Uyûge: An Old-School Slow Burn

Is this for you?

Honestly, you probably already know if you have the patience for Uyûge. If you spend your weekends hunting down silent films that haven't been touched by a restoration house in forty years, welcome home. If you want high-octane pacing, please, do yourself a favor and watch Dead Eye Jeff instead.

It’s not that the movie is bad. It’s just that it exists in a different frequency. The silence feels heavy, like the air in a room that hasn't been opened for a decade.

The Rhythm of the Thing

There is this one shot of Minoru Takada just staring off-camera that goes on for an eternity. I checked my watch. I checked my tea. I looked at the wall. When I looked back, he was still doing it. It’s weirdly hypnotic, even if it feels like a total editing mistake by modern standards.

The staging of the scenes is stiff. Like, really stiff. Sometimes it feels like the actors are afraid to trip over the furniture. It’s not quite as chaotic as The Charleston, which feels like a fever dream in comparison.

• The lighting in the indoor sequences is surprisingly moody.
• I’m pretty sure one of the extras in the background is trying not to sneeze for a solid thirty seconds.
• The intertitles are sparse, which is a mercy.

There’s a strange, quiet dignity to Kinuko Wakamizu here. She carries the scenes in a way that makes you forget how slow the whole thing is moving. You get the sense that she’s the only one who knows exactly where the camera is. Everyone else seems slightly lost in the frame.

Watching this made me think about Hara-Kiri, but without the sharp edges. It’s softer. It’s less concerned with big, dramatic revelations and more interested in just sitting there with its characters. It’s a strange, dusty little window into a past that feels like it’s fading before your eyes.

Don’t go in expecting a masterpiece. Go in expecting to feel like you’re sitting in an attic, looking through a box of someone else’s memories. It’s not perfect. It’s barely even finished in terms of its narrative flow. But it’s got a heartbeat, even if it’s a faint one. 🕰️