Random Thoughts

Ozu is mixing it up! This character is placed mid-shot as usual, but he’s not staring into the camera! He’s looking slightly to the left of the camera!!1! OZU IS INNOVATING!

Oh, right, hi, welcome back to the Late Ozu Box Set Live Blogging Experience.

I think Ozu has the most movies in the Criterion Eclipse series — twelve films? I enjoyed his early movies a lot, but the first one on this Late Ozu box set seemed… scattered? This is another two and a half hour family drama thing, I think.

I mean, it’s Ozu’s thing — but it does feel like he’s not really making an effort in these scenes: Just doing the same shot over and over again.

And the thing is that the shot works — when the actors are compelling. The guy here isn’t really.

I’m really digging this movie, cats. It’s kinda funky? I mean, there’s a lot being left unsaid, and there’s a lot being said obliquely. It’s like… a melodrama, but shifting between subtle and forthright at the drop of a hat.

The liner notes on the DVD talks about this movie being “sordid” and how Japanese audiences didn’t much like it, but… it’s not at all? It’s depicting these characters, making their best choices, and not judging them. It’s, like, really humane?

Tokyo Twilight. Yasujirô Ozu. 1957.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

Wow, this is a snappy film. After watching so many slow French and Japanese movies, it’s overwhelming.

Makavejev’s name seems extremely familiar — I feel like I should know who he is, but I don’t, really.

Very chaotic.

This movie looks great. The shakycam is a bit hard on my stomach, though.

It’s an uneven film — there’s brilliant, striking scenes here, and then there’s jokey anecdote asides that are… fun? But altogether, it doesn’t quite gel, I think.

Hsss.

Man is Not a Bird. Dušan Makavejev. 1965.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

This is most drôle. Ghosts and romance.

Hang on… Is that a young Jacques Tati?

It’s even got a ghost dog!

This started off really well, with lots of zip and pep. It’s still amusing, but it’s gotten a bit bogged down? We’ve been introduced to three fake ghosts and one real, and several other people, so we’ve kinda lost track of the initial characters.

It’s dark, see?

This is a most amiable movie — very pleasant to watch. But it does plod along when it should be doing snap-snap-snap hi-jinx at times. The liner notes mention Blithe Spirit, but it really suffers in comparison: While this has a pretty good premise, they really needed somebody like Noel Coward to step in and make the repartee better.

The ghostly special effects are great, though — and done practically, with two identical sets and optical effects.

Sylvie et le Fantôme. Claude Autant-Lara. 1946.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

Ozu’s Tokyo Story is officially the best movie ever (you don’t get more official than the director’s poll at Sight and Sound). Well, at least it was in 2012 — in a week we’ll find out what the new winner is.

This is the first film on the Late Ozu box set, but it’s not that late — we’re starting off three years after Tokyo Story, after all.

All the films on this box set seem to be two and a half hours long, so *gulp*.

This starts off very placidly indeed…

We’re fifteen minutes in, and it’s still unclear what this is going to be about. I like it. It kinda reminds me of Éric Rohmer’s approach to filmmaking, but I guess the influence is going in the other direction.

Kitten! This movie has it all.

And I still have no idea what it’s about. I’m starting to worry that something horrible is going to happen, just as a contrast to all this non-drama.

Very careful with the lighting.

Uzo sure loves this exact framing — a single person in the middle of the shot, talking straight to the camera (but really the other person sitting on the other side of the mat).

*gasp* Is this the only scene in the film where the camera isn’t stationary?

Yeah!

OK, my mind started wandering, and I lost track of what’s been going on. Er… I don’t think a whole lot? It’s about a guy having an affair, and being kinda unhappy about it, as well as being unhappy about being a salaryman.

The performances are lovely and stuff, but there really doesn’t seem to be any reason for this movie to be this long. It’s not like Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles where the slowness is an important part of the film — instead this just doesn’t seem to… move along.

Early Spring. Yasujirô Ozu. 1956.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.

This is really good — razor sharp characters, fantastic set design, and a promising storyline.

Uhm uhm… this isn’t going as well as I’d hoped. I mean, it’s a nice movie and all, and I like the languorous pacing, but it’s just not that interesting?

There’s the most hilarious review of this on imdb:

If Truffaut could have written even one line half as good as these two cats he’d be well on the way to earning Amateur status. The fact is that next to these two Truffaut is illiterate. Put it this way, they’re still showing ‘Douce’ sixty years after it was made. Will time be so good to The Four Hundred Yawns. In your dreams, Francois.

Yeah… people have totally forgotten The 400 Blows now, and are only watching Douce. (Imdb has the ratings count at 119K vs 365. Without the K.)

OK, now the movie is downright tedious. And it started so well!

Douce. Claude Autant-Lara. 1943.

This blog post is part of the Eclipse series.