Fireworks

Ladies and gentlement, I have witnessed PEAK cinema. Hana-bi, or Fireworks in English, is a 1997 film acted, edited, written, and directed by Takeshi Kitano. It follows a former police officer who finds out that his wife has a terminal illness and does not have very long left to live. At the same time, his partner is injured in a shooting and left in a wheelchair, which eventually drives him into depression and suicidal thoughts. He is also involved with businessmen and yakuza lenders whom he borrowed money from and still hasn't paid back. Eventually, he decides to rob a bank, and after successfully pulling it off, he repays his debts, gives his partner painting supplies, and takes his wife on a road trip across Japan. Hana-bi is a very profound, spiritual, and poetic film that is also one of the best edited films I have ever seen. Violence is one of the main parts of the film. The violence is brutal, gory, and abrupt, but almost immediately afterwards it cuts to a much more peaceful and reflective scene. The silence throughout the film also gives it a certain feeling that I literally cannot describe but basically during some of the darker scenes, most notably the one in the yakuza's car near the end and the scene at the junction, the score completely disappears and all that is left is silence, that's basically it. The editing is tremendous, slowly revealing to us information gradually through flashbacks and memories rather than a straightforward narrative. The visuals are breathtaking, the atmosphere is deeply melancholic, and Joe Hisaishi's score is one of the greatest if not THE greatest score ever composed for a film. Beneath its crime story, Hana-bi is ultimately about love, grief, mortality, and finding moments of beauty in the face of inevitable loss. One of the best films I have ever seen and, in my opinion, one of the greatest films of all time.