The Naked Island (1960, Kaneto Shindo)

Quest Status: 759 / 1000

TSPDT Rank #876

Kaneto Shindo is primarily known in the West for his classic samurai horror films Onibaba and Kuroneko. But this earlier film shows that he also single-handedly created the Asian slow cinema genre three or four decades before it became a bona fide cinematic movement. The Naked Island is an almost completely dialogue-free portrait of a farming family who are the sole inhabitants of a small island. The lack of inhabitants is likely the reason that the title describes it as a "naked" island, although I'm guessing that more than a few people have gone in expecting something a much different film.

As for myself, I was expecting more dark or suspenseful elements, based on my knowledge of Shindo's other films. But the first 30 minutes, a ravishingly shot but slow-moving sequence of a man and a woman transporting heavy buckets of water from the nearby village by boat to water the steep slopes of their mountain fields, soon establishes that we are not watching a film that plays by the established rules of narrative cinema. These scenes are reminiscent of anthropological documentaries like Robert Flaherty's Man of Aran, but The Naked Island turns out to be brilliantly structured as well, conveying a narrative that's as simple as it is elemental.

 

 

The first section of the film shows us a normal summer day in the life of the mountain family, which mostly consists of grueling field work in the hot sun. The second section speeds things up considerably, giving us a glimpse of the family's activities over the course of an entire year - fall, winter, spring, and finally back to summer. This also gives us a glimpse of the family's camaraderie, which will be tested by a major catastrophe in the final act. But while the structure allows for a story to be told without the use of dialogue, I often found myself wondering why the decision was made in the first place. It feels unnatural for the characters to remain silent when greeting or thanking someone, for example, since this isn't a silent film.  In many ways, it feels like an experiment undertaken just to prove a point. But no matter how you feel about the film's experimental tactics, there's no denying that this was a groundbreaking film, with some of the most breathtaking cinematography in all of Japanese cinema.

--- 241 films remaining ---

Bad Lieutenant (1992, Abel Ferrara)

Quest Status: 758 / 1000

TSPDT Rank #907

Most movies involving copious drug use tend to try to recreate the experience for the viewer, with trick shots emulating the rush of cocaine or the surging pleasure of heroin. This is meant to put you inside the main character's head and vicariously experience their state of ecstasy without actually having to do drugs yourself. However, Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant, a brilliant film about a drug-addled police lieutenant in a downward spiral of vice and spiritual guilt, shows us what it feels like to watch someone do drugs. Rather than a vicarious head trip, it's a voyeuristic nightmare.

When Harvey Keitel shoots up in some unknown woman's room, smokes crack in a tenement hallway after handing off a package of cocaine to his dealer, or snorts cocaine after dropping his sons off at school, the camera usually stands static, intently focused on Keitel's staggering self-destruction. And it's not just drugs. He sexually harasses women at a routine traffic stop even as he's supposed to be investigating the rape of a nun. He drinks from the bottle and wildly fires his gun while driving in broad daylight. He dances naked with prostitutes while moaning in primal despair, only to stumble out in the street to happen upon an officer arresting two convenience store thieves and make off with the money himself.

Other directors making normal films would focus on Keitel's gambling problem, which proves to be even more dangerous than the many drugs coursing through his system at all times. However, this is little more than background noise in the context of the big picture. The cop's desperate attempt to come out on top over the course of a heated Mets vs. Dodgers series propels him through the film, but much more prominent is the spiritual torment that he experiences after the nun who has been raped insists on forgiving her assailants. Never has there been a more vital film about Catholic guilt and the question of whether its possible to go past the point of forgiveness. Ferrara goes straight for the gut and hits you with the truth, with dizzying clarity of purpose. There's so much depravity on display that most casual viewers would probably look at this movie and see nothing but smut, but make no mistake: this is a profound work of art. If anything, it deserves to be much higher on the list than it currently is.

 

--- 242 films remaining ---