Under the Flag of the Rising Sun (dir. Kinji Fukasaku, 1972). You are not likely to find a film that lays out the themes and concerns of the late director (1930-2002) as straightforwardly or as powerfully as this one. Fukasaku (The Yakuza Papers, Battle Royale) was a teenager when Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945, and his experiences in postwar Japan proved indelible and formed the creative wellspring of his career in films. Sachiko Hidari is a war widow who seeks our surviving members of her husband's garrison, and their conflicting, Rashomon-like accounts of the death of his husband (Tetsuro Tamba) illuminate the brutality and dehumanization of war and indict postwar Japanese society's denial of its past. Praised by Japanese critics as a superb antiwar film, the film goes beyond denunciation of war to confront issues that even today are close to untouchable in contemporary Japanese discussions of the war.
Phantom of the Opera (dirs. Rupert Julian, Edward Sedgewick, Ernst Laemmle, 1925). The was no real tradition of horror in Hollywood when this mystery-melodrama was made, but its dark mood and Lon Chaney's gift for transformation through makeup certainly nudged Hollywood -- and Universal Studios, where this was made -- into that direction. Gaston Leroux's story of a deformed man who inhabits the catacombs beneath the Paris Opéra and falls in love with a young singer is a potboiler, the performances of leads Norman Kerry and Mary Philbin often insipid, and principal director Julian's work less than inspired, and the film itself went through a number of rewrites, reedits and reshootings and was nearly shelved, and does not exist today in a definitive version. But Chaney is spellbinding, not only for his transformational talents but also for his surprising gift for movement, and Ben Carré's atmospheric set designs pioneer the Hollywood Gothic soon to be born. This Image Entertainment DVD release includes the 1925 original release and the 1929 sound rerelease version, the copy of which in the archives at the Eastman House is probably the best in existence. This last has been tinted, a special 2-color tinting process used for one scene simulated, and an experimental 2-strip Technicolor sequence restored. The whole is truly beautiful and gives an idea why this is one of the all-time great works of the silent cinema.
The Life of Oharu (dir. Kenji Mizoguchi, 1952). Mizoguchi is commonly grouped with Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa as one of the three finest directors to work in Japanese film, and his work is distinguished by his long, stately pacing and his special interest in stories about women. The story for this film was taken from a seventeenth-century novel by Saikaku Ihara, about the decline of a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court who falls in love with a lower-ranking retainer, losing her post and disgracing her family. From there she becomes a concubine to a feudal lord, a courtesan, a lady's-maid to a merchant's wife, briefly wife of a small tradesman, and finally an impoverished streetwalker. At every turn Oharu's hopes for love and happiness are thwarted by social rank, male callousness, moral disapproval and the turns and twists of fate. Ihara's original story was a little more salty and earthy, but carried as well the Buddhist homily that only suffering and unhappiness are caused by attachment to the things of this world. This view comes through in Mizoguchi's more sympathetic retelling, but also a muted protest against the social constraints on women that is very much his own.
Wild at Heart (dir. David Lynch, 1990). Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern are head-over-heels lovers who hit the road in search of a happily-ever-after in California, pursued by Dern's mother (Diane Ladd, who happens to actually be Dern's mother), who wants Cage dead. Lynch's visions frequently slam the giddily naive and wholesome together with black psychotic evil, and in this one he definitely had it down to a science: it's one of his most accessible films story-wise, with strong, steamy love interest, satisfyingly nasty villains and his left-field, stylish visual sense. More than a bit of camp, too, what with the references to Elvis and The Wizard of Oz. But subsequent efforts like Lost Highway, Mulholland Dr. and Inland Empire show Lynch has never felt the need to stay in one place at once.
After the Thin Man (dir W. S. Van Dyke, 1936) Based on characters created by Dashiell Hammett, the Thin Man comedy-mystery franchise featured William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, a retired gumshoe and his wealthy socialite wife who trade wisecracks, sip cocktails and solve murders; in this first sequel in the series it's the philandering husband of Nora's cousin. The chemistry between Loy's kittenish spunk and Powell's suave daffiness carry the picture, but the supporting cast, including Elissa Landi, Alan Marshall, Joseph Calleia, a young James Stewart and of course Nick and Nora's dog Asta, doesn't hurt either.
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