When naming this as one of his top ten movies, Michael Mann simply stated, "For its incredible opening scenes alone." And I couldn't agree with him more; the exceptional cinematography and staging work are on another level, so striking in their simplicity. The way the entire group of boisterous gamblers is strewn around the room, gathered around this white sheet in the room that's big enough for them to fit, you can't help but feel claustrophobic. The lighting work here, especially the use of shadow, is mesmerizing. It successfully combines elements of film noir with those of psychological drama, creating an atmosphere in which the audience can't help but feel trapped alongside the protagonists in a world in which everything,…

It's undeniable that this material reeks of style and tone and maybe an opitomy of cool that you wish to attain but I also think it glides over story elements to achieve this and controls it focus on Muraki(Ryō Ikebe) just out of prison being fascinated on this gambling woman named Saeko(Mariko Kaga) who really has a death sentence to feel all of life.
I really feel that both have the same desire but come at the end goal in different ways with his attraction to her not being one of lust but intrigue and possibly soulful kinsmanship. We also get some gorgeous black and white shots of rainy streets and I love the headlights turning off that make him…

Much of noir is about symbols — symbols and moods. Wet streets and dark nights; hungry women and malleable men. The march of fate; the desperation of the helpless. It's about the way men wear hats, and the way they look at women in black dresses, whose shoulders glow in dim light. And it's about the inevitability of death, and the pointlessness of faith.

Masahiro Shinoda's Pale Flower is very much shaped by this mold, a story of two people gliding inexorably (contentedly; eagerly) toward their deaths, and the half-hearted, incomplete way they connect. They aren't really tied to one another, they're both just bored in the same way, and see the other as either a companion in listlessness, or…

A film that on its surface has that endlessly cool posture of noir. Its aesthetics are endlessly rich and fascinating. The pulsating score. Characters wearing sunglasses at night. Smoke elegantly billowing toward ceilings. The soundscape of heated gambling. Characters curse, bleed, drink, smoke, gamble, kill. But most importantly they yearn. This is a film that is essentially about incredibly lonely people doing what they can to feel and capture joy. But they do so in ways that ensure their own ruin.

Pale Flower is a reminder that sometimes all I need to really deep down dig a film are impeccable vibes, piquant characterization powered by intelligent performances, a commitment to cool, and a vibrant understanding of loneliness within a cityscape.…

تأخرت عليكم بالمراجعات الفترة الأخيرة لكن هاي المراجعة أخذت مني وقت أكثر من المعتاد كل ما كنت أعتقد أني فهمت الفيلم أكتشف طبقة جديدة تستحق التأمل ولهذا حاولت أعطيه حقه قدر الإمكان
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Pale Flower مو فيلم جريمة ولا فيلم عصابات ولا
حتى قصة حب هو فيلم عن الفراغ
​من أول دقيقة يضعك أمام عالم فقد ألوانه عالم يعيش فيه أشخاص ما عادوا يبحثون عن المال أو النجاح أو حتى السعادة كل ما يبحثون عنه هو الشعور

​البطل يخرج من السجن وكأنه يخرج من حياة إلى حياة أخرى لكن المشكلة أن الحياة الجديدة لا تختلف كثيرًا عن القديمة كل شيء يبدو بلا طعم بلا معنى وكأن العالم استهلك كل قدرته على الإدهاش
​هنا تظهر المقامرة لكنها ليست مجرد لعبة المقامرة…

Nothing changes. Times passes, old faces are replaced by new ones; bets are laid, money is exchanged, luck switches hands, but nothing changes. The streets stay soaked with the same rain; the same cards are turned over, over and over again. It’s a cycle. It never changes. There are horses to be raced—more money to be lost and made. Same old same. Then, up out of the crowded streets through crepuscular corridors buds a flower. Unwavering in graceful mystique and beauty, the flower tries to anchor its roots among the shadows of this cyclical world, but a flower can’t bloom underground. Many have come before me and many shall come again, attempting to restart here anew, but only this wicked game…

No Nonsense November #2

I wonder how much Shinoda and people like Takeshi Kitano know about yakuza. Is there any connection to real life? Likewise in America. How exactly did crime become one of the dominant metaphors or languages of film? It feels like it stretches back all the way to expressionism. With how noir emerged in the cities and the shadows of German expressionist direction. Maybe it's the cities.

I always take it as a language of revolt. If you consider that -- even when put together by companies like Shochiku or the studios in America -- cinema is something of an outlaw profession. It's a way of rebelling against life. There must -- I think to myself --…