Saturday, May 30, 2009

BIG MAN JAPAN (DAINIPPONJIN) review

There's no picture this time.
I have read the reviews of this movie online and here is what I have to say on the subject.
First of all, every review I read was more or less a disorganized summary of the plot rather than a review, which is a mistake you would normally make in high school. Second, and more importantly, it seems to me that most reviewers found no central thread of significance in the movie aside from a type of japanese pop-culture extravaganza. These people should stick with Wolverine. There is no difference between this reaction and the blank stare of a child who sees something he does not yet understand: the literary flourish is an attempt to distract the reader from this fact.
The drawbacks of the movie that were often cited in the reviews were slowness of pace and ... the randomness of the more surreal sections of the movie, I guess. Well, these are also telltale signs that the reviewer fails to discern the thoughts being revealed in the footage: a dialogue section the meaning of which is not understood seems boring and overly long; a surreal sequence that the viewer does not recognize seems random and wanton. To give an example: the 4th shot of the movie is a sequence where the main character is crossing the street. This shot is filmed from behind the main character, offsetting his single figure against the many people crossing the street in the opposite direction. Just a little after that there is a long shot of the main character walking past a bus stop. There is a high school girl sitting on the bus stop and texting somebody. We see how she reels from him even as he approaches, although he seems to ignore her. He walks past. It is a very brief and subtle thing, but by this point in the movie you should be paying attention. It is a very long sequence: about 15 seconds. There are other people on the street but as he approaches the edge of the screen the camera moves to follow but always keeping the bus stop inside the frame as the distance between them increases. This little move offers a helping hand to the impaired.

To those who have seen this movie. Do you think that the questions of the interviewer were not questions that the main character himself wanted to ask? Of himself, and the people he knew? Do you think the Strangling monster looks like a politician and the Jumping monster like a TV personality? Do you think the Stink monster looks like an average commercial provider of sex and the Penis monster looks like an overeager teenager who is the most easily influenced through sex? The word JUSTICE seems to be significant, no? THe bunny ear hat he buys for his little daughter says USA-CHAN (usagi being Japanese for bunny).

This movie is about the ONSET OF THE NEW.

1 comment:

Jelter said...

sweet some kdog reviews! i think my head just exploded though.