WEBVTT

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Hold you he is folks, it's
showtime. People say, good money to

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see this movie. When they go
out to a theater. They want cold

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sodas from hot popcorn and no monsters
in the protection booth. Everyone pretend podcasting

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isn't boring. Doun it off it
sting you you know what's on your at

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know what someone came you Marca m
h Hello, Hello? Oh the low

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di you you I said, I
said, cry more now any more me

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talking about stuck gouse. I'm saying, come on, come on, yeah,

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I mean, how are you taking? Don't you gonna move? Ja?

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Can go go? Come? You
eat twice some mores? Okay?

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So ak, Yeah, you got
you the more your love sty Welcome to

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the projection booth. I'm your host. Mike White joined me once again.

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Is miss sam Degan. Hello.
Also back in the booth is Miss Emily

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and Travia Hey. We conclude a
month discussing Japanese films with a look at

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Toshio Matsumoto's nineteen seventy one film Demons
aka Pandemonium aka Shurra aka anything else.

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I don't think so. The story
of the film is part of the fabric

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of the larger forty seven Ronan narrative, just like the Canna Reeves movie,

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and it is the story of a
Ronan who is cheated by Geisha and who

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now has to carve a bloody path
for revenge. That is just the tip

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of the iceberg when it comes to
this movie. We're going to be spoiling

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the film, So if you don't
want anything ruined, please turn off the

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podcast and watch the movie. Will
be here. This is going to be

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one of those movies where we get
a lot of flak that this isn't easily

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available, but I'll tell you one
thing, it's out up YouTube at fault

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with something else. So, Sam, had you seen Shura before? Yes,

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I watched it last year for the
first time, along with Matsumoto's final

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featured Doggeramagara, and was just absolutely
blown away by both of them. Definitely

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an instant favorite. And Emily about
yourself, I had not, and I

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knew nothing of it, and even
when I first heard the title from you,

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I started looking it up and it
took me way too long to realize

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it was the same filmmaker behind Funeral
Parade of Roses, which I had only

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seen for the first time. Maybe
a year or so ago, and when

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I watched that film, I had
one of those moments of Oh my god,

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how have I never seen this or
heard of this before? How is

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this not better known? Because that
film, in particular, which I'm sure

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we'll touch on, is ground breaking, holds up today, feels so modern,

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ahead and ahead of its time.
So then realizing, oh my god,

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and his next film was a feudal
revenge horror film. How did I

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not immediately seek that out? Oh? Because it's really hard to find.

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I've seen Funeral Parade of Roses.
Before we did it on a there was

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a Mike White May where it was
all Japanese New Wave over on the culture

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cast, Poor Chris and poor Chris's
wife, who has to put up with

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my weirdo choices. When it comes
to Mike White March or White Mike white

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May, he always gives me one
month a year. And I had known

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of this film. I used to
be very big into Japanese new wave stuff

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and Matsumoto is one of those new
wave filmmakers. But I had never seen

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this film until I decided to do
it for the show, forced myself to

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finally watch it. I was blown
away. I just was completely blown away

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by this. I had heard,
oh it's black and white, very stark,

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but nothing prepared me for just how
inky black this movie is, how

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beautiful it looks. Even if you
just turn off all audio, this movie

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is just a treat to the eyes. But then you get the story,

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you get the sound effects, you
get the acting, you get all that.

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Wow. It just really was quite
incredible. I love the beginning with

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that beautiful sunset. The sun goes
down and the rest of the movie is

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in black and white. Like I
said, super stark, it is one

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hundred percent told at nighttime. I
don't think we ever see the sun again

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after that point, and our characters
live in this nightmare that just gets to

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be more nightmarish as we go through
the film. I think I'm so conditioned

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now with the movies I watched that
Every movie begins with seven different production company

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logos that go so long that I
actually thought watching this when I when I'm

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watching it, in this the sun
comes and then it goes and then the

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movie starts. In my mind,
I thought, oh, that was the

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production company because it feel so different, and then realizing by the end of

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it and immediately going back and catching
some things of Oh no, that's a

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choice, and it's a very good
one. If it does, it very

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much tells you the day is over. We're gonna get real, it's gonna

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get dark, and sit back.
Funeral Parade of Roses is super famous,

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especially in the last decade since it
got restored and got a Blu ray release

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because of that pop art new wave
aesthetic. I think people have caught on

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to it because of those visuals,
and I should say before I forget to

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bring him up later. Both of
these films and that third film I mentioned,

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Dagaramagara, which is also similarly to
Real and dream Like. All of

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them were shot by Tatsua Suzuki,
who worked with Matsumoto a lot. He

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also worked with people like Terry Amashuji. He shot Pastoral to Die in the

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Country, the second Lady Snowblood movie. He just I think is a really

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underrated talent in the later kind of
end of the Japanese New Wave and into

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the eighties. But this is a
film that I would probably kill a person

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to be able to see on thirty
five milimeter in a theater because it's just

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so beautiful, like outrageous. You
would kill them, and then we'd have

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to see you killing them three times
at slightly different AGAs, and I would

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have to make a really incredible dramatic
speech about how the world is a sea

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of blood, which I'm here to
do. Emily, you brought it up

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in this whole thing of We are
two minutes into the movie and you get

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our main character jing Gopi, and
he does this thing where he's being pursued

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by these people quote unquote, even
though we don't see the people, we

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just see the lanterns at this point. It almost looks like he's being chased

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by ghosts at this point, and
turns to look at them, and then

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he turns, and then he turns, and then he turns, and you

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just get this repeated action from all
of these different angles, and it really

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tips us off to what we're going
to be experiencing through the rest of this

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movie. And I think it was
probably pretty radical for audiences in nineteen seventy

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one, and I don't think that
we had now. It's like in a

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comedy or sometimes even a drama film, you get these moments where you get

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to see a character do something and
then it cuts and you see the character

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before the action happened, and then
you see them do it again and you're

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like, Oh, that was all
in their head. Oh okay, I

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get this. That's what's going on
in this movie, though you never know

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when it's going to happen. There's
not really a tip off for us.

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We don't get like a splash of
color or a sound effect or anything like

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that. We just get him thinking
about things, and then we'll have a

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hard cut and then it'll go back
a little ways, and then we'll go

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on and sometimes that might happen a
few times, but we don't know when

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that's going to happ and we don't
know what is fantasy what's reality. So

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they're putting us in this position where
it's like, oh, gosh, I

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hope this is a dream. There's
one moment especially we'll talk about where I

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just go God in Heaven, I
hope that was a dream and that we're

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going to reset. And when it
doesn't, it makes it even worse that

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it actually happened, or at least
happened in the world of this movie,

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which is very much set up like
a play. This is based off of

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a play, feels very much like
a play, and you even get inter

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titles throughout here that we'll tell you
several hours later at the same time several

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weeks later, or the World is
a Sea of Blood. My favorite.

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What I love about what it does
and it's you know what you said.

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It makes you immediately not trust what
you're seeing, You don't fully trust the

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characters, you don't know what's real
at any given time. And then it

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lets you raise your hopes and lets
you think this didn't really happen, This

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couldn't have happened, This couldn't have
happened. And it just builds because and

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because it's so erratic about when it's
real and when it's not, when it's

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real, just it takes you so
much of a gasp after to realize,

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oh that one did happen. Oh, And it's heavy and just makes you

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in puts you in such a negative, dark, dark space, which I

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love. If there's anyone who is
listening and is not really familiar with a

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lot of the film adaptations of kabuki
plays, which, as Mike pointed out,

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this is based on this play called
Kami Kakkeete Sano Tai Setsu, and

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it really captures a lot of stylistically
what makes kabuki so distinct, and so

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if you're watching this and you're thinking, like, why is all the acting

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so over the top, it's because
they're also intentionally taking from kabuki acting style,

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and it's so effective at enhancing exactly
what you're both talking about. Just

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this like feeling of absolute other worldly
despair that goes beyond it's like noir ish

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at times, but I think it
goes beyond the more grounded Hollywood film noir

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into this just hell world, which
is where the original title comes from.

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The shura is it's basically I think
you could infer that he's found his way

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into this Buddhist hell of perpetually repeating
cycles of violence. You get a lot

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of Buddhist imagery and Buddha himself throughout
here. I think there's at least two

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Buddhist statues where you see close ups
or they just hold on that for a

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while, so you're getting those kind
of clues. The whole movie just gets

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more and more nightmares, even as
it starts with kind of a dream sequence

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that when gen Kolbe comes I guess
he's coming home and goes in and there's

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just all of these dead bodies,
all over the floor, severed hand.

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He goes to his main squeeze coman
and she has blood trickling out of her

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mouth, and he looks up and
he sees himself hanging there. And it

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took me until the second time for
me to realize. At first, I

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was like, is that him?
And then the second time I saw it,

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because that image comes back a few
times, then I'm like, oh,

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yeah, that's him. Is this
his fate? Because as the movie

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plays on, we get to see
that severed hand, we get to see

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her being murdered and standing for her
being murdered as well. So you get

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these images that are repeating, and
it's is he fulfilling almost a prophecy?

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Or to your point, Sam,
is he trapped there forever just going through

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this cycle and having to watch his
world fall apart every single time? Is

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this like him trying to make amends? Like the first time he breaks in

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to talk about Cooman? Is that
what he wished wi as he was doing?

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Is that how it played out the
first time? Is this just this

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never ending hellscape that he's constantly going
through. Is that where all these repetitions

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are coming from. I don't know
what the answer is. But I sure

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do like the way that it's being
presented. I mean, he's such a

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kind of sad, pathetic man,
and even when he is fantasizing both the

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positive and the vengeful bloodiness, it
feels like the fantasy is of a very

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small man. And I think,
and this is in part, I think

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there's a little bit of just kind
of cultural difference in watching this today.

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It's hard to not watch it with
a very twenty first century modern sensibility of

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even the idea of inheriting these feuds
and thinking of what Coomen and Sengoro go

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through, and you're like, what
are you rains baby, be happy,

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don't give every just got one hundred
bucks, We're much more than that.

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Just go use this and raise your
family. Who cares about events this thing?

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And that's a very obviously Western way
of looking at this. But even

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I think outside of that context,
he's and I don't think you are,

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at least for me. You're never
seeing him for what he wants himself to

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be and thinks he should be.
But he's only that kind of because of

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birthright and because of where he hasn't
earned or done anything to keep what he

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had in terms of honor. So
it just makes everything in a way.

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It's good because it gives you a
distance where you never root for him.

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I don't think even in terms of
him making the right decision. It feels

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like he's never going to make the
right decision. But I feel like that's

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every character in this whole world is. As the film goes on, we

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learn that everybody has an ulterior motive. Everyone's trying to get something back,

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whether they're trying to get revenge or
gn Gobe who's trying to get back into

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to go to esteem in the eyes
of other samurai. It's like everyone owes

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someone something, and often it's money. And the fact that he I think

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what makes him such a tragic figure
is even though he has these aims at,

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these goals and these motives, it's
a surprise to him when other people

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do, and it's like he has
this totally unrealistic view of everyone around him.

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His absolute shock when he learns that
Koman, his lover, is married

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to someone else and has her own
motivations. It just like the fact that's

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enough to basically drive him insane.
It's buddy, how do you not see

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the world around you? Everyone is
in misery. His whole thing is he

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loves to drink, he loves to
eat, he loves to gamble, and

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loves this prostitute. And buddy,
there's no sex in the champagne room.

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You are not should not set your
hopes on Coleman, But he does and

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his I guess. In the play
version it is his uncle. In the

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movie version, it feels more like
his servant hat Yima. He finally gets

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all of this money, a hundred
riu, in order to reinstate our main

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character back into good graces and is
able to take part in the whole revenge

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that is going on. Like I
said, this is part of the whole

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forty seven Ronan narrative, and he's
the opening title calls him the forty eighth

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thrown in. He's the guy who
doesn't make it because he's such a fuck

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up. Get to your point,
he is a total fuck up. And

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we should probably talk about the spoiler, the biggest twist of this movie,

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which is that he basically gets this
hundred rieu taken from him. He you

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know, he pays off for Coleman
just because she's about to get taken by

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another guy and he's no, She's
my main squeeze. He ends up paying

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for her, and then you realize, no, he actually just paid her

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debt and that she's now going to
go back with her husband. He gets

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really upset when finds out that it's
her husband. She and him Koman and

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the husband son Goro. They are
doing all this stuff so they can get

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one hundred dollars or a hundred yo
sorry, to basically give to San Goorl's

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father. So he's back in Sang
Girl's father's good graces. And then San

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Goorl's father wants that hundred to you
to give to his master or to the

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guy who's supposed to become part of
the forty seven Ronin or the forty eighth

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Ronan, who is our main character. So we just went in a huge

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fucking circle here, and he basically
is getting the money back that he was

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out of that humiliated him. And
of course I think it was more that

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he was having sex with another guy's
wife, which really humiliated him. But

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this whole thing, he set this
emotion and then he's on that wheel again,

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just running and has no idea what
the hell to do with anything.

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Yeah, it's just so wild the
way that this plays out and plays with

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your expectations, and I do think
Funeral Parade of Roses does that where it

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messes with your sense of the temporal
narrative flow and is this actually happening?

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Is it not? And Dogramagara,
which is set at an asylum and deals

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with these characters who are experiencing sort
of generational madness in a more psychiatric way

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than this film. It's like,
he's just so great at telling a story

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that draws you in but leaving you
confused a lot of the time, in

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the same way that the characters are
confused. It's just it's masterful. The

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other thing too, that it shares
with Funeral pre of Roses is the theatrical

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classical, dramatic irony structure of Funeral
Parade is Oedipus. And this one,

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again, it's based directly on a
Japanese what is the term for it again,

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it's kamik sangotay setsu is what it's
called. It's a mouthful. I'm

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gonna let you say that, not
me. Yes, that one exactly had

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it tip of my tongue, tip
of my tongue. It's that same,

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a little bit, that dramatic irony. It plays off very Edwardian and Shakespearean,

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but that's just because those are closer
to my references. But it is

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that complete identity, hidden identity for
no good reason other than it leading to

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things that then makes everybody's decisions that
much worse and aimed at the wrong people

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when like, all of this could
have been solved if we just talk to

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each other. But that's the beauty
of that kind of theater, that is

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every Greek play, and it just
makes once you realize, once that kicks

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in, I think there's that moment
of knowing, oh, this is just

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going to get worse and worse because
now we know that it shouldn't get worse,

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but it's going to get much worse, and it does. It's so

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wonderful. It definitely to your point
about Shakespeare, it reminds me of definitely

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that era of revenge tragedies. I
don't know if either of you have read

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Duchess of Malfi, but yes,
huge, oh yeah, Duchess of Malfie

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fan and a way that it,
yes, that that great type of really

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violent, bloody tragedy that Shakespeare borrows
from for something like Macbeth, where there

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are all these like more self conscious
horror and occasionally supernatural elements. But just

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like the fact that every single thing
that happens funnels these characters into just going

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totally insane, that's a plus.
And that it didn't have to happen,

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None of it has to happen the
way it is. If anybody just stopped

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and communicated or thought about why they
were doing what they were doing and to

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whom they were doing it too,
it all could have been fine. But

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just even when the realizations come,
and it's towards the very end when Gingobie

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figures things out, and just the
utter lack of reaction that he shows,

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because it just feels like there is
nothing left inside of him, even this

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revelation that it didn't have to be
this way. It's just he's done.

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He's gone so far that he can't
even feel bad about how far he went.

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It's gone. He is gone as
a person. I know my point

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of reference is a little bit more
pedestrian, but I was definitely thinking of

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Hamlet, especially when it comes to
the play within the play and the whole

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play is the thing to capture the
imagination of the king when he gets the

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hunter for you and then Sengorro shows
up and Sangoro's basically the devil on his

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shoulder, Wahachiomance the angel on his
shoulder, and Sangorl's, hey, man,

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I got this note for you.
Comen's going to be sold to this

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guy. We really need to go
there, and the price is exactly one

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hundred REU. And I'm like,
oh boy. And when he gets there,

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he sees it is five people all
sitting there around Koman and they are

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totally perfectly facing him, looking it
is a play being put on for him,

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to the point where I'm like,
how long before he showed up did

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they start talking? Because everything that's
there is them belittling him, talking about

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how he doesn't have two cents to
rub together, or just all of these

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things. Oh boy. There was
some good stage management going on there in

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terms of giving those cues when they
had to go, and then the actual

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Mison Sin having that great screen behind
them with the waves on it, and

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then we get that great pan across
them later on when you have Sangoro she's

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my wife or I'm her husband,
just over and over again as he's starting

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to have a breakdown recalling that because
some of the flashes that we get our

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memories. Some of them are wishful
feelings. And even though you say that

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we shouldn't be rooting for our main
character, I was rooting for him quite

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a few times, especially with the
poison Sake. I was really up for

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00:24:11.640 --> 00:24:18.200
that. Oh I definitely room for
him. Oh I was Tim Coleman,

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I was Tim Comen and Singoro they
seemed in love when the baby came up.

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When you saw what a good dad
Singrol was gonna be like he was

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playing with the baby. There was
a moment of all this. They actually

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do love each other, and this
they swindled a man, but he didn't

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do anything not to deserve it.
There was nothing more honorable about him to

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me than about them. So I
was rooting for them. I wanted them

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to make it work, but Earthly
knew they would not know. I think

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that is an important point to bring
up that you can watch so and this

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movie, as incredible as I think
it is, it doesn't exist in a

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vacuum. There are other similar things. And one of the things that I

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think does make this a little bit
different is, especially if you think about

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this in comparison to some of the
revenge ghost stories, you often have people

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betraying each other for no reason other
than their fucking assholes, whereas here it's

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I think, giving you a chance
to get to know Comen and giving her

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lines like about how Geisha's entire life
is just a series of lies, like

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she's working, She's there to do
a job that she has to do.

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And so I think it's important that
the film does make you sympathetic towards her

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and her husband while not painting them
as heroic, And it just makes the

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violence that follows even more unhinged,
because it's you don't want anyone in this

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situation to be totally miserable, and
yet they all are. Yeah, they

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are all imperfect. There is no
nobody who comes out of this movie saying

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at least that guy, because even
I guess the closest you come is it

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Hatchaman. But it's he's just as
his main motivation is simply I understand that

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honor is the important thing, So
you have to go do this? And

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who cares about this crazed vixen?
Which is at least the translation we get

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of what he calls her. And
again, is it to an audience today,

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I think, to a certain sensibility. You watch that and say,

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no, this woman could use he's
in love, like why does he have

308
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to pick this over that? But
ultimately everybody is with the exception of where

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things go. Everybody comes just kind
of starts on a right nobody's good,

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nobody's terrible. They do bad things, but not terrible things. But it

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just takes that a terrible a bad
thing done to a weak man with a

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lot of power, turns into absolute
horror. What I find so compelling about

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a lot of these seventies films,
whether you're thinking about something like Lady Snowblood

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that's more popular, or some of
the Zatouici sequels, there's this sense that

315
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in also in a lot of the
new wave films, especially things by somebody

316
00:27:07.119 --> 00:27:12.960
like Oshima, who the guy who
plays Gng Gobi, Katsuo Nakamura is also

317
00:27:14.039 --> 00:27:18.400
in this Oshima film called Pleasures of
the Flesh that has some similar vibes,

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even though it's modern set. And
it seems like all these films have this

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message that people aren't inherently bad,
but they live in this world, in

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00:27:29.799 --> 00:27:34.079
this society that turns them into bad
people by not giving them better options,

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and it just I think makes it
feel so grim and so nihilistic, even

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though they do care about each other
sometimes and they do want to do the

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00:27:45.000 --> 00:27:48.400
right thing, it's just hopeless.
Yeah, you're set up to feel so

324
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hopeless in this movie. Everything is
shabby. His place is completely bereft of

325
00:27:55.759 --> 00:28:02.559
anything. He sold, the heirloom
scroll, all of the little paper windows,

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like there's so many of them that
have holes in them. It just

327
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feels very not cared for. And
then, like I said, this whole

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world is darkness. And when I
talk about darkness, darkness like when he

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comes in at one point too,
I can't remember which building it is,

330
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but there's one point of it's not
when he has that huge fucking hat on.

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It's another moment where he just walks
through a door and you don't see

332
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him until he's like an inch away
from that doorway because they keep that door

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just completely black. And then he
sits there and the whole world is black

334
00:28:34.519 --> 00:28:40.279
behind him. Even though he's inside
of his place, the world is black

335
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around him completely. There's no joy
to be found elsewhere. There's no music

336
00:28:45.240 --> 00:28:51.000
playing, there's no animals, there's
something just very In terms of the set

337
00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:56.519
design, there are no extra every
prop there's a very important hairpin that travels

338
00:28:56.599 --> 00:29:02.599
and becomes a key element in storyteller. But because there's nothing else, there's

339
00:29:02.640 --> 00:29:07.440
no other things. So you pinpoint
those things, and everything has some kind

340
00:29:07.480 --> 00:29:10.519
of meaning, because otherwise it just
wouldn't be there, there's no room for

341
00:29:10.680 --> 00:29:18.400
it. Matsumoto does such a great
job at connecting that literal physical darkness with

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00:29:18.839 --> 00:29:22.839
the moral darkness going on. And
I don't think we've said yet, but

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this is maybe the last or one
of the last, I think great films

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00:29:30.759 --> 00:29:34.640
in this subgenre of jedi geky movies, which are period set. Usually they

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follow samurai, but they're called zenkoku
and they're basically, I think known in

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English as cruel samurai films or cruel
Jedi geky movies, and sort of doom

347
00:29:47.960 --> 00:29:51.559
Is I think maybe the most famous
one of those, though you could probably

348
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Shoehorn Corn Echo in there too,
because it has some of the most awful

349
00:29:56.279 --> 00:30:02.200
samurai ever and is similarly bleak.
But it's just fascinating that you have these

350
00:30:03.200 --> 00:30:08.160
new wave directors mostly choosing to make
these periods set black and white films,

351
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which seems like it wouldn't be anything
associated with the New wave that is more

352
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traditional, but it's like they managed
to create something totally new with these more

353
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traditional genre cinema elements. It's just
amazing. It's this really interesting combination.

354
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I remember thinking the same with Funeral
Parade of Roses, is that Matsumoto had

355
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a theater background then he came also
very It's like that era of theater of

356
00:30:34.960 --> 00:30:40.680
the absurd, and that very much
of pushing trying to figure out on stage

357
00:30:40.759 --> 00:30:45.039
what you can do differently, what
you can do to push harder and go

358
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darker and get a response that you
couldn't get otherwise. And a lot of

359
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times when you translate that to film, it just does. It has a

360
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very theatrical venear on it. And
I think what's really interesting about this is

361
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that it feels theatrical on some level
as far as this actual storytelling. I

362
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think what we're saying about the being
very dramatic, irony and faded from the

363
00:31:07.119 --> 00:31:12.319
beginning, and there's certainly elements within
of a play within a play, but

364
00:31:12.440 --> 00:31:17.920
it doesn't ever feel like if I
didn't know, I wouldn't say, oh,

365
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this was this director came from theater. It feels that this is Phil,

366
00:31:21.759 --> 00:31:27.160
this is somebody using cinema to tell
this story and to pull out some

367
00:31:27.640 --> 00:31:33.640
very odd, awful themes that make
you think about them. And it's done

368
00:31:33.759 --> 00:31:40.680
with sound and lack of sound,
And it's not necessarily about the performances.

369
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It's not about staging. It's all
of these things put together. But it

370
00:31:44.039 --> 00:31:48.200
feels very much born out of cinema, not theater. It's fascinating. I

371
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don't know if you guys saw this, but there's a great footnote in Keiko

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McDonald's book where she's talking about this
film, and apparently the Guiso Shimo was

373
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not a big fan of it,
she wrote. Nigiso Oshima has criticized Pandemonium,

374
00:32:02.799 --> 00:32:07.000
claiming that it fails to accomplish the
filmmaker's task of determining quote who is

375
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basically the victim and who is the
victimizer unquote. He adds that Matsumoto's fundamental

376
00:32:13.880 --> 00:32:19.960
the error lies quote in his complete
ignorance of Ginko bay as stupid and victimizer

377
00:32:20.160 --> 00:32:24.400
unquote. Matsumota has replied that assigning
such formulas to characters ignores the fact that

378
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each of these embodies dichotomy of good, bad and victim victimizer. For further

379
00:32:30.279 --> 00:32:37.880
information, see I Love this oh
Shima Nagisa nome wa fushiana ka, which

380
00:32:38.000 --> 00:32:47.079
translates as is Nagisa Oshima blind?
That quote is so insane because that the

381
00:32:47.240 --> 00:32:53.200
film that I mentioned that shares a
star with Shurra Pleasures of the Flash.

382
00:32:53.960 --> 00:33:00.359
Almost all of Oshima's films from the
mid sixties to early seventies are are explicitly

383
00:33:00.640 --> 00:33:08.039
about characters who are not a victim
or a victimizer, but they're both.

384
00:33:09.079 --> 00:33:14.119
But I think also for anyone who
doesn't know him and hasn't read any interviews

385
00:33:14.160 --> 00:33:19.119
with him, Oshimo was like the
grumpiest, most cantankerous man alive. My

386
00:33:19.920 --> 00:33:22.680
gut feeling here is that he saw
the film and liked it and was mad

387
00:33:22.759 --> 00:33:29.039
that he didn't make it and so
found some shit to talk. I mean,

388
00:33:29.200 --> 00:33:34.319
it is an unusual film to make
in nineteen seventy one to say I'm

389
00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:38.319
going to make this old kabuki play
into a movie. And here's this guy

390
00:33:38.359 --> 00:33:45.440
who's only made the one feature film
before major experimental filmmaker. That's where Matsumoto

391
00:33:45.039 --> 00:33:51.799
really made his bones was through experimental
films for years and years while but before

392
00:33:51.839 --> 00:33:53.200
he made this, after he made
this, and that was his thing.

393
00:33:53.640 --> 00:33:58.039
While he was teaching, he was
making movies. But yeah, it's just

394
00:33:58.160 --> 00:34:04.440
a bizarro to consider thinking about the
times that they made this in. But

395
00:34:04.559 --> 00:34:07.799
then I'm thinking to myself, now, this is pretty spot on as far

396
00:34:07.880 --> 00:34:12.679
as like you're saying, the victim
and victimizer and who's to blame and this

397
00:34:12.840 --> 00:34:15.199
whole thing of chasing money. His
money is at the heart of this whole

398
00:34:15.320 --> 00:34:20.199
thing, and you just keep going
round and around with this, and yet

399
00:34:20.239 --> 00:34:23.480
it means nothing, which is one
of my favorite the little tricks in any

400
00:34:23.639 --> 00:34:30.280
story where it is about some kind
of needing them doing something terrible for money,

401
00:34:30.320 --> 00:34:34.000
and then it ultimately what happens to
it? Who knows all we And

402
00:34:34.280 --> 00:34:37.800
I also, I don't want to
jump ahead, but the ambiguity, ambiguity

403
00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:42.599
of that ending and knowing enough that
it's not a good one, but not

404
00:34:42.760 --> 00:34:47.159
knowing exactly, but having you know
the movie gives you little things where you

405
00:34:47.239 --> 00:34:51.199
could put an ending together from what
you get or does it? Can you

406
00:34:51.239 --> 00:34:54.719
trust anything you've seen? It's really
brilliant. More I think you think through

407
00:34:55.280 --> 00:34:59.320
the different ways you can say what
he was trying to do here, I

408
00:34:59.360 --> 00:35:01.559
think I don't there's one answer,
and that's very cool. I feel like

409
00:35:01.599 --> 00:35:06.440
the only clear answer, and I've
said it before, is that the world

410
00:35:06.559 --> 00:35:10.360
is a sea of blood. It's
a great line. It's better than the

411
00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:15.000
dog eating your homework. I'm just
gonna use that line from now on whenever

412
00:35:15.079 --> 00:35:16.880
I don't want to deal with something. The world's sea of blood. I

413
00:35:17.199 --> 00:35:21.599
cannot turn in this work, project's
delayed. The world's see blood. What

414
00:35:21.639 --> 00:35:23.320
can I say? And who's going
to disagree with that? Right now?

415
00:35:23.519 --> 00:35:30.960
Can we talk about how rare we
see poison used as an implemented murder on

416
00:35:31.079 --> 00:35:36.719
screen in a way that makes it
seem as terrible as it probably actually is.

417
00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:40.239
Yeah, the poisoning scene in here, because there's multiple, because there's

418
00:35:40.519 --> 00:35:45.000
one fantasy maybe a couple fantasy versions
of that, and then there's the one

419
00:35:45.639 --> 00:35:51.320
what we consider reality with the brother
in law. As I was watching it,

420
00:35:51.440 --> 00:35:53.039
I was just like, this is
probably what real poisoning is like.

421
00:35:53.199 --> 00:35:59.079
As he just struggles and nobody has
a quick death scene in this movie.

422
00:35:59.119 --> 00:36:02.800
This is not, you know,
to said Duro, or you know even

423
00:36:04.199 --> 00:36:07.519
the Lone Wolf and cub movies where
you just like right through somebody and then

424
00:36:07.519 --> 00:36:13.920
they're dead. The struggle. He
was not sharpening his sword he was letting

425
00:36:13.960 --> 00:36:19.519
that get dull. Also, the
Poison to me feels like a nod to

426
00:36:19.679 --> 00:36:24.280
some of the more traditional horror movies
because in the fifties, I would say

427
00:36:24.519 --> 00:36:29.599
starting in the fifties, but definitely
kicking off more in the sixties, you

428
00:36:29.760 --> 00:36:38.199
get this wave of really grim ghost
stories where it's often somebody is killed,

429
00:36:38.639 --> 00:36:45.400
usually a woman by poison, and
the sequences are really grotesque. Usually it

430
00:36:45.559 --> 00:36:52.039
involves the woman drinks some poison or
it's thrown on her and she has this

431
00:36:52.199 --> 00:36:55.400
horrible death, and she's also disfigured
in the process, so that when she

432
00:36:55.519 --> 00:37:00.679
comes back as a ghost, she's
extra terrifying. And the way that it's

433
00:37:00.840 --> 00:37:07.719
just drawn out, I feel like
he lets you know like how angry and

434
00:37:07.920 --> 00:37:14.320
hateful these people are, and the
lack of music, and it's really throughout

435
00:37:14.360 --> 00:37:16.679
the film, and I watched it
notice it at a certain point. I

436
00:37:16.719 --> 00:37:22.199
think I noticed it during probably Comen's
Big Very Long That Seen, because most

437
00:37:22.280 --> 00:37:28.360
toolmakers would be scoring a lot of
this, and there's no music during most

438
00:37:28.400 --> 00:37:34.639
of the violence. And what happens
is you instead every single sound that the

439
00:37:34.800 --> 00:37:38.639
body makes, the gurgles or the
banging into a wall or pulling a pot

440
00:37:38.760 --> 00:37:45.480
as you fall and it clanging on
the ground. Everything hits because it would

441
00:37:45.639 --> 00:37:49.920
if you were in that room,
and it's just so disturbing as a result,

442
00:37:50.679 --> 00:37:53.880
it makes it brutal. There was
one moment where I thought there was

443
00:37:54.079 --> 00:37:59.280
music, and then I found that
it was actually Buddhist chanting. So it's

444
00:37:59.360 --> 00:38:02.679
at the very end and it's very
guttural, and I'm assuming that it's seng

445
00:38:02.679 --> 00:38:07.840
Gooro's father who is chanting for him
because now the wife, the baby,

446
00:38:08.599 --> 00:38:15.639
and the son are all dead and
that's happening as our main character is leaving.

447
00:38:15.400 --> 00:38:19.119
It's not a freeze frame though.
Right at the very end, he's

448
00:38:19.199 --> 00:38:23.119
just standing there at the end,
because he's in hell, He's standing there.

449
00:38:23.280 --> 00:38:27.920
Yeah. The note I wrote down
was it sounds like angry rumbling demons.

450
00:38:28.760 --> 00:38:32.679
Also, that is a sound of
grief that you would make. It's

451
00:38:32.719 --> 00:38:36.679
funny. Is it unrelated? But
it made me think a little bit watching

452
00:38:36.719 --> 00:38:38.719
it, because I started to really
think about the music and lack thereof,

453
00:38:39.000 --> 00:38:42.880
but how a sound was being used, and it made me think of zone

454
00:38:42.920 --> 00:38:45.599
of interest, just in that same
way of a movie that I had gone

455
00:38:45.599 --> 00:38:50.239
to see in part because I was
excited about hearing Amika Levy score on the

456
00:38:50.280 --> 00:38:52.920
big screen, and then at a
certain point where I was like, oh,

457
00:38:52.920 --> 00:38:54.599
there's no the music. It's there's
no music in this movie. It's

458
00:38:54.599 --> 00:38:59.800
all the other sounds. But then
one the best, the Oscar for best,

459
00:39:00.159 --> 00:39:04.159
and you realize why, because there
is something in this and Demons does

460
00:39:04.199 --> 00:39:09.960
it of every sound of the actual
thing that's happening is so much more horrific

461
00:39:10.119 --> 00:39:15.440
than somebody composing something to fit the
horror of what you're seeing. And it

462
00:39:15.679 --> 00:39:22.760
also I think fits the starkness of
this movie and just not embellishing anything that

463
00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:27.000
you wouldn't need to embellish. Yeah, I can't imagine this with a score

464
00:39:27.320 --> 00:39:32.840
like I can definitely see a scenario
in which he decided to use some kind

465
00:39:32.880 --> 00:39:38.199
of more experimental Japanese new wave type
of score, but it would have made

466
00:39:38.239 --> 00:39:45.519
it not nearly as brutal of an
experience, especially those death scenes like where

467
00:39:45.639 --> 00:39:50.840
Coleman and the baby get killed.
Imagine somebody putting melodramatic music over that.

468
00:39:51.079 --> 00:39:54.239
It just I think it would take
away from the power of those and the

469
00:39:54.320 --> 00:39:59.480
real, like visceral quality of those
scenes. That death of the baby.

470
00:39:59.559 --> 00:40:04.639
That's what I I was hoping was
a fantasy or a dream or would get

471
00:40:04.760 --> 00:40:07.079
reset because I'm just like, no, that couldn't have happened. That did

472
00:40:07.239 --> 00:40:12.079
not happen. Right now, it
happened. Oh, it happened. It

473
00:40:12.199 --> 00:40:16.760
definitely happened. Spoilers, there's a
baby death. Yes, be prepared,

474
00:40:16.800 --> 00:40:22.199
everybody. I was watching a video
essay on YouTube where the guy was trying

475
00:40:22.239 --> 00:40:25.079
to break this movie apart. During
that, they actually blurred the screen,

476
00:40:25.199 --> 00:40:29.400
the entire screen. I was like, Yeah, that's the way to do

477
00:40:29.440 --> 00:40:35.679
it, because it's too horrific.
It is just so awful. And the

478
00:40:35.800 --> 00:40:39.360
way it happens that he forces Coman
to literally have a hand in it,

479
00:40:40.039 --> 00:40:43.800
and there is no need to do
that. He's about she is dying,

480
00:40:43.880 --> 00:40:46.000
he's about to kill her. She
wants to die anyway. There is just

481
00:40:46.440 --> 00:40:52.519
what a absolute act of cruelty to
put her hand on the sword in a

482
00:40:52.599 --> 00:40:55.559
way that lets that be the last
thing she does before she does that,

483
00:40:55.800 --> 00:41:00.840
more than anything else, is what
makes me think of Jacobean revenge tragedy like

484
00:41:00.119 --> 00:41:06.280
to Titus Andronicus, Duchess of mal
Fee. Yep, just pity. She's

485
00:41:06.280 --> 00:41:12.880
a horror, just that sort of
very John Webster like, how nasty,

486
00:41:12.960 --> 00:41:16.280
how much nastier. Can we make
it? It's how dark? How dark?

487
00:41:16.320 --> 00:41:20.880
Can we go here? Yeah?
Can we do cannibalism, No work

488
00:41:20.920 --> 00:41:23.199
for cannibalism. Correct, We'll just
kill a baby. It's dead and really

489
00:41:23.320 --> 00:41:28.920
good severed head effect and we haven't
even talked about the severed head. One

490
00:41:28.960 --> 00:41:31.199
of my favorite things in any movies
when a severed head becomes a key part

491
00:41:31.320 --> 00:41:37.519
of the story. Looking severed head, yeah, yep, and so well

492
00:41:37.639 --> 00:41:45.239
shot. It's like that scene has
it's like unexpected, how beautifully shot it

493
00:41:45.440 --> 00:41:51.760
is. I think, especially if
you grow up watching American and Western horror

494
00:41:51.840 --> 00:41:58.840
movies where the emphasis is more on
gore, especially if our watching things post

495
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:02.320
Night of the Living Dead, and
as great as the gore effects look,

496
00:42:04.000 --> 00:42:07.679
you can especially in newer restorations and
watching it four K, it's like you

497
00:42:07.800 --> 00:42:12.280
can tell that it's a prop.
But the way they did that scene,

498
00:42:12.440 --> 00:42:17.480
it's so understated, which going back
exactly to what you said about the lack

499
00:42:17.559 --> 00:42:22.920
of a score, it makes it
worse because it just lingers for so long

500
00:42:22.159 --> 00:42:29.880
and it huh, that's perfection.
It feels like some of that is the

501
00:42:30.039 --> 00:42:34.719
actress with her head sticking through the
floor, it is, Yeah, I

502
00:42:34.760 --> 00:42:38.360
think whenever it's an actual shot of
her face, it must be which always

503
00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:44.199
looks great when she keeps her face
very still, so she still has that

504
00:42:44.920 --> 00:42:46.800
a little bit of vitality to the
face. And then when they actually have

505
00:42:46.920 --> 00:42:52.199
the head that he can hold,
that still also looks great. And it's

506
00:42:52.280 --> 00:42:55.519
such a tricky thing because it's like
a very specific rule I think of both

507
00:42:55.599 --> 00:43:00.440
movies in theater is if you're going
to have a beheading, you either have

508
00:43:00.760 --> 00:43:07.199
the greatest perfectly made head cast that
you can get, or you don't show

509
00:43:07.239 --> 00:43:10.440
it, because if you show it
and it doesn't look good, it is

510
00:43:10.559 --> 00:43:15.280
funny. The effect is funny and
dumb. Yeah, And from the heror

511
00:43:16.079 --> 00:43:21.599
completely it's heads. Severed heads are
funny on their own, and this one

512
00:43:22.800 --> 00:43:24.760
there's a little bit of I think
you could watch this with a very dark

513
00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:30.519
sense of humor and find it very
darkly funny in a way that isn't offensive

514
00:43:30.519 --> 00:43:36.000
to the movie. I think you
can just watch it as this ridiculously waste

515
00:43:36.039 --> 00:43:40.920
of a man who causes all of
this, and because it is so grandiose

516
00:43:40.960 --> 00:43:45.400
in what happens, it is almost
funny. I think you can laugh at

517
00:43:45.480 --> 00:43:49.599
things in this in a dark way. In a way that I don't think

518
00:43:49.679 --> 00:43:52.360
is offensive to the movie, and
certainly with the head, certainly when at

519
00:43:52.360 --> 00:43:58.239
the very end when Sangoro is dying
and his dad just runs and brings the

520
00:43:58.239 --> 00:44:00.760
head to him, because that seems
like the and if then you do in

521
00:44:00.840 --> 00:44:05.320
that situation, it's very funny,
it's horrific, it's sad, it's terrible.

522
00:44:05.400 --> 00:44:07.079
But he'd also is because the head
rolls at one point, and it

523
00:44:07.239 --> 00:44:10.119
rolls in a way that is you
almost want to make a little laugh at

524
00:44:10.159 --> 00:44:13.639
it, and then you feel terrible
when you do, And that I think

525
00:44:13.760 --> 00:44:16.400
is what he's trying to get you
in terms of what that's supposed to evoke.

526
00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:20.800
And I think there's a lot of
that comes from Kabooki too, Just

527
00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:28.119
like how intentionally Fever pitch over the
top, it is so that you're always

528
00:44:28.199 --> 00:44:36.360
experiencing something extreme, even if the
extremes wander from hard to satire to eroticism.

529
00:44:36.519 --> 00:44:42.239
Sometimes it's just always ratcheted up.
Before I knew just how dark this

530
00:44:42.400 --> 00:44:46.760
movie was going to get, when
he has that repeated thing where he's trying

531
00:44:46.800 --> 00:44:52.079
to buy Koman and the first time
you see it, when he's looking through

532
00:44:52.159 --> 00:44:54.960
and he sees the five people that
are making fun of him, and then

533
00:44:55.039 --> 00:45:01.840
Cooman there in the foreground and he
leaves there and marches over and he's got

534
00:45:01.920 --> 00:45:06.639
Sangora behind him, and he throws
open the door and he's just I'm jig

535
00:45:06.719 --> 00:45:08.519
kobay blah blah blah, I'm here
from my woman kind of thing, and

536
00:45:08.679 --> 00:45:15.280
throws down the money and his total
badass and then his manservant or whoever hatching

537
00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:17.079
him on comes in. He's just
say, hey, sir, what are

538
00:45:17.119 --> 00:45:21.360
you doing. We're supposed to have
that money for your revengeance, and then

539
00:45:21.440 --> 00:45:24.920
boom cut back to him looking through
that hole. And that second time,

540
00:45:25.039 --> 00:45:30.039
which I think is the reality time, it's Sangoro grabbing him by the hand

541
00:45:30.079 --> 00:45:34.239
and basically pulling him over, and
he's the one that opens the door and

542
00:45:34.400 --> 00:45:39.119
marches in. And then again Kobe
is very reticent to walk through that door.

543
00:45:39.280 --> 00:45:44.360
I guess I can give you the
money. You going back and forth,

544
00:45:44.480 --> 00:45:47.719
and it really takes her threatening to
stab herself, and that happens,

545
00:45:47.760 --> 00:45:52.199
I believe a few times. She
takes the little sword, then sticks the

546
00:45:52.280 --> 00:45:57.920
hairpin, and we're like resetting each
time until she doesn't kill herself. And

547
00:45:58.000 --> 00:46:00.760
then he carries on with the thing. I guess I'll give you the one

548
00:46:00.800 --> 00:46:02.880
hundred riyo. Now, yeah,
the amount of work it takes to get

549
00:46:04.039 --> 00:46:07.920
him to be the version of himself
he thinks he is and he never is.

550
00:46:08.280 --> 00:46:14.079
And even the reveal, I thought
it was a really interesting way of

551
00:46:14.199 --> 00:46:16.360
doing it because I think I couldn't
quite figure out. And part of this

552
00:46:16.519 --> 00:46:22.280
is because you're seeing things from gong
Gobi's point of view of the cruelty or

553
00:46:22.400 --> 00:46:29.719
not cruelty of did they're not mocking
him the rest of the group is or

554
00:46:29.800 --> 00:46:31.559
are they? Is that what he's
seeing in order to make it easier for

555
00:46:31.639 --> 00:46:36.880
him to kill everybody that they just
it felt like Comen just felt pretty bad

556
00:46:37.559 --> 00:46:39.519
because she must have been again oh
who knows how long this was all going

557
00:46:39.599 --> 00:46:45.320
on for, but she was very
aware that he was intoxicated by her and

558
00:46:45.760 --> 00:46:49.320
her kind of thing like, yeah, I think sucked that I had to

559
00:46:49.360 --> 00:46:51.280
do that, but I don't regret
it, and this is what we had

560
00:46:51.360 --> 00:46:54.480
to do. But because not they're
not mocking him, it's just a sad

561
00:46:54.679 --> 00:47:00.239
sack and it's I think that's also
why to me they I did feel for

562
00:47:00.320 --> 00:47:05.639
them because they also then they could
joke about things but they weren't always mocking

563
00:47:05.760 --> 00:47:08.000
him. It was there's a great
little I thought it was like a very

564
00:47:08.119 --> 00:47:14.440
charming moment when they're together and they
think they're safe, and he's been drinking,

565
00:47:14.519 --> 00:47:15.719
so he's a little drunk, and
they start saying, oh, what

566
00:47:15.800 --> 00:47:19.639
if gon go Bee came inside?
And he's Oh, I'd fight him,

567
00:47:19.679 --> 00:47:21.679
She sa, would you really?
No? No, I'd run and hide,

568
00:47:22.079 --> 00:47:24.079
And it's very cute, like they
just they feel like a real couple

569
00:47:24.119 --> 00:47:28.920
at that point, and I know
that there is this breaking through, there's

570
00:47:28.920 --> 00:47:32.679
a little bit of humanity before it
is very brutally destroyed. I don't think

571
00:47:32.719 --> 00:47:37.840
it would be as horrifying if we
didn't see their humanity and we weren't given

572
00:47:38.119 --> 00:47:45.280
justifications for why they're doing that.
And it's funny to think about it in

573
00:47:45.400 --> 00:47:52.480
comparison to something like some of those
later Zatuchi sequels, where he's often righting

574
00:47:52.719 --> 00:47:58.760
wrongs and rescuing people from people who
are just really awful and cruel and selfish,

575
00:47:59.519 --> 00:48:04.840
which I think, even though he's
horrified in every movie he's horrified by

576
00:48:04.880 --> 00:48:09.280
the violence that he has to carry
out, it always feels justified, even

577
00:48:09.320 --> 00:48:14.920
if you can see it destroying him. But here it's like these people are

578
00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:20.119
really just trying to survive, and
it's not her fault that she has a

579
00:48:20.199 --> 00:48:22.639
geisha contract and in order to get
out of it has to pay a debt.

580
00:48:23.119 --> 00:48:28.960
And yes, they could have been
more upfront with him, but I

581
00:48:29.039 --> 00:48:34.079
guess to me, the real crux
is if she's going to take advantage of

582
00:48:34.199 --> 00:48:38.519
someone, couldn't it be some sort
of wealthy lord for whom that hundred rio

583
00:48:39.039 --> 00:48:45.000
doesn't mean his whole reputation. Does
she even have that contract? Because they

584
00:48:45.079 --> 00:48:49.639
take that hundred ryu and give it
to his father. I don't think she

585
00:48:49.760 --> 00:48:54.440
even had one, But I also
don't think she had the status and ability

586
00:48:54.880 --> 00:48:59.880
to find that millionaire who would want
her. I think they describe her,

587
00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:05.079
and I don't know enough about the
difference in geisha dam but it feels like

588
00:49:05.360 --> 00:49:09.119
she is not a She's a low
tier sure, And a lot of these

589
00:49:09.199 --> 00:49:17.599
movies do deal with those geisha who
are not upper class and didn't have a

590
00:49:17.719 --> 00:49:22.760
ton of the artistic training, and
they're basically they're called geisha in the films,

591
00:49:22.840 --> 00:49:27.800
and you do see them singing and
playing the shamasen, but they're basically

592
00:49:28.079 --> 00:49:32.119
just working class sex workers, which
is is clearly what she is. To

593
00:49:32.239 --> 00:49:37.880
your point, when you think about
Sangoro, here is his wife, they've

594
00:49:37.960 --> 00:49:42.440
had to give up, his son. His wife is sleeping with this Genko

595
00:49:42.559 --> 00:49:46.000
Bay who's just this kind of lazy
lout, likes to gamble, likes to

596
00:49:46.119 --> 00:49:50.840
fuck my wife. And I guess
I would be pretty upset too and do

597
00:49:50.960 --> 00:49:52.760
whatever I could. And it feels
like he's on the outs with his father.

598
00:49:53.360 --> 00:49:57.480
And then when his father's oh,
great, i'll have this money now,

599
00:49:57.519 --> 00:49:59.400
I'll give it to this other guy, and I thought, what are

600
00:49:59.400 --> 00:50:00.960
you doing giving my money? But
it's no. This is a good cause

601
00:50:01.280 --> 00:50:05.840
he's gonna go fight this other guy. So I gotta support this. All

602
00:50:05.960 --> 00:50:08.239
right, all right, dad,
at least we're friends now, and now

603
00:50:08.320 --> 00:50:13.239
we're back where we should be.
It's me and my wife and my son.

604
00:50:13.440 --> 00:50:15.239
So yeah, I can really see
now as we're talking about this,

605
00:50:15.440 --> 00:50:19.679
like his point of view, it's
not like he knew she was married.

606
00:50:19.800 --> 00:50:23.000
He thought they were brother and sister. And so it's just like I was

607
00:50:23.039 --> 00:50:29.239
saying at the beginning of the episode, it's just like layers of all kind

608
00:50:29.280 --> 00:50:37.440
of relatively innocuous deceptions where people have
these justified motivations for doing what they're trying

609
00:50:37.519 --> 00:50:42.920
to do. They just all clash
horribly against each other at once because Emily

610
00:50:43.079 --> 00:50:46.239
said, no one will talk to
each other, and be honest, I

611
00:50:46.360 --> 00:50:51.320
would wager that can go be never
actually said to Comyn, tell me about

612
00:50:51.360 --> 00:50:54.239
your family life, that he actually
didn't know anything about her. That he

613
00:50:54.400 --> 00:50:59.159
is, that it's that very he
has cast her in the role of this

614
00:50:59.400 --> 00:51:01.639
is my this poor woman who I
have to save, and I am her

615
00:51:01.719 --> 00:51:06.800
hero and she will love me.
And he could have looked, he probably

616
00:51:06.800 --> 00:51:08.840
could have figured out that she had
a baby three months earlier if he ever

617
00:51:09.000 --> 00:51:13.079
took a minute to think about it. So there's that too, that very

618
00:51:13.400 --> 00:51:17.280
to me, just him in particular, just this very selfish creature who was

619
00:51:17.480 --> 00:51:22.159
he was a samurai and he has
a duty and everybody the fact that farmers

620
00:51:22.320 --> 00:51:29.559
and poor people in town scrounged up
whatever they could to fund his one hundred

621
00:51:29.639 --> 00:51:32.199
ryu to go back into the samurai. For this guy and to him,

622
00:51:32.320 --> 00:51:37.199
it's yeah, of course for me
because of who I am, So I'm

623
00:51:37.239 --> 00:51:39.199
telling you I am. The more
we're talking, the more team Coleman I

624
00:51:39.360 --> 00:51:45.199
am. I am anti Goby.
Not to keep defending Gang Kobe, but

625
00:51:45.480 --> 00:51:50.000
I do think a lot of the
new wave films from this period, and

626
00:51:50.480 --> 00:51:58.159
even some of the more exploitation samurai
films from the early seventies really have a

627
00:51:58.280 --> 00:52:02.960
lot to say about class issues in
Japan. And it's not just like he's

628
00:52:04.159 --> 00:52:07.599
unusually selfish. I think he is
a fuck up and he is lazy.

629
00:52:07.960 --> 00:52:13.960
But this idea that the entire town
would support him getting back in with this

630
00:52:14.079 --> 00:52:17.840
group of samurai. It makes the
whole town look good and it benefits them,

631
00:52:19.480 --> 00:52:22.159
so it's I do think you also
have to consider some of those larger

632
00:52:22.519 --> 00:52:28.000
class and cultural issues. They are
doing something really nice for him, and

633
00:52:28.079 --> 00:52:31.239
he is clearly moved by it,
but he can't stop thinking with his dick.

634
00:52:31.480 --> 00:52:38.239
Basically it makes him even worse when
you think about it. And I

635
00:52:38.360 --> 00:52:43.559
have to say, Katsu Nakamura his
performance, everybody's performance, and this is

636
00:52:43.599 --> 00:52:49.760
great, but some of the things
where like Matsumoto or sorry the DP lighting

637
00:52:49.840 --> 00:52:53.320
him with the light behind him,
where you see all those hair sticking out,

638
00:52:53.360 --> 00:52:57.679
and he just has this demonic look
on his face and will laugh,

639
00:52:58.480 --> 00:53:01.239
Oh my god, he just sends
chills. Three, or when he's being

640
00:53:01.360 --> 00:53:06.800
haunted, when he's leaving the town
and he is thinking about ha Chuman,

641
00:53:06.920 --> 00:53:12.079
who gave up his life for getting
Kobe, and he pictures and I don't

642
00:53:12.119 --> 00:53:15.039
think he's seeing this in real life. I think it's in his head where

643
00:53:15.719 --> 00:53:21.119
Hachiman is basically crucified and stabbed in
the side, like fucking Christ. I'm

644
00:53:21.199 --> 00:53:25.320
like, okay. And then he
runs into a graveyard and starts to see

645
00:53:25.440 --> 00:53:30.840
the ghosts of all the people that
he has murdered, all calling out his

646
00:53:30.039 --> 00:53:35.760
name. Did it's his reactions to
that I think are perfect, And yes,

647
00:53:35.840 --> 00:53:38.360
we have to amp everything up because
this is kabuki, but I think

648
00:53:39.039 --> 00:53:43.880
at that point I'm one hundred percent
all in, so I'm like, yes,

649
00:53:44.199 --> 00:53:46.320
give it to me, give it
to me big. This is fantastic.

650
00:53:46.480 --> 00:53:51.960
This performance is just tearing my heart
out. Yeah. I don't know

651
00:53:52.039 --> 00:53:57.199
why he didn't have a bigger career. He did have an extremely prolific career

652
00:53:57.400 --> 00:54:00.639
that started, I think when he
was a child in the fifties, And

653
00:54:01.599 --> 00:54:07.679
it just boggles my mind why he
was just this like supporting character actor most

654
00:54:07.719 --> 00:54:10.880
of the time and he wasn't a
star. He's in quite on. He

655
00:54:12.000 --> 00:54:15.760
stars in one of those segments.
He's in that Pleasure to the Flesh movie

656
00:54:15.840 --> 00:54:20.639
I mentioned and he's amazing there too, and it's you do see him pop

657
00:54:20.800 --> 00:54:23.559
up, especially in some of the
oh and I don't think we talked about

658
00:54:23.599 --> 00:54:29.280
this yet some of the Art Theater
Guild productions. For anyone who doesn't know

659
00:54:29.440 --> 00:54:35.480
Art Theater Guild, they are a
production company who basically funded the Japanese New

660
00:54:35.559 --> 00:54:39.400
Wave when some of the bigger companies
said no, you can't make this insane

661
00:54:39.519 --> 00:54:45.880
film like, they made Oshima's second
half of his career possible and he would

662
00:54:45.920 --> 00:54:50.920
go on and work on some of
their productions. But it's also in recent

663
00:54:51.119 --> 00:54:54.239
decades, I would say, even
since the eighties or nineties, I think

664
00:54:54.360 --> 00:55:00.679
people have really lauded a lot of
the Art Theater Guilt productions, and so

665
00:55:00.840 --> 00:55:05.360
why not this one. It's just
it's like, how did this one get

666
00:55:05.440 --> 00:55:12.559
lost in the mix. It's very
strange that this is so unknown, and

667
00:55:13.000 --> 00:55:17.960
it really I have a pretty pretty
thorough knowledge of horror titles or anything adjacent,

668
00:55:19.599 --> 00:55:22.760
and that I had never heard of
this or known anything about it.

669
00:55:23.079 --> 00:55:28.559
This has never shown up on a
list of little known Japanese revenge films or

670
00:55:28.599 --> 00:55:30.559
anything to that effect. And I
guess part of it is just that it

671
00:55:30.599 --> 00:55:34.679
doesn't have a release or hasn't had
one for a very long time. But

672
00:55:34.840 --> 00:55:38.719
it is very odd because there is
so much here and I didn't specifically clock

673
00:55:38.800 --> 00:55:44.360
anything that was anything that I could
say, Oh, clearly this filmmaker saw

674
00:55:44.440 --> 00:55:46.400
this movie and use some shots.
But that's another whole thing. I'm sure

675
00:55:46.480 --> 00:55:52.880
there are because this feels so confident
and specific in when it's doing that.

676
00:55:52.039 --> 00:55:55.159
If I had seen this as a
young person who is going to make movies

677
00:55:55.199 --> 00:55:59.199
growing up, I would one day
want to just take a lot from it,

678
00:56:00.079 --> 00:56:05.079
those head shots. I want to
say that when this was released in

679
00:56:05.320 --> 00:56:12.079
Japan, that it was released on
DVD initially obviously with subtitles, and that

680
00:56:12.360 --> 00:56:15.519
I had that version for a long
time. I don't know about the Blu

681
00:56:15.679 --> 00:56:20.920
Ray version. I don't think that
it does have subtitles. So I've seen

682
00:56:21.000 --> 00:56:23.800
the Blu Ray version with English subtitles, but I want to say that they

683
00:56:24.119 --> 00:56:30.440
might not be official subtitles, they
might be fan subs. But it's it's

684
00:56:30.480 --> 00:56:34.320
the sort of thing that you should
see on as big as screen as possible

685
00:56:35.199 --> 00:56:38.800
or as darker room as possible.
Don't get one of those TVs where the

686
00:56:38.920 --> 00:56:45.280
black is like gray like that will
just ruin this movie for you, well,

687
00:56:45.320 --> 00:56:49.760
even to think that the lighting on
her arm when she's getting her tattoo

688
00:56:50.039 --> 00:56:54.679
completed, and you just see like
almost every poor every hair on her arm,

689
00:56:54.800 --> 00:57:00.559
it is just lovely what they're doing
with this. Especially happens to that

690
00:57:00.719 --> 00:57:02.800
arm later in the movie. Yeah, no limbs are saying, no limbs,

691
00:57:02.920 --> 00:57:07.199
no babies, nothing is safe in
this film. We get the ending,

692
00:57:07.239 --> 00:57:14.079
we get Sunguru stabbing himself, we
get a several months later, the

693
00:57:14.119 --> 00:57:17.760
forty seven rown in took on their
duty and Gengobi was not among them.

694
00:57:17.920 --> 00:57:22.239
And that's it. And even though
the movie starts, it opens with Gengob

695
00:57:22.599 --> 00:57:27.840
hanging, which we see again at
one point in the film. I think

696
00:57:27.920 --> 00:57:30.679
that's what I thought was also really
interesting because I feel like what Matsumoto does,

697
00:57:30.800 --> 00:57:36.039
he has taken the audience has filled
in blanks of obviously at some point

698
00:57:36.119 --> 00:57:39.719
he hangs himself, but no,
we never see that happen. We see

699
00:57:39.760 --> 00:57:43.960
glimpses of a dream of that happening, where him may be fantasizing about that

700
00:57:44.039 --> 00:57:47.320
happen, but the movie ends.
We don't know if he is wandering in

701
00:57:47.719 --> 00:57:53.239
madness, if he has taken his
life, if he is just begging somewhere.

702
00:57:53.280 --> 00:57:57.000
We have no idea, but we
can deduce it's not a good time

703
00:57:57.119 --> 00:58:01.280
whatever it might be having. And
in kind of a more vague way,

704
00:58:02.000 --> 00:58:07.239
it just for me reinforced this idea
that he really is like living in hell.

705
00:58:08.079 --> 00:58:14.119
And I don't think that he gives
that map because apparently that map is

706
00:58:14.159 --> 00:58:16.719
a big deal that she finds.
And I guess that was another difference between

707
00:58:16.800 --> 00:58:21.840
the play and the movie is that
there's this whole thing with the guy who

708
00:58:22.519 --> 00:58:25.280
finds the map and brings the map
to them, and they just eliminated that

709
00:58:25.360 --> 00:58:29.280
altogether and just said, hey,
look a map. It's okay, great.

710
00:58:29.440 --> 00:58:32.760
I don't think we needed all that
stuff. I didn't fully understand all

711
00:58:32.800 --> 00:58:37.400
the map stuff. I will confess
it was the whole thing of the brother

712
00:58:37.519 --> 00:58:43.039
in law being from one faction and
the Sengoro being from another faction, and

713
00:58:43.119 --> 00:58:45.920
so there's this whole thing. And
that's why with this forty eight forty seven

714
00:58:46.079 --> 00:58:51.079
Ronan, like, this whole thing
is like this war between these two factions

715
00:58:51.159 --> 00:58:52.840
and stuff, and so it's,
oh, hey, here's this map of

716
00:58:52.920 --> 00:58:57.400
this guy's place with a secret entrance. We could go over there and kill

717
00:58:57.480 --> 00:59:00.840
him, or if we give this
to the forty seven ronan and they'll be

718
00:59:00.880 --> 00:59:02.920
able to use this is fantastic.
Oh my god, my dad's gonna be

719
00:59:04.000 --> 00:59:07.280
so happy with me when I give
this over to them. And then when

720
00:59:07.320 --> 00:59:12.360
that map shows back up and the
dad's given it to our main character with

721
00:59:12.599 --> 00:59:16.519
the one hundred ryu with the same
hanky that he used to tie that up,

722
00:59:17.280 --> 00:59:22.000
the look on his face, Oh
my god. Again, just a

723
00:59:22.320 --> 00:59:27.079
powerhouse performance that's going on. I
just couldn't get over it. And then

724
00:59:27.199 --> 00:59:31.800
yeah, that stark end comment of
he was not among them, it's oh

725
00:59:32.519 --> 00:59:38.639
man, oh so good. It
is a great last line of a movie,

726
00:59:38.719 --> 00:59:43.800
a great last subtitle of a movie. It's so bitchy, yes,

727
00:59:44.480 --> 00:59:47.679
passive aggressive, just because it didn't
have to be worded that way. It

728
00:59:47.760 --> 00:59:51.679
could have just been he was never
seen again. Instead it's oh no,

729
00:59:52.000 --> 00:59:55.199
this thing happened, didn't He wasn't
there, but it happened. And I'm

730
00:59:55.239 --> 00:59:58.920
not saying like this, Oh my
god, this has to be in the

731
00:59:59.079 --> 01:00:00.800
cannon and stuff. But it's got
to be easier to see, because this

732
01:00:01.079 --> 01:00:06.280
is a great movie and something that
I've not seen before, especially with these

733
01:00:06.639 --> 01:00:08.280
the multiple cuts and all this kind
of stuff. I see that now in

734
01:00:08.440 --> 01:00:13.320
movies today and here it is back
in nineteen seventy one. I'm like,

735
01:00:13.360 --> 01:00:15.280
oh, this is really neat that
they're doing this, and just that it

736
01:00:15.400 --> 01:00:19.960
seems very motivated. And it also, like we said at the very beginning,

737
01:00:20.039 --> 01:00:22.840
keeps us on edge because we don't
know what's fantasy what's reality. So

738
01:00:22.920 --> 01:00:27.199
when those moments happen, is oh, okay, kind of jolted out of

739
01:00:27.239 --> 01:00:30.239
it. And I know that probably
upset people at the time watching it.

740
01:00:30.719 --> 01:00:32.000
I know there were some reviews where
it's just like, how dare you?

741
01:00:32.280 --> 01:00:36.239
I don't know if this is real
or not. It's the same people that

742
01:00:36.280 --> 01:00:37.679
were like, I didn't know who
to root for us I didn't like it.

743
01:00:38.280 --> 01:00:44.400
But it's also bizarre considering when it
came out, because you do have

744
01:00:45.320 --> 01:00:51.000
directors, like new wave directors like
Tashigahara doing similar stuff with face of Another

745
01:00:51.559 --> 01:00:54.440
and even to a different degree,
women in the Dunes, So it's like

746
01:00:54.800 --> 01:01:01.000
you have Japanese directors playing around with
editing and cineamhotography. But I wonder if

747
01:01:01.159 --> 01:01:06.079
maybe where he got into trouble or
he didn't get into trouble, but maybe

748
01:01:06.159 --> 01:01:14.400
where critics and audiences got confused is
like something like the more obvious new wave

749
01:01:14.519 --> 01:01:16.760
films, even Funeral Parade of Roses, It's like, you go into it

750
01:01:17.079 --> 01:01:22.480
and they feel like art films,
they feel experimental, yes, whereas this,

751
01:01:23.559 --> 01:01:28.320
I think if this is being sold
to you as like a samurai horror

752
01:01:28.400 --> 01:01:30.800
movie and then you get all of
this experimental art stuff, you're like,

753
01:01:30.880 --> 01:01:35.519
what the fuck is happening? Yeah. And also I think if you go

754
01:01:35.639 --> 01:01:39.760
into it just thinking you're watching a
new movie and it immediately is a feudal

755
01:01:40.639 --> 01:01:45.159
story told tradition, even though it's
not traditional, but on its face it

756
01:01:45.360 --> 01:01:50.039
is a traditional adaptation of a you
know, folk tale and so on,

757
01:01:50.920 --> 01:01:55.320
and that probably to the other side
of that audience who wants something modern,

758
01:01:55.559 --> 01:02:00.760
who wanted another funeral Pread of Roses, it feels like a very star change

759
01:02:00.800 --> 01:02:04.360
of Wait, you're adapting a play. Yeah. I think maybe the problem

760
01:02:04.480 --> 01:02:08.719
is that it's just two in the
middle. But it also doesn't belong in

761
01:02:08.960 --> 01:02:15.519
that same category as the lone Wolf
in cub movies and things like Lady Snowblood,

762
01:02:15.599 --> 01:02:22.559
which are more obviously genre exploitation films. It's just in this no man's

763
01:02:22.639 --> 01:02:30.159
land between period horror exploitation and art
house and people seem to get confused when

764
01:02:30.239 --> 01:02:35.960
they can't just have a film follow
a set of guidelines, which to me

765
01:02:36.159 --> 01:02:39.320
is insane. It's like today it
would be an a twenty four film and

766
01:02:39.320 --> 01:02:42.920
then people would all go crazy for
it. Oh my god, don't even

767
01:02:43.079 --> 01:02:49.599
say that. That's so insulting.
Wait for the remake, Darnania Taylor Joey.

768
01:02:50.199 --> 01:02:52.199
When I think about the first Lone
Wolf in cub movie, when you

769
01:02:52.559 --> 01:02:57.039
think of ohka, I'm itto when
he's got a sword under the water and

770
01:02:57.119 --> 01:03:02.039
he brings it up to kill one
of the brothers from the clan from Redsseudo's

771
01:03:02.079 --> 01:03:07.920
clan and it flashes like multiple times
and stuff before it kills the guys.

772
01:03:07.039 --> 01:03:10.519
Okay, that's pretty experimental, but
yeah, to your point. Yeah,

773
01:03:10.679 --> 01:03:15.519
and it's guys. We have had
the Japanese New Wave around for quite a

774
01:03:15.599 --> 01:03:20.559
few years now. Well it started
in fifty nine sixty, so it's this

775
01:03:20.719 --> 01:03:23.639
is the tail end of the Japanese
New Wave here. I don't know why

776
01:03:23.920 --> 01:03:28.920
this one. Yeah, there's so
many films from just like oh wow,

777
01:03:29.079 --> 01:03:32.159
I didn't expect that to happen,
or like the you can get way out

778
01:03:32.199 --> 01:03:36.360
there and just do the funky forest
type of things where it's just this is

779
01:03:36.400 --> 01:03:38.280
gonna be fucked up from the beginning
to the end. But this has just

780
01:03:38.360 --> 01:03:43.280
those little moments of fuck upery where
you're like, oh that was surprising,

781
01:03:43.639 --> 01:03:46.639
But it keeps you on your toes
and I really liked it. Yeah,

782
01:03:47.360 --> 01:03:52.639
it demands us a different kind of
energy. It's not fun. There's nothing

783
01:03:52.119 --> 01:03:57.239
cool about this movie in that regard. There's nothing, no shot call.

784
01:03:57.960 --> 01:04:03.559
Even the violence. The violence is
messy and clumsy and not done in a

785
01:04:03.599 --> 01:04:09.280
way that either like it upsets you, it doesn't scare you. And so

786
01:04:09.400 --> 01:04:12.280
I think there's that too. It
would be hard to have seen this movie,

787
01:04:12.480 --> 01:04:15.480
especially back in the day where you're
seeing the movie once, you're not

788
01:04:15.360 --> 01:04:19.000
immediately going back and going through things. To have gone to a theater and

789
01:04:19.079 --> 01:04:25.320
seen this and then leave. It's
a hard movie to grapple with that way,

790
01:04:25.559 --> 01:04:29.159
I think. And I can't imagine
somebody going anywhere and saying you need

791
01:04:29.239 --> 01:04:31.840
to I think maybe at a certain
level or a certain type of person would

792
01:04:31.920 --> 01:04:34.719
know they need to see it again. Yeah, I would be jumping right

793
01:04:34.800 --> 01:04:40.800
back in line for the next screening. Yeah. I almost watched this two

794
01:04:40.840 --> 01:04:43.400
times in a row. Last night
when I was watching it again, because

795
01:04:43.440 --> 01:04:46.440
it was just like, this is
so good and just really, yeah,

796
01:04:46.719 --> 01:04:50.559
it's astounding. It's a great movie, and one yeah, I definitely it's

797
01:04:50.599 --> 01:04:55.079
a tough watch, definitely, but
it's one I highly recommend. And when

798
01:04:55.079 --> 01:04:58.639
I'm really glad that we were able
to talk about Yeah, I'm so glad

799
01:04:58.719 --> 01:05:02.119
I was introduced to it. Yeah, I think it's pretty much a perfect

800
01:05:02.239 --> 01:05:08.519
film, and more people need to
watch it, especially if you're at all

801
01:05:08.760 --> 01:05:12.760
a fan of Japanese cinema from the
sixties and seventies. All right, we're

802
01:05:12.800 --> 01:05:15.400
going to take a break and play
a preview for next week's show right after

803
01:05:15.599 --> 01:05:20.760
these brief messages. This is one
of the hot scenes that is about heat

804
01:05:21.000 --> 01:05:28.679
and chemistrysting the artistic question of the
film. That's right, So just give

805
01:05:28.719 --> 01:05:31.440
her a little room react normally,
be sensitive above all because in the scene,

806
01:05:31.480 --> 01:05:38.000
Days is going to take off her
blouse. Wi Steve Market if you're

807
01:05:38.039 --> 01:05:42.880
offering yourself to him in order to
save the planet and any Yeah, bull

808
01:05:42.960 --> 01:05:46.480
Finger in it. Great. That's
right. We are back next month doing

809
01:05:46.519 --> 01:05:50.239
something completely different. No more Japanese
films for a little while. We're going

810
01:05:50.280 --> 01:05:55.599
to be talking about comedies, including
the film bow Finger. Next week until

811
01:05:55.639 --> 01:05:58.840
then, I want to thank my
co hosts Emily and Sam. So Sam,

812
01:05:58.920 --> 01:06:01.159
what is happening with you? Please? Every time you ask me that,

813
01:06:01.559 --> 01:06:05.360
I always want to talk about something
vinegar syndrome related, but I can

814
01:06:05.480 --> 01:06:10.199
never remember when things are actually going
to get announced, and I don't want

815
01:06:10.199 --> 01:06:15.320
to get in trouble, so let's
just say I. I think by the

816
01:06:15.360 --> 01:06:18.280
time this comes out, for sure, we will have a new episode of

817
01:06:18.360 --> 01:06:24.119
my podcast Twitch of the Death Nerve, which Mike will be on talking all

818
01:06:24.400 --> 01:06:32.360
about Frank Herbert and Dune and sandworms
spiciness. I can't stand that Frank Herbert

819
01:06:32.400 --> 01:06:38.920
can't say that whole Dune franchise,
oh Man timely, Yeah, really hitting

820
01:06:38.960 --> 01:06:43.599
on that pzeitgeist. I usually hate
doing that, but what can you do

821
01:06:43.840 --> 01:06:47.559
when somebody makes a popcorn bucket that
looks like a sandworm that you could have

822
01:06:47.719 --> 01:06:51.840
sex with, you have to do
a podcast episode on it. And Emily,

823
01:06:51.840 --> 01:06:55.159
how about you? What's going on
with you? The usual? You

824
01:06:55.199 --> 01:06:58.840
can find my writing at Diddley dolls
House dot com, where I just generally

825
01:06:59.079 --> 01:07:01.800
write about bad horror films, and
then I do a podcast with the fantastic

826
01:07:01.880 --> 01:07:05.039
Christine nk Peace, who you both
know has been a guest on the show

827
01:07:05.079 --> 01:07:09.679
before. We do a podcast called
The Feminine Critique. We have been on

828
01:07:09.760 --> 01:07:12.360
a little bit of a break just
because of life stuff, but there are

829
01:07:12.440 --> 01:07:15.400
plenty of back episodes. One of
our last episodes we covered we were doing

830
01:07:15.440 --> 01:07:19.000
the Criterion Channel, so we did
Testament and The Day the Earth Caught Fire,

831
01:07:19.760 --> 01:07:24.480
which were two very different end of
the world films that I thought was

832
01:07:24.559 --> 01:07:28.440
a very fun discussion in a very
dark way that was very unthuttling fun for

833
01:07:28.480 --> 01:07:30.199
the whole family. Thank you again, ladies for being on the show.

834
01:07:30.280 --> 01:07:32.800
Thanks to everybody for listening. If
you want to hear more of me shooting

835
01:07:32.840 --> 01:07:34.920
off my mouth, check out some
of the other shows that I work on,

836
01:07:35.599 --> 01:07:40.519
like Feminine Critique. They are all
available over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com.

837
01:07:40.920 --> 01:07:44.119
Thanks especially to our Patreon community.
If you want to join the community,

838
01:07:44.280 --> 01:07:47.280
visit patreon dot com. Slash Projection
Booth. Every donation we get helps some

839
01:07:47.320 --> 01:08:30.920
Projection Booth take over the world.
Shinda asan domaino you Kida Huru again,

840
01:08:33.359 --> 01:08:50.720
Oh Getta Otto, Kishi, Nama, Mitsim, day A, Yami Outa

841
01:08:50.800 --> 01:09:03.119
Kishim gentleman Oka, Sashi touch he
don't she Know? Meet you you could

842
01:09:03.279 --> 01:09:38.319
old Nami dama doney sink him.
She d colony do that cat tap no

843
01:09:38.520 --> 01:09:54.239
hima he did that? Suua googo
cousin Naika amyle cousin. He dammy the

844
01:09:54.399 --> 01:10:03.680
money, what's her? Dunny?
Who's the she? Nay does Miss Geno

845
01:10:03.880 --> 01:10:20.439
manoca she too ton me no meet
you you cul oh cuckoo doney. She

846
01:10:20.720 --> 01:11:00.279
came up. She you didn't suck
nam me dam you memo quenomo. She's

847
01:11:00.359 --> 01:11:18.119
Sma and my quttu the udramino karani
me you dana oh Mama done. She