Fiore secco

Most of the Asian gangster movies I have seen, promote the brotherhood and the comradery between members, like Young and Dangerous, or have denounced gangster activity, showing if as degrading and evil. This movie does neither. It instead shows how gangster life has both good and bad; however in the end proves to be a pointless cause. The main character, is just released from jail, and immediately reunites with his own yakuza. His life is changed when he meets Saeko, a young woman who is addicted to high stakes life of the yakuza. Together they journey through a city and time, where everything is changing constantly; yet in the end, it becomes apparent that none of these things really matter. This movie is really good. I recommend it.

Film devotees have long realized that the "new wave" art cinema of Japan in the 60's was as innovative and profound as the revolutionary American and European product of the era. What is now becoming clear to fans in the West inured to Godzilla and Starman is that the little-seen Japanese genre pictures of the time were in many cases just as startling and artistic. "Pale Flower" is a case in point. It has the breathtaking luminous-white on inky-black lighting, the fragmented framing, and massive potential energy threatening to explode from the edges of the screen that so characterize the contemporaneous films of Seijun Suzuki (of "Branded to Kill" fame). But instead of that director's post-modern excesses, this film takes a somber, meditative tack, not unlike Beat Takeshi's recent "Sonatine", presenting a carefully-wrought, moody character study amid the expected thrills. The musical score, when it surfaces, is suitably avant-garde, and the frame is filled with rich detail and well-defined characters, like the crime boss obsessed with his dental health. A must-see for the adventurous film buff.

If you like your film noir lean and atmospheric, this is probably for you. It also has elements of yakuza, sun tribe, and existentialism, and so seems to blend genres, but at the same time, it's completely focused. The cinematography is wonderful - the scenes at night driving, the stares from across the gambling table, and narrow streets all come to mind - and the audio is too, with a great mix of loud cacophony and scenes so quiet you could hear a pin drop. A murder to the sound of an opera aria is pretty cool, and seems like it must have influenced other directors. The film also benefits from a magnetic couple of actors in the lead roles, Ryo Ikebe and Mariko Kaga. His detached persona fits a remorseless killer perfectly, just as her enigmatic look fits her character's recklessness.

What's haunting about the film is that both characters are so bored with life that they turn dispassionately to crime and gambling. At the outset of the film he's just gotten out of jail for killing a rival gang member, and while looking at people in crowded Tokyo, says "What are they living for? Their faces are lifeless, dead. They're desperately pretending to be alive." As for the murder he committed, "slaughtering one of these dumb beasts," as he puts it, he says "It's a strange feeling. Somebody died, but nothing has changed." As for her character, named Saeko (a homonym for Psycho, surely not accidentally) she needs to raise the stakes on her obsessive gambling to feel anything, dabbles in drugs for the same reason, and says in a wonderful moment "I wish the sun would never rise. I love these wicked nights." The two are so striking and cool, and yet it's as if they're nearly dead within, empty and in need of something positive to live for. Weirdly, though the two seem attracted to each other, when they end up in bed together while hiding during a police raid, they choose to talk about the flower card game rather than make love.

There is something about these sentiments in a post-war Japan still searching for itself, and a director like Masahiro Shinoda trying to usher in the New Wave, that's powerful. It may rate even higher with a film connoisseurs for just how clean it is, but it left me wishing there had been a little more plot development. Still a very good film though, and one that may be better on a second watch.

Whereas "Blue Velvet" is about the lengths that people go to for sexual gratification, "Pale Flower" is about that lengths that people go to for a few "kicks," kind of like a Japanese gangster adaptation of Kerouac's "On the Road."

Upon attempting to release "Pale Flower," the studio's censor banned the film, and this fact says quite a bit about the temperature of Post-War Japan's pop culture, and the target audience of this film. While the director claims the film is about Japan's uncertain stance in the Cold War, it may be more accurate to say that the film is about Shinoda's Nihilistic stance towards Japan's relationship to the world's superpowers.

And while nihilism describes Shinoda, existentialism may better describe Muraki and Saeko. Gambling, animalistic sex, drugs, all in an effort to just feel something, anything, and to get lost in the moments those emotions provide. Some would say that the gambling scenes are too long and do little to advance the plot, but this movie's script is made up mostly of unspoken dialogue and it is during the gambling scenes that the main characters are developed.

While I loved 95 percent of this film's moody and atmospheric lighting, at times it's so dark you can't tell what's going on. Still, the shots are well constructed, the actors well directed, and their performances subtle yet effective. Dig the sexual tension that is constantly building between Muraki and Saeko, and how this tension is dealt with. Somehow I felt myself sympathizing with this killer in a very real way, and this says something about Shinoda's and "Pale Flowers" success.

Upon his release from prison for killing a rival mobster, Muraki strolls the streets of Tokyo and muses that nothing has changed in three years and that people are little more than half dead stupid animals whose lives are meaningless. In voice-over he asks "What was so wrong with killing one of them?" While he was away the two Tokyo gangs have reached a truce in order to eliminate a third gang from Osaka. Muraki is unsure of his role in the new alliance and places little value in the yakuza (gangster) code. He is a lone wolf who, while a dependable team player, is a risk taker who takes action on his own and finds consolation from his weary existence in the Tokyo nights and its' gambling dens.

Saeko is a well dressed, beautiful young woman with lots of cash and, like Muraki, is a creature of the night. They meet at a card game where Saeko recklessly wagers, loses and wants more. A woman in such a place is an oddity and all the players are fascinated by her, including Muraki. When she asks Muraki if he knows of a game where the stakes are higher he knows that he has found what he was looking for. The two are immediately drawn to one another and their fates are sealed. Together they combat the boredom of life with high stakes gambling, high speed joy rides (she drives) and other thrills that come with living on the edge. They agree that whatever they do, they can forgive themselves. "I have no use for the dawn. I adore these evil nights," says Saeko. A truer noir couple there never was. But when Saeko becomes drawn to another mid level yakuza – the half-Chinese junkie Yoh - Muraki feels a sense of loss. To win her back he asks Saeko if she wants to watch him as he assassinates the head of the Osaka syndicate. She cannot say no and he knows it.

While it is not a typical yakuza film as there is little bloodshed and killing, it is a gritty portrait of yakuza life: gambling dens, night clubs, racetracks and doing things they have to do and feeling good about it. It is their life and it is unquestioned. It is this that the film is really about: fate and the impending doom that hangs over all of the characters. It reflects the end of the old Japanese tradition of honor and obedience to a patriarchal system that was in disarray after their defeat in WWII and the occupation that followed. The American film noir existentialism and stunning expressionist photography in monochrome Cinemascope create a film experience that is the equal of anything that came out of Europe and the U.S. Even the card game scenes, a game called hana fuda with a deck that has twelve suits all named after flowers, have an intensity that is very noir. There is also a bizarre dream sequence that adds to the stylized strangeness of the film as does the avant garde soundtrack by Toru Takemitsu. The strange and confusing percussion and brass of Takemitsu's score somehow seems in perfect sync with what we are seeing on the screen. This is a complete film experience.