The Munekata Sisters (Munekata Shimai, Yasujiro Ozu, 1950)

Sister act

Ozu working for another studio?! The idea seems unheard of, like the director doing a film noir or shooting an explicitly erotic scene. But in fact Ozu's done at least one gangster flick (Dragnet Girl) and three films outside of Shochiku, of which this one was the first (the other two were his 1951 remake Floating Weeds and his second-to-the-last The End of Summer (1961)). As for The Munekata Sisters, Shintoho studios-- basically 'New Toho,' as the actors there had defected from the old studio due to labor disputes-- needed reputable directors and lured Ozu away by offering him more money: 50 million yen, or $140,000 1950 dollars (around $1.8 million today).

Hit Man (Richard Linklater, 2023)

Assassin's creed

Richard Linklater's Hit Man -- adapted from the Texas Monthly magazine piece of the same name written by Skip Hollandsworth-- is that rare news article adaptation that takes an interesting premise (ordinary joe poses as assassin-for-hire for New Orleans PD sting operation) and pushes it to its logical extreme, or at least as extreme as the director can manage. Glen Powell is Gary Johnson, a philosophy professor who teases his students with questions like "What if your self is a construction?" Linklater wastes no time testing that postulate: one day the operation finds itself without a plainclothes officer to deliver the sting, and Gary's colleagues coax him to step in instead.

Utamaro and his Five Women (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1946) in 35 mm

Immortal beloved 

(Warning: plot twists explicitly discussed in detail)

Utamaro and His Five Women begins with a procession-- the camera gliding past men and women in elaborate kimonos with umbrellas held up like banners; cherry blossoms lining the boulevard, arthritic branches holding up tufts of cottony blossoms that suggest a startling depth (you're reminded of Max Fleischer's stereoptical experiments in Popeye). The procession drones on, the men stride forward, the women-- those perched on wooden clogs-- take huge circling steps, their heads bobbing up and down in sinuous waves. It's a fantastic throwaway gesture of virtuosity, as if Mizoguchi had decided to pick up the baton and conduct a warmup passage. 

Furiousa: a Mad Max Saga (George Miller, 2024)

Book of genesis

George Miller's Furiosa may bill itself as a 'Mad Max Saga' but don't be fooled: it's less an action epic than an origin fable, a myth made in the telling. Where Fury Road was a hurtling bristling juggernaut of armor and wheels smashing everything in its way, Furiosa is more like a decades-long odyssey, of a woman seeking revenge, her home, and finally herself.  

Evil Does Not Exist (Aku wa Sonzai Shinai, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2023)

Evil never dies

Rysuke Hamaguchi's Evil Does Not Exist grew out of a collaborative project with his longtime composer Eiko Ishibashi, who had asked for a film to accompany her live concerts. The concert film-- GIFT-- ended up running seventy-four minutes long; the source footage however apparently took root in Hamaguchi's head and sprouted into a 106 minute film (relatively short for Hamaguchi-- Drive My Car was 179 minutes and Happy Hour 317 minutes) that Hamaguchi released as a separate but not necessarily independent feature.  

Bona 44 years later (Lino Brocka, 1980)

Bona, 44 years later

There's a lovely symmetry to having the restored print of Lino Brocka's Bona (1980) screened in the 2024 Cannes Classics section, in the same city where the film had its world premiere (at the parallel Director's Fortnight) decades ago. Feels like a combination homecoming, resurrection, revelation all at the same time.

Condemned (Mario O'Hara, 1984)

The perfect noir

Mario O'Hara's Condemned (1984) is Aunor at her most baroque and noirish. O'Hara populates the streets of Ermita (the heart of Manila's sordid night life) with pimps, prostitutes, transvestites, with cruising straight and gay men and women; with couriers, snitches, corrupt cops, gang lords, bodyguards, killers. As in Lino Brocka's Maynila sa Mga Kuko ng Liwanag (Manila in the Claws of Neon, 1975) it's a vision of Manila as one of the lower circles of hell. But not a depressed hell, nor a hell where the inhabitants accept their fate with sad resignation-- this inferno crackles with the energy of the damned dancing their way from one torment to another, stabbing and shrieking and fornicating and, well, not giving a damn.