Hey folks, Harry here with the latest report from The Yellow Bastard and the Helsinki Film Festival - which sounds way cool! I mean - looking over the guests list and the films - and just that you're in Helsinki! Damn, that's swank! This Yellow Bastard has seen Otomo's STEAM BOY and that giant robot live action anime thingee CASSHERN... we should be angry, but we like to hear about them. Here ya go...
Hi Harry,
Thanks for posting my last review. The Yellow Bastard is now back and reporting from the best and pretty much only film festival in Finland, the 17th Helsinki Film Festival (more affectionally known as The Love & Anarchy film festival).
The festival is just about the movies and for the movies; all this without the usual marketing and awards fluff in between. Eleven days, 9 screens and a good hundred movies should keep an avid film fan satisfied and content. Films screened are by the likes of Lars Von Trier, Takashi Miike, Asia Argento, Katsuhiro Otomo, Michael Winterbottom, Jim Jarmusch, Hugo Rodriguez, Sabu, Guy Maddin, Johnny To and Takeshi Kitano just to name a few. The official site is quite good so if interested, check www.hiff.fi
I’ll try to keep you posted on some of the more anticipated films shown here. Between screenings and occasional hours of sleep, I should be able to drop a few coherent articles during the festival but we’ll see how this party picks up. So without further ado, I bring you a Japanese double whammy known as CASSHERN and STEAMBOY.
CASSHERN.
Now I have to address a few common misunderstandings I’ve seen so far here on this site about CASSHERN. To describe this film as just beautiful would truly be an understatement. Certainly the film has all the potential to be about one of the most stylized pieces of filmmaking on screen to date. Unfortunately that is just about the only thing that justifies its existence. Yes, the film is very stylish and beautiful but it is also very “emotional”, “deep” and “ponderous” (translating into tedious, boring and pretentious) in a way that made the Finnish audience laugh in just about all the wrong places. Now I can take two and half hours of deep, emotional cinema but this romp was just plain depressing on so many levels.
In the beginning of the film we are explained by a narrator that in this alternative retro-scifi world the Greater Eastern Federation has been fighting a long and ravaging war against the rest of Eurasia and has finally triumphed. The only remaining obstacle between long lasting peace are some undefined “rebels” and the general environmental destruction wreaked upon the land by the long war. Step in Dr. Azuma with his “neo-cell” research that just may be the key to humanity’s salvation plus to his wife’s ailing health. Add Tetsuya, Dr. Azumas son and his girlfriend Luna plus a bunch of bickering royalty, relatives, generals, business men, mutants etc. and you have a drama of Shakespearean proportions. Shake and mix with an emotionally torn jump suited hero “Casshern”, CGI robots, fast cutting, badly choreographed swordplay, heroic posing,! brooding, silly costumes, timid romance, bad heavy metal music, plot holes and yet some more brooding and posing...
The film is based on an anime series from the 70’s and it shows. I gather some of the more glaring plot holes might be filled with seasons one and two but in cinema format most of this stuff just plainly does not make any sense. And I just don’t mean the spiritual and cultural references. For instance, why is there an abandoned robot factory in the arctic, how come mere 4 rebels can almost wipe out the whole Eastern Federation with ease and who was that dribbling idiot who had to show up on screen whenever there was an emotional scene, why, why, why?!?
Maybe director Kazuaki Kiriya is to blame. Maybe he should just stick to his day job as a fashion photographer. He can sure conjure up pretty pictures (and trust me, the cinematography is short of amazing) with a blue screen and a computer but damn if he can’t shoot from a script with real, living, breathing actors. He even had to include stock footage from real wars, a CGI mushroom cloud and a pointless reference to “terrorists” as a show of just further embarrassing himself. Paging Kinji Fukasaku of Battle Royale II fame...
*Sigh*
I mean, I really wanted to like this movie. CASSHERN is nicely operatic at places, it has great production values and a wonderful soundtrack (just ignore the heave metal bits), “some” beautifully shot action (hampered by frenetic cutting) and did I mention, CGI robots. I mean, it has it all. And all this to be just wasted under a heavy handed, second grade, melodramatic story line. Yes, war is hell and war is pointless but so was the majority of this movie.
Just to emphasize, the audience did clap at the end of the film. The sad part is they clapped to celebrate the fact that the film had finally reached the end of its 141 minute run.
STEAMBOY
When it comes to anime, Katsuhiro Otomo is a god amongst men. I have to say this because for me, AKIRA started it all. True, we’ve had a few gems amongst the rough since AKIRA graced the big screen (Miyazaki, Oshii). And although SPIRITED AWAY might be my favorite piece of anime today, nobody can deny the impact AKIRA had on cinemagoers when it first burst onto screen. I just had to get this out of the way before delving any deeper into what is to be known as STEAMBOY.
Now I have to say this is one fine piece of animation. It is almost scary how effortlessly and without fanfare Otomo presents us with STEAMBOY. I mean, this has been in the making for a good ten years and when was the last time we were treated an anime actually directed by the man himself? Although it is a simple story, it is also one that has a timeless quality to it. A classic adventure tale, maybe even standard fare by some measure but told with a heart and excitement lacking from most modern yarns. Otomo ain’t reinventing the wheel here but tells a fairly good tale nonetheless.
The story is about a boy called Ray Steam who is from a family of inventors and engineers fascinated with well, you guessed it, steam. He is our unsuspecting hero who is to be thrown into wild adventures that will demand bravery and heart as much as resolve. Set in the 19th Century, one can really see how much love Otomo has for the victorian era. Everything on display is just riveting and bursting with detail. As much as the animation is top notch, you just have to gawk in awe as every machine, tube, valve and cog have been drawn in painstaking detail. The design values (if you can call them that in animation) are just plain amazing.
After getting his hands on an invention, the steam ball, which is almost a limitless source of energy, Ray ends up facing different factions that all have varying interests of their own. From here the adventure really starts and the audience is treated to a plethora of exciting chase scenes, beautiful vistas and amazing designs along the way. Slow at times but at least there is always something to wonder at. All of the characters in the film are well drawn (no pun) and actually interesting with their own agendas. From the spoiled “heroine” Scarlett to the slimy business man Simon, all the people in the film feel real (still nothing resembling a pun) and act accordingly.
This is a personal tale and one Otomo has been hatching on for quite a long time. As standard as it is, you cannot really have too much ill feelings about the end product. It is classic in the way that it is presented, a breeze from older times, almost innocent (or naive, depending on your world view) in its entirety. All in all, still a fine piece of animation and worth the wait.
Call me The Yellow Bastard
