Cinescapade - Japon

Japón : An Analysis
Mexico/Spain, 2002. Directed and written by Carlos Reygadas. Starring Alejandro Ferretis, Magdalena Flores. Produced by NoDream Cinema; Carlos Serrano Azcona.
In Spanish, 120 minutes.

"The devil loads the guns and morons pull the trigger." This piece of wisdom, if not central to Japón's plot, pretty much sums up the film's philosophy -or should one say cynical vision of life. Talented newcomer Carlos Reygadas was awarded a Camera d'Or Special Mention at the Cannes' 2002 film festival for this first feature-length endeavor, a brutal rendering with fable-like qualities in bold, uncompromising cinematographic style.

The cryptic name Japón appears to be the answer to Reygadas' self-proclaimed dislike of overly descriptive titles. The narrative isn't quite straightforward either, despite deceptively simple premises. Japón tracks the progression of an unnamed man in his fifties (played by Alejandro Ferretis) who leaves a non-descript city somewhere in Mexico and sets out in search of a canyon in the wilderness where he plans to kill himself, for reasons that remain unknown even as the film ends. Narrative tension stems from the encounter of the main protagonists, the Man and Ascen (Magdalena Flores), the native woman appointed by the canyon's occupants to give the newcomer shelter. Their opposite philosophical viewpoints are at the core of Japón's central question: should one throw away a life that is broken or try to mend it?

The damaged goods are the psyche of the unnamed Man, a painter with a gaunt, craggy face and a lame leg -a lameness that might well stand for another member, which one presumes to be malfunctioning. No wonder from these premises that the struggle takes place between life and death, the sex drive kicking back in as soon as the slightest wish to live awakens, even if the only sexual outlet in the vicinity turns out to be the 75-year-old Ascen. Frail and arthritic, this quiet model of endurance and selflessness keeps reaching out to the Man, meeting his self-absorption with her seemingly endless compassion, until eventually, her tremendous faith in life gets through to him.

Throughout the movie, animals (especially horses) seem to act out the characters' conditions, actions or thoughts. For the Man to get back in the saddle, Ascen, the horse, must buckle, or so Reygadas seems to point out with his many equestrian metaphors. But even as he unsuccessfully tries to give something back, the Man appears to be just another in the world of users who perceive Ascen as no more than utilitarian; an animal to be mounted, used and discarded. As in the age-old man-woman scenario, the woman gives and the Man takes, until his will to live is revived, along with some courage and even an ounce of humanity. Ferretis and Flores, both non-professionals acting for the first time, deserve praise for their performances and for the courage to enact openly displayed scenes of mechanical masturbation and sexual debasement.

Reygadas himself takes risks in Japón with an extremely long pre-credits sequence, raw, graphic scenes and little exposition. The cinematographic form closely follows the film's contents. Landscape parallels narrative, starting with "on-the-road" shots, tracking headway from smooth asphalt to the unmarked dirt roads of a life gone off its track. The shaky cam replicates not only point-of-view, but also the Man's feelings of precariousness, while the soundtrack picks up every aural detail of his progression. Breaking with this style, slow tracking shots reveal the harsh beauty of Mexico's vast, barren expanses. The combination of whirling, swooping aerial shots vividly (yet perhaps almost too literally) express the soul-searching or the mind's eye in moments of death and crisis.

Japón establishes Reygadas' visual kinship to Tarkovsky. But the comparison stops at the highly effective visual treatment, slow tracking shots and a skillful musical selection that includes Arvo Pärt and J.S. Bach. Eventually, these two filmmakers' outlook on life, like that of the Man and Ascen, could not be more apart. Unlike Tarkovsky, who continually sought out the moral, spiritual qualities of man, Reygadas highlights brutality, exploitation, brutish lust, and death in "blood & guts" detail. Only Ascen's character, which turns out to be the redeeming quality of a rather forbidding tale, could evoke the great Russian filmmaker's central figures. Japón's grim conclusion seems to be that when one gets down to the bare bones of survival, compassion in this world gets scarce and in the end, leads nowhere. Even though Reygadas displays an impressive imagery, his desolate world, be it in the landscape or the human soul, is not for everyone.