Diary entries forShall We Dance?
Shall We Dance?
Watched in 16mm, what an interesting experience! Totally enthralled by the visual; it is slowly eroded on the frames however it gives character! The subtitle was precise and had to be 'short' because it is 16mm after all. It's truly a little charming film, and with an audience it's even more enjoyable!
Shall We Dance?
What a beautifully wonderful film. I do really love how it takes a rather dull setting (Salaryman is depressed) and makes it so endearing (so he ends up learning to dance and it makes him feel better). Of course, there is romantic elements in it but it never feels forced, and it naturally fits in with the film as it goes along.
Shall We Dance?
“"𝘈𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘢𝘨𝘦, 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘴𝘰…𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘴𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦. 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘴 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵.” It’s ever so rare that I cry tears of joy, but I couldn’t help but smile through bright wet cheeks. It’s one thing to abandon your passions and another thing to pick it back up because of the people around you. No one has ever been a big supporter of the little things I do. I always underplay it. Mostly because I never really want to reveal how much work actually goes into it, because it takes a lot of heart to make vlogs or even write, even if it never ends up good. In fact, it ends up pretty mediocre in retrospect. Perhaps I’ll be an amateur at everything in life, and it’s the joy that drives that, but if it makes others happy, in part, it makes me happy. Yakusho has taken on a number of roles that have impressed me. From Kurosawa’s muse (https://letterboxd.com/bulgogiboi/film/doppelganger-2003/) to Wenders’ lead in Perfect Days (https://letterboxd.com/bulgogiboi/film/perfect-days-2023/), here he plays someone so coy that I was convinced that what he brought to life was real. Real enough to make me cry. There’s a soft/hard quality to him that is malleable in the swing of Suō’s direction, which falls into the spectator’s fancy, watching characters from a distance to see their dreams and follies, which I find normal in most Japanese narratives (from books to films), but here it works so well with Yakusho’s performance. All the other players add to the delight, to the charm, and you can’t help but gush into a goofy smile. Because sometimes we do go to the movies to make the heart a bit bigger, a bit lighter, and a lot fuller.
Shall We Dance?
kōji yakusho doing ballroom dancing? count me in!
