I Will Buy You (1956)

Director: Masaki Kobayashi
Country: Japan

When  I talk about sports films I always think of Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull" and Lindsay Anderson's "This Sporting Life" but now I will think of "I Will Buy You" directed by Masaki Kobayashi.

When I was a kid I used to dream about becoming a professional baseball player, I loved the baseball caps and gloves and I admired this beautiful game played by strong guys hitting home runs and throwing real lighting bolts but I did not know "the dark side of the moon" until I grew up, and this Kobayashi film is about that and more importantly it is about the human condition.

Japan was a developing country at the time struggling with the post-war puzzle, and even though we see other sports in the film such as horse racing, sumo wrestling and illegal dog fighting it had already developed its love and passion for the ultimate symbol of its American conquerors: the baseball game,

Kurita is the rising star of the college league and every professional team wants to hire him but he has a mentor named "Kyuki" who claims to be very sick and protects the player from singing contracts in order to rise Kurita's value in the market, Kishimoto on the other hand is the scout who wants to convince Kurita to play for the Toyo Flowers. Fueko who is Kurita's girlfriend starts losing hope in the relationship with him because all of the attention and offerings he is gettings from teams and media.

Greed, mistrust and betrayal, which are initially spread by Kishimoto whose lack of moral and ethics make them a professional businessman and the perfect one representing the morally corrupted industry of sports, start to take over Kurita's family, mentor, girlfriend and Kurita himself with catastrophic consequences. 

Money can corrupt anybody's soul no matter how pure the person is and this is pointed out by Fueko and Kishimoto (I loved the novelistic aspect of the film) because we know only through dialogue that Kurita used to be a good boy, we also know that Kyuki was an spy or a kind of a doble agent in China, and we know that the pitcher who was going to be hired by Kishimoto loses his fingers in a factory job so we can imagine the bleak future of Kurita repeating the cycle after the final events. 

Kurita became a cold-hearted person while Kishimoto understands that loyalty and respect are more important than money, but before the end we are trapped in a big network of lies and doble crossings between all characters, who is telling the truth? who is lying? and who is being loyal?. This film is a masterpiece (and definitely one of my favorites of all time) that makes us question ourselves about morality, values and respect. Capitalism is the system that rules our lives, and Kobayashi lambasted this system by pointing out how money can corrupt our minds and change our souls for the sake of money no matter if you are a baseball player, a journalist or a simple peasant.

P.S: Kudos for the Godzilla reference in the film!

Kurita in action

                           

Le Rouge Est Mis (1957)

Director: Gilles Grangier
Country: France

Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura were like Al Pacino and Robert De Niro for the European cinema during the 50's and 60's, and before Tony Soprano and Walter White, they were the guys who called the shots or paraphrasing Walter White "they were the danger" playing the roles of anti-heroes, and charismatic cold-blood murderers dressing suits, coats and hats.

Old-school cinema can teach many lessons to young filmmakers and to young viewers and even critics of this time, but the main one is that it's not necessary to produce expensive special effects to make a decent film nor is it necessary to hire a genius cinematographer nor a blondie-curvy woman to write an engaging story and make it entertaining, and this heist film is the perfect example of it, not only because it breaks some noir clichés like that of the femme fatale, but also because it contains violence, suspicion, betrayal and action and even some funny moments (like that when the crew steals a car with a truck which has a cow on it).

I would not label this little unknown film as a "masterpiece" but it is without a doubt a solid piece in the genre which influenced the American upcoming movies of the 70's, I also found some coincidences such as Marcel Bozzuffi who appears in this film and years later in William Friedkin The French Connection.

E=mc2 is Einstein's most famous formula and maybe his permanent trademark in the world, well I'm inventing a new one:   Paris + Thieves =  Film Noir