Bunraku Blu-ray Review
A Homage to Everything Except Story
Reviewed by Michael Reuben, October 31, 2011
Directors in love with movies aren't an unusual phenomenon, and their work can be brilliant and
inspired. Tarantino, Bertolucci, Scorsese and Woo are just a few examples of innovative talents
who have drawn creative fire from cinematic giants who preceded them. But a cinema of
homage
risks becoming disconnected and incoherent unless it remembers to do the essential work of
telling a story and entertaining an audience. The talents who invented cinema as we know it --
directors like Griffiths, Ford or Hitchcock, just to name a few -- didn't try to imitate anyone; they
were too busy doing their job as storytellers. They never set out to create an Art Form, and they
certainly never let the worship of what they were doing get in the way of actually
doing it.
Writer-director Guy Moshe is a prodigiously talented filmmaker, who, working from a story by
producer Boaz Davidson (most recently, the remake of
Conan the Barbarian), has fashioned
Bunraku, a two-hour collage of references to other films, tricked out with so many stylistic
flourishes that you can almost overlook the slimness of its plot. Almost. One of Moshe's favorite
films is Sergio Leone's
Once Upon a Time in the West, which, as Moshe observes, is a
compendium of elements from dozens of previous Westerns. Moshe figured, why stop at one
genre? For
Bunraku he frappéed samurai films, spaghetti westerns, gangster films, Hong Kong
martial arts, graphic novels, anime, pulp exploitation films -- and let's not forget musicals. The
result is frequently ravishing to behold, because Moshe attracted impressive collaborators,
including Alex McDowell, one of Hollywood's top production designers, who served as
producer, and editor Zach Staenberg, who won an Oscar for his work on
The Matrix.
"Bunraku" is a traditional form of Japanese puppet theater, and Moshe's film is as stylized and
artificial as anything you'd see on a stage. It's a variation on the classic tale of a stranger coming
into a lawless town seeking revenge, only Moshe offers
two strangers: one known only as the
Drifter (Josh Hartnett) and Yoshi (Japanese star Gackt). The Drifter's mission isn't spelled out
until the end, although it isn't hard to guess. Yoshi has arrived to reclaim a dragon medallion that
is rightfully his father's. Yoshi's uncle (Shun Sagata), who owns a Japanese restaurant that pays
protection money to local criminals, is none too happy to see Yoshi, because he knows that his
nephew's arrival spells trouble. Of course, Yoshi's young cousin, Momoko (Emily Kaiho), feels
differently, because . . . well, you've seen
Shane, haven't you?
The town to which Yoshi and the Drifter have journeyed is as much a collage as the movie. It has
no name, although Moshe calls it "Bunraku-ville" in the commentary. It has elements of
contemporary technology (trains, cars, telephones) and a layout resembling a modern city, but the
mood is that of a Wild West town, complete with a saloon named The Horseless Horseman
owned by the Bartender (Woody Harrelson). No one carries a gun, because, as we're told in a
prologue narrated by a helpful narrator (former Faith No More lead singer Mike Patton), gun
violence had so escalated that guns were banned throughout society. No explanation is provided
for how a government so powerful that it could collect and destroy all firearms suddenly
vanished, leaving "Bunraku-ville" at the mercy of Nicola the Woodcutter (Ron Perlman) and his
Gang of Nine killers, but for as long as anyone can remember Nicola has ruled the town with an
iron fist. The red-suited minions of the Gang of Nine are free to do as they like, as long as they
don't cross the Gang of Nine, all of whom are expert killers. The most expert, other than Nicola,
is Killer No. 2 (Kevin McKidd, from
Journeyman and
Rome), who dispatches his opponents with
the precision and grace of a dancer.
Of course, it's inevitable that Yoshi and the Drifter will initially clash and ultimately join forces
to take down Nicola, and that they'll receive essential aid and counsel from the Bartender, whose
limping gait wasn't acquired by happenstance. The Bartender's shadowy past seems to be tied
somehow to a tough-looking woman named Alexandra (Demi Moore), whom everyone refers to
as "Nicola's whore", but she's much more than that. By now, anyone who's dialed into Moshe's
world of references might be thinking of another movie (
Indecent Proposal) in which Demi
Moore and Woody Harrelson played a happily married couple split up by a bargain with a
powerful man. But one of the inherent problems with building a film out of references to other
films is that the medium, by its nature, doesn't allow one to pause and reflect on such
associations, as a reader of poetry might do. This is especially a problem, given Moshe's
hyperkinetic style in
Bunraku. Part action spectacle, part video game, the film keeps bustling
around for the sheer sake of bustling, and essential plot points are often tossed off quickly, as a
kind of nuisance that has to be gotten out of the way before we can get on with the real business
at hand. Blink at the wrong moment, and you may miss the motivation for the next twenty
minutes' activity.
Not that the activity isn't artful and accomplished, because it is, extremely so. Moshe shot the
entire film on soundstages in Romania, where nearly every set was designed to be enhanced and
extended by CGI. (Some sets were almost entirely green screen.) Almost all the exterior images
of "Bunraku-ville" were computer-generated, as were numerous small touches, including the
English subtitles that appear as graphic novel text. If
Bunraku is the kind of film that captures
your imagination, then it will have high re-watch potential, because frame after frame has been
stuffed with lovingly conceived detail.
But if you're like me, you'll have to work at it to make it through a single viewing, despite the
charms of a talented cast, especially Kevin McKidd's suavely vicious Killer No. 2. Moshe's idol,
Sergio Leone, took huge chances by freighting a story with so much operatic emotion that he
risked rupturing the narrative fabric and losing the audience. (I know viewers who think Leone
went too far in his later films.) Moshe seems to have decided that narrative is a mere formality, a
minor inconvenience, and I don't think a filmmaker can afford such an attitude, even for a film
that (as Moshe says in the commentary) isn't meant to be taken seriously. Just because the subject
isn't serious doesn't mean you get to toss basic craftsmanship out the window. That's a little like
saying: "We're not showing serious films at this theater, so don't bother pouring a foundation."
Bunraku Blu-ray, Video Quality
Bunraku was shot by Juan Ruiz Anchía, who has done impressive cinematography for David
Mamet and James Foley, among others. But
Bunraku is not a film where the cinematographer has
nearly as much impact on the movie's appearance as the technicians in the various digital suites.
Indeed, although
Bunraku was shot on film, it looks more like a hi-def production, since so much
was created in the digital realm, and artificiality seems to have been the watchword. The Blu-ray's
1080p, AVC-encoded image is consistently smooth, glossy and grainless, with textures that are
often clearly intended to resemble a video game world more than a realistic environment. Because
nothing is realistic, detail can be hard to judge, but the sheer volume of minutia in many of the
frames suggests that detail is well-resolved. Black levels are solid, and the vivid neon
fluorescence of "Bunraku-ville" gives the image the HD "pop" that is so beloved by many
enthusiasts. (In pre-release publicity, the film's look was compared to that of
Sin City, but the
colors are considerably more varied and the frame is much busier.) Having been sourced from a
digital intermediate, the image is free of post-transfer digital scrubbing or edge haloes, and the
lack of grain simplified the compressionist's job, preventing artifacts.