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On the subject of current cinema, Japanese artist Takeshi "Beat" Kitano says: "None of it shocks us anymore. It's like a fireworks show. It gets old fast to be told that they're going up and then seeing them explode. If you don't expect it, a little firecracker can scare you. I think that's the way to do it." Creative, comically deadpan, violent and stirring, Kitano's pictures rank as some of the most inventive and modern in all of world cinema. His newest film is a work of almost incomprehensible potency. Fireworks is pure cinema, pure meditation and pure masterpiece. Kitano, who also wrote, directed and edited the film, stars as Yoshitaka Nishi, a police detective working in the brutal world of hard-boiled cops and yakuza (gangsters). Like the title character in Kitano's Violent Cop, Nishi is an angry man. Fireworks begins with the dark-suited, sunglasses-wearing Nishi staring down two blond punks who are eating lunch on his car. Enraged, he violently makes the two wash his car and proceeds to beat up one boy when he slips on the wet hood. This is only a small sampling of Nishi's fury, and it is an understandable emotion when the tragedies of his life are revealed. His wife, Miyuki (Kayoko Kishimoto), has leukemia. The couple's young daughter has already died. Nishi has been working too much to visit Miyuki in the hospital and he has borrowed money from yakuza, who are hounding him to pay it back. During a stakeout, Nishi's partner, Horibe (Ren Osugi), convinces him to visit Miyuki. Meanwhile, Horibe is shot by a yakuza. He lives, but he's paralyzed. Nishi learns of his partner's accident while receiving the news that Miyuki's leukemia is terminal and she should spend her remaining days at home. Nishi and the other stakeout cops, Nakamura (Susumu Terajima) and Tanaka (Makoto Ashikawa), then go after Horibe's assailant in an underground mall. All of this action, a moment that occurred in seconds, is true to Kitano's style and not immediately connected to the plot. We are not sure what has actually occurred for a good half of the movie; we only really know that Horibe is a depressed cripple who stares out to sea, contemplating suicide, and that Nishi carries much existential angst on his tightly held shoulders. The picture returns to the scene via flashbacks that brilliantly build on each other into a meticulous arrangement of Nishi's mind-set. But what is his mind thinking? We know he cares for Horibe. After desperately suggesting that Horibe should take up painting, Nishi sends him a paint set and beret while he recuperates from a suicide attempt. He doesn't anticipate the effect this will have on Horibe, who, in a gorgeous sequence, begins painting strange pictures of animals with flowers for their heads. Nishi also adores his wife--enough to leave the force and rob a bank in order to pay for their vacation. The two are displayed in sweet vignettes where Nishi brings her strawberry shortcake and takes her to Mount Fugi and the beach, where they play with a girl and her kite. But during this time, Nishi stabs a man's eye out with a chopstick, stares blankly while a yakuza puts a gun to his head, and beats the shit out of a nerdy man who makes fun of his wife putting water in a jar of dead flowers. His wife mutely watches, accepting her husband's vigilance. By omitting the use of traditional Western storytelling, where we know when to weep for those less fortunate; clichéd action sequences designed to leave the crowd cheering; and blow-hard obviousness that is supposed to make us think, Kitano creates a spare picture full of meaning. This gifted director manages to use nearly every genre of cinema in his tight action-crime-drama: Douglas Sirk-like obsessive love, where an occasional piece of sweeping, melodramatic music permeates the scene; darkly absurd, Beckettesque humor; breathtaking location shots that would impress David Lean; horrifyingly real violence like that in the cinema of the '70s; and the cool detachment of Hong Kong action cinema. Kitano doesn't steal from these genres, rather he is able to conjure up the apex of these examples in nearly every scene of Fireworks. Kitano also conjures up nearly every emotion in his stony, Harvey Keitel-like visage. Though he can viciously kill a car load of thugs and walk away to his wife resting in their vacation retreat, his unfazed face offers myriad questions. Is he a psychopath, a saint, a hero or just frozen? We will never know. That is the genius of Kitano. |
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