BATTLE FOR HADITHA
Rating: *** ½ (out of ****)
Cast: Elliot Ruiz, Falah Abraheem Flayeh, Yasmine Hanani, Duraid A. Ghaieb
Director: Nick Broomfield
Screened as part of the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2007 at the Scotiabank theatre.

SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO
Rating: ** (out of ****)
Cast: Hideaki Ito, Koichi Sato, Yusuke Iseya, Tereyuki Kagawa, Quentin Tarantino, Masanobu Ando
Director: Takashi Miike
Screened as part of the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2007 at Ryerson.

From “Battle for Haditha”

Picking movies at a film festival is always something of a crapshoot. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t. So far I’ve seen five films at the Toronto Film Festival. Four have been decidedly lackluster, but one has reminded me why going to a film festival can be such a rewarding experience. That film is Nick Broomfield’s Battle for Haditha.

I also saw Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django. Let’s get that one out of the way first.

According to the Internet Movie Database, Takashi Miike has directed over 70 films since 1991 (including short subject, direct-to-video, and made-for-TV). From 2001-2002 alone, Miike directed 14 films. His sizable cult following in North America owes its existence to two of his most stomach-churningly violent films: the excellent Audition (1999) and the appalling Ichi the Killer (2001), his only two pre-Django feature films I have seen. For further information, I offer to you this interesting passage of his Wikipedia page:

“It should be noted that, despite his somewhat notorious reputation, Miike has also proven himself to be capable of directing lighthearted children’s films (Zebraman, The Great Yokai War), touching period pieces (Sabu), and subdued, moving pictures such as the road movie The Bird People in China. His dabbling in every sort of genre and emotional range is a testament to his versatility as a director, though a lot of his output is genre-defying. For example, The Happiness of the Katakuris is an unconventional farcical musical-comedy-horror involving a bizarre claymation sequence, zombies and b-movie pastiches.”

Sukiyaki Western Django strives to be a sort of Japanese Kill Bill, with its lightning pace, cartoon milieu, and endless pop culture references. It is an English-language western with an all-Japanese cast. English is clearly everyone’s second language, and some cast members seem to be saying their lines phonetically. Sukiyaki Western Django’s main joke is to have Japanese actors struggle with lines like “A reckon it’s a bouncing baby boy” and “You be whislin’ Dixie.” This is a joke that wears thin very fast.

The impenetrable plot involves a gunslinger (Hideaki Ito) who comes to a small western town, Yojimbo-style, to find two separate clans – the Heike Reds and the Genji Whites - in a battle over hidden gold. To further enlighten you on the plot, I find myself turning helplessly to Colin Geddes’ description of it in the official TIFF film guide. He helpfully reports that it also involves, “a devoted wife turned whoring widow; a love child produced from a red and white tryst; an injury-resistant sheriff; and a town matriarch with a secret.” Did I mention it also features some gratuitous scenes with Quentin Tarantino as a Clint Eastwood-type cowboy? Yes, Quentin Tarantino acts in this film. Don’t all line up at once.

This is a crazy, fast-paced spectacle of a movie, with some stunning action scenes and gorgeously colourful production design. The problem is, it’s an empty spectacle. Miike pays homage to the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci, but forgets that those directors genuinely loved the kitschy pop culture they emulated instead of regarding it with smug superiority. Kill Bill was a comic book, yes, but Tarantino allowed his actors room to create characters the audience could care about, while Miike, by having his cast speak awkward English, is perversely trying to keep their characters two-dimensional and keep the audience distant. Some will undoubtedly compare Miike’s film to two-dimensional spoofs like Kung Fu Hustle and Army of Darkness, but I hasten to point out that those movies were actually funny, while Sukiyaki Western Django spends its entire running time trying to get laughs from Japanese people saying, “I reckon.”

Ultimately, Sukiyaki Western Django is an exhausting experience. This is not a film you become involved in – it isn’t funny or engaging. Rather, it’s one that you’re supposed to watch with a cool, hip sense of ironic detachment, sitting in the audience and saying to yourself, “Aren’t I cool for laughing at this?” How could anyone enjoy such a self-conscious time at the movies?

Thankfully, I also saw a real movie yesterday. Nick Broomfield, the great documentary filmmaker who directed Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer and Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam, made his first stab at dramatic filmmaking with the 1989 sex thriller Dark Obsession, which opened to scathing reviews and dismal box office. On his website, Broomfield confesses, “Yep, well, what can I say. A great cast, a great producer, writer and cinematographer…but I think I kind of screwed it up.” After seventeen more years in the documentary genre, he returned to fiction filmmaking with the gritty, cinema verite Ghosts (2006).

Broomfield’s newest scripted work, Battle for Haditha, is a powerful, timely film that ranks among his best. It’s based on the true story of the November 2005 massacre in Haditha, Iraq, where a roadside bomb planted by an insurgent exploded, killing one US soldier and wounding another two. Overwhelmed by anger, the other soldiers allegedly killed some 24 Iraqis that day, including women and children. How timely is Battle for Haditha? So timely that the trial, as of this writing, is not yet over.

I went into Battle for Haditha expected a fairly simple condemnation of the Iraq war, but what Broomfield has created is infinitely more complex. While the film does not excuse the soldiers’ actions, it understands them, and paints all the characters – Iraqi and American – as genuine human beings. At the centre of the film is a stunning performance by Elliot Ruiz as the soldier who quickly comes to regret his actions. Ruiz has only two other acting credits – before turning to film, he was a US marine – but his performance is naturalistic and deeply felt. Broomfield’s direction is also top-notch; the massacre scenes, which are as harrowing as any film of recent years, show that Broomfield’s documentary experience makes him ideal for this material. There are times when there is no discernible difference between Broomfield’s staged scenes and the news footage on CNN.

Battle for Haditha has two more screening at the festival: Thursday at the Scotiabank at 3:15 PM, and Saturday at the ROM at 9:00 AM. It is well worth a ticket.

Could I dissuade you from seeing “Sukiyaki Western Django” if I told you this man was in it?