Date: Sunday 5/11/2023
Hana-Bi (1997)
Director: Takeshi Kitano
(Why not meet us on the beach at the end of heene road at 6.30pm for fireworks at 6.45pm, then walk up to the venue)
Members go free and can bring one guest for £4
Non-Members £5
Membership is £40 per year for 10 or 3 films for £15.
If you need more info on joining: click here
We at WFC like to occasionally mix it up a bit. So we are super excited to bring you Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano’s masterpiece Hana-Bi (1997). As Hana-Bi means Fireworks in Japanese we thought wouldn’t it be great to screen it on the 5th of November with the backdrop of our very own fireworks right here in Worthing!
Echoing themes from both Violent Cop and Sonatine, Hana Bi’s blend of death fixation and life affirmation renders it as moving as it is edgy. But this is also a wondrously cinematic exercise in the exploitation of space and stillness and confirms Kitano as both a highly modern film-maker and the heir to such classical directors as Yasujiro Ozu. Robert Ebert said of Hana-Bi – ‘It has been said that Western art is the art of putting in, and Eastern art is the art of leaving out. The new Japanese film “Fireworks” is like a Charles Bronson Death Wish movie so drained of story, cliche, convention and plot that nothing is left, except pure form and impulse. Not a frame, not a word, is excess.’
always tempered by tenderness as well as being absurdly funny Hana-Bi sees maverick Kitano’s master filmmaker produce one of the most haunting and gorgeous elegies to art and conjugal love as well as also a brilliant action painting of the wages of extravagant violence. It really is one of a kind and we have wanted to show this for a while so please don’t miss this special occasion screening.
Watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4GR3qh_VS
