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Considered one of the first pinky violence films by some, it indeed has some traits of the genre, but at the same time is heavily grounded in classical Japanese chambara. A great predecessor to films such as Lady Snowblood and Sex & Fury, its plot revolves around a very similar revenge plot with riveting black'n'white cinematography and beautiful protagonist being its main highlights.
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Loosely based on two short stories by Junichirô Tanizaki and apparently meant to be a surreal spoof on the Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber, Takechi's third effort is a relentless assault on the senses, and a more than worthy follow-up to his Robbe-Grillet-Esque oneiric elegy DAYDREAM. Admirably challenging and erotic, it proved too controversial to Japan's movie regulator Eirin and underwent extensive censorship before the government would allow it to be released. About 20% of the film’s original content was cut and this footage is now considered lost. Director's next film BLACK SNOW would have suffered a similar fate if it weren't for Takechi winning the lawsuit after he had been arrested on indecency charges. His victory enabled other directors to further challenge social conventions and enrich the then-blooming Japanese New Wave as well as gave birth to pinku eiga. Takechi's contribution in this field is invaluable, and along with independent filmmaking enfant terrible Kōji Wakamatsu, he might be the most important early pink film director.
With his ups and downs fighting the censorship, Takechi can be listed along von Stroheim and Welles as an inspiring auteur who was ahead of his time, and whose films were butchered as a result. But perhaps the censorship of THE DREAM OF THE RED CHAMBER enhanced the film, making it even more of an indecipherable fever dream, a product of a great mind misunderstood by the majority of his contemporaries. One can only wonder what has been cut, but what's left, including a lengthy sequence of Viennese Actionism-inspired body art is visually arresting and stylistically striking which should be enough of a reason for any film buff to watch it. Sadly, this obscure film is quite hard to get by since it's only been released on DVD in Japan. No English subtitles are available.
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It's October 1932. Ernst Lubitsch completes his magnum opus TROUBLE IN PARADISE and proves to be one of the best directors alive. It's a showcase of the directorial abilities he'd been mastering since the silent era. Full of sexual innuendo made right before the enforcement of the Hays Code, the film is a masterpiece of romantic comedy and perhaps the first fully successful use of what was later called the Lubitsch touch. Even though he'd been making films of many genres, Lubitsch felt best with comedy, a genre he excelled at both as an actor and director as early as in the 1910s. (The crowning comedic achievement of his Austria-Hungary era might be the grotesque THE OYSTER PRINCESS.) But let's fast-forward in time. Enjoying great financial and critical success, Lubitsch goes to America in 1922 and continues his career as a talented, prolific film director which results in the premiere of TROUBLE IN PARADISE ten years later in October 1932.
It's 1932. A couple of months back. Of all people, it's Ernst Lubitsch who directs BROKEN LULLABY, an anti-war drama based on The Man I Killed, Reginald Berkeley's adaptation of the stage play by Maurice Rostand. Anti-war is by no means a new genre, neither is it a genre devoid of masterpieces. Abel Gance's impressionistic J'ACCUSE and Lewis Milestone's darkly poetic ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT both worked exquisitely well as indictments of the Great War. No different is BROKEN LULLABY which takes place after the war and depicts not just its death toll, but also its impact on people's lives.
Thanks to its semi-expressionistic touch, Phillips Holmes' poignant performance as a French musician Paul Renard haunted by the memory of a soldier he killed is reminiscent of what Peter Lorre did in M. Not less impactful is Victor Milner's camerawork which completes characters' emotional states and comments on underlying psychological trauma. In one shot, the picture of a deceased soldier faces the camera just like does the face of a distraught Frechman, both creating a starking juxtaposition. Few shots later, the man is forced to once again face the person he's killed. Somber in tone, the movie has a couple of comedic elements in it, of which most memorable is an offbeat 'no more goulash' remark that cuts Mr. Schultz's nationalistic diatribe.
The message of the film might come off as too didactic or too idealistic for some tastes, but there is no denying it's powerful. BROKEN LULLABY preaches unity and reconciliation and gives hope to those without hope. It pronounces love and happiness as natural antidotes to hate and misery. It starts in a minor key and ends in major with only one frightening prophesy thrown in between the lines. That an even greater, more terrible war might come.
Only seven years later, on September 1, 1939, Germany invades Poland starting an even more deathsome war. In his 1940 film THE GREAT DICTATOR, Charlie Chaplin gives the last idealistic cry for universal unity. World War II crushes hope and gives birth to Italian Neorealism but also stimulates a resurgence of anti-war films, as powerful as ever. Ichikawa's THE BURMESE HARP, Kobayashi's THE HUMAN CONDITION, Wicki's THE BRIDGE, and later Masumura's RED ANGEL, Fukasaku's UNDER THE FLAG OF THE RISING SUN, Klimov's COME AND SEE, and other masterfully crafted masterpieces of world cinema. There always will be wars and suffering, because as long as hate permeates the world, there always will be people "too old to fight but not too old to hate" as the character played by Lionel Barrymore says in his powerful speech in BROKEN LULLABY. But to paraphrase Godard, "even if nothing turns out as we had hoped, it would change nothing of our hope".
