Coupled Confessions

If you haven’t seen it already… go see it now.

Christopher Nolan never fails to impress, and this just might be his best film yet! It’s incredible that he not only directed but also wrote the screenplay for Inception — it is such a complex and unique film that has kept people talking for days after seeing it. I think it’s pretty safe to say that this is the movie of the year…. I don’t care if we’re only halfway through, I just can’t see any other movies surpassing this one.

Nolan can add this to his growing pile of groundbreaking work, atop Memento, Batman Begins, The Prestige, and The Dark Knight… he’s got to be one of the most genius and daring filmmakers of our time. Leonardo DiCaprio, too, has been building quite a career for himself with the great roles he’s been taking on in the past few years — in The Departed, Blood Diamond, and Shutter Island, to name a few. I noticed that in his most recent movies, he’s been playing the same sort of haunted, disturbed characters, but he definitely boasts a wide breadth in his acting ability. He’s come a long way since the days of being the teenaged heartthrob from Romeo and Juliet and Titanic, of whom I collected clippings and taped all over my locker. Those days are long gone, but I have a lot of respect for him as an actor nowadays.

There’s a lot of discussion and theories being thrown around about what really happened in this film. Are they alive? Are they dead? Are they dreaming the whole time? Will we ever really know? And does it matter? What is your take?

I was in the mood for a Japanese film last week, so Dan and I watched Still Walking, which has been getting a lot of critical acclaim in the past year. The original title is 歩いても歩いても (“Aruitemo Aruitemo”) and more literally translates to “Even if You Walk and Walk,” and it centers around a family, the Yokoyama’s. (What a coincidence! ) Directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda,who made the heartbreaking film Nobody Knows, Still Walking is a melodrama that observes the myriad of feelings that characterize this family. Regret. Sorrow. Jealousy. Disappointment. Deceit. Love. All presented in the most subtle way imaginable — nothing is in-your-face or flashy about this movie. Delicately rendered and gently delivered, the story has so many layers to it despite this restraint.

Still Walking resonated with me because I could see a lot of my own family in the film (not just because we share the same last name… haha*). I’m not sure if it’s specific to Japanese family culture, but no matter how close-knit your family is, there’s still a degree of awkwardness that comes into play. You love each other, but oftentimes it’s sort of an unspoken thing that never really surfaces as open affection. Though born and raised in America, I grew up in a fairly traditional Japanese family, and restraint, moderation, and gaman (quiet endurance) were always emphasized. It was a slight culture shock to come into Dan’s family, where everyone is always hugging each other and openly affectionate. I do think that traditionally, many Japanese families are too stoic and often as a result incommunicative, but I think that their culture of respect and filial piety is very important to preserve. It definitely made me think about what sort of a “family culture” I’d like to nurture when we have our own family someday. I’m sure it’s a common struggle for a lot of Asian Americans to find a happy medium….

I would recommend Still Walking, although I’m not entirely sure if it is deserving of the 100% it got on Rotten Tomatoes. I personally think it pales against the striking masterpiece Okuribito (Departures), a Japanese film which also got a lot of attention last year.

Dan and I have wanted to see The Cove since we saw previews for it last year, and we finally watched it this past weekend. It was one the most riveting and heartwrenching documentaries I have ever seen.

I have of course been aware of Japan’s whaling for years now, as well as of how barbaric and dangerous it is to the ecological balance of the world. Still, it’s one thing to hear about it and read it on the news, and another thing to witness the actual slaughter.

I was ignorant, however, of the shocking proportions of dolphin hunting that goes on in the country, as well as of the fact that Japan is responsible for shipping out their dolphins to marine parks such as Sea World. What’s worse, they kill the thousands of other dolphins that don’t make the cut for their meat, which is mercury-laden and should not even have a place in the human diet.

The movie follows former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry and fellow activists in their efforts to document and expose the dolphin hunting operations in Taiji in Wakayama prefecture of Japan. They elude the local guards and authorities to successfully plant video camera in the cove at which these dolphins are herded in, away from the public eye, to be butchered en masse. I was deeply saddened, angered, and ashamed by the horrific reality that was brought to light in this film, and towards the end I was fighting back both tears and nausea as the waters turned red from the bloodbath. I felt ill with guilt from having just come back from visiting Sea World last weekend, and from the sinking realization of what I had unknowingly supported. It’s tragic that due to cover-ups by the Japanese fishing industry, the majority of Japan’s citizens also remain uninformed and clueless of the human depravity in Taiji that results in the unnecessary and inhumane killing of 23,000 dolphins every year. Every year.

The Cove is a film that I feel that everyone must see. It is eye-opening and powerful… but most importantly, it is the truth. A truth that, though ugly, needs to be communicated to as many people as possible, so that the atrocious operations of Taiji can be permanently shut down. Please watch the movie, and find out what you can do to help.

I’ve been wanting to see this movie for months now, and tonight I finally got to watch it. Shocking and deeply tragic, it packs quite a brutal punch. It was at once the most powerful and painful movie of 2009. Definitely a must-see.

(And I almost didn’t recognize Mariah Carey! She looks totally different when she’s not all dolled up.)

Dan and I rented and watched a Japanese movie called Bushi no Ichibun (the American title is Love and Honor) last night. I’d been wanting to watch it since 2007 when it was being aired in the States, but missed it while it was in theaters. We found a video rental place in Berkeley that carries an impressive number of Japanese movies recently and so when I found this movie there, I had to rent it.

Shinnojo Mimura(Takuya Kimura) as a lower-ranked samurai who is employed by his clan as a poison taster to the load of the clan has lived thrifty but happy life with his beautiful wife Kayo(Rei… Takuya Kimura plays Shinnojo Mimura, a lower-ranked samurai whose duty in his clan is to act as a poison taster to the shogun. He lives a humble but happy life with his wife Kayo and their elderly servant Tokuhei. Life as he knows it changes drastically when one day the meal he taste-tests contains toxic food poisoning which leaves him blind. The movie follows him as he comes to terms with his blindness and the fact that he can no longer serve as a samurai, as well as a shocking secret he discovers about his dutiful wife that he cannot bring himself to forgive.

I thought this was pretty well executed as a period piece film. It differs from the traditional samurai film in that the drama is confined within the domestic space, and the struggles are more internal rather than external — there is only one sword fight throughout the whole film, which just happens during the climatic scene. It’s understated for a samurai movie, but still keeps the viewer engaged and illustrates well the code of honor and rigidness that was so characteristic of Japanese feudal society. As a critic pointed out, it shows that “the deepest wound a samurai may suffer does not come from any blade.”

Although Takuya Kimura (or Kimutaku, as he is popularly known in Japan) is a compelling and talented actor, his own real life persona is so strong and well-known that, from my perspective, he seems to always somehow infuse too much of himself into the character, instead of the other way around where he really morphs into the role that he is playing. Or maybe it’s that he is always given the same type of protagonist-hero roles that it comes across that way. I felt like there was a little less of the overpowering Kimutaku-ness this time, though, with his character being an unusually vulnerable and thus more believable hero.