The Past (2013)

Originally Published in The Daily Nebraskan, 2/27/2014

Memory is incredibly subjective — something you think you remember clearly could be remembered differently by another person. In the next few days, you may remember this review differently than I wrote it. Or you may forget it altogether.

In Asghar Farhadi’s “The Past,” memory is explored through several characters caught up in a web of betrayal, infidelity and suicide. Farhadi’s previous films “About Elly” and “A Separation” both explored dysfunctional family dynamics and communication breakdown. With “The Past,” he explores those themes even further. This is the work of a director trying to show us something deeply personal through unflinchingly realistic filmmaking.

After four years of separation from his wife, Ahmad (Ali Mosaffa) returns to finalize his divorce with his wife, Marie (Bérénice Bejo). When the two of them reunite at the airport, they see each other through a pane of glass. Although they can see each other, neither can hear the other. Their lips move, but no sound comes out. The viewer gets the feeling this sums up their entire relationship.

Ahmad comes back to Marie’s house and finds that a child other than his own is living there. Fouad (Elyes Aguis) is the child of Samir (Tahar Rahim), Marie’s boyfriend and fiancé. Ahmad says Marie never told him about Samir. Marie argues that she sent him an email. Perhaps she did; perhaps she didn’t. Ahmad’s daughter, Lucie, objects to Marie being with Samir, and she has some information she will share with Ahmad that will rock the foundation of Marie and Samir’s relationship.

The film is a series of conversations between people who are trying to figure out why things are going wrong. It’s almost a mystery, and like a mystery, there are multiple twists that let us think we know what’s going on, right before the narrative pulls the rug from under our feet. Every actor and actress in this film fits naturally into his or her respective role, especially Bejo, whose recent turn in the modern silent film, “The Artist” displayed her talent for nonverbal acting.

But let’s get real for a second. Personally, I didn’t like it. I know it’s a good film — it takes a lot of directorial talent to get these kinds of performances from actors, especially the children — but it left me cold. It’s a brilliant drama with a script that balances multiple interconnecting story threads without becoming convoluted, but similar to “The Broken Circle Breakdown,” it amounts to little in the way of a point, a message or a catharsis.

Maybe that’s not fair. The point seems to be to explore the relationships of these particular characters. That’s all fine and good, but the result is unrelentingly dreary. Dreariness is fine, but denying the audience a catharsis is something that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Then again, because this film is so realistic, by its nature it shouldn’t have a catharsis. Real life doesn’t have one.

It’s important to remember that not all films are entertainment; some are just meant to be a personal statement. Farhadi went through the trouble of finding enough money to get this film made, then spent who knows how many hours working with the actors to get the performance he wanted out of them, to send the message he wanted to send, because it meant something to him.

I can respect that.

Pompeii (2014)

Originally Published in The Daily Nebraskan, 2/25/2014

The quote that opens “Pompeii” is genuinely chilling. It mentions “the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants and the shouting of men” in the ash cloud that engulfed the city. Pliny the Elder, historical author of these quotes and Pompeii survivor, tells us the people caught in the cloud “imagined there were no gods left, and that the universe was plunged into eternal darkness for evermore.”

Unfortunately, this quote is the most interesting part of the film. Between it and the climax of the film, the audience is given a story that amounts to a rehash of “Gladiator.” It’s watchable, but if you’ve already seen “Gladiator” and know what happens in Pompeii, why bother?

In 62 A.D., a tribe of Celts in Britannia is slaughtered by the Roman guard, commanded by Senator Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland). A boy survives and after watching his family murdered, is enslaved by the Romans. Seventeen years later, the boy grows into a skilled fighter, catching the eye of slave traders looking for gladiator material. The young man, dubbed “the Celt” (Kit Harrington) is taken to the city of Pompeii to fight as a gladiator. Along the way, he catches the eye of Cassia (Emily Browning), a Roman dignitary who does little in the film besides look pretty and be righteous.

In fact, this whole film just wants to look pretty. Director Paul W. S. Anderson, best known for the “Resident Evil” movies and “Alien Vs. Predator,” knows how to bring the spectacle. One scene shows us the entire city of Pompeii from a bird’s eye view, with thousands of citizens filling the streets as they move toward the stadium. Inside the stadium, a chorus of announcers in ornate golden masks announce the events to come; their presence is frightening and dreamlike. It would be foolish not to mention the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which makes up the entire third act of the film, but also has nothing to do with the preceding story other than the fact it will kill most of the main characters.

This is a competent historical epic heavy on tasty visuals and light on character. The characters are derivative archetypes with motivations thinner than cobwebs; we have our hero in the Celt, the damsel in Cassia, our villain in Senator Corvus and an honorable ally in Atticus. Atticus is an African slave who, with one last victory in the arena, will earn his freedom according to Roman law. Atticus’s character more than borrowed from Djimon Hounsou’s character in “Gladiator,” but that hardly matters other than as an example of how uninspired “Pompeii” is.

If you know anything about the city of Pompeii, then you know exactly how this movie ends. The climax renders all of the preceding events irrelevant. The eruption of Vesuvius has nothing to do with the struggles of these archetypal, two-dimesional characters, so why keep them archetypal? In other words, why make it a “hero’s journey”? It would have been much more interesting if the filmmakers had tried to explore class divisions in contemporary Pompeii. You can probably guess what role a volcanic eruption could play in equalizing the classes.

If the writers had tried to work in themes of the natural world, the conflict of man versus nature, class divisions, really anything that could be remotely connected to an apocalyptic disaster like Vesuvius, then maybe this film would have been more interesting. Instead, a grand natural disaster is reduced to a deus ex machina, and $100 million has been wasted on yet another 3D spectacle.

Just think about what you could do with $100 million. I’ll tell you one thing: you could buy 5,000,000 copies of movies better than “Pompeii.”

Girl on a Bicycle (2013)

 

Originally Published in The Daily Nebraskan, 2/14/2014

How many movies can you name where people have sex with broken limbs?

“Girl on a Bicycle” has just that: a couple that has just recently met engage in passionate lovemaking, even though the woman has a broken arm and a broken leg. I can’t say I’ve seen anything like that before, but then again maybe I haven’t watched enough movies.

As you mature, you realize people are basically the same wherever you go: Paris, London, Detroit, etc. The same seems to go for movies, although “Girl on a Bicycle,” similar to most European films, has a different attitude when it comes to sex. Sex is had in this movie freely and without shame and is presented as a casual fact of life rather than a cathartic event.

Our main character is Paolo (Vincenzo Amato). Paolo is a funny guy. He’s not “haha” funny, not intentionally, but funny as in “I’m engaged to my wife, and now I’m in love with this random girl on a bicycle, right on, I’d better follow through on that and chase her with a bus.” That kind of funny.

Paolo’s oddness is the catalyst for the events in “Girl on a Bicycle,” released in Germany in March of last year. It’s set in Paris, the romantic, cosmopolitan hub of cultures European and otherwise. In the first 10 minutes we hear no less than four languages: English, French, German and Italian. Even the four main characters all have different nationalities. This film was practically designed for international distribution.

Our main man, Paolo, is the Italian. He drives a tour bus around Paris, always pointing out that “Paris is the most Italian city outside Italy,” among other observations, like that the Arc D’Triomphe is a shoddy copy of an ancient Roman arch. Imagine the exasperation of the tourists, who signed up for a tour of Paris and got a tour of Venice instead. There’s also Paolo’s best friend Derek (Paddy Considine, the Brit), who also drives a tour bus for a living, and often finds himself covering for Paolo in his “misadventures.”

 

Paolo is engaged to, Greta (Nora Tschirner, the German), who works as a flight attendant. When Paolo proposes to her, he presents a very fancy box holding the ring, complete with a small mirror and even a miniature spotlight shining on the ring. Greta accepts his proposal, and for the next few scenes the two of them have some tender moments in bed together.

The plot gets going when Paolo finds himself inexplicably infatuated with a girl on a bicycle (Lousie Monot, the French one), who he sees every day while driving his tour bus. One day, while foolishly chasing her through the narrow backstreets of Paris (on his huge double-decker tour bus), Paolo accidentally runs her over. He ends up having to care for her and her two children, while trying to keep the ordeal a secret from his wife.

“Girl on a Bicycle” is clever enough to keep its premise afloat and charming enough to keep most audiences interested. It’s still quite conventional and bland in many ways, but in the end it’s a harmless, somewhat competent rom-com.

It will make a fun distraction for those interested in foreign romantic comedies. For others, it’s nothing to write home about.

The Lego Movie (2014)

Originally Published in The Daily Nebraskan, 2/18/2014

You’ve probably heard by now that “The Lego Movie” is awesome. It is, indeed, quite awesome.

Surprisingly, “The Lego Movie” is not only one of the best animated movies to be released in a while, it’s also a sharp-minded comedy and a nearly perfect family film sure to appeal to movie lovers of all ages. It gets so many things so right, it’s unreal.

Imagine a city where all the citizens, each one a smiley, plastic Lego figurine, work and live in perfect harmony, as they destroy and rebuild large sections of the city every day, all according to the instructions laid out by President Business, who is played to maniacal pitch perfection by Will Ferrell. The opening scenes of the movie have unsettling dystopic undertones – that’s what the older audience will be laughing at – all while keeping with an upbeat and creative spirit.

This is all in the first few minutes, before things really get going, and the movie takes us through the rest of the Lego Universe, where anything and everything is possible.

Our hero is an average, everyday, completely un-special construction worker named Emmet (Chris Pratt), who one day finds himself caught up in an ancient prophecy that declares him the most important, interesting, extraordinary person in the universe. He’s taken up by the Master Builders Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) and Vitruvius (Morgan Freeman), who guide him on a quest through the Lego Universe to stop President Business from gluing everything together.

The resulting adventure is a flurry of inspired visual effects and pure imagination in a world with virtually no limits on size, shape, time or space. The characters rush from one fantasy setting to the next, “Wreck-It Ralph” style, with all the heart and strong characterization of a film such as “Toy Story.” It also strikes a decent balance of pop culture references, which are all over the place, but
don’t slow the story down or weigh down the script. Batman (Will Arnett) isn’t just there to be Batman; he’s actively and hilariously characterized. Dozens of recognizable figures show up in the Lego universe. Even Shaquille O’Neal makes a brief appearance in a priceless gag involving a catapult.

The movie also boasts a team of interesting original characters. There’s Metalbeard (Nick Offerman), the giant, bombastic robot pirate who lost his body and his crew trying to take down President Business, Princess Unikitty (Alison Brie), a sickeningly adorable cat-creature with a horn, Benny (Charlie Day), a 1980’s-era astronaut obsessed with building spaceships, and more. The script balances the personalities and comic timing of each of these characters brilliantly. I haven't even mentioned Liam Neeson's charming turn as Good Cop/Bad Cop.

This is a movie so full of interesting environmental effects, it could only ever have been done with computer animation. The iconic square blocks are used in fluid and creative ways, creating the dust from doors being busted open, ocean waves, lava, smoke from a train and clouds in the sky. Its color palette is suitably bright and vivid, but not muddled or visually confusing. The computer-generated plastic that each character is made of is oddly more lively and physical than the rounded characters in most computer animated children’s films.

This is a movie that takes us from the big city to the Old West, then to medieval times, space and beyond, all while involving us with well-realized characters and making us laugh, often. “The Lego Movie” is a celebration of pure imagination and a brilliant cinematic balancing act, combining broad humor and classic archetypes with commercial properties, a pitch perfect cast and clever pop culture references.

Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have brought comedic inspiration to commercial properties before in “21 Jump Street.” With “The Lego Movie,” they have surpassed themselves, proving that they can direct both R-rated adult comedies and fun, lively family films like this one and “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” which they also directed.

It’s difficult to find something really wrong with this movie, and I can’t think of anyone I wouldn’t recommend it to. Just about everything in “The Lego Movie” is awesome.

The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012)

Originally Published in The Daily Nebraskan, 2/7/2014

This has been done before. It’s very good, but it has been done before.

“The Broken Circle Breakdown,” a Belgian film up for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, tells the story of Didier (Johan Heldenbergh) and Elise (Veerle Baetens), two star-crossed lovers whose bond is tested by the death of their child.

Didier sings in a bluegrass band. He expresses a love for all things country. He’s an atheist, but he has a starry optimism about him. Elise works in a tattoo shop and is herself tattooed to oblivion. She has a tattoo for every boyfriend she ever had; all she needs to do when it’s over, she says, is get it covered up.
They also have a child they didn’t plan for. Didier steps up and builds a house in which to raise the child. We sense some trepidation, and so does Elise. Seven years go by, and their child, Maybelle, dies of cancer. There is an unforgettable shot during the funeral; while white roses are being thrown onto the small white coffin, it is suddenly splattered with mud by seemingly impatient grave diggers.

The timeline of the movie is fractured, a la “Blue Valentine” or “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” It opens with a scene during the terminal stages of Maybelle’s cancer. We cut back and forth between scenes where Didier and Elise meet, when they’re raising Maybelle and the multiple performances by their bluegrass band.

Sometimes the fractured narrative works. In the early scenes, the contrast between the optimism and joy of having a child and the deep pain of knowing that the child will die soon builds intrigue. Otherwise, it feels like a gimmick. Sometimes it’s just too obvious. Minutes before Didier and Elise are about to separate, we are given a flashback to when Didier and Elise first meet. Elise explains what she does with the tattoos of her exes names. It’s completely obvious what will happen next, so there’s no suspense when the big reveal happens.

 

It’s a very good film all around. Heldenbergh and Baetens have genuine chemistry, both in their tender moments alone and in their performance on the stage. They fulfill their roles convincingly, hurling insults and blame at each other for a tragedy they had no control over. It’s all very effective, moving and sad.

The problem I personally had with the movie is that it never seemed to go anywhere. The worst possible scenario is obvious in the first moments of the film and that’s exactly what happens. The disjunctive timeline of the film seems like a way to sidestep its shortcomings. I can imagine if it had been produced with a linear timeline, it would have been more predictable and much less interesting.

It’s all very sad, but there’s no catharsis. The performances, the score, the songs, the cinematography, just about everything that needs to be right about a movie is done right, but there remains that itching question in the back of my mind: what’s the point? Maybe the director only wanted to explore these two characters because he felt for them. That’s good enough for me.

All this being said, if you feel like seeing two people fall in love, have a child, lose that child and spiral into mutual self-destruction, all set to Dutch bluegrass music, then you definitely ought to see “The Broken Circle Breakdown.”

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Duke, Dr. Gonzo, and us in the backseat.

Originally Published in The Daily Nebraskan, 2/11/2014

The cult classic “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” based on Hunter S. Thompson’s novel and directed by Terry Gilliam, is one of my favorite films. This drug-frenzied journey is brash, wild, loud and a little angry, aiming to give traditional American values and plot structure the finger.
Johnny Depp plays Raoul Duke, a fictional version of Thompson, who is sent to Las Vegas for a weekend to cover a low-rent motorcycle race called the Mint 500. He trumps up his assignment into a grand odyssey, calling it “the American Dream in action.” Along for the ride is Dr. Gonzo (Benicio Del Toro), his lawyer and partner in crime. Dr. Gonzo advises Duke to “get a very fast car with no top. And you’ll need cocaine. A tape recorder for special music. Acapulco shirts … and we’re gonna have to arm ourselves to the teeth.” These are two men on a mission.

The film begins breathlessly, as Duke and Gonzo tear through the Mojave desert in a convertible with a large suitcase full of drugs in the trunk. Their trip to Las Vegas is a nightmarish experience. The city takes on a fluid, unsavory nature as the two of them consume more and more mind-altering chemicals, trash hotel rooms, order endless carts of room service just because they can, threaten people, go to a carnival stoned on ether and so on. They try anything they can think of in a city of endless possibilities.

"Can you hear me?!"

"How much for the ape?"

It’s easy to miss the point in a movie such as “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” That’s because the characters are looking for a plot to get involved in and constantly failing. The point is that they can’t find a purpose. They don’t know how to use their freedom. There are quite a few moments when the characters declare a mission of importance, follow through some, then give up or forget about their plan altogether. The first of these moments is when they tear through the desert and pick up a hitchhiker (Tobey McGuire), then stop on the side of the road.

Dr. Gonzo growls and asks the hitchhiker if he wants to know the “truth.” He tells him that he and Duke are heading to Vegas to kill a heroin dealer named Savage Henry, then pulls a revolver out of a paper bag and points it to the sky. Savage Henry is never mentioned again, and there are no bullets in the gun.

Some of these plot threads are superfluous, bubbling up in the background or in throwaway dialogue and scenery. Others build upon themselves and come forward as the film moves along. LSD users would liken this plot structure to tripping acid, seeing things in the corner of your eye and those things disappearing when you try to look at them.

Ultimately, our two antiheroes are adrift on the winds of vice in a microcosmic representation of American greed. As they try to survive a three-day bender full of hallucinations, sinister vibes and technicolor debauchery, the camera makes us take the ride, twisting and dropping and forcing new perspectives, fixing us at certain angles to watch things we don’t want to see, in ways we don’t want to see them. The vital cinematography is underlined by a rollicking classic rock soundtrack, screeching and riffing with the angst of the 1960s and ’70s.

A scene that sums up the attitude of the entire film involves Duke and Gonzo visiting a hotel lounge while tripping on acid. Duke sits at the bar, wobbles around and mutters something about golf shoes, then abruptly snaps around to see that everyone in the lounge has become a giant, monstrous lizard. He sees beneath the glitzy façade of Las Vegas, and into the reptilian hearts of what he perceives to be droves of venal people seeking vice and pleasure in a modern day Gomorrah.

"I was right in the middle of a fucking reptile zoo!"

Toward the end, Duke sits alone in yet another trashed hotel room as he types out an essay about “the wave” of the ‘60s counterculture. He laments the misguided drug use that led to its downfall: “Less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark – that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” The hippie movement became a victim of its own directionless nature, and many of them became hopeless drug addicts.

“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” is at once a funeral dirge and a bestial cry, a celebration of life and freedom and the “American way.” Duke’s sordid journey in Vegas represents a culture-wide drug bender as a result of the disillusionment with the promise of the ’60s. The film explores this iconic moment in American history through Duke’s directed madness, and his jaded acceptance of chaos. Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro both give performances so electric and often terrifying, you might think they dropped some adrenochrome before the cameras rolled.

During one of the first screenings of the movie, novel author Hunter S. Thompson is reported to have jumped out of his seat during the opening scenes, screaming “Bats!” and running out of the theater. That should give you an idea of the logic on which this film operates.

“Buy the ticket. Take the ride.”

Labor Day (2014)

Originally published in The Daily Nebraskan, 2-10-2014

At first glance, “Labor Day” looks like a contrived, preposterous episode stitched together with bits of the worst Nicholas Sparks books — and it kind of is. That is, if you’re looking at it from a realistic perspective.

“Labor Day” is not a realistic movie. No man, criminal or otherwise, is as kind-hearted as Frank (Josh Brolin), and no woman, no matter how stricken with grief she is, would accept a runaway criminal into her home the way Adele (Kate Winslet) does. Not only does the world-weary Adele let Frank stay with her and her son, she lets this man cook for them, do chores and teach her son about cars.

 If this doesn’t sit right with you, remember that this isn’t a realistic movie. It’s a fairy tale. We might notice this in the opening moments of the film, which have a kind of mystical quality. The camera moves down a highway, swooping past trees and dense greenery. Like great fairy tales from the past, we’re going deep into the forest and into the unknown.
 
This story is narrated by Henry (Gattlin Griffith), who lives with his divorced mother, Adele. Something went wrong between her and her ex-husband, Henry’s dad, and he split up with her. Adele’s hands shake constantly, she is afraid of leaving the house, and she can hardly drive. She generally carries with her a dark cloud of absent-mindedness, until one day, while she and Henry are at the grocery store, Frank appears. He firmly asks them if he may seek refuge at their home. Wondrously, Adele complies.

Seeming to fall from the sky with almost no past to speak of, full of good intentions and glowing with both authority and tenderness, Frank magically fills the void left by Adele’s ex-husband. If that also doesn’t sit right with you, don’t worry — Adele’s grief goes much deeper than simply not having a husband.

One scene that looked ridiculous and sappy in the trailer is the peach pie scene. After a suspenseful moment in which Frank is almost caught, the family ends up with a bushel of ripe peaches. Frank suggests they make a pie out of them and walks Henry and Adele through the meticulous process of preparing a homemade peach pie. It’s an unusually long, intimate sequence, and I personally found it charming. Here is a scene in a film where nothing much is happening, and the filmmakers are taking their time to observe the simple bond building in this family activity. It’s refreshingly mundane, basic and human.

There’s also the chair scene, which may make or break “Labor Day” for some viewers. In this scene, Frank explains to Adele that he needs to tie her to a chair for the night, so that if any police come she can claim to be an innocent victim. She agrees. What woman would agree to such a thing? It could be the woman who feels paralyzed by the events in her life already, but that’s beside the point; she’s not a real woman, and none of this is really happening. She’s a character in a story, and the symbolism here is as thick as peach molasses.

 All of these seemingly preposterous plot ingredients combine to create scenes of tremendous suspense and heartfelt emotion. Brolin and Winslet know exactly what they’re doing, playing two people too pure to be real in our world and too broken to exist without each other in their own.
Griffith has not been done justice in this review, as his youthful vulnerability and subtle performance underline much of the action in the film. Plainly stated, he does a great job.

“Labor Day” is surprisingly thoughtful filmmaking, combining elements of the fairy tale and modern romance to create a wonderful atmosphere of magical realism. I predict many viewers will be turned off by its unlikely premise. Others will find it a touching, oddly affecting experience. When all is said and done, it will make for great Valentine’s Day viewing.

In-Depth: Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood (1957)

We learn how the story will end early on in Throne of Blood, as the forest spirit tells Washizu and Miki (Toshiro Mifune and Akira Kubo) their fates. Because this story was written by a human being, it would seem to go against the rules of storytelling to reveal the ending so early. This device echoes back to the original Shakespeare play the film is based on, the Greek tragedies which inspired Shakespeare, and even further into the oral traditions of the obscure past. The point is not that we know the ending—it’s that nature is unstoppbable, and so is our fate. Storytelling is a constructed, mortal device, and Mother Nature doesn’t care about its boundaries.

Throne of Blood takes this paradigm further by telling the ancient story of Man vs. Nature in a uniquely cinematic way. Kurosawa begins the film at a breakneck pace, with soldier after soldier delivering messages of conquest to the high lords. Washizu and Miki set out to join this conquest, and the brisk pace of the film is ceased by them encountering the forest spirit, who spends a considerable length of time singing a prophetic song to the two men. This sets the pattern for the rest of the film; the men will meet nature, which will move things along at its own pace, and the men can do nothing to prevent it.

During the indoor scenes, most of which center around Washizu and Asaji, the actors’ movements are more controlled and rigid. It is always quiet, free of natural white noise. It is during these scenes that Asaji implores Washizu to act on his fate, to use his will to try and alter it. One of them stands and the other sits, but also very often, their two forms are touching on the screen, seeming to combine in one entity.  Lady Asaji Washizu (Isuzu Yamada) barely blinks or moves during these scenes, seeming to be speaking under a trance. In these scenes, she is unknowingly sealing Washizu’s fate by inciting him to act. It is likely she does not know she is working as an agent of the forest spirit. 
 
The shots in Throne of Blood are so carefully constructed; it looks as if Kurosawa wanted them to feel artificial. Many scenes are composed as two- or three-shots, with one-third of the frame sometimes occupied by empty space; an early scene in which Washizu and Miki rest, when they meet the forest spirit, when they are dubbed lords and walk down the aisle together, are a few select moments in Throne of Blood that follow this style of framing. This careful construction of the visual scheme of the film could underline humanity’s need for order, or it could suggest that nature ultimately has a point, a grand design, a pattern to it. Considering that the message of the film is dependent on nature being chaotic and cruel, one may assume the latter. In this paradigm, the perfectionist cinematography becomes yet another artifice to be weathered away by nature, represented in the climactic shot of the forest marching toward Spider’s Web castle. 

Kurosawa makes interesting use of negative space. All of the scenes with Washizu and Asaji feature them walking around a room, empty but for the two of them, as they express their thoughts out loud. Since this is not a literal adaptation of life, Kurosawa focuses our attention on just these two subjects. Their thoughts are the only matter of importance at the moment. When Asaji convinces Washizu to murder the Great Lord, there are brief cross-cuts to the Great Lord’s three guards. The three guards sit in a perfect row of three, with blank, unadorned walls behind them. Washizu is only considering them; the limited perspective of humanity can only see what is in front of them. In these selfish matters of hubris, one cannot see far.

Bryan Parker compares Throne of Blood’s visual style to a suiboko-ga painting: “Characteristically, suiboko-ga leaves large areas of its picture blank, stimulating a large sense of mystery and distanced universality, and such aporia are represented in the film by the blanketing grey fogs and swirls of sulphur fumes and obscuring rain that block out parts of many of the frames” (511).

The omnipresent fog also behaves like a negative space. If Washizu is an archetype for humanity, then the fog represents the limits of his perspective, and our own. There are subtle clues that what we are seeing is what Washizu is seeing; the moment he rides the coffin of the Great Lord to Miki’s castle, he and Miki are filmed in a two-shot as usual, but this time Miki takes up slightly more space on the screen than Washizu. At this point, Washizu has been told by Asaji to murder Miki and take his place. When he sees Miki in person, his eyes tell us he sees Miki as a threat. Through purely visual language, the film has foreshadowed Miki’s demise.  

The image of the forest rolling across the fog, itself symbolic of Washizu’s perception, evokes the indomitable force of nature that creeps in even through layers of artifice the characters and film makers have constructed. In this representation of a legend, the characters try to separate themselves from even the representation of the forest. All of this is presented to us in the form of an artificial film, purely constructed. Even so, in the moments the walking forest fills the screen, the trees sway with shapeless grace in the obscuring fog. The shot is filmed in slow motion denote a higher level of perception, and we can feel the essence of the trees carried on men’s backs. It’s an elegant image with no contrivances that conveys the message of the movie with almost psychic significance, in a way unique to the medium of film. It’s pure cinema. 

The fact that this force of nature is delivered by an army of men carrying trees on their backs underlines the central theme in Throne of Blood. The sequence is a criticism of mankind abusing the resources of nature for petty gain, in this case the conquest of a castle that will inevitably fade into dust. The image presents Mother Nature as “indifferent, both encouraging human ambition, and mocking it. The forest breeds growth, but also confusion and futility (Jorgens 170).” 

Works Cited

Parker, Brian. "Nature And Society In Akira Kurosawa's Throne Of Blood." University Of           Toronto Quarterly 66.3 (1997): 508-525. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.

Jorgens, Jack J. "Kurosawa's Throne Of Blood: Washizu And Miki Meet The Forest Spirit."          Literature Film Quarterly 11.3 (1983): 167. Academic Search Premier. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.