Yojimbo (1961) - Akira Kurosawa

Yojimbo, the mercenary, is one of the works most famous and at once recognized by Akira Kurosawa, a major name in Japanese cinema throughout its history. "The Emperor", as the famous filmmaker was nicknamed, had already conquered international audiences and critics thanks to enduring films such as Rashomon (1950), Seven Samurais (1954), or Throne of Blood (1957), all pictures widely acknowledged, masterpieces. The feature in question is also ranked among the selected films of Kurosawa, and tells the story of a samurai, wandering erratically by Japanese territory until he reaches a town with a divided and terrified population because of violent and constant clashes between two bands of samurais, mobsters who dispute control over the town and profits of businesses that thrive there. The samurai initially plays a dual band game, manipulating both groups at his own convenience, but ultimately will not be as cold and impenetrable as he thinks, and must take definitive action. The picture is reference within the genre of samurai cinema, it won some international awards, particularly highlighting Toshiro Mifune, who received quite a few awards for his solid performance. Containing many stories, influences and being in turn influence properly, the picture is one of the most revered works of giant Kurosawa, a filmmaker then mature and always exploring new paths in his cinematic art.

                

The story begins in arid Japanese land, desert lands where we see a lone samurai (Mifune), advances between sand and bad weather. Arrives at a site where the first thing he sees is a dog with a severed human hand in its mouth, and then an old man tells him about the difficult situation there. Players, gangsters, violence everywhere, a scenario with which believes can scare the stranger. Far from it, the nomad advances to the tent of one of the leaders of the two local bands, is Seibe ​​(Seizaburo Kawazu), whose men are reduced by the stranger, earning respect and fear of the locals. The errant individual, calling himself Sanjuro Kuwabatake, soon offers his services as a skilled swordsman to the bandleader to defeat their rivals. But when the opposite gang and its leader Ushitora (Kyû Sazanka) appear, Sanjuro leaves Seibe ​​to adopt neutral role in a direct confrontation that is interrupted by the local police. The samurai becomes a mercenary, when he also offers his formidable skills as a warrior to Ushitora, but while maintaining low profile in the house of an old man. He deals also with characters like the fearsome Inokichi (Daisuke Katô) and Unosuke (Tatsuya Nakadai), the only guy with a gun in all the people; both Ushitora brothers. When Nui (Yôko Tsukasa), Brewer's woman, gets involved, the mercenary must take a decision and have a final showdown.

Is eloquent the introduction to town given, with the canid walking quietly, carrying a severed human hand in his snout, a sequence which generated some shooting problems to Kurosawa, but it serves as efficient introductory image to that violent micro universe, in which it is said that you can solve problems only with the sword. Kurosawa, despite the violent portrait, in his film slides mockery, scorn the old yakuza stereotypes, for example with the detail of women intervening, irreverent, impertinent, bossy, slapping even the samurais in a sign of that mockery that wields subtly (or maybe not) Kurosawa of classic oriental, respectable, even more, fearful and solemn stereotype of the yakuza, the mafia, organized crime. Kurosawa ridicules them a little, he demystifies them as fearful and manipulable individuals, some at mercy and humiliated by the women. However, it is rescued, preserved by the Japanese the necessary solemnity of the confrontations, particularly that final confrontation, the seriousness of the samurais can not miss, specially being Akira a genuine descendant of samurai himself. Specialist as anyone in this, Kurosawa presents the final sequence, great corollary of the deployed work with a good management of shots, and great montage of the same make already presage plagiarism by Sergio Leone in his A Fistful of Dollars (1964). In the final sequence we see the long shots of all the contenders, in a straight line, extolling, exalting the characters, setting the standards in such sequences.

Sanjuro in the film is presented as the key to everything, heart and core, the vehicle by which we must run along the picture; from the initial shot opening the film, we'll see him wandering, errant individual who advances in the pitiless and arid desert Japanese land. Medium shots put us behind him as he moves through the desert, in the midst of solitude and silence, reaches a father and son arguing, the father demanding a peaceful life to his stem, preferring the young fellow a short life but full of adventures; from the beginning comes as even a sort of little judge, because in the end he will teach the same young man on his hasty choice. The wandering mercenary soon expressed his Machiavellian posture manipulating dangerous gangsters with ease, convenience, always staying in the background in a neutral way, as exemplarily manifests the camerawork in the initial confrontation on both sides, with Sanjuro in central and elevated position, watching everyone. The character will evolve during the film, at first we see high a restrained individual, he has his own moral code and applies no hard feelings, as anyone interested in the money, which obtains without much effort at the expense of dangerous criminals; then, advancing the actions, he will not be in the background as slicker, hard or restrained, his cynicism is decreasing, humanizes, and incidentally he humanizes us as viewers. While no pioneer and innovator in this strict sense, the feature byu Kurosawa becomes referential, revolutionizes the genre of samurai cinema, largely thanks to the way it presents the hero, or rather, the anti-hero. Individual full of defects, oblivious to the untarnished image, moral straight and traditional oriental samurai, yakuza in this case; Sanjuro is ambitious, cynical, a formidable warrior, invincible swordsman who finally raises awareness and humanizes with the abduction of the beautiful Nui, engages dangerously, losing the full control until then he had. The evolution of the character, from a scoundrel to someone more humanized, this complex presentation is one of the key elements of the Kurosawa feature.

The aesthetics of the film is not exactly uniform, it is observed some differences in the visual treatment from one sequence to another, from one environment to another. Thus we have marked differences in interior sequences, with powerful play of light and shadow, more than a pleasant chiaroscuro generates the oriental filmmaker, some frames will be very dark, and other frames will be quite bright and shiny; but there will also be other sequences treatment, outdoors, where the shade will cover it all, perhaps excessively, because it will invade all, an overwhelming gloom in certain segments of the film. This is because apparently Kurosawa, always happy to shoot multiply a scene from various angles, this time not only did that, but delegated certain shots and sequences to his assistants, trustworthy collaborators, who generated images, sequences with marked distinction one from each other. Also, Kurosawa, known his taste for the meteorological elements as narrative and expressive sources, will use the powerful mist that appears in certain segments of the film copiously, generating density, melting into the darkness. Also in his narrative, we find a rather leisurely pace, thanks to the sweeps, which facilitate and balance the transition from one moment to another; there are moments, different sequences, different circumstances that thanks to these scans are concatenated into a single stream and narrative flux. Regarding music, the musical accompaniment that will be seen on the picture is varied and correct, appearing at certain times to add a comic halo, light and fun for a few moments, decreasing tension. But in turn, in other times will generate the opposite, urgency, tension and drama will also be brought forth, or rather music that will collaborate to bring forth.

Toshirô Mifune is one of the cornerstones of the film, Toshirô and his solid performance that earned two awards, consecrating at the Venice Film Festival as Best Actor. The Kurosawa's fetish actor is an asset of the film, with its balanced characterization, escaping some of the gestures and exaggerated histrionics of his, known characteristics that this time leave room for a rather brainy characterization, without neglecting its essence of course. Is celebrated his interpretation, unshaken, even-tempered and unflappable, with that classic beard-scraped and a certain nonchalance, stubborn and impervious until the female comes and decides to take certain party; is one of the best works of Kurosawa's beloved actor, rightly recognized and rewarded. Now, at the anecdotal level, known is the legal problem there was, Sergio Leone almost immediately after Yojimbo, produced his film A Fistful of Dollars, founder of the spaghetti western, an obvious copy of the feature of Akira, who would win demand of authorship and certain dividends from the Italian film. Leone is even said that prided himself on a letter sent by the Japanese, in which he said "Signore Leone, I really like your movie, but it's my movie"; due to certain protocols in Italian cinema, where plagiarism was not something reprehensible and contemptible in the artistic plane, or at least in the movies, that copy was possible. While the Italian film is a classic in itself, it seems to be recognized the fact that it is a copy, a fact that angered Kurosawa; but turns out Akira was influenced as well, of course, claiming himself as an important source for the story the film noir movie The Glass Key, based on the homonym novel by Dashiell Hammett. Feature of broad content-rich itself, that changed the samurai cinema directly and western films indirectly, because this work is the closest thing to a western Kurosawa, the great master of Japanese cinema, ever made.

The Wind Will Carry Us (1999) - Abbas Kiarostami

Abbas Kiarostami is one of the most notorious artists of contemporary international film scene, with a reputation and prestige-earned by not a few memorable films, among which are those that make up the so-called trilogy of the earthquake, work that is now complemented by Through the Olive Trees (1994), which earned him admiration and gained global prominence. For this occasion, the Iranian filmmaker presents a feature which on the technical side is fully identifiable, recognizable as a work of its author, in which many of his staging guidelines continue to shine clearly. The film has some inspiration from the eponymous poem by Forough Farrokhzad, and tells the simple story -as always in Kiarostami- of an engineer who travels to the Iranian village of Siah Darre, with intentions not entirely clarified, and the film will be the representation of the experiences of that individual in that locality. Coming from Teheran, his customs clash with the local ones, he will try to accommodate them, with very relative success. This film is another example of very significant pictures made across the ocean, in middle East lands people can also produce this art, and high quality; a very different art from the ostentatious display that is generally seen in the Western context, whether American or European. It is a cinema full of visual beauty but not devoid of meaning and interesting figures, and this work is a good representative of that beautiful cinema to which we are healthily accustomed by this great director.

            




The film begins with a moving vehicle with two individuals, in the midst of a winding road, amid sandy dunes, looking for the way to Siah Darre, which is unknown for them. In the car, goes the engineer Behzad (Behzad Dorani), who meets the child Farzad (Farzad Sohrabi), infant that was expecting him, since having a common acquaintance. Once at the site searched, all local people are very hospitable and reverent with the engineer, which does not prevent many of his customs and devices, such as car and cell phone, to irritate the locals and make him feel out of place, believing some that he is actually looking for a treasure or something similar. Farzad is teaching him around, speaks of an extraordinarily long-lived elderly woman, while the engineer constantly tries to communicate by phone, having to climb headlands to get signal. Later, he gets, from a digging individual, a human femur, while continuing his stay in Siah Darre. Farzad is his closest friend in that place, but after treating him badly at some point the visitor, the infant goes away from him, he withdraws his friendship; Behzad then finds the same character, the excavator  in trouble, fell and got buried alive, and he participates in his miraculous rescue. In the end the stranger talks to the local doctor, photographs some women, gets rid of the femur obtained, without showing more of his journey.

The feature, from the beginning, feels strongly linked to previous exercises by Iranian filmmaker, on the technical side closeness is particularly flagrant with mentioned picture Through the Olive Trees. That opening sequence-shot of the car passing through the winding trails and sandy Iranian paths feels almost like a mirror image of that film, and -always in the technical side- will find many other ever-present technical guidelines in the eastern filmmaker. Thus the imposing and beautiful natural scenery of the director's land will be appreciated, a specialist in shaping the beauty of these places, mobilizing farm animals, its simple people and their customs. Showing his land in this way is nothing new in the cinema of Abbas, but what is striking is how never the framings captured so much visual richness, a chromatic domain that actually generates visual delight. We observe thus, large and clean greens, the sky's deep blue joining the land's abundant ocher, creating a complementary contrast (a quite effective pictorial principle by the way) very beautiful, adding orange tones of certain environments, and even a wheat's beautiful golden ready to be biased in the final segments; the visual display in this regard feels that reached very high levels. As mentioned, it is also a very identifiable film with Iranian on his way to capture what he wants, in such a simple way, so simple, renouncing to complex devices, to ostentatious special effects or deployments, so characteristic trappings of Hollywood or even European cinema; Kiarostami's cinema is offered as a different, very fresh and attractive alternative.











Kiarostami's style still feels identified with his oeuvre on this feature by keeping the guideline of a very close-to-documentary work, which is not too surprising knowing that Iranian does not produce only feature films but also short films and especially not a few documentaries, where the constant director's north shows in his stagings. However, the film does not fully land in that genre, it actually points beyond. The film glides us messages very specific and well-integrated to the development of the picture. A key scene in the film comes to be when the engineer shaves, closer than ever to the viewer, the engineer does not have mirror where to look at, or rather, the mirror where he looks is us, the spectator himself is the one who becomes a protagonist's critic. Kiarostami turns us into his character's critics, egotistical individual who despite his efforts does not ends up curdling in the locality where he is alien, showing not very laudable attitudes. His lack of empathy is evidenced when he unjustly mistreats the small and noble Farzad, then offers flimsy excuses, nothing concrete, to the child, the innocent child who had previouslly expressed how a kind fellow he considered Behzad was; the stranger even mistreats a turtle, in a figure that diagrams how he never understood the nature of the site where he was arriving. Turtle gets up and continues his journey however, life does not stop at human infamy. Hailing from a city full of technology, can not be integrated, does not understand the simplicity and beauty of that place, where he never ceases to be a foreigner.










The engineer is naturally the main thread of the film, because although the visual beauty and the portraits of the land and its people are an important part of the picture, it is through him that befall the main events, his attitudes change. It is seen on the feature also the relative influence of the poem on which it is based to some extent, those verses are recited in significant moment. Among the notable moments of the film we have the figure of Behzad talking underground with the excavator, who he reaches that human femur illustrating the final sequence, and generating the encounter of the engineer with his girlfriend to get milk. It is the moment when the verses are recited, again in the underground, in the dark, with barely visible female milking a cow, in this unique circumstance and place poetry flows in a context apparently so alien to such activity. The symbolic fact of bearing the human femur is also slid, and the final silent shows the engineer getting rid of the bone piece, as if he was deleting something more of that land, setting an admittedly uncertain, but beautiful ending. In the cinema of Kiarostami, an inadequate palate can perceive that "not much happens", in this case may be thought that the film is more of the same stuff by filmmaker, does not add nothing; but beyond that superficial and apparent simplicity and austerity, powerful messages and convictions are warmly enunciated, from that simplicity the film amalgams to the beauty that hides his land, as we perceive some of his beliefs of human nature. It arises from East this singular sort of easterly neorealist, who dispenses actors, which dispenses with special effects and dizzying technical scenarios. His stage, his "trick" is reality itself, that displays solvent and beautifully. The wind will take us is another brick in the construction which is remarkable filmography of Abbas Kiarostami, one of the most attractive filmmakers of today's international film scene.

Taste of Cherry (1997) - Abbas Kiarostami

When making this film Abbas Kiarostami was already considered one of the most brilliant filmmakers within the international film context at the end of the century. He had produced one of his major and most recognized works, Through the Olive Trees (1994), which finished catapulting him to the world stardom, and it closed his famous trilogy known as the Trilogy of the earthquake, where he explored and paid tribute to his native Iran and the aftermath of the quake. After that exercise, he made a film segment and a documentary before his next film, the work at hand now. We are facing one of the most memorable works of oriental filmmaker, which is separated from some guidelines of that triad of pictures, to develop some novelties in his art. Kiarostami narrates us in his film the story of a middle-aged man, who reached the point of its existence where has decided to take his life, and for that he must find someone to bury him when he has achieved its purpose, in exchange for much money. In his search the individual will find three different leads, a young soldier, a seminarian, and finally a taxidermist; all three will have different reactions to the request, but the third one will be who have greater influence. A remarkable, beautiful feature, and a great example of the kind of films that makes the director, that continues to consolidate its author as one of the most interesting artists in the panorama of cinema of today.

               

Tape starts with a character, a man who calls himself Mr. Badii (Homayoun Ershadi), driving a vehicle through Iranian arid lands, without much apparent reason. On his way he meets an individual who collects plastic bags to sell; then picks up a young soldier of Kurdistan (Safar Ali Moradi). After a brief conversation, Mr. Badii says he has decided to commit suicide, and once made his act, needs someone to bury him. After taking him to the grave he has already dug, he  offers the young fellow a lot of money in return, but the soldier escapes finally frightened by the proposal. Mr. Badii does not desist in his purpose, and the next character is a seminarian (Mir Hossein Noori), makes him the same request and offers the same reward, but the religious man expresses his opinion of the sinfulness he considers suicide, and refuses as well to help him. Finally Badii  finds a third man, a mature taxidermist, Mr. Bagheri (Abdolrahman Bagheri), who will hear the same request, and talks about a personal experience, when he attempted suicide by strangling. The tree where he was to hang himself, was a cherry tree, he ended up tasting the fruit, enjoying and taking some to his wife at home; cherries saved his life. Urges him not to suicide, and Badii finally takes a decision after talking to the taxidermist.

Kiarostami again placed his story in his own country, the background of its history is his usual Iran, is a new exercise in which is reflected the eastern Iranian and complex land, Tehran as geographical background, directly or indirectly. The pace of the film is relatively slow, as almost always happens in Kiarostami's films, and accordingly to this purpose, what moves the protagonist, delays in being exposed. During the first twenty minutes of the film we do not know what his purpose is, we see him just talking and doing various questions, both collector bags initially founded, and the young Kurdish soldier. We witness, see a middle-aged man who, without ever exposing during the entire feature reasons, has decided to end his days, it's all we know, and certainly, that's all we need to know for the picture works. The film is a celebration of life, leaving a little aside his usual close and intimate cinematographer portraits of his land and its people -is the more differentiated to temporarily close films to it in this respect-, to show his reflections about life, his outlooks. And in fact life is celebrated, the film is a beautiful allegory to the simplicity and beauty that dwells in the smallest and seemingly insignificant things, the story finally becomes background, it becomes a pretext for most important. The content, reflection approached by the movie is more important than at other times in Abbas, and the visual aspect, although never shelved, share importance and prominence to this aspect.

The camera work is something that does retain usual Kiarostami guidelines, a rather restrained camera without too elaborate shots, the few travellings flow observed when we look at the vehicle traveling, and of course, to also capture Iranian landscapes; Kiarostami continues in that way with his usual pattern of narrative simplicity visually speaking, always outside the eastern to use complex and elaborate tricks or technical resources of Western film industries, more conventional. This camera work contributes to the overall pace of the film, a rhythm, as stated, measured, serene, a simplicity that easily is often confused to slowness. The shots when the potential suicide moves alone show us his point of view, what the protagonist sees, an approach that helps the viewer to enter in history he is witnessing. Also, the proximity the filmmaker looks to generate between observer and protagonist is further reinforced by the side takes focusing Mr. Badii when driving the car also alone, without company. While silence reigns, we almost feel the copilot, we almost felt the companion of suicidality with that frame that makes it seem like you're sitting next to him. Both behavioral characteristics of the camera thus generate narrowness between the viewer and the individual in search of his undertaker, brings us closer to the world and history that Abbas presents. This camera action will always keep as long as the protagonist is in solitude, because that parsimony and silence are automatically broken when a passenger enters, sharing the driver shots with front passenger in turn; it is then that the secrecy of the camera before commented breaks.

The feature is then the parade of the three views that undergoes Mr Badii, with the soldier first, running scared of what is requested. It is plotted the fact that the young Kurdistan soldier, the individual who is trained to kill without hesitation, who deals with death, is the one that most frightened by the bizarre request; perhaps influenced by his age, but is eloquent his desperate escape running through the land, after jumping the car, the, worldly, more innocent reaction of the three. Then there is the Afghan seminarian, representing the religious point of view, a necessary approach, certainly necessary given the nature of the request, the filmmaker presents religious opinion condemning suicide as a sin. The vast majority of religions condemn the act of killing oneself, and religion of the Koran could not be the exception; the seminarian condemns the act, Allah is the origin and destiny of human life; suicide is to kill, kill oneself, but killing at last. Calmly seminarian rejects the request, regardless of the substantial amount of money offered, and suggests Badii to reconsider and rectify his conduct. The third breakthrough is definitely the most important, military and religion have presented its views, it's turn of the most human experience, with the old man who not only speaks and advises, but by sharing his powerful testimony makes the potential suicide reflect, and the viewer himself at once. His moving testimony tells us how to find in the smaller and insignificant things, like some cherries, a source of joy, a source of something that can completely change our outlook on life.

The epiphany of the elderly is the heart of the feature, genuine axis and core of the work, and not in vain is what beautiful and symbolically titled the film, and the figures reinforcing this idea are abundant and remarkable. Cherries are the symbol of life, which made a man about to take his own life reconsider everything; simplicity and insignificance of the fruit returned hope to live, something apparently puerile and unimportant can generate something miraculous, can change everything. When the old man conveys his epiphanic experience, when he talks about how he ate the cherries, we see a sunrise, the sun rises, life comes again; when the old man shares his testimony in what is almost a monologue on his part, oblivious to the previous episodes, something changes (when the soldier and the seminarian raided the film, Iranian ground was symbolically more arid than ever, almost always land, barren land -like the attitude of the protagonist-, and almost nothing of nature, almost no life; in more than one occasion the figure of crows flying over the territory is seen, which fateful omen). When Mr. Bagheri participates noticeable change is observed: the ground remains dry, but the green and plants, trees in rows appear, autumn colors, but also green trees flow, green, life has returned, and even, almost implausibly, a small water fountain as well; no doubt, life comes along with the old man, arrives along with the story of cherries. An image for a few seconds still shows a tree in the center of the frame, until the car moves, as well as the camera. Cherries changed everything, the man went to take his own life, and returned eating fruits, bringing cherries to his wife. The ending is very powerful, a superb example of the type of film that Kiarostami avowedly profess, a cinema that is not complete in itself, which requires audience participation, as evidenced by its denouement, an exquisite and palpable sample of what he means, perhaps the most eloquent one seen from the director. To reinforce this, the filmmaker shows himself and his team filming, an always interesting resource that reminds us that what is shown is a representation, invites us to complete the unfinished and challenging circuit which is always his art. Excellent feature from a filmmaker who produces a highly differentiated and defined cinema, who generates beautiful visual allegories, is Abbas Kiarostami.