This Transient Life (1970) User Reviews

Japanese masterpiece from the Arts Studio Guild

[allyclow · 9/10 · 4 August 2011]

This Transient Life (Mujo) is, on the surface, a sordid tale about the interaction between incest, immorality and Buddhism. Dig a little deeper and that's exactly what it continues to turn out to be. The lead character is Masao, a young man who shuns the path laid down by his rich father to take over his trading business, instead we see him idolise Buddhist sculpture and spend his days laconically with prostitutes and reading books. His sister Yuri similarly lives how she chooses having turned down two marriage proposals preferring to be close to home and the local monastery. When a playful scene between Yuri and Masao turns into a lustful embrace, the siblings' bond becomes sexual rather than familial and this sets the tone for the rest of the film.

When the monk Ogino discovers their secret, he urges Masao to leave the village and he does so to become the apprentice of a master sculpture of icons of the Buddha. Throughout the film, Buddhism shows us that life fades quickly and existential questions of how to live ones life are asked. Should one be pure and live by the codes set by religion, or should those very teachings, of the impermanence of life and its swift passing, be a reason to create ones own morality and fear no hell and covet no afterlife?

Director Jissoji Akio develops these stories masterfully with constantly shifting camera movements (Ozu he is not) and angles that would make Orson Welles brim with admiration. The expressive film language ranges from pendulum-like tracking shots to extreme close- ups reminding us of the film's arts roots. The film is stunningly crisp and beautifully shot and it is this style that carries the viewer into the heart of the story's conclusion. At times surreal, always spellbinding, this film deserves to be among the pantheon of the greats of 60's and 70's Japanese cinema.

Serious Stuff

[derek-duerden · 8/10 · 17 August 2023]

I'm not very schooled in Japanese tradition and fables, so there's probably more in this than I could ever spot**. However, despite the slow pace and the occasional confusion between characters, I was impressed by the handling of some very deep and philosophical themes.

Most obviously, of course, there is the central matter of incest but this is just the most extreme aspect of Masao's nihilism and rejection of social norms. Whether this is mainly or totally as a result of parental expectations and pressure is moot, but the poisonous effect on everyone around him is well-explored, particularly on his buddhist monk friend and the poor houseboy.

A very interesting meditation on personal responsibility and the meaning of life.

(** I'm sure that the buried carp towards the end has great significance, for example...)

a visual(cinematographic) delight

[mingus_x · 10/10 · 14 October 2003]

This movie has the best cinematography i have seen in years. It is as dense, perfect staged and lit as the opening sequence of Orson Welles' "Othello" during the whole movie. The actors are superb casted and the story resonates. -

Furthermore it has got an astonishing soundtrack: a combination of western harmony (classical music) mixed with sounds heard in the japanese No-Theater; it perfectly sets accents and structures the time and space(themes).

I was mesmerized the whole time through and am very thankful to Ronald Domenig, the initiator of the "Art Theatre Guild" retrospective at the Austrian Filmmuseum for showing and personally translating(subtitling) it.

This has been a movie experience that will stick with me.

Cutting-edge cinema!

[Shaban_Avdulaj · 10/10 · 2 May 2022]

But, to be fair, though, the experience and the opinion on any decent film watched immediately after seeing Star Wars Episodes 7 & 8 would get a significant bump by default. And yet, saying 'This Transient Life' is "decent" filmmaking would be offending it because the film is one of the most assured works I've ever seen, so good so to feel like a response to Tarko's 'Stalker' (even though 'Stalker' came out almost a decade later). But it's even better than that, for the setting and camera here are Japanese, and these guys don't care to fool around, not even slightly in self-indulgent stuff - straight to business.

I was constantly thinking of 'Stalker' during the second half of the movie, and now I fear I can't avoid making some parallelizations between the two films. If in Tarko's masterpiece, we see what it means to always hold on to your faith, in Jissôji's highly controversial but commanding cinematics, we witness a man act with no beliefs. And I love talking about this kind of stuff, but, as always, I'm not going to get into intimate interpretations regarding the plot and themes. I'm just going to talk about how Jissôji wears his "discourse" - this is cinema for the thinking - making perfect use of the medium's tools.

Just like in 'Stalker' where Tarko uses the environment he's shooting excellently to convey motifs of uncertainty, sorrow, and disbelief, showcasing the internal emotional spectrum of his characters perfectly, Jissôji does that with the same efficiency. And I'd argue it must have been even harder than it was for Andrei for Akio to work with his settings in achieving that. Yet he nails it. From the beginning, where we see the protagonist for the first time, we see him alone in this broad landscape showing his disconnection from everything, immediately letting us know there's a conflict in him. Later we see him walk alone in these tight corridors formed in between buildings while the camera is shooting from a low angle in front of him, and we see the edges of the buildings almost touch his head. You can interpret that as the thoughts revolving inside his head suffocating him, making it apparent that there's something that's bugging him. And Jissôji works with his settings beautifully throughout. The last time I noticed this level of proficiency in using the environment to tell the story, it'd be Antonioni's 'La Notte.'

Where 'This Transient Life' seems to have nothing in common with 'Stalker' is how it's shot and edited. If in 'Stalker' though the shots are tonally perfect - Tarko's visual prowess in that film is impeccable - Andrei meanders a lot (the self-indulgent stuff I mentioned earlier), making it exhausting to get through some of the shots, here you get nothing like that. Akio cuts quicker and to the point. And the overall camera-work is much more lively than that in 'Stalker.' Jissôji's shooting seems to lean more on the likes of Kalatozov (keeping it Japan v. Russia). And whenever I see "Kalatozov," I think of passion. Immense passion for the camera. And that's what I felt watching 'This Transient Life.' But if, in Kalatozov's case, you get the intense, grab-me-by-the-throat - I'm talking camera - kind of passion, when it comes to Jissôji, that passion is delicate. The camera moves gentler, and it's not as extravagant as Kalatozov's, but it carries almost the same ingenuity. There's a particular moment in this film where I thought the camera movement was so symbolic, and that's the pendulum-swinging camera scene. The camera moves from one side to the other, right and left, as the main character talks about hell and heaven. I thought that was a beautiful, creative choice that works great as an emphasis on the conversation.

I'm not going to go on any longer. I loved the movie. I didn't watch any Japanese films during April, and that hadn't happened in a while. Japanese cinema rules! And just noticed it, these Japanese filmmakers' names sound so badass.

Me, me, me, it's all about me

[tonosov-51238 · 6/10 · 22 June 2018]

Don't you just love movies where a personification of the director or writer monologues with no opposition for twenty minutes and people, for some reason, call it "controversial debate"? I sure do. But more than that, I like it when the plot bends in favor of that borderline self-insert, at the expense of making every single character in the movie seem completely unrealistic. Because when everyone around you is an immoral pathetic pervert or a doormat who only exists to satisfy basic desires, your words will sure have more weight, even if the gist of these words is "listen, there is no heaven and that means no hell because I said so, that means no one's life but mine matters, if I want something I'll just do it, it's my desire and nothing else matters, since there is no one to judge me in the end, that's why I will bring Sodom wherever I go and this script will in fact let me do just that and that's why I'm right". And that's a good takeaway from this film.

As you probably have guessed, I completely disagree with the nihilistic masturbation presented in this movie, and especially this type of storytelling where the only thing that can respond to a preacher is his echo, not because he's right but because the opposing side of this pseudo-debate just spills spaghetti and in literal terror backs away from him. Other than that, you should, in fact, watch this film and make your own judgment. The movie has very good shot composition, and it's very interesting to watch. Despite the fact that not much happens if you consider the run time. Although, if you hate the sound of someone raping the violin like I do, lower the volume. There is a lot of this in This Transient Life.