Yesterday I watched The Mad Fox, which turned out to be one of the most arresting and beautiful films I’d ever seen.
Don’t you just love it when a film plays with colours?
The Mad Fox has some plot elements reminiscent of Ugetsu monogatari, but its embrace of artifice and use of colours make me think of Kwaidan, in some way. But it is different: The Mad Fox shows strong theatrical influence—it is in fact based on a bunraku play—one may even say that the film is a mix of theatre and cinema, combining the sets and masks and other artifice of theatre with cinematic language.
A refreshing change after all the naturalistic films I have seen.
I wonder if the film had any influence on Kwaidan, which came out 2 years later.
Flying fires in The Mad Fox:
Flying fires in Kwaidan:
But Kwaidan goes much further in its artificiality, its heightened artificiality. It is unlike anything I have ever seen, and it is one of my favourite Japanese films.
If only filmmakers play more with stylisation!
Does anyone know other films—preferably Japanese—which are highly stylised/ do something similar?
The Ballad of Narayama 1958, directed by Keisuke Kinoshita, maybe?
ReplyDeleteI unfortunately saw the remake from the 80s and hated the view of humanity in it.
DeleteIs the original the same? Depicting humans as beasts?.