Reviews

An early Ozu short about a young graduate who can't bring himself to accept a low-on-the-food-chain position at an office because he feels he's overqualified; and the consequences of that decision.

Very bittersweet stuff, with a great ending that's happy, but not unabashedly happy. Like a lot of later Ozu works, 'I Graduated, But...' is a humble, down-to-earth story about ordinary people and its joy comes from their minor (meaningless in the great scheme) triumphs.

Especially noteworthy are a couple of shots of the main character at the bar, filmed from table height and incredibly striking, a Harold Lloyd poster that shows up in the background several times, and the conflict between tradition and modernity illustrated by the film's second-to-last shot of a moving train.

'I Graduated, But...' is recommended to Ozu fans and to fans of silent cinema in general.

Yasujiro Ozu's 'A Straightforward Boy' is a short, comic sketch about a bumbling small-time criminal who kidnaps a boy, brings him home, finds the boy incredibly insufferable, and then can't seem to get rid of him. It's slight, it's slightly funny, and it shows off decent technique; if little else. It's certainly not a waste of time, however, and, in its own, quaint way is even kind of entertaining, and lively. Just don't expect too much.

If the film deserves a place in the film history of Yasujiro Ozu, it deserves none in the larger realm of world cinema history. By this time, much better films that deserve your time much more than 'A Straightforward Boy' were being made.

In short, if the film's director wasn't Ozu, there'd be really no reason to watch it. But, because the director is Ozu, things are mildly interesting.

With the exception of Andrei Tarkovsky, Soviet cinema remains rather unknown this side of the Atlantic. For those who haven't yet indulged further, Grigori Chukhrai's 'Ballad of a Soldier' is a good introduction: more universal, less political, not as formally difficult, and quite a bit more fast-moving (demonstrated, quite literally, by sped-up shots of a tank near the beginning!) than most other Soviet fare.

In general, the film is a delicate, lyrical story about a young Soviet soldier who goes off to fight the Germans, and then gets just enough leave time to come back to his small village and see his mother. This return journey takes up most of the film, and along the way our hero meets a girl, falls in love, and sees a variety of characters affected, in different ways, by the war. Everything is presented in episodes, and the film feels, at times, like it's in chapters.

Although the DVD cover and title make 'Ballad of a Soldier' appear to be a war movie, be warned that, really, it's not. It's sentimental, about love, fleeting, decidedly poetic. However, it's never mush, and its poetry is often quite good. If you're in the right mood, I reckon this film can really hit the soft, nostalgic spots.

And, if your guy or gal is a bit eccentric, reads Dostoyevsky and Kundera, and is into foreign cinema, 'Ballad of a Soldier' even makes a decent date movie.

Rome after the Second World War was a damaged, destroyed city. The huge film industry that had once been known all over Europe was, quite literally, in ruins.

Hence, when Roberto Rossellini took up his camera in 1945 to start shooting 'Open City', he was forced to make due with quite a few limitations: using scavenged film stock, whatever kind he could get his hands on; shooting outside and on location; and employing a much more dynamic, though much less controlled, form of cinematography than Italian cinema had previously seen. The result was an unpolished, rough gem of a film that, in addition to its many contributions to the evolution of cinema, left the pre-war Italian super-spectacle in the dust.

In terms of story, 'Open City' is pure melodrama; and a pretty, darn affecting one at that. Thematically, it's socialist, a reaction against the fascism, personified by Mussolini, that had just been defeated in Italy. But, it is in its style that the film truly stands out.

With 'Open City', Rossellini succeeded in taking adverse conditions and using them to craft a solid, emotional tale of the Italian resistance. In the process, he solidified the aesthetic of an entire film movement: Italian Neorealism.

The film is recommended to anyone who enjoys a good story, is interesting as an artifact of its historical period, and is absolutely indispensable to anyone with at least a passing interest in the history of cinema.

Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima and Hollywood's post-war war flicks have got not a thing on this U.S. army/navy/marine docu-short about the WWII Pacific campaign. Watch any of that stuff after watching this, and it all becomes laughable, irritatingly-solemn, heavy-handed pap.

Real men die real deaths in this film, in front of the camera, but not performing for it; the men with the movie cameras, behind the cameras, die, too. It's gritty, not cleaned up, not made pretty, just edited together into a tight burst of reality.

Don't expect a story, though, because only exploitation makes narrative out of war. Expect images, startling and harrowing images of men's faces as they prepare for battle, face the enemy, and take in the aftermath of utter destruction.

This is cinema: death is not entertainment.