Word: films
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...walking down a street next to a man whose face is obscured by a mirror he is carrying. Koumiko herself is not reflected in the mirror. She repeatedly looks to her right, then turns her head to see the same view in the mirror. As she does so the film switches back and forth between black and white and color. Marker thus presents us with visions which are qualitatively different, yet does not comment on their respective validity. That they both exist is sufficient...
This is a key to the whole film. While apparently feeling constrained to show tradition and the recent westernization in close proximity, Marker carefully avoids cutting which would imply an ironic intent. No attempt is made to explain the westernization of Japan, nor is the modern seen as un-Japanese. Like Koumiko and the city, tradition and modernity exist within the same framework, and any effect that the one has upon the other is not readily discernible to the outsider. The outsider can merely present an image, which is nothing more than a concrete memory...
Given this, we begin to see why the Koumiko mystery cannot be solved. From the first shot of Koumiko, an extreme close-up of her eyes, she is seen as a love object. Since the film was edited in France (a fact purposely presented to the audience), it is clear that Koumiko is a memory. Marker is an outsider to Koumiko not only because he is a European but because he is a man. (The similarities between this and Hiroshima, Mon Amour are obvious and, I believe, intentional.) Solving the mystery would destroy the romantic quality both of the woman...
MARRY ME, MARRY ME. This wistful French comedy is the story of the trials of a courtship. Although Claude Berri (The Two of Us) wrote, directed and stars in the film, it is not a one-man show but a commanding display of ensemble acting...
EASY RIDER. From the unpromising material of drugs and motorcycles, debuting Director Dennis Hopper has made a strong odyssey starring himself, Peter Fonda and a brilliant newcomer named Jack Nicholson. The film occasionally slips into selfpity; yet the places and the faces of mid-America are true and tragic...