Naked Youth: A Story of Cruelty

A scrappy, nihilistic Japanese film from 1960 about teenage delinquents, made by Nagisa Oshima – he of In The Realm of the Senses fame. Naked Youth is only his second feature, and I liked its energy and honesty a lot more. Angela Carter felt betrayed by the willful inexplicability of Senses, but here Oshima is disarmingly direct. His Bonnie & Clyde Romeo & Juliet say precisely what they mean, and what Oshima means through them. And as a result you get a very clear portrait of the times – where a younger generation strains not only against the conformity of their parents, but the idealism of their older siblings. Instead the central lovers believe in nothing but their desires, and even that is crushed out of them by the necessity of selling yourself to live.

Because the only way Kiyoshi, a violent student, can survive is by selling his high-school girlfriend Makoto. They meet when he saves her from being raped by a man driving her home from a jazz bar. The man pays them for not going to the police. Later they make money by engineering the same scenario – Makoto leads men on and then Kiyoshi assaults and robs them when they go too far. The beautiful Makoto admits to feeling uncomfortable being objectified and operationalised in this way. But Kiyoshi sells his beauty as well – sleeping with an older woman who employs him at a hotel. Both youths are rescued from prison not by each other, but by their older lovers. That experience teaches Kiyoshi what objectification means, and he dies trying to save Makoto from that fate.

The tragedy is that Makoto cannot escape Kiyoshi. The most arresting and memorable shot of the film is when Kiyoshi breaks Makoto and rapes her. Makoto agrees to a date because she is grateful for her rescue, and attracted to her rescuer. But after a fun ride on a speedboat, Kiyoshi throws her into the water. A long tracking shot follows Makoto as she tries not to drown, with Kiyoshi (head out of frame) walking calmly beside her, kicking her hands away from the bank. She has no choice but to give in. Stockholm Syndrome sets in and she falls in love with her captor, despite his cruelty (ironically, some of their sweetest scenes together are by the water). At the end of the film she is willing to prostitute herself again for him. When he refuses, she has no meaning or value left and kills herself.

That level of masochism feels like a pointed rebuke at the valorisation of female suffering in Ozu and Mizoguchi. But the same elegaic tone is inherited from the two masters – an older generation lost for words at the out-of-control desires, broiling rage, and uninhibited individualism of the 1960s. It's an arresting vision, far more so than (what I've seen of) the contemporaneous French 'New Wave' it is often compared with.

All-Star Superman

Realised I haven't written anything on the blog in a while. I have been participating in a few London Graphic Novel Network discussions, which have been a lot of fun. The convo on All-Star Superman was particularly interesting. My contribution is below – mainly fleshing out the stuff I wrote back in 2011, but interesting for spurring this take from David Allison over at the Mindless Ones...

Not sure if Morrison uses the analogy himself, but superheroes have been described as modern myths. Just realised while writing this that the Roger Lancelyn Green retellings of Robin Hood, King Arthur etc I read as a child rather nicely highlight the proto-superheroic nature of the source material – the same cast of characters in the same setting going off to have adventures and coming together in world-historical crossovers. My sense is that Morrison is in that myths and legends headspace. For example the second issue feels to me like a retelling of the Bluebeard fairy-tale (albeit with a benevolent twist). Likewise issue 5 seems to have a Dante's Inferno flex – Kent being shown around hell by a demented Virgil before being carted off by an scary S&M Beatrice (or maybe that's just me seeing things that aren't there).

The point of that simulation in issue 10 was to show that if Superman didn't exist we would have to invent him, and in fact have been inventing different versions of him (e.g. that panel of Nietzsche's Superman) throughout history. The premise being that people create their gods as symbols of what they themselves aspire to be (some more German philosophy about that here). My sense is that there's a religion to science move in the final issue – Lois believes that one day Superman will return, while Leo Quintum goes off to try and solve the problems of the universe on his own. Maybe Quintum isn't just Luthor (first time I've seen that theory and like it a lot!), but the Superman of the future. That is to say: the representation of our collective 21st century aspirations.

Mad Max: Fury Road

I haven't seen any other Mad Max films, but suspect there may be some subversion of the macho motor-head iconography going on in this update/remake/sequel. For one, Max doesn't seem to be 'mad' as in 'angry' so much as mad as in 'mentally ill'. A hero haunted by a daughter he couldn't save is nothing new, but at least the writers tried to work in the idea that avoiding psychic collapse involves setting goals, whether it's political hope for a more equitable and peaceful society, or a personal quest for redemption. Max's arc in the film involves the exorcism of the child he couldn't save, and a return to sanity.

And he's aided and abetted by a Ripley-fied Charlize Theron. Furiosa and Max become surrogate parents to a group of teenage girls forced to bear children by a patriarchal warlord. The storyline is ripe for feminist interpretation, although its credentials on this score have come under criticism from two angles. One (brought up by Mark Kermode) is that the girls are rather pretty, and there may be some having and eating of cake involved when it comes to portraying their objectification. Mileage (ha!) may vary on this, but I personally didn't detect much leeriness in the camera when they were revealed. More important perhaps is whether the girls have agency. This is where the second objection comes in – what is so feminist about women being (scarequotes!) "saved" by some dude? The writers try hard to differentiate the girls and give them at least a semblance of a personality in amidst the driving and shooting (they even manage a couple of frags towards the end). More tellingly, I think Furiosa's character was created to deal with the problem of Max swooping in and taking over their story, in that she deals out just as much whup-ass, and is instrumental in everyone's survival. There are women here with agency, even if Max is the principle agent (he is the one with his name in the title, after all). If the film doesn't entirely resolve this dilemma, it is at least aware of it, and I'm inclined to be charitable.

I think I mentioned somewhere up there about the driving and shooting? There's actually quite a lot of that, and it's all glorious.

Captain Swing and the Electrical Pirates of Cindery Island

"Why trap us in a world where power is enforced by the owners of so ludicrously finite a resource?" asks the hero of this short Warren Ellis steampunk yarn, where the steam is replaced with electricity. Captain Swing is leader of a commune of "natural philosophers" who believe science and technology will liberate humanity. I'm sure that similar ideas circulate in the wilder regions of Silicon Valley today. Which is why Ellis chooses a policeman as his hero, someone confronted with the worst aspects of humanity on a daily basis. As Captain Swing admits, this copper is "unable to see the world as anything but an ugly, unfair, unsaveable zoo".

Ellis keeps returning to mad scientists in the same way Scorcese keeps returning to macho gangsters – they are both seduced by dangerous powerful charismatics. Captain Swing may be an egalitarian, but his disciples are too enchanted to question his goals. In the end, Charlie Gravel (like most of us) walks a middle way between law and anarchy, the corrupt magistrates and the idealistic pirates.

The Buried Giant

Shortly after I started reading I listened to a podcast in which the author kindly explained what the novel was all about. Saved me a bit of bother, but also the pleasure of working it out for myself. Anyway, spoilers ahead! Ishiguro's big theme is the trade-offs that come with  (to use international relations terminology) post-conflict reconciliation. The Britons under King Arthur are responsible for crimes against humanity in their war with the Saxons. Gawain is charged with defending a dragon enchanted by Merlin to spread a fog of forgetfulness across the land, which prevents the Saxons from remembering the injustice they have suffered. The loss of memory keeps the peace, but allows war criminals to go unpunished. This grievance is the "buried giant" of the title. Ishiguro tries to keep the moral dilemma between peace and justice in balance throughout. To switch to Isaiah Berlin's terminology: the two values are incommensurable and the choice between them is 'tragic' in that it will involve evil either way.

Ishiguro makes a parallel between forgetfulness at the social and personal level. As with Saxon and Briton, so with man and wife. The elderly couple in the book have dark secrets in their past, which the enchanted mist has covered up. This memory loss has allowed their relationship to recover and grow stronger. However, as death approaches and the mist recedes, the past rises up and separates them. Love and harmony can only be sustained by willful acts of forgetting (if not forgiving). And yet those buried giants are never exorcised entirely, and are always liable to return. Should we face up to them? Again, the choice is tragic either way.

It's a clever conceit for a story. And apparently it came to the author before he settled on a genre. The Buried Giant has attracted interest because it is unashamedly a fantasy novel, with dragons and ogres, knights and wizards. I'll admit that this was the major reason why I picked it up. And yet it doesn't feel representative of what the genre has evolved into (plot-heavy literalist medievalism à la G.R.R. Martin or Robin Hobb). Ishiguro mentions samurai manga and the westerns of Peckinpah as inspiration. Gawain's ageing, honour-bound knight and the duel sequences definitely reflect that. Ishiguro has certainly also read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and other source material that fired up the imaginations of the Oxford Inklings. In fact, my sense is that the shadow of Tolkien hangs quite heavily on The Buried Giant, particularly the Hobbiton-esque community at the beginning and the Grey Havens vibe of the boatman at the end.

This is nowhere more apparent than in the voice Ishiguro uses, which mimics the anachronistic way Tolkien describes the dragon firework at the beginning of Fellowship as "like an express train". Ishiguro speaks directly to the modern reader at the beginning, in the same way that Tolkien does when he introduces you to hobbits. And as you are sucked into the story and get comfortable in its setting, the interjections fade almost imperceptibly away. Apparently, Ishiguro struggled with the narrative voice when writing the book (his credits his wife with urging a rethink). It's interesting that he went back to the source for a way out.

I Kill Giants

I read this in far from ideal circumstances – commuting for work or almost asleep at the end of the day, and with a long break before reaching the final two issues. And yet those closing scenes brought tears to my eyes, as they have done for many others. The break I took when reading perhaps artificially divides the comic into build-up and release, but it's a useful way of understanding how it works its magic. A great deal of time is taken introducing Barbara's character and her support network before we even know what is wrong, not to mention before we reach the moment of crisis and catharsis. While the comic explores the role of the imagination as a coping mechanism to deal with trauma (Barbara sometimes reminds me of William Blake talking to the angels in his back garden), ultimately its that support network around her that draws out the tears. Friends, family and school unite behind a brave girl lashing out against the horrible situation she finds herself in. Those bonds are the real heartstrings of the comic.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Whedon acquits himself well handling what is an organisational nightmare of a film. With millions having seen at least some Marvel Studios output, at least he didn't have to worry about introducing the characters. But he does have to make room for each of them, and commendably he rations the time in favour of those without their own film franchises. While Cap has a moment lamenting his lost past and Thor goes off to take a bath (for reasons that remain mysterious), we learn a lot more about Black Widow and Hawkeye. And Whedon injects quite a bit of himself into the latter's secret family retreat. But the rest is a rehash of preoccupations he has covered in more detail before. Natasha Romanov's history of abuse and conditioning make her into a lost sister of Echo in Dollhouse. And Stark's ambition to built armour around the world feels like revisiting Serenity's Isaiah Berlin-like distrust of utopian visions.

Avengers finds Whedon shackled to Marvel's ridiculous narrative demands, and unlike so many times before, he has learned to deliver. But this has come at the expense of the idiosyncrasy and originality that doomed so many of his earlier projects. No wonder he's a bit sick of the treadmill now (meanwhile J.J. Abrams shows no sign of slacking). Whedon's brilliant Much Ado was done during a break in the filming of the first Avengers film. I for one am really looking forward to what he does after this one.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

Mamoru Oshii's sequel to the phenomenally successful Ghost in the Shell, which I praise to the skies here. This second film departs quite a bit from Shirow Masamune's original manga, and feels quite personal to the director. But Oshii is an inscrutable guy, insisting that he doesn't interpret his films until after they are made. And his obsession with realising visual ideas clearly overshadows concerns with plot, theme and character. The festival sequence took a year to make apparently, and I'm not sure it's more powerful than Kusanagi wandering around the city in the first film.

So making sense of Innocence is a tricky task, but let's give it a go. Batou takes centre stage for this one, with Kusanagi serving as his 'guardian angel' – intervening only when he's in a really sticky situation. Quite a bit of time is spent exploring Batou's loneliness, and his relationship with his dog. The film circles around the idea of humanity's interest in creating human-like robots, without really confronting it head on. The villains in the film manufacture sex-dolls with the implanted 'ghosts' (or souls) of children. Batou's dog, according to Oshii, is also a creature manufactured by humans to serve as companions. But it is nonetheless an animal and different to ourselves. And that difference is a reminder of our uniqueness. We would never feel that lack we feel with a human-shaped doll or robot, which spurs us towards greater feats of Frankensteinian creation. Controversially, Oshii seems to suggest that pets may keep us more grounded than our own children, who we are always trying to mould in our own image.

Oshii's ideas are a bit garbled, but he is clearly committed to the importance of treating sentient beings as ends in themselves, with their own equally valuable interests and attachments. Our urge to make the outside world a reflection of ourselves, and shape the reality of others, is what seems to worry Oshii. Ironically, he describes the film-making process in very similar terms – expressing the psychology of different characters visually, through the look and feel of a futuristic cityscape or mysterious ritual. Oshii clearly works his animators very hard to fulfill his vision. It's almost as if his will-to-power is siphoned away from the real world and into harmless works of art.

Suspiria

"In fact if you want to give a deeper reading of the film, it can be seen as a vaguely lesbian story; where lesbianism has a certain importance. Or, more precisely, where the relationships between women are sometimes of a lesbian nature and are characterised by power struggles. But because society at the time was more prudish than today, I couldn't fully express the lesbian theme and I really regret this."

That's Dario Argento rebutting the argument that he is a misogynist. And it's true that the film's male characters are largely ineffectual. The people that carry the story (such as it is) forwards are all women – the children lost in the dark woods of Germany, and the wicked witches to be found within. One of the (female) critics on the DVD denied that the nubile girls under threat are objectified by the camera, but personally I think that's a difficult argument to make with all the swimsuits, tight jumpers and loose bathrobes in the film.

The quote above seems to elide the power struggle and the desire between the older and younger women. Perhaps the former arises out of the latter, but in any case it's hardly a healthy portrayal of lesbianism. The motives of the witches are unexplained, but the simplest reading might be that the superpowered crone at the head of the coven resents the youth and beauty of the children at her ballet school. This drives her to murder those who try to escape her clutches, or uncover her embarrassingly depleted self.

But I'm over-analysing, because the film doesn't operate by the standards of plot-driven giallo. Empiricism is chucked out of the window by the professor who insists that magic is all around us. Maybe not in the real world, but the magic of cinema is certainly omnipresent in the film. Lighting, framing and music invade and overshadow the narrative completely. The story is just the means by which Argento conducts a series of experiments with his band and his cinematographer in building tension and release.

And it has dated horribly – the direction and soundtrack are so in your face that you are never allowed to sink into the situation and genuinely experience the terror inherent in it. Instead the film feels ridiculous, nowhere more so than when one of the victims foolishly jumps into a mass of razorwire in fleeing her assailant. In fact, the film's structure is rather repetitive – being a series of discreet sequences that lead to an improbably bloody murder. Describing it as pornographic is not actually that wide off the mark, in that it's flat, predictable, and a little bit dull.