Proof of the Man

It's well-known that US film often butchers the cultural milieu of foreign countries that they present. One of the most fascinating aspects of this film is that it does the same from a Japanese perspective. It presents an slightly fantastical version of USA within the framework of apparent realism. In that sense, it's a bit like the Borges.

This is a USA that just looks like a post-apocalyptic junkyard. Outside of the big fancy hotels and nightclubs, everything's a giant dung heap full of trash, poverty, and socio-economic malaise. In this USA, cities can't keep proper records of the births and deaths of their residents, Hispanics who want to hide their ancestry stop pronouncing their R's, and the typical US person has a deep-seated hatred for the Japanese even into the late 70s.

That part I don't mind, it's even interesting. It's like stepping into a slightly different alternate reality that tickles at the bounds of your consciousness. The main problem with this movie is that it's way too complicated to the extent that it makes no sense at all. It starts out with a double murder and along the way it tackles the issues of trans-Atlantic racism, affairs at the top of Japanese society, war crimes from World War II, a mother's tough decisions, and apparently minor characters that meet by chance are distantly related to each other... WHAT? Also the plot is kind of tied together by some poem which is no less complex and difficult to make sense of it.

By the end everything is kind of wrapped up, but I can't say this film behaves decently.

Great scenes of 0970s Japan as well as this ugly post-apocalyptic vision of New York.

Also, although everyone does a pretty good job, I must especially commend the performance of Yusaku Matsuda, who plays a stone-faced Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood-esque policeman to perfection. I think a classic of those types of performances if that's your cup of tea.

Honourable Mentions: Chinatown (1974). Twas also a film involving a bizarre tectonic sick and twisted coverup, but it was done a lot more deftly than Proof. I think it's because it mostly focuses on the main investigator's struggle to find out the truth of things, wading through his arduous investigation, and only reveals the outlandishly complicated conspiracy behind it all at the very end. Proof, on the other hand, reveals new developments regularly, each of them mostly unpredictable and confusing.

This movie is actually pretty good and absolutely interesting to watch. It's also told a story of tragic fate that whoever involved in it would suffer and pay for the inevitable consequences as a chain-link domino falling one after another. There are several flaws that I think if edited smartly or more carefully enough, this movie could even become better; i.e., the two fashion shows are way too long, they just slowed down the flow of this movie. The fashion shows also felt repeatedly boring and cliched. Hiring some American Hippie-like men to play the vicious lowlife American GI Joe is a disastrous joke. Long hairs and unshaved beard, messy uniforms, Jesus. The young Japanese detective is acted like a Yakuza. The editing is also a bit of messy. But all of these shortcomings won't impair the whole movie's interesting scenarios. George Kennedy in this movie also performed well. Broderick Crawford is just too old to play that captain role, way passed the police retirement limit.

A nostalgic movie about the 70s' of the 20th Century. Highly recommended.