Film
DOCUMENTARY THE DEVIL’S MINER (12A) 82min 0..
This documentary has such a fascinating location and such appalling subject matter that it proves all the more disappointing come its conclusion. Filmed in the Cerro Rico Mountains of Bolivia. famous for their silver deposits but also for taking millions of lives in the five centuries in which they've been mined. Richard
Ladkani and Kief Davidson's film adopts a strong arm music score while focusing on the exploits of a 14-year- old boy who must go into the mines just to survive financially. Ladkani and Davidson seem to want sentiment over comprehension. and so we have too many scenes contextualising the misery of the boy's life and not enough on the enticing pull of this mysterious location (what would Herzog have done with it?)
Certainly there are understandable
harsh realities to be shown (the average life expectancy of a miner is under 40). but the film is at its best when really capturing the reality of the
INTERVIEW
THE OLD DOG Phil Hoad kneels before a true Japanese filmmaking legend, YOJl YAMADA. 7 H
With 68 films under his belt, Yoji Yamada is one of the true veterans of the Japanese movie business, yet it’s only lately he’s dabbled in one of its great traditions: the samurai film. ‘You could say in Japan there are two types of filmmakers: ones who make samurai films and ones who make contemporary films. In my case, I had to study a lot before I could make the latter,’ says the 74-year-old.
Until recently, he fell squarely into the contemporary category, but won acclaim for 2002’s Twilight Samurai which he has now followed up with the equally impressive The Hidden Blade, a sombre, complex Edo period Samurai melodrama. One reason for Yamada’s late adoption of the genre is an austere emphasis on realism. Every detail was researched, from how easily swords cut through kimonos to how the peasants lit their huts. Yamada rewatched Barry Lyndon to see how Kubrick coped with filming in candlelight. The director’s fastidious approach is evident in the swordfights, which are brutal and scrappy affairs. He is scathing about the balletic, kinetic, multiple-assailant spectaculars we’ve become used to in Western-filtered martial arts films or even the flamboyant blood-spurts of Takeshi Kitano’s Zatéichi - ‘It’s just unbelievable, it’s not real at all.’
If Yamada’s place in Japanese film heritage doesn’t lay with the way of bushido, he’s made a different contribution. He joined Shochiku studios straight out of university in 1954 and, 15 years later, launched the first film in the popular Taro-sen series, about the misadventures of the titular middle-aged bumbler, never able to get the girl. The series ended up running up an incredible 48 films, until the death of lead actor Kiyoshi Atsama in 1996. Was the character a reflection of his romantic frustrations? ‘I think that all men have had this experience,’ says Yamada. Nevertheless, he thinks being past that kind of tomfoolery has lent a kind of authority to his relationship-driven samurai pics. ‘That’s why I can make those love stories now - because I’m able to see youth from a more objective point of view.’
What his two most recent films share is a strong sense of a passing age and Yamada admits he’s drawing on his perceptions of sped-up modern life. But, he insists, his filmmaking stands firm. ‘I think how you make films, the style doesn’t change so much. I just watched Battleship Potemkin again yesterday. It’s so old but it feels so new and very, very contemporary. Of course, the machines and the techniques filmmakers use are changing, so we have to adapt. But the films themselves don’t change so much.’
I The Hidden Blade opens on Fri 2 Dec at Cinewor/d Fienfrew Street, Glasgow and GFT Glasgow from Fri 30 Dec. See review, right.
50 THE LIST l- 1:3 Dec 2005
location on people's lives. over the social contextualising that makes it just another worthy documentary. (Tony MCKibbin)
I GFT, Glasgow on Fri 9 and Sun 78 Dec only. Fi/mhouse. Edinburgh from Fri 9— Thu 75 Dec only.
NEW PRINT PATHS OF GLORY (PG) 87min I...
Banned in France for some 18 years after its 1957 release on account of its anti-militarist sentiments. the reissued Paths of Glory continues to impress with its striking blend of formal brilliance. economical st0rytelling and emotional directness. Kubrick's first major studio film has a dynamic Kirk Douglas playing the idealistic Dax. a World War I French colonel who‘s torn between loyalty to his own men and to the commands of his power-hungry superiors (George Macready and Adolphe Menjou).
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The director establishes a powerfully immediate visual contrast between the lavishly appointed chateau where the top brass vie for power and blithely send others to their graves. and the appalling conditions in the trenches. where relentless tracking shots convey the carnage of industrialised warfare. And in a masterfully detailed sequence. which mixes up different perspectives. Kubrick allows us to feel the terror of the three scapegoated men, who are making the long walk to the firing squad that will end their lives. Aided by the gripping ensemble performances. it's undoubtedly one of the late filmmaker's most emotional works. foreshadowing the military madness that was to pervade Dr Strange/ove. (Tom Dawson)
I Fi/mhouse. Edinburgh from Wed 9 Dec only.
CRIME/COMEDY SCOROHED (12) 94min 0..
In some godforsaken American dustbowl stands the Desert Savings Bank. Everyone who works there
seems to have some kind of beef. Sheila (Alicia Silverstone) has just been dumped by her boyfriend Rick (Joshua Leonard). the bank's lazy. obnoxious bank manager. Assistant manager Jason (Woody Harrelson) is going through some kind of ‘return to nature' nervous breakdown and has sworn revenge on the murderer (John Cleese) of his pet duck's mother. The culprit also happens to be one of the bank's richest clients. On the sidelines there is nice boy cashier Stuart (Paulo Costanzo) and his brother Max (David Krumholtz). who dream of one day visiting Vegas. and their drifter friends Schmally (Rachael Leigh Cook) and Carter (Marcus Thomas). In the next 36 hours they will all be involved in the biggest ever robbery at the bank.
Actor-turned-director Gavin Grazer and screenwriter Joe Wein's Iikeably offbeat and lightweight heist comedy neatly. if rather schematically, nods to the benchmarks of the genre. most noticeany Peter Yates' excellent 1972 film The Hot Rock. John Herzfeld’s Two Days in the Valley and Charles Crichton's A Fish cal/ed Wanda. While Shocked is not as accomplished or as sustained as any of those films. it does offer a few very funny moments of incidental humour, slapstick and brutal comedy. (Paul Dale)
I UCI, Edinburgh from Fri 9 Dec.
MELODRAMA THE HIDDEN BLADE (15) 131 min 0000
Set. like his previous film Twilight Samurai. within the fictional Unasaka clan in the Shonai area along the northern coast of Japan in the 19th century. Yoji Yamada's new film again plunders the collected shOrt stories of Shuhei Fujisawa with engaging effect. Samurai Katagiri (Masatoshi Nagase) is a good man living in changing times. Japan's different clans are facing opposition and modernisation from without and within. When one of his oldest friends Hazama (Yukiyoshi Ozawa) emerges as rebel leader. the best swordsman in the area. Katagiri. is sent after him. against his will. The trouble is that ageing singleton Katagiri is in love with his maid Kie (Takako MatSLi) and. being a man of peace. he has never actually killed a man before. Septuagenarian Yamada's films are so out of step with those of his contemporaries. it's amazing. He seems to want to make films that echo the work of filmmakers so woefully out of fashion like Clarence Brown (The Yearling) and George Stevens (Shane) that he is either a sentimental old fool or a genius. So stoic yet gentle and reflective is his style here in fact that when he does ultimately serve up the