Just 3 this week and we finished Fallout last night and are going to start Shogun real soon. I will save that for another day. I will start with something challenging.
Mujô (1970), which also goes by This Transient Life, is a Japanese erotic drama film directed by Akio Jissoji, in his feature directorial debut. It is the first film in Jissoji’s Buddhist Trilogy. Starring Ryō Tamura and Michiko Tsukasa, it follows a young man who falls in love with his sister and gets her pregnant. After a monk from a nearby Buddhist Monastery finds out, the young man becomes an assistant to a master sculptor, only to proceed to complicate matters with his affair with the master sculptor’s wife. The film won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival.
This subject matter is disturbing and distasteful, practically morally depraved, but it is immensely watchable, like ogling at people walking on the highway to hell and you just want to sit back to see what hell looks like from the comfort of your sofa. The B&W cinematography is brilliant and well ahead of its time. The audacious play with framing, shadows and off-kilter angled shots is brilliant. Everything works in tandem with the craziness of the story. This is a dysfunctional family transcending to a whole new level. The parents want their son to continue his education and their daughter to agree to a suitor for marriage, but they remain defiant. Then, one sultry night, when you are all alone in the big house, they start to play with masks and the unthinkable happens. I know I am supposed to squirm in my seat and utter angry statements, but I curiously became totally transfixed and strangely aroused (I will be making an appointment with my psychiatrist after this). The story isn’t just about them, it’s also a sweet houseboy who has the hots for the girl, a monk who sees the illicit coupling but does nothing and also the master sculptor who enjoys seeing his student mess around with his wife. With so many characters intersecting in such despicable ways, the story never becomes convoluted. It is easy to follow until the third act when Jissoji lays on his obtuse ideas about Buddhism. He seems to be saying all of life is transient and nothingness and we should just embrace our desires and act on them. Good luck using this notion when you get arrested for something and decide to use this argument in court.
My friend told me that one needs to be of a matured age to appreciate Jissoji’s films because if your young mind is a sponge, you will start to carry out what he suggests and get into trouble. Not me, I know how to stay at a distance and appreciate a movie for what it is. The only scene that baffled me is the final scene with the grandma and a giant carp which coughs out hundreds of rocks, each rock with an inscription depicting the life story of the characters in the movie. It seems to suggest all of life is destined and already written. At least I think that is what it is saying.
This is a very interesting film, definitely very polarising but also very watchable. I like it to the extent that I asked my friend to lend me the other two movies in the Buddhist Trilogy. I started it, I might as well go the whole nine yards. (4/5)
The story and plot of Ripley (2024) should be clear to all if you have seen The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) or even Purple Noon (1960). They are others but these are the noteworthy two I have seen. Andrew Scott is the sixth actor to portray Tom Ripley and it’s not so much that he blows all the others out of the water, but each of them brings something totally different to the show, and since I am saying that I will also proclaim this is the first masterpiece on television this year.
If Mujô’s B&W cinematography is brilliant, then Ripley’s is masterclass. The stark black and white brings out the inherent psychotic evilness in Ripley. There is no grey area. He has elements of sociopathic and psychopathic behaviour all rolled into one sharp package. He is a compulsive liar, in fact he is only comfortable if he is lying through his teeth. His vacant eyes and mien are just facades to hide his manipulative mind as he works out all the permutations how best to end you.
This is a slowburn and I have a feeling not many will survive the first two episodes. Consider the first two episodes as the weeding period for the pretenders who constantly complains “why is this show so slow?” Even if it is slow or nothing much is going on, the cinematography is breathtaking and the setting up of the four characters is brilliant. The German expressionistic lighting, shooting the principals through something and those off-kilter camera angles, all gorgeous to behold. It’s not style over and substance, but style and substance all the way to the final frame. The stylistics and aesthetics do call attention to itself but never to its detriment, everything aids the storytelling.
Insofar Ripley is about how Tom commits his crimes, it is more about his great escapes. I watch the last 5 episodes in a frenzy and it’s such a rush to see the dragnet drawing close and how he can still get away in a hair’s breath. Mark my words, Andrew Scott is going to get nominated for Best Actor for a limited series come Emmy season. (5/5)
Parasyte: The Grey (2024), we binge-watched in one day. It has been a long time we did that. I think the previous series we did that was Squid Game. This is absolutely fun to watch and I remember having a thought about it midway through and told Choo “this is exactly The 3-Body Problem without all the mumbo jumbo and without trying so hard to be cool”.
Call me shallow if you like, but Parasyte knows what to do with aliens who just want to eat our brains. It makes it fun without sacrificing gratuitous violence and wanton bloodletting. There are many instances smart writing, eleventh hour tick tock suspense and interesting protagonists. Every episode ends with a cliffhanger and you will need God-like will power to stop there. I was completely lost in the story and couldn’t wait to discover everyone’s fate.
I did watch the Japanese live-action 2-parters many years ago but this Korean series cleverly sidesteps away from that to show you what happens to another city when these aliens invade it. That is whip smart writing 101 and then it ends with a super duper cool cameo that had me in delirium. You will understand when you see it. (3.5/5)
Reel Thoughts 