Best of the Rest – 2011 – Films

Posted January 7th, 2012

Continuing Culture Cuts Best of the Rest, today we are sharing a few of our favourite films released in 2011…

Films

13 Assassins. Dir Takashi Miike

Takashi Miike is one of the most prolific Japanese directors of all time. He is best known in the west for his twisted tales of violence and gore, most famously in Audition (1999) and Ichi the Killer (2001).  However 13 Assassins has been hailed by many as his finest work yet; a welcomed fresh revival of the samurai movie, a homage to the grate Kurosawa, set in the Shogun run 1844 Japan.

The plot tells of the vicious Lord Naritsugu, a psychotic sadist threatening the stability of the realm. He must be destroyed, and only a team of dedicated samurai can achieve this.  The film is constructed as a long crescendo, opening at a level of contemplated, Zen-like reflection and ending with a prolonged cacophony of elaborate, town-wide samurai slaughter.

The element of this final battle that made its action shine way above any Hollywood action film made in years was the lack of special effects. It was kinetic film making, with real buildings actually being destroyed (There are occasional dashes of CGI, but only for elements that couldn’t be staged for the camera, i.e. rampaging herds of burning bulls).

Miike’s follow up to 13 Assassins is called Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai and just hit UK     cinemas in November, we can’t wait to see more samurai slaughter!

Anda Union: From the Steppes to The City. Dir Tim Pearce 

This low-budget travelogue follows a 10-member band of young Mongolians playing some lively traditional music around the vast grasslands of Inner Mongolia. The film starts at Inner Mongolia’s Ho Hohot (the blue city) before proceeding on to such exotically-named locations as the Ordos, Heshigten or Ongniud Grasslands as the band embarks on a national tour which involves visiting their families (a trip of 10,000km in 33 days, according to the end credits, during which time 37 sheep were killed and consumed). 

There are some amazingly breathtaking shots of Mongolian scenery and a shocking sheep slaughter scene, however this film is all about this music. AnDa Union are accomplished singers, moving fluently from hoomai, the guttural throat song, to the clear long notes of urtinduu, long-song. They play many instruments including the morin huur, the maodun chaoer, a three-holed flute, as well as Mongolian versions of the lute, and mouth harp. Mongols have a strong musical tradition that is passed from generation to generation. The morin huur, or horse head fiddle, pays homage to the most important animal in the Mongol culture; almost all houses have one hanging in the hallway.

The Culture Cuts Collective since has spent many hours trying to perfect our own style of throat singing… we call it tongly-oong, Bong-Song.

Tags: Best Of 2011 Blog Cinema Films Movies