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I watched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood from April 5th, 2009 to July 4th, 2010. It was a weekly ritual: every Sunday a new episode would be out, and since I’d read the original story beforehand I would practice my Japanese listening skills by watching episodes without subtitles the first time around (afterwards, I’d wait for an official subtitle version by Funimation to see what I’d missed). If there were a few things I looked for in each episode, they were directing, pacing, music selection, and animation quality. And if there was one animator that stood out the most, it had to be Yoshimichi Kameda.
Kameda’s style is instantly distinct from the rest of the production’s animators for a few reasons:
• Multiple angles/perspectives
• Generous use of close ups
• Frequently dutched/diagonal horizons
• Pencil-like line art in the finished animation
• Quick cuts that created a lot of dynamic within the scene
• Follow/tracking shots of movement (often paired with close ups)
Unsurprisingly, Kameda’s most noticeable work involves action sequences. In a video compilation, you can see why his style can be simultaneously enthralling and dizzying. Here are some screenshots of his work as seen in the linked video:
Greed/Ling vs Wrath/Bradley
Alex Louis Armstrong
Original Greed
Envy disguised as Maes Hughes
Roy Mustang
Lust
Roy Mustang
Riza Hawkeye
Hobo man Scar
Jerso (sp?)
Envy vs Ed
Ling vs Envy
Ed, Envy, and Ling (left to right)
Roy Mustang blowing up Envy
Roy Mustang still blowing up Envy, with Riza Hawkeye in the foreground (right side of the screenshot)
The above screenshots are excellent examples of Kameda’s strength and weaknesses in animation, especially with regards to conveying action. I’ve talked before about framing a fight/action scene and how you could storyboard movement to create differing effects. With animation, you can push boundaries even more since your characters aren’t bogged down by the physics that govern live action actors. Because of this, animators like Kameda can experiment even more with close ups, tracking shots, dutch angles, skewed expressions, shaky cam, artistic renditions of the environment - anything you can come up with.
However, there are moments when auteurs of animation may go too far with these kinds of experiments. Technical skill is one thing, but making sure what’s happening on screen is cohesive is another trick: if no one knows what’s going on for long periods of time, an animator’s attempt to be original may fall short of anything artistically effective.
With Kameda, his greatest asset and problem is the use of tracking close ups (at multiple angles) but forgetting (or choosing not to) establish the horizon, respectively. This style creates a lot of visual movement, and is best when there’s at least some sort of establishing shot – even for a second – to put everything into context. One of Kameda’s best examples is the scene where Envy reveals his true form to Ed and Ling, as seen here (Kameda’s work ends at 1:30, and afterwards a different animator/director takes over):
I like this particular sequence of Kameda’s because while there are a lot of close ups and movement happening on screen, there’s always something establishing the characters into context and location. In this case, Envy’s massive size puts Ed and Ling into context by default: when the camera tilts up from our heroes to Envy stretching himself after the transformation, we instantly get a feeling for how small both Ed and Ling are as compared to the massive homunculus. Also, in almost every scene there is a horizon established, if even for a second before the camera cuts away to different angle and occurring action. The horizon is defined by the sea of blood that all three characters stand upon, and since there are no walls or major objects in the background (and the “sky” is pitch black) Kameda can get away with multiple tracking/close ups because the viewer will see the horizon (sea) of blood somehow (the infinite sea of blood (“ground”) is like a physicist’s wet dream of infinite planes and infinite dimensions - an animator can pull almost anything and it’s unlikely the viewer will get disoriented during the entire action sequence). Kameda and the director do a nice of job of creating lots of camera movement with close ups, tracking shots and cutting while maintaining a sense of cohesion of the entire fight sequence.
Conversely, Kameda’s excess use of close ups and tracking shots loses its edge when he forgets (or chooses not to) establish a distinct horizon within each cut, as seen here when Greed/Ling fights Wrath/Bradley in the Fuhrer’s office (the fight begins around 17 seconds, where I assume Kameda takes over):
The main problem in this fight scene is that Kameda doesn’t establish the horizon very well in most of the cuts. The horizon is defined by the floor that Greed and Wrath walk/run upon, not by the walls or ceiling. When we don’t see the floor between multiple cuts, the grounded physicality of the two sparring characters seems less apparent (they could be floating on air and we wouldn’t even notice). This becomes problematic over longer periods of time (“time” as in seconds and number of cuts) because the viewer starts losing a sense of relativity with regards to the ground. Compared to the Envy vs. Ed and Ling scene, where the environment was immense and primarily defined by the sea of blood that all three characters stood upon, in this scene with Greed and Wrath the environment is much more detailed and constrained comparatively (the Fuhrer’s office is a defined room and space), so it’s even more important to establish a sense of horizon more frequently so the viewer doesn’t become disoriented.
The few times that we actually do see the floor help reestablish what’s going on, but the part where it matters the most - when Wrath pins Greed on the floor - is the most lackluster of the entire sequence: there’s no unique angle, no dutch, no skewing – just a plain old linear horizon and framing that places both characters dead center – the hell hole of the Thirds Rule.
If there’s one thing you should avoid almost entirely, it’s placing the characters dead center screen at a un-angled horizon during any climax of an action sequence, and especially in animation. With live action, you could possibly get away with this since the actors are always breathing and twitching and their clothes are always ruffling, regardless if they stand dead still; with animation (especially on lower/tight budgets) the artists can’t spend precious extra minutes drawing these characteristics, so the characters on screen will look especially flat and boring if you don’t frame or angle them in an interesting way.
As a last reiteration, it is always the ground that defines the horizon – not the sky, not the ceiling, not the walls, not even a cat. To maintain any sense of cohesiveness during an action scene, establishing shots are a absolute must (without them, kiss your chances of cohesiveness good-bye) and are the most effective when you incorporate the horizon upon which the characters stand. Cuts, multiple angles and perspectives, tracking shots, and dutch angles are friendly tools you can use, but overusing them without establishing a horizon is cohesiveness suicide.
Kameda does good work throughout the series, but he’s not without his faults and demonstrates some prime examples of the strengths and weaknesses when animating action and characters. His work is a great reference for any aspiring animator and for anyone looking for different ways to frame action sequences. To see the episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, please visit the official Funimation website (or search Hulu or YouTube for full episodes as well).
Back in 2008 I wrote a review on The Dark Knight, claiming that it was a “balanced, perfect chord that Nolan and his cast and crew [struck], a chord that few have touched or even come close to” and that the film “will be legendary by its own respect to the comic and movie medium, and moreover, by its respect for the general audience.” It was my first movie review, and I wrote this final statement without the same knowledge of film I possess today. Watching a unconventional superhero story unfold, being awestruck by Heath Ledger’s haunting performance, becoming enthralled with Nolan’s film noir-esque vision of Gotham – I wanted to defend this movie on a critical level immediately. Commercial success was inevitable, but I didn’t want the movie to become shanked* from the Oscars because of its undeniable popularity; I wanted to defend the movie on a intellectual level, a critical level so detractors and “film snobs” wouldn’t deny Nolan’s Batman lore of the credit I believed it deserved.
It’s about two years later and I’ve stopped writing reviews regularly in favor of writing on this blog (also, these days I don’t have time watch movies expediently to write a relevant review). I know much more about film today, from its production to its history, and have even increased my regular online reading from Roger Ebert to the likes of Todd McCarthy, A.O. Scott, Emanuel Levy, Michael Phillips, and more recently Jim Emerson, David Bordwell and Dennis Cozzalio (amongst other writers who acquaintances and friends have introduced me to; I haven’t listed them because I usually read a minimum of three to ten articles – depending on the word count or subject – before citing them as regular reads). I’ve even stumbled across books and academic articles on Film Studies across the net, such as Bordwell’s generous free download of his book on Ozu and an entry linking academic papers on Nolan on the blog “Film Studies for Free.” The internet is a vast world out there, and persistent searching (coupled with a undeniably stubborn attitude that is possibly paired with procrastination) leads you to amazing finds. Most recently it brought me to some interesting commentary by film professor, scholar and critic, Emanuel Levy:
How do you evaluate the artistic and popular dimensions of a particular movie year? For example, was last year, 2009, a good, mediocre, or bad movie year? When can you say with some degree of assurance and coherence that 1959 was a better year than 1958? And what will be the evidence to substantiate our claim that 1939 was the best year in Hollywood’s history? As a film professor, scholar, and critic, I have been struggling with this question for decades.
Levy’s comment and subsequent examples of successful films got me thinking on a tangential thought: how do you critique a commercially successful film? Critics and cinephiles alike talk all the time about independent and foreign films and how they oftentimes receive less attention than they deserve; but on the polar opposite, how are you supposed to talk about films that might possibly get more attention than anyone could foresee?
I find the these two questions more difficult to answer since it’s easier to highlight the excellent qualities of an underdog film to a wider consciousness than to castigate the qualities of a well-funded, widely-distributed film that’s in the immediate public awareness to any effect. For instance, The Hurt Locker was the lowest grossing film to win the Oscar for “Best Picture” so far, and became well-known because of word-by-mouth reviews by acclaimed film critics around. Then you have the opposite fold, where films like Transformers 2 commercially succeed no matter how much you hack off the shiny lacquer of Megan Fox and Baysplosions hoping that people will realize the movie is a heaping pile of dung.
Precious minutes of my life were wasted on this. These are moments where I wish I had a TARDIS.**
Sometimes in my bitterness, movies like Transformers 2 make me wonder if people just prefer to throw away priceless seconds of their lives to see junk food excuses of cinema; but then I hold myself steady, take a breather, calm down and think “whoa there, buddy – people are smarter than that” and my optimism:pessimism ratio shifts back to the normal 55% and 45%, respectively. Call me naive, but I like to believe that people want to see good movies – why else would they going to theaters in the first place?
Films are an experience, and personal ones too. They tap into our innate consciousness and subconsciousness, and oftentimes the films that we deem “personal favorites” are incredibly revealing of who we are as individuals. For instance, my list of favorite films currently includes Andrew Stanton’s Wall•E in 2008 and Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights in 1931: I loved the elegant and effective simplicity of the physical performances without (or with minimal) sound, notwithstanding the stories themselves which I found uplifting, charming and uncannily sweet. Obviously this sentiment wouldn’t carry on over to someone who’s primarily a fan of, say, Michael Baysplosions, but that goes to show how different and diverse our respective tastes can be.
Now we’d all like to believe our favorite films are, in fact, great films. However, I prefer to amend this sentiment: favorite films and great films can overlap, but they are not necessarily the same. I say this because films are simultaneously about tastes and judgement. Now personally, I’d love to believe The Dark Knight is a classic, flawless movie that deserves a “great films” slot; however, I’d be in the purgatory of denial if I didn’t acknowledge legitimate criticism about the film’s flaws, and that while the film might be “awesome” that does not necessarily mean it is “great” (as stated by Stephanie Zacharek with regards to Nolan’s Inception). However, when I hear statements like these by Jeff Wells – that a commercially and critically successful film doesn’t need to be nominated for Best Picture to be great, and thus voters should vouch for films that are less noticed – I want to hit my head on the desk and write a letter to the Academy asking “what’s the bloody point of calling it ‘Best Picture of the Year’ if you’re just going to ignore commercial successes anyways?” My annoyance begins boiling again, but then I remember that the Oscars are always politically driven, and as A.O. Scott stated eloquently regarding the 82nd Academy Awards:
The “Hurt Locker”-“Avatar” showdown is being characterized as a David-versus-Goliath battle, but melodrama and rooting interests aside, it is really a contest, within the artificial arena of the Oscar campaign, between the mega-blockbuster and the long tail. That last phrase, the title of a 2006 book by Chris Anderson, already has a bit of an anachronistic sound, but Mr. Anderson’s idea, shorn of some of its revolutionary overstatement, is still compelling. As digital culture makes more and more stuff available and spills it faster and faster into an already swollen marketplace, some works will establish themselves slowly, by word or mouth, social networking and serendipitous rediscovery.
That hypothesis is likely to be tested more strenuously than before in the movie world. The money to produce and publicize the kind of middle-size movie that has dominated the Oscar slates in recent years is drying up. Cheap acquisitions can be turned into hits — last year’s best picture winner, “Slumdog Millionaire,” being the most recent long-shot example — but there are likely to be fewer luxury goods for the prestige market.
Only one of the current crop of best picture candidates, “Up in the Air,” fits that description: it has a polished look, an established star, a literary pedigree and a medium-size budget. And it looks — all of a sudden, after a strong start in Toronto and in spite of perfectly good box office numbers — like an outlier, a throwback.
Which is to say nothing about its quality. The Oscars are never about that anyway. They are about how the American film industry thinks about itself, its future, its desires and ideals. Right now it is thinking big and small, trying to figure out how to split the difference, and hoping we will keep watching. Wherever and however we do watch.
Can a film be “awesome” and “great” simultaneously? More specifically can a film be commercially and critically successful at the same time? My naive self again would say yes, but would qualify the statement with an additional “–but very rarely does it happen.” I say “rarely” because when faced with inevitable commercial success, wide-release and blockbuster films are more prone to backlash for the very qualities that made it so successful and wide-appealing (note: when I speak about “commercial success,” I’m indicating films that pull in the box office numbers, which by extension is a numerical indicator of the film’s popularity amongst moviegoers, but not necessarily its critical reception). Take Juno, for instance: it was a hit at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, yet when it came close to Oscar season there was enormous backlash from people who felt that Juno’s pop-slanging shenanigans were unnatural and unrepresentative of how teenagers actually talk and act, and that the film sent a “immoral” message to teenagers about sex and teen pregnancy.
I think Juno is a fine movie with slick, witty writing. But do I think it deserves a slot in “great films of all time” lists? In its own respect, I believe so, yes. To be perfectly honest, Juno is not exactly my cup of tea: I like Jasmine tea, but in the end I prefer the taste of Green tea simply because of my personal preferences – and in this case, Juno is Jasmine tea. No, this doesn’t detract away from my appreciation of the film; actually, it compels me to be even more holistic when looking at movies, and to make a conscious effort to differentiate (but not separate) between movies that I believe are great and movies that I personally adore to no end. So if I were to compile a list of movies I believe were “great,” I’d make an effort not only to appreciate films that aren’t necessarily my favorites and what they do well, but to also defend and argue for films that are my favorites if they are also included. This gives me room to relish movies that are cheesecakey goodness and include them in my list of personal favorites (i.e. Kung Fu Hustle) and extoll movies that I find artistically and technically outstanding which also happen to be in my list of personal favorites (i.e. My Neighbor Totoro). I like to imagine the differences, similarities and variance between “great” and “favorite” movies like this: great movies are your greens for cinematic fiber, favorite movies are your candy for cinematic sweets, and movies that great and personal favorites are fruit.
I don’t bloody care what botanically correct scientists say: the tomato is still a vegetable in my books. And I will chuck it at whomever I wish to do so - Fresh or Rotten.
We all want our favorite films to be fruit. But realistically you’ll have to admit that your personal favorites will not all be fruit – some will be candy no matter how much you believe otherwise (i.e. Caramel apple). At the same time, claiming that you only enjoy your films of greens ignores a lot of what films of candy and fruit offer. After all, films are also about entertainment: I could sit through countless art films and analyze the brilliance of the auteurs, but if I don’t feel compelled to re-watch it like a hyperactive child it’s unlikely the movie is going to be a personal favorite of mine. A recommended film, possibly, but probably not fruit, and definitely not candy.
Commercial: Public choices, films that were popular with moviegoers—for whatever reason
Innovative: Films that pushed the boundaries (technical, thematic, stylistic) and had impact on the evolution of film as a singular medium with new potential and possibilities
Oscar movies: The five films singled by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) for Oscar nominations and awards.
– and then took a look at the list worldwide box office records of movies, and compared them respectively to their ratings on RottenTomatoes, Metacritic, and Imdb (note: click on the chart and graphs to see the full versions of these statistics, which were taken on 8/9/10; numbers are taken from here, though the numbers have changed with the addition of Toy Story 3 to the “Top 20” list as of 8/10/10):
Now with my handy dandy Excel skills, I also made some graphs so we can visually see what’s going on here (titles are Y versus X values of graph; note the highest grossing film worldwide is the first value on the X-axis – essentially it goes from #1 to #20, left to right, respectively):
All of the following findings are under the assumption that box office numbers are the best estimate we can get to seeing how “popular” a movie is – that is, how much people are actually compelled to dig into their wallets and see it for whatever reason, regardless of the critical reception before and after the film’s release. So if we were approximating a 70% as a generally favorable consensus after averaging the critical percentages of Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic and Imdb for the current top grossers, we find this: only 14 out of the 20 listed films are generally favored by critics and viewers alike, which means that about 70% of box office grossers will be meet some amount of critical success – this group essentially consists of fruit and candy for movies, and that they could perhaps display a minimum of three (or two) traits out of the four criteria for evaluation that Levy presents.
However, if we were to estimate what percentage of these movies would meet universal acclaim by approximating a minimum 85%, we would find the that only about 5 of the 20 titles could potentially be considered as “great films,” and that only approximately 25% of top grossers could actually be considered fruit and possibly possess all four qualities of Levy’s criteria.
There are a number of things that could be wrong with these numbers. For one, the worldwide box office numbers in this data aren’t adjusted for inflation, hence the lists consists mostly of films that are relatively recent in film history. Another thing is that these numbers are based off worldwide gross, so it accounts for films that were fortunate enough to be released internationally in addition to domestically – this invariably favors films that get lots of funding from studios, and more often these studios are big time Hollywood players. Lastly, the review aggregates are from distinctly English-speaking, so the “universality” of critical acclaim possibly only covers the general Western hemisphere while not necessarily having the same appeal in the Eastern hemisphere (i.e. the reception of Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire (2008) in America was much warmer than that of India, where the film was located in). Still, I think it’s important to see how box office numbers and critical consensus relate, and based on what I’ve found it all leads back to my original assertion: that it is rare for a commercially successful film to also meet universal critical acclaim.
However, if we stand back from the standards of critical acclaim and consider more holistically to the standards of favorable acclaim, then my hope and naivete isn’t unfounded: a majority of the top office grossers aren’t bad films. They may not be great, but they’re not bad either; in fact, we could even conclude that they’re the perfect amount of candy and cheesecakey goodness that most moviegoers want when they go to the movies for whatever reasons – entertainment, escapism, evaluative, everything.
Michael Bay presents Explosions! By Michael Bay.
In the end, does it matter who got the higher score or raked in the most money? Frankly no; I’ll probably defend my favorite films until my deathbed and hate Transformers 2 for the rest of my life. That doesn’t mean I won’t find flaws or excellence in great, favorite and personal vendetta films either – in fact there’s a certain joy in finding things that could’ve been done better (or worse) in the films that you love or hate, almost as if you’re finding a Easter Egg that the filmmaker forgot they even put in. For instance, who knew you could so excellently incorporate sound effects “pew pew pew!” and classy comedy like humping dogs into a $200 million budget film created by full-grown, mature and enlightened adults like Michael Bay? It’s like they sympathized with my childhood where I counteracted my brothers’ reign of sibling terror with my pointed index finger after my mum told me to suck it up and fend for myself against their shenanigans (“no, I will not buy you a Nerf gun to assassinate your brothers with - go use a stick or something. And stop climbing the stair railing like a monkey - no I don’t care if you’re Quasimodo, you’re going to break off the railing!***”).
We may never know what truly is “the best film of all time.” Lists will consistently bring up the same movies like Citizen Kane and Casablanca, but even then there’s a certain amount of subjectivism to any “greatest movies” list. Of course they’re always worth pursuing if the recommendation is compelling enough, but the decision is always personal and up to you alone. So while the probability of finding fruit might be low, it’s worth it after getting a palette full of greens and candy for films.
*I was one hell of an angry cat when I found it The Dark Knightand Wall•E didn’t receive Best Picture nominations that year. Hell hath no fury like a person still without a cat.
**Props to anyone who get this reference. Even bigger props if you’ve got your own sonic screwdriver.
***I like to believe this was her loving way of telling me not to fall down to my peril and death. Regardless, I still climbed those stair railings because if anyone was going to be an awesome Quasimodo, it would be ME.
…
Referenced Articles and Links (ordered with regards to this article)
• Cat Safety Propaganda - How I reacted when I learned Wall•E and The Dark Knight did not get “Best Picture” nominations (see, cute little girl is the oppressive hand of the Academy and its innate biases against animation and comic book lore, and the cat is a cat the hell hath no fury like when it is angered… I’m not sure where I fit in here except that the cat’s reaction to cute little girl is more or less how I acted when I heard the Oscar news those years ago)
After an incredibly optimistic writing session with Revolutionary Road, I decided I was in dire need of a mood lifter less I risk falling into a deep, brooding state that even a fluffy cat wouldn’t cure me of (unless it is the cat I am still without, but that is a different matter). So I perused the list of foreign films I’ve been wanting to see (thanks to various recommendations) and lo and behold – Horus: Prince of the Sun, as recommended by Allan Estrella, was exactly what I needed.
Horus is a 1968 anime movie and is the feature film debut of Isao Takahata, director of the classic and haunting Grave of the Fireflies in 1988. The film is about a boy, named Horus, who is entrusted with the Sword of the Sun after pulling it out from the ancient stone giant, Mogue. Before his father dies, Horus learns that he and his father were the last survivors of a sea village devastated by a wicked sorcerer named Grunwald, and thus sets off to avenge his village and stop Grunwald once and for all.
Watching the film was an interesting experience: there are a lot of Studio Ghibli thematics throughout – the enigmatic forces of nature, the strong female characters, the complexity of motivations and emotions – yet there are a lot of distinctly Disney thematics as well – the evil sorcerer, the bubbly side characters, clashing forces of good and evil, and so on. In a sense, Horus really establishes the distinct divide between the legacies of Disney and Ghibli regarding thematics, animation, aesthetics, and writing. The film is widely unknown outside of Japan because it only ran for 10 days in theaters (for business reasons I’ve yet to really understand) and at that point in time, most of popular culture and public awareness was overshadowed by student protests, civil rights movements and anti-war sentiments pervasive during worldwide political and social unrest. Here, I’ll be highlighting some distinct elements reminiscent of classic Western storytelling and classic Eastern storytelling that sets Horus apart from any prior and subsequent production by Disney and Ghibli, and why it’s quite a gem in the history of anime and animation.
Animation wise, Horus is topnotch for its time. There are only a few scenes where there is no animation but simply a panning/tilting of the camera with an audio track (a clear sign of budget issues) but besides that, Takahata directs some of the most awe-inspiring scenes that even some of recent animated features don’t come close to. For one, multiple framing types are used throughout the film:
High-angle shot
Low-angle shot
Establishing/master shot
There are also multiple fields of depth and focal points:
Grunwald is also holding the axe that Horus threw at him. The rope that holds the axe is blurred since Grunwald is the main focus.
Here, there are multiple depths of field, with Horus being the closest and Grumwald being the farthest – all indicated by their size relative to the screen.
These composition traits were severely missing from the Disney (chronicle) colleagues of Horus, The Aristocats in 1970 and Robin Hood in 1973, both which relied heavily on minimal dimensions (the majority of the film was mostly in a linear horizon, with the characters simply moving left and right with respect to the screen) and repetitious animation (there is a set amount of movements each character performs, resulting in a rather limited characterization and performance of the animated heroes and villains). With regards to animation, Horus outdoes The Aristocats and Robin Hood by a long-shot, and is even auteuristic in certain ways:
A technicolor-like effect was used in the Enchanted Forest sequence.
Mogue, the Rock Lord.
Grunwald’s Mammoth of Ice, fighting flames created by the villagers.
The sequence where the artists animated the reflection of sun on ice was visually astounding, notwithstanding Mogue’s epic entry into Grunwald’s lair.
Use of a soft focus on a particular person/object, further emphasizing the focus by blacking out everything surrounding the person/object.
Overlap of animation cels.
Snow-Ice Wolves flying down the mountainside; these reminded me of Haku in Miyazaki’s Spirited Away.
The Ice Mammoth and Mogue battle sequence reminded me a lot of the Forest Spirit from Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke.
I don’t think anyone can ever outdo the animation of Monstro from Disney’s Pinocchio, but the Pike sequence in Horus does an excellent job on a lot of levels; I liked this screenshot the most because of the field depth inferred from the unfocused branch/tree/rocks in the foreground with Horus and the Pike in the background and in focus.
Gorgeous yet frightening sequence where Hilda unleashes mice upon the village in an act of terror.
Hilda’s Owl reminded me of Archimedes from Disney’s The Sword in the Stone - except not funny, less floofy, and white. But back to my main point: evil characters are drawn menacingly, like this here owl (who is the less hilarious version of Archimedes)…
… and good characters are drawn with a charm! (also, they are floofy)
Comparatively, Disney animators used strikingly similar animation in both The Aristocats (right) and Robin Hood (left)
Technical aspects aside, Horus presents some interesting Western and Eastern thematics in its narrative as well. Set in Iron Age Scandinavia, the story is a classic Western fable rich with mystical powers of good and evil that tamper with humans. Foremost, Horus is a very pure and very pious protagonist: no evil thoughts cross his mind, and he’s the perfect archetype for the Western hero; in fact, the first scene revolves around him fighting a pack of vicious wolves, and he is only saved by the rock lord Mogue. Mogue’s first appearance is the classic set-up for such an adventure, the random encounter with a powerful entity who sets forth a goal for the protagonist to strive towards, and warns that there is an evil entity which Horus must be wary of. Additionally, the death of Horus’s father lends further momentum to the story and protagonist’s motivation: the same evil entity Mogue spoke of is who Horus must take his revenge upon. Good and evil are established very early in the film, and while we know Horus will persevere we also know he will encounter numerous barriers that may prevent him from attaining his ultimate goal. Horus includes song and dance like Disney films as well, though I felt that these were less like musical numbers and more like natural characteristics of a small village that has distinct customs and practices; also, singing is a distinct characteristic of Hilda, the main female protagonist, and this characteristic plays a role in how the plot progresses throughout the film, and is less of a classic depiction of femininity. There are also some side characters that are Disney-esque in their animation, but not quite to the extent of candy-covered nudnik that becomes so obnoxiously giddy and uplifting as to induce mental diabetes (I’m looking at you, Cinderella – and don’t think I won’t go and sic my cat that-I-am-still-without on your singing mice if they start messing with my pumpkins).
Trials of character, essential to Western lore, are also present: there’s a scene where Horus confronts a giant Pike terrorizing the fishing village that saved him after his front encounter with Grunwald, and it’s a scene that echoes of classic fairy and folktales of the Brothers Grimm where a hero/heroine must destroy a elemental force in order to restore natural order (i.e. The Twelve Brothers, The Seven Crows, The Glass Coffin, The Nix in the Pond, The Ball of Crystal). Characters of good are drawn in friendly manner while characters of evil are drawn in poor disposition – the good look good, the bad look bad (for instance, Grunwald’s henchmen wolves are drawn menacingly while Horus’s bear, Coro, is drawn amicably); in a sense, the extremities of morale are personified almost literally, just as Jiminy Cricket was animated as Pinocchio’s conscious in Disney’s 1940 film. Then there’s old Grunwald himself, who simply wants to eliminate all humans in his sight because he’s a pleasant fellow like that.
The villagers collectively decide how to deal with Grunwald’s antagonism.
However, there are distinctly Eastern elements to the story as well. Various elements of nature are personified into distinct personalities: Mogue, the rock lord, is booming and almost Ent-like from J.R.R. Tolkien’s universe; Grumwald, the sorcerer, specializes in ice magic and sends out spells of snow-ice wolves; the collective, not the individual, is necessary to accomplish any feat; the environment is distinctly beautiful, dangerous, and omnipresent, trumping over all human attempts of control (in fact, Hayao Miyazaki was responsible for “Scene Design” during production; his painters hand can easily be seen in his famous works, such as Spirited Away in 2002); and most important of all, not all characters are solely evil or good without motivation.
This last characteristic is particularly important and poignant in most of Studio Ghibli’s film to date (I say most because I haven’t seen all of them yet – I’ll get there soon though!) This is a sentiment I agree with very much so: I’m of the opinion that there’s no absolute good or evil without motive, and even then the term “absolute” is difficult for me to fully endorse at face value; instead, I usually try and analyze the narrative or psychological significance of moral extremes. Even then I feel that absolutes are much more common to Western narratives than Eastern narratives: Eastern stories commonly deal with undertones of actions rather than the actions themselves, and thus the stories often lend themselves to more nuanced (“grey”) characters regarding personalities of good and evil. In Horus, there’s a corrupt deputy named Drago who manipulates everyone so he can gain power and dispel of Horus; purportedly a spy for Grunwald, Drago is obviously not a “good guy,” but his motivations for power and prestige are very much human. Even more interesting than Drago is the character Hilda, who marks a very important thematic in Ghibli’s most famous productions – the strong, independent, and nuanced female character.
It took Disney 52 years to progress towards strong female characters, beginning in 1989 with The Little Mermaid after starting with the classic damsel-in-distress princess archetype with Snow White in 1937. Takahata included a strong female from the very start with his directorial debut in 1968 with Horus, a philosophy and tradition that has additionally spearheaded by his contemporary, Hayao Miyazaki, with many subsequent Ghibli films such as Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke. In Horus, this character is none other than the solemn and tormented Hilda: though she is initially under Grumwald’s control, it’s obvious that she’s neither pleased or happy with her choice for immortality; in fact, a good portion of the film focuses on Hilda alone (at one point I wondered if Horus had gone M.I.A. just for the heck of it), and generously fleshes out the internal conflict she feels when she’s ordered to wreak havoc upon and kill the very villagers she’s grown attached to. There might be a bit of the damsel-in-distress characteristics – the siren-like singing, her daisy-like physical appearance – but beyond looks Hilda is an mentally and emotionally strong individual, especially considering with the personal conflicts she deals with for almost the entire span of the movie. Comparing Takahata’s Hilda to her earlier Disney counterpart, Aurora/Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty, 1959), is like looking at two different eras of social progress – the former the more progressive advocate of gender equality and the latter bent on chivalry and perpetual D.I.D.s who like being swept off their heeled-toed feet.
Hayao Miyazaki on the left, Isao Takahata on the right
I like to believe Horus: Prince of the Sun marks the beginning of Takahata’s (and Miyazaki’s) conscious effort to move away from traditional Disney fare, storytelling, and animation aesthetics; yet ironically Horus has numerous elements in vein with Disney productions, which makes it an interesting hybrid: a product highly influenced by Western endeavors while actively trying to establish distinctly Eastern foundations – all with regards to animating stories and the characters within. Horus may easily be one of the most exceptional and overlooked gems in the world of animated films, and it’s a film I can’t recommend enough to those interested in animation, anime, Studio Ghibli and Disney productions.
She was working alone, and visibly weakening with every line. Before the end of the first act the audience could tell as well as the Players that she’d lost her grip, and soon they were all embarrassed for her. She had begun to alternate between false theatrical gestures and a white-knuckled immobility; she was carrying her shoulders high and square, and despite her heavy make-up you could see the warmth of humiliation rising in her face and neck – Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road
Frank and April Wheeler have it all: young, bright, enthusiastic, the world is in their hands. They can do anything, be anything, dream anything – it’s all there, at their fingertips. Frank is brilliant; April is artistic. Together, they could conquer anything they wish to, for at their prime they are nothing short of free and unbounded.
Two years pass.
A lily white house, two charming children, Frank at a desk job, April as a domestic – circumstances are suffocating them, choking them from their once promising dream of a future. Perhaps they married too young, had kids too young, settled down too young: the real answer is never an easy one to guess. But what is true of Yates’ ironic morality play is that it is a brutal and unforgiving portrait of the classic American tragedy – that of suburbia.
The story opens with Frank biting his knuckles hard as he watches April’s skilled performance in The Petrified Forest get dragged down by her amateur co-actors and director: it’s a catastrophe. Frank conjures up ideas to comfort April, thinking of the best words he can offer to deliver his mournful wife from the slump. But he fails – and hard.
They fight: she tells him to stop, he insists further, she insists back, he yells that it’s not his goddamn fault she didn’t become an actress and that she has the nerve to blame it on him – Cut! Stop! Fin! The rabble ends as he stops the car and she drags herself out, unable to look at him as he badgers her with what he believes is true but otherwise isn’t. The match is set, the play is planned, and the tale begins of a man and a woman who lose themselves in the midst of multiple performances they can no longer maintain.
What’s so engrossing about Richard Yates’ story is that it not only addresses the psychological detriment of the American suburban life but also looks deeply into the performances and parts that each person, each character sets out to play in lieu of their watchful neighbors. And it’s these roles that each neighbor who credits into the American dream must eventually accept; if not, they ultimately reject their own investment and lie prey to the philosophical conundrums and pain they must endure in order to reestablish themselves in life.
Our lives are a performance: emotions and thoughts are diluted down into language, words and paper, and the eloquence of which we speak and act them out is left to the interpretation of others regardless of how we may actually feel. Only when the curtain falls, the death knoll tolls so that we are released from such a theatrical life, the life in which we use the shell of our bodies to mime and mimic actions that we hope to convey our truest selves.
Oftentimes our environment dictates what we are able to perform, whether we like it or not. The American suburbia is no different: in fact, in some ways it’s even worse. It’s pure standardization, a white bread mentality that indulges in urban sprawl, manicured streets, consumerist shopping plazas, cookie cutter houses, Stepford wives and commuting-to-work husbands. Worse yet, it is completely devoid of true, vibrantly artistic culture, culture which cannot exist in a environment insists so heavily on sterilizing anything that passes through it. So it’s no surprise that this alluring American dream draws in the gullible, only to crush those who do not abide by its stringent, unforgivably strict set of character roles it expects to be dutifully fulfilled. These prepositional roles are what Frank and April try so very hard to act out notwithstanding their truest natures that so very clash against the suburban siren of Revolutionary Road.
Let’s start with Frank. It’s 1950, he’s worked odd jobs in his youth, is a certified World War II veteran, works a stable desk job, and by all means that’s enough to declare his status as a true man in American society. But he’s a thinker too, a philosopher at best who wants to challenge the status quo; he hates these confinements, relishes in his own pride of individualism, and cherishes his wife’s compliment that he is the “most interesting man she’s ever met.” These two aspects already put Frank at odds with himself: to be accepted as man, he must subscribe to the very society that possesses qualities he finds so distasteful; to be a true thinker, he must completely reject the same society that would procure him the birthright of male superiority. The choice is difficult: for Frank, to think is to be a man, but his definition of manhood is also beginning to be shaped by American society, which discourages the progressive thoughts he tries to act upon.
Then there’s April. She’s classy, intelligent, independent, romantic, and crushed by the role of a perfect suburban mother. For this artist-by-nature to be confined by whitewashed windows, by perfectly laden aprons, by chirpy well-to-do neighbors – it’s completely unnatural, and staggeringly so. But she’s an excellent actress, too, and wants very much, too, to perfectly fulfill the obligation of the stay-at-home wife who awaits her husband everyday from work, pristinely and unfalteringly supportive of his endeavors regardless of mood or whim. This actor quality that defines April, this very quality is what puts her at odds with herself: to be herself, she must not act the part of the housewife, and forsake the pretenses that a suburban woman must act out; but to be a true actress she must bite the bullet, swallow her pride and play whatever roles are required without losing a sense of her true self. Yet the latter fold is that to be a true to herself, the actress April, the free April, she must completely forsake the role of a perfect suburban woman. To say the least, April Wheeler must make a difficult choice as well.
Such are the dilemmas that these two characters must deal for themselves, and together they resonate and clash so frequently that the dissonance and synchrony of their flaring passions and temperaments reveal one thing, and one thing only: they are not happy, and they are trying to save not only themselves but each other from drowning in the sea of suburbia.
Frank loses it first: frustrated at April’s unwillingness to cooperate by his terms, he succumbs to temptation and has an affair with the office secretary, Maureen. Herein is Frank’s first crumbling fall from his own self, driven by no other force except his own pride – in his manhood and his thought. The irony, though, is that if he were a true progressive, he wouldn’t impose his self-righteousness upon April in the first place; that instead he would listen to the subtleties of her body language, instead of placating her with an overbearing pseudo-Freudian psychoanalysis that is far from true or grounded. No, instead Frank begins the freefall from progressivism in lieu of maintaining his masculine status within society, indulging in what is otherwise one of the biggest double-standards to this day: the unspoken acceptability of a husband straying from his wife, while the unspoken reverse is unacceptable. This is his masculine right.
Is he proud of this? Initially, no; it is a great weakness on his part, but it is a deep drive to prove his own manhood that he starts breaking at the very foundation of his original, progressive philosophy. It’s the beginning of a slow, degenerating process that eventually erodes at the very foundation of who Frank Wheeler is.
Back to April: she is suffocating, and through her lonely disillusion an idea springs up – France! Paris je’Taime! The European epicenter of culture! Freedom! This, she believes, is the last chance for her, for Frank, for them to get away from the asphyxiating grasp of suburban America that clearly they cannot conform to without financing their true selves. She’s seen how Frank is beginning to deteriorate – how insensitive he’d been, how he’d yelled at her, how he’d almost hit her! – and she knows that the true Frank, Frank the philosopher, the thinker, the brilliant, will never grow to his full potential if he remains any longer at the company Knox. She’ll do whatever she can to make it happen: secretary job, passports, airplane tickets, moving boxes, selling houses – April Wheeler will make this happen.
But it’s already too late. Frank has already succumbed to the lust of masculine right, and the prospect of moving to Paris frightens him. April to be the income earner, while he finds time to figure out his life – is this possible? Of course, but more pressingly, is this acceptable?
Sadly, the answer is no. While the original Frank would’ve likely embarked immediately on such a prospect, the current Frank – the changing, compromising Frank Wheeler – is in limbo, drawn by his own pride to the allure of celebrated manhood, and to suddenly take off to a society with different standards, different values and be supported by his wife so he can revert back to his default self – no, no this is not possible for Frank Wheeler. He enjoys the flattery of American society, the praise of his superiors at the dull company Knox, the flings with the secretary Maureen: he enjoys it all. No, this Frank Wheeler does not want to let go of his comfort. He cannot forsake it, not even for April.
His saving grace is that April becomes pregnant with their third child, forcing them to call off all their initial moving plans. The days of whimsy in the office are gone, the glee of his temporary existence in the office Knox is now replaced by a big, sighing relief of comfort: he is still in charge, the man of the house, the income bringer, the sole dependent of the pristinely white Wheeler house. He’ll get a promotion, this is certain, but when he realizes April may attempt to perform a self-abortion he flies in a flurry of rage. How dare she! How dare she risk their – no, his comfort! How dare she try to assert such feminine independence when he is the still the man in charge! The nerve of it all – how can she not see what a selfish action it is! It is his child, his bloodline, and yet she still dared to even contemplate early termination! How could she, how could she?! No, Frank Wheeler will not have any of that in household. This is his dominion, and he will have his say.
And so he does, but at a fatal cost: his final assertion in the name of manhood, his final fall from true progressivism destroys April – in heart and soul. She sees now that this is not the Frank she fell in love with, the man who first treated her as his equal; this Frank, this transformed Frank, is a different man, the kind of man that the society she suffocates in celebrates with the vigor of cigars, whiskey, blondes and brunettes. He no longer performs the original Frank, the man of thought and brilliance; he now acts out the acceptable Frank, the man who only believes he is one of thought and brilliance while in reality he is no better or different than his chauvinistic contemporaries. The original Frank is lost, and April is alone to decide for herself what role she will ultimately transcend into – April the wife or April the true.
She chooses April the true, the real April Wheeler, the one who wants to feel something substantial and in passion, more so than the packaged emotions and expectations that the suburban housewife must agree to. And in her desperation she consummates with her neighbor Shep Campbell, a man that she is easily repulsed by but does so anyway because it is a testament to see whether or not she can truly act as freely as before – and yes, she still can. Which leads her to her last and final attempt to assert her female independence in the Wheeler household: she performs a self-inflicted abortion, and ultimately dies from blood loss.
April’s theatrical moment has ceased, the curtains folded, and gone she is from the center stage of her life as we now know it. At the very end, she maintained her true self amidst the ocean of oppressive suburbia, the poise of her essence and existence despite what else others might quip about thereafter. This is her dying grace, her retained dignity.
And what of Frank? Why he’s completely destroyed by April’s final performance: all in an instant he realizes the mistakes he made, the pride of manhood that blinded him from reality, the stupidity of succumbing into mental stagnation – for a moment the original Frank is back in full force, grasping to bring back April into his embrace, to repent for all his inanity and insanity and insufferable ignorance, to move to Paris with her for their hopeful future… but it’s too late.
April, beautiful and romantic and dreamer April, is gone. And with this final realization the real Frank Wheeler dies as well, his performance now an empty shell on the stage of a lifeless theater – the perfect masculine role of American society, devoid of thought, philosophy, hope, or dreams.
There’s an interesting character named John Givings, who befriends the Wheelers before their untimely and ultimate downfall. His mother, Mrs. Helen Givings, is the perfect model of a peppy suburban woman, playing the role with such enthusiasm and vigor and self-righteousness and it’s almost sickening to see how utterly theatrical her socializing is; his father, Mr. Howard Givings, is apathetic, empty of care or thought and only so much inclined to turn on or off his hearing aid when he feels like it, and even then he is only half-listening and half-engaged in what is happening immediately. So for John to clash so vehemently and jarringly against his parents’ model behaviors, that he spits in the face of normality and the expectations of suburban character roles – it’s all a very revealing portrait of someone who is considered mentally sick, unstable and insane by 1950s American standards.
Maybe John really is mentally sick, we may never know. But what we do know is that he doesn’t give a damn about pretenses, social etiquette, or any of the frivolous and frilly nature of human interaction: he is honest, straightforward, unflinching and blunt, unwilling to compromise his behavior into another performance that is otherwise acceptable to most. No, John absolutely refuses this, and for this same reason he is drawn to Frank and April Wheeler, both whom possess John’s rebellious qualities deep down inside. He likes that Frank acknowledges that there is a hopeless emptiness to the American dream, and likes it even more that April is a true female – not a woman, but a female. A unbounded, independence female entity, the equal of a male entity and devoid of social restrictions or circumstance that chain down women into women.
So when he later hears the Frank and April have relinquished their last chance of freedom, John is of course disgusted, and knows immediately that Frank is the weak point: April, as female as she may be, cannot overcome the overbearing male dominance that is accepted by American society, and John understands that very well, though he does not completely ignore her faults either; John shoots his venom in the right direction, right at the core and pride of the compromised Frank Wheeler, right where it hurts and sores the most. John Givings is sickened by Frank’s hypocrisy, letting him know it immediately; and for that he is diagnosed far too unstable by his own mother, thus condemned to a longer life filled with more infrequency of visitations.
John Givings is the classic jester figure of King Lear, the unfaltering consciousness that we wished for Frank, April and everyone to suddenly wake up to and to see as clearly as day. Passionate and logical, John is us – the reader, the viewer, the audience. John is us. Yet ironically he is considered insane by the very setting he occupies, and by extension we are also mad by the suburban standards of Revolutionary Road.
But what is madness? Is it definitive, or is it relative to the societies in which we reside in? Is it so mad to dream of something greater, something better in the scheme of time? Is it so mad to hope for change that one may benefit from? And is it so mad to believe that there is always the possibility of freedom, which one may escape from the chaining confines of the current circumstances?
Herein lies the greatest irony of Revolutionary Road: for if Frank and April Wheeler had stayed true to themselves, they would’ve been deemed mad yet become true revolutionaries. But in mortgaging their hopes and dreams they invariably festered into the stagnant sea of suburbia, betraying not only their best selves but each other while attempting to compromise and choose between their own roles and performances in life; and ultimately, both the real Frank and the real April die all together in the bitter, bitter end.
This is the tragedy of Frank and April Wheeler. This is the tragedy of the American suburban dream. This is Revolutionary Road.
Foreign films were once one of the most difficult to find, nearly on par with finding theaters that ran independent films. Now, with Netflix, YouTube and other digital technology, watching foreign films has become much easier to pursue in this day and age – yet still a large majority of the American public shirks away from them for various reasons, the most common being “I don’t want to watch and read subtitles.” And even if there is a dub, sometimes good old ethnocentrism is enough to deter a viewer from engaging in a non-American production.
Shaolin Soccer
I believe foreign films are essential to one’s moviegoing experience. To disregard them because they are non-American, non-English or from a different culture is to have a fallow understanding of rich cinema; this is nothing short of depriving oneself from a variety of experiences that will invariably supplement and enrich one’s appreciation for the narrative power of film that is both specific and universal. Otherwise, claiming that one is a cinephile without willing to see foreign films is unfounded and untrue (I say willing because circumstances often dictate what one is able to watch). Additionally, American productions have consistently ranked highest in worldwide box office gross; this is indicative of Hollywood’s domineering presence in the world, and how American productions are often at the forefront of popularity, both domestically and internationally. This is not to say American productions are thus less auteuristic, creative or original – all it means is that American films frequently receive the most notice on a domestic and global scale. Thus, it is all the more important to expand one’s horizons beyond the average American fare if one is to truly become a self-proclaimed cinephile.
The Lives of Others
When I speak of foreign films, I’m talking specifically about non-American and mostly non-English language films (I find this is appropriate since I grew up in the States, and am most familiar with American productions). The term “foreign film” is malleable, specifically defined by what one considers their home country and foreign countries to be. Speaking strictly from an American perspective, I believe foreign films have political, social, historical, cultural, and target audiences distinctly different than what the average American filmgoer expects. This definition also includes English films to an extent, but vaguely so since there are English films that may be accessible regardless of the cultural references they make. Here, I will attempt to discuss how one may consider and critique the foreign film holistically in order to appreciate it as much as possible. My analysis will somewhat segment into social, political, historical and cultural aspects of foreign films respectively, but it must be noted that these distinct aspects are not separate from one another, and oftentimes overlap. Here goes!
The Host
One of the first aspects is to consider the social-political differences that one may not pick up on while watching a foreign film. A recent South Korean film, The Host (괴물, Gwoemul – “Monster”), was one of the most financially and critically successful domestic films in South Korea to date: it’s hilarious, moving, and terrifying – all in one unique bundle. The tone shifted seamlessly from one to the next, a tragedy instantly transforming into a comedy, and vice versa in the next second. Underneath the drama and farce lies a deeply political charge that has historical and social significance to South Koreans: the premise is partly inspired a 2000 incident in which a U.S. military-hired Korean mortician dumped large amounts of formaldehyde down the drain; this added some antagonism against the United States, notwithstanding the environmental concerns raised. In the movie, this is the same reason for the genesis of the monster. The film also references the chemical Agent Orange, code name for the herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military in its herbicidal warfare during the Vietnam War; the movie’s equivalent is Agent Yellow, the chemical used by the American military to combat the monster in the final scenes. Additionally, Bong Joon-ho’s film satirizes the South Korean government as bureaucratic, inefficient and callous. The tone shifts could throw off the average viewer who didn’t understand this political and social context, but those who understood such a sentiment could easily appreciate Joon-ho’s idiosyncratic take on a classic monster genre.
Taare Zameen Par
Sometimes, to fully appreciate a foreign film, you need someone who can explain to you different details and the significance of such throughout the film. Such was the case a few months ago when I watched the 2007 Indian film, Taare Zameen Par (तारे ज़मीन पर, “Like Stars On Earth”) with a good Indian friend of mine. The story is about a young boy, Ishaan Awasthi, who is failing in school because unbeknownst to his family, classmates and schoolteachers, he struggles with dyslexia. His learning disability is unacknowledged by everyone, and only when he is sent to boarding school does a temporary art teacher, Ram Shankar Nikumbh (“Nikumbh Sir”), truly understand and empathize with Ishaan’s troubles and how much psychological and emotional pain the boy has endured.
During the viewing, my friend would occasionally interject (and sometimes pause the film for full explanations) different bits of information that I found interesting and enlightening: even though the film is as Bollywood as it gets, he noted that the songs (mostly Hindi) were unusually well integrated into the overall narrative, and even translated a few key lyrics that the subtitles didn’t capture; then there’s the classic Indian family that he pointed out, with the strict father and the nurturing mother; there’s also a scene where Ishaan is continuously smacked by his classmates in the hallway, who call him “stupid” over and over again, thus highlighting a significant cultural emphasis on intelligence; and most interesting of all (that I didn’t know prior) was that it is rare for anyone to speak 100% Hindi without any English words thrown in – and such was demonstrated by one of Ishaan’s teachers at his boarding school in one scene.
Even without my friend’s input I would’ve received Taare Zameen Par warmly; with this additional cultural knowledge throughout the film, I appreciated Aamir Khan’s film that much more, and am even more open to Indian Bollywood films thereon after (in fact, we’re both planning to watch the 2009 film 3 Idiots in the near future).
Departures
Sometimes foreign films require extra research post-viewing to completely understand what has happened on screen. Such was the case with my initial viewing of Departures (おくりびと, Okuribito), the 2008 film by Yōjirō Takita. I fell in love with the story, cinematography and music during my first viewing, which was with my family as well (both my mother and older brother had seen it prior, and he provided some quiet commentary throughout). The film had such a uniquely sad and remorseful quality that was not overwrought but simply human, and strangely healing at the same time. Most significant of all was that it tackles the idea of life and death, how we define life, and why a dead loved one’s body is so sacred (Viet Le has been in the process of writing a very, very long article on this – I will notify readers and link the article immediately once it is published. We’ve been discussing it for over three months and I look forward to its completion). After finishing the drama, I looked up some additional information about the film’s production, and learned some amazing things: for one, the film took ten years to make (and understandably too, since the topic is on one of the most taboo social subjects of Japan); actor Masahiro Motoki, who played the torn Daigo Kobayashi, learned the art of 納棺 nōkan, “encoffinment,” first hand from a mortician, and learned how to play cello for certain scenes of the movie. I’m still awestruck by director Takita’s sensitivity and his profound approach to such a taboo topic, and how incredibly humane and emotionally gripping the final film came out to be. Unsurprisingly, it won Japan’s top prestigious award of the year and the Oscar for Best Foreign Film in 2009 – and for good reason too.
The Scent of Green Papaya
Understanding the historical context can be invaluable to one’s foreign film experience. As a Vietnamese American, I can fully empathize and understand the context of films such as The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), Three Seasons (1999), and Journey from the Fall (2006) since they all deal with my cultural heritage that I strongly identify with; in talking about these films to others, I do my best not only to explain the film itself but why certain aspects have a significance to Vietnamese history and the Vietnamese community (i.e. human trafficking, reeducation camps, Thai pirates that raided escape boats, foreigners visiting Vietnam, French-occupied Vietnam, changing social, cultural and infrastructural tides, etc). Taking the time to research and read further on the historical context is, perhaps, crucial if one wants to understand why a film is so beloved and successful in its country of origin. For instance, The Secret of Kells draws lovingly from Irish history, and its aesthetic draws heavily from Celtic mythology; Robert Tan compiled a list and wrote a great analysis on the Irish roots of Kells, which I highly recommend for anyone who has seen Kells already (or is planning to and greatly enjoys history and mythology of any kind). Another great film for worthy of historical research is the 2006 German film, The Lives of Others (Das Leben deer Anderen), a fascinating look into the agents of Stasi in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall and German reunification 1989 (I need to re-watch the film – it’s been awhile, and a lot of details have been lost from my memory).
Lust, Caution
Cultural aspects are always a bit trickier to address when you don’t have someone explain and put things in perspective, and sometimes these aspects are lost in translation or simply can’t be translated at all. For instance, years ago I knew a girl who remarked she didn’t want to see Stephen Chow’s Shaolin Soccer (少林足球) because “it was too weird” despite my enthusiasm for its slapstick and over-the-top premise (in fact, she later added that she didn’t like the idea of “weird ass” kung fu being combined with soccer at all – the comedy and style was completely foreign to her). During my first viewing, I didn’t understand all of the jokes, as some were very distinctly Chinese (a good friend of mine told me later what the jokes were about, but even then I had trouble grasping the punchline). There was a similar problem with Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution (色，戒) in 2007 with American critics, most who concluded that it was a overdrawn espionage that was primarily about sex (some even said the acting was flat, which I completely disagree with). The same friend who enlightened me about Shaolin Soccer’s jokes described the film as “very Chinese,” and after my recent viewing of the film I can see why: the film feels very much like a novel, and relies heavily on the emotions that are not explicitly stated but subtly expressed with small gestures and glances – a style that is very much embedded in East Asian cultural normality, where we often do not say aloud but hint at and quietly understand the visceral nature of socializing.
Tekkon Kinkreet
Things getting lost in translation are inevitable, and the most profound are often the terms themselves. When the name of the Japanese anthology of Studio 4ºC’s short animated films was released in 2007, Genius Party, there was some backlash from some of the online community who believed the name was arrogant and pretentious; however, it turns out that the term “genius” is actually one of respect for those who do exceptional work, and by no means entails any sense of arrogance or pretension in the Japanese language. A similar problem occurred with the 2006 film Tekkon Kinkreet (鉄コン筋クリート Tekkon Kinkurīto, a child’s mispronunciation of “Tekkin Konkurito” – steel reinforced concrete), a Japanese animated film that relied heavily on wordplay and homonyms. A lot of the clever dialogue was untranslatable, and understandably it didn’t receive a wide English release outside of Japan since only those exceptionally familiar with Japanese culture and language would be able to fully understand the film beyond its premise.
The Triplets of Belleville
On a subtopic of cultural differences, I feel it’s important to address how differently many Americans perceive animated films to be than the rest of the world (as snarkily stated by Mr. Fox at the 2009 Academy Awards and demonstrated by Anne Hathaway’s comments about animated films during the 2007 Academy Awards – the second clip that I cannot find, unfortunately, but remember very distinctly since she was bouncing off of Steve Carrell during the announcement). Foremost, animated films are not a genre, and they are not exclusive to children; in fact, some of the best animated films have incredibly adult thematics, as demonstrated by Isao Takahata’s Grave of the Fireflies (火垂るの墓 Hotaru no Haka) in 1988, Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s Persepolis in 2007 (I’ve read the book but have yet to see the film, which I heard is an amazing adaptation of an already amazing story) and Sylvain Chomet’s quirky 2003 film The Triplets of Belleville (Les Triplettes de Belleville). Most Americans commonly associate animated films to be pandering exclusively to children, much due to Disney’s tremendous legacy and domination of American animation for over 70 years; additionally, with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences deeming the awards for animated features as “Best Animated Film,” it essentially reinforces the belief that animated films are completely separate from live-action films. This is a false assumption: live-action and animated films are not separate, and both are very capable of telling amazing and moving stories with their respective strengths and weaknesses. A further demonstration of such cultural differences would be to juxtapose Japan’s equivalent award ceremony to that of the American Oscars, which is the Japan Academy Prize (日本アカデミー賞 Nippon Akademī-shō), also known as the Japan/Japanese Academy Awards. For animated features, the Japan Academy Prize award is listed as “Best Animation of the Year,” which is a subtle but significant difference from the Oscar’s “Best Animated Picture” category; to say the least, the Japan Academy Prize treats animation as technical and artistic prize much in the same vein as “Best Cinematography,” and thus does not exclude animated features from a chance at the prestigious prize, “Picture of Year” (in fact, Hayao Miyazaki’s films Princess Mononoke (もののけ姫) and Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し）won this award in 1998 and 2002, respectively).
Paprika
But back to cultural differences, which can also entail a target audience that may not transfer over easily to another country by virtue of who the artist or work is. For instance, fans of Satoshi Kon would expect nothing less than the inane psychological madness and dazzling, unbounded dream sequences of his work, as demonstrated in one of his English wide releases Paprika (パプリカ) back in 2006; yet many American critics faulted the movie for this very reason, most who were unfamiliar with Kon’s filmography and work up until this point. A similar reaction happened with Shinichirō Watanabe’s 2001 film debut Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (劇場版 カウボーイビバップ 天国の扉), which was essentially an extended and exceptionally well-animated episode of the hit and legendary anime series Cowboy Bebop (1998); yet again many American reviewers did not know of its origin or cultural significance, and simply regarded the movie as a practice in jazzy bebop stylization, and nothing else.
Antichrist
There are times, too, when cultural differences cause a major backlash when foreign films are released domestically. Take for instance the sweet and lovable Amélie (Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain) by Jean-Pierre Jeunet in 2001, which received an R rating from the MPAA due to a 15 second compilation of orgasms – I argue that this was an incredibly unfair rating (especially considering what other PG-13 films have gotten away with, i.e. Coyote Ugly) but alas, such is what the MPAA does when determining what “is” and what “isn’t” suitable for American audiences. Similarly, Lars von Trier’s 2009 film Antichrist was highly successful in Denmark, financially and critically so; yet at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival the film polarized critics, all acknowledging the artistic execution but ultimately divided on its substance and message. There was also the discussion about Miyazaki’s Ponyo not getting the nomination for “Best Animated Picture” despite its outstanding visuals and animation feat; I suppose it must have been a slight backlash from Disney being its sole marketer (a friend of mine commented she thought it was “a weird Disney attempt at doing anime,” which may be indicative of how the public felt) but there was also a distinct xenophobic aspect to the decision, especially considering that The Secret of Kells – which received no wide release prior to the Oscars – was nominated instead (please note I am not lambasting Kells; I believe it is a fine film that equally deserved that nomination as well as Ponyo). And then there was the heartwarming Taare Zameen Par that failed to get a Academy Award nomination in 2009 for “Best Foreign Film” despite being better received in India than Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire – a sentiment that I agree with full-heartedly – yet some stated it was too long and had too many songs to be worthy of consideration. In the end, sometimes you really don’t know how these things work out, and you just do the best you can to get over this kind of cultural backlash when you watch foreign films.
Treeless Mountain
Technical aspects are always fair game. Cinematography, composition, editing, special effects – the technical workings of film have an almost universal standard, and I believe firmly that these aspects have no distinct cultural root otherwise (as I’ve said before, visual composition is not distinctly Western or Eastern – the aesthetic and depiction of subjects are, but not the cinematographic fundamentals). For instance, a few weeks ago I watched a South Korean drama film called Treeless Mountain (나무없는 산, Namueopneun San) by newcomer So Yong Kim, released in 2008: it was a very sweet and moving story, and would’ve been a great film had it not suffered from one great flaw – the overuse of close-ups. Nearly every shot of the film was a close-up shot, and very rarely was there any establishing shot that put the scene and characters into context; in fact, at various points I got so fed up with the gross amounts of claustrophobic close-ups that I almost stopped watching entirely (I didn’t, but there were a few close calls). Another Netflix instant stream that I watched was the 2006 French film Tell No One (Ne le dis à personne), which was once of the best thrillers I’ve seen in a long while. Contrived? You bet. But that’s beyond the point of thrillers – what it did well was the directing, acting and editing, keeping you on the edge of your seat with twists and turns and gunshots until finally, the last trick – and then you’re relieved, but shaken from the amazing ride. The same could be said about the Zhang Yimou’s 2002 Chinese film Hero (英雄), which used a beautiful palette of distinct and contrasting colors as a function of the multiple tales told by the nameless warrior portrayed by Jet Li.
House of Flying Daggers
So how do we consider the story of a foreign film, knowing full well that there are cultural, social, historical and political forces behind the final product? Is it fair to judge the story on its own accord, based solely off your own experience? Are you self-aware of your own lack of understanding? If so, are you willing to acknowledge such and approach the film with a sense of cultural humility? Personally, I think that with a holistic understanding you gain a greater appreciation of a great story or one you may not quite comprehend upon first viewing (similar to reading the introduction of a book, which usually puts a lot of the content into perspective). There are times, though, where having a greater understanding may not salvage your foreign moviegoing experience: such is the instance I had with Yimou’s 2004 film House of Flying Daggers (十面埋伏), where despite the use of strong colors, graceful choreography and classic Asian theatrical drama I was ultimately turned off by the numerous plot twists that seemed far too contrived, more than what I’m willing to believe (this might be hypocritical on my part, considering it is a Wuxia film and invariably lends itself to fictitious representations by default, and theoretically I should appreciate it more for what it does well… but I digress).
Let the Right One In
There are times, though, when foreign films are just outstanding on their own accord, and that understanding cultural, social, political and historical context only makes the film greater in itself. My top three favorites at moment are: Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno, “The Faun’s Labyrinth”) in 2006; Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (七人の侍) in 1954; and Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) in 2008. Personally, I believe that these films are essentially stand-alone from the respective countries they were produced in: everything from the story, directing, acting, cinematography, editing and so on is masterfully done that supplementary information thereafter only enhances your experience of the narrative. I watched Seven Samurai years ago and knew very little about film or Japanese history, and still loved the film; now, with more knowledge years later, I understand what Kurosawa achieved in filmmaking, and it only reaffirms my respect for the man. The same goes for Pan’s Labyrinth, which I saw with a horrific and awestruck fascination when it was first released: I remember going in thinking that it would be a Tim Burton-esque fantasy story, only to watch and leave the theatre realizing experiencing a very, very classic fantasy story – the horror and gore elements all included. And now with my current reading of Grimm’s Fairy Tales I am able to appreciate del Toro’s vision even more so, and am still haunted by images of creatures like the Pale Man (still one of the most traumatizing scenes in my life thus far). And let’s not forget the strangely romantic Swedish film Let the Right One In, which raised some interesting questions as to one’s existence as a vampire (questions I further raised and addressed in a previous article); the film brought to light a lot of emotions that were odd when in conjunction with the horrific nature of vampires, but was nonetheless sweet, touching, and amazingly visceral.
Taking into account our own lack of understanding for any culture different from that of our own is essential if one is to fully appreciate a foreign film. There is a universality to narratives, as detailed by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, but there is also a ethnocentric tendency that we must tame in pursuing a holistic critique, one that does not involve the “that’s bizarre!” or “why on earth would you do that?” typical of those lacking any sense of cultural humility.
Journey from the Fall
I have the benefit of understanding Asian culture, which is why I’m so familiar with East Asian cinema (if it isn’t already obvious from the list of foreign films I’ve mentioned). So whenever I talk about a Asian film I make the extra effort to communicate the knowledge I have, so as to do justice not only to the film but also to viewers who do not possess the same knowledge as I do. This does not detract away my appreciation of other foreign films not based in East Asian cinema – it only makes me account for my shortcomings even more, and to appreciate that there is a limit to my immediate understanding when I watch the reel play across the screen. I’m sure that in due time I’ll have added more foreign films to the list of “movies I’ve watched” thanks to the aid of Netflix, which has made foreign, independent, documentary and non-Hollywood films that much more accessible. Before, I didn’t have this luxury, and was dependent on what the local theatre was showing. Now that I am able to watch a greater diversity of films, I’ll be sure to keep my eyes open for anything that seems interesting and anything that has been heralded by “Great Movies” lists. So far, the list is thus (and in no particular order):
Tell No One
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (I’d like to read the book prior as well)
• The Funeral
• Horus: Prince of the Sun (太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険)
• 3 Idiots
• Persepolis (I highly recommend reading the book)
• Waltz with Bashir
• Tokyo Sonata
• Akira Kurosawa’s entire filmography (I might as well marathon it – he’s that amazing)
• Tokyo!
• Big Man Japan
• Y tu mamá también
• The Class (I actually watched about a quarter of it so far – I’ll need to finish it when I get back from Vietnam. It also seems like the original autobiographical (?) book would be a great read as well)
• The Motorcycle Diaries
• Three… Extremes (I’m actually terrible when it comes to horror films, but I know I’ll eventually have to see extreme Asian horror – so why not this one?)
• Cache
• Belle de Jour (I actually watched this before, but would like to see this again in a different light)
• 8 ½
• 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days
• The 400 Blows
• Floating Weeds
• Tokyo Story
• Ugetsu
• Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance Trilogy (I’ve seen Oldboy, now I need see the other two)
• Thirst
• Antichrist (again, tackling one of my fears head-on and doing it with one of the most extreme examples… yikes)
• Nosferatu
• Metropolis
• Le Samouraï
• Life is Beautiful
• The White Ribbon
That’s all for now. Additionally, Allan Estrella has provided me with some very helpful links that provide some critique for some Asian films and dramas:
If you have any suggestions for foreign films and/or criticism on foreign films, feel free to leave them in the comments or send me a email through the contact form. Cheers!
