Paprika (Re-watch)

I must've watched this originally in 2006 (the year it came out), and I remember being slightly underwhelmed, but I would say mostly confused.

And I suppose this is a perfect example of why I should always revisit films, even if I didn't get on with them the first time. Sometimes I get things completely wrong.

What a drastically different experience it was watching for the second time! I'd got the urge to re-watch the film after I'd seen this incredible YouTuber who posts video essays on films. He goes by the name Every Frame a Painting, and I would definitely recommend taking a look at his YouTube channel here.

I'd watched one video in particular analysing the works of the anime director Kon Satoshi here and seeing how Kon Satoshi had influenced Christopher Nolan and Darren Aronofsky so much (with actual scenes being completely recreated in their films as homage to Kon), I decided Paprika deserved one more, closer, watch.

On a side note, I watched another film by Kon called Tokyo Godfathers last summer as research for the book I'm writing at the moment. It was great – a film about three homeless friends in Tokyo trying to carve out a life for themselves, all running away from their pasts. Unfortunately I watched it before I started this blog, so I don't have a review for it, but would recommend it.

But Paprika was just spectacular though. I suppose I watched it before Inception was even made, but I have to state clearly Inception probably would not exist if Paprika hadn't been made. When I first watched Paprika, I don't think I followed the plot well, but this time I understood it better, and it really blew my mind. People diving down into sleep to experience shared dreams, a mass subconscious of a dreaming city becoming overcome with a common dream of modern consumer-driven madness. The shared dream involved an insane procession of religious and commercial items walking through the streets of Tokyo – Salarymen leaping to their deaths from the tops of buildings, films merging into dreams, dreams merging into films, the city itself fighting against nature, nature fighting back. Breathtaking.

I can't stress this highly enough. Go and watch this film. 9/10

Lolita (Re-watch)

Woke up early with a hangover and saw this on Netflix. Thought it would be a good way to pass the time.

It's not a bad film, but some of it looks a bit dated. There were a few shots that I would've actually cut in embarrassment if I'd been the director.

I think it's always going to be tough making a film version of such an incredible book, and the film toes the line awkwardly between sexualising Lolita, and showing how young and immature she is. I can see how this might have caused some controversy when released, but I would say that this film can only be understood fully by reading the book, which I think depicts one of the greatest unreliable narrators in the history of literature.

Nevertheless, worth a watch. 8/10

Kedi

They need to make more films like this. A documentary following the lives of several cats who roam the streets of Istanbul, getting into adventures and forging relationships with humans.

I loved it.

The book I'm working on at the moment shares something with this documentary, so I was really excited to see it when I first saw the trailer. It really didn't let me down.

It could've been even longer and delved even deeper into the cat population of Istanbul, alongside the interesting people who look out for them, and live alongside them. The old man who went to feed the cats everyday because it helped him with his depression – these are the kinds of stories I like to hear about. People who take a moment to recognise the real beauty in life.

"You can love if your heart's eye is open," one man observes. "Everything is beautiful if you look at it with love. If you can enjoy the presence of a cat, a bird, a flower, all the world will be yours." And later, we hear, "A cat at your feet is life smiling at you."

Incredibly moving. 9/10

The Breakfast Club (Re-watch)

Sigh. Back when films were magical.

When they took chances – perhaps they didn't have the flashiness or the visual effects – hell maybe the dialogue even was a bit ropey here and there, but they tried to be engaging and deal with deep themes.

I've seen this film so many times, and there's not much I want to say about it really, other than the fact that I just wish there was a director like John Hughes around today, because what will the youth of today have to look up to in terms of art in the future.

Nothing but a culture of hedonistic materialism. 9/10

It Comes at Night

Went to the cinema to watch this and enjoyed it.

I'd watched the director's first film called Krisha so I was looking forward to seeing this full-length feature. It didn't disappoint.

The film followed a time-honoured set up – a kind of post-apocalyptic world where a surviving family live in fear in an old house in the woods. They don't go out at night, and there's something they fear.

I won't spoil what happens, but I enjoyed the pacing of the film. I loved the dream sequences, and the characters were all intriguing.

Well shot, and a solid film. Perhaps I enjoyed Krisha more, but this was still great. 8/10

Beware the Slenderman

Well crikey, this was some fucked up shit.

This wasn't a film I knew anything about – my viewing partner picked it out. I hadn't heard anything about this case of two young girls attempting to murder their friend by stabbing her to death because of their belief in an Internet meme called Slenderman (pictured in the film cover).

I found this troubling to watch, and there were many points at which I wanted to turn it off. Watching the interview tapes carried out by the law enforcement officers got me imagining having to interview these two kids myself, and all I could think of was how I wouldn't be able to let something slip out along the lines of, "Wow, kid. You're pretty fucked up."

The dad's blaming it all on the iPad made me wonder too. It's another case of technology and the Internet being blamed for another human atrocity. There's nothing wrong with these technological advances we're making, but there may well be something inherently wrong with us as a species.

I just wonder about this world we live in sometimes. 7/10

Like Father, Like Son (Re-watch)

This film is just fantastic.

So well written and filmed, with this deep layering in terms of themes, images, scenes and words. My favourite scene is still when the mother and son (?) are sitting on the train as it goes through tunnels making it darker and darker, meanwhile she suggests to the kid that they run away together. So well executed.

I think I've seen it four times now, but I see new things in it each time I watch. I mostly put it on because I wanted to show it to my viewing partner, who ended up enjoying it too.

So that was a success. 9/10

From Up on Poppy Hill

My 100th Review!!

Such a shame that I let my blog go to pot a bit just as I hit my 100th review.

It's now a few weeks since I watched this film, but I remember thinking it was all right. Nothing special. One of the reasons I watched it was because it is set during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and I thought it would be a good bit of research to watch this. However, the Olympics did not really feature that much in the story, and it was more like a standard coming of age love story (which at one point, could've gone down an extremely twisted and demented route. Luckily, it didn't)

Not a bad film, off the top of my head. But not one of the best from Ghibli. 6/10

Still Walking

After seeing Koreeda's latest film, I thought I'd catch up on one of his I hadn't seen.

I enjoyed this a lot, but in some ways I wish I hadn't watched it so close to After the Storm because the actors and the themes were too similar.

I did love a few of the scenes though, in particular the one where the grandma (Kiki Kirin again) confesses that she wants to make the young man her dead son saved suffer. I loved how the camera moved to a side on angle, and there was something so dark and revealing in the way she spoke at that point.

I liked the characters a lot. Good film. 8/10

After the Storm

Well, this film was just perfect for me.

The Japanese title is 海よりもまだ深く (umi yori mo mada fukaku), which translates to something like 'Even deeper than the ocean'. After the Storm worked nicely as an English title though, and I'm glad that's what they went with. Although it did lose the nuance of the Japanese title, which makes a reference to a song that's playing on the radio, causing the grandmother to enter into a very touching monologue – perhaps the climax of the film. I found it very moving, for reasons I can't quite put into words. It's that wabisabi, monoaware side of Japanese art that deals so well with sadness and death. Absolutely beautiful.

I just love Koreeda's way of telling a story through simple, everyday character studies. These are real people, living real lives, and facing the kind of real drama that affects us all. His films resonate with life so much more than other directors' work out there right now.

He keeps it simple, and there's beauty in simplicity.

I was glad to see a return to form after the slightly disappointing Our Little Sister, which I watched in February. This film just had more to it, and I thought the actress who played the grandma (Kiki Kirin) really excelled herself in this film. I've seen her in a few other Koreeda films, and she tends to play bit parts, but here she had a chance to craft an interesting character.

I also thought Abe Hiroshi was brilliant in it. I've always found he treads the perfect line between comedy and tragedy, and he managed to depict a really loveable, if slightly infuriating protagonist. He really cracked me up several times with his delivery, and he almost made me cry a few times too.

I'm sure I'll watch this film again, and I'll just have to wait and see whether it withstands multiple viewings.

But sitting here writing this now after coming back from the cinema, I'm happy. 9/10