,
13 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
I love revisiting films over the years. One that I do quite often, every time it gets a re-release, is the Wings of Honnneamise. It is, quite frankly, my all-time favorite film and has always topped the rankings since I first saw it.
Seeing the film in my early 20s and watching it multiple times over the next three decades (holy shit) has been fascinating. My love for it only grows and I appreciate its technical excellent more and more each time.
But's that "controversial" sequence that really still becomes the key piece. The attempted rape sequence within it has long felt like it didn't belong to many and was just problematic for a whole host of reasons. For the longest time I never really took a position beyond...
saying that I agreed that it was controversial. Such material really has to be carefully used and not just be a piece designed to make the male character grow and be a better person or some such malarkey.
Revisiting it now in what's definitely a very different time socially than before when it was made and in past viewings, I've come to "appreciate it" even more because it's a key piece. We've seen so many of our "heroes" and those we idolize in many industries reveal...
their true nature and character. Having Shiro do this here, believing he was owed it for all the time he put in, has been the mindset of a great many. I'm certainly not saying all men or anything like that. But to deny a sizable segment believes it is foolish.
Including it in this as Shiro is closer to becoming a hero to a nation, to show that there is side, is a risky choice. I don't know (or perhaps have forgotten) the reason for its original inclusion. But that's going to be framed through both Japanese social views and
however you want to view the social aspects of this other-world film. It's also complicated by the real world side in how Riquinni deals with it, fighting back successfully to be sure, but still subject to something that has now changed who she is.
That she goes back to being perfectly normal, or rather presenting the facade of normalcy the next day, is heartbreaking. That she's doing it because of who he is, her religion, and just to protect herself from having to deal with it, alters our view of everything going forward.
And that all of this is, what, two minutes of material in general?
It used to be somewhat "easy" after that to go back to following Shiro, getting caught up in the assassination attempt on him and then the mission itself as the war unfolds and the flight takes place.
We get this haunting ending, the words that Shiro speaks while taking in something for the first time, and it's supposed to be inspiring.
But that darkness of who he really is is there, and always has been. But it feels more real, more truthful, more meaningful, than it has in the past. And that makes this new viewing even more fascinating and, yes, disheartening than previous times.
