japanassassinatrix
Pistol Opera
Melbourne Cinémathèque mixes it with double-crossing double agents.
Lesson number one of the brutally unforgiving Yakuza code of honour: leave no mission unaccomplished. The Melbourne Cinémathèque takes this to heart in its season of Japanese film noir.
If you missed the screening of Takeshi Kitano's Violent Cop and Masahiro Shinoda's Pale Flower, fear not: the season continues over the next two weeks with more gems by key directors of Japanese cinema.
It'll take you on a labyrinthine trip scouring the underworld to make sense of its rituals, politics and people. What makes them tick, what ticks them off and why do they keep offing each other?
Nagisa Oshima's incendiary and highly stylised portrait of Osaka gangs in The Sun's Burial is a cinematic essay on sex, violence and morbid slum life; it follows Masaki Kobayashi's portrait of post-war malaise in Black River.
Then, on Wednesday 10 June, veteran Yakuza-thriller director Seijun Suzuki tells a deadly tale of violence, betrayal and vengeance in the playfully audacious Pistol Opera starring Miyuki Minazuki (nicknamed 'Stray Cat') whose calculating sniper skills almost outnumber her kimonos.
And, as we can only expect, the season ends with a bloodbath in Tai Kato's I, The Executioner, a disturbing anatomy of a self-appointed judge, juror and executioner.
While it's a season not for the faint hearted, there's some cold comfort to be found in Stray Cat's fateful line: "I think it's okay to live my life as a pistol".
Published Thursday, 28 May 2009
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