Under the Silver Lake plot analysis

The key to understanding Under the Silver Lake (2018, David Robert Mitchell) is to approach it for what it is a guy in LA susceptible to the influence of pop culture to the point it has oversaturated his entire existence desperate to find hidden meanings covering up vast far reaching conspiracies through secret codes turns out to be right the whole time. Everything that happens to SAM is real. Save for two separate dream sequences. The film operates according to the logic that what if someone was losing their mind drowning in delusions of conspiracy theories but turns out they were all true? That’s the fun. David Robert Mitchell gets cinema. He’s made a movie where as a work of fiction a movie is capable of allowing for the possibility to give us an experience where conspiracy theories pay off. It makes the impossible possible. Unlike irl. 

     Yet Under the Silver Lake also serves a dual purpose in that it baits would be conspiracy theorist types with a bunch of red herrings and other circumstantial evidence tantalizing them to make their own interpretations that are groundless completely far-fetched and have no bearing on the narrative itself. Like Sam’s a murderer. No. Like Sam’s a schizophrenic. No. And that’s also what makes it so fun too. This self-reflexive aspect is so pronounced that even those of us who know everything that happens to Sam is real and not to infer anything the film doesn’t give us still can’t help but enjoy all of its mischievous deliberately misleading plot points.

Beware of the Dog Killer Sam isn’t the dog killer. But the film certainly has enough in it for some to draw this wholly circumstantial interpretation. 1. Because the first shot of the film has Beware of the Dog Killer vandalism on the window of the coffee shop this is an instance where it leads to Sam’s perspective being affected by society. A collective anxiety rubbing off on him. When he finds the Beware of the Dog Killer zine in the bookstore this displays a self-reflexive narrative within a self-reflexive narrative.

 
The Barking When Sam follows the girl played by Zosia Mamet into the restroom and afterwards lying on the floor that group of young women bark at him this really happens. It’s another misdirect this time leading viewers to speculate Sam hating women = Sam hating dogs = Sam killing women = Sam killing dogs. No. How do I know? Because in both of Sam’s dreams the figures in the dream bark and the sounds are of dogs barking. The girls in the restroom barking are the sounds of their own human voices.
 
His Smell Sam got sprayed by a skunk so he smells. Another plaything for those prone to speculation without the film offering any supporting evidence that would prove otherwise. At the outdoor night screening one of the Shooting Star girls even says it smells like skunk when Sam nears them.
 
The Can of Red Spray Paint In Sam’s room there’s a can of red spray paint. Easter egg red herring. Sam did not tag Beware of the Dog Killer on the street.
 
Disappearance of Sarah In bed when SARAH tells Sam the bracelet was from an old boyfriend then out in the courtyard the way she stares fixated up at the fireworks makes me think she didn’t know until that point that Jefferson Sevence was going through with his ascension protocols and selected her as one of his brides. Yes the fireworks did contain a secret message for Sarah and possibly the other two brides.
 
The Homeless King The guide played by David Yow is real. For those successful in decoding the secret messages hidden for the power elites he is here to open the doors. Why does he ask Sam Do you know what your biggest mistake was? And pull out the dog treats? This is one of the exceptionally ambiguous moments in the film. I stand by my conviction Sam’s telling the truth. And the Homeless King is confronting him about not being able to move on from his ex be stuck in the past pining for a sentimental comfort that is long gone unattainable because Homeless King is a sage.
 
The Songwriter Real. Three slash dangerous. Remember it’s only a movie. So fun. Sam’s a murderer though. Your culture is the shell of other men’s ambitions.
 
The Owl’s Kiss Real. Kills the zine author because he exposed her secrets. Powerful enough to cover it up fake it as a suicide. Tries to kill Sam but he defends himself and for the moment scares her off? Maybe. Or to risk a bit of hypocrisy going against my own key without evidence my intuition leans more toward Owl’s Kiss broke in to steal Sam’s Vanna White research from his dresser.
 
13 When the three girls in the convertible stop and the scoreboard lights up 7 5 1 we know this = 13. They go to a Jesus and the Brides of Dracula show that night. At that show cookies are passed out with 76 we know = 13. The cookies are an invite to one of the members of the group’ solo performance. 13 is just a gimmick promo for the band. But the deeper hidden message is 13 = one guy three wives = billionaire bunker directions backmasked on the seven inch. 

 
The Ending A message for us plainly out in the open is when Sam talks to Sarah in the bunker she says There’s no getting out now so I may as well make the most of it then there’s a cutaway to the Hollywood sign. An uplifting note to end on. Billboard putting up new ad covering his ex is Sam is ready for next chapter in life. When Sam goes over to Topless Bird Woman’s flat it’s him dodging his eviction making the least possible effort to do so. When he stands on the balcony and looks into his place his euphoria is fulfillment contentment seeing the keep quiet diamonds validates that he has attained insight into the explanation to the mystery his quest led him on. And he’s now part of a select few who will ever know. And it’s settled. And he’ll never tell anyone.
 
Beating Up Children Keying a cock onto the bonnet of one’s auto could be infuriating. In this film having everything to do with symbols and unknown forces I think Sam by sheer luck chance catching the culprits in the act is too cathartic karmic comeuppance to pass up.
 
Unsupportive Friends and Acquaintances Sam’s buddy played by Topher Grace doesn’t really care about what’s most important to Sam. When Sam talks about missing Sarah Bar Buddy changes subject to Dog Killer. Insert of Sam anxiously twisting cocktail napkin shows he can’t stop thinking about what happened to Sarah. Later Bar Buddy talks down all Sam’s paranoia. 

     When Balloon Girl tells Sam It’s silly wasting your energy on something that doesn’t matter Brimful of Asha by Cornershop is an easter egg not for Sam but for us suggesting through its lyrics that there’s hope optimism on a forty-five foreshadows the seven inch Sam just obtained that will contain a secret message and lead him onwards to the path to his ultimate quest. And we see it payoff unlike say Sam’s Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde poster in his living room hinting at an alter-ego yet we never see any occurrences that could indicate support such a theory.

 
Under the Silver Lake is Alice in Wonderland for Millennials where following the Volkswagen white Rabbit leads to as the author of the zine tells Sam where the Answers remain hidden under the Silver Lake. My only lingering curiosity troubling me is what was up with the pack of Fruit Stripe in Sarah’s shoe box? Just kidding. I’m not gonna take the bait. I have all I came for. And it’s a hell of a fun movie to rewatch.
     I don’t think Sam is a horrible person. Does that mean there’s something wrong with me? I love laugh so hard every time he beats those little kids’ asses. I don’t read any deeper meaning beyond what I’ve just covered either. I kinda don’t think this movie is okay with whatever you want to think it means. I think it’s only designed to be enjoyed on its surface level while simultaneously showing a hero who’s delusional looking too hard seeing things that aren’t there and rewarding him while also hoping we get the difference and understand not do attempt to be like him in real life.

Synecdoche, New York plot analysis

We can extract its meaning from its title in Synecdoche, New York (2008, Charlie Kaufman) the film stands in for the play stands in for Caden stands in for Adele Hazel Olive Ellen et al.

 

There’s a moment CADEN COTTARD dictates to his assistant the play should all take place in the course of a single day. This is the key to understanding the narrative. At the very end of the movie when Caden is Ellen walking and a note he receives from Ellen as Caden is Now you are here it’s 7:43 Now you are here it’s 7:44 Now you are. Gone.
     And as Caden sits on that bench talking to the actress playing Ellen’s mother he looks over and sees a spray paint tagged brick wall of a clock with its hands reading 7:45. The very first scene in Synecdoche, New York is an alarm clock at 7:44 AM that goes off at 7:45 AM. Near the end when Ellen auditions for the role of Caden she says Caden Cottard is a man already dead. He lives in a half world between stasis and anti-stasis. And time is concentrated. Chronology confused. 
     The entire film is the play itself. And a pretty damn funny one at that. Full of Kaufman wordplay existential dexterity. Like when the psychiatrist played by Hope Davis probes Is that why you killed yourself? Then corrects herself foreshadows SAMMY as Caden committing suicide by jumping off that roof. And Caden emphatically repeating I didn’t jump! Between stasis and anti-stasis. Everyone is everyone. Every day is every day.
     Other evidence that supports emphasizes it’s all a play is the way Sammy turns away from our angle to jump on the other side of the building we don’t see. So the film can conveniently cut to the aftermath. And the way in which at the funeral of Caden’s mother his dad is there and he mutters that his father shouldn’t be there because he’s already dead similarly reflects this as well. 
     

Eternal Sunshine plot analysis

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004, Michel Gondry) is an excruciatingly painful confrontational indictment against our weakness and inability to move on from the past without succumbing to the desperate need against our better judgement to reclaim the sentimental mild painkiller of a problem relationship that’s over with someone unattainable. Remember how happy we were together = If I could only get her back I’d be happy again = And everything would be better. No. It’s so dangerous because for romantics in our mind our memories of emotions and fantasies about reoccurring connection is as potent powerful as the real thing.

 

In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind the first thing helpful to understand is the reason why its nonlinear narrative is arranged the way it is. Howard from Lacuna erases Joel’s memories starting with the most recent. So if we reverse their chronology what we get based on the color of CLEMENTINE’S hair is.
 
1. Green When JOEL and Clementine meet it’s at a party Joel’s fighting couple friends Rob and Carrie invite him to. At Montauk. On the beach Clem is wearing an orange hoodie and her hair is dyed green. Later that night she B&Es into a large beach house and once inside Joel mutters about his reluctance to be there and Clem disdainfully tells him So go. Humiliated he does.
 
2. Red Joel goes back to Clementine seeking her out at the Barnes and Noble where she works. Clem has dyed red hair. Filling in some blanks it could be Joel and Clementine experience their honeymoon phase during this time. Bliss. Their happiest. Their first time going to the frozen Lake Charles. And though not placed here chronologically and shown in its entirety it seems they go back to what they refer to as Our House on Montauk on a freezing day and run along the shoreline in the snow.
 
3. Orange Honeymoon’s over phase. Clem dyes her hair orange. At Kang’s Chinese restaurant having dinner Joel realizes he’s bored with Clementine. They argue. One day at the flea market Clem says she wants a baby. They fight some more over that. One night Clem goes out alone has some drinks wrecks Joel’s car doorscraped fire hydrant. They fight some more. Joel berates Clem assuming she fucked someone because that’s how she gets people to like her.
 
4. Blue Clem has gone to Lacuna to have Joel erased. Rob and Carrie reveal the truth to Joel well Rob does. Joel cries in car and throws tape out window. Joel erases Clementine. The next day he wakes up and ditches work to go to Montauk. He meets Clementine on the train. They go back to her place. The next night they go to the frozen Charles. The following morning they realize they’ve met before. And erased each other. Decide to get back together.
 
The fun part is the first time you see Eternal Sunshine you think when they meet on the train they’re meeting for the first time. And at the end you think it’s romantic that despite their flaws they accept each other because relationships take work and no one’s perfect. No.
     After the opening sequence when Joel is in his car crying we’re already in his mind and this is the first memory to be erased. Notice how when he has that interaction with his neighbor played by Thomas Jay Ryan there’s already a dot on Joel’s temple. The messy confusing aspect of us seeing Joel in his own memories is due to the conflict that is Joel’s jealousy Patrick is stealing his identity to hook up with Clementine.
     The midpoint of the narrative is Joel wanting to call off the procedure. Iconic line reading by Carrey. Can you hear me I wanna call it off? So because the time Joel spent with Clementine when she had dyed red hair was when they were happiest Joel chooses in his imagination dyed red hair Clem to spirit away reconcile and make a pact to outwit the procedure with.
     But the thing is this isn’t Clementine remember. Dyed red hair Clem is Joel’s idealized fantasy of her. Not real. The only Clementine we could ever consider real in the film is blue dyed hair Clem. At the end when dyed green hair Clementine tells Joel to meet her in Montauk that’s Joel telling himself to. Then how does Clementine know to meet him there?
 
There’s a scene towards the end while Joel and Clem are in his mind on the run from the erasure when they wake up in bed on the snowy Montauk and Clem gleefully says Look where we are but then Joel says Clem this isn’t good. Something ominous about the way he says that line. Because Joel knows that Mierzwiak is definitely going to look for them there. Why?
     Because it’s their happiest purest memory together? So why is Joel troubled? Obvious reason is because it’s surely going to be erased. But the fear in his reaction reveals a dual purpose. It’s because this regressive distant impossible to return to state of jubilation is precisely what deceptively leads Joel and Clem to wrongly foolishly vulnerably pathetically think they can repair their future. 
     That’s why the last scene of the couple running together on the snowy shoreline is jump cut repeated several times. And the sad heartbreakingly aching song plays again the one during the opening credits that Joel was in tears over when the film begins. This is a horror ending. Tragedy impact. They're like addicts. This toxic relationship is destroying them. Yet they will still go back to chase that elusive remote far-gone brief moment when they were in love along with the feelings it brought them over and over again for years to come. And it always ends the same. Impossibly.

Honey badgers

Sum it up I’d say the lasting impact of Kiyoshi Kurosawa films are the ones that delve into evil.

 

My latest take on Cloud (2024, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) is that it’s a nasty mean cinematic evil that hacks into your morality and corrupts you. Before you even realize it’s too late.
     It starts off this cool serene even calming slice of life everyman tale about an online reseller. I actually love this. Making the mundane compelling dynamic for me is the highest echelons of cinematic alchemy. Think neorealism. Dude everything about this world I know nothing about in Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s hands becomes mesmerizing.
     YOSHII back at his flat with the three point lighting setup white background dslr shooting the item for his online product listing somehow engulfs me in genuine curiosity interest. Magic. His hovering over that videogame like a honey badger. When his bitch gets home she is of secondary importance. I know I shouldn’t say bitch but if you’ve seen this you know the character AKIKO is a diabolical treacherous ho I’m sorry. Anyways when Yoshii’s finger hovers over that mouse is the most suspenseful moment in the film for me maybe more than anything else I’ve seen in a while. 
 
Then this capitalist horror turns into an action movie. Bait and switch as audience punishment. A way of luring us into a trap which mirrors the downfall of the film’s protagonist. The downfall of society. Because what happened? How did we go from a character driven story into a gunfight that lasts an hour? Evil. 
     I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with action movies. But in Cloud there is a distinct moment when everyone Yoshii’s slighted wronged shows up to enact their vengeance that we have to ask ourselves wait what happened? It’s one of the most abrupt tonal shifts in cinema. We’ve been shanghaied.  Can you still say shanghaied? From being immersed in this character driven narrative we are enjoying effortlessly we are blindsided by some pretty big asks. As in asking us to believe all these losers have resorted to 80s action movie revenge because they lost some money on ebay.
     I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Cloud for doing this either. My favorite part about this whole thing is the guy with the lynch mob mask. I have this strong conviction about technology’s effect on society specifically what I feel like starts with the automobile how that bubble of anonymity facilitates the means whereby people honk or flip off really rude behavior because of it. Web even worse. Dark stuff.
 
And Cloud has yet another big ask when you have to decide how you feel about Yoshii in the end. There’s this disavowal mechanism where the characters he harms turn out to be the greater evil. Or so the film flexibly allows such an interpretation. Cloud even splits the shadow half into SANO. Tempting us even more with the excuse maybe Yoshii isn’t all bad.
     Hell I don’t think he is. If the theorem of Cloud is integration of shadow + ethical compromise = success. And we can visibly read the remorse in the Yoshii character. Then we can only assume we are presented with the question of him being good right as he asks himself the same thing. We don’t know what he does after all this goes down. And the films wisely leaves it unanswered. 
     But if there’s one thing Kiyoshi Kurosawa has consistently used in so many other of his films it’s the expressionist process. When I say process I don’t mean to sound didactic or condescending but for the sake of clarity I mean in film production whenever you shoot a shot of an automobile and in reality it isn’t being driven by the person behind the wheel but is supposed to look like it is on camera it’s called poor man’s process. Some special effects person or a grip might say push the car a little. Or it can be pulled out on the road then it’s called a process trailer. 
     Anyway Kiyoshi Kurosawa almost always shoots poor man’s process with an opaque transparency serving as an ambiguous soft light for the window behind often a passenger or passengers on a bus. Think Cure. But later he also uses a process with artificial what I mean when I say expressionistic skies. The thunderstorms golden mixing with dark in the final scene in Cloud suggests the apocalypse. Or again the downfall of society. So in that sense it does answer the question for us.
     But the tragedy for me is I still see Yoshii as an unwitting victim. Maybe that means I’m in denial and just as bad?

Was child trafficking real?

Why was part of my higher education learning to write a compare and contrast essay? What’s even the point of those? Feels like a lazy mistake of film criticism. If you think anyone cares about hearing you compare and contrast Serpent’s Path (1998, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) with its remake you’re too stupid. 

     Although I was surprised to find that Serpent’s Path (2024, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) almost entirely jettisons its predecessor. The plot points you do remember when they recur are modified. There’s still a dirty tile room for the questioning. And a lush verdant ext for the bad guy abduction. For the remainder of this post when I say Serpent’s Path I’m gonna solely be referring to the 2024.

Serpent’s Path takes all the fun out of the revenge genre. For that alone it shoulda been awarded a Nobel Prize. As far as the narrative goes the plot removes all ambiguity. The tone of this is heavy.
     Oppressively. Paralyzing. When ALBERT BACHELET flutters tickled giddy throwing LAVAL’S food on the ground we aren’t laughing with him. That moment is horror manifest. After we’ve seen the ending and put it all together we’ve become complicit in the trauma. This is a moral indictment. Made all too uncomfortable not by being explicit but rather by its restrained deliberate tone and execution. The audacity with which what and how Serpent’s Path chooses to leave out is stunning. Perfection. Perfected.
     It leaves out the sensationalization of punishment scenes and in doing so dismantles the revenge genre. But it spells everything out plotwise. Not through exposition dumps but enough. It’s here and now and real. Child trafficking. The foundation. The circle. Deborah Minar. With the state of current real life sensationalist shock scandal frenzy conspiracy glut I’m surprised more people haven’t seen this movie.
     Not exaggerating the scariest thing about Serpent’s Path for me even me boasting I’m not one to be scared by movies the climax in that warehouse. It troubles me beyond gore menace deranged villains or any conceivable aesthetics of cinematic evil. When that guy JAKE is killed then all of the sudden this devious twist implicit maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy what the hell? All those sweet wholesome innocent looking little kids looking like they’re fine in some daycare with this really sweet teacher. 
     The sweet teacher who explains to Albert and subsequently more importantly for our benefit the truth behind what really happened to his daughter. You didn’t love that girl. That girl hated her parents. You told me to consult Deborah is overwhelmingly subversive. Truly unsettling. The stuff that resonates. That I can’t shake. Why does that teacher have to be so sweet oh god? Genius.

Oh wait. There’s also this abduction of CHRISTIAN in a gym that’s so realistic it has to be my new favorite fight scene in a movie. It’s sloppy. The way it’s choreographed timed and how hard they have to earn it by making it look so natural is the equivalent of cinema at its finest. Figuring out new better ways to do something like a fight scene already suffering from overly-familiar fatigue.

All you've done is talk about yourself?

Everyman existential middle class pretty much set perfect life family check shelter check security check but stuck hitting your upward mobility ceiling the monotony dissatisfaction of it all smothering you depicted designed manifested as abstract horror is what Chime (2024, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) and Kiyoshi Kurosawa do so well. Everything about Chime is so clean staged sterile cool blue theory aesthetic average it invents itself as an image system through which the messy visceral outbursts of incomprehensible reprehensible violence evoke the morality of our repressed frustrations with the inessential we bury just beneath our surface. 

     So that’s why the most amazing shot in Chime the dude walking across the bridge high wide crane tracking ext has such an impact. Chime is the promise of cinema we’d hoped for because its economy of purpose doesn’t waste a thing. Each moment is sparse yet charged with significance to be decoded. Even the protagonist a just only slightly good enough cook to teach yet not head chef has the lifelong acquired experience to prepare a course for all to enjoy. Until you discover the tragedy at its soul. 

     Chime is the film I’ve been waiting for my entire life because it does what no other film I’ve ever seen has been able to. It makes slow exciting. Riveting. It demands you to think without spelling everything out until you feel that it already has. The horror of Chime is people who don’t have any reason to worry about their lives. That’s the kind of twist that wakes me up from my cinematic slumber. When that main character bombs his interview the random patron who tries to stab the other diner comparatively isn’t as disturbing. Although we’re made to assume each chime breakdown is the same for everyone we just get made to experience one man’s.

 

What about all the stuff we don’t see? The ghost of AKEMI visiting the academy. What does the teacher see offscreen that we don’t early on the first time he looks toward the entrance to the academy outside? A premonition of what’s to come? What’s the significance of that part of the house with the junk hoard beyond the fringe curtain that precipitates his breakdown? And what does he see when he confronts the terror out on the street? This is the abstract doom we too are confronted with manifested for us to feel.

     Remaining thoughts just gotta throw out there the el train established outside the academy to be used as int strobe light source through window as ominous supernatural capacity rocks. The final climax we get to hear the two note melody door chime is my favorite type of use of establishing sound design and use of familiar liminal nightmare instrument. The way the teacher’s descent shifts to another grain field that makes us feel like we’ve returned to film this is the end.

4/5/2026 4/8/2026 Plaza Theatre

Atlanta, GA

Crate expectations

I have a strong aversion to protagonists who lack moral ambiguity. I mean too perfect. Passively condescending. Arrogant. Delusional. Too close to real life how there are those self-righteous hypocrites whose squeaky-clean ethos is oppressively untenable. 

     Golden Age in Hollywood is where I find all the best templates. Lang paranoia. Screwball love grifters cheats prostitutes toxic matches. Wilder romanticized waif discarded sexpot suicidal self-destructive slighted emotional map of how the heart feels.

Wife of a Spy (2020, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) is one part smug oh look at how perfect we are couple. Especially the husband YUSAKO. But then it clicks it’s period appropriate. Especially the genre. Back in the Forties we wanted to see couples who were a more perfect version of ourselves. Do gooders. The life of means manners and marriage we should aspire to. It took me a while though with Yusako’s recurring defense I’m not a spy I’m acting out of my own self-interest I’m such a good person schtick. 
     But there’s more to what these period genre conventions are hiding. In Wife of a Spy the timeline has everything to do with the chronology of the War. The couple start out just as the history of cinema started out just as the world started out idealistic. Then comes the war. Then comes the darkness. Cynicism. Suspicion. Betrayal. Paranoia. Atrocities.
     What makes this strand of espionage suspense distinct unfamiliar and different striking off guard is its political stance. Because back then wartime means nationalism. Or at the very least civic duty. Chip in. Do your part. Maybe I’m naïve but I can’t think of any correlative frame of reference where the hero is so unpatriotic. Leaking information treason aiding enemies. But the empire of the sun looms ominously in the shadows as perpetrator of mass war crimes gradually methodically exposed infecting our moral codes as audience with its own akin to biological plague weaponized arc.
 
This hybridization of period and modern genre codes achieves the perfect pitch blending nostalgic sentimental escapism with disillusionment destruction detached no simple resolution profound disjointed culmination of enlightened despair. SATOKO wandering away from us into the air raid night with her country her life her psyche burning to the ground. The film and she don’t let her country of the hook either.
   We are meant to feel what she feels. And do. That’s what Wife of a Spy manages to achieve. We mourn that Yusako wasn’t portrayed as the kind of hero period propaganda would have dictated all the more because reality has sunk in by then. And we redefine our notions of heroism and projected outcomes with a little more weight because of it.

Less a fun park ride than some kind of propaganda exercise

Japanese woman films travelogue in Uzbekistan for television. Is To the Ends of the Earth (2019, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) as boring as its premise would suggest? Excrutiatngly yes.

 

Ruminative search for place. Identity. Yawn. First half has some mildly amusing tensions based on the sexism YOKO is subjected to from the Uzbek guides along with the irony of the sexism her team the Japanese production harbor. 
     Warm and fuzzy feminine. Conflict of ethics over the purchase of and intended liberation of a goat. Third act seems to be the fulfilling payoff success of finding Chorsu Bazaar subject to make the show a smash. But then authorities apprehend Yoko for filming where it’s not allowed. False alarm. Everything’s ok. Back home a huge refinery fire in Tokyo Bay. Is Yoko’s bf dead? False alarm. He’s ok. But we’re not. The heavy dose of obligatory drama feels insufferable. How much more can she endure becomes how much more can we endure. 
     At least Okoo is ok. To the Ends of the Earth has its charm. But it doesn’t work tonally structurally thematically or have any worthwhile sense of purpose enough to give us a reason for watching it.

Love is nothing more than a weak painkiller sentimental fake comfort

Wow I see the first Kiyoshi Kurosawa movie that I hated and its follow up turns out to be as if he remade it in a way that more closely corresponds to my own desires. Uncanny.

 

In Before We Vanish (2017, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) three aliens are sent to comprehend concepts from humans set up a communication device to convey its completion then await invasion however one of them has difficulty taking the concept of love. He stumbles into a church where cute children give their answers. A charismatic priest provides the definitive love chart from the Gospel. Finally the alien’s surrogate wife shows him. So once the entire alien species find out what love is to humans they call off the invasion. Most sentimental optimistic life affirming possible outcome. 
     In Foreboding (2017, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) same basic arc. But this time at the end the alien MAKABE through seeking to gain the concept of love ultimately sees that it’s a delusion gimmick masking humanity’s fear of death and as far as their aims at coexisting and loving one another they’ve failed. Their entire our entire civilization remains on the verge of death. Invasion time. World annihilation. The end.
 
No seriously as much as I hated Before We Vanish I completely adore delighted in loved Foreboding. Before We Vanish has this bombastic whimsy quirk romcom score set on bright sunny days. Foreboding has a scarce ambient track menace gloomy dark funeral march feel to it.
     Foreboding is set in a hospital. TATSUO has this line like you should get out of here a hospital is not a healthy place. Sources point to this being extracted from a longer five hour version I’d love to see some day. But its focus is narrowed to fewer characters. Mostly Makabe and ETSUKO. Its tone is a consistent psychological horror that feels every bit as scary as if it really were the end of the world.
     If you look close enough you could maybe see Etsuko’s endurance resilience in the face of the apocalypse striving to save her husband. But no. I see it as bleak. She’s working in some crappy just above sweatshop conditions hospital job her husband is a janitor nervous wreck spineless murderer turned dope addict. That’s what breaks my heart the most. Probably my favorite aspect of the plot. By the end I don’t see Tatsuo as anything more than a junkie desperate clinging to Etsuko because she literally holds his next fix in her pocket. Now that’s an apt symbolic dynamic for what holds a loving couple together. The ending makes literal the lyrics from one of my favorite Charli xcx songs. Love of my life selling all the drugs that I like.

Metaphysical linguistics lessons

First speedbump through my Kiyoshi Kurosawa run. This one didn’t do it for me.

 

So what do we got workin here? In Before We Vanish (2017, Kiyoshi Kurosawa) its tone manages to strike that whole satirical Earth is not worth saving well enough. As cynical as generating more sincere empathy for the SHINZY alien than any of the humans. 
     Maybe that’s what makes me remiss in formulating any critical appreciation of Before We Vanish. The motor is too recognizable for me and it has a certain forbearer that is such a prominent crucial work so dear to my heart entire emotional cinematic composition that I could never look past the Karen Allen of it all.
    
The other all too super familiar trope is the learning alien whose data is the humans he encounters. It’s been mined well and often. As a gag. For all the time we spend watching the central conceit of the movie the three aliens taking concepts from humans it never even comes close to a laugh. Or interesting. It’s like auditing a preschool class.
 
The petite highschool girl fighting huge dudes is rad enough. But weighed against everything else so what? Similarly though when she goes up against a gang of mercenaries in an isolated warehouse once she gets her hands on that grease gun it’s on. Any scenes with AKIRA TACHIBANA sociopath wave of mutilation cute precocious oblivious unstoppable are fun yes.
     The narrative stakes just aren’t there. What payoff that might have redeemed the slog we’d invested our attention into proves illusory. Okay sorry I am such a sourpuss here but for the love of Karen Allen please.