101 in 1001 - Watch 20 films: Cello-playing Morticians, Psychokinetic Ice Magicians, and The Russian Revolution

Goal number 20 on my 101 in 1001 List is:

• 020. Watch 21 films I haven't seen before.

So, here are the first three!

Yes, that is a child's cello

Title: Departures [Japanese: おくりびと] (2008)

Director: Yojiro Takita

Starring: Masahiro Motoki; Ryoko Hirosue; Tsutomu Yamazaki

Language: Japanese (English subs)
Cert: 12

Genre: Drama, comedy

Plot: Concert cellist, Daigo Kobayashi,  finds himself questioning his choice of career after his orchestra disbands. This leads him and his wife Mika from Tokyo, back to the town Daigo grew up in, and a to a new career as the assistant to a nokanshi (ritual mortician).

Best Bit: The way that each of the corpses Daigo and his boss prepared were all shown to be people, by giving little glimpses of their backstories via their family, friends, and the items they had with them at the funerals, and how their families finally said things they'd wanted to say before but didn't. Also, I liked the scene when Daigo goes to see his boss at his house and every available space is filled with plants - filled with life.

Worst Bit: The octopus & later the salmon (not entirely sure the salmon in the water were real though). Also, Daigo was a little overwrought and over-reacted to things at times, but another character mentioned that when he was a child he "kept everything inside, but cried when he was alone". So I just took his outbursts as being a result of bottled up emotions or something like that. Possibly it was just due to the actor not being that good. I still liked the character though.

Overall: It's a cheesy, feel-good, drama with comedic moments (AKA really not my thing) but I actually enjoyed it. Maybe I was just in the mood for this kind of movie, but I didn't even notice that the running time was just over 2 hours, or get bored by the end.

Watch it if you like: drama-comedies; films about life & death; morticians; funeral directors; nokanshi; cellos; light-hearted Japanese language films.

Rating: 6.5/10

Title: Fire & Ice (1983)

Director: Ralph Bakshi

Starring: Susan Tyrrell; Maggie Roswell; William Ostrander; Stephen Mendel; Steve Sandor

Language: English
Cert: PG

Genre: Fantasy, action, animation

Plot: The evil Ice Lord, Nekron, uses his powers to conquer the Fire Keep, a great fortress ruled by the good King Jarol. After Jarol's daughter Teegra is kidnapped by Nekron's forces, a young warrior, Larn, begins a quest to save her and avenge the people of his homeland, who were also killed by Nekron. 

Best Bit: This guy (Nekron), and his evil cackling and magic! 

Getting ready to throw an ice tantrum

His mother, Queen Juliana, was pretty interesting too. Oh, Darkwolf also amused me, but only because he reminded me of a fantasy version of Batman.

Worst Bit: It's pretty difficult to choose just one, but the Ice Kingdom's warriors made me cringe (the film was made 30 years ago, but even so, I don't know what the creators were thinking with these characters). Also, the fact that people from a Fire Kingdom never once think of putting on more clothing than loin cloths and bikinis when travelling to a frozen realm controlled by an ice magician with psychokinetic abilities. What could possibly go awry?

Overall: The rotoscoping was great, some of the backgrounds/scenery were beautiful, and Nekron and his mother were fantastic villains. It's just a shame that the script and certain other things about the film were so ridiculous. Still worth watching once though.

Watch it if you like: 1970/80's fantasy; rotoscoped animation; mind-controlling psychokinetic ice magicians; characters that look like Batman but in Conan the Barbarian; men in loin cloths; women in bikinis.

Rating: 5/10 (and two of those are probably just for Nekron)

Title: October (Ten Days that Shook the World) [Russian: Октябрь (Десять дней, которые потрясли мир)] (1928)

Directors: Grigori Aleksandrov; Sergei M. Eisenstein

Starring:  Nikolay Popov; Vasili Nikandrov; Layaschenko; Boris Livanov

Language: Russian (English subs)
Cert: PG

Genre: Docu-drama

Plot: Set after the forced abdication of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. It focuses on the subsequent Revolution of October 1917, which was led by the Bolsheviks against the Provisional Government. The film was made in 1928 to celebrate the ten year anniversary.

Best Bit: The often repeated line: "Peace! Land! Bread!" (a quote from Lenin) summed up the message of what the Revolution was about. People didn't want to keep fighting in the First World War, they didn't want to work the land for the middle and upper classes, whilst owning nothing themselves, and they didn't want to keep living in poverty, without food (bread). So the Bolsheviks' gave them hope and the push they needed to do something about their situation and make things better (well, supposedly). Unless you were one of the bourgeois, of course. Then you were shit out of luck, for a little while at least.

Worst Bit: It was all from the point of view of the Bolsheviks and obvious propaganda for the winning side. However, I suppose that's understandable for the time in which it was made. There were also scenes of a horse that I personally found disgusting, but again, that's just from my point of view, looking back at a film made in Russia nearly 90 years ago. Apart from that, the repetition of certain scenes for no apparent reason became a little wearing in places.

Overall: I enjoy silent films and 1920's cinema in general, but even if I didn't, this was an interesting chance to see something relatively contemporary to the Russian Revolution, made in Russia, in the original language.

Watch it if you like: 1920's cinema; Russian history; silent films; Russian language films.

Rating: 7.5/10