The Incomplete Guide To You Only Live Twice and Civil War
In which James Bond infiltrates Japan and War infiltrates America
You Only Live Twice in 2024
Nearly 60 years later, is this the winning ticket or is it a write-off? asks Vanessa
As the Prince Charles Cinema 2024 James Bond season is in full swing, my January promise to rewatch all movies before the end of 2024 holds strong, making sure to add my incisive witty commentary. I pledged to judge all films according to the characters’ relationships, international travel, and plot believability by contemporary standards.
Last time, the box office boom of Thunderball ushered in more Bondian conventions. It was succeeded, for the first time, two years later, with You Only Live Twice. I could wax lyrical over Nancy Sinatra’s excellent title song, but will cease only now that I’ve recommended the Coldplay cover too. Let’s commence the millennial judgement!
Lost in Translation?
Having grown up with several Japanese friends, I’ve always had a strong interest in the culture, and in 2018 I had the opportunity to visit. I’m not making the mistake of assuming nothing has changed in 50 years - and in fact, there’s a lot to appreciate that You Only Live Twice depicts with pleasing accuracy.
Bond makes contact with Bond Girl #1, Aki, at a sumo tournament, which showcases his understanding of manners, taking off his shoes before sitting down. As a consequence, Aki not taking off her heels (and her ostentatious Western dress in this crowd) feels sloppy in avoiding attention. At a later point, Bond uses the propensity for wearing hygienic face masks to disguise himself as an opposition spy, which feels very contemporary!
Sadly, one of the accurate carry-overs is also the misogynist point of view of Japanese culture. Bond starts off with disgusting sentiments in China, and “Tiger” Tanaka, who leads the Japanese Secret Service, follows suit with gusto. While Aki and Bond Girl #3, Kissy, make an attempt to distinguish between work and leisure, the attitude of the men they are surrounded by undermines this completely. And regrettably, for all its technological progress, this is not a problem of the past either. While I wish it weren’t so, this exploration of Japanese culture is vastly accurate. (4/5)
Out of this world
This is the first and last screenplay Roald Dahl penned for his good friend Ian Fleming, and for good reason: it’s not very original (even if Dahl thought he did very well). The story of interfering with space launches gets moved a little further along into orbital kidnaps, but that’s it. We will see similar cribbing in future instalments - comment if you can guess where the copying lies ahead…
What really intrigues me is that, at that point, the fictional world was racing ahead with technology we’re still coming to grips with today: landing reusable rockets. Currently SpaceX and Blue Origin are duking it out to become leaders in the field, but misses are more common than they should be. SPECTRE’s success in this field truly feels criminal, given we’ve several decades behind and less successful!
Leaving a submarine through exits that are not its top hatch, on the other hand, is a tale as old as time - or as old as submarines, at least. Bond exiting after his briefing with M, in a surprisingly faithful and thus probably inefficient recreation of the London-based office, is not shown to involve much science, but the lock solution is in play, notching another win for science, and fiction. (3/5)
You Only Live Lies
While Dikko Henderson - remember that man’s face! - makes Bond’s customary martini the wrong way, and Bond never bothers to correct him, at least it is made with Russian vodka. Bond also remarks at one point about the disappointment that Siamese vodka is. While I couldn’t determine the veracity of the vodka, or the judgement, it’s possible local laws led Bond to consume rice-derived spirit, subverting (and therefore disappointing) his expectations.
Something that caught my eye for many reasons was Tiger’s private train. Knowing how busy Tokyo’s railways get, this seemed flat out impossible - and true to my instincts, I was unable to find any search terms that revealed the ability to hire any trains, or even individual carriages. The closest you’ll get is to be a woman, in a gender-segregated carriage, to prevent chikan.
While Bond and his Japanese allies flit around Japan’s “mainland” between Tokyo, Kobe, and Kyoto, especially with ease once they are further in the west, the showdown takes place on Matsu Island, which supposedly lies between Kobe and Shanghai. There are several islands, grouped as the Matsu Islands, but those are Chinese territory, and they lie much closer to Taiwan. Slightly more plausible is Matsushima Island in Nagasaki prefecture, which is indeed home to the tradition of ama diving. The actual filming took place in Kagoshima prefecture, not too far away as the crow flies, and not much of a traditional diving location. You’re not going to be globe-trotting in Bond’s footsteps here. (1/5)
Arigatou Mr Ro-Bond-o
Interestingly, we’ve had a stretch of majorly sedentary Bond films. The last two largely took place in North America; here we have a showcase of Japan. That’s not how many picture Bond films, but there’s so much here that either establishes or continues the series’ conventions.
Blofeld finally gets a face so iconic Dr Evil’s characterisation fully derives from this. SPECTRE is further built up with code-numbers stretching to Helga Brandt’s 11. The space race foments in the background. When I think of my favourite Connery-era movie, this is it for me.
Before we try our first alternative Bond, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, You Only Live Twice is smart to deviate from its source material (interestingly with lots left for No Time to Die to run away with), but still not much novelty. That’s about to change. (3/5)
An Incomplete Guide to Civil War
Elliot
Alex Garland has had a remarkable career on the silver screen. Ex Machina is truly mind boggling and utterly beautiful, Annihilation earned a place on Barack Obama’s delightful ritual list of films of the year. 2022’s Men was weird and not the best, but utterly committed to both the thriller and horror genres it dived into, and reminded audiences of Garland’s capacity for horror. It’s fitting that Civil War feels like coming full circle to 28 Days Later in its depiction of a world descending into apocalyptic imagery.
The striking thing about Civil War is that it’s not about the titled war itself. All we know is that the President is in his third term, implying that the war has not gone on that long, but that this is a man who’s taken dictatorial control. The politics goes entirely without reference for pretty much the entire piece. The story is not concerned with it; merely that there is a descent into war, and that the country being a warzone makes many war journalists work in their own country.
No Captain. No America. Just War.
The story is a straightforward journey into hell. Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), a renowned war photographer, experienced in the wars that predated the United States’ own downfall, is challenging herself to get a photo of the elusive President (Nick Offerman), having sensed that some kind of final confrontation isn’t far off. She’s joined by a ragtag group in a big bronco, Joel, (Wagner Moura), a rugged journalist who guides and leads; Sammy, (Stephen McKinley Henderson), a veteran; and Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a young aspiring journalist.
It’s brutal and intense. This is one of those films where every bullet counts; it’s loud and visceral. Even if you don’t like the idea of spending two hours in an Alex-Garland-nightmare, it’s got to be done in the atmosphere of a cinema sound system, with gunfire, explosions, flashbangs, and crucially, the snaps of photographs being taken, that will shake you in your seat.
Films that celebrate photography inadvertently celebrate cinema, and the power of art and communication. This is a slice of life of a horrifying but vital profession. Lee has lost her sense of self, her capacity to be tender, and in Jessie, she finds herself reminded of the importance of what she’s doing. It was just a job, and the horrors of war and what they put themselves through became so normalised to her.
It’s not perfect. At points, it’s going through the motions of sequence to sequence; Garland, having created the scenario, is excited to play with the ideas to the point of not executing them all effectively or with emotional gusto. It’s a cold film, but maybe that’s the point. It’s A24’s biggest budget film to date, and looks the part, whilst keeping quite understated, and never overdoing any of its action sequences.
Kirsten Dunst gives a stand-out performance, calculating and traumatised in equal measure. She feels distant, hiding behind her camera. Cailee Spaeny, having recently wowed in Priscilla, has a tough job to sell someone full of hope and terror and does it well; Jessie is so young but so aged and haggard by the war. Jesse Plemons appears in scene-stealing that injects abject terror to proceedings.
If Apocalypse Now was Heart of Darkness in Vietnam, this is Heart of Darkness in America. Iconic buildings become bloodbaths, and every frame matters. It’s tough, and won’t satisfy everyone due to Garland’s lack of interest in the politics of the world and film he’s created to explore, but it’s a daring piece.
Civil War is in cinemas now.
An Incomplete List of Recommended Reads
For Postpartum and Pregnancy Care, One Brand Turns to a Porn Star (The New York Times, free)
Vanessa
While I’ve not had the joy or… sadness? Is that what Inside Out taught us was the opposite? No, wait it was all about balance. Anyway, I’ve not had a kid yet. I don’t know how much the videos by Frida help pregnant women, or mothers. But my experience talking about the unpleasant aspects of having a woman’s body publicly is mirrored by how this campaign has been received. It’s exciting to pair a porn actress with aspects that don’t evoke pleasure, but I respect that my point of view may not be relevant, as I’m not a consumer yet.
That said, it seemed to me as if she was pregnant in one of the videos (admittedly it’s just assumed because of a clothed bump) - and so I’m curious as to whether she feels viewed through the male gaze when women tar her with the porn actress brush, as if she wasn’t someone who went through pregnancy too.
295 Days Gone (Substack)
Jonn Elledge, the writer who got me into Substack with his excellent Newsletter of Not Quite Everything, and more honestly, his Misadventure in Space and Time, is a cracking writer. His sardonic approach to governmental nonsense is one thing, but I adore the Misadventure blog, his conversion of notes made whilst watching the entirety of Doctor Who, from 1963 to present, as one boxset (something he started as a thread on Twitter). He’s also known for writing in The New Statesman and City AM, and his third book has just come out.
Jonn’s Substack recently devoted an edition of The Newsletter of Not Quite Everything to talking about coping with loss of a partner, and it honestly made me grateful for everything I have in life. Writing about grief is hard. Men writing about mental health are sometimes preachy and inauthentic. It’s also so good to know that we’re living in a world where people feel they can articulate this complicated and overwhelming situation to the world in a safe space.