Eita Nagayama – Page 2 – Windows on Worlds

summertimemachineblues-2 There ain’t no cure for the summer time blues! Unless, of course, you have a time machine. For the boys of the sci-fi club the long, boring summer vacation is just getting started. They mess around playing baseball while the two girls from the photography club who’ve been unceremoniously ousted from their club room in favour of the boys take photos of them. Then some weird stuff starts happening and their air con remote gets broken and it’s just so hot! When the boys somehow end up with a mysterious time machine, the solution is obvious…

Full of nostalgic charm, Summer Time Machine Blues is a fitting tribute to all those endless, golden summers of adolescence. Hanging out in the university club room even though they’re on their summer break, the kids waste time in distinctly old fashioned ways – playing baseball, going to the baths, working on a photo project etc. Though the guys are nominally the “science-fiction club” they actually aren’t very interested in science fiction and kind of make fun of the sort of people who would belong to the very club that they do, actually, belong to. Perhaps they just wanted the bigger room with the air conditioner and were lucky enough to get it as their two female friends are the only two members of the photography club and mostly hang out in the dark room at the back anyway.

The film began as a stage play put together by Europa Kikaku and though it makes the cinematic jump extremely confidently also maintains its youthful absurdist tones and theatrical comedy beats. The humour itself is cheerfully bizarre, full of fast comebacks and naturalistic sounding banter between a group of young guys. Added to this there are numerous references to other popular science fiction and time travel themed franchises such as the obvious homage to the Back to the Future series which is even prominently showcased in poster form at the local rep cinema. The cinema itself (a mini plot point in the movie) is run by a total sci-fi buff and time travel story expert who dresses (from the waist up) in a Star Trek: The Next Generation Command uniform complete with Communicator Badge. He seems to have something of a beef with the only actual scientist in the film who never has much success with his discoveries and only succeeds in boring everyone around him with his needlessly complicated theories.

Directed by Katsuyuki Motohiro who may be best known for the Bayside Shakedown series, Summer Time Machine Blues, also mixes in plenty of fun stylistic devices like the anachronistic tape rewinds or the elaborate disappearing of the time machine itself. He also makes good use of split screens to compare and contrast what’s happening where and pays especial attention to make sure everything works out in the most completely satisfying way.

Indeed, one of the most satisfying things about Summer Time Machine Blues is that despite essentially becoming a parody of time travel movies, all of its complicated paradoxes are internally consistent and even though it doesn’t really have an obligation to, it all makes sense no matter how hard you poke at it trying to find the holes. Of course, there’s also the more melancholic side of time on show as the scientist points out he’s riding a time machine as well – just one that will never go backwards, only very slowly into the future. This aimless summer will end at some point, as will college and eventually the universe too, one supposes.

However, that’s no reason not to enjoy the time you have, as one character realises towards the end as he fears his romantic desires may come to nothing going on some hints from the future. An enjoyably absurd and youthful farce, Summer Time Machine Blues is lives up to its name as a transporting delight which carts the viewer back to their own days of long and boring summers filled with improbable adventures. Smart, funny and beautifully crafted, Summer Time Machine Blues is the perfect way to while away an aimless afternoon at any time of the year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX51ppP5wg0

Review of The Foreign Duck, The Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker over at uk-anime.net I really enjoyed this one – great movie!

Director Yoshihiro Nakamura once again returns with another adaptation of a Kotaro Isaka novel, The Foreign Duck, The Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker (アヒルと鴨のコインロッカー, Ahiru to Kamo no Coin Locker). Having previously adapted Fish Story (also available from Third Window in the UK and itself a very fine film) and Golden Slumber, Nakamura and Isaka seem to have formed a very effective working relationship and this latest effort is another very welcome instalment from the duo. Elliptical, melancholic and thought provoking The Foreign Duck, The Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker is a minor gem and every bit as whimsical as its name would suggest.

Shiina (Gaku Hamada) has just left the small town shoe shop his parents own to study law in Sendai. Moving into his new apartment he attracts the attention of his neighbour, Kawasaki (Eita), who overhears him signing Bob Dylan’s Blowing in the Wind. Kawasaki is himself a great admirer of Dylan remarking that his is ‘the voice of God’. Aloof, cold, at once dominating and indifferent the prospect of developing a friendship with the mild mannered, short and shy Shiina seems an odd one but nevertheless the two seem to develop a bond. Kawasaki therefore proposes Shiina help him with a rather peculiar problem.

Shiina’s other neighbour, who rudely rebuffed Shina’s introduction and moving in present, is apparently a foreigner – Bhutanese to be precise – and although speaks fluent Japanese cannot read. He’s particularly perplexed by the different between ‘ahiru’ – the native duck, and ‘kamo’ – the foreign duck, and is sure that if he had a good dictionary he’d be able to understand the two fully and thus perfect his Japanese. To this end Kawasaki has decided to steal a Kanji Garden Dictionary for him and wants Shiina to help. Understandably confused Shiina originally declines but is soon bamboozled into helping anyway. There’s a lot more to all of this than a simple semantic quandary though and the only thing that’s clear is that Shiina has gone and gotten himself embroiled in someone else’s story.

‘That sounds like something you just made up’ is one of the first things Shiina says to Kawasaki and indeed everything about him seems studied or affected in someway as if he were reciting someone else’s lines – essentially performing the role of himself. Half of the crazy stuff he comes up with, like his warning Shiina to avoid a particular pet shop owner completely out of the blue, sounds as if he’s just invented it on the spot for a laugh were it not for his distant and humourless manner. Without spoiling the plot too much, you start to get the feeling that there’s really something slightly off about everything you’re being told, that crazy as it seems it is the truth in one sense but perhaps not in another. This is where the mystery element of the film begins to kick in – who is Kawasaki really? What is he on about? Is any of this really happening?

Wistful in tone, The Foreign Duck, The Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker is only partly a mystery, it’s also a bittersweet coming of age tale and an, admittedly light, examination of the Japanese attitude to foreignness. Away from home for the first time Shiina is obviously keen to strike out on his own and be his own his own person but at the same time wants to fit in and be liked by his classmates. A particularly telling incident occurs when a confused Indian woman tries to get some information at a bus stop only to be ignored by those waiting. Shiina seems to feel as if he ought to help her but having just heard two of his classmates complaining about ‘stupid foreigners’ does nothing. Feeling guilty he tries to reach out to his Bhutanese neighbour but is again rebuffed. Kawasaki wants to know the difference between the foreign duck and the native one – is there such a fundamental difference? As one character says ‘you wouldn’t have talked to me if you’d known I was a foreigner’ ‘Of course I would’ Shiina replies ‘no, you wouldn’t have’ his friend responds with resignation. Isn’t it better to just help those who need it, whoever or whatever they happen to be?

The Foreign Duck, The Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker maybe a little darker than its title suggests but its tone is definitely to the wistful/whimsical side – this juxtaposition might irritate some who’d rather a more straightforward mystery or a lighter, more conventional comedy but its refusal to conform is precisely what makes it so charming. That it also manages to pack in a decent amount of social commentary in an interesting way is to its credit as is its ability to make the totally bizarre seem perfectly natural. The Foreign Duck, the Native Duck and God in a Coin locker is another impressive feature from the creators of Fish Story and fans of that earlier film will certainly not be disappointed by their latest work.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Tag: Eita Nagayama

Summer Time Machine Blues (サマータイムマシン・ブルース, Katsuyuki Motohiro, 2005)

The Foreign Duck, The Native Duck and God in a Coin Locker (アヒルと鴨のコインロッカー, Yoshihiro Nakamura, 2007)