Released from prison after serving a sentence for killing a rival gangster, Yakuza Muraki returns to his Funada clan, but is surprised that the two rival clans joined forces in the meantime. He has sex with a woman who works as a prostitute in a local clock shop. Muraki enjoys gambling, and meets Saeko, a woman who gambles because she is excited by thrills. They spend time together, even though he is surprised by her instance of searching more and more thrills, either by driving fast during the night or taking drugs. When a member of their clan is killed, the Yakuza boss orders that he must be avenged, so Muraki volunteers, and informs Saeko, who is excited to watch this. Muraki enters a church, walks to the rival gangster and stabs him to death, while Saeko watches, emotionless. Muraki lands in prison again, and is informed that Saeko has been killed by Yoh.
Inlcuded in Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies, "Pale Flower" is more of a character study than a crime drama, since it is a meditation on emotionally stunted people who yearn for more and more excitement to feel something, until they ultimately burn out. The director Masahiro Shinoda has a sense for great shot compositions, framing even the conventional scenes into something more cinematic and asethetic, and the black and white cinematography helps him in capturing this look of dread. "Pale Flower" starts off with a great opening monologue of the anti-hero Muraki, who laments at the world ("Why are so many people crammed into cage-like boxes? People, such strange animals. What are they living for? Their faces are lifeless, dead. They are desperately pretending to be alive"), yet the rest of the film is less so literately philosophical, and more observably philosophical, through its events and character interactions. Several sequences stand out due to their unusual context: the anti-hero is in a bowling alley with his Yakuza friends, a young lad walks up to him, asks if he is Muraki, and after Muraki confirms this, the lad suddenly draws a knife at him, but Muraki beats him by hitting his head with a bottle while the Yakuza take the would-be assassin away; the Yakuza boss laments to a colleague that he is over 50 years old and is thus practically ashamed to show himself outside; Muraki is about to perform an assassination himself, yet the boss advises him to get his teeth fixed first, before going to jail; Saeko randomly starts a car race with a stranger with a beard through the streets during the night, and all of a sudden said stranger stops his car, Saeko stops as well, and the stranger just laughs, pats Muraki and Saeko on the back, and drives away, as if to congratulate them for being such good sports on such a spontaneous notice. The movie is flawed in its loose storyline which kind of gets lost after 40 minutes, meandering until it becomes almost vague at times, and the epilogue is superflous, yet it brings its point across: in Saeko's final close-up, it demonstrates the limits of ever greater sensation of thrills, which, once crossed, lead only to numbness and death.
Grade:+++
No comments:
Post a Comment