Blog From The Bench

Takeshis'
Director: Takeshi Kitano
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To say I am a fan of 'Beat' Takeshi Kitano would be something of an understatement. I like his films the way people like oxygen; which is to say, very much so. So it was with great excitement that I rousted myself from bed Saturday morning to sneak my way into Takeshis', Kitano's new film at the Toronto International Film Festival.

An absurd semi-autobiographical adventure of kinetic editing and nonsensical surrealism, the main star of Takeshis' is Takeshi, the actor himself, playing... well, himself. Sort of. Takeshi (the character in the film) is a famous actor who gets carted from movie shoot to movie shoot in a Rolls Royce. He has teenage stalker fans camping outside his hotel room, and travels with an entourage of publicists and drivers and middlemen. One gets the impression he finds his job rather tedious, and would prefer to be playing mah jong, and losing as usual. After every shoot, he is presented with a bouquet of flowers by the grateful cast and crew, which he finds lamentable ("Why can't they give me money?" he asks ruefully.)

One day on set, he is asked for an autograph by a meek admirer, a man named Kitano who is almost an exact doppelganger of Takeshi, save for a dyed blonde hairstyle (played by the real Takeshi of course). Though they look identical, he is the polar opposite of his hero; he is meek, unassuming and cowardly, he works in a convenience store, is a struggling actor who can never get a job because he looks too much like the movie star Takeshi.

One day, Kitano finds a bag of guns left behind by a dying yakuza in the bathroom of the convenience store. Suddenly, people start mistaking him for his idol, Takeshi. He finds the tasks that once appeared daunting, like ordering soup from 'Soup Nazi'-esque cantankerous cooks or securing a seat at the local mah jong parlor simple now, simply by waving his pistol around. So many of the problems in his life are now easily solved by simply shooting people that irritate him. The teenage stalker that had been camping outside Takeshi's hotel now begins lurking outside Kitano's small apartment, thanking him for his work. He nods, as if saying, "Well, it's about time."

This is the point where the film gets weird. To understand it, you must a) have seen most or all of Takeshi Kitano's films and know them well, b) have read the interview where Kitano states this will be his last 'Beat-esque' film he will ever make, and most importantly, c) be Japanese.

Okay, not really. But the reason for the last point is the absolute obscurity of the sense of humor put forth by Kitano in Takeshis', which is utterly incomprehensible to anyone not Japanese (and from some reviews I read, large portions of the Japanese public themselves.) If you have been (mis?)fortunate enough to see Kitano's comedic(?) Getting Any?, you should have a good idea of what I speak of. If not… well, imagine Mulholland Drive done by the Marx Brothers, like a perplexing blend of art-house incomprehensibility with juvenile slapstick gags.

Irritatingly repetitious, absurdly bizarre and totally random, Takeshis' is one part middle finger to Kitano's own celebrity, one part Fellini-esque self-indulgence and personal reflection on a cinematic career, and ten parts satire and mockery of every single film he has ever made. Archetypal sequences from every Kitano film are repeated ad nauseum in Takeshis', and virtually the entire cast are alumni from his previous films. Most of the actors play double and triple roles, and Kitano (the character) ends up killing most of them again and again, in slow-motion gun fighting sequences that stretch on endlessly.

The clash of genres and gun fighting is funny at first, and the cameos/references to previous Kitano films are amusing for his die-hard fans, but the film fails to expand on the surrealism beyond the irritating and the self-indulgent. If this is a parody, it is one only Kitano himself would find funny. Nothing more than an obnoxious exit from his current canon of work, Takeshis' attempts to sew close the career of a director who is obviously growing tired with both his celebrity and his cinema, as if trying to end on such a sour note that nobody would ever dare ask him to make another yakuza film.

Though amusing and clever at times, the sense of irony is so bitter and spiteful that it sours the experience for the viewer to the point of revulsion. In the interview mentioned earlier, Kitano mentions he wants to become the classic Japanese 'master' Ozu-style of director from here on out. If Takeshis' is the end of the 'Beat' Takeshi cinema as we know it... well, perhaps it is for the best.

God, I can't believe I just said that.

Verdict: 65