A SCENE AT THE SEA. (1991) WRITTEN, DIRECTED AND EDITED BY TAKESHI KITANO. MUSIC BY JOE HISAISHI. CINEMATOGRAPHY BY KATSUMI YANAGISHIMA.
STARRING CLAUDE MAKI AND HIROKO
OSHIMA.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
This is a marvellous film from one of
Japan's most acclaimed directors, Takeshi Kitano or 'Beat' Takeshi
as he's otherwise known from his days on the Japanese comedy club
circuit in the 1980s.
He's
famous for his deadpan facial expressions while acting, and it's obvious that he's
instructed his actors and actresses to take that approach too
(successfully, I might add!)
in this sort of drama-and-romantic- comedy combined.
Takeshi uses a kind of 'show, not
tell' method of storytelling, in
that he assumes a certain level of intelligence on the part of the
viewer and never insults this intelligence by hitting people over the
head with what's going on at any given moment. I like that
non-heavy-handed approach and find it refreshing, if I may say so.
Takeshi's the thinking person's director, haha. Let's have
a peep at the plot of this humorous tearjerker.
Shigeru is an attractive curly-haired
young Japanese garbage man. He and his girlfriend Takako are both
deaf, so this is a quiet, peaceful film containing only the minimum
of dialogue. There aren't any gangsters or cops in it, either, by the
way, both of which appear frequently in Takeshi's other films.
Takeshi doesn't act in this film like he does in some of his others,
which was disappointing. I kept hoping he'd pop up briefly, even, in
an Alfred Hitchcock-style cameo, but no dice, sadly.
Anyway, we get the distinct impression
that Shigeru and Takako live a very quiet life together. Even if
Shigeru weren't deaf, I absolutely bet that he still wouldn't say a
whole lot and he still wouldn't consult his girlfriend or even ask
for her opinion before he made any half-assed decisions or went off
half-baked on a wild goose chase.
I'm not saying that he does all that in
this film, but he definitely does his own thing, whatever that might
be, and if Takako wants to tag along, she can (always walking
several paces behind him, of course!, but
if she doesn't want to, then he doesn't much mind either way. And
she's supposed to be his fiancée
and everything. That was one
aspect of Shigeru's character I wasn't crazy about. Guys like that
drive me nuts. I'll
tell you straight, I can't be doing with 'em...!
Any-hoo,
one day, doing his rounds on the bins as usual, Shigeru finds an old
broken surfboard that someone's abandoned. Without consulting Takako,
he brings it home, cleans it up and takes it down to the nearby beach
for a surf, while poor Takako sits quietly watching him, folding and
minding his clothes for him. Folding and minding his
clothes for him...?
Jaysis,
I wonder if all Japanese
women are so devoted to their menfolk...? No offence to Japanese
women, but Takako is a total doormat. I kind of wished she'd show
some gumption and tell Shigeru that she wasn't going to put up with
his s**t and his selfishness anymore.
After a
period of adjustment to the world of surfing, during which he's a bit of a
joke to the local surfing community, Shigeru starts to get good at
it. It's all the hours of practice while his bird gets a numb butt
sitting on the sand waiting for him to finish.
He acquires a fancy
wetsuit from the owner of a sports shop, a guy who used to be a
surfing legend himself. Shigeru starts entering surfing competitions.
The world's his oyster now. Or is it...?
The two leads
have the deadpan thing down to a fine art. Mind you, they were
directed by the master of deadpan himself, the wonderful Beat
Takeshi, so it's no wonder they do it so well. Takako is definitely
devoted to Shigeru and seems to have no life outside of him, but it's
doubtful whether Shigeru would choose Takako over his surfboard if he
ever had to choose.
Surfing
isn't a sport I would ever have had the remotest interest in before
(although I'd picked up a fair bit about it from popular
Australian soap HOME AND AWAY, the soap which gave Thor, aka the
ravishingly handsome Chris Hemsworth, his big acting break)
but I did enjoy this beautiful film with its gorgeous musical score and panoramic views of endless calm blue oceans and blue,
blue skies.
The two
lads who decide to take up surfing when they see Shigeru doing it are
hilarious. They have to share first one surfboard and then one
wetsuit between them while the other 'cool' surfers
and their surfer groupies laugh at them. It's apparently dog-eat-dog
in the cut-throat surfing world...!
This
expertly directed blend of tragedy and comedy is out on Blu-Ray on
September 12th
2016, courtesy of Third Window films. It's actually the first time that the film
has been available on Blu-Ray anywhere in the world and the first
1,000 copies sold will feature a limited edition cardboard slipcase
with new illustrated artwork by Marie Bergeron.
Even
without that as an incentive, the film is still well worth buying. Do it
for the genius that is Takeshi Kitano. With your money, he could
finally afford that new ivory backscratcher...! That's a 'Mr.
Burns' joke from THE
SIMPSONS, by the way. Mr. Kitano
definitely did not authorise me to say that. I'm sure he has all the
money he could ever possibly need for ivory backscratchers...
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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