Three Films Make A Post: Reap what you sow.

I Want to Go Home (2017): This sixty minute documentary by Wesley Leon Aroozoo about Yasuo Takamatsu, a man whose wife was swept away in Japan’s 2011 tsunami, and who is still diving nearly every week in the coastal town where he lost her in hopes to find her body is a quietly moving, respectful attempt at looking at the greater impact of the tsunami on Japanese society by focussing on the experiences of one man. Its treatment of Takamtsu is delicate, respecting the distances the man wants to keep yet still portraying some of the depth of his grief. There’s a quiet, gracious kindness on display throughout the film – by Takamatsu as well as Aroozoo – I found deeply moving.

What to Do with the Dead Kaiju? (2022): Despite a basic idea that seems readymade for clever satire or original meta-science-fiction, this tokusatsu comedy by Satoshi Miki suffers from a bad case of not knowing what it wants to be. It shifts between broadest comedy, slightly subtler stuff, and misguidedly shot earnestness in awkward ways I’d call amateurish coming from an inexperienced director, but can’t explain from someone who is as good at this sort of thing as Miki often is. Most of the time, the whole thing comes over as a bad attempt at shooting a parody of Shin Godzilla for idiots, which is just a sad waste of a good idea.

Petite Maman (2021): This shortish feature by the great Céline Sciamma is a rather wonderful bit of fantasy, as filmed by a director steeped in the French arthouse tradition who is always turning the visual language of it around to fit her own ideas and interests. Here, she takes on the experience of childhood, specifically a girl’s experience of childhood, putting the feelings of wonder, awkwardness, sadness, and confusion into patiently staged scenes that manage to be beautiful as well as meaningful.

It’s also a portrayal of the connections between mothers and daughters, distance and closeness, and as quietly touching a film as I’ve seen.

Three Films Make A Post: A Killer Comedy

Louder!: Can’t Hear What You’re Singin’, Wimp (2019) aka  音量を上げろタコ！なに歌ってんのか全然わかんねぇんだよ!!: I’ve seen and enjoyed most of director Satoshi Miki’s other comedies, but I have to admit, those films did leave me somewhat less puzzled than this one does. This is one of those Japanese comedies that often leave one confused if one doesn’t get a joke (or a whole scene) because one lacks sufficient cultural grounding for it, or because the film’s just frigging weird. It’s certainly never boring – Miki’s incredibly nervous direction alone is proof against that - and some of the things I do indeed get are pretty funny, as some of the film’s more earnest bits (or are they ironically earnest? who can tell?) seemed to be somewhat moving. I’m still not sure what the story of a rock singer (Sadao Abe) with doped vocal cords and a street singer (Riho Yoshioka) who can’t sing other than quiet as a mouse is trying to tell me except that making loud stadium music is better than making soft, intimate one. I am pretty sure it does want to say something, but hey, them’s the breaks.

Adventures in Babysitting (1987): Whereas this PG-13 80s US teen comedy by Chris Columbus is pretty obvious as to what it wants to do and be and why, leading to as fun a time as a film quite this fluffy can be. It’s the kid-friendly version of those 80s and 90s movies about a guy from the suburbs having weird adventures in the Big City (in this case Chicago), just that in this case, the guy is an incredibly charming young Elisabeth Shue dragging a bunch of kids (among them a Marvel-Thor-loving little girl) around. The whole thing is about as deep as a puddle, but as charming and likeable as its heroine, really putting effort into skirting around racism and unpleasantness in tone while not becoming too harmless. Plus, there’s a fun cameo by blues man Albert Collins (leading into an absurd and excellent musical number), and one Vincent Phillip D’Onofrio as (sort of) Thor.

Lying and Stealing (2019): This crime comedy by Matt Aselton that plays out like a heist movie without a proper heist – the thievery committed by Theo James’s character isn’t really interesting enough to be called heists – a bit of romance and just enough of the nasty stuff nobody would want to call it harmless. Aselton’s direction is capable, stylish, but a bit too light in moments that should have an emotional impact, the smaller roles are cast very well (including house favourite Ebon Moss-Bachrach as the protagonist’s bipolar drug-addled brother), and the film’s generally likeable, clever, and certainly not boring.


My problem with the film is that neither James nor female lead Emily Ratajkowski are quite up to the challenge of bringing their characters and their romance to life, and seem to be cast more for their ability to look hot in designer clothes (which they undoubtedly do) than to bring nuance to what they do.

Three Films Make A Post: She became the Ravaged Victim of a Century of Revenge!

Instant Numa (2009): Needs a lot of time to get going, but once it does, this comedy is often quite funny in a good-natured and very Japanese way, though the film's positivity/start-believin' mongering can become a bit annoying. With a running time of 120 minutes, the film is also way too long for its own good. Cut down to 90 or 100 minutes, I'd call it an excellent comedy, as it stands it's just good.

Survivors of director Satoshi Miki's earlier The Insects Unlisted In The Encyclopedia will probably be delighted to hear that there are only one and a half excretion-based jokes, one of 'em even kind of funny.

 

Turtles Swim Faster Than Expected (2005): This earlier movie by Satoshi about a terminally bored and lonely housewife who escapes her boredom by joining an absurdist spy ring that needs her to live as normal and boring as possible is shorter and more to the point than Instant Numa (and also only contains one excrement joke). A quietly charming Juri Ueno wins me over to a film whose quietly weird humour and good natured mocking of its characters (which seems to be Satoshi's thing outside of Insects) probably would not even have needed her help in that.

 

Searching For Haizmann (2003): A documentary film crew goes on the search for a centuries old painter who has after a pact with the devil become the Anti-Christ (who knew that adoption is enough in a case like this!), all the while torturing the helpless audience with bad acting of the type that fits the mockumentary format the least, the brightest lighting you'll ever find in a horror film, a painfully stupid and unimaginative script whose conception of evil is on the level of a Scooby Doo cartoon and the worst damn black mass I've ever had the bad luck to see in a movie, while a bunch of down-on-their-luck character actors (poor Tippi Hedren!) pretend to be experts on occultism in intercut interview bits.

On paper this is not even contemporary US independent horror at its worst, but I think the slight competence on display in aspects like editing, framing or audio make the film an even less pleasant experience than your typical rough backyard production is. Those films can at least surprise me (even if it is only through especially painful incompetence). Searching's only surprise is that it reminded my of the old Sonic Youth song "Satan is Boring".

I'd suggest that even my most hardened readers avoid this thing.

 

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