Fantoma
- Theodore R. Stockton
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 4:55 pm
- Location: Where Streams Of Whiskey Are Flowing
- Lino
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:18 am
- Location: Sitting End
- Contact:
- ltfontaine
- Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 3:34 pm
Fantoma's new DVD of Red Angel features a beautiful transfer of an excellent print, but even under lesser circumstances, this dark masterpiece would merit more attention than it's likely to get. This is, by far, the most formally austere Masumura film I've seen, and the closest in tone to those of Mizoguchi, with whom Masumura had served as an assistant director. The black and white widescreen frames alternately teem with writhing wounded soldiers—or what's left of them—and severely composed passages rendering the less animated private agony of Nishi, Okabe, Orihara, and others caught in a wartime nightmare, a vortex of disease, humiliation, sex and death. Masumura's representation of Nurse Nishi is especially fascinating, revealing her—visually, physically and emotionally—only in restrained increments, initially frustrating our struggle to get a fix on this woman, until extraordinary circumstances and an unexpected force of character bring her into sharper focus. It's not an easy film to watch, but once started, it's impossible to look away, and I haven't yet stopped thinking about it.
-
- Joined: Sun Jul 02, 2006 2:54 am
In many ways, I actually prefer Masumura to the more classical Japanese directors like Mizoguchi, Kurosawa and Kobayashi.
For example, I love the fact that there are virtually no exterior shots in Manji, none of the swirling fogs or sweeping vistas you get with the more traditional guys. Instead, it's just a fiendishly intense psychodrama that for my money is one of the best literary adaptations ever made.
What a pity Naomi isn't available on DVD with English subs!
Anyway, my reason for posting here is to try to find out more about Red Angel. I have the UK Yume R2 edition that lacks the liner notes of the Fantoma. Does Earl Jackson Jr's essay shed much light on the sources and inspiration for the movie?
Oh and thanks to Itfontaine for a wonderful single paragraph appreciation of the film.
For example, I love the fact that there are virtually no exterior shots in Manji, none of the swirling fogs or sweeping vistas you get with the more traditional guys. Instead, it's just a fiendishly intense psychodrama that for my money is one of the best literary adaptations ever made.
What a pity Naomi isn't available on DVD with English subs!
Anyway, my reason for posting here is to try to find out more about Red Angel. I have the UK Yume R2 edition that lacks the liner notes of the Fantoma. Does Earl Jackson Jr's essay shed much light on the sources and inspiration for the movie?
Oh and thanks to Itfontaine for a wonderful single paragraph appreciation of the film.
- zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm
Red Angel is an amazing film - highly recommended. A scathingly anti-war film that dodges the ambiguities of others of its ilk. Here war is exploitation, mutilation, and despair. Camaradarie is fraught and doomed. Even our meagre glimpse of combat is anti-cathartic.
Masumura is operating at a peak of creativity, on a parallel track to the Japanese New Wave - in its thematic concerns, the film is sort of equidistant from the Imamura of The Insect Woman and the Suzuki of Story of a Prostitute, but it has a style and tone all its own.
The most astonishing of a number of disorienting coups is when the armless man is begging his nurse to jerk him off and Masumura overlays the suggestive sound of a harsh rubbing rhythm and a man's wild screams - then reveals this to be an audio flashback to the earlier scene in which a man's leg is sawed off, without anaesthetic.
I know it may seem hard to believe after that description, but, despite its unflinching brutality, this is a film of considerable formal beauty and subtlety. Fantoma's transfer looks very nice.
(The liner notes are not especially substantial, so don't worry, Murasaki)
Masumura is operating at a peak of creativity, on a parallel track to the Japanese New Wave - in its thematic concerns, the film is sort of equidistant from the Imamura of The Insect Woman and the Suzuki of Story of a Prostitute, but it has a style and tone all its own.
The most astonishing of a number of disorienting coups is when the armless man is begging his nurse to jerk him off and Masumura overlays the suggestive sound of a harsh rubbing rhythm and a man's wild screams - then reveals this to be an audio flashback to the earlier scene in which a man's leg is sawed off, without anaesthetic.
I know it may seem hard to believe after that description, but, despite its unflinching brutality, this is a film of considerable formal beauty and subtlety. Fantoma's transfer looks very nice.
(The liner notes are not especially substantial, so don't worry, Murasaki)
- ltfontaine
- Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 3:34 pm
It's the tension sustained by Masumura between horrific, sordid content and unflinching discipline in the mise-en-scene that accounts for much of the film's mesmerizing power. Imagine a script by Fuller directed by Bresson, and you have a faint flavor of this movie. The initial conversations between the nurse and the amputee soldier, mentioned by zedz, for example, are excruciatingly frank, straining the characters' fragile dignity almost to the breaking point and shredding the viewer's sense of discretion in the process. Masumura's resolute gaze, however, demands that we countenance the humanity that at is passing between these “lovers,â€despite its unflinching brutality, this is a film of considerable formal beauty and subtlety
- What A Disgrace
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:34 pm
- Contact:
- solaris72
- Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2004 3:03 pm
- Location: Baltimore, MD
- What A Disgrace
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:34 pm
- Contact:
- What A Disgrace
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 10:34 pm
- Contact:
Does anybody know if Afraid to Die and Manji are out of print? I am considering buying his films in bulk come the DeepDiscount June sale, but I can only find Red Angel, Blind Beast, and Giants & Toys. Doing a search for Masumura yields no results at all. I even looked for the titles in question, and DVDPlanet lists them as out of print. DVDEmpire lists Manji, but not Afraid to Die.
-
- Joined: Tue Dec 28, 2004 9:46 am
i'm not sure about OOP status, i picked both up a while ago from dvdplanet and Manji took about 4 weeks to ship...Afraid to Die isn't spectacular but well worth finding if you can.
dvdplanet doesn't have Black Test Car available for order and it was supposed to be released either this coming Tuesday or last Tuesday, depending on different etailers.
dvdplanet doesn't have Black Test Car available for order and it was supposed to be released either this coming Tuesday or last Tuesday, depending on different etailers.
- zedz
- Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 7:24 pm
- Cold Bishop
- Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 9:45 pm
- Location: Portland, OR
- Lino
- Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 6:18 am
- Location: Sitting End
- Contact: