Search - Japon on DVD

A failed attempt at an "art" film...

Grigory's Girl | NYC | 10/04/2008

(2 out of 5 stars)

"I should like this film, but I don't. It has a lot of qualities I admire in films. Long takes, ambiguity, excellent, widescreen photography, yet, I can't help but think that the director read a book on "how to make an art film", which listed the above techniques, and then made this film (and threw in 2 horses screwing and a man making love to an 80 year old woman). I found this almost a hodgepodge of art house cliches. This film doesn't seemed to have evolved organically or naturally, like the films it emulates (like the work of Tarkovsky, which this film has been compared to). It feels like a carbon copy of an art film. Like I had said in a previous review of Bruno Dumont's 29 Palms and Gus Van Sant's Gerry, there seems to be a lot of posers out today making "slow, ambiguous" films in an attempt to be arty. They try to emulate the masters (like Tarr, Tarkovsky, and Jodorowsky), but they miss the point. Art is a mysterious process, coming out when you least expect it. There's no formula. I think it says more about our culture when a filmmaker makes a film like this with all the "art film" elements there, there's a tendency to rush out and automatically declare it a masterpiece. This is misguided and foolish thinking. A work of art must connect on a much deeper level. Just because it resembles a work of art doesn't make it one. This film is not completely worthless, as there is some good camerawork and the setting is beautiful, but I found the whole exercise superficial and shallow."

Tarkovsky in Color

Pinaki Ghosh | Austin, TX USA | 03/30/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was just stumped - this was Tarkovsky in color - the same canvas, the same expressions and the same compositions - minimalism in dialogue. The movie is about a painter who moves to the back drop villages of Mexico to die but in the process meets an eighty year old woman whose simplicity of life changes him. At some point you really do get lost in the canvas and feel that you are living the life with the actors - the rendition of the painters character is quite amazing - the relationship which culminates in sex is beyond description - but again it is so natural - the landscape reminded me of my travels in copper canyon - it is God's country - this is one movie you can have in your collection without hesitation"