Before you go see 'Let Me In'...

Let me just say I expect this will be like 'Quarantine' was to '[REC]' - like 'The Ring' was to 'Ringu', what 'The Grudge' was to 'Ju-On', etc. etc.



Which is basically to say that Hollywood doesn't get that what makes these movies great has a lot to do with the [i]culture[/i] they are set in.



Seriously, this remaking of foreign films because Americans are too lazy to read subtitles is even worse than the 'we must make everything 3D' trend.



SO... for those of you EVEN THINKING about seeing 'Let Me In' - you had better have already SEEN 'Let the Right One In', or you're going to be ruining a fantastic experience.



For those who missed it - my review of the original Låt den rätte komma:



A tender little coming of age story about first love ...and the vampire next door!



Since the beginning of film history, every decade has one or two really good vampire films that stand out. But the genre seemed to peak in the 1980s and has been on a steep downward slide ever since. The 90s produced only a few, and just when it looked like we were going to get all the way through the 2000s without any really standout candidates... along comes 'Let the Right One In'...



Oskar is an introverted school kid, bullied by his classmates, and misunderstood by adults. One night he meets Eli, his next door neighbor who is also a bit of a misfit. Slowly they begin to understand each other on a level that no one else ever has. Alternately through scenes both gentle and horrific, the film lets us know that putting trust in just anyone can be fatal, but when trust is earned... when you let the right one in... your life can change forever.



Despite all the media hoopla about last year's blockbuster 'Twilight', the creators of that film could learn a truckload about love, adolescent angst, and vampires from this film. 'Let the Right One In' eschews all the slick polish and prettiness of Hollywood films like 'Twilight' and 'Underworld' in favor of an honest real looking world full of human frailty. In some ways it does for the vampire story what 'Ginger Snaps' did for the werewolf tale.



'Let the Right One In' is a great reminder that it's what's on the inside that counts. Especially if what's inside contains the RDA of hemoglobin!



Highly recommended.

Japan's Edo Period - on film!

Kwaidan



Kwaidan (sometimes Kaidan) literally means “ghost story”. Given the generic term, there have been several movies that have had this title, but the one we are referring to is Masaki Kobayashi's Kaidan from 1964.

Basically this film is something like a Japanese Tales From the Crypt, containing four horror stories in vibrant color Tohoscope, all set in Japan’s Edo Period.

The first story, ‘The Black Hair’, is reminiscent of Ugetsu, wherein a man leaves his wife to attain social status, only to encounter supernatural ruin. The second story, ‘The Woman in the Snow’ is a haunting ghost story of the kind that is universally familiar. The third story, ‘Hoichi the Earless’, is the longest, but perhaps the best, including a historical recreation of a Japanese naval battle. The final story, ‘In a Bowl of Tea’, is probably the weakest, but it does have some of the best martial arts.

Overall, Kwaidan is full of beautiful set pieces and costumes. The sparse, haunting Japanese music is a stark contrast to American film scores, and really works to give these stories an eerie feel. Winner of a Special Jury prize at Cannes, it’s a cultural experience recommended to everyone, but particularly to American audiences who’ve been turned on to Japanese horror in the last decade thanks to imports like The Ring and The Grudge.




Kagemusha

When talking about Japanese cinema, one sooner or later, inevitably runs into Akira Kurosawa. While Kurosawa needs no introduction, I am constantly astounded at how many people never went to see Ran in its initial release. To read the reviews on the web, it seems like the majority of Americans never saw this film until the re-release in the 2000s! What did they think the rest of us had been gushing over for the past 25 years?

Well, if there are any new converts to that epic Kurosawa masterpiece, I encourage them to seek out Kagemusha (literally ‘Shadow Warrior’), the film Kurosawa made just prior to Ran.

The story concerns petty thief who is hired to masquerade as a deceased Clan Lord, and who turns out to be more true to the spirit of the Clan's Lord than the actual generals who are his handlers.

There is no doubt that this is a flawed gem. The subtitles are verbose, and having to read them takes away from appreciating the cinematography – which is gorgeous. There is also an overabundance of long takes that contributes to the film’s extensive 2 hour and 40 minute run time. But by far the biggest flaw is the music score, which is annoying and repetitious, with a reliance on brass instrumentation, giving it a distinctly un-Japanese (or at least un-Edo Period) flavor.

Still, with all it’s flaws, it’s still excellent, and comes across like a rough draft for Ran.

Z: The 60s didn't just happen in America and Vietnam

Z

Much like The Manchurian Candidate, Z is a political conspiracy thriller that was both controversial from the time it was released and largely unavailable for a long time, resulting in its legend growing over time. Unlike The Manchurian Candidate, though, which is allegedly pure fiction, Z, while ostensibly a work of fiction, is generally believed to be a pretty accurate account of real events. Though there are no flags in the film, no names of nations, and even military insignia are relatively generic, it’s generally believed to be a thinly veiled expose of political repression in Greece in 1960s.

The plot deals with the assassination of a respected doctor and anti-war activist and the subsequent events both amongst the population and within the government. The film is unrelenting in its scathing indictment of the-powers-that-be. Even though it’s a thriller, its pretty heavy stuff, and it racked up Oscars for Best Editing and Best Foreign Film, and to this day it remains one of the few foreign films to ever be nominated in the Best Film category.

Again, much like The Manchurian Candidate, the legend has outgrown the film (see review of Manchurian Candidate, The). While it’s still a good story, it is definitely dated not in terms of content (history is history after all), but in terms of filmmaking technique. Many action sequences seem pretty lightweight given what has come since. Furthermore, modern audiences – especially monolingual English speakers – are likely to find it drags, and is overly talky, perhaps even preachy. While this might not be a problem for a film like All the President’s Men, or the aforementioned Manchurian Candidate, when faced with big chunks of subtitling, well, you can imagine the drawback.

Still, there is much to commend it. It didn’t win an Academy Award for editing for no reason. The way the film cuts together with the music score in the latter part of the film is something that was almost unprecedented in cinema up to that time.