Fric and Frac

What did you make of the son of the boss's brother and his friend? Why was this goofy pair in the movie? Did the disability have a special significance?

Haruna's Hit

In another thread, Kc mentioned that she found Haruna’s “ridiculous hit song to be somewhat moving and melancholy when stripped of its pop beat and electronic music”. I thought the song was a decidedly good bit of tween pop product with a strong hook and just the right sappiness in its idolized image of love. I would never sit around and listen to it, but I thought it was pretty good for what it was. And I was also impressed with how well it worked as a melancholy lament. Ben, what is your reaction to the two versions of this song?

Dubious Movie Making Devices?

One of the pleasures of having cultivated a distaste for certain movie making devices is that I can be all the more impressed when a filmmaker puts one to good use. I’ve already mentioned that Kitano did a great job of subverting my expectations about the bunraku puppets as a framing device. I would suppose that in general I’m irritated if a movie superimposes an image. Mostly this is done by ham-handed filmmakers and I’m going yeah, yeah, I got your point already so how ‘bout we move on now, ok? But Kitano is certainly not ham-handed and everything else about this film shows economy and poise. So the superimposed images kind of surprised me the first time I watched the movie. I wasn’t sure if I liked them, and I wasn’t sure if they improved the film. On second viewing, they are, of course, no longer surprising. I’m also inclined to think that they are far more integral than they first seemed. There were three, weren’t there? A picture of Haruna imposed on the blood at the car wreck, a picture of Nukui imposed on the blood being washed from the street, and a picture of bunraku puppets imposed on the costumes on the clothesline. Any thoughts?

The Threads

I thought the costumes were wonderful. The ever more bunraku-like outfits that the beggars wear were most obvious, but all the costuming fit very well. After watching the interview with Yohji Yamamoto, I’d like to take a world trip where we visited all his favorite haunts while wearing his threads. Bound to be a good time.

Miho Kanno

Miho Kanno had to play Sawako almost without speaking. She spends a lot of time on screen and is featured in many close-ups. It must intimidating to try and play such a role and develop your character with almost no lines. But I was impressed with her performance. It was a good call to have her fixate on color and minutia. Color was almost a character in this movie. And I thought the scenes with the blow toy were wonderful. Sawako’s frustration after the ball was crushed was a poignant reflection of her incomprehension of how her life had also been crushed.

The Weave

Our movie is not presented chronologically, or even chronologically with flashbacks. Instead it jumps foreword and back in time seeming at random, and we are seldom shown how the three stories relate to each other through time. For that matter, the three strands touch each other only through the wanderings of Sawako and Matsumoto as the bound beggars walk unaware through the other two dramas. Did you like this way of constructing a movie?

The Real Puppets

The first time I watched this movie, the bunraku puppets had receded into my sub-consciousness until right before Sawako and Matsumoto trudged up over that hill in the snow and saw the costumes hanging on the clothesline. Right before that scene, I suddenly thought, wow, they look like the puppets. No sooner had I had that thought, but Kitano cuts to the image of the bunraku puppets superimposed on the clothesline. I was much amazed that the timing of the film perfectly matched my own growing awareness.

At what point did you come to see the bound beggars as puppets?

Fairy Tales

Two of our stories seem like fairy tales: the bound beggars, and the woman who waits all her life on a park bench for the boyfriend who doesn’t return. But again, the story of Haruna Yamaguchi and Nukui is different. This is just the kind of thing we expect from a fixated fan who has no life outside of worshiping the star. What do you think of weaving this all too believable story between the other two more magical tales?

Betrayal?

The three relationships in “Dolls” are all doomed. In two of them, Sawako/Matsumoto, and Hiro/Ryoko, you can say they are doomed by betrayal that cannot be set right. But what do you make of the story of the pop idol Haruna Yamaguchi and her fan Nukui?

Dolls

Should we start with first reactions? Takeshi Kitano was known for movies about Yakuza (“Brother” 2000) and cops (“Hana-bi” 1997) that were, at times, quite violent. So when “Dolls” came out in 2002, I wonder if it really found its audience. But then I’m not sure who had been watching him. I’ve not seen “Brother” or the other two films in the ‘Yakuza Trilogy’, but I did see “Hana-bi”. It is strange for a cop film. It centers on character not plot. Key characters are ex-cops instead of active duty. And it focuses on efforts to cope, or failure trying, that would never be found in your bang-bang-get-the-bad-guy flick.

Still, “Dolls” is an unusual movie that doesn’t readily fit into a category. It has a framing device of puppets that turns out to be more integral than a mere framing device. Color and costume are front and center in the presentation. And there are three stories braided together like the rope on the ‘bound beggars’.

Did you like this? Is it too stylized or abstract?

Poetry and Puppets

Well, Kc’s instructions were to dazzle. Being on somewhat of a Japanese kick of late, I considered Miyazaki’s animation, probably “Spirited Away”. But then I started thinking about films you might never encounter except via something like this club. So that led me to the 2002 movie by Takeshi Kitano, “Dolls”. Then when I remembered that there are some fans of puppetry on this site, the deal was sealed.