Let's try again with Koreeda (repost Maboroshi) as it took damn 2 months to make it through 5 films
Maboroshi (Japan, 1995) - 1.5/5
Cinema is, first and foremost, about the fusion of music and live image. Ozu-admiring director Hirokazu Koreeda’s feature length debut excels on both areas, in theory at least. The film is beautifully shot – the framing especially is terrific. Hou Shioa-shien collaborator Chen Ming Chang provides the score. Koreeda himself keeps sentimentalism strictly out of the picture, despite the storyline dealing with death and sorrow. It’s a meditative and beautiful film for those in the right wave length. There is, however, little story or character exposition – in fact Koreeda avoids close ups. While the film’s audio-visual merits are undeniable, they rarely appear on screen simultaneously. The film consists of long, relatively silent sequences that are only interrupted by the stand out musical score a couple of times. Camera movement is minimal, making the film all the more static and distant for those not sharing Koreeda’s mindset. If the director’s approach doesn’t appeal to the viewer, there is little else than a beautiful photo slideshow to be discovered.
After Life (Japan, 1998) – 1/5
After the nodding to Ozu and Hsiao-hsien with Maboroshi, Koreeda returned to his own documentary filmmaker roots with After Life. Taking a fantasy subject but approaching it in most un-fantasy fashion, After Life is set in a place where people go after they die. Rather than a castle in the sky, it’s an ordinary building where a small number of employees interview the deceased to find out their favorite memory, and then re-create it. Shot in grainy 16 mm, After Life is basically two hours of interviews – apparently some of them being conducted with amateur cast that are reciting their real life experiences, to bring in more realism – and exploration on the theme of what is important and memorable in life. Highly regarded in arthouse circuits, After Life, like all early Koreeda films, can be a near unbearable experience for those not finding the director’s style and philosophy engaging.
Distance (Japan, 2003) – 3/5
Koreeda’s slightly overlong film follows a group of strangers who travel to a distant location to pay respects to their deceased family members who belonged to a suicidal cult. On their way back home they discover their car has been stolen, forcing them to spend the night in an abandoned house. Distance is true to its title; the film is much more about examining emotional distance between people than it’s about telling any specific storyline. There is, however, a slight suspense element in the air that adds tension to the present day scenes. A notable part of the film consists of flashbacks showing the characters with their now deceased loved ones before or at the time when they started to grow separate. Koreeda’s film is well acted and values realism over excitement. The characters are certainly from the real world, and accordingly sometimes fascinating, occasionally less so. The film’s slightly murky and grainy visual look is pleasing.
Hana yori mo naho (Japan, 2006) – 1/5
Sometimes it’s possible to tell from the first scene whether the film is going to be enjoyable or not. Hana yori mo naho’s opening does just that. Attempting something distinctive in the genre, Koreeda delivers a jidai geki film without swordfights. The storyline follows a talentless coward samurai on a revenge mission. But rather than violence or tragedy, the film concentrates on realistic, albeit humoristic portrayal of the Edo period life. Technical credits and acting are fine, although beauty is in the viewer’s eye – the characters are bland, and the cinematography extremely static. The slow moving storyline features one catch, though; the classic tale of the 47 loyal ronin is somewhat cleverly featured on background.
Air Doll (Japan, 2009) – 4/5
A breath of fresh air on the director’s career, Air Doll is a very un-Koreeda movie. This is partly for it being so easily accessible, but also due to its aggressive audio visual beauty. Cinematographer Lee Pin Bing (In the Mood for Love) keeps the camera in constant slight motion, creating one of the most beautiful looking films in years. The downright terrific score - which at times resembles Philip Glass's work in Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) - is by World's End Girlfriend. Storywise the tale of an air doll coming to life is undeniably dumb - exactly what Koreeda, whose works have often suffered from a certain sense of safeness, needed to do. Here the director has brilliantly opted to cut down cliché even at the expense of logic, which does much good for the film’s cinematic fluency. Some of the symbolism is jarring, though, and the ending doesn’t quite live up to the audio-visual ride that precedes it.
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