What’s Missing For World Cinema?

The last decade has seen a lot of improvement with regards to foreign film distribution. That poorly stocked, single shelf at the back of the video shop has expanded quite a bit. The internet – as ever – is a great place to search and discover new items, and many major towns and cities in the UK now have an independent or art house cinema that is able to show the latest foreign releases. However, it is still rare to see foreign films hitting the multiplexes (although I did miraculously see 13 Assassins (2010) at a Showcase cinema almost a month before it appeared at my local independent), nor do they get as much attention in the mainstream press as the blockbusters.

Part of the current problem now is that there aren’t many sources providing information and guidance on these films, and where to go in order to find them. Hopefully, outlets such as subtitledonline.com and other similarly concerned publications will be leading the way with regards to this. They are needed now more than ever, as more and more foreign cinema winds up getting a cinema or DVD release due to increased distribution channels. It also stands to reason that with this increasing saturation comes a reduction in quality control. There is certainly more choice nowadays compared to ten years ago, but it is also becoming more difficult to find those diamonds in the rough, and, believe me, there is a lot of rough (America is certainly not the only country that can produce generic tat, as evidenced by some of the reviews on this website).

What’s On Offer For World Cinema Fans?

Many large towns and cities in Britain possess some kind of independent cinema. The East Midlands has the Broadway in Nottingham and QUAD in Derby to name two. They show an interesting mix of the latest foreign language releases, mainstream cinema and classic movies, both from Hollywood and abroad.

Favourite Country For World Cinema

Although I admire many national cinemas, one country that I continue to revisit on-screen, time and time again, is Japan. I am constantly impressed by the diversity of Japanese cinema, and I continue to discover new things about it. It’s capable of producing violent and deranged work like Audition (1999) and Battle Royale (2000) – something many have come to expect in the wake of the Asia Extreme movement – but it’s also equally adept at quieter, more sensible drama like Tokyo Sonata (2008), Still Walking (2008) or Departures (2008).

Japan is equally adept at quiet drama as it is deranged violence. Case in point: Tokyo Sonata.

There is also a rich history with genre cinema; Ishiro Honda’s Godzilla (1954) is perhaps the most famous of the ever popular Tokusatsu (meaning ‘special filming’) category, which encompasses horror, fantasy, science fiction and super-hero genres, and are films that utilise a lot of visual effects work. Lower-key horror is also popular, as recent years have seen a boom in eerie and supernatural J-horror such as Ringu (1998) and Dark Water (2002). Lastly, there is the industry within the industry that is anime, which again is highly diverse in content: the cyberpunk thriller Akira (1988); the apocalyptic and highly existential Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995); the child-like wonder of Spirited Away (2001); and the very creepy and very adult Perfect Blue (1998) merely represent the tip of a very large iceberg.

Favourite World Cinema Director

There are many foreign filmmakers that I admire greatly; Akira Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, Yasujiro Ozu and Krzysztof Kieslowski all spring to mind in the first instance. Sadly, all the above are no longer with us. With that in mind, one of my favourite filmmakers working today would have to be Shin’ya Tsukamoto.

Although best known for his feature film debut, Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) and its two inferior – but still enjoyable – sequels, Tsukamoto has spent the last two decades amassing a fascinating filmography, built from an interwoven nexus of thematic concerns: the human body and dehumanisation in the face of modernity. Some of his other highlights include the intense Tokyo Fist (1995), which is possibly the most primal and honest depiction of anger, rage, frustration and jealousy I have ever encountered in a film; the gritty, noir-flavoured Bullet Ballet (1998); the sumptuous, colourful and unorthodox period-piece, Gemini (1999) and the cold, strangely perverted A Snake Of June (2002).

Top-5 World Cinema Films

To choose five films has been very difficult, let alone trying to place those that have finally been selected in any kind of preferential order. I’m not sure if this represents my ‘true top 5′, but the films that have been selected are indeed among my favourites, and I have tried to be fairly diverse in my choices – I could have quite easily selected five Japanese films, or five Kurosawa films for that matter. In chronological order:

Metropolis (Germany, 1927)

Easily the defining film of the silent movie era, any self-discerning cineast will have an awareness of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis; an early science-fiction epic whose scale and ambition still impresses after eighty-five years. The production design, camerawork and special effects – both optical and model work – represent an immense achievement; it must have been absolutely mind boggling to have seen this when it was first released.

The film has existed in various lengths over the years, with about a quarter of the footage thought to be lost forever. However, in 2008, an almost complete print of the 1927 theatrical release (the longest version) was found in Buenos Aires. After a lengthy reconstruction process, Metropolis has returned in its most complete form to date (there are still a few minutes missing). The additional thirty minutes or so just makes the film even better, giving secondary characters like Josaphat, 11811 – Georgy and the Thin Man more prominence in the narrative, as well as making already impressive set-pieces, like the flooding of the worker city and the demise of the heart-machine, all the more spectacular.

Seven Samurai (Japan, 1954)

Akira Kurosawa’s longest film is also his most breathtaking. The set-up is incredibly simple: a poor and terrorised village employ a group of Ronin (masterless samurai) to protect them from a horde of bloodthirsty bandits. What follows is a master-class in swashbuckling, action-adventure cinema by a filmmaker at the top of his game.

With the help of some reliable hands, Toshirô Mifune as the foolhardy Kikuchiyo and fellow Kurosawa regular Takashi Shimura as the warm and tactile samurai leader Kambê, Seven Samurai unfurls across its gargantuan three-hours plus running time in effortless style. That’s not to do the other five samurai a disservice, each a wonderfully crafted and indispensable character in their own right. The magic has been often imitated, but never quite replicated – it’s impossible to count the number of films that set their big finale during a horrendous downpour, as is the case here. Seven Samurai rightly takes its place as a true classic.

The Seventh Seal (Sweden, 1957)

Ingmar Bergman’s brooding thanatopsis set in plague-ridden, medieval Sweden is as thoughtful and artistically rich as it is densely pessimistic. Max von Sydow’s Antonious Block, a disillusioned  knight who has recently returned from the crusades, famously plays a life-or-death game of chess with Death himself (Bengt Ekerot). Block uses the game to delay his impending demise so that he may complete “one meaningful act” – escorting a travelling circus through the dangerous, plague-ravaged countryside to the safety of his coastal estate.

This is easily Bergman’s most iconic and, perhaps, most accessible picture. The ‘dance of death’, as seen from a distance during the film’s closing moments, remains an indelible and powerful cinematic image. An intense and compelling examination of humanity during one of its bleakest hours, but not too intellectually obsessed or self-loathing to acknowledge the rays of light that, reassuringly, always find a way to break through – no matter how dark it gets.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (Italy, 1966)

Sergio Leone’s finest hour, The Good, The Bad And The Ugly is one of the crown jewels of the spaghetti western sub-genre. It is a film of such sweeping and panoramic grandeur, and a highly entertaining one at that.

Set against the backdrop of an escalating American Civil War, Leone’s triptych of eponymous leads are on the hunt for a cash box filled with immense riches, supposedly buried in a graveyard. This dynamic works wonders, allowing for strong character development. Clint Eastwood’s ‘Man With No Name’ could easily be in the running for cinema’s greatest anti-hero. Naturally, the film is an expert showcase for Leone’s often imitated, extreme-wide/extreme-close shooting style, with the large scale, Civil War backdrop adding to the frequent operatic leanings of the cinematography. And Ennio Morricone’s instantly recognisable score is simply glorious.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man (Japan, 1989)

A nightmare cocktail of David Lynch, David Cronenberg, H.R. Giger, J.G Ballard, Jan Svankmayer and perhaps one or two others, Shin’ya Tsukamoto’s visceral feature debut is the stuff of cult filmmaking legend, and rightly so. Made on a microscopic budget and captured with chewy, high-contrast, 16mm film stock, Tetsuo manages to create its very own demented, techno-surrealist universe of intense and vivid imagination.

A man transforms from a spineless, salary-slave into a metallic monster, via an elaborate and lo-fi process of practical effects and stop-motion animation. The results are fiendishly macabre, darkly humorous and grossly perverse. Tetsuo moves at such rigourous speed – with the help of its pummelling, migraine-inducing, industrial soundtrack – that it could cause one’s eyes and ears to bleed profusely if not properly prepared. That’s if your head hasn’t already exploded, of course. Not for the squeamish.

Some honourable mentions: Ikiru (1952), Tokyo Story (1953), 8 ½ (1963), Andrei Rublev (1966), Persona (1966), Stalker (1979).