Barren Illusions (1999) User Reviews

Contemporary filmmaking at its best

[LGwriter49 · 10/10 · 27 February 2002]

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's 1999 masterpiece, Barren Illusion, is a razor-sharp dissection of contemporary Japanese culture which depicts its subject as being so devoid of its own identity that it's almost completely co-opted by mundane Western artifacts. In scene after scene--sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly--Kurosawa shows objects with obvious English language markers as critical components of required activity in day-to-day lives. And an all-Japanese music group intermittently shows up pounding on an assortment of Brazilian drums to emphatically demonstrate their (read, the culture's) need to immerse themselves in something completely different from what they are.

To emphasize this more dramatically, Kurosawa has the male lead, a sometime musician, occasionally fade in and out of his surroundings, as though a being who senses intelligently and who, at the same time, is an integral component of his culture, could not (or, perhaps, should not) exist if the culture itself has so little identity. In Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry a character becomes blurred on screen, but that was a psychological observation linked to the individual's personality. Kurosawa's disappearing act is quite different, much more emphatically connecting the individual to his culture.

There is no real plot in the film, but the intelligence Kurosawa brings to bear is so powerful, a plot is not necessary--nor would it work. He frequently has his characters repeat the same banal action in the same scene (stamping postal documents, kicking a balloon around), indicating much more than a lack of imagination. It is, Kurosawa says, the sterility of a culture that engenders repetitive, non-thinking (i.e., sterile) behavior.

The female lead, a postal worker, is shown involved in activities (in two different scenes) which surely would result in her death--jumping off a building and being severely beaten by a gang of thugs. Yet in each case, she's shown in the immediately following scene alive and whole. How can one die when one does not really live?

This is a brilliant work, very highly recommended. It's a shame that none of Kurosawa's work is available in the U.S. on DVD or video. Rumor has it that Cure, another superb film, will be available in Summer 2002 domestically on DVD.

This Film Has Ended My Interest In Kurosawa

[wood-69841 · 2/10 · 2 June 2017]

The first film I saw which was directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa was 'The Cure'. I thought it was one of the best Japanese films I had seen, and I eagerly looked forward to seeing more of his work. I have now watched another eight of his films and even though I didn't really expect to find another 'Cure', I have to say that I have been disappointed with each one of them. Now that I have seen 'Barren Illusion' I know that I am not going to take the trouble to view any more. For me, this film is the worst of them all and appears to be nothing more than a collection of out-takes from a couple of films which have been stitched together, given a title and released on an unsuspecting public. There is nothing of interest here, let alone anything to get excited about.

A significant piece of the puzzle.

[whalleywhat · 8/10 · 15 August 2013]

"Poets are mortals who, singing earnestly, sense the trace of the fugitive gods, stay in these tracks and trace for the mortals, their brothers, the way toward the turning. But who among mortals can trace such a track? Traces are often hard to behold and are always the legacy of an assignation that is barely felt." -Jean-Luc Godard, Histoire(s) Du Cinema

Kiyoshi Kurosawa has proved many times over that he is one of the filmmakers who is both most attuned to our present condition and best able to get this vision on screen. He generally accomplishes this (somewhat) within the strictures of genre, in films like Cure and Pulse, but Barren Illusions comes much closer to pure art film.

Its most memorable shot is a long uncut sequence in which the young couple at the center of the film wander through a children's park in which balloons and beach balls are strewn about, and proceed to half- heartedly amuse themselves with them in about as many ways as possible. This is, in fact, what they do throughout most of the film. A friend brings recording equipment to their apartment and tells the girl to repeat a few phrases on acoustic guitar and keyboard, and then loops and arranges the results. The music, a sort of woozy trip-hop, reflects the total lack of effort expended in producing it. It's hollowly pleasant. The boy decides they should buy a dog, and they're seen around with it a few times, having the same kind of superficial fun they always have, before it's taken away. The theme of purposelessness which pervaded Bright Future is also at the center of this film, but whereas it manifested itself in unfocused rage there, here there is simply ennui.

In one of Kurosawa's trademark moments of magical realism, what appear to be a bunch of feathers begin streaming past the girl's window as she faces the other way in her room. Upon noticing this, she immediately closes the shutters. It turns out it's the beginnings of an epidemic of pollen. The boy is caught by it in the park and escapes into a washroom. A middle-aged doctor tells him that teens are particularly susceptible to an allergic reaction, whereas he himself is largely immune, and prescribes the boy a medication which tends to cause impotence.

Kurosawa has been criticized for placing these types of blatant analogies in his films (I'd say the pollen is a clear stand in for depression), but they're made palatable by the richness of their surroundings. The significance of the tree is explained quite early in Charisma, and yet the viewer will struggle to maintain the analogy as things grow more and more complex. There are no easy readings of Kurosawa films. This is even commented upon by characters in Retribution and Serpent's Path, essentially goading the audience as to whether they've solved the puzzle. His methods remind me of an interview I saw with Krzysztof Kieslowski, who said that when Poland suffered under censorship, there was a special bond between audience and filmmakers, as they both thought critically and worked together to subvert the censors. This bond was lost with the breakup of the Soviet Union, after which audiences began to engage passively with films as entertainment, as most Western audiences do. Although Kurosawa does not face similar problems, I believe his films attempt to engage the critical faculties of his audience in a similar manner. It could also be the case that Kurosawa's insights aren't fully worked out and systematic, but "the legacy of an assignation that is barely felt," and that he is just slightly less lost than the rest of us.

Sex is almost never present in the film, although it is alluded to a number of times. The young couple are themselves quite sexless, with her boyish haircut and his feminine features. After one of their breakups, she is picked up by another young man at a soccer game, allowing our male protagonist to briefly assert his masculinity when he physically assaults the other young man at McDonalds and reclaims his place in the seat across from the girl. Earlier, she is clearly distressed that he is taking the medication, given its side effects, but nothing more is said on the matter. At one point, after eating dinner at home, she clutches at her stomach and falls to the floor. It is unclear whether she feels sick or whether it is the pangs of an absence which the dog may have briefly assuaged. When he asks if she's alright, she replies, "I'm dead." After he helps her to bed, there's a brief erotically charged moment which elicits a laugh from her, but he immediately returns to cleaning the dishes, while she gets up and tells him, "I'm leaving."

As with any Kurosawa film, the world around the young couple is not inert. There is a criminal element, and violence seems to spring up randomly. The girl encounters a co-worker at the post office who advises her not to bother with a broken photocopier. "The machine hasn't worked since 2000. And yet nobody does anything. Why won't someone do something?" After their next encounter, the woman jumps off the roof of the post office. There's a drum procession, young thugs, and prominently placed American brands all over. What the significance of any one of these elements might be is as much of a puzzle as ever, and yet they're cut through with a significance which we all understand intuitively. They come from the world which surrounds us, a world which is not particular to Japan.

Kurosawa films often end in a sort of apocalyptic chaos, as though this is the only resolution he can see these problems building towards. Bright Future has vaguely revolutionary undertones. Barren Illusions proffers neither warnings nor solutions, and yet it is one of his most damning critiques of the current state of things.

Partial waste of time

[kukar-567-564628 · 4/10 · 28 December 2012]

It seems that Kurosawa used some sort of the "stamps" during the shot period and totally forgot what he wanted to tell us (OK, OK, not to "us" - just to me). For a contrast you may see another Japanese title - "Enter the void", which itself is a one big "stamp" but is a masterpiece in, at least, its visual part. Because IMDb requires 10+ lines of review, I will add them in a quick way:

Music 3/10, despite the hero is a "music producer". Actors acting 7/10 - especially the heroine. An Idea behind the scenes - non trivial, hard to formulate. Realisation - oops, 3/10. Total 4/10. And the last line: of course, you should see it by yourself to have your own opinion and not to read such a stupid "reviews" like this one.

Can love lead to anything else but a conformist relationship?

[emiel_ · 9/10 · 7 July 2000]

The filmmaker asks if it's unavoidable for young people who are in love to become a couple, to live together and eventually become a family. Oinaru Genei is made of little pieces from the lives of the two main characters, a young man who's a music producer and a girl who works at a postal office. It seems they don't want to move on in their relationship, don't want to grow up.

Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa explores the human condition in the post millennium. With the aid of his students from the film school of Tokyo, he creates an experimental and unusual love story.

Good luck!

[I_Ailurophile · 2/10 · 17 July 2023]

Of those few films I've seen to date from Kiyoshi Kurosawa I've enjoyed or loved most, though by no means are all equal. Here, I simply don't know what he was doing. By the time one-third of the runtime has elapsed no sign of discrete plot has manifested; what we have had is a collection of scenes that are random and detached, with connective threads so intangible and speculative that the stereotypical fringe conspiracy theorist, with his string and corkboard, is about as reasonable in his ramblings as what any average viewer may suppose. Dialogue is sparse, and irrelevant to any sense of "storytelling," by which I mean some acts of violence, some moments of people apparently behaving abnormally, and some moments of people engaging with electronic technology of one type or another. I'm reminded of 2001's 'Pulse,' which was big on atmosphere and incredibly vague with its ideas; the difference is that 'Barren illusions' has no atmosphere, and is, astoundingly, even more vague with its ideas. I've read the one-line synopsis. To sit and watch, connections between that outside context and the scenes playing out seem tenuous at best; with or without that outside context, I'm at best unsure if each scene in turn is enough to meaningfully begin to form a notion of what this movie might be about.

I guess it's well made, such as it is, but I can't bring myself to care about acting or craftsmanship when the theoretical substance is so hopelessly indefinite, nebulous, hazy, and downright indiscernible and flummoxing. What was Kurosawa intending with 'Barren illusions?' What should I be taking away from it? I genuinely don't know. I read what others have written about the picture and I wonder if they watched the same thing that I did. I came here expecting plot, or at least meaning, and what I got was purely amorphous and indescribable. I know enough to recognize that the filmmaker operates on a level of esoteric intellectualism and artistry that's purposefully shrouded in mystery, closely-held secrets, and lofty symbolism, but there's a difference between swimming in a lake and diving in headfirst then refusing to come up for air. I'm simply at a loss. I guess I'm glad for those who check out this picture and find it to be a satisfying, worthwhile experience, but I've a hard time believing anyone could appreciate it without being on the same exact, precise wavelength as Kurosawa - and to that point, I don't know who I would or could ever recommend this to, because I don't know anyone who I'd anticipate to feel any differently than I do. Check it out if you want, but don't say you haven't been forewarned, and I wish you the best of luck.