Brother (2001)
Now I REALLY need to see Fireworks and Sonatine. If they're better than this, Takeshi Kitano's thoughtful and compelling meditation on loyalty in its many forms, then they must truly be some world-class cinema. Maybe I'm overrating this one some (due mainly to my above-professed ignorance of Kitano's acknowledged seminal films), and yeah, the narrative slackens in the second half, and yeah, the coda feels like an acquiescense to Hollywood-style filmmaking (reportedly, the original finale shown at the 2000 New York Film Festival was even worse). That doesn't mean that the film as a whole isn't a brutal, riveting, dryly funny and ultimately unmissable work of art.
Grade: B+
Now I REALLY need to see Fireworks and Sonatine. If they're better than this, Takeshi Kitano's thoughtful and compelling meditation on loyalty in its many forms, then they must truly be some world-class cinema. Maybe I'm overrating this one some (due mainly to my above-professed ignorance of Kitano's acknowledged seminal films), and yeah, the narrative slackens in the second half, and yeah, the coda feels like an acquiescense to Hollywood-style filmmaking (reportedly, the original finale shown at the 2000 New York Film Festival was even worse). That doesn't mean that the film as a whole isn't a brutal, riveting, dryly funny and ultimately unmissable work of art.
Grade: B+
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