When they dig it up, what will they find? Fans will want to see this forgotten Deutsch-noir masterpiece. Helmut Käutner’s tale of trouble on an American air base in West Germany is a swirl of romantic, political and criminal complications — all down & dirty. A tiny burg that serves as a brothel for U.S. airmen attracts displaced women and dispirited men willing to do what’s necessary to survive. We’ve seem nothing quite like this riveting drama — its sixty-year absence carries a taint of political ‘inconvenience.’ If you like challenging fare like Ace in the Hole and Try and Get Me! you’re going to love it. Both censored and uncensored versions have been restored in excellent quality.
Black Gravel
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1961 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 114, 113 min. / Street Date September 1, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Helmut Wildt, Ingmar Zeisberg, Hans Cossy, Wolfgang Büttner, Anita Höfer, Heinrich Trimbur,...
Black Gravel
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1961 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 114, 113 min. / Street Date September 1, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Helmut Wildt, Ingmar Zeisberg, Hans Cossy, Wolfgang Büttner, Anita Höfer, Heinrich Trimbur,...
- 9/5/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Fighting ElegyLately, unstable times are shaking countries the world over. While in the West we’re dealing with breakups and a resurgence of conservative politics, the East is not faring well either. The past few months have seen news of escalating tensions between South Korea and Japan on the matter of apparently unresolved issues of compensation for Korean forced laborers during World War II, but frictions between these two countries never ceased to exist after the period of Japanese imperialism came to an end in 1945. Proposing yet again its successful formula of pairing classic new wave films with contemporary experimental shorts, this year’s London-based Japanese Avant-garde and Experimental Film Festival dove deep into the concept of nation and explored Japan’s multifaceted and problematic relationship with its own past and national identity. Putting together a thriving selection, the festival proved once again to be attentive to current political turmoil and social trends.
- 9/25/2019
- MUBI
One of the many consequences of the American occupation in Japan after WWII was the resurgence of Yakuza, particularly in areas where Us naval bases were situated, with its members profiting significantly from the black market, which was a direct result of the food rationing the occupational forces have decreed. Basing his script on a novel by Kazu Otsuka, Shohei Imamura uses the aforementioned setting to place the story of “Pigs and Battleships” in the small fishing port of Yokosuka, in an effort that went so much over budget that Nikkatsu decided to ban him from shooting movies for two years.
“Pigs and Battleships” is screening at Japanese Avant-Garde and Experimental Film Festival 2019
The story takes place mostly around the red light district and the docks of the area, where the two main protagonists, Kinta and Haruko, try to build a future together, against all odds. Kinta is a low-level...
“Pigs and Battleships” is screening at Japanese Avant-Garde and Experimental Film Festival 2019
The story takes place mostly around the red light district and the docks of the area, where the two main protagonists, Kinta and Haruko, try to build a future together, against all odds. Kinta is a low-level...
- 9/21/2019
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
David’s Quick Take for the tl;dr Media Consumer:
Profound Desire(s) of the Gods is a sprawling, disturbing, ambitiously weird would-be epic about a clash of societies within the territorial boundaries of a rapidly modernizing Japan. It’s set on the fictional southern island of Karuge, where ancient tribal customs and animistic worship rituals still held most of the inhabitants in a strong (though inevitably loosening) grip. The narrative conflict stems from outsiders who want to convert the arable land into a sugar cane plantation and exploit the island’s inherent value as a tourist destination. But the forces of commerce and technological efficiency are ill-prepared to deal with the stubborn resiliency of the people they encounter, or the baffling complex of myths and taboos that compel them.
The film was a major throw down by Shohei Imamura, a director who had achieved enough commercial success with his...
Profound Desire(s) of the Gods is a sprawling, disturbing, ambitiously weird would-be epic about a clash of societies within the territorial boundaries of a rapidly modernizing Japan. It’s set on the fictional southern island of Karuge, where ancient tribal customs and animistic worship rituals still held most of the inhabitants in a strong (though inevitably loosening) grip. The narrative conflict stems from outsiders who want to convert the arable land into a sugar cane plantation and exploit the island’s inherent value as a tourist destination. But the forces of commerce and technological efficiency are ill-prepared to deal with the stubborn resiliency of the people they encounter, or the baffling complex of myths and taboos that compel them.
The film was a major throw down by Shohei Imamura, a director who had achieved enough commercial success with his...
- 7/4/2016
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Here are CriterionCast, we receive many, many discs for review consideration. We try to roll out full reviews when we can, offering analyses of the films in the context of their time as well as their relevance today. But sometimes you get a box set of eight films and just don’t have the time. But given that The Shohei Imamura Masterpiece Collection is a limited edition, meant to make these films available one last time before all of them go out of print from Masters of Cinema, we felt it important to write a bit about them, and let people know what a fantastic deal this is.
The set is currently being offered for £37.99 on Amazon.co.uk, and, having skimmed through the release (I’ve seen a couple of these before, but so long ago I hardly remember them), I can easily say this is one of the...
The set is currently being offered for £37.99 on Amazon.co.uk, and, having skimmed through the release (I’ve seen a couple of these before, but so long ago I hardly remember them), I can easily say this is one of the...
- 11/16/2015
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
Feature Dan Auty 19 Jun 2013 - 06:55
Dan looks back at the best films to come out of Japan's Nikkatsu studio...
Formed in 1912, Nikkatsu was Japan’s oldest film studio, and prior to World War II, one the most prolific and successful. The Japanese government’s control and consolidation of the film industry during the war years effectively forced Nikkatsu to cease movie production, and the studio spent more than a decade working solely in exhibition and distribution.
In 1954, the company resumed production, and entered a period that was not only a golden era for the company, but for Japanese cinema in general. Eschewing the period samurai films being made elsewhere, Nikkatsu focused on contemporary stories - action and crime movies, comedies and the increasingly popular ‘wild youth’ films, attracting young, imaginative filmmakers who had found it hard to flourish within the regimented structure of studios like Toho and Shochiku. Throughout the 60s,...
Dan looks back at the best films to come out of Japan's Nikkatsu studio...
Formed in 1912, Nikkatsu was Japan’s oldest film studio, and prior to World War II, one the most prolific and successful. The Japanese government’s control and consolidation of the film industry during the war years effectively forced Nikkatsu to cease movie production, and the studio spent more than a decade working solely in exhibition and distribution.
In 1954, the company resumed production, and entered a period that was not only a golden era for the company, but for Japanese cinema in general. Eschewing the period samurai films being made elsewhere, Nikkatsu focused on contemporary stories - action and crime movies, comedies and the increasingly popular ‘wild youth’ films, attracting young, imaginative filmmakers who had found it hard to flourish within the regimented structure of studios like Toho and Shochiku. Throughout the 60s,...
- 6/18/2013
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
The Fog | Seasons In The Sun: The Heyday Of Nikkatsu Studios | UK green film festival | Terracotta Far East Film festival
The Fog, London
As if a screening of a seminal horror movie in a spooky location wasn't enough, this event is also a format-junkie's wet-dream. Cigarette Burns presents a rare chance to watch a 16mm full-Cinemascope print, with mood-enhancing music from "Kab Radio" (it makes sense if you've seen the movie). What's more, punters will be first in line to buy Death Waltz records' new super collectable reissue of Carpenter's own splendidly doomful synth soundtrack, with original cover artwork by Dinos Chapman.
The Nave, N1, Fri
Seasons In The Sun: The Heyday Of Nikkatsu Studios, London
Think of postwar Japanese cinema and you think of Kurosawa, Ozu, and other greats. What you don't think of is girl gangs, go-go dancers and fetishistic hitmen. The west got the arthouse movies, but...
The Fog, London
As if a screening of a seminal horror movie in a spooky location wasn't enough, this event is also a format-junkie's wet-dream. Cigarette Burns presents a rare chance to watch a 16mm full-Cinemascope print, with mood-enhancing music from "Kab Radio" (it makes sense if you've seen the movie). What's more, punters will be first in line to buy Death Waltz records' new super collectable reissue of Carpenter's own splendidly doomful synth soundtrack, with original cover artwork by Dinos Chapman.
The Nave, N1, Fri
Seasons In The Sun: The Heyday Of Nikkatsu Studios, London
Think of postwar Japanese cinema and you think of Kurosawa, Ozu, and other greats. What you don't think of is girl gangs, go-go dancers and fetishistic hitmen. The west got the arthouse movies, but...
- 6/1/2013
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
Nikkatsu Studios has produced some of the most stylish, anarchic and influential Japanese movies of the past 100 years, most notably during its counter culture heyday in the 1950s and 1960s. To mark its centenary, the BFI is staging a month-long retrospective of some of the greatest hits from the notorious Season in the Sun. From Suzuki Seijun's Branded to Kill to Imamura Shohei's Pigs and Battleships, this is a rare opportunity for UK audiences to see some absolute cult classics on the big screen in beautiful 35mm.But don't take my word for it, just read programme curator Jasper Sharp's impassioned introduction from the BFI website:The oldest of Japan's film studios, Nikkatsu was established in 1912 as the Japan Cinematograph Company (Nippon katsudo shashin kaisha)....
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 5/29/2013
- Screen Anarchy
No surprise here: Wes Anderson has fabulous -- and fairly esoteric -- taste in movies. Check out the "Moonrise Kingdom" director's top 10 (well, top 12) picks from the Criterion Collection below, in a list that spans directors as diverse as Robert Bresson, Luis Bunuel and Max Ophuls. With the exception of Paul Schrader's "Mishima," all of Anderson's picks were made within the same 20-year period. Wes Anderson Top Ten Criterion Films: 1. "The Earrings of Madame de..." (dir. Max Ophuls, 1953) 2. "Au hasard Balthasar" (dir. Robert Bresson, 1966) 3. Three-way tie, all directed by Shohei Imamura: "Pigs and Battleships" (1961), "The Insect Woman," (1963), "Intentions of Murder" (1964) 4. "The Taking of Power by Louis Xiv" (dir. Roberto Rossellini, 1966) 5. "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" (dir. Martin Ritt, 1965) 6. "The Friends of Eddie...
- 8/15/2012
- by Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
Velvet Bullets and Steel Kisses: Celebrating the Nikkatsu Centennial was a sidebar at this year's New York Film Festival that Dan Sallitt, writing a couple of weeks ago, found "so exciting that it threatens to overshadow the main slate: a retrospective of the Japanese studio Nikkatsu, whose opportunistic shifts of focus always seemed to open doors for some of Japan's most creative filmmakers. Compare film magazine Kinema Junpo's 1999 and 2009 lists of all-time greatest Japanese films to the Lincoln Center series schedule, and count the overlaps." Last year in the Notebook, Dan reviewed one of the 37 films in the series, Tomu Uchida's Earth (1939).
"The sidebar is peppered with nearly impossible to see rediscoveries," notes Steve Dollar at GreenCine Daily: "early silent films like 1927's A Diary of Chuji's Travels and harshly realistic World War II dramas like Mud and Soldiers. Shot on location in China in 1939, the latter film blends...
"The sidebar is peppered with nearly impossible to see rediscoveries," notes Steve Dollar at GreenCine Daily: "early silent films like 1927's A Diary of Chuji's Travels and harshly realistic World War II dramas like Mud and Soldiers. Shot on location in China in 1939, the latter film blends...
- 10/16/2011
- MUBI
Originally released in 1961, Shohei Imamura’s Pigs and Battleships is a beautiful film and one that wonderfully captures a unique period in Japanese history. Following the nation’s defeat in World War II Japan was subject to a significant American presence and as a country recovering from the very serious effects of the war this had a significant impact on the post war malaise. Moving away from war era beliefs, dealing with a distrust of the older generation and generally struggling to survive in difficult circumstances, the younger Japanese population were wrestling with something of an identity crisis.
Parallels between Japan as a country and the lives of the individual characters constantly run throughout Pigs and Battleships, imbuing the character’s lives and decisions with a greater significance and depth. The two main protagonists, low level yakuza Kinta (Hiroyuki Nagato) and his girlfriend Haruko (Jitsuko Yoshimura), are at an important...
Parallels between Japan as a country and the lives of the individual characters constantly run throughout Pigs and Battleships, imbuing the character’s lives and decisions with a greater significance and depth. The two main protagonists, low level yakuza Kinta (Hiroyuki Nagato) and his girlfriend Haruko (Jitsuko Yoshimura), are at an important...
- 7/13/2011
- by Craig Skinner
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Criterion releases Kiss Me Deadly on DVD and Blu-ray today and, for the occasion, they're running an essay by J Hoberman adapted from his book, An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War: "Genres collide in the great Hollywood movies of the mid fifties cold-war thaw. With the truce in Korea and the red scare on the wane, ambitious directors seemed freer to mix and match and even ponder the new situation. The western goes south in The Searchers; the cartoon merges with the musical in The Girl Can't Help It. Science fiction becomes pop sociology in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. And noir veers into apocalyptic sci-fi in Robert Aldrich's 1955 masterpiece Kiss Me Deadly, which, briefly described, tracks one of the sleaziest, stupidest, most bru tal detectives in American movies through a nocturnal, inexplicably violent labyrinth to a white-hot vision of cosmic annihilation.
- 6/21/2011
- MUBI
"Romanian films set in the era after the fall of Communism suggest the nation suffers a hell of a hangover from the ideology," writes Steve Erickson in Gay City News. "For instance, Corneliu Porumboiu's Police, Adjective attacks draconian drug laws left over from the old regime. Tuesday, After Christmas presents a very different vision of Romania. Its characters can afford to buy expensive Christmas gifts; one of them picks up a 3,300 Euro telescope. It may not be entirely accurate to call the film apolitical, but the most political thing about it is its avoidance of Eastern European miserabilism and its depiction of people who could be living much the same lifestyles in Western Europe."
Damon Smith introduces an interview with director Radu Muntean for Filmmaker: "Tuesday, After Christmas, which premiered at Cannes last year, opens on a dreamy scene: sunlight bathes a naked couple, middle-aged Paul (Mimi Branescu) and pretty,...
Damon Smith introduces an interview with director Radu Muntean for Filmmaker: "Tuesday, After Christmas, which premiered at Cannes last year, opens on a dreamy scene: sunlight bathes a naked couple, middle-aged Paul (Mimi Branescu) and pretty,...
- 5/26/2011
- MUBI
I’ll live to see what becomes of a prostitute. I’ll see it for myself.
After a pair of columns over the past two weeks dedicated to the early and later films of Yasujiro Ozu, and an earlier review of Akira Kurosawa’s I Live in Fear, it seems only fitting that my attention should turn toward the last of classic Japanese cinema’s “Big Three” directors. As was the case last Monday with Early Spring, today’s selection happens to fit right into my on-going project of reviewing Criterion films in chronological order. It’s Street of Shame, from Eclipse Series 13: Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women, which also turns out to be the last film that Mizoguchi ever made (and the only film I’ve watched so far from this set, which I recently purchased during Barnes & Noble’s 50% off sale)
This set is somewhat unique in...
After a pair of columns over the past two weeks dedicated to the early and later films of Yasujiro Ozu, and an earlier review of Akira Kurosawa’s I Live in Fear, it seems only fitting that my attention should turn toward the last of classic Japanese cinema’s “Big Three” directors. As was the case last Monday with Early Spring, today’s selection happens to fit right into my on-going project of reviewing Criterion films in chronological order. It’s Street of Shame, from Eclipse Series 13: Kenji Mizoguchi’s Fallen Women, which also turns out to be the last film that Mizoguchi ever made (and the only film I’ve watched so far from this set, which I recently purchased during Barnes & Noble’s 50% off sale)
This set is somewhat unique in...
- 8/2/2010
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Now, in much sadder news, legendary art director Kimihiko Nakamura, whose work can be seen in films like Twenty-Four Eyes, and films like The Insect Woman, Pigs and Battleships and Intentions of Murder (with the latter three being able to be found in the Pigs, Pimps, and Prostitutes collection), has passed away at the age of 94. He passed away on Tuesday of last week from renal failure.
While I’m not massively familiar with his work, I have seen The Insect Woman, and I must say, his work is impeccable, and visually stunning. He helped craft major films within the world that was the Japanese New Wave, particularly with director Shohei Imamura, and is a truly legendary figure within the world of Japanese film.
This is truly a sad bit of news, but since he hasn’t been too busy prior to this, this is definitely a time to remember...
While I’m not massively familiar with his work, I have seen The Insect Woman, and I must say, his work is impeccable, and visually stunning. He helped craft major films within the world that was the Japanese New Wave, particularly with director Shohei Imamura, and is a truly legendary figure within the world of Japanese film.
This is truly a sad bit of news, but since he hasn’t been too busy prior to this, this is definitely a time to remember...
- 7/15/2010
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
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