wri./dir./st. Takeshi Kitano
Japanese with English subtitles
Now Showing
Japanese with English subtitles
Now Showing
The film is directed by Beat Takeshi. The title means 'fireworks' but has a second meaning. The hero/director is a retiring cop. The violence boldly punctuates the memorial narrative. The rest of the reminiscent perspective is weighted with silence. The featured artworks are equally bold, primary and personal. The women characters are all curiously sheltered from the main violence. The violence is not so much confrontational or gory as visually tenacious; the vision and the emotional distancing combine with this and the aforementioned silence to allow an entrance for warmth and intimacy. The silence of sublimity, or the profound feeling engendered by the 'art' feel are humanely dismantled by perfectly strategic counterpoints. Hence the film is possessed of greatness and a lasting emotive effect. The film is at once contemporary and timeless.
An entire review should be written on the usage of "bold" by critics of Hana-Bi. I looked to the Herald, I looked overseas when I went a-reading on the internet, and I listened to the rare occasions that the film was reviewed on other media - and every time the word "bold" figured prominently to describe either the statement or directorial style of the film. It's a well-known secret that people who write reviews read other reviews for pointers or even for downright plagiarism (and with Bruce Willis' remarks two years back on the death of the written word and reviewing, it may comfort critics to know that at the very least other critics are reading their words), but adjectives are always very sticky in the film industry. Look at the top of the posters - the reviewers always get top billing: a masterpiece - Peter Travers, Rolling Stone. It used to be a comment, and then maybe a whole sound-byte would do, and now, we have a simple adjective masquerading to reduce a film's essence. Must see, daring, hypnotic. And then came this bold film from Beat Takeshi. Lots of bold art, bold violence and bold quietness, lots of bold slogans plastered over the poster. The truth of the matter is, very few people understand what makes for this ubiquitous boldness, what properties of vision and narrative make this such a free-breathing alternative. This simple story of expression and closure comes to deal with grief in such a way that its vision is planted in the memory of the audience. Now this may be a sniggering little package to take home with, but consider how much crap we routinely do see on screen that we'd willingly forget, and thereby hope to cure our jaded dissatisfaction. It's so refreshing to have an experience remain on the brain, simply because it was moving and artistically real enough to be affective. Takeshi does justice to the sensation of grief. He does justice to every theme of the film: paralysis, communication, the pathetic spoils of every perfect day. I mean, this man respects his art. His kind of dedication is the touchstone of all great art. What more can I say? His is the kind of art that cannot be reduced - it is the kind that has to be learnt.
rino breebaart
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