Hana-bi aka Fireworks (Beat Takeshi, 1997)
The Hilarity of Tragedy
Love and Nihilism in a Violent World
The Joker character is one of the greatest villain archetypes of all time, if not the greatest. Cynical Humor. Chaotic Evil. You can spell it K-h-a-o-s(the primordial building blocks to make the universe), and the meaning has deeper spiritual underpinnings. But Khaos can’t be evil. It’s like the earth that grows flowers.
The Joker in the Tarot is the number 1 card. Depicting a “fool” looking up at the sky, smiling, with a foot in the air, about to walk off a cliff. It’s the God card. Indivisible. Be unprepared and carefree in life. Smile madly in the face of real danger.
The Fool directs its own path, looking up, a god in joy, blissfully ignorant and full of belief in the spiritual guidance and hopeful help of the divine, and so inevitably walks off a cliff. Of course, keeping your eyes on the ground, you miss the sky and the sun on your face. You miss the light of God and perhaps your reason for walking in the first place. No birds, sun, or stars. No rain on your face.
It’s better to accept both the sky, the ground, and everything in-between as true. And that is “Fireworks.”
Mother, Water, and the Eternal Unforgiving Feminine.
Laughing through tears, this is mother nature at its best, in symbol. Earth and Sky. Duality isn’t a cliche. It’s a natural law, balance, Mother Nature. Balance is a sort of fair play with energy, at the extremes.
Of course, Mother loves us all. True equality. You have your special bits. So does she, and so does he. Then, of course, if everyone gets love and special treatment, then no one does. This is a further examination of balance in the savagery of life. Life is the greatest playground that can kill you.
We love Bruce Lee. A martial artist, philosopher, and actor. Be like water. Neutral until acted upon by will. The ocean can be calm and peaceful or stormy. Humans are 90% water. Like the emotional ocean.
Like the masks in theater, one smiles, and one frowns. They are still one. And both can exist at the same time, in constant back-and-forth repetition of each other, or under any other myriad of conditions. This is the humor in tragedy. Like a man being kicked in the balls, how funny.
Look Who’s Talking Here!
Beat Takeshi is a great actor. Takeshi Kitano is a great filmmaker. They are the same person. Did I mention he paints? You can see it in “Fireworks.”
Filmmakers get so bent out of shape. Our huge egos have issues with credits and the term “auteur” or artist. It implies that one person was the sole creator of a film. What about me? I did the squibs. I did that stunt perfectly. What about me?
Takeshi wrote, directed, acted, painted the art in, and edited this film. People’s pants get all bent out of shape, when someone who controls the craft so rigidly, deserves that title. Some people claim it when they don’t deserve it. But that’s why we must do the work and keep a keen eye on who is really controlling the final product, for good or ill.
You cannot separate John Williams from Steven Spielberg. Music is such a vital piece of a project, this is one space where, several times, I cannot argue with sharing the credit of the auteur, perhaps. But it’s a small one, perhaps depending on the involvement of the director. In some cases, the director did score the film.
For the purpose of this essay, we will assume that if the voice of the project is strongly that of the director, then they are the artist from that perspective.
Mirror, Mirror, Mirror
Perspective is important when you talk about film. An artist may try to put a mirror on society, and inadvertently aim it at themselves instead. But how can one, when our perspectives are so different? Because we look at things through our own lenses, our egos won’t allow us to really see that artist except through a foggy haze. We see ourselves when we are engaged in a good movie. And so goes the magic trick.
A film is made from someone’s point of view, who only tries to tell a story, but by even having a camera, you make a personal choice (because you care; where else would you put the camera or tell an actor what the character needs?) and every actor, color, sound, or movement makes a difference.
Nietzsche said there is your way, my way, and the truth, which doesn’t exist. I’m paraphrasing, so don’t crucify me.
In film, you have what was put on the screen. You have the audience’s personal feelings about what they witnessed. Witness Me! Then you have the average of the rest of the world. And maybe you have an extreme personality outside the median. Like an Amish person who hasn’t seen any of the Fast and Furious films.
Further, society is like that joke where three blind men are asked to describe an elephant. One says it’s like a tree trunk, another a snake, and another a rope. Society is a moving thing, and in film we are taking snap shots trying to say what it is, when it’s a muiti-colored dance of puking adolescents, spinning through all musical genres, to stave off existential boredom.
We Dream of Tragedy
Making a movie is like making a dream. You need to have the emotional average of the world’s audience to make an impact. Remembering a movie is like remembering a dream. Some things we experience are shared and similar but not the same, like snowflakes.
Comedy and Tragedy seem to be universal when it comes to the human experience. There is something so absurd about both existing in a strange, whimsical dance. Tragedy strikes, and just as suddenly, the show begins. Must go on. One monkey doesn’t stop, no show.
The neutral universe isn’t malicious. Does the universe ask us not to take life and death so seriously? Can life be precious, special, short, extremely painful, beautiful, and serious without being a paradox? Is it wrong to have a paradox? If it’s all true in one big gumbo, perhaps we should take it at face value.
Life is Fireworks and Flowers.
The following contains spoilers because it must be discussed as the conclusion of the piece.
The main dancer in our film, played by Beat Takeshi, is Nishi. He is in a tragic dance with his wife. Through all the horrors they have suffered, leaning heavily on Nishi’s side, he tries to make his wife’s journey less insufferable. He tries to hold the horrors at bay. He himself is a savage, like the criminals he seems to find work abusing. Extremely beastly, he is ever so delicate with his wife, who has no name.
His life with her seems to be a counterpoint to his work life. He needs both to function. And when they are in danger of colliding, he opts to stop the game, turning his wife away from the looming monsters at Bay. There is no more room to shield his wife from the doom of his savagery or looming sickness.
He loved his wife. Is meaning and coherence beauty? Certainly, it’s a mixture of this; a little chaos thrown in. Part of the joy and terror of being alive is learning to accept that paradox and live with it. And in the center of the swirling vortex of duality is the eye of peace.
