I've been really lucky in my movie viewing. I can't remember the last film I saw that I wasn't glad to have seen; that I could've done without; that I could've waited for on DVD; the last "eh" film. Today I saw Twilight Samurai, and I'm still thinking about it. It's a slowburn of a film, a bit slow in pacing, but it couldn't have been done any other way to build the right amount of tension and imbue it with just the right amount of muted emotion. It's a samurai film (duh) unlike any I've ever seen. And I haven't seen a whole lot, they tend to start running together in my mind. At least the settings do.

Maybe I'm doing my usual thing of reading my own stylized perspective into the film, but it resonated most as a philosophical film to me, almost a meditation on how to live one's life true to one's self. But the main character is not the renegade hero, cutting everyone down with superior swordsmanship as one might expect from a samurai hero. This guy is a low-ranking paper-pusher of a samurai, who is forced by circumstance to rise to occasions and deal with them accordingly. Maybe it's admiration I have for the character and his flexibility, his "non-attachment" to anything. His joys are simple, he's competent in his duties, and appreciative of his little good fortune. And when the chips are counted at the end of your life, the people who pitied your fate are people who never came close to even scratching the satisfaction that you got out of it.

Now really reading my own stylized perspective into the character, yes, his life could be seen as a journey; yes, his approach can be seen as spiritual (non-material); yes, he's as monk-like as a samurai can get (or more so); and yes, life is beautiful in all its tragedy and tragic in all its beauty - deal with it! And yes, sword fighting is messy, messy business. Samurai films and anime that depict sword fighting as elegant, clean, and swift need to be taken with a tablespoon of wasabi. I, of course, don't know, but I reckon it was more often disgusting and clumsy and excruciating than not.

That said, the samurai film I'm really waiting for, and just saw a poster for at the theater, is Beat Takeshi's take on Zatoichi! The violence in Beat Takeshi films may be an acquired taste, but that guy's got style. Now the question is whether I should re-activate my Netflix account to get acquainted with the original Zatoichi films beforehand.