★ 8 / 10
May be the perfect visual representation of jazz
chriswhaskell
A freeform, stochastic, jazzy movie from the mind of a man that clearly loves music and wanted to make a visual love letter to his favorite genre.I'm going to…
A freeform, stochastic, jazzy movie from the mind of a man that clearly loves music and wanted to make a visual love letter to his favorite genre.I'm going to editorialize slightly here and say that Director Kurahara probably based parts of his character of Akira on himself. Akira is obsessed with jazz. He uses the little money he has from grifting or stealing to buy new albums and is especially crazy for the drummer Max Roach. Roach is one of the best drummers of all time, certainly the most influential. When he wasn't playing for Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk and many others, he was starting one of the first artist owned record labels. He was all over the jazz world, and Akira is obsessed.So much so, that when an a Black American GI, named Gil, busts into Akira's attic and points a gun at him he tries to win the American over by showing him jazz records. In his mind, every African American dude uses jazz as a love language. It's obviously an outdated stereotype, but it makes sense in the context of this being a Japanese movie from 1964. Both the French and Japanese New Wave filmmakers had an obsession over American jazz. Truffaut paid homage to jazz in Shoot the Piano Player, Malle brought Miles Davis over to make some music for Elevator to the Gallows, and jazz was all over the Japanese new Wave including this movie where Max Roach actually agreed to do the soundtrack.I'm paying so much attention to that piece because, to me, the jazz is the movie. There is plot around this GI getting shot at and bleeding out while him and Akira move around the city to avoid the military police looking for Gil. It's a buddy movie in that sense. These two unlikely characters coming together and improvising and getting emotional and learning how to survive together on the stage of war.So jazz.This movie makes no sense if you really think about it, especially the ending. But that's not what jazz is about. It's about the experience of being alive and spontaneous in the moment. It's about two souls coming together from different schools and theory and experiences and making something harmonious and beautiful. That's what Black Sun gives us, and Kurahara is damn genius for pulling this off.
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who was chico roland
kuciak
While watching Black Sun, one can't but think of The Defiant Ones, but one also has to look into the future with John Boormans Hell in The Pacific, which…
While watching Black Sun, one can't but think of The Defiant Ones, but one also has to look into the future with John Boormans Hell in The Pacific, which feature Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune. It is somewhat about communication, and perhaps how some iconic images sometimes are a barrier to that Communcation.the main protagonist of the film, Akira, also known as Mei, likes Jazz and Blues, those done by blacks. He is a common criminal, a squatter living in a soon to be demolished Christian church. The Japan we are presented with appears to be that occupied by the occupation of the US. American MP's seem to be all over the place, and appear to have more authority than the Japanese police. It is a Japan still recovering from WWII, with bombed out buildings.Our main protagonist is a little bit on the crazy side, and would appear that if he were living as a youth in todays culture, he would be right at home. While he lives music by blacks, it will become very apparent that he knows nothing about them, and only thinks he does by the music he hears. He will shortly be getting a rude awakening, and he is confronted by a wounded black soldier named Gil, played by Chico Rolands, who may have killed another white American soldier, though this is never made clear.During his time with Gil, he will find that he also can hate blacks when Gil does a wrong to him. though he has said to the wounded and desperate Gil, that blacks are his friends.The film shows stills of what black people suffer in the US at the time, but while this may be an indictment of the US, and perhaps trying to compare some kind of oppression for the Japanese underclass, and well as the American Negro in America, the director in a very key scene in a seedy nightclub, filled with the iconic images of American Jazz musicians, that these so called Japanese fans, are really not much better than the American white racists.Gil at one point mumbles out, that the pictures of the Jazz musicians are also the enemy. This person is in a very delirious state, but this filmed story will suggest, that when the record collection of our protagonist is destroyed, that it is only then that some form of communication and bond can be really formed, even with the language difficulties. the ending, also is quite powerful, and will explain something about the film.if their is a problem with the film. It is that sometimes it feels as if the director is making some kind of enthnograph film. often with the Chico Rolland character we can barely make what he is saying. Is this intentional, were his English lines dubbed or subtitled in Japanese at the time of this release. Also he does not appear to be a full fledged human being, as he is sometimes because of the desperate nature of his predicament, just a symbol of 'what blacks suffer in this world'. Also sometimes the performance that he is forced to give, is occasionally embarrassing.this film has recently been released by Criterion on their Eclipse series, along with four other films, 'The Warped Ones' included. It is ashame their are no extras, as it would be interesting to learn about some of the actors, and the reception it received in Japan. Who was Chico Roland's? was he an American? He and the main protagonist did make other films with this director. I plan to see those other films, and I recommend that readers try to get a hold of this one.
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6.7/10
544
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Thanks so much for uploading these classics. It's really appreciated. Would you also be able to get The Warped ones and Woman from the Sea too? Thanks again, loving that I'm able to see these.