Hana-Bi (1997) by Takeshi Kitano: Movie review

Hana-Bi is an unusual film by Takeshi Kitano, taking the old "ticks" of realization. He mingled with poetry and beauty already present in Kids Return, but by improving it. The film opens with paintings by Horibe, and a very quiet music by Joe Hisaishi, is then interrupted by a plan Nishi, motionless, in the sudden arrival, which guaranteed a visual surprise, in stark contrast to the pace haunting the generic. The basics of staging Kitano are then raised and the film will be built in the concept of clean cutting and contrast between two scenes.

Thus Kitano can create effects in this case comic confrontation between Nishi and two workers ending with the fall of one of them. We are in a theater of surprise, where the desired effect is rooted in the way it is brought. The flashes of brutal violence are often taken out of context, gesture, action by itself is more important than the reasons for their existence. This is evidenced by the staging of Kitano: Nishi's memories about the death of a colleague, during the arrest of the perpetrator of Horibe, appear unexpectedly, in the manner of inserts show the attachment of the acts Nishi, and through the assembly, showing how they affect the present (violent image / close-up of the Nishi thoughtfully).

The film narrative is fragmented, offering the spectator fragments of memory of Nishi and leaving it to reconstitute itself a psychological profile, and by this means the main character's motivations. The system that fragments these events of his life defines the relative importance of various dramatic elements. The chronological structure exploded only makes sense that in its effect in this character. There are well with the staging of intrusion of the past in the present Nishi (for example, when look back when he runs the molester Horibe, the sound of gunfire in the flash-agree back then in the present while at the Nishi thoughtfully).

Tags: Hana-Bi, chronological structure, Takeshi Kitano, brutal violence