Dolls (2004)

I watched this film without any reference to reviews or even a knowledge of the director beforehand. Just plunged in. The puppet sequence that starts the movie tells you there's tragedy ahead, but also a poignancy. Then the narrative shifts to the main story, about a young couple in love but for whom family and business split apart. For a time. But the truth is there's no one else ever for either one of them, and while this sounds clichéd, it somehow works. I think it's because of the pacing and layering. The director doesn't push any obvious buttons - in fact, there were times when I saw these two damaged people together in these really slow scenes where not a whole lot is happening that I wondered if I wanted to go the duration of the film with them. And just at about that time the second story weaves in, about an again executive who remembers a young woman who loved him uncritically and unconditionally, but who he selfishly dumped because he wanted to focus all his attention on making money. The third storyline is about a man smitten by a pop music princess, and again this would seem to stray into cliché territory, but the way it's handled is done so sympathetically that you never feel the man is a buffoon; he's childlike and uncomplicated, but at the same time he's not a simpleton. Interwoven with these secondary stories is the main plot, with the "bound beggars", as they're known to the locals. And by the time the movie is about 3/4 done you realize that your patience is mirrored by the man's patience for his damaged girlfriend, and you start to care about them both. There's a scene late in the film which is done in total silence that is completely breathtaking. I'll never forget it. Let it wash over you.

One of my friends once asked me to talk about Dolls, since it was a movie that really charmed me, and it's one of my favorites. I really had to think carefully before starting to give any description... How can you describe a movie like this one? You should see it.Too hard to concentrate in words the symbols, atmospheres, emotions, silence, and everything you can find in this great work if you're thoughtful and receptive enough.I'd really not recommend it if you like "light" and fast paced films, that's for sure. Dolls is so sad it sticks to your soul for hours, and its best parts are the ones you can catch from images, metaphors and details, that speak and live more than the plot itself and its dialogs can do. This film is made for thinking, and it has a very special way to show thoughts, not for everyone in my humble opinion. Dolls is 3 love stories, but I think love isn't the "main" theme... I'd say it covers a series of details, feelings and absurd things. The characters are always stroke by a world with a series of incidents and expectations that brings 'em far away from their dreams. Dolls is aesthetic, and poetry.

Actor-Director Takeshi Kitano has received a lion's share of attention from the international film press and public for his often hard-edged, violent dramas about policemen and Japanese mafia, inflected with a touch of artistic flair.Therefore, DOLLS comes almost as a total surprise and persuasively affirms Kitano's reputation as a cinematic artist. It illuminates another side of Kitano that is not evident in his other work – that of a poet moved by love. A lyrical tale of tragic sacrifices made in the name of eternal devotion, it follows the fate of three very different couples, linking their plights with that of a couple from a 17th-century bunraku puppet theater play, two sequences of the performance of which open and close the film, forming formidable book-ends which put the film's other passions into cultural context. The opening shots of the dolls coming to life at the hands of master puppeteers are nothing short of exhiliarating.The cinematography by Katsumi Yanagishima is extraordinarily fluid and opulent. The clothing was designed by progressive couturier Yohji Yamamoto, himself once a subject of a film (Wim Wenders' little-seen 1989 documentary NOTEBOOK ON CITIES AND CLOTHES) and the costume designer on Kitano's previous film BROTHER.The film slowly but surely draws the viewer into the characters' inner worlds: a young man running from an arranged marriage at the last minute, his true love – a fragile girl pushed to the brink of insanity by the thought of him leaving her, an aging gangster in the autumn of his life faced with the stalwartly loyal woman he left years ago to join the yakuza, an obsessively devoted fan of a bubble-gum pop star who commiserates with her in her disfigurement after an accident. There is an unreal, fairy-tale feel to the proceedings that creates a pervasive air of mystery. The film is powerful in a strangely low-key way and its narrative flexibility defies explanation while leaving itself open to many different interpretations. It is definitely a film that requires an active imagination to appreciate, and its minimalism and inscrutability are part of the unique fascination it conjures. Highly recommended.

***SPOILER*** Takeshi Kitano proves himself a multifaceted filmmaker with this tragicomic look at the debilitating power of love. While love is the one real tie that binds (in the case of the co-dependent couple here, quite literally- or metaphorically, depending on how one chooses to look at it), Kitano never loses sight of the fact that it's also a symbiotic sadness that permeates the soul. Ambrose Beirce, if memory serves, once referred to love as "a temporary madness." Moving moments are allowed to run their course on screen, to the often bitter end(s). (The finale lends new weight to the phrase "the old ball and chain." Though it leaves you hanging, it doesn't...) Another fine example of Neo-Asian art.