Masumi Miyazaki – Windows on Worlds

Though the title may suggest something more in line of exploitation cinema, Kazuo “Gaira” Komizu’s XX: Beautiful Weapon (XX ダブルエックス美しき凶器, XX: Utsukushiki Kyoki) is more of a mood piece that harks back to classic noir coupled with the erotic thrillers of the 1980s. Though inspired by a short story by hard-boiled master Arimasa Osawa, the film nevertheless adds some political subtext and gives its heroine a much happier ending echoing the underlying themes of fairytale romance.

Indeed, wisecracking hitman/piano player Sakagami (Masao Kusakari) paints himself as a lovelorn prince come to awaken Sleeping Beauty from her slumber and free her from her imprisonment in a dead-end cottage in the middle of nowhere. He begins, however, as a clueless but intrigued hitman on his way out thanks to an apparent inability to keep his mouth shut or lay off the booze. Middle man Yoshizawa (Ren Osugi) drops into his bar, he says just to kill time, though perhaps changing his mind and deciding not to send Sakagami on this particular job.

A homoerotic frisson colours their interaction, as it does it with the other assassin, a man who runs a coffee shop and has apparently supplanted Sakagami as the hitman of choice. Yoshizawa, however, also has forbidden desires for his charge whom he raised like a daughter and trained in her trade. Nevertheless, he is fairly powerless as the underling of an increasingly paranoid political fixer, Kokubu (Takeshi Kato), who orders him to take care of a bank manager about to blow the whistle on his dodgy dealings and then to take out the assassin too just to be on the safe side. He’s installed the woman (Masumi Miyazaki) in the cottage for just this reason, a conveyor belt killing system in which she knocks off her targets in the middle of coitus and Yoshizawa burns the bodies to make them disappear. Now she knows too much, it’s time to get rid of her too.

Yoshizawa isn’t onboard with his plan, but find it’s difficult to defy his boss while otherwise worried about the woman’s mental state as she has evidently taken to drink to escape the emotional toll of her unusual line of work. Yet it’s her crying herself to sleep that causes Sakagami to fall in love with her as he peeks in from outside, again like a fairytale figure, observing how she kills the coffee shop guy and making mental notes for when his turn comes around. He quickly realises that she is blind, but pretends not to be, which gives her an advantage in the dark denied to her targets. Her blindness is also, in its way, a symbol of her innocence in that she does not see the darkness of the world all around her and only continues in her work because she doesn’t want anyone else to be forced to do it while, in other ways, hoping to show her love and loyalty to those who raised her.

Even when Sakagami offers to rescue her, she refuses in fear of what the outside world holds for her. She fears that the dead-end cottage is the only place where she can be “normal”, while outside it she’d be a blind woman unable to navigate the seeing world. Though Sakagami offers to be her guide dog, the surprisingly upbeat ending suggests that she only returns for him once she has achieved independence along with her revenge on those who imprisoned her in the cottage. It is indeed a dead-end place, a liminal space where people only go to die and from which there is no other escape. The woman would most likely have met her own end there, if it were not for Sakagami. The city meanwhile has its own sense of melancholy as a kind of lost paradise filled with the radiating darkness of the corruption of men like Kokubu pulling strings in the shadows. Even so, the woman and Sakagami eventually find a kind of escape in their fairytale romance guided by his gentle piano music and the vague hope of a quiet life free of death and killing having successfully bounced back from their mutual dead ends into an open-ended future.

Screened as part of the International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Focus on V-Cinema.

Sharaku Every once in a while an artist emerges whose work is so far ahead of its time that the audience of the day is unwilling to accept but generations to come will finally recognise for the achievement it represents. So it is for Sharaku – a young man whose abilities and ambitions are ruthlessly manipulated by those around him for their own gain. Brought to the screen by veteran new wave director Masahiro Shinoda, Sharaku (写楽) is an attempt to throw some light on the life of this mysterious historical figure who comes to symbolise, in many ways, the turbulence of his era.

The Edo of 1791 is a world of extreme austerity. All art is suspect and all “pornography” outlawed. Any sign of extravagance is frowned on, including the “frivolous” arts leading to a decline in the world of classic entertainment as kabuki artists struggle to survive. Tombo (Hiroyuki Sanada) was one such kabuki performer but after an onstage accident leaves him with a damaged foot he joins a rag tag group of street performers. Whilst there he begins drawing bringing him to the attention of an art seller, Tsutaya (Frankie Sakai), who has an idea to create prints of famous actors as a way of promoting local theatre shows.

Rechristened with the artist’s name of Sharaku, Tombo’s artwork creates a sensation with its never seen before style which places a new emphasis on realism rather than flattery. Popularity brings its own problems as Sharaku finds himself a virtual prisoner of Tsutaya whose demands are ever expanding, as well as facing the intense opposition of Tsutaya’s former cash cow – renowned artist Utamaro, who is prepared to go to great lengths to ensure his traditional painting style is the one that wins out.

This is a time of extreme conservatism and Sharaku’s work is a risky proposition as it rejects accepted stylisation in favour of undoctored reality. Dynamically posed, his portraits of kabuki actors display no pandering but reflect all of the subject’s less flattering qualities. Striking and unusual, Sharaku’s insistence on capturing internal truth is entirely at odds with the need for compliance with the “truths” handed down by the government. The public aren’t ready for such radically honest art and even champions of a more naturalistic style such as the universally lauded Utamaro also reject it (though largely out of fear and self interest).

Sharaku is, of course, an artist’s name and not a man’s and therefore is easily manipulated. Held a virtual prisoner by Tsutaya, Tombo begins to resent his new life of exploitation by his master who wants him to work in a more commercial fashion yet took him on precisely because of the novel, aggressive nature of his untrained drawing. Sharaku’s commitment to artistry over conformity is at odds with the era which is entirely founded on everyone obeying the accepted order of things. The times are changing, but not fast enough for Sharaku.

Shinoda paints an exciting vision of Edo era Tokyo filled with colour and energy despite the supposed austerity of the times. He brings kabuki out into the streets with beautifully balletic street brawls and strange acrobatic feats that appear extremely incongruous in the off stage world. However, Sharaku attempts to juggle a number of themes and subplots which never manage to coalesce into something whole. The side story of a depressed geisha and her star crossed love for Tombo even whilst she finds herself the favourite misteress of Utamaro is the most interesting but is never satisfactorily resolved.

After beginning with some oddly old fashioned on screen graphics, Shinoda opts for a stately directing style though makes frequent use of freeze frames and dissolves. The film takes on an appropriately etherial quality with sudden interruptions of theatre and the rhythms of classical drama yet even the free floating dream-like atmosphere can’t quite makeup for its central lack of coherence. Tombo himself, as played by Hiroyuki Sanada, is too much of a cypher to lead the picture yet the attempt to branch out into an ensemble drama doesn’t take hold either. A late, flawed effort from an old master, Sharaku has a lot to say about the nature of art, about artists, about reception and legacy, and also about its era but much of the message is lost in the faded paper on which it is painted.

Unsubbed trailer:

Tag: Masumi Miyazaki

XX: Beautiful Weapon (XX ダブルエックス美しき凶器, Kazuo Komizu, 1993)

Sharaku (写楽, Masahiro Shinoda, 1995)