Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am at last feeling optimistic about spring’s theoretically imminent arrival; in fact, I’m actually sitting here typing this in my running shorts, waiting for the thermometer to inch its way up into the fifties. I know I really should get a gym membership or something for the winter months, but it’s just hard to beat the convenience of stepping outside my door and jogging off in whichever way I choose. Anyway, I’ve finally written up some of those recent anime I’ve been yammering about, so today you all get some thoughts on Outlaw Star and Berserk in addition to our usual cinematic ramblings. Our assault on classic anime shows no sign of stopping, either; we’re currently charging through Dragon Ball at breakneck speed, which has been both a delight in its own right, and also a welcome education in the roots of modern shonen convention. More to say on that later, but for now, let’s run down the features of the week!
First up this week was a classic of British cinema, The Archers’ 1943 film The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. The film follows officer Clive Wynne-Candy across forty years of his life, charting his journey from a lieutenant on leave from the Boer War to a Major General working in the Home Guard, and through this journey establishes the contradictions and lunacy inherent in his personal philosophy, and in Britain’s image of itself as a noble institution more generally.
When we first meet Candy, he is a decorated officer on temporary leave, who is outraged to learn that some German ne’er-do-well has been printing outrageous lies about Britain’s alleged war atrocities. Upon being told by his superior that directly engaging this man is stupid and forbidden, he flies to Berlin himself, and ends up causing an international incident that ends in a formal duel between himself and a German officer, Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff. While in convalescence from their injuries, the two become close friends, and share a mutual love for English governess Edith Hunter. Eventually Theo makes his intentions clear, Candy congratulates the both of them, and life just sort of stretches on after that.
There are two core beliefs that drive Clive Wynne-Candy: his hopeless love for Edith Hunter, and his unerring belief in the importance of warring “the right way,” with all attendant rules and regulations. Both of these beliefs are fantasies that only bring ruin; his love for Edith leads him first to her sister, and then to a doppelganger he meets twenty years later, but neither can restore to him those heady days of Berlin in 1902. And while his dedication to honorable combat at least survives the first World War, it almost breaks his relationship with Theo, who cannot help but see Candy for the self-satisfied buffoon he is.
The intermittently entwining paths of Candy and Theo echo the paths of their countries as well, as Candy’s post-war success drives him to nostalgic delusion, while Theo is forced to grapple with life in defeat and the subsequent, Weimar-facilitated rise of the Nazi Party. Roger Livesey imbues our buffoonish hero with an aura of gallantry and compassion, making it easy to understand why even those who can see beyond his ideals might find him lovable and compelling, while Anton Walbrook’s performance as Theo is positively crushing, each failure and regret finding its way into his lined face and weary tone. The relationship between the two men embodies the distance between war as it is imagined and war as it is, and yet their genuine love for one keeps the film from ever feeling cynical or defeated. Theo’s final speech to his deluded friend embodies all the urgency a ‘43 war film demands, yet the film’s final image is a hopeful one, as two old men stand aside to let the new age come to pass. A poignant and ambitious film that I have no doubt I’ll be watching again.
We then checked out Maneater, a recent shark attack feature starring a bunch of TV actors and a frustratingly efficient shark. I admit, it must be hard to film convincing shark attack scenes, but Maneater’s general solution to this puzzle is to simply show a shark in the water, cut to a swimmer being pulled underwater, and that’s all you get. Our resident maneater racks up an impressive kill count over the course of this film, but director Justin Lee has no understanding of pacing, suspense, or action choreography, and thus all of the film’s most theoretically impactful moments pass with more of a murmur than a splash. If you haven’t seen Jaws yet, watch that instead. If you’ve already seen Jaws, watch The Shallows. If you’ve already seen both of those, check out… uh, Shark Night 3D? The Meg? Deep Blue Sea? I dunno, the order of succession gets a little wonky after The Shallows.
Our journey through older anime next led us to a show I’d previously only seen in fragments, but which had nonetheless had a major impact on my early anime education. Back when I was rushing home to catch two hours of Toonami before starting on my homework, Outlaw Star seemed like the coolest thing I could imagine. A gang of distinctive space outlaws, a gun that fires bewitched bullets, and an aura of indefinable mystery only heightened by my scattered viewing schedule all made for an entrancing experience. I only caught perhaps half a dozen episodes total, but the gaps in my knowledge were just as intriguing as what I actually watched; stumbling into rivalries and relationships midway through, I could imagine this world continuing endlessly in any direction.
Well, you can’t really capture adolescent wonder in a bottle, but I am happy to report that Outlaw Star is basically just as entertaining as I remembered. The overall ship crew are delightful individually and as a unit, the story’s unique mixture of science fiction and fantasy still feels fresh and exciting, and the show has basically no fat whatsoever. Every episode offers an enticing new elevator pitch, whether our heroes are competing in a space race or contending with ninja assassins, and both the art design and animation are consistently impressive. I love how colorful space is in the world of Outlaw Star, brimming with rainbows of neon signs promising squalid backroom pleasures. If you’re in the mood for some fun things being fun, Outlaw Star will absolutely provide.
After that, I decided it was long past time to check out the 1997 adaptation of Kentaro Miura’s Berserk. Berserk is acclaimed as a uniquely compelling work of dark fantasy, drawing on influences ranging from Fist of the North Star to Phantom of the Paradise, and offering a story rich in character drama, thematic resonances, and violence. Whole, whole, whole lot of violence.
I’ll admit, Berserk’s gloomy tone and relentless focus on bloodshed, peppered with the nigh-episodic threat of the only female character being sexually assaulted, did not much appeal to me. I think you have to find brutal action scenes inherently energizing for the story’s balance to work, and that does not describe me. Fortunately, there was still much else for me to enjoy here, ranging from the show’s beautiful design work to the carefully sculpted tragedy of its three principle players.
Guts, Griffith, and Casca form an occasionally endearing, often concerning, and utterly convincing doomed trio, with their mutual feelings destined to provoke some inevitable tragic end. Guts at first sees Griffith as a messianic figure, a man worthy of worship – until he hears Griffith describe how any “real friend” of his must be his equal in every way. Griffith is of course rapturously describing Guts himself, but Guts sees this speech as a challenge to carve his own path, and truly become worthy of Griffith’s companionship. By leaving to become a man who deserves Griffith’s companionship, Guts actually strips Griffith of his human foundation, leaving only resentment and ambition. Of course, Guts’ insecurity is itself a product of Griffith’s careful cultivation, a sense of worthlessness he embedded deep within both Guts and Casca. What each of the two need can only be found in each other – but they also cannot abandon their guiding star, ensuring a terrible reckoning when Griffith returns.
That’s the good shit! That’s real, inevitable tragedy, tragedy that feels meaningful because it emerges naturally from the fundamental natures of these characters, and ironic because it is so directly precipitated by their own oblivious choices. You can see the violence that has defined Guts and Casca’s lives in their every action, see precisely how Griffith is cultivating their dependency, and still feel hopeless to help them, because all of their actions are such clear reflections of their most treasured ambitions. With drama this human, you don’t need to strain to insert a thematic takeaway into your work: Berserk would evoke a grand conflict between free will and fate even if the narrator never mentioned it, alongside its grim ruminations regarding the insufficiency of staid morality in a lawless world.
For twenty-five episodes, Berserk never flinches, wavers, or relents, sculpting a poignant and inevitable tragedy one false victory at a time. Even with my general antipathy for the story’s most reliable dramatic payoff, I was still captivated from start to finish. Apparently I’ve got some reading to do!
