Random Thoughts

Huh. This Grémillon box set is also set during the occupation. I’ve somehow saved a whole bunch of box sets filmed during WWII in Japan and France for the end of this blog series (we’ve got about 10% to go until it’s done). I didn’t do this consciously, so I guess it’s just a coinkidink.

*gasp* Jean Gabin!

This looks like it’s going to be a very moist movie.

But it was filmed mostly before France was occupied, and isn’t really about the war at all, I think?

Looks quite promising. It was a major box office success when it was finally released…

It’s just a light breeze.

This movie is getting to be a bit annoying. They spend most of the time shouting at each other, and it’s all So Much Drama. And it’s the stupidest drama possible — I mean, they’re in the middle of a huge storm, so you’d think that’d supply the drama, but instead it’s a lot of bickering AT FULL VOLUME.

I find this a pretty frustrating movie. It’s not boring, exactly — it zips past — but it doesn’t make much sense as a drama?

I guess it’s gonna end with Gabin saving the villain again or something. There has to be another stormy scene, I think.

Isn’t there even going to be another storm? Well, that’s a disappointment.

Oh, finally! An SOS from the evil guy’s ship, which I’ve been waiting for half this movie… but there’s just three minutes left?

So it’s gonna end with Gabin riding out into the storm to save the evil guy? But without actually showing it?

Yup.

Well, that sucks.

OOPS SPOILERS

Stormy Waters. Jean Grémillon. 1941.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

Oh, this is a silent movie… Uhm… there’s an audio track here with very vigorous pianner music… but perhaps I should listen to something else to avoid going insane. But what! OK, I’m putting on …and the Ambulance Died In His Arms by Coil.

The Eclipse sets usually aren’t restored films — they’re supposed to be cheap and stuff. But this one is just weird: The footage looks great, not a lot of scratches or dirt, but whenever they change between the footage and the titles, there’s these aggressive horizontal white stripes for one (1) frame on each change. And there’s a lot of titles. A lot. With mostly just a couple words on each title. It’s really annoying, and it seemed like you could get somebody on Fiverr to just paint out those white lines in Photoshop. (With black lines, for instance.) Or drop those frames.

(And these days there’s probably AI that could do that for you, with a slight chance of inserting Nick Cage’s face into the scenes.)

OK, perhaps it’s not that easy to photoshop those lines out… NEVER MIND

I guess they glued the film back together after making edits with sticky tape that turned wrinkly or something?

Well, that’s a cool scene.

I’m having some difficulty getting into this — perhaps because of the judders whenever there’s a cut making me slightly dizzy — but it’s certainly a pretty movie. Shimizu made over 150 films in his career, with up to ten films per year, so it’s a wonder he found time to add nice cinematographic flourishes.

I don’t really know how doe throw the die on this one. When I could look at it, it looks great and interesting, but the glitches and shuddering do me in, so I find myself avoiding actually looking at the screen if I think there’s a cut coming up. So how about:

Japanese Girls at the Harbor. Hiroshi Shimizu. 1933.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

That’s just not true! I’m very productive and my character is the worst.

Kurosawa’s previous wartime movie avoided dealing with the war at all by being all samurai and stuff. But this looks like it’s going to be a straightforward wartime effort propaganda movie?

She almost organised a strike, because they increased the men’s workload by 100%, but the women’s only by 50%, and that was totally unpatriotic. So she convinced the factory owners to increase the women’s by 75%. (Because women are weaker than men, but not that weak.)

Hey! What’s with the slut shaming!

Yes! Work through your pain and illness! Infect everybody else! For Japan!

As somebody’s that’s generally unimpressed with Kurusawa (I think he’s the most overrated director ever… after Uwe Boll), this is very satisfying to watch. Because it’s pure, awful, horrible, amateurish junk.

Hah! I knew it! He was never any good!

It’s got a 5.7 on imdb:

As for the quality of the film, it’s not surprising that there are some serious discrepancies in the ratings. Like many great directors, I notice that some ALWAYS rate all of the directors films high–even though it’s clear that Kurosawa (like most directors) was not a master director early in his career.

Work it!

Uhm uhm sure.

This is a bad movie, but there’s some nice scenes in here, and some performances that aren’t bad. So I guess it would be more reasonable roll of the die would be ⚁, but I’m not reasonable, so:

The Most Beautiful. Akira Kurosawa. 1944.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

So this is a mockumentary?

So this is a parody of older Yugoslavian movies?

It’s kinda gruesome as parodies go, since it seems like it has actual documentary footage from WWII?

I mean, it’s amusing, but it’s not “ha ha” funny…?

I guess that’s “satire” for you.

OK, this film is just an excuse to show off these (admittedly amazing) acrobatic strongman feats?

Oh, right. This is a found footage film — Makavejev took a bunch of old documentary footage, and filmed the linking er skits between them to establish a sort of narrative.

Hm… the DVD liner notes claims that the funny bits in between the acrobatics are also old? I assumed those were parodies filmed by Makavejev… I’m not sure I believe the liner notes.

Oh, OK, this looks like it might actually be the real “lost” movie from the 40s. It looks properly amateurish instead of fake amateurish.

OK, now it’s looking fake amateurish again. I mean, it’s just too good. I mean, bad. I mean:

That can’t actually be from an actual film anybody actually released in the actual 40s. Actually.

Wikipedia is signing off on this not being a parody but actually “an old amateur feature pic”. 🤷🏽‍♂️

It’s an amusing film, if rather mean spirited. (I bet it was a hoot to make.) But it’s a joke that goes on for way too long — there’s material here for like a half hour movie? And then it just goes on and on.

Innocence Unprotected. Dušan Makavejev. 1968.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

It’s weird seeing oldee-tymey looking Japanese people in colour, finally. I mean, contemporary from the 1950s…

I’m digging this movie — it’s kinda languid and relaxed… And funny. I mean, so far. I’m guessing there’s gonna be some drama later, but I’m confident it won’t be too stressful.

Somehow the framing and sets here remind me of Tati — all these greys and desaturated colours and the tidyness of it all…

I guess I’m a bit confused. The movie started off in a “well, it’s nice that my daughters are finding love matches, so we don’t have to marry them off ourselves”, but then suddenly that’s a major So Much Drama thing. The father’s motivations seems a bit unclear? Why’s he such a party pooper all of a sudden?

Perhaps you had to be there. I mean, in the 50s.

I want my apartment to look like this bar.

Those dark green-grey walls… 🙀

Ozu does this scene over and over and over again in these movies — that is, the husband undressing and dropping his clothes on the floor, and then the wife picking the clothes up and putting them into the cupboard. I’m not quite sure what Ozu is trying to say, though — “fuck all Japanese men”? Or is it just something to have happen while the married couples are talking?

YES!!!

Speak for yourself!

I like this film, but… it just feels like Ozu’s not committing to the characters’ melodramas (like he did in Tokyo Twilight — he was totally on board with all the characters there). Here he’s more going “well, this guy’s certainly kinda weird and illogical”, which is a difficult position to make a compelling melodrama from.

OK, I was gonna throw a ⚃ on this, but the ending is so cuddly that I had to go one more:

Equinox Flower. Yasujirô Ozu. 1958.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.