-
Arrow Heads #84: DJANGO & TEXAS ADIOS (1966)
Arrow’s long-delayed restoration of Sergio Corbucci’s seminal Western astounds with stellar 4K visuals and a stacked deluxe box set
Arrow Heads — UK-based Arrow Films has quickly become one of the most exciting and dependable names in home video curation and distribution, creating gorgeous Blu-ray releases with high quality artwork and packaging, and bursting with supplemental content, often of their own creation. From cult and genre fare to artful cinema, this column is devoted to their weird and wonderful output.
If American filmmakers like John Ford and Howard Hawks held a glamorized sheen over the American West, part of my favorite film experiences has been to see how Italian filmmakers across the Atlantic tear that iconography to shreds. My introduction to Spaghetti Westerns began like most with Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy and Once Upon a Time in the West, four unexpectedly bloody and conniving films that thrived upon the lawlessness of the frontier, with Clint Eastwood’s cigar-chomping Man with No Name and Charles Bronson’s near-mute Harmonica enacting their own brand of justice–often leaving a trail of bodies in their wake. There was no moralized hand-wringing or shoot-second mentalities to hold the moral high ground–as Eli Wallach’s Tuco says in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, “if you’re gonna shoot, shoot.”
But my true love for Spaghetti Westerns came when I finally got around to Sergio Corbucci. First with The Mercenary and then The Great Silence, Corbucci’s Westerns seemed to push further than Leone’s films, beyond a Western world full of a broad yet clearly defined spectrum of morality and into a murky, mud-soaked world of true lawless amorality. Like the Man with No Name, Corbucci’s heroes are often thrust into greedy conflicts they are propelled to solve–but in these films, greed usually begets greed, along with gunsmoke and a river of blood created by the good and evil alike. Protagonists try to hold onto a code that is undone or is their downfall by the end of the picture, or the purest of ideals/motivations end up all but corrupted by the people who champion them. Where Leone offered a world of the Good, the Bad, and mostly the Ugly–Corbucci recognizes that all three shades can color his characters at any given moment.
Taking story cues from both Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and Leone’s adaptation A Fistful of Dollars, Django is a stellar distillation of Corbucci’s ruthless, down-and-dirty style as well as the Spaghetti Western ethos–while also injecting a revitalizing thread of hope amidst impeccably-timed gallows humor. Django follows the titular hero (a star-making turn by Franco Nero) as he wanders his way into a border town brothel caught in a bloody battle between a racist gang of former Confederates and a thieving band of Mexican revolutionaries.
His alliances ever-shifting across the picture, Django pushes both sides to a bloody standoff, dispensing his own brand of vengeful justice along the way to settle an old score with the racist gang’s sadistic leader, Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo). Along the way are temptations from all sides–notably to join the revolution and be paid handsomely, or to shrug off his identity as Django and start a new life with his headstrong love interest Maria (Loredana Nusciak), herself a prostitute also caught between both sides. But this is a Corbucci film–whether Django chooses romance, the revolution, or revenge, all will come with a deadly price to pay.
Much like The Great Silence, moral corruption isn’t limited by race, gender, or creed. From the vile Confederates who hunt locals for sport, to the gold-hoarding Mexican army who regularly ships in the members of the brothel to pass their time while nearby towns fall into disrepair, to the revolutionaries whose plans for upending the status quo extends only as far as their own self-interest–everyone rests comfortably on a spectrum that begins at evil and slowly dilutes into well-rationalized self-preservation. Religious figures like Brother Jonathan (Gino Pernice) take the status quo as the baseline for what’s Biblically ordained. From its backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, to the harsh, commodified treatment of brothel workers, to the Klan as a villainous presence, there’s an acknowledgment of widespread class conflicts, racism, and sexism that, for all their brutality, Leone’s Dollars trilogy arguably sanitizes about life in the West. It’s an acknowledgment of what the lawlessness mythologized in other Westerns truly brings about–while also making the system-smashing actions of those closer on the spectrum to “good” feel as if they’re ripped from the pages of Revelations.
Which, to be fair, the violence in Django certainly feels Biblical at points–there’s a primal satisfaction and humor to Django’s bullet ballet, which Corbucci documents with whirling cameras, shock-value closeups, masking any sort of low-budget limitations. Whether it’s a sudden appearance of a weapon out of nowhere to a crowded saloon brawl, Corbucci expresses his violence free of intricate choreography or over-rehearsed finesse. Each of his actors seems caught off guard as to what’s inflicted upon them next — sometimes to the point of gallows slapstick — that their natural reactions of fleeing or grabbing whatever’s closest in order to retaliate feels wholesomely gritty and real. Yes, even with the reveal of just what’s inside Django’s dragged coffin–in a world where change is seized by the firing of a bullet, why not have a tidal wave of them in order to bring about something lasting?
And that’s still not mentioning Franco Nero’s instantly iconic performance, Luis Bacalov’s gripping score, as well as the fully lived-in production design, full of slung mud, crumbling ruined towns, and forgotten cemeteries. All of these are brought to startlingly vivid clarity in Arrow’s new 4K UHD restoration. Coupled with Django knockoff Texas Adios–itself an exciting border thriller with its own fair share of engaging twists–Arrow has created a definitive tribute to one of the best Spaghetti Westerns out there, one eagerly awaiting a new audience as they wind their way through exploring the all-stars of the genre.
Video/Audio
Arrow presents Django in a new 4K Dolby Vision UHD restoration from the original 35mm negative, preserving its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio. Texas Adios is presented on Blu-ray in a new 2K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Both Italian and English mono soundtracks are presented for both films, also restored and remastered from their respective original optical sound negatives. While Arrow’s discs default to each film’s English-language track, the post-production dubbing standards of the era meant that both films were shot without sound during production, so either dubbing choice can be considered the “original” language of the films.
This is a reference-quality restoration. Few, if any, artifacts or film damage are present aside from slightly rough title opticals at the film’s beginning. Clear, sharply defined details are represented throughout, from the cheap peeling wallpaper of the film’s central brothel to the sharp reflections in pools of water in the town’s mucky main thoroughfare. Everything in this film seems to ooze perspiration, from the people to the coffins and floorboards–all of which register with tense, vibrant individuality on Arrow’s 4K presentation. Some deep focus shots are slightly out of focus–but these are issues present in the film’s original negative, and are more representative of the limitations of the original production.
The film’s monaural audio tracks, despite being wholly engineered in post-production, are rich with sonic detail, paying special heed to Bacalov’s timpani and string-focused score, with an echoing thunder to drums and horns. Dubbed dialogue matches well to characters’ performances, and is never lost in the midst of other foley work or sound design.
Special Features
Please note this listing pertains to the Limited Edition. Not all versions contain all the listed features.
Disc One: Django (4K UHD Blu-ray):
- Audio Commentary by film critic, historian, and theorist Stephen Prince.
- Django Never Dies: an interview with star Franco Nero.
- Cannibal of the Wild West: an interview with assistant director Ruggero Deodato.
- Sergio, My Husband: an interview with Sergio Corbucci’s wife, Nori Corbucci.
- That’s my Life (Part 1): an archival interview with co-writer Franco Rossetti.
- A Rock n’ Roll Scriptwriter: an archival interview with co-writer Piero Vivarelli.
- A Punch in the Face: an archival interview with stuntman and actor Gilberto Galimberti.
- Discovering Django: an appreciation by spaghetti western scholar Austin Fisher.
- An Introduction to Django: an archival featurette by director and critic Alex Cox.
- Promotional Material: a collection of archival marketing materials for Django from the Mike Siegal Archive.
- Trailers from Django’s original release.
Disc Two: Texas Adios (Blu-ray):
- Texas Adios: Marketed as a sequel to Django in multiple countries, this shoot-em-up Western reunited star Franco Nero with several other Django collaborators (minus the Corbucci brothers), and is a fine film in its own right–working in a similar revenge tale with deeper themes of brotherly sacrifice, villainous estranged fathers, and the fleeting satisfaction of revenge.
- Audio Commentary by spaghetti western experts C. Courtney Joyner and Henry C. Parke.
- The Sheriff is in Town: an interview with star Franco Nero.
- Jump into the West: an interview with co-star Alberto Dell’Acqua.
- That’s My Life (Part 2): an archival interview with co-writer Franco Rossetti.
- Hello Texas!: an appreciation by spaghetti western scholar Austin Fisher.
- Promotional Material: a collection of archival marketing materials for Texas Adios from the Mike Siegel Archive.
- Trailers from Texas Adios’ original release.
Physical extras:
- Postcards
- Double-sided fold-out poster
- Book: a 60-page book featuring writing by Howard Hughes and Roberto Curti, and original reviews of Django and Texas Adios’ release.
The Django + Texas Adios set is now available in this limited edition 4K UHD/Blu-ray package courtesy of Arrow.
Get it at Amazon:
If you enjoy reading Cinapse, purchasing items through our affiliate links can tip us with a small commission at no additional cost to you. -
Two Cents Believes A Man Can Fly Thanks To Richard Donner and SUPERMAN
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick:
Richard Donner was the kind of incredibly talented journeyman director that we don’t see much of anymore, the kind of filmmaker who could bounce from genre to genre and meet each project with precisely what was needed.
While Donner was not defined by any one genre, many of his films are definitive works within a particular subcategory of cinema.
There’s The Omen, one of the most popular and hugely influential horror films of the 1970s. He spearheaded the Lethal Weapon franchise, the Rosetta stone for ’80s action movies and buddy cop blockbusters. With The Goonies, Donner delivered a high concept family adventure film that remains beloved to this day.
And these are just his biggest hits. Donner’s career is littered with interesting oddities, like Scrooged and Radio Flyer, Assassins and 16 Blocks, Maverick and Ladyhawke, and…well…The Toy.
But maybe Donner’s most significant contribution to cinematic history is this: Richard Donner made a movie that made us believe a man could fly.
“Comic book movies” were not really a thing in the 1970s, especially once the culture pivoted towards gritty realism and cynical ponderings. Richard Donner’s approach to Superman was to play the Man of Steel’s extraterrestrial origins and hyper-earnest nature completely straight, but juxtaposing the fantastical life of Clark Kent with an aesthetic that emphasized real world locations and that same ‘gritty’ texture. Superman remained a magical, idealized being, but the world he inhabited felt quite similar to the one just outside your door, and that in turn made it that much easier to accept this heroic figure and his far-fetched tales. Having Marlon Brando on hand to deliver the loopiest technobabble helps a lot too.
Superman: The Movie created the template for the live action superhero movie that is still going strong today. Future luminaries including Sam Raimi, Patty Jenkins, and Christopher Nolan, to name but a few, cribbed openly from Donner’s general approach and some of his specific images and sequences. And the trick of casting a big name, “legitimate” actor to deliver the wackiest exposition has for sure gotten an awful lot of mileage in just about any superhero movie you could name.
And try as they might, no one post-Donner has ever cracked Superman on screen quite as well as the team of Richard Donner and Christopher Reeve. Together, they left an indelible, permanent mark on the character, and it is out of appreciation for that that we take this moment after Donner’s passing to return to Superman: The Movie. — Brendan
Next Week’s Pick:
After a career of ups and downs and struggles with throat cancer which altered his voice, things are looking up for Val Kilmer. He’s cancer free, reprising one of his most famous roles in the anticipated sequel Top Gun: Maverick, recently released his memoir I’m Your Huckleberry, and is getting tremendous buzz at Cannes for the documentary about his life, Val. One of our favorite Kilmer films is one that we think is bizarrely underseen, despite being wonderful. We’re going back to his beginning with his feature debut, the gloriously gag-packed war comedy Top Secret!, from spoof extraordinaires ZAZ (Airplane!, The Naked Gun). — Austin
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!
Our Guests:
I haven’t re-watched Superman: The Movie in years, probably since before Man of Steel came out, and I’m extremely taken with how Richard Donner, Mario Puzo and company go about the grandfather of the comic book movie.
Superman lays out the template for the origin story, and it’s still probably one of the more effective origin stories out there. It takes its time setting up the world, but is very quick in setting up its characters. We only see Supes and Pa Kent together for like a scene, but we get immediately what he imbues Supes with.
Christopher Reeve’s first scene at the Daily Bugle is similar. He only needs a minute or two tops to establish his Clark Kent and Superman. You know he’s Superman, and you know he’s putting on an act, but it feels natural enough that you buy the other characters in the room not seeing through it. No other actor or filmmaker has been able to pull this magic trick off.
It is amazing how effectively this movie layers in bits of characters, and how that has mostly been lost in pretty much all non-MCU movies (and even some MCU movies, honestly). Small beats like Lois being bad at spelling and Perry White smacking the door into Clark Kent as Lois exits. Maybe all these filmmakers should go back and learn some new lessons from this one. (@hsumra)
Austin Wilden:
Something that gets lost in the discussion Superman: The Movie as a classic and how subsequent versions stack up against it is how it stacked up against other Superman media up to that point. Superman as a character/franchise had already been around for 40 years when this movie came out and encompassed many popular forms in that time. All of it informing the idea of who Superman is up to that point, from the Fleischer cartoons to the George Reeves TV series to Super Friends. Meaning this had the cultural weight of expectations on it as much as any high-profile version of Krypton’s Last Son to come after it.
From this point of view, the movie’s tagline “You Will Believe a Man Can Fly” becomes more than a promise for awe-inspiring effects work. It sets up the late Richard Donner’s 1978 film as something akin to the first “grounded” reboot of a pop culture icon. A point that seems absurd in a landscape where this movie is often held up in contrast to modern superhero movies that make being “realistic” their entire identity. However, Donner frames Metropolis as a tactile background for Superman to stand out in once he shows up in costume and does what he does best. It extends beyond setting into the side characters, as we see everyone from Lois to Lex at first roll their eyes at the idea that Superman’s “the genuine article”, only for the Man of Tomorrow to keep being his good-hearted self.
Christopher Reeves’ iconic performance is in service of a Superman that’s here to
help guide people to their best selves, rather than the story of a harsh world always trying to drag him down that he needs to fight off in order to be a hero. (@WC_WIT)
The Team
Is there a certain magic to Superman? For sure. And that’s certainly what makes Donner special. As an avid fan of The Goonies, it’s that film’s childlike adventurous spirit that has informed my media intake since my youth. This film induces the same sense of awe and youthful glee in many ways.
Sadly, for me, I’ve never been able to care a great deal about Superman as a character. I used to believe I simply didn’t like Superman on the whole, I’ve come to realize I actually just tend not to like how he’s written. This particular take on him is far from the worst, but still lacks in making me a true Superman fan.
I do like how the humanity of his character does shine through in moments. In fact, his rage inspired charge into the heavens upon the “death” of Lois is a truly fantastic moment. Moreover, it leads to the insane reversal of time that saves her through spinning the Earth in reverse. That entire sequence is pretty great.
Overall, I’m extremely happy I revisited this. And… now… I’m headed to go watch The Goonies. Thank you Mr. Donner for the magic you left us through your work. (@thepaintedman)
There’s so much about Superman: The Movie that is so perfect that it’s easy to understand why no one has ever been able to replicate it. It’s just one of those miracle occurrences where the right filmmaker was in the right place at the right time with the right take on difficult material, put together a team that was on the same wavelength and understood what they were all trying to do, and collectively they just nailed it.
That. Being. Said. There are enough weak links and problem points in the film that it does leave you anxious for someone to come along and approve upon this rough draft. Donner and his team never cracked how to get from the teenaged Clark Kent’s origin material and to “classic Superman doing classic Superman stuff in Metropolis”, and so instead they have him go on a 12-year vision quest for Marlon Brando and by the time he gets back he just IS Superman. And for as much fun as it is to see Gene Hackman ham it up as Lex Luthor, especially with Ned Beatty batting clean up, the villain plot feels like an absolute after-thought, and Hackman feels telegraphed in from a different movie (one with Roger Moore’s James Bond in it, probably).
But these quibbles don’t really matter against the grand scheme of what Donner and his team built here. This is potent pop mythology that nails the major narrative and emotional beats so completely that it’s no wonder we keep returning to this film as ur-text even as superhero movie after superhero movie has had opportunity to surpass it.
There may be better superhero films than Donner’s first Superman, but all of them, every single one, are rooted in what he achieved here.
I do think it’s weird they made us look at that little kid’s dick, though. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
The key to Donner’s take on Superman, which is even more evident and strange in the current climate where superhero movies are prevalent, is its patience. I can’t imagine a superhero movie being made today in which the hero doesn’t show up in costume until 70 minute mark (90 if you’re watching the extended cut). The second half has plenty of action and heroics and celebrated special effects, but that’s after it takes its time to tell his origin story and the gentle drama of his Kansas upbringing.
The tale is endearing, the cast is terrific, and John Williams’ magnificent score is one for the ages.
There are some things I don’t like about the film (“can you read my mind”, turning back time) but it’s deservedly beloved and remembered not only as the historic first great comic superhero film, but a film of great warmth and spirit.
I don’t know how much of Superman’s success is due to the leadership of Richard Donner, but I do know this: they made four of these and he directed the two best ones. (@VforVashaw)
Further reading:
https://cinapse.co/the-archivist-92-superman-extended-cut-and-supergirl-c55e1f8684c8
Next week’s pick:
https://cinapse.co/the-archivist-92-superman-extended-cut-and-supergirl-c55e1f8684c8
-
Hail HYDRA: Martial Arts Cinema is Immortal (Blu-ray Review)
Something new to get your blood pumping
There’s absolutely nothing new about the trope of a retired badass living an unassuming hidden identity until the past comes calling and they must unveil their true killer nature and either protect those they love or suffer the consequences of their past. This is literally one of the most popular plotlines in all of action cinema, and pops up across the globe as a go-to storyline. It’s utilized once again here in Hydra, as the mild mannered Takashi (Masanori Mimoto) lays low as a cook in the titular Hydra bar, keeping watch over its owner, the young and sweet Rina (Miu), who inherited the bar when her father disappeared. Unbeknownst to Rina, her father was an assassin to whom Takashi owed a debt, and so the current situation had arisen. And soon… shit is going to pop off.
This trope is used often, but that’s largely because it’s so effective. That continues to be the case here. There’s nothing quite as badass as a humble, quiet type who is perceived to be a square and who ends up having almost super human abilities that they’re hesitant to reveal. It gives an action hero a mythic and human feel simultaneously. And when there’s a child or an innocent friend or family member which our hero must protect, it imbues the story with an easy emotional resonance. Which is key because action cinema can frequently be flashy, proficient, and brimming with technique, but utterly lacking in emotional investment. Hydra, in setting its story amidst this familiar trope, does indeed get audiences interested in the humans at its center, which really goes a long way.
Where Hydra absolutely stands out as something unique and incredible is in its fight choreography. Helmed by first time feature director and long time stunt and fight choreography professional Kensuke Sonomura, Hydra is a phenomenal calling card for the arrival of a new action filmmaking director on the scene. Sonomura acts as fight choreographer as well as director here, and brings to vibrant life this kind of fighting style I don’t know that I’ve ever seen quite in this way before. While the fights are sparing and spaced out across a gloriously brief and efficient runtime of 77 minutes, they’re absolute showstoppers that feel dangerous, lightning fast, and riveting. Our characters come from this shadowy assassin ring that were exacting some kind of vigilante justice against corrupt cops and criminals who seemed beyond the law. And there are hints of an almost supernatural element to this cabal of killers from which Takashi had briefly separated. Yet even with the hints of something more to be explored in hopeful sequels, the choreography employs this very technical style of fighting that includes a lot of defense and grappling at hyper speed. We’re conditioned as action fans to love flashy spinning kicks and aerial acrobatics. And it might seem like a bunch of blocking and grappling simply wouldn’t be as compelling on screen as a nice roundhouse kick to the face. But Hydra throws all that conventional thinking out the window and does something that’s increasingly elusive these days: it finds a fresh angle and shows you something you’ve never seen before.
In a final fight that takes up some 5 minutes of the total 77 minute runtime, Hydra establishes itself as one of the most exciting action films of 2021 and provides one of the best one on one fight scenes of this generation. Scored with a glorious electronic synth sound by Moku, set in a simple basement between two largely silent killers, Takashi must grapple to the death with a younger assassin much like he used to be. Their showdown is so thrilling I had to go back and watch it a second time just to appreciate the long takes, the editing, the intricate movements, and the speed with which it all plays out, featuring actors doing most of their own moves.
So while large swaths of Hydra present you with components you’ll feel right at home with, this banger will have your jaw on the floor when it goes places that feel fresh. And while Hydra is much more grounded in reality than something like John Wick, there’s plenty of room to go deeper into this world of apparently upstanding assassins who kill those who can’t be stopped by the law. It doesn’t feel like Takashi’s story is entirely complete and I’d love nothing more than to see quite a few further explorations into this world. Hydra reminds us that martial arts on screen have always been compelling, and with engenuity there will forever be new angles to explore within the genre.
The Package
Well Go USA are doing such incredible work in terms of bringing Asian martial arts and action cinema to the United States. Without them I don’t know that we’d be getting such constant access to so much incredible world action cinema. And while not everything they crank out is a winner, Hydra easily ranks among the very best action cinema has to offer this year. Yet as they pivot to emphasizing their Hi-YAH! Streaming service, it’s clear that less resources are being expended on their physical media. This Blu-ray looks fantastic, and almost certainly provides stronger image quality than the streaming alternative. But the disc is entirely bare bones beyond a few trailers for other Well Go titles. We’ve largely gone from just a few PR featurettes on most of their releases to literally nothing at all in terms of bonus features. As this title is so excellent, I would recommend a blind buy of Hydra on Blu-ray because martial arts fans will likely fall hard for this title. But if subscribing to Hi-YAH! seems like the easier route to go for you, you can’t go wrong if you’re watching Hydra in whatever format best works for you.
And I’m Out.
Hydra is now streaming on Hi-YAH! and hits Blu-ray/DVD/Digital 7/20/2021 from Well Go USA.
-
Criterion Review: THE HUMAN CONDITION
Masaki Kobayashi’s Wartime Odyssey is worth every minute of the 9.5-hour journey
Masaki Kobayashi is separated from contemporaries like Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Yasujiro Ozu through two personal and paradoxical elements. First, there’s Kobayashi’s outspoken cynicism towards the regimented fealty of Japanese society and culture; the second, the hope that the individuals within such an oppressive system can collectively push for social change and the ultimate public good. This duality between the individual and the toxic whole — and the psychological anguish inherent in undertaking such challenges — is imbued through much of Kobayashi’s work, from early films at Shochiku through the sharp-tongued samurai spectacle Harakiri, to even the spooky technicolor feast Kwaidan. I’d long heard that the Human Condition trilogy proved the best exploration of Kobayashi’s themes–but its gargantuan nearly ten-hour length was intimidating, to say the least. And even if Harakiri and Kwaidan were immediate favorites of mine after a first viewing, it was daunting to imagine such overwhelming and impactful experiences drawn out to such a grueling length. Even in summary, The Human Condition is epic in scope and exacting in tragic detail. Long available on DVD by Criterion in the States, the film finally received a Blu-ray upgrade this month–and it was time to make the journey through what some have called the best Japanese film trilogy of all time.
Originally filmed and released in three installments of two parts each, the nine-and-a-half-hour The Human Condition, adapted from Junpei Gomikawa’s six-volume novel, tells of the journey of the well-intentioned yet naive Kaji–played by the Japanese superstar Tatsuya Nakadai–from labor camp supervisor to Imperial Army Soldier to Soviet prisoner of war. Constantly trying to rise above a corrupt system, Kaji time and again finds his morals to be an impediment rather than an advantage. A raw indictment of Japan’s wartime mentality as well as a personal existential tragedy, Kobayashi’s riveting, gorgeously filmed epic is novelistic cinema at its best.
THE HUMAN CONDITION I: NO GREATER LOVE (Parts 1 & 2)
This first installment sees Kaji first enter the moral minefield of World War II by way of supervising a Manchurian mining labor camp in order to earn a coveted exemption from military service. Having raised his fair share of eyebrows at his previous job with his “socialist-oriented” theories of fair working conditions for laborers of all types, Kaji immediately clashes with the corrupt officials and bitter Chinese prisoners who want nothing more than to see him gone. Kaji’s also trapped in a zero-sum power dynamic burdened upon him–the Chinese see his colonizing presence as nothing more than devilry, full of empty promises of change, while his fellow Japanese see him as an equal threat to the Chinese, potentially stoking unrest among the prisoners by simply giving a damn about protocol and basic human decency.
While Harakiri methodically unfurled its biting criticism of bushido over the course of its runtime, I was blindsided at how immediately critical The Human Condition was about the brutal atrocities committed by the Japanese during World War II. Anchored by a riveting performance by later Kobayashi regular Tatsuya Nakadai, Kaji’s fight to hold true to his principles is assaulted on all sides every minute of this 3-and-a-half-hour first installment. It’s a death by a thousand cuts as Kaji seems to make progress to win the hearts of the prisoners, only for officials around him to scheme behind his back–often costing lives as much as goodwill.
Kaji’s isolation is vividly externalized by the barren wastelands of the camp, which makes the possibility of holding true to anything–principles, relationships, power–seem just as as remote and infinitesimal. With its sandy, windswept dunes that tower like black voids, the quarries also stirringly evoke the rapidly-shifting power dynamics of the film–frequently blurring Kaji’s ideal role as a representative for prisoners and an inevitable push towards his role as their captor and executioner-by-proxy.
To his oppressors’ gain, Kaji is slowly drained of his drive to better conditions as higher-ups replace the workforce with Prisoners of War from the Chinese front. Emaciated and near-blind from their journey, they’re so far removed from their humanity at first glance that their first appearance is accompanied by a horror-film stinger. Here, Kaji’s struggle shifts–as his fellow guards and officials find themselves freed from the bare-minimum of treating prisoners humanely under the ethos of patriotic punishment of their enemies. What’s so striking about this first installment of The Human Condition is while a major focus is on how Kaji’s noble goals are left to wither in the face of systemic oppression, Kobayashi is just as attuned to how sickeningly gradual the process of depersonalization can be. It’s not just a film about the relationship between prisoners and the imprisoned — but how one group of people can quickly regard another as inhuman before catching on to their own bizarre behavior.
As a counterpoint, Kobayashi seizes whatever glimpses of hope he can from the darkness of oppression and malice. There are occasional successful escape attempts, which Kaji chooses not to report; brief romances marred by tragedy between prisoners and the comfort women forced to join them; and above all, the love between Kaji and his wife Michiko (Michiyo Aratama). While Kaji tries to shield her from the realities of the labor camp, it’s clear that the toll of his secrecy isn’t just taken on Kaji’s sanity, but his increasingly tenuous relationship with Michiko–and it’s through her earnestness to keep him on the path of a truly honorable man that Kaji finds the resolve to further grind against the powers that be. In the most moving scene of the film, Kaji’s efforts aren’t wholly in vain as the imprisoned Chinese, led by Wang Heng Li (Seiji Miyaguchi), rebel against further executions after a failed escape attempt. It’s as cathartic scene as ever there was one in Kobayashi’s filmography–and one whose effects ripple with cynical consequence throughout the rest of the trilogy.
THE HUMAN CONDITION II: ROAD TO ETERNITY (Parts 3 & 4)
In stark reaction to the brazen courage at the fiery heart of the trilogy’s first chapters, Kaji is thrust headlong into the military system he fought against and tried desperately to avoid. Stuck with menial, humiliating duties alongside similarly-punished men forcibly conscripted into the Kwantung Army, Kaji witnesses firsthand how petty individual self-interests and a blind devotion to the absurdities of military rank and protocol can devolve the best of men into the worst of beasts.
Amidst bitter barracks rivalries that are quickly covered up to present the illusion of unity, Kaji is forced to undergo trials that systematically push his honest, anti-corruption efforts to their limits. In one shocking instance, the ritualized hazing of one soldier culminates in his borderline-accidental suicide — and faced with even more brutal punishments if he doesn’t comply, Kaji is forced to deliver the soldier’s widow the company-approved line that the soldier’s home life is what drove her husband to kill himself. As it would later be explored in Harakiri, Kobayashi rigorously takes to task the blusteringly unwavering devotion Japan had to its military and its accompanying power structure. It’s a power landscape where the only rule is unquestioning devotion and loyalty–which naturally fosters an environment festering with abuses of power and conspiracies of silence. More than once, Kaji faces attempted bribes for promotions to look the other way, or is beaten into submission–because that’s what those in power believe incentivizes or strikes fear into the men in their ranks.
In most cases, they’re right–several other instances show how these men either exploit their rank to get what they want or exploit the most trivial (to them) situations to seize whatever glory they can get. One sequence sees two soldiers go after a flare that may or may not have been fired by mistake–they stumble upon a family of farmers who have nothing to do with the situation, but in the interest of time and potential glory, one soldier decides he’ll frame a farmer for the flare incident. These petty squabbles of power have true life-or-death consequences for the Chinese whose land they’re occupying–and throughout the trilogy as a whole, Kobayashi pulls no punches at frankly illustrating the perversions of power the Japanese committed at the expense of the Chinese.
These first two films broach the topic of Japanese occupation in a graphic way I would never have expected from a film of this period–one that illustrates the whole of the Japanese military campaign as a fruitless, vain exercise in ego-boosting, fueled by baseless nationalistic pride and toxic masculinity. While The Human Condition faced initial rejection by Shochiku due to its controversial antiwar themes–particularly in the midst of 1950s Japan–Kobayashi and source material author Gomikawa had little reason to pay their hesitations any heed in developing the film adaptation. For both men, The Human Condition was a largely autobiographical endeavor, with both Gomikawa and Kobayashi drawing on their war experiences on the front to portray these sentiments and events as accurately as possible. Much like Elem Klimov’s later Come and See, these artists recognize from personal experience the immense responsibility inherent in depicting war–and throughout The Human Condition, there is no valor to be found in battle or murder–just an apolitical drive to stay alive, with all other nationalistic ideals as flimsy window dressing tacked on to baser, more insidious goals.
It’s all too fitting that this second installment features the only combat seen in the trilogy–here, Kobayashi features the Soviet assault on Japanese forces, fittingly depicted as a blood-curdling moment of surrender and defeat. Where other more “patriotic” films would depict this as a sequence to later be avenged, Kobayashi instead dramatizes this as a moment of reckoning put off for far too long–as three hours of built-up infighting and blind patriotism come crashing down in the face of reality. As the forces that be finally meet their end with Kaji still trapped within them, Kaji’s goal shifts to the most basic of all–while he strives to be a good human being, he now prioritizes staying alive at all costs.
THE HUMAN CONDITION III: A SOLDIER’S PRAYER (Parts 5 & 6)
With the destruction of a unified front against the Soviets, the Kwantung army is decimated into small bands of factions spread throughout Manchuria. After he’s forced to kill, breaking one of his last personal credos, Kaji swears off any continued Army service and heads for his former hometown–and hopefully Michiko, his wife. The most episodic and at times surreal episode of the trilogy, Part 5 of The Human Condition feels at times like a lost chapter of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Lost in an endless dark forest, Kaji and the dwindling group of survivors he carries in tow are left to fend for themselves against the elements. Plenty of them debate about who’s to blame for the loss of the war, but for the most part, these fruitless hypotheticals are cast into a growing void–in the face of defeat, there’s no more order or rank to cling to and therefore no more sense of purpose. It’s as if Kaji, by sticking to his sense of individualism and belief in the public good, is the only one to emerge on the other side of his years of ideological strife with his reason for being mostly intact.
Kaji, however, now finds himself contending with a more dangerous enemy–his fellow soldiers who refuse to admit their own defeat or have decided to pursue their own interests more lawlessly than ever. From partisan, ideologically fluid soldiers hoping for a victory for Chiang Kai-She to disparate pairs of families, Kobayashi barrels Kaji from a removed sense of responsibility for his fellow man into direct life-or-death situations with cruel, split-second decisions. The conflicts devolve from the intangible to the all-too-primal, with an unnerving sense of fluidity. Those who join Kaji’s tribe may disappear from it within hours, their fates unknown. Kaji naturally feels responsible for their condition–but as those around him increasingly surrender to their natural states, he’s forced to choose between his senses of compassion and self-preservation.
It’s in these last few sequences that The Human Condition places Kaji in the most ironic position of all–as a Prisoner of War in a Soviet labor camp, a full 180 from the opening moments of the Trilogy. The Soviet-occupied territory has been set up by Kobayashi as a sort of tentative paradise–one where everyone does the labor they’re capable of, and where everyone strives for the collective good of the people. Kaji’s dream quickly chills in the face of reality–as his own fate is filtered through the short-term self-interests of those who are entrusted with his care. The final chapter is a fittingly Kafkaesque descent into bureaucratic madness, as fears of unrest among the prisoners quickly see Kaji turned into a scapegoat, his cries for decency and compassion lost in translation by an interpreting prisoner who sees every moment as a chance to curry more favor with his stoic employers.
Kobayashi’s unflinching lack of sentimentality towards Kaji’s closing plight may easily frustrate those who have invested nine-and-a-half hours into such an equally relentlessly hopeful protagonist. What is the point of suffering, if not deliverance from such a world of unending cruelty? But Kaji’s suffering isn’t meant to alienate its rapt audience, even as he detaches further from a reality that increasingly rejects him. While The Human Condition may depict senseless depravity the closer it approaches its final set of end credits, Kobayashi’s cruelty isn’t the point. Even to its last closing frames, Kobayashi celebrates Kaji’s unerring sense of righteousness and hope–that even driven to the point of madness, stripped away from a sense of order and duty warped by those in power, the fundamental function of a human being is to care for others, and that someday humanity could someday be united in that single, primordial purpose to better each other’s lives.
What prevents us from doing so, however, are the worse angels of our nature–the ones that create borders between lands and classes of people, an individualism that requires surrender to nationalism. It’s easy to hope–but it’s easier to give in. But the ultimate prayer of The Human Condition is that even in the face of cruelty, we will never lose that inner sense of self–the one that keeps a light fueled in the darkness. And if that light goes out–that the world was briefly a better place despite our bitter ends because we kept it going.
VIDEO/AUDIO
Criterion presents The Human Condition in a 1080p 2.39:1 HD transfer, sourced from a digital restoration by Shochiku from each film’s original 35mm negative. The restoration is accompanied by restored monaural Japanese/Chinese tracks for No Greater Love and Road to Eternity, as well as 4.0 surround tracks in Japanese, Chinese, and Russian for A Soldier’s Prayer.
Despite using the same original restored source as their 2009 DVD release, Criterion’s Blu-ray of The Human Condition is able to utilize the newer format’s capacity for greater visual clarity to awe-inspiring and frequently sobering ends. Kobayashi’s layered, rich cinematography is preserved in great detail–with strong contrast between blacks, whites, and greys. There are moments of print damage, notably in the forest segments of part 5, but many of these damage artifacts are inherent to the original negative and the harsh conditions of shooting on location in Hokkaido. The audio tracks are frequently immersive, even in the earlier films’ monaural tracks–dialogue is prized, while foley work of gunfire, weather, and the roar of tanks in part two are fittingly overwhelming yet never smothering other aural elements.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Masaki Kobayashi (Disc 1): An excerpt from a 1993 Directors Guild of Japan interview between Kobayashi and fellow filmmaker Masahiro Shinoda, discussing the multi-year production and release of the film.
- Masahiro Shinoda (Disc 2): Kobayashi’s contemporary discusses the lasting legacy of The Human Condition on Japanese cinema and the films’ critical lens of the World War II experience as it relates to the country’s post-war culture.
- Tatsuya Nakadai (Disc 3): The star of The Human Condition discusses his experiences making the film, his relationship with Kobayashi over the decades, as well as the trilogy’s overall impact on his career as one of his first starring roles.
- Trailers for The Human Condition’s original individual releases.
The Human Condition is now available on Blu-ray courtesy of The Criterion Collection.
-
SILAT WARRIORS: DEED OF DEATH: Wait For It (Blu-ray Review)
A Malaysian fight film sticks the landing
The titular deed is a literal one.
Good for nothing Mat Arip (Fad Anuar) is a bumbling gambler who has taken the paper deed to his father’s home and put it up for collateral in one of his street races. The resulting chaos threatens the lives of his father and siblings, Fatimah (Feiyna Tajudin) and Ali (Khoharullah Majid). It’s these three siblings who make up our Silat Warriors, and it’s Fatimah and Ali we’ll be the most interested in paying attention to. Unfortunately, the film spends most of its time with Mat Arip instead.
Extremely low on compelling plot, Silat Warriors is largely just a bunch of fairly low stakes battles between street thugs and our protagonist siblings as they battle to protect their father’s home and property. Perhaps the most delightful and surprising component of Silat Warriors is when Fatimah, a devout Muslim woman complete with head covering, starts taking thugs out left and right with her remarkable martial arts acumen. It’s a reveal that happens early in the film and Fatimah gets a few battles throughout the movie. But unfortunately this isn’t Fatimah’s film, so she recedes into the background and while she comes out swinging early on, she wraps this film up with a whimper. Mat Arip takes up lots of the screen time here and he and his bumbling comic relief sidekick may be the impetus for most of the plotting, but they’re annoying and hard to root for in any way. It’s Ali (who mostly lays low throughout the bulk of the film’s run time and feels largely aloof from the meager story being told) who ends up taking center stage in act three. Khoharullah acquits himself quite well in terms of the massive martial arts payoff.
The final third of Silat Warriors: Deed Of Death makes the film worth the price of admission. It’s a relentless action set piece that entertains and rewards your patience for wading through the rest of it. That said, from a narrative perspective, it probably would have helped if Ali had been the main character all along, so it didn’t just feel like a fight for the sake of the genre the film fits into, but rather a compelling need for this character to shed his devout and pious ways to kick ass.
I’ve been a bit floundering as an action fan in 2021 thus far. South Korea’s The Swordsman absolutely blew my mind early on and likely still holds the top slot as the best action film of the year thus far. Silat Warriors ultimately ranks as an action film that I did enjoy. And that final act does put it over the edge as a solid showcase for Malaysian action cinema. But this isn’t some kind of breakout revelation (beyond Feiynah Tajudin) either. I would have absolutely loved to have been swept up into a compelling dramatic narrative in the way that I was by, say, Vietnam’s Furie, in order to be jumping out of my seat in excitement at the finale. Instead I was more intellectually appreciative of a strong final fight delivered by writer/director/cinematographer/producer Areel Abu Bakar. This appears to be Bakar’s directorial debut despite many cinematography credits, so perhaps this will be Bakar’s Merentau (a solid martial arts film from star/director combo Iko Uwais and Gareth Evans who next went on to change the world with The Raid) and his next project will deliver something that takes Malaysian action cinema to the next level.
The Package
The more time goes on, the more I appreciate physical media and find myself in an ever shrinking niche in that regard. So on one hand, I’m extremely grateful Well Go USA has given this film a Blu-ray release. On the other hand, it’s absolutely bare bones (and the cinematography, which often utilizes Go Pro footage, doesn’t even result in an aesthetically gorgeous movie). And Well Go USA is clearly looking to steer people towards their streaming platform Hi-Yah. I can’t blame them, necessarily, as physical media releases become more expensive and have a shrinking consumer base. But there’s nothing to this disc beyond the ability to physically own it that demands a purchase when this title can be streamed on Hi-Yah.
And I’m Out.
[PS: Don’t miss our very own V.N. Pryor’s much more energetic take on this film back when it was titled Geran and played at the 2020 New York Asian Film Festival]
Silat Warriors: Deed Of Death is now streaming on Hi-YAH! and hits Digital/Blu-ray/DVD from Well Go USA on July 6th, 2021.
-
INDIANA JONES and the 4K Restoration
Cinema’s greatest adventurer comes to Ultra High Definition in a 4-Film Box Set
The Indiana Jones 4-Movie Collection is now available on 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray. Please note the images in the article are purely illustrative and not captured from this release.
The Star Wars franchise may cast the biggest shadow from the wonderful wizards at Lucasfilm and ILM, but since discovering the Indy series (I came to it later than most, as a teenager), I fell in love with the eminent archeologist, his companions, and their thrilling, slightly horror-tinged pulp adventures.
The films are of course well known and pretty much universally beloved, so I won’t go to deep on reviewing them except to say that I adore them and if you’re reading this, then chances are, so do you.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Clarity
Unsurprisingly, these films look absolutely gorgeous. Well, Crystal Skull is still weirdly overlit with a lot of light bloom, but these presentations look remarkable. Except for a couple brief instances of what looks like camera shake (I think perhaps the digital cleanup tools had a hard time interpolating this kind of movement, and it looks a little wonky when it happens), the picture quality is really excellent.
There’s a famous little set design gag in Raiders in which heiroglyphics resembling R2-D2 and C-3PO can be seen carved into the structure behind Indy as he and Sallah discover and remove the Ark of the Covenant from its enclosure. On a large UHD TV in 4K, this little Easter Egg is much more discernible than ever before.
For this release, there has been an extensive cleanup effort to not only restore the film, but also to make it a UHD experience, cleaning up many of the aging effects. It looks terrific, but purists will certainly balk. Let’s talk about…
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Broom
A lot can be said, and has been, of this release and the discovery of certain cleanup and “tinkering” that has quietly taken place.
The terrific website movie-censorship.com has posted some very detailed comparisons of the 4K versions of Raiders and Temple of Doom against the Blu-rays which highlight some of these changes. These links are well worth checking out if you’re interested in this sort of thing (be advised you are likely to encounter NSFW materials and advertising on this site).
But to summarize my own experience, as a fan who has seen these films many times on VHS, DVD, theatrically, and on Blu-ray, I didn’t notice most of these changes. The vast majority of these alterations are very respectful and technical in nature, cleaning up aging effects: mostly fixing up choppily composited edges, or occasionally adding shadows where they were missing, or removing odds and ends that weren’t meant to be seen. No CGI song and dance numbers or “the swordsman in the square shot first” nonsense.
This kind of change isn’t new to the series, either — the famous reflection of the cobra in the safety glass in Raiders was digitally removed in prior versions. Though frankly, I miss seeing it, and I know many who love these films may feel the same way about these other little changes.
While I tend to prefer a canonical, “accurate” or “true” presentation (give us the real Star Wars already, George), but having watched these films in their new iteration, I have to say the overall effect was pleasing — they’re much more seamless now, and the changes don’t feel garish or intrusive — actually it’s the opposite effect, there’s less distraction from noticing the hard edges of the manual compositing. I would even go as far as to say that this is what the Star Wars special editions should have been.
The 4K restoration will be my go-to way to watch the films in the future, but even so, this makes it hard to let go of the prior Blu-ray collection and I think I’ll be hanging on to them and making sure my kids have the opportunity to see them that way.
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Art
I’ve previously posted an unboxing pictorial which covers the physical package in great detail.
https://cinapse.co/unboxing-the-indiana-jones-4k-uhd-4-movie-collection-4a80b06b8a7f
Unfortunately the physical aspects of this release, a rather flimsy box printed on cardstock, with a reductive white design, don’t offer much incentive as eye candy to add it to your shelf. Particularly in comparison to the very beautiful Blu-ray edition, a compact, rigid, and gorgeously illustrated box set.
Indiana Jones and the Last Purchase Made?
Of course it’s obvious that with a fifth and reportedly final Indiana Jones film in production, another version of this set will soon materialize with all five films, and the somewhat disappointing packaging this go-round is likely a down-play to make it easier to repurchase this thing in a year or two.
We all know that waiting for that inevitable complete box set is the smart play here (see also: Jurassic Park), but for those who can’t wait, the new 4-Movie Collection is a marvelous add-on — though perhaps not a replacement — for your Blu-rays.
Special Features and Extras — Raiders of the Lost Ark 4K UHD
§ Teaser Trailer (1:04)
§ Theatrical Trailer (2:34)
§ Re-Issue Trailer (1:45)Special Features and Extras — Temple of Doom 4K UHD
§ Teaser Trailer (1:01)
§ Theatrical Trailer (1:26)Special Features and Extras — Last Crusade 4K UHD
§ Teaser Trailer (1:28)
§ Theatrical Trailer (2:13)Special Features and Extras — Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 4K UHD
§ Theatrical Trailer 2 (1:52)
§ Theatrical Trailer 3 (1:55)
§ Theatrical Trailer 4 (1:40)Special Features and Extras — Bonus Blu-ray Disc
This set carries over the bonus features from the prior Blu-ray release as listed:
· On Set with Raiders of the Lost Ark
§ From Jungle to Desert
§ From Adventure to Legend· Making the Films
§ The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981 documentary)
§ The Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark
§ The Making of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
§ The Making of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
· The Making of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (HD)· Behind the Scenes
§ The Stunts of Indiana Jones
§ The Sound of Indiana Jones
§ The Music of Indiana Jones
§ The Light and Magic of Indiana Jones
§ Raiders: The Melting Face!
§ Indiana Jones and the Creepy Crawlies (with optional pop-ups)
§ Travel with Indiana Jones: Locations (with optional pop-ups)
§ Indy’s Women: The American Film Institute Tribute
§ Indy’s Friends and Enemies
§ Iconic Props (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) (HD)
§ The Effects of Indy (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) (HD)
§ Adventures in Post Production (Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) (HD)
A/V Out.
-
Screen Comparisons: Arrow’s Upcoming DAIMAJIN TRILOGY vs Mill Creek’s 2012 Release
Arrow Video’s Daimajin Trilogy release is set to arrive on July 27, 2021. This article contains several comparisons which contrast Mill Creek’s 2012 Blu-ray transfer with the new release from Arrow. The frames aren’t necessarily exact matches, but should give a solid indication of the visual differences.
Viewing tips: For gauging clarity and resolution, these images are best viewed on a large monitor with widescreen aspect ratio — if viewing on a mobile device, pinch-zoom for closeup inspection. Elements like color, brightness, and contrast are more easily compared in a narrow window or upright mobile.
Following in the footsteps of the Gamera franchise, another classic kaiju series is getting a second chance on Blu-ray from Arrow Video. Like Gamera, the Daimajin trilogy had a prior collected edition from Mill Creek which was proffered as an inexpensive budget release but went out of print and become quite valuable. We covered this release as part of our Kaiju series in 2014.
https://cinapse.co/mighty-kaiju-right-beside-you-daimajin-trilogy-1966-72b87d9578fd
The 2-disc Mill Creek release paired Daimajin and Return of Daimajin together on a single disc; a second disc housed the third film and bonus features. Arrow’s release gives each film its own disc (with extras), and a technical analysis of the files shows that the movie files average 40% larger than Mill Creek counterparts — even with added commentaries, a positive sign that the picture is either of a higher initial fidelity or simply less compressed.
In my review of the 2012 set I gave it a hearty recommendation, which I still stand by. The picture quality was quite good, especially for a budget release. Comparing both editions, I only see a slight improvement in clarity or resolution in Arrow’s offering. What does stand out to me, though, is the much improved color and crispier contrast.
A side note, the trailers included on the Mill Creek discs were extremely compressed, demonstrating very apparent noisy artifacts and chunky macroblocking. The trailers on Arrow’s release do not have these issues. I don’t want to get too sidetracked by taking screenshots of extras but here’s one comparison just to underline the massive and obvious difference in their quality.
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow OK, let’s get into it. Here are full 1080p captures from all three films — you be the judge.
Daimajin
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow Return of Daimajin
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow Daimajin Strikes Again
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow 
Top: Old Mill Creek / Bottom: New Arrow
A/V Out.
Except where noted, all 16:9 screen images in this review are direct captures from the disc(s) in question with no editing applied, but may have compression or resizing inherent to file formats and Medium’s image system.
-
Two Cents Throws More Fuel on the STREETS OF FIRE
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick:
We often describe our cultier picks as being “one of a kind”, but believe us when we say that there is only one Streets of Fire.
Off the back of the blockbuster success of 48 Hrs. (aka the movie that made Eddie Murphy a movie star) writer/director Walter Hill was afforded the chance to indulge himself. And boooooooooy, did he.
The only real precursor to the peculiar DNA of Streets of Fire is Hill’s own The Warriors, which we recently covered. Like that earlier film, Streets of Fire is set in a cartoonish, stylized alternate reality (what the film’s opening credits define as “Another Time, Another Place”) that is nonetheless depicted with all the grit and grime you could possibly imagine.
A sort of…fairy tale/Western/comic book/two-fisted pulp action/musical grab-bag, this “rock’n’roll fable” opens with fledgling superstar Ellen Aim (a suuuuuuuper young Diane Lane) being kidnapped off-stage mid-concert by a biker gang led by the vampiric Raven (a suuuuuuuuuuper young Willem Dafoe).
The local law has no way to combat a gang so crazed and ruthless, so Ellen’s old friend calls her brother Tom Cody (Michael Paré) to come to the rescue. A former local troublemaker turned former soldier, Tom Cody is also Ellen’s old flame. He sets out to save the damsel in distress, teaming up with fellow hard-edged veteran McCoy (Amy Madigan) and Ellen’s slimy manager and new beau, Billy Fish (Rick Moranis).
Anchoring the film are songs composed by famed Meat Loaf collaborator, the late great Jim Steinman. Steinman, who never met a teenage heartache that he couldn’t turn into a 10-minute rock ballad of the most brilliantly overblown variety, proved to be the perfect fit for Streets of Fire, a film that isn’t so much style-over-substance as it is style-as-substance.
Streets of Fire was a pretty severe flop when it was first released, and critics largely shrugged at its music video stylings and “what if instead of characters, explosions?” methodology. But a cult audience has continued to grow exponentially each year, and today there is a large tribe who know that tonight is what it means to be young.
So let the revels begin! Let the fires be started! And let’s all of us dance for the restless and the broken-hearted.
Next Week’s Pick:
Next week, we journey from Walter Hill’s mean streets to the newest fantasy land from Disney Animation!
Raya and the Last Dragon is available on Disney+!
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!
Our Guests:
Austin Wilden:
As Highlander is to Queen, Streets of Fire is to the late Jim Steinman.
While he’s not the sole contributing songwriter like Queen were in the former case, Steinman’s style gets exemplified in the bookending concerts by Ellen Aim and the Attackers. The declarative, ballad style a perfect reflection for the earnest melodramatic nature of Streets of Fire. If “Bat Out of Hell” or “Total Eclipse of the Heart” were on this soundtrack, they would not sound out of place at all. (I bet anyone familiar with the movie could even name spots where they’d fit perfectly.)
Which isn’t to talk down the contributions of the other singers and songwriters on the soundtrack. The songs given to the Sorels standout as well, especially “Countdown to Love” being used as a way to punctuate the first moment of peace the characters get after their assault on The Battery.
What make “Nowhere Fast” and “Tonight is What it Means to be Young” stand out even among other solid music in this movie is that reflection of the film’s overall energy. We’re welcomed into the heightened environment, an evolution of the tone Walter Hill established with The Warriors, by “Nowhere Fast.” Its energy and lyrics reflecting Ellen’s emotions of being back home in Richmond performing, even if she admits later she didn’t write these songs that connection is still present in the film’s text. “Tonight is What it Means to be Young” works even better as the note the movie ends on. The original poster for Streets of Fire describing it as “A Rock ‘n Roll Fable” and the lyrics about ideal dreams of love versus the reality of living as “the desperate and the broken hearted” make sure no one forgets that this was indeed a fable of “another time, another place.”
As a member of Ellen’s road crew says while watching the final concert: “Love Live Rock ‘n Roll” (@WC_WIT)
Brendan Agnew (The Norman Nerd):
Kudos to Streets of Fire for not only opening with a show-stopping 5-alarm banger of a song in “Nowhere Fast” as a dope musical introduction to another time and another place, but also for calling its shot using the song?
To clarify, this film is a prefect circle. It begins and ends in the same place with the principal characters all back on their designated turf — physically speaking. And at 93 minutes, it damn sure goes “nowhere” fast. But as archetypal embodiments of Campbell-ian mythic structure go, it comes up wanting only against the likes of The Lion King in terms of “let’s just make this bit of the Hero’s Journey the literal text in the film” and swinging hard enough to pull that off.
I won’t be the first to pine for a stronger leading man (Paré is… fine), but the rest of the cast is an absolute treat and our hero swings a hell of a hammer, even if he doesn’t quite pull off looking badass in suspenders. And I cannot overstate how hard the soundtrack goes at the same time the production design is sprinting to keep up with the music (and keeping pace) that coalesces into a genre blend utterly unique and inviting.
Also, there’s a bit where our heroes blow the shit outta a whole squad of police cars, and that Walter Hill guy knew a thing or two. (@blcagnew)
The Team
From the moment Streets of Fire introduces Willem Dafoe’s villain with him slowly moving through a feverish concert crowd, backlit to an impossible degree so his figure is entirely dark silhouette, I knew I was in love.
And the film more than lives up to that exhilarating opening, unmoored from anything so boring as reality. This a world where every line of dialogue is snarled, where there’s an unnamed war that’s splashing up all kinds of ex-soldiers on the shores to go on valiant quests to save fair damsels, and where people settle their disputes with HAMMER DUELS.
I registered my complaints with The Warriors when we covered that film. For me, Streets of Fire has always been the Walter Hill movie that successfully turned his outsized, comic book visions of rain-slicked cities into a proper, propulsive movie.
The fly in the ointment is and has always been Paré as the film’s lead. Tom Cody needs to be a larger-than-life MAN who feels like he just strode out of a paperback and commands the center of the film through movie star machismo alone. Paré looks the part well enough, but he’s a flat blank as a screen presence, blown off the screen by every single supporting player.
If Tom Cody had lived up to his legend, Streets of Fire would be a classic of ’80s cinema. As is, it’s still a ludicrous amount of fun and an absolutely kick-ass way to spend 90 minutes at a pop. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
I’m gonna go to bat for Paré on this one. I understand the opinion of my cohorts that his performance here is uncharismatic, but he understands the assignment. He’s not the hero. He’s the angry, lonely drifter who won’t come out of this with a happy ending. From his first appearance, Tom Cody is all smoldering fire and sad blue eyes, with a war raging in with soul.
Streets Of Fire is the ultimate companion to The Warriors in my opinion. Both opt for a unique urban setting that’s unquestionably “gritty” but separated from reality through a veil of fantasty and rock & roll. Even though they’re quite different, as have a lot of the same motifs and showing up: themed gangs, extended chases, subways, street fights, a fractured romance, and a showdown on the home turf. For some reason it never found quite the same audience as The Warriors, but it seems people have started discovering it in the last few years for what it is: one of the best films of the 80s. (@VforVashaw)
Get your Ellen Aim and the Attackers “Tonight is What it Means to be Young” shirt from our friends at RoughCut!
https://roughcutfanclub.com/products/ellen-aim-and-the-attackers-pre-order
Further reading:
https://roughcutfanclub.com/products/ellen-aim-and-the-attackers-pre-order
Next week’s pick:
https://roughcutfanclub.com/products/ellen-aim-and-the-attackers-pre-order
-
RITA MORENO: JUST A GIRL WHO DECIDED TO GO FOR IT: Spotlight on a Legend
The documentary, which played at Sundance last year, opens theatrically this week
Multifaceted performer Rita Moreno has been entertaining for more than 75 years, starting with a preadolescent dancing career that led to her being cast in her first films. Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It provides a spotlight for the legendary Latina actress who had to find her way amidst sexual harassment in a racist studio system and dozens of brownface roles as island girls and natives to get to a point where she could be cast as Anita in MGM’s West Side Story.
This documentary provides Moreno an opportunity to recall past traumas and how a lack of self-worth in her younger years led to certain decision making. “I thought so little of myself,” she says, as she admits she kept working with her agent even after he raped her. I haven’t read her memoir, so there were several bombshells like this that Moreno drops during the documentary which left this viewer stunned. Director Mariem Pérez Riera interviews friends, family, academics and several Latinx performers influenced by the amazing expanse of her career. The historical context provided by a few of the interviewees grounds the film.
We are shown scenes of modern-day Moreno prepping on the set for One Day at a Time, watching the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford as she does so. The Senate hearing testimony serves as a kind of parallel for Moreno’s own lifetime experience. Besides the careful thought behind this storytelling choice, the format of the documentary tends to adhere too strongly to a timeline. This makes Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It less remarkable than it could have been, and more pedestrian in form.
Which is not to diminish the impact of seeing a frank Moreno speak with love for the family and the home she left behind in Puerto Rico to move as a child with her mom to New York, or hearing her consider her younger tendencies towards relationships with controlling men, or the marvel of glimpsing her on the set of the upcoming film adaptation of West Side Story. It’s slightly disappointing that the documentary isn’t quite as original in style as the star at its center, but Ms. Moreno really is one of a kind.
Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It opens in theaters Fri, June 18 (and will eventually air on PBS, as WNET helped produce it).
-
Two Cents Exorcises THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT
Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick:
Whether or not you believe in the real-life demon-slaying exploits of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the onscreen version of the couple has been at the center of one of the most consistently popular horror franchises in a long while.
James Wan’s 2013 chiller The Conjuring spawned not only a direct sequel but an Annabelle spinoff that produced two sequels of its own, plus another direct spinoff in The Nun, plus that kinda-sorta spinoff The Curse of La Llorona.
La Llorona director Michael Chaves made the jump to the main series with the third installment of the ghostbusting franchise led by Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) Warren.
Drawing once again on the rough details of a “true” supernatural story, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It opens with the Warrens in mid-exorcism. As they try to free young David (Julian Hilliard) from possession, the Warrens are unable to stop the demon from hopping out of David and into Arne, (Ruairi O’Connor) David’s sister’s boyfriend.
Under the control of the demon, Arne murders his landlord and is quickly arrested. He pleads not guilty by reason of demonic possession, leading the Warrens to take it upon themselves to prove the presence of a supernatural agent.
Whereas the first two Conjuring films were haunted house rollercoasters, The Devil Made Me Do It functions as a detective story, as the Warrens work to uncover the sinister motivation behind not only David and Arne’s plight, but a connected series of possessions and murders.
The Conjuring series is unique among horror franchises for being about the continuing adventures of heroic figures, rather than a recurring villain being the main attraction (the only other franchise that would seem to fit the bill is maybe Evil Dead). Yet with each successive film, the real-world duplicity of the Warren couple and the negative ripple effects of their con artistry becomes harder and harder to divorce from the saintly duo embodied by Wilson and Farmiga.
But people still seemed happy to welcome the Warrens back to the big screens and onto HBO Max when The Devil Made Me Do It dropped last week. So dim the lights and grab your crucifix, because we’re ready for a spooky good time.
Next Week’s Pick:
Tonight is what it means to be young.
Get ready for a rock’n’roll fairy tale like no other.
Walter Hill’s Streets of Fire is available to stream on Netflix Instant.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!
The Team:
The Conjuring films, as well as the second and third Annabelle films, are among my favorite big studio horror films in recent years. It helps that my son is a huge fan, as well. However, this latest installment is not amongst the best in the series.
I still enjoyed it and it hits some good scares and story beats, but it really doesn’t compare to the first two films in the series very favorably.
However, I will say that I truly love spending time with the on screen Warrens. The fantastic actors and fantastic characters are a big part of what works in this series. It’s sad that these on screen heroes are based on two truly awful hucksters, but I choose to divorce the Warrens on screen from the real life duo of charlatans. With that in mind, Farmiga and Wilson remain a bright spot in this one.
In short, this is lesser Conjuring, but still worth a watch. You can listen to me on The Film Board podcast episode about this film here. (@thepaintedman)
I think I’ve reached the end of the line with the cinematic Ed and Lorraine Warren, at least if James Wan is going to remain busy elsewhere.
The Devil Made Me Do It isn’t terrible or anything like that. Farmiga and Wilson continue to be at the top of their game, the detective story structure is a solid change from the previous haunted house scenarios, and Chaves faithfully recreates the atmospherics and aesthetics that made the first couple films so potent.
But the spark seems well and truly out. Chaves might nail the look that Wan established, but gone is Wan’s exacting sense of timing and geography, and gone is the exuberant, naughty enthusiasm with which Wan threw creeps and freaks at the screen. The Devil Made Me Do It ultimately ends up feeling like an expensive episode of Supernatural, plodding through its procedural beats to get to the next scare section. Which are generally not very scary.
The real bummer is that there’s one genuinely great and original fright setpiece, the waterbed attack, but not only did the trailers show the entire sequence in full, but it occurs as a flashback after we’ve already seen that the characters involved are perfectly unharmed, effectively deflating any even theoretical tension.
So, not a bad entry in the series, but the Conjuring movies either need a major shot of new blood, or the Warrens might need to be put on ice for a bit. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
I haven’t really dived into the various spinoffs in the “Universe” that revolved around The Conjuring, but I’ve enjoyed each of the mainline series. The chemistry between Wilson and Farmiga has anchored the series as a sort of overarching love story told as chillingly effective horror stories. That continues and is even amplified in their third outing, which bolsters the importance of their love to the narrative, while putting them up against a new threat.
The newest entry is perhaps the weakest of the three, and the least “believable” , but nonetheless a solid outing with plenty of spooky fun. As characters at least, the Warrens are a really fascinating duo and I continue to enjoy their weird adventures. (@VforVashaw)
More on The Conjuring 3:
https://cinapse.co/podcast-the-film-board-the-conjuring-the-devil-made-me-do-it-130cd82807e9
Next week’s pick:
https://cinapse.co/podcast-the-film-board-the-conjuring-the-devil-made-me-do-it-130cd82807e9
