On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema within the streaming age.
First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight film decide — one thing extraordinary from any age of movie that deserves our memorializing.
Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as skilled by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s advice.
The Pitch: Is This Present from the Fuck Bombers the Best Film Ever Made?
One dramatic query performs out twice in Sion Sono’s gleeful, blood-soaked, meta-masterpiece “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?” As a ragtag group of novice filmmakers often called the Fuck Bombers pursues their earnest quest — to realize all-time cinematic superiority by capturing the actual violence of a yakuza battle — each slice of pores and skin and splice of footage calls for to know: Is this the best film ever made?
In brief, not fairly.
As a matter of craft, Sono’s filmography is definitely topped by the four-hour triumph that’s “Love Publicity.” And even measured in opposition to different hypothetical snuff movies, the in-universe “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?” most likely isn’t taking dwelling any of the Oscars awarded at Cannes (as one character’s absurdly excellent t-shirt implies). But it surely’s the continuous surprises, visceral satisfaction, and Sono’s enthusiasm for each movie and style that may make you’re feeling as if the reply ought to be an emphatic, empirical sure.
That is the type of film that places a smile in your face from minute one, and challenges you to save lots of your reward till after the heads and credit roll. That is the type of film you’ll forgive for explicitly and profusely praising 35mm — solely to be shot digitally with a grainy film-ish filter and glossy, further splashes of faux blood added in submit. “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?” is the type of film that reminds you why folks such as you and filmmakers like Sono love the flicks, even because it quivers beneath the burden of really being one of many greats.
Sono chilly opens with a zippy toothpaste industrial, as carried out by a 10-year-old future yakuza princess Mitsuko (Nanoka Hara/Fumi Nikaidô), who’s actually knee-deep in blood by the tip of the primary act. The jingle is retrofitted to resemble the menacing sting of the “Twisted Nerve” theme in “Kill Invoice,” and repeated sufficient occasions even viewers who don’t communicate Japanese could discover themselves making an attempt the lyrics. The Tarantino comparisons don’t cease there, with yakuza boss Muto (precise “Kill Invoice” actor Jun Kunimura) and Mitsuko finishing up a revenge plot on behalf of spouse/mom Shizue (Tomochika) that’s evocative of The Bride’s decade-plus quest. To not point out, the Fuck Bombers’ star and would-be “Japanese Bruce Lee” Sasaki (Tak Sakaguchi) sports activities a yellow tracksuit with black stripes.
However the director character Hirata’s (Hiroki Hasegawa) adorably unhinged movie bro purity and Sono’s singular, uncompromising weirdness — what different movie inexplicably forces one in every of its fundamental characters into curler skates for each scene? — elevates “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?” into one thing far larger than a extra genuine “Kill Invoice.” Evocative of Sono’s personal Tremendous 8-fueled beginnings and filled with nods to midnight films passed by, this undersung 2013 homage to martial arts masters and grindhouse thrills is transgressive due to its sincerity. Sono delivers as a lot, if no more, gore and glory, with a fraction of a fraction of Tarantino’s price range and a twist ending that places even “As soon as Upon a Time in Hollywood…” to disgrace. A greater comparability could be Shin’ichirō Ueda’s equally meta “One Reduce of the Useless”: an ideal alternative if you happen to’re in search of a dismemberment-heavy double characteristic match for the movie gods. —AF
The Aftermath: Actuality Is Going to Lose
Whenever you watch a midnight film, the solar by no means has to rise if you happen to don’t need it to. There’s already far an excessive amount of typical Hollywood fare that ends with its hero getting over their delusions and adapting to actuality. However after darkish, you may skip the expansion altogether and take premises constructed on madness to their logical conclusions.
“We’re in actuality and so they’re within the fantastical,” rival yakuza boss Ikegami (Tsutsumi Shinichi) remarks when he realizes Muto and Hirata are filming their choreographed assaults on him. “Actuality goes to lose.”
Even within the context of a fantasy sequence, his realization that his troopers are ill-prepared to struggle in a film that they by no means acquired scripts for is a clever one. But it surely’s additionally a distillation of the “holy shit films rule!” ethos that powers a lot of “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?”
Anybody who loves cinema sufficient to hunt out oddities like this movie (or this column, for that matter) can relate to the Fuck Bombers’ idealistic insistence that nice films are the issues that may save us. However whereas a tamer movie would possibly present the merciless exterior world bending Hirata’s optimistic outlook in the direction of actuality, Sono makes the far more entertaining alternative of bending actuality to his worldview.
The brilliance of this film lies in its comically honest dedication to the concept making good films is a crucial step within the struggle between good and evil. Gaffers and growth operators are choreographed with all of the intricacy of martial artists. Sworn yakuza enemies pause their acts of brutality to regulate the lighting. And we by no means query the logic of risking life and limb for the sake of getting the take. All of us need to die someway — and you possibly can do lots worse than getting beheaded whereas giving a peace signal to your arch nemesis as he hypes up your daughter’s martial arts expertise.
Positive, the climax sequence produces extra severed limbs than a sawmill that simply launched a summer time internship program — however it by no means appears gratuitous as a result of we’re able to comply with the Fuck Bombers via the gates of Hell. Whereas I can’t legally suggest that our younger readers go sprinting right into a line of chainsaws in pursuit of the proper shot, “loss of life by sensible results” is a becoming finish for these glorified comedian e book characters who pledged their loyalty to the reason for motion cinema. Whenever you imagine in one thing that’s this superior, who wants actuality? —CZ
These courageous sufficient to affix in on the enjoyable can stream “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?” on Peacock.
IndieWire After Darkish publishes midnight film suggestions at 11:59pm ET each Friday. Or, you already know, a minimum of till somebody will get sucked right into a wormhole or one thing. Take a look at final week’s decide here.
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