A year later the man would go on to win the once-coveted Venice Golden Lion (formerly Coppa Mussolini) with
Hana-Bi aka
Fireworks, competing against rivals like Yimou Zhang's
Keep Cool, Pedro Costa's
Ossos and the russian gem
The Thief.
The movie itself is gluttonous for misery, a sure-fire catnip recipe when the jury is composed of women, and the dramatic score for strings gives an elegant and poignant accent to all the mishaps and event successions around the personal life of a beat cop, interpreted by no other than the director, again.
The mix of dry and absurd humor coming once in a while is a much appreciated aspect that i found to be a little lost recently, especially from movies where everyone is dragging themselves in an emotional swamp plus the precise allocation of such segments gives places to a strong contrast effect when the movie is about to drop someone.
And speaking of misery and prizes, Kitano wanted to go at it again in 2002 and made a little shining gem called
Dolls, a cinematographer-driven film about lovelessness in different japanese social groups such as salarymen, yakuza and otaku men, along with trying to visually and ideologically explain the meaning and appeal behind the old japanese puppet theater; such attempt done in a successful way in my opinion. The score is subdued but pretty dramatic at one point, its titular theme being the juicy cherry of the mix with the inclusion of the old familiar percussion from previous projects.
The film was entered into its respective Venice Film Festival edition and faced stiff melancholic competition like Chang-Dong Lee's
Oasis, Konchalovsky's
House of Fools and bleeding edge
The Magdalene Sisters by Marx Engels Mullan. The latter being a woman-beating hellhouse story it became a hit among the female jury, which did not forgive and gave the edge in the split decision. Obviously this is not
or shouldn't be about the prizes nor immediate recognition, i just found the clear trends behind jury decisions funny
like Del Toro convincing the Netflix-involved jury members to vote for his friend and co-producer Cuaron
...Yeah anyways hope these weren't a big camp, here's a couple of links if someone fancies them
the ∞/film/ moniker is from back then, not a slap on anyone here
>A Scene at the Sea
https://mega.nz/#!GI4SGCSJ!1J8f4XPi_U38yptZw7zYWoRghxsoepmFZse1YyYQjGw
>Sonatine
https://mega.nz/#!3EwiBQCb!Yl0LRlJSbSz5hQ8dtEF8zO9OoUNNkAVAp1xqrjjqfZU
>Kids Return
https://mega.nz/#!aU4ElIhY!1FT0D_8IloUk7Isl5J6VIB8OmZ14rdh6bB-BoNYP_Sg
>Hana-Bi
https://mega.nz/#!yQ5UEQ6B!UDWIxmKkf8qXaeZnRbm_eij-y5lHu02aPWqBW2-uKfI
>Dolls
https://mega.nz/#!WUwmgCKD!18V5QOL4ndh_6dxqPb98oJyF6jDDigLelOxfwXwnkSw
I do fancy cataloguing for François de Roubaix works but they are quite extensive despite dying way too young, he very probably would've become another Morricone had he not liked swimming in turbid underwater caves, with no diving lifelines, at sunset.