FILM REVIEW: DOMAINS

Domains (2019), directed by Natsuka Kusano, is an innovative and startling examination of the nature of performance in cinema. A single plot summary would not encompass the many ways in which Kusano dissects the multiple layers of the cinematic medium in her groundbreaking film. Domains is about the various degrees of truth and perception which film can explore. Do we see a film to uncover simply plot details, or should we explore deeper by seeing how cinema can change our perspectives as viewers? Kusano examines questions like these, and many more, in Domains.

As the film opens, the lead character Aki (Shibuya Asami) is confessing her part in the murder of the daughter of her close friend to a police investigator. At first, we think Domains is going to be a police procedural about what led Aki to commit this shocking crime. In a way, Domains is an investigation into what would drive someone to commit murder, but it does so in a completely unexpected manner. After the opening interrogation scene, the rest of Domains consists of rehearsal scenes for a separate film about the events leading up to the murder. The three main characters in these rehearsals are Aki, her close friend Nodoka (Kasajima Tomo), and her friend’s unnamed husband (Tomo Kasajima).

The rehearsals play out for the most part in real time, and it’s interesting to see how Kusano films the same scenes multiple times in varying perspectives to reveal how a simple change of tone or rephrasing of a line of dialogue can alter the whole meaning of each scene. In this way, Kusano is exploring the elasticity of cinema, and how it can be used to distort viewers’ perspectives of cinematic truth. Jacques Rivette also explored this same free flowing nature of film in his magnum opus Out 1, which similarly consisted of many scenes of actors rehearsing.

Both Kusano and Rivette are showing how cinema by its very nature is something that is being manipulated not only by the director, but also by the actors who bring their own truths to cinema. Aki tries to make sense of her motivations for murder by turning her actions into a filmic performance piece for an audience. By doing so, the actress playing Aki, along with her two acting collaborators, have just as much power over the construction of Domains as the director Kusano does.

However, this power is not simply one of actors using their skills to elicit emotion from the viewer as in a traditional film. Instead, by revealing how all of Domains is essentially a transparently theatrical experience, Kusano and her actors are giving power back to the viewer to create their own interpretations of what they are seeing on screen. It is never made clear if Aki actually committed the murder she confesses to at the opening of the film, or if the murder is just a fictional aspect of the film Aki is rehearsing for.

Kusano wants to reveal those elements of cinema which are traditionally hidden from viewers. Not only does she show us rehearsals of scenes, but Kusano also draws attention to the camera itself, as in one scene where the camera purposefully pulls back from the actors in a disruptive and obvious manner. In another scene, we clearly see the reflection of the camera in a mirror, and several times throughout the film we hear someone yelling “cut,” or we see the slate being used. Alejandro Jodorowsky similarly ended Holy Mountain by panning out to reveal a film set, but Kusano takes this further by hiding almost nothing from the viewer.

Ultimately, Kusano is trying to make a more active form of cinema where the audience has to fully engage with what they are seeing on screen. Kusano is breaking apart the artificially of film, and forcing viewers to come to their own interpretations. Like the character of Aki, one views Domains as a form of constant rehearsal to re-wire how we view cinema. There is no longer one form of cinematic truth dominated by Hollywood films whose sole function is to manipulate viewers into feeling pre-determined emotions and perspectives. Instead, Kusano and other filmmakers like her are pointing us towards a more empowering and liberating form of cinematic engagement.

FILM REVIEW: THE CHRYSANTHEMUM AND THE GUILLOTINE

The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine (2018) is an eccentric and moving epic film about Japanese women sumo wrestlers and socialist anarchists. Directed by the prolific Takahisa Zeze, who started out making soft core pink films, The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine is unlike any historical epic you have ever seen. Although it is based on real historical events, Zeze infuses the film with surrealistic touches and characters that seem to exist in a parallel universe.

Set shortly after the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923, The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine tells the dual stories of a female sumo wrestling troupe and a group of socialist anarchists. The anarchists regularly plot assassination attempts and other violent acts to get their revolutionary messages out. Two members of the anarchist group, Tetsu (Masahiro Higashide) and Daijiro (Kanichiro), befriend two members of the wrestling troupe, Tomoyo (Mai Kiryu) and Tamae (Hanae Kan).  Their lives become disrupted by a group of former World War One veterans led by Daigoro (Shima Ohnishi), who continuously try to shut down the troupe’s performances because they view them as subversive.

This plot summary only hints at the unique vision and structure of Zeze’s film. From the beginning to the end of the film, Zeze has his actors perform at an heightened emotional state; this is clearly not a Yasujiro Ozu film. In this way, Zeze’s performances resemble the almost trance-like hysteria of the actors in the films of Andrzej Zulawski and Sion Sono. There are also many quiet and more subdued moments in the film, but they serve only as momentary breaks before the next wave of grand emotion hits. 

Although at times this tone can be exhausting, especially at the film’s epic length of 189 minutes, it all leads to a climactic showdown between the sumo wrestlers and the military that is unlike anything you have ever seen. This frantic tone of the film is very much a reflection of the youthful exuberance and energy of Zeze’s characters. Revolutionary activity is the province of the idealism of youth, a concept which Zeze explores in his film.

Thematically, The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine is a neo-feminist defense of female empowerment, although not in an overly obvious Hollywood manner. Many of the members of the women sumo wrestling troupe have escaped from oppressive marriages, and find solace in a sisterhood of strong women whose very existence is a statement against the traditionally male world of sumo wrestling. 

When the troupe gives their first performance, the male members of the audience mock them and hope to see them wrestle nude. However, the troupe is able to win over the male spectators with their skill as professional sumo wrestlers. Soon, the troupe becomes a mini-sensation in the many villages they visit, which draws the ire of the group of war veterans, who find any opportunity they can to harass the troupe.

Zeze contrasts the discipline and skill of the female wrestling troupe with the dysfunctional all male socialist anarchist group. Unlike the sumo troupe, the anarchist group is in a constant state of disarray. They carry out bungled assassination attempts, and are never able to draw the wider public to their socialist utopian ideals. Instead, Zeze reveals that many members of the male anarchists group are more interested in sleeping with prostitutes then actually carrying out revolutionary acts. This is a direct foil to the success and determination of the female wrestling troupe.

Ultimately, The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine is about outcasts from society who are able to successfully form their own unique society of sorts. The female wrestling troupe becomes a respite for their members from the overly oppressive and controlling nature of the wider society. The film’s exploration of the battle between the wrestling troupe and the outside forces that threaten to break it apart is cinematically liberating and exhilarating.

FILM REVIEW: A TIGER IN WINTER

A Tiger in Winter (2017) is a beguiling and incisive portrait of the artistic process of writing. The practice of writing is a solitary and not exactly cinematically dynamic process, but with A Tiger in Winter, Lee Kwang-kuk is able to really get at the essence of the struggling artist. Lee is not necessarily concerned with the actual ritual of writing, but with the writer’s inability to fit into society and function as others do. By focusing on the dysfunctional life of an artist, A Tiger in Winter offers an often bitterly funny view of the creative life.

Lee Kwang-kuk was formerly an assistant director for the celebrated Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo. Indeed, Hong Sang-soo’s influence is strongly felt in A Tiger in Winter, with its long, seemingly improvised scenes of uninterrupted dialogue, and its focus on male/female relationships. Like the films of Hong Sang-soo, A Tiger in Winter is about a man who is unable to commit to the women in his life.

The protagonist of A Tiger in Winter is Gyeong-yu (Lee Jin-wook), a struggling writer who leaves his girlfriend and proceeds to wander around aimlessly until he meets his ex-girlfriend Yoo-jung (Go Hyun-jung). Unlike Gyeong-yu, Yoo-jung is a celebrated writer, but her chronic alcoholism prevents her from meeting her publisher’s deadline to complete her next collection of short stories. A Tiger in Winter is about Gyeong-yu and Yoo-jung’s attempts to reconcile their former relationship, while both of them struggle to fulfill their personal and artistic needs.

While the influence of Hong Sang-soo is felt throughout A Tiger in Winter, Lee Kwang-kuk is also a much more visually poetic director than Hong. While Hong is primarily interested in using cinema to explore the relationships dynamics between women and men, Lee’s aesthetic concerns are more oriented towards the visual palette and symbolism. The title of the film itself refers to an actual tiger that has escaped from the zoo, and this tiger is symbolically portrayed by the two main protagonists. Like tigers who are away from captivity, both Yoo-jung and Gyeong-yu are self-destructive forces of nature that devour all those around them.

Yoo-jung is constantly taking advantage of those closest to her, including Gyeong-yu, to fulfill her needs, whether they be her physical needs (through her addiction to sex and alcohol), as well as her needs to be recognized as a celebrated author. Gyeong-yu also manipulates his friends and loved ones to fulfill his selfish desires to remain constantly aloof from commitment; he does so because he believes it will benefit his artistic process as a writer. Throughout the film, Lee explores how his two protagonists destroy those closest to them, like wild tigers escaped from captivity. Near the end of the film, Lee also reveals what appears to be imaginary glimpses of the actual escaped tiger, adding an element of visual surrealism to his mise-en-scene.

There are many delightfully odd moments in A Tiger in Winter, such as when Yoo-jung drunkenly peels some tangerines and places them in a haphazard pile on a table, without eating them, or when Gyeong-yu keeps meeting passengers on his driving route who refuse to pay him. These little moments reveal the eccentric nature of artists, which is what A Tiger in Winter is ultimately about. Lee wants to show us the private, interior lives of real artists, both those who struggle to be discovered, and those whose fame and career may be built upon dubious means.  It will be interesting to see how Lee further develops his talents as an artist himself, and we are all captive spectators to his intriguing work.