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Japón
R1 - America - Tartan Video Review written by and copyright: Ben Austin & Noor Razzak (6th September 2006). |
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The Film
 Japón is the first feature film of director Carlos Reygadas, who recently released his second film, œBattle in Heaven. This is the film he made his name with, where he developed is signature style of long shots and hyper realistic, unglamorous sex scenes. I decided to watch this film as I enjoyed his second film at a recent Film Festival. Reygadas works best with long, open shots, countryside, travel, and people's faces. It becomes almost an immersive experience in a way that so much theatre is not. But the counterpoint of this style is that the natural tempo of the film is slow, and with its running time hitting 126 minutes, which I believe is far too long. His later work, Battle in Heaven, which follows a similar style is 45 minutes shorter and this is one of the reasons it is a far more watch able film. Death is apparently the purpose of Alejandro's (Alejandro Ferretis) journey, and he has chosen for some reason to withdraw to a nearly inaccessible valley in the country. Why? Well, perhaps he is ashamed and wishes to be detached from what he knows before he ends his life. But he is quickly immersed into the activity of the village, into the arguments, to take sides, perhaps negating in some ways the reason for choosing the valley. He works to right what he sees as a wrong, the destruction of the barn attached to Ascena's (Magdalena Flores) house but to no avail. This is paralleled by Ascen's attempts to pull Alejandro out of his funk. It is great when stories can be symmetrical! Another neat thing about Reygadas's films is that the events are largely in isolation. Why does Alejandro want to commit suicide? Why is Ascen isolated? Why does the barn owner want to remove the stone? It is never explained and the audience must focus just on the events of the film. Alejandro arrives and then reacts to his environment; his mission may or may not be achieved. As is expected with Reygadas there is a long, unromantic sex scene, and again, reflecting his style it seeks to shock, or at least portray something different, through the portrayal of an elderly woman having sex. The acting style seemed more real than usual, almost documentary like at some points, especially when many people were involved in a scene. The male lead, Alejandro, plays the role of a suicidal recluse well; almost too well really, he is almost too dull to care about, perhaps reflecting the almost self indulgent nature of his death-wish. Ascen, on the other hand is also dull, but because she is real, an older woman largely isolated and scorned by her village neighbors. Real people are often dull. The director reveals in the interview feature that he found her in a small market, she is the genuine article and I think this reflects some of the other casting decisions. A director seeks to engage the audience, to shape their experience but I was left rather cold by Japón, I could not really engage in the relationship between Alejando and Ascen. Did I care that he wanted to die? No. Did I care that they became sexually involved? No. Instead I found myself more and more interested in the issue of the stone. Apparently well-dressed stone is a precious resource. I didn't understand the point well while the building was standing, then in the closing sequence the stone is scattered across the road, and it is beautiful, so square, so regular, the perfect building resource. In hindsight it was almost an insult to leave the stone blocks in the barn, and perhaps Ascen understood this when Alejandro did not. I would not recommend Japón to most viewers. Despite some really cool moments and cinematography the over-all package doesn't seem to quite work, it perhaps was too ambitious to make this film as long as it is. The story does not warrant it, it seems contrived, even if the setting is not. As a study of how Reygadas' style began it is interesting and for that I recommend also watching the interview feature.
Video
Presented in the film's original theatrical ratio of 2.65:1 this anamorphic transfer isn't the best, however this is akin to the style of the film. Shot on 16mm and blown up for 35mm presentation the image has inherent grain that runs through the entire film, blacks are muddy and the overall image isn't as sharp as one would like. As mentioned in the above review this grainy and often murky look is deliberate and thus the transfer represents the film as the filmmaker intended.
Audio
Two audio tracks are included on this release both of which are in the film's native language of Spanish, they are in Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. For the purposes of this review I chose to view the film with its 5.1 soundtrack. I found this 5.1 track to be a total let down, the dialogue is clean however the track is totally lacking in any depth; this track exhibits little to no character what so ever. I'm surprised that care wasn't taken in presenting this film with a solid audio mix. Optional subtitles are included in English, I could not spot any spelling or grammatical errors.
Extras
Tartan Video has included an interview, a theatrical trailer plus a collection of bonus trailers. Below is a closer look at these supplements. The interview with the director is reasonably interesting, running for 41 minutes 36 second, where the director progressively runs through the various facets of the film, the actors, the cinematography, his background etc. It is worth watching as he explains what he intended the message, the themes to be, while discussing in some detail film and sound techniques that he used in the production. Interestingly this was the first feature film that the majority of the crew, including the director had worked on, prior to this they had worked on short films together. Also included on the disc is the film's original theatrical trailer which runs for 1 minute 32 seconds. Rounding out the extras is a bonus trailer for Bush's Brain which runs for 2 minutes 10 seconds.
Overall
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