Boogiepop and others

Title - Boogiepop and Others
Language - Japanese
Genre - Sci- Fi

Boogiepop and others it the live action movie based on the  manga of the same name.  There is also an anime called Boogiepop Phantom..

Boogiepop and others is split into four parts all of which are set on the same day and follows a group of high school students as a number of interlocking strange events happen.

We start by seeing a few short scenes that act as an introduction to some of the characters, the scenes are unrelated to each other and show us little, they are expanded on as the stories unfold.

The first couple of parts start the fim off quite slowly.  In part one we hear rumors around the school of the Boogiepop Phantom, an urban legend about a strange person that keeps appearing.  Boogiepop is possibly a shinigami (a Japanese death god) and attributed to the disappearance of a number of local runaways.  The first part focuses on Keiji Takeda and his girlfriend Toka Misyashita.  We see that Misyashita is becoming distant to Takeda and he doesn’t know why.  Not much really happens, there are a few bits that are related to events in the following parts.  Then Takeda is around when an injured, homeless looking man staggers out of the subway.  Everyone moves out of the mans way and Takeda just stares at him.  A masked girl approaches the man, says something to him and then she looks at Takeda and asked why he just looked on.  Takeda believes that the women is Misyashita but she says that she is Boogiepop and Misyashita doesn’t seem to know anything about Boogiepop.  Takeda keeps looking for Boogiepop, trying to prove that she is Misyashita and he eventually finds her.  Takeda and Boogiepop meet up a few times but don’t do much except talk. There is a strange event which sets off everyones phones and all the street lights followed by a shooting star.  Takeda meets Boogiepop for the last time, he feels that he knows Misyashita better for knowing her.  Boogiepop leaves saying she has defeated the monster she came to kill and Misyashita & Takeda’s relationship improve.

The second part follows Naoko a girl who has two boyfriends and claims to love too much.  Most of this story revolves around Naoko and a man she met called Echos.  Echos claims that he is looking for a clone of himself that is an evil monster and when he has killed it he will return to the stars.  Echos can not speak but can communicate with Naoko via a kind of telepathy.  We also see Saotome a boy who is selling drugs which he gets from the eyes of Minako a girl who is killing and eating people who Saotome is bringing to her.  At the end of this part both Naoko and Echos have disappeared, not together.

Part three follows  Kazuko as she tries to find out what is happening with her friend Kirima who has been acting strange and has been suspended from the school.

The Fourth part fills in the missing parts and find out more about Echos and his clone which has now become known as manticore and looks nothing like him.

Boogiepop and others is an interesting film.  Parts one and three only fill in a little of the information and the main characters don't know of any of the main events that are happening around them to the point that  Takida thinks that the monster Boogiepop has defeated is anxiety.  Takida doesn't think that Boogiepop is anything more that Miyashita’s mental breakdown.

In part three Kazuko knows that there is more going on than Kirima trying to find out about the source of the drug  but, by the end of the section she seems resigned to the fact that things happen around her and she will never know what they are.  kazuko is just happy knowing that Kirima is safe.

These two parts make an interesting change to traditional narrative, in almost every film (and in real life) there will be people who don't know what is going on around them.  Most people are like Takida, they treat the events that affect them as the most important and ignore anything that doesn’t include them and for the most part this is ok the events in someones life are more important because they are affecting that person and so that is what we have to react to.  If there is some unknown event that is happening to someone we know then we have two choices either get ourselves involved which may get in the way of the other person or get on with our own lives and look out for our friend when we can.  Kazuko tries, with the best intentions to help out Kirima but becomes aware that whatever is happening is not really anything to do with her and that not everything that happens will always involve her.

It is clever how, even though parts one and three are removed form the main action they still contribute by adding little bits of information and developing some of the characters.

The film is clever in the way it builds up the plot giving clues here and there to what is happening.  It starts off slow but also tells us a lot about the nature of Boogiepop right at the start

Boogiepop and others is quite a long film a 2 hours but it uses it time well  introducing the characters and plotlines slowly so there is not too much happening at once.  Some films try to put everything into the shortest possible time to get in more action and this can lead to confusion especially if the film is not linear with it’s story telling.

Boogiepop and others comes across as slightly ‘low budget’ but this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the film concentrates on story instead of action and effects.

So give it watch if you want more than just explosions and CGI. 

Phantom of the paradise

Title - Phantom of the Paradise
Language - English
Genre - Gothic, horror, musical

Swan is the best musician/producer in the business who runs death records and now he wants to open the ‘Paradise’, the best rock club ever.  everything is ready for the opening he just needs to find the perfect song for the opening.

Winslow Leach is a struggling musician who is writing a modern musical of Faust.  Swan hears one of Winslow’s songs and decides it would be perfect for the opening of the Paradise the only thing is he does not want Winslow and he won’t let anyone else sing it.  Swan steals Winslows music and tries to ignore him and block all of his attempts to find out what is going on but Winslow won’t give up and keeps trying to see Swan.  During one of these attempts Winlow meets a young singer called Phoenix who he thinks could sing his work.

After one of Winslows attempts to break into Death records he is framed for drug abuse and is thrown into ‘Sing Sing’ jail where he is kept for 6 months until he escapes.

After his escape Winslow attempts to blow up Death records but instead ends up getting his head crushed in a record press.  Winslow survives this but is left unable to speak.  As his attempts to sabotage the record label he sets his sights on destroying the Paradise.  He blows up one of the rehearsals for the opening night and then sets out to find Swan.  When he finds him Swan cuts a deal with Winslow saying he will  run the Faust play how Winslow wants it if he will keep writing for him, Winslow agrees and signs a contract with Swan (in blood)once swan has agreed to let Phoenix sing the lead.  Swan betrays Winslow again and Winslow goes on a rampage but his attempts to destroy the Paradise only lead in better publicity for Swan and end up pushing Phoenix into Swans arms. Winslow attempts to kill himself but find he can not die until Swan dies.  Winslow then finds that Swan is planning on killing Phoenix on stage.  Winslow then has to attempt to find a way of killing Swan.

Phantom of the Paradise starts out as an ambitious remake of the Phantom of the Opera bringing it up to date (in the 1970’s) and setting it in the corrupt world of the music industry.  A lot of the familiar scenes and characters from phantom of the opera are present. Winslow is the Phantom and Phoenix is Christine.  Instead of living in the sewers under the theatre the Phantom lives in the theatre and has access to a number of secret passages that Swan was already using.  The opera is replaced with Winslow’s musical version of Faust which is more rock than opera.  The chandelier is replaced with a neon thunder bolt.

Technically only the middle of the film is a retelling of Phantom of the opera, the beginning of the film covers how Winslow becomes the phantom.  Winslow starts out as a quite musician and seems to be the type of person who wouldn’t harm anyone  he is the total opposite of Swan.  The only thing that Winslow cares about is his play and it is the loss of this that becomes his downfall.  As Winslow has very little proof that he wrote Faust he can't go through the courts and as Swan has most of the police in his pocket he would have probably lost any way.  we watch as Winslow becomes more and more obsessed with getting his work back.  At one point there is an almost light-hearted approach as Winslow  first meets Phoenix who he seems to fall for straight away and then in the next scene he is dressed in drag and looking quite silly.  This is the last time we see Winslow resemble anything normal as it is straight after this though when the film takes it dark turn and Winslow is sent to jail and we watch in a few short scenes his desperation turn to madness.  The last of Winslow is lost with his voice, the last thing he had to hold onto.

The end of the film differs from that of Phantom of the opera as story changes to mimic that of the Faust Play or of the picture of Dorian Gray.  There are clues earlier in the film  that swan is not all he seems to be.  He is very secretive and offers temptation and corruption and the viewer could easily assume that he is the devil.  He even gets the Phantom to sign his contract in blood.  The first real clue we get to the true nature of Swan is a short scene where a woman is trying to speak to him, she claims they went to school together in the 1950’s and has a picture of him where he looks no different, as the film is set in the 70’s he should have been showing some age.

The play of Winslow’s version of Faust is interesting, the main part we see is more reminiscent of Frankenstein with the main character being brought to life by lightning with the main actor being killed off with a neon lightning bolt in this film's version of the chandelier scene.  There is something about this part of the play that is reminiscent of the Rocky Horror show.   The lightning bolt  also seems to represent a change in the phantom, he is no longer under Swans control and will now do whatever it takes to break all connections with him.  Even when the Phantom finds out the truth about the contract he signed and with Swans threat to make Phoenix disappear the Phantom’s goal is to get away from Swan and to protect Phoenix.

The costumes and the music both play an important in the film as well.  The music itself mimic what is happening in the film, both in tone and lyrics.  The music and the bands that are under Swan change and get darker as the film progresses.

Winslow’s costume changes as he changes from winslow to the phantom with the two biggest changes being when his teeth are replace with metal ones and when his face is burnt

Swan’s appearance only changed twice first when he signed his contract and at the end.

It had been a long time since i had last seen Phantom of the Paradise and there was one scene that i actually thought was from another film and that was when the Phantom was hooked up to the organ to get his voice back, I that this was a scene from one of the Doctor Phibes films

So basicly Phantom of the paradise starts out as an updated version of Phantom of the Opera but then detours into the picture of Dorian gray and pays homage to to Frankenstein and is absolutely brilliant.

The Quatermass Conclusion

Title - The Quatermass Conclusion
Language - English
Genre - Sci - Fi

The Quatermass Conclusion is the fourth and final Quatermass film and also the only one not released by hammer horror.

Set in the near future, stated as the last quarter of the 20th century in the film, we see that society has become to crumble.  All over the world there are gang wars and most cities are no go areas.  The gangs are composed of teenagers and young adults and anyone of that age group that are not involved with the gangs are part of a group known as the Planet People.

We meet an old Professor Quatermass as he is on his way to a T.V. station in London, when his taxi drops him off quite away from the station he is attacked by one of the gangs, he would have been killed if Joe Kapp, another scientist on his way to the station, had not intervened. The show Quatermass and Kepp are commenting on is a live broadcast from the ‘Hands In Space’ a joint space project between America & Russia.  Live on air something happens to the project and the station seems to break apart. After the show Quatermass joins up with Kapp to see if he can find out more about the different gangs in the hope of finding his Granddaughter.

Kapp is based at a radio observatory which is housed in a building that goes back to the 15th century.  On the land is an ancient stone circle that dates back to 5000 years.

During the incident with the hands in space project the observatory picked up a strange signal.

The members of the Planet People start to mass at ancient meeting sites around the world and what is left of the police and army attempt to break up these meetings.  One of the meetings is held at the stone circle on the observatory's land and Quatermass and Kapp witness a blinding light hitting the circle and all the people in it have gone, the planet people leader who was outside the circle insists that the people have been take up to another planet, something they prophesied would happen but Quatermass is unconvinced.  As Quatermass looks into the incident he makes some horrific discoveries and finds a connection to the violence that is happening around the world.

The Quatermass Conclusion is slightly different from the other three films, to start with it is not a horror in the same sense as the others.  It does play on myths and legends in the same way as Quatermass and the pit but to a lesser extent.  The stone circles and other meeting places were created to warn people of danger and then surrounded by superstition.  There is also no monster in this film as all we see of the aliens is the beam of light.

The character of Quatermass also starts off different, he is older and feels that he is uncertain of things.  He feels that he is losing his memory and is retired from rocket science.  His only purpose is to find his granddaughter but he finds himself drawn back to science as  he is one of the few people who is not influenced by the force that is causing the violence.

There are two sets of people in the Quatermass Conclusion, the young and the old and both of these can be broke down into a further two groups.  The young are either rioters or Planet People.  Most of the young are in gangs that are fighting and destroying civilization and this is how  the older people see all of the young.  The smaller group of the young are the Planet People, a hippy like group who are seen as a cult, they renounce science and believe that they will be saved by aliens who will take them to another planet.

The older generation seem to be split into two other groups those that are fighting against the gangs, mainly shown as the ‘Pay Cops’ and those who are trying to survive.  The series the film was made from was made at the end of the 1970’s  and some of the views in the film are how society was seen .  Since the second world war there was a gap forming between the older generations and the younger and there were a lot of the older generation that saw this as a problem, we had had events like the Vietnam war which had had a lot of protestors and the rise of rock and punk was seen as antisocial and violent.

This is where the Quatermass conclusion did something different, it did not say that young were wrong and the old were right, Quatermass himself stated that the generations were different and that the young were open to things that the old could no longer see.  In the  film we see that some of the older generation become members of the gangs or the Planet People and this is representative of the new way of thinking taking over the old ways but the day is saved by the old scientists showing that the old ways still have some use, in fact the final scenes, where the old use the ‘essence of the young’ shows the old ways and the new working together.

The Quatermass conclusion is a good end to the series.  It still has the feel of the other Quatermass films but also has an end, the world is changing and the old ways (Quatermass) are giving way to the new.

It is well worth a watch especially if you have seen the other films.