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Reviews
The Killings at Outpost Zeta (1980)
Worth watching
Everything about this film is bad, as other posters have mentioned: the script, acting, special effects, set design, plot, etc.
And yet, it has a certain charm. If you enjoy terrible movies you will definitely like this one. But for some the film will have even more significance as a still from the film provides the cover for electronic duo Boards of Canada's 1995 EP "Twoism".
One Christmas a few years ago my girlfriend and I were watching the Horror Channel on UK satellite TV. Without knowing anything about the film we watched it, laughed at how bad it was and decided to watch it through.
About 10 or 15 minutes into the film, though, I noticed that the insignia on the helmets of the space crew looked familiar. I grabbed my copy of the CD and compared: lo and behold, I'd found the source for the strange picture of a male and female astronaut embracing before they face some terrible danger.
I set the video to record after that.
In the end, the film was not too bad - the soundtrack features a familiar Boards of Canada-style drone. Unfortunately the film accidentally got taped over and so I have never been able to check if they'd actually sampled any of the music.
Gonin (1995)
Touching, surprising
I have had this film in my possession for 18 months but had not got round to watching it all the way through until a couple of weeks ago.
The plot is old hat: an attempt by some small timers to get one-up on the mob, but this film succeeds, in spite of its flaws, because of the connection we feel for the characters and the connections between the characters themselves.
Mr Bandai is a nightclub owner. It's not a successful business or glamorous interior. It is, in fact, gaudy, almost tawdry, and certainly empty. It's in the middle of nowhere, going nowhere. We only really see it frequented by those to whom Bandai owes money and who are there to collect. Obviously Bandai hasn't got the money, so after being threatened and ordered to pay up or else, he decides to rob them.
The gang he assembles to pull off the heist are themselves society's drifters, outcast and tawdry, failed people. One cannot help but connect this film to the economic crisis in Japan at the time, when many in a society, where 'keeping face' is of the utmost importance and unemployment a social stigma, were thrown off the economic shelf onto the scrapheap. In fact, as the film reveals, one of the characters pretended to his wife and kids he still had a job, but they left him, unable to bear the stigma.
If this film is about confronting taboos in this respect, it also transcends others. The relationship between Mr Bandai and Mitsuya forms the core of the film. Mitsuya extorts money from wealthy men who don't want their secret lives revealing. He enters the film extravagantly, his behaviour is deliberately arch and artificial and his brash clothes and long hair hiding a vulnerable young man. As a homosexual he is one of society's outcasts, but Bandai accepts him for who he is even after Mitsuya makes an early move on him.
As the film develops, Bandai and Mitsuya are pursued by hired hit man Takeshi Kitano, with whose side-kick there is a sexual relationship but the inverse of that between Bandai and Mitsuya: one based on domination and abuse. Connecting the two main protagonists, however, there is respect, help and communication, which through the course of events flowers into a deep bond and love.
Sadly, given the film's progression, we can never know what would have really happened between the nightclub owner and the hustler. After they have almost made their escape together, Bandai is killed and in the moment before he dies he simply kisses Mitsuya. Whether this is as a thank you, a concession to Mitsuya's feelings, or Bandai's true love, the important aspect is that he could not express it until being alive really matters when we are about to die.
A sad film, beautifully photographed with a dreamy haziness. Bandai and Mitsuya's relationship progresses steadily and realistically. There is nothing sensational or overplayed in the film and with its conclusion comes a sense of palpable loss.
High above standard Asian cop thriller fare. Miike Takashi with feeling.
Dalkomhan insaeng (2005)
Tedious and over-rated
This is simply another, yet another, case of the newspaper reviews and IMDb contributors way, way off the mark when it comes to a 'cult' movie. This film dragged on in a preposterous and unimaginative way with no real development of character, no poise or thorough art direction and certainly no depth.
Some initial signs pointed to a carefully thought out film, with the opening quotation and some stylishly modern interiors in the hotel. It was okay to look at. When I got bored I just watched the lead actress - about the only woman in the whole film. What I thought was going to develop into a study of internal anguish or the struggle among violent contemporaries to connect in a human way was shoved aside for guns, gore and torture of the most basic kind.
The photography had its moments, but contained nothing we haven't seen before. The violence was prolonged and lacking in any context or feeling. The lead character endured all manner of assaults and still kept going - he must've been running on Duracell. To top it all, the film contained some of the most blatant product placement since that other over-praised piece of dreck 'Night Watch'. Characters incessantly talked into their mobiles, entailing frequent close-ups focused not on the characters faces, but on their phones' logos.
Fans of Asian shoot-em-ups should pass this by and pick Infernal Affairs, Better Tomorrow, Gonin, Sonatine, Hana Bi, etc., etc., instead.
Dead Man (1995)
What would Blake make of it?
*****SPOILERS*****
A polarising film this, with critical opinion at either extreme. I felt that it was a failure, though an interesting one. It simply failed to develop it's initial premise, it wandered and languished and as the film progressed it petered out, rather than rose to a crescendo.
The cinematography was beautiful. Even on my VHS copy the screen shimmered like the films of old. Although the set-ups were often "stagey" and awkwardly composed, the camera moved delicately and precisely.
There were some memorable performances, especially Robert Mitchum's bit-part and John Hurt's creepy company secretary. Johnny Depp seemed uncomfortable and, ultimately, wooden. Although the film is meant to be an existential-social journey, by the end he looked bored, reflecting my boredom with the film.
I wanted to like it. The first part of the film set up what seemed to be a promising story, but this was all-but forgotten about as the film progressed. Occasionally one of Blake's would-be assassins might pop up, but this didn't seem to create any sense of drama.
What is the significance of Blake's outsider status? He is an accountant who goes to work in Machine, but doesn't get the job (he's too late). Meeting a young woman who makes paper roses, he is shot along with her by her lover, whom he (Blake) kills. Then on the run, he encounters an Indian called Nobody (in Blake's poetry, God is called "Nobodaddy"), but thereafter it descends into a messy and confused saga.
Films are stories and they need plot and characters, dialogue and development. This film had no real development, it lost momentum very quickly and retreated too often into "arty" face-shots, droning guitar music (the score by Neil Young by the way, along with the cinematography, was a highlight of the film) and fade-outs. I failed to see where the profundity lay.
I am familiar with the works of William Blake, and took straight way to the themes of industry, capitalism, nature and lawlessness, but these were never developed in any coherent way. There was masses of significance piled onto William Blake's identity, but there was ultimately little that was made of it. What would Blake make of it indeed?