Review: Death Note (Kaneko Shusuke)
May. 22nd, 2008 12:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nebroadweLast night I attended a showing of the live-action Death Note film at the just-off-campus theater (which, despite being just-off-campus, shows almost nothing but blockbuster releases; this is only the second film I've seen there, the other one being The Return of the King). The crowd was sparse -- commencement was Monday and summer classes don't begin until June -- and chatty enough beforehand to make me sweat a little over what I might have gotten myself into (e.g. the line "I'm here to see two hot Asian guys!" was not delivered with nearly enough irony by the young woman sitting in the row behind me). Fortunately, they quieted into an attentive and courteous audience once the previews began to roll for the Death Note anime and the theatrical release of Bleach: Memories of Nobody. (The latter looks highly kinetic; if I go to see it, I'm planting myself in the very back row of the theater so the action sequences don't dissolve into a whirl of colors before my eyes.)
The film was presented dubbed, with the same voice cast as the anime -- a definite plus for dub fans, since the animated Death Note's dub is among the finest I've heard. Brad Swaile (Light), Alessandro Juliani (L), and Brad Drummond (Ryuk) reprise their roles with skill (Juliani's om-nom-noms while L eats were toned down a notch, but still amusingly present, while Swaile refrains from skyrocketing over the top during the climax, thank goodness), and among the featured roles Chris Britton remains a fantastic match for Chief Yagami. It disappoints me, though, not to have heard the voices of the Japanese cast -- acting is full-body work, so one does lose an important part of the original performance with a dub, regardless of its quality. That said, Matsuyama Ken'ichi's L is physically note-perfect from the moment he shuffles on screen half-way through the film -- weirdly unprepossessing (the reaction shot of the police task force on meeting him is priceless) and deadpan funny without being simply a collection of tics. Fujiwara Tatsuya as Light is less buttoned-down than his anime incarnation and adequate, but not brilliant, in realizing his version of sociopathic genius. On the other hand, he's sufficiently relaxed in his portrayal to make it conceivable that he'd have a steady girlfriend to take out on a date, and he has no trouble acting to whatever tennis-ball was placeholding for Ryuk. Everyone's favorite shinigami looks exactly like the original illustrations and is unmistakably a special effect -- we're nowhere near Gollum-territory here -- but since he's not a creature of this world, it works. Fujiwara Shunji is wonderfully Alfred-like as Watari and Kaga Takeshi suitably square-jawed and upright as Chief Yagami.
The female roles are, of course, the problematic ones here for anyone who isn't wholly seduced into the film's androcentric POV. Kashii Yuu has little to do as Light's girlfriend Shiori except look fondly at him, object to Kira's methods and die in a sentimental set-piece (of which more anon). Mishima Hikari is a likeable Sayu, but Godai Michiko as her mother seems even more like a refugee from The Stepford Wives than her counterpart in the anime -- the audience roared with laughter at her blithe dismissal of her husband's mysterious seven-day absence. Seto Asaka, by contrast, makes Naomi Misora look genuinely dangerous in pursuit of Kira, but she still has to suffer a sudden drop in IQ in order to give Light the advantage. The film covers its tracks in this matter better than the anime does, by having her stupid confrontation with Light at the climax turn out to be his manipulation of her via the Death Note; her earlier slip while confronting Light in the heat of anger over her fiance's death is minimized both in and by the subsequent AHA! revelation. But it's still there to be noticed when it happens, sadly, and to leave me with the conviction that one of the film's unconscious themes is that love makes you dumb. I pass over Toda Erika's Misa-Misa because she's all exposition and set-up, though she gets a very amusing intro gleefully promoting a recipe to pack the pounds on a shapely rival.
The cinematography is fine, but nothing to rave about. Ditto the editing: no awkward cuts that I noticed; the montages worked well as transitions; and, pace various reviewers, the story kept moving right along with no noticeable signs of bloat. Ditto the direction, which was workmanlike and for the most part successful in achieving the desired effect -- except for scenes in which people were supposed to be connecting with each other emotionally (e.g. Light and his father at the dinner table, or Light and Shiori in the hospital). I'm not sure how much of that is deliberate, since Light is going through the motions of relationships without the substance, but it also occurs in scenes which don't feature Light (e.g. Chief Yagami tucking a blanket around L or even Misa's stalker's declaration of eternal devotion). The film is self-consciously cool in a way that crowds out genuine emotion -- Light's and L's lack of affect rings truer than Naomi's hysterical grief or Shiori and Light's first-and-last public kiss. Mind you, the latter scene has a retrospective cleverness to it when its ghastly sentimental staginess is revealed to be Light's deliberate creation, validating L's response to it as melodrama ("No, wait, we're just getting to the good part") and adding to Light's characterization as someone who just doesn't understand how real people act and react. It would have been even cleverer if Raye Penber's death scene had itself been less melodramatic, pointing up the contrast between the genuine and the fake, but that would require the whole Death Note phenomenon to be more interested in its characters as characters rather than plot agents. Death Note is a cat-and-mouse thriller and has the flaws as well as the merits of its kind: the game is more important than the players, whose primary task is to be where they're needed when they're needed, occasionally regardless of strict causality or psychological plausibility. Which is a fancy way of saying that sometimes the story jerks the characters around to achieve its goals, but as long as it's fun to watch, viewers won't carp. Much. :-)
Death Note is by no means a bad film. I did have a good time watching the cogs of the plot machine whir around and go ping! at appropriate intervals. Its problematic elements are grist for the grinder of my academic training (hey, it's a movie about smart people, so they can hardly gripe if the audience watches with brains engaged, heh). I'm interested to see how the second film resolves the story, though if Viz insists on another theatrical release with no titles whatsoever, not even for the screen text, I may wait for the DVD. Honestly, given how text-heavy Death Note is, the lack of translation is an idiot maneuver of startling proportions. From the opening montage of mysterious deaths (if you don't know the story and aren't quick at pattern matching, you'd be hard pressed to discern that Light was writing people's names) to the frequent use of newspaper headlines, text messages and CNN-style news flashes to present information (again, a montage on the developing Kira fandom is rendered almost completely opaque without titling) to, finally, such important plot elements as the note Light writes on the bus to out the FBI agent following him, you're at sea if you can't read Japanese at speed. Bad decision; no biscuit.
In short, give it a B-. Probably of greater interest to fans -- though if anyone out there sees it cold, I'd love to hear what you think. I couldn't convince any of the locals to accompany me and give me an outsider's perspective, sadly ...
The film was presented dubbed, with the same voice cast as the anime -- a definite plus for dub fans, since the animated Death Note's dub is among the finest I've heard. Brad Swaile (Light), Alessandro Juliani (L), and Brad Drummond (Ryuk) reprise their roles with skill (Juliani's om-nom-noms while L eats were toned down a notch, but still amusingly present, while Swaile refrains from skyrocketing over the top during the climax, thank goodness), and among the featured roles Chris Britton remains a fantastic match for Chief Yagami. It disappoints me, though, not to have heard the voices of the Japanese cast -- acting is full-body work, so one does lose an important part of the original performance with a dub, regardless of its quality. That said, Matsuyama Ken'ichi's L is physically note-perfect from the moment he shuffles on screen half-way through the film -- weirdly unprepossessing (the reaction shot of the police task force on meeting him is priceless) and deadpan funny without being simply a collection of tics. Fujiwara Tatsuya as Light is less buttoned-down than his anime incarnation and adequate, but not brilliant, in realizing his version of sociopathic genius. On the other hand, he's sufficiently relaxed in his portrayal to make it conceivable that he'd have a steady girlfriend to take out on a date, and he has no trouble acting to whatever tennis-ball was placeholding for Ryuk. Everyone's favorite shinigami looks exactly like the original illustrations and is unmistakably a special effect -- we're nowhere near Gollum-territory here -- but since he's not a creature of this world, it works. Fujiwara Shunji is wonderfully Alfred-like as Watari and Kaga Takeshi suitably square-jawed and upright as Chief Yagami.
The female roles are, of course, the problematic ones here for anyone who isn't wholly seduced into the film's androcentric POV. Kashii Yuu has little to do as Light's girlfriend Shiori except look fondly at him, object to Kira's methods and die in a sentimental set-piece (of which more anon). Mishima Hikari is a likeable Sayu, but Godai Michiko as her mother seems even more like a refugee from The Stepford Wives than her counterpart in the anime -- the audience roared with laughter at her blithe dismissal of her husband's mysterious seven-day absence. Seto Asaka, by contrast, makes Naomi Misora look genuinely dangerous in pursuit of Kira, but she still has to suffer a sudden drop in IQ in order to give Light the advantage. The film covers its tracks in this matter better than the anime does, by having her stupid confrontation with Light at the climax turn out to be his manipulation of her via the Death Note; her earlier slip while confronting Light in the heat of anger over her fiance's death is minimized both in and by the subsequent AHA! revelation. But it's still there to be noticed when it happens, sadly, and to leave me with the conviction that one of the film's unconscious themes is that love makes you dumb. I pass over Toda Erika's Misa-Misa because she's all exposition and set-up, though she gets a very amusing intro gleefully promoting a recipe to pack the pounds on a shapely rival.
The cinematography is fine, but nothing to rave about. Ditto the editing: no awkward cuts that I noticed; the montages worked well as transitions; and, pace various reviewers, the story kept moving right along with no noticeable signs of bloat. Ditto the direction, which was workmanlike and for the most part successful in achieving the desired effect -- except for scenes in which people were supposed to be connecting with each other emotionally (e.g. Light and his father at the dinner table, or Light and Shiori in the hospital). I'm not sure how much of that is deliberate, since Light is going through the motions of relationships without the substance, but it also occurs in scenes which don't feature Light (e.g. Chief Yagami tucking a blanket around L or even Misa's stalker's declaration of eternal devotion). The film is self-consciously cool in a way that crowds out genuine emotion -- Light's and L's lack of affect rings truer than Naomi's hysterical grief or Shiori and Light's first-and-last public kiss. Mind you, the latter scene has a retrospective cleverness to it when its ghastly sentimental staginess is revealed to be Light's deliberate creation, validating L's response to it as melodrama ("No, wait, we're just getting to the good part") and adding to Light's characterization as someone who just doesn't understand how real people act and react. It would have been even cleverer if Raye Penber's death scene had itself been less melodramatic, pointing up the contrast between the genuine and the fake, but that would require the whole Death Note phenomenon to be more interested in its characters as characters rather than plot agents. Death Note is a cat-and-mouse thriller and has the flaws as well as the merits of its kind: the game is more important than the players, whose primary task is to be where they're needed when they're needed, occasionally regardless of strict causality or psychological plausibility. Which is a fancy way of saying that sometimes the story jerks the characters around to achieve its goals, but as long as it's fun to watch, viewers won't carp. Much. :-)
Death Note is by no means a bad film. I did have a good time watching the cogs of the plot machine whir around and go ping! at appropriate intervals. Its problematic elements are grist for the grinder of my academic training (hey, it's a movie about smart people, so they can hardly gripe if the audience watches with brains engaged, heh). I'm interested to see how the second film resolves the story, though if Viz insists on another theatrical release with no titles whatsoever, not even for the screen text, I may wait for the DVD. Honestly, given how text-heavy Death Note is, the lack of translation is an idiot maneuver of startling proportions. From the opening montage of mysterious deaths (if you don't know the story and aren't quick at pattern matching, you'd be hard pressed to discern that Light was writing people's names) to the frequent use of newspaper headlines, text messages and CNN-style news flashes to present information (again, a montage on the developing Kira fandom is rendered almost completely opaque without titling) to, finally, such important plot elements as the note Light writes on the bus to out the FBI agent following him, you're at sea if you can't read Japanese at speed. Bad decision; no biscuit.
In short, give it a B-. Probably of greater interest to fans -- though if anyone out there sees it cold, I'd love to hear what you think. I couldn't convince any of the locals to accompany me and give me an outsider's perspective, sadly ...
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-23 04:01 am (UTC)I do sometimes wish Death Note was a little more focused on the characters. As someone who focuses on characters a lot when she's reading/watching something, it's one of the reason Death Note isn't my absolute favorite anime series.
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Date: 2008-05-23 12:50 pm (UTC)There's a lot of good Japanese film out there (like the original Shall We Dance?, which I heartily recommend. Saw it in its theatrical release years ago and loved it). I'm ... ambivalent about Death Note, as I've said before, though seeing the film has made me start rewatching what I've got of the series (eps. 1-16). Anime generally seems to be suspicious of the untempered intellect (the Frankenstein motif) -- there's all those shows where the good-hearted, not-so-smart person turns out to be the hero, saving (or saving the world from) the brainy, handsome, talented person who goes astray because s/he doesn't make room for empathy (usually written as love). Death Note kind of flips that notion on its back by having a pair of cold, smart, male protagonists going at each other, so that there's nothing but ambivalence about who's right when both of them are willing to sacrifice human connections in service of their goals. Which is interesting, if a bit bloodless (the moral reservations always get expressed by secondary characters -- Light and L never doubt themselves). What starts to get up my craw is the way that empathy/love/emotion is coded feminine, flattened to cliche, and then embodied in characters who are all set up to fail, like Naomi and Misa (and, in the film, Shiori). That smacks of misogyny; it also disses empathy. When I'm not buying into the cat/mouse maneuvering wholly, I suddenly find myself thinking, "Boy, this is unpleasant and morally dubious stuff." At which point it's not fun anymore. The movie, by compressing events, didn't last long enough for that sense to overwhelm the fun factor; plus, the film had more deliberate comedy (I loved the doughnut kabob) to keep me amused.
I loved L, both the Japanese actor and hearing Alessandro Juliani return. (I've been mourning L's demise in the anime simply because I don't get to hear Juliani anymore.)
Hear, hear. Juliani is stellar as L in both the anime and the film. Must check out other things he's done ...