05.29.06
SIFF 2006, day 4
The Method
Spain
Donald Trump could learn from the Grönholm method, created to separate the weak from the strong in the corporate world. In THE METHOD, several highly competitive candidates are up for a single high-level position at a multinational corporation. How far are they willing to go?
Essentially, this is just an ongoing series of mind games to show up how ruthless people can be in pursuit of something they want, put into a not-entirely-comfortable framework of criticizing the very nature of corporations. This ended up being neither as dark nor as funny as I was hoping, though it has a few wonderful sharp moments. Also, I am not the sort of person who should see movies that have me questioning every moment of them, because I’m far too prone to examining every conceivable side of an issue anyway; wondering if what we’re seeing is what’s really going on ends up distracting from what is going on. A nice ensemble cast, though, and the moments that are funny are worth it.
Princess Raccoon (Operetta Tanuki Goten)
Japan
This stylish visual phantasmagoria—with a flair for the ridiculous—follows a banished prince who falls in love with a mystical princess (Zhang Ziyi). A musical unlike anything you’ve seen before from cult auteur Seijun Suzuki (BRANDED TO KILL), who is stronger and stranger than ever at 82.
I…I have no idea, really, how to write about this. I know how I feel about it, which doesn’t mean I know how to put it into words. I can say that I spent much of this film with my mouth literally hanging open in wonder; the last time I did that at a film was Happiness of the Katakuris, which should tell those of you I inflicted that film on something about this one, as there are certainly similarities in tone and ambition. It also reminds me somewhat of “Beat” Takeshi’s Zatoichi, in the way it uses incongruous music and elements to communicate the emotion of the story.
That word “Operetta” in the Japanese title is a clue about what it is, but that’s not anywhere near the whole of it. It’s a fairy tale, and a fantasy, and a musical that spans everything from ska to ’60s Japanese ballads, and a parable, and traditional Japanese theater (I’m not educated enough about the forms to say what kind). It is completely stylized, all the sets blatantly and obviously false; we’re not meant to believe for a second that any of what we’re seeing is realistic. It is sumptuous, gorgeous costumes and lighting and backgrounds. It is deeply weird, and I suspect it would be even if I had the cultural background to grasp all the references. And it made me feel glorious, brilliant and happy and breath-taken and teary-eyed and fired with the wonder of what film can achieve. Is this a “good” movie? Hell if I know, and I bet a whole lot of people will hate it. For me, though, “good” isn’t the point; all I know is that my world broke open and let this thing in, changing everything for a couple of hours.