Cut (Naderi, 2011)

[shariqq]

Cut
Amir Naderi | Japan | 2011
132 min
Cut is a movie that takes the director's love for cinema as a jumping point (the protagonist is a struggling film-maker) and eventually leads to a countdown of his favorite 100 movies. Now while this may be exciting for cinephiles (those last 15 minutes are not about the movie, it is simply that list of 100 movies) and will act as a good discussion point during and after the movie, the movie itself does little once the second act starts. The plot is simple enough: Shiju is an aspiring film-maker. After his brother is killed for not paying his debts, the mob boss sets him a deadline to pay back, or lose his life. He chooses to become a human punching bag for the gang members in exchange for money, but he will have to take a lot of punches to repay the debt. The scenario is set up within the first hour of the movie, and then stretches it with repetitious scenes of Shiju being punched day after day. The director ensures the movie has the audience’s full attention due to all the references to classic and great cinema, but that does not make Cut a good movie. In fact, it draws attention to the fact that within the movie’s parameters (taking out the reference to real-world cinema greats), Cut has precious little to offer.

My Rating --> 3 of 5

[fizz]

Lamenting the death of cinema as an art form is the daring and fascinating film Cut from Iranian filmmaker Amir Naderi. A plea by its director using the story and its protagonist, it conveys the agony and frustration of finding peace in the never ending debate about cinema as art or entertainment.

Naderi’s film centers on Shuji, a struggling filmmaker who runs special screenings at his rundown apartment terrace for film enthusiasts where he preaches about the necessity of films from the past while decrying the prevalence of commercial cinema and multiplexes today. He is summoned by a mob boss to be told that his brother, a debt collector for them, has been killed for his betrayal, leaving Shuji with a huge debt to pay off. Feeling responsible for this death, having learned that the loans his brother took were to fund his three failed films, Shuji is tasked to return all the money his brother owed in two weeks or face similar consequences. Without any finances of his own he offers himself as a human punching bag to the mob crew assembled at the rundown gym that they own. Bizarre as it may sound, his plan works, to brutal affect, and he soon starts collecting money with the aim of building towards the amount owed by sacrificing himself physically. Blow by blow, his body starts to crumble under the strain of endless punches, but his will, fuelled by his zealous passion for the cinema of the past, edges him on.

Director Naderi is sure that what we know as cinema today is dying and very few filmmakers exist who can be considered true artists. His case is made by Shuji, who returns after each days pounding and renews his desire to continue with his arduous task by surrounding himself with images of his favourite films projected on white sheets on which he lies on recovering and reminiscing about each of the 80 screenings he’s had so far. This results in some surreal imagery and true film aficionados will relish the juxtaposing of pivotal scenes from classics, both Hollywood and Japanese into the narrative. Though the film becomes pretentious and downright indulgent at times – scenes of Shuji shouting about the death of cinema from his terrace and visiting the graves of Kurosawa and Ozu being the prime culprits – the film picks up tremendously in the spellbinding final moments when, faced with the possibility of his own death and not being able to continue any longer, Shuji challenges to take a hundred punches as he counts down his hundred favourite films (complete with screen title cards showing the year of release and director).

Conveying the death of his cherished art in the form of human suffering and sacrifice is probably the director’s way of setting an example and he is onto something. Repetitious as some of the brutal scenes in the gym are they add up mesmerizingly well. While it may have been easier to give the protagonist a simpler ideal to motivate, defend and hold onto, (such as a wife or child for who compel him to continue) it would have also been more conventional and this fight against convention is what makes Cut rise above the mediocrity present in cinema today.

Rating: 4/5

[X.]

This sounds very interesting and it is a treat to get two reactions.

As an independent filmmaker, I know all too well how arduous it is to make movies and the sacrifices required to keep making them. It really is an idealistic and ridiculous pursuit of "happiness," the process of physically creating a film.

Does anyone know the history between the Iranian filmmaker and this being a Japanese production? It's an intriguing connection...

[kaytee]

No idea about the connection AK, but the result is a fascinating film which should please all cinephiles. It does get audacious and overtly long but fun at the same time as the motivation between behind the lead protagonist taking blows changes from the start to the end. He starts taking hits to remove frustration that he was not there for his brother when he needed him and later to relieve frustration over the sorry state of current cinema.

So far DIFF has been pretty much a miss baring 3 - 4 films this being one of them.

[fizz]

I read about the director before seeing the film and it seems he no longer works or lives in Iran, having left many years ago. His back catalogue is also not entirely Iranian and he has made films in the English language as well (more at both Wikipedia and IMDB). In some sense, this effort from him is similar to what  Abbas Kiarostami did with last year's spellbinding Certified Copy i.e. an Iranian director making a film in a foreign language. Unfortunately there was no representation from anyone behind the film and the screening was briskly attended, though it got a genuine applause from the audience at the end (and very well deserved, especially after ending in such a great way!).

[X.]

This flies to the very top of my watch list. I will be on the hunt for it.

Thanks for filling in the blanks, guys.

[madali]

Usually if Shariq hates something and Fizz likes it, its more likely that I will dislike it too, but it still sounds interesting enough to risk it.

[shariqq]

If anything, watch it for the countdown of the director's 100 favourite films. Don't base your opinion on the list, or the fact that he included the list, but on the movie itself. The list though, is a good countdown experience.

[fizz]

I think we've ruined the experience for everyone here. When the 3 of us walked into this, we only knew what the official synopsis was, which was very little - the whole countdown thing, gimmicky as it was, is an ingenious fusion of a subjective, personal moment that we did not anticipate into an otherwise seemingly normal film. It came out of nowhere when we were watching it and left with the impact of a brick.

Mad, I would ask you to also listen to kaytee on this one - he loved it more than me!

[kaytee]

Cut works because of its novel concept. A director frustrated with the way cinema is heading and he is ready to inflict pain on himself coz it gives him an outlet for his frustration. If the last 30 mins of the film didn't exist the experience would have been pale because there is only so much of punching in the guts one can watch. The last 30 minutes takes the film to another level as it is the directors way saying fuck you audience for watching commercial crap while you should be watching these 100 films.

It's a unique experience which draws you in. Fizz and I were so into it that we were actually cheering the films when they came up on screen.

[madali]

Looking over this thread again in the context of the rest of the DIFF films, it seems like, if nothing else, its message seems to ring through for DIFF...

[madali]

I guess the spoiler might not matter so much. It'll go in my list of 400-500 movies, so by the time I get around to watch it, it might be 2023, and I'll be, "What?! A countdown of 100 movies? I would never have anticipated this!"