Akira (1988)

 

Akira

Ever since my son learned “Akira” is on the List, he has impatiently been asking me when it is coming up. He has watched it several times and tells me this is one of the best and most important anime out there. Finally watching it with me was a big thing.

The story takes place in 2019, 31 years after a disaster destroyed much of Tokyo. Life in Neo-Tokyo is on the brink of chaos with a tenuous balance between a rumbling populace and an increasingly fascistic government. It is a nihilistic world where youth gangs are rampaging and the future looks bleak. Taneka belongs to such a biker gang, driving an awesome, red monstrosity of a bike. When his friend and fellow gang member Tetsuo gets involved in an accident, something strange happens.

Tetsuo is taken away by the military, and we learn they hold a number of oddly gifted children in a research facility. They possess a curious telepathic power and are part of a defence against a mystic entity called Akira, who, we learn, was the cause of the 1988 disaster. Tetsuo, it turns out, also have these powers, except he cannot control them at all.

Kaneda joins a rebellious group, mostly because of a girl, who wants to penetrate the military research facility to challenge the government, but it develops into a struggle to contain Tetsuo before he as well will destroy the city.

It is a wild story like all manga and anime and, frankly, I had some problems following it. In fairness though, I have trouble following most of the anime my son is showing me and this is not the worst. What they all have in common is the intensity. All emotions are 100%, dialogue is either screaming or sinister serious, there is no middle ground. The stakes are as high as possible, the end of the world or unbearable personal humiliation. “Akira” is all of that and for two hours straight, this is an exhausting affair.

Fortunately, there is also something glorious in all this extreme. It is dark and big, machines and technology are massive, explosions are world shattering and everything happens so fast, although there is always time for the characters to cry their heart out or predict the end of the world. This makes it a visual rollercoaster ride through some extraordinary animations and details in drawing. My son dabbles in drawing himself and he tells me that the level of detail in the scenes in “Akira” is among the best ever. It is truly detailed and what impresses me the most is the amount of world building that has gone into this. Sure, it is largely based on Japanese culture, but there is an extrapolation here that resembles “Bladerunner” and with a strong internal logic.

Two years ago, my family spent our summer vacation in Japan and experienced first hand how big manga and anime is there. This is not just a marginal entertainment genre, but something that seems to penetrate everything. I do not remember if we saw anything particularly referring to “Akira”, but given this movie’s celebrated status, it is difficult not to think it had a major influence on how this scene has developed since.

Although there is a conception that anime is mainly for children, “Akira” is not an easy movie to watch. The themes are adult or at least adolescent and the complexity of what is happening on the screen requires both attention and some maturity from the audience. But then again, my old brain may have atrophied, and a younger head is needed. I had to get the ending explained by my son. In the riot of colours and sound I lost track of what happened there in the conclusion.

“Akira” is an impressive movie, but probably not an obvious starter movie in the anime genre. It is adrenaline and high octane, but also surprisingly complex. And, as I am told, an early high point in the genre. That makes it a recommendation.

There are two more anime coming up for 1988.

 

The Thin Blue Line (1988)

 

The Thin Blue Line

Watching “The Thin Blue line” I get the impression that this is a milestone in true crime as a television or cinematic genre. I tried to look up what true crime was before this and the results were a bit vague, but the true crime shows on television since then look pretty much like “The Thin Blue Line”.

Documentarist Errol Morris stumbled on the story of Randall Adams while investigating a different story. Randall Adams was on a life sentence for killing a policeman in Texas, only something was not adding up, and his case is presented here through interviews and reenactments.

The outline of the story is that a car was pulled over one evening in 1976 by the police and as one of the officers went up to the car, he was shot point blank. Earlier that day Adams, who was passing through town had run out of fuel and was picked up by a guy called David Harris. They spend the day together and it was this car that was pulled over and Adams was arrested for the murder.

What Morris finds out is two things. That Harris, a hardened criminal, albeit only 16 years old, had bragged to his friends about killing the policeman and that the authorities seemed very keen on pinning this on an outsider rather than a local boy. There are interviews with both Adams and Harris, both of which makes it quite clear that Harris was the actual murderer and not Adams. The interviews with the police and the prosecutors gave the impression that they were dead certain while the defending side had been stonewalled and largely ignored. It was even mentioned that Adams was a better suspect because he was old enough to be eligible for death penalty.

We do not get far in “The Thin Blue Line” before we see this picture. It is not as if Morris has some twists for us. Instead, the picture just gets clearer and clearer. Yet, all the reenactments keep using Adams as the villain to the end, likely to demonstrate how unwilling the prosecution was to let go of this idea.

Morris has been criticised for being unreliable and biased and that there are also inconsistencies on the defendant’s side that are not explained here, yet it is hard to argue with the last scene, a tape recording of David Harris admitting to the murder, which, of course, makes Adams wrongly accused.

I had some trouble following the story. My copy had no subtitles, and the Texan drawl was very heavy on some of the characters, forcing me to guess at what they were talking about. Secondly, Morris never present the names and titles of his interviewees. I had to infer that from the connection. Some I can guess, simply because we got back to them so many times, but there are also those I still do not know who was in the story. That may be a point from Morris side, but not very helpful.

There are not that many documentaries on the List, and I sometimes wonder if those that are included, are there because they function as a movie feature in an artistic sense rather than just for information. If that is the reason “The Thin Blue Line” is included due to the style used to present the story. Is this the birth of the modern true crime show? Or is it a case of Morris messing with our heads and that is the artistic value? I like to think and indeed I hope it is the former and that Adams was released because of this. Morris drives a strong case, and I would hate to learn that it was all bull.

The unveiling of injustice is an interesting subject matter and as such this is an interesting view. As true crime though, all it takes is to open Netflix. We are swamped by those shows and I am frankly a bit tired of them.

    

Married to the Mob (1988)

 

My Wife Wants Me to See This: Married to the Mob

The third movie my wife got to chose for 1988 is the romantic comedy “Married to the Mob”. This is one of her favourite movies, so I have promised to give it a nice review.

Again, this is a movie with a strong, female lead. Angela de Marco (Michelle Pfeiffer) is the cliché wife of an Italian-American mob henchman, Frankie "The Cucumber" de Marco (Alec Baldwin). Like all the wives in her circle, she lives an idle life of housewife’ing, looking pretty, and all the creature comfort illegal money can get. Except, Angela is sick of it, all of it. Angela wants out. When Frankie is shot for frequenting the same whore as his boss, Tony "The Tiger" Russo (Dean Stockwell), Angela sees an opportunity. She gives everything away and leaves for New York with her son. This move is also strongly motivated by the amorous, but unwanted, interest of Tony.

Angela has also attracted the attention of the FBI. She was the wife of the murdered Frankie and she was seen kissing (or being kissed by) Tony. Clearly, she must have something to do with it. The lead investigator is the competent, but slightly juvenile, agent Mike Downey (Matthew Modine).

The new shithole apartment in New York is now getting crowded with unwanted guests from both the mob and the FBI, while Angela is simply trying to move on with her new life as a hairdresser. Predictably, this leads to awkward and comical situation with Tony looking for Angela, Connie (Mercedes Ruehl) looking for Tony (the only person Tony is afraid of) and Mike taking close surveillance very literally. This gets even more complicated when Mike falls in love with Angela.

Of course, this cannot go on and when it blows up, it really blows.

This is a romantic comedy with stress on both words. The romance is a very key component, and that counts for the miserable one with Frankie, the unwanted one with Tony and the dreamy one with Mike. The same is true for the comedy. Practically everything plays for comedic effects. This is not just the New York apartment that serves as a Marx Brothers stateroom, but everything else too. The gangsters do kill people, but they are also over the top gangsters who enjoy songs to their praise, sport silly nicknames and over-do the whole Italian mob family thing. It works though. Yes, they are a bit silly, but it is also fun. The greatest character, though, is Connie. Connie constantly suspect that Tony is unfaithful (which he is) and she is a huntress on the prowl when she smells foul play. She becomes literally feral when she goes after Tony and woe that person that gets in her way. Watching the badass gangster boss being afraid of his wife is priceless.

By 1988 the Italian gangster film is a well-established trope. It is already a log time since “The Godfather” and mobsters are getting to be a bit of a joke. “Married to the Mob” takes all these tropes and clichés and makes fun of them and because we are so familiar with the tropes, they become so funny here.

It also changes the viewpoint to a female position. This allows for angles we otherwise never see. What do all these mob-spouses actually do? It also allows for a strong and interesting female lead, something all the movies in this category has in common (not surprisingly, my wife likes movie with strong female leads). It is great to have such movies and a movie like “Married to the mob is an example of the options that gives the movie maker. Michelle Pfeiffer grabs this opportunity and gets the best out of it.

Director Jonathan Demme went on to make other movies with strong female leads such as “Silence of the Lambs” (NOT a romantic comedy), but before “Married to the Mob” he directed the fantastic Talking Heads concert movie “Stop making Sense” (reviewed on this blog). He brought along David Byrne who made a great musical score for “Married to the Mob”.

It is very difficult not to like “Married to the Mob”. If you accept it as a romantic comedy, and it never claims to be anything else, it will not disappoint. Probably a good date movie too.

 

Ariel (1988)

 

Ariel

Finland is an amazing country. There is a certain seriousness and sincerity about Scandinavians in general, but even for us, the Finnish stand out with their deadpan attitude. Few has been able to present this deadpan delivery as well as Aki Kaurismäki and this is reason enough to love his movies.

Taisto Kasurinen (Turo Pajala) is a miner whose mine closes. Sitting in a café, he listens to the rant of a colleague who then goes to the bathroom to kill himself. Taisto leaves his ramshackle house in his big, old convertible and drives south to the city.

Taisto gets robbed of all his money, takes on day-to-day work at the docks and stays in the dorm of a hostel. Irmeli (Susanna Haavisto) works as a hotel maid, night watch, butcher and as a parking attendant and in this function she is giving a ticket to Taisto. Impressed with his car, she jumps in with him and soon they are in her apartment, swearing eternal fidelity to each other.

What follows next is a string of poor luck for Taisto. He cannot find a job, is kicked out from the hostel and he is arrested and convicted for assault on one of the bandits who mugged him early on. In prison he befriends the bleak long-term prisoner, Mikkonen ( Matti Pellonpää). Together and with the help of a file from Irmeli, they escape. To get fake passports they take a job to rob a bank. The passport gangsters double cross them and Mikkonen dies in the ensuing gunfight. Taisto, Irmeli and her son flees on the ship “Ariel” to Mexico.

This summary sounds staccato because it is. One action takes the next in short scenes. Hardly a word is uttered, things just happen in rapid order. This makes it possible to pack all this into a 72-minute running time.

The subject matter is serious enough. This is the old tale of an innocent person who hits misfortune and through a series of coincidences finds himself in big trouble. This is social realist in the sense that it presents a certain hopelessness and vulnerability of the dispossessed and a hardness by the surrounding society. As such it is a social critique. But it is also a fairy tale. Things happen almost magically in the movie. Irmeli showing up out of the blue. Mikkonen as a helping agent who helps him escape and get passports. The misfortunes that practically fall out of the sky.

What makes the movie special, however, is the deadpan delivery. This is on every level. The way the scenes follow each other, what happens to the characters of the movie and not least their reactions and dialogue. Never do we see a hint of emotion in the dialogue, whether for love or anger. Everything is said in a clipped, businesslike manner. This deadpan is taken so far it becomes hilarious and what should be a serious movie becomes a comedy of sorts.

I have Aki Kaurismäki strongly suspected for deliberately making fun of this idiosyncratic Finnish deadpan style. Any doubt should be wafted away when considering some of his other movies. His Leningrad Cowboys project uses deadpan humor very deliberately and it is not alone. I totally dig this humor. It is certainly not for everybody, and I can easily imagine this going over the head of many people, but to me it is a riot. I was howling from laughter during the flirting scene in the car and the prison escape was pure slapstick. Even a small thing like Taisto finding a bigger picture to compete with his neighbor’s in the hostel is so subtle and elegant deadpan humor that I am still smiling.

“Ariel” is not a big movie and technically it is not very advanced, but if you like Finnish deadpan delivery as much as I do, this is a gem.