MUBI

Branded to Kill is a movie that moves to its own musical time rather than to a normal, linear storyline. Rhythm supersedes narrative—with the help of elements like cinematography, lighting and set design—and the film’s rhythm is engaging but it never evolves into a discernible mood. The slick framings and sweeping camera don’t support a real story (Suzuki was fired for incomprehensibility), but that’s not a problem in itself. Without a coherent character or narrative element to hold onto, however, the momentum built by the musical editing and restless camera needs to carry extra weight. Ultimately, it didn’t coalesce enough to draw me in for long, and the film overstayed its welcome.

The film’s music is enticing, creating rhythm not only with cuts, but with tracking shots, camera swings, and the geometric blocking of characters and mis en scene. A visual tension arises, like stretching and releasing a rubber band. It also beautifully defines it’s three-dimension spaces. At any moment, the film will cut from one perspective to another complete different. Any jump or shift seems possible. The cutting is like jazz drumming: it supports the feel of the material without adding melody. It’s internat rhythm doesn’t always match that of the soundtrack. In one scene, two cars pass each other and each party is like an instrument, interacting to form chaotic and clashing music. If Branded to Kill were a jazz solo it’d be virtuosic, schizophrenic, bombastic and exciting, but lacking a strong central melody around which to improvise.

Jacques Tati’s Playtime uses a similarly decentralized narrative to create a specific mood. Like Branded to Kill, Playtime has a persistent and striking visual aesthetic, and it too uses a similarly decentralized narrative to create a specific mood. In Playtime, the visual arrangements and intricate choreography go one step further and match the whimsical, happy-go-lucky tone of the comedy onscreen. Tati’s elegant and operatically choreographed action makes an ironic counterpoint to its clumsy characters, unwieldy bureaucracy and impersonal technology. The power of the film’s images come from the internal motion of each shot: the movement of the camera is not as important as the movement of all the elements it observes.

In the beginning of the film, we don’t know where to focus. Tati plays with us by showing so much life and detail packed into every visual plane of every shot. Interesting things are happening all around, and as soon as one particular element calls attention to itself, its whisked away in a sea of confusion. From then on, we can only sit back and watch the action that Tati sets into motion like a wind-up toy. It’s rhythm is less musical than Branded’s, perhaps, but it’s more attuned to the beats of everyday life. Every person we see has his or her own life, whether or not the camera decides to focus on it.

The film’s many visual gags spring perfectly, thanks to comic timing and a subdued treatment from the camera (long, wide shots, like tableaus.) The loud chair, for example, is wonderfully understated and the silent door joke is the perfect anti-punctuation to the angry tirade that precedes it. Best of all is the unintentional game of cat-and-mouse between Hulot and the man in the blue suit, which gives the film its best shot: a view from above rows of cubicles which brilliantly captures the action in two opposite areas of the frame.

The film drags a little between its two big setpieces, but it all serves Tati’s main goal of exploring modern, public settings, and how they stop people from truly connecting. It’s also touching, as a slight, tender plot between Hulot and a pretty American tourist emerges, unfolds, and concludes delicately. Both Playtime and Branded to Kill succeed because of their inventive visual style, but ultimately the former is more compelling. However thin it’s narrative, Playtime has just enough of the right elements to engage the audience more than just visually.

Even director Seijun Suzuki admitted this was a terrible plot. I actually view Branded to Kill as a deliberate, experimental joke by Suzuki on his superiors. Sort of like a kiss off to them. The acting is rather bad and the cinematography is far from good and innovative as some make it out to be. I think the fact that some directors have mentioned Suzuki causes others to overrate this film. The cinematography in a Hitchcock or Fellini or Kurosawa is sometimes experimental and often good. Sometimes experimental equals good and sometimes it doesn’t; this is not good.

I actually enjoyed Tokyo Drifter and Youth of the Beast, but find this far inferior. If this wasn’t released by Criterion and instead was released by an Image or Anchor Bay and if it was never mentioned by the likes of Tarantino, I believe it would be rated much lower.

Offbeat and innovative 60s Japanese gangster film has style to burn – with ingeniously-staged violence, hip jazz music, ultra-cool quirky characters, hot sex, innovative camerawork, and striking visual imagery that borders on the surreal. The story is disjointed and convoluted almost to the point of being incomprehensible, and it does lose some energy in the second half – but this is a film that must be seen for its startling cinematic inventiveness.