Half Empty, Since 1998 » Review

Paul Pope's Heavy Liquid

Marty Spellerberg — Wed, 19 Jul 2000 21:16:05 +0000

Seventy years in the future, a man called "S" has fallen into the middle of some complicated shit. He’s come in possession of a metal called Heavy Liquid that everyone wants, and most will kill for. He’s being chased by the government on his right, some Mafia goons on his left, and, in the middle a rich collector who wants to make it into art. Only problem is, S is predisposed to melting the shit down and pouring it in his ear!

Very much old-school noir and very much new-school cyberpunk, Heavy Liquid is an international espionage thriller casting its hero as equal part performance artist and data cowboy. Like Bond’s bastard son, S goes around taking his smack, wearing good clothes and meeting hot girls, each spunkier than the last. The drawings are dark and moody, they’re angular and hard. His Americans are of Asian and Latino blood and they’re colored with a minimal pallet of dirty blues and pinks.

The word bubbles are all circles and the dialogue is set in something that could be a Emigre-font but could also be hand-done. And scattered throughout the book are buyer’s guides, complete with addresses and prices, to prove he’s really thought this shit through.

But the book does have its flaws. Though more complex than most Pope books, the story does suffer from his dream-logic leanings; events seem to follow each other not in keeping with a grand master plan but because he likes the atmosphere the scenes create. In the end, despite its initial promise and a few very interesting ideas, the story is nothing to shake a stick at.

And the thing is bloody expensive! I don’t know what DC was thinking, but a $30 US ($50 Canadian) price tag is likely to put-off all but the most die-hard of Pope’s audience. If you can, borrow this from a friend.

If you’re not willing to spend your life savings on one trade paperback, look for some of Pope’s other work – his "One Trick Rip Off" published by Dark Horse has the same energy but suffers even more from lack of depth. And if your local shop can get their hands on them, Pope’s THB series is of special relevance to designers. Printed black and white on large-format paper, THB, like most of Pope’s stuff, makes you want to get away from the computer for a bit and see what you can do with pen and ink!

(Originally published at Pixelsurgeon, now defunct.)

Marty's Notes On "Tetsuo 1: The Iron Man"

Marty Spellerberg — Wed, 02 Feb 2000 22:37:16 +0000

Narrative in this is a bit ambiguous, but let me try to outline it in the following. A guy sticks a metal rod in his leg and while he’s hobbling down the street he gets hit by a car because the driver too busy having sex with his girl to swerve out of the way. They pick up his body and take him out to the forest and this gets them so hot and bothered that they start going at it again. So, as a sort of punishment for all this, the driver is infected with metal when he cuts himself with his shaver and, while on the commuter train, is attacked and further infected by a woman who has the metal infection bad. He starts dreaming of getting fucked up the ass by a big metal 6-foot long penis and the next day when he’s going at it with his girl his penis becomes a nasty drill and as the infection takes his body he kills her with it. The guy with the pipe in his leg starts talking to him (telepathically?) and reanimates his girl again before confronting him personally.

Pipe-guy has also become metal but he’s all rusty because his pipe was rusty, but driver-guy is shiny because his razor was clean. Halfway through their confrontation shiny-guy is faced by an older man who says he is his father and every time the old guy hits him with a big staff the rusty guy feels it too. At the end of their fight rusty-guy and shiny-guy combine into what looks like an ugly rendition of the statue of liberty with a shotgun and, expressing how good they feel about the transformation, decide to turn the whole world into metal. At least, that’s as best as I could figure it out.

I found the homosexuality in the film rather interesting – how he kills his girl during sex but it’s not what he intended and only feels satisfaction when he merges with the other guy, the guy who was like him and understood him. But his merger with the rust-guy was extremely painful, beginning with the sex nightmares, the destruction of all of his former life and even rust-guy’s brief appearance as the reanimated girlfriend. And, if that older man was really his father then his anger, his blows that affected both of them could be representation of society’s, the establishment’s disapproval of same sex relationships.

The film was a barrage of the senses, beginning with the horrible scene of the opening of the leg and continuing with the industrial soundtrack into scenes like the gruesome killing of the girlfriend. I have seen images similar to many in that film in Japanese pulp culture and I do suspect that this film influenced much of it, rather than vice versa. This seemed to have some depth, some cohesion to the attitudes presented where much of the manga and anime seemed to use the images unjustifiably, as if they’re in fashion. I do believe that much of the power of this film lies in it being live action, being horrible in its ugly actuality in a way drawings can not. The use of animation techniques such as pixelation also added to the effect, being disorienting where smooth effects, especially computer graphics, might be distracting.

Marty’s Japanese Film Notes

These notes were compiled in the winter of 1999 as part of Marty’s studies at the Ontario College of Art & Design. They may contain references to ideas in texts and credit is given to the authors.

Marty's Notes On "Black Rain"

Marty Spellerberg — Wed, 02 Feb 2000 22:30:33 +0000

This is the story of a family that survived the dropping of the atomic bomb and their place in society as a result. It’s told in three narrative modes: the flashbacks of the uncle portraying their trek through the horror and destruction, the “present day” of their lives in a rural town and a brief flashback by the man the niece loves to the source of his shell shock. In the present day the uncle is trying to find a husband for her niece, doing all he can to prove her health despite having been hit by the black rain. All around him his friends are manifesting the signs of radiation sickness and dying, and on the radio he hears speculation that the bomb will be dropped again by the Americans in Korea. Even his wife, who had always been strong, shows symptoms and is weak. The story ends when it becomes clear that the niece does indeed have the sickness and it overtakes and kills her.

The survivors are outcasts, they are not wanted by the rest of the country. They are sick and need to rest, but their lack of work is criticized. They are resented for not dying the glorious death and not letting the bomb be forgotten. In the film no respectable family will let their sons marry the niece, for the black rain hit her and she is feared unable to bear children. For her part, she can’t talk about the bomb with any of her suitors and must put up a healthy, happy mask. So she is drawn to the boy next door, an ex soldier so shell shocked that whenever he hears a motorcar he attacks it as if it were an enemy tank, compensation for his inability to perform his function properly during battle. The climax of the film is that the uncle does concede that his efforts to reenter her into normal life are futile and resigns himself to the fact that they are different, they can only be understood and accepted by their own kind.

While I’m sure the moral of the film is wide open for attack, I understand that he has also been criticized for creating an account of the bomb’s follow up that is extremely middle of the road. I can understand why he did this, I think — an urge to fill in the large gap of silence about the period. I think it’s a double edge sword he’s faced with because if there was a stronger body of work dealing with these people he would be safer doing a more subjective, and presumably more “accurate,” piece. But as it is there are so few that his must speak for a much broader audience and the result is, consequently, somewhat watered down. Americans were never singled out as the cause of all the destruction – always characters referred to the “enemy.” Only on the radio, in reference to a different war, was the term “Americans” used.

Marty’s Japanese Film Notes

These notes were compiled in the winter of 1999 as part of Marty’s studies at the Ontario College of Art & Design. They may contain references to ideas in texts and credit is given to the authors.

Marty's Notes On "In The Realm Of The Senses"

Marty Spellerberg — Wed, 02 Feb 2000 22:26:04 +0000

In “In The Realm of the Senses” a man with some wealth and influence takes up a sexual relationship with a woman and continues it through to its conceptualized peak – his death. They have sex, then more sex, then more sex, then she kills him, and it’s all still sex. He’s married to someone else and she has means apart from him, but while the rest of the world is doing its thing, they have sex.

Nagisa Oshima was already considered a leading theorititician working in independent Japanese cinema production when he made this film in 1976 and it was as much a text about his socio/political ideas as any of his written pieces. He strongly believed in the subjectivity of a person, especially of an author; a free individualism that, while being ingrained in the American condition, was only beginning to find a place in Japan. In the film sex and revolution are inseparably tied and create what he considered a positive energy. The sexual activity of the characters – the quest for ultimate physical pleasure battled against the military activities condoned by the “popular opinion”. Also, the characters exist in a very peculiar time and space that does not progress and is inescapable. Their entire story, save for only a few exceptions that only put their activities in context, takes place in their bedroom during the act of lovemaking.

At the time I saw this film I’d just seen a PBS documentary on the condition of children in a small white town in the US, on how conditions of “success” had led them to a profound emptiness with regard to love, family and identity. The program began probing the activities of the middle nineties when multiple outbreaks of syphilis were investigated and revealed middle school students were having after school orgies. It continued to show that, while few of the next generation were aware of the incidents, none of the underlying causes had been addresses and it ended, by chance, with a Columbine-style copy-cat shooting at the high school.

I feel like there is a nihilism reflected in films such as In The Realm of the Senses, an emptiness to the sex that is, whatever the director’s intention, failing following generations. I couldn’t help but think that if this art and cinema were fulfilling its promise, doing what it’s setting out to do, there wouldn’t be situations like those I described. I feel like Oshima had wondered too far down the path with this film, too far away from anything that does anybody any amount of good. From texts I have learned his agenda, but I think that symbolism was taken too far, and that this is an example of how changes demanded by the previous generation have not led to a “better world” and happier people, but have made everyone even more tired, confused and empty.

Marty’s Japanese Film Notes

These notes were compiled in the winter of 1999 as part of Marty’s studies at the Ontario College of Art & Design. They may contain references to ideas in texts and credit is given to the authors.

Marty's Notes On "Black Lizard"

Marty Spellerberg — Wed, 02 Feb 2000 22:21:32 +0000

A super rich crime lady wants to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy jeweler so that she can turn her into a “doll” without a soul and preserve her beauty forever. The jeweler hires a private detective to protect her, but the lady twice uses ingenuous tricks to steal her away, yet twice the detective out tricks her. In the interim the lady falls for the detective and their love is the cause for many poetic monologues.

It’s rather like a 007 flick only very, very Japanese. While the style of the genre is perfectly executed, its main difference from the western kapers I’ve seen is the concentration on the emotional state of the characters, their personal relationships with each other. While most Bond films involve either large sums of money or political territory or the good old bomb, this revolved around the lady’s quest to make something of (what she considered) beauty. The jewel that was stolen was only a plot device, and another shiny ting that could be photographed for our visual pleasure. And any love affair our James ever had with an enemy while in his majesty’s service was always more about power – his ability to always get the girl – than it was about love. But in this Japanese movie, the emotion between the detective and the lady was always, despite its weirdness, tender and not ever consummated in the slightest way. I was very reminded during this of many of the other films we watched this term, especially The Pornographers and In The Realm of The Senses, I think because of the portrayal of sensuality, love and the definition of beauty.

I read somewhere that a critic called is “camp and a half” in the context of a gay film festival. I think I disagree with that statement not because it’s not campy (because it IS!), but because the lady being played by a man is not what makes it so. She’s played completely straight – except for that one scene where she dresses as a man for disguise – which could have been done had it been played by a biological woman, anyway. It was everything ELSE that made it campy – the melodramatic dialogue, the bold red letters flashing on the screen every change of city, the moody lighting and the dated music. I thought I was going to hate this film because I’d been told so many bad things about it from people I usually trust, but I did find it quite enjoyable and a much better example of the genre than almost any western film I can name.

Marty’s Japanese Film Notes

These notes were compiled in the winter of 1999 as part of Marty’s studies at the Ontario College of Art & Design. They may contain references to ideas in texts and credit is given to the authors.

Marty's Notes On "Branded To Kill"

Marty Spellerberg — Wed, 02 Feb 2000 22:16:27 +0000

In the film, Suzuki tells a story of the #3 ranked assassin and his quest to become #1. He takes a job escorting an anonymous client to a specific (rather unimportant) location. There’s a somewhat comic gunfight, and in the end he completes the mission. He then meets a girl, who’s always associated with birds, and she gives him a series of assignments, which he completes with creativity and humor. But one of them gets bungled and an innocent is killed instead of the target and he knows his days are up. Meanwhile, his girl has been cheating on him with his boss and he’s double-crossed so that when he falls, he falls hard.

He’s forced to fall into one of their traps, but he’s a superstar and kills them all, and that’s when he discovers they’ve sent #1 after him, who happens to be the client from the first operation. The rest of the film is #1 playing with his mind, causing him to hole himself up in his apartment, constantly afraid he’s about to be killed. The mind games get even worse when he and #1 are handcuffed together and do all sorts of mundane things like sit in the apartment and go to a restaurant. #1 gets to say, “this is the way #1 works” a few times and it’s really, really funny. In the end #3 thinks he’s killed #1 and he’s really happy and says, “I’m #1! I’m #1!” before #1 revels he’s not really dead and kills him. It’s great.

The first half the film, #3 being a hunter, is super-stylish. It has all the right elements – airplanes, fancy cars, outrageous gunfights and assassinations, dark sunglasses and naked girls. The second half is really cool also, but in a real way, not a campy way. Shots are framed with only a part of #3 in them, conveying how he knows he can’t hide, no matter how hard he tries. The claustrophobia of his apartment is expertly portrayed so that when the surreal anti-climax happens – his playing with a balloon like a child, we are both crazed enough to feel his joy, and wound up tight enough to be relived.

Many different styles were used in the film, and there was even that obnoxious bit with the paper-cut out birds, but no symbol was given too much importance as to lose the viewer (that was the plot’s job). While I would expect it to work the other way around, the more films I see the more value I place on their ability to keep me interested and this most definitely did do that.

Marty’s Japanese Film Notes

These notes were compiled in the winter of 1999 as part of Marty’s studies at the Ontario College of Art & Design. They may contain references to ideas in texts and credit is given to the authors.

Marty's Notes On "The Pornographers"

Marty Spellerberg — Wed, 02 Feb 2000 22:11:06 +0000

The Pornographers was part of what was considered the “Japanese New Wave” and was a reaction against the work of more classical Japanese directors. This was closely linked to the French “new wave” and many of the same feelings, if not techniques were common to both. Filmmakers of this era were attempting to construct a new cinematic content and the form to fit it, one that contained the contradictions in contemporary Japanese society and an increasingly capitalistic and imperialistic value set. Unlike its cousins around the world, this new wave happened within the highly commercial studio system and only later moved towards more independent productions.

Film within a film is a central aspect of the film, with the director of the film present at the beginning and end of the film in a “test-screening” situation. Pornographic films are produced and watched within the narrative. The voyeurism nature of porn is reflected in the visual style, with a tendency to look in on the action through windows and half-closed doors. The overall voyeurism is highlighted by the director’s presence in the film and calls into question our role as audience.

Incest plays a large role in the story on many levels. The son has a somewhat sexual physical relationship with his mother, the step-father is sleeping with the daughter while thinking of his own mother, and performers in one of the porn productions is revealed to be a father-daughter team. But the family’s incest is not treated as major a problem to them as the influence of the carp, the reincarnation of the deceased husband. The carp holds his desire that his wife ver remarry over the entire film – which could be read as a commentary on how the old traditions of the nation and the values of an older generation affect the new one.

I found the film dragged on, especially after the wife’s dramatic death. What had seemed to be, because of the initial sequences, a serious film about a family living life a bit rough around the edges deteriorated in my mind to slapstick when the executive fell in the river and a cheap laugh when the carp was finally thrown out. After a while I gave up on the family as a bunch of freaks invented by a screenwriter, and stopped paying attention to the film.

Marty’s Japanese Film Notes

These notes were compiled in the winter of 1999 as part of Marty’s studies at the Ontario College of Art & Design. They may contain references to ideas in texts and credit is given to the authors.

Marty's Notes On "Tokyo Story"

Marty Spellerberg — Wed, 02 Feb 2000 22:04:20 +0000

Tokyo Story follows a Japanese mother and father as they travel to visit their children, finding mixed reactions. The mother takes ill and dies when they return home. Ozu did not enjoy much western attention during his lifetime for he was considered “too Japanese” for western tastes and his refusal to produce “costume dramas” and period pieces did not fit into the usual market for Japanese films in the west. Critics were excited by this film, especially in its relationship to the French New Wave and portrayal of a uniquely Japanese popular culture.

For Ozu, there was nothing special about the planning and production of Tokyo Story that would have indicated it would become his masterpiece, and it is quite similar to the bulk of his post-war work in that it deal with the life of a middle class family in contemporary Japan. It put a smile on my face to read that he objected to having his films “read” in the way that film critics, theorists, and students do.

Ozu was not at all concerned with the western tradition of the 180-degree line, instead developing what can only be described as a 360-degree portrayal of real space on film. He has no desire to hide his cuts with “invisible” editing techniques and frames shots to reflect non-confrontational attitudes the same way it is reflected in their architecture.

The use of “emptiness” is reflective of Ozu’s strong Buddhist faith and could be inspired by the images of Zen painting. Use of shots of an empty city convey the feeling of Tomi’s death and the empty train tracks after Noriko’s train has left signify the father’s aloneness. This is also brought into play in the narrative as it is distinctly lacking in “plot elements” and the audience has to constantly reevaluate and reposition itself in order to keep up with what has been left out and where the story has moved to. There are many “empty” shots and scenes that a left without establishment as to their place and time. However, he also makes use of the Buddhist concept of bridging the voids by having set elements common to adjoining shots, leading us from on to the other.

A circle is formed between the town of Onomichi and Buddhism and death. The presence of the traditional shrine commemorating dead loved ones and the Buddhist music playing during Tomi’s funeral connects it with the worship of ancestors and puts the town in the position of having both history and family. While it may be considered a small, “backwater” town, it comes to stand for all that is stable and therefor, in “Japanese” thinking, good. This is contrasted by the portrayal of Tokyo where western industrialism and pollution dominate the atmosphere. Their children in Toyo are “too busy” to install the traditional shrine in their home and neglect them. This could be read as a political commentary against the US occupation and the mainstream acceptance of western ideals.

Marty’s Japanese Film Notes

These notes were compiled in the winter of 1999 as part of Marty’s studies at the Ontario College of Art & Design. They may contain references to ideas in texts and credit is given to the authors.

Marty's Notes On "To Live"

Marty Spellerberg — Wed, 02 Feb 2000 21:58:51 +0000

To Live is an example of a “fully developed” Kurosawa cinematic geometry. Signifiers are organized in serial order, an order that in none the less determined by the unambiguous narrative. The first two thirds of the story deal with the protagonist discovering he has terminal cancer and trying all the things he has been missing in his life, finally coming to the realization that he still has something to offer society. The final third is told in flashbacks by his associates as they sit and drink at his funeral.

Both movements of the film make use of flashbacks, though the temporal order is reversed. In the first they are directly related to what he is doing as they serve as his life flashing before his eyes. Visual “rhyming” is employed wherein a baseball bat triggers a flashback to a baseball game and his action in the “present day” room mirror his movements in the flashback setting. In the second movement the flashbacks fill in the time wherein he created his major accomplishment, the building of a park, and are spread evenly to convey a “real time.” The story of the second movement tends towards not showing actual import events, thus giving the impression of the narrative rather than a traditional western showing of it. We are shown the perseverance of the main character in examples of tough situations, but no decisive moments. We even see him, though the flashback of a beat cop, before he dies, but we don’t see the death itself.

In his article, “Reconstructing Modernism: Japanese Film and the Post-Modern Context,” Scott Nygren sees his actions in the first movement as a play between Japanese traditional and American imposed values. Upon finding of his impending death, the main character breaks from the institutionalization of his job and attempts to find his individualism. He tried in a “western” way, by going to night club and strip clubs, then seeing the Japanese way, as a person capable of independent choices and initiation of action. Nygren sees this as a subtle blow at western selfishness and influence on Japan, as well as the western view that the traditional authoritarian customs render men incapable of action.

I found the film quite enjoyable and was intrigued by his use of the two structures. The images of bureaucracy, though Japanese, strike a chord today with my own experience and remind me of numerable films where stacks of paper have signified the exact some disabilities. I was not troubled, as some said they were, by the “dropping” of characters once they have outlived their usefulness and consider that that serves to make the story, allegorical, even fantastic, in spite of its realistic setting and characters.

Marty’s Japanese Film Notes

These notes were compiled in the winter of 1999 as part of Marty’s studies at the Ontario College of Art & Design. They may contain references to ideas in texts and credit is given to the authors.

Marty's Notes On "The Life of Oharu"

Marty Spellerberg — Wed, 02 Feb 2000 21:51:49 +0000

The film shows how Oharu went from being a mistress in a royal court to a street prostitute. The bulk of the film is told as a flashback from her point of view, concluding in “present time” with her an aborted attempt to reunite with her son. She is banished form place to place, finding a home in steadily lower positions until she hits rock bottom, and becomes deathly ill. It is at this point that she is invited to the palace to be rejoined with her son so that the narrative can be seen as completing a full circle.

There is discussion in the readings associated with this film on the director’s views of women, specifically as they are conceived through the Oharu character. The role of women as a pleasurable object is central to the narrative of the film and how this affects the social interaction of the women is just as important to their activities with men. Twice Oharu’s shaky relationships with the “wives” lead to her banishment, and her pragmatic friendship with the nun is juxtaposed with her acceptance by the prostitutes.

Oharu is not in positions where she can make active decisions about herself and her life, relying on the judgements of her father and other male figures to decide her path. There are examples where she does hold firm on an issue, such as her refusal of the client in the cathouse, that led her to yet another banishment. It is said that this condition, by virtue of the commercial nature of this film and its production, is a direct reflection on the values of the Japanese society of the day. It is said in the Cohen article, however, that it is the use of shot-reverse-shot – a western convention, that portrays this patriarchy.

Her access to the “gaze” of the film is a central feature of this argument. She is “given” it, but that is only in the special circumstances of the temple. It is in the temple that she removes the cloth from her face, not hiding her age and her history, and she is allowed sexuality though the superimposition of her first lover’s face over the Buddha. It is this first lover that sets her standards and value set, a role that should be held by her “father”, hinting at her Oedipal complex. By introducing Freudian theory in this way, any power she asserts is drawn into question. That lapse into memory can be considered a Freudian “daydream,” and is the precursor to the “hysterical” female nature, a nature that is completely discrediting.

There is question as to her role as a “beggar” near the end of the film. Her position is ambiguous but it seems to have been decided that she has become a traveling nun, close to the role of a western monk. Carol Cavanaugh in her article asserts that by becoming a nun Oharu has taken control of herself in one of the few ways allowed by the society of the time. While removing herself from the sexual structure as a means of gaining control may not seem like a proper freedom in our current sexually “liberated” 90s, I can’t help but think it may have had different meaning to audiences when it was first released.

I, personally, don’t care for Freud and am suspect of much of the published reading of this film. It is my understanding that the use of the long-take, long-shot was meant to convey the role of women in society. However, I found this technique kept me from becoming emotionally connected with the characters except in the most cursory way and reminded me of early western film that had not developed a language wherein audiences could be expected to understand action if it was not all on the screen at once.

Marty’s Japanese Film Notes

These notes were compiled in the winter of 1999 as part of Marty’s studies at the Ontario College of Art & Design. They may contain references to ideas in texts and credit is given to the authors.