Romulus Doe

Sunday, July 04, 2004

Education at Edo

My titles just keep getting worse and worse. How do newspaper editors do it?

The clever ones among you would snicker and say, "Just like other people, I'm guessing..." But getting on with it ...

Everyone knows that movies have the ability to bring a lump to one's throat and spring warm tears to one's eyes, toying with the heart and soul. They don't register much, however, when it comes to exciting the brain.

Teacher today is The Last Samurai.

I learned from The Last Samurai that:

You can easily learn every complexity of an incredibly foreign language (in that English is much more different from Japanese than it is from French) just by living with natives for a short period and without being taught in your own native language.
Scruffy facial hair indicates you're drunk and disgruntled with the world.
The man you slaughtered in battle will invariably be your size, so his armour will fit you perfectly.
'Course, you're pretty short, so ...
Despite the fact you killed the aforementioned man, his beautiful, delicate Japanese wife will fall in love with you. This is also despite that you are a member of the loathed foreigners who have invaded her homeland and threaten her people's very way of life.
Foreign societies have very high regard for the English language and will always make special efforts to learn it. Those of White Western society (henceforth WWS), on the other hand, have no appreciation for their own culture, much less others, and are perpetually ignorant.
There will always be one free WWS thinker despite the rest of WWS.
This said free thinker has an innate understanding and sensitivity to foreign cultures, but only to the aspects that are acceptable to Western society. E.g. If he becomes adopted by an Asian family, he will very likely not condone eating dog. But he will approve every other aspect of their culture that in one or two skewed ways shows up Western deficiencies. These aspects usually demonstrate how they are still in tune with nature and how most of WWS are capitalist pigs for enjoying modern luxuries. Ironically, audiences leave this movie feeling no guilt, but actual self-satisfaction, as though they themselves were not guilty of such indulgences. As they exit the theatre, they stuff their empty popcorn bags and soda cups into an already overflowing trash bin, and dig in their pockets for the keys to their gas-guzzling SUV. Somewhere, a kitten is crying.
All foreign cultures have something to teach WWS, but we have nothing to bestow, despite our own lengthy history, stretching back thousands of years, of art, literature, and philosophy.
Modern technology is bad. Submission to it breeds an instant desire to destroy small, quaint villages populated by farmers and laughing children.
Technology is also an invention of WWS, and we are constantly trying to force it upon those we regard as lacking it. Forget that for a very long time, it was WWS that was the barbaric backwater and that the Middle East and Asia led the forefront in creation and invention.
There is always exactly one Non-White Bad Guy, as a flimsy way to cover the filimmakers' asses from accusations of oversimplification.
Inevitably, NWBG's sidekick will see the error of his superior's ways and he and the rest of the troops will redeem themselves through some heart-rending but ultimately useless gesture. Somehow I doubt kowtowing will bring back all those dead samurai.
The supposedly aloof ruler of the people being taken advantaged of by WSS will also always redeem himself by the end. This comes around through an informal or respectful gesture that is never exercised by a person of such dignity (i.e. here, kneeling in front of Tom Cruise, though in a strictly chaste way). Therefore, it is a Very Meaningful Big Sacrifice on the part of the ruler and and makes up for all past transgressions.
The Main Good Guy never dies. Ever. Whatever the impossible circumstances. Not even with machine guns blasting countless rounds of ammo at what should be a huge, easy target, being a man in red armour on a horse on a green field. He will suffer some meaningless wounds, and also, just to show how dangerous this has been for him, minor cuts and scratches to his valuable face.
Tom Cruise needs to be put down before he makes another movie, and if not then, then definitely before he gets really old and too nasty to contemplate as having been a sex symbol.

The fact I always find amusing is that I missed the first 45 minutes of this movie or so and I still managed to keep up with the story -- not a good sign. Another sad thing is that this would've been a much better movie if it only stayed with the Japanese side of the story, where a nation is torn apart by a need for either balance, or a choice -- to keep pace with the rapidly advancing West and move into the modern world, and/or to maintain its traditions.

Naturally, it would've been simply too boring to focus on just the actual people who are faced by the double threat and blessing of a widespread move towards industrialization, and who have shared the same land and heritage for thousands of years. While yes, WSS is undoubtedly a big player, the story is ultimately about the Japanese people and a momentous but turbulent time in their history. Throwing in Cruise's flashy grin is a terrible insult to what could have been a perfectly poignant and thrilling story without it.

Spiderman 2 was not bad though (probably due to its blissful freedom from Cruise-ness).

Posted at 00:31

theinterlude
August 21, 2004 06:58 AM PDT

I also wondered how Tom Cruise managed to learn Japanese that fast.
Very enlightening movie, this one.
Pandora
July 11, 2004 02:55 PM PDT

LMAO I love this
theoneaodave
July 4, 2004 10:32 AM PDT

I don't know about that aspiderman 2 thing though I am a bit of a comic book and/or old school cartoon geek. Will the movie still satisfy my delicate palate?
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