Father Geek reporting in... Here's Edgard with Grozilla's coverage for today of the wonderful little festival in Deauville...
Hello folks... Edgard here with Grozilla's second
report from the American Film Festival of Deauville
(his first report is in the Euro AICN news of this
week). Strangely for an American Cinema festival,
Grozilla reviews here a Japanese film !! But you will
understand why... Anyway, I don't really know if
Takeshi Kitano has a large fan base in the States but
here in France, he gets more and more attention... and
for good reasons !! So if you don't know any Kitano's
film I urge you to see one (personally I really like
SONATINE and HANA-BI)... Here's Grozilla with the
review of BROTHER.
Anyway, I don't really know if
Takeshi Kitano has a large fan base in the States but
here in France, he gets more and more attention... and
for good reasons !! So if you don't know any Kitano's
film I urge you to see one (personally I really like
SONATINE and HANA-BI)... Here's Grozilla with the
review of BROTHER.
Before the press conference tomorrow, here's the review of the disturbing new film from Takeshi Kitano : BROTHER
Little absurdity : just because this film takes place partly in the USA, BROTHER, the new film from Japanese director Takeshi Kitano is presented in the Festival for American Cinema in Deauville. But that's not that stupid as BROTHER is also a film on the absurdity of out-dated rules, or codes of honour which have no place in a modern world. "Beat" Takeshi is Aniki, a yakuza forced to leave Japan if he doesn't want to be executed by two gangs. He goes to Los Angeles to find his half brother who has emigrated there a long time before. Of course this half brother hangs around the mafia. And Aniki decides he would apply the Japanese methods with the L.A. gangs....
And Kitano applies his methods to the American cinema : BROTHER is probably is most depressing film as it follows - like De Palma's "Scarface" - a social ascent guided by fatality. Fans of Kitano already know his particular way of filming, made from a mix between cynicism, ellipses and explosions of rough violence. All of these thrown in a very dark film, with a "thick" photography, between grey and blue. BROTHER seems to announce the end of an ancient world when it shows how useless are the rules of loyalty today.
We can think that Aniki, extremly cold, and played by an uncompromising Kitano (as mute and "icy" than in "Violent Cop"), could really well become as popular than the Tony Montana from the De Palma's film. BROTHER even seems like a rereading of "Scarface", maybe even more painful because of its mix between grandiloquence (the last part is a succession of violent scenes) and minimalism. Stagering, BROTHER becomes particularly moving in the end, which even if it repeats his previous films like SONATINE or HANA-BI, still shows a very pessimistic Kitano, worthy heir of the nihilism of a Sam Peckinpah.
Those who discovered Kitano with his previous film, "Kikujiro's Summer", the "brightest" film he made, will have to go back to reality. BROTHER is disturbing and dirty.
Grozilla
