Silence speaks louder than words in Takeshi Kitano’s minimalist masterpiece Hana-bi (Fireworks), the crowning achievement of his career that epitomizes the power of visual storytelling.
Takeshi Kitano plays the role of Nishi, a police detective whose wife Miyuki (Kayoko Kishimoto) has been diagnosed with terminal Leukemia and is losing her battle with the disease. Nishi has been borrowing money from the Yakuza to help pay for his wife’s medical bills. While on a stakeout near his wife’s hospital, Nishi’s partner Horibe (Ren Osugi) encourages him to pay her a visit; however, the stakeout turns into a gunfight, and Horibe is shot, leaving him paralyzed and depressed. As a result, Horibe attempts suicide, and Nishi tries to cheer him up by giving him a set of painting supplies, noting that he had previously expressed an interest in painting. Nishi eventually leaves his job to care for his wife and spend quality time with her, but he also needs to find a way to repay the money he borrowed from the Yakuza, which has disastrous effects.
Hana-Bi’s simple premise may appear to be a Yakuza film at first glance, but it is much more than that; at its heart, it is an unconventional love story about love, grief, mortality, and the harsh realities of life. Kitano doesn’t seem concerned with the story’s details or explaining the characters’ actions. He opens the film with Nishi and his colleagues carrying out a stakeout, but whose? We do not know. Furthermore, Nishi is seen to have connections with the Yakuza and routinely borrows money from them. How? Why? None of that is stated either. Kitano is more interested in putting his characters in challenging situations and seeing how they react. Nishi, on the one hand, has violent outbursts and lashes out in the face of adversity, possibly because he feels eternally saddened and helpless by the inevitable pain of fate; Horibe, on the other hand, becomes introspective and creative after his family abandons him due to his permanent crippling.
Kitano takes a minimal approach to playing the role of Nishi because he appears to have only two moods: violent outbursts and total silence. Even though he remains silent for most of the film’s runtime, you can tell a lot is happening in his mind. His expressionless face and stiff body language, combined with the fact that the spectacles obscure his eyes for most of the film, lend his character an enigmatic quality, leaving us in a state of wonder and intrigue about what he is thinking, feeling, and experiencing. His quiet moments with his wife Miyuki are endearing, heartfelt, and one of the film’s highlights. They may not be overly talkative or physically tactile, but their chemistry is undeniably strong and creates the sense of a profound and authentic bond.
Joe Hisaishi’s memorable score and Hideo Yamamoto’s stunning cinematography with immaculate frame compositions create a dreamlike melancholy atmosphere, adding lyrical and meditative beauty to the film. Hana-bi, Kitano’s first feature film since the tragic motorbike accident that paralyzed his face, is his most intimate effort yet. Through Horibe’s subplot, which appears to draw significantly from Kitano’s life and experiences following his accident, the director explores the themes of mortality and the richness and fragility of human life. After his accident, Horibe is paralyzed below the waist (whereas Kitano was paralyzed on one side of his face in real life), which makes him depressed and suicidal. But then, he finds solace in painting (the paintings shown in the film were created by Kitano alone during his recovery from the accident), grows as an artist, and starts to heal on all levels (mental and physical). Conversely, Nishi is facing the inevitable consequences of his actions and marching toward his impending doom, as conveyed by one of the most bittersweet yet cathartic endings you’ll ever see.
Hana-Bi movie links: Letterboxd, Wikipedia
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