23rd MoFo Hall of Fame

晩春 (1949)
aka Late Spring

This is the second Ozu I've seen, and it's quite similar to A Hen in the Wind. If anything, it's even less eventful of the two films, and I already called the other one barebones and less-is-less cinema.


Again, I have difficulties in getting the character dynamics and motivations. Is the daughter in love (romantically) with her father, or why is she so against someone else taking care of him? Also, her change of stance concerning the marriage seems to lack any reason (except maybe her just accepting her place in society). There's just too little anything to make me feel invested.

I don't want to spew too much hatred on the film because I know the issue is about compatibility, but I don't enjoy watching these mundane and uneventful stories. Late Spring is about as dull and boring as my life, and that's not what I want from movies. I don't even know what to write about it, so I'll just stop here.

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Film: Christine F
Year of release: 1981
Directed by: Uli Edel
Run time: 2hr 18mins
Starring: Natja Brunckhorst, Eberhard Auriga, Peggy Bussieck

I found this film to be disturbing and thought provoking. It was like watching something unfold and you cant do anything about it. I had a genuine sense of helplessness that caused frustration. It was almost as if I knew and cared what happened to Christine, even in the openeing scenes.

I thought that it challenged the frequent and lazy narrative that all heroin dealers and addicts are criminals and bums. This film really captured the humanity of the characters and illustrated the journey to addiction in a powerful way.
I think it has a more realistic edge than 'Trainspotting' but reminded me a bit of 'Requiem for a dream', in that it pulled no punches and was utterly harrowing in parts.
A sensational display from Brunckhorst!
I haven't been able to stop thinking about this film.
A good nomination that I may not have watched otherwise.

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"I don't want to be a product of my environment, I want my environment to be a product of me" (Frank Costello)

That's what I love in movies, less is more minimalism. By that I mean films that are not in your face like Hunger was, films that don't spoonfeed their messages like Christiane F did. For me Late Spring was one of the most moving experiences I had in this HoF.

But how do you show the horrors of drug abuse without showing the horrors of drug abuse? Late Spring works as minimalist because it's a simplistic story.

Well, it's like so many movies get panned because people say: that they can't believe the characters went from meeting, to being in love so quickly that it wasn't believable. That's been given as a reason in HoFs before. Even myself sometimes a film doesn't invent enough backstory and motive to make the actions of the characters believable. And for me that's what Christina F needed, more back story and motivation.

They were a bunch of dumb teenagers. Seemed believable to me.

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Not to me.

I'm not sure you're saying it wasn't believable and I wouldn't say it either because it happens every day. You wanted more back story? I didn't need it but I can understand that.

Actually, I think it's better that Christiane F had little backstory. You don't want people thinking well if you avoid this then you won't become an addict. There are too many reasons why it happens and often times there's no apparent reason.

I know I'm not in this HoF round, but I've been somewhat following along with this thread and I'd like to address some of your complaints if nobody minds me peaking in.

I don't think she is, nor do I see any evidence which implies she may be. I think she just loves him the way a child loves their parent.

Because then she'd have to marry Satake and leave her father, who she prefers to look after herself as she enjoys her life with him just fine. The reason she gave for not wanting to marry Satake was that she wanted to look after her father as she was worried he'd be alone and helpless. If somebody else were to look after him though, she'd have no reasons left. Coupled with how she earlier called the idea of marriage distasteful, I think it makes sense why she reacted the way she did to someone else taking care of her father.

As stated above, with the knowledge that her father was marrying, there were no other reasons for her to stay with her father.

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IMDb
Letterboxd

@SpelingError yeah but what about the vase?

I think it comes down to how different people relate differently to movies.

I've read various MoFo's reviews and thoughts on movies and many people seem to relate to the movie's story, as if it's real. If they like the story, they like the movie...if they hate the story, then they also hate the movie.

I often relate to movies from a production standpoint, it's like I'm in the mind set of a producer looking at how the elements were utilized in a movie. So with that perspective in mind, remember I'm not talking about could it happen or anything like that. I'm saying to me the film didn't present enough motivation for Christina who appears to be coming from a supportive, loving home to become a heroin addict/prostitute. Yeah of course I know she did in real life, but the film doesn't capture the impetuous of what drove her to what she ultimately became.

From a production standpoint I believe the film makers wanted to focus on a parable/warning story, you 'know drugs are bad!' And in that way it reminded me of some of the Afterschool TV specials that they made for teens back in the 80s with their warnings of 'don't do like the characters did or you'll end up like them'.

A good example of a movie that earned it's character's stripes was Lilya 4 Ever. It's also based on a true story where the teenage girl ends up in a horrible situation...But the first act establishes the hell that she lives in and the desperation in poverty that drove her to prostitution. When she first does a prostitution act it's completely understandable (at least to me) as her and her friend were starving to death. In contrast Christian F starts off with a preamble about vomit & urine soaked steps to her squalider apartment that draws an image of utter hell, but then we see a rather nice apartment, a loving mom and a normal younger sister and so it was hard to make that transition from characters state of normalcy to becoming what she became. What I'm saying is bared out by her own real story as her early life was much more brutal and abusive than the movie showed. And to me the movie from a production stand point wanted to make a preachy anti-drug movie so had a huge juxtaposition between Christina's life in the first part of the film compared to her ending.

I think the vase scene shows how she's having second thoughts on her marriage. Before that scene, she seems happy as she talks to her father, but after he falls asleep, her smile is gone and is replaced by a serious look as it cross cuts between her and the vase. Then, in the morning, she asks why she can't just stay with her father.

It's an interesting take. For me, the movie is not so horrific because of her story, but rather because there's so many like it. It gets to the point where I don't care about specifics. Instead my focus is how do we help "these" people.

I agreed with SpelingErrors replies to PahaK's questions, but I thought I'd put a few of my own thoughts down.
You need to view this film in the place and time that it was made, Japan 1949 right after the war. There's no way a traditional nation like Japan in 1949 was making veiled references to a daughter having romantic feelings towards her father. That's a 21st century view.

Late Spring is about a grown adult daughter who's devoted to her widowed father and doesn't want to marry and leave her life of freedom and the home she's known all of her life.

Of course in Japan in 1949 it's a daughter's duty to get married and have children and this she then finally realizes during the late spring of her life. The film is about growing up and leaving the nest with all the pain that it incurs.

I haven't talked about the vase yet. I see it as a static shot of an inanimate yet familiar object, used as a director's tool to show the passage of time and change.

An obviously well-crafted film that pays respect to holocaust victims, while at the same time being very much a Hollywood film. I'm a bit torn, because the best holocaust film of all time, Night and Fog, is a stomach punch that shows you some of the worst things that have ever happened and doesn't really do it with the same sheen Schindler's List does. I don't know if the style of the film undermines it's sincerity in paying tribute to Schindler and the lives that he saved, but it does keep you aware that you are watching a movie made many years later in a land across an ocean that's supposed to be palatable to a major audience. Perhaps it is unfair to compare Schindler's List to Night and Fog, after all, Night and Fog is not competition to Schindler's List in this particular event.

There are very real moments that turned my stomach and brought moisture to my eyes, I won't deny that. Seeing the road cobbled together with headstones from a Jewish cemetery really bothered me. Every time there was a moment where a parent realized their children were being taken to be killed hurt me a lot, and the scene where the women are put in the shower riddled me with anxiety. I had seen this film before, but it had probably been around the time I joined this forum. I had forgotten a lot of the specific moments, remembering mainly the plot. I noticed the music being a little overbearing at times, something I was trying to reconcile. I was trying to figure out how to properly tackle something as intricate as the holocaust with proper delicacy. I don't know that the music really fit, but I can't say that it doesn't fit either. If I believe the choices in this film were done in earnest, I can't be too mad at them even if they don't always hit. I think this film deserves respect as an important film and a bold undertaking. I don't think it's as great as its reputation, but I wouldn't begrudge a group of people putting it atop any type of poll they constructed.

Also shoutout to Ralph Fiennes for his performance. I don't know if this is ever talked about, but I also want to lend my endorsement to anybody who argues in favor of Liam Neeson's performance in the final scene where he cries. It's easy to hate on actors trying to do the breakdown in tears moments, but I think those moments are always uncomfortable and awkward in real life, so if they feel that way on the big screen, they've done something right.

The Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective is a Sherlock Holmes story told with mice. This is one of those films where you have regrets over the end result. It's a fine movie that has a number of very good ideas, artistically it's top notch maybe the best Disney film for a setting. The vista's of Victorian London are incredible for a Disney film but unfortunately the film had to go the musical adventure route instead of the detective story. If you are going to do Holmes shouldn't the film be a mystery?


Anyways the characters are 50/50, Vincent Price is way over the top in this as Ratigan a rat who doesn't like being called a rat...even though he's a rat. It's a very good idea...turning him into a bond villain with elaborate schemes to kill Sherlock...that was a bad call. The bat is also very annoying but I loved every other side character in the story so can I really hold one annoying supporting character against a film.

Hunger

Father Dominic Moran: [offering Sands a cigarette] Bit of a break from smokin' the Bible, eh?
Bobby Sands: [agrees]
Father Dominic Moran: Anyone work out which book is the best smoke?
Bobby Sands: We only smoke the Lamentations. A right miserable cigarette.

This is my second McQueen film and like 12 Years a Slave it was done with equal exceptional quality and without any respite from the emotional anvil that slowly places its full weight upon your heart and upon your soul.
His craft is delivering such films with a heart rending delivery of a horrifyingly eloquent construct.
Such a film demands an immediate review as the credits roll. Allowing the full weight of the film's effect to be expressed without a single moment to ease the lump that permeates both the throat and chest.

Delving into the Hunger Strike of Irish prisoners in British prison and the full brutality without nearly a word of dialogue, conjecture, debate of idealism and political chess play; we only witness a few facts in both the opening and the very ending and only that along with Bobby Sands (Fassbender0 and Father Moran's (Liam Cunningham) rather captivating conversation.

I believe, since that there was no public recognition by Britain after the Strike, McQueen's vision was to expose what was never acknowledged and, in that exposure, leave conjecture to those who have already spoken it so that the imagery and the actions speak volumes on their own. And my god how they do!

I have spoken on many occasions of my love for these HoFs and the reasons for them. One of the often repeated ones is the films I would never have watched on my own accord. Exceptional films that are an emotional torture to sit through but are still very much important works to witness, to experience, and to be knocked to my very knees, windless, from their viewing.
So, even as I sit, numb from it all I still applaud the excellence of the Director and the importance of the film.
Thank you, @MovieGal.

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What I actually said to win MovieGal's heart:
- I might not be a real King of Kinkiness, but I make good pancakes

~Mr Minio

That'll work rather nicely. Please do!