At a symposium on films and film criticism held last fall in Brookline, Massachusetts, the great critic and essayist Phillip Lopate, in the middle of an eloquent and inarguably correct disquisition against narcissistic '70s nostalgia and for a film history that privileges beauty and integrity over "edge," allowed that he now preferred films that had "something to do with humanity" to any other pictures. While fully respecting that perspective, the genre aesthete in me had to raise a hand in favor of putative genre formalists (I think Mario Bava came up).
Which is not to say I object to pictures that have something to do with humanity. I just like films that offer something to do with humanity in ways I haven't seen. And it's true that such films can be found in all periods—but alas, these days, you're more likely to find the most eloquent and startling expressions and explorations of humanity in the films of the past. Such as, say, Toni, the Renoir picture released by Masters of Cinema and featuring a commentary by Phillip and Kent Jones, which I reviewed here.
All of which is a roundabout way of offering an unqualified recommendation for this first box set of the work of Japanese director Hiroshi Shizumi, who lived from 1903 to 1966, directed for 1924 to 1957, was admired by Ozu and Mizoguchi, loved to take his camera on the road instead of setting it down in a studio...and who seemed to live to provide notes and images of humanity that always surprised with both their truth and artistry.
The shot reproduced above, for example, depicting the frank and beguiling gaze of a woman played by Takamine Meiko, is a point of view shot, or should be. Only in the reverse angle, the person whose point of view this should be is a blind man, the young masseuse Toku (Saburu Shin). The blind masseuse is fascinated by this woman from Tokyo, and as the surrounding mountain resorts where he works are robbed, he sadly puts two and two together, with unfortunate results. The storyline of the 1938 Anma to Onna (The Blind Masseurs and the Woman) has a remarkably brisk pace, especially given that none of its putative action is actually depicted onscreen—no robberies, for instance. What are onscreen instead are moments like the above—startling, moving, pictorially gorgeous glimpses of...humanity.
The other films in this first volume of gorgeously packaged, fantastically presented (yes, there are English titles) works are the equally knock-your-block-off 1936 Mr. Thank You, 1941's Ornamental Hairpin, and the delicate 1933 silent Japanese Girls at the Harbor. The box's theme is landscape; children provide the theme for the upcoming Volume Two. The English language literature on Shimizu is sparse but growing, but film lovers won't need any of it to recognize a master; he's worth getting to know feet-first, as it were.
Aaaaand of course, my foreign-region player is busted. Maybe Criterion will take pity and put out an Eclipse set...
Posted by: Dan | June 23, 2008 at 10:50 AM
Dan, so is mine! Plus I am on a DVD spending ban until I view all the ones I haven't watched so far.
This post has me yearning, however. And Mr. Lopate sounds (has always sounded) like my kinda guy.
Posted by: Campaspe | June 23, 2008 at 10:39 PM
There are region free hacks for domestic DVD players which is how I got my DVD player to handle Bigger than Life and Carmen Comes Home.
Lookie over here: http://www.dvdexploder.com/multihacks.htm
My problem is having the money to buy the DVDs.
Posted by: Peter Nellhaus | June 24, 2008 at 01:50 PM
Mr. Thank You isn't much of a movie per se, as far as I'm concerned, but it's super-fascinating as a document of pre-war Japan countryside and traveling modes. Have yet to catch up with the others.
Posted by: vadim | June 24, 2008 at 07:06 PM
Vadim, I think part of what makes "Mr. Thank You" so great is that it isn't much of a movie per se. How many narrative films made in that period can boast of pretty much walking away (without much fuss) from the elements that putatively made a movie?
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | June 24, 2008 at 10:33 PM
Actually you could be right...I was really surprised by how obviously primitive the sound was when I saw it, and assumed Shimizu was still trying to figure out how to make it work, and the charms were inadvertent. But if that was intentional...well.
Posted by: vadim | June 25, 2008 at 05:35 PM
Peter, our region-free is a very cheap model hacked in just that matter. I may have to just replace it.
Posted by: Campaspe | June 25, 2008 at 09:41 PM
I have a nice collection of Japanese classic films (350+) and, for those interested, I can send you my list of films. Just contact me on larry_abed@hotmail.com
Cheers.
Posted by: Laurent | December 06, 2008 at 04:46 PM