Decasia, Lady Snowblood, Into the Inferno

Decasia

Bill Morrison's Decasia, from 2003, is an arresting avant-garde featurette. Morrison reassembles deteriorating silent film into an abstract and musical collage that resembles the work of Harry Smith and Stan Brakhage. As if to signal his film is more of a fugue or dance than a narrative, Morrison utilizes shots that display repetitive movement: whirling dervishes, factory machinery in action, men and women working looms. There is an element of exotica as a sweetener. A treat. 

Toshiya Fujita's Lady Snowblood, from 1973, chronicles the titular character's revenge story with vivid color and intensity. Essentially a B samurai flick, Lady Snowblood displays how a good director can elevate even the most hackneyed scenario if he regards the material seriously and directs with verve. Revenge dramas are morality plays, the revenger's trauma must be portrayed with sobriety and empathy. Fujita constructs the film so that the action of revenge provides catharsis because the suffering of his heroine has been emphasized. Quentin Tarantino heisted a good deal of the film, including a cartoon flashback, for his Kill Bill saga.

Werner Herzog's Into the Inferno displays how one of our better fictional filmmakers has, through determination and vision, become one of our greatest documentarians. This film about volcanos puts his obsessions to the forefront: man versus nature, the terrifying beauty of nature, the camaraderie of scientists. The film also shows off his discursive side. A foray into North Korea holds for Herzog a beauty as ultimately horrifying as his gaze into the core of the earth. (10/31/16)