Casshern.

Reincarnated with an invincible body to fight an iron devil. If Casshern does not do it, who will?

This film, like its tagline, has meaning that is rather difficult to come to grips with. Ostensibly, the story is this:

In an unspecified future, civilization is falling apart--torn down by war and disease. One doctor, living in the Eastern Federation, thinks he may have found a way to combat the effects of radioactivity and chemical waste that are ravaging the population (including his beloved wife), but the consequences of his discovery are far darker than could have been imagined. In the meantime, his son has gone to war against the terrorists of Eurasian Zone Seven, but the flame of idealistic nationalism has failed to protect him from reality, and he returns to his father's laboratory as a corpse just as crisis erupts in the containment chamber.

Though beautifully rendered, this movie is in some ways very unwieldy. The original film clocked in at over two hours, while its American release was cut to come in under the two-mark. (A professor once told me that this was common with foreign language films released in America - the reason being that Americans don't like to read for more than two hours at a stretch... pathetic, isn't it?) Despite this cut, the story still follows a very classically Japanese storytelling pattern that can be hard for those unused to it to appreciate. The pattern is simply thus: an extremely long exposition that leads to a sudden and fleeting climax.

The climax of the story is what holds the meaning; it is where all the pieces of the initial exposition fall into place and crystallize in the mind of the viewer. And it is not possible without that exposition.

In Casshern, the moment of realization is sublimely powerful. The film broaches a number of tough topics--most notably the struggles between humanity and monstrosity, between love and hate, between forgiveness and grudge--but there are no simple answers, and perhaps Casshern's ambiguous ending is a deliberate acknowledgment of that. I would probably have to watch it again many times (I've already seen it thrice) before I arrived at a definite conclusion, and even then...

I only know that it moves me, and that while it inspires me to pity the monsters wherever I find them--in myself and in others--it also admonishes me to believe that transformation is always possible for anyone and everyone.

The Stigmata of Cross-Dressing.

Dinner at foxxydancr's house this evening was awesome. Included in the evening's schedule were three helpings of delicious linguine in clam sauce, to-die-for cherry-chocolate cookie, and much beer. We also enjoyed the greatest crisis of modernity, jesus struck by lightning, and the above titular linguistic biff of mine that came about when I tried to determine which (now disbanded) visual-kei band I thought was more goofy: Lareine or Malice Mizer.

It's a tough call, granted, but I think the award has to go to Malice Mizer in the end. Synthesized harpsichords, yo. 'Nuff said.