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Castle of Sand (Yoshitaro Nimura, 1974) ; Art House Rating:
Let me slowly jump to the chase here and try to explain the difference between my two ratings. This film is considered worthy to be discussed along with Kurosawa's best. The reason for this, I imagine, is that it's something of an epic (143 minutes and covers about 35 years of time). It also is a film which starts out one way and then transforms itself into something resembling a completely-different kind of more-significant movie than you thought, and it utilizes extremely unique-and-personal music to tell its tale. I have to admit that although I vaguely remember the title, I really knew nothing at all about this film before I saw it. So I watched a Japanese police procedural/murder mystery, which I felt utilized an extremely-awkward storytelling style (hiding info, almost to a mystifying degree) and had two detectives who consisted of one who's a been-there/done-that-type of veteran and a youngster with tons of energy and lots of natural inquisitiveness. This accurately describes their personalities, and reading that, it makes them seem more interesting than they are. Anyway, the only reason we care (if we do) about these guys is because through some primitive CSI techniques, we learn something to do with a murder, and this somehow leads us to a pianist/composer and a leper. From here on, the film completely evolves into something resembling a commentary on a cultural social injustice, but equally important, it also seems to be this live concert given full of newly-composed orchestral music which comments on all the film's visuals (something along the lines of a score for a silent movie).
I'm apparently supposed to be overwhelmed emotionally, and I'll admit that the score is beautiful, but the film begins so awkwardly, and I also believe that it continues that same way while audaciously transitioning to a completely-different animal. Instead of feeling deep emotions about how the film turned out, I'm unfortunately wondering why it took so long (all the cop stuff is borderline amateurish to me, at least on a technical level) for me to feel like I didn't quite "get" the murder mystery part. I watched this because it was on the Noir List, and I may well rewatch this soon to decide if I have the problem, but at least I can understand how to rate movies in two different ways. Tell me which rating you agree with
Let me slowly jump to the chase here and try to explain the difference between my two ratings. This film is considered worthy to be discussed along with Kurosawa's best. The reason for this, I imagine, is that it's something of an epic (143 minutes and covers about 35 years of time). It also is a film which starts out one way and then transforms itself into something resembling a completely-different kind of more-significant movie than you thought, and it utilizes extremely unique-and-personal music to tell its tale. I have to admit that although I vaguely remember the title, I really knew nothing at all about this film before I saw it. So I watched a Japanese police procedural/murder mystery, which I felt utilized an extremely-awkward storytelling style (hiding info, almost to a mystifying degree) and had two detectives who consisted of one who's a been-there/done-that-type of veteran and a youngster with tons of energy and lots of natural inquisitiveness. This accurately describes their personalities, and reading that, it makes them seem more interesting than they are. Anyway, the only reason we care (if we do) about these guys is because through some primitive CSI techniques, we learn something to do with a murder, and this somehow leads us to a pianist/composer and a leper. From here on, the film completely evolves into something resembling a commentary on a cultural social injustice, but equally important, it also seems to be this live concert given full of newly-composed orchestral music which comments on all the film's visuals (something along the lines of a score for a silent movie).
I'm apparently supposed to be overwhelmed emotionally, and I'll admit that the score is beautiful, but the film begins so awkwardly, and I also believe that it continues that same way while audaciously transitioning to a completely-different animal. Instead of feeling deep emotions about how the film turned out, I'm unfortunately wondering why it took so long (all the cop stuff is borderline amateurish to me, at least on a technical level) for me to feel like I didn't quite "get" the murder mystery part. I watched this because it was on the Noir List, and I may well rewatch this soon to decide if I have the problem, but at least I can understand how to rate movies in two different ways. Tell me which rating you agree with