Most Meaningful First Viewings and Re-Evaluations of 2013 Part 10: The "S"s

Sakura Wars Franchise
(OVA 1 (Takaaki Ishiyama 1997), OVA II (Susumu Kudo, 1999),
TV Series (Ryutaro Nakamura and Takashi Asami, 2000))
A flawed set of works. The first is the best but it was designed to wrap around the original source material, a videogame combining dating simulation with strategy, so huge narrative gaps are left. The second suffers from being an early work with computer made 2D animation, but has a lot of interest. The series sets up the characters, but its technically a prequel and suffers from generic plotting. But they still shine with virtues for me. The later 1920s Japanese setting, even if fictionalised with proto-steam punk, is grabbing, and the significance of how the female characters are treated as all being significant ] is something that stands out immensely. Even if they could be seen as clichés, they're treated with respect, with no sexualisation in any of the pieces I've seen, and the importance of the original Japanese voice actresses behind them, all contributing the singing in the music as well as acting, to the point that they became loved for playing these characters over and over again can be seen. It gives what are videogame adaptations as lustre of class that did stick out in these anime even with their major flaws.

Samuel Fuller
(The Steel Helmet (1951). Park Row (1952), Shock Corridor (1963))
Completely blunt. Subtlety is vacated in these films for Fuller's sledgehammer tone but to great effect. It's a bluntness that's passionate and backed up with the ability to make the most out of limited means. And with Park Row he did have the means and pulls off one of the most tantalising, continuously moving camera shots I've seen in a long time.

Santa Claus (René Cardona, 1959)
Definitely a strange film, but it manages for all its kitschy tone to actually be legitimately sincere and sweet in its message. Its dismissal as a terrible film to laugh at is insulting really - it's camp, but its heart was in the right place. Certainly a damn lot more bearable than Santa Claus (1985) with Dudley Moore which does deserve more stick for its content. Link to a review here.

Seconds (John Frankenheimer, 1966)/Serial Experiments Lain (Ryutaro Nakamura, 1998)
Two completely different toned works. One an animated television series, the other part of a paranoia trilogy of films from an acclaimed American filmmaker. Yet they lingered together as siblings, brother and sister, ever since last year when I was compiling my best of viewing for that December. Both about the meaning of existence when their different traits are boiled away. One through the notion of being able to have a new life, the other through completely transferring yourself out of your physical flesh. One is unable to accept his new position, the other is lost as someone presuming to be her acts independently. One is of the meaning of one's life, the other brings in the concept of a new God being created. Both individuals are lost in a world that makes no sense, with people acting upon their lives, but one of them may in fact be in more control that she may believe. Two very different works but they make perfect sense next to each other in hindsight.

Seven Beauties (Lina Wertmüller, 1975)
"The ones who don't enjoy themselves, even when they laugh. Oh yeah. The ones who worship the corporate image, not knowing that they work for someone else. Oh yeah. The ones who should have been shot in the cradle... Pow! Oh yeah. The ones who say 'Follow me to success, but kill me if I fail... so to speak.' Oh yeah..."

Shameless Films Back Catalog
(The Frightened Woman (Piero Schivazappa, 1969), My Dear Killer (Tonino Valerii, 1972), What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (Massimo Dallamano, 1974), Night Train Murders (Aldo Lado, 1975), Killer Nun (Giulio Berruti, 1978)
Not all of the films were perfect, the weakest being My Dear Killer, but a lot of the reason why my interest in seventies and early eighties Italian genre films has grown this year is thanks to the British DVD company Shameless, these films all contributing something of interest in style and content. The good news is that the company, after a long time of inactivity, is coming back with a couple of Italian films getting UK premiers this year on DVD, which I hope is a continuation of the great work of theirs I'm finally catching up to. 

Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (Steve Roberts, 1980)
Admittedly on the first viewing of this film, I really couldn't grasp a lot within it. Able to have a grasp of what is exactly is going on, to understand what kind of absurd oddness the film plays within, it grew immensely in the second viewing. It's the first proper connection I've had to something from Vivian Stanshall, someone I will have to get around to in my interest in absurdist humour made in Britain, and this is an acceptably bonkers work to begin with.

Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012)
Bond films vary for me. Sean Connery's from what I've seen, the first, have been the best while the others have not really stood up well at all. Neither am I a fan of American Beauty (1999) since the day I grew up. But Skyfall did stand out exceptionally well. It feels like a significant film than a mere sequel - the performances, the tone, the incredible Roger Deakins cinematography - giving it a justifiable importance to its spectacle and means it doesn't coast on being flag waving for my country in favour of being an actually engaging narrative.

The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973)
Just gorgeous.

Something Weird (Herschell Gordon Lewis, 1967)
Definitely lives up to its title. It appears that a potentially strong area of American genre film has opened up for me to investigate like Lewis's work - from between the sixties and eighties, the peculiar works that don't really belong in a specific genre but go in any direction depending on who got cast and how much the budget was there that day. The kind of films Something Weird, the DVD company who took this film's name as theirs, release. Unfortunately at the start of this year the founder passed away, but I hope the company still continues, not only for the significance of all the films they preserved and made available, but because I fancy importing more films like this one on DVD to collect.

Song at Midnight (Weibang Ma-Xu, 1937)
Growing on me. A luscious, gothic melodrama which has continually been in my mind for the fact that it feels completely uninhibited in its content. Willing to have the political message it has, and go as far with it as it does, to have the gothic nature close to actual horror, and never letting the doomed romantic story get lost between the disfigured faces and dank, cobwebbed courtyards. Areview can be read going into more detail through here.

Spookies (Genie Joseph, Thomas Doran and Brendan Faulkner, 1986)
What happens when a film is unfinished, and said footage gets used to create a new film years later? Spookies is what happens, where you can see the joints, but the creation that tries to hide them is fascinating to watch. This is also the movie with mummies that make farting noises too, already bizarre to the standards of American genre films without the back story of the production having to be known. Its closer to Something Weird than just another dull horror film from cross the Atlantic thankfully.

Starcrash/Contamination (Luigi Cozzi, 1979/1980)
Luigi Cozzi in these films feels like he actually finds immense enjoyment in his work. Legitimate enjoyment like a child with a construction set. Yes the special effects might not be completely what he wanted them to be in some areas, and the content in absurd, but its joyful, fun and delights in its bubblegum nature. Even when Contamination has the gore it's not cynically made. Even Demons 6: De Profundis (1989), which I slagged off in a review on here, while Starcrash got an immensely positive review here, is growing for me from the first watching just for how intentionally absurd it felt in its existence.

The Story of a Three-Day Pass/Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (Melvin Van Peebles, 1968-71)
It's not surprising Van Peebles, especially the later film, helped bring in an entire series of African-American driven cinema in the early seventies. Read the review of Sweet Sweetback... here, just to see proof why it led to the blaxploitation movement.

Straight on Till Morning (Peter Collinson, 1972)
After falling out of love with The Italian Job (1969) and finding Fright (1971) to be bland, it's surprising the same director, having reviewed the film here for the Halloween series last year, created something this special out of nowhere. That it's a film that has been ignored is sad, considering that it's from the same period really dull period Hammer House films were being made that are more well known. This is truly a horror film and of a vastly better quality.

Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder, 1950)
The monkey's funeral near the beginning perfectly encapsulates the world the protagonist and the audience enters, one that at first glance is pathetic and completely disconnected from reality, but at the same time you not only feel sadness and sympathy for it, but see the grandeur of it, that once flourished, and regret that it was buried away from the public, not just in filmmaking but general human emotions.

A Swedish Love Story (Roy Andersson, 1970)
And finally, a film very different from what Andersson would get to from the last few decades onwards, but already assured in visual composition and immense interest in human relationships. An image of fleeting light over a woodland has stood from his debut film the most.

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Images from the following sources:

http://www.magnificent-world.com/post_images/sakura_wars_ova1/sakura_wars_ova1053.jpg

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