Sunday, October 10, 2010

Kate Playgroud Wikipedia

ANSATSU – Assassination (9,5/10)


Geboren 1931 in Gifu, wuchs Masahiro Shinoda in der Hoch-Zeit des Showa-Imperialismus auf, einer Epoche die durch übersteigerten Nationalismus und Militarismus geprägt wurde.
Als Schüler He was infected by the national enthusiasm and was an ardent admirer of the Showa Tenno. All the greater was his shock when, after the war, the emperor denied his divinity, and coincided's inflated self-confidence of the Japanese society in itself. The nation was on the ground, for better or worse at the mercy of the victors. The deeply insecure Shinoda turned to disappointment on the imperial cult, while not to give up his conservative base setting and developed a strong skepticism about ideologies of any orientation.
In the 1960s, when the radical student movement and the naive left the world a variety of artists, the discourse in the Zirkeln der jungen intellektuellen Filmschaffenden zu beherrschen begann, war deshalb Shinoda einer der wenigen Regisseure seiner Generation, die sich offen gegen den Zeitgeist stellten. Zu dieser Zeit erklärten Regisseure wie der junge Oshima, das Kino ihrer Väter, von Kurosawa, Mizoguchi und Ozu (bei denen sie an sich noch ihr Handwerk gelernt hatten), für Tod und riefen nach dem Vorbild der französischen Nouvelle Vague eine Neue Welle des gesellschaftskritischen und mit filmischen Konventionen brechenden Kinos aus. Shinoda, so sehr er sich im Übrigen auch dem revolutionären Duktus seines Umfeldes verweigerte, schloss sich begeistert dieser Bewegung an und nutzte die künstlerischen und technischen Innovationen die sie offered him.
Perhaps his most challenging film, Ansatsu (1964) is a good example. A stylistically innovative, political, but it is the next revolutionary practices of many of his colleagues work defiant. Shinoda thematized here in the 1960s, the increasingly heated political climate shifted, the plot but in the middle of the 19th Century, when the naive idealism of a generation of young samurai between antagonistic political forces - has been crushed this revolutionary epoch


- Shogunate and Meiji Restoration.
The Tokugawa shogunate had procured more than 250 years Japan an era of peace and cultural prosperity, but also of isolation and stagnation. But in the 19th Century, Japan was increasingly crippled by the corrupt Bakufu bureaucracy. Gradually transforms the social relations of power. While the classic hereditary knighthood of the samurai in economic and political influence, lost impoverished whole ancient clan and the title of a Samurai to a commercially available product degenerated into the caste of merchants and traders became increasingly superior financial resources based on importance. The nucleus of a Japanese middle class entstand.
Zu dem Zeitpunkt als Admiral Perry 1853 mit seiner US-amerikanischen Kriegsflotte die Öffnung der japanischen Häfen erzwang, war das alte feudale japanische Gesellschaftssystem längst innerlich morsch und es reichte nur ein winziger äußerer Schubs, um das ganze fragile Gebilde zum Einsturz zu bringen. Das neue wohlhabende Bürgertum nutzte die Gelegenheit um ihre Macht auf ein neues Fundament zu stellen und den längst zu einem Relikt vergangener Größe verkommenen Samuraistand endgültig zu entmachten.


Die einzige neben dem Shogunat allgemein akzeptierte staatliche Autorität war das Kaisertum, das die vergangenen had stood for 700 years just as a religious authority and a symbol of Japanese unity, as a focal point of Japanese culture. After the poison murder of a coup negative tennō Komeito and the establishment of the juvenile tennō Meiji, succeeded to the advocates of progressive economic and cultural opening of Japan, with the institutionalization of this symbolic figure, a brilliant coup. Under this banner itself, all combine to be in their interests completely contrary opponents of the shogunate, the old princely families, humiliated by the Tokugawa clan for centuries, yearning for age-abundance of power, the young samurai warriors who fire their Youth under, got excited for the idealistic idea of a social regeneration, the rich merchants who wanted to free themselves from the burden of excessive taxes and unpredictable bribes. In particular, the idealistic young samurai generation was ruthlessly exploited as a military arm of the revolution.
the beginning of the Meiji reforms, they had shocked find that their dream of a purified renewed Japanese nation, only an illusion and the new Meiji administration , the final demise of the samurai class and the opening to the West drove forward. What they would get at any price, the old warrior culture idealized, was finally destroyed by their own hands. The Meiji Tenno was basically what his predecessors had always been a flagship of the powerful, with which they sought to legitimize their real pragmatic policies. The real winners of this revolution were the emerging affluent middle class and the new caste of the industrialists, the fate of Japan until well into the 20th Century should master.


1863 Hachiro Kiyokawa , a convicted cop killer is because Samurai, the Bakufu government pardoned on the condition that he changes sides and faces in their service. Standing in front of their own characteristics, he meets an old allies in the cause of the emperor, which in Japan is now received in the country's folklore Sakamoto Ryoma historical figure who hides incognito before the enactment by the captors of the shogunate. Kiyokawa, known as an excellent swordsman and skilled leader, will now assemble a militia for the Tokugawa, the Shinsengumi future to secure the shogun before his trip to Kyoto a power base in the old imperial city. Kaiser loyalty groups had at the time the streets of Kyoto in control and attacks on Supporters of the shogunate were common. Of course, the government trusts the traitor Kiyowaki commissioned for a second and, as a kind of reinsurance, the sword master Sasaki Tadasaburo eliminate him just in case. At the first meeting of the two men called out to a curious Tadasaburo Kiyokawa scrimmage. The exhibition game will put forward for Tadasaburo a disaster, Kiyokawa humiliates him in front of his assembled students, beats him with ease to the ground.


Tadasaburo, himself an ardent champion of the classical Samurai Code is half mad at the idea should that be such a shady man, a traitor and murderer, a better swordsman than himself
He inquiry begins on Kiyokawa to make attempts the seemingly impenetrable unraveling character, always reveals other facets, but instead of that Tadasaburo begins to understand him, his confusion is even greater. Kiyokawas controversial figure in the eyes of the viewer begins to fall apart more and more. A picture emerges of a torn hunted man from humble origins, the only result of his outstanding talent for had made the sword fight in the rise of the warrior caste. A man of any samurai code of trampling and yet in each case for moral action is capable of. A man who apparently believing in its ideals, each inner support, loses and takes refuge in the arms of a woman. What remains is a bare driven by selfishness man who presents himself outside the warrior caste, but he really wanted to belong so desperately.
Tadasaburo from these cold-blooded contempt in his eyes to non-believers murderer depths of my soul and makes all efforts to destroy him, but only to end up even to their own ideals to despair and to see come to be so solid translucent world reeling.


Ansatsu leads the audience directly into the heated political cauldron of recent years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, an era of competing radical secret societies such as fungi shot from the floor. The White Tiger Corps and the Shinsengumi (New-chosen group), also known as the "Wolves of Mibu" *, were two of the largest paramilitary groups on the side of the shogunate. Opposite them were sich unter dem Schlachtruf Sonnō jōi  ( „Verehrt/Respektiert den Kaiser, vertreibt die Barbaren!“ )  zahlreiche kaisertreue Milizen. Beide Seiten rekrutierten ihre Mitglieder gleichermaßen aus den Reihen verarmter idealistischer Land-Samurai und Ronin.
Mit den stilistischen Mitteln der japanischen Nouvelle Vague (das Kino der „Väter“ bleibt dennoch präsent), für damalige Verhältnisse schnellen Schnitten und Perspektivwechseln, Standbildern, dem Einsatz von dynamischen Handkameras, schuf Shinoda einen einzigartigen politischen Jidai-geki, dessen Kritik am naiven revolutionären Zeitgeist der 60er Jahre, erst im Wissen um die damalige gesellschaftliche Situation offensichtlich wird. Es gibt keine Götter, außer man schafft sie sich selbst.


Die antiideologische Haltung Shinodas kristallisiert sich, um die im Verlauf des Films mehrmals die Seiten wechselnde Hauptfigur Hachiro Kiyokawa. Letztlich verlacht Kiyokawa jedwede Ideologie, handelt rein pragmatisch, nutzt die politischen Wiedersacher für den momentanen persönlichen Vorteil. Ohne überhöhendes Pathos kritisiert Shinoda die rückhaltlose Verehrung des Kaisers und zugleich jeden blinden gehorsam gegenüber staatlicher oder religiöser Symbolik. Besonders deutlich wird dies in der Szene als sich die verfeindeten Milizen gegenüberstehen und gerade as the voltage will discharge in an act of violence, an official letter from the Emperor arrives. Immediately freeze the two opposing factions in awe and bow, according to the ceremony, deep to the document as if the Tenno appeared in person. The hollow phrases of loud, in a broken voice with emotion, recited letter can symbolize how questionable this be the celebrated blind subjugation of a people under an idea, an ideology, an institution.


Die Shinsengumi sind ein beliebtes Motiv in zahlreichen Romanen und Filmen, sind Teil der japanischen Pop-Kultur geworden. Sie finden sich zum Beispiel in der Nebenhandlung des stilistisch großartigen SWORD OF DOOM (1966) , in dem pathetischen Schwulst von DIE WÖLFE VON MIBU (2003) oder in GOHATSU (1999) , dem letzten Spielfilm Nagisa Oshimas, der sich mit dem Tabu Homosexualität innerhalb einer Kriegerkaste befasst. Doch in keinem Film wurde das Thema ähnlich packend und vielschichtig inszeniert, als in ANSATSU, der auf jedweden Samuraikitsch verzichtet und den Myth Shinsengumi disenchanted, their ideals - internal cohesion and samurai code - unmasked as empty and hollow. With
Ansatsu Shinoda is a very big milestone, both the Japanese New Wave and successful of the classic chambara film. The complex structure of the work is, however, the full attention of Western audiences and will advance to face the details of the late decaying Tokugawa shogunate. Without this willingness to stay closed a lot of detail, the actions of many people must seem incomprehensible. But even a complete history of a casual observer will quickly realize the high quality film, the extraordinary dynamism of the imagery, the grandiose Stilisierung einer historischen Wirklichkeit. Eine besondere Erwähnung verdient die Filmmusik von Toru Takemitsu, die die düstere Stimmung perfekt unterstreicht.
Für mich persönlich ist dies mit Abstand der beste Nicht-Kurosawa Chambara-Streifen der 1960er Jahre, einer der letzten großen Triumphe dieses damals schon in letzten Zügen liegenden, thematisch ausgezehrten Genres, der es versteht eine wirklich gehaltvolle Handlung und stilistische Brillanz zu einer ebenbürtigen Einheit zu verschmelzen.  
*Mibu is a district of Kyoto, which appeared first as the Shinsengumi militia.

Title: Ansatsu / Assassination
Director: Masahiro Shinoda
Year: 1964
length : 104 minutes
DVD: Eureka (Masters of Cinema) R2
Sound: Japanese
Subtitles: English

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