JAPANESE MOVIES - ANY OTHER FANS ?

[Hollis]

Hi Alison,

Way back in time we go! I don't think anyone has mentioned what I would consider to be the most serious Japanese language films of all time, Akira Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai" and "Rashomon". If I'm wrong, please accept my apologies. On a lighter (and sillier) note, we can't forget "Gorgo", "Mothra" or perhaps the monster with the most incarnations, the one and only "Godzilla" ! I'm just glad that they were all dubbed into English so that I didn't have to miss any of the action while I tried to keep up while reading the captions. A pre-teen boy can only read so fast !

As always,

Hollis!

[charliechaplinfan]

I think we mentioned Seven Samurai and Rashomon a while back. Seeing as I love every other Kurosawa film I've seen perhaps I should rewatch Seven Samurai again. It's a boys film, what can I say. I have watched many more of his films since then and I hope gained more of an appreciation of his work. I remember it was a long film.

I've not seen Godzilla, perhaps I should.

[Metry_Road]

Juzo Itami

Japanese film director and writer. Active in the 1980’s/1990’s

Most of his movies were satirical (sometimes darkly) observations of Japanese society, culture and manners.

I’ve only seen three of his movies, so am not really an ‘Informed Source’

My favorite is ‘Tampopo’. On paper, this is a movie that shouldn’t work. On the surface it’s a mundane light-weight comedy. The main thread of the movie is about the young widow Tampopo and her struggle to create the best noodle restaurant in town. She’s ably assisted in this by an odd assortment of characters including a truck driver and a vagrant gourmet, who lend her their expertise in areas such as ’noodles, ’soup’, ‘restaurant ambience’ etc. There are many peripheral and unrelated (Except by food) digressions in the movie including one concerning an arrogant sensualist gangster. But it all comes together and is a satisfying and enjoyable movie to watch.

By the way – If you are a timid vegan you may find the scene with the turtle quite disturbing.

Tampopo is one of the worlds great ‘food’ movies.

There’s a disturbing sub-plot to this movie in the light of subsequent events.

After the release of his movie ‘Minbō no Onna’, Itami was attacked and had his face slashed by several members of the Yakuza, who didn’t appreciate the way they were portrayed in the movie. – I wonder if Francis Ford Coppola ever thought about such things when he was making The Godfather? – Itami’s death in 1997, although ajudged a suicide, was clouded the with suspicion that he was assisted in this by the Yakuza.


Best wishes

Metairie Road

[charliechaplinfan]

Frustratingly none of his work has been released over here. I'll keep an eye on him for the future.

[MichiganJ]

Tampopo is a great film. One that needs to be visited regularly (and pretty much requires a bunch of delicious snacks to accompany the viewing.)

I recently finished watching the Kenji Mizoguchi "Fallen Women" set, which includes Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion, Women of the Night and Street of Shame. In previous comments both ChiO and CCF have pretty much covered the themes and merits of the films. I just gotta say, taken as a whole, they offer an uncompromising look at the dynamic between female empowerment and female exploitation, (at least in the confines of Japan's lower class, pre and post WWII). I wish I'd watched them in reverse order, because Osaka Elegy's final shot offers some hope of strength and empowerment. However, instead, watching them in order of release, I ended with Street of Shame, where a new prostitute unwillingly beckons directly to the camera, offering herself to the highest bidder. I still can't shake the image.

[charliechaplinfan]

Mizoguchi's box set set me off reading about the culture of geisha and prostitution in Japan. The two are completely different but meet in the middle were the line gets blurred. Street of Shame is a powerful film, the statistics of the women working in the 'water trade' in Japan tells only a small part of the story of how Japan coped after the war.

I left this on the silent thread, but this movie was truly moving and made by Kaneto Shinoda the same man who made Onibaba.

I watched The Naked Island. I didn't realise until I put it on that apart from a couple of songs sang in school it was a completely silent film. It held as much beauty as the big silent epics. The story takes place on a Japanese Island a couple of miles away from the mainland. The island is inhabited by a family of 4, they make a few trips in the rowing boat everyday to fetch water, the rest of the day is spent farming the arid and rugged land that they have. I felt every bit of the hardship of this family, every trial and tribulation, the story is so moving, the mix of the absence of dialogue and the beautiful score. This is a wonderful silent film that has had a very good restoration. He's another director who's works I'll be seeking out.

[charliechaplinfan]

I watched a new release here, Kokoro from the director Kon Ichikawa. it's basically the story of a love triangle between two friends and the girl where they are lodging. We see the film from the present 13 years after one of the friends has killed themselves. The other man is tortured by guilt after he arranged to marry the girl behind hid friends back, after his friend had spoke of his intentions towards her. Was this done because he was jealous that his friend loved the girl or that the girl loved his friend, either way he put himself in between them and his friend committed suicide. A complex movie, the star is Masayuki Mori an actor I'm beginning to like more and more.

[ChiO]

In spite of a stack of unwatched Mizoguchi, Ichikawa and Suzuki movies, yesterday I delved into my first Hiroshi Shimizu movie, KANZASHI (aka ORNAMENTAL HAIRPIN) (1941). Several natives of Tokyo are spending their summer at a rural inn, which also has tour groups on occasion. The summer long visitors include a blowhard, intimidating professor, a grandfather, his two pre-teen grandchildren, a young married couple, and a young single man; in short, a microcosm of Japanese society.

Throughout the movie there are recurring light comedic touches: the grandfather’s snoring; the unavailability of a masseur for the professor whenever a large group of tourists arrive; the professor chastising the young married man for seeking his wife’s approval or opinion whenever he expresses his opinion. The main narrative, too, begins with comedy: the young single man steps on a hairpin in the communal bath, seriously injuring his foot; that, however, quickly becomes the opportunity for the men to imagine who the owner is and her physical attributes. When the hairpin’s owner – a geisha from Tokyo who had visited the inn – writes to inquire whether her hairpin had been found, and is informed that it had injured a resident, she returns to the inn to beg forgiveness. Thus begins the romance.

Upon her arrival, she and the two preteens assist and encourage the injured man in his walking exercises to regain the use of his foot. Her backstory is vague, but it appears that she left Tokyo not only to do penance, but to retreat from a failed love affair. She and the young man grow closer and closer.

As summer draws to an end, each of the summer residents (with two exceptions) expresses reluctance to return to Tokyo, but knows it must be done and pledges to stay in touch with the rest. The exceptions: the geisha says she will not return to Tokyo and the young man states his goal is to return to Tokyo. The last sequence is one that reminded me of something Ophuls might do. There is a long shot of steps going up a hill, the two preteens at the top, and the geisha and young man at the bottom. He says that if he can make it up the steps, then he knows it’s time to return to Tokyo. He hobbles up, the boys shouting their encouragement and she torn between her desire to see him well and yet to have him stay. He makes it to the top and is elated that he can return. She is downcast and the camera moves to a closeup of her feet as she slowly walks up the steps.

This is a marvelous and touching character study about escape from the everyday and I’m looking forward to watching the other three Shimizu movies in the Eclipse series. Then…

After watching it, I read a short on-line analysis of the film and was embarrassed to find that I had missed a key element…the movie was made in 1941. Hence the reluctance for most to return to Tokyo, the eagerness of the military aged man to get back into action, and the pain of the geisha who may have lost one love and now will inevitably lose another. And my touching character study about escape from the everyday becomes a quietly subversive film about Japan in wartime.

[ChiO]

Carnival in the Night (1982) and Peep “TV” Show (2003), a Japanese Punk two-pack from Facets Video (Region 1). I’ve only seen the second of these, Tsuchiya Yutaka’s fictional documentary video about teenyboppers in Shibuya, a fashionable shopping district in Tokyo, which already won a FIPRESCI prize at Rotterdam from a jury I headed and even bears a blurb from me on the box (“Imagine Blade Runner restaged inside someone’s closet.”). All I can add to this now is that I can’t even begin to understand what’s going on in this fantasia, but anything as weird as this demands recognition and even admiration. Claire Denis was plainly delighted when we gave it a prize. -- Jonathan Rosenbaum

Reading that in the latest issue of Cinema Scope meant I had to see PEEP "TV" SHOW.

Attempt #1: When reality becomes entertainment, reality ceases to exist.

Or...

Attempt #2: When bombarded by reality that one does not experience first-hand, one seeks a real reality, which only happens to entertain others and that becomes their reality, which isn't really real....

Weaving 9/11, pin-hole cameras, surveillance cameras, internet sex sites, disaffected youth, "real" interviews and who-can-remember-what-else, PEEP "TV" SHOW is a harrowing commentary on on today's culture (not just in Tokyo and not just among the youth). When one of the "characters" (as an homage to Neo-Realism, the characters play themselves) who yearns to find reality decides to be a subject of one of the cameras, but only if the website that broadcasts her activities becomes a pay-site, one's entire notion of what constitutes "reality" gets turned inside-out.

One aspect that fascinated me as a spectator was that with -- here's the litany -- pin-hole cameras, including bedrooms and ladies' room stalls, and internet sex sites and physical abuse (human and non-human), it is one of the least explicit movies I have ever seen. So many of us lament that contemporary movies don't leave anything to the imagination...well, this one does. It is all inside the head. And because it sets the viewer up with potentially lurid situations in a documentary style, it is all the more disturbing.

But is it real...?

[Mr. Arkadin]

This sounds really interesting, especially the fact that it's not graphic. While I can take gore, it becomes very tiring unless you're dealing with a director that really knows how to use those effects to build the story instead of shock. Sounds like this would have been a great film for your voyeurism class (btw, when are you starting a new one? )!

[charliechaplinfan]

I watched one of the only Ozu films I hadn't seen before Early Spring, I had such high hopes for it and the overall message it conveys is a good one, running at well over 2 hours it's way too long for a gentle Ozu movie. It's is only for ardent fans.

[charliechaplinfan]

I watched one of Kurosawa's later films last night Madadayo. It's very different to the films he was most famous for, more akin to Red Beard and Ikiru. I confess I was a little confused as to why all these men flocked around their professor but when reading later I discovered that the professor existed and was well thought of in Japan, held in such high esteem that his students helped him through the tribulations of his life, the host a party every year for his birthday which he celebrates by drinking a large glass of beer in one and teeling the Madadayo (not yet) in answer to his own mortality. These included him being bombed out of his new house and being forced to live in a shack with his uncomplaining wife and the loss of a stray cat, Nora that comes to live with him, with this loss he goes to pieces, placing adverts in papers and going to Nora's basket ot mourn. It's so touching and to me an avid animal and cat fan, very real. He is renewed by a new cat who comes to live with him and his wife. Many years later he is seen again at his brithday party where he collapses and later dies. I wonder if Kurosawa was coming to terms with his own mortality here, looking back with fondness on his generation? It's a difficult film to describe but nevertheless an interesting one to watch.

[charliechaplinfan]

This morning I watched Dodes'kan directed by Akira Kurosawa in 1970. I think this is the first colour film he made, I can't remember one before it although I know I'm going to be proved wrong now. It tells the story of the inhabitants of a dump, all living in shanty buildings and one father and small son living in a car. Despite the decay around them most of the residents have a sense of pride in their dwellings. The inhabitants include two couples, the husbands are drunk all the time so they swop spouses and homes, a young boy and his mother, the boy lives in his pretend world 'working' on the trolleys all day, they make the sound Dodeskan, he makes all the sounds and 'works' from morning until night. A well dressed man with a terrible tick that disables his whole body, yet he soldiers on, there is a mother of 5 who is pregnant with her 6th child, none of them fathered by her husband but he goodnaturedly brings them up. A niece who is worked to death by her uncle whilst her aunt is in hospital and is raped by him for her trouble. A half dead man who lives in his own world and the man and his boy who dream of their own house. It's not an uplifting film but it is a compelling one.

This isn't like any earlier Kurosawa films and it's told in vivid colour, almost too vivid when it comes to the sick little boy's face. The opening was clever and deceptive, we are made to believe that the mother is stupid yet it's the son who goes out to work. This might be a story set in squalid circumstances but Kurosawa is quite adpet at getting a laugh out of some of the situations, the young boy shouting at the painter for sitting on his tracks and the wife of the man with the tic buying her cabbage. The women who sit around the water pipe are the gossips, they keep the film flowing from one to another. None of the characters interact with other families very much. The old tinker, a lovely old man, living out his days, helping others out of their suffering. The hardest story to take is that of the young boy and the way Kurosawa tells it he has us suspecting the worst and then he has a knack of letting us think the boy is getting better, perhaps we are seeing the boy from the father's eyes. The niece's story, very hard but she does seem to have some justice in the end, one can see that she didn't tell her aunt for fear of not being believed and being thrown out.

Kurosawa is able to mix tragedy with comedy well enough for the blows to be softened. He's truly a great director.

[pvitari]

I love Asian film.

I can especially talk all day about Stephen Chow, the funniest man on the planet -- even though I can't understand his Cantonese-language jokes! :) s

[charliechaplinfan]

I've never heard of Steven Chow, I learn something new everyday.

Today I started watching Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, so called because they are eight films of his dreams. I managed 4 of them, I want to love every Kurosawa film made, he's such a major talent but I just couldn't get into this at all, I will watch the remaining 4, some of the sets and colours are stunning but so far it's a miss.