Inglourious Basterds

Kunniattomat paskiaiset / Ärelösa jävlar. US/DE (c) 2009 Visione Romantica. D+SC: Quentin Tarantino. DP: Robert Richardson - negative: 35 mm (Kodak Vision2 200T 5217, Vision3 500T 5219), anamorphic Panavision 2,35:1 - digital intermediate 2K. CAST: Brad Pitt (Lt. Aldo Raine), Mélanie Laurent (Shosanna Dreyfus), Christoph Waltz (Col. Hans Landa), Eli Roth (Sgt. Donny Donowitz), Michael Fassbender (Lt. Archie Hicox), Diane Kruger (Bridget von Hammersmark), Daniel Brühl (Pvt Fredrick Zoller), Til Schweiger (Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz), Gedeon Burkhard (Cpl. Wilhelm Wicki), Jacky Ido (Marcel), B.J. Novak (Pfc. Smithson Utivich), Omar Doom (Pfc. Omar Ulmer), August Diehl (Major Dieter Hellstrom), Denis Menochet (Perrier LaPadite), Sylvester Groth (Joseph Goebbels), Martin Wuttke (Adolf Hitler), Mike Myers (General Ed Fenech), Julie Dreyfus (Francesca Mondino). 156 min. Original in French, German, and English. Released in Finland by Finnkino, with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Timo Porri / Janne Staffans. Viewed at Cinema Bristol, Helsinki, 4 Sep 2009 (Finnish premiere day). - Although the film is reportedly based on a 2K digital intermediate, the print had a pleasant photochemical look except in the forest scenes. - I love Quentin Tarantino, but I have been disappointed with his films since Pulp Fiction because of their regressive development. - To be redeemed: the great cast - the complexity of Daniel Brühl's character: the Wehrmacht has made him a killer, yet one can sense the human being struggling to emerge from the uniform - the smiling, polite Gestapo officer created by Christoph Waltz certainly belongs to the great villains of film history - Brad Pitt has developed a new and strong blackly humoristic charisma in his roles for the Coen Brothers and Tarantino; in these roles he is at his best - Mélanie Laurent is dignified as Shoshanna Dreyfus, brutalized by the Holocaust. - The fascinating thing is Tarantino's meta-commentary of film history, which ranges from Ernst Lubitsch (To Be Or Not To Be) to European war exploitation cinema. It is fun, and maybe I'm wrong to expect more. - I hate the sadism of this film. I also hate the simple-minded revenge motif of this film. My initial reaction is also that this film does a terrible disservice to the Jews. - For the Finnish viewer it is striking to notice the swastika over Finland on Hitler's map of Europe. It is not right (Finland was never under Nazi rule), nor quite wrong (Finland was a partner in Operation Barbarossa).

Shiiku

The Catch / [Saalis] / [Bytet]. JP 1961. PC: Palace Film. P: Saburo Tajima, Masayuki Nakajima. D: Nagisa Oshima. SC: Tsutomu Tamura, Toshio Matsuma, Toshiro Ishido, Shomei Tomatsu – based on the short story (1957) by Kenzaburo Oe. DP: Yoshitsugu Tonegawa - b&w - scope 2,35:1. AD: Itsuro Hirata. M: Riichiro Manabe. ED: Miyuri Miyamori. CAST: Hugh Hard (the black U.S. war prisoner), Rentaro Mikuni (Kazumasa Takano), Sadako Sawamura (Katsu), Eiko Oshima (Mikiko), Masako Nakamura (Hisako), Kyu Sazanka (Denmatsu Tsukada), Teruko Kishi (Masu), Yoko Mihara (Sachiko), Shigeyuki Makie (Osamu), Masaomi Kyosu (Takashi), Yoshi Kato (Yoichi Kokubo), Toshiro Ishido (Jiro), Toshio Irizumi (Hashiro), Ton Shimada (Kadoya), Meiji Kurosaka (Haruo), Tsune Imahashi (poacher), Toshio Kokota (Tadao), Hoichi Takeda (Jisaku), Akiko Koyama (Hiroko Ishii), Kyoko Uehara (Yurie), Itsuko Uehara (Momoko), Toura Mutsuhiro (village official), Hosei Komatsu (village policeman). 104 min. Print: a new print from Kawakita Memorial with English subtitles. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 25 Aug 2009. - Unfortunately the image is soft in this otherwise immaculate print (the subtitles are sharp, the image is soft, and at ca 65 min the image has low contrast). - A complete change for Oshima: a war period drama based on Kenzaburo Oe, the future Nobel prize winner. This is a compact study of the wartime psychodynamics of a remote village, where a wounded black US air force soldier is taken as prisoner just before the end of the war. The whole spectrum of reactions is evident: tenderness, sympathy, courtesy, indifference, bullying, bigotry, sadism. There are decent people, cruel manipulators, a lecherous rich and influential boss, a village fool lady, children, and old people. The black catch is a catalyst to a whole gamut of reactions. - The takes are long, there is a tendency to real duration. Therefore the film gets somewhat flegmatic, and it is at times difficult to keep the attention. The film is somewhat loose, rambling and extends a compact subject a bit too much. - The black man becomes a scapegoat for everything.  Some would like to have him escape into the mountains. But the cruel boss shoots him. - This is an account of cowardice. - The picture is overlong, but there are interesting solutions in cinematography and music there.

Ningen no joken 3

Ningen no jôken: Dai 5 bu - Shi no dasshutsu + Ningen no jôken: Dai 6 bu - Kôya no hôkô / The Human Condition 3: A Soldier's Prayer / [Ihmisen kohtalo 3: Sotilaan rukous] / [Människans lott 3: En soldats prädikan]. JP 1961. See general credits in part 1. 190 min. Viewed in The Night of the Arts in Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 22 Aug 2009. - Brilliant print. - Memorable in this part: the massive attack of the Red Army - only three soldiers are left from Kaji's unit of 160 - Kaji's hand covered in blood - flashbacks are introduced into the films; Michiko appears only in them anymore - the hellish struggle for survival - awareness that the Japanese army has disbanded - extreme close-ups and magnificent epic aerial long shots, sober compositions and sharply slanting angles - the trek through the forest - the preciousness of water - meeting Japanese refugees, the women have had to serve as prostitutes - scarce food: "we'll all share" - the flight of the ragged band through the forest with a screaming baby - subsisting on snails and mushrooms, which can be dangerous - the nobility of the elderly - discussing the future of the nation - Chinese peasants lure the Japanese into a trap - a tryst on a farm - ambush - escape through the fire - the Red Army is infamous for having its way with the women - Kaji would expect the Reds to be better than they are - Kaji fights the rapists among his own people - more Japanese are found lurking in the forest as the winter is coming - there is still even a Japanese military unit in the mountains - destroying a Red Army dugout - stealing their way through the countryside - the house of women, where there is general love-making going on all night, free for all, Kaji abstains and stays outdoors, the woman yearning for him (Hideko Takamine) takes a young virgin soldier instead - Kaji: "no time to play house" - at 127 minutes of this part (or at 37 minutes of Part Six) Kaji surrenders to the Red Army - one of the women having prevented Kaji's plan to fight - hit by the diarrhea - Kaji demands justice, demands investigation from the Red Army - he is called by them a "Fascist Samurai" - entering the Gulag: Work Station Number One - the prisoners in hard labour - huge loads of metal scrap, logs - they fall having spent their last drops of energy - Kaji loses his illusions of Soviet Russia - in a trial he is declared a war criminal - and Kaji speaks out, condemning the Red Army for injustice - Kaji is punished by sending him to build a forest railway - "If you can't survive Siberia no one can", says his old acquaintance Tange - Terada perishes, a victim of harassment, kicked, harassed by excessive latrine duty - this is the last straw for Kaji, who revenges on the biggest tormentor, Kirihara, and drowns him into the latrine - at 176 min Kaji escapes from under the barbed wire - into the icy water - interior monologue - the wind, the darkness, madness from hunger - the Chinese tramp him into the ground, "the Japanese devil" - through the snow expanse - drinking from the holes in the ice - immense desolate landscapes - "Michiko, I have come as far as I can" - "Michiko, I'm home at last"

Ningen no joken 2

Ningen no jôken: Dai 3 bu - Bôkyô hen + Ningen no jôken: Dai 4 bu - Sen'un hen / The Human Condition 2: The Road to Eternity / [Ihmisen kohtalo 2: Tie ikuisuuteen] / [Människans lott 2: Vägen till evigheten]. JP 1959. CAST: Tatsuya Nakadai (Kaji), Michiyo Aratama (Michiko), Keiji Sada (Kageyama), Hideo Kisho (Kudo), Jun Tatara (Hino). 179'. Print: Japan Foundation, with English subtitles. - General comments and credits: see Ningen no joken 1. Besides Candide, one could compare this story with Don Quijote. Epic grandeur and scope in this account of sadism and the rare nobility of spirit. - Memorable in this part: [3] the Kwangtung Army at -32 grades Celsius - bullying in the barracks - [the feeling of the extreme chill is not conveyed] - "Reds" blacklisted by the Kenpeitai under especially grim bullying - Kaji still the defender of the weakest - punished by the hardest duty - Kaji meets for the last time Michiko, who has come to visit him - the long marches, the endurance of Kaji - the weak Obara commits suicide under extreme humiliation (this may have influenced Kubrick in Full Metal Jacket) - Shinjo escapes during a prairie fire - Kaji and the bullying officer almost drown in the mire - Kaji catches marsh fever, the bully dies of it - the biggest laugh in the whole 10-hour picture: the head nurse of the military hospital is as big a bully as the worst barrack sergeants - true human beings always find kindred spirits: the friendly nurse and Kaji are both expelled as their innocent friendship (qf. They Were Expendable) is revealed - [4] - Kaji gets to train a platoon of grown-up recruits at the late stage of the war - Kaji is humiliated, hit and harassed by the veteran under-officers - Okinawa has fallen - "it's un-Japanese to consider a loss" - pride and face don't mean anything to me now - Kaji is punished by sending him to the trench-digging detail - Soviet attach at the Manchurian border - still digging trenches - in the area that is due to suffer heavy casualties - Kaji's warning of 15 Soviet tanks is not believed - Don't be a coward - Never give up - full attack of the Red Army - Make every bullet count - Long live the Japanese Empire - almost the whole unit is wiped out dead by the Red Army - only Kaji and a couple others survive, suffering war madness - Is anyone alive?