Carlotta: Coffret Kijû Yoshida & Eros + Massacre

Vinegar Syndrome, Deaf Crocodile, Imprint, Cinema Guild, and more.
Message
Author
User avatar
Yojimbo
Joined: Fri Jul 04, 2008 10:06 am
Location: Ireland

Re:

#76 Post by Yojimbo » Tue Mar 22, 2011 10:08 pm

zedz wrote: End of a Sweet Night

Similarly impressive and concise, this film (based on Stendahl, according to Yoshida’s intro – these are extremely brief but generally offer one or two hugely valuable insights) features what would have been the most venal ‘hero’ yet presented on film, had Oshima not got in first with Cruel Story of Youth (Chuck Tatum’s a teddy bear in comparison). He’s a guy who will do anything to get ahead, including prostituting a casual acquaintance (who turns out to have more self-possession and self-esteem than he thought) and, when that fails, prostituting himself. Yoshida’s visual style is still comparatively trad, but rock solid and wonderfully expressive. The leads’ unhealthy ‘relationship’ is sublimated into furious velodrome circuits, and there’s a superb interlude on a lake that looks forward to A Story Written With Water.
I've just watched this for at least the third time since I acquired this French-subbed set.

For the most part the subtitles change far too quickly for me to translate fully, and its often too much a distraction to constantly glance down because his compositions are so stunningly beautiful, and his choice of perspectives so masterly that you never want to gaze outside those black bars.

But it doesn't really matter, anyway because its so beautifully cinematic, and the story is quite basic anyway, that you can just wallow in its visual, and aural, beauty.

This is arguably among my Top Three Yoshidas, - along with 'Story Written On Water' and 'Coup D'Etat', but its hard to even narrow them down to three; he really had such a consistency of excellence.

I can't understand why no English-language DVD company never picked up on this outstanding, and criminally-neglected, filmmaker.

Melvelet
Joined: Fri Apr 26, 2013 7:51 am

Re: Carlotta: Coffret Kijû Yoshida & Eros + Massacre

#77 Post by Melvelet » Sun Jul 07, 2013 10:59 am

I discovered that Cultcine has no less than 13 films by Yoshida (4 box sets of 3 films each + Eros + Massacre) featuring English subtitles.

Has anyone any information on the quality?

Or on Cultcine in general?

Post Reply