Dolls (2002)
Picture: B-
Sound: B- Extras: C+ Film: B-
Takeshi Kitano is the director of the new Zatoichi
film that has been an international hit, more remarkable since he also stars in
them. Just before this success, the
incredibly strong influence Akira Kurosawa and love for Bunraku doll theater
can be seen in his 2002 drama Dolls, now on DVD from Palm Pictures. Like Kurosawa’s underrated Dreams
(reviewed elsewhere on this site), this film also references such figures and
offers several stories. Unlike the
Kurosawa work, these stories are not presented as anthology, but intertwined
and there are only three of them.
One segment has a electro-pop star have to deal with
disfigurement at the same she meets her number one fan, an aging Yakuza leader
tries to go back to the past by going to a park where he met an early
girlfriend, and a couple wonder around whole having only a long red strap of
cloth between them. The entire point of
the film is to study the character of people who have some lifetime consistency
suddenly change by circumstance and see how they react. Though not as “dreamlike” or profound as the
Kurosawa film, which had a different agenda in many ways, Dolls tries to
show the surface of these people vividly before going deeper into who they are.
The pop star segment is the weakest, as there were issues
believing she was so popular and a hit, with the music sounding like a hundred
repetitious tunes stuck on the many TV Animé titles we have covered on this
site so far. With that said, I liked how
the film took its time in pacing with the characters, who are developed well
enough for the most part. It is a nice
change-of-pace, especially for all the mixed Asian cinema we have seen lately. We have seen some of this before, but it is
still a pleasant experience and definitely worth a look.
Another reason to look is the fine cinematography, shot by
Katsumi Yanagijima, presented here in an anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1
frame. Though some fine detail is still
lacking, this looks good and the source print is very clean. The only issue is that the use of red is
particularly strong and even digital High Definition has problems capturing it
above all other colors in the spectrum.
The disc holds its red well, but this has limits. The sound was theatrical Dolby Digital and
the DVD features a Dolby Digital 5.1 mix that is not bad, though I kept wishing
it was in DTS for being so well recorded.
I liked the use of silence as much as sound, another thing we could go
back to Kurosawa about in terms of smart uses of multi-channel stereo. Extras include trailers for this and four
other Palm Pictures DVD release, weblinks, and four interviews not noted on the
back of the DVD case with two of the leads, Kitano and costume designer Yohji
Yamamoto. Each question is chapterized
and they run about a half-hour combined.
All are subtitled, except for Yamamoto’s segment, which is in English. All in all, this is very much worth a look.
- Nicholas Sheffo
