Kagemusha

Kagemusha (1980)
a film by Akira Kurosawa

I have been looking forward the Kurosawa films in the list. Among them I can find some of the first films I watched and teach me to love movies. Kagemusha is an amazing epic film, it shows battles filmed beautifully amazing recreation of the costumes, weapons, flags, helmets and every detail from the time of the daimyos. But beyond the shell of impressive scenes and lavish costumes there is a thoughtful story and far from just watching men running on horses this story delivers artful images and a touching story.

I really like Kurosawa's sense of humour. In the tense and serious atmosphere these characters can laugh loudly and even when I felt Lost in Translation on the jokes, I ended up laughing too. I can go forever praising the way in which this film is piece of art, it mixes in an awesome way the music, the image and the characters, the composition of every scene seems to be as epic as the story itself, and it is mind blowing to see how Kurosawa can master so deeply the narration and the cinematography. But in the end what got me was the laugh of the characters, this serious warriors laughing loudly in the screen made them believable beyond the epic and really enjoyable. It makes me think is not about how crude the battle is shown, or how detailed are the army movements on the screen, it is maybe about seeing the battle through the eyes of the character which connects with the audience, and that works great in this movie.

The scene of the dream is a piece of art alone. The blue face of the Shingen in his armour over the beautifully coloured background is an image that still linger in my mind. What really impresses me is how this film is so rich in many levels, the personal story of the impersonator is really interesting, while the images are beautifully constructed and can be commented forever. The 10 year old in me wants to become a samurai and own a katana, ride a horse (my personal favourites are the riders with the centipede flags) and charge in battle. The grown-up in me is still dazzled by the images and the colours and the the cinematography and narrative and... and forget about that, I want to be a samurai!

The Killing Fields

The Killing Fields (1984)
a film by Roland Joffé

If you don't know or have never heard about the story of Dith Pran you are missing an incredible story of endurance and strength of the human spirit on the most adverse conditions. If you don't know or have never heard about the Khmer Rouge and the totalitarian government of Democratic Kampuchea and its atrocities you may sleep better but you may as well continue sleeping.

There is only one way in which this movie is not ranked among the most scary films I have ever watched and it is the incredible story of survival and friendship that in the end is delivered by this film. Both the horror and the hope go together in this story, and what the movie really gets to deliver is the feeling that even when the film is excellent in telling the story, reality is larger than anything that can be condensed in the screen, both in in horror and hope.

I thought of a phrase from Yi Yi while I was watching this movie and it is: "People live three times more since movies were invented". In this case it renews its meaning and makes me think that there is no more vivid "and safer" way to get immerse in the events than going through the story accompanied by the sound and the images that can only become real in the screen in a movie like this one. It is easy to connect with the character as it is open in a personal level but it still preserves the context of the real events. I felt horror while watching the Khmer Rouge on top of a tank waving their weapons and felt the cold climb up my spine in the silence of the work fields.

This is an amazing story and it deserves to be told. It probably overpowers the film, but if you didn't know about it, this is a great place to start.

Yi Yi: A One and a Two

Yi Yi: A One and a Two (2000)
a film by Edward Yang

I had no idea about this film until I found it on the list. Even being so recent it didn't cross in my way until now, and now that I know it references to it appear everywhere and it continues growing on me as a simple and beautiful story of characters that feel very close as if they had been living next door without me noticing.

It is easy to use the words personal and intimate when describing this film but I think what really describes would be something more like the magic in the quotidian. The stories of all the characters that meet in this film mix and follow their own paths in quotidian life but are so diverse and interesting that the feeling that is delivered was that of an afternoon hearing family stories and I really liked it because it felt homey and it look beautiful without leaving what one can think as regular life.

In the beginning of the movie I didn't feel comfortable with the digital images that at first glimpse I found cheap but they started to grow on me as the moving and the characters developed and I surrender to the beauty and simplicity of the takes, I take home the photographs taken by the kid and the scenes of the dad smoking in a hotel room saturated in blue. The dad and the kid were also my favourite characters, but is hard to separate them for the real character of the movie that is the family itself.

It is really hard to describe the soft but deep feelings that this movie produced on me without falling in common places, but what I can say is that it is a great portrait of life that linger after is over, it is entertaining and moving, I felt swimming in it and going deeper until I was immersed in the story and then the feeling followed me after it was over. For me it was like drinking a hot cup of tea in a really cold day, and that sounds really cheese, I know, but trust me you won't see this one coming and then you will fall in love with it.