Les géants et les jouets

Giants & Toys - One the main reasons I watched Giants & Toys was for the simple theme of the 1950's space craze. I love that era and 1950's Science Fiction. And I wasn't disappointed, I loved to see all the toys used as props in the movie, more than once stopping to get better look at them. What that stuff would be worth on eBay! It seems frivolous, but it did get me to watch the movie.

Giants & Toys is biting commentary on then contemporary 1950's Japanese life. It shows a society where corporations have taken over the Samuri Class role. Life belongs to your company. In the end, even beating down the most idealistic employee. From all I've read about Japanese corporate culture, this is what it is like.

More than just commentary on Japanese life, Yasuzo Masumura (director), Takeshi Kaikô (novel) and Yoshio Shirasaka (writer) are prophetic in the assessment of pop culture and media even in today's society. About thirty minutes into the movie there a line about "stars getting their 15 minutes of fame." Now that line may have not been a literal translation from the Japanese, but even so. Worhol's comment on fleeting fame wasn't made until 1968, ten years after Giants & Toys. I would love to find out what actually was said in that scene (anybody care to translate). I also wonder if this movie was an inspiration to Worhol.

I definitely put this into a must watch category. I look forward to checking out more Masumura films.

Japan, 1958. As fierce competition goes on between the Giant, World, and Apollo candy companies, Nishi, an advertising executive for World, finds on the streets a cute hillbilly girl called Kyoko with rotted out teeth, bad clothes and tadpoles as pets. Sensing she possesses some sort of weird appeal, he immediately thinks she would make a great model for the next World campaign, selling candy in a space suit (Space themes, the execs reason, should score big as a new theme for advertising in Asia; let's remember this movie was made a year after the Sputnik). As she becomes more famous, of course, Kyoko develops a more independent streak, and resents more and more being manipulated around by the World people. So she tries to pursue the dream of being a singer in the new medium of television. It is amazing that this satire of advertising, capitalism and consumerism was made in 1958, since it is unlike any other movie from that time, including American movies. A film relatively (and undeservedly) unknown, it's full of pop imagery a decade before pop took over the world. It only shows once again that since the 1950s, Japan has been ahead of the rest of the world (including other rich countries) by decades. By the way, I saw it in a terrific color print, that makes the Japan of almost 50 years ago look as if it was shot yesterday.

The movie is a true masterpiece by Yasuzo Masumura in which the cut­ throat  rivalry for money between various companies at that time(Post­ World war) is beautifully  portrayed .The movie is successful in giving us the picture of japan  at that time and how  the people of japan consider Americans superior  and try to copy the m.It also shows how Corporatization and commercialization of Japan have dehumanized  everything The director Masumura Yasuzo was successful in giving the complete  picture of the  japan after world war ll .The film beautifully satirizes the instant  manufacture of  media stars, the decline of gentlemanly business ethos and rise of culture of  ruthless  corporate skulduggery, and the emphasis on work at the expense of personal life and  health as shown Mr.Goda was coughing blood in the end.The movie  clearly showed how  Corporatization and commercialization of japan had dehumanized every thing it had touched.

This could very well be the greatest cinematic exposé on the eat-or-be-eaten attitude of corporations. Three rival caramel companies war with each other. The film focuses on the marketing departments of these companies. Think Cola Wars and you'll have a clue. This film was made in 1958, but it feels very modern. And the new Fantoma DVD is so pristine that it looks as if it were made yesterday. I've never seen a Criterion DVD even approach this quality. Please, give Fantoma your money. Order all four of the Yasuzo Masumura DVDs as I did! 10/10.

Three caramel companies compete with each other to dominate the market and each of three resorts to a ludicrous marketing campaign to attract the public's attention. Spacemen dancing in astronaut suits, savages dressed in leopard skins yelling through loudspeakers from the backs of buses, financial subsidies from birth to marriage, each company resorts to a kitschen-sink approach that's as good as the results it brings. There's nothing at all subtle about this movie. It's completely in your face from start to finish, a fast-paced riproaring cataract one part irreverent comedy twenty parts OTT scathing satire.

And therein lies the problem. GAT makes its point across with the same clarity and fierceness of a DR. STRANGELOVE, lacking the acerbic wit and terrific performances of Kubrick's anti-war film maybe, but the problem is that the point it beats over our heads is not as urgent, prophetic or insightful as it might have been in the context of the booming economy of postwar Japan. It's all a bit much to take in one sitting. Greedy PR managers yell stuff like "We need more sells!", neon signs flash, a painted girl does a dance number, advertising trucks, wheels moving, assembly line machines pumping out caramel boxes, executives telling each other the plot of the movie in front of sales diagrams, grotesque faces smile grimly in closeup, people point at camera yelling "we need more sales!" etc.

When the two principal characters, the honest exec who values integrity above money and the cut-throat exec who will stop at nothing to achieve the company's goals, clash in the film's climax yelling at each other stuff like "We must sell more caramels! We must win the prize!" / "No, I value my integrity!", the movie had long outstayed its welcome. Masumura backed himself into a corner that left him no other option but to beat the same dead horse for 90 minutes. As a piece of satire, GAT has lost some of its bite. As a piece of kitschen-sink camp, it's still as outrageous as it ever was. Combine the two and it's easy to see why it has a cult following. It just wasn't my thing.