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Pigs and Battleships / Stolen Desire – Eureka MOC Blu Ray Review
contains mild spoilers
Pigs and Battleships, Shohei Imamura’s 1961 absurd portrait of the transformation of a small fishing port during the American occupation is a biting indictment of postwar society. Kinta (Hiroyuki Nagato), the young would be Yakuza, is excited when he is given responsibility over the gang’s latest asset – a herd of pigs, which they plan to fatten up and sell back to the Americans at an inflated price. His girlfriend, Haruko (Jitsuko Yoshimura), is unhappy about his connection to gang and constantly urges him to get a proper job. Kinta, however is unwilling to do this because he doesn’t want to end up like his father, sacked from his long time factory job after becoming ill, or be just another ordinary low age worker living hand to mouth. He seems to want to be something, someone more than that but also seems unable to do anything about it other than follow the gang. He likes the respect and the feeling of being the big man that the gang affords him but is unable to see that it’s illusionary, his status is only that of expendable fall guy in a petty gang of punks. Haruko’s family on the other hand are unhappy with her relationship with Kinta and constantly urge her to become the kept mistress of a wealthy American who’s shown an interest in her. For obvious reasons this isn’t something Haruko is very interested in doing but her mother’s quite violent instructions are becoming harder and harder to defy. Eventually Kinta agrees to go with Haruko to an uncle in another town who might be able to find them work, after he’s completed one final gang related task which he hopes will provide them with money to take with them. However, predictably things do not go to plan and the young couple’s hopes are frustrated.
There are only really two things going on in this town, the pigs and the battleships. Everyone is completely (and quite desperately) dependent on the Americans, they drive the entire town’s economy. The red light district in which the film is set is dedicated to catering for the foreigners on shore leave, and most of the women in the picture are engaging in either casual or outright prostitution, encouraged by their petty yakuza boyfriends or families. Even our heroine Haruko at one point, angry with Kinta but also with her family, decides to give this a go with disastrous results which leads to one of the most masterful shots of the film – the much praised spinning top shot which perfectly articulates the chaos and horror of that terrible situation. The entire town has become like pigs running toward a feeding trough, the final scene of the town’s women running to greet the newly arrived ship, desperate for attention and the material benefits that attention might bring. The only hope in this final scene is with Haruko finally leaving her overbearing mother, defiantly marching straight ahead through this crowd of baying women to start again in a new town, with a proper honest job away from all these corrupting influences.
Pigs and Battleships is a masterful film and in fact quite darkly humourous, highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of Japan or Japanese Cinema. The Blu Ray release from Eureka’s Masters of Cinema series is top notch, the picture quality is mostly excellent as is the soundtrack (the disc comes with optional English subtitles which are also very good).
Also provided is Imamura’s debut feature for Nikkatsu, Stolen Desire, the story of a middle class young man (also played by Hiroyuki Nagato) who ends up joining a traveling Kabuki (though leaning more and more towards burlesque elements) group, not so far away from the directors own youthful experiences. This is a more typical Nikkatsu B Movie, a ribald comedy with jokes about randy peasants, vain/difficult actors, misplaced love and the sort of tensions present within a traveling group of artists who’ve hit upon slightly low times. However there are the uniquely Immamura elements that lift this above the rest, the documentary like opening for example and the genuine warmth with with he paints the earthy peasants in all their unbridled vitality. This is the first time this film has been available commercially available with English subtitles in the West and is definitely well worth seeing, its transfer, whilst not quite as strong as that of Pigs and Battleships is certainly very good. There is the odd cut or damage in the frame and the image is certainly a bit softer but it’s still an excellent transfer given the nature of the material. Both releases are accompanied by a booklet containing essays by Tony Rayns about each film which are very useful and informative. This is another fantastic release from MOC, very much deserving of a place in every collection. Fantastic.
Pepi, Luci, Bom… + Q&A with Alaska
Pedro Almodóvar’s debut film may not be as polished as his later work, in fact it may be a bit messy and very rough around the edges but the trademark energy, wit, and charm are all here, and in abundance. Pepi (Maura), is listening to some music and playing with a sticker book when a policeman calls because he’s been noticing her funny looking plants. Fearing prosecution Pepi offers him other compensations, but the policeman takes things further than she was thinking, raping her and ‘stealing’ the virginity which she’d been planning to sell! Seeking revenge, Pepi enlists the help of her friends in a punk group, including Bom (Alaska), to beat him up, but it doesn’t quite go to plan. Later Pepi runs into the rapist policeman’s wife, Luci, (Silva) and convinces her to give her knitting lessons, where she finds out that Luci is a masochist upset that her husband treats her like his mother. These are our three crazy girls trying to make it in La Movida. The film is extremely funny, though dipping a little into poor taste at times which may spoil it a little for some. Even if it’s not an especially well made film, and its lack of budget and complicated production circumstances are very much in evidence it’s still a lot of fun and it’s very interesting for fans of Almodóvar’s more recent work to look at where it all started.
After the film the BFI brought out the actress and singer Alaska (Bom) to talk and answer a few questions about her work on this film. She began by commenting on the film’s genesis, that she was offered the part because she was friends with some artists that were also friends of Almodóvar’s and had read the script and recommended her. As there was no money at all to make the film filming would take place when enough money had been raised to buy the negative, consequently the film took a few years to actually complete filming here and there when possible. Other than Carmen Maura and Felix Rotaeta most of the cast were not professional actors but friends and other people from that particular underground scene at the time. Someone from the audience asked if she’d influenced her character seeing as there was a superficial similarity there with Alaska’s also being in a punk group, to which she replied no. She provided her own clothes/look etc seeing as there wasn’t a costume designer or stylist or even any money for costumes but the character was already 100% scripted before she got the part and Almodóvar was very strict about sticking to his script and did not allow any deviations from it whatever. However she did mention that the seen with the postman was originally intended to just be ‘hello’ but that the actor decided to go for it, much to the consternation of the producer because they only had the right amount of film for what was already planned out, but Almodóvar liked it so it worked out in that instance. A few questions also raised the question of how Alaska felt at the time regarding the changes in Spanish Society, whether she felt herself to be living in momentous times, she replied that being only fifteen or so at the time she just didn’t really react to it in that way. She felt sure that other people did, but being so young she was just really living her life. Someone then asked how she felt about Spanish society at the moment and she answered that she was old enough now to see that each generation criticises the next one for failing to react enough but perhaps it was just a case of times moving on and general apathy. Another questions asked if the film was representative of the youth of Spain during La Movida but she she pointed out that no, this was a definite minority subscene of people that were seen as ‘weird’ and that maybe the film was adopted by youth culture a bit later but at that moment didn’t really reflect it at the time of making. The question of reviews and reaction to the film was also brought up and it was pointed out that the film was more or less panned everywhere, there was not a good reaction anywhere. The film was screened at a couple of festivals where it received an adverse reaction particularly from feminist critics. One of the last questions asked for clarification on the film’s message and purpose, which in Alaska’s opinion (one that she was sure Almodóvar would share) were nil. She felt that if there was a message or purpose it was that there wasn’t one, and if anything simply a statement of intent – we are here and this is who we are, this is how we choose to live. What better message could there possibly be?
Kazuhiro Soda at the Japan Foundation
Today the Japan Foundation played host to an evening with Japanese documentary maker Kazuhiro Soda, author of Campaign and Mental. Soda gave an informal, interactive talk about his documentary film work beginning with his leaving Japan for New York on a whim and enrolling in film school and then serendipitously seeing an advertisement for a filmmaker who knew Japanese and English which led him into making documentary films for NHK. He came to making his first feature length film on hearing that a friend from university had recently decided to run for public office, this was surprising as his friend has always been quite eccentric – having failed to enter university five times, he never attended classes (despite living on campus) and subsequently was held back three times, he met his wife on the internet and they decided to honeymoon in North Korea(!) – and not only was he standing for office he was doing so with the backing of the staunchly conservative JLPD (the party of Prime Minister Koizumi, in power at the time). Soda described his alienation from the TV documentary production methods he’d been used to – scripting/narration, shot lists, titles, music etc and his decision to make an observational film, to go in with no research, no preconceptions just to observe with camera and construct the film in the editing room. He then showed a clip from his second film, Mental, which centered around a very open and moving story from a women who’d suffered some truly terrible things and discussed the ethical difficulties of documentary film making. Although many of the patients at the clinic declined to participate in the film, luckily there were enough who accepted and Soda was very clear about obtaining permission before shooting, taking into account the very sensitive nature of the information. In other cases though it was possible that permission be sought afterwards where necessary, but permission is always sought and the subjects well being always a very important factor in the filmmaking process. The audience was then treated to a very special preview of Soda’s latest film, Peace, which is screening at the Sheffield documentary festival this weekend. Having intended to make a film about his wife’s grandmother which proved too sensitive and had to be abandoned, Soda was watching his father-in-law feed some stray cats when he noticed a male cat prowling around the circle of others and not being allowed in. The father-in-law explained that this was ‘thief cat’ who would look for an opportunity to steal the food for the others and was thus not very popular, the father-in-law had taken to putting a separate dish of food away from the other cats to stop this happening and thief cat eagerly, if somewhat suspiciously, lapped this up. It struck Soda that this would be a perfect scenario for a film commission he’d recently been offered which needed to reflect the them of peace and acceptance which he’d been unsure whether to accept. Luckily he’d had the camera rolling and decided to include the moment in his next film. The clip shown certainly looked very interesting and we can only hope the film will find an audience after its Sheffield screening.
Law of Desire
Pedro Almodvar’s 1987 movie, Law of Desire, is a deeply felt meditation on the nature of love and longing which still manages to pack in all of the director’s usual flair and wit. A film director gets picked up in a disco by an unhinged fan whilst his boyfriend is on holiday. He tries to break off with guy 2 because he’s really in love with guy 1, but guy 2 has quite considerable problems. Also add into the mix the director’s trans-sexual sister and the little girl she’s become defacto guardian of and you end up with quite a complicated set of situations. Fantastic!
Arsenic and Old Lace
There is a happydale, far, far away….
This is one of my most favourite films. Theatre critic and prominent anti-marriage advocate Mortimer (Cary Grant) has just married nextdoor’s vicar’s daughter, Elaine (Priscilla Lane). Understandably embarrassed, Mortimer is desperately trying to keep the marriage under wraps but nevertheless returns home to let his sweet maiden aunts know the good news. Unfortunately he’s not the only one with a surprise, as he discovers opening the window seat. Believing his uncle Teddy, who is under the delusion that he is Teddy Roosevelt, has finally gone too far and harmed someone, he confronts his aunts and suggests they look into finding a better place for Teddy. Casually they reveal the body is ‘one of theirs’ and our whole macabre farce kicks off. Oh and did I mention Mortimer’s sadistic older brother Jonathan, who’s had plastic surgery to change identities but wound up looking like Karloff in Frankenstein, the doctor who did that to him and their own guest they’re bringing to this bizarre gathering? Not to mention the police turning up, one of whom has theatrical ambitions! Hilarious!
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Official Greenband trailer
After all the excitement following the leak of a cam captured Red Band trailer over the weekend, an official Green band trailer has been released! Pretty much the same as the red band but without the more extreme elements the film looks fantastic, we can only hope the film lives up to this fantastic promo. As a card carrying member of the Lisbeth Salander fanclub (yes I’ve read all the books and seen the Swedish movies, and no I don’t view this as remake because it’s an entirely new script taken directly from the first book) I can’t wait to see this and I hope it’s as good I think it will be because I already want to see the next two!
Bande À Part
Bande à Part is Godard at his most charming. A delightfully whimsical surreal crime caper likely to please even the most Godard averse! Brilliant!
On Psycho and Star Power
I often wonder, how much of its impact does Psycho lose given that a modern audience, even if they somehow have managed to avoid knowing anything about the plot, does not relate to Janet Leigh in the same way the audience of 1960 would have. If you don’t know Janet Leigh is supposed to be the ‘star’ of the movie, is her early exit all that shocking? and if it’s not all that shocking, does the film feel unbalanced? does the viewer feel they’ve missed something, are they confused they’ve spent so long with this character that’s just disappeared and the focus has moved on entirely?
I feel as if I should be able to answer some of these questions, after all it’s not as if I saw this in a cinema myself in 1960, but I honestly don’t remember the first time I saw it. I must have been quite young, probably too young and like most other people I must have seen it on the television. I’m almost certain I would have watched it with my mother, who probably explained to me who Janet Leigh was and that she was the ‘star’ of the film and that it was odd, therefore, that she was only in the first third or so. I think I probably did think Marion was going to reappear at some point, or be not really dead, just because this started out as her story so it didn’t really make sense that it quickly became someone else’s. I wonder if everyone else felt this way too, or if ‘this’ followed by ‘that’ just felt a natural progression to them?
Angels of Evil (Vallanzasca – Gli Angeli Del Male)
Angels of Evil (Vallanzasca – Gli Angeli Del Male) sets out to tell the story of an infamous criminal demonised and idolised in equal measure in the Italy of the 1970s/80s. However, the film largely fails to convey the sort of charisma that would have young women sending fan mail and risqué photographs to a man whose crimes have no other justification. We see glimpses of Vallanzasca’s seemingly happy childhood (single traumatic episode excepted, though even this is not clearly explained) followed by brief stints in juvenile detention and his eventual evolution into a sort of lovable gangster, a down and dirty not-quite-a-gentleman thief, but the film at least lacks the charm to allow us to buy into Vallanzasca’s lifestyle choices or even really care very much about him at all. Things proceed in a very episodic way that prevents any of kind insight either into the characters themselves or into the larger political landscape and any connections between the two. The direction is also very hit and miss, there are some nice montages and skillful editing but overall bland, even the action sequences which seem as if they ought to be thrilling, aren’t. It’s also very loud, the pounding glam rock which cuts in and out of the action is presumably meant to ramp up the tension but really fails to do so, instead it just reinforces the brashness of film. In fact, ‘brash’ would sum up the film entirely. It’s sleazier than it needs to be and only narrowly escapes exploitation territory, it’s in your face but then has nothing to say. Disappointing, not recommended.
Windows on Worlds 