The Mole Song: Undercover Agent Reiji

Country: Japan

Original title: Mogura no uta - sennyu sôsakan: Reiji

Director: Takashi Miike

Year: 2014

I didn't like this movie one bit. But I'm glad I watched it because it made me clearly realise something I wasn't able to put my finger on for quite a long time - the fact that, in my personal opinion, there is a huge, almost intransgressible gap between Japanese manga & anime and Japanese live-action films. It may sound weird, but let me explain.

I love both anime and Japanese live-action films. Not all of them, obviously. I've seen many that were downright horrible but that's a natural thing. The point is there are plenty that I really love and I'm always happy to check out more. Many different kinds of them too. Different style, atmosphere, genre, pacing. But somehow I never enjoyed live-action adaptations of manga and anime. As is always the case, there are exceptions (review of one coming in near future) but in general, I find those kinds of production somehow... really lame. Anime and manga aesthetics just translates really poorly onto physical world and real people in most cases. The effect is very unconvincing and entire film feels like a bad mockup.

For a long time, I thought it's because I'm watching live-action version after seeing the anime. There's just no way in hell human actor can successfully don all quirks, mannerisms and even look of average anime character so knowing the animated version just makes me focus on how miserably he/she fails. If I haven't seen the anime I might not be bothered by it and just accept the craziness as it is. After all, I've enjoyed several quite eccentric and peculiar live-action films with a larger-than-life approach. That's what I thought. But The Mole Song disillusioned me completely.

I didn't know it was a manga adaptation. They mentioned something about 'crazy manga style' in the description but I didn't pay attention to it because it's one of those corny phrases they use to advertise most of Japanese stuff that aren't plain and deadly serious. I only knew it's a film by Takashi Miike. He hasn't exactly left a very good impression so far but I thought that it's a good opportunity to give him one more chance. So I chose The Mole Song as my closing film of Warsaw International Film Festival hoping that some whimsical and racy entertainment will help me get over all the artistic drama I was exposing myself to over the past few days. I didn't expect I will shift in my chair much more than in any of those existential and slow-paced movies.

Basically, the whole movie felt like it was trying too hard. As if the crew decided to set a new record of world-famed Japanese weirdness and was calculating all the time what will make it crazier than other crazy Japanese movies released in last 5 years. I can almost see them having a meeting in a committee to discuss how to achieve maximum gaudiness in costumes and outfits. It planned to be a whirlpool of sheer craziness but it failed on all fronts to pull me in. I just sat there, bored crazy, and thought to myself "were they seriously thinking I'm going to fall for that?". Everything was so unbelievably ridiculous I just don't have enough words to describe how I felt about it. Neither in English nor in my mother tongue. Every character, every plot twist, the entire setting was more irritating than the lonely mosquito buzzing in the darkness of my bedroom at 2 a.m. or my pants getting between my buttocks when I'm having a public presentation and can do nothing about it.

And when some time after watching it I've finally learned that The Mole Song was a manga adaptation I realised that if it was an anime I actually might have loved it. Or at the very least I would have accepted with ease all the things that annoyed me so much in the live-action version.

I'm perfectly aware that such things are extremely subjective. Generally, the more character something has the further from the safe zone it is. The line between brilliant and ridiculous is very thin and such movies are all about balancing on it. There is no way to predict if it will strike someone's fancy or quite the contrary. I'm sure many people will love this movie. It's not impossible that I'll watch it in 5 years and decide it's a masterpiece. Such things happened in the past.

Okay, this was probably the messiest review so far. But these are really the most important thoughts I wanted to share about this movie. The plot is really irrelevant. Reiji becomes an undercover agent who infiltrates the yakuza. A lot of crazy things happen. That's it. Acting is hard to judge. It's all overemoting and screaming.

Original craziness and manga/anime derived craziness are two different things and manga/anime aesthetics doesn't work for live-action films are both working theses. And a first thing I always do with working thesis is challenging it. If I've seen someone else writing such things I would immediately point out that not all manga and anime are over the top, many are very calm and realistic. Yeah, I pretended to forget about it. Generalisations are just bad. I promise to avoid them more in future and just focus on the film I'm writing about.

Polish Shit

Country: Poland

Original title: Polskie Gówno

Director: Grzegorz Jankowski

Year: 2014

And so I once more stopped posting for a few months. This time, it was because I got so stubborn to review this specific movie before any other even though it is difficult enough to write about for the native audience. Probably I should just skip it, but it would bother me. So here I go, hoping You're interested in this kind of shit and it was not wasted effort and time.

Polish Shit tells the story of The Transistors, a rock band from a small town in Northern Poland. All the members are forty-something men and they make practically no money playing small concerts in small clubs. They're about to give up when yet another chance appears to finally release their debut album, so they pack their things and start a tournée around Poland. We keep getting out hopes high that some breakthrough will come for them only to see that, alas, Polish music industry is a stronghold that doesn't let any strangers in.

The brain behind the movie, Tymon Tymański, is himself a veteran musician who creates outside the commercial mainstream since the 1980s. What he does is more of a pastiche of everything than actual creation. He has specific, often twisted humor and outlook on life and he lampooned and offended pretty much everybody who lacks considerable distance towards themselves and their views. I'd say he's Monthy Python's caliber of satire, but fewer people realize it's not for real.

Tymon getting on the wrong side of some "patriots"

In Polish Shit, he plays a leader of The Transistors. The Transistors are played by The Transistors, a band he started and toured with for some time for the movie's sake. So basically, Tymon plays his less successful and unrecognized alter ego. He once said that his character is a compilation of things and events he's most embarrassed with.

His main inspiration and ideal he had in mind was This is Spinal Tap by Rob Rainer and friends. However, other crew members convinced him to compromise and make it just partly mockumentary he wanted and partly a regular feature film with a more specific story. To write a proper movie script, Tymon, who had no previous experience, was tutored by Wojtek Smarzowski, one of the best Polish scriptwriters and directors. Even though it was still Tymon who was the actual author, Smarzowski's unique style - mixing great tragedy with crude and grotesque humor and naturalism brought to the very extreme - can be seen in the final product.

There are many other strong personalities involved in this project, each contributing significantly. The list would just bore You, especially that those names most likely mean nothing to You, but let me mention just two more - Robert Brylewski and Grzegorz Halama.

Robert Brylewski is another musician and Tymon Tymański's very old friend. He was one of the most important artists on a Polish 1980s punk-rock scene and I'm afraid I can't fully explain how awesome is that. Let me just point out that 1980s is the decade of Solidarity movement in Poland and struggle against the communistic regime. A punk-rock scene with all that as a backdrop was pretty epic.

Brylewski in the early 1980s and today

Brylewski's probably the one who brings the heaviest cultural baggage with him into the movie, a fact missed by many reviewers even in Poland and probably a major obstacle for a foreign audience. Just like Tymański, he plays a character that's partly based on his real self - a guy that once was an underground celebrity and an icon for the entire generation of angry young people and bits of authentic footage of him from the eighties were edited into the film. At one point he delivers a twisted paraphrase of a famous speech in which Martial Law was declared in Poland in 1981 (dressed in 19th-century uhlan uniform which also quite significant).

Grzegorz Halama is one of the most famous Polish comedians however as far as I know this was his first proper onscreen performance. Until now he only acted in short independent movies and stage acts (many of them broadcasted but that's obviously not the same). He's also a quite good vocalist, pity he never recorded (again, as far as I know) anything other than songs from his comedy acts.

Halama in his most famous act as a country chicken raiser

In Polish Shit he plays a debt collector named Skandal (yes, it means 'scandal' in Polish) who becomes The Transistors' manager. Boy, does he shine in that role! He uses all his secret powers to be the most embarrassing guy You've seen in ages. He has an embarrassing mustache, embarrassing jacket, he shows his embarrassing fat and flabby body when he parades in embarrassing underwear and scratches his crotch. He knows nothing of music or show business, he arranges gigs for which the band is paid with pickled cucumbers. For some reason, he gets laid a lot. He sings two songs in classic musical style with pretty girls dancing around him.

As promised, I end the list here, even though I'm really tempted to name every background and cameo role. Just keep it in mind that practically everyone who shows in this movie is either a prominent actor, a musician or someone related to the music industry in that or another way. Now I should write something more about the movie itself before this note is too long.

First thing You should now is that Polish Shit is an independent cinema in the most literal sense. (1) It had practically no financial support. Of course, the makers sought some, but they backed up themselves every time a potential sponsor demanded any major changes. (2) It was made by people who have nothing to do with the film industry. Sure, some professionals were invited on board, but they haven't actually hold the reigns. For those two reasons Polish Shit is different not only from the mainstream cinema but also from the so-called arthouse cinema, that can be surprisingly uniformised all around the world. In fact, it doesn't feel like arthouse cinema at all and plenty of snobs people dismissed it as "yet another vulgar and pointless comedy". Very unjustly. Well, it is vulgar but it's not pointless.

It touches many subjects. As I've already mentioned it shows all the dirty secrets of the music industry and entertainment industry in general. Often exaggerated but not any less true. Of course the theme of selling yourself versus remaining true to yourself as an artist is present almost all the time. It may sound simplistic but I assure You it's seasoned with enough human element. It's certainly not moralistic. It's not a story of unjustly unappreciated geniuses - Transistors are decent but really not that awesome. In other words, Tymon and his friends mock and criticize not only the system but also musicians themselves and audience as well.

Polish Shit is generally quite funny. It really is a comedy before anything else and humor, at least, isn't very demanding. It's actually pretty gross most of the time but it worked for me. There were some scenes that actually managed to shock me which I think is an achievement.

I personally recommend this movie but of course, conditions apply. I hope that all I've written so far will help You judge if it is for You or not. It would probably be very difficult to get (I'm quite sure in ten years it will be a rare find in Poland) but it was screened in several festivals, so English version does exist somewhere.