masterpieces and you really need to watch them if you haven't already. Now in "the great wall" he takes the famous rainbow mountains of Zhangye Danxia as his visual landmark like he previously did in his movie "A Woman, a gun and a noodle shop" but more than that he puts a CGi version of the Great Wall of China over it. The wall looks obviously computer animated (so it wasn't good animation) and the whole scene looks rather ridicoulus if you ask me. When you watch this movie you will mostly see CG images and crappy ones for that, ones that you can immediately spot and which just make the shot seem ugly.

A second trait I think his movies share is that they all have a unique story to tell. He seems to not like to repeat himself because all his movie feel very different from one another and frankly even from other Chinese movies in general, in terms of storytelling. If he picks them up or comes up with them on his own, most of his stories, diverse in tones as they are, are always unique and interesting, full of characters with personality and charm. What happened in this movie? I didn't care about any of these characters and the story is just a "monster beat them up" for no reason. Sure it is different from other Yimou movies, but this movie feels like you have seen it a thousand times before. He doesn't go into any depth or any motivation of any of the character. All of the characteristics that we do have of the characters merely function as plot device; everything seems so forced and shallow.

Lastly Yimou likes to put in drama in his movie, and perfectly crafted one for that. In other movies of him you can see that by adding great acting and engaging music you can even make death scenes of characters you didn't really care about sad. Best examples would be "to Live" and "Riding alone for thousands of miles". 2 very stunning and thought provoking movies and very recommendable. But neither has "the great wall" great acting nor engaging music. The only scene which became remotely engaging was when one of the soldiers threw away a bloody piece of equipment of a fallen comrade onto a pile of even more of these bloody pieces of equipment. It was basically the only good shot in the entire movie because it worked as a reminder of the deaths this fighting costed by just a mere 1 second shot, creating emotions and a bigger understanding of the sacrifices that are made. I really needed more of this in the movie.

The movie also plays around the idea of friendship and trust among soldiers. The Chinese soldiers claim to be a big family and this idea plays a big role especially in the identity crisis of the main character. He comes to them in a selfish mentality and through this experience changes. The thing is, I didn't buy it. We never see trust and friendship among them, they didn't even mourn over the hundreds of their "family members" they lost. On the other hand, the main character shows a way bigger bond with his companion he arrives at this wall than any of the Chinese soldiers.

A fun fact and also a bit of a spoiler is that all of Zhang Yimous other movies have a certain kind of ending, I won't say what, but if you have seen a bunch of his movies you should know what I am talking about. Strangely enough, this movie has a complete opposite sort of ending and I can't figure out why. Maybe it was because he kind of tried to cater this movie to American audience, or he wanted to try something different, but I think his old style fits his movies way more.