Easy Rider

crazy adventures, powerful trips: booze, drugs, women and motorcycles.

born to be wild.

photo credit: impawards

The Maltese Falcon

My fifth film noir of the weekend.

"The stuff that dreams are made of." ~ never gets old.

Tokyo Sonata

"Tokyo Sonata" is a story set in modern-day Tokyo about the Sasakis, a middle class family of four whose lives were at a crossroad. Faced with the typical problems that usually confront people at some point in their lives, the family is forced to deal with the challenges head-on. And in their own way, they were able find out more about themselves, their strengths and weaknesses, exorcising their individual demons in the process.

The movie provides the viewers with a glimpse into the lives of how a family in a patriarchal society like Japan operates and functions. It also provides us with a look into some of the Japanese Culture's mores, beliefs and values. To an outsider not familiar with Japanese customs, some of the scenes may be offending, especially when it comes to corporal punishment and the influence and power a Japanese father wields over his family.

There is Ryūhei (Teruyuki Kagawa), who had to deal with the shame of being fired from his job when the company he was working with outsourced their operations to China to save money. He decided not to tell his wife about his predicament and continued with his daily routine so as not to burden his unsuspecting wife of his fate. At his age, he struggled to find a new job that would suit his taste and former stature, until, in the end, he is faced with the choice of going hungry or swallowing his pride and taking an honest but 'demeaning' job as a janitor in a mall. He is a proud but complex man: strong on the outside but soft on the inside.

His wife, Megumi (Kyōko Koizumi), often seen wearing an apron, is a traditional Japanese housewife who runs the household, knowing her way around the kitchen but always aware of her place in the presence of her husband. She is kind and gentle when it comes to dealing with her husband and children, but also has the inner strength to withstand reality when fate dealt her a crippling blow.

One of their children, Takeshi (Yū Koyanagi), is a typical 'rebellious but vulnerable teen' who decided to enlist with the U.S. Army, and was sent to fight in Iraq, wherein he found his 'awakening' and followed wherever his heart led him.

On the other hand, Kenji (Kai Inowaki) is a gifted and sensitive child whose musical gift was unbeknownst to his family. He spent his lunch money on piano lessons he couldn't afford, and had to practice with a non-working Roland keyboard that he found in the dumpster. He paid the price for his indiscretion, and while it took the intercession of his piano teacher, his family finally realized his prodigious talent in music and allowed him to follow his dreams.

Although the movie sometimes diverted from its smooth path, Director Kiyoshi Kurosowa deftly wielded the tale of the Sasaki family into a beautiful and touching film, worthy of the accolades that it received in various international film festivals it was entered in.

Over the course of the movie, the Sasaki family descended into the lowest points of their lives: They were confronted with situations that tested their characters' resolve. They were tempted to throw away their core values in exchange for monetary gain. Their experiences left them scarred but unbowed. They had to undergo a purification process to start healing their broken lives, cleanse their souls and re-establish harmony within the family again.

But the Sasaki family's journey towards a new life will have to start through their son, Kenji, and his music. If we have doubts about the ability of music to help us with our inner turmoil, Tokyo Sonata will help erase that. If we have second thoughts about the healing power of music, Tokyo Sonata will surely answer that.

And with Kenji's haunting performance of Claude Debussy's 'Clair de Lune' at the end, there is only one word to sum it all up - Catharsis.



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First Published on Yahoo! Voices

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Light the fuse...

Boom!

The 4th installment surely was full of fireworks and worth the wait. And on IMAX, this movie was simply spectacular.

The Girl with the multi- colored hair

Mary Elizabeth Winstead aka Ramona V. Flowers

What would a guy do to win her love?

Fight and defeat her seven evil exes even if one of them is a girl.

Scott Pilgrim did.

How about you?

Well, the movie is good for cheap laugh but her beauty is not.

Yes, there is really a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

Cloud NINE

Despite the lousy box office showing and some critics bashing it to high heavens, I still loved

NINE.



Sorry folks but I fell in love with Marion Cotillard a long time ago and after watching this film I guess I can honestly say that I still am. She'll haunt you with her voice. She'll kill you with her eyes. She's just a beautiful presence on the screen.



The movie is not the best one that I have seen in years but I'll take it especially in this age of bad sequels and screw- up comedies. At least this is way better than The Love Guru or worse, The Hangover.

Fergie is a great revelation. Judi Dench is steady. Nicole Kidman is as luminous as ever. And Sophia Loren is just Sophia Loren.

Be Italian... Be Italian...



Daniel Day Lewis é meraviglioso. Marion Cotillard é fantastico..Kate Hudson é stupendo...




BUT



Penélope Cruz is just downright funny and fiery.

Excelente!

Aleksandr Petrov's The Old Man and the Sea

Here’s a gem from Aleksandr Petrov -- a film that is both short and sweet, and also a very good way of blending artistry with technology. And no disrespect to Disney and company, but I consider this masterpiece to be one of the most beautiful animations I've ever seen.

Yes, the Russian animator/director famous for being a proponent of Romantic Realism in his works made this short 20-minute animated film based on Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.

Mr. Petrov’s technique may look old-school to some, but it's not. It is in reality solid, unique and beautiful. By just looking at the pictures, it surely evokes varied thoughts and emotions, surely painting a thousand words. Of course, it would help if one reads the book, since it would be far easier to understand this winner of the 1999 Academy Awards for Animated Short Film.



I will let Wikipedia provide the detailed explanation regarding the painstaking work and process that the artist/director, with the help of technology, did to breathe life into Papa’s classic man versus fish tale--

...the first large-format animated film ever made. Technically impressive, the film is made entirely in pastel oil paintings on glass, a technique mastered by only a handful of animators in the world. By using his fingertips instead of a paintbrush on different glass sheets positioned on multiple levels, each covered with slow-drying oil paints, he was able to add depth to his paintings. After photographing each frame painted on the glass sheets, which was four times larger than the usual A4-sized canvas, he had to slightly modify the painting for the next frame and so on. It took Aleksandr Petrov over two years, from March 1997 through April 1999, to paint each of the 29,000+ frames. For the shooting of the frames a special adapted motion-control camera system was built, probably the most precise computerized animation stand ever made. On this an IMAX camera was mounted, and a video-assist camera was then attached to the IMAX camera.

No Doubt

‘ saw the Tony Award- winning play at the Walter Kerr on Broadway in ‘05 with Cherry Jones as Sister Aloysius and Brian F. O‘Byrne as Father Flynn. It was no doubt one of the best plays I’ve seen.

So, make no mistake, I will definitely watch the film adaptation; with Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman in the cast as well as Pulitzer Prize- winning playwright John Patrick Shanley directing; can’t get any better than that.

Charlie Wilson's War

Watching the movie Charlie Wilson’s War, which was based on George Crile’s non- fiction bestseller Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History brought me back in time when as a 9- year old boy growing up in a rustic town in Albay, the Philippines, I first learned of the news of the Soviet Union’s Invasion of Afghanistan on Christmas Day in 1979 from the pages of The Bulletin Today and Daily Express that my Gran’ Pa used to read, an event that caught the world by surprise that was soon followed by the US-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics in protest of the invasion.

And while people in Manila can watch the news on several TV channels, we only got two channels working at the time on our side of the planet depending on where your typical aerial TV antenna was positioned/pointed at-- we have RPN from Iriga City on our west side and GMA from Legaspi City up north.

I tell you, it was a funny exercise one had to do just to get a fair TV reception during those days not to mention the struggle one had to endure while you were up there on the hot tin roof trying your best to position those aluminum antennas to perfection so that you can watch some shows on your black & white console TV starting at 6 o’clock in the evening if you were lucky enough to catch the unpredictable and unreliable schedule of the networks.

No news from the Radios for me either, since the Philippines was still under Martial Law at that time and most local commentators probably think that World News was not worth the airtime vis-à-vis the New Society’s mumbo-jumbos that they were asked to praise to high heavens on air by the lapdogs of the Dictator Marcos.

But I had an abundance of Time, Newsweek and Asiaweek magazines courtesy of a doctor who rented my aunt’s house next door as his residence cum clinic. Those magazines plus the usual newspaper fare were my ticket to the world, current- events wise.

Anyway, back to the movie, Charlie Wilson, played by Tom Hanks, is a Democratic Texas Congressman who loves booze, drugs and women and all the perks that his position can get to satisfy his insatiable appetite for hedonism.

He was your typical politically incorrect Congressman who can dish out lines like “You can teach a woman how to type but you can’t teach them to grow tits” when asked why he preferred beautiful and voluptuous women in his office and get away with it. He was your typical leech on Capitol Hill that sucked the blood out of the nation’s coffers. He was a loud, foul- mouthed, indifferent, and arrogant man until he saw CBS’ Dan Rather on TV interviewing the Mujahideens that were fighting the Evil Empire while on a field assignment in war- torn Afghanistan.



His curiosity piqued, he began to inquire about the US role in the on-going conflict that led him to a disgruntled CIA Case Officer Gus Avrakotos (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) as well as to the bed and politics of the known anti- communist and Houston Socialite Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts) who arranged for him to meet Pakistani strongman Gen. Muhammad Zia-Ul- Haq as well as visit the Afghan refugee camps in Peshawar where he had an epiphany after seeing and hearing from the very mouths of the refugees the atrocities being committed by the Soviets to the Afghan people.

Thus, the beginning of the Soviet’s downfall in Afghanistan was sealed. And the Unholy Alliance among the players in the Reagan Administration’s not-so-secret proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan was born. And the Central Intelligence Agency’s dirty role in the war effort from across the border in Pakistan to return the favor to the Russians what they did to America by way of the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Vietnam began.

Director Mike Nichols showed us the wheeling and dealing that is the hallmark of the America’s brand of Democracy as well as the policies that go with it whether foreign or domestic.-- from the “favorable exchange” in Congress to an inside look at political fund-raising gatherings to sleeping with the enemy. You name ‘em and the film showed ‘em albeit in passing but just enough for the viewers to get a glimpse and understanding of the real deal, of how the system work behind those facades that the customary players (the US Government, the Media Conglomerates, Congress, etc) want the people to believe.

He showed us how Charlie Wilson as a member of the House Defense Appropriations Sub- Committee raised the ante by doubling the initial measly $5 million budget for the US support to the Mujahideens that eventually reached almost $1 billion with a lot of help from Arab Countries like Saudi Arabia and the rich Gulf States.

He showed us how the CIA procured arms to supply the Afghans with weapons that can level the playing field against the Russians. This is realpolitik in its truest sense of the word, when strange bedfellows like the Isrealis, Egyptians, Saudis and Pakistanis can set aside their religious differences with the aid of the Almighty Dollars from Uncle Sam worked together to fight a “God-less” enemy in Afghanistan.

True enough, with the help of the new sophisticated weapons in their hands, the Mujahideens turned the tides of war in their favor and the USSR, rather than get stuck in the quagmire, did the unthinkable and withdrew after years of trying to tame Afghanistan, their pride and reputation as a superpower be damned.

Of course, this was aided by the winds of change blowing wherein Mikhail Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika gaining grounds in the Russian home front and other Warsaw Pact Nations that eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet Empire.

The Film tried its best to convey as much as it can History- wise to the viewing public but found wanting. They resorted to footages as well as dialogues where names of prominent personalities were floated to make the film more authentic but did not impress--

What with an F-16 being shot down by a Stinger surface to air missile instead of the obvious Russian fighter jets like the Migs and Sukhois? Although they got the menacing Mi- 24 Hind Helicopter on some scenes, still they could have done away with that shot of the US F-16 being blown up in the sky.


Also they made it appear that the “Lion of Panjshir” Ahmad Shah Massoud as the recipient of the bulk of the CIA’s arms delivery but anybody who knows his Afghan War History knew that this was not the case since the arms were delivered by the Pakistanis to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a Pashtun rebel leader with deep ties with Pakistan rather than to the forces of Gen. Massoud.

Although Massoud was a known ally of the West and a brilliant war tactician but being a Tajik did not endear him to the Pakistanis who serve as the conduit of arms getting into Afghanistan and so was denied the much needed arms supply.

Was this a ploy on the part of the right- wingers to mislead the American public that the CIA did support Gen. Massoud's forces rather than the ones that the Pakistanis nurtured until it metamorphosed into the dreaded Talibans and in the long run Al Qaeda?

The Pashtuns' and Tajiks' deep- rooted hatred for each other can be summed in the lines uttered in the movie that became a source of a little controversy, “When a Tajik man wants to make love to a woman, his first choice is a Pashtun man.”

By the way, Massoud was the same leader of the Northern Alliance who warned about Al- Qaeda’s plan to attack the West and was assassinated during a supposed media interview by the henchmen of Osama Bin Laden posing as reporters just two days before the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center.

Charlie Wilson on advice from Gus Avrakotos who knows better that the war is not over even after the withdrawal of the Russians asked his friends in Congress to allocate funds for the construction of schools in Afghanistan and was rebuked instead by one of his colleagues by telling him that, “nobody gives a shit about a school in Pakistan”, that only show you how some members the US Congress were illiterate not only on matters of foreign policy but also on geography.


The emergence of Al Qaeda, Taliban, Jemaah Islamiya, Abu Sayaff and all the other terrorist groups that were responsible for the worst terrorists attacks that the world has seen began when the “Victors” became oblivious of the fact that while driving the Soviets out of Afghanistan is sweet victory in a sense, they did not see the consequences of their subsequent actions when they left the war-weary Afghans with their country in shambles to fend for themselves.

These lapses and miscalculations of the Powers That Be resulted in us reaping the rotten fruits of their indifference. And it can be said that the seeds of the modern form of terrorism were sown in the blood- splattered soil of Afghanistan.

The lessons of the Afghan War can be summed up in these lines that appeared at the end of the movie,


“These things happened . They were glorious and they changed the world…
…and then we fucked up the end game.”

Yes, indeed.

Note: This is Part One of what I call The Afghanistan Trilogy- The Kite Runner, Lions for Lambs and Charlie Wilson's War.

The Good Shepherd

I went out yesterday and watched the movie The Good Shepherd and bumped into an acquaintance of mine from work near the restroom while she was waiting for her boyfriend who had to answer the call of nature.

I asked her about the movie and she was candid enough to say that she did not understand it at all. She maybe telling the truth for Robert De Niro’s movie about the birth of America’s foremost spy agency, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is not your typical spy movie.

It is a movie that left a lot of questions and delves on a lot of issues in passing that will left the casual viewer with no or limited knowledge about the history of the CIA and the circumstances around its formation to scratch their heads as they try figure out heads and tails of every scene.

To the uninitiated, the CIA was born out of the old Office of Strategic Services (OSS) of World War II then headed by the legendary Colonel Wild Bill Donovan who proposed to then US President Harry S. Truman to create an intelligence agency that will deal both in overt and covert operations for the United States which led to its establishment in January 1946.

Thus, the agency that would be responsible for fighting the United States government’s dirty war was born.

During its history the CIA was responsible directly or indirectly in maintaining that US Allies in the fight against communism would be supported militarily and financially by the United States where the dictum “I don’t care if he is a son of a bitch as long as he is our son of a bitch” was the norm when questions about the morality and soundness of supporting a particular dictator to stay in power as well as the toppling of governments that are against or perceived to be against the US and too- friendly with the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries like East Germany, Cuba and Bulgaria.

The movie has delved into the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion where Cuban exiles in Miami where trained and armed by the Firm but were abandoned to Fidel Castro’s forces when the plan proved unsuccessful and too hot to handle. They also mentioned in passing the unseen hand of the Office in toppling the new government of Chilean President Salvador Allende and installing their protégé Antonio Pinochet in office through military coup de etat where he would rule that South American nation with an iron hand for decades.

Air America, Iran- Contra, Low Intensity Conflict were just some of the things that the sinister minds of the people in Langley in Fairfax County, Virginia have concocted in its dirty war against the Evil Empire.

Even the agency’s use of the mob was shown when Wilson (Matt Damon) paid the Boss (Joe Pesci) a visit where he issued veiled threats that only reinforced the fact that they would leave no stone unturned when it comes to dealing with perceived enemies of the state.



The central theme of the movie was focused through the eyes and life of one man, the character Edward Wilson which was likely but loosely based on the life of James Jesus Angleton, the head of Counterintelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency from 1954 to 1974 who was played by Matt Damon as a stiff, cold, and calculating operative whose eyes were opened through the evil that men do and whose life was suck into the cloak and dagger world of espionage that characterize the Cold War; where revenge and betrayal were the name of the game; where there are no permanent friends but only permanent interests; where duplicity is a common trait; where family comes only second to his work and country; where the interest of the United Sates is paramount; where disinformation when handled correctly is power.

Young and promising Ivy League student Wilson was recruited at Yale by the secret society Skull and Bones where he was inducted into their world of secrecy whose members were a veritable who’s who in the elite circle of the government.

Bonesmen then and now are said to be so powerful that they have elected presidents, appointed supreme court justices, and count prominent business leaders among its members. Even George W. Bush, the current president, is said to be a member of this so-called fraternity in Yale.

Fast forward to his stint with the OSS and his years of training with the British spy agency where he learned and honed his craft under the watchful eyes of his old “professor” in poetry in Yale that he “betrayed” years earlier for being suspected as a German spy and Nazi recruiter in the US. He was compelled by an FBI agent (Alec Baldwin) to spy for him as a patriotic American citizen. The death of his erstwhile mentor at the hands of his colleagues was an eye opener for him that will guide his every move as he went further with his career in the clandestine world of espionage.


Many viewers and critics alike have found the movie wanting in action and fast-paced story-telling as would have been expected in a movie that deals specifically with the CIA. But the movie is not your typical slam- bang spy thriller but rather a deep and long dissection of the history the US foremost intelligence agency and the role of a certain kind of men in its birth, infancy and to what is now the largest and most sophisticated intelligence organization in the world.

In the end, you can only sympathize with these men and commiserate with their families who sacrificed everything so that America can sleep in peace knowing that there are a group of men out there watching and protecting her back.

The all star ensemble for this espionage- drama; from Matt Damon to William Hurt to Tammy Blachard to John Turturro to Alec Baldwin to Angelina Jolie were like every piece that Robert de Niro has put into place to complete the desired picture and they did deliver.



And on the lighter side, give me Angelina Jolie anytime, with her classic beauty on the screen and I will not complain enduring 160 minutes of sitting in a dark, musty theater. Ha-ha.

Again, if you're not familiar with History especially about the Cold War and other dark, cold spy stuffs, you may find this film tedious and boring.

You better watch Happy Feet, instead.

Master Scorsese's The Departed

Martin Scorsese is a master filmmaker and one of my favorite directors of all time; his films which are veritable masterpieces showed the enormous talent of the man behind the camera.

However, it is really funny and a shame that for whatever reasons he has been snubbed numerous times by the Academy Awards.

If there is a film director out there worthy of the golden statue it is Signore Scorsese--

In my list of movies - Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Aviator and now, The Departed in no particular order will always be in the top echelons of movies borne out of Hollywood that could stand on its own merits and worthy story-telling.

The Departed which was based on the Hong Kong‘s 2002 movie, Infernal Affairs once again showed his unequaled touch especially when the subject is about the Mafia and Organized Crime. He has mastered the genre like no other and knows every thing there is like the palm of his hands.



With a powerful all star cast, he can do no wrong here--

Jack Nicholson as the Boston Irish Mob Boss Frank Costello is a joy to watch and proves that he can still dish out his trademark “evil self” without much effort unlike most of the younger actors of today, his distracting eyebrows notwithstanding. Hahaha!

Leonardo Di Caprio as the rookie undercover cop Billy Costigan tasks to penetrate the mob in South Boston has really grown up on this film and Scorsese has done wonders for him and he‘s one actor who’s so at home with the master having been under his tutelage in the past in such notable films like The Aviator and Gangs of New York. He really has evolved into one of the finest young actors of today and he will be a force to reckon with in the film industry for years to come if he will just play his cards right.

Matt Damon is his usual exceptional cool but explosive self as the morally- torn Colin Sullivan, the mob boss’ protégé since his childhood and groomed to be his eyes and ears in the police force.

Martin Sheen and Mark Wahlberg these two veteran actors played the two no- nonsense dedicated cops Queenan and Dignam whose main job and obsession is to eliminate the Irish Mob in Boston’s crime landscape and have done what they have been paid to do as the driven handlers of Billy Costigan in his undercover work against Costello.

Alec Baldwin’s short but meaty performance as the overeager agent, Special Investigations Unit Captain Ellerby is worth mentioning here and he has shown maturity as an actor through the years by accepting some meaty but worthy non- lead roles in his career.

Scorsese has woven an action- packed 150- minutes of a thriller here. I must admit that The Departed is the first movie that I have watched in the movie house this year that had my undivided attention right from the beginning up until the end and I tell you it‘s already a tribute to the Director for I usually fall asleep in the movie house in the middle of the majority of movies (boy, they are many) that I have seen this year prompting a friend to quip that the movie house is just a place for me to steal a wink or two, a hideaway from the hassles of my job.

The film had me on the edge of my seat and glued my eyes on the screen as one scene after scene unraveled until it reached its peak in the end. It is one "bloody" but superb filmmaking that catches your attention which younger directors of today should try to emulate and follow.

But even the master could sometimes overlooked something like the scene in the movie house where Costigan (Di Caprio) was trailing Costello(Nicholson) in his rendezvous with Sullivan (Damon) where he is shown holding his cell phone in silent mode "texting" his handlers about the so-called meeting between the mole and the puppeteer.

Afterwards when Sullivan exited the movie theater and Costigan tried to tail him into the narrow side streets, his cell phone suddenly rang that caught Sullivan’s attention and prompting Costigan to scamper into an unscheduled detour to hide thus, letting his prey escape in the process. Such a glaring boo-boo from a well-trained undercover operative in the cutthroat world of the Mafia could only mean one thing in real life--Death.



There is no letdown here though, for all in all, The Departed is still the best film of 2006 in my book owing to the actor’s captivating performances under the baton of the master storyteller if only the people at the Academy Awards should finally shun their undeserved and unfounded bias to one of the best filmmakers of all time and hand him the coveted Best Director Oscars come awards night which in my opinion is a well- deserved one and is long overdue.

Memoirs of a Geisha

“My world is as forbidden as it is fragile; without its mysteries, it cannot survive.”--Sayuri

Thus, began our journey on the silver screen into the world and mystique of the Geisha, a world that is so alien to the West that Director Rob Marshall wants us to view and understand in his epic 2 hours and 41 minutes of film that was based on Arthur Golden’s 1997 Bestselling Novel “Memoirs of a Geisha.”

To be a Geisha is not easy. To be one, you have to cast your past away and live in a world that is far different from the ordinary; years of rigorous training in centuries- old traditions of voice, dance and music as well as the obsession of perfecting an art that is to entertain and please men.

A Geisha is neither a courtesan nor a prostitute nor do they harbor any illusion of becoming the wife of the men that they have met along the way. Instead they are a part of a culture that is hard to fathom in the eyes of the western world and is a moving work of art through their learned and coordinated movements; from the flick of their fingers to the tilting of their heads down to the enigmatic smiles and graceful feather-like strides. Their cultured singing voices and their samisen- playing skills all added to its glamour and mystique to the casual observer.



Their grace and elegance in the ancient Japanese tradition of Tea Ceremony is worth noting. It is poetry in motion, so to speak. Neither a single movie nor a hundred books can capture the real essence of the mystical and legendary world of the Geisha.

Director Robert Marshall (Chicago) can only capture bits and pieces of it but thanks to his filmmaking skills and talent, he was able to bring to the widescreen the book’s visual richness and dramatic story- telling that conveys beauty, romance and sadness to the viewer.

The movie tells the story of young Chiyo’s journey from her impoverished life in the fishing village into a whole new world that is the Gion District of Kyoto, Japan’s ancient capital until her rise to the top of the Geisha-dom in the 1930s.Chiyo (played by Suzuka Ohgo/ later named Sayuri) was brought to the Geisha house by her father and found herself a virtual slave by the dominating “Mother” (Kaori Momoi) and became the recipient of the house’s “Star” Geisha Hatsumomo’s (Gong Li) ill- treatment who quickly realized the young girl as a potential threat that will one day steal her throne.

Chiyo simply turned the other cheek and prefer to suffer in silence rather than fight back against Hatsumomo’s atrocities towards her until a stranger (Ken Watanabe- The Chairman) spotted her crying on a bridge offered his handkerchief to wipe away her tears and even bought her some cold refreshment to lift her sagging morale and waning spirits, an act of kindness which the young girl had never experienced before that subsequently left a lasting impression on her as she vowed to repay the kind- hearted Chairman in the only way that she is capable of- by becoming a Geisha herself.

Sayuri (Ziyi Zhang), now a grown up with her beautiful expressive eyes and stunning beauty and well –schooled by the elegant Mameha (Michelle Yeoh), Hatsumomo’s rival in the fine arts of the profession, have turned the tables on the now aging Hatsumomo where finally she beat her in her own game.

The movie with its talented casts of actors and performers have offered us juts a glimpse of the secret world of the Geisha that is once forbidden from the prying eyes of outsiders.

Of course the film had its drawbacks and flaws but all in all Marshall came up with a film that is gorgeous to see, mysterious yet elegant. A visual feast that is hypnotic likened to the Chrysanthemums slowly falling on the ground.

The experience can be summed up in Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics in the Broadway musical, “Pacific Overtures”---

“We sit inside the screens and contemplate the view that’s painted on the screens, more beautiful than true…”


Suggested Readings:

Memoirs of a Geisha- Arthur Golden
Geisha- Liza Dalby
Geisha: A Living Tradition- Kyoko Aihara
‘Geisha: Women of Japan’s Flower and Willow World’- Tina Skinner and Mary L. Martin
‘Madame Sadayakko: The Geisha Who Bewitched the West’-Lesley

*Posted in Bill Blahs March 6, 2006