Fashion The Movie: A Preemptive 5 Stars

Already slated as the most anticipated film of 2008, Fashion The Movie "truly has what it takes to become the next French Connection" says Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader. TheReeler.com recently stumbled across this gem of a website, where Fashion is already mowing people down with it's explosive force. Flaunting some Behind-The-Scenes footage, a well crafted trailer, appellations galore, and contact information to die for, it's difficult to just push the mouse aside, take a deep breath and say, "Just wait for this one to hit the theater."

Wonderfully elucidated by the trailer, the film follows a group of undercover CIA operatives (with the likes of Faye Dunaway, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, and David Carradine), where they escort the most bon vivant of professional fashion-ites across and through LA, New York, London, Moscow, St. Some-Shit, and many of the other posh, worldly cities. Armed to the teeth with 16 machine guns, 2 rocket launchers, sass and a couple of dildos, they magically morph their thrill seeking enemies into poop-socks with a single glance of the eye...

Actually, the trailer explains nothing and is completely composed of the 2 or 3 scenes they've shot thus far, and ends with Fay Dunaway saying, "The bigger they are, the harder they fall." Really, she does.

I can't vouch for the validity of the films actual existence - as Google only has The Official Website listed, and it's completely unlisted under IMDB - but I can say with utmost sincerity that I fantasize nightly about that night in 2008, when I take a seat in my theater seat and get shot in the face by Fashion The Movie.

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On

A fairly affective, if not repetitive, film that questions redemption, forgiveness, spirituality, and the filmic medium, Kazuo Hara documents Kenzo Okuzaki, a man quick on his feet who need never think twice. Confident in everything he does, to the point of arrogance and obsession, hinting at mental illness, he parades through Kobe, exhibiting his dolled-up truck riddled in messages to kill Emperor Hirohito, screaming over his loudspeaker, demanding justice for his actions in WWII.

Okuzaki, a WWII veteran, fought in New Guinea under hopelessly dire circumstances. He, and a handful of other soldiers (mostly officers), narrowly escaped death – the details of which are never elaborated on. The film’s foundation lies upon a very specific execution performed by senior officers of two privates. Reportedly, they were Killed In Action and “died with honor”. Okuzaki, through other soldier’s testimony, finds out otherwise and begins to fulfill a self-ordained prophecy, a long string of confrontations with all his officers to find out what exactly happened, and who’s responsible. The physical result of all of this is ambiguous; one can only assume some type of violence.

Throughout the film, Okuzaki physically assaults a number of his former officers, arriving at their houses unexpectedly and unabashingly demanding the truth of what happened to those soldiers. Of course, these fights aren’t all-out brawls by any means. The man is in his late 60’s. Although the police are called on many occasions, and some of his victims find themselves in of need medical attention. It’s important to note, however, that each one of these encounters begins with an exchange that goes something like,

“Oh, I’m so sorry to stop by your honorable home so abruptly.”

“Oh that’s quite alright, please come inside for a cup of tea.”

Not so exact, but something along these lines. It’s all cultural, a valuable aspect of the film for those of us outside of Japan. Each of the officers is on a different social tier – the sarariman, retired worker, the proletariat, the severe PTSD victim – experiencing different stages of acceptance of their war atrocities, some farther along than others.

That said, Okuzaki is an tremendously forward man, especially in the context of the 70’s. At that time, Japan was still predominantly conservative and slenderizing the Emperor was as a condemnable act, worthy of prison time. Even speaking of the war as publicly as he did was as taboo as anything during that time.

When compared to the way religion is used in the West, Japan is, essentially, a state without religion. If one were to name a religion it would probably be Buddhism, although, ultimately, this boils down to saving-face, performing rituals, and conforming to societal norms. Yes, Buddhism and Shintoism are the dominant “religions” in Japan, but they play a much more traditional and cultural function, rather than a spiritual one. Buddhism was chosen as the national religion in around 1100, simply because it’s an efficient controller, and Shintoism derived from this a number of years later. At any rate, if one were to ask 10 people in Japan if they were religious – not spiritual – I bet around 8 of them would say no. So what happens in a state without any truly empowering religion? Society fills that social function. Hence the need to fit-in in Japan, hence the world’s 2nd highest teen suicide rate, hence the insane amount of work hours, both official and non-official, and hence – at least to some extent – Japan’s involvement in WWII. This film is about shattering these boundaries both tradition and the state imposed on the Japanese, and telling the truth. Hara, as a filmmaker, also has to deal with the issue of showing the truth through a balance of objective and subjective storytelling, and clarity of form.

To the casual filmgoer, the film may come across as bland, slow, and boring, and to some extent this is true. Hara spends the first 45 minutes on a series of interviews that could have been cut down to 25 minutes, bringing the running time down to under 2 hours and appealing to a much wider audience. But, alas, he did not. The film will probably be seen by people with either a special interest in Japan or liberals interested in the Pacific War, the latter of which will be disappointed by this film.

The film moves in strictly chronological order, showing each encounter with each officer. While some remain severely informative, other conversations tangent into surprising directions. In one scene, Okuzaki speaks with an officer who was allegedly involved in the execution of the young officers, and he ends up jumping him and slapping him around with the back of his hand, pinning him to the floor with his knees. Then, as his family – oh, so slowly- comes to help, he’s overpowered and becomes the victim. He turns to the camera and says, “Stop filming! I’m getting beat-up now!” After a few seconds, Hara stops the camera.

Definitley, one of the most telling lines in the entire film, we come to realize how conscious Okuzaki really is of the camera. Apparently, very much so. He’s concerned about his image, and we can’t really blame him for that, because as the film moves on and we draw towards the conclusion of the film, it becomes apparent these last few days on camera will be his last as a free man. (*SPOILER*) He’s imprisoned after seriously injuring the son of the officer who was in charge of killing the privates – and allegedly cannibalizing them.

Okuzaki demonstrates that he’s a control freak, and in turn, he wants control over the film. Hara welcomes this by simply following him throughout the film, never falling away from him unless absolutely necessary (ie. Not being able to film inside a prison, etc.). In this sense, Hara successfully made a film about a truth – that of Okuzaki’s perspective.

Throughout the film, Okuzaki preaches to every soldier he encounters about his or her condemnation; how they will never be forgiven, and that they are being punished for participating in such a war. Some of the officers suffer from physical rehibilitation, others post-tramatic stress disorder, and even others from a lack of guilt – avoiding it their whole lives. Okuzaki suffers from an oppressive guilt, as most of them do, whether thy realize this or not. He may not be as guilty as some of his senior officers, but Okuzaki, too, does not expect atonement any time soon.

Time Of The Wolf: Devastating Acceptance

Devastating acceptance: the first two words that drift together in my head when thinking of Michael Haneke’s films. Formally, most of his films are told through fragments that only further his stories through suggestion. Reading a Michael Haneke film is like trying to scale a mountain that only provides holds big enough for fingers and toes; they are as polemic as they are antipsychological, as violent as they are passive. As a director, he presents his characters through detachment, forcing the viewer to accept their circumstance, regardless of how harsh and hopeless it may be. Characters whimsically drop in and out of multiple storylines, important narrative functions are completely dropped (A meets B and uses C to get D turns into A gets D), which makes it impossible to distinguish how characters are motivated, let alone how plot points are achieved. But, nonetheless, they are most definitely achieved. Time of the Wolf is no exception, setting itself against a post-apocalyptic landscape in France, a perfectly cold and distant environment for Haneke to work in.

As with all of Haneke’s work, the film opens with a typically content suburban family returning to the comfort of a summer home, where they immediately fall victim to misfortunate chance – another family already awaits inside, anticipating their arrival. Verbal confrontation turns physical when a shot is fired and the father’s blood splats across his wife’s face. They are turned out into the French countryside, where a hostile and unforgiving landscape awaits them.

The first of Haneke’s films to be set in an alternate present, the space gives Haneke more freedom to create a greater symbiosis between space and story – both of which are indifferent to their characters. Anne, the mother, tries her hardest to keep her family together and alive, as her daughter, Eva, does her best to tolerate her mother’s panic and her brother’s silence. Their chemistry is illustrated best in the most affectively stressful sequence of the film: forced to take refuge in an abandoned farm as night falls, the family wakes in complete darkness, only to find that Benny – the son – has gone amiss. The mother, fueled with panic, is reduced to lighting small bunches of hay on fire, searching in vain against nothingness. With no electricity, the screen remains disturbingly dark, refusing to submit to unmotivated light. The search continues long and hopeless, hauntingly unmotivated sounds whisper from the darkness, and with a simple, abrupt cut, we jump through time to blue morning light, the barn a mound of smoldering embers, and Benny taken hostage by an entirely new character. The scene demonstrates Haneke’s intolerance of explanation and resolution, and his embrace of the ambiguous, while keeping the viewer deeply involved. Within this ambiguity, we’re allowed to fill in the many, many plot holes and character motivations with our own assumptions, thus engaging the audience in a way that throws light on both the characters and ourselves.

It’s never clear why or how humanity collapsed so suddenly; it’s simply a tool that lends itself to exposing the most primal levels of human interaction and organization. Haneke touches upon – if only ever so slightly explaining – tribalism when the family treks across the land, totalitarianism when they join an organized group huddled away in an abandoned train station, and communal socialism when a gigantic herd of people bring energy - and reinstate hope - to their small, organized clique.

All of this is presented through a lens that’s not so much objective as it is neo-realistic. Long takes of striking images morph subtlety like a magic eye book, bringing implicit meaning, as well as inherent realism, to many of the sequences. The acting is meticulous to the point of transparency. Unlike Benny’s Video, The 7th Continent, and 71 Fragments (The Glaciation Trilogy), there is no explicit reflexivity or commentary on mass media. Quite the contrary. Definitley, Haneke intertwines media coverage to some extent, but only insofar as mentioning it’s absence. Without disinformative news coverage, or taking the postmodern approach of studying the moving image within the frame of a motion picture, the only realities left on screen are relative to the characters, making the film much more accessible to any casual filmgoer who is open enough to let a film engulf their senses, as sporadic and shifting as the film is constructed.

Above all, it’s refreshing to have a film that – finally – doesn’t simply show what a post-apocalyptic world might look like (i.e. special effects and zombies [no matter how fast they move]), nor does it go through contrived, explanatory dialogue presenting the blueprints for how it happened. It shows characters in dire circumstances under an immense amount of pressure to survive, all through the lens of an artistic reality that consistently involves the audience – not submitting to viewer passivity by explaining “what if’s”. That said, there’s nothing wrong with films that simply entertain. Haneke says himself that, “The world is too cold without entertainment.” There’s a place for Haneke’s film as well, and that space was void for far too long.

In my own personal experience, I walked out of the theater attempting to envision – to the best of my ability – how I would cope with such a situation. Scooting out of the theater parking lot, I realized that this post-apocalyptic world of Haneke’s is not so different from the lives of many in Iraq, Sudan, or any of the other dozens of places currently undergoing genocide, a military coup, or dictatorship. It’s just that Time of the Wolf is an alternate present.