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Comment by huytersd | Hacker News Reader

They are artistically sound and beautiful, but kind of boring to be honest. Kurosawa on the other hand satisfies all three.

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Any recommendations from his work for someone who hadn't heard of him before?

Rashomon and Seven Samurai are classics. Kagemusha is probably my favorite.

"samurai" movies:

- Seven Samurai

- Rashomon

- Ran

- Throne of Blood

- Kagemusha

non-samurai:

- High and Low

- Ikiru

I would say that the essentials are Seven Samurai, High and Low, Rashomon.

Miyazaki’s films are boring? What?

Yeah, it took an effort to get through spirited away and nausica. I even tried a second watch through of spirited away but at the risk of being blasphemous, I found it boring.

I think it comes down to whether or not you enjoy slice of life. I just watched My Neighbor Totoro with my daughter. It was the first time for both of us. I found it amazing, but, ultimately, nothing actually happens in the movie. Spirited Away and some of the other movies are obviously more fantastical, but they still share a kind of mundane, day-to-day feel to their plots.

They’re often light on plot and don’t foreground conflict. If you don’t enjoy drinking in a long animated “shot” (that’s another thing, they have relatively slow editing) with little movement or talking, don’t appreciate the attention to detail and highlighting of little everyday actions, or aren’t cool with simply absorbing a vibe, I can see how they might bore.

Well I don’t want to come off as a rube. I did appreciate the attention to detail and it’s a beautiful movie with a consistent vibe. You can still find something boring with all of those boxes checked though.

Sorry, didn’t mean to imply that, but my wording kinda does, you’re right. I just meant that if those elements aren’t, at least in the particular mix and form they take in these films, engaging for a given viewer, I can see how they might be boring. They definitely have a different focus and form than most films, including a large majority of very-well-regarded or “sophisticated” films (I don’t mean they’re just different from, like, Fast and the Furious X).

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