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Reviews14
jacqui-3's rating
I came to this after seeing Bando in Seijun Suzuki's YUMEJI (1991.) If the great filmmaker adores kabuki enough to get its biggest onnagata (male performer in female roles) star into a male role, what's Bando like in his natural habitat?
After the mutual admiration/love-fest in the beginning, Yo-yo ma and Bando get down to work. Ma has a personal agenda of reliving the tie he had with his deceased father through the Bach piece, with another prestigious artist. Bando wants to personalize the collaboration only as far as it frees him from the usual narrative constraints of his kabuki plays (this is apparent when Ma tries to link Bando's adoption by the prestigious kabuki community to loss of his own father, and Bando saw it -- like his collaboration with Ma -- as fulfilling his destiny of kabuki actor, not a family tragedy.)
Even though director Fichman sets it up as another divisive "East vs. West", "Male vs. Woman" piece of "art", soon we see the real show is in Bando translating Bach through his emotive movements that use gender as expression, not as a set biological fact. Meanwhile, Ma is suspended in his own intact world of cello-playing, ending his interaction with Bando (including eye contact!) at the development stage.
This is fascinating for anyone interested in the creative process: Ma seizes on a set idea and doesn't let go; he even interprets Bando's "performing for the heavens" not as the idea of human-universe unity, but as the Greco-Roman concept of Dionysian. At that point Bando "snaps" back "Don't think too much", and we see artists retreating back to their individual corners, out of their initial love affair-through-interpreter!
Bando truly is a fearless artist, unafraid to use what he already knows walking into unfamiliar territory of solo performance to someone else's emotional objectives. He comes up with a basic, technical pattern of movements for each piece in the 6-part suite, but goes above them to add the instinctive, emotional qualities of each theme. The most brilliant accomplishments of the 6 are the Bresson/Tarkovsky-like intensity of piece #4, "Prayer", and the amusing & lively #5 "Dream" -- which Dali & the Surrealists could learn from. Bando's "Dream" is neither a good one, nor a nightmare. It's just dreaming itself as rollicking, delicate motions like striking memories without control over the direction & speed of its consciousness. Brilliant stuff that pushes an art form beyond the usual level.
After the mutual admiration/love-fest in the beginning, Yo-yo ma and Bando get down to work. Ma has a personal agenda of reliving the tie he had with his deceased father through the Bach piece, with another prestigious artist. Bando wants to personalize the collaboration only as far as it frees him from the usual narrative constraints of his kabuki plays (this is apparent when Ma tries to link Bando's adoption by the prestigious kabuki community to loss of his own father, and Bando saw it -- like his collaboration with Ma -- as fulfilling his destiny of kabuki actor, not a family tragedy.)
Even though director Fichman sets it up as another divisive "East vs. West", "Male vs. Woman" piece of "art", soon we see the real show is in Bando translating Bach through his emotive movements that use gender as expression, not as a set biological fact. Meanwhile, Ma is suspended in his own intact world of cello-playing, ending his interaction with Bando (including eye contact!) at the development stage.
This is fascinating for anyone interested in the creative process: Ma seizes on a set idea and doesn't let go; he even interprets Bando's "performing for the heavens" not as the idea of human-universe unity, but as the Greco-Roman concept of Dionysian. At that point Bando "snaps" back "Don't think too much", and we see artists retreating back to their individual corners, out of their initial love affair-through-interpreter!
Bando truly is a fearless artist, unafraid to use what he already knows walking into unfamiliar territory of solo performance to someone else's emotional objectives. He comes up with a basic, technical pattern of movements for each piece in the 6-part suite, but goes above them to add the instinctive, emotional qualities of each theme. The most brilliant accomplishments of the 6 are the Bresson/Tarkovsky-like intensity of piece #4, "Prayer", and the amusing & lively #5 "Dream" -- which Dali & the Surrealists could learn from. Bando's "Dream" is neither a good one, nor a nightmare. It's just dreaming itself as rollicking, delicate motions like striking memories without control over the direction & speed of its consciousness. Brilliant stuff that pushes an art form beyond the usual level.
GONZA the SPEARMAN's true asset is the acting of Iwashita Shima, who has acted in many other films of director Shinoda (also her husband.) I actually sat down expecting to be blown away by the combination of cinematographer Miyagawa (Rashomon, Ugetsu), composer Takemitsu (Ran, Kwaidan) and Shinoda...but what a disappointment!
The picture is gorgeous to look at, and the sounds effectively disturbing when Iwashita bursts into her womanly rage and jealousy. Yet, GONZA does not hold well as a whole. The title character Gonza is a pretty boy-slash-expert-spearman, but his is a performance that is wooden at best. Much of his character is not demonstrated visually or by story, but rather we learn about his nature and personality through what others sing or speak of him.
Another bothersome aspect is the lack of relationship between people and space. You are likely to walk away from the picture feeling detached from the characters, because they just seem to float about on the streets, in this room and that, etc. I mean, static cutaway shots do not necessarily edit well together - to give a sense of Iwashita's opulence and isolation (although these were supposedly desired effects.)
This much said, GONZA is still quite an interesting adaptation of a puppet theatre play by Japan's "Shakespeare", Chikamatsu, an 18th century playwright. Shinoda wisely weaves together a parallel between the art of the tea ceremony and the stifling insitution and ideologies of marriage. The story is a tragic melodrama that ends in a bloody fare, which is really necessary to restore the sense of order both the play and film are suspect of criticism.
One especially haunting sequence of the film arrives just after the killing: that of a distraught woman by the sea, singing the song of her murdered lover - the spectre of whom gallops past her on a white horse (you may recall a similar sequence from Truffaut's Story of Adele H., where a maddened Adele hallucinates the lover who abandoned her.)
The picture is gorgeous to look at, and the sounds effectively disturbing when Iwashita bursts into her womanly rage and jealousy. Yet, GONZA does not hold well as a whole. The title character Gonza is a pretty boy-slash-expert-spearman, but his is a performance that is wooden at best. Much of his character is not demonstrated visually or by story, but rather we learn about his nature and personality through what others sing or speak of him.
Another bothersome aspect is the lack of relationship between people and space. You are likely to walk away from the picture feeling detached from the characters, because they just seem to float about on the streets, in this room and that, etc. I mean, static cutaway shots do not necessarily edit well together - to give a sense of Iwashita's opulence and isolation (although these were supposedly desired effects.)
This much said, GONZA is still quite an interesting adaptation of a puppet theatre play by Japan's "Shakespeare", Chikamatsu, an 18th century playwright. Shinoda wisely weaves together a parallel between the art of the tea ceremony and the stifling insitution and ideologies of marriage. The story is a tragic melodrama that ends in a bloody fare, which is really necessary to restore the sense of order both the play and film are suspect of criticism.
One especially haunting sequence of the film arrives just after the killing: that of a distraught woman by the sea, singing the song of her murdered lover - the spectre of whom gallops past her on a white horse (you may recall a similar sequence from Truffaut's Story of Adele H., where a maddened Adele hallucinates the lover who abandoned her.)
This is my first Naruse film and, boy, what a treat it is! Hideko Takamine is simply brilliant in her evocation of a madame in the ginza bar district, where businessmen go in the after-hours for drinks, flattery, and anything else they can get their hands on.
Takamine's Keiko is a woman bound by social constraints: an aging mother who needs allowance from her daughter to get by, a brother who must be saved from prison because he forged legal documents, a nephew who needs money for operation, rich businessmen and corporate owners who want her body in exchange for petty patronage...
Despite all these attempts to stifle her, to drain her body, labor, and emotions for all their worth and resource, Keiko emerges from life's disappointements and heartbreaks the strong individual she tries to be. Her refusal to be defeated by family, men, the institution of the ginza bar and survival itself is reflected in many elements. The playful music, for example, discourages us from reducing the film to yet another tearjerking festival. Keiko herself is an intelligent and sophisticated commentator on her life as a particular kind of "fallen woman". Throughout the film, there are moments of narration and commentary on the ginza bar-mystique. Here we witness a resilence and self-respect so tremendous that the notion of "feminism" of Mizoguchi's women have to be reconsidered.
"Coming back was as bleak as a cold day in Winter. But certain trees bloom...no matter how cold the wind." WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS is a great testament to Takamine's acting wizardry and Naruse's sensitive treatment of the social construction of women - a particular way of brutalizing the individual.
Takamine's Keiko is a woman bound by social constraints: an aging mother who needs allowance from her daughter to get by, a brother who must be saved from prison because he forged legal documents, a nephew who needs money for operation, rich businessmen and corporate owners who want her body in exchange for petty patronage...
Despite all these attempts to stifle her, to drain her body, labor, and emotions for all their worth and resource, Keiko emerges from life's disappointements and heartbreaks the strong individual she tries to be. Her refusal to be defeated by family, men, the institution of the ginza bar and survival itself is reflected in many elements. The playful music, for example, discourages us from reducing the film to yet another tearjerking festival. Keiko herself is an intelligent and sophisticated commentator on her life as a particular kind of "fallen woman". Throughout the film, there are moments of narration and commentary on the ginza bar-mystique. Here we witness a resilence and self-respect so tremendous that the notion of "feminism" of Mizoguchi's women have to be reconsidered.
"Coming back was as bleak as a cold day in Winter. But certain trees bloom...no matter how cold the wind." WHEN A WOMAN ASCENDS THE STAIRS is a great testament to Takamine's acting wizardry and Naruse's sensitive treatment of the social construction of women - a particular way of brutalizing the individual.