In July I decided to watch a few Takeshi Kitano films. I’ve often read his name in passing and had his films recommended to me from time and time, so, this isn’t someone I could go on ignoring forever, and I’m glad I didn’t.
The films of his I’ve seen so far are Hana-bi (Fireworks) and Sonatine. Something I wasn’t aware of until I’d seen them is that one of his regular collaborators is the musician Joe Hisaishi, the Studio Ghibli maestro. Both of these films have delicate, piano-led soundtracks that add so much feeling to their respective stories as to be inseparable from the images they accompany.
It’s well known that during 1994, Kitano was involved in a bad motorcycle accident that paralysed half his face. Sonatine was made before the accident, Hana-bi after. Before it happened, he was depressed and edging towards self-destruction. Suffice to say he isn’t a happy guy and these films express that sense of despair, his characters numb to the world, yearning for an escape but cursed with intelligence enough to know there is none. It’s like he cherishes the world for all its feeling and beauty, but has not the ability to make it last.
These films aren’t depressing, they contain scenes with real humour and beautiful landscapes. Kitano’s characters smile and revel in moments of joy and beauty, but when the fireworks die and the laughter ends, all that’s left for him is darkness and silence. Neither of these films have happy endings, but it’s not like that’s a bad thing, it’s just sad, and uncompromisingly so.
It’s difficult to know how to react to art with a political agenda. I couldn’t say if Sanctuary is swinging towards the right or left, but that it is developing an ideology at all has left me feeling a bit concerned, because when the characters start arguing about how Japan is good at this and America is bad at that, it’s like the art itself is trying to influence my real opinions of these countries, and considering the origins of the debate (i.e. Japan), I feel a bit uncomfortable about it all.
Earlier today, I started reading Sanctuary; last night I finished Bokurano and the week before that, it was Pluto. All three have turned out to be great reads, not least of all Bokurano, which, for what it’s worth, I think is a lot better than its anime adaptation ever could have been. Mohiro Kitoh’s style is such that it’s difficult to replicate perfectly for TV, but I would have loved to see some of these later chapters animated; a fine example is Kanji’s battle, which has a long range style, meaning that his opposition (a giant, transforming canon) fires missiles at him from Hawaii!
Also interesting is Sanctuary, which follows these two men dedicated to reversing Japan’s ailing health from within. One intends to become the country’s Prime Minister by the time he’s 40 years old, while the other, in order to support his friend, has to become the strongest yakuza in the criminal underground. Their goal? To clear the government of old men and fill its halls with bright-eyed 30 year-olds. How fucking cool is that? We’re essentially following these guys from their early beginnings, as they climb up from the streets to the very peak of Japan’s high society; it’s all about sacrificing anything for your ambitions and dreams.