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Kitano’s Dolls
Three tragedies, based on traditional bunraku plays but reset in
contemporary times, are poetically expressed, interwoven throughout, and
overlap in Takeshi Kitano’s film Dolls (2002) *
whereby live actors move
through tales of undying but catastrophic love, carrying with them the
heartbreaking poignancy of bunraku-ningyō legacy.
To set the tone the movie opens with a bunraku performance and then
switches to the first “real-life” narrative of star-crossed lovers. Eventually
the three tales unfold simultaneously, with the figures from each physically
crossing the others’ paths but mostly oblivious to those characters’ existence
and unaware of their alternate plights.
The six main characters (three pairs of lovers) poignantly reanimate the
harrowing nature of bunraku love and death stories as well as the
mesmerising essence of bunraku-ningyō. Such is the level of expression that,
like “silent” bunraku dolls with still faces, the actors, especially the leading
two, Hidetoshi Nishijima and Miho Kanni, sincerely elicit, almost without
* Takeshi Kitano (born 1947) is a celebrated writer, director and actor. He wrote and directed Dolls,
a film nominated for eight national and international awards, and winning two: Kitano took away
the Golden Award at the Damascus Film Festival and Miho Kanno won Best Supporting Actress
at the Hochi Film Awards. Note that Takeshi Kitano also starred in the 1983 film, Merry Christmas,
Mr Lawrence (see Chapter One) as Sergeant Gengo Hara.
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