DVDs
Still point
by Chris Knox
Tokyo Story (Madman) is the generally received masterwork by Japan’s other great director, Yasujiro Ozu. Most of us are more familiar with the prodigious output of Akira Kurosawa – and his influence on western film-making is certainly more
obvious – but Ozu’s pared-down, more Japanese style has had its effect and can be seen reflected in many an arthouse hit.
Tokyo, like many of his movies, is about the gulf between generations – and between expectation and reality. The black and white film from 1953 tells a simple story in a series of rigorously set up sequences, almost always shot square on and from the low viewpoint of a squatting adult. It is never dull.
The accompanying 1985 doco, Tokyo Ga, a wonderful piece of work by Wim Wenders, is worth the price of admission by itself. More, please.
Monster Road (Bright Eye Pictures) is a lovely doco about Bruce Bickford, possibly the most extraordinary animator you’ll ever meet. Little known for anything but some two-decade-old work for Frank Zappa, he is an utterly compulsive film-maker. Whether pushing dauntingly vast casts of Plasticine people through all sorts of metamorphoses inside writhing, pulsating Plasticine landscapes or drawing ridiculously detailed pen and ink cartoons, he is at one with his craft. If it ever reaches any kind of screen seems unimportant; he just has to do it.
For a picture of a driven artist conquering his demons through his art, this is right up there with Crumb. And he’s a nicer guy to spend time with. Additional animation sequences in the extras will leave you panting for more.
Turtles Can Fly (Palace) is the first Iraqi film to emerge post-invasion. The children who run the tiny village so beautifully delineated by director Bahman Ghobadi are relatively blasé about the minefields, derelict tanks and general horror that surround them. Seemingly more interested in getting satellite TV reception than why all this military stuff is intruding upon them, they have all the resilience of youth, maimed or otherwise. Until a terminally disturbed young girl makes them face their sober reality.
Tokyo Story (Madman)
Monster Road (Bright Eye Pictures)
Turtles Can Fly (Palace)
