Ikiru (Akira Kurosawa, 1952)

After learning he is dying, a local bureaucrat (Takashi Shimura) is struck by the pointlessness of his existence.

Searching for something to give his life meaning, he becomes obsessed with a petition that a local community has filed.

Re-energised, our hero turns on the bureaucracy he once upholded.

Will he have the strength to get the project through? Will he have the time? And will it ultimately mean something when he is gone?

A story about finding purpose in life, Ikiru is a fascinating change of pace from what I know of Kurosawa's work.

I had heard of the film’s reputation years ago, but I was always more interested in his chanbara work.

As with the other films I have seen, Ikiru is based around a character affecting the people around him - in this case, the effect is more delayed than the action-focused fare.

We get an omniscient narrator, who sets the stage - placing the ‘protagonist’, as he is labelled, as a seemingly powerless figure.

Shortly after he learns of his terminal diagnosis, our hero tries to change course - first finding himself in company with a drinker at a bar, then anchoring himself to a young woman he works with.

This latter relationship is not a spark for transformation. Our protagonist is almost vampiric, telling the young woman that he is drawn to her youth, and pure joy in life.

Eventually, this disturbs her enough to abandon him. It also breaks what remains of the familial bond with his son, a character who seems more concerned by how this perceived relationship may affect his inheritance. 

In the conventional version of this story, the protagonist would use the idea of the children’s park to ultimately heal his relationships with his family.

But the film is too nuanced for such a pat resolution.

At the point when he has the idea to build the children’s park, and become an active protagonist...

…the film cuts to his funeral.

His last days are then pieced together as flashbacks by his colleagues.

Depressingly, his son vanishes after the funeral.

This man’s life, his legacy, is this park, and the community it will serve.

It is hard not to see this film as a metaphor for postwar Japan: 

An older generation making a final act to pull the country out of ruin.

The movie shifts from what life means to the protagonist, to how other characters feel about him, before placing the ultimate judgement with the audience. 

Not a personal favourite, but it is a powerful film.

The Dirty Dozen (Robert Aldrich, 1967)

A disgraced colonel (Lee Marvin) is tasked with a secret mission to take place before D Day.

He has to recruit a team of soldiers jailed for various crimes, train them into a cohesive unit and send them behind enemy lines to kill everyone at a chateau occupied by the Nazis.

I caught the ending of The Dirty Dozen years ago - if anyone has not seen the movie I will not spoil it, but it is bleak.

That moment stuck with me, but I had no idea what the movie was. It was not until a few years ago when I watched The Dirty Dozen for the first time, that I realised it came from that same movie.

I was planning on writing a review around the time I first watched it, but I did not have enough thoughts to put down about it.

After tearing through a series of movies about squads on a mission, and reacquainting myself with Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly, it felt like I had enough of a feel for this genre to take a crack at The Dirty Dozen.

With this grounding in the genre, it is easier to see just how radical The Dirty Dozen really is.

Structurally, the movie is familiar:

The first two thirds of the film cover the team's training, and the third act covers the mission. 

While it is not quite the same as Paul Verhoeven's work, there is a similarity in how Aldrich is using the pieces of a familiar genre, to both play to and undermine the viewer’s expectations.

Produced at the height of the Vietnam War, the film takes the familiar format of the World War Two adventure film, and undermines its sense of moral certainty - our protagonists are not just criminals, or misunderstood rebels. They include murderers and rapists. 

Unlike other movies of this type, the mission is subordinate, and the goal is simple: they are just supposed to cause as much chaos and death as possible.

It is taking the genre and stripping it down to its most basic function: we are not here to watch our heroes sabotage a massive gun (The Guns of Navarone) or infiltrate a mountain fortress (Where Eagles Dare).

The team is literally just going to kill people.

And in its execution, the mission is where the movie completely moves away from its forebears: Maggott (Telly Savalas) goes AWOL almost immediately, while the Nazis and their guests flee into the basement bunker.

With their targets barricaded below, it looks like the mission has failed - until the remaining members of the Dozen (and the movie) reveal their horrifying final trump card:

They pour gasoline down the bunker’s air vents, followed by explosives. 

Rather than cutting away, Aldrich shows the effects of this action - the camera coolly recording the fire torching people as they scream and dash about.

There is nothing glamorous, no visceral thrill or sense of triumph - just a cold blast of reality as we watch defenceless people burn to death.

Darkly humorous, and filled with great performances (Robert Ryan’s gleefully malicious general is a particular highlight), The Dirty Dozen remains a vital and unsettling take on Hollywood’s obsession with reel and real-life war.

Related

Sahara (1943)

The Last Blitzkrieg (1959)

The Guns of Navarone (1961)

Hell is for Heroes (1962)

The Great Escape (1963)

633 Squadron (1964)

Operation Crossbow (1965)

Battle of the Bulge (1965)

Tobruk (1967)

The Bridge at Remagen (1969)

A Bridge Too Far (1977) 

Force 10 from Navarone (1978)

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OUT NOW: Obsession (Curry Barker, 2025)

Bear (Michael Johnston) has had a crush on his friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette) for years. Too afraid to reveal his feelings, he instead decides on a different route to love - he makes a wish that she will love him more than anyone else in the world.

He gets what he wished for.

Will he live to regret it?

I used to love lo-fi, small-scale genre movies. I think my feelings are starting to change. 

I hit a run of movies last year of genre movies with fun premises where it felt like they left something on the table - Companion and Novocaine were some more high-profile examples 

I remember liking those movies but they felt unfinished, like proof of concepts, or short films.

That is my feeling about Obsession.

I liked how quickly the movie gets into gear, but then I started noticing an airlessness to the characters and the world they exist in.

Before this gets too dour, it has to be said: 

Inde Navarrette is an instant star - a legitimate force of nature that gives this film its pulse.

Her performance - body language and timing - is so disconcerting, it feels like a special effect (there is a deeply unsettling moment toward the end of the movie where she darts out of the corner of the frame like a marionette).  

To its credit, Obsession does not try to explain the wish, or what has happened to Nikki - we get some creepy hints (in one unsettling scene, the ‘real’ Nikki returns at night to plead with Bear to kill her).

Navarrette creates a clear distinction between the characters’ dueling personae, often juggling between them in a single scene.

The possessing entity is a liar, lacking in emotional maturity, or understanding of human behaviour. Navarrette makes this malicious entity feel terrifyingly real. 

Main character Bear is despicable - the film seems to recognise this, but does not have much more use for him. Johnston does his best, but the character has no real growth or change. 

Despite its flaws, I was plugged into this movie - until the film’s close, where it becomes clear the filmmakers have run out of ideas.

Early in the movie, Bear is looking for ways of its predicament. One of the options he is given is to take his own life (the alternative is to act as Nikki’s custodian for the rest of both their lives).

One would expect the film to then throw in another curveball, to send the characters on a different trajectory from what feels inevitable. 

Nope.

This ending felt like a cop-out - and what makes it worse is that the film presents at as a punchline.

If it is meant as such, the set up was too long ago for it to count.

This is why the film ultimately feels like a short, a variation on ‘be careful what you wish for’.

The film does not flesh out its world or characters with enough life to make the journey interesting, or to give pathos to the ending.

We get a minor subplot involving Bear’s relationship with his friend Sarah (Megan Lawless), but this ends up being the set up to a particularly violent set-piece rather than a meaningful arc for our protagonist. 

As a showcase for Navarrette, it is great. And the film’s breakout success is great news for movies, at a time when the commentariat has been despairing about the survival of the film industry.

But as a film in its own right, Obsession is lacking the imagination to match its star’s ferocious energy.

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BITE-SIZED: Croupier (Mike Hodges, 1998)

After taking a job at a local casino, a struggling writer (Clive Owen) becomes involved in a planned robbery that could give him the means to escape to a better life.

Another tale of a cold-blooded man moving through the world,Croupier makes for an interesting double bill with Mike Hodges’ Get Carter.

It is hard not to watch Croupier and think about the rumours of Owen becoming the next James Bond after Brosnan. When a suave, dark-haired Englishman is in a tuxedo at a casino, it is an easy association to make.

But there is little similarity between the characters.

I have never had any strong opinions of Owen. The first time I had heard of him was when he played the titular character in King Arthur. Not a terrible movie, but the character is not written to take advantage of his strengths.

I have seen him in other movies, but this feels like a genuine showcase. What I was struck by is how good he is as an impassive watcher.

The protagonist is an observer - while he works  as a journalist, he enjoys taking on the role of a croupier because it allows him to do what he likes best: watching other people fail.

His girlfriend (Gina McKee) nails him when analysing the character in his novel: He treats his games’ rules as his conscience, and he only moves when he knows he can win.

Ironically, while he is the narrator, Owen shows no control over events. 

And despite showing knowledge of gambling, and his own attraction to it, in all other respects he is an enigma. By the end of the movie, it seems there is nothing worth knowing about him.

Related

Get Carter

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

If you enjoy something I wrote, and want to support my writing, here’s a link for tips!

Why do I write?

When I started this blog (over a decade ago now), I had no set goals or format in mind.

I just wanted to write.

I had started posting reviews and rankings on Facebook notes.

I cannot remember how I ended up on this site, but at first I just used it as a home base.

I wrote a few new pieces, but most of the posts were copied over from Facebook.

For a few years I did not write much of anything.

I was pre-occupied, first with film school, and then a misguided attempt at law school.

This was 2014.

By the end of that year, I had failed law and was looking forward to absolutely nothing.

It was terrifying.

And then, just by luck, I read a Google alert.

I have no idea what key word triggered it, but the link was to an advert asking for freelance writers for a pop culture website.

I put together some samples from my blog and sent them in.

At the time, I did not think much of it. 

I remember going for a walk and stared at the river near my house. I came back home and there was an email from the editor asking for pitches.

I had never thought of myself as a critic.

Ironic, since I had spent almost a decade writing essays on film through high school and University.

I also loved reading film criticism.

I had been buying Empire magazine for about a decade.

And I ranted about movies to whoever was unlucky enough to be in my orbit.

The high I got from that email was so empowering.

For the next two years, I pitched and wrote feature.

A month or so later, a friend asked me if I wanted to review some local theatre shows.

Suddenly, I had these two avenues where I could use my skills.

I had found my own way into writing semi-professionally.

The money was negligible but it did not matter. I had found my lane.

Not everything I pitched was accepted, but that led me back to this blog.

I decided to use the blog as a testing ground for ideas.

It almost became like going to the gym.

If I am not writing something for someone else, I still need to write.

By 2016, my writing had opened another door.

I was able to use my writing as a portfolio to get into journalism school.

THat year was hectic.

Somehow I managed writing articles with my freelance commitments and increased output to this blog.

I was busy and stressed out, but looking back, it was a great time.

At the end of that year, I got a role in communications at a disability support organisation. 

I was on the way up.

And then the US election happened. 

It felt like the bottom fell out.

I have been following politics for most of my life.

I had tracked the increased radicalisation of the GOP through the Obama era.

Trump’s rise - while ridiculous - felt like a logical endpoint for American politics, and rightwing politics overall.

He was being overt about all the things previous Republicans kept quiet about.

It felt - and continues to feel like - we have entered the end-times.

I believe imagination is best served by hope - and mine took a heavy blow in November, 2016.

Ever since that point in time, I have really struggled with maintaining inspiration and drive.

One of the unspoken mandates I have given myself with this blog is that I publish a minimum of ten posts a month.

While this approach can have an effect on quality, I have kept at it because it forces me to focus, and to write.

Sometimes it feels like a joy - I find the right film that I have a lot to write about. Other times, I am just punching in my time card.

And I will take that - because it keeps me writing. 

Writing has been a part of my life as long as I can remember.

I do not know where it will lead me in the future. Or if this blog will be a stepping stone to something new.

At this point, I do not care.

The only thing that matters is that I keep writing.