Beyond Godzilla: Blue Christmas

We often hear clichés like “it’s what’s inside that counts” as a bland way to advocate tolerance. Unfortunately, the governments of the near future will pervert such sentiments to exploit fear and uncertainty. It seems those who experience close encounters with UFOs have had their blood turned blue. As a result, their loyalty and very humanity is now questioned in the highest government offices. The combination of fear and power yields harrowing results in Kihachi Okamoto’s Blue Christmas (trailer here), which screens during the Japan Society’s film series, Beyond Godzilla: Alternative Futures & Fantasies in Japanese Cinema.

This might just be the worst Christmas ever. There has been a rash of UFO sightings, but only maverick scientist Dr. Teruhiko Hyodo is sufficiently impolitic to discuss them in public. In a likely case of cause and effect, the researcher is abducted immediately following his controversial conference address. Experienced muckraker Kazuya Minami is assigned the story, but it is unclear whether the top executives at his media conglomerate really want him to find the truth-talking doctor.

Minami will have good reason to doubt the good faith of his superiors. Before he leaves to pursue leads in New York, he passes along a strange bit of gossip to his editor. Apparently, Yuko Takamatsu, the newly discovered star of an upcoming network historical epic has blue blood (and not in the colloquial English sense). Minami’s source is none other than her entertainment journalist lover. Quite suspiciously, Takamatsu is framed for drug possession and forced out of the production shortly thereafter, while Minami is on assignment.

Meanwhile, the taciturn military intelligence officer Taisuke Oki is clearly planning for something unpleasant. Currently in hurry-up-and-wait mood, he often frequents a barbershop near the base, because of his hard crush on Saeko Nishida a shy junior barber employed there. He too has strange experiences with disappearing colleagues.

Much like the way Fassbinder’s World on a Wire prefigured the themes and narrative elements of The Matrix decades earlier, the post-Watergate Blue Christmas eerily foreshadows the conspiracy mythology of The X-Files. However, Blue Christmas is even more paranoid with respects to political institutions and far more brutal in its depiction of the ultimate machinations.

Perhaps most significantly, Blue Christmas features the legendary Tatsuya Nakadai playing Minami, who might just be the classic movie journalist of all time. Sure, he is a virtuous crusader for truth, but he also understands the necessity of discretion with respects to valor. Furthering heightening the tragedy, Hiroshi Katsuno and Keiko Takeshita develop some exquisitely awkward but poignant chemistry together as Oki and Nishida, respectively.

Perhaps because screenwriter Sô Kuramoto was forced to edit his acclaimed script (originally published in a film journal), the loop doesn’t always get closed for every subplot. This is particularly true of “The Humanoids,” a Beatles like western band, whose hit song is ubiquitous throughout the film. Whether they are tools or victims of the shadowy cabal remains open to debate. However, one thing is for sure—any Tatsuya Nakadai is worth seeing—and he’s terrific in this one. Somehow, it feels both perfectly of and ahead of its time. Highly recommended for fans of UFO conspiracy theory science fiction, Blue Christmas screens this Saturday (4/8) at the Japan Society, as part of Beyond Godzilla.

5 Japanese Divas: Sisters of the Gion (Isuzu Yamada)

It is a case of good geisha-bad geisha. Omocha is definitely the bad one. Yet, for all her scheming, she is trapped in a man’s world, performing a subservient occupation. Considered a bold feminist statement for 1936 Japan as well as a turning point in his own career, Kenji Mizoguchi’s Sisters of the Gion is a perfect showcase for his early muse, Isuzu Yamada, which fittingly screens during Film Forum’s tragically timely 5 Japanese Divas retrospective.

Traditional in her ways, Umekichi accepts her lot in life. In contrast, her younger sister Omocha overflows with contempt for the men who seek their company in Kyoto’s pleasure district. Adopting the strategy of exploiting their exploiters, she is not amused when Umekichi’s bankrupt patron moves in with them. Not one to suffer deadbeats gladly, she manipulates him into leaving with a vampishness worthy of a Bette Davis or Joan Crawford. However, she makes quite a few enemies in the process.

Gion is short but delicious, implying all sorts of mature situations going on off-screen. Yet, despite the confidence Yamada projects, leading us to suspect she will always land on her, um . . . feet, Mizoguchi pulls a naturalistic switcheroo in the third act. Omocha might be her own woman, but it is still a world not of her making.

There is no question Gion is Yamada’s film. She delivers her barbed lines with attitude that burns like acid, even through the subtitles. If not quite as radiantly beautiful as Setsuko Hara or Hideko Takamine (also featured in the 5 Divas series), it is easy to understand why so many men make monkeys of themselves over her throughout the film. Likewise, Yōko Umemura brings out a finely turned human dimension to her subservient sister Umekichi. This truly is a woman’s picture though, as the men are largely interchangeable old lechers.

Frankly, it is rather remarkable that Mizoguchi invites pre-war viewers to identify with such a morally flexible female protagonist. Bordering on film noir, Gion has been paired with Ozu’s Dragnet Girl for a thoroughly entertaining double feature next Monday (4/4). Indeed, Film Forum’s entire 5 Divas series is highly recommended, particularly Ozu’s Late Spring, Early Summer, and Tokyo Story, starring the incomparable Hara. It is also worth repeating, those so moved can support the Red Cross’ efforts in Japan here and find information on the Japan Society’s upcoming (4/9) Concert for Japan benefit here.

5 Japanese Divas: Dragnet Girl (Kinuyo Tanaka)

By day, Tokiko works in an office typing pool. By night, she is a gun moll. One has to respect her work ethic. Perhaps most surprisingly, this silent gangster drama was a rare foray into genre cinema from Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu. Featuring Kinuyo Tanaka as the bad girl leading a double life, Ozu’s Dragnet Girl screens during the soon to commence 5 Japanese Divas retrospective series, which Film Forum scheduled well in advance of the earthquake and tsunami that shook Japan. However, it serves as a timely reminder of the exceptional films produced by a country that has become one of America’s closest friends and allies.

Like many Ozu films, Dragnet takes us into the world of the Japanese white collar worker. Tokiko is a loyal member of an office typing pool, who frequently receives extravagant gifts from the boss’s son. She tries her best to keep him at arm’s length for the sake of her job. She really does not seem to need it though. Every night she lives the high life with her lover Joji, a former prize fighter turned gangster. Together, they operate a racket Ozu never spells out, but seems to involve her sex appeal and his brawn. They look like a perfect match, but when Joji starts to fall for the “good girl” sister of one of their flunky henchmen, it leads both of them to reconsider their life choices.

Even if Dragnet were not such an unrepresentative film in Ozu’s canon, it would be a fun little gangster film. Indeed, Ozu offers some quite striking film noir shadow play that is nothing like his trademark “tatami-level” shots. Although most analysis of Dragnet emphasizes how it differs from his mature style, there are certain similarities. Though ostensibly a crime drama, Ozu focuses far more on the emotional conflicts within his female characters. While not exactly like his famous transitional still-life shots, he shows the same facility for investing meaning in everyday objects, like the office typewriters neatly covered, or the orderly row of the office workers’ hats hanging on their hooks.

Of course, this is not an Ozu retrospective, but a survey of five superb Japanese actresses: Tanaka, Isuzu Yamada, Machiko Kyo, Setsuko Hara, and Hideko Takamine. Appropriately, Dragnet is a first class showcase for Tanaka, who looks deceptively cute and innocent, but burns up the screen as Tokiko. She covers the full emotional range, ultimately becoming an unlikely combination of Ma Barker and Mother Theresa.

Dragnet is a silent film, but music plays an important role, so Film Forum house pianist Steve Sterner will have a chance to exercise both his jazz and classical chops. Dragnet might be an anomaly within Ozu’s filmography, but it proves he could handle the classic Warner Brothers-esque gangster melodrama, when he chose to. So there. Dapper entertainment from two masters of world cinema (Ozu and Tanaka), Dragnet screens as part of a double bill this coming Monday (4/4) during Film Forum’s 5 Japanese Divas (which kicks off this Friday). After partaking of some great Japanese films, those so moved can support the Red Cross’ efforts in Japan here and find information on the Japan Society’s upcoming (4/9) Concert for Japan benefit here.