Silent Dolls
Takeshi Kitano's beautiful, meditative film Dolls opens with a
bunraku performance. Bunraku is a traditional Japanese art
form in which marionettes are manipulated by three different puppeteers, so
as to accommodate a full range of movements, including eyes, eyebrows, and
mouths. This bunraku isn't connected in any way with film's
narrative, instead it lays a metaphorical foundation that will tightly
controlled both visually and emotionally by Kitano's manipulating the
strings of his characters. When this introductory performance ends, Kitano's
narrative begins as he leads his "puppets" in three overlapping stories of
heartbreak, in which the characters are invisibly manipulated by their
selfish own actions.
In the first story, young Matsumoto (Hidetoshi Nishijima) caves in to his
parents' pressure to break off his romance with Sawako (Miho Kanno) and
marry his boss' daughter. Sawako is heartbroken and attempts suicide. She
survives, though with extensive brain damage (which is never really
explained), and is unable to recognize anyone she has known previously.
Consumed with guilt, Matsumoto spirits Sawako away, hoping to restore her
memory. Sawako, however, is given to wandering away unattended, sometimes
putting herself into dangerous situations. Matsumoto decides to tie a long
red around each of their waists, so that wherever she wanders, he may
follow, and watch over her. Their strange appearance makes them an object of
curiosity for the locals who dub them the "Bound Beggars."
The second story Kitano presents finds an aging yakuza boss longing for a
lost love. As a young man, Hiro (Tatsuya Mihashi) is a factory worker and
was deeply in love with Ryoko (Chieko Matsubara), who brings him his lunch
in a nearby park every day. With his factory facing bankruptcy, and a
position waiting in the yakuza, Hiro breaks up with Ryoko, promising to
return for her once he has attained his fortune. Despondent, the woman says
she will return to park each day waiting for his return. We jump into the
future, where Hiro, now an elderly gentleman, returns to the park to find
that his unnamed lover has remained true to her word, and has returned over
the years to the park each day with two lunches.
The final story revolves around Haruna (Kyoko Fukada) a Japanese pop star.
After a horrific car accident, half of her face becomes disfigured, and she
retreats from the spotlight, refusing to speak to anyone, especially fans.
Though a bit more distant, Kitano sets up the relationship between pop star
and fan as romance similar to the first two stories. One particularly
devoted fan/lover, Nukui (Tsutomu Takeshige) is desperate to see Haruna, and
commits a surprising and horrific act in order to reunite with his loved
one.
The unifying thread in all three stories is selfishness. Matsumoto, though
pressured by parents, ultimately makes a decision that will serve his own
ends. By marrying the boss's daughter he not only secures a financial future
for himself but also gets his nagging parents off his back. Hiro is
similarly consumed with the desire for a secure life when he callously
leaves his partner eternally waiting for him in the park. Finally, to save
her own embarrassment at her disfigured face, Haruna shuts out the very
people who helped her attain fame and fortune. In each of these cases, the
jilted lovers are scarred by the callous actions of their loved ones and
struggle to cope with their loss.
This sense of loss and emotional turmoil is made even more apparent in the
visual aspects and effects of the film. In an interview as part of the DVD's
special features, Kitano speaks of how fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto
costumes inspired him to make a bunraku film: "[he] came up with all
those rather striking costumes. That inspired me to consolidate the film's
concept into a story conceived by bunraku puppets, told in the form
of a puppet show featuring human characters." Yamamoto, in an interview also
featured on the DVD, corroborates Kitano's excitement: "At the very very
first fitting, I showed Kitano [the costumes] for one couple. He jumped from
his chair and ran to the clothes and started touching them and . . . he got
excited at that moment."
Though clearly indebted to the bunraku traditions, and incredibly
stagy at times, Kitano, Yamamoto and cinematographer Katsumi Yanagijima have
also tried give Dolls "non-specific" metaphorical visuals (as Kitano
states in the DVD interview). Thus, the stories are told slowly, and
stretched to the maximum possible length as Kitano continually abandons
compelling narrative to linger on gorgeous but inconsequential visual
details that are supposed to lend insight, perhaps, to the characters'
feelings, but accumulate into little more than technically proficient
photography. There is a wealth of stunning shots here but the story is a
sidebar serving the cinematography rather than vice versa.
In these narrative silences, Dolls lingers on heartbreak but doesn't
say much about it. Though Kitano's "puppets" relive their past loves in the
form of flashbacks, they seem to learn nothing from their reflection, nor
even acknowledge the crassness of their selfish actions, but instead live in
a protracted state of guilt. Each character seeks forgiveness, but how is
that possible when they are unaware of their own shortcomings? Though the
characters that have caused the stories' heartbreak are plagued by guilt,
all fail to take any responsibility for their callous actions. Instead the
characters engage in their own selfish self-flagellation. Spending time with
the ones they've hurt, they wear the pain they've caused on their faces and
nowhere else, in one gorgeously constructed shot after another. Kitano never
allows his characters complete absolution, and leaves it up to the viewer to
decide if these "puppets" will take the lessons they've learned (if any) and
apply them in their future relationships.
— 18 April 2005
