JAPANESE FILMS

Sight & Sound; The Greatest Films of All Time

Sight & Sound released its “The Greatest Films of All Time 2012” on its website. The first place went to Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”, while “Citizen Kane” slipped down to second. Ozu’s Tokyo Story made the third place. Separate poll by film directors placed Ozu’s film the first. Sight & Sound Top 10 1. Vertigo (Hitchcock) 2. Citizen Kane (Welles) 3. Tokyo Story (Ozu) 4. La Règle du jeu (Renoir) 5. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (Murnau) 6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick) 7. The Searchers (Ford) 8. Man with a Movie Camera (Vertov) 9. The Passion of Joan of Arc …

 
'BOBTAIL' REVIEW / JAPANESE FILMS

Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director (1975)

We sometimes forget that history is statistical approximation of collected experiences. And this process of collection is heavily biased by the political view, cultural understanding or artistic taste of each individual collector. When it comes to the life of a complex man, the collection tends to diverge, then we start to wonder how much of the story is actually reflection of each collector. Welcome to the world of “Citizen Mizoguchi”. This film may be a bit difficult to follow, if you are not familiar with the events described in a series of interviews. For example, it is not clearly laid …

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'BOBTAIL' REVIEW / JAPANESE FILMS

Sakura Tai Chiru (1988)

Kaneto Shindo, one of the prominent filmmaker and writer, passed away on May 29, 2012. He was 100 years old. He was the last to live through the golden age of Japanese cinema and his film career spans over almost 8 decades. He has directed numerous masterpieces such as “The Naked Island” or “Children of Hiroshima“, to name the few. He also engaged in documenting some (Japanese-cinema related) historical events. This documentary is at the crossroad of his interests; it is about the troop of independent film actors and also about tragic event in Hiroshima, Shindo’s hometown. Sakura-tai (Cherry-Blossom Troop) …