structuring of hana-bi

[Andreas Leixnering]

>Kitano said that at first, he had a very straightforward cut and found >it 
>boring. He then spent a long time de-constructing it to make it >more 
>interesting. When most of the interviewers asked him about the >time 
>structure, he kept to this answer and as usual, denied any >intellectual 
>theories.

fair enough, but the question still remains why kitano de-constructed it 
that way. he wouldn't have done it randomly, would he? this is what he says 
in an interview with tony rayns: "i did have the structure in my mind when i 
wrote it, but it was resolved in the editing. this is much less linear than 
my other films, and the editing is more 'mathematical'. i try to 'factorise' 
the various elements and to link them through the editing."

>Still, it's an interesting question, whether the time of the narrative >can 
>ultimately be assembled in a coherent way, or whether there's >something 
>indeterminate about the chronology.

that is true. i would also agee with aaron that kitano abandons his 
deconstruction of the subject in hana-bi as he did in his former films. the 
arrangement of the recurring flashback is definitely bound to a certain 
concept of memory through its associative nonlinearity and the way it is 
expanded, which is in opposite to kitanos ususal presentation of violence 
throughout the film. (though nevertheless one is strangely reluctant to call 
it a psychological film.)

yet to me, the way hana-bi is structured gives a certain drive of 
inevitableness (inevitability?) to the way nishi organizes the rest of his 
life since the past has already passed when the viewer enters the plot. in 
this sense the paintings are an interesting 'counter-device' to the 
flashback as they anticipate forthcoming events and are not employed before 
nishi has gone through his last (carthartic?) memorization.

still the question remains why the film would junxtapose two opposed 
concepts of subjectivity or respectively the 'centered' vs. the 'fractured 
subject'.
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