Issue #342: Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Hitchcock Obsession
Big news for Paradox Newsletter: Kaiji (1996) returns. From September 2023 until October 2023, I wrote about the first four volumes of the manga:
I pledged to write and read only in accordance with the official Denpa books publication schedule for the English language translation of the manga. For reasons I am not aware of, Denpaโs publication was seriously delayed. But now, finally, Kaiji volume five is headed to my doorstep. That means a new Kaiji essay โ look for it on September 9th or 16th.
I didnโt mention it when I watched it a few weeks ago, but I got to catch Soi Cheangโs Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (2024) during its brief stint in U.S. theaters. The movie is highly recommended, I wrote about it in more detail here. Such great action, a ridiculously lengthy runtime that feels short, cool stuff happening almost constantly. The movie reminded me of this scene from Baki (2018):
Walled In cements my admiration for Cheang, which I wrote about extensively here:
More recently, I watched Blink Twice (2024) and Alien: Romulus (2024) back to back. Blink Twice exceeded expectations, whereas Alien: Romulus was a total disappointment.
Romulusโs failures arenโt just that itโs middling and cast with a group of charisma vacuums who look like they would be more comfortable on the set of a made for TV movie for a childrenโs network. It is a soulless, irritating retread of two vastly superior movies without any of the ambition that characterizes the 2010s revival of the series by Ridley Scott. I am shocked the movie has gotten such a good reception. The sets look nice and the movie isnโt ugly. I can imagine it as ambient visuals during a Halloween party.
Blink Twice, on the other hand, is exceptional. Itโs one of those movies that I want to write about more substantively, but have to remark about now in case it slips through the cracks of my writing itinerary. It is a work, situated between the designation โhorrorโ and โthriller,โ writing into an emerging tradition of socially (and social media) conscious works. It has shades of Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) (except itโs good), Spree (2020), and even Get Out (2017). Kravitz is not subtle in her first feature as a director, but she packs a lot of ideas into a very kinetic, fast moving film. The performances are arresting, but the thriller structure makes it โwatchable,โ though those with sensitivities to the kind of stuff normally called out in โcontent warningsโ should proceed with caution.
Cigarette Embers in Cure and Rear Window
Among the many writing projects Iโve had on the back burner, there has been a really important one I have been preparing, slowly but surely, week by week: a comprehensive analysis of Kiyoshi Kurosawaโs Cure (1997). I just watched it again this weekend, taking copious notes. I am still collecting all of my screenshots and developing a strong thesis and outline. I hadnโt watched it since 2020, and the experience of watching it now was very different โ Iโm not sure itโs a film that lends itself to the kind of rigorous anatomizing I was trying to do. It is very dense, almost too dense, so I found myself going back over previous notes and correcting them, changing details I had written down previously, something that felt a little unusual having seen it before. But, there was a lot I forgot.
More than anything else, I noticed the film has a lot of individual scenes. When I prepare for writing about a movie in depth, something I havenโt done recently, I outline every scene and organize the screenshots into my various sections. It shifts between the lingering scenes of Takabe eating and someone walking down a corridor for less than a minute. Really, how many times did Kurosawa film someone walking down a corridor for Cure? I never associated him with this โ I think of Hideaki Anno as the paradigmatic director of people-walking-down-corridors. But now Iโll be looking for it in all of his films I watch and rewatch.
I havenโt quite figured it out the rhythm of the shifting scene length yet. This is just to preempt my writing about Cure, but thereโs another way I want to approach the film today in light of a film I was lucky enough to rewatch this weekend: Rear Window (1954). I think Iโve confessed in newsletters past that I see myself as the type of critic who can make associations between or among any works provided Iโve seen them in close proximity to one another. I try to curb this tendency as best I can, but the similarity between Cure and Rear Window hit me like a truck. If my belief in their cinematic relationship is only a result of the strong connections I can create with no other basis than watching the films consecutively, I have to surrender this tendency.
They are deeply related at the level of their form and symbolic concerns. Both works are about knowing and not knowing something. In each, the addition of knowledge is antagonistic to sense. In Cure, the more Takabe (Koji Yakusho) learns about Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara), the less sense anything makes. Even in his final attempt to assemble Mamiyaโs actions into something coherent, he enters the space of incoherence, supplanting Mamiya from it. The same is true for L. B. Jefferies (James Stewart), who uncovers a mystery which itself is at odds with knowledge. In Jefferiesโ case, it is because Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) has planted fake information to mislead. But Thorwald is also in the morass of nonsense, totally unable to determine why Jefferies would observe him and subsequently expose Thorwaldโs crime.
Thereโs a dual layer to Thorwaldโs confusion. On the surface, the way he has been prodded by Jefferies is, as far as Thorwald knows, outside of the scope of the law. So, thereโs an obvious plot reason Thorwald would think he is being blackmailed rather than subject to citizens arrest. On the other hand, Stella (Thelma Ritter) and Lisa (Grace Kelly) make much out of the deviant voyeurism Jefferies engages in. Stella even suggests that Jefferiesโ activity is criminal. In that sense, Thorwaldโs questioning is a result of the obscenity of Jefferiesโ action. It is impossible to rationally explain why one would watch their neighbor in this way.
The two films are also lit very similarly. They are dark, with scenes often unfolding in poorer lighting than your average film noir. This feeds into the knowledge theme for both texts. The illumination of rationality cannot totally account for the darkness of human subjectivity. In Cure, this becomes especially important because Mamiya is using hypnosis to cause people to commit murder. One mechanism he uses involves a lighter and a lit cigarette. The rhythm and movement of the lights and their contrast with darkness allow him to enact hypnotic suggestion on his victims.
Close up shots of the burning end of Mamiyaโs cigarette are evocative enough, but when Takabe finds Mamiya for the first time, Mamiya is smoking with his body in complete darkness.
Mamiya claims to be unable to determine where he is or where Takabe demands he move to. Mamiya, supposedly, cannot even comprehend geographical space, something that should be self-evident to him.
There is an equally evocative moment where Thorwald smokes in darkness in his apartment, as Jefferies and Lisa spy on him from across the way while the rest of the neighborhood laments the murder of another familyโs dog.
Hereโs the two next to each other:
As I went on to discover, Rear Window is a very important film for Kurosawa. His first feature, a pink film called Kandagawa Pervert Wars (1983), is an extended riff on the Hitchcock classic. Though Kandagawa is by all accounts an utter failure as a film or tribute to Hitchcock, Kurosawa wears his influences on his sleeve. Early in the film, Aki (Usagi Asล) spies on her neighbor, a young man (Houen Kishino), studying for university entrance exams. In front of him are a litany of film titles, mostly European or American.
The scene unfolds similarly to how one can imagine Kurosawaโs own frustration making this kind of film. The message is clear: sex gets in the way of the studying, and making, great films. Jefferies himself suffers the same kind of interruption to his clandestine spying, but the potential murder by Thorwald interrupts Lisaโs libido rather than being swept away by it (another apt figure of speech for Kandagawa, as the final set piece involves a riverโs current).
As short as Kandagawa falls compared to Rear Window, Cure is his do-over. And, indeed, it is much more successful. But if one is going to read anything into Kandagawa (which I donโt recommendโฆ do as I say, not as I do), it is that the vicissitudes of domestic life are an interruption to another kind of more fulfilling life, whether thatโs a life of the mind or a life of the detective out to set things right and bring coherence to an incoherent and dangerous world. Sex and domesticity, counterintuitively, are part of that incoherent world that imperils the subject. Rear Window has much the same message, with the romantic โ specifically, marital โ relationship as the site of murder, professional failure, injury, and mayhem.
In the broader arc of Kurosawaโs career, his indebtedness to Hitchcock is clear. But one might not think to relate Rear Window and Cure. The smoldering end of the cigarette reveals their meaningful interconnection.
Weekly Reading List
Itโs Samiโs world, weโre all just living in it. Snake Super Health (imessage edition) is my first stop for workout, diet, and supplement advice. Now, the world can benefit.
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/19/nx-s1-5068033/homicide-life-on-the-street-is-available-to-stream-on-peacock โ Homicide: Life on the Street (1993), one of my favorite shows of all time, is available on Peacock. Itโs the first time itโs ever streamed. The show is critically acclaimed. Andre Braugher gives a barnburner performance every episode. He embodies being โlocked inโ on this show. But heโs not the only one. Richard Belzer is in it. Yaphet Kotto is in it. This show is no joke. I have two box sets. Different ones โ one from A&A and one from Shout! Factory.
They couldnโt clear all the music in the streaming version, so those box sets are still the best way to watch it. But this is the easiest way to watch it. It also has the best picture. Iโll take what I can get.
Conner OโMalley talking about watching Billions (2016) in 60 second increments is an important piece of tv criticism.
Until next time.