| Product: |
Happiness of the Katakuris (DVD) |
| Date: |
26.05.04 (86 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Heart-warming and fun,, a charming musical with, laughter and sadness
Disadvantages: Too many extras, that tend to overwhelm me, not entertain me
If you?re into ?weird? cinema then you have to love the Japanese. Their film industry regularly throws out deranged and brilliant films that make your average Hollywood blockbuster look weak by comparison. From creepy horrors like Ring and Uzumaki to the uncategorisable strangeness of Battle Royale or Suicide Circle, Japanese weirdo films have been a source of astonishment and delight to me for the last few years.
In the Japanese weird film pantheon, one director towers head and shoulders above the rest. Takashi Miike is probably best known in Britain for the slow-moving (and rather disappointing) Audition, which was a hit on the art-house circuit a few years back. His more typical (and better) films are usually entertaining, ultra-violent Yakuza movies like Fudoh, the Dead or Alive trilogy or Ichi the Killer. (The latter incurred heavy cuts from the BBFC - try and see it uncut of you can, although be warned that it?s very strong stuff which many will find offensive.) His best film is Visitor Q, a twisted and absolutely hilarious family melodrama featuring incest, violence, drug-abuse, necrophilia and more on-screen lactation than you can shake a stick at. Since there?s absolutely no chance of that ever being released in this country, I?m going to review his second best film instead.
Happiness of the Katakuris is narrated by a cute little girl. She lives in a guesthouse in a remote rural location. Her grandparents, having lost their jobs, bought the guesthouse and renovated it, hoping to find true happiness away from the hustle and bustle of city life. They also see it as an opportunity to bring their dysfunctional family together, and so have dragged along their son (a cynical ex-con) and daughter (an incurable romantic who falls in love far too easily), along with their little granddaugh
ter, to help them run it. The family is completed by a cantankerous great-grandfather, and a dog. Problem is, the family (the Katakuris) aren?t getting any business. The location is too remote. A new road may be built, which would bring more business their way, but they somehow have to make ends meet until it is.
When they finally manage to get a paying guest for the first time, he commits suicide in his room. Worried about bad publicity, the family buries him nearby, not telling anyone. All seems well. But then their next guest dies too. And their next. And so on. Increasingly desperate, the Katakuris keep burying their dead guests, while dealing with inquisitive policemen, sleazy conmen and various other unlikely intrusions. Needless to say, all this adversity helps bring them together as a family.
This is a delightful film. It?s very funny, in a black kind of a way. It?s a bit like that episode of Fawlty Towers where one of the guests dies, but a bit darker and a bit less slapstick. Unlike Miike?s normal stuff, this isn?t actually violent or disturbing at all. It?s got a 15 certificate, which I think is a first as far as his films go. Katakuris is actually an extremely heart-warming feel-good film, believe it or not, which just happens to be about people dying in a remote guesthouse. It?s a film where a family?s dysfunctional equilibrium is shattered by unusual interlopers from outside, leaving them better off as a result.
None of which even touches on just how strange this film is. It starts off with a very peculiar animation sequence in which weird creatures attack and eat each other (the style of the animation specifically apes the work of Jan Svankmajer). The film, most of which is live action, occasionally switches to animation for sequences that they obviously couldn?t afford to do otherwise (a volcano eruptin
g, for instance). This is certainly not something you see every day, and I love the way that not only has Miike not tried to hide the fact that the film is low-budget, but positively draws attention to it by throwing in these animated excerpts.
But the real reason this film is so great is because it?s a musical. The characters frequently burst into ludicrous song-and-dance routines. I can?t really judge the songs, not being an aficionado of Japanese music, but the dancing is self-consciously awful. None of the cast seems to have any real talent in that area, and what you get is the equivalent of a holiday-camp talent show where everyone?s only had ten minutes to rehearse. Ranging from quite low-key but energetic numbers (the family?s weird disco posturing when they discover the first dead guest) to large scale kitschy dance numbers (as when the daughter falls in love with a dodgy conman), these sequences are incredible. Perhaps the best is when the family tries to convince the little girl that all these dead bodies are nothing to be scared of (helped out by a chorus of dancing zombies). And weirdly, by the end of the film, some of them even manage to bring a lump to the throat. There?s a number right at the end which pays homage to The Sound of Music that I don?t mind telling you brought a manly tear to my eye.
So it?s a musical black comedy about how death brings a family together, and helps them achieve true happiness, with some animation thrown in. It also has a fairly serious message about death and grieving in general, but I?m not sure that really comes across properly. It?s directed very well, although the pace flags every now and then. As a film it?s greater than the sum of its parts, though, so any minor problems don?t matter in the long run.
It?s always difficult to judge the acting in Japanese films, since the language is so different t
o anything I can understand; I?ve no idea how to tell how finely nuanced a vocal performance is. But, rightly or wrongly, I thought all the cast were great, especially Tetsuro Tamba as the great-grandfather, and Kiyoshiro Iwamano as the hilarious conman. Miike frequently uses the same actors in his films, but the only person I recognised in Katakuris was Kenichi Endo, who?s also in Visitor Q and Dead or Alive 2.
There are lots of extras on the DVD. Too many, some might say. The most interesting is probably the half-hour documentary about the making of the film, which mostly consists of footage of the cast rehearsing their dance moves - it?s funny for a while, and obviously everyone making the film had a lot of fun, but it does rather ruin the illusion. There?s also a shorter documentary about the animation, in which we see the animator at work - not all that exciting, really - the end results are great, but watching how it?s done isn?t.
Then there?s the commentary, by Miike and one of the actors (I forget which one). This is a bit weird. They frequently seem to run out of things to say, and a lot of what they do say is kind of irrelevant. I?ve never seen a translation with sub-titles before, and for some reason, even though I never have trouble with sub-titles in a film, here I found it a bit difficult to follow. There are also fairly lengthy interviews with the cast and director (Miike for some reason wears a long blonde wig for this). But between the director?s commentary and the shorter cast interviews in the ?making of? documentary, these replicate quite a lot that we?ve already heard.
There?s a 40-minute interview with Miike himself. This is a generic interview about his career, in which he doesn?t really talk much about Happiness of the Katakuris. It?s quite interesting
, and it?s encouraging to know that he doesn?t want to go to Hollywood. He makes about six films every year, very few of which make it to Western audiences, and it?s nice to hear him talk about his rapid-fire filming methods. He?s very ?cool?, always wearing shades and a hat, talking knowingly of Yakuza hairstyles and things like that. I find him quite irritating, to be honest. Great film-maker, but a bit dull otherwise. (And, as a side note, he seems to be one of those directors who attracts the kind of fans I hate - people who think that being seen as ?alternative? is an end in itself, as if having an interest in ?extreme? culture somehow makes them interesting people. Trust me, if you think that having an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Manson Family, or reading a couple of books about Aleister Crowley, or watching video nasties is an acceptable substitute for actually having a personality, then you need help.)
There?s some text about the film, which again replicates information we?ve already been given, without adding anything new. There are filmographies for Miike and a few of the cast, which I can?t really see the point of. The cinema trailer is good, especially for the translations of the Japanese text ("Fascinating! A compelling musical!"), as is the 20-second Japanese TV trailer. Other than that you get a few trailers for other Miike films that are released by the same company (Tartan). While I?m all in favour of a good selection of extras on a DVD, I do feel that maybe this time they could have left some of them off, as they do rather tend to replicate each other, and take a lot of getting through.
Still, this is a fantastic film, and no amount of ill-considered extras will stop me from recommending it.
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