A Wind Named Amnesia: Film Review

Title: A Wind Named Amnesia (Kaze no Na wa Amunejia)
Writer: Hideyuki Kikuchi
Director: Kazuo Yamazaki
Year: 1990

If there is a person misanthropic enough to be following all of these reviews, they might have noticed a trend in mine. I tend to be drawn by tales that are of a post-apocalypse setting. A Wind Named Amnesia fits this bill, and while I wasn’t disappointed, neither did I have my mind blown.

The film is set in the distant future, or at the very least in what must have counted for that in 1990. It is strange watching a film which is set in a dystopian future, but a future which is set roughly 10 years ago. Our first experience of the film is a quick gritty gambol around the ruins of San Francisco, 1999. Groups of barbaric humans roam the streets, or flee in terror from a pilotless guardian, a robotic mini-mecha style machine that hunts down humans and kills them. The inhabitants of San Francisco, and indeed the entire world, have been reduced to the state of primitive man by a wind which blew through the planet in 1990, wiping out the memory of almost everyone.

The story follows Wataru, who manages to overcome the amnesia and re-learn the ways of the world, thanks to the help of a wheelchair-bound child named Johnny. Wataru first encounters Johnny when he stumbles upon the destroyed remains of an experimental government facility while searching for food. Johnny has escaped the amnesia because of the experiments conducted on him in the facility, experiments to increase his memory. Through extensive teaching, Wataru is able to speak again, and is eventually able to function in a way we would deem ‘normal’. It is Johnny who gives him the name ‘Wataru’, explained as meaning ‘one who travels around’.

The retelling of his back-story takes place as he explains it to Sophia, a stranger who helped him defeat the guardian in San Francisco, an enigmatic platinum-haired woman who has retained her memories and doesn’t wear shoes, in what I would describe as a dangerously impractical affectation, especially given the volatile state of the world. It doesn’t take long for them to agree to travel together, and so begins the hypothetical examination of what a world full of reasonless, animalistic primitive humans would amount to.

On their travels they encounter a crude society which is ruled and driven by a blind fear of their god, named the Smasher-Devourer, whose raw and unsystematic fury can only be sated, so they believe, through a ‘marriage’ to a new wife. It is such a ‘wife’, Sue, that Wataru and Sophia chance across, being pursued by a ragged ensemble due to her fleeing the night before her wedding day. She is eventually saved by the ironically named Little John, a hulking, bearded behemoth of a man, who fights off the others. Bearing in mind these individuals are still in a primitive, pre-language state, it is through the use of Sophia’s unexplained lay-on-hands ability that their names are gleaned. She also discovers that this ‘marriage’ is essentially human sacrifice, to a humungous crane that has been, for lack of a better word, pimped to include weaponry, specifically mechanical limbs of the grabby and crushy varieties. And lasers.

They also come across a, seemingly, utopian super-city in the desert, controlled and protected by a giant, central supercomputer. What initially appears to be a safe haven, whose inhabitants have escaped the amnesia, is, in reality, merely an empty shell. The city’s two inhabitants, whose names may have their origin in satire, are Lisa and Simpson, who seem to be hollow puppets, manipulated by the supercomputer to simulate the previous life of the city, and so they spend their days role-playing the lives of the former inhabitants.

Wataru is also forced to have an iconic and symbolic showdown with the guardian he defeated in San Francisco, which has repaired itself and made weapon-based improvements, and then chased him across most of America.

The events which are observed by Wataru and Sophia are meant to portray, and in some ways answer, the question that is often brought up in the film, which seems to be: “What is the true nature of man?” Quite an ambitious query to set yourself up for, and one that, for me at least, the film doesn’t really deal with adequately, settling for an open-ended conclusion.

But while I was being disappointed with the paucity of the films reply to its own questions, I was also being distracted by my nagging “oh, whose voice is that?” style half-remembrances of the cast. It didn’t take long for me to place Wataru as Kazuki Yao, one of my personal favourite seiyuu, whose standout roles for me where in One Piece (Jango, Bon Clay, Franky) and also in Tenjho Tenge (Bunshichi Tawara). I was embarrassed to have not placed Kappei Yamaguchi as Johnny, as he is a hugely prolific voice actor, and another one of my favourites.

Despite not really answering the questions it set up for itself, A Wind Named Amnesia is an interesting and engaging thought experiment, which is what I want from a post-apocalyptic offering. It is comfortingly vicious and bloody in places, and features some, arguably, justified dramatic nudity and a sex(ual) scene which I’m sure would have pleased my younger self (he was very interested in the artistic use of nudity. ARTISTIC).

Good film.

Ocean Waves: Film Review

Title: Ocean Waves (aka I Can Hear the Sea - Umi ga Kikoeru)

Writer: Saeko Himuro

Director: Tomomi Mochizuki

Year: 1993

It is difficult to review a Ghibli piece, as the very mention of the studio’s name trips the switch on my superlative gland and a slew of unadulterated praise is liable to gush forth. So in reviewing Ocean Waves, I will attempt to exercise some restraint.

Set in, by my estimation, late 80’s/early 90’s Kochi, the story revolves around Taku Morisaki, although it would perhaps be more accurate to say that it focuses on his schooldays, and the relationships he develops therein.

Taku is portrayed as a hard-working boy, and something of an idealist, for example he takes a stand and questions his school’s decision to cancel a school trip due to overall poor grades of the students. It is during this protest that he meets Yutaka Matsuno, the mature and composed class representative-type who, and despite not being in the same class as each other, they form a lasting friendship.

When Yutaka, in his role as class rep, is called upon to give mid-term transfer student Rikako Muto a tour of the school, he later turns to Taku in order to awkwardly fumble around the issue of what I’m sure would be translated to ‘love’.

Rikako Muto is a student from Tokyo, cursed to join the far-flung school in Kochi because of the marital difficulty of her parents. Despite, or perhaps because of, her outstanding abilities both academically and in sports, and her physical beauty, she becomes a distant figure in school, kept apart by suspicion, admiration and awe. It is only Yutaka, partly because he is a genuinely nice guy, and partly because of his feelings, that talks to her. It is through this that she becomes aware of Taku, as Yutaka clams up and tensely leaps on any topic of conversation, and so blathers about his friend.

A process of nervously tiptoeing around the issue and misunderstandings ensue.

That sentence is pretty much all I can manage without explicitly going into the details of how the film pans out, which I want to err away from as the subtlety with which the film plays out is far more tasteful than any words I can currently summon. The film plays heavily upon the obligatory ‘will they? / won’t they?’ dichotomy that forms the base of almost all stories of schooldays romance, or a romance story of any kind, truth be told. I’m actually at a loss to explain quite why this example of it is so gripping, where the vast majority, for me at least, can rapidly become laborious.

It may be that it takes place over such a short time, just over an hour’s worth really, where stories of this kind often play out in a series, which usually has around 26 episodes which are themselves around 20 minutes in length, with the pre-requisite nerve-stretching cliff-hanger at the end of every episode to ensure you watch the next. After around 20 episodes where a contrived peak in the story pits the characters in a quandary, it is fairly easy to become jaded with the process. After all, there’re only so many times you can go wide-eyed and make an ‘ungh!’ noise.

The characters in the piece are older than is usual for Ghibli, which, in my experience at least, tends to opt for young children as their heroes and heroines (or is 'hero' now unisex?). The art is typical Ghibli, which essentially means if you like the way Ghibli looks you’ll like the look of this and vice versa. A notable difference with this piece is its occasional habit of giving its characters quite mean eyes, the usual overblown roundness that is present in Ghibli, and anime in general, can quickly give way to a piercing angry glare that is very effective because of the judiciousness of its use.

Ocean Waves is done as a retrospective, with the main character narrating the story, which allows for the long-term narrative of the piece to feel natural and fluid, as the film covers a time from Junior High (middle school? I’m lost) through Senior High (I went to comp) and into college (I went to Uni). At times the film places a thick white border around the scenes it is portraying, making certain occasions seem like a hugely idealised portrayal of schooldays and childhood in general. That portrayal is a key point of the film. Despite focusing on the stories of two characters specifically, the film does pan out and give us glimpses of other characters’ stories developing, or coming to an end. Rikako doesn’t take part in cultural fairs and other group activities, but we are shown bursts of those who do, similarly Taku and Rikako have an unusual time whilst on holiday with the class in Hawaii (I went to North Wales), but we are shown the rest of the class having a ‘normal’ childhood.

I am using this phrase far too much in this review but here is goes: despite this, the film still portrays their experiences as a ‘normal’ childhood experience, they go to school, they do their work, they have fun with and fall out with their friends, and they ineffectually begin to learn what it is to like someone. They do undergo some fairly strange occurrences during this, but something strange is bound to have happened to most of us when we were children, even if it isn’t specifically flying to Tokyo on a whim.

The music is fairly minimalist, and, by now, fairly old fashioned, but it suits the setting well, and is masterful in setting the scene. The main recurring theme is a soft contemplative piano piece, though chirpy digital pipes and such also feature elsewhere. The film also isn’t afraid to drop the music completely and set the scene with some ambient noise, such as with the noise of children playing baseball, or through Japan’s favourite backing track: the buzzing of cicadas.

Stories about being in school are very popular, perhaps particularly so in Japan, and it is likely due to them tapping into a shared experience. It used to be easier to do this in stories, as when there were fewer television programs and no internet there were a larger number of things in people’s shared consciousness, which you could simply offer up for a Pavlovian “oh yeah, I remember that”. Peter Kay did it with Bullseye, Russell Howard does it with Thundercats, and Ocean Waves does it with, arguably, one of the last big bastions of shared experience: going to school. Although there is a flash of a Mazinkaiser parody flashed up on a TV in Ocean Waves, which may be an attempt to situate the film in a place in time, though it may very well cause a stirring of nostalgia for certain, presumably Japanese, viewers. I was just amused that the parody was named 'Gokaizer', as I enjoyed imagining a giant robotic Gok Wan terrorising the countryside in a bolshie, camp way. Probably not what they had in mind, especially bearing in mind this originally aired in 1993.

Nostalgia is the word I’ve tried to keep in check until the end, as if you don’t go for it in a big way, then Ocean Waves may not be for you. I wouldn’t say it is overwhelmingly sentimental in its portrayal, but that diagnosis is merely my opinion, and I sat there thinking “oh yeah, I remember that”. I would argue that it is, by and large, a fairly true, if idealised, representation of schooldays, or at the very least, a type of schooldays. Essentially, if you don’t have very fond memories of school, this film probably wont strike a chord with you.

I really enjoyed it though, but for me Ghibli would have to drop the ball fairly hard for me to have not enjoyed an offering. They did Nausicaa and Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, remember? Oh yeah, I remember that.

Cencoroll: Film Review

Title: Cencoroll

Writer: Atsuya Uki

Director: Atsuya Uki

Year: 2009

It is unusual nowadays that any high-budget or television production is the work and vision of one man, and the closest anime is likely to come to this is Cencoroll. This half-hour long film is more or less the achievement of Atsuya Uki, who is said to have largely wrote, designed, directed and animated the film by himself.

As it only last half an hour, it is a punchy self-contained story rather than a sprawling epic, and the film benefits a lot from the restraints that are upon it. Since it has only a short amount of time in which to tell its tale, the narrative moves quickly, but it manages to not feel rushed, perhaps due to the steady and measured pace of the characters. The story follows schoolboy Amamiya Tetsu, who is in charge/owns/controls/has as a pet a strange white monster named Cenco (pronounced Senko). Within a quick burst we are introduced to Yuki, a schoolgirl who, to Tetsu's annoyance, discovers Cenco and insists on making her presence felt. The other main player in the tale is a nameless youth, a boy who is presumably around the same age as the other two, who controls the two other white monsters that inhabit the story, one a giant dimension hopping blob, the other an octopus-thing that can go invisible. Now I am overly aware that as I write this it sounds like a plot synopsis for a piece that is a vapid shounen monster-battler, but in reality this film has more in common with Alice in Wonderland than it does any monster-battling type show (Pokemon, Digimon, Monster Rancher etc etc). Due to the films length, it is difficult to decide what exactly to include in an explanation of the plot, as very little actually happens, and it is the way in which is happens that is the truly engrossing aspect.

Unsurprisingly, since it is primarily the work of one man, the look of the film is fairly unique, but perhaps more notably, it is of an amazing quality. The cityscapes that frame most of the film are strikingly realistic, the smoothness of the urban surfaces setting the scene perfectly. The characters are all oddly offbeat, but not in a way which would require the damning adjectives 'kooky' or 'zany'. There is a rich vein of deadpan running throughout the piece, which works particularly well given the ludicrous occurences within it, such as the existence of huge monsters that do grim battle with one another. That is perhaps the main triumph of the film, a potent mix of both understatement and grotesque exaggeration, with the contrast between the two providing what I'm sure would be described on the BBFC notes as sustained surrealism throughout. A subtle and sure comedic vision helps with this thin-ice conceit, such as in one scene where Yuki's friend absent-mindedly ponders whether she is late because she has a cold, only to cut to the top of a skyscraper where a stoic Yuki is being restrained in the tentacles of the octopus monster. A close up of her face conveys mild annoyance, as though the character herself finds the situation ludicrous, rather than terrifying. The sort of reaction you would expect if a terrorist organisation kidnapped Jimmy Carr. Trusting, of course, Jimmy to stay in his onstage persona, which he could do I reckon. He is a consummate professional. I digress.

Most of the characters have an attitude of mild annoyance, occasionally veering into grumpiness or detached misanthropy. I am unsure whether this only appeals to me because of my own personal tendencies to be a cynical miseryguts, but it is certainly a refreshing thing to witness. Which is perhaps ironic. With the abundance of excitable cheese-wielders that exist within anime, it is somewhat cathartic to watch a genuinely Brooker-esque character work his way through a city fighting with monsters, without the compulsory pro-friendship/following-your-dreams/cheer-up-Charlie messages tacked on the end. The film is good like that, not being overly patronising, or perhaps I have merely become desensitised by too much shounen (silly Gilder, it's for kids). There're no explanatory segments where the workings of the unfamiliar reality are explicitly and limply laid out so any dunderheads watching wont feel left out. The story ploughs on at its own pace, and you, the plucky viewer, are left to keep up and work out the rules as it progresses. That is one of the ways it maintains its unexpected Alice in Wonderland-style surrealism, the abilities of the monsters are a complete unknown; fluid and unexpected, whereas other offerings seek to explain and pin down the powers within it (DBZ's scouter, Pokemon's pokedex) sometimes literally having a character explain, rather than actively showing it.

Another departure from the shounen monster-battlers is the fact that the monsters aren't either incredibly cute, if they are goodies, or terrifyingly fearsome, if they are baddies. In Cencoroll the monsters are ugly, bulbous creatures with lethargic fat eyes and strange teeth jutting out of their pudgy faces. I could have mistakenly thought the screen had turned off and I was being shown a reflection of my own vacant face staring at the screen (self-depracation!). Cenco's transformation ability is fluid and slightly disgusting, and a number of his transformations would be considered cheesy were it not for the dryness of the rest of the film. During battle he becomes a giant staplegun, as well a huge pair of scissors, and his favoured form while attempting to blend in inconspicuously is a mix between a panda a cardboard box and a toy car.

The music, composed by Ryo (from Supercell) is judiciously used, and each piece is fit perfectly to the action occuring onscreen. It is an eclectic offering, with calm, quiet ambience of a talk-heavy scene giving way to urgent haunting choral female vocals that are piercing above insistent drums that manage to perfectly explain that this does not augur well. The soundtrack is equally as adept at portraying the gentleless between the excitement as it is at accompanying the unflinching and unexpected viciousness that occasionally bursts into the story.

Without actually explaining the scene, the film is brought to an end with a twisted conclusion, it is a stange ending that is fairly nihilistic and hopeless but somehow clothes itself in the guise of happy resolution. A short scene after the credits have run leaves the story open ended, which suggests that the creator has further plans for the story, which delights me, as the film is a short masterful offering with a story I am eager to see deleveloped further. Whether this takes the form of another short film, or whether a series arises from this is at this point unknown, but to not explore the tale further would be a grave idiocy, and a travesty of epic proportions. A wonderful film, I implore you; watch it.

Roots Search: Film Review

Title: Roots Search: Shokushin Buttai X
Writer: Michiru Shimada
Director: Hisashi Sugai
Year: 1986

Since the beginning of this review blog, I have seen a fair amount of anime, and the quantity I saw beforehand is greater still. In all this time, there aren’t many releases, be they series, film, OVA, manga or live action, that I would dismiss as being of no value whatsoever. There is a large amount of throwaway ecchi rubbish, but if a shows aim is to be throwaway ecchi rubbish, actually slamming it for being so seems redundant, as they are easily avoidable. What we have with Roots Search, however, is a 45 minute release which has pretentions of an intelligent philosophical debate, but fails to live up to any of what we could generously describe as its ‘promise’.

Before I explain why I think the film is a resounding brainsore, I will qualify my criticisms by acceding that 45 minutes is perhaps too short a time to have really gone into the ideas Roots Search proposes in a more challenging way, but I feel the film also fails to compromise successfully and instead makes a hash of everything.

I am no expert when it comes to sci-fi horror, but if horror scenes appear clunky and not at all frightening to someone who isn’t a horror enthusiast, then they are hardly fit for purpose. Bearing in mind that this film is over 20 years old, it is possible that these scenes would’ve appeared less obvious to an audience not used to the epic CGstravaganzas that abound today. Still, the premise isn’t, and wasn’t, a new one, and while I’m sure Roots Search was dismissed by some as an Alien rip-off, it seems a bit unfair that one film should have monopoly on the idea of ‘horror in space’. Roots Search is ‘horror in space’, but the reason that no one can hear them scream is not due to the vacuum of space, but due to the awfulness of the production. It is almost as awful as my analogy for how awful it is.

The horror scenes revolve around the psychic alien creature locating the characters’ guilty pasts and forcing them to relive or face up to them through the use of ‘horrifying’ apparitions. Like A Christmas Carol, except in space, with a lot more blood, and significantly less Yorkshire pudding. The uninspired set up for these scenes are further let down by the spectacularly awful visuals. When I say visuals I am not referring only to the poor quality of the animation, which is more or less forgivable bearing in mind the age of the production, and also that it was likely made on a shoestring budget, something which is also suggested by the oddly short running time. I am referring to the poor ideas behind the design of these scenes; the beginning of the alien’s intervention is always announced by a screen-filling shot of the aliens face (sideways mouth aaargh!), which is then replaced with the face of an individual from the character’s past, which is replaced with the alien, which is replaced by the individual, alien, person, alien, person, eeeeeh! All of this underpinned with the synthy whooshing and whooping of an angry child assaulting a Moog. Sorry, that’s probably not how they were made. It is also conceivable that it was a Yamaha. I can’t tell whether this was passé when it first came out, but by today such a scene is to be considered excruciating cheese, and at a planning meeting a suggestion for such a scene would be met with the relocating of the tantrum-throwing Moog-child into the personal space of the gibberling who had suggested such a thing.

The film is further burdened with ugly character design, which is perhaps a harsh claim that can’t really be substantiated because it is based solely on my taste, rather than an opinion formed (hopefully) rationally. Nevertheless, ugly character design. Have it. Scott, a blonde-haired fop, is modelled on a carrot that has been inflated, and heroic Johnny-come-lately Buzz is a bastardised version of an archetypal old-school anime hero. The female lead, Moira, is tousled and clueless, plodding around with her big puppy eyes and overlong sleeves, plugging away in the ‘helpless damsel’ tradition, looking for all the world like a gender-stereotyping analyst’s wet dream.

Heteronormativity is further pandered to in a scene where, being confronted with a significant amount of gore, Moira buries her face in Scott’s overlarge manly/carrot chest, as he nobly holds her and declares “That’s too gory for a young woman to have to see”. Which to me is a strange line, as it is embedded with the assumption that there is a level of gore that a young woman should have to see, though I imagine the level is ‘not very much gore’, or possible, ‘hardly any gore at all’. A second assumption is also there through contrast, which is that the level of gore is perfectly suitable for viewing by young men. Such as carrot chested Scott and lantern-jawed Buzz.

Gore is an important commodity in Roots Search, as it is used as a substitute for horror. Japanese horror, though this is generalising slightly, is known for its understatement and horror-through-mood approach, which contrasts with the mainstream American ‘holy shit isn’t this stabby man scary?!?!’ approach, which makes Roots Search’s approach even stranger. Not scared by the monster-apparition that’s chasing a crew member? No worries, we are about to impale him with a dozen girders. Through his face. The horror.

The pacing of the piece seems rushed, which is again to be expected and is likely evidence of an epic idea squashed into too short a slot, which still doesn’t excuse some of the blunders. Early on in the piece, the alien declares: “I will kill you all within two hours”, which is an oddly time-conscious outburst from a monster, and suggests an intelligence which is absent from the horrors he decides to visit. Further dialogue sillies come roughly a quarter of an hour into the piece, as Moira suddenly changes the topic of conversation apropos of nothing to discuss the reason of human existence. This conversation needs to occur in order to set up the alien’s story, but it is a grinding shift of focus from the rest of the piece up until that point. Harsh contrasts can be an effective dramatic technique, but in this instance it comes across as half-arsed and clunky. Characters also have a tendency to say each others names too often, which is slightly annoying and needless in such a short piece. Whether this is to engender empathy from the viewer or just a consequence of poor writing is unclear, though it fails to make me sympathise with Moira, Scott, Norman, Marcus or Buzz.

There’s no epilepsy warning at the beginning of the piece, but I’d suggest there should be, as the creators of the film certainly subscribe to the idea that there is nothing quite as terrifying as viciously flashing backgrounds. Gone are the days when TV and films were allowed to literally send viewers into fits. Far be it from me to trivialise epilepsy but seizures may be the only way of disguising Roots Search’s many faults.

The film is capped off wonderfully with a dated awful synth-based thoughtless soundtrack, which is coming from someone who is an avid supporter of synth-based offerings. There are better ways of creating mood than simply thrusting both hands onto the keyboard when the monster appears suddenly on screen.

Towards the end of the film, a character is aggressively blinded, and if I were the sort of person who would make light of blindness, I would suggest that it would be preferable to having seen the film. But I won’t do that, obviously.

When the film started I thought that it would be an underground favourite with people who might watch it ironically and find brilliance in its awfulness, like finding a rich seam of gold whilst excavating the cavity of Nick Griffin’s melty eye, but alas, it is just a melty eye. I mean, a bad film. Naughty film! Rub its nose in it!