Dolls (2002)

 Painful and beautiful
Others have already given a plot synopsis, so I'll avoid that here. Let me simply tell you this: The way the stories are woven together pulls you in, the scenes are absolute eye candy, and the actors and actresses are just phenomenal.

This is a movie that I would list among "Requiem for a Dream" and "House of Sand and Fog" - movies that make your heart ache and mind spin, hardly giving you a moment to catch your breath, and yet somehow also captivating you with a beauty beyond description. As is often the case in life, this film continues to give you hope, then mercilessly takes it away, leaving you desolated in a way that movies rarely do - but at the same time, although haunted, you can't help but love what you've just seen. I actually burst into sobs at the end of this film, and immediately wanted to watch it again.

Brilliant, beautiful, and hurts so good. One I'll watch again and again; recommended to anyone who loves Japanese movies of any genre, movies that actually make you feel, and/or eye candy with substance. October 31, 2007

 Beautiful Tragedy
This is a film that haunts. Fantastic cinematography almost overpower the tales of yearning, betrayal and karma. A beautiful score and excellent performances bring it all together. July 16, 2007

 Simply Stunning
I bought this item and before I watched it I tried to explain the plot to a couple people and failed miserably. I began to worry about whether or not this film would be interesting at all. I am a fan of Takeshi Kitano but I heard in so many places that it was very different from his other work.

It started off a little slow, a lot of shots seemed to linger a bit longer than you feel comfortable with. While some people would see this as boring and pointless, I began to realize that this film had something deeper, more innate to it. Just the way the shots were made brought a certain life to the film, something that can't be achieved by words alone.

The film is not about action, or witty dialogue, however it is a film about emotion. I jest that it has a silent protagonist (Matsumoto) since there are actually so few lines spoken by him. Even though there weren't many lines at all, the film focused on character emotion. This can be seen beautifully in Sawako's plight after the ball toy was crushed. Once again it was a shot that lingered, but each time she tried to use it, you could see the sadness in her face, her constant reminder how everything she loves ends up dying. This theme, though never directly said, was so powerful and it made you really feel the emotions of the character.

This film almost makes you lose all hope, it is a very depressing, real film that most people probably wouldn't appreciate. This is not a fairy tale where everyone lives happily ever after, it brings harsh reality to situations and leaves you with an almost empty feeling at the end.

I can safely say that this film has a lot to offer to those willing to take it in. If nothing else appreciate the beauty of the camera shots taken as this is another amazing point of the film. The scenery is nothing short of astounding throughout the film.
This film needs to be taken in and allowed to swell inside for a good while to really understand it, like I said, approach with an open mind and you will not be disappointed; after all, it is a Takeshi Kitano film, and it doesn't fail to deliver. July 6, 2007

 great stuff, redundant execution
There is a lot to admire in Takeshi Kitano's canon of work. The diversity alone should earn him an early Lifetime Achievement Award from SOMEBODY for making it clear that Japanese culture is deep and complex rather than silly and purely imitative. Kitano has provided us with humor in his series _Takeshi's Castle_, which was later revitalized (and redubbed) for the amazing MXC - Most Extreme Elimination Challenge Season One, action and more than a little creepiness as the schoolmaster in Battle Royale, touching and human direction in movies like Brother and A Scene at the Sea and pure, gritty masterwork like Fireworks. Sometimes he crosses boundaries within the same work, and sometimes he'll just show up as a kind of villain (maybe?) in Johnny Mnemonic.

I go through all of this history because I want to be clear that I have the highest respect for Takeshi Kitano, and I think this film has a wonderful base to it, but as a whole product I find it rather wanting and even a little redundant, giving me the willies at the thought that Takeshi Kitano might be falling back on previous success to define some of his latest work, and I think that would be an extreme shame for someone who has been so creative and multifaceted.

_Dolls_ revolves on the metaphor of misery--the sadness that people create in their own lives and the prices they pay with that sadness. The centerpiece is the sad story of Matsumoto and Sawako. These two youngsters plan to get married, but then Matsumoto caves in to pressure from his parents to marry the daughter of his boss. On the day of the wedding, Matsumoto finds out that Sawako tried to kill herself. Matsumoto leaves the wedding to get Sawako out of the hospital, and he leaves everything (his parents, his job, his future) to take Sawako away.

But Sawako is greatly ill from her traumatic experience and is almost child-like, especially in the way she wanders off, so Matsumoto ties them together with a red clothesline, and they become known as the 'bound beggars.' Their wandering lets them encounter others who have their own pain in their lives--an aging yakuza who regrets leaving behind his first girlfriend, a disfigured pop star and her stalker, etc. We watch as they struggle with their lives, which have been made nearly unbearable by their mistakes and decisions. Some may have the capacity to end happily, but all will clearly struggle. Hidetoshi Nishijima and Miho Kanno are quite wonderful as the young couple, and Takeshi Kitano even throws in some comic relief through a wheelchair-bound moocher and his lackey (and even a pair of salarymen who serve as a kind of chorus).

In all, the ideas and the metaphors are tight in this film, but the execution lessens my interest in this. It would almost seem that Kitano learned a kind of laundry list of items to throw in for critical appeal (random slow-mo sequences, alinearity, deep-sounding soundtrack but really just inappropriate for the most part and annoying) and runs through the gamut when out to make an arthouse film. These tricks were already used in films like _Fireworks_ and Kikujiro, and so here they feel a little stale and out of place. Kitano's meditative leads has also been a little played out by now, and so this film gets dragged down by its forced stylism that comes across more as Kitano trying to make sure that it is indeed Kitano behind the camera, just like Quentin Tarantino has to make sure that you know when he's in the director's chair.

This film may get some critical praise from those who are suckers for this kind of stylization, but I have high hopes that Kitano will find his own way to tell his stories quite uniquely with each film and get him that kind of spot that Kurosawa or Scorsese holds.
June 18, 2007

 lost lovers, Japanese style
Matsumoto left his job on his wedding day to return to his true love Sawako, who in despair at his decision to marry another girl (the daughter of his boss) for parental approval tried to kill herself. She failed, and her attempt left her speechless, emotionally vacant, and prone to bizarre behavior like shoplifting. But he devotes himself fully to her, and throughout the film the two lovers reconnect not only literally but also metaphorically when, bound by a red cord around their waists, they wander together as "bound beggars" throughout the four seasons of the year. In a parallel love story, the old man Hiro reflects on how he left his girl for a job when he was as young (the opposite of Matsumoto's choice). He too reconnects since when he left decades earlier his lover promised to wait for him every Saturday with a box lunch. True to her word, Hiro finds her waiting, in the same dress and in the exact same place. In a third story, a famous pop icon Haruna is disfigured in a car accident, and agrees to meet an infatuated groupie, Nukui, who blinded himself out of devotion to her. Tragedy, tenderness, devotion, and brutal murders characterize all three stories. Dolls was an official selection at film festivals in Toronto, London, New York, and Cannes. The visuals in this film are stunning, but I am sure that the cultural subtleties and symbolism are lost on viewers like me who do not understand Japanese culture well enough. In Japanese with English subtitles. January 25, 2007

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