Most Meaningful First Viewings and Re-Evaluations of 2013 Part 5: The "E"s, The "F"s and The "G"s

Ed Wood (Tim Burton, 1994)
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: My Gosh, Bela, how do you do that?

Bela Lugosi: You must be double-jointed. And you must be Hungarian.

Eden of the East Movie 1 And 2: The King of Eden and Paradise Lost (Kenji Kamiyama, 2009-2010)
I have real concern about Kenji Kamiyama's newest work 009 Re: Cyborg (2012), possibly in danger of losing the balance of lightness with depth that made the Eden of the East story so interesting. If there is a big design flaw with either of the films, its that the first one doesn't need to exist, and could have been melded with the other to make one full conclusion of the story. Together, they end a good series with a good ending. Thoughful, and while it may disappoint people how this ends compared to the abrupt one for the original series, the end of this ties the loose ends fully, and significantly, brings a far more measured and potentially realistic view of its material. That even if someone gave you the ability to do anything you can, to even change a country, the reality would be that there are many complexities that will hinder your ability to do so. What matters is that you at least try, and do anything you can to succeed in helping at least one person or a few. Instead of continuing with the high concept premise to an absurd level, the work takes it to a point that must be remembered rather than ignored. I fear that, hearing some of the stuff that takes place in 009 Re: Cyborg, in terms of plotting and aesthetic design, Kamiyama himself has forgotten that he has to ground himself into a possible outcome he can succeed with. A review for the franchise altogether can be found here.

Eternal Family (Koji Morimoto, 1997-1998)
Another nineties anime work of immense interest. It has a peculiar structure when its watched in its entirety, because it was originally released as seconds long episodes that made up a whole tale, that has to be adapted to. But its creative, amusing, and as something from before the Millennium when the boom in reality tv really started to grow, of inherent interest of presenting the obsession people have with watching other people as a collection behind glass. Created by Studio 4°C, it very much shows the wonderful potentials for animation to both experiment and allow projects to come to life and be available even if they were only a few minutes long in the results. I hadn't even known of this anime's existence until a MUBI.com member, giving suggestions for works to add to my list of every piece of Japanese animation on the site's database, brought up the name to me. I am grateful for the benefits of a multiple national medium like the internet that makes it possible for people from other countries to tell another of a work's existence and then have it be accessible to view in some way when conventional availability doesn't come through.

Eugene Green
(Every Night (2001), Le Monde Vivant (2003), Le pont des Arts (2004),
Correspondances (2007), The Portuguese Nun (2009))
Up until the start of this year, I have never even seen one of Eugene Green's films, and I'll be honest and say only The Portuguese Nun is available in any commercial form. I was hesitant with the director, feeling that he dangerously veered to pretentious with the first two films of his I saw. But as I kept watching his work, this danger of falling into arch art cinema was worth it for films that are sincere. Sincere and sweet in ways that are not "cool" by current cinema culture's standards, alien to a lot of praised cinema, which is probably why only his last film has had a commercial release so far as of yet. But he is humane in a way that is a breath of fresh air, with a distinct style, taking Robert Bresson but making images of actors speaking directly to the camera his own trademark, that even if you have to adjust to conveys an incredible amount of emotion through. When I saw Le Monde Vivant, it was clear I was with possibly one of the best working directors of these next decades, able to make a film so completely different from the others, a fantasy film of nymphs and trolls which yet has the knight in jeans and his trusted lion be a dog, but feels attached in ideas to the others, which uses imagination in such a powerful way and (with honesty) left me in actual tears of joy by its ending. With his first feature film made in 2001, he is one of the few directors ushered in the new Millennium to have a real chance of being one of the most important or talented. I can only hope the rumours of British company Artificial Eye releasing the other films of his, with the one they did, takes place and that people are made more aware of his existence.

Eyes of the Spider/Serpent’s Path (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1998)
Thank you Third Window Films for releasing these films, one DVD for these contrasting symbiotic and identical twins of straight-to-video J-cinema, alongside the others you've done (including Shinya Tsukamoto re-releases). Despite their economic setbacks, and having to sacrifice the ability to show their films theatrically, they have films they released this year I still need to actually view, and making my way to actually seeing the filmography of Kiyoshi Kurosawa, this was an inspired start. Two stories with the same actor, Sho Aikawa, playing a man named Nijima and about revenging the murder of children, but very different outcomes take place to both of them in content and style. It's amazing to think these films were only finished together, with the same crew, within two weeks because of their virtues, thus proving it's how you make a film, not how its gestation period lasts, that gives it quality. Serpent’s Path proves to be the strongest with its maze of moral twisting, but its brother is just as interesting and virtuous.

Farewell to the Ark (Shuji Terayama, 1984)
My first Terayama film. Again a much maligned director - the only film that was available in the UK, and, to be upfront, I've yet to see, being a Euro softcore co-production with Klaus Kinski. But with starting with a film that, sadly, Terayama could not see the release of, having to be completed by the people he worked with on it after his death, I nonetheless found myself with a director who would bring another distinct voice to my knowledge of cinema if I start going through his work. I'm still thinking of a hole in the ground in a village where people can send letters to their deceased loved ones through a postman who appears out of it occasionally. A series of events with the main narrative characters, a man and his sister who commit the taboo of incestuous love, where he is left unable to know what words mean, writing them all down on signs including one on himself called "Me", not "I" in confirmation of himself, but almost as a onlooker to himself. The fragments of memories of an old village cut off from the modern urban world to the point it's a time hole that villagers have to escape from. The clocks of the village being stolen and buried secretly on the beach except one, its influence being that a second clock owned by someone else is seen suspiciously. Such moments like these have become stronger as my memory of the film stands strong.

Faust (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2011)
Probably too rambling, vulgar and too weird to fully be embraced after the critical consensus dies down, but there is something still pointedly wicked about this bastardisation of the Faust tale. That it's used to finish a series of films based on real political leaders like Hitler may raise an eyebrow, but the fact that Faust gambles his life for a fleeting moment of banal humanity works as a good metaphor for Sokurov's treatment of someone like Hitler. The banality of human existence, let alone banality of evil, and the banality of lost status in Emperor Hirohito in the director's The Sun (2005), where it comes to human beings stood aimlessly in the situations presented to them, of their own decision. A review of this film can be found here.

Fear X (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2003)
It may have been a terrible day when Refn became a respected cult auteur than one below the radar. Drive (2011) was incredibly generic, Only God Forgives (2013) completely toothless. A film like Fear X, which halted Refn's first attempt at crossing to the States instantly, feels like the creation of a completely different man now. It apes David Lynch a little too much in brief moments, but unlike the asininity of Only God Forgives, this film in just not giving you what you want, rather than pointless attempts of shock and madness in the later film, feels much more subversive and braver. I can only hope for the old Refn to come back.

Federico Fellini
(La Dolce vita (1960), Fellini Satyricon (1969), City of Women (1980))
Not as many films here as I thought I would have saw in the last year, but one of these films is a stone cold classic from just the first viewing. But City of Women, which could have easily gone horribly wrong, and was dismissed as an atrocity by Andrei Tarkovsky no less, proves that the director even in his transition to indulgence was as obsessed with dissecting his, and his country's, mind through fantasy situations as he was with La Dolce vita. Satyricon would have been a difficult task to adapt in any situation, having read the original source work that is only a fragment of a now lost and vast manuscript, but the style that Fellini was criticised for from the later sixties onwards actually proves to be probably the only way it could have been adapted. Avoiding the indulgence of creative stiltedness of his stand-in Guido Anselmi in 8½ (1963) by making sure all of his material in these three works have something rich in autobiographical nature or a scanning of his homeland through many versions of itself. A review for La Dolce vita can be found here.

Flaming Star (Don Siegel, 1960)
When I ride, I feel that flaming star
That flaming star, over my shoulder
And so I ride, front of that flaming star
Never lookin' around, never lookin' around

Forklift Driver Klaus (Stefan Prehn and Jörg Wagner, 2000)
If only instructional videos were like this in Germany.

Francis Ford Coppola
(Rumble Fish (1983), Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), Twixt (2011))
I have to admire the fact that Coppola, for the most part, never made films that he didn't push aesthetically and in personal attachment to their fullest, even if they would be dismissed as follies. One film (Rumble Fish) that was resurrected as one of his most underrated works. Another (Dracula) which had been dismissed, and honestly is only referenced this way because Keanu Reeves cannot do a British accent, in hindsight startles in how, for a huge mainstream release, it completely goes against mainstream tastes in its style and complete intense sensuality mixed with brutality. Many years later, vampires again, when he makes films when he wants to, you have a director who has not aged in his work but is still as bold and brazen as he was before, giving Val Kilmer the chance, for all the ridicule he's gain too, to show why he was once a big Hollywood star. It gives me immense delight that the man who made Apocalypse Now (1979) and The Conversation (1975), while far too reckless and willing to exhaust his funding and raw materials, not only kept a consistent push in strong, incredible films, (even though I've yet to actually see his apparent low point Jack (1996)), but that now completely separating himself from Hollywood and making films consistently in his own bubble, he's still the same man who made those legendary films when he was much younger. A review for Rumble Fish can be found here.

Freezer (Takashi Ishii, 2000)
It's interesting to return to this film and realise how these pulpy, "Asian Extreme" films as they were sold as by Tartan Video have far more going on in their DNA even in terms of the level of serious worked with in just the stories. Nothing in this rape-revenge story is pointlessly lurid or tasteless, instead a cool, disarming take on a woman going through with taking matters in her own hands and how, sadly, the cost of doing so prevents her from being able to move on. A lesser known film like this stands way above a lot of films in this area, as well as questions why films like this were sold as "Asian Extreme" in the early 2000s when the material was far more bolder than to shock and awe the viewer.

Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu (Yasuhiro Takemoto, 2003)
It's unfortunate that there are some flaws with this I have to get out of the way before I get to the great virtues of this comedy romance spin-off of a more serious franchise. The opening credit theme is a poor, soppy J-pop ballad that proves that, while there are songs I love from anime, cheesy ones too, the whole obsession with bubblegum pop that can promote bands and female idol singers scoring anime is a terrible aesthetic choice. (Although thankfully I like the end theme very much). Unfortunately it starts getting into more sexual fanservice, including the weird and creepy material that manages to be chaste yet perverse in its implications. There's also a joke later on about gorillas that probably implies some really questionable things that the creators didn't intend to suggest. The series itself though manages to stand out despite these flaws. It's a very episodic work, the joke being a teenage male taught to be a war machine for his whole life suddenly having to hide out in a high school. His views of settling differences through bringing firearms out and blowing up his locker in controlled detonations because a suspicious object, a love letter, was placed in it proves to be a long and agonising road for the girl who he was originally sent to protect in the original story of the franchise. It's how absurd the series goes with this premise and with completely out there inclusions that make it shine despite its clear flaws and being a slightly cheaper looking series. The implications of someone with no empathy and social skills, but a large cache of military hardware in his apartment, is hilarious because the creators could spin it far enough for all thriteen episodes, having to deal with ordinary situations like a girl having a crush on him let alone anyone like yakuza becoming involved. How awkward it becomes when your military superior, a girl his age, decides to pose as an exchange student, madly in love with him, and creating a very bitter romantic triangle as a result. Finding out that the boy originally sent to protect you has a tendency to set very dangerous booby traps to protect the bakery goods you're supposed to sell at lunchtime. Its a comedy anime series that's actually good, able to be consistent, keeping the humour fresh and adding moments of character engagement, while being completely bizarre at points. Again it comes with immense flaws, but I cannot dismiss a series whose final segment, the episodes usually split into two parts, is a potential contagion incident which plays up the fear of students about to die from a virus with a sick sense of humour, a twisted sense of how easily people could turn on a dime in such a situation, and ends with being completely perverted (but in a very unisex) way that I'm amazed got past with a PG certicate for at least one image that you see.

GenoCyber Episode 1 (Koichi Ohata, 1994)
It's unfortunate that GenoCyber falls down miserably with two terrible final episodes. The second and third one have great virtues, and are just as disturbing, but it's the first one that gives this infamous work its power. It can easily be dismissed as the worst of anime in the nineties, ultraviolent and schlocky, but despite aspects of this being fully true, the nihilism and scope of design that this series shows, incredibly low budget and roughly made, is stunning in its horror. The anger of two women creates a true monster. The human body is distorted and manipulated through cybernetic implants and the animator's imagination, and even real images of wet clay are implemented in this first episode to encapsulate the sick inducing violence and gore. As horrible and base as the material becomes at points in only a forty minute work, in an English dub full of swearing and erratic dialogue readings, something like this though has more going for it. More than a lot of anime made after 1999 when computer made animation took over hand drawn cels over time. When straight-to-video work like GenoCyber, by the ends of the 2000s, had long become extinct, and replaced with an increasing obsession to sell to a limited audience of fetishishtic male anime fans. Something risky. Something potential offensive.  Something that could leave scars to you if viewed the right way. A creativity and desire to convey something even its genre anime at its most messy and vile. Ending within this chapter a whole story, the series would have still been as notorious as it was only this single episode in existence. A review for the whole anime franchise can be found here.

Georges Franju
(La tête contre les murs (1959), Judex (1963), Nuits rouges (1974))
I find myself becoming more interested in the concept of what genre is, that the characters in them inherently following themselves in scenarios that are inherently surreal, the narratives trying to explain their actions actually making them more surreal at points. What a befitting time than now to have gotten to Franju? La tête contre les murs is a serious dramatic film I once viewed a year or so back, a great film now, but being introduced to Judex, I may have fallen in love on first sight with a single work on the first viewing. Alongside Nuits rouges, it's a celebration of storytelling for the sake of it being told, probably an obvious thing, but in paying tribute to Louis Feuillade, the films return to the notion when a narrative story was fascinating for how its twists and turns were inherently of fascination rather then things to push along to something else. As I find myself drawn nearer to the idea of characters in cinema, actors or animated, and the stories they're in to be dreamlike because the situations they are in are both the same as before but always different, a film like Judex and a director like Franju is the person I need to push me along to this notion. Looking at the films on the list so far, even though I've not finished this post let alone the whole series, you can see so many works that could fall into this definition...

A Girl’s Own Story/In The Cut (Jane Campion, 1984/2003)
...and in Jane Campion, I see the potential for even a psycho sexual thriller to be transformed into a more complex and fascinating excursion into the mind of gender politics and human behaviour. Even as far back with A Girl's Own Story, she had developed the peculiar but compelling tone that would continue to In The Cut where very big risks, which could lead to the films becoming tonally messy, work perfectly. Now a film like The Piano (1993), that I would have dismissed years ago as, honestly, looking like a boring drama, sounds instantly enticing to view from the director of films like these two.

Le grand jeu (Jacques Feyder, 1934)/ The Great White Silence (Herbert G. Ponting, 1924)
Maybe viewing this one night which was a bad time to try to watch it for the first time, a personal issue within my family which I won't go into more detail on, may have actually made the thoughts of this film, of emotion, the potential fates dealt by cards, more pertinent, where a film is no longer disconnected from reality as an artistic reflection of it, but is of reality even as melodrama. As I gain a greater attachment to genre, and the fringes of unexpected cinema, experiment and boldness, its yet been so to get closer to real life around me. It makes sense, despite being two completely different types of films, to actually link this with the documentary The Great White Silence, which was a recording of reality and, with the director having to recreate the final tragedy of the South Pole expedition he was part of, managing to still show the utter sadness of how it came to be. Two very different films, one just past when sound became part of cinema, but the two together, thinking about it, connect perfectly well in this context.

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Images from the following sources:

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