This is the 3rd film by legendary Japanese
director Yasujiro Ozu (W) that my friend the Cinephile has gotten me to
see, following Good Morning and Late Autumn.
The
Review
As Ozu has
a highly stylized technique, much of the style of his movies is the same from
film to film.Film lovers gush over his
techniques and you can find plenty of reviews on the Internet by people more
intelligent than me.
I’m
a bit of a philistine.But I enjoyed
this film nonetheless.
Unlike
the previous Ozu film’s I’ve seen, this film had much more of a plot, which
caused me to get engaged in the story a lot more.
The
film also was a lot more bittersweet, and it was hard to be unemotional while
watching it.
7 out of 10 stars.(I gave the two previous Ozu films 6 stars,
but this one gets a small bump up because it has much more of a story, that
makes it more accessible to the ordinary philistine like myself.)
My Cinephile friend continues to be very
enthusiastic about the works of Yasujiro Ozu (W), and
some months after he got me to sit through my first Ozu film, Good Morning, he invited me
to check out another Ozu film with him.
The
Review
Ozu
reportedly has a very meticulous style which he repeats in film after film, and
this film was in many ways similar to the previous film.A similar plot (a minor domestic situation,
which gets focused on in depth to fill up the space of two hours),
same highly stylized framing of each shot, and even more or less the same cast
as the previous film.
Therefore
everything I had to say about the previous film holds true here as well—it is
slow moving, but has a certain amount of charm if you let yourself get into
it.
Other
Things I Would Talk About If I Wasn’t Limiting Myself to 100 Words
* This film being only my second foray into
Ozu, I’m still trying to figure him out—is he simply chronicling domestic life
for the sake of accurately chronicling it (as was reportedly Tolstoy’s purpose
in War and Peace), or is
he trying to provoke the question: “Are these little things, that everyone
spends all their time obsessing over, really all there is to life?”
* The interactions and conversations in Ozu’s
films strike me as so typically Japanese that I would be tempted to say anyone who
hasn’t lived in Japan can’t fully appreciate Ozu’s movies—or that is I would be
tempted to say this, were it not for that fact that my Cinephile friend (and
thousands of other Ozu fans around the world) have never lived in Japan, and
clearly love Ozu’s movies much more than I do.
6 out of 10. (The same rating I gave to the
previous Ozu film with the same caveat—more so than most movies, this one
really depends on you being in the right mood for it.)
Links
* I found this excellent review of the film while searching on-line.The
author picks up on any number of subtleties about the film I completely missed
on my own.(I didn’t even realize this
until I got to the end of the review, but after reading the whole thing I was
surprised to find out I actually knew the author. I don’t know him well, but we travelled in
some of the same circles back when I lived in Grand Rapids—The West Michigan Peace and
Justice Coalition for example.I have
even linked to him before years back here and here.)
My Cinephile friend has been telling me about the work of
Yasujiro Ozu (W) for some time, and then finally
invited me over to watch this movie with him one afternoon.And I accepted, because the occasional
Japanese movie every now and then stops me from completely
forgetting the Japanese language.
The Review
I have to admit, when my cinephile
friend described to me the work of Ozu, it sounded terribly
boring.A Japanese director who obsesses
about framing every shot perfectly, and who makes films about middle class
families in Japan
in which nothing really happens.
And yet,
even though I can’t explain why exactly, the film is very charming.The characters were likeable; the humor
subdued, but present; and the situations identifiable.
Although
some 50 years old now, to me this film seemed to perfectly encapsulate the atmosphere
of everyday life in Japan.
6 out of 10. (Although this is a tough one to rate, because
more so than most movies, this one really depends on you being in the right
mood for it.)
Other Things I Would
Talk About If I Wasn’t Limiting Myself to 100 Words
* As we watched this movie, my Cinephile friend gave me
quite an education on how meticulously each Ozu screen shot is structured.
*How this movie is so quintessentially Japanese--the huge emphasis placed on greetings, for example.
Links
* In many ways, the subtlety of this movie was the complete
opposite of the overly-dramatic Japanese filmAlways, and yet they reminded me of each other—both films
depicted the small town life in Japan at the end of the 1950s, and in both
movies the excitement of acquiring modern appliances is a big part of the film.
* My Cinephile friend tells me Ozu’sstyle, and
his humor, has had a big influence on Wes Anderson, so here’s a link back to my
review of Moonrise Kingdom
* (I have a feeling that I probably should remember something about Ozu from
Donald Richie’s book, but I no longer have that book with me now, and
have now forgotten almost everything in it.Because the book overloaded me with lists of
names and films, I never did properly absorb its information.)
I watched
this movie because a co-worker of mine was watching it.
I have a
co-worker who is a real film buff.He
was a film studies major in university, and is one of those people who is
always seeking out obscure artsy foreign films to watch.
Recently he
told me he was planning to watch this movie over the weekend. He described it
as a Japanese film noir from the 1960s.The
reason he wanted to watch it was because Roger Ebert had added this movie to
his list of the greatest films of all time, and had given it a glowing review
on his website [For Roger Ebert’s review of this film see here.]
I told him,
“If you watch it, give me a call.I’ll
bring the popcorn.”
It’s good
for me to watch a Japanese language movie every now and then.Since leaving Japan 3 years ago, my Japanese ability has deteriorated rapidly, and watching the occasional
Japanese film helps me from forgetting everything completely.
(Actually I
really should be watching a lot more Japanese films than I
am.However I often find Japanese cinema
a struggle to sit through for one reason or another.Whereas American cinema knows exactly how to
cater to my short attention span.So
whenever I’m in the video store, unless I’m feeling particularly conscientious,
I almost always find myself gravitating towards the movies that are easiest for
me to understand.)
But the fact
that a friend was watching this movie anyway gave me the perfect excuse to
watch it with him.But there were a
couple other factors that drew me in: classic - film - noir - is a genre that I have
some interest in , plus I’ve always been interested in - 1960s - era - Japan.
The Review
Three of us
ended up watching the film together.When it was over, my friend talked about how beautiful the
cinematography was.
“Yes, the
cinematography was pretty impressive,”
I said.“But what about that story? There was hardly
any story, and what little story there was didn’t make a lot of sense, and the
story got drawn out way more than it needed to be.The film was only 90 minutes, but am I the
only one who felt like it seemed to last way longer than that?”
“Yes, but
it’s film noir,” my friend replied.“Film
noir has always been about style over substance.”
There are
probably lots of cinephiles around the world who
love films like this that put so much emphasis on style.And if you’re one of those people, you’ll
probably love this film.But I’m not one
of them.Here I must confess myself a
philistine, and probably someone unqualified to review this film.Really, you should stop wasting your time
reading my review, and just follow the above link to Roger Ebert’s review.You’ll get much more out of it.
However,
since I am committed to putting down my two-cents on every movie I watch, here
are my thoughts.
The Style
If it is
true that film noir is always about style over substance, then it must be
admitted that this film does have style.It’s a gangster film, and the gangsters do a good job of looking
cool.They wear nice looking suits, smoke
cigarettes, and regard the world with cool disdain.
The yakuza
(Japanese mafia) in the 1960s, at least as far as their portrayal on film goes,
look just like a Japanese business man—short hair, nice suit, carefully pressed
pants.The only thing that seems to
distinguish their uniform is the dark sunglasses some of them wear, even at
night.
Almost the
entire film takes place at night, and the film makes good use of the loneliness
of night.You have lots of shots of
characters walking alone down empty alley streets.
But there
is also an intimacy about the night.When the whole world is asleep, it seems like you and the person you are
with are the only two people who seem alive at the moment.The film makes good use of this as well.
The film
opens with a voice over complaining about how crowded Tokyo has become.But then after several opening shots
establishing the crowds in Tokyo, Tokyo is then portrayed
as looking deserted for most of the rest of the film.At night the characters have the streets of Tokyo entirely to
themselves.
And then
there’s the excitement of the night.When most decent people are in bed, it seems like there are no rules and
anything can happen.
At one point
the heroine exclaims, “I would be okay if the morning never comes.I live for these evil nights.”As she says this, she presses down on the accelerator
and, for no reason except mischief, engages in a race on the highway with the
car in front of her.At night they have
the entire highway to themselves, and it ends eventually when the other driver
stops, laughs with them as if they were good friends, and then just drives off
again.
Other
stylistic points:
* I suppose
it’s cliché to say about any black and white film noir that they make good use
of light and shadows.But there is some
good use of light and shadows here.The
character at points walks in and out of shadows while walking down the
street.And in one of the opening
scenes, his embrace with his girlfriend is totally obscured by the shadows, leaving
the audience to just guess what is happening.
* Also the
sound of footsteps are amplified a lot in this movie.Whenever any character walks anywhere, you
can hear very loudly the “click, click, click,” sound of their shoes on the
streets.
Exactly why
this is, I’m not sure.It might again
have to do with the emptiness of night, where in the absence of the usual daily
noise, the small noise of footsteps seems louder.
Or maybe,
as Roger Ebert seems to be hinting, the rhythmic sound of the footsteps on
the pavement is meant to parallel the rhythmic clicking of the picture plaques
being shuffled in the gambling scenes.
Or my friend
thought the footsteps represented the ticking of the clocks.Which brings me to my next point.
* There is
definitely some clock symbolism here.One
of the characters works and lives in a clock store.In one particularly obvious scene, her lover
comes home from prison, and, amid the loud clicking of clocks she asks him, “When
did you get out?When? When? When?”
Aside from
just symbolism for the sake of symbolism, however, I’m not sure how this
connects with the themes of the rest of the story.But maybe someone a bit sharper than me can
make the connection.
Okay, so much for the style.Now onto the story.
The Story
There’s
really not much of a story here, and what little story there is gets drawn out
over some very slow scenes.
A gangster named Muraki
gets released from prison, and immediately returns to his old life and his old
hangouts.
At his
usual gambling dens, however, he is surprised to find a young innocent rich
girl gambling alongside the usual gangsters.No one knows why she is here or what her story is.He is intrigued by her, and then becomes in
love with her, and she with him.
But fate
has them on different trajectories.Because
of his loyalties to his gang, he engages in a job that he knows will send him
right back to jail, while she meanwhile is on a self-destructive path, chasing
more and more dangerous ways to escape her boredom.
(Actually,
now that I’ve just written it up like that, it sounds a lot more exciting than
it actually is.But the film moves very
slowly.The action of the film maybe
takes up only about 15 minutes, all told, and the rest of the film is people
having quiet conversations with each other.Because of this, the film felt very long to me, even though it was
really only 90 minutes.)
Why he
falls so in love with this girl I never understood, and that hampered my
getting involved with the story.
She is
cute, yes, I’ll give her that. And she
does looks up at him with a doe-y eyed look, and she
talks very innocently and correctly, and obviously comes from a high class
family, and there is a mystery about her.
But cute
girls are a dime-a-dozen, and she doesn’t seem to have any deeper personality
than this.Plus she gives several
indications that she’s real trouble.She
already has a gambling addiction when he meets her, and then she is becoming
fascinated by drugs.With all the girls
in the world, why would you fall in love with this one?
Especially
for a middle aged man who should know better.(I understand in our young years, men can be intrigued by girls like
this.But surely by the time we reach a
certain age, we realize that they are more trouble than they’re worth, right?)
To my mind,
the movie gives absolutely no reason why he should fall in love with her.It’s simply something we need to accept so
that there can be some sort of story here.
(My friend,
by the way, disagrees with me on this.He says it was obvious from the movie that they both have very similar
personalities, and they both have trouble connecting to the real world, so the
only person each could open up to was the other.Perhaps.)
At any
rate, I certainly wasn’t in love with her by the end of the movie, and so it
irritated me that he should be so in love with her.I wasn’t able to sympathize with his feelings
at all.
And there
were other things like this—other characters who made abrupt emotional turn arounds
I did not understand.There was the young gangster
(Jiro?) who hates our main character Muraki and tries to kill him at the beginning of the film.For reasons I never understood, a few scenes
later he has become his devoted follower and companion.
I’m not
saying an emotional transformation from hatred to love couldn’t have taken
place, but the film certainly didn’t show me it or give me any reason to
believe it.
Other Thoughts
And in now
particular order, here are a few more things that are rattling around my brain.
* I am reminded of the Showa News Reel clips I watched a few years back.The news reels
from the 1960s also made a big deal about how crowded Tokyo
was becoming, indicating that overcrowding in Tokyo was becoming an issue very much on the
public consciousness around this time.(Tokyo is still very
crowded now, but perhaps now it’s just accepted as a fact, and back then it was
a new phenomenon.)
Assuming I’m
right about this, then the opening narration of the movie, which complains
about the overcrowding in Tokyo,
locates this movie perfectly in its time.
* And speaking of dating this movie to its time period—is it
just me, or during the 1950s and 60s were there a lot of stories about bored
upper-middle class young people trying to “get their kicks”, feel alive, find meaning
in life, et cetera?And if so, does that
young-bored-and restless feeling still exist today, or have we become
completely lulled into passivity by media saturation?
* Other observations from my friend, the cinephile:
He said the
film has a very claustrophobic feel, created by showing lots of characters
crammed into small rooms, and by having lots of close-ups of characters
faces.(I never noticed this myself.)
He said
that it was very obvious the director Shinoda is a protégé of Ozu because they both make a habit of making sure the whole room,
from the floor to the ceiling, is in the shot.(I never noticed this myself either.)
* Roger Ebert’s review gives a bit of information both me
and my friend found interesting.Apparently the original screenplay did not include any of the elaborate
gambling scenes in the movie, and instead the only screen directions were “they
gambled.”
The fact
that the director took these very simple screen directions and made very
elaborate gambling scenes does add another layer of interest to the movie.The fact that the screenwriter was not happy
about this, but apparently became furious when he saw the film and saw how
elaborate the gambling scenes had become, is more interesting yet.
* One of the key plot points in the movie is when someone
runs in and informs the gang that Tamaki has been knifed down in the
streets.This caused me and my two
friends to turn to each other and ask, “Who is Tamaki?”We still haven’t figured it out.
* “Film noir has always been about style over substance,”
says my friend.Me— I’m not entirely
sure that’s true.Surely the classic
film noirs in American cinema were just as famous for their dialogues as their
cinematography?Or does dialogue also
count as style?
This is another one of those "movies I really should have seen a long time ago."
This movie actually came out the first year I was in Japan, and was hugely popular over there. You could see signs for it everywhere, and all the kids (and even the teachers) at the schools would talk about it.
Once it came out on DVD, for a while afterwards it seemed like it was on everywhere all the time. Whenever I would walk into an electronics store or a video rental place, it would be playing on the monitor. Same for a friend's house.
As a result, I had already seen most of this movie in bits and pieces, and I so I felt like I had seen the whole thing.
But recently I've been re-watching a lot of Japanese anime in an effort to keep my Japanese language up. And I ended up renting this as well, and watching it straight through for the first time.
(And I've got to say, it makes a lot more sense when you watch it straight through.)
This film has gotten so much good press already (in both Japan and America) it's difficult to be able to add much. I'd just be repeating cliches if I gushed about what a wonderfully imaginative film it was, or wrote about how wonderful the characters were.
Likewise I suppose it is cliche to compare the plot to "Alice in Wonderland." And yet there's no denying that is the most obvious comparison.
So, because I can't think of much new to say, I'm just going to keep this review short and sweet. It was a beautiful, wonderfully imaginative movie. It manages to capture a very Japanese flavor in its story about a public bath house for spirit gods. And yet, it doesn't get bogged down in its own mythology (as some Japanese films do). Just as you are trying to absorb and take in the wonder of one scene, you get whisked off to another one. The pacing is perfect that way.
Chances are you've already seen this film already. But if you haven't, then be sure to check it out.
(Finally, in an effort to keep things fair and balanced on this blog, here is a contrary opinion--link here).
Let me begin this review by talking about two completely different movies. Both of which I saw before I started this movie review blogging project (and thus never got reviewed here) and both of which are well worth seeing.
One is a documentary film called "Tokyo Trial" (or "Tokyo Saiban" in Japanese)about the Internationl Military Tribunals for the Far East in Tokyo.
The film is fascinating, first of all because of all the documentary footage they have collected. I didn't even know that these trials had been captured on film, but the whole trial was filmed and you can watch it just like you would watch any other modern media sensational trial.
The film was made by a Japanese film director, and so it has its biases (he implies that the whole trial is simply a victor's justice).
And yet at the same time, the fact that it is from a Japanese perspective makes it all the more fascinating. For example, the film says that the Japanese were not familiar with an Anglo-Saxon court system, and so did not expect to get a fair trail or a fair defense. They were therefore completely surprised when their court-appointed American defense lawyers actually took their jobs seriously, and provided a vigorous defense for their clients (to the point of clashing several times with the court judges).
There were translation issues (at one point Tojo yelled at his translator, "you can't translate Japanese at all").
And there lots of behind the scenes politics keeping all the allied nations happy. The head judge of the tribunal, an Australian, wanted to put the Emperor himself on trial, but was forbidden to do so by the American government.
The lead defense attorney (himself an American) had so many arguments with the court that he ended up resigning in protest.
And at the end the judge representing India voted not guilty on all the counts.
I watched it with Shoko at the time, and it sparked a lot of interesting conversation afterwards.
Absolutely fascinating from beginning to end. If you get a chance, you should definitely rent it.
(It's available in English, although it might be a little hard to track down Stateside. If any of my old buddies in Japan are still reading this, you can find it in most Japanese DVD rental stores in the documentary section. It has an English dub on it, so don't worry about language issues).
The second movie is "Judgment at Nuremberg" (W) which I watched with Bork a few years ago.
This isn't a documentary film, but at times feels like it is. And I mean that in a good way. The speeches and the dialogue feel so heartfelt you imagine they are from real life.
The film, although fictional, depicts a trial of the lesser Nazi war criminals. At this point all the big fish have already been sentenced, but now the German judges and college professors who helped create the intellectual climate for Nazism to flourish are put on trial.
What's interesting about this film is that the defense attorney is given equal time to expand on his view, and the film gives you plenty to think about even though it comes down predictably on the side of the prosecutors. One gets the sense for watching this movie of a reality that is far more complicated.
(Also, for fellow Trekkies out there, an added bonus is a young pre-Kirk William Shatner playing a bit part in this movie--in addtion to an all star cast for the lead roles).
Which brings me to "Nuremberg", a film I rented hoping it would be just as fascinating as the others, but unfortunately I was disappointed.
This movie is not about the legal complexities of an international tribunal, or the behind the scenes politics that go into setting it up. (It hints at these issues oh so briefly in the beginning, but then it moves quickly on).
Nor is it about the difficulties of placing responsibility on a few individuals for crimes of a whole nation. (Again, it hints at this, but it's not the main focus).
No, this is mostly an "weren't the Nazis really horrible" type movie. The courtroom drama simply serves here as a forum to display all the terrible things the Nazis did.
I believe that these type of movies have a place, don't misunderstand me. No one should ever forget what happened in Nazi Germany. Nor should we forget that this happened not in some savage nation or some dark age in history, but rather in modern times, in an educated, Christian, civilized Western nation. That is a horror that can never really be over-emphasized.
I guess my main complaint is that this movie wasn't what I was expecting. Maybe that's my problem and not the movie's.
However this movie did have a kind of "after-school special" type feel to it.
"Tokyo Trial" and "Judgment at Nuremberg" both treated me like an adult. They presented the world as complex, and allowed me to make some of my own conclusions. But this movie felt like it needed to hold my hand the whole time and walk me through all the different emotions I was supposed to be feeling.
For example, whenever Nazi atrocities are being described in the courtroom, the movie feels the need to get reaction shots from everyone in the room. Just in case we weren't quite sure how we were supposed to feel about it, we need to see reaction shots of everyone getting red eyed and crying.
And they really over-do it as well. At one point, the prosecutors show documentary footage of the concentration camps, and for some reason the movie feels it can't show more than 3 or 4 seconds at a time without cutting to the reaction shot of someone crying while watching it in the courtroom.
The narrative drama in the movie is framed as a battle of wills between prosecutor Robert Jackson (Alec Baldwin) and unrepentant Nazi Hermann Goering (Brian Cox). Some of the more complex issues surrounding the trial are hinted at in their dialogue, but the way the story is framed, what they're actually saying isn't important. What's important is how much time Goering is given to answer each question, and which one of them is able to control the atmosphere in the court.
In conclusion, I very highly recommend the documentary "Tokyo Saiban" and the film "Judgment at Nuremberg."
"Nuremberg" isn't nearly as interesting however.
...Which is unfortunate, given that it's a very long film to watch--3 hours long. It was originally a TNT 2 part TV movie, which they packaged as one long movie for the DVD release. Since they had so much time to fill, it's a shame they didn't use it better.
********************************************************************
Actually while I'm on the subject of TV movies, I should make a quick bloggy note here about my reviewing policy. (This probably isn't of any interest to anyone else but me, but I'd like to get it off my chest anyway).
Since I've started up this reviewing project, I've been quite strict with myself about reviewing every theatrical release movie I've seen. TV movies are a bit of a gray area though. Especially if they come out in two parts, I often will classify them as a mini-series and don't feel the need to review them.
For example, the British TV version of Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather" (W), or "The Colour of Magic" (W) were both films I saw, and then decided that since they were 2 part television mini-series, I wasn't obligated to add them to my reviewing project .
Same with the BBC "Gunpowder, Treason and Plot" (W), and "The Devil's Whore" (W).
This movie, however, because it was put onto a single DVD, and because it had been edited together into a single movie (with no ending credits popping up halfway through), I decided to count as a movie rather than a mini-series. But it's a gray area, and in the future I'll continue to review or not review TV movies on a case by case basis.
************************************************************
Last word on Nuremberg goes to professor Chomsky:
"...what was considered a crime [at the Nuremberg trials] was based on a very explicit criterion, namely, denial of the principle of universality. In other words, something was called a crime at Nuremberg if they did it and we didn’t do it.
So, for example, the bombing of urban concentrations was not considered a crime. The bombings of Tokyo, Dresden, and so on -- those aren’t crimes. Why? Because we did them. So, therefore, it’s not a crime. In fact, Nazi war criminals who were charged were able to escape prosecution when they could show that the Americans and the British did the same thing they did. Admiral Doenitz, a submarine commander who was involved in all kinds of war crimes, called in the defense a high official in the British admiralty and, I think, Admiral Nimitz from the United States, who testified that, ‘Yeah, that’s the kind of thing we did.’ And, therefore, they weren’t sentenced for these crimes. Doenitz was absolved. And that’s the way it ran through. Now, that’s a very serious flaw.
When Chief Justice Jackson, chief counsel for the prosecution, spoke to the tribunal and explained to them the importance of what they were doing, he said, to paraphrase, that: ‘We are handing these defendants a poisoned chalice, and if we ever sip from it we must be subject to the same punishments, otherwise this whole trial is a farce.’ Well, you can look at the history from then on, and we’ve sipped from the poisoned chalice many times, but it’s never been considered a crime. So, that means we are saying that trial was a farce.
....
...at Nuremberg, we weren’t trying the people who threw Jews into crematoria; we were trying the leaders. When we ever have a trial for crimes it’s of some low-level person like a torturer from Abu Ghraib, not the people who were setting up the framework from which they operate. And we certainly don’t try political leaders for the crime of aggression. That’s out of the question.
The invasion of Iraq was about as clear-cut a case of aggression than you can imagine. In fact, by the Nuremberg principles, if you read them carefully, the U.S. war against Nicaragua was a crime of aggression for which Ronald Reagan should have been tried. But, it’s inconceivable; you can’t even mention it in the West. And the reason is our radical denial of the most elementary moral truisms. We just flatly reject them. We don’t even think we reject them, and that’s even worse than rejecting them outright.
If we were able to say to ourselves, ‘Look, we are totally immoral, we don’t accept elementary moral principles,’ that would be a kind of respectable position in a certain way. But, when we sink to the level where we cannot even perceive that we’re violating elementary moral principles and international law, that’s pretty bad. But, that’s the nature of the intellectual culture--not just in the United States--but in powerful societies everywhere
Living in Japan, I tend to spend a lot of time ordering books off of Amazon.com. And in deciding what books to order, I began to realize how helpful the reader reviews on Amazon are. And how frustrating it is when there are absolutely no reviews to go by; which happens a lot, if your tastes run to obscure historical books, as mine sometimes do.
Of course I was actively reviewing books on this weblog. But the more I thought about it, the sillier that seemed. I mean, here I was, spamming my friends, family, and loyal readers with book and movie reviews that they couldn't care less about. And then these reviews were sitting lost in some obscure corner of the internet. Whereas I could be posting the reviews directly to Amazon.com, where people who actually wanted to read them could have access to it.
I had already been in the habit of getting double mileage out of some of my political book reviews. Anything- that- touched -on- radical- politics- I- would copy and paste and send over to Media Mouse for their book review section (after editing out most personal tangents or long bloggy ramblings).
I decided it would be easy enough to start doing the same thing at Amazon.com.
From February 17, 2007 ("Revolution and Reaction") to September 21, 2007 ("Tales from Earthsea"), every book or movie review that was posted on this blog was also copied and posted over on my Amazon account.
After September 2007, I decided the whole thing was causing me more headaches than it was worth.
I don't know how many of you have been Amazon reviewers at one point in your lives, but it's quite a system they've got going there. Not only can you review books, but people can review your reviews. After you post your review, people vote on whether it was helpful to them or not helpful. These votes are tabulated, and help to determine your "ranking" as an Amazon reviewer. You move up and down accordingly.
What's more, people can comment on your reviews. And then people can even vote on whether the comments were helpful or not.
If you're the kind of person who probably spends too much time online as it is, or if you check your e-mail obsessively several times a day, then all these bells and whistles can represent another huge time waster that it is all too easy to get sucked into.
In spite of my best efforts at self-control, I found myself checking my Amazon account once a day or more to see if I had gotten any more "helpful" votes. Or if someone had left a new comment.
That was my first problem with Amazon.
Secondly, and somewhat more depressing, my reviews by and large tended to get really slammed by the Amazon community. I'd put up a review, and soon find that 3 out of 3 people (or sometimes 20 out or 23 people) voted that it was unhelpful. It was a humbling experience.
When you spend too much time immersed in your own blog, acting as your own writer, proofreader, editor, and publisher, it is perhaps too easy to forget what a crum writer you really are. But when you're one reviewer among many, you can see your shortcomings quite clearly. Most of the other amateur reviewers had a lot of insight that I lacked, as well as a writing style that was a lot clearer and more concise than my own.
Still... "unhelpful"?
I can understand my writing style may have been a bit clunky. I can understand not everyone agreed with my review. But unhelpful?
"This book sucked!"--That is the kind of review that is unhelpful. "It was good, but not as good as the movie."--That kind of review is unhelpful.
I at least would try and summarize the plot and give my reaction to it, which, I like to think, agree with me or not, would be at least somewhat helpful to a potential buyer trying to decide whether this book was up their alley or not.
If you decide my review doesn't deserve a "helpful" vote, I can accept that. But going out of your way to give me an "unhelpful" vote seems a little harsh.
But what was discouraging was that in some cases I would garner more "unhelpful" votes than some of the one line reviews mentioned above.
Of course it wasn't all bad. As of this writing, my Amazon profile lists a total of 125 helpful votes against 122 unhelpful votes, so in the end I ended up with a slight advantage in the helpful column.
However, in other corners I managed to get some people very upset. My review of the "Death Note" movie touched a off a nerve in the Anime community.
It wasn't overwhelming by any means, but in the first few months after I posted the review I would get about one negative comment about it a month.
First off was from a gentleman named Woopak You are entitled to your opinion. Quite frankly, I don't agree with your view of the film. Aside from your view of vigitilantism, it deals with the issue of near-limitless power in matters of life and death. Death Note reflects on how power can corrupt a human mind. The human mind is unpredictable, how would you know how a live college student would react? Light was in Law school, not a teen-ager! In Asia, when you're in law school, means you are over 22 yrs. old. Plus, you took the film too seriously. This is a supernatural fantasy. Hey, Pirates of the Caribbean was a fantasy, and you didn't get all analytical with that. You want to watch Foreign films, learn to approach it with more acceptance and always put in consideration the source material. I thought it was well-done. I liked the way it dealt with the battle of wits between good and evil. Sorry, I definitely do not agree with your rating in your review and your understanding of the film. DEATH NOTE kicked the heck out of most Hollywood thrillers...!
Teenager? Like someone already said, Light is studying Law in Uni. Of course, the anime DOES start with Light as a senior in high school, but we're not reviewing the anime here, and even if we were... This isn't just some green kid picking up something he can't understand. It's the (precocious, as the author already stated) son of a well-respected, highly ranked member of the police force... the top of his class, studying relentlessly to fulfill his already strong dream of delivering justice to the wicked. A genius with high expectations of himself, who is disgusted with the state of the world's rotting virtues.
So with that in mind... say again how it's difficult to imagine that he would actually take on the responsibility of ridding the world of scum? Besides, much of the reason that Light doesn't stop killing is that he CAN'T stop killing without increasing suspicion. Continuing the spree of murders is a way for him to continue his important work, sure, but if he can continue killing while appearing innocent, that should lead suspicion elsewhere. So for him, there is no choice BUT to keep killing. [This intention is present in the film, but probably more evident in the anime.]
(By the way, there is no evidence to support that L is supposed to be a teenager either.)
The complaint that real life would provide fewer criminals to kill is way off. Certainly Light goes after unpunished criminals, but he also attacks those who have already been incarcerated... and given the many millions of prisoners around the world... he would't run out of victims for ages.
The author is certainly right that the story was better in anime format (I don't read comics, so I can't speak for the manga), which I will discuss at some length in a review I'll be writing shortly. Unfortunately, this film wasn't great, but I think so for reasons other than Swagman. His review was written with a minimal amount of understanding of Japanese cinema (see review's first sentence), incorrect interpretations of the film's facts and implications, and a ridiculous amount of prejudice and inappropriate comparisons (hitchcock, kill bill, .the last supper). "Was this review helpful to you?"... No, not at all.
Now, it must be admitted there are some valid points in here. Perhaps I was a bit too dismissive of "Death Note" in my original review. And the fact that I had watched this film in Japan means that I did it without the benefit of English subtitles, and was only able to catch as much as my limited Japanese ability would allow. Therefore some of the more subtle plot points these reviewers mention went right over my head.
Still, there were many areas where I believed I was being unfairly criticized. And I began to formulate in my mind all the ways I could respond to these attacks if I were so inclined.
Despite the fact that they seemed to want to draw me into a debate (Mr. Woopak even went through the trouble of commenting twice) I held off responding for several months. After all, I had promised myself I wouldn't let my activities on Amazon become yet another Internet drag on my time. I had said my piece in the original review, and that's all I was going to do. You can't get let yourself get drawn into a huge debate with every anime fan who has Internet access.
My resolve gave in one day when I found myself unemployed. I had a million things I should have been doing, and I was trying to think of an excuse to avoid all of them. I went on a long walk to get some exercise, and found my thoughts drifting to the 3 anime fans whom I had angered with my review. By the time I had finished my walk, I had already mentally composed my entire response. And so at that point I decided to just write it up.
Dear Woopak, Neil Ford, and Advo Ask, thank you for taking the time to read my review, and giving me your feedback. It has also been interesting to read some of your thoughts on this movie over the last few months. When I posted this review a few months ago, it was the only one. Having read your reviews has helped me to understand this movie a little better, and I probably would have written this review a bit differently if I had read yours first.
We might have to agree to disagree on some of the thematic issues of this film, but I'll start with some of your more concrete objections first of all. 1) Most Japanese cinema does not start out as Manga 2) Light is not a teenager
1). I might be talked into admitting that I've overstated this point. Certainly this wasn't true in the days of Kurosawa, but having lived in Japan for the past 7 years, it certainly feels like most of the big hit movies during that time have some sort of Manga connection. Even a lot of dramas like "Go" or "Always" turn out to be based on a manga in the end, not to mention all more obvious manga derivations (Devilman, Cutie Honey, I could go on). If we throw in movies based on TV shows and anime, I'd be willing to place a bet that this accounts for most of the big budget Japanese movies in the past 5 years, if not most of the recent Japanese movies period. But I've not done a formal study on this, and am open to be convinced otherwise.
2).I wrote this review directed at the average American who knows nothing about this franchise, so I tried to give a brief overview of both the manga and the movie. I knew from discussions with Japanese friends that the manga character starts out as a high school student. In the movie he was in law school, so certainly not in high school anymore and unlikely to be a teenager. I'm not sure if the movie ever clearly states his age, but if you read my review carefully, you'll notice the only time I refer to Light or L as teenagers is when I'm referring to the story behind the manga-anime-movie adaptation, not the movie itself. That was an intentional choice of words on my part, intended because I didn't really know how old he was in the movie. Upon re-reading my review, however, I can see how this kind of semantic hair slicing can be easy to miss, especially if you're reading it through quickly.
Allow me to suggest, however, that regardless of whether light is a teenager or not, or whether most Japanese cinema is based on manga or not, that both of these are extremely minor points in my review, and I think an undue amount of attention has been focused on both these areas at the expense of ignoring some of my broader points, and that this kind of nit-picking is not always helpful for moving the discussion forward.
Thematically I stand by much of what I said in this review, although, Woopak, I have read your review as well and I can see where you're coming from and respect your opinion. I guess for me the big issue is not only what themes does the film attempt to address, but how well does it succeed in dealing with those themes. I will admit that this film takes on some pretty ambitious themes, as you mentioned in your review (death penalty, power corrupts, man playing god). For me though the film didn't really give me any new insight into any of these themes, and I'm not convinced the film quite pulled off what it set out to do.
I'm not sure the comparison with Pirates of the Caribbean is entirely apt. After all, as you mention in your review this film attempted to deal with a number of themes that Pirates of the Caribbean never pretended to address. And given how little action there is in this film, it would be hard to compare it to a mindless action fantasy like Pirates of the Caribbean was. A suspense movie maybe, but I tend to judge those by different standards than summer popcorn movies.
I do agree that people are unpredictable, but (as a literature professor of mine once said) they should be written so as to have a predictable unpredictability. In other words, the human mind as unpredictable shouldn't be a catch all excuse for any jump the writer wants to make.
Advo, I'm not entirely sure why my comparisons to Hitchcock, Last supper, and Kill Bill were inappropriate. In the case of Kill Bill for example the only reason I even mentioned that film was as another film that was released in two parts but as a continuous story split into two instead of as a standard sequel. I guess I could have written all that out, but I think Kill Bill is a nice short hand way of conveying the same thing to an American Audience. Last Supper, well admittedly not the greatest film in the world, dealt with a lot of the same themes and I'm not sure why it's not appropriate to make the comparison.
Also I'm not sure why you would say my review has a ridiculous amount of prejudice. Perhaps you could explain that one to me a little more.
That said, I did read with interest your theory that Light had to keep killing in order to appear innocent. This was something I didn't quite catch when I watched the film, but your explanation does make a bit of sense. I still think it would have been much easier to just walk away from the whole thing, but then we come back again to the unpredictability of the human mind.
PS--I'd be interested to hear what you guys thought of Death Note II. Although I see Woopak incorporated elements of both into his review, the last I checked I was the only reviewer on the Death Note II page. It would be nice to get some more opinions over there.
Given how much they had jumped all over my original review, I took a bit of pleasure in writing this as an attempt to get them all stirred up again. I was sure that within days they'd all be writing long responses. But no-one ever wrote a reply.
Addendum: Actually I should modify one thing slightly. During my time as an Amazon reviewer, I didn't repost every review on Amazon. I tried to post every review. For whatever reason, some of my reviews would mysteriously disappear after a day or two.
At first I thought this was some sort of censorship whenever I expressed unorthodox opinions, but after a while I decided it was probably some sort of bug in the program.
After reposting a couple of reviews several times, I just decided to leave it. In an effort to avoid spending all day on-line, I decided to make one and only one attempt per review.
There were some interesting catches in the Amazon program, however. For whatever reason, anytime I tried to make reference to the age of a character it would get automatically edited out of the review. Compare, for example, this strangely edited review of "The Golem's Eye" with my original here. A safety device to protect minors, perhaps?
