The Great Movie Conquest of 2022: April

Since this month's theme was the cinema of Japan, let's start with a way too broad overview of Japanese film.

Some of the country's most notable offerings include the works by Akira Kurosawa, who helped popularize the jidaigeki genre. These were period pieces focusing on the feudal era of Japanese history, the heyday of the samurai. These a hold a similar place in Japanese culture as Westerns hold in the culture of the U.S. Indeed, Kurosawa's Seven Samurai was even remade as an American western, The Magnificent Seven. Many American filmmakers, like John Ford and George Lucas, cite Kurosawa specifically as a creative influence. Indeed, many have noted the similarities between "Jedi" and "jidaigeki" and wondered ...

In addition to jidaigeki films, you also had gendai-geki films. These were drama pieces set contemporary to the times they were made. Ikiru, also directed by Kurosawa fell into this category. This film followed a middle-aged bureaucrat who is confronted with the futility of his corporate existence when he discovers he has terminal cancer and tries to spend the last months of his life searching for meaning. We've seen a lot of films with a similar premise, which might make this entry sound run-of-the-mill, but there was nothing cliche about this movie's execution. This is one I'm going to revisit multiple times again.

Hosada's The Boy and the Beast, my favorite anime film

Prior to this challenge, my context for Japanese filmography mostly centered on anime films. I'm especially a fan of the work from Mamoru Hosada, who directed Belle which had its American release earlier this year. But I was also familiar with filmmakers like Makoto Shinkai, Satoshi Kon, and (of course) Hayao Miyazaki. It follows, then, that I would spend a lot of time this month watching anime movies. I had no regrets.

The first of these films was an anime adaptation of "The Little Mermaid" fairy-tale. Already I can discern that for one half of my readers, the existence of a film version of "The Little Mermaid" outside the Disney library is just flooring. The other half? They're floored that it took me this long to finally view it.

This version, made in the 1970s, actually predates the Disney version by about fifteen years. This one keeps in touch with the more tragic elements of the fairy-tale while also being self-aware enough to explore why we're so fascinated with the fairy-tale to begin with even when it ends so achingly. If you're even slightly curious about other tellings of the fairy-tale, I'd strongly recommend checking it out.

One of the more fascinating films I hit for this challenge was Zebraman, a superhero-style film about a schoolteacher dissatisfied with his life who gets a jolt of excitement when he decides to adopt the persona of a television superhero from his childhood. The film reads like a homage to the long-running Super Sentai franchise, the Japanese ancestor to America's Power Rangers, which makes it feel really relevant to today's film landscape not only as a superhero film, but also as a treatise on the value of returning to your childhood media. Oddly enough, the film actually came out in 2004, predating what most would define as the modern superhero renaissance.

Only about a fourth of the films that I hit this month actually fell into this chapter's theme, and I encountered several interesting films that didn't fall strictly under its purview.

I don't know if anyone "likes" a film like Ingrid Goes West given its sour takeaway, but it tells an unpleasant truth about social media and influencer culture as a breeding ground for misery. The film felt like an answer to Single White Female, which I also saw for the first time this month. Both films center on a socially inept woman who becomes emotionally dependent on someone who embodies everything she wishes she could be, and who go to extreme lengths to possess the object of their worship. I much preferred the approach of Ingrid Goes West. Ingrid goes through some wacko antics to get close to Taylor, but she was also cast as a victim of a social landscape that exalts the superficially exemplary while leaving nobodies like her to wither away in anonymity.

I actually did hit the theater this month, believe it or not. I saw Father Stu a few weeks in and fully intended to write a review for it, but it sadly got away from me. Let it suffice to say that I was really fascinated to see religion earnestly explored in a mainstream-ish film. The finished product reminded me less of a Seminary video and more of something like Silver Linings Playbook. (Admittedly, that might have just been Jacki Weaver ...)

Looking forward, the numbers are in, and next month's theme will be James Stewart. There may yet be a few Capra pieces he starred in that I haven't gotten around to. I'll have the chance to check.

Following a specific performer's work sounds like fun, so I'm going to try it again in the month of June. Only this time, the options are between two contemporary stars: Zoe Saldana and Amy Adams, two of my favorite actresses currently working. Cast your votes here, and come back next month to see who wins ... and come back the month after that to actually read about my findings. I'll admit it's a bit of a commitment ...

Hirokazu Koreeda's Our Little Sister

When asked what country makes my favorite films outside the U.S., I usually answer either Japan or France. Hence, I selected those two as options for last month's challenge eager to dive a little deeper into the filmography of one of these countries.

From the other end of my deep-dive into the cinema of Japan ... I've still got a long way to go. There's still something like twenty Kurosawa films I haven't gotten around to. I don't know, is it possible to ever really become fluent in a culture you were not born into? I feel like different people will have different answers to that. By no meaningful metric am I an expert in Japanese film, but I remain a great admirer of the country's contributions to film, and I look forward to continuing to study their works in years to come.

--The Professor

Of course I was going to watch Soylent Green at some point this year.

April's Harvest:

Death on the Nile (2022)

The Little Mermaid (1975)

Take Me Out to the Ballgame (1949)

Seven Samurai (1954)

500 Days of Summer (2009)

Ingrid Goes West (2017)

Sweet Charity (1969)

Juno (2007)

Ikiru (1952)

Soylent Green (1972)

Princess Mononoke (1997)

Unbreakable (2000)

Sea Prince and the Fire Child (1981)

Criss Cross (1949)

Pleasantville (1998)

After the Storm (2016)

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (2021)

Father Stu (2022)

Wanda (1970)

My Dream is Yours (1949)

All or Nothing (2002)

Nanook of the North (1922)

Tenet (2020)

Hurricane (1937)

Tokyo Story (1953)

Single White Female (1992)

Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)

The Other Woman (2014)

Zebraman (2004)

Kill! (1968)

*Bold indicates film falls in line with this month's theme

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