This is an anime

Ukigusa (Floating Weeds, Abschied in der Dämmerung)

With this last film review, I won’t be posting all that much because Shii is going to come visit me tomorrow (while I plan to watch Decalogue 9 today, so no review of it yet). I doubt that he will want to watch movies here though, since there is way too many things to do in Berlin. We will most likely go to the Cinema Paris though, so we will most likely watch “Un baiser s’il vous plaît” because personally I don’t want to see “Paris”. (It sounds like a horrible film to me, really. Their Paris is never my Paris after all.)

After finishing watching this film, I was dying to write about it (similarily to how I really wanted to write about “La Belle Noiseuse” as well, but now I find myself speechless. It doesn’t say anything about the film though, as it really is a delightful piece of work. The only thing I am seriously wondering about is why it is so incredibly highly acclaimed. I had lots of fun watching this, but at the same time, I wonder what makes people think that this is a great film. The actors are nothing special, the story is nothing special, the cinematography is nothing special (or rather, it is special because nothing moves and I liked it, but I don’t think it has all that much artistical merit). Why do people like it so much? I’d say it’s because this is an old japanese film and everybody raves about it, because Ozu is some old guy who shows the core of the “weird japanese culture” to the west, and as much as I actually liked watching this, I can’t but wonder what makes it a masterpiece that is so popular among cineasts. Perhaps I should check some articles about this. Suggestions?

Onto the film itself, it took me a little while to get into it, as it happens so often with good, slow-paced films. At first, I was shocked and thought “Oh god, they speak japanese but I can’t understand anything!” Of course my japanese is really bad to begin with and I only feel like understanding something without actually being able to do so, but here, I felt incredibly dependent on the subtitles. It did matter a bit, because the subtitles weren’t all that great, as it often happens with translations from comparably exotic languages. Later on, watching this film really felt a lot like watching an anime – perhaps it’s because of the non-existent camera movement?

What I did like a lot was the subtle humour especially in the form of the three kabuki actors who always stick together and are just being idiots. Somehow these three comedical side-kicks are a common thing in movies, no? Right now, it only makes me think of bad examples like the three girls in Potemayo (*cough cough*) and the three gargoyles in the Disney version of the “Hunchback of Notre-Dame”, but I am sure there are many more of these.

On another side note, I had to think of Jiro Taniguchi‘s manga a lot when I watched these films. The themes, the looks – everything reminded me of him. I guess that Taniguchi himself sees his roots much more in the french comics area rather than Ozu’s very japanese films, but I think Taniguchi is just as japanese as Ozu ;)

When I got into the store further, I started to come to like the characters, especially the young girl. What really broke the ice for me, however, was the scene in which they shut down the kabuki group. Apart from the unreal sobbing of the child (god, if Ozu is considered such a perfectionistic director, why couldn’t he choose a better actor for these scenes?), I felt so incredibly sad when it happened. These were the moments in which the film became really human and accessible to me, and where I liked it a lot. And even though everything turned out different than expected (due to the son’s unnecessary emoness), I have really liked the end. The last scene was actually felt quite happy.

All in all, this film makes me want to watch more of Ozu’s work, especially “Tokyo Monogatari”, but I wonder if I should watch any more than that.