Quick Movies of the Week

A quick look at some movies I watched this week:

Dodes'ka-den - Kurosawa's first color film. I could not finish it and I think it is the first time I have not been able to finish a Kurosawa movie. The use of color is kind of nice to look at, but not enough to overlook all the other problems. The story is a vignette of different characters living in a slum with a variety of problems. The character and story development is not very good and it just feels like a jumble. 2/5

Stray Dog - Hey it was pretty good. 3.5/5

Honey and Clover(film) - A nice break. 3/5

A Story of Floating Weeds - Really enjoyable. I have not watched many silent films, let alone silent Ozu films. The story is about an traveling theater troupe stopping a town where the troupe leader has a mistress and a 20-21 year old son (who is unaware that said troupe leader is his father). Anyways, young love, jealousy of current mistress etc. follows. I think Ozu's style of filming (often called tatami-level) fits silent films very well. 4.5/5

Fear and Trembling - This is actually a reviewing. This is a French film about a Belgian woman born in Japan but spends a good part of her adolescent life in Belgium where her parents are from. She returns to Japan to work as a translator, but instead her job often appears to be discovering how to navigate the Japanese business culture the hard way. There are some problematic and overly-dramatic moments but overall its a good watch. 4/5