While in Italy, nearly 15% of cinemas have not resumed activity due to the health crisis and the sector is loudly calling for intervention from the public authorities, the Il Cinema ritrovato festival ( “the rediscovered cinema”) of Bologna is more and more an exception. For ten days, from June 25 to July 3, the city’s many cinemas, mobilized in the orbit of the prestigious local Cinematheque (Cineteca di Bologna), operate at full speed and often sold out. The public – professionals, film buffs and amateurs – flock there to taste the many retrospectives, restorations and incunabula which the event, dedicated to exploring the world history of cinema, has made its specialty.
In the evening, in the enclave of Piazza Maggiore, screenings under the stars summon hundreds of curious people around key works projected on a giant screen, like this year The Conformist (1970), by Bernardo Bertolucci, the now centenarian madness of women (1922), by Erich von Stroheim, or even astonishing finds such as the only film directed by actor Charles Vanel, the late silent In the night (1929). The device of the festival is thus the catalyst of an appetite for cinema, which now seems to be more willing to express itself in this kind of event context.
On the program for this 36e edition, one of the most popular retrospectives (bookings sold out from the first day) is that devoted to Japanese filmmaker Kenji Misumi (1921-1975), a solid studio craftsman and goldsmith of the chambara, the Japanese sword film, little known in France, except for a few late works from the 1970s, more licentious in terms of graphic violence (the sagas baby-cart and Zatoichi). The five films on offer date back earlier, during the prosperous period of the 1960s within the Daiei, a prestigious production house specializing in historical narratives (jidai-geki), where Misumi spent most of her career, shooting four to five films a year until her bankruptcy in 1971.
Dazzling destinies
three of them, Kill ! (Kiru1962), The sword (Ken1964) and The Diabolic Blade (Ken ki1965), presented in resplendent copies from Japan, make up a flamboyant ensemble, also known as Blade Trilogy. Their highly honed style, like the caustic gaze they cast on the samurai’s face, leaves no doubt about Misumi’s considerable value – that of a great artist.
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