The Naked Island

With this post, I will have documented every film I watched in 2012.  I did say I was going write dedicated posts to Something Wild & Body Double so those are still coming but I have largely caught up with my film backlog on this blog...just in time to create a new backlog of films starting with Thursday's Mostly British Film Festival.

I saw The Naked Island at the YBCA in August.

The Naked Island starring Nobuko Otowa & Taiji Tonoyama; directed by Kaneto Shindō; Japanese with subtitles; (1960)

Japanese film director Kaneto Shindō died in May 2012 at the age of 100.  The YBCA had a three film retrospective in his honor.  The other two films in the series were Kuroneko & Onibaba; both of which I had seen previously.  Actually, I recall liking the soundtrack to Onibaba quite a bit.

When I wrote that The Naked Island is in  Japanese with subtitles, it's a bit inaccurate since there is no dialog in the film.  Most of the subtitles translate Japanese signs or other written words.

The premise of The Naked Island is that a family of four (husband, wife and two sons) live on a small island off the coast of Japan.  The characters are not give names.  They are one step above subsistence farmers.  It is never explained why they live on this island so close to a town on the main island (filming took place on an island off the coast of Hiroshima).  The island has no fresh water so they must  row their boat onto the main island to pump water and bring it back for human consumption and irrigation.  Close to a third of the film involves them rowing their boat, pumping the water, rowing back, climbing the treacherous trail uphill and watering their crops on the terraced hillside of the island.  All this was done in silence as if it were their normal daily task.  This could easily become tedious but for reasons I cannot articulate, I was fascinated by it.  Carrying heaving buckets on poles resting across their shoulders, I wondered how the actors kept their footing.

By eschewing dialog, the film has a documentary feel to it.  There is no dialog to shape our opinions.  In fact, the only questionable action was the husband slapping his wife when she slipped and spilled water.  Other than that, the film shows the family going through mundane tasks for them - gathering water, tending to crops, sharing a meal, rowing into town, enjoying a day in the town, etc.

It's not until the end when the older son falls seriously ill that any drama is introduced.  As the father makes the agonizingly slow journey across the bay to fetch a doctor, we see the boy's feverish last minutes as the mother looks on helplessly.  The boy dies and his classmates attend the funeral but there is limited opportunity for grieving as the family is locked into this daily struggle for survival.

There is a harsh reality to the family's lives which Shindō never challenges.  No one ever talks so it's difficult to introduce new ideas.  However, they avail themselves to the modern conveniences in town and at least, the older boy goes to school on the main island, so it is somewhat odd that they would choose this life.  Poverty isn't the issue either as they enjoy a meal in the town and are able to make rent payments in the form harvested crops.  They have city clothes too.  The family co-exists with the modern world so close geographically but so far technologically from the modern world.

Actress Nobuko Otowa (the mother in Onibaba) was Shindō mistress during production of The Naked Island and Onibaba (1964).  In the late 1970s, the two would marry when Shindō's wife divorced him.

The Naked Island is tremendous film.  It is certainly minimalist but it never lost my interest.  Rather than appearing to be slavishly adhering to the self-imposed silent structure of the film, The Naked Island uses that silence to create a detachment between the audience and the characters which allows Shindō more freedom in telling his story.

Skateboard Immorality, Face to Face With the Devil and Black Cat

I saw a trio of films in March that didn't quite live up to expectations.

Machotaildrop; (2009) - Official Website
I Saw the Devil starring Byung-hun Lee & Min-sik Choi; directed by Jee-woon Kim; Korean with subtitles; (2010) - Official Website
Kuroneko; directed by Kaneto Shindô; Japanese with subitles; (1968)

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Machotaildrop was billed by the Roxie as the "surprise hit of Indiefest." I recalled that Jason Wiener thought highly of it. When it played for a week after Indiefest closed, I decided to catch it.

The plot dealt with a skateboarder who signs a contract with a skateboard manufacturing company. They make him a star through videos and other products lines. However, he has to move to their compound which is on a island. He begins to notice weird things such as the gnomish elderly people who construct the products or the post-apocalyptic gang (they look like rejects from The Warriors) of punks who maraud the island. It turns out that his contract requires him to be slave labor after he gets too old or injured to skate the halfpipe. I'm surprised they didn't turn the old into soylent green.

Anyway, I found the film more derivative than homage to say Willy Wonka. I dozed off for part of it so I can't say with certainty that it was wholly unenjoyable. When I was conscious, I found the film less than enjoyable. The gang leader seemed to be doing a Bobcat Goldwaithe impersonation which quickly grew tiresome. The main evildoer was the Baron whose facial hair and vocal patterns proved tiresome as well. Enough said about Machotaildrop; if you enjoyed it, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.

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I Saw the Devil was yet another of these ultra-violent revenge films from Korea. From their cinema, you would think vigilantism against serial killers, rapists and child molesters is commonplace in South Korea. I don't really finds these films enjoyable. The violence doesn't bother me but after a few of these films, the storylines begin to blur together. The only one of these I recall enjoying was The Chaser (2008) which I saw at the 2009 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival. That one was a little different because the protagonist was a pimp who was avenging his whore's murder.

I Saw the Devil focuses on a serial murderer/rapist (whose known associates includes a cannibal!) picks the wrong woman to murder. He has unwittingly killed the fiancée of a secret service agent and the daughter of a police chief. Rather than solving the crime or even avenging the murder, the secret service agent decides to ratchet things up. He repeatedly catches, beats and releases the serial killer. He is able to do this because upon their first encounter, he shoves a capsulized GPS tracker down the killer throat.

Eventually, the killer discovers how he is being tracked. After taking some laxatives (nice scene where he scoops out the capsule from his fresh pile of soft fecal matter), the killer turns the table on his stalker and takes the fight to his inlaws.

Maybe some people enjoy this but it seemed terribly contrived to me. To make matters worse, the performances were oddly flat. Byung-hun Lee as the Secret Service agent goes about his role in such a stolid manner that he turns a thinly developed character into a bore. The character does turn into something worse than the killer he is tormenting but that descent was largely lost in Lee's performance. Min-sik Choi has the meatier role as the killer and has some fun with the role but he played the killer without a trace of humanity; more like a cartoon. Giving the killer a little bit more angst and regret would have made the film infinitely more enjoyable.

Byung-hun Lee and director Jee-woon Kim most recently collaborated on The Good, the Bad and the Weird which was also disappointing albeit lighter fare.

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Finally, there was the cult classic Kuroneko which was re-released last year by Janus Films and played at the Castro. Director Kaneto Shindô made Onibaba (1964) which I saw at the PFA tribute retrospective for Kashiko Kawakita. The soundtrack was similar which I liked. The plot was also similar which I thought compared unfavorably to Onibaba.

In both films, a woman and her daughter-in-law are left to fend for themselves when the man of the house goes off to war. In Onibaba (which mean old devil woman or devil hag), the two women lure samurai to their deaths until the commence to fight between themselves. In Kuroneko (which means black cat in Japanse), the two women are gangraped and murdered by bandits (or perhaps desperate samurai) but come back as black cats. The younger woman changes into human form to lure samurai to their death. The man of the house returns triumphantly from war. He is given a title and the assignment of banishing the ghosts who have been killing samurai for the past year. When he confronts the ghosts, he sees a resemblance between them and his mother and wife. The sets up the final confrontation which I won't give away because its one of the better parts of the film.

Director Kaneto Shindô wife, Nobuko Otowa plays the mother-in-law in both films. I thought she was more effective as the earthy and petty woman in Onibaba. Kiwako Taichi plays the daughter in Kuroneko which is the bigger role.

The film was not so much a horror film. It was re-release by Janus Films because it is an arthouse film. It evokes a certain mood. I found the repetition of luring samurai to their death to be tedious even though it was done in a montage sequence. When the son finally confronts the two ghosts, it takes awhile for the action to commence. There was a lot of inner conflict and psychological posturing which seemed out of place. The level of introspection seemed out of place by J-horror standards. As I watched the Kuroneko, I couldn't help but think how much more I enjoyed Onibaba.