Departures: A journey home

Okuribito
Directed by:Yôjirô Takita
Writer: Kundo Koyama
Release Date:13 September 2008 (Japan)
Starring: Masahiro Motoki (Daigo Kobayashi); Tsutomu Ya-mazaki (Ikuei Sasaki); Ryoko Hirosue (Mika Kobayashi); Kazuko Yoshiyuki (Tsuyako Yamashita); Kimiko Yo (Yuriko Kamimura); Takashi Sasano (Shokichi Hirata)

I really don't believe that an award, whatever great it may be, can do anything to a film. If a movie is great, it’s so in its own right. Take for example, ‘Shawshank Redemption.’ It did not win any awards whatsoever. Yet, it's the top film in the IMDB.com list of 250 most-voted movies.
Yet, you expect some films to get their due, because they deserve it. Last year, I was rallying for Ali Folman’s Israeli, animated docu-drama about the 1982 Lebanon war, ‘Waltz with Bashir.’ When the film was nominated for Oscar for best foreign-language film, I expected it win the honour. The film deserved the award. Instead, the award went to an obscure Japanese film called ‘Departures.’ That’s the reason I said I don’t trust awards.
However, after seeing ‘Departures’ yesterday, I'm ready to admit that it was not a wrong choice, after all. Will I call ‘Departures’ a great film, the way I will call ‘Waltz’ a great film? I don’t know. But I will happily recommend it to anyone. It’s a rare gem, glowing incessantly.
‘Okuribito’ is decidedly a small film, like a Japanese miniature, or a bonsai, and it does not lose its focus while meditating on issues of life and death, more life than death perhaps, even though the plot ostensibly deals with dead bodies. The story it wants to tell outweighs the philosophy it tries to impart; there are philosophies nonetheless. Here’s one I enjoyed: “You have to eat if you want to live. Since you have to eat, it better taste good.” Food plays an important role in the film. So is music, so is a desire for a happy family, and other assorted issues of life, and that too when there are more dead bodies in the film than the living creatures. But the film is not about death per se. It's about understanding life through death, and death itself... the beauty of it, and how it shapes the life of those who stay behind. After his ambition to become a cello player fails miserably, Daigo Kobayashi leaves Tokyo to his countryside home with his wife Mika. All his mother had left him was a cafe, which his father used to run before he run away with a waitress when Daigo was six year old. Since then, he has not been able to come to terms with his absentee father. (There are a few sequences between the father and son in flashback, involving stones, which veers towards melodrama; but that’s besides the point...) On reaching the small, desolate town, the first job Daigo applies to is that of preparing the dead for funerals. Daigo is not sure whether he can do the job. He questions if he is being tested for his failure to attend his mother’s funeral. His first job goes really bad. But as the days go by, he finds himself more and more immersed in the job, and his cello.
The extended scenes of Diago preparing the dead, cleaning the bodies, changing their dress, applying make-up, from young girls to old man, can be very unsettling for viewers. But the film exists for these scenes, not vice-versa. The Japanese culture has always been fascinated by death. The film not only reinforces it, but also makes us comfortable with the idea of death.
At one point, Diago asks, why we have to work so hard if we are all going to die anyway? To this, an old man, who works in the funeral home, answers, death is not the end, it’s just the beginning of another journey, the journey home. And it’s Daigo’s job to get them ready for the final journey, and he does it with all the seriousness of an artist. Every job has its dignity, and more so in Daigo Kobayashi’s job.
The several dead bodies that Daigo prepare have their own uniqueness and those small and beautifully created scenes add to the drama of the film. There is a dead crossdresser, a wife mourned by her husband (it’s a small scene, but how the husband cries, 'Naomi,' can break your heart!), there’s a young girl dead in a bike accident, there is a patriarch, who gets kisses from his family members while lying on the coffin, and finally, Daigo must prepare his father for the last journey.
The beautifully desolate town and haunting sound of the cello adds to mood of the film, which is not sombre as it sounds, but forcefully life-affirming.

Our men in Havana

Films:
Before Night Falls
Strawberry and Chocolate
The Lost City
Scarface
El Argentine, Che Part I

In the post-post-modern world we live in, fed with everything American, the small island state of Cuba, just miles away from the US of A remains an enigma. Even after so many years, Cuba means commu-nism, Fidel Castro and Che Guevera, and of course, the Havana cigars. Beyond this, the world outside knows next to nothing about the country and its people.
Yes, good ol’ Hollywood has tried its hands in bring Cuba to popular imagination (No, we are not talking about Che Guevera, he is a post-modern anti-establishment icon on his own right; conservative Hollywood has nothing to do with it.), but most of these movies sees the country from outside and portrays it a ‘commie’ state, totalitarian and oppressive. If you want to be your own man, you must leave Cuba, (and come to America, who will give you asylum, of course). So, Tony Montana (Al Pacino) in Brian De Palma’s ‘Scarface’ must leave the country to pursue his American Dream. In films like ‘Bad Boys II’, ‘Miami Vice,’ ‘The Godfather,’ ‘Die Another Day’, Cuba is the breeding ground of drug dealers and mafia.
On the other extreme, it’s the country of lost hopes, which Andy Garcia so succinctly depicts in ‘The Lost City.’ The premise of the film is that Cuba was a great nation until the revolution happened, after which individualism was scarified, so was the arts.
As Garcia’s film bemoans the loss of Cuba, one thing is clear. You cannot have a real picture of the country in films, it’s either black or white — either Cuba is the villain (in which case America will be the hero, from ‘Scarface’ to ‘Before Night Falls’), and if Cuba is the hero (as in Steven Soderbergh’s two part epic on Che Guevera), America is the villain.
Add to that gay rights issues in Cuba, the scene is complicated. A popular document of the gay life and its persecution is Julian Schnabel’s celebrated ‘Before Night Falls, a film based on the autobiography of Reinaldo Arenas, a Cuban author and an avowed homosexual who had to escape to America to survive the persecution. Despite Javier Bardem’s powerhouse performance (he was nominated for an Oscar), the film somehow did not work for me. (I cannot find fault in Schnabel either. He is an excellent director. The 2007 film ‘The Diving Bell and the Butterfly’ is the ample prove.) For me, the problem was that it identified the revolution and the revolutionaries as the villain very early in the film. You agree with the reality of the situation, but why do you have to rub it insistently. The problem was, the film saw Arenas from the outside, and invited us to sympathise with him, even if we did not want to.
And, the fact that the film is in English, with Bardem speaking with Spanish accent does not help the case either.
This brings us to the other film, which actually prompted me to write this piece. The film in question is ‘Strawberry and Chocolate.’ Called ‘Fresa y Chocolate’ it’s a Cuban-Spanish-Mexican co-produced, directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío, based on the short story "The Wolf, The Forest and the New Man" written by Senel Paz in 1990.
What’s great about the film is that it catches you unawares, and it never unfolds the way it expects. Diego is gay, slightly effeminate, and a writer and artist. He meets David, who is nursing a heartbreak after his girlfriend is married. Diego tries to seduce David, but the things are not easy as they look. David is a communist, committed to the revolution, whereas Diego wants to live his life the way he wants, reading foreign magazines, drinking red label... As the film progresses we see how the two ideologies, the pro and anti-establishment collide on a humane level and cements the bond of friendship. Diego learns to accepts the rules, David learns to break them... This is where it scores over ‘Before Night Falls,’ which takes a long romantic look on a man’s life, without actually trying to un-derstand what’s going on.
Now, Arenas escapes to America. Even Diego plans to do so. But Diego says he’ll miss Cuba. But for Arenas, US was freedom. But, is it?
Homosexuality is a problem whether its a socialist or a capitalist society. The foundation is every society is marriage and family, something that a queer ideology dismisses, and thus, a queer becomes a threat which must be eliminated.
Talking about the black and white representation of Cuba, even Steven Soderbergh’s near-masterpiece cannot avoid being one-sided. In ‘The Lost City’ the fall of Batista’s fall is a major event. But in ‘El Argentine’ (Part I of the Che movies), this is just a news.
Tailpiece: ‘Our men in Havana’ is an ‘entertainment’ by Graham Greene, which was made into a film in 1959, directed by Carol Reed and starring Alec Guinness. The film was actually shot in Havana.

The big screen

Question. Why do you watch a Wong Kar-wai film? Answer. For its colour and composition. Yes. He can make rain beating a dirty wall look absolutely beautiful (‘In the Mood for Love’); he can make a waterfall look a work of art (‘Happy Together’); he can show innumerable ways of seeing a taxi ride (‘2046’). You see a kar-wai film for its visuals. So, it can be pretty depressing when you have to content yourself seeing the films on a small screen, imagining how it would look like in the big screen.
I am not talking about IMAX. I am talking about a normal theatre screen, not even a 70 mm screen. The big screen has its own magic, which a home theatre with all its fantastic sound and picture devices cannot compete. I am not even talking about the experience of seeing a film with a houseful audience. (I remember seeing a rerun of ‘DDLJ’ in a houseful theatre and what I enjoyed more was how the audience reacted to every major scene. They had all seen the film, they knew what to expect and cheered it happily.)
The visuals on a big screen has its own charm which cannot be compared to anything else. I remember seeing ‘Blue Lagoon’ on a big screen when I was young. The underwater scenes just blew my mind away. Once the film was over, I went to the ticket counter and brought another ticket, such was the allure of the big screen.
Now, with the arrival of multiplexes, with its exorbitant prices and mediocre movies, I prefer to see the films I like at home, thanks to the DVDs. But I miss the experience of the big screen. Imagine how would it be like to see ‘One Upon a Time in West’ in the big screen? or ‘Eight and a Half’?
That’s why I wait for film festivals where you can experience cinema as it should be. I remember seeing ‘Seven Samurai’ in the big screen. It was a fantastic experience.

Military Horror

R-Point (2004)
Written and Directed by: Su-chang Kong
K-Horror movies, as horror movies from Korea is popularly known, have an almost magical ability to make the macabre and bizarre look absolutely convincing, even while using the traditional parameters of evoking fear, blood and zombies included. And mercifully, at most places, it tends to avoid the religious mambo-jumbo, which Hollywood is so fond of.
No wonder then, K-Horror is slowly replacing the Japanese horror industry as a potential ‘inspiration’ for Hollywood. Two prominent recent examples: The 2008 film ‘Mirror’ by Alexandre Aja was a remake of Korean film 'Geoul sokeuro' (2003). The 2009 film ‘The Uninvited' is a remake of 'A Tale of Two Sisters,' the highest grossing Korean horror movie ever.
In this context, the 2004 film ‘R-Point’ makes itself a strong contender for appreciation. The best part of the film is that instead of teen-agers and families with a past, it tells the story of a group of soldiers: A horror fest in the war zone, and in most parts, it’s eerily convincing, though, like so many horror flicks, it never explains the reasons for all these deaths. But it’s scary enough (I tried to watch it alone in the night and had to stop halfway!)
The story is set in Vietnam in 1972. R-Point is a location which the locals consider sacred. According to the legend, the Chinese had killed thousands of Vietnamese a long times ago, dumped their bodies in a lake and built a temple there. During the world war, the French army had visited the place and all were mysteriously dead. In 1972, an US chopper was shot down over the area and all Americans were killed. Then in 1972, a Korean battalion went missing in the area.
Now, after six months, the army camp gets a message for the lost battalion. So, it sends nine men under renowned combat veteran, LT Choi Tae-in.
Here begins the mayhem, where the line between the dead and the alive starts to disappear.
The best part of the film is its speed. It does not linger unnecessary just to create some cheap thrills. Instead, it focuses on the characters and their reactions to the happenings surrounding them.
But worse part, the film ends in a cliff-hanger. And why should the blood from the radio transmitter?
Here’s the wikipedia story of the film:

The Objective (2008)
Directed by: Daniel Myrick
Starring: Jonas Ball; Matthew R. Anderson; Jon Huertas; Michael C. Williams; Sam Hunter; Jeff Prewett
Talking about soldiers meeting supernatural, I remember another film I saw recently, 'The Objective' (2008). I never heard any buzz about the film, but found it fascinating. Here’s the IMDB plot: "A group of Special Ops Reservists on a mission in the harsh and hostile terrain of Afghanistan find themselves lost in a Middle Eastern "Bermuda Triangle" of ancient evil."
It may sound trite, the film deals with the subject beautifully, though like a good horror film, it never explains anything, but raises too many questions about faith, gods and aliens. Shot in a documentary-style realism, the film has a TV-serial look. That’s the reason probably it did not work. But it’s an interesting film nonetheless.

Sin Nombre

In Cary Fukunaga’s debut feature (Spanish with English subtitles, made by a half-swedish half-Japanese American) about Mexican gangs and illegal immigration, the girl, Sayra, says in complete faith, “Once I was told by a witch, I will go to the US, not holding the hands of God, but holding the hands of the Devil.” The devil in question is Casper or Willey, with a teardrop tattoo next to his right eye, a member of the ‘Mara Salvatrucha’ gang in Mexico. The girl has come a long way from Honduras, with her father (who was in the US and later deported) and her uncle to find a passage to the US. It’s a hard life, they know. But, at least, they would not have to go hungry.
Now, the gang depicted in the film does actually exist in Mexico (In the film, it’s led by a charismatic youth called “The magician” with his face covered with an elaborate tattoo, which fails to hide his crooked charm.), so is the illegal immigration from Latin America to the US via Mexico in freight trains.
But as we know, a good film must, first and foremost, tell a story, and Fukunaga (who won best director’s award at the Sundance film festival this year) does a heartbreaking beautiful job in telling the story, without trying to gloss over the reality of the circumstances and romanticising the reality.
In short, it’s a story of the people living the reality. We are introduced to Casper, a Mara gang member. We are not sure if he likes his job. He, however, is initiating a young novice, Smiley, whose sole aim in life is to be a part of the gang. He is love with Martha. That’s where the problem starts, so begins the unpredictability where the film is heading. Soon, Casper, who now calls himself Willie, finds himself on a freight training on which Sayra is travelling — Martha is dead and Willie has killed The Magician. He knows, sooner or later, the gang will catch up with him; they have money. He is not worried about dying, but hates the idea that he does not know when. Sayra, on the other hand, finds in Willie, a friend, who can help — her devil. It’s his time for redemption.
So, a gang-bang saga turns into a love story, and a love story into a road movie. But not so fast. Smiley, Casper’s novice, now chases Casper through the length of Mexico to extract revenge. So, back to the gang-bang drama.
The beauty of the film lies in the fact that Fukunaga has successfully evoked various genres in the course of his story-telling without falling into the trap of predictability. Till the very end, you do not know what’s going to happen; especially, at the end, when Smiley meets Casper. Add to that the documentary-style realism and breathtakingly beautiful photography, you have a perfect motion picture.