Category: Non-English Film

This film is fantastic in all senses of the word. An astronaut lands on the moon, only to discover it already inhabited by men who presume, based on his spacesuit, that he is a moon man. Among them is Baron Munchausen who takes the astronaut Tonik to 18th century Turkey and that is just the beginning of their adventures together. The entire spectacle is presented in a color tinted mixture of live action and animation. The film is very reminiscent of the most famous works of Georges Méliès , though the directions this film goes with the colors and animation styles are beyond anything Méliès could have dreamed about sixty years earlier. There are few films that are this artistically beautiful.  

Based on my exposure to a handful of his other films, I don’t expect Hirokazu Kore-eda’s direction to be as precious as it is here. Perhaps it’s the focus on children, primarily a pair of brothers who are having difficulties adjusting to being separated after their parents’ divorce, that makes for an overly cute film. The child actors all do a decent job holding the story, though I would have liked if there were a couple less of them as their stories and the wishes associated with them got muddled together. The soundtrack was a bit jarring to my American ears as it is similar to what I expect to invoke scenes of middle America, not the trains and scenery of Japan.

I had started watching the English version of this but quickly switched to the superior German. Partially it was a better print, but also the story and actors seemed more naturally fit for German. Marlene Dietrich is shrewd and seductive as a cabaret singer performing at the titular location, but Emil Jannings is genius portraying the fall of a prim, sheltered teacher who spirals downward after meeting Dietrich’s character. It’s a shame the direction Jannings and his career not long after this film.

I watched this with the English dub and as far as I’m concerned, this is the only way to watch this for English speakers. It instantly sent me back to weekend afternoons watching movies on second tier local television stations. The current student of a kung-fu master is sent to uncover the identities of five former students, all who wore masks and fight with unique styles, who may be using their skills to rob a former colleague of his fortune. While there weren’t as many fight scenes as I’d expect, the mystery of who each character is and their alignment makes for an appealing martial arts-centered story.

This makes an interesting companion to Late Spring, where Setsuko Hara is now the widowed mother of a reluctant to marry, unwed daughter. There’s the same wistful, gentleness that I’ve come to expect from many Ozu films, but now it’s in beautiful color and we have a younger, hipper generation battling with the same traditions that were seen in Late Spring. Yoko Tsukasa is delightful as the representative of this generation struggling against a trio of middle aged men, college friends of her father, who, along with almost everyone else she encounters, try to meddle in her personal life.

After watching Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday, I’ve been gradually seeking out Jacques Tati’s filmography. While this isn’t quite equal to the large, chaotic world-building of PlayTime, it still maintains some of the qualities of a Richard Scarry picture book. Employees of the Altra Automotive Co. are trying to get their camper car from Paris to a car show in Amsterdam, facing unending hurdles along the way. Maria Kimberly as the publicity agent is particularly amusing, especially in how she manages her car and cute little dog. I absolutely love the camper car and wish I had one.

I unfortunately shouldn’t have watched this so soon after Come and See (directed by the husband of Larisa Shepitko, this film’s director). The setting and themes being so similar probably lessened the impact here. The story here is more focused, settling on one day’s experiences of two partisans who are sent to search for food and find themselves directly interacting with Germans. The events here are just as harrowing; the feelings of hunger, cold, and the deep snow palpable. War changes everyone; the two men discover that many of those changes come from the choices one is forced to make.

Watching the NC-17 version, I have never seen such lengthy explicit sex scenes outside of porn. While framed beautifully, I’m not sure the exact purpose the length of these scenes offered to the narrative. The rest of this tale, set in China during the days of World War II, is similarly beautiful. Tang Wei is transformative in her lead role. She believably switches from shy college student who is a member of a patriotic drama club to worldly, seductive spy bent on assassinating an agent of the Japanese puppet government and back again several times over the course of the film. Tension is held throughout the film and there are incredible subtleties in the performances of each character as their expressions do and don’t bely their feelings.