The outward appearance, of course, suggests a dime-store neon noir; just another insignificant straight to video pulp, but this being Ishii, the beating of his heavy heart soon overpowers ruthlessly the slight plot manoeuvrings. "Feeling lonely in the world and feeling the loneliness of the world" is the eternal tune that Ishii hears, and even at the very beginning of his career he is already an accomplished whistler of it. A miasma of irrevocable anguish hanging around the cheapness; an…

"Man is born crying. When he has cried enough, he dies", once reflected a character in Kurosawa's 'Ran'. And I can't think of many other groups of people for whom this sentiment resonates more sharply within myself than The Burakumin - Japan's "deplorables". Ichikawa has explored the furthest reaches of what it means to be human before in 'Nobi', and while 'Hakai' doesn't quite measure up, it's still a worthwhile effort.
The broodingly masterful widescreen photography and the lyrically melancholic…

"How poetry has declined!" Clashing and slashing through the amorphous structure, the enormously fanciful canvas, and also enduring the starvation for any forward momentum of the plotting is often a laborious affair for the one who initiates into Suzuki's Taishō Trilogy. Still, the man is truly an extraordinaire at investing his energies into the exquisite contouring of our subliminal desire to manifest our dreams in front of our eyes.
Yumeji is a dreamer's dream of a dreamer. A wild one;…

"Who's there?! Who are you?!", startled the Visitor repeatedly exclaims throughout the film, sharply addressing the camera, and by extension, addressing you, the viewer. Along with the diegetic industrial grind, the faint sounds around you unexpectedly become diegetic too. Your room transforms into one of the secret walled-up chambers of the Museum. And you, the viewer, somehow end up being converted into a henchman of the ever silent God. Numb, voiceless sphinx watching behind a one-way mirror while the basic…

Who can fathom the depths of another man's heart?

My collision with this film was such a major turning point in life, such a profoundly revelatory experience. It truly started something of a cataclysmic conflagration in my insides the first time I watched it (oh, how I wept to extinguish the fires!). It managed to put in grave peril all the law and order I've accumulated within, all the beliefs and truths, all convenient furnishings in film, in life, in…