What a joy.
Most folks will focus on the warm water part of this. Its the story, rich in social commentary, Japanese mythology and sexual politics. Its pleasant enough I suppose, but for my taste it is barely adequate to support the real matter of this, the red bridge part.
You see, sometimes it is enough to simply tell, and it almost matters not what is told, so long as it doesn't distract. Its the Van Gogh approach, I suppose, where he could literally plunk himself anywhere with proper light and paint what he encounters. Chair, tree, field. What matters to us is the manner of how he sees, and how he can convey that. Its the composition of his mind and how he tells a story about that while fooling us into thinking the story with the sound is the thing.
Now, I like it better when its all integrated. but I'll take this too. What he does is typical of Japanese filmmakers, and indeed many Japanese artists. Each moment needs to breath within its own world, and that world confined only by the limits of its breath. Everything has to be balanced in a way that it seems to have grown that way with intrinsic wholeness.
His method -- also typical of Japanese film -- is to see the frame of scene as the horizon of these microworlds. By this is mean both the visible frame of the sides of what we see, but most particularly its depth and the stroke between the points of beginning and end. Its not quite painterly because its a composition rooted in movement, and these dynamics are never to be found in static images.
The story talks of a treasure hidden in this location. Toward the end, the story makes explicit that the treasure is the womb, the source of all rivers. You have to make the small leap to finish the fold, that each episode you see is a visit to a womb, the fresh smells of small life conveyed.
What a joy.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
Most folks will focus on the warm water part of this. Its the story, rich in social commentary, Japanese mythology and sexual politics. Its pleasant enough I suppose, but for my taste it is barely adequate to support the real matter of this, the red bridge part.
You see, sometimes it is enough to simply tell, and it almost matters not what is told, so long as it doesn't distract. Its the Van Gogh approach, I suppose, where he could literally plunk himself anywhere with proper light and paint what he encounters. Chair, tree, field. What matters to us is the manner of how he sees, and how he can convey that. Its the composition of his mind and how he tells a story about that while fooling us into thinking the story with the sound is the thing.
Now, I like it better when its all integrated. but I'll take this too. What he does is typical of Japanese filmmakers, and indeed many Japanese artists. Each moment needs to breath within its own world, and that world confined only by the limits of its breath. Everything has to be balanced in a way that it seems to have grown that way with intrinsic wholeness.
His method -- also typical of Japanese film -- is to see the frame of scene as the horizon of these microworlds. By this is mean both the visible frame of the sides of what we see, but most particularly its depth and the stroke between the points of beginning and end. Its not quite painterly because its a composition rooted in movement, and these dynamics are never to be found in static images.
The story talks of a treasure hidden in this location. Toward the end, the story makes explicit that the treasure is the womb, the source of all rivers. You have to make the small leap to finish the fold, that each episode you see is a visit to a womb, the fresh smells of small life conveyed.
What a joy.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.