The Blind Swordsman: Zatôichi
The Blind Swordsman:
Zatôichi
by Henry Edward Hardy
Zatôichi is a humble blind masseur who is also (of course) a master swordsman. He is no saint and enjoys the simple pleasures of gambling, sake and the company of women. But when bad guys want to do badness, watch out! He cuts them down in fine style.The film follows the familiar genre of a master swordsman who travels about in humble circumstances and has some extraordinary disability. In the excellent Lone Wolf and Cub manga and movies, it is a disgraced samurai with a young son he carries around on his back. The Hong-Kong One-Armed Swordsman films are naturally about a master swordsman with one arm.
The Zatôichi character was the subject of a popular TV show from 1974-1979. This latest Zatôichi film is approximately the 25th of that name. It is the first made by and starring Takeshi Kitano.Kitano’s swordsmanship is swift and decisive and his physical control excellent. There is no sword-clashing, flourishing back and forth here; when Ichi finally draws his cane sword he strikes like a cobra: decisive, ruthless and using the entire strength of his body behind the blade.
Only one opponent marks him; the tragic ronin character Hattori Genosuke (Tadanobu Asano). Genosuke is a noble samurai fallen on hard times who enlists as a “bodyguard” with the local yakuza gang in order to buy medicine for his consumptive wife O-shino (Yui Natsukawa).
Ichi falls in with two ruthless ‘geishas’. One of whom is really a man, who is the brother of the other geisha. They are seeking revenge against the yakuza clan, which destroyed their family. A great deal of camera time is devoted to the brother who is unambiguously devoted to living as a woman even when the bad guys have been eliminated.
Kitano used color to distinguish between the various factions, and to give the principal characters signature distinguishing features such as his yellow hair and red sword-cane. And there is blood. Geysers of blood. Fire-engine red bursts of rather badly done computer-graphic blood. If you don’t like to see vast effusions of obviously fake blood this might not be the movie for you.
But for fans of the period samurai film, or anyone looking for something offbeat and entertaining, Zatôichi is not the worst film one could see.
Zatoichi – A Takeshi Kitano Film http://www.zatoichi.co.uk/
Zatôichi (2003) (IMDB) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363226/
Zatoichi (wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zatoichi
The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi/Sonatine (2004) (Rotten Tomatoes) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blind_swordsman_zatoichi/
A version of this article appeared previously in Current Magazine and on Electric Current, http://eCurrent.com/
Copyright © 2006, 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
American Splendor: Harvey Pekar and the Splendor that was Cleveland
American Splendor
Harvey Pekar and the Splendor that was Cleveland
by Henry Edward Hardy
American Splendor is the story of Harvey Pekar, a file clerk and down-market intellectual from the east side of Cleveland, Ohio. He is also the schlubby hero of his own comic, and the multifarious protagonist of his own movie. Directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, American Splendor (2003) is a sweet, funny film about a cynical, good-hearted loser and his idiosyncratic friends and family.
I had read that this film involved a combination of the real Harvey Pekar, dramatizations of the comic and still frames by various artists. I expected the movie to be incoherent, pretentious, arty and boring. Having lived in Cleveland Heights, Ohio in the ’60s and ’70s, I anticipated the depiction of Cleveland would be a phony, cheap satire.
Surprisingly, American Splendor is brilliant. The transitions between cartoon frames, the understated acting of Paul Giamatti, and the real Pekar, work wonderfully. The result is like a moving Kandinsky montage, a collision of disparate elements that nonetheless combine with the spaces between them to make a harmonious whole. The location shots are true to life and the gritty urban scenes made me downright homesick for Cleveland in the ’70s. And any movie that makes you homesick for Cleveland in the ’70s is a brilliant film.
Pekar worked as a hospital file clerk and as a music critic on the side. The music of American Splendor underlines Pekar’s love of jazz and his massive jazz record collection. Harvey Pekar is the loveable, acerbic, intellectual, grouchy yet well-meaning lower-white-collar guy that Woody Allen always wanted to be.
American Splendor is also a love story. It is a story about Pekar’s affair and somewhat functional marriage with his third wife, Joyce Brabner. American Splendor is about making a life among the urban decay of post-industrial Cleveland. The film celebrates all the people who don’t fit in, the misfits, artists and non-conformists. It is an uplifting story about a miserable, gloomy guy who has no life as we know it. Pekar is a modern Mark Twain or Ambrose Bierce, an apostle for the common man.
If your life sucks, if you are a nerd or quasi-autistic, if you have bad luck or no luck at all — or if you have a sense of humor that always carries you through, see American Splendor.
American Spendor (IMDB)
American Spendor (wikipedia)
American Spendor (Rotten Tomatoes)
A version of this article appeared previously in Current Magazine and on Electric Current
Copyright © 2006, 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
Between Eraserhead and The Grapes of Wrath : The American Astronaut
Between Eraserhead and The Grapes of Wrath dances
The American Astronaut
by Henry Edward Hardy
The American Astronaut (2001) is surely the best, worst, and only, black-and-white comedy-western-sci-fi rockabilly punk surrealistic musical. Think of it as one part Luis Bruñel’s Un chien andalou, one part David Lynch’s Eraserhead, one part John Carpenter’s Dark Star, three parts punk-shockabilly music video, one part Devo show, one part Busby Berkeley extravaganza, one part John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath plus liberal doses of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Now add a cat, a cloned woman in a box, the Blueberry Pirate, the Boy Who Actually Saw a Woman’s Breast and a mad Professor who kills for no reason and you have the basic ingredients for this unique film.
The American Astronaut is the work of Cory McAbee and his band “The Billy Nayer Show.” The music is polymorphous, ranging from chants to rockabilly to hardcore post-punk. Rocco Sisto goes far over the top as Professor Hess, a Doctor Strangelove-like character as William Burroughs or Charles Bukowski might write him. The Professor pursues bushy side-burned protagonist Samuel Curtis (McAbee) and his companions throughout the dilapidated bar, mining colony and space barn of this rather minimal solar system.
The special effects and props in The American Astronaut are intentionally on the level of Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space or Robot Monster. This is a boy’s universe; women are abstracted to the succinct tale of a woman’s breast as told by the Boy: “It was soft and round.” The film has a disconcerting but somewhat charming nastiness to it. Veteran character actor Tom Aldredge’s long, spellbinding recitation of the old saw about the “Hertz Donut” is weirder and creepier in its funny-not-funniness than anything this side of The Aristocrats.
The 2005 video release special features section includes storyboards, promotional art, and a talk-through by McAbee during a live showing of the film in a New York bar. Also included is the peculiar chant, “Don’t you fear the Yeti’s of Rio? No, no, no, no, no, no!”
The American Astronaut is at least half-witty, and the production numbers are spectacular in a grimy way. The high contrast black-and-white cinematography is outstanding, and the music is energetic and entertaining. This very strange film is worth a look for those with a sense of humor and an open mind.
The American Astronaut is now available on DVD. For more information, visit http://www.americanastronaut.com.
A version of this review was previously published in Current Magazine and at Electric Current.
The American Astronaut
The American Astronaut (IMDB)
The American Astronaut (Rotten Tomatoes)
Copyright © 2006, 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
About Scanlyze
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Scanlyze is an online magazine of essays, commentary, satire, and analysis. Were we half as clever, for inspiration we would take Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Swift, Montaigne, or Seneca.
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