Dolls by Takeshi Kitano

Category: Non-English

Such a huge departure from watching Bergman last week, this is all so colorful! Exploring emotions has always been a forte of sorts of Asian cinema. Japanese director - Takeshi Kitano in one of his rare instances explores humanity and the feelings involved in it. Known for his Yakuza style films Kitano's effort is greatly helped by Katsumi Yanagishima, who might not be the best cinematographer around but he manages to lift this film considerably.

Dolls sets the mood for the film with a performance puppet theatre or Bunraku as it's also known as. With that in mind we explore the lives of 3 couples - The first are torn apart by the boys parents and somehow are the common thread throughout the film. The second couple features a Yakuza boss who is shown to be quite ruthless until he realizes his time is at end and he wants to make peace with the girl he left years back. The final one follows the love of an avid fan for a Japanese Pop singer, who after getting disfigured retreats from the spotlight. The fan in response refuses to see the world...

The movie doesn't really end and as usual as it is with films today the movie ends on a very obscure note with no definite ending. The costumes are something which have been the talk of the film. The couple who are "bound" to each other do a lot of costume changing and that symbolism is really too obvious. He could have made such a massive impact had he really analysed his own close ups, really that's depressing - Kitano has a real winner if he had worked on his camera angles irony being that in some situations the cinematography stands out.

Recommendation level: 3/5 - It's a good effort but once again nothing spectacular! If you want to claim Asian Cinema brownie points to impress people this is one for the fakers of World Cinema. Still, it has some moments and some of its concepts click.