The Standard Version

Japan engages in naval warfare in 1981's Imperial Navy (連合艦隊). Despite weak special effects and an unimaginative screenplay, this World War II film manages some effective scenes, particularly in its bloody climax.

The movie begins by showing the top brass of Japan's Navy being informed of the decision to ally with Germany and Italy in going to war. Admiral Yamamoto (Keiju Kohayashi) is furious and feels such an endeavour is doomed.

The movie carefully avoids depicting any enthusiasm for the object of the war, instead depicting all passions focused on the people and vessels involved, particularly the battleship Yamato.

That's the same ship that gets turned into a space vessel in the great anime Space Battleship Yamato, a much more effective work.

The year 1981 will be familiar to cinephiles as the year Das Boot was released, a World War II film with a German submarine crew as protagonists. Das Boot gained worldwide renown but Imperial Navy remains obscure. It's not just that Das Boot had better special effects. Wolfgang Petersen's film succeeds at portraying the realistic, messy humanity of that group of men. Imperial Navy portrays types. Everyone, from the stoic admiral to the eager young soldier to the kamikaze pilot who cries out for his mother, everyone behaves as most people would expect.

I was pleased to recognise some locations, including the beautiful gates near Todai-ji in Nara.

Imperial Navy is available on YouTube.

When the Jungle Comes to Life

I've been in the mood for jungle movies lately, maybe because it's been so hot and humid here in central Japan, and here was Disney+ shoving Predator in my face every time I loaded it up. So I watched Predator again a few days ago. What a nice movie. Though, ironically, I read on the Wikipedia entry that it actually got so cold in the Mexican jungle during filming they had to use heat lamps to keep the actors warm. I'd have never guessed.

I was maybe the only person who at all liked Shane Black's The Predator because he captured one of the essential aspects of the original film, which was the rapport among the ensemble cast. But he failed to capture the mounting dread that plays concurrent to that rapport so beautifully.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to note how neatly the film fits within a post-Vietnam War progression of war films. The progression from Apocalypse Now to First Blood to Predator is pretty clear. These young, average American guys thrown into a grotesque haunted house of corrupt politics and unpredictable physical threat. Of course, there's nothing truly average about Rambo in First Blood or Dutch in Predator. They represent an ideal and there's something comforting, I'd imagine, in the realisation that even the ideal is at a loss at times in this nightmare. But they also represent a positive self-image, not only for the disillusioned and traumatised war veteran, but for anyone looking for hope again in a symbol of American, or western, strength (is Dutch literally meant to be Dutch? It would be a decent way of explaining Schwarzenegger's accent).

The nice thing about Predator is that it moves the position of the human enemy. The human enemy isn't removed, there's that hostage crises at the beginning. But the native girl who joins the group, first as a prisoner but then as a fellow, helps establish the humanity of this terrible experience as being beyond country or politics.

The upcoming film, Prey, has an interesting premise. The director, Dan Trachtenberg, directed 10 Cloverfield Lane, which I really liked, and the first episode of The Boys, a show I'm about halfway through and I'll have a lot to say about at a later date. But he also did a good job on that, too. I fear he bit off more than he could chew with Prey, though. I just watched an interview with him in which he really didn't come off as very bright. Thinking back, I'd say it's more the screenplay and performances that made 10 Cloverfield Lane work so well. But I'll wait and see and hope for the best.

Twitter Sonnet #1606

As sure as each cicada's fucking nuts
The master's coin was cut below the bids.
The fishy bread's a snack of choc'late guts.
The diner belched the bones of foolish kids.
About the fire, fickle thieves devolve.
A pleasant meal became a sloppy fight.
A chicken peace became a fried resolve.
A bucket hat but little pads your height.
A metal whale approached the rotten reed.
To boil seas, the searching flame arose.
A mollusc waits in softly bedded seed.
Deceived, the mortals took a fool's repose.
The strapping monster courts a modern rock.
Attractive thorns support a puppet sock.

Intrusive Fire

Governments and revolutionary groups spend a lot of time convincing citizens that the ideological motivations behind war are deeply personal. And yet, it often seems that to the people whose lives are affected by mass armed conflict, such phenomena are invariably, violently alien. Ingmar Bergman's 1968 film Shame (Skammen) presents the lives of a young married couple suddenly caught in the gears of war. Bergman's normally quiet and desolate Faro is quite plausibly transformed into a war ravaged hellscape. Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann find the physical and psychological threads of their existence upended and violated by bombs, soldiers, and officers whose motives seem surreal or arbitrary but always terribly human.

Von Sydow and Ullmann play a couple of musicians, Jan and Eva, who have been exiled from the world of concert symphonies for reasons that are never divulged. They dwell in a poor little home on Bergman's desolate island, growing bored and dissatisfied with each other.

Bergman establishes their relationship very effectively in the first scene as they wake up one morning. Beautiful Eva walks around topless and Jan doesn't seem to care and neither does she. He tells her about a dream he had that brought him to tears and she responds only by coldly asking if he plans to shave to-day.

A friend in town talks about his panic at the idea of being drafted and says he knows no-one will miss him if he dies. Jan and Eva's reactions confirm this is probably true and that they only feel faintly sorry about it. They awkwardly excuse themselves from the house.

Troops move about the streets and crowd the ferries. Jan and Eva run into Bergman regular Gunnar Bjornstand, in this movie a wealthy man to whom they sell fruit. Their acquaintance proves lucky when he manages to save them from execution later in the film. But it comes with a price as human psychology is wedded uneasily to the responsibilities retained by military officers in a conflict.

Paratroopers from the enemy faction force Eva to make statements on camera which are later used for propaganda. Even when it's obviously faked and coerced, it seems interrogators think she ought to be executed anyway. Everyone in a uniform seems dead certain but it's never really clear what's happening or for what reason. All that's clear is that people who used to have lives and dignity are robbed of both as they're hustled en masse into small rooms or confronted by random murder and destruction.

Shame is available on The Criterion Channel.

Politics Never Eclipsed the Chicken

One of humanity's perennial tragedies is the tendency for ideological conflict to crush normal life in the name of justice. 2015's Kalo Pothi (The Black Hen) depicts the start of the Nepali Civil War from the perspective of a child who's just trying to keep a hen in the middle of it all. While people are harassed or killed by Maoists or government forces, all the time this boy just wants to maintain his little egg machine. Director Min Bahadur Bham draws influence from Italian Neorealists to produce a somewhat cold yet interesting film.

I thought of Vittorio De Sica or Robert Bresson when I realised most of the people in Kalo Pothi were probably not professional actors. Khadka Raj Nepali as the little boy, Prakash, is pretty convincing though some of the supporting performances are a bit stiff and sort of bewildered.

I can see why Bham opted for this style. A gathering of Maoists is stripped of any genuinely rabble-rousing energy to show us these are basically just a group of random people making noise. The camera work is also often conspicuously cold and avoids framing anyone in suggestive ways, often putting people off-centre in telephoto shots. Shots often begin several beats before action occurs and then wait several beats after characters have left the screen, as though the presence of humanity isn't worthy of any particular notice. Sometimes this does make one wonder if the film is worth noticing but it is a nicely apolitical portrait of an intensely political, bloody chapter in human history.

Kalo Pothi is available on Vimeo.

Twitter Sonnet #1504

The spinning birds required second beaks.
The chopper sky confused the muscle run.
Behind the palms we drank the island leaks.
A box of books can weigh a metric ton.
The bird was blue but not as blue as ink.
We measured days with candied drops of rain.
And something fell behind the rusty sink.
We think perhaps the map will lead to Spain.
The jagged lines describe a softer serve.
Along the cable, lights convene to eat.
The sugar road compels the sweets to swerve.
It's said the legs will end with people's feet.
The burger crafted well deserves the yen.
The chicken tutored well escapes the pen.

The Day Between Conflict and Peace

It's easy to say Japan surrendered after the United States used two atomic bombs on Japanese cities. The reality was much more complicated and delicate, as can be seen in Japan's Longest Day (日本のいちばん長い日). A 1967 film from Toho, it features almost every major and minor star from the studio, including Toshiro Mifune and Chishu Ryu, playing Minister of War Korechika Anami and Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki, respectively. Mostly consisting of scenes of men arguing in comfortable rooms, it's nonetheless constantly propelled by suspense.

Taking place over the course of 24 hours, from noon, August 14 to noon, August 15, 1945, it presents two groups of players in the drama--Japan's highest officials, debating the correct course for the country, and a few lower ranking officers who decide to take matters into their own hands. Masataka Ida (Etsushi Takahashi) and Kenji Hatanaka (Toshio Kurosawa) attempt to perpetrate what was later called the Kyujo incident, a coup.

To do this, they murder one official in one of the film's few action sequences, using swords against the old man who's too indignant at what his subordinates are doing to be afraid. The scene uses arterial spray to great dramatic effect.

Following this, the conspirators search madly for the recording of the Emperor announcing the surrender before its broadcast. They ransack the Emperor's palace, invading the rooms of all the women staying at the palace as well as high level servants. Watching them tear apart the carefully arranged furniture and decorations, I realised these guys must have been intensely unsympathetic to the average Japanese audience. If having the pro-surrender officials played by actors who typically played popular heroes didn't already make it clear which side the film's sympathy is on. This is perhaps what keeps the film from being truly great, it makes little attempt to show why the conspirators were doing what they were doing.

The exception is the Minister of War, played by Toshirio Mifune. He puts forward the argument that to surrender now, however inevitable defeat might seem, would be to dishonour the hundreds of thousands who died believing in Japan's victory. But he can't disobey his Emperor. He's not a madman, he doesn't attempt a coup against the sovereign whose sovereignty he's attempting to defend. But it's also not hard to see why he would commit seppuku after signing the surrender.

The film was directed by Kihachi Okamoto who might rely too much on close-ups but his editing keeps everything moving at a brisk pace so that the two and a half hour run time feels more like one hour.

Bloody Opportunities

A rough man with a crude sense of humour stands before a restless mob. He says to them;

Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows
reformation. There shall be in England seven
halfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hooped
pot; shall have ten hoops and I will make it felony
to drink small beer: all the realm shall be in
common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to
grass: and when I am king, as king I will be . . .
. . . there shall be no money;
all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will
apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree
like brothers and worship me their lord.

These proto-Communist sentiments with healthy doses of distinctly Fascist notes are spoken by the rebel leader Jack Cade in William Shakespeare's Henry VI Part 2. A brave captain he certainly is which must be a refreshing contrast to the pious and gentle but weak and ineffectual Henry VI. Cade doesn't appear until Act Four of the play and before his appearance Henry's weak will has permitted the contending ambitions of noblemen to play out on the stage in increasingly ruthless and violent ways.

Believed to be one of Shakespeare's earliest plays--confusingly, it's generally believed to have been written and performed long before Part 1--Henry VI Part 2 is a nightmarish and effective portrait of chaos consuming high and low. I watched Jane Howell's BBC production from the 80s last night, which continues from her production of Part 1, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. Her Part 2 continues to use the same minimalist playground set with realistic, period costume and carries over the same actors in the same roles.

David Burke as Gloucester had seemed underused in the first part but now here his casting makes sense as he becomes the only decent and courageous person left among Henry's (Peter Benson) advisers. Henry's new wife, Queen Margaret (Julia Foster), has blossomed from the demure French woman captured by an enraptured Suffolk (Paul Chapman) into a fierce and ambitious plotter.

At times I wasn't sure if I felt Foster's performance wasn't over the top. When Gloucester's death is discovered, she immediately lays into the weeping Henry, shouting at him about how he should be concerned about her reputation if she's blamed for the murder. The text would support a more seemingly grieved performance from her:

QUEEN MARGARET

. . . So shall my name with slander's tongue be wounded,
And princes' courts be fill'd with my reproach.
This get I by his death: ay me, unhappy!
To be a queen, and crown'd with infamy!

KING HENRY VI

Ah, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!

QUEEN MARGARET

Be woe for me, more wretched than he is.
What, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?
I am no loathsome leper; look on me.
What! art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?
Be poisonous too and kill thy forlorn queen.
Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester's tomb?

Obviously she is emotionally bullying and manipulating Henry and the point of the play is that he's weak willed but that's all the more reason I think her performance should be a little subtler. But Foster is effective later cradling the head of the recently decapitated Suffolk like an infant.

This moment is pretty hideously foreshadowed earlier when she and Suffolk are together.

SUFFOLK

If I depart from thee, I cannot live;
And in thy sight to die, what were it else
But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?
Here could I breathe my soul into the air,
As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe
Dying with mother's dug between its lips:
Where, from thy sight, I should be raging mad,
And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,
To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth;

It's a group of lowly pirates that supplies Suffolk's doom, a scene immediately followed by the one introducing Jack Cade, played in Howell's production by Trevor Peacock, a striking choice given that he played the emblem of English virtue, Talbot, in Part 1.

What is Howell trying to say with this casting choice? Perhaps it's a point about how a country's purest sentiments can so easily be turned back on it. Peacock does a great job, in any case. His impression of roughness and plainness is key to both roles but in Cade he invests more charisma and coarseness. David Burke, in addition to playing Gloucester, also plays the Butcher here, one of the more vocal members of Cade's mob. Howell has Burke address the screen with his humorous asides that mock Cade's speech. The moment is funny in itself but in the broader context of the play it's an ominous, dark bit of insightful writing that the Butcher is quite willing to kill and overthrow a kingdom for a man he clearly thinks is a fraud and a fool.

CADE

My mother a Plantagenet,--

BUTCHER

[Aside] I knew her well; she was a midwife.

CADE

My wife descended of the Lacies,--

BUTCHER

[Aside] She was, indeed, a pedler's daughter, and
sold many laces.

There's certainly a lot of decapitations in this play, none more gruesome than Lord Say (Derek Farr) and his son's head on pikes being made to kiss each other by Cade's mob.

How does the would-be sovereign Cade justify this--aside from indulging the mob's natural sadism, that is? Say's crimes include speaking "with the tongue of the enemy" (knowing French), being educated, trembling, and, finally, defending himself too well.

SAY

Tell me wherein have I offended most?
Have I affected wealth or honour? speak.
Are my chests fill'd up with extorted gold?
Is my apparel sumptuous to behold?
Whom have I injured, that ye seek my death?
These hands are free from guiltless bloodshedding,
This breast from harbouring foul deceitful thoughts.
O, let me live!

CADE

[Aside] I feel remorse in myself with his words;
but I'll bridle it: he shall die, an it be but for
pleading so well for his life.

The play ends with bloody battle after York (Bernard Hill) returns from Ireland with an army. Also with York is his son, Richard (Ron Cook), a clever young man with a hunchback who shows himself a skilled swordsman. I feel like he probably wouldn't adjust well to peace time.

Twitter Sonnet #1130

A pager blinks impertinent to life.
The copper phone intrudes at Sprocket's lunch.
Electric pins have scorched the wooden fife.
The mice embark upon a cheesy hunch.
The red approaches first as azure drank.
The semblance of a cloud dispersed aloft.
In slowly filling sinks we swiftly sank.
A magic floating rope discreetly coughed.
A glossy eye rebounds from racket mesh.
To stretch across the court a hanger cuts.
A lettuce palm conceals the sun afresh.
But glowing people bide in golden huts.
A crown submerged in gentle hairy clay.
The dive dispersed infects the warring day.

The Hundred Year Soldier or Tree?

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Shoulder Arms, one of several films Charlie Chaplin directed and starred in in 1918. But at forty-six minutes it was by far the longest film he'd directed and remained so until 1921's The Kid. Shoulder Arms remains a brilliant film. It lacks the pathos his films became known for following The Kid but it also clearly shows Chaplin's ability to translate his comedic storytelling to directing.

Filmed during World War I, Shoulder Arms transports Chaplin's Tramp to the trenches, his uniform somehow having the same measurements to emphasise his tiny shoulders and exaggerate his legs.

There's a lot of good material in the young fellow's life trying to look nonchalant and brave in the trench but the film really picks up for me when he goes behind enemy lines disguised as a tree.

The commitment and determination on his face get me every time. This is a serious strategy and, by gum, it does work as he slyly clunks a few Germans over the head. The Germans, of course, don't come off very well in this film with their almost universal moustaches with waxed tips--so distinctive that when Chaplin encounters a Frenchwoman played by Edna Purviance he mimes to her that he can't be German as she first thinks because he has the wrong moustache. Obviously this was a bit that couldn't be repeated in The Great Dictator.

Purviance is no Mabel Normand (whose own movie, Mickey, was top box office in 1918), Chaplin's former leading lady, but she was always a capable supporting performer for Chaplin. She has a chance to show off some of her own comedic instincts towards the end of the film.

Another highlight is her bombed out building where Chaplin's character takes refuge. His shutting the window and shutter before stretching and collapsing on the bed of a room without a wall is absurd in itself but also says something about how hungry the young soldier is for a familiar domestic environment. Still, this one is mainly played for laughs and is worth watching a century on.