Yearning

*Spolier Alert

A dedicated daughter-in-law spends her life managing her new family's business, her intricate savvy and reflexive know-how having saved it from ruin during World War II.

Her husband passed in the war though and she sadly never married again, although she honourably cherishes his memory with devout respect and wholesome dignity. 

A new supermarket opens in town and starts undercutting their trusted prices, leaving her in-laws in a difficult spot which they need to manage with nimble moxy. 

It's decided to expand the business and boldly open a much larger store, but the loyal intuitive multifaceted manager is initially denied a leading role. 

It's thought that she should remarry and a suitable candidate is wisely chosen, 17.5 years having gone by since her husband passed, the idea perhaps not that socially awkward.

But she refuses out of heartfelt devotion and eventually decides to return to her home.

But not before she distressingly discovers.

That her deceased husband's younger brother is madly in love with her.

The ending's a brilliant illustration of the conflicting post-war attitudes in volatile Japan, the younger less rigid experimental viewpoints and the older more orthodox sociocultural rules. 

Reiko has to admit that she has feelings for Koji and that she's felt amazing since she learned of his passion, yet still feels determinably duty bound to her old husband's stately ultimate sacrifice. 

She's also much older than Koji and it's a bit weird marrying two brothers from the same family, but that doesn't mean she isn't tempted to continue living in the world she's created.

Unfortunately, while travelling home Koji follows her upon the train, and in their confusion they depart somewhat early and get a hotel just to think for the night.

Koji goes for a walk after another heated argument morosely breaks down, and gets too close to a haunting cliff's edge and earth-shatteringly falls to his unrequited end.

But is the film condemning Koji for having tried to break with the old conservative ways?

Or modest Reiko for not having embraced the newfound less severe liberal ideology?

It's classic obscured ambiguity which likely still generates debate amongst film fans.

A genuine tragedy embroiled in conflict.

Much too serious or excessively light. 

Transformers One

Tough and experimental young friends resiliently attuned to calisthenic mischief, bored with their jobs and inherently curious about the political composure of their planet's temperament. 

They work in the mines digging for energon without the requisite cogs which enable transforming, carefree and dreamy yet brave and self-sacrificing they function with enterprising inquisitive accolades. 

Yet as their heroics win them applause their planet's adored leader isn't quite so impressed, indirectly banishing them to an unheard of sub-level where they find themselves managing disregarded waste.

Appropriately, after making new friends, they soon courageously travel to their planet's surface, in search of the long lost matrix of leadership, the location of which may have been revealed.

Further distress despondently awaits them in the inhospitable lands terrorized above, as the treacherous nature of their belovéd leader is freely showcased by a legendary warrior.

To inform their brethren that they were meant to have cogs and that their tireless labours simply profit hostile aliens, definitively emerges as a compelling mission to which they immediately respond with vociferous stewardship.

A revolutionary tale tempestuously told to harness innate hard-working nobility, bold transformations multivariably brandishing integrity and exception across the land.

The citizens denied their honest fair share of the spoils of their labours react with indignity, and collectively express their enraged disapproval with rebellious instinct and distinguished resolve.

Certainly focused on Transformers the sentient robotic aliens fuelling, narrative discord aggrieved animation improvised cognizance intermingling microbes. 

Unfortunately, their inspired insurrection leaves Orion Pax and D-16 at odds, the classic Professor X/Magneto dialectic reemerging with democratic/authoritative repercussions hemorrhaging.

It reminded me of Coruscant in Attack of the Clones when Skywalker and Kenobi chase down the bounty hunter, and ye olde "splinching" from the Harry Potter films when the newfound Transformers have issues changing.

Indubitably textbook evaluations of open-minded leadership resiliently tested, no doubt applicable to political studies should they seek exemplars of seditious tales.

Sad to see the flourishing enmity as it's coldly birthed in revolutionary flames.

To be spread far and wide from planet to planet. 

Megatron and Prime at odds thereverafter. 

Silence

There's a classic scene in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly that still stands out for me, the one where the bandit Tuco speaks with his brother Pablo the priest and they discuss the different lives they lead after having not seen one another for 9 years.

It doesn't end well.

But during their dialogue, Tuco states that there were only two choices for them when they were young and impoverished, to become a bandit or a priest, and that becoming a bandit was more challenging, harder, fraught with more pain and suffering.

Martin Scorsese's Silence offers Tuco a lengthier response than Pablo's, demonstrating the herculean composure required to work as a missionary under harsh conditions in a hostile land.

Set in the 17th century, fathers Rodrigues (Andrew Garfield) and Garupe (Adam Driver) travel to Japan to do what they believe is necessary to actively spread the word, while also searching for a famous fellow priest (Liam Neeson as Father Ferreira) who has supposedly lost his way.

They don't speak Japanese and are guided by a shifty alcoholic fisherperson (Yôsuke Kubozuka as Kichijiro) who leads them to a small coastal village where they begin their work.

Not easy by any means, their path, their calling, and since Japanese authorities are persecuting Christians, especially priests, old school style, because they're worried about the ways in which in a foreign religion is conflicting with their own buddhist traditions, Rodrigues and Garupe employ the utmost stealth to avoid detection.

But they're eventually found in different spots and Rodrigues must then run the gauntlet to prove his faith, to demonstrate his courage.

Intellectually, physically and spiritually.

Scorsese struggles a bit in territory he hasn't explored in a while (time for another viewing of The Last Temptation of Christ methinks), the excruciating isolation and gruesome personal struggle involved demanding a more contemplative ascetic humbling approach than that found in some of his recent films, this aesthetic captured at points but Silence isn't Tarkovsky, and the contrast introduced when the violence begins doesn't captivatingly diverge in a stunning juxtaposition.

He did prove he's quite sensitive with Hugo, but the first half of Silence would have benefitted from a less traditional approach, from longer more destitute not necessarily plot-related scenes skilfully blending hope and sorrow, scenes which would have become more emotionally pronounced as Rodrigues's life descended into chaos.

Into more familiar territory.

Still a thoughtful investigation of faith and the trials that await the spiritually bold.