Monday, May 31, 2021

MOVIE REVIEW: PITFALL (1962)

 

Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara 

Written by Kobo Abe

Produced by Tadashi Ono

Cinematography by Hiroshi Segawa

Edited by Fusako Morimichi

Sound by Kenji Mori and Junosuke Okuyama

Titles designed by Kiyoshi Awazu


Starring

Kunie Tanaka as the Man in White 


Hisashi Igawa as the miner

Kazuo Miyahara as the son

Sumie Sasaki as the candy seller 

Kanichi Omiya as the second miner

Shigeru Matsuo as the farmer


Hisashi Igawa as union miner Otsuka

Sen Yano as union miner Toyama


Kei Sato as the reporter 

Kikuo Kaneuchi as the photographer 


Hideo Kanze as cop 


"Why did you kill me?!"


Review by William D. Tucker. 


A pair of subsistence miners wander hills and mountains, seeking work, a little boy in tow, while one daydreams about getting a secure union job, and the other fantasizes about being reborn as a demon in hell.


Okay, the child is also a subsistence miner. The guy who daydreams of unionization seems to be his father, though the details of this are left vague. I found myself interpreting this desperate trio as an improvised family unit-wanderers in the wilderness deciding not to be totally alone, at least for the moment. They come from nowhere. They might be fugitives from justice-except I'm not sure 'justice' exists in the world of this movie. So, like, they're  fugitives from injustice, I suppose. Perhaps they exist because a writer wrote a screenplay and a director supervised a casting call and jobbing actors showed up to do their thing. 


The trio con an elderly farmer into mining his property for non-existent ore-but it could also be the case that the old man simply took pity upon the obviously malnourished three and set them upon an absurd task so they can maintain a tragic working man's pride. The wages of this job are balls of sticky white rice and water. 


A sinister dapper man dressed all in white surveils the union-dreamer at a distance with a telephoto lens. This MIW-Man-in-White-rides a motorscooter and eventually reveals himself to be an assassin working for the mining company or an allegorical embodiment of murderous capitalism or a mad psychopath or a stand-in for some authorial figure-God? Fate? A novelist? A film director?-or all of the above. Or none of the above. Maybe he's just a guy likes to fuck with people. Maybe he's a MIB-Man-in-Black-in disguise as a MIW. Like one of those dudes who intimidates UFO witnesses and tries to keep a lid on Mothman and the Goatsucker. Maybe this creep realized he could make a better living as an enforcer for capitalism instead of fooling around with the high strangeness tinfoil tabloid crap. Makes sense. That's probably what I would do in his situation. 


The trio find their way to a recruiting station for the big mining company in the region, and the demon-dreamer gets arrested for some unspecified crime and dragged out of the film. The union-dreamer is given directions to a worksite after he is shown a photo of himself.


"Follow this map to your new boss."


Our union-dreamer does as he's told and ends up murdered by the MIW en route to a bogus worksite that turns out to be nothing but an abandoned town. But in this cruel world, death is not the end. Nor is there an Afterworld-no Heaven, no Hell. No Jesus, or Buddha, or Satan, or God, or L. Ron Hubbard waiting to embrace you. You’re just a ghost who can't communicate with the living, who can only spectate the ensuing desultory police investigation of your own corpse, and holler impotently for justice and answers and reasons why that do not exist in this reality. 


Believe it or not . . . it actually gets worse for our ghost. 


Because as he wanders the land, invisibly trailing cops and journalists as they investigate his brutal murder, he discovers that he has a double. This double is a miner who is also a union leader. The assassin was seemingly targeting this other more consequential guy, and mistakenly killed the subsistence miner. Our ghost realizes that his death was not only pointless . . . but that this other guy who looks exactly like him has been living his dream. What a mindfuck, right?


Meanwhile, our MIW bribes a potential murder witness into silence . . .only to later murder her on a whim. This witness is a candy seller scraping by in the abandoned town. She is also the person to call the police and report our subsistence miner's murder. And, before she is strangled to death by the weirdly indecisive MIW, she is raped by the uniformed cop who responds to her call. The candy seller also ends up as a pissed-off ghost. 


I suppose the one good thing is that the ghosts can see each other and speak to one another. The dead can commiserate . . . but only with the dead. 


And it gets worse for those among the living. The actions of the MIW end up causing paranoid conflict among the unionized miners who are already pressured by the company to fight among themselves for more productive veins of ore. 


It doesn't end well. 


But it all looks and sounds amazing. 


Authentically harsh outdoor locations evoke industrialized man-made hells-on-earth shot in pristine deep focus black and white.


Gruelling summer weather and its effects upon human bodies are captured for-fucking-real on film. No pampered Hollywood pretty people luxuriating inside air conditioned green boxes on this one. 


No stunt team, either. When a couple of pissed-off dudes fight to the death in the mud and slurry of a tapped-out former mining site, it's as down and dirty as you can get short of a snuff picture. 


The discordant soundtrack hammers home the theme of a world where injustice for the living means restless ghosts and cruel children who pull apart frogs for fun. 


That's right: the little boy survives, but who knows what kind of killer he may grow up to be after all the trauma, starvation, isolation, and moral insanity to which he has been exposed. 


Hey: maybe that’s how you get a headstart on the MIW career track. 


Pitfall is an immaculately bleak hellscape for the whole family!

Sunday, May 30, 2021

A life lived as Windex . . .

 . . . is a life of squeaky clarity.

Saturday, May 29, 2021

JOYSPACE . . .

 . . . ROLL ONE DIE.

FREELY INTERPRET THE RESULT TO MAXIMIZE YOUR JOY HOWEVER YOU PLEASE.

AND IF YOU DON'T HAVE A DIE . . . JUST PRETEND. 

Friday, May 28, 2021

Okay, I confess . . .

 . . . I actually really admire the Disney Vault concept.

So much so that I make a point of storing all of my most classic boogers and poops inside a Tucker Vault.

So Act Now!

Tasty-Good!

Get Yours!

So Fragrant!

Before They're  Gone 4-Ever!

Thursday, May 27, 2021

Whenever Disney threatens to put something back in the Vault . . .

 . . . I'm like, "Who cares?"

I didn't  want that shit in the first, middle,  or last place.

And then I break whatever furniture I can get my hands on, punch out the nearest tough dudes, and smash the windows of various automobiles and storefronts. 

But then I spend the entire weekend crying myself to sleep.

Disney knows how to break your heart.

Wednesday, May 26, 2021

I'm not worried about microplastics in my body . . .

 . . . because flesh rots and blood dries to dust.

But plastic is forever. 

I figure if my soul merges with plastic then that's my shot at immortality.

So load my ass up!

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

Monday, May 24, 2021

Sunday, May 23, 2021

Goddammit . . .

 . . . I'm shopping for farfalle, and all they got is bowtie. 

Okay. I confess . . .

 . . . I just like the sprinkles.

The ice cream's okay.

But I get passionate about the sprinkles. 

Really, I prefer my sprinkles in roast chicken juice.

But that gets you weird looks at the Country Buffet.

And I'm a Sensitive Soul.

So I get my sprinkles with vanilla ice cream and conform.

But one day I'll rise up.

One day . . .


Saturday, May 22, 2021

A powerful death book . . .

 . . . is made by killing a powerful death tree.

Friday, May 21, 2021

REDACTED Mobile . . .

 . . . offers a next gen smart device that constantly projects a holographic REDACTED scene all around you wherever you go.

Standard REDACTED Rates May Apply.

Thursday, May 20, 2021

Could it be that in the end . . .

 . . . Windex is the great love of my life?

Wednesday, May 19, 2021

In the depths of the Cracker Jack box . . .

 . . . ye shall find an official Florida driver's license. 

Always.

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Please . . .

 . . . just leave me to wallow inside my Root Beer Shell. 

Monday, May 17, 2021

A harrowing termite-saliva based product . . .

 . . . makes for an excellent  counterintuitive Valentine's Day gift.

Sunday, May 16, 2021

Saturday, May 15, 2021

Easter . . .

 . . . always brings plenty of temporary employment opportunities into the giant, creepy-as-fuck talking rabbit community. 

Friday, May 14, 2021

An exploding bobcat . . .

 . . . clearly needs to reduce its intake of dietary dynamite. 

Thursday, May 13, 2021

NOW IS THE TIME . . .

 . . . FOR MANIC GREED IN THE NAME OF BALLISTIC CROCHET PARADIGMS.

Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Tuesday, May 11, 2021

In the end . . .

 . . . humans are the real planets.

Just ask bacteria and viruses.

Monday, May 10, 2021

I'm not sure . . .

 . . . but I don't think I'm going to survive the twenty-first century. 

Sunday, May 9, 2021

I once met a man . . .

 . . . who spoke only of Windex.

Not even surfaces to be cleaned with  Windex.

Just the Windex itself. 

I eventually deduced that he had never used Windex but had a substantial supply of the product inside his home, and that his whole deal was focused on a kind of luxuriant readiness to clean relevant surfaces without limit or restraint. 

But such a feeling can only be properly maintained if the supply of Windex isn't reduced in any way that could induce anxiety of the form,

"My God! Do I have enough Windex?!"

Interesting fellow.

His shit was definitely kinda fucked.

But an interesting fellow all the same.

Saturday, May 8, 2021

The haunted house . . .



 . . . has it rough in the off-season. Really just let themselves go. Tried to get some Christmas work-you know like a magic Santa's workshop type of deal, but they couldn't get people to see past the classic creepiness. It's tough for haunted houses to re-skill late in their careers, y'know?

Friday, May 7, 2021

You didn't know this . . .

 . . . but I can see through tinted windows.

Even the ones that are completely opaque.

Now you know.

Why you're always afraid.

Thursday, May 6, 2021

Is Katamari . . .

 . . . a knockoff of the adherer from Fiend Folio?

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

AND ON THAT DAY . . .

 . . . all the comment sections ceased to function, and everyone had to figure out their own shit.

Tuesday, May 4, 2021

A POST-FOMO PARABLE . . .

 . . . "QUICK! WHY BOTHER!"

Monday, May 3, 2021

A POST-COLD WAR FOMO PARABLE . . .

 . . . "QUICK! FIND A NEW ENEMY!"

Sunday, May 2, 2021

A COLD WAR FOMO PARABLE . . .

 . . . "QUICK! FINISH THE STORY BEFORE THE BOMBS DROP!"

Saturday, May 1, 2021

NOW IS THE TIME . . .

 . . . FOR RIGOROUS PASTA-ADJACENT MALFEASANCE.