The Lament of a Lamb – review

Director: Junji Hanado

Release date: 2002

Contains spoilers


Depending on where you look, Hitsuji No Uta is listed as The Lament of a Lamb or Lament of the Lamb – to keep this distinct from the anime I have reviewed under the first variant.

Clearly therefore this is based on the manga of the same Japanese title and thus follows pretty much the same basic story. However there is very much a different focus within that story as we shall see.

The story begins with dreams, dreams of a girl in a kimono, of blood dripping and of red smeared over a white painted face. These are the dreams that haunt Kazuna Takashiro (Shun Oguri), a young orphan. He lives with his Aunt and Uncle and his classmates seem to think he might be unwell as he has been sleeping in class a lot.

He enjoys watching a girl called Yaegashi paint as she seldom laughs. She has been painting a still life and when she tries to remove the canvas she cuts her finger. He mentions his dreams as he helps her with the canvas but when he becomes aware of the actual blood he faints. When he comes round he claims he must be a little anaemic and then agrees to model for her.

On the way home he sees the face of a girl on a passing train that triggers a memory, as does the sound of a temple bell that his Aunty has bought. His uncle offers to adopt him but the old memories are clearly haunting him. He looks in a photobook and remembers his father walking away when he was a child and then dreams of his mother, for the first time in years.

The memories cause him to find his old house, cutting class and missing his modelling session with Yaegashi as a result. He had snuck to the house once before and it was empty. He remembers that his father took his sister and left him with Aunty and Uncle, making him feel abandoned. The house is now occupied by Chizuna (Natsuki Kato), his older sister. She tells him dad is dead, he died 6 months ago and Uncle is aware of it, and that she suffers from an incurable hereditary disease, a vampire disease that makes her crave blood. She tells him to leave and not come back. At home Uncle, unaware that Kazuna has spoken to his sister, maintains that his father is alive.

The next day he models for Yaegashi but a sudden rain causes them to have to clean the art room floor. She gets red upon her hand and he leaps upon her – an action she takes very much as an aggressive, and yet not unwanted, sexual advance. He, however, can only see himself biting into her neck. He runs from the room and out into the rain. He imagines slaughtering his classmates.

This is where the film is somewhat stronger in content, for a brief moment, than the subsequent anime and the sequence works really well. From the fantasised attack we next see him led outside the familial house, unconscious in the rain, by Dr Minase. Minase worked with his father and is trying to help Chizuna. The disease has been passed down the maternal line – it killed their mother – and it was thought that Kazuna had escaped it as boys tended not to develop it if they did not show symptoms by the age of two. The only two vampires are the siblings.

This is the thrust of the film, a sense of isolation and abnormality as a metaphor for growing up and puberty. Kazuna leaves his family (those who have actually cared for him), as well as deliberately breaking Yaegashi’s heart, so that he might protect them all from his disease, whilst he develops a bond with the one person who he believes can understand him, his sister. There is a theme of replacement – Chizuna replaced her mother in her father’s eyes and Kazuna replaces his father for Chizuna – but the underlying hints of incest that were in the manga and anime are not readily apparent, it is more replacing on an emotional and caring level.

The darker familial secrets that appeared and the underlying obsession felt by Minase also fail to materialise in this, but are only really missing if you knew they were there in the other formats.

This is a slow paced film, a drama exploring growing up – though it misses, in some respects, the more familiar coming of age story. Perhaps not as lyrically beautiful as the subsequent anime it is still worth time and effort. However, if you manage to track down the DVD you will then have to track down a subtitle file online. 7 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Nadja – review

Directed by: Michael Almereyda

First released: 1994

Contains spoilers

I got a mail from friend of the blog Simon Dyda, which mentioned that he had ordered Nadja but had noticed that it wasn’t on the blog. Nadja was in my collection, it was another example of a film I hadn’t dug out for review and so – thanks to Simon’s mail – I dug the film out and put it at the top of the review list.

Now Nadja is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Post-modernistic, with surrealistic aspects and shot in black and white with, occasional, pixilation effects on the screen it is more arthouse than horror. It is also a remake of Dracula’s Daughter, capturing in its own way, the essence of the earlier film beautifully. Interestingly it also captures several of the vampire archetype’s directions.

We begin with Nadja (Elina Löwensohn) and she is in a bar talking to a man (Nic Ratner), she talks of the difference between Europe and America – especially New York. She suggests that there is no food in Europe after 10PM – a comment on night life and vampiric nutrition more than restaurants! She talks of her family, of old money gained through the suffering of the common person and, in this way, we see one of the vampiric archetype’s – the bourgeois. In this we also gather that Nadja wishes to change her life. We note here that the dialogue is very stagy. This is an issue through the film but, the actors are so good and the delivery so perfect that it becomes a positive rather than a negative.

Nadja and the man go off together. She attacks him but the scene is broken up with pixilation effects. This can be annoying for some viewers but it served more than one function. The effects take place when vampiric activity occurs – be it mojo or an attack. It could be seen to be a visual representation of the vampire’s power. It also covers up these moments in a way that any lack of budget would not be seen within the physical effects and I can’t believe that was coincidence. Most of all Almereyda uses the effect, gained by using a Fisher-Price PixelVision camera, in several of his works and so it is somewhat of a trademark. At the end of the feeding Nadja suddenly looks up and declares that her father is dead.

Jim (Martin Donovan) is sparring in a boxing ring when his wife Lucy (Galaxy Craze) comes in and distracts him – leading to him being punched out. The punch causes his vision to swirl and his nose to bleed. Lucy had come to tell him that his uncle Van Helsing (Peter Fonda) has been arrested for murder – he stuck a stake into a man’s chest, into his heart. It is clear that Lucy does not like Van Helsing. We see Nadja and another, later revealed to be Renfield (Karl Geary), enter a morgue to take the body of Dracula. This is reminiscent of the beginning of Dracula’s Daughter. It should be noted that the morgue attendant is David Lynch in cameo. Lynch actually produced Nadja.

Jim gets his Uncle from the police station and they end up at a coffee shop. Van Helsing talks about needing to cut off the head and burn the body (little does he know that this is what Nadja has done, off screen). He says that Dracula was tired of his existence, that he didn’t really put up a fight. Later we will hear from Van Helsing about the countless children Dracula fathered, all raving idiots who are present in the crowds of all major cities. However there were two, twins, born of a woman he loved – who died in childbirth. Dracula is portrayed by several actors. Dracula young is Jeff Winner, whilst Fonda plays Dracula when a facial shot is not called for. The full face shot we get is Bela Lugosi – actually from the film White Zombie. Why not from Dracula? Possibly because, in Dracula’s Daughter, Lugosi did not reprise the role of the dead Count but a dummy was used instead… unlikely… more likely because White Zombie is public domain.

Meanwhile Lucy has gone to a bar. Nadja is in there also and it is Lucy that approaches her. Nadja talks of being upset, she is going to see her brother, Edgar (Jared Harris), whom, she claims, hates her. Lucy had a brother, it transpires, who committed suicide at twenty one. Nadja speaks of the pain of fleeting joy – and this captures the essence of the vampire as outsider, of the loner unable to connect properly. Lucy and Nadja end up at Lucy’s apartment. She has a Dracula toy (Nadja reacts badly to it, is it a reaction to her father or a commentary on the commercialisation of the vampire? probably both, though the commercialisation commentary continues later when, on arriving in the wilds of Transylvania, the first thing they see is a child wearing Mickey Mouse ears). The women end up as lovers.

When Jim gets back to the flat he finds Lucy in the corner. She is ill; she bleeds from the nose, haemorrhages from her pubic area and just wants to sleep. She sees Nadja in a mirror, when she is not there, and this reminds the viewer of the Hunger. When the night comes she goes to work almost zombie like. Van Helsing appears at the apartment to tell Jim that the body has gone and reveals that he is not actually Jim’s uncle but his father. Jim finds Polaroids taken of Nadja, he wonders who this woman is, Van Helsing notices that she is captured on film but not in the mirror on film. The race is on to save Lucy.

I don’t want to go further into this but I do need to mention that Edgar is ill – representing vampirism as a disease or a plague. His nurse, (with whom a mutual love has developed), is Cassandra (Suzy Amis). Later we hear that she is Van Helsing’s niece (and Jim’s half sister). Edgar wishes to die and at one point talks of staking his sister also.

Lore wise we hear that they are shapeshifters, they are fast and strong (Lucy is able to toss Jim across a bar). They see in the dark, can dominate weaker minds and can pass through solid objects. Acting wise all the cast are excellent but special mention to Karl Geary who makes the most laid back Renfield in movies, I think, and to Peter Fonda whose portrayal of Van Helsing – as a long haired, mad old coot, it has to be said – is a powerhouse performance.

Does it work? Yes but… for all its strengths, beautiful, moody photography, great acting and multi-layered narrative, the film is at heart an arthouse film. This is always going to be off putting to some and makes the film more a mood piece generally. The more action level sequences do not necessarily work as well as they should. But these are minor quibbles in a film that reveals something new to the viewer with each watch. 8 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Lament of the Lamb – review

Directed by: Gisaburo Sugii

Release date: 2003

Contains spoilers

Wow… sometimes that will do.

Regular readers will be aware that I do like anime. This particular one is a 4 part OVA based on a manga of the same name (Hitsuji no Uta, in Japanese). The thing is, when you sit down to watch an anime you expect you may see some explosive cartoon action, you might have some boring sections amongst the film (to be honest), you may even get a bit of dubious fan service.

What you don’t expect is a character driven drama. Lament of the Lamb does not have anything really resembling action but what it does have is story and characterisation in spades. I must warn however that it is very downbeat – to say the least – and thus might not appeal to all.

Kazuna Takashiro (Tomokazu Seki) is a student in Tokyo. As the series begins we discover that his father walked out on him when he was a child, leaving him in the care of his aunt and uncle – actually not biologically related to him. They seek to adopt him but he has been having problems lately staying awake in class and does not know why.

He is a member of the art club in the school and visits it, finding Yaegashi (Satsuki Yukino) there. She wonders why he joined as he does not seem to do much there but it become clear that he joined because she was a member. He notes the still life she is painting and just how red it seems – her favourite colour she admits.

As she paints he notices that her fingers are bandaged – it is nothing she confides, she had an accident. He seems to see blood seeping from her hand and it becomes too much for him. He passes out. Whilst passed out he dreams of the house he shared with his mother and father and remembers being told about having a sister, whom his father took away when he left.

Kazuna visits the house, wondering if it will still be there. He meets a girl living there and then realises it is his sister Chizuna (Meguni Hayashibara). She informs him that their father has died – she had told his Uncle but the message was not passed on – and then explains that the father did not abandon him – he wanted Kazuna to have a normal life.

She explains that there is a family curse – the Takashiros are vampires. She explains that the word is metaphoric. They have a hereditary disease that causes them to crave blood, to the point of violently attacking others. She dismisses him as she is a vampire and she doesn’t want to hurt him but, after he has another attack, he returns for more information.

All the Takashiros who inherit the disease eventually go mad and die – often committing suicide. Their mom developed the disease at the age of 22 but it is unusual for a boy to develop it and if they do it is normally at a much younger age. She gives Kazuna a medicine (I assume that same as hers, in which case it is a strong sedative) but later, when he can’t take it through fear, she feeds him her own blood.

Kazuna ends up moving back to his old house and trying to distance himself from Yaegashi – to protect her. The other person who knows about the family’s condition is Dr Minase, a student of their father who bears a scar from where Chizuna attacked him when she was a child. He seems obsessively fixated on her.

As the story develops the two fledgling vampires discover that their past has several skeletons that are due to be forcibly expelled from the closet. The show does give a hint of an incestuous attraction between the siblings and hints further that there was more to the relationship between Chizuna and her father. However these are very subtle, I believe the hints are stronger in the manga but hints still.

The pace is slow but skilfully crafted and the soundtrack is wonderfully ambient bursting into atmospheric industrial at key times. What the anime also does is build very deep characters, warring often with their inner needs and desires. I understand that the manga has also been filmed as a live action film, which I have reviewed here.

A stunning animation that shows that overt sexuality and/or action and violence are not necessary to make a fine anime. 8 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary – review

Director: Juan López Moctezuma

Release Date: 1975

Contains spoilers

This was a film by the director that brought us Alucarda and is an unusual take on vampirism that almost works and yet falls short.

The film begins with a van stalling in the night as a thunder storm begins. The driver, Mary (Cristina Ferrare), goes to a large house to try and illicit help. She is knocking at the gate as the heavens open and pushes through to find that the house is derelict. We see her explore the house and movement upstairs. She finds a telephone and then is grabbed. She gets away and runs into the night, followed.

The man, Ben (David Young), finds her and speaks to her. He apologises for grabbing her, he is a hitchhiker sheltering in the house. He suggests that he takes the upstairs and she the downstairs. As he moves away we see Mary replace her hair clasp – it is fashioned into a wicked knife. Is she just defending herself or is the film playing with our expectations? Given the film’s fabulous title we already know the answer to that. What is less clear is why Ben would grab her in the first place and why she would so readily agree to come back.

Mary sleeps and we flashback to her at a gallery. She is an artist and a man, who we later find out works at the American embassy, is buying one of her pieces. Mary returns to his home and drugs his wine, which he spills. Though he might have ingested a little of the wine she moves to plan B and has sex with him before slitting his throat with her concealed blade and drinking his blood. We see her wake and go upstairs to see Ben, yet she does not attack but simply walks away.

The cops have found the American’s body and the murder is being investigated by Lieutenant Pons (Enrique Lucero). Also at the scene is Cosgrove (Arthur Hansel), an FBI agent sent to discover whether the attack was a simple murder or politically motivated. The doctor has noticed that the body is completely drained and wonders why there is so little blood as it should have sprayed the ceiling. In the meantime Ben has fixed the van and gets a lift for his trouble.

At this point the credits start and we get one of the worst title songs in any movie I think I have seen. Honestly it just does not work in any way, shape or form. This is one of the big problems with the movie, the soundtrack is awful and does not fit with the piece at all. Sometimes a soundtrack threatens to break a film’s mood but this one smashes it completely.

Ben and Mary get to a beach as we see a man being carried covered in blood and a group of locals beating the living crap out of a shark in the shallows. It is a bizarre scene and ends up with the shark carcass on the beach surrounded by turtles on their back, which Ben rescues. Mary tells him it is pointless, the blood on their shells will attract other sharks. It obviously wishes to allegorically tell us something but the referencing is so obliquely handled that the message becomes lost.

On the beach, whilst Ben has wandered off, Mary finds a fisherman and drugs him. During their exchange we hear about her father, how he taught her early (the fisherman believes she is referring to fishing, we know otherwise). The attack is well done and ends up with another feed. She finds Ben, they move beaches and then it is back to her place where we see a portrait of Mary’s father. She comments that he was unusual and that she believes him dead.

Things then continue with Mary attacking a friend, after a tease of lesbianism that never really happens, the police closing in but liking Ben as the murderer and Ben being generally dense. We also get the appearance of a mystery man (John Carradine) who is swathed in black and attacks people in the same way as Mary – which distracts the investigation a little but not as much as you’d think. He ends up stalking and then attacking Mary and his identity is allegedly a mystery but anyone with half a brain cell will realise it is her father from the first instance.

His existence gives us a clue to the vampirism. It is a disease, a compulsion or addiction making the sufferer drink blood - thus it looses all supernatural trappings. There is no problem with sunlight and none of the other trappings are even mentioned. Her father’s hands are arthritis riddled and his face, when revealed, seems decayed almost. He wants to kill Mary as the disease has progressed to the point where he has little control left and he wants to spare her his fate. How he looks is how she will eventually look.

The idea is rather cool but the execution is poor. The soundtrack doesn’t help, nor does the acting as most involved give very low grade performances. Carradine hams it up to the hilt and is great fun but Ferrare is so limited in her acting abilities that she takes a character that should have been complex and interesting and makes her irritating. The film looks cheap also, though some of the blood letting shots are impressive given the obvious lack of budget. The film hints at an Aztec connection but then goes nowhere with it, which was frustrating.

The story suffers from plot contrivances that are more than annoying in places and there are logic holes scattered through the script. With a re-write and competent cast this could have been a classic. Clearly Ben was meant to represent the innocence of Mary’s humanity and her father the disease that held her. Ben actually became a walking dullard whom we hoped would be finished off rather quickly or be arrested (as the cops really did like him for the murders). Perhaps it would have been interesting if Mary had sold him out to the cops with a frame up, selling her humanity for the disease/addiction, but the film never went along those lines.

I was tempted to give a little higher score (perhaps round the 4 mark) because I liked the base idea, but 3 out of 10 was all I could muster and feel I was being fair. You’ll be much better off watching Alucarda – more supernatural in content but, more importantly, a much stronger cast and story that is visually stunning whilst this is visually cheap.

The imdb page is here.