Ran (1985)

Ran is one of the most epic films ever made, a masterful achievement for director Akira Kurosawa. A loose adaptation of King Lear, the film is set in 16^th century medieval Japan and tells the story of a warlord named Hidetora who decides to split up his kingdom among his three sons. While the elder two sons agree, the youngest son is dubious of the plan, questioning the sense of loyalty that all three sons will stick together to keep the kingdom alive. What follows is a story about pride, greed, betrayal and ultimately, defeat. It’s a bleak and nihilistic tale that is told with such weight that it could become suffocating, but Kurosawa’s sense of visuals and composition help maintain the film’s visceral qualities.

Kurosawa was 75 years old and nearly blind when he was filming Ran, and it’s amazing that the end product is filled with such depth and visual poetry. The film plays much like a visual tone poem, where the colors and landscapes come alive like few films do. Even the weather seems to come alive, as there are multiple shots of ominous clouds overtaking the landscape. The clouds eventually give way into wind and storms, seemingly commenting on the chaos that is destroying the kingdom.

The film’s main setpiece comes about an hour into the film, when the two elder sons have been plotted against each other, and both are storming the castle with the aging warlord trapped inside. One army comes decked in red; the other in yellow. It helps the viewer identify each army, but the colors also create a sort of moving painting. As the ghost-like Hidetora sits at the top of his castle, the armies wage war below. The first part of the battle is done mainly in silence with just the soundtrack playing over the battle, very much creating a poetic scene. Then, a gunshot goes off, and we are brought right back into the battle, the sound effects now reflecting the scene, with swords clashing, horses racing, and battle cries everywhere. The sequence ends on a powerful shot of Hidetora walking down the steps of his burning castle, slowly leaving his kingdom in a trance-like state. No words are needed to convey the weight of the sequence—Hidetora realizes his reign is over and his kingdom will fall at the hands of his own family, and all the wisdom he’s acquired throughout his life will not save him.

As mentioned before, the film is very bleak in its view of humanity. The title ‘ran’ translates to ‘chaos’, which is exactly what the kingdom is experiencing. Hidetora realizes that his power has now been reduced to nothing, as his sons bicker and fight, tearing apart piece by piece the kingdom that he had created. However, Hidetora isn’t necessarily a heroic character himself, as it is referenced earlier that the way he came into power was through murder and other ruthless tactics. Even Saburo, the most honorable son (the only son who expression dissention to his father’s original plan) ends up dying a cheap, pointless death.

Ran is not a particularly fast paced film, but it doesn’t need rush things along to convey its themes. The first hour establishes the characters and how the power in the kingdom isn’t necessarily based on loyalty. The rest of the film is spend tearing down that power, where by the end nothing is sacred and everyone has experienced defeat, whether it be through death or extreme suffering. The final shot of the film shows a blind peasant (the blindness was caused by Hidetora years ago) left all alone near a cliffside. As he inches closer and closer towards the cliff, he barely catches himself before plunging to his death, but the fact still remains that he has nowhere to go and nobody to help him.

Kurosawa directed many masterpieces in his time, and to have yet another near the end of his career proves all the more impressive. Ran remains to this day a masterpiece of visual style and kinetic storytelling.

Rating: 5 stars

The Top 5 Films of 2010 (So Far)

I realize it’s a bit past the halfway point of the year, and there are still plenty of films I haven’t seen yet, but based on what I have seen, here are my picks for best of the year (so far):

5. Inception – No matter what your thoughts are about the film, Christopher Nolan’s latest has at least been something worth discussing in this disappointing summer movie season. Its stunning visuals and inventive sequences (Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s anti-gravity fight scene stands out) help create an entertaining heist film. The dream sequences could have been a bit more inventive, and there was probably a bit too much exposition in the first half, but despite its flaws, Inception remains one of the highlights of the year so far.

4. Exit Through the Gift Shop – Street artist Banksy’s debut film is a playful, highly entertaining documentary about artists, wannabe artists, the nature of art and how we react to art. It’s also funny as hell. (see my review here)

3. Toy Story 3 – Pixar has been on a bit of hot streak lately (you could also make the argument that they’ve never made a bad film). Toy Story 3 continues with the adventures of Woody, Buzz and co., and it definitely holds its own with the first two films. The second half plays as a nice homage to prison escape films of the past (The Great Escape, Cool Hand Luke) while also keeping the wit and humor of the series. It also has two of the most effective scenes in recent memory in terms of emotional impact near the end of the film. You’ll know them when you see them.

2. Winter’s Bone – Based on Daniel Woodrell’s novel, this film noir via Ozark adventure is one of the most gripping films you’ll see all year. Jennifer Lawrence gives an excellent performance as the teenage heroine, and John Hawkes gives one of the best performances of his career as the heroine’s intimidating uncle. The atmosphere in the backwoods of Missouri is like a character unto itself, always in the background like an ominous force.

1. A Prophet (Un prophète) – Technically released in 2009 in France (and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film in last year’s Oscars), this film didn’t get a stateside release until this yearr. The ambitious film is an instant classic in the gangster genre, all told through the viewpoint of the lead character primarily within the confines of a French prison. His rise to power can be seen as reminiscent of Scarface, but the film never gets as campy as that film not glorifies the lifestyle, instead presenting it in a much more harrowing manner. Tahar Rahim gives an outstanding performance in the lead role, and he effortlessly shows the character's rise within the prison ranks from scared newcome to head boss.

Honorable mentions: “June 17, 1994” (part of ESPN’s “30 For 30” series), Greenberg, Best Worst Movie (also a 2009 film via festival circuit), Shutter Island, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Many more films to see this year, many more reviews to write (and catch up on). Stay tuned.

Chinatown (1974)

“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” Those are the infamous words spoken at the end of Chinatown, and probably the most well known line from the film. Yet, it carries such a weight that explains everything that has come before and still remains entirely elusive. Everything’s changed, yet nothing is really different at all. Not matter how hard he tried, how much he learned, Jake Gittes is powerless to what happens, but it’s his fault at the same time. It’s quite possibly one of the saddest, most devastating endings in all of cinema, made all the more heartbreaking that despite his best efforts, Jake won’t forget what happens in Chinatown.

To call Chinatown a perfect film isn’t that far from the truth. It fits squarely in the neo-noir genre, but it ever so subtly takes those noir conventions and turns them into something much deeper than most hard-boiled detective stories of the past. Detective Jake “J.J.” Gittes, as played by Jack Nicholson, at first seems like the stereotypical film detective from ‘40s noir—detached, business-minded, sharp-witted. But we soon learn that he empathizes much greater with the plight of some of his clients than the detectives you may find in a Raymond Chandler novel. The plot is downright labyrinthine at times, but it never buckles under the weight of its own ambition. The plotting never panders to the audience, however, so while everything is laid out in the plot, it’s a film that requires careful viewing. It’s made all the more interesting that the detective in this noir story is not on the hunt for gold or jewels, but rather is chasing a much larger, much more abstract—the corruption of the water department of Los Angeles. What begins innocently enough as a case to uncover an affair ends in real human tragedy for some of the characters.

While the production and filming of Chinatown has a very storied history, the effort created by the cast and crew is practically flawless. Director Roman Polanski was at the peak of his talents here, eclipsing even previous efforts such as Rosemary’s Baby. Robert Towne’s script is masterful in its ability to create a complex plot that deals with the idea of corruption at a macro level while never losing sight of the characters at the core. The cinematography by John A. Alonzo is also well worth noting, as the world of the noir is usually accented in black and white, with sharp shadows and negative space. Here, the rich yellow and orange hues of the desert and sun come alive over Los Angeles, creating an even more foreboding notion that evil and corruption doesn’t always hide in the shadows and can often times be found in plain sight. The acting is great, as Jack Nicholson gives one of his best performances, as he plays Gittes with a sense of restraint and a little defeatism; a nice guy who is just trying to make it in a world that is full of betrayal and corruption. His performance is key in holding the film together, especially since he appears in every single scene. Faye Dunaway, playing a variation of the femme fatale character in the film, gives an emotionally vulnerable performance while remaining mysterious through most of the film. Once her motives and secrets are revealed, it’s impossible not to sympathize with her plight. Director John Huston (who directed such classics as The Maltese Falcon and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, so he probably knows a thing or two about film noir) gives an outstanding performance as the intimidating millionaire Noah Cross, a man whose charm and power have given him free reign over a city that he helped shape, but his crimes and intricate webs of deception take on a dark and disturbing undercurrent to the revelations found near the end of the film.

There is one scene in the film where Evelyn Mulwray (Dunaway) and Jake Gittes are lying in bed, and Mulwray asks about his life in Chinatown. He tells her that the entire area was corrupt, and he was told to do “as little as possible”, followed by a sign a resignation over his face as he explains that a woman that he was trying to protect only ended up getting hurt in the end. It’s a brief moment of true vulnerability for Gittes, which makes it all the more sad when this scenario is replayed exactly at the end of the film, complete with a confrontation in Chinatown. As he stands there in disbelief viewing the damage that has been done, he mutters to himself, “…as little as possible.” Gittes knows this cycle will never end for him, no matter how hard he tries to change the outcome. Best he just forget everything that happened, right? After all, it’s Chinatown.

Rating: 5 stars