In the exurbs of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a cabdriver by the cheeky and affable name of Solo, a Senegalese immigrant, picks up a crestfallen old man who asks Solo to drive him to what is known as Blowing Rock, two hours away. Skeptical at first, but affable and bantering, Solo intuits this man might want to kill himself—he’s down in the dumps, visibly depressed, with sweaty tufts of thin white hair and deep, decades-old wrinkles all over his face. His name is William, gruffly revealed amid silence and frowns that resist Solo’s good-natured banter as an egg dropped onto the ground resists bouncing. It is a grim cab fare, and…
-
-
A glorious, suspenseful film told in flashback, Harakiri delivers a potent and gut-wrenching ethical message that has lost none of its thrust, released though it was more than fifty years ago, and dealing with subject matter dating to the early seventeenth century of the Edo period. It is a samurai film, a storied “jidaigeki” with critical acclaim; but it is also a coup de grâce delivered to the outmoded Bushido-way-of-life, so honorable to those with unbending principles that it becomes hypocrisy and an excuse for the cruel mistreatment of others. The historical distance of the film magnifies, rather than reduces, the timeliness of the issue of merciless, inflexible ideologies: not…
-
A variant of the earlier Late Spring, which features the hallowed and iconic actress, Setsuko Hara, alongside the mainstay of its director, Chishû Ryû, An Autumn Afternoon still has its own unique claim to individuality, and it is no less moving than its predecessor. If I had to choose between them (a difficult choice since both are moving masterpieces) I would watch An Autumn Afternoon, saving Late Spring for a later date; the former is to me more contemplative than the latter, and dissipates more the headlong feeling of the daily rush of life, exemplifying the fine sensibility and artistry of Yasujirô Ozu. This film reaches a pinnacle of the…
-
Caché is one example of a film whose magisterial technical skills vie with the vaguely spurious, implausible substance of the story and its characters. The result is a film that I can admire, without feeling compelled to call it “art”; despite having much that is redeemable, Caché comes up short, leaving a bad taste in the mouth that is the worse because it is so well-made and magisterial. I have seen no film like it, and the convincing surveillance aesthetic of static shots and voyeurism has an incomparable power. But that alone is not enough—I expect more from something as authentic and intelligent as Caché. This is its unique class,…
