El Hombre Invisible (DrBenway)

A personal favorite of mine. It's dark, earthy, erotic, claustrophobic, eerie, but mostly a grim tale of a trio with little but the basics of human nature to keep them going. It's a harsh film shot with a minimalist set with survival as a key theme to the story, the look being the primary attraction. Dialogue is minimal, as is the percussive jazz soundtrack creating a Bushido-noir.

To judge the women in the film would be hypocritical since the impoverished world they live in has been created by the hierarchy of man and the aftermath of war. Then there's the sexual jealousy between mother and daughter stemmed from self-preservation; the mother may not survive without her and being reminded of her own unfulfilled sexual desires while only growing older. The pace is slow but time is never wasted. More psychological than spiritual horror, Onibaba is like no other film and has proven the test of time with other greats from Kurosawa, Ozu and Mizoguchi.

Fighting Elegy is one of Suzuki's most restrained films, considering the fact that it was released in 1966, a year before he was fired from the Nikkatsu studio for his increasingly outrageous films. He does use some of his better known signatures such as unusual camera angles, editing, and few visual split screens. There are also moments of beauty, particularly some of the final shots. A scenario in which fascism is bred and shared in the growing youth of Japan, Fighting Elegy is not the ideal introduction to director Suzuki's films. Better to start with films such as Tokyo Drifter, Branded To Kill or Youth of the Beast. However, if you're already among the director's fans, I think you'll find this story very engaging.

Jeff Bridges is The Dude, and it's hard to imagine anyone in the role. Someone else would've come off as just a pot-smoking hippie with some funny lines. Roger Deakins, the cinematographer, is a craftsman of unsurpassed skill and an artist with an amazing capacity to transform the mundane (like um, bowling) into something truly beautiful to behold. The plot is an afterthought and is more about the journey than the destination.

Even if you don't know what it all means, even if it's ultimately puzzling and unexplainable, there is a feeling, an emotional response that persists. There is a strange logic to this film. A logic of death, of evolution, of birth. This is the strangest kind of logic that must be felt and seen, instead of pondered.