This Japanese drama is loosely based on a real guy who kept breaking out of jail only to be sent back shortly after (then he’d break out again.) In the film this becomes his entire identity. He cannot live in the hell that is prison, yet when he escapes he doesn’t know what to do with himself so he always gets caught and finds himself back in prison.
It is more of a character study than any type of thriller, but it is a good one. You can read my full review here.
Weak Spot is a film that is difficult to explain or sum up. I reviewed it for Cinema Sentries a little over a month ago. I’ve been meaning to link to that review in these pages. I’ve literally queued it up at least four different times. But each time I’ve stared at this blank page not knowing how to write this little summary to get you interested enough to click over and read my review.
It is a French-Italian-German coproduction based on a Greek novel. It takes place in an unnamed location that is under totalitarian rule. It follows a man who may or may not be a subversive who is caught possibly passing a secret message onto another subversive. He is very casually taken to the capital city for questions by police who don’t seem all that interested in their jobs.
It is full of ridiculous situations played totally straight. It is confusing and weird and rather delightful.
I recommend watching it. I hope this intrigues you enough to click on this link and read my full review.
I continue to sing Radiance Films praises. They are carving out a nice little niche market in the larger Boutique Blu-ray landscape. Their focus seems to be on foreign language arthouse films that are lesser known. The type of film that would be skipped by Criterion but are generally still quite good.
Hokuriku Proxy War is a fun little Japanese Crime Drama that is a bit confusing in the story department but more than makes up for it in its action. You can read my full review here.
Kenji Fukasaku’s Japan Organized Crime Boss is a film about a man lost in time. He’s an old Yakuza who still lives by a code. But he’s been in prison for a while and that has made him want to live a quiet life. But like Michael Corleone the people all around him keep dragging him back in. But those people don’t have a code. The world is changing and it’s left him behind.
This is a good film, but a more thoughtful film than you might imagine with that title. It is shot like a documentary and is building a mythology around the Yakuza that probably never existed. You can read my full review over at Cinema Sentries.
One of the things I love about Boutique Blu-ray companies like Arrow, Criterion, and Radiance is that they fill their discs with lots of cool extras. There will be behind-the-scenes featurettes, interviews, and audio commentaries. I can’t say that I always watch and listen to all of these things, but I love that they exist. If you do dig into them through many films, you can get quite a cinematic education.
On one of the extras to The Facts of Murder, I learned that American Film Noir led to Italian Neorealism, which influenced Italian Crime Dramas which ultimately led to the Giallo. That’s one of those things that makes perfect sense when you think about it but that through line is not something I had previously thought about.
The film is a good one. It is an interesting mix of traditional film noir elements with Neorealism. It reminded me a little of a Maigret adaption with its investigation as slice-of-life feel. You can read my full review here.
I don’t read the trades or anything so I have no idea how many DVDs/Blu-rays/4K UHD disks are sold monthly. I don’t know how those decisions are made or what the margins are. I imagine there are still loads of homes that don’t stream. Whether it is a rural area without access, or older people who don’t understand how to connect, or people who simply can’t afford it. Or whatever. Lots of folks don’t stream movies and TV to their home. Some of those folks likely do buy the occasional disk. Lots of nerds like me collect physical media.
I’m fascinated by the rise of Boutique Blu-ray companies. Arrow, Criterion, Severin, Kino Lorber, and others are regularly putting out nice editions of all sorts of movies. Many of them are quite obscure and cultish. Yet here they are getting HD releases, often given new transfers and loaded with extras. I can’t imagine there are huge profit margins for these things. They seem to be put out by people who truly love movies and I’m all for it.
Radiance Films is relatively new to the market and they’ve been doing a phenomenal job. They seem to specialize in cult foreign language, genre films. But unlike Arrow Video and others, they seem to stray away from trashy films and b-movies. Their focus seems to be more on more artistic, meaningful cinema. They seem a lot like Criterion except they are choosing much lesser-known films.
I’m using the word “seem” a lot while discussing them. That’s because I don’t really know them that well. I’ve only reviewed a few of their films, and haven’t spent a huge amount of time digging through their stacks. So I could be wrong. I’m sure they sell some less-than-award-winning films as well.
My real point is that the films I’ve seen by them have been excellent. And now we’ll finally get to the film at hand. A Man On His Knees is an Italian crime film about a former bank robber just trying to get by. But when a mob lawyer’s wife is kidnapped and kept for days in secret in a building next door to his drink stand, our hero gets mixed up in trouble.
That sounds like a thriller, but in the hands of Damiano Damiani it becomes more art-house than grind-house and it is all the better for it. You can read my full review here.
Radiance Films is a relatively new company competing in the Boutique Blu-ray market. This was my first venture into what they are doing and I gotta say I liked it. The film is quite good – it is an Italian Neorealistic look at how someone might become a bandit. And the disk is beautiful with some nice extras. You can read my full review at Cinema Sentries.
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