 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
Hana-bi (Fireworks)
|
 |
|
Hana-bi is
one of great films of the 1990s, by one of the world's most remarkable filmmakers.
Takeshi Kitano – a pop culture phenomenon in his homeland of Japan – takes
himself extremely seriously as an artist: this film begins by proclaiming
itself as Volume 7 in his rapidly evolving cinematic career. It is a fair
indication of the poverty of film distribution and exhibition in Australia that
it was only the first of his seven features, to that point, to obtain a theatrical
release.
Unsuspecting viewers who – following the obligatory
promotional nods to Quentin Tarantino – go expecting a mixture of cool thrills
and low laughs from Hana-bi will be
disappointed, even dismayed. It is a rigorous, understated, elliptical, often
contemplative film – and one carrying a slowly building, emotional depth-charge.
Kitano's only nod to a familiar genre – as well to his
earliest films, Violent Cop (1989)
and Boiling Point (1990) – is in his
basic premise. The director plays Detective Nishi, a policeman haunted by the
memory of a shocking, traumatic incident that is gradually revealed to us in
the course of events: two of his partners were killed on the job. Malign
destiny has an awful way of repeating itself for Nishi: later, while visiting
his sick wife, Miyuki (Kayoto Kishimoto), another friend, Horibe (Ren Osugi),
is injured by criminals.
These essential narrative events are chronologically
scattered. Moreover, they are often conveyed in extremely indirect ways. Kitano
– who claims (ingenuously or not) to have developed his unique film language
without reference to previous masters of the art – has an unerring eye and ear
for the incidental, peripheral details of situations. The special,
extraordinary tension of his work comes from the alternation of seemingly dead
moments – the waiting, watching and thinking before and after an event – with
sudden, lightning bursts of graphic action. Directors everywhere could learn much
from a close study of Kitano’s expressive brilliance in handling even the simplest
and smallest of gestures.
The late ‘90s marked a grim and even morbid time among
the world's finest filmmakers:
There is nothing easy or sentimental about the
“journey” (a term currently beloved by Hollywood) that Nishi contrives for
himself and those around him. He is the classic hard-boiled hero raised to a
enigmatic and sublime level: his facial and bodily movements betray little of
what is going on within, and he never announces the logic or plan of his sometimes
puzzling actions (such as, in a wonderful set-piece, robbing a bank with the
aid of a fake police car).
Ultimately, Hana-bi alights upon a profound human theme: the renewal or revitalisation of existence
in the face of so much individual and collective agony. Inspired by the details
of Kitano’s own near-death experience in 1994, the story builds to magnificent,
epiphanic moments – such as the joy felt by Miyuki as she gazes upon the
fireworks of the film’s title. But, once again, Kitano’s masterpiece never becomes
mawkish: the hard truths of pain and mortality are always close at hand.
As befits a proudly self-taught film-artist, there is
a touch of wilful naïveté in Kitano’s style. Hana-bi is almost a manifesto on behalf of the cultivation of such
a style: the odd, disconcerting compositions which are invariably static and
front-on; the frequent recourse to Horibe’s paintings (actually Kitano’s own)
as symbolic expressions of emotions and actions; the steady, plaintive musical
score by Joe Hisaishi – all these devices may test the defences of hip, “sophisticated”
viewers.
But to anyone who is open to distinctive, original
cinema, there are few films as lucid, absorbing and wonderful as Hana-bi.
MORE Kitano: Brother, Kikujiro © Adrian Martin September 1998 |
