Skip to main content

The Perfection of GIRI HAJI



The final episode of this extraordinary series included one of the single most audacious and hermetic  pieces of choreography that one could ever hope to see in a tale of violent redemption among the yakuza. 

Or indeed in most other contexts.

At the climactic point at which multiple plot strands have plaited together, including through a butterfly effect from the other side of the world, in perfect union on a London rooftop with a motley array of hardened types facing off and a teenager poised - literally - between life and death one might legitimately expect either another blood soaked confrontation or a deus ex machina intervention. 

Instead what takes place would not have been out of place in high opera or ballet. 

The scene fades slightly to monochrome, the movement becomes formalised, more characters appear and everyone becomes quite literally a choreographed version of themselves. They  move together and apart, they cling for a moment, they face each other. Their movement is both of their own volition and that of the others. The threads between them are visible through the dance.

It has become relatively commonplace to talk about balletic violence usually meaning little more than  that the speed of the frames has been slowed down or that shards and fragments of glass provide a kaleidoscopic background as one more person is added to the body count.

What happens in Giri Haji is of quite a different order. 

Not only is there no violence this is a kinetic resolution of moral dilemmas. The movement comes from the inside of each character but its expression is the means of reaching a conclusion, on deciding what must happen, on what matters most. 

Reflecting interiority with such intensity has the same emotional heightening as an aria or a pas de deux. It teeters on the brink of absurdity but clings on because what is being represented is genuine and recognisable to all even if we rarely bring such a profound level of feeling to the surface.

The series and this sequence in particular has received high praise, and near adulation in some quarters, and it feels entirely merited. A mixed media world in which the artefacts of two quite different cultures are brought to bear and universal moral dilemmas are played out at the interface between them.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Best Films of 2024

  My Letterboxd account confidently provided a detailed thematic breakdown of the 225 films viewed this year: Quite what to make of this is somewhat less clear. Either I broke the algorithm or my ideal film is a low key, droll, genre hopping, weird, relationship drama with philosophical pretensions. Which might actually stand as a description of my favourite film of the year.  Certainly, on review, 2024 turns out, slightly surprisingly, to have been a strong year. So even before reaching the top 10 there are another ten films very worthy of note: On Becoming A Guinea Fowl   The Dead Don't Hurt   Green Border    The Outrun   Good One Showing Up   The Holdovers   Femme   The Settlers   Blackbird, Blackbird, Blackberry   Then the top ten in traditional reverse order: 10.  Janet Planet  Wonderfully understated, subtle examination of our perception of connection to others seen most profoundly in the determination of a teen...

Anni Albers: Sculpting With Thread

Wandering around this kaleidoscopic  exhibition  at the Tate put me in mind of so many other artists that I began to wonder whether Albers was a conduit for their influence or whether I was simply engaged in a procession of imagined serendipity. It may seem strange to begin with a sculptor given that Albers primarily worked with textiles but I was constantly reminded of Brancusi. The wonder of Brancusi is that he aims to reveal and develop the inherent nature of the material whether stone, wood or metal. The form that he finds is therefore perfectly suited to the stuff with which he is working. What is striking with Albers is that she does exactly this with the techniques applied to different types of material. Development In Rose (one of my favourite pieces in the exhibition) is made from linen and the impurities and imperfections in the thread are used in essence as highlights. The slightly muted colour also captures the often slightly faded nature of t...

Pourquoi J'Aime 'Les Amants'

It has Jeanne Moreau. It has the most exquisite andante from Brahms String Sextet. It has extended sequences that involve both Jeanne Moreau and the (exquisite) andante from Brahms string sextet. It  is directed by one of the most fabulous French film makers, Louis Malle, and probably ranks alongside Smiles Of A Summer Night as amongst the most swooning meditations on romantic love (albeit on this occasion without Russian roulette). Did I mention, it has Jeanne Moreau. It has a sequence in which a very a la mode Parisienne wakes up with a groomed daschund already in the crook of her arm. It has the most extraordinary sequence of laughter in any film in which the laughter is both such a release and a realisation of how much laughter has simply been missing for so long that it is delirious and painful in equal measure. It is a beautifully observed portrait of Paris and the provinces with all the droll superficiality that implies. But above all it is the utte...