The Comedy (Alverson, 2012)

In the past decade+ there's been no shortage of films discussing, presenting, engaging with, dealing with white male privilege. Alverson, here and in the two films following this one, is no different in that regard. These relatively "bigger" works, or perhaps projects that are of a higher profile compared to his first two films, taking an often comedic figure within our current society and channeling their own personal quirks into expressions of greater malaise occurring within American culture today.

It's hard for me to say this is really any more effective at presenting that idea than other films of a similar ilk but what I think Alverson manages here with Heidecker isn't powerful due to the idea itself than the way they engage with it. I wouldn't really say this is a particularly angry film, nor would I really label it as troll-ish, despite the comedy persona of its lead. Neither Alverson nor Heidecker here are lashing out at "modern masculinity", nor do I think they were interested in presenting it as such an obvious thing. Toxicity not through abominable actions, rather through the benign sarcasm that many of us (myself very much included) men instinctually, or put on, as a kind of defense mechanism. "Look I was being racist, but it was meant as a joke, so I'm not really being racist."

Perhaps the most striking thing is how honest and purposeful the entire thing is, and that may be what some take against. In the end, this whole thing isn't an elaborate joke, it isn't a satire, a film of utter deadpan comedy - it's placing the metaphorical mirror up to most of the audience who would be likely to watch this film. It's easy to see why one could call this film misogynistic, though that is an easy out. A way to explicate the actions of the main character without engaging with what it is he is representing. It's easy to shoot the shit and dick around with your buddies in the company of your home, but as the saying goes, when the shit gets real, you kind of don't know what to do anymore, which Alverson demonstrates in most of the film's second half. Sincerity and honesty can't sync up with irony and sarcasm.

The presentation isn't particularly interesting or special, the kind of hand-held aesthetic here lacks the concise and concrete quality Alverson would develop in his next two features. But it's clear that there's an attention to movement here that isn't in those two films. Capturing a kind of frisson of movement that is specific moment to moment, cutting around the fat, if you will, in a way that is ultimately more propulsive than the slowness his approach to narrative momentum otherwise presents as. While not at the level it would later be at, the beginning of him starting to drain the color from his films, greying the color palates, can be seen here. Let it be said, Alverson isn't a director who, so far, is interested in extravagant color(s).

Alverson, during the press tour for Entertainment often spoke about trying to upend tropes of the "road movie" genre, reframe the ideas while working within an established kind of narrative structure. Utilizing convention only as much as he can to lead to a conclusion which can be read as just as uncertain as its beginning, if not ultimately more cruel. The same can be seen here. In some sense, this is a coming-of-age tale, a manchild growing up in a time of personal crisis, the go-to narrative for so many Sundance indie filmmakers, but Alverson never takes the easy road. By this film's finale, nothing is solved and things may actually be worse off for Heidecker's character. A moment of fleeting pleasure and affection in the glow of sunset playing in the ocean waves reads more as tragic than as uplifting.

Happiness of Us Alone (Matsuyama, 1961)

A real shame this isn't as recognized as a classic of Japanese melodrama and post-war cinema. This re-watch revealed several aspects that I can't say I picked up on my first watch years ago. 

Perhaps principally, Matsuyama, as a writer, wrote many great scripts for a variety of filmmakers prior to making this work, perhaps most notably Kobayashi's The Human Condition trilogy and Daughters, Wives and a Mother for Naruse, and the influence of both the subject matters that were covered in those films, as well as the director's approaches, can be seen and felt in this work. Matsuyama's penchant for melodrama and emotional resonance, as well as the connection of Takamine (perhaps a career best performance?), can be seen as an influence from Naruse, while the more realist settings and lingering effects of trauma and the aftermath of the war would come from Kobayashi. It's a clashing that many a filmmaker has struggled to connect, reality to the overwrought. It's difficult to wield such emotional/explosive performances and contain them within a world that's not just as designed, for lack of a better word. 

Much of the film, especially in its first third or so, demonstrates Matsuyama's influence from silent cinema as well. The score sounds like something Chaplin would've used in A Woman of Paris or something. It's simplicity in images, of two people using sign-language to communicate, their faces effectively saying everything we need to understand. It's in this early part of the film that the film shines brightest because of it's simplicity and effectiveness at getting us onboard with the central couple without succumbing to trite narrative beats, more often than not subverting said beats through it's use of framing and structure. But it's also important to note just how much of this relies on the the performances of the central couple as well (I came back to writing this after everything else). This wouldn't work if the central couple were not portrayed by as skilled actors as Takamine or Kobayashi. While this is certainly Takamine's show and she gets arguably the more showy role here, it's important to also not fail to notice just how much Kobayashi does with a silent role here. His scene on the train when he goes after Takamine and his signed words to her, when he's on the brink of tears - no words, just devastation (which could be said of many moments in the film to be honest). 

But the trick I think Matsuyama managed to do here is allowing in acknowledging and allowing us as an audience in on the "happiness" that the central couple are allowed to have. It's exaggerated for the sake of allowing this couple some sense of uplift from what could have very easily been misery-porn. I think of the quick turn-around that results from the couple's first child, which, if played in a realist context, would have been an unbearable decision that could have sunk the film as a whole, but allowing as the audience to access these bigger emotional trauma in shorter bursts makes the loss (and eventual recovery) more manageable. 

It's also worth noting just how the film is presented from a clear working-class perspective throughout. The central couple, as well as Takamine's mother, are never not in need of money. There are scenes throughout of the couple working together or arguing over funds. In one of the more insightful scenes, Takamine's mother goes to a pawn shop in order to sell some trinkets so that the couple can stay afloat. Even as the years move on and people get older, the central family are never able to escape from living near the poverty line no matter how much they work. It also touches upon a kind of resentment that can breed within children that is rarely touched upon in films. Takamine and Kobayashi's child is ashamed not just of his parent's deafness but from their lower class - his violence is born from being unable to cope with both and an inability to articulate this within himself. It's only when he gets older that he begins to understand their struggle and learns to assist in the fight to stay afloat and confront the oppression that keeps his parents down.

Actress (Ichikawa, 1987)

To a certain extent I agree with the critique that as a "biopic" of Kinuyo Tanaka, this falls well short of really capturing her or her life. But I also don't think that's really the point, or at least was Ichikawa's intention while making this. It may have been Kaneto Shindō's intent (though if it was he did a far better job in his own documentary on Mizoguchi a decade earlier). I'm more likely to buy into this being his own obsession and idea of Tanaka, and later Mizoguchi.

I'm more struck by the significance of the title "Actress". Ichikawa seems less interested in capturing the essence of Tanaka and more in the idea of how people play roles, whether that be as an actress, or as a director, a wife, etc. The entire film is a work of anachronisms. Whether it be the overly synthetic score, the overly stagy direction and staging techniques, or even the performances - which feel less like attempts to draw the audience into a period work than it is to make them overly aware of the falseness of it. None of the actors here (assuming this matters) look like the people they're playing - though I will say, the balls to cast Bunta Sugawara as Kenji Mizoguchi is something else - but that really doesn't matter. It's the attempt at presenting them in roles, the act (or art) of "acting", making you confront the illusion that we are so often forced to buy into in order to "believe" a role.

Ichikawa is also far more interested in charting the history of Japanese cinema of the period. From the silent period into the sound, the influx of foreign cinema, and the influence of the American occupation (though the war is almost never explicitly brought up). His use of clips and stills/images from other films and publicity photos from the period makes this clear. It's as much an essay as it is a work of dramatic construction.

And even then we're not meant to simply view this as a "biopic", a work which attempts to entertain an audience via cheap shortcuts of a person's life/people's lives, but as an assembly which attempts to make us question our own perception and conception of "film". At several points throughout, Ichikawa deliberately turns the camera onto us, the audience. Actively confronting us, as if he wasn't making obvious throughout the rest of the film with the artificiality of his presentation.

It's arguably a work which also denies its audience the pleasures and resolutions they would expect from a work like this. We are denied the satisfaction of witnessing Tanaka bloom into her own director or (if this was a more convention work) Mizoguchi getting "what's coming to him", or the maybe romance that the movie only suggests. The pleasure comes from seeing how Ichikawa is constantly offsetting the expectations of a work like this and instead of abiding by genre(?) conventions, turns this into a wholly rewarding and moving piece of cinematic representation.