![]() ![]() There is not a lot I can further say about this beautiful film except that it is best taken on an image by image base with the real plot as a second consideration. He successfully does what all great artists do, he makes his art truly great and therefore truly subjective. In doing this Mizoguchi distances some viewers, while at the same time bringing many to a level impossible with any other director (Eastern or Western). The camera moves much slower as to give you a sense of your surroundings, to allow the film to become part of you. It brings an element of sheer beauty I have not been acquainted with by any Japanese director. Though it is not nearly as accessible a film as Kurosawa's period pieces of the same time, Ugetsu succeeds on a level that they do not. In the end the loss of what was important all along becomes apparent, and a message of humility becomes the films point. In time they both get to a point where this is a reality, where one of them fulfills what he desires, the other is led into a surrealistic haze by a demonic seductress. Throughout the film we see two peasants progressively grow to lust for the riches of the world, Genjurô desires to sell his wares and become wealthy, while Tobei desires to be a samurai and have power. The film nonetheless has some very impressive subject matter to its credit, dealing with war, greed and the line between reality and the spiritual world. They alone say more then most films do in their entire message. A sabotaged boat drifting away in the fog with nothing but a dead man aboard, an enchantress' seduction of a naive peasant and a landscape dotted with danger and war, all make up some of the most beautiful images, that would not be out of place in a painting. What drew me into the film deepest was the usage of not style or substance (if that makes sense), but rather these images that remained on your mind long after the film was finished. Rather it attempts (successfully) to give a drawn out, slightly surrealistic atmosphere that exhibits images of lingering beauty throughout its short length. It neither has the ferocious, exiting energy that Kurosawa successfully utilized, nor the slow mundane nature that Ozu became known for. In the Asian Future section for up-and-coming Asian directors the Best Asian Future Award went to Iranian director Amirhossein Asgari’s “Borderless,” while The Spirit of Asia Award was given to Cambodian helmer Sotho Kulkar’s “The Last Reel.Ugetsu is a film that separates itself from both period pieces of its time and from Japanese film of any era. The winner of the best actor prize was Robert Wieckiewicz, who played an alcoholic writer in Polish director Wojtek Smarzowski’s “The Mighty Angel,” while the best actress award went to Rie Miyazawa for her turn as an embezzling bank employee in Daihachi Yoshida’s “Pale Moon.” The film, the only one of the fifteen competition entries from Japan, also scooped the Audience Award. ![]() The special jury prize went to “The Lesson,” a drama about a teacher in a Bulgarian elementary school by another directing duo, Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov. Jury head, James Gunn said “I loved the movie and I’m excited about the futures of all the filmmakers involved with it.” The two Safdies also scooped the best director award. TOKYO - Joshua and Benny Safdie’s gritty New York drug scene drama “Heaven Knows What” was awarded the Tokyo Grand Prix on Friday at the closing ceremony of the Tokyo International Film Festival’s 27th edition, which unspooled Oct. ![]()
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