Jean Luc Godard - Une Femme est une Femme

After the ban of Le Petit Soldat, Godard was practically forced to come up with sort of a crowd-pleaser, since another gloomy character portrait with political undertones might well follow its predecessors faith. And Une Femme est une Femme is strangely just that: Godard going "mainstream". Godard "selling out". A comedy. A musical. In technicolor. With all the usual romantic shenanigans of Hollywood. Oh boy...

However frustrating it may sound - Une Femme est une Femme is the first film where Godard accomplishes to fully realize his ambitions. Godard takes an idea from mainstream filmmaking and turns it into a semi-Avant Garde romp, which includes him breaking the fourth wall repeatedly, addressing his own and Truffaut's career (in one scene, Belmondo turns around to face a suddenly present Jeanne Moreau just to ask her how the shoot of Jules et Jim is coming along) and some of the most striking usage of color ever seen in a film.

The story of the film is actually quite pointless. We are introduced to an exotic dancer (Karina - today we'd call her a stripper), her boyfriend (Brialy) and his best friend (Belmondo). The dancer wants to have a child. Her boyfriend isn't very keen on this idea, thus leading the woman to approach his best friend to sleep with her. Chaos ensues, fronts vary, and in the end it's all back to where it began, more or less.

This makes it especially hard to point out the many amazing traits of this film - there are enough Godard's with a striking characterization or plot to watch apart from this light comedy. Most of the film has been made up in a matter of minutes. A mess of improvised acts, childish games and immature behavior. Not to mention the songs that could be straight out of any random Hollywood musical. So why bother?

One big reason is Anna Karina. After her rather small involvement in Le Petit Soldat, Godard allows her to fully explore her ambitions here, singing, dancing, goofing around, flirting and being gorgeous all around. It is her charm that carries most of the film, and her voice that shouts "Camera! Lights! Action!" over the titles in the first minute, and her girlish spleens allow the viewer to identify with her in a film mostly comprised of caricatures.

Another reason is Godard's visual style. It's not only the striking use of color and the great cinematography, but also his ability to supply his audience with information on characters and places without explaining them. One example for this is the girls neighbor who seemingly owns the single phone of the house. Every time the girl rings on her door, the neighbor opens just to let another different man (or is it costumer?) get out of her apartment. Some more can be observed in the couple in front of the house that seemingly never stops to make out, or in the run down, curiously empty and gloomy strip local. It's important to note that fellow Nouvelle Vague director Jacques Demy came, some years later, up with his own re-imagination of the musical genre, in which he took the elements provided by Godard and exaggerated them into what can only be summarized as a saccharine dreamscape. Like Demy or not, it's obvious that Godard provided food for thought just how far the musical genre can be stretched, further allowing artists like Baz Luhrman 40 years later to build upon his ideas.

But the main attraction here is Godard's amazing eye for experimentation, which allows him to come up with one striking and insane idea after another. Be it title cards, the aforementioned fourth wall breaking, the actors improvising or bursting into songs, or the wide array of ideas that Godard came up with on the spot. Near the end, the couple refuses to talk to another, lying in bed silently, refusing any kind of communication. Thus, the girl switches on the light, carries the lamp over to a book shelve, picks one up and returns to the bed, to give her boyfriend the book, insulting him through its title. The scene continues with each picking up a different book, the two characters communication by hurling books at each other.

Une Femme est une Femme is the first film where Godard finds his own language, which he went on to apply with every future film over the course of at least the next ten years. It is easy to watch and very entertaining, without using any of its artistic merit. It's one of those rare examples where an artist achieves to both woe his audience with his artistic vision and to entertain them. The film was - of course - highly successful, and is a stepping stone of Godard's career, which allowed him to continue with his cinematic experimentation in his next film, which once again would be a turn of 180 degrees in theme and style, and allow Karina to further proof that she was one of the most exciting actresses of her generation.

FINAL VERDICT: 9/10 - amazing, has to be seen!

Jean Luc Godard - Le Petit Soldat

For three years, Le Petit Soldat didn't see the light of day. shot in switzerland right after A Bout de Souffle was premiered, the film was banned upon inspection of the ministry of culture, apparently due to a number of violent torture scenes.

It's not the follow up to A Bout de Souffle that Godard's growing fanbase had anticipated, that is for sure. Finally released in 1963, it can only be speculated what Godard's career would have looked like if this would have been released as his second feature, instead of the colorful and romantic musical comedy Une Femme est une Femme. Le Petit Soldat is bleak, political, demanding, intelligent and disturbing, and deals with questions about political intentions and their consequences as much as with film theory. It is shot on faded black and white film, and even though the cinematography is highly aestheticized, the film is nowhere near the beauty of A Bout de Souffle, and rather aims for a cinéma verité look.

It's also notable that this was the first film of Godard featuring his future wife, Anna Karina, who became his actress of choice and muse. It's also highly debatable what would have happened with Godard - the artist - if he wouldn't have cast her in Le Petit Soldat. As little as her role here is, she radiates with charisma and charm.

Our protagonist is a young french man: Bruno - 26 years old, a deserter of the algerian war who has fled to switzerland and works as an agent of the french government. At times even as an assassin. In flashbacks, which can hardly be discerned from the main narrative, the relationship of him and Karina's character is introduced: she, the girlfriend of a friend, asks the young man, who is a photographer and art-conoisseur, to take her picture. Upon agreeing, he is contacted by two agents, who force him to agree to assassinate a leftist activist that is working with algerian intelligence. Even though Bruno is suspected to work as a double agent he refuses, which leads the agents to plot an arrest warrant. Either the young man agrees to kill the target, or he is delivered to france by the police, where he will be charged for deserting his unit. But any attempt to assassinate the target fail, until Bruno is captured suddenly by arab intelligence, brought to an apartment and tortured.

Godard's focus in the main storyline lies with the lack of difference in the means of either side. Bruno himself is exploited both by the french and arab side, which use him for their means and care little for his own personal or political agenda. Even though the images of torture themselves are disturbing and repelling, the message that both sides are essentially the same and only differing in their political point of view (Bruno even mentions at some point that when the right gain power they reign like the left, and the left the other way around) was likely to be the true cause of the ban. In the end, in showing that the actions taken by both groups are more important than their agenda, Godard came up with a much dangerous message than any visualization of torture could be.

But apart from the political themes, the film also deals with art and cinema. During the photo shoot, Bruno talks a lot about his intention of photographing - how he thinks a photo has to capture the soul of the person in the picture, and that he refers to a photography as the truth (and continues that cinema is 24 truths per second - an often quoted statement). Throughout the film, he compares various things to paintings ("The sky looks like a Klee." "Her eyes were Velasquez grey.") and at some point even states he would like to open an art gallery. In those moments, Bruno is more than just a deserter or assassin - we see him as a young man of intellect with ambitions and dreams, who is caught in a web of international intrigue. During the last act, he even goes as far as to comment on the state of youth in politics. "Each generation had their revolution, but what have we?" This monologue shows Godard's lack of hope in politics, which led him to extreme socialism a few years later. From his point of view, the youth of the early 60s was tired and lacked a sense of purpose. Godard was hungry for a revolution (though one of art and intelligence instead of one equipping torture and assassination).

As for our protagonist, the entire affair ends in tragedy, rendering Le Petit Soldat even more bleak than it already is. Obviously, it didn't need a ban to make Godard decide that his next film would be the entire opposite. Le Petit Soldat, as great as it is, could only be followed by something light and optimistic.

Final Verdict: 8.5/10 - Very Good, should be watched

Jean Luc Godard - A Bout de Souffle

In 1960, Pier Paolo Pasolini struggled with his directorial debut, Accattone - the story of a troubled roman pimp. He had shot some test material, which reportedly looked terrible, and wasn't able to formulate his thoughts into a coherent story. Thus, his friend Bernardo Bertolucci, recommended to Pasolini to go see A Bout de Souffle. Pasolini went, together with his friends - a wild mix of crooks, rent boys, pickpockets, all living on the streets, most teenagers, many of them having had affairs with Pasolini.

A few days later, Pasolini met with Bertolucci, and asked why he had recommended the film to him. Bertolucci answered that he thought it was an accurate depiction of todays youth and small time crooks. Pasolini laughed. "But I went with my friends, who are all gangsters. They laughed at the screen and mocked Belmondo! This isn't about gangster - it's about spoilt brats having nothing to do, boring the audience with their talk."

Upon inspection of A Bout de Souffle, two things are important to remember: one is that the film was written by fellow nouvelle vague director Francoise Truffaut, who went on to write and direct Jules et Jim. Both films share a common trait: their main protagonists are assholes. Dumb assholes, actually. Both Michel (Belmondo) and Catherine in J&J are not very nice, treat everybody around them like shit and only care for themselves. Why exactly Truffaut, who has proven with the Antoine Doinelle series as well as many other great films, seemed to deem it necessary to have unlikeable characters be his protagonists is quite baffling. When we are introduced to Michel - stealing a car, driving through the countryside, killing a policeman, spouting nonsensical banter - he's neither interesting nor charismatic in particular. Thankfully, the vibrant editing and beautiful cinematography distract from this fact. To be honest, A Bout de Souffle may be one of the most beautiful shot films of its era. Bu that doesn't distract from the non-existent plot or character development.

On the run from the police Michel drives to Paris, and in the one iconic shot of the film picks up a young girl (Jean Seberg) who sells the NY Herald Tribune. The two have met before (even if only briefly) and had an affair. Desperate to crash somewhere, Michel (after being rejected by her) breaks into her apartment and tries to convince the girl to sleep with him. What follows is one of the most bland second acts in any Godard film. The next 30 minutes comprise of the two talking about nothing of interest or meaning. While the girl tries to discuss books and music with Michel, he quickly shifts the conversation to sex. It's a weird scene for the audience to observe - here we have a girl, who name drops artists and musicians as if they were street names ("Do you like Faulkner?") and a guy who can only respond in immature jokes which reveal his lack of self-confidence ("Is that a boy you slept with?"). Both have nothing to say, and the girls interest in pop culture seems to stem from a lack of character than an actual understanding of or interest in the matter.

Indeed, Godard went on to further undermine the youth of the 60's in his future films. Both Masculin, Féminin and La Chinoise further proceed to depict the french youth as a pack of spoiled brats that spout political and ideological nonsense in the firm believe that their intellectual emptiness was actually a political manifest (in this, Godard was very close to Pasolini's opinion about the youth of the 60s, but more on that with Masculin, Feminin).

Here, however, Godard doesn't seem to criticize rather than glorify this believe system. And so, while both protagonists may look splendid lying in bed, their characterization takes a step back. We further get to know that Michel is an asshole, and that the girl has an interest in journalism (which leads to a scene which could be seen as a critique of the intellectual emptiness denounced later on in Godard's work: during an interview with a writer, the journalists fight almost physical over the literary star, shouting random questions at him, which he often negates and answers with sarcasm or tongue-in-cheek responses). But else, those two pretty puppets are empty and devoid of anything of interest. They are - as Holden Caulfield would put it - phony's. Poseurs of the highest order.

Of course this may be where the film did indeed succeed. The 1950s provided a large amount of cinematic heroes that had to stand in for a good cause or had meaningful and tragic situations to cope with. And even though most films of the 50s had the typical Hollywood Happy End, the road to happiness was rocky and littered with tears and melodrama. So protagonists who had nothing to do but sit around and talk about... well, nothing in particular, with no problematic than those they brought upon themselves, might have been a welcome breath of fresh air. But from todays point of view, the film would work a lot better if the characterization would match the vibrant and stylish photography.

In the end, the resolution comes as meaningless as it is sudden, with both the protagonists and the audience pondering why the characters decided to act the way they did. In one final moment of emotional and characteristic emptiness, Godard breaks every rule he had set up in the 70 previous minutes - maybe to end the film like one of the tragic film noir's of the 40s he adored so much (and paid homage to with many of his works). But the why of it all weighs heavy on the film, and in its closing minutes, this french version of Bonnie and Clyde feels rather like a stylisher, old-school version of Antitrust - just with Paris instead of computers.

But credit where credit is due: Jean Seberg is beautiful and at least fills the little she has to work on with a lot of grace, sex appeal and charm. The soundtrack, comprised of atmospheric jazz songs suits the film and enriches it. Paris may have never looked more appealing (or more like Chicago). And even though I am not the biggest Belmondo fan, he plays the asshole with a lot of dedication (maybe more than he would admit).

But all of these merits can't really help the emotional emptiness of A Bout de Souffle. Luckily, Godard would move on, and manage to portray entertaining and interesting characters and set up a clever and sophisticated plot.

FINAL VERDICT: 6/10 - OK with flaws, worthy a watch.

Jean Luc Godard - introduction

Jean Luc Godard may be both one of the worlds most rewarding and disappointing filmmakers. His work ranges from masterful to utterly terrible, and during the 60s alone, he has dabbled in such varied genres as in war films, musical, sci-fi and political thriller, among others. Always colorful - even if directed in black and white, his films were an unique oddity back when they were conceived, and still stand out today.

However, there is one major problem with his body of work. As enjoyable as some of his films may seem, Godard himself has always tried to push his own intentions into the foreground, resulting in works that seem helmed by a professor of sociology rather than a director, bordering on boring and even wanky excursions on socialism and dadaism.

As curious I was in the beginning, the more cautious I have become with this mans body of work as I further followed his lead. Among the 16 films he directed during the 60s (resulting in a dead end - the two essay-films Le Gai Savoir and Un Film commes lest autres - but not before turning a documentary on the Rolling Stones into a raging and messy political manifest) are some of my favorite films and some which I hope I never have to lay an eye on again.

As I worked my way through these films, many I talked to about his work requested I should review or analyze his films one by one. So after finally finishing all 16 aforementioned works, and with Godard all over the news again (the now 80 year old was awarded with the lifetime achievement academy award as well as others, released his latest feature, Film Socialisme and will have eight highly experimental and divisive films previously not released in germany included in a DVD box-set), I decided to give this a go, and write down my thoughts on his run during the 60s.

But before I start, it is necessary to sum up Godard during that period of time. It is important to note that Godard did not start a filmmaker, but earned his money as a film critic of the popular journal Cahiers du Cinéma, mostly composing reviews not too keen on "classic filmmakers", such as Ingmar Bergman and Henri-Geroges Clouzot. It is of high importance that Godard himself felt frustrated with the filmmakers of his age, requesting a style to match his generation. With hardly any budget, he set out to direct his first short films "on the run" - with hardly a script and equipped only with a camera (mirroring the manifest of the Dogma-movement three decades later). No matter what one might think of Godard's opinion as a critic during that time, this approach has to be applauded, especially in a time in which shooting without a proper studio attached was unthinkable.

Thus, Godard was looking for the language of a generation. And he found it in two slackers.

For A.

Thanks to David K.

--- .-. .--. .... . ..- ...

1.) I'm moving into a new flat!! Yay!!!

2.) I'm currently re-writing "Any Other Day / Jeder Andere Tag". When I wrote the screenplay, I was very influenced by realist filmmakers, such as Michael Haneke and Takeshi Kitano. Reading it now, I found a few flaws - in general, it feels something so detached from my current style (or the style I intended it to have from the beginning) that the script needs to be changes, and whaddayaknow, since I got some time on my hands, I decided to re-write some parts of it. Can't tell how much it is as of now, but it'll be a lot darker and a lot closer to the psychedelic-noir style I intended the visuals to be.

I'm very proud of some parts though... thinking that the first rough draft/treatment was done three years ago is quite shocking, because it still feels so fresh and exciting. It just needs the right atmosphere and coloring.

3.) Some cool things ahead I don't want to talk about just yet. Ha.

five eleven

The soundtrack for ABORT is finished!! Yes!!! Hooray!! And I'm terrified how great it is. Expect to see the film VERY SOON near you!!!

Apart from this, it's rather looking dire outside. It's a sea of yellow leaves on a dark grey sky - the sun hasn't shone for days, there's storms at night, and I seriously considered to go out and do an improvised short of two teenagers who live in a post-apocalyptic world, in which their parents called one of the Old Ones. No sun for weeks and 98% of the population gone, the kids have to swallow big red pills to stay healthy, now and then need to cover their faces behind masks in case one of the Old Ones walks/rumbles by and have pretty much nothing to do all day long... not sure yet if it's a good idea or is suited for a fun short, and I guess it's up to the people I'll ask if they participate if it is.

Apart from that, here's some more great stuff I've been checking out recently that I find to be quite inspiring.

Think I don't have to say anything to introduce Rosey. Perfect album. Buy it.

If there's something that screams instant fun to me, it's scene kids in comics (or film, I'm looking at you, KABOOM), and Suburban Glamour is pretty much what makes scene kids great. Imagine two teenagers who're living in the middle of nowhere, obsessed with pop culture and music, as realistic as they are ridiculous - there's not much apart of occasional sex, drugs, school and nagging parents, until our heroine finds out she's sort of in the middle of a faerie war. It's hilarious, and by the co-creator and penciler of Phonogram, which you hopefully have read by now. The book's also cheap as hell, you can get it for 7 Euros on amazon. Not bad at all!

Inspiration and True Blood

3 things to make my day:

Doing some coloring

Listening to the new Eno

Saying "Faboost" a lot

... . .... -. ... ..- -.-. .... -

FFF Review: RUBBER

Surrealism has come a long way, slipping into the obscure, hiding in the form of third class horror films in the lower cases on the shelves of rentals, residing on hardly frequented websites as fainted VHS copies or occasionally making an appearance as a supporting genre in films by arthouse directors such as David Lynch. There hasn't been a mainstream film that could be attributed a work of a surrealist in decades. Maybe there's never really been one to begin with... up until now.

Up until Quentin Dupieux, aka. Mr. Oizo, took up directing and made RUBBER. A film about a tire who can kill due to his... powers. And falls in love with a girl. And is chased by the police.

To tell you anything else about the plot would be to spoil the movie and the experience of watching it. If you intend to watch RUBBER, then do so with an open mind and without a clue what it is about, apart from including a killer tire as the protagonist. Because, most of all, RUBBER is a film about filmmaking. A film about nonsense, a film about the poetry of sheer silliness and about the surreal. A film about clichés, both of films and of life.

RUBBER could also have been labeled UN CHIEN ANDALOU 2. To be honest, if it would have been, it would have only improved its grandeur, because most of all, the film does introduce us Quentin Dupieux as one of the greatest artists of our age, placing him next to Artaud or Bunuel.

So if you watch RUBBER, do so in a cinema - the visuals are stunning. Take some friends and alcohol along, and prepare to laugh a lot!!! As the closer of this years Fantasy Filmfest, RUBBER allowed its audience to gaze one last time at the grandeur that is filmmaking aside the norm, aside of such boring productions like "The Sorcerers Apprentice" or "The Forgotten". Aside of everything logic and sane.

And thus, I leave the filmfest with one big question in my mind - to quote the film I have just seen:

"Why does the guy from Roman Polanski's THE PIANIST have to hide and live like a bum if he can play the piano so well?"

You think you know the answer? Oh, you have no clue...

Rating - 9.5/10

FFF Review: THE SILENT HOUSE

In my last review, I ranted a bit about the problem of novelty in the horror-film genre. Well, consider the film I saw right after CAPTIFS to completely blow my prejudices away. THE SILENT HOUSE, this quiet and only secretly hyped ghost-house film from Uruguay (!!) is everything you can wish from a horror film and more.

Get this: THE SILENT HOUSE was shot in one single take, without any cuts!! From beginning to end, there is no pause. It's all one long shot!!

The film opens as a girl and her father approach a run down house. Why there are here is a unknown, a second man reveals that they will do work in the house, but what kind that is remains a mystery to us. So the second man leaves as father and daughter get inside the house and try to take a nap. However, the daughter is woken up by some strange noises from upstairs, and wakes her father. The old man tries to calm her down and then goes upstairs to take a look. The daughter stares at the ceiling in horror, as all she hears is her fathers scream and a loud thud.

THE SILENT HOUSE manages to convey the sense of dread and doom as the girl further searches the house for her father or for clues as to what is taking place around her. With minimal dialogue (and no subtitles, as those ran 20 seconds before their actual position in the film, causing the entire audience to ignore them), the film manages to suck us into the house - there are no cuts, no moment of rest or of re-assurance that all will be well - it's one long shot of creepy situation after creepy situations, with dozens of jumps and plenty of opportunities to calm down scared girls.

THE SILENT HOUSE is a masterpiece in its own right that will surely receive every bit of hype it has deserved. One of the most unique and atmospheric horror films in years, it has to be seen to be believed.

Rating - 9/10

FFF Review: CAPTIFS

It's hard for French horror these days. Sure, they get a lot of funding, some of the best actors and technicians in the country and a wide release with good promotion. But if we leave those technical achievements aside, almost every film that came out after MARTYRS looked and felt like a bit of a let down. Maybe that is due to the quality of films like ILS, MARTYRS, FRONTIERS and INSIDE, but maybe it's also due to the one big problem the horror genre has suffered from for decades now: that of expectations.

A horror audience knows all great horror films of the last few years - at least those that are considered the recent classics. Hence, there are only two ways left to go - either you make a great film out of a plot constructed around clichés and well known genre-moments, or you come up with something completely new (you can also come up with something old and present it in a way it's never been presented before). CAPTIFS - or CAGED - settles for the former.

So here's our plot: a few nice doctors in the the Kosovo try to get from point a to point b. On the way, they are ambushed and taken into captivity. They try to figure out why the are held captive, until the scheme of the the kidnappers is unveiled. The rest of the film pretty much uses the same plot devices like most of those genre films (one in particular I don't want to spoil). So yeah, if you've seen this kind of film, you know what's coming.

However, CAPTIFS is quite well made. The highlights of the film are the first three minutes as well as a dream sequence, that prove that director Yann Gozlan is better at generating suspense than go for mindless horror territory that others have tread before him. If this is one of your first films of this kind, you will surely be amazed, due to the great actors, great cinematography and suspense in some scenes, but the film does leave a bit to be desired. However, for the aforementioned qualities of the film, it still holds up pretty well.

Rating - 7.5/10

FFF Review: AMER

Like me, you'll be staring at those pictures here right now. That looks cool, doesn't it? Somehow, this would have been my summary for AMER, but I feel obliged to say some more about the film than just post pictures out of it.

AMER is most of all an homage to the Giallo-genre. If you have no idea what a Giallo is, just follow this link. If you do know what a Giallo is, you might be drooling all over your keyboard right now. But AMER is not a straight Giallo - it also includes elements of avant-garde cinema, reminiscent of the works of Kenneth Anger, Luis Bunuel's UN CHIEN ANDALOU or Alejandro Jodorowsky's EL TOPO. Most of all, it is a coming of age drama, and a film about sexuality.

Amer is the brainchild of two belgian artists: Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani. The film is loosely cut into three acts: the first is centered on Anna as a little girl and both looks and feels very much like Dario Argento's classic gothic horror film SUSPIRIA, including some supernatural elements.

The second act concerns Anna as a teenager, rather resembling Lucio Fulci's early Giallo, such as LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN, than SUSPIRIA. Less colorful than the previous part, but with a great original 60s/70s soundtrack, this was my favorite part of the film. We really see the world through the eyes of a teenage girl, and feel what she feels.

The third act concerns Anna as a woman, inheriting the house she grew up in as a child. This one feels a lot like Argento's PROFONDO ROSSO, and is the act that is closest to the straight Giallo genre. This was in my book the weakest part - it still wasn't bad, but it was overtly cryptical and came quote out of nowhere. I'm not really sure if this is in synch with the other two parts, as it shows a side of Anna that has been obscured for the viewer and that isn't thoroughly explained.

Amer does belong on the big screen, even though it isn't a usual film. It follows nothing but its own rules, as the directors try to make us see and feel what Anna experiences. Close ups, silent sounds and subjective shots with mostly no dialogue set the atmosphere, and boy, is it a gorgeous atmosphere.

In the end however, the film leaves a bit to be desired. The ending is quite strange (as is the entire third act), and even though it's all quite easy to analyze and to understand, the background to the world of Anna is never fully supplied, questioning what else it is this woman has experienced in her life. We know her experiences - but we don't know her story.

But maybe it is this elusive plot that creates the magic of AMER, one of the most unique and thrilling films in recent years. I will re-watch this film as soon as I can, because I can see myself appreciating it a lot more the second time around, focusing a bit more on analytical subtext - but even without a second viewing, I am sure that this is a cult film in the making, pleasing both arthouse and horror fans!! There's nothing like it - really!!

Rating - 8.5/10

FFF Review: OUTRAGE

After 10 years of poetic arthouse lyricism (DOLLS), blind swordfighters (ZATOICHI) and a trilogy of self-demontage-comedies, Takeshi Kitano is back at the genre he loves and helped to re-create - the yakuza film!

With films like HANA-BI, BROTHER, SONATINE and BOILING POINT, Kitano can be billed the master of the japanese crime-drama. All of these films are precise, sensual portraits of men closer to death than life. Kitano once reported that out of the gang that he was a member of as a teenager, only 8 of the 10 are still alive. Maybe it is a cynical life view, maybe it's just realistic, but Kitano knows that almost no gangster will end up on the top, and those that do stand on the dead bodies of their former friends.

Hence OUTRAGE is a bitter and realistic story: because the "chairman" doesn't like an underboss, he asks another underboss to start a fight with him - for no apparent reason. Even though the two are friends, the gangster agrees, and what starts out as a small fight soon becomes a blood feud with dead bodies, dismembered fingers and drilled teeth everywhere. The various gangsters all see the downfall of their direct opponent as a chance to rise to the top, and so they quickly start to scheme who could be erased by whom, and who could be set up against which foe.

Even though the film doesn't add anything new to the genre, there's a lot of substance and entertainment in OUTRAGE. However, Kitano's newest feature is by far not as sensual or playful as his earlier film (maybe that is an attribute of the previous trilogy of hysterical comedy films), but the bleak realism of OUTRAGE never fails to entertain. In the end, the film might be another stepping stone to something else, something bigger and more glorious, but as of now, it proves that Kitano is still one of the best directors worldwide.

Rating - 9/10