Fantoma

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

I have seen the six Masamura's that Fantoma has released and have no problem saying that each one has sports a pretty good transfer with no special features aside from a trailer and an essay. The colors are a little soft, but my experience with films released by Daiei in the sixties, the color is always soft when in comparison with the color processes Shochiku and Toho must have been using (from my experience with the Zatoichi films and others like An Actor's Revenge, but I am not sure. Anyone know about the Daieicolor process?) and there is some minuscule print damage, but nothing you wouldn't see in an actual 35mm print. Masamura is probably the most underrated satirist in cinema and I'm glad you're going to check out his stuff, Jean-Luc Garbo!

Giants and Toys is my personal favorite. It's an angry Frank Tashlin movie (with some really similar color schemes to boot). The perfect film for Japan's rise to the economic powerhouse it still is today. World Caramels has to compete with the huge competition in the world of children's sweets in order to be the most successful in the cut throat business world. In the end of the day, people are sacrificing sanity, well-being and love in order to gain money and move up in the world.

The polar opposite in tact but with similar cruelty in the world of business would be Black Test Car. The genteel business man of Ozu films or the salary man comedy is gone. Instead you get angry men in nice suits acting like bullies all around town all in the name of commerce and success. Two car companies are competing in order to see who will make Japan's first sportscar. Aside from emotional risk, unlike Giants and Toys, this has a serious risk of death or violence around each corner. One of the strongest and most tense films about the extent of post-war business with an ending that's a little bit on the The Bad Sleep Well tinge, just with a wee bit less pessimistic.

Manji and Blind Beast are the sleazier side of Masamura. There he exams the extents of love and eroticism and what brings these obsessions. The love in these films is based completely on awkward and insecure obsession, not actual romance or care for an other human being. As fantastic as Manji's lesbian entanglements can be, I think Blind Beast is a legitimate masterpiece and features what is probably the greatest set in cinema history with some amazing photography in the beginning the almost feel more at place with Toshio Matsumoto's Funeral Parade of Roses. It's rare to ever see a film tackle body issues and the simple joys of touching flesh without ever being pornographic or phony. It also features one of the best psychedelic/baroque soundtracks I've ever heard in a film and it kills me that I can't find a Masamura music compilation anywhere.

Afraid to Die is the odd duck among the releases. What seems to have been created with the inception of being just a quickie yakuza film for the studio ended up being something of a parody or look at the yakuza film. Mishima's soft fact, strong upper body and weak legs works perfectly for his borderline misogynist thug. I like the film, but the fact I can't take Mishima seriously and just reflect on his literary works instead brings the film to a different level which almost disconnects me from the crime aspect and makes it almost on a Brectian level; at least for me, anyways. Fantastic jazzy soundtrack that's on par with the best of Seijun Suzuki.

I hope for some reason Fantoma decides to release more films and more Masamura because the man is one of the cinematic greats.

[zedz]

I think Blind Beast is a legitimate masterpiece and features what is probably the greatest set in cinema history.

Since I was just about to say exactly the same thing, I'll one-up you with some stills:

[Perkins Cobb]

And Kisses is great, one of the key films to start off the J-New Wave, quite different to Masumura's later films in style, but so far my favorite.... (It has a really good quality UK disk, think it's from Second Sight or Yume)

'Fraid not, it's a poor NTSC->PAL conversion with the trademark flutter. Probably the only English-subbed transfer out there though.

[duck duck]

Does anyone know who has Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street or if we will ever see it?

[dwk]

I think Olive has Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street