M/Other

[Mark Schilling]

Since it was my review that evidently piqued Jasper's curiousity -- and
thus started this thread, perhaps I'd better weigh in. 

I thought Roger's Cassavetes comparison was interesting and to the point. I
remember seeing several of Cassavetes films in the early seventies and
squirming in my seat at first. Movies weren't supposed to be this raw! Was
this guy an amateur making home movies, or what? Then I understood that the
rawness was the point -- that Cassavetes was rebeling against the formalism
of even the most "realistic" Hollywood films. He was opening our eyes to
what reality really was - for better or worse! 
	
Later I learned, to my shock, that "Woman Under the Influence" was scripted
and rehearsed, elaborately so. But the basis of his work was still
improvisation -- trusting the actors to get beneath the skins of their
characters in ways that few scriptwriters ever could.  

Suwa is not a Cassavetes. He is a documentarian, not an actor, meaning, I
suppose, that he is less of an egomaniac -- though he does place his own
stylistic stamp on his work. He is also a Japanese  -- thus, I suppose, all
those endless meetings with his actors!

But like Cassavetes, he has a knack for stripping away masks, for getting
at the heart of a relationship, the mood of a time. Given the prevalence of
masks here -- the ones of the younger generation being particularly thick!
-- his work is incredibly valuable. Just as the films of Cassavetes are
remembered and treasured now -- when the reputations so many of his more
"accomplished" colleagues have faded and their films have been forgotten --
so Suwa will be regarded as one of the more important Japanese filmmakers
to have come out of the nineties, many years hence. 

Mark Schilling
schill at gol.com