Kiyoshi Kurosawa

[therewillbeblus]

I agree Michael, sorry that’s what I meant in the parentheses before moving on to complete the thought by way of comparison. It’s optimistically life affirming regardless, but I think even more so when we see what’s at stake with a parallel story that ventures down a more Cure-infected drain of powerlessness, however confrontational and underscored that is here. Though a case could easily be made - and I guess I sorta went there already at the end of my last post - that Before We Vanish is the KK film most self-conscious of its fantastical artificiality as a movie, and so all these neat tricks to tie things up and coat disturbing imagery and action with humor (without leaving as much space for us to stew in its darkness) is a self-aware protective shield. In that sense, it’s KK throwing us a bone and shielding us from the ‘truth’ that is not life affirming in the least, which we’d only know vis the elisions a normal KK film would lean into. We know from experience he’s not only willing and capable of this, but what we’re not being shown is arguably his default worldview!

[Michael Kerpan]

I guess KK has either a very complicated world view -- or several different ones, depending on his mood. I would say that Doppelganger, Bright Future, Journey to the Shore and Before We Vanish form a distinctively "brighter" collection (not totally devoid of worry or sadness, but having some feeling of positivity). And Charisma is sort of "in-between" these and his darkest visions. At least in these, "love" and/or "friendship" are real and valuable -- even if not "painless".

[therewillbeblus]

You have a good point, and you're right about the eclectic nature of his 'attitude', though I suppose I'm choosing not to conflate it with 'worldview'. I believe that KK believes the world is an ironic place, and an objectively devastating one- or rather, one where searching for objective rationales to ease our anxieties and loneliness is fruitless. However, he also believes that subjectively the manipulation of our attitudes can sometimes have positive consequences, even if they are by nature skewed and objectively untrue. I don't necessarily think that matters all the time to KK, but sometimes he does poke to a deeper layer to expose how that process of subjective self-validation can create a vicious cycle towards isolation and complacency that drives us away from others as we defend against these anxieties alone. I do think films like Journey to the Shore and Before We Vanish embrace the concept of love as a complex enigma that does have potential to bridge across two people and form a connection, though the degree to which this is actually "shared" or individualized is also up for interpretation, though again, I'm not sure it matters in a vacuum.

I guess a less complicated way to put it is: my impression of KK's worldview is that there is no such thing as the tangible signifiers spelling out bonafide, unquestionable 'life-affirming' objective truths that Before We Vanish arrives at in a knowingly artificial way; and yet, he also believes in sometimes taking the attitude of holding onto ideological ideas to simplify the mess that's too massive and impenetrable to spend one's life trying to resolve- since it'll take energy away from those in front of us that need our attention, and who we need to stop the noise to focus on to make life worth it. Other times, he takes the attitude of provocatively leaning into this nebulous philosophical space because that's important, present, and real too.

Anyways, I watched the 'final' non-SYOSY subbed KK, To the Ends of the Earth, and it is an absolute masterpiece. I have little to add to feihong's excellent post from a previous page, but I do love the Antonioni comparisons he, knives, and others have made around KK's work, and I agree that this might be the most respectful and sensitive inspiration from Antonioni's best work. The musical numbers are so bizarre and compassionate and... life-affirming, that sandwiching them between the disconnect and introverted eccentricities -that separate her from others in a less empowering and personal way- forges together the aforementioned two polarized 'attitudes' KK presents with, only on the most intimate level he's engaged with them before. What a shame he followed this up with the comparatively-flat Wife of a Spy, as for me KK's 2015-2019 period is his most consistent across his career, with six great films back to back, and I can't say that about any other period (looking at his filmography I don't even think he's ever had two films I've loved back to back before this streak).

[Michael Kerpan]

I personally think Wife of a Spy is certainly "different" from its immediate predecessors -- but not necessarily worse. I should get the Blu-ray finally next week -- so I can re-watch it and maybe firm up my thoughts.

I think that KK places less emphasis on logical "understanding" of the world and more on "feeling".

FWIW -- I have 3 earlier films in a row that I liked a great deal -- Pulse, Bright Future and Doppelganger.

[therewillbeblus]

I liked Wife of a Spy well enough (pretty sure I wrote it up favorably in this thread), it's just not "great" in my view. I try not to throw that word around a lot, but plenty of consecutive KK movies in earlier stages are "good" to "great." It's the consistency that makes this period so special, even if more of my favorites came earlier.

I didn't love Bright Future all that much the first time (love the other two you mentioned), but it was certainly unique and a fine film- though now that I'm done, I'm revisiting all of the KKs I had already seen (excluding Penance and Wife of a Spy, because the former is too long and I only liked part one, and the latter is still kinda fresh), so we'll see how it stacks up. I rewatched Doppelganger tonight and loved it even more than the first time- I wish KK did more absurdist comedies like this, and I still think it's a genius IFS Therapy film, as I wrote in the horror thread.

And yes, KK absolutely leans into these "feelings" more because his worldview is that we cannot actually understand with these logical parts, try as many of us might. It's a very spiritual and humble admission and also pointedly where his interests lie: in engaging with the world on its terms, but with the tools we have to actually get anywhere, which is both empowering and surrendering at once. Honestly, he's up there with Hong Sangsoo for directors who most reflect my own ethos/thought processes in their work, though KK is a bit more spiritual and macro-focused in a social and cultural sense, while Hong is all about acknowledging that inherent narcissism/solipsism as inescapable but finds opportunities to work within those confines for empowerment as well.

[Mr Sausage]

Journey to the Shore

I lost track of Kurosawa after Retribution. No special reason; I just moved on to other interests and never came back. I'm surprised to see he's largely moved away from horror into thrillers and quiet psychodramas. Journey to the Shore is a morbid and sentimental road movie, tho' it submerges or diffuses those elements in Kurosawa's typically understated and controlled style (the film is obnoxiously overscored, however, which gives away its sentimental aims). The film seems to be pinging between the ideas of absence and fulfillment, often in an ironic sense since the ghosts do not fill the precise absence they left when they died, tho' they seem to bring something else. When the ghosts do finally cross over, it's an inversion of something like Ghost Whisperer: they don't leave as part of their own spiritual fulfillment, they leave when they've brought their loved ones some kind of emotional fulfillment. This is made explicit when that husband ghost, having stuck around so long he's gone into severe physical decline, shouts angrily that he can't leave, his (living) wife won't let him. The piano ghost is less obvious. Outwardly she goes through a process of personal fulfillment, but notice she doesn't learn anything or gain some fundamental insight. She demonstrates her bad playing and then immediately switches to good playing. That sense of wholeness, with something left undone now resolved, is for the living sister whose own relationship with her sibling was truncated and left on an imperfect note (sorry). So what does Yusuke offer his wife? His offer is a journey of sorts. Outwardly it takes Mizuki through the steps to his death, but it's also a kind of marriage in miniature, the marriage they never had because he was so busy with work. Their first step is a kind of pleasant adventure, the second a finding of a home, but the home sense is wrecked, the spectre of infidelity raised, there's a rupture, but a return, and then a journey to a kind of pastoral community bounded by two infinities, the underworld and the ever expanding universe. Yusuke and Muzki finally embrace, consummate their new relationship. Yusuke dissolves where he had died and Mizuki returns home. A fast-tracked relationship full of the necessary highs and lows.

There are parts of this movie that are inscrutable, tho', in Kurosawa's usual way. The scene with the other woman, the coworker. What to make of that? I was expecting a quiet, wistful, undramatic encounter, it's Kurosawa's style--but how to read the woman's reaction? Her sudden invocation of violence, dreadful possessive violence, and then her eerie and cryptic declaration that she has a husband and child, who could ever want more, said with an indescribable look on her face. It's such a bizarre ending to a scene that seemed like it was heading towards forgiveness and reconciliation. Instead, I have no idea what we got. I mean, I suppose her declaration of the importance of her family is meant to remind Mizuki of Yusuke's importance and send her back to him, but why is it delivered in such a discomfiting way, shadowed by violence and regressive gender roles? Really weird.

And then there's Yusuke. Perfectly inscrutable Yusuke. Despite taking her on a journey through his last years, showing her who he met and what he did, Yusuke remains a cipher. We don't figure out why he killed himself, or why he took up with these people, what he got out of his various tasks that he showed rare competence in but never stuck with. Why'd he cheat in the first place? Who is this guy? I guess this is meant to be another Kurosawa black hole beyond which understanding cannot penetrate, but even for a contradictory, unknowable human, Yusuke seems distant and abstract. He's charming, sure, but who he is I don't know and I wonder if Mizuki does, either. She may just have learned to be content with not knowing.

That reminds me of the other big oddity: Mizuki's father. Why does he, after all this time, come back, and why does he warn her away from Yusuke? Yusuke seems to be fulfilling a traditional metaphysical role for ghosts. Why is the ghost of the father being so protective? Is ghost-Yusuke actually unhealthy? Is this just left-over resentment from when the ghost-father observed the alive-Yusuke on his blunted path through MIzuki's life? Mere over-protectiveness? Parents are often blocking figures in traditional romance stories...I don't know what connections to make from that. Again, it's weird.

Yeah, strange, interesting film.

[Michael Kerpan]

TWBB--Back when Doppelganger first came out it seemed like I was virtually the only person around who thought it was an (extremely oddball but oddly delightful) romantic comedy. But then KK himself acknowledged this -- so I felt vindicated. I haven't re-watched Bright Future for a good whjile -- but I do recall liking it even more on re-watching.

Mr Sausage -- Glad you finally got around to Journey to the Shore and found it interesting. I hope you get to check out some of his other more recent stuff.

[therewillbeblus]

The film seems to be pinging between the ideas of absence and fulfillment, often in an ironic sense since the ghosts do not fill the precise absence they left when they died, tho' they seem to bring something else. When the ghosts do finally cross over, it's an inversion of something like Ghost Whisperer: they don't leave as part of their own spiritual fulfillment, they leave when they've brought their loved ones some kind of emotional fulfillment. This is made explicit when that husband ghost, having stuck around so long he's gone into severe physical decline, shouts angrily that he can't leave, his (living) wife won't let him.

In a strange way this reminds me of the fantasy ending of La La Land combined with the reverse-gendered MPDG-as-Rock-Hudson in All That Heaven Allows, in that KK is playing with the idea of this ghost as a blank-canvas vehicle providing a fantastical opportunity for the heroine to find solace and develop through grief rather than in avoidance of it. The very fact that he "disappeared" robbed her of catharsis, but by giving an "explanation" KK is feeding into that drive to gain palpable understanding of concepts and occurrences we can never know via the inventive medium of cinema. I find that moment where he shows his frustration with his position of not being able to leave an interesting one as well... is KK self-reflexively granting this character trope an opportunity to vent its frustrations at functioning for the purpose of another's self-actualization, and in the process validating his internal pain with not being able to 'know' himself on a human level- work that he feels he has an agenda to do but isn't given the opportunity? Which leads me to your later point:

And then there's Yusuke. Perfectly inscrutable Yusuke. Despite taking her on a journey through his last years, showing her who he met and what he did, Yusuke remains a cipher. We don't figure out why he killed himself, or why he took up with these people, what he got out of his various tasks that he showed rare competence in but never stuck with. Why'd he cheat in the first place? Who is this guy? I guess this is meant to be another Kurosawa black hole beyond which understanding cannot penetrate, but even for a contradictory, unknowable human, Yusuke seems distant and abstract. He's charming, sure, but who he is I don't know and I wonder if Mizuki does, either. She may just have learned to be content with not knowing.

I don't know if it's as important for us or Mizuki to know who Yusuke is as a person, but to wonder if he himself even "knows" 'who' he is.. We spend so much time attempting to "know" ourselves, to diagnose ourselves with value systems and traits and find an absolute identity, but I think this film posits that we really can't, and that, as you wisely arrive at in your excellent writeup Sausage, finding acceptance and contentment in not (fully) knowing our loved ones or ourselves is key. I loved Yusuke's intimate lecture near the end, about staying 'right-sized' and how that brings him comfort. That really drove home an optimistic form of surrender for me, humility around how it may be unimportant to be the center of the world - as our natural ego drives demand us to be. Perhaps this is a sign of growth for Yusuke as well, given his earlier outburst about how his wife won't let him leave, finally getting to a point of letting go of this compulsive drive (that we can probably all relate to on some level) to focus inwardly, against the grain of what is incomprehensible. In that sense, both Mizuki and Yusuke evolve toward a spiritual surrender and acceptance to what they cannot "know", embracing the "feeling" instead, and sharing that moment together at the end, even if their respective journeys have been individualized.

There are parts of this movie that are inscrutable, tho', in Kurosawa's usual way. The scene with the other woman, the coworker. What to make of that? I was expecting a quiet, wistful, undramatic encounter, it's Kurosawa's style--but how to read the woman's reaction? Her sudden invocation of violence, dreadful possessive violence, and then her eerie and cryptic declaration that she has a husband and child, who could ever want more, said with an indescribable look on her face. It's such a bizarre ending to a scene that seemed like it was heading towards forgiveness and reconciliation. Instead, I have no idea what we got. I mean, I suppose her declaration of the importance of her family is meant to remind Mizuki of Yusuke's importance and send her back to him, but why is it delivered in such a discomfiting way, shadowed by violence and regressive gender roles? Really weird.

I don't know what to make of this either, but it seems in step with KK's visions of unpredictable and unknowable inner conflict. We may expect a linear consequence of resolve, but sometimes our internal psyches act up and we regress once we're making the most progress, our 'parts' that have been running the show rearing their heads in revolt. I think it works from an IFS therapy lens, like a lot of his films, but that's just embracing the messy internal logics of psychology against the grain of what the artifice cinema crafts regarding linear and expected patterns of progressive action, thought, and emotional processes.

[therewillbeblus]

TWBB--Back when Doppelganger first came out it seemed like I was virtually the only person around who thought it was an (extremely oddball but oddly delightful) romantic comedy. But then KK himself acknowledged this -- so I felt vindicated.

That's funny, because it's not even pretending to be anything else once we get to the final act. I admittedly rewatched the last half hour three times last night, because I couldn't make heads or tails of the sci-fi farce being concocted

SpoilerShow

I think(?) KK is playing with the ideas of doppelgangers for the other characters too- which is why the young boy turns evil trying to steal the robot and the other guy with the money who the protagonist's doppelganger dealt with is called out for not being 'himself'? It's all happening so fast and weaves in parodies of other films like Raiders of the Lost Ark amidst the zany chaos, so I just surrendered to the totally offbeat tone and enjoyed the ride. I would like to hear a play-by-play of what is actually happening in that final chapter though!

[Mr Sausage]

Creepy

A good example of ridiculous pulpy material enlivened by sheer style. The story is the stuff of bad thrillers: full of cliches, dependent on wild coincidences and implausible character behaviour, and without much idea of how a police investigation really goes or how drugs actually work. But it's creepy as fuck. That cold, deliberate style of Kurosawa's really throws you off-kilter here. Perhaps that's the problem. The bizarre, unnerving feel is better suited to something more inexplicable and metaphysical, like in Cure. Here, it's a grim but still prosaic mystery thriller. The movie works best in the first act, when we know very little. The more we know of what's really going on, the sillier everything seems. The material doesn't bear the weight of so much seriousness. I almost wish Kurosawa had dispensed with all the missing family investigation nonsense and weird drugging stuff and built the movie around the new family having to deal with Nishino's erratic, unaccountable behaviour. This thing is almost a quiet investigation into social distrust. The wife's early failure to make any social bonds with the neighbours, coupled with her husband's social apathy and the empty, unfinished feel of their neighbourhood comes together so well into an atmosphere of distrust, alienation, and insularity. It's an especially interesting avenue given Japan's well-known collectivist social ideals, and provides thematic context for Nishino, whose inability so hold any proper social bonds causes him to entrap people into makeshift families, replacing trust with control and bonds with dependency. There's a good film in there somewhere, but these threads are abandoned once the movie has to start organizing its thriller plot. Then it's the dumbest detectives in the world looking for the guiltiest man in existence.

The whole thing feels like Kurosawa adapting a novel inspired by his earlier films. Cannibalizing himself at one remove. But there's that style, it's so unnerving. Everything is cold and threatening; Japan feels like some bare, overcast place that's been mostly abandoned; the people are defensive and distrustful. Kurosawa forces this movie to work through sheer effort. He nearly succeeds.

[therewillbeblus]

I can't exactly contest the issues posed with Creepy when they're taking aspects at face value (i.e. the drug effects, the dumb detectives), but as I wrote up exhaustively in its dedicated thread, I think both of these contrivances are only the tips of the icebergs and their power (quite literally in the film, but also in effect for the viewer as it relates to themes) is entirely drawn from metaphorical spaces. I was mixed on this one the first time around (I think it was my second KK film after Pulse, and I saw it shortly after its release) but after a second watch last weekend, I now hold it up with Cure and Charisma as one of KK's very best films. I see the drugs as placebos inviting those collectivist-searching people into the submissive state they crave- to connect by being taken care of (making the familial structure analogous) in the only way they can conceive of; and I read the dumb detectives as entranced individualists taking the opposite approach- instead of searching for what's not there, they've resigned themselves to a complacent cycle of ignorance. The latter is a strategy of honed-in tunnel vision vs. the former's peripheral desperate clawing at social stimuli, but they both resemble defensive, narrow, zombie-like activity triggered by this pervasive disconnect. Anyways, I went much more in depth in the spoilerbox of the attached writeup, but so far most critiques I've come across of Creepy suggest I'm taking a different approach to comprehending the literalism of characterization and plot devices than others.

[Michael Kerpan]

I have not yet re-watched Creepy -- but I must confess that my assessment after seeing this was pretty close to that of Mr. Sausage. Some day I'll give it another try.

[Mr Sausage]

I appreciate your metaphorical reading of the film and think it's spot on. My problem is that you tend to use the tenor to rationalize the vehicle. As metaphors, the drugs and stupidity and everything are programmatic and totalizing. The individualists are extreme thing X and the collectivists are extreme thing Y. It's hard to buy on a literal plot level and it's an unsatisfying taxonomy on the figurative level. The metaphors exist to set up neat divisions in a space of extreme separation. They're not effective vehicles, and merely possessing a tenor doesn't make a vehicle worthwhile. I don't think it's illuminating to figure lonely connection-seeking suburbanites as crazed drug slaves, not in a movie this quiet and placid anyway. Maybe a De Palma movie. The visual style does a much better job of communicating the burdens of social isolation in an ostensibly collectivist society. The film has a sure idea of what it wants to communicate emotionally, but doesn't find appropriate matter to address it thematically. I wish Kurosawa had chosen metaphors less categorizing and explicit, I suppose, at least for this movie. It worked better in, say, Pulse, because ghost stories invite such explicit metaphors. Not so much twisty police thrillers like this one, where the materialism of the story can only bear so much figuration before it tips over.

I wanted to like it. Stylistically it's as good as anything he's done. But the matter just got in the way.

[therewillbeblus]

I can appreciate that explanation, but I suppose I see the "lonely connection-seeking suburbanites as crazed drug slaves" illuminating not because they exist as such in a tangible manner from the introduction of a variable serving as a placebo, but because of the enigmatic space between what that thing is (which we never really get a sense of outside of, yes, he was as creepy as he appeared) which further forces us into this unknown space as viewers. It's very self-reflexive, how alienated we are from this cause/effect. I mean, even the psychic powers in Cure had a tangible idea to them, laws that governed the power over the host, and a palpable trigger provoking feelings of being out of control, as did Pulse. Creepy doesn't even give us that- as this drug only invites looser anti-rules that, for me, enrich the enigmatic (rhetorical) question of how much is the cause vs any number of psychological processes working to make it work, and the implications of why (on a deeper level than 'lonely=willing to kill')... I also get how these could be read as equally tangible to those earlier films, but because of the holes I think the film works much better, as ironic as that is- but I also think such a reading would fit with KK's worldview. It's in the elisions here (that nebulous space of question marks between the injection of the drug and the behavior that follows) that spark the strongest horror of any of KK's films for me

[Mr Sausage]

The trouble is no one in this movie is starved enough for social connection for me to buy them jumping all over this pathetic little nobody and his wonder drug/placebo at the expense of the other people in their lives. The extremity on the one end needs a balance it doesn't get. Other KK movies have toxic trees, shadowy phantoms, mesmerizing sicknesses. This has a grubby, empty man with nothing to recommend him. KK would have to trace a much more desperate set of circumstances before I'd believe any of these characters are jumping all over this guy without being literally drugged. And if this isn't a placebo and they are being literally drugged into submission...that's just grimy and unpleasant, a downer of a plot point, not an ingenious metaphor. The vehicle doesn't work.

[therewillbeblus]

See, for me, the emptiness and repulsive discernible traits of this very physical manifestation of a vehicle are exactly what makes this so unsettling through being drastically more confounding. I guess you either buy into it or you don't, but when I do, that enigma born from this guy who apparently is exactly what he appears to be contrasts with what we know isn't the whole picture. It's the tip of an iceberg we can't and won't ever see, whereas trees, ghosts, illnesses, controlling powers- these are all in essence hazier symbols that invite enigmatic readings and make the waters transparent to see that there is inherently something below that surface. I don't think we're going to agree on whether or not this works, but it does in my eyes precisely because it appears to rigidly human, cold and corporeal, ostracizing depth. The enigma is there, there's just no invitation to engage with it, no recognition from the way the vehicle is established to validate that sense of something 'more', just a cheekily defined banal man who does fucked up things to match his antisocial exterior. This lack of acknowledgement, hidden by everything from the anti-evolution of the character to the winking-simplified title of the film, is horrifying to me- but I can understand how it might bore or irritate others.

[therewillbeblus]

Alright, I'm done (for now): My revisits yielded some surprises but mostly just affirmations of previous impressions. Pulse is still an effective thriller with some perfect moments capturing a tone of powerlessness and hopelessness unlike many others. It's a great film that doesn’t quite sustain its strokes of genius on a consistent rhythm, but perhaps that's fitting for such a messy narrative featuring primarily youthful characters (a significantly rare outlier for KK) trying to contend with enigmatic symptoms of the apocalypse, including conversely tangible deaths and disappearances of their friends! Since this deals with technology, if they - the young and zeitgeist-conscious principals - can't understand it, who can? And how can they hope to receive support around horror propagated by that deficit, which their elders (never really featured here, another indicator of complete and utter alienation?) cannot comprehend... Speaking of obliterating groundedness, Charisma was even more perplexing and enthralling on a second watch. It's amusing to watch KK explore all his methodological and tonal textures in the most mature and artistically creative amalgamation of his thematic interests, leading to a more deliberately-actualized apocalypse!

Unfortunately I can’t say the same for Bright Future, which left me cold again, though I can still appreciate what it does offer, just not enough to keep me invested for two hours. I wonder if I’d prefer the 90 minute cut… Tokyo Sonata unfortunately lost a lot of the power I got from it on my first watch long ago, and this time played for me as an overall obnoxious melodrama culminating in a too-long ‘multi-character life-changing night’ arc. There are some rich moments, but the substance underneath felt lacking. On the plus side, Loft played much better after a career retrospective- what a wonderfully crafted film, maybe KK’s most “Hitchcockian” effort. I can’t say the narrative is always engaging on a deeper level, but the surface is captivating- and I'm not sure if KK has ever used architectural space as mise en scene to reflect his themes so well before or since (as I outlined in my initial writeup a few pages back). Also, the punchline at the end is even better than I remembered- what a joyful ode to the better rug-pulling finishes in Alfred Hitchcock Presents or Twilight Zone zingers.

Cure is still the best though- a devilishly cryptic, unpredictable film, synthesizing the perfect blend between psychological and philosophical horror. I love how Masato Hagiwara's mannerisms are meditated on in a way that initially elicits sympathy for his confusion and exhaustion (his 'humanity') and also ignites fear from the antisocial qualities present- only for these to bleed into each other. Don't the more emotive interactions he begins to have when we witness him awakening from his catatonic stupor indicate someone who is more familiarly 'human'? Even if we know there's malicious content occurring, are we in part rooting for him to be released from the hell he seems to be in prior to these bursts? Do we in part comprehend the many childlike musings of "Why?" being asked, that we too are asking of this movie, just as we fear the answers and lack of control from non-answers alike? He's the only character who asks genuinely intimate questions about those he meets with complete attention and curiosity, a socially-inappropriate approach that triggers dangerous considerations that lead to.. well. I could go on and on, but there's really nothing quite like this film. Someone should write a book on it.

And now, because I can (subject to change once other films become subbed), a top 10 (er, 12) of KK's best:

1. Cure
2. Charisma
3. Creepy
4. Sweet Home
5. Pulse
6. Doppelganger
7. To the Ends of the Earth
8. Loft
9. Before We Vanish/Foreboding (tie- I'm no longer certain of which one I prefer)
10. Daguerrotype (I reverse the right to tag in Journey to the Shore on a future revisit)

[Michael Kerpan]

My theory is that if one approaches Tokyo Sonata as almost entirely surrealist rather than falling for its facade of slice-of-life naturalism (tinged with melodrama), it might work better. But I have not yet tried to test this theory.

[Mr Sausage]

Before We Vanish

This was a delight. Droll, mundane comedy and, at the end, surprising sincerity and warmth. It's very much a Kurosawa conceit to have a man discover his humanity only by becoming an alien. Kurosawa often approaches human interactions and relationships as tho' he were himself an alien, puzzling over humanity's oddities as his characters fumble around each other and try to find ways to understand and connect to others or even just themselves. That often resulted in cold, frightening films, but here it transforms into small domestic comedy, each normal human interaction rendered absurd but also poignant, the characters having to refigure their relationships to one another in these odd ways.

I wonder how coherent the central conceit is, where aliens steal our concepts to create I guess a database of understanding. Now the movie obviously presupposes that concepts precede language, which I think is basically true. Babies know fear, hunger, abandonment, wonder, etc., without language, as do humans raised without language (which past a certain age hampers their ability to ever gain it). The aliens in the movie have language already: their Japanese appears perfect, and they will press a victim about synonyms trying to suss out if the words refer to different concepts or the same thing before sucking those concepts out. Ok. But what's the relationship of concept to language, then? Love for instance is an emotion, an idea, a set of verbal constructs, a system of interrelations, a cultural expression. What's being stolen? Certainly not the language. So the ability to feel the emotion? Or just to conceive of what that emotion is? But then it would have to be both, because if the feeling persisted language could just be reapplied to the concept, and if only the emotion were taken the person would be rendered a psychopath but not otherwise unclear about what love is or how to navigate the world. So love as a set of verbal constructs remains, and therefore its systems of interrelation and its cultural expressions (not sure about the latter). If love remains as a verbal construct in someone's brain without any attending referents, does that render it like when you say a word so long it ceases to have any meaning? In being robbed of concepts, are the people also as a corollary robbed of language in a way, the language now being meaningless to them? This would seem to refute Deconstruction. If language has no real relation to concepts but finds them endlessly deferred, the removal of the concepts ought to have a very different effect than the film presents. The aliens for example shouldn't be able to connect the concept immediately to the language, they'd need some third thing to do the stitching. I don't know. Someone who knows linguistics better than me could probably tease out some interesting things here.

Maybe the most interesting character is the journalist. His progression from petty self interest to mild concern for humanity to gleeful helper has a low-key comedy to it that infuses some depth. It's like, having agreed to help he finds himself unable to renounce that responsibility once he's taken it on even tho' the end result horrifies him. Up until he's forced to take a side, and lets humanity decide in a pretty nonsensical form of polling. But it lets him feel ok about it. Humanity is doomed after all. Our apathy of course. Kurosawa gets a bit sentimental at the end and asks us, frankly, if we'll get out of our own way and let love save us. But Kurosawa's sentimentality works here and in Journey to the Shore because he doesn't insist on it and he doesn't seek a purity of emotion that'd be trite or unbelievable.

Interesting I like recent Kurosawa better in this comic/heartfelt mode than when he goes back to his usual mode.

[feihong]

Nice writeups, Therewillbeblues. I appreciate your thinking about these movies. I'd rate Cure highest as well, though I'd probably rate To the Ends of the Earth up there near the top. I like Loft a lot more than most seem to, I like Bright Future quite a bit (is this generational? the movie has strong Gen-X vibes I respond to with almost knee-jerk approval) and Pulse is a movie which has grown on me for precisely the reasons you say, the strokes of genius, rather than the whole somewhat herky-jerky package. I noticed a film not on your list or in your reviews, as far as I can see, which I wonder if you've seen (of course, films like Door III and the Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself movies are awfully hard to find): one of his earlier forays out of horror and into straightforward drama, License to Live. I wonder what you'd make of that picture?

[Michael Kerpan]

feihong -- Well, I'm a Sooner Boomer -- and I loved Bright Future.

Mr. Sausage -- I would say that Journey to the Shore and Before We Vanish are my top 2 KK favorites -- and that, even if I love some of his grimmer (and more cynical?) films, I love his "warm-hearted" ones more.

[Mr Sausage]

I'm a millennial, and I found much to admire and appreciate in Bright Future without feeling especially compelled by it. But it was my first K. Kurosawa and I've matured a lot as a viewer since that first watch, so who knows. Should give it a revisit.

[therewillbeblus]

Nice writeups, Therewillbeblues. I appreciate your thinking about these movies. I'd rate Cure highest as well, though I'd probably rate To the Ends of the Earth up there near the top. I like Loft a lot more than most seem to, I like Bright Future quite a bit (is this generational? the movie has strong Gen-X vibes I respond to with almost knee-jerk approval) and Pulse is a movie which has grown on me for precisely the reasons you say, the strokes of genius, rather than the whole somewhat herky-jerky package. I noticed a film not on your list or in your reviews, as far as I can see, which I wonder if you've seen (of course, films like Door III and the Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself movies are awfully hard to find): one of his earlier forays out of horror and into straightforward drama, License to Live. I wonder what you'd make of that picture?

Thanks, and honestly I feel a bit guilty ranking these with some films receiving the benefit of multiple rewatches for context (Doppelganger and Loft rose considerably, and I gained a stronger appreciation for Pulse, plus I've now seen Cure at least five times), but To the Ends of the Earth is fresh and while part of me wanted to put it ahead of a few of those (it was no. 5 when I made my first draft), I need to see it again to really solidify my feelings. Which it to say that at some point the above post may be revised with that one near the top, again for reasons you articulated so well in your writeup- to the point where I simply have nothing to add.

I watched Door III and a few other rarities that are subbed on backchannels. I liked that movie okay- it had an eerie vibe that I wanted to work more than it did. I didn't really glean any substance from it, but in many ways it was like a shoddier TV version of the window dressing that made Loft work on a viscerally atmospheric level. I also watched License to Live but similarly to how Door III or The Guard from Underground were mediocre precursor to later masterworks within the thriller/horror genres, License to Live functioned as such compared to his later-period dramas (of which I share an affinity for with Mr Sausage and Michael): it felt like a really effective idea that never materialized into something I felt deeper. While watching it, I could tell that there was a rich film in there, and that someone who was passionate about it could probably write a lengthy piece about it, but as opposed to many great writers here (yourself included) I really struggle to write about films that don't spark a light in me- in one direction or the other (and I don't see that deficit as a strength!)

[Michael Kerpan]

I hope this wonderful discussion (in which I can mainly offer only one-liners, alas) inspires others to check out more of KK's work. I've really enjoyed this discussion!

[therewillbeblus]

I’ll just add that completing KK’s filmography (or, as much as I’m able to-) was a longtime goal of mine, and one of the most rewarding auteurist projects I’ve undertaken. I’ll also admit that the first time I saw Pulse, Cure, Creepy I wasn’t bowled over by any, and it took some time and revisits of the first two to get just a fraction of what KK was up to, and really grow to appreciate his style as it pertains to an ethos. I know Cure is divisive and I know people who have watched it, shrugged, and moved on, but hopefully this further demonstration of The Power of the Revisit encourages some to return to KK’s work and take a deeper dive.