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For Love's Sake AKA Ai to makoto (Blu-ray)
Blu-ray B - United Kingdom - Third Window Films Review written by and copyright: Paul Lewis (13th June 2013). |
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The Film
 For Love’s Sake (Miike Takashi, 2012) An incredibly prolific filmmaker, Miike Takashi has acquired a cult following amongst Western audiences for his ability to maintain a consistency, in terms of both quality and theme, across his amazingly diverse body of work. For UK and US audiences, Miike is often associated with horror films (1999’s Audition was arguably his ‘breakout’ picture for English-language audiences) and crime cinema, owing to the critical and commercial success in English-language markets of his Black Society Trilogy (Shinjuku Triad Society, 1995; Rainy Dog, 1997; Ley Lines, 1999), his 2002 remake of Kinji Fukasaku’s Graveyard of Honor and the 2007 video game adaptation Like a Dragon. However, he has also delivered numerous youth films (the Crows Zero manga adaptations), period films (13 Assassins, 2010; Izo, 2004; a remake of Masaki Kobayashi’s Hara-Kiri, 2011), a Western (Sukiyaki Western Django, 2007) and even children’s films (Zebraman, 2004; The Great Yokai War, 2005). Further to this, Miike’s films often defy categorization, mixing genres in a freewheel manner: for example, The Happiness of the Katakuris (2002) is a hybrid of horror film, farce and musical; Visitor Q (2001) blends domestic melodrama and extreme horror. His career as a director, which began in 1991, spans over seventy films, and Miike is a master of making use of whatever resources are available to him. A number of Miike’s films have been produced within the ‘V-Cinema’ (direct to video) field, which due to the lower budgets of such productions offers Miike less restrictions (both creatively and, more specifically, in terms of censorship). In the West, Miike’s films have an arguably undeserved reputation for extreme violence and sadism: a number of his pictures (for example, Ichi the Killer, 2001) have encountered problems when submitted to the BBFC for classification. The controversies surrounding a small handful of his films have, for English-language audiences, arguably overshadowed his remarkably diverse body of work. As all of this may suggest, Miike is arguably the very definition of a true ‘auteur’ filmmaker. Some of Miike’s more controversial films, such as Audition, have been dismissed as ‘gross-out movie[s] in arthouse clothing’ (Richard Falcon, quoted in Shin, 2009: 94). However, for others Miike’s films offer ‘an overtly political cinema’ that challenges ‘the complacent cinema of the studio system […] through an aesthetic of “excess” and “a politic of aggression”’; they are films which are not only ‘aesthetically extreme’ but which also ‘comprise a radical critique of social values and norms’ (Richard Hyland, cited in Choi & Wada-Marciano, 2009: 11-2). Steffen Hantke, discussing Miike’s Audition in detail, highlights the cross-cultural appeal of Miike’s films, suggesting that Audition demonstrated ‘success with a variety of different audiences’ and ‘an ability to cross social and national boundaries: from popular entertainment to arthouse cinema, and from Japan to the West’ (2005: 55). Meanwhile, Miike himself professes little interest in deliberately attempting to court non-Japanese audiences: ‘I have no idea what goes on in the minds of people in the West and I don’t pretend to know what their tastes are. And I don’t want to start deliberately thinking about that. It’s nice that they liked my movie, but I’m not going to start deliberately worrying about why or what I can do to make it happen again’ (Miike, quoted in ibid.). This nonchalance is a part of Miike’s aesthetic: Ernest Mathijs and Jamie Sexton note that Miike’s films have a ‘bold style: hard-hitting, flamboyant, nihilist, and above all, “cool”’ (2012: np). However, this nihilism is superficial: Mathijs and Sexton cite Aaron Gerow’s assertion that Miike’s films ‘offer a veil of superficiality that cloaks a visceral politics of diversity’ (ibid.). Gerow also highlights the extent to which Miike’s characters are almost always positioned within ‘liminal settings (in-between places such as rooftops, tracks, streets), [and] Miike’s also find themselves hovering in between hero and coward. Characters in Dead or Alive claim to be “like Japanese but not Japanese, like Chinese but not Chinese”; Ichi in Ichi the Killer is both super-hero and cry-baby’ (ibid.). In City of Lost Souls (2000), set in Japan, the politics of identity are foregrounded: the protagonist is a Japanese-Brazilian named Mario (Teah), and his girlfriend Kei is Chinese (Michelle Reis). This theme of liminality can be seen in For Love’s Sake: at the heart of the film’s narrative is the characters’ ability (or inability) to cross class divisions between the wealthy and the poor. Citing Jay McRoy, Mathijs and Sexton also note that a key theme within Miike’s work is the interrogation of what has been labeled ‘dove style violence’: ‘a form of violence in which “human beings coldly abuse one another with a detached cruelty reminiscent of ‘certain species of bird’ who, when a flock member is different or weaker… peck at the weakest bird dispassionately until it’s dead”’ (McRoy, quoted in ibid; emphasis in original). The films investigate, in its many forms, ‘ijime’ or bullying: ‘Ichi the Killer shows not just the impact of the bullying, but the fallout as well’ (ibid.). This results in ‘a representation of violence that is both painful and playful, and a reconsideration of the transgressive violence of desire’ (ibid.). Desire is at the centre of For Love’s Sake, which is based on the 1970s manga A to Saotome (Love and Truth), by Ikki Kajiwara. The film focuses on Ai Saotome (Emi Takei), a young woman from a privileged background who is in love with a rebellious youth, Makoto Taiga (Satoshi Tsumabuki) from the ‘wrong side of the tracks’. However, Saotome is also the object of the affections of Iwashimizu (Takumi Saito), a respectable young man from the same social class as Saotome. Meanwhile, another young woman, Gamuko (Sakuro Ando), becomes infatuated with Makoto; she is a member of a street gang and from a similar social background to him. As this synopsis might suggest, For Love’s Sake is driven by the theme of liminality that characterises much of Miike’s work: many times throughout the film, the characters attempt to cross social boundaries. Saotome encourages her parents to sponsor Makoto, leading to him being given a place at the same prestigious school that Saotome (and Iwashimizu) attend. However, Makoto shows that he is unwilling to fit into this new environment. When introduced to the class, he refuses to take off his hat. The teacher removes it for him, revealing a deep scar on his forehead; Miike presents us with a flashback in which Makoto reflects on his childhood, as his friends mock the same scar, comparing him with the manga character Moonlight Mask. This angers Makoto, and he beats the other boys viciously. Miike cuts back to the present, and Makoto lashes out at the teacher. ‘Evil bastard. What’s a barbarian like him doing at our prestigious school’, says Iwashimizu, who is watching from the sidelines. Iwashimizu is the polar opposite of Makoto. Where Makoto is aggressive, flashbacks show Iwashimizu to be passive in his pursuit of Saotome’s affections. Makoto is laconic and quick to violence; Iwashimizu, the president of the student council, is articulate and diplomatic, refusing to participate in violence – unless he is pressed into it. ‘I won’t resort to violence’, Iwashimizu tells Makoto, ‘but if you demand a duel to protect peace at this school, I accept’. Makoto is sickened by the environment in which he finds himself. ‘The arrogance of the rich makes me want to vomit’, he tells Saotome, who refuses to allow her belief in Makoto’s innate goodness to be shaken: ‘There’s a reason why he’s like this’, she tells her parents when they question why they should continue sponsoring Makoto’s education, ‘He has a warm heart’. However, Makoto is aware of Saotome’s weakness for him and attempts to exploit it. He demands money from her, and she tells him that his apartment, tuition and living expenses are all paid for by her family. He is disinterested in her. ‘Will you demand more money?’, Saotome questions. ‘If I have to work part time, I won’t have time to study. You want me to be proper, right?’, he responds. To support Makoto, Saotome takes a job as a hostess in a nightclub. Iwashimizu attempts to force Makoto to see how Saotome has degraded herself for him: ‘See for yourself. She’s lowered herself for you’, Iwashimizu says. However, Makoto sees nothing more than another opportunity to make a fast buck. He blackmails Saotome’s parents with photographs of her at her new job. They are unhappy with their daughter, referring to her as a ‘delinquent’. ‘That boy is… evil’, Saotome’s mother tells her. Without the support of Saotome’s parents, Makoto is expelled from the prestigious school; Saotome – and Iwashimizu – follow him, enrolling in a rough school in a poverty-stricken area. It is there that Gamuko meets Makoto. They become involved in a gang fight, Makoto holding Gamuko over a balcony by her ankles, humiliating her by allowing the onlookers to see her underwear. ‘If you resist, you’ll die’, Gamuko tells him as he leaves. She’s lying on the floor. ‘Bring it on, anytime’, he says. ‘What a man!’, she comments after he’s gone. The impossibility of love transgressing social boundaries is highlighted in the film’s opening moments. The film opens with a quote from India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru (famously a pacifist who also claimed to understand the necessity of violence in certain contexts): ‘Love is not peace… Love is a battlefield. Using sincerity instead of arms, it is the hardest and strictest battle which we should fight by killing ourselves’. Saotome embodies pacifism within the film; her values collide with those of Makoto. When she encounters him fighting in the street, she halts the brawl and asserts, ‘Fighting is wrong [….] Violence solves nothing’. However, Makoto pays no heed to her: ‘A pretentious bourgeois like you disgusts me. Now, scram’, he says. Miike’s film is presented, in typical Miike fashion, via a heavily stylised and excessive aesthetic. The film mixes live action and animation. The artifice of cinema is foregrounded: the aforementioned street fight that Saotome interrupts recalls the gang fights in Miike’s earlier Crows Zero (2007) but, with its mobile camerawork, also looks farther back to the ‘rumbles’ in Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish (1983). The fight, as with many sequences in the film, is broken up by a song and dance number which recalls Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise’s West Side Story (1961). Many sequences, including this street fight, take place on sound stages that are heavily stylised, dominated by primary colours, blatantly fake sets and harsh lighting that foreground the artifice of the scene. There’s a self-conscious reflexivity to the dialogue too: ‘Let’s celebrate like real bourgeois’, Saotome’s parents assert at one point, before breaking into yet another a song and dance routine. For Love’s Sake is uncut and runs for 133:34 mins. The disc is region B locked.
Video
Apparently shot on HD digital video, For Love’s Sake is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.40:1. The presentation is in 1080p, encoded using the AVC codec. It’s an excellent presentation of the film: colours are consistent and solid, and contrast is strong. It’s got that distinctive low dynamic range (compared to traditional film) of material shot on digital video, but that’s a characteristic of the production rather than this transfer. It seems that some of the night scenes have been ‘filmised’ through the addition of artificial grain to emulate the look of faster film stock – a practice that can also be seen in last year’s Dredd, for example. This is worth noting, as there is the potential that this may be interpreted as a fault of the transfer when it is in fact a production decision. Please note that the images in this review are for illustration purposes only and are not intended to represent the quality of the transfer on this Blu-ray.
Audio
Audio is presented via a lossless Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. This offers a rich, immersive soundscape – frontloaded for most of the film – that swells during the musical sequences particularly. Optional English subtitles are provided.
Extras
Contextual material contained on Third Window’s disc includes the following: A ‘Making Of’ featurette (34:54, SD) covers the production of the film and features interviews with the cast and crew. It is in Japanese with optional English subtitles. An option to play the film’s musical numbers (29:14, HD) is available on the ‘Special Features’ menu. This has its own scene access menu. Trailers for For Love’s Sake (1:42, HD) and Sion Sono’s Land of Hope (1:36, HD), forthcoming from Third Window, are also present. Both of these are presented in Japanese, with forced English subtitles.
Overall
Like most Miike films, For Love’s Sake won’t be to all tastes: the hybridisation of genres and the extreme stylisation of the film will potentially alienate some viewers. However, it’s an amazing film that, like many of Miike’s pictures, focuses on the gulfs that exist between people. Watching this film, it struck me for the first time how much Miike’s cinema is like that of another outsider director, Samuel Fuller, especially Fuller’s two pictures for Fromkes-Firks (Shock Corridor, 1963; and The Naked Kiss, 1964): both filmmakers have a strong disregard for conventional genres and narrative logic, which combined with their tabloid sensibility and their tough but ultimately sentimental worldview, ensures that their films reach a feverish, almost hysterical pitch. Fans of Miike will find much to enjoy here: it’s an assured, inventive film with a freewheeling narrative. References: Choi, Jinhee & Wada-Marciano, Mitsuyo, 2009: ‘Introduction’. In: Choi, Jinhee & Wada-Marciano, Mitsuyo, 2009: Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema. Hong Kong University Press: 1-12 Hantke, Steffen, 2005: ‘Japanese Horror Under Western Eyes: Social Class and Global Culture in Miike Takashi’s Audition’. In: McRoy, Jay (ed), 2005: Japanese Horror Cinema. Edinburgh University Press: 54-65 Mathijs, Ernest & Sexton, Jamie, 2012: Cult Cinema. London: Wiley-Blackwell Shin, Chi-Yun, 2009: ‘The Art of Branding: Tartan “Asia Extreme” Films’. In: Choi, Jinhee & Wada-Marciano, Mitsuyo, 2009: Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema. Hong Kong University Press: 85-100 This review has been kindly sponsored by Third Window Films.
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