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DVD Review: Gackt: The Greatest Filmography 1999-2006 BLUE

October 11th, 2007 by Carlos Alexandre Bookmark this post diggdel.icio.usYahooMyWeb

Gackt: The Greatest Filmography 1999-2006 BLUE

Distributed by VIZ Pictures
65 minutes (12 music videos)

gackt_blue.jpgAfter a hard day’s work, one crisp autumn afternoon, I walked to my car parked about a block away. Suddenly, from behind a lamppost far too thin for any normal human being to hide behind, a posse of ninjas appears, swarming me. I try to fight back using my trademark girlish shrieks and wild arm flailing, but to no avail. Using secret ninjutsu techniques that they likely learned from that wacky Naruto show, they teleported me to some undisclosed location.

I found myself tied to a chair, facing a television. Hooked up to it was a DVD player, its tray closing. I shuddered. What manner of vile imagery were these devious ninjas going to impart? It began: Gackt, it’s called, and it appeared to be about a Japanese band. Okay, fine; so far so good. If all they were going to show me was a bunch of Japanese music videos, how terrible could it be?

The first song, “My Story,” didn’t start off too badly. The video depicts an Advent Children cosplayer (I think; it might have been a really mannish woman) lamenting over the fact that he misses his old girlfriend. Not the greatest song I’ve ever heard, but certainly not the worst. Until just before the end, that is, when the main singer dude starts to convey his supposed desperation… by gesturing in a manner so overly melodramatic that Julia Roberts would shake her head in shame. I asked my ninja captors if there was something wrong with the man: clearly he was having an epileptic seizure. The ninjas laughed. Devious buggers.

The second video, “Everything for You,” was more of the same. This time, the Cloud-wannabe is singing about an unhappy girl that he wants to love. Or something to that effect. More spastic “dancing” ensued: really, this was just a different version of the first song. I suddenly realize the exquisitely terrifying reality of my plight. These ninjas, clearly hired by my mortal nemesis Anti-Carlos, are clearly trying to break my spirit through psychological torture. Their tool: Gackt: The Greatest Filmography 1999-2006 BLUE. (There’s also a RED version, apparently. Like Pokemon.)

Moving on to “Luna Hymn,” a computer-rendered piece of animation that would have been more at home in a first season episode of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, we find–wait for it–a broken man singing about some lost love. Big surprise! Sadly, the guy’s mechanical arm is used only to convey more emo-angst; if he had, say, killed a man with it, I could have at least answered that primal urge to bear witness to cartoon violence.

The videos continued, and each time, I desperately hoped that it would not be a song about tragic love. But then, the first or second subtitle would shatter that hope. Confound it all! Does this “Gackt” fellow/lady/genderless being not know any other type of song? Perhaps he’s/she’s/it’s a victim of fate, being typecast because of some past performance some bigwig producer saw money-making potential in. Maybe I’m just not getting it. Is there a cultural barrier at work, and is this noise that dares to call itself music infinitely more appreciable in the land of the rising sun? The questions could only preoccupy my mind for so long before more of Gackt invaded my brain. I thought I wouldn’t survive.

The videos’ settings ranged from predictable to outright absurd. One took place in New York City, and featured people of many different backgrounds holding up peace signs… yet the song is no less about “wanting to see you again” than every other one on the disc. Don’t get me wrong; there’s nothing wrong with showing the population’s wishes for a peaceful world, but the scenario and the song itself are wildly mismatched. Another video involved vampires and some of the most poorly choreographed swordfights I’d ever seen. It was so absurd that I was almost able to tune out the lyrics and subtitles. Almost.

Mercifully, there were a couple of times where I didn’t want to rip out my eyes and ears. “Because You Are Expecting Me” was a nice little tune, with guitars and strings contrasting nicely. It also really showcased Mr. Gackt’s very nice voice; it’s really too bad he doesn’t practice subtlety more often. “Because You Are Expecting Me” is shot in a Tokyo studio amidst a quiet audience, which was, at the very least, a nice change of pace from the vampires. “Last Song -Unplugged-” features some very pleasing piano work. The lyrics aren’t terribly impressive, but I could listen to that mesmerizing piano all day.

Eventually, it all ended, the pain finally over. The evil ninjas then, somewhat uncharacteristically, drove me home in a red Pontiac Sunfire, booting me out and speeding off. And that’s my story. But worry not, dear readers. Anti-Carlos is getting a very special present for his trouble: I’ve hired my own army of psycho-ninjas, and they will force him to listen to every song that Linkin Park has ever made. Or poison his tequila. Whatever’s funnier.

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5 Comments Add your own

  • 1. Cynthia Essiambre  |  October 24th, 2007 at 9:27 pm

    XD Even though I highly disagree with some stuff..well because beauty is in the eyes of the beholder..I love how your funny about being mean about Gackt..which is a solo singer not a band. Anyways..I’m still buying it.

  • 2. Stephanie  |  November 7th, 2007 at 1:15 am

    First off, I love Gackt. But I also have a sense of humor. I found this review to be extremely funny, no matter how poorly written and punctuated it was. Especially since the writer seemed to know more about the cartoon characters that he was mentioning than the subject of the article itself. A subject that was obviously pre-judged prior to the watching of the video. Though there is no journalistic talent to be found in this article there is much to be said for the type of humor that could be especially useful on the Daily Show, though, even they hold the journalistic ideals and standards of reporting actual facts that they researched before they make fun of them.

    (side note: You know that video that “took place in New York City, and featured people of many different backgrounds holding up peace signs” that you mentioned? That’s a dedication to NY after 9/11. What a way to say “Thanks for thinking of us.” )

    So here is my review of your review

    A+ - for humor
    B- - for keeping the attention of the reader, which only happened because of the humor
    F - for being biased, uninformative and just overall lack of journalistic talant

    So I guess it would actually be a “D.”

    I’m sure that if Gackt had read this he would be able to take your criticism. Can you take mine?

  • 3. Carlos Alexandre  |  November 14th, 2007 at 2:14 pm

    Carlos Alexandre

    Hello, Stephanie. To respond to some of your concerns:

    I accept all criticism. In fact, I encourage criticism; I want it. And I will look over my review with your criticism in mind. Thank you for it.

    However, I feel the need to defend myself when told that I have “pre-judged” the subject matter. I did no such thing. In fact, I had not even heard of Gackt until I had to do this review. I approached this disc fresh, with no preconceptions: I can honestly say that I didn’t even know what genre of music I was about to hear.

    What I said about Gackt’s melodramatic spasms stands. There is no subtlety in the majority of his lyrics or actions; it comes across as an attempt to stuff emotion down my throat, instead of letting me feel it through the music itself. Where he deviated from his norm and actually managed to captivate me, I mentioned it in the review, clear as day. I call a spade a spade, and were there not any good in this DVD, I would have given it a flat out F.

    Regarding NYC: the post 9/11 message did not escape me, nor would it escape anyone of sound mind. The video still did not mesh with the song’s subject matter, and the song itself was, in this reviewer’s humble opinion, subpar.

  • 4. C.C  |  January 15th, 2008 at 5:07 pm

    If you weren’t prejudiced you were certainly not objective. In fact you seem more interested in making fun of Gackt’s appearance calling him “fellow/lady/genderless being” and “he’s/she’s/it’s”. Apparently, only manly men have artistic merit and deserve fair unbiased criticism about their work. I certainly wouldn’t trust a Elton John review that included “this gay/homo/queer” in its text.

    When you weren’t making ad hominem attacks you resorted to broad generalizations accusing him of so called “spasming” even though this type of dramatic gesturing is not nearly as extreme or prevalent as you claim and appears only in a few videos on the dvd ,and even then, for short moments.

    In many of the videos the focus is placed on the other actors and story as much if not more than Gackt. But of course pointing that out would require objectively paying attention to the videos and leaves less opportunities for making fun of how girly Gackt is.

    You claim that Gackt’s lyrics lack subtlety (although the subject itself is inherently subjective) but in fact the lyrics to his songs are frequently metaphorical and often use detail, description, and symbolism to reflect emotion and are not blunt as you imply. Note also that subtlety is not the sole criterion in judging quality lyrics as you seem to believe. And dismissing them because of that one reason without giving any other reasons or examples, sounds less like an objective critique of his lyrics and more of an attempt to sound “knowledgable” while not actually caring or knowing anything about the subject at hand.

    This review reads as if you hadn’t even watched the whole dvd ,but instead skimmed through the dvd watching maybe one or two videos and then stopping momentarily at any scenes that seemed conductive to your jokes and biased opinion. For example
    “Everything for you” , is not about a “unhappy girl that he wants to love” its about the ways that someone expresses love for someone else. Nor is it in anyway like “My Story”.And if you understood that December love song was about 911 why didn’t you say that it was instead of “One took place in New York City, and featured people of many different backgrounds holding up peace signs” that would have surely been more helpful and relevant to the review. I guess saying such also left no room for snide remarks either. Also the the song “December love song” was written before the music video was decided it to be made in dedication for 9/11.

    Humor can be a good quality in journalism. But not when it replaces objectivity and fairness.

  • 5. Carlos Alexandre  |  January 21st, 2008 at 5:15 pm

    Carlos Alexandre

    C.C: Fashioning straw-men will not further your argument. I did use any sort of hateful slang in my review. I threw out a jab that you would equate with a full-on left hook.

    As for my “objectivity and fairness,” you are making accusations without basis. I was “objectively paying attention” to the entire disc, as agonizing as it was for me to do. Subtlety is important in music. No, it is not the only metric with which to measure a song’s worth, but it is a crucially important one, for much of music’s appeal (as well as the appeal of just about any kind of storytelling or poetry) comes in giving the audience the chance to ponder and draw their own conclusions. None of the songs, not even the ones I wrote favorably about in the review, did this to any sort of meaningful degree. Like I said before, it is an attempt to stuff emotion down my throat. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like having my intelligence insulted, and I don’t give credit to music (or anything) that aims to repeatedly insult my intelligence.

    Similarly, that’s precisely why I didn’t spell it out for people that the New York song was about 9/11. You can come to that conclusion on your own without needing me to tell you that. You could probably even do it without having seen the DVD, just by reading my review. And ultimately, it doesn’t even matter: 9/11 or not, the music video and the song were both subpar and mismatched.

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