30 Countries Parts 26 - 28 (Julia/Yojimbo/Tokyo Sonata)

Julia (2008) Dir. Erick Zonca

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Part 26 of the 30 Countries project.

For the purposes of this project this movie is classed as at least partially being of Mexican origin as per its listing on imdb.

This movie owes it all to Tilda Swinton. Without her this would be nothing. Her titular character is a trainwreck, the kind of alcoholic people only dream of writing when they create fluff like Smashed, add to that murder, kidnapping, fleeing to Mexico and a complete lack on conscience and you have the ingredients for an interesting crime thriller and a good redemption story.

Julia is living in the moment, making this shit up as she goes and we are along for the ride with her. The editing representing the characters blackouts is handled well but largely this is a bit of a messy story that at 2.5 hours takes far too long to be told. But Swinton gives it her all, she's a wild thing driven by fear and insecurities and it shows in every scene.

Yojimbo (1961) Dir. Akira Kurosawa

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Part 27 of the 30 Countries project.

For the purposes of this project this movie is classed as at least partially being of Japanese origin as per its listing on imdb.

Forgive me lords of cinema but I just didn't enjoy this classic as much as I think I was supposed to. Pretty universally loved, Kuroswa's tale of Sanjuro the ronin and how he cleaned up the town with no name left me frustrated more than anything.

Of course it is a well told story with excellent visual style, it is Kurosawa, but it sure does amble along at its own pace with a series of unnecessary plot points that meander all over the place, half an hour less and you've got a tightly plotted movie here. The other issue I have is with the acting style and the attempts to play for humour; I'm sure it is traditional for the genre, at least, but it and I just don't get along. I expected a bit more subtlety from a film that inspired Clint Eastwood to not move a facial muscle for two hours.

One of the many great things about this film is the influence it wielded and still wields, for example despite the unnecessary nature of some of the plot it is easy to see where every yakuza movie since stole their plot from like one long sixty year battle without honour and humanity.

Tokyo Sonata (2008) Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Part 28 of the 30 Countries project.

For the purposes of this project this movie is classed as at least partially being of Hong Kong origin as per its listing on imdb.

I've seen too many films about financial crises and unemployment I think. At the same time Swedish youths are rioting over long term unemployment I saw this film about the effect of down-sizing and outsourcing on Japanese salarymen and the disintegration of a nuclear family. That this one doesn't exactly end where you think it will is a blessing indeed. I do however think the Swedish riots might have been more relevant to me.

This film is pretty much what you might expect if you took a slow moving family drama and asked Kiyoshi Kurosawa to get involved with it. A comfortable life slowly disintegrates and suddenly the movie takes a left turn in to the unexpected which has Kurosawa's prints all over it. This juxtaposition of the real and unreal dragged me out of the slow moving drama/horror and with my apathy towards such GFC related storylines these days I don't care to take any messages from it.

Give me some of that post-communism miserabilia from Eastern European countries over this any day.