Sometimes referred to as Twin Peaks: The Return, this long-awaited continuation of the quirky, dark TV series does actually pick up roughly 25 years after the final episode of the original, which aired back in 1991. That final episode ended with a wild ride of surrealistic madness, capped off with buoyant, boy scout FBI Agent Dale Cooper seemingly getting trapped in another realm while an evil doppelganger had taken his place in our world. The 2017 resurrection series jumps ahead in time the same 25 years that had passed between the airing of the two series. In the strange "Red Room" limbo where Cooper was stranded in 1991, he is finally sent back out to reclaim his place in our world. The problem is that the evil version of Cooper has been there, long building and overseeing a criminal enterprise and planning how he will avoid being pulled back into the Red Room. In our world, a series of new, bizarre murders starts to bring back together many of the people in Twin Peaks and within the FBI who had previously known and worked with Cooper, especially dealing with the Laura Palmer murder.
Unless I wanted that summary to stretch into a 20-page exposition, I had to keep it laughably short and simple. Twin Peaks: The Return consisted of 18 episodes, all between 50 minutes and an hour, and it takes no end of strange, surreal twists, and is told in typically David Lynch, non-linear style. This makes any concise, clear summary all but impossible. At least, not one that conveys the show's distinguishing characteristics. This is a long, all-David Lynch production, and it contains pretty much all of the "Lynchian" elements that one might expect.
In short, my wife and I enjoyed watching it.
Andy and Lucy are among the many original characters to return. They're also part of several of the stranger, stilted, and seemingly disconnected scenes and sequences that we get over the course of the 18 episodes.
If you ever saw the original show, or a few of Lynch's more surreal films like Eraserhead, Lost Highway, and Mulholland Drive, among others, then you have a sense of what to expect. So many scenes and moments will leave you questioning what, exactly, is going on, especially in terms of the plot. Thanks to shifting perspectives, unclear identities, multiple identities, non-linear narrative, and outright surreality, Twin Peaksis far from a traditional narrative. Sure, it contains more than a few familiar mainstream elements of crime dramas - mysteries surrounding murders, some tense confrontations between hardened criminals, narrow escapes from death - but the precise combination and presentation of them in all uniquely David Lynch. Characters act and speak in strange, often stilted ways. The pacing of many sequences is bafflingly drawn out at times. Many of the odder elements are never clearly explained. Such non-traditional spinning of a story can be enjoyed, tolerated, or rejected. I actually enjoyed much of it, and was able to tolerate the rest. But I also understand why some people would reject the show.
Probably the most obviously bizarre elements are the supernatural/surreal ones. In Twin Peaks, David Lynch has created his own cosmology - one which we viewers are not meant to completely understand, in my view. It involves industrial machinery, electricity, deep space, atomic science, and several immortal beings that are able to move between alternate dimensions and planes of existence. I won't pretend to understand it all, but I greatly enjoyed the mental exercise of stitching together the images and implications presented in the show. While there are plenty of these supernatural elements to be found through the entire 18-episode series, the most mind-blowing and dazzling episode was Part 8, which is almost completely done in black and white, with sparing dialogue, and is a parade of images and settings which can only be understood as "not of this world." That is, except for some scenes at the beginning of the atomic bomb detonation in 1945, and some bizarre, ash-covered demon-like figures who appear later, in 1956. The rest is a hypnotic, dreamlike tour through alien landscapes and perception-altering imagery. Honestly, watching it was not unlike taking hallucinogenics, and I was transfixed.
One of the many striking and puzzling images from the markedly surreal eighth episode. Some viewers would be turned off by the strangeness of it, but I was dazzled by the imagery and dreamlike nature of this chapter.
But what about the more grounded elements? What about Dale Cooper and the crime stories? This is where, I suspect, some viewers lost their patience with the show, which I can understand. During many of the periods on "our world," David Lynch often chose to draw scenes out to frustrating lengths. A ten-minute sequence of a few people trying to find a key to an apartment. Two full minutes of a guy sweeping up a bar floor. An interminable argument between Audrey and her husband that stretches out, piecemeal, over four or five episodes and ends up going seemingly nowhere. And there are plenty of other examples. For me, these were things that I tolerated, but I totally understand how some people found them infuriating. In my case, I found that they did somewhat fit into the overall off-beat vibe of the entire series. Or at least, they fit just enough that they didn't get on my nerves too much.
A significant part of the fun here is seeing which characters and actors return from the original show, and what their characters are up to. Amazingly, the overwhelming majority of the original actors were around and signed on for it. Some of them don't show up until much later in the season, and very few of them have any great roles. In fact, almost none of them have any more than maybe 30 minutes of total screen time, across all 18 episodes. I have to think that this was much more about David Lynch just wanting to show faithful fans of the original show that these characters are still around, even if most of them no longer have any real connection to the greater events swirling around Agent Cooper. Whatever the case, my wife and I certainly perked up when seeing an original cast member turn up, however inconsequential their presence may have been.
The alienness of the Red Room serves as a microcosm for how a viewer might feel while watching this show. Familiar elements mixed in jarring, inexplicable ways can both attract and baffle.
I do have to point out something which my wife initially noticed about the entire show, and which is hard to ignore once perceived, and that is the role of women. David Lynch is clearly an artist who has a deep passion for the styles and character archetypes of popular Americana from the 1950s and 1960s. This has long been a huge part of his style: blending those classic, romanticized elements of U.S. culture with the twisted, pitch-dark demons lurking beneath their surface. Unfortunately, he also seems to keep his female characters almost always restricted to the old, limited roles of popular stories from those bygone decades. With very few exceptions, the women in Twin Peaks are either victims, objects of lust, mentally unstable, or various combinations of those three. A few others may only be attractive window dressing, such as Agent Tammy Preston in The Return, who does little more than pose like a model for David Lynch's Gordon Cole character to gaze at from time to time. As our culture changes in its attitudes towards representation here in the 21st century, it becomes harder and harder not to notice such a clear imbalance in gender roles in TV and films like this.
As implied, this show is a tough one to recommend. I certainly can't suggest that anyone start with this revival of the show, before watching the original. The original program will give you a beginning sense of whether you care for David Lynch's general style or not. More than that, though, I would recommend also seeing one or two of Lynch's relatively more accessible films, like his neo-noir thriller Blue Velvet or even the aforementioned Lost Highway. Those two contain some of the challenging, surreal elements that the director uses more in Twin Peaks: The Return. If you dig those earlier movies, then you'll probably like the resurrection of Twin Peaks.
A moving and magical tale, only slightly marred by a touch of hokum and a handful of laughably bad soundtrack tunes.
The movie begins when a high school girl, Mitsuha, seems to have some sort of mental lapse. One morning, she wakes up not acting at all like herself, much to the confusion of her family, friends, and classmates in her small, picturesque town near a dead volcano in Japan. The next day, she is back to herself, but with no idea of what had happened the day before. We eventually realize that, for some mysterious reason, she is swapping bodies with a young high school boy in Tokyo, Taki. At first, they each think that they are simply dreaming, but they eventually come to learn of each others' existence. It is then that the story only deepens, as an already strange situation only grows stranger and more mysterious, as the more the two find out about one another.
The story of Your Name is phenomenal, and it is told with amazing deftness. In the first ten or fifteen minutes, I thought I was merely watching a farcical "body swap" tale which has already been told dozens of times, across dozens of cultures. And the gender swap was nothing fresh, either, not even in Japan, where popular manga and anime character Ranma 1/2 had covered that territory thoroughly back in the 1980s and 1990s. But as Your Name moves beyond the introductory, almost obligatory pratfalls and humorous situations of a gender swap, you realize that there is much more going on with the tale. When Mitsuha and Taki start to try and meet one another, serious and baffling complications arise, leading one of them on an obsessive pursuit of answers - answers which confirm a truly surprising and brutal tragedy.
Despite some of the grimmer aspects, the movie is a romance at heart, even if a bittersweet one at times. And the supernatural elements at work are handled exceptionally well. Often, anime films can be overly flashy, masking narrative and creative shortcomings with an onslaught of chic style and frenetic action. Such is far from the case with Your Name, which is much more about quieter observation of characters and their deepening connection to each other. When one remembers that most of the truly great, classic romances involve supernatural elements and love transcending known realities and boundaries, then Your Name has its place among the classics.
I must note the one obvious blemish on this mostly masterful film. The soundtrack can be downright laughable at times. For whatever reason, those in charge of the music decided to hand the reins over to a Japanese group known as Radwimps. Radwimps is, as far as I can tell, a pop rock group who had some massive hits in Japan between 2006 and 2011. For Your Name, they put together a handful of what I (and my wife) found to be extremely sappy tunes, with lyrics that simply do not translate well into English. One example:
And when I dozed off into a lukewarm can of soda, I
dreamed of a world so far from here that's not on the map
Searching outside of the classroom window
Or in a summer morning that's brought from a commuter train
Maybe not the worst lyrics in the world, but certainly not good. They are downright distracting with the way that they are mixed into the film, and would have been better of sung in Japanese. Blessedly, there are only four of these songs with lyrics in the movie, but it was hard to ignore them when they turned up.
Lame pop song music aside, this was a great movie. Those who scoff at anime may not exactly be won over by this one, but I would suggest it to anyone with a mind open to such things. It is a rather touching, if in some ways melancholy, love story very much its own.
A Ghost Story (2017) Director: David Lowery
A wonderfully poetic and measured tale of the supernatural, which takes an old and almost silly convention and spins a beautifully melancholy story around it.
Part of this movie's magic is not really knowing where it is headed, so I will offer only a simply introduction to the plot: a young couple, played by Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara, experience a horrible tragedy. The result of the tragedy is that a sheet-enshrouded ghost, a la Casper, now quietly hovers within the couple's home. The ghost merely watches the living, though no living person can see it.
This movie really is unlike any other that I've ever seen. The first ten or fifteen minutes are quite slow. So slow at one point, in fact, that my patience started to wear a bit thin. However, once the story starts to move along at a slightly faster pace, my fascination only grew with every new scene. Along with that fascination comes a steadily-increasing sense of sadness, but it is a sadness of the beautifully poetic variety.
And lest you think that the movie is just a depressing slog into a tragedy which befalls two people, know that this movie goes far, far beyond that. The tale eventually incorporates supernatural elements beyond the obvious ghost, many of which are left open to various interpretations.
I will readily watch this movie again, which is the highest praise I can offer nearly any film.
Hellboy is a curious entry into the world of film adaptations of comic book superheroes. Noted horror/fantasy/science-fiction director Guillermo del Toro went against the then-forthcoming grain of comic book movies when he opted to adapt the little-known cult comic, Hellboy, created and drawn by Mike Mignola. It ended up being a strong pairing of creative forces.
Hellboy quickly introduces the title character as a baby demon pulled into our world at the end of World War II. He was meant to be one of several diabolical, Lovecraftian monsters drawn down by the mad monk Rasputin in order to wreak havoc on Earth. Rasputin's plot is initially foiled, but not before the young demon is found by a platoon of U.S. troops. He is dubbed "Hellboy" and taken under the wing of Professor Bloom, an expert on the occult and attache to the Allied platoon who finds Hellboy. Over the next several decades, Hellboy (Ron Perlman) is raised by Bloom into a massive, red-skinned, long-horned, amazingly strong force against supernatural attacks on mankind.
The movie still feels unique, even amidst the modern deluge of superhero, fantasy, and science fiction films. While it certainly hits all of the familiar marks of those genres - a threat to the world; dazzling superpowers; large-scale battles - Hellboy does it in its own ways. The "superteam" whom Hellboy works with is made up of oddities and outcasts, but very sympathetic ones. There are plenty of amusing quirks in the film: Hellboy's love of cats and beer; his often misplaced confidence; the strange and damaged super beings who comprise Hellboy's team. These all make it feel rather different from nearly all other action fantasy movies. Also, being a Guillermo del Toro movie, the horror elements are done very well, though they are softened with much more levity than his graver films like Pan's Labyrinth or The Devil's Backbone.
Hellboy's main weakness is that it doesn't completely flesh out all of its elements. The relationships between Hellboy and his team have some fun and interesting dynamics, but their history is never explored enough to become truly gripping. The Rasputin character is interesting in his potential power, but he is little more than a one-dimensional bad guy looking to rule the world. The brilliant Ron Perlman does as much as possible with the script, but the gags and one-liners can be hit-or-miss. These are a few of the areas of potential which went untapped in the film.
This is still a fun movie, and definitely one which fans of superhero flicks should watch or regularly revisit. It's a great alternative to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which I love) and its competitors.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Arguably an improvement on the original in several ways, despite exhibiting some of the same weaknesses. In short, it's another fun chapter in the off-beat superhero series.
All of the strengths of the first film remain intact here. The title monster hunter is still as fun and snarky as ever, and his teammates are still quirky misfits that wouldn't be found in other blockbuster superhero movies (except maybe Guardians of the Galaxy). The visual effects are strong, and del Toro still opts for costumes and make-up over CGI whenever possible, a choice which I hold in very high regard.
The leg up that this sequel has is that the villain has more depth that the first film (or most other action and adventure films). The back story here is that many millenia prior, the world was ruled by a race of elves, which had built an army of hulking mechanical warriors - the titular "Golden Army," which was reputed to be unstoppable in battle. Despite commanding this force, the king of the elves was betrayed, and the key to the army was lost to time. That is until our story begins, when the exiled elf Prince Nuada decides to track down the key, use it to reclaim the Golden Army, and reclaim dominance over Earth. Nuada actually evokes more sympathy than most villains, which adds a bit of richness far too often lacking in such movies (I'm looking at you, Marvel Cinematic Universe).
The playful sense of wonder is on full display here. As Hellboy and his crew track Nuada's whereabouts and uncover his plans, we get plenty of great set pieces, odd monsters both large and small, and an ever-deepening mythology which never takes itself overly serious. While the relationship between Hellboy and his teammate Liz often has a screwball feel which I can do without, this is still a great fantasy action movie that's well worth watching every year or two.
As of writing this, we are now eight years into the "Hellboy 3" rumor cycle. I, for one, would gladly go and watch another of these films. While the MCU's Guardians of the Galaxy was widely lauded for being a fun, anti-establishment departure from its MCU brethren, people seem to forget that many of those charming elements in Guardians had already been done by del Toro in his Hellboy movies ten years prior. We could use a few more pure popcorn movies that are high on fun while lying a tad outside of the box. Another Hellboy would give it to us.
In mid-19th century New England, a young farmer named Jabez Stone is down on his luck. As he hits what seems to be rock-bottom, he pronounces that he would sell his soul to the devil for the money he needs to live. Lo and behold, a demonic man calling himself Mr. Scratch arrives, and makes Jabez the very offer for which he asked. Reluctant at first, Jabez eventually succumbs to temptation, accepting untold riches in exchange for giving up his soul in a set number of years.
The years roll by and the money that Jabez accepted changes him in ways that neither he nor his dedicated wife or mother would ever have predicted. When the time nears for him to give his soul in return, he panics and calls on the only man who he thinks can save him - famed local, orator, and federal senator Daniel Webster. Webster takes up Stone's highly unusual case and attempts to defend his soul against Mr. Scratch and his devilish logic.
What Did I Think?
A really good movie, despite my misgivings during the first ten or fifteen minutes.
The Devil and Daniel Webster is, at the heart of its plot, a religious, didactic, cautionary tale not unlike those that you see on those hilariously ridiculous little cartoon pamphlets warning against the temptations of sin. This is the sort of thing that I would generally have zero interest in. And yet, this film was highly engaging.
What grabbed me was how little the movie flinched, especially for a film made in 1941. As annoyingly "gee-shucks" innocent as the Stone family is, it becomes effective when you see the changes that Jabez undergoes as the film progresses. From my experience, it's rare to find a film from that era in which such naive and innocent characters are put through such worldly and mature trials.
...and the deal is made. This is one of many scenes that expertly used light, shadow, and fog to create the right atmosphere for dark dealings.
Probably the best thing about the movie is the use of supernatural elements. The eeriness with which Daniel Webster's character (based on the real person of the same name) is introduced is spellbinding - he works on a speech in the solitude of his office, with the dark shadow of a demon lurking over him, seeking to tempt him into making a deal that would make him president of the United States. Webster is fighting against hell itself, and this scene sets the stage for the rest of the film incredibly well.
One other feature of this movie warrants mentioning - the performance of Walter Huston as the mischievous Mr. Scratch. It's tough to pull off the right fusion of impishness and sleaze that Huston manages, but the character benefits greatly from it. His facial expressions alone are worth the price of admission.
I must say that the resolution of things was a bit too tidy for my liking, but this didn't kill the movie for me. It is, after all, a fable told through the lens of 1940s cinema. It's a fun, classic film that is a rather unique entry.
Pair of overly ambitious, 16th century farmers run into seriously nasty business while chasing money and glory.
Uncut Summary (The full plot, including spoilers. Fair Warning)
In 16th century Japan, the land is torn by civil war. In a tiny village, two neighboring farmers, Genjuro and Tobei seem to have the necessities – land to tend and loving wives. Genjuro even makes pottery in his spare moments, which he sells for extra money. Despite having their basic requirements satisfied, both Genjuro and Tobei seek more.
With a far-reaching civil war nearing their village, the two men see a chance to chase their ambitions. Though the village head cautions them to stay with their lands and families, Genjuro and Tobei make for a nearby city. Genjuro hopes to sell his wares for a hefty profit, and Tobei dreams of finding a lord under whom he can become a great samurai. Genjuro does make a tidy sum selling his pottery, but Tobei finds only bitter disappointment. He finds a general and throws himself at his feet, only to be mocked and pushed away. He is taunted due to being a peasant and not even having a spear or armor to fight with.
On returning to their wives in the village, the men undergo a change. Having tasted some financial success, Genjuro begins work on a massive amount of new pottery, with a plan to sell it for a greater profit in a much larger city. Tobei, still tasting his humiliation, is far from discouraged and assists Genjuro with his pottery. His hope is to be able to afford the armor and spear he needs to join an army and find martial glory.
Gejuro and Tobei take their families with them to chase their dreams.
On the day that the two men finish their batch of plates, cups, and other earthen wares, the village is attacked in a nighttime raid by one of the nearby armies. Genjuro and Tobei, with their families, manage to escape capture and to save the pottery. In a difficult moonlight sojourn, they run across various victims of the armies, but eventually make it to the largest city.
In the city, things finally start to look up. The men's pottery is selling very well in the hustle of the market. Then, Tobei sees the object of his desire – a stately general whom he wishes to follow. He grabs a fistful of his and Genjuro's coins and runs madly after the general, despite his wife Ohama's pleading that he stay with her. Tobei evades her, buys the required spear and armor and abandons his wife.
Back at his stall, Genjuro continues to sell his pottery when a beautiful noblewoman, Lady Wakasa, appears with her elder handmaiden. Genjuro, who is stunned by the Lady Wakasa's looks and bearing, sells them several items and is told to deliver them to the Wakasa estate just outside of town.
Without his wife, Miyagi, or child, Genjuro delivers the pottery to Lady Wakasa, who invites the humble craftsman inside her home. She showers Genjuro with praise for his goods, and Genjuro expresses the honor he feels at such accolades. Lady Wakasa then makes the bold proposition that Genjuro remain with her and marry her. She courts him with a traditional love song, after which she and her servant hear the voice of her long-dead father, the daimyo Kawasa. The deceased patriarch apparently approves of his daughter's proposed marriage to this simple farmer. Genjuro, now hypnotized by the phantasmic atmosphere and the Lady's strange beauty and sorrow, accepts and stays.
Their husbands now in the throes of military and marital glory-seeking, Ohama and Miyagi are left to fend for themselves. Tobei's wife Ohama is soon beset by a gang of thugs who rape and humiliate her. Miyagi and her son try to make their way back home, but have to fend off starving transients and other peasants. The women are surviving, but only with the greatest of perseverance.
Tobei eventually gets his chance. He happens across an injured general who has just been willfully beheaded by his lieutenant. Tobei rushes in, steals the general's head, and presents it as a trophy to a rival general. He is then showered with a title, a horse, and vassals. With his new platoon, he goes to celebrate in a local brothel, where he finds none other than his disgraced wife Ohama, who is now a prostitute. After Ohama heaps scorn upon him, Tobei realizes the errors of his ways; the two reconcile, to a degree, and agree to head back to their village and continue to make amends.
At the Wakasa Estate, Genjuro is experiencing otherworldly delights. The grounds of the estate are heavenly, and his new wife seems utterly, obsessively devoted to him. However, he does sense that something is amiss. On his first return trip to the city by himself, a traveling monk sees Genjuro and detects what he calls “a hint of death” on him. It is revealed that the entire Wakasa family has been dead for years, and that Genjuro must be in the thrall of the demonic spirit of the Lady. The monk paints wards of protection on Genjuro's body. Upon returning to the estate, Lady Wakasa and her servant sense Genjuro's betrayal and try to tempt him to remove the wards, so the he can remain Wakasa's wife for eternity. Genjuro resists the temptation and escapes their grasp for good.
Genjuro enjoys a heavenly picnic with his spirit bride.
Back in the village, Tobei and his wife are finding a new kind of happiness. Tobei has rededicated himself to his work on his land and has abandoned any hopes of becoming a great soldier. He and his wife have found some form of peace.
Genjuro finally makes it back to his village in the deep of night, where he finds Ohama oddly awake and calmly tending the home fire while their son sleeps. Seemingly, they made it back home safely while Genjuro was in the clutches of the demon Wakasa. Genjuro expresses his relief at seeing Ohama and their son, apologizes for his foolishness, and lays down in exhaustion.
In the morning, the village head wakes Genjuro and his son. When Genjuro calls for Ohama, the confused village head tells him that Ohama has died a month prior, and that his son had been at the village head's house being taken care of. Genjuro makes the slow realization that he had been welcomed home not by his wife, by by her spirit.
Take 1: My Gut Reaction (done after 1 viewing, before any research)
Pretty cool movie. I was genuinely unnerved at a few moments, too.
Really, the whole thing amounts to a supernatural cautionary tale/parable. In this sense, it wasn't too hard to see where it was going from the start. The method of getting to that ending point, though, is the strength of this movie and why I really enjoyed it.
For the first portions of the film, it just seems like two average Joe's (or Ichiro's, I guess) who overreach themselves. Any viewer who's read an Aesop's fable or Grimm's Faerie Tale or two can see where it's heading for these two fellows – a painful lesson in knowing one's limitations and enjoying the good things that life has given you. In this sense, it's a very Japanese tale in that the men's ambition's are punished rather than rewarded, and this is the interesting part of the story to me.
The tale of the foolish Tobei is pretty obvious; the man is an obvious buffoon from the start, so it's no surprise that he makes bad decisions and that he and his wife suffer greatly for it. The unusual tale is the relatively upstanding Genjuro's. The man isn't necessarily avaricious. He seems to simply want to make enough money to buy his wife, whom he loves, the occasional kimono. While in a capitalistic society, such an attempt to modestly improve one's material lot in life is lauded, in the story of Ugetsu it invites demonic predation. This is actually the frightening part of the tale and what sets it apart from a more juvenile cautionary tale – Genjuro really isn't that bad a guy, but he's put through emotional hell for showing a tad of initiative.
On the horror aspect of the movie, it's incredibly effective. This is certainly not a “horror” movie, but the supernatural elements are so well-played that they are brilliant. For most of the movie, things are very straightforward, from the characters, the plot, and even the camerawork and visuals. For nearly 45 minutes, the acting and story are very naturalistic and commonplace. This is why, when Genjuro first goes to the Wakasa estate and I heard the deep, echoing murmurings of the dead general, it cut right to my gut. Following on the footsteps of a chilling song by the Lady, this whole scene is like cold, sharp razor blades tickling the back of your neck.
Here's the geisha dance that Lady Wakasa uses to lure Genjuro into her clutches. We Westerners may not find it appealing, but it has a very haunting quality due to Noh techniques of power acheived through minimalist movements and sounds:
Enhancing the effect of the supernatural portions of the movie is the cinematography. As mentioned, most of the movie is very traditional in its filming - it's solid, but nothing creative. Then, when the Lady appears, things shift. We start seeing some parts of the story from unusual angles. The costumes and set designs take on a polished, dreamlike quality. Even before Wakasa's true nature is revealed, we can sense that there is something artificial an untrustworthy about her and her home. This technique is not hard to pull off in a color film, and with modern technology, but in Ugetsu it was done in black and white. In an intellectual way, this is more impressive to me.
Ugetsu is, in my mind, a classic case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, as impressive as some of those parts are. The story is certainly interesting, but far from novel. The dialogue is engaging, but not exactly fresh. The acting is refreshingly naturalistic, but not amazing. However, with the filming and themes providing cohesion, and the fact that the movie is a very efficient 95 minutes, I find that I'd certainly watch it again.
Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (done after some further research)
Lots of interesting analyses written about this movie, all of which add several layers of appreciation for me.
Unlike several other films on the TIME list, Ugetsu was recognized internationally as a masterpiece right away. It's clear from this original TIME review that not only was its international release not delayed (as opposed to the years-long wait for Ikiru), but it was showered with critical acclaim.
In reading essays on the movie, a few things stand out. One is the use of camera and sound, and the way that director Mizoguchi made such effective use of distinctively Japanese artistic elements. This essay by Keiko McDonald describes how Mizoguchi drew from canvas painting, noh and kabuki elements to evoke myriad feelings, such as the connection between farmers and land, and the supernatural aspects of Genjuro's interactions with Lady Wakasa.
Another is Kenji Mizoguchi's storytelling. Ugetsu, taken from an 18th century collection of short stories, is meant to describe the overall effects of war on the common person. As with many of his scores of earlier films, he uses the plight of common women to illustrate it. In this essay, critic Philip Lopate points out something that alters my previous opinion. While I had suggested that Ugetsu is really a cautionary tale, Lopate suggests that it is, rather, a realistic look at the effects of war. It is not meant to moralize, but rather to simply focus one's gaze upon the way humans behave. In Mizoguchi's visions, men often seek aggressive change, causing pain and sorrow, even if unintentionally, to themselves and those whom they truly love.
I guess it's this last idea that makes Ugetsu both a uniquely Japanese film and one that connects with any group: it's a beautifully artistic look at a rather sorrowful truth about humanness. It's certainly not an overwhelmingly cheery message, but there is some hope for contentedness, if not joy.
Here's the final scene, in which Genjuro recalls his loving wife, while her benvolent spirit comforts him with the wisdom of acceptance:
That's a wrap. 39 down, 66 to go.
Coming Soon: Tokyo Story (1953)
The final of the Japanese ichi-ni-san panchi (1-2-3 punch, English speakers). I've this sad little number about geriatrics before, and am not overly relishing a second viewing. Maybe an older, wiser me will appreciate it more. Or I'll just get tired of looking at mama- and papa-sans.
Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.
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