Kobayashi’s
monumental trilogy, which served as an incredibly powerful indictment on
Japan’s role in WWII, in particular, and the utter futility of wars, in
general, was brought to an unforgettable conclusion with A Soldier’s Prayer. While No Greater Love focused on Japan’s atrocities on China and the issue of class
struggle, and Road to Eternity on the
dehumanizing nature of armed forces, this, which was also the bleakest and the
most harrowing of the lot – which is saying something, provided a look at the
devastating aftermaths of war from physical as well as spiritual standpoints. With
the Japanese Army decimated at the hands of the Allied Forces, Kaji (Tatsuya
Nakadai), along with a few comrades, embarks on an insanely exhausting odyssey
on foot in order to get back to his wife, experiencing unlikely camaraderie,
oppositions, tragedy, and guerilla attacks by Chinese rebels on the way which
tests his resilience and brings forth his leadership instincts. When he finally
surrenders to the Soviets having been utterly fed-up with the mindless
violence, his life, which was already on the brink, starts going into a
tailspin. He’s derided by the Soviets as “samurai bandit” and is deliberately
taken for a cruel ride by the Japanese interpreter in the POW labour camp where
he’s sent. The psychological meltdown that he suffers during the cathartic
finale, in the middle of a barren, snow-field desert, on account of
disillusionment, hopelessness and delusion, was therefore, both heartbreaking
and symbolic of how the individual is crushed by the collective, and completes
Kaji’s vicious circle. In keeping with the rest of the trilogy, the B/W
cinematography, score and Nakadai’s performance were all marvelous.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi
Genre: Drama/War Drama/Psychological Drama
Language: Japanese/Mandarin/Russian
Country: Japan
Just Before Nightfall, with its premise of a philandering husband who
ends up murdering his best friend’s wife he’s having an illicit affair on the
sly with, had B- noir written all over it. However, Chabrol, in a smart
reversal of expectations, turned this into the kind of morality exercise that
Woody too would become enamored with. Consequently, instead of being a standard
take on crime and punishment, it was more a study on guilt that ends up
overshadowing the fear of getting caught. The film begins with committing of the
crime in order to relegate the act to a secondary status – Charles (Michel
Bouquet), the wealthy owner of an advertising firm, accidentally kills the wife
of his long-time friend François (François Périer), during enactment of a
violent fetish. However, he eventually starts suffering from strong pangs of
guilty conscience that starts affecting his relationship with his wife (Stéphane
Audran). In an intelligent psychological twist, when he confesses his
dalliances and crime to his wife, she ironically reacts with calmness and
understanding, and becomes concerned, instead, that he might end up confessing
to the police and destroy their family in the process. Bouquet gave a startling
portrayal of a man engulfed by the weight of the secret in his heart as he
becomes increasingly desperate for the comeuppance that he feels he deserves.
His empathetic reaction when an employee in his firm is caught stealing was
revelatory in this regard. Both Audran and Périer were effective, while the malevolent
twist in the climax seemed right out of a magician’s hat. Interestingly, the
film had the same leads, and as a married couple too, as La Femme Infidele, which he made 2 years back, and formed the
perfect complementary piece to it from a thematic standpoint.
Director: Claude Chabrol
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Crime Drama/Post-Noir
Language: French
Country: France
Road to Eternity, the second chapter in Kobayashi’s powerful trilogy,
began where No Greater Love had left
off, and was a disconsolate and gut-wrenching portrayal of the dehumanizing
nature of the military which, with its harsh emphasis on discipline,
regimentation, subordination and masculinity, stands in opposition to freedom
of opinion and expression. Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai), upon been conscripted in the
army, is placed under suspicion for his Leftist sympathies. And, combined with
his hardworking nature, refusal to kowtow to unfair authority, and instinctive
protests against injustice, he becomes a polarizing figure, particularly among
veterans who love venting their sadistic impulses on the recruits. When, upon
being made a PFC, he tries segregating seniors from juniors, the hostility
couldn’t more direct. Though it focused more on the brutal boot camp, the final
third took us right into a warzone where, bereft of enough fortifications,
experience, artillery and ammunition, the Japanese regiment faces massacre at
the hands of the impregnable Soviet tanks. The film’s two most haunting moments
were – the devastating moment where he expresses his wish to imprint in his
mind the image of his wife while she’s in the naked, and the tragic death of a
bespectacled fellow-recruit (Kunie Tanaka) incessantly
harangued for being a weakling; his fleeting friendship with a sweet-looking
nurse, which is nipped in its bud, added melancholic underpinnings to this
somber drama. The stark, expressionistic B/W cinematography was astounding –
the stunning first shot of a guard’s figure against the snowy night made the
monochromatic aesthetics immediately clear – and so was the operatic soundtrack
which reinforced the tonal shift from the previous film and the protagonist’s
reluctant journey from pacifism to aggression.
Director: Masaki Kobayashi
Genre: War Drama/Political Drama
Language: Japanese
Country: Japan
A Hijacking, shot in cinéma
vérité style, was a harrowing and captivating hostage thriller centered around
the hijacking of a Danish cargo-ship by Somali pirates. This and Greengrass’ Captain Phillips, released within a year
of each other, had similar premises; however, while the latter focused more on
the ordeal of the titular Captain and the growing relationship between him and
the pirate leader, here the approach was more matter-of-fact in comparison with
the focus almost exclusively on the emotionally demanding ransom negotiation
process. The story’s principal actors were Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk), a good-natured
cook aboard the ship whose plans of getting back to his wife soon is
jeopardized to no end, and Peter (Søren Malling), the CEO of the shipping
company with a steely-jawed demeanour whose ability to remain objective and
focused is taken to its very limit; the smooth-taking spokesperson (Abdihakin Asgar) for the pirates who, ironically, refuses to be
clubbed as one of them, played a key supporting role. Peter, against expert
advice, decides to speak on behalf of the company, and, though guided by a
professional, as days drift to weeks and weeks to months, his nerves,
composure, psychological forte and the increasing need to expedite the
otherwise painfully slow process, are tested beyond measure. Though he
initially seemed an icy dollar-and-cents guy, humane layers of his persona
slowly get revealed over the film’s course, and this easily was the film’s most
striking feature. Consequently, and quite surprisingly, portions featuring him
were easily the more memorable sections vis-à-vis those portraying the
hostages.
Director: Tobias Lindholm
Genre: Thriller/Hostage Film
Language: Danish/English
Country: Denmark
Sleeper may safely be considered as the final ‘early Woody’ since
he first reached rarefied heights, and his abilities as a comic genius achieved
full blossom, in his next film Love & Death. Like all his early films, this too was a campy film filled with
slapstick, funny sight gags and thumbing of nose to the authorities; however,
unlike them, this had minimum misfires, was uniformly hilarious, and combined
sharp satirical observations into an otherwise light-hearted setting, thus
displaying his fast increasing maturity as an artist and social commentator. When
Miles Monroe (Woody), the nerdish and sex-obsessed owner of a health-food
joint, dies on the operating table, his body is cryogenically frozen without
his permission, only to be brought back to life by scientists 200 years later.
He finds himself in a cold and detached police state, ruled with an iron fist
by a never-seen dictator, where all lifestyle notions have been diametrically
reversed, and automation is the order of the day. As he escapes in the disguise
of a smart robot, he makes the acquaintance of Luna (Diane Keaton), a pretty
but vacuous socialite, while trying to make his way to the underground camp
striving to overthrow the regime. Featuring a jazz score with Woody himself on
the clarinet, and deftly employing ‘white’ as the visual motif to symbolize the
streamlined nature of life bereft of human emotions, the film combined various
comedic elements, ranging from goofy slapstick, body humour and parody to pungent
wisecracks and political satire, in order to touch upon a diverse range of
topics that provided jabs both at the present and at the inevitable future.
Director: Woody Allen
Genre: Comedy/Sci-Fi/Social Satire/Slapstick
Language: English
Country: US
