Maiko Haaaan!!!
So I got this dvd the other day FINALLY. The vendor it seems had been run over by a taxi and spent ten days in hospital. So he says anyway. ;P
I WISH their latest film No More Cry!!! would get released in HK so I can afford to buy it. (I'm sorry but 45 bucks for a movie I'll probably only watch once is ridiculous. It just is.) Kudokun sure likes his exclamation marks. Apparently this was a box office hit too. And Sadawo is being "Super Nice" this time...scary!!! XD
Anyway here's my ramblings on this film, in the raw and not at all tidy.
Bridge of Dreams.
What strange creatures we humans are, obsessing and competing our lives away in a kind of trance. Both obsessive "romantic" love and blind ambition are the same dream fantasy game. This madness in Sadawos' character is at fever pitch. He is almost tiringly manic. It's overkill if you ask me, and he loses my sympathy early on. This NEVER happens when he sings. Quite the opposite. He always has you right in the palm of his hand as a singer. But I suppose his character is making a point. I just think he needed some paradox infused. No-one is totally irredeemable. This is the principle of good comedy. You get an asshole and you redeem him. But instead Sadawo seems to benefit from his assholery at every turn. It makes him hard to penetrate as a character, so to speak. It's just a wall of static manic noise.
And the point is that society feeds from this exactly this kind of deluded mania. This is the kind of mindless energy that makes the world turn, which is why it's in such a god awful mess. I have to appreciate Kudokuns subtlety and wisdom, if not his character building. Maybe I just wanted to be as charmed by Sadawo on screen as I am with his singing. But maybe if this had been done the movie might have lost it's bite.
The subject matter is uncomfortably relevant too. Real people are interchangeable in this obsessive mind set. It doesn't matter which Maiko he gets, he's just interested in them as a kind of symbol. What he actually does, or who he's with isn't the point, it's just about living out his fantasy and winning the game. He is as much an asshole at the end as he was at the beginning.
Living on the Bridge of Dreams, all that happens is you end up drowning in your own delusions. And yet isn't a life unadulterated by dreams a pointless and mundane exercise? Isn't that why the money bags bankrolls all of Sadawos' crazy schemes? He knows obsession and delusion are the basis of all human activity. Dare I say of creativity?
Real creativity however, requires becoming more sensitive and aware, not less. And sometimes the dreams can prevent this. We are so lost in them that we fail to notice the real consequences of our actions. So it's a balancing act like everything else.
I recommend this film. It's beautiful and clever and thoughtful. And funny! And the musical interludes are gorgeous.
I WISH their latest film No More Cry!!! would get released in HK so I can afford to buy it. (I'm sorry but 45 bucks for a movie I'll probably only watch once is ridiculous. It just is.) Kudokun sure likes his exclamation marks. Apparently this was a box office hit too. And Sadawo is being "Super Nice" this time...scary!!! XD
Anyway here's my ramblings on this film, in the raw and not at all tidy.
Bridge of Dreams.
What strange creatures we humans are, obsessing and competing our lives away in a kind of trance. Both obsessive "romantic" love and blind ambition are the same dream fantasy game. This madness in Sadawos' character is at fever pitch. He is almost tiringly manic. It's overkill if you ask me, and he loses my sympathy early on. This NEVER happens when he sings. Quite the opposite. He always has you right in the palm of his hand as a singer. But I suppose his character is making a point. I just think he needed some paradox infused. No-one is totally irredeemable. This is the principle of good comedy. You get an asshole and you redeem him. But instead Sadawo seems to benefit from his assholery at every turn. It makes him hard to penetrate as a character, so to speak. It's just a wall of static manic noise.
And the point is that society feeds from this exactly this kind of deluded mania. This is the kind of mindless energy that makes the world turn, which is why it's in such a god awful mess. I have to appreciate Kudokuns subtlety and wisdom, if not his character building. Maybe I just wanted to be as charmed by Sadawo on screen as I am with his singing. But maybe if this had been done the movie might have lost it's bite.
The subject matter is uncomfortably relevant too. Real people are interchangeable in this obsessive mind set. It doesn't matter which Maiko he gets, he's just interested in them as a kind of symbol. What he actually does, or who he's with isn't the point, it's just about living out his fantasy and winning the game. He is as much an asshole at the end as he was at the beginning.
Living on the Bridge of Dreams, all that happens is you end up drowning in your own delusions. And yet isn't a life unadulterated by dreams a pointless and mundane exercise? Isn't that why the money bags bankrolls all of Sadawos' crazy schemes? He knows obsession and delusion are the basis of all human activity. Dare I say of creativity?
Real creativity however, requires becoming more sensitive and aware, not less. And sometimes the dreams can prevent this. We are so lost in them that we fail to notice the real consequences of our actions. So it's a balancing act like everything else.
I recommend this film. It's beautiful and clever and thoughtful. And funny! And the musical interludes are gorgeous.