Reviews

"The Music of Chance" is about--well--the music of chance. Life is terribly, sometimes beautifully, unpredictable, yet man has ever sought to control the odds, or weight them in his favor. The penchant for doing this extends from the gambler to the stockbroker. We find varying elements of this desire in most of the world's religions.

Pozzi, coming off a losing streak, believes he can regain his losses by playing two novices he beat previously, Flower and Stone, in a high-stakes poker game. They have, however, boned up on their game since last playing him, and he and Jim Nashe, who has staked him, are left with a Sisyphean task to work off their debt.

Nashe, played expertly by Mandy Patamkin, may be the only "free man" of the major characters in this film. He can accept loss with grace and strength, which likely reflects his attitude toward life. Pozzi, Flower, Stone, and Murks are all prisoners of their particular "angle." "The City of the World," a board model in the Flower-Stone residence, embodies a world where nothing is left to chance, and the enslaved revel in their servitude.

This is a rare film in that it raises philosophical questions, in much the same way that "The Rapture" raised theological ones. As such, it was unlikely to gain a large audience, in spite of some very good performances.

I hadn't expected to enjoy this film about a middle-aged bachelor visiting old lovers. For starters, I trouble picturing Bill Murray as an aging Lothario, and the premise has been used--unsuccessfully--before. I was in for a surprise.

"Broken Flowers" is the story of a ostensibly successful man who has run adrift emotionally. Once an active ladies' man he now can work up little emotion when his last girlfriend departs. His only human connection appears to be with an immigrant family next door.

It is a mysterious, unsigned letter about an alleged son by a former lover and the prodding of his neighbor that set him on a quest to find the author of the letter and, presumably, the unknown child. What he finds instead may be more valuable to this lost man.

Like a good detective Don goes looking for clues (a typewriter, a preference for the color pink) that will help him identify the letter writer. He finds pink objects, even a pink typewriter, but whether his search bears fruit is for each viewer to decide. The film is a kind of "descent into self" that informs some of the best detective fiction and, although it cannot be characterized as a detective film, it employs some standard elements of that genre (Don is slugged and knocked unconscious near the end of his itinerary). And while the film has its comic moments, it is not strictly a comedy, either; what could be construed by some as comic--pre-fab "McMansions" and "animal communicators" are not played strictly for laughs but for tantalizing insight into character. "Broken Flowers" is instead about where we have been, what we have left behind, and what is left as a result.

As much as I enjoyed the American remake of this chilling film, seeing "Ringu" made the remake comprehensible to me. When I first saw "The Ring" I failed to grasp what kind of story this was--it hit me as I watched "Ringu:" this is a classic Japanese ghost story, from a culture as fascinated by ghosts as the English are. This is the spirit, if you will, in the videocassette. It is a presence so powerful it can physically kill its victim.

The American film is far more atmospheric--it is a horror film that pulls out all the stops. Can anyone forget the frenzied horses on the ferry boat? Or the demented drawing of the soon-to-be-murdered child, which resembled those I have seen created by talented schizophrenics? The Japanese original is far more subtle. It is, however, more explicit about the child's demonic origin somewhere in the sea. No Godzilla she but a baleful force whose malevolence continues beyond the grave.

"Bwana Toshi" is a standout film in the sense it is about interracial (or inter-cultural) misunderstanding but has no white characters. It is about a Japanese engineer who goes to an African country to develop a project but lacks any comprehension of the people he will depend on to carry it out. A old story, told from a slightly different angle. Asian man gets it wrong in Africa, instead of English man getting it wrong in India, etc. The journey to understanding people different from himself does not come easy to Toshi but it comes, along with self-understanding.

This is a beautiful but, regrettably, rarely seen film. I doubt it is available on DVD but hope it someday will be, so I can share it with others. Like the best of Japanese cinema, it is a life-affirming film