Vengeance Is Mine/Fukushû suru wa ware ni ari - 1979 Japan d: Shōhei Imamura
Pretty bloody remarkable film that made me feel ashamed that I hadn't seen it before my 40s. Just...wow.
This is heady stuff. Ostensibly a case study of a murderer, but rather than some TV style procedural, this goes to wonderful, magical places. It becomes a study of outsiders within a society - killers, hookers, Christians, thieves, the poor, the old, the rejected - and their own almost hidden society within it and through it.
Imamura is in his element here, his utter mastery of the art apparent without showiness. Flat, straight forward narrative is suddenly broken by a small and appropriate slip into experimentalism. His characters seem to truly belong in the places he shows us, and the amazing acting helps enormously. The cramped sets mirror churning minds. This is all fully realised.
An amazing film.
Eureka's Blu-Ray looks (and especially sounds) pretty dismal sadly, but the strength of the art itself overwhelms the limitations of the transfer.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is Cinema.
Last edited by Gojirosan; 8th January 2013 at 02:07 PM.
|