Alright kids, part 2 of Brett Watches Way Too Many Criterion Movies and Slowly Becomes a Stuck-up Film Snob. In this installment, a triple threat of Seijun Suzuki films, a double dose of satirical farce, and a bonafide classic.
Branded to Kill (1967): Seijun Suzuki’s masterpiece. The narrative of a Yakuza killer who’s betrayed and hunted after botching a job is dizzying and fractured, beautifully shot and drenched in shadow, with a lot of lonely harmonica music to set the mood. Suzuki was fired after making this, unable to do another movie for a whole decade, but man was it worth it. I can’t help but feel like a couple of my favorite videogames, Killer7 and No More Heroes, were heavily influenced by this. It's the king of existential hitman films, I think.
Tokyo Drifter (1966): I watched this for the first time earlier this year, back when Hulu had the Criterion movies available to watch for free for a brief period, and watched it again immediately after finishing Branded to Kill. It doesn’t hit as hard, it’s a bit more polished and not as fractured, but you can see how Suzuki got to Branded from this. It’s also my favorite of his. The colors are fantastic, the soundtrack is wonderful, and I really want the white suit that our hero Tetsu wears at the end of the movie. This movie also contains what may be my favorite barroom brawl in cinema, dozens of dudes slugging it out and drunkenly tearing the set to shreds. I’m a sucker for that kind of thing.
Youth of the Beast (1963): As you can see, I kind of watched Suzuki’s films in reverse chronological order. So with Tokyo Drifter, I was like “ah, that’s where (blank) from Branded to Kill came from!” With this, it was kind of the same thing. The movie opens in black and white, we see an object in color, then boom, the movie switches to full color and not long after starts to go off the rails, just like Tokyo Drifter. I wish I knew more about your standard Yakuza films of the time so I can better understand how subversive this was at the time of release, to know what’s being subverted, but I’m afraid I can’t. Narratively speaking, everything makes a bit more sense here as a thug is playing two gangs against each other in his search for the one who killed a cop. It’s not nearly as fractured as the other two. I thought it was going to end up being like Yojimbo or Fistful of Dollars all over again, but things take a few good twists into a dark conclusion, punctuated once more by that sad harmonica I love hearing in these movies.
Who Are You, Polly Maggoo? (1966): From William Klein, the same gentleman who unleashed Mr. Freedom upon an unsuspecting world. This is another satire, this time tearing down the fashion industry, as Klein was once a photographer for Vogue. It’s not as mean and nasty as Mr. Freedom, it’s much more whimsical and silly. Prince Igor (a man whose bedroom leads me to believe he has aspirations of becoming a Bond villain), who loves the titular model, wishes to marry her and sends two men to find her. The subplot of them walking around Paris like a couple of drunken buffoons searching for her in the most inept ways possible is great. The bulk of the movie follows a TV show filming an episode all about Polly, while they simultaneously critique the fashion industry as a whole. I liked it quite a bit, it was a fun watch.
Daisies (1966): Like Tokyo Drifter, I’d already watched this once earlier this year and loved it. Polly Maggoo actually reminded me a lot of this, which is what led me to watching it again. Two girls (sisters?) named Marie decide the world is a spoiled mess, and so go about taking advantage of older men, destroying things, and eating everything in sight. Full disclosure? There are two reasons why I love this nonsensical farce of a movie so much. One is that it reminds me a lot of the Dada movement and videos I watched on it when I was in college, I'm in love with their whimsical chaos. The second is that one of the girls, the blonde, reminds me quite a bit of my own girlfriend, who also very much loves breaking men down, eating lots of food, and getting into drunken shenanigans. Plus I love how disjointed and visually interesting it is. Colors change at the drop of a hat, there are some great cut-up tricks and montages, clever editing, and more. Like a film student who learned all these visual tricks and crammed them all into one movie. I want to do a comic similar to this one day.
The Hidden Fortress (1958): After the immense international success of the Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa brings it on once more with this movie, known primarily as a huge influence on George Lucas and the first Star Wars movie. I worked my way through the original Star Wars trilogy early last month, and yeah, the similarities are quite obvious upon seeing this for the first time. Toshiro Mifune steals the show once again as a samurai general, hooking up with a couple of bumbling, bickering peasants to get a tomboyish 16-year-old princess and 200 pieces of gold across a border. Best scene? Mifune on horseback, sword in hand, chasing down and killing two enemy soldiers, charging into their camp, and starting a duel with their own general, an old friend of his. It’s hard for me to say a whole lot about this movie, but it’s an absolute classic for very good reasons and you should watch it.
NEXT TIME: German sci-fi, and probably more samurai movies, not sure yet.