"Heroic Purgatory" (1970) was my first Yoshida, and I'll certainly try to see more than the three films released by Arrow in the "Love + Anarchism" set.
It's definitely avant-garde in the classic sense of the term, marching in the vanguard of utilizing fluid experimental dream language. I know I'll eventually revisit Godard and the French New Wave in the future, whose work at this writing I'd consider dull and uninteresting, but this is the exact opposite of dull: not only is it visually masterful, the story, no matter how evasive and at times elliptical like an afterthought, is actually interesting.
I definitely see, based on this one film, how Yoshida might have influenced Wong, or even Malick's "modern style" from "The Tree of Life" (2011) onwards. And if not, having seen this one really does add to the aforementioned directors' films.
I'm not sure whether the experience would lend itself for a repeat viewing anytime soon, since because of the elliptical nature of the film, despite the complete mastery of the visuals, and Yoshida is clearly a master at work, the film is purposefully obscure. But if one approaches it like a dream, it's a wonderful audiovisual journey through some very unusual ways to see the world.
It's fun to know really nothing at all about Yoshida, other than him starting out under Kinoshita's tutelage. It strongly resembles the Ozu-Imamura relationship, where the "old", strict formalism (or what would certainly seem as such by the new generation of filmmakers) in its part has influenced the radical swerves of the apprentices. I'd really like to know what he thought of Teshigahara.
It's definitely avant-garde in the classic sense of the term, marching in the vanguard of utilizing fluid experimental dream language. I know I'll eventually revisit Godard and the French New Wave in the future, whose work at this writing I'd consider dull and uninteresting, but this is the exact opposite of dull: not only is it visually masterful, the story, no matter how evasive and at times elliptical like an afterthought, is actually interesting.
I definitely see, based on this one film, how Yoshida might have influenced Wong, or even Malick's "modern style" from "The Tree of Life" (2011) onwards. And if not, having seen this one really does add to the aforementioned directors' films.
I'm not sure whether the experience would lend itself for a repeat viewing anytime soon, since because of the elliptical nature of the film, despite the complete mastery of the visuals, and Yoshida is clearly a master at work, the film is purposefully obscure. But if one approaches it like a dream, it's a wonderful audiovisual journey through some very unusual ways to see the world.
It's fun to know really nothing at all about Yoshida, other than him starting out under Kinoshita's tutelage. It strongly resembles the Ozu-Imamura relationship, where the "old", strict formalism (or what would certainly seem as such by the new generation of filmmakers) in its part has influenced the radical swerves of the apprentices. I'd really like to know what he thought of Teshigahara.