Summer Film Festival Notes 2

Through my annual work for TOKYO FILMeX, beginning soon, I found out last week who the foreign retrospective is on for this year's 10th anniversary (November 21-29) and it's one of my favourite European filmmakers of all time. Strangley, I've only mentioned this director once in the blog's history. More on that and the classic Japanese retrospective in the coming months.

Liking the new colourful artwork promoting the event.

Back to the Pia Film Festival, here are impressions on a few more films I thought were well done: Iwanaga Hiroshi's Soredake - That's All- (Soredake, 『ソレダケ』), Matsumura Shingo's Yahoo From a Corner (Katasumi de, Yahoo, 『かたすみで、ヤッホウ』), and Japan-based Chinese director Ren Shujian's My Lyrical Age (Watashi no Jojôteki na Jidai, 『私の叙情的な時代』).

From the program book entry on Soredake - That's All-: Mana, a ninth grade girl, spends a summer holiday by herself. Bored of just sleeping, she goes outside and sits in the park, then comes back home. After taking a shower, she notices something. It was her first step towards becoming an adult.

This 26m short was very good at capturing the hazy period between girlhood and womanhood. Mana plays with stuffed toys on one hand but dresses up to get noticed on the other. The film also captures that realization that those things called "parents" are just people, too. Bad actors can't even sleep realistically but Matsui Minami does it perfectly. A nascent filmmaker who could be someone to watch if he teams up with a strong writer.


From the program book entry on Yahoo From a Corner: Junko, who works as a telephone operator, is currently 28 years old. Added to the frustration of not being able to find a steady job, she is annoyed by Yasuko, her somewhat self-centered roommate who is an aspiring actress. Then one day, Yasuko makes her debut as an actress before Junko lands a job.

This film achieved quite a lot through things left unsaid, relying quite heavily on lead actress Yamamoto Yume and her expressive eyes. You've heard of the increasing pressure Japanese women feel as they move into their late 20s? If they haven't become what's considered a proper shakaijin it can be even more crushing. Yamamoto's small acts of revenge against her more successful roomie are funny and sad. Film finishes on a strong line of dialogue.


From the program book entry on My Lyrical Age: Zhao Ming, a Chinese student from Nanjing, meets a Korean student, a Japanese man past middle age, a woman from Taiwan, and a Chinese mother and child who are staying in Japan illegally. Zhao Ming had been living life shrewdly until then, but through his interactions with these people, he gains something more valuable than money.

Very impressive feature film from Ren, who directed Summer Vacation in North Korea 2005, using the money he made from TBS' broadcasting of the film post-YIDFF to help fund My Lyrical Age. In its own, carefully structured way this is an epic of Asian race relations in Tokyo (centering around Ikebukuro, not far from where I live). Much of it is based on Ren's own life and struggles, and it feels all the more real for that. One of the most professional works I've seen at PFF. Looks to travel.


I also caught a screening of In the Realm of the Senses (Ai no Corrida, 『愛のコリーダ』) which played as part of PFF's mini-retrospective on Ôshima Nagisa. Before the film producer Wakamatsu Kôji spoke for about an hour, telling some very interesting anecdotes about the genesis and filming of this legendary erotic work. The version screened was Ai no Corrida 2000, which is fully uncut but blurs out genitals (though not post-severing) with small ovals. The controversial scene with the little boy and girl was intact.

Don Ryuganji told me the Criterion Blu-ray release includes great interviews from Fuji, Wakamatsu, Sai and other people who worked on the film so rather than repeat what may already be out there, if you're curious about topics Wakamatsu didn't cover on video post a comment. One interesting fact was Dauman having the final say on Matsuda after she and four other women were flown to Paris. He called Ôshima and said "she's the one" and cinema history was made...

Summer Film Festival Notes 1

The heat and my workload has led to sluggish blogging habits, which look to continue for a while with a stack of 40 DVDs to go through for an upcoming festival. At least my tweeting is consistent. Following is a mish-mash of thoughts on screenings at two summer film festivals -- Skip City and the Pia Film Festival.

A week ago Skip City screened a recent installment in Shochiku's ongoing Cinema Kabuki series, Cinema Kabuki: Renjishi/Rakuda (『シネマ歌舞伎　「連獅子/らくだ」』). Renjishi was directed by Yamada Yôji -- his second effort in the series (see my July 2008 entry for more on the first). HD cameras were brought onto the stage during rehearsals for the first time, making this tale of a father lion who pushes his two cubs off a cliff only to raise the one that comes crawling back particularly vibrant. The proceedings are heightened by the casting of legendary performer Nakamura Kanzaburô XVIII and his two sons (Kantarô and Shichinosuke). When the trio start "head banging" it's quite a sight.



Rakuda is an hilarious tale of a petty criminal who tries to extort money out of his dead boss' landlord with the help of a junk collector (Nakamura Kanzaburô again). Never mind Weekend At Bernie's, Kataoka Kamezô gives the best corpse performance ever. Nakamura is always brilliant as a bumbling loser.

Complete details on both live performance captured, here and here (fantastic site).

The latest Cinema Kabuki release is a ghost story, Kaidan Botan Dôrô (『怪談 牡丹燈籠』) now showing at the Shochiku Tôgeki in Ginza. Kaidan of whatever form are enjoyed in the summer -- they chill you nicely.

On Friday morning I caught Michael Worth's debut feature film God's Ears, which the prolific action film actor impressively wrote, directed, starred in and served as a cameraman on. Cool veteran actor John Saxon has a role in it. It was good to talk to him after the screening. Worth is a fan of Japanese cinema as this recent interview reveals.

Finally, here's my Skip City wrap-up article. Was glad that Shiraishi Kazuya's Lost Paradise in Tokyo won the Skip City award. I felt it was the strongest of the three films I helped select for the domestic features category. Festivals that specialize in Japanese cinema (you know who you are) -- I recommend you screen it.

Also on Friday was the opening day of this year's Pia Film Festival at the National Film Center in Kyôbashi. The two standouts were Kimura Shôko's Ordinary Love (Futsû No Koi, 『普通の恋』) and Iizuka Ryô's In The Fog (Moya No Naka, 『靄の中』).

From the program book entry on Ordinary Love: A girl who has been sexually awakened by reading a book entitled "The Sex of Plants" falls in love with a pre-University student with a virginity complex who assaults her. She eventually confines him and loses herself in wild fancies based on her inner lust while dripping sand from between her legs.

It was a little rough around the edges but with its highly creative art direction, fantastical tone and retro-looking young heroine it seemed to channel the spirit of Nikkatsu roman poruno (without any real nudity) and a mini Woman in the Dunes, complete with apartment desert set. Kimura herself looked great on stage in latticework stockings and what appeared to be stainless steel high heels. Watch for her as part of the female director new wave.

From the program book entry on In the Fog: Mamoru is a high school student who is about to fail because he has been missing school and lacks the necessary number of days to graduate. While on the one hand he feels a sudden urge towards violence and murder, on the other he longs to become a farmer in a mountain village. Such ambivalent feelings are depicted in this work.

This one-hour film could've easily been expanded into a feature. In it's current form it's still an unsettling portrait of how a young man's mind slowly darkens until he's driven to commit matricide. Iizuka blends the beauty of the countryside jaunts (in Nagano, where I once lived for half a year), with their improvised scenes featuring real local residents, and the hikikomori-esque apartment sequences.

Heading out for Ôshima Nagisa's A Treatise on Japanese Bawdy Songs (Nihon Shunka-kô, 『日本春歌考』) as introduced by Kurosawa Kiyoshi.

Midnight Eye Update

Just a quick note to point the (I assume) obscure few of you that come here but don't subscribe to Midnight Eye's newsletter that there's a nice update including a feature on this year's Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival from Eija Niskanen and reviews of Air Doll, Rain Fall, Shindô Kaneto's Live Today, Die Tomorrow and more.

Nice to see a more considered take on Rain Fall that not only looks at plot, characters and the usual elements but at the animal itself. "Rain Fall begins, albeit tentatively, to chart the territory for a different sort of thriller," writes newcomer M. Downing Roberts. From hearing all about the film's production first-hand I do have to say that budget (and time constraints) most definitely did keep things like car chases out of the film, but that Sony Pictures wanted its own Bourne-like franchise nonetheless.

Audience members don't care about a film's production history when they put down their cash for a ticket -- nor should they -- but it's worth mentioning that Max Mannix is a very creative guy and came up with what's there in a matter of weeks, from scratch. It'd make a hell of a DVD commentary, I swear.

Skip City Opens / Rashomon in 4K

As I wrote on Twitter this Friday (1, 2), the 6th annual Skip City International D-Cinema Festival is now underway but I just wanted to expand a little on the tweets.

The painstaking restoration of Kurosawa's 1950 masterpiece, unveiled last fall, was written about quite a lot last year. These articles on SciFi Japan, the AMPAS site and the Japan Times cover all the bases.

This restored version was screened in CineAlta 4K digital at the end of the closing ceremony. It was preceded by a 20-minute explanation from Skip City director Takizawa Yûji and Kadokawa representative Amano Yuniko. Still frames and clips with superimposed graphics were used to illustrate before and after results. Particularly impressive was the rectifying of splice jitter and how background softness was drastically reduced. Amano again related the anecdote mentioned in the JT piece above about the Audio Mechanics staff thinking the high-pitched buzzing of semi (cicadas) was noise that had to be removed. She said it was a cultural "bump" that had Kadokawa a little concerned at first but that it all worked out.

I was stunned by how clear Rashomon looked and sounded in 4K. I can only describe it as like looking through a giant pane of glass into the world of the film. Every tear that rolls down Kyô Machiko's cheeks, every drop of sweat on Mifune's brow and every whisker on Shimura Takashi's chin. Mifune's performance is still one of the most feral ever committed to celluloid. At the opening party Skip City competition jury head and Crows Zero producer Yamamoto Mataichiro "apologized" to Kurosawa-sensei for resurrecting the character of Tajomaru for his new film of the same name, starring Oguri Shun and directed by Nakano Hiroyuki.

Hope to get up to Kawaguchi several more times to catch both shorts and features, and of course the closing ceremony. Had a good talk with young director Kanai Jun'ichi on the way home. His film Courtship (Kyûai, 『求愛』) is one of the three we chose as selection members for the new domestic features category. You can read about the films and see clips here (bottom of the page). These three works were at the top of everyone's list but when I have time I'd like to write a bit about some of the films I championed which didn't make the cut.

Also excited to see the latest two installments in the Cinema Kabuki series, one of which is directed by Yamada Yôji (see my July 19 2008 entry on last year's The Tale Of Bunshichi).

Akumu No Elevator Press Screening

Saw a press screening of Akumu No Elevator 『悪夢のエレベーター』 in Kyôbashi on this very hot summer day. Actor Horibe Keisukei's feature-length directorial debut (he's done shorts) was reasonably entertaining. You can read a little background here and there. I haven't read the first in the series of Kinoshita Hanta's series of "Akumu" novels, which has sold over 260,000 copies, but the concept reminded me of something Otsuichi would've come up with (just recalled doing Toei's adaptation of his short story compilation ZOO years back).

Satsukawa Aimi fans will definitely want to check it out for her impeccable goth-loli cosplay -- she has a great face for it -- and the range of emotions she expresses (spoiler: we find out at the end that the entire plot is put into motion by her character). Ashina Sei's hair, and the rest of her, plays a supporting role as a mistress.

Nikkatsu releases the film this fall. If it does well we might see the "car" and "Ferris wheel" editions adapted, too.

Sion Sono's Love Exposure Wins at New York Asian Fest

Lots of Sono media and news lately. Tonight his 4-hour epic Love Exposure was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the closing of this year's New York Asian Film Festival. You can read about it and the other winners on the official Subway Cinema news blog here. This brings Love Exposure's trophy count to four with the two awards won in Berlin earlier this year and the Tokyo FILMeX audience prize last year. As previously mentioned, Sono's latest film Be Sure To Share was the closing film at NYAFF as a world premiere. If anybody was in NYC to see it all go down, please post your thoughts about either film (or link to fresh reviews).

Collected posts on Love Exposure and Sono Sion.

Sion Sono's Be Sure To Share

As I tweeted a couple of days ago, I attended a press screening of Be Sure To Share (Chanto Tsutaeru, 『ちゃんと伝える』), the latest film from writer-director Sono Sion (園子温監督), made before we've even "had a chance to recover" after Love Exposure, as the press notes put it. These are just a few thoughts, a review of sorts, which includes spoilers, ahead of the film's world premiere at the New York Asian Film Festival on July 5th (see my June 11 entry).

You can read a good plot summary at the NYAFF link above. In short, 27-year-old Shirô (Akira) finds out his father (Okuda Eiji) has terminal cancer after he collapses at home and is rushed to the ER. Shirô and his mother (Takahashi Keiko) pay daily visits to the hospital. For Shirô it's the most time he's spent with his father since being coached by him in high school. During one of his visits, Shirô finds out he himself has cancer and that it's much worse than his father's -- he's unlikely to outlive him. Shirô struggles with when and if to tell his loving girlfriend (Itô Ayumi) and his family about his condition. As the days count down in both their lives they plan their first, and last, fishing trip together. The impetus for the film was the passing of Sono's own father, whom the film is dedicated to, in January 2008 (he was no fan of his son's movies, Sono has said).

Akira from megahit band EXILE does a fine job in his debut role. He has an easy charm about him. Boys and girls will find him equally likable, I'd guess. There are a few scenes where the drama calls for more than he might be capable of yet, but if he's serious about acting he has the potential to become great.

"With the way he looks in EXILE, the only roles I could think of for Akira were in movies about juvenile delinquents in Shibuya or gangs, but he really shed his sex appeal for this role ...I think his performance will touch people," explained Sono in a recent interview.

The teenaged version of Shirô in the flashbacks looks nothing like him, which I found a little distracting, especially since the time slips are handled so beautifully courtesy of Sono's regular editor Itô Jun'ichi. Not a major gripe -- I honestly don't think "professional" critics will find much, if anything, to be picky about with this film.

Itô Ayumi is a talented actress and beautiful woman who I've been keeping an eye on over the years. She's already worked with many of Japan's best directors (Iwai, Aoyama, Shindô, Sabu etc.) As I also tweeted, I think she has the chance to cross over like Kikuchi Rinko did. No accident she joined Anoré, the same small agency Kikuchi started at ran by Asano Tadanobu's father. She infuses her character of "the girlfriend" Yôko with humanity in a layered performance far removed from the affectations of terebi dorama. Her character is the kind of woman you want to marry (and I did). No wonder Shirô tells her the truth about his condition in the end, in a scene shot at the director's own childhood home.

Okuda plays the role of the bed-ridden father with the perfect amount of vulnerability and gruffness. The scene where he asks his wife to lay in his tiny hospital bed next to him because he misses it had me closer to tears than the "big" scenes.

In the high school flashbacks he's something like Robert Duvall in The Great Santini (comparison courtesy of NYAFF), berating and brutalizing Shirô for daring to call him "dad" during school hours. Off the pitch he's a calm man who barely raises an eyebrow when his son ends up at the local kôban after fighting. Okuda also plays a dead body well (it is one skill in an actor's repertoire after all).

Veteran actress Takahashi Keiko as the wife and mother is also affecting in a very quiet way. There are no histrionics, only superb and often wordless acting -- lonely gazes at the empty space next to her in bed and a warm smile at the young bus driver who drives her to the hospital every morning.

Other roles played by Takaoka Sôsuke (Crows series), Fukikoshi Mitsuru, Denden and Satô Jirô are handled well.

Fans of Mitsushima Hikari (Love Exposure) will be glad to see her as a giggling schoolgirl but might hope for more than her two-minute scene. On a Mitsushima/Okuda tangent I can't resist, during my Skip City pre-selection duty I watched her in the directorial debut of Okuda Eiji's daughter Andô Momoko. Entitled Kakera (『かけら』), Mitsushima plays the object of desire of an older woman. Watch for it!

The technical credits are solid. Shot and set in the city of Toyohashi, the cinematography by Ueno Shôgo (All Around Us) is espcially effective during the nighttime scenes along the deserted old shôtengai and the lake where the fateful fishing trip takes place. On a weather-beaten bench from a bygone era, Okuda's character comes to understand the pleasures of fishing from a senior colleague at school (Denden). The lake is flanked by a mountain on one side and swaying wheat on the other (we'll ignore the commuter bridge in the profile shots). Add to that the acoustic guitar on the soundtrack and it recalls early Michael Cimino. The lake develops an almost mythical status in their lives because it represents the will for both Shirô and his father to fight for the day they can fish it together.

You'd swear Be Sure to Share was based on a best-selling novel but the screenplay is yet another colour in the prism of Sono's originality. The characters and dialogue are honest and to the point, moving the story forward in a 109m film with no fat. Additionally, if you're studying Japanese and tired of simplistic dorama, this is a perfect film for an intermediate speaker.

To think Sono crafted this modest gem right after the treasure chest of pop culture insanity that was Love Exposure is startling. "Using music as an example, after a rock album tour de force you want to move right into something 'unplugged'," was Sono's analogy. What he may not be conscious of is that he's working toward the title of Japan's greatest living director right now.

Ryuganji Migrates to Blogspot / Sabu Talks Crab Cannery

As Don Brown explains over at Ryuganji.net, he has now migrated over to Blogger, here. I've been fairly happy on this service over the past 4+ years. Okay, it's not a web designer's paradise but it's constantly being tweaked on the surface and under the hood.

While the net may be awash in J-trailers with bad soundtrack songs and news aggregation ad infinitum, there are very few people knowledgeable about Japanese film on the ground in Tokyo (or Kanagawa) transmitting outward -- watching and reading in the local language every day, providing context not possible otherwise. And aren't afraid to call turd a turd. Ryuganji does all of that.

To start things off Don has translated an interesting interview with Sabu from edgy culture and issues magazine Cyzo. They don't ask the bog standard questions and have obviously been following Sabu's career (you'd be amazed at how many journalists here do interviews without seeing the film in question).

Audiences found out at the Crab Cannery Ship screening in May that Sabu doesn't read manga. As is revealed in this interview, he's not big on novels either (unless he's adapting one). Sabu subsists on DVDs and his iPod -- Tsutaya should grant him lifetime rentals. He's not devouring written stories, he's writing his own.

Also glad to see the interviewer pick up on Sabu's use of sound. One thing I've noticed when translating his screenplays is his description of what's being heard (or not heard). He's as particular about it as he is his storyboards. In Arrested Memories sound is as important as the visuals and dialogue in depicting Hollerman's various states of amnesia and dementia. And the brutality. Here's the opening sequence:

BLACK SCREEN

WHAM! THUD! CRASH!

A succession of VIOLENT SOUNDS over the OPENING CREDITS.

A fist connects with someone's face. They're kicked.

Someone is BASHED with a metal chair and SLAMMED onto a desk.

An aluminum ashtray hits the floor and SPINS like a top.

The sound of someone dragged up off the floor.

They SOB and GASP for breath.

Bones CRACK, like a shoulder being dislocated.

A CRY of pain.

They're CRUNCHED into a wall.


The Crab Cannery Ship opens this weekend at Shibuya's Cinema Rise, Theatre Shinjuku and other locations across the country (schedule here, Japanese only). Sabu and the cast will be doing butai aisatsu (stage greetings) at the aforementioned two locations on the first day.