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Reviews
Biruma no tategoto (1956)
Good film.. But not Buddhistic
The war theme was quite popular during the post-war period in different kinds of arts, especially film production. Therefore, we can observe lots of films, which were under strict censorship of governments, about the particular battles, persons or big events with a purpose to agitate a patriotism and undermine the reputation of the ex-enemy. Therefore, on the background of these films, Kon Ichikawa tried to shoot a film about the war, without single propaganda for or against anyone. Instead, he "filled" the film with the abstract thoughts about life, which are tightly connected with Buddhism, during the war and, literally, lots of songs and hymns. That is why you could get it as Japanese musical about war with some deep meaning.
Due to the shooting date, I cannot properly assess the picture and sound quality: the main thing - you see and hear something. However, there is no doubt about the cast. The play of every soldier of Captain Inouye's group was felt as a representation of real soldiers of WWII because you could see individual thoughts and feelings towards particular events around them. Moreover, Rentaro Mukini, who had a starring role, showed the exemplary model of commander, who cares about the people's lives more than heroic actions with the clear death of the whole troop. Still, Mr. Yasui, who played the central personage of the whole film - Mizushima, made a great effort to persuade the audience that there could be a sudden enlightenment and decision to stay at Burma, despite that you have a chance to go back home. Sudden decision to become a monk. Certainly, the director was inspired by Zen Buddhism, especially the Rinzai school and its idea of gradual enlightenment.
According to broad claim, this film was as recognized Buddhistic, due to the several signs as the speech of the monk "Burma is Buddha's country". But, I could not agree with it. The presence of temples and monks adds certain level spirituality and, in this case, serves as vital bond in the screenplay for more dramatic upshot rather than a sacred message to the audience.
To sum up, the audience of this film is certainly sufficiently narrow. If you want to be in this group, you must have: 1) certain interest in the World War II history; 2) desire to watch the 2-hour-long black-and-white grainy film; 3) patience toward simple and obvious plot. At the end of watching, you can surely say that you watched worthy Buddhistic film from respected Japanese director.
Act Normal (2006)
Good documenatry with poor screenwrite
As every documentary film, this product of Olaf de Fleur should not be assessed from the perspectives of quality of shooting and montage. However, in this case, it really disturbs. In my assumption, due to the limited budget from the small community called Icelandic Film Centre, the producer was inside the very limited capabilities. Spontaneous interviews with the middle preparation of interviewer and annoying surroundings make the watching a little bit uncomfortable. Furthermore, the decision of screenwriter to add as many flashbacks and return-backs as possible was not successful - the audience (particularly, myself) was tasked to understand the plot, which was complicated with many supplementary episodes. This disadvantage is especially noticeable during the episodes with his childhood and short marriage. However, almost all quality issues could be compensated by the soundtracks. Soft music, which perfectly accompanies with the film, gives some kind of sensitivity among the viewer and character.
Another disadvantage is based on my personal view towards the documentaries about certain persons. In my opinion, this kind of films should show not only the person itself but also personal thoughts and relation of close people. The main reason is that on the genesis of both interviews of main person and people, who surround him, we could build an as much objective picture of personality as possible. In the case of "Act Normal" (2006), the director decided to give almost entire focus on the main character, if we will not consider the interview with his ex-wife from Kazakhstan. Therefore, this film seemed to me as something like a dialog with the main character in the café and with the cup of tea.
However, the director did well his main job - discovering of character. As I mentioned before, the entire film gave the feeling of warm conversation with Robert, where you are getting closer and closer to his closed inner world. The world of man, who is from the simple middle-class family from England with complexes and big love towards books and animals. During the film, you probably start to express some sympathy to him due to his heartfulness and honesty, which are impossible not to see the responses. Personally, I have got some answers to the questions, which are widely spread among the people, who have a certain amount of interest towards Buddhism.
And this documentary has two main schticks, as almost every Buddhist film, which I have ever seen: some terms and facts about Buddhism, which give certain perception about it, and scenes with nudes. I think that these two extremes become an inalienable attribute of this genre because it shows the importance of monkhood life in the context of modern-day society, which is full of desire and lust.
As a conclusion, despite evident poor job with shooting and montage, this film could be considered as a bright pathway towards the consciousness of one man. Therefore, if you want to dedicate your time to the good documentary, this film is for you.
Phörpa (1999)
Grainy, but emotional
Khyentse Norbu can be accepted as one of the key producers in Buddhist film production, because he was the main assistant and adviser in filming the Little Buddha (1993) of Bernardo Bertolucci. This film has mostly gotten positive reviews from different critics (mine also) due to the genesis of elegant depicting of the Buddhist practices and pithy core idea of enlightenment. In the case of The Cup (1999) - everything is reverse. This film's way of delivering the current problems of practicing the Buddhism in the modern world of "desires and hatred" could be taken as sarcasm. Every-day activities of monks, as breaking the rules only for watching the match or hidden use of magazines of "desire", bring the part of truth with pinch of humor. However, having almost no clear idea from the first view could confuse the broad audience. Only the quote in the last episode of the film: "If problem is solved, why to be unhappy, if problem is not solved, what is the use of being unhappy?", which has minimum connection with the plot, makes the viewer to completely rethink and find their own lesson from the film as every key actor did it in the end.
From the first minutes of viewing, everybody, even people with almost no "cinema experience", can observe the limited budget on post-production and overall quality of film. And it irrigates... for several minutes. The professionality of key actor's leads away the attention from this flaw and makes you become the part of this grainy and unprofessionally-filmed story. The story, which was shown with mostly no "powder" - no polished picture with fancy words. And it helps you to express the true emotions towards the refugee boys and surrounding actors.
To conclude with, The Cup is the sort of films, which could be taken vaguely due to uncertainty with morality but with certain emotionality. Therefore, there is two reasons to see this film - expressing new level of feelings or getting know with current monks of Buddhism.
Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom (2003)
Be prepared - you position about desires could be changed
Review
In my opinion, the main uniqueness of the "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, and again... Spring" is expressing key message through the seasons: spring as a little boy; summer as the teenager; autumn as the young man; winter as a middle age; and spring as his old age. Furthermore, it correlates with the level of consciousness of the main character: firstly, he, as a boy, learns initial rules of life from his master, then he does some mistakes, such as indulge with his desires. The next two periods - autumn and winter, as seasons of lifelessness and coldness - represent the harsh period for him. And the spring, as period of new life, shows the awakening of monk and becoming master for adopter boy. As you can see, Kim Ki-Duk made a great effort to visualize the life period of his main character.
The main thing, which will keep you to watch this film, is the atmosphere, which definitely shows a professionality of filming crew. Firstly, the limited amounts of words, especially in the second half of film, forces you to watch with the high focus on different details, such as emotions of separate characters and etc. Secondly, several details which could not be explained logically gives for the film some charms. For example, rooms which are separated by doors but without walls; super-natural abilities of the master to force boat move or stop. Lastly, despite the fact that the film is about the Buddhist monks, there is more about personal feelings of each character rather than the Buddhism itself and its traditions. The main reason for this statement is that we discovered the only tradition of burying man from the entire film. All above-mentioned factors are key elements in the whole beautiful atmosphere of this film.
This film got several critiques for animal abuse and too expressed sexual content. First one is due to European tolerance for all living creatures. Second critique, in my opinion, is justified by the need to make the audience feel the strength of dark desires in order to explain the failure of the naïve monk to overcome his own passions, which created him further problems.
To conclude with, this film of Kim Ki-Duk is worth of your time if you have searched for atmospheric films with core lesson for your life. But be prepared - your position about desires could be changed.
Little Buddha (1993)
Something which we need... maybe
In my opinion, making the film for a broad audience on religious bases is tremendously hard, however, it is achievable with experienced crew and actors. The outstanding work with the camera and choosing right soundtracks, which is almost identical with your feelings, and, most importantly, structured and well-mixed plot made "Little Buddha" piece of art in French film-making industry. Despite that film did not recoup itself and got several negative responses from critics, Bernardo Bertolucci made a great effort to think about our pathway to enlightenment through parallel story of Lama Norbu's important mission and Siddharta's story.
The key element of each film is the creating specialty in the plot, and, in our case, it is parallelism. During the watch time, you feel that film tries to show the correlation between the historical chronology of Siddharta's life and Jesse's trip to the Tibet. The first example could be affinity of Dean's rejection and not believe into the specialty of his son and the King's dissatisfaction with words of astrology, who claimed that newborn boy would not be a king, as King had wished. Secondly, scenes of Siddharta's discovering another reality, such as poverty, illness, and old-age, have even more similarities with the moment when Jesse tries to catch up Raju's brother. For example, buildings, which are placed in identical places; people with rotating tools, which I suppose are used to mill the rice of another grain; and, most importantly, discovering a process of pot-making. Basing on these facts, we may assume that Mr. Bertolucci tried to show a present-day pathway to the nirvana through the connection among stories of Siddharta and Jesse.
Another critical part of the film is the quality of the image and sound. Professionality of operators and designers could be tracked with the picked atmospheres for different scenes. For example, the flashback sights with Siddharta's story are expressing warm atmosphere of ancient South-East Asia through rightly chosen temples, rich and colorful costume design and other details in the background. Meanwhile, the sadness and hopelessness in Conrad's family are shown through the cold and obscure image with the big amount of emptiness in the house. All these scenes are accompanying with Mr. Sakamoto's compositions, which express exact feelings of the viewer and by that, adding the right tune to the atmosphere. Furthermore, the smooth flow from Siddharta's life story to Jesse's adventure and vice versa is always keeping viewers' attention on both storylines, which definitely supplements the plot.
To conclude with, despite that the "Little Buddha" is based on the essential history of Buddhism and closely related with it, the film is worthy for a broad audience, because of its way of expressing some important thoughts about consciousness in the modern world.