Tag: Japan Cuts

Winny (Yusaku Matsumoto, 2023)

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Can a creator be held legally responsible for what other people might decide to do with their creation? For some, that is the essential question of the trial at the centre of Yusaku Matsumoto’s legal drama Winny, but in speaking more to the present day than the early 2000s in which the real life events took place the film is more concerned with freedom of speech in a society in which established authorities may seek to resist the democratisation of information. 

A talking head seen on television at one point suggests that peer-to-peer file sharing programme Winny disrupts the democratic copyright regime, but according to its creator Isamu Kaneko (Masahiro Higashide) the appeal of peer-to-peer is that it is by nature democratic in forging a network of machines on an equal footing. Nevertheless, in November 2003 two people were arrested for using Winny to share copyrighted material and Isamu’s home was searched by the Kyoto police who arrested him for aiding and abetting copyright infringement. He and his lawyers argue that to charge the developer is wrongheaded and irresponsible in that it will necessarily stifle technological advance if developers are worried about prosecution if their work is misused by others while his intention in any case had not been to undermine copyright laws but essentially for technological innovation in and of itself. 

Meanwhile, the film devotes much of its running time to a concurrent police corruption scandal in which a lone honest cop is trying to blow a whistle on a secret slush fund founded on fraudulently produced expense receipts. The implication is that the reason the police decided to go after Isamu is that they feared Winny’s potential to expose their own wrongdoing. A member of the police force had apparently used Winny and introduced a vulnerability to the police computer system that allowed confidential data to be leaked, and Winny is indeed later used to publicly disseminate evidence which proves the claims of the whistleblower, Semba (Hidetaka Yoshioka), are true. Semba had previously tried to take his concerns to the press privately but was ignored, the editor simply printed a police press release without investigation unwilling to rock the boat. But a programme like Winny exists outside of the establishment’s control which is why, the film suggests, the police in particular resent it. 

A younger officer Semba reproaches at his station gives the excuse that everybody does it and refusing to fill in the false receipts would make it difficult for him to operate in an atmosphere in which corruption has become normalised. Even the police use Winny, a prison guard confiding in Isamu that he’s used the programme to download uncensored pornography while prosecution lawyers conversely attempt to embarrass Isamu by leaking pictures of his porn collection to the press and bringing it up on the stand. “Everybody does it” is not a good defence at the best times aside from being a tacit admission of guilt but reinforces a sense that the police operates from a position of being above the law. A particularly smug officer thinks nothing of perjuring himself on the stand, spluttering and becoming defensive when Isamu’s lawyers expose him in a lie. 

Isamu is depicted as a rather naive man whose social awkwardness and childlike innocence leave him vulnerable to manipulation. He’s told to sign documents by the police so he signs them thinking it’s better to be cooperative, taking the advice he’s given when he questions a particular sentence that he can correct it later at face value while assuming that he’ll be able to straighten it all out in court by telling them the truth and that he signed the documents because the police told him to. Meanwhile, he’s almost totally isolated, prevented from talking to friends and family out of a concern that he may use them to conceal evidence. 

The film seems to suggest that the stress of his ordeal which lasted several years may have led to his early death at the age of 42 soon after his eventual acquittal. In any case he finds a kindred spirit in his intellectually curious lawyer (Takahiro Miura) who defends him mostly on the basis that the right to innovate must be protected and a developer can not be responsible for the actions of an end user any more than a man who makes knives can be held accountable for a stabbing. Matsumoto captures the sense of wonder Isamu seems to feel for the digital world and has a great deal of sympathy for him as an innocent caught up in a game he doesn’t quite understand while fiercely defending his right to express himself, along with all of our own, without fear no matter what the implications may be.

Winny screens in New York Aug. 2 as part of this year’s JAPAN CUTS.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Father of the Milky Way Railroad (銀河鉄道の父, Izuru Narushima, 2023)

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Generations of Japanese children have grown up with Kenji Miyazawa’s much loved classic Night on the Galactic Railroad but Miyazawa remained largely unknown in his lifetime and passed away from pneumonia at the young age of 37 in 1933 with the book that would make his name still unpublished. His story has been told before, most notably by Kazuki Omori in 1996’s Night Train to the Stars, but Izuru Narushima’s Father of the Milky Way Railroad (銀河鉄道の父, Ginga Tetsudo no Chichi), adapted from the Naoki Prize-winning novel by Yoshinobu Kadoi, takes a slightly different angle in exploring the life of his generally supportive father, Masajiro (Koji Yakusho).

As he’s fond of saying, Masajiro is a product of the modern era and a very modern father even in some ways by the standards of today. The film opens (and closes) with him on a train, this time hurrying home having received a telegram informing him that his first child has been born. So excited is he that he offends his own father by running past him on the way to see the baby without offering the proper greeting. Kisuke (Min Tanaka) is indeed more of a traditionalist raised with feudal values that are fast becoming out of date in the new society. As the head of the household, it’s he who gives the baby his name, Kenji, written with the characters for intelligence and healing which will indeed define his character if leaving him somewhat at odds with his society. 

Such a devoted father, Masajiro breaks with tradition and accepted gender roles in insisting on accompanying Kenji to hospital when he is taken ill despite his father’s admonition that caring for the sick is a role reserved for women. Kisuke also tells him his decision to have Kenji educated is wrongheaded, that literature and the arts only confuse a man and may prove more ruinous to him than drink or women. Annoyingly, Kisuke may have a point in that on his return from middle school Kenji (Masaki Suda) immediately rejects the family’s business as pawnbrokers having read too many Russian novels in which they are depicted as exploiters of the poor. He decries Masajiro’s justification that they support farmers who would otherwise be unable to access other forms of financial help such as bank loans and be forced to sell their daughters into sex work as mere sophistry. Masajiro may share some of his concerns, but remains in part wedded to some aspects of feudalism in insisting that as the oldest son Kenji has no choice other than to take over the family pawn shop.

Nevertheless, he also educates his daughter, Toshi (Nana Mori), who later begins working as a school teacher and is able to convince him to allow Kenji to further his studies only for Kenji to suddenly announce he wants to go to agricultural college to better understand their customers who are after all predominantly farmers. Having sent him away to be educated, Masajiro laments that Kenji knows “nothing of the world” after seeing him taken in by an obvious sob story from a duplicitous customer reflecting that his liberal education may have given him ideas that prevent him from living successfully in the society in which he lives. Kenji continues to resist the idea of taking over the pawnbroker’s while evidently unsuited to it before worrying his family further by becoming dangerously obsessed with radical new Buddhist sect Nichiren. 

It’s with this that Masajiro cannot really help him and begins to lose his patience as Kenji gives in nihilistic despair believing that nothing he does has any real meaning. His literary gifts are appreciated only in the wake of a tragedy that reconnects him with his childhood self while finally freeing Masajiro to embrace his son’s natural gifts as a writer rather than trying to force him to take over the family business. In truth, the film barely touches on the novel from which it takes its title if subtly hinting at it and bookending itself with the celestial train motif, but rather takes its lead from one of Miyazawa’s best known poems about his desire to become a better, more selfless, less self-defeating person that is perhaps inspired by his “modern” father’s “new” ideas of a society founded above all else on love. Perhaps it’s not so bad to know nothing of the world after all.  

Father of the Milky Way Railroad screens in New York July 29 as part of this year’s JAPAN CUTS.

Original trailer (no subtitles)

Best Wishes to All (みなに幸あれ, Yuta Shimotsu, 2023)

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A young woman is confronted with an uncomfortable truth on return to her old hometown in Yuta Shimotsu’s eerie horror satire, Best Wishes to All (みなに幸あれ, Mina ni Sachi Are). Is there really a finite amount of happiness in the world or would there be plenty to go around if only we weren’t all so selfish? The unnamed heroine (Kotone Furukawa) claimed she wanted to become a nurse to “save people” but in the end starts to wonder if the only way to be happy in a cynical world is to meet it on its own terms. 

Even so, there’s something decidedly strange about her reunion with her grandparents. She notices them behaving oddly but isn’t sure whether to chalk it up to their age and not having seen them for a long time, only there’s something a little creepy in their overt “happiness” as they cryptically look up at the ceiling as if gazing at a higher power or suddenly start making pig noises before remarking that they should be happy as they eat their bacon that the animal has achieved its purpose in life. Meanwhile, for unclear reasons they forbid her from hanging out with a childhood friend who stayed in town to take over his father’s farm despite showing promise as an artist.

He too cryptically adds that he thinks there’s enough happiness in the world for everyone to have some without needing to hoard it, adding to the heroine’s unease as she tries to investigate the strange noises coming from behind a locked door in her grandparents’ home. Soon, she begins to discover what it is that makes them “happy” and is confused and appalled, unsure whether she should believe her eyes or has actually gone out of her mind in this already quite weird place. 

On leaving the city, she’d paused on a pedestrian crossing to help an old lady with her bags while a salaryman had knocked hers out of her hands by walking into her. She was the sort of person that thought it was important to help others or at least to be considerate, but is confronted with an uncomfortable truth in being asked if she can go on pretending that her happiness isn’t bought with the suffering of someone else somewhere in the world even if they aren’t exactly “visible” to her. She tries to revolt and reject the strange goings on at her grandparents’ but is told that it’s the way of the world, that it’s happening everywhere, and that really she knows but has chosen not to see because when it comes right down to it she’s as selfish as everyone else and isn’t willing to sacrifice her own happiness to “save” someone else from suffering.

Meanwhile, she realises that some families are being shunned in the village for resisting and these families largely are “unhappy”, though undoubtedly some of that at least must be down to their stigmatisation. She and her friend save a high school boy who was being bullied, but even he later relates to her that he’s decided to “live smart” by going along with the local practice even if it doesn’t seem right to him because it’s pointless to resist when everyone is doing it. Another rejectee also tells her that the village philosophy is a fallacy because even if someone “should” be miserable there’s no way to know how they really feel and if you’re only basing your idea of “happiness” on external validation then of course you’ll always be miserable. 

Confronted with a bizarre series of events, she begins to wonder if she’s going out of her mind and none of this is really happening even while pressured to submit herself to the ways of the village. In effect, she’s being asked to choose her level of comfort with complicity, acknowledging directly that her “happiness” is based on a quite literal exploitation, drained out of those less fortunate than herself. Her friend remained convinced that there is plenty of happiness to go around without needing to extract it from others, but the lessons she learns are more cynical, no longer stopping to help old ladies with their shopping and suspicious of those who do while proudly declaring herself “happy” with her new “reality”. Shimotsu excels in finding the eeriness of the every day in which an ordinary jar of miso or a workman’s tool box can seem to radiate evil while the grandparents’ ordinary house has an incredibly ominous atmosphere that raises a note of uncanniness in their “happy home” suggesting that their quasi-beatific state is more akin to curse than blessing. 

Best Wishes to All screens in New York July 27 as part of this year’s JAPAN CUTS.

Trailer (no subtitles)

THE FIRST SLAM DUNK (Takehiko Inoue, 2022)

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Takehiko Inoue’s basketball-themed manga Slam Dunk is a ‘90s landmark that also spawned a hugely popular TV anime adaptation. A few attempts had been made over the years to produce a feature-length film, but Inoue had turned them all down until, that is, the production team were able to come up a unique look that matched the author’s vision and truly made it seem as if the characters were “alive”. Finally impressed, Inoue then agreed to script and direct the anime himself even going so far as to retouch scenes in both 3DCG and 2D to ensure they fulfilled his high expectations. 

Titled The First Slam Dunk, the film takes place entirely over a single game but switches its focus from the protagonist of the manga, red-haired former delinquent Sakuragi (Subaru Kimura), to “Speedster” Ryota Miyagi who makes up for his short stature with nimble manoeuvres. Inoue cuts between the championship match with rivals Sanno and the players’ private lives as they battle their demons and insecurities on the court and off. 

Originally from Okinawa, Ryota lost his father and brother in quick succession. Sota had been something of a mentor figure, getting him into basketball and encouraging him to keep playing even if others said there was no point because he was simply too small. When Sota chose to cut their practice short to go fishing with some friends, Ryota was of course upset and angry saying a few things he came to regret when Sota was lost at sea and never came back. “Cocky” as someone later describes him, Ryota uses bravado to mask his insecurity and struggles to redefine his relationships with his grief-stricken mother and younger sister while also competing with the shadow of his absent brother whose number he continues to wear even after moving to the mainland and joining a new high school team, Shohoku. 

As he later says, basketball was a means of dealing with his grief though it was difficult for his mother to support him because its associations with Sota. Showcasing the stories not otherwise told in the manga, Inoue taps into an adolescent sense of existential crisis and individual anxiety as filtered through the basketball game in which, as their quietly supportive middle-aged coach tells them, it’s only over when you decide to give up. Meanwhile, the guys from Sanno are experiencing something similar and most particularly Ryota’s opposing number, Kawata, even if the team is also given an edge of uncanny invincibility in the sometimes suspicious aura of their coach. 

Only by facing their individual anxieties can the guys begin to play a full role on the team, each of them as the coach says bringing their own unique talents and learning to play to each other’s strengths. In the end it comes down to willpower and self belief, continuing to play even when victory seems impossible and pressing for the final slam dunk even as the seconds tick down to zero. Inoue captures a real sense of tension in the game scenes, the dynamism of the 3DCG and the use of motion capture paying off along with some innovative creative decisions that really allow the game to come “alive” in the way Inoue seems to have envisioned with victory hardly assured as the guys go all out utilising not only their physicality but strategy and psychology in trying to claw their way back from 20 points behind with time fast running out. 

Very different stylistically from the average anime sports movie and particularly one following a previous TV adaptation, Inoue displays a truly remarkable sense of cinematic composition while he largely steers away from the kind of high school cliches common to the genre concentrating instead on strong characterisation and an otherwise poignant story of learning to live with grief as Ryota begins to become his own man while honouring his brother’s legacy. Often dazzling in its dexterity, Inoue’s directorial debut excels both on the court and off finding the small moments of doubt and confusion among each of its heroes and witnessing them achieve a psychological slam dunk that allows them to keep moving forward despite their fears and anxieties in refusing to give up even when it might seem hopeless. 

THE FIRST SLAM DUNK screens July 26 as the opening night gala of this year’s JAPAN CUTS and opens in cinemas in the US & Canada July 28 courtesy of GKIDS.

JAPAN CUTS Announces 2023 Lineup

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Following last year’s hiatus, JAPAN CUTS makes a very welcome return for 2023 once again presenting a selection of the best of recent Japanese cinema at Japan Society New York from July 26 to Aug. 6. This year’s Cut Above award goes to the actor Yuya Yagira who will be appearing in person to present Under the Turquoise Sky alongside director KENTARO.

Opening Film: THE FIRST SLAM DUNK

The first feature length film in 33 years based on the classic high school basketball-themed manga also marks the directorial debut of original author Takehiko Inoue. Following Ryota Miyagi as he takes centre stage at the Inter-High Championships, the movie won the Japan Academy Film Prize award for Best Animation.

Centerpiece Film: Under the Turquoise Sky

Introduction and Q&A with Director KENTARO and Actor Yuya Yagira; Followed by Centerpiece Party

Soulful road movie starring Yuya Yagira as the spoiled grandson of a wealthy businessman who is sent to Mongolia in search of the daughter his grandfather left behind during the second world war. Directorial debut of the actor KENTARO.

Closing Film: The Three Sisters of Tenmasou Inn

Tearjerking melodrama directed by Ryuhei Kitamura and adapted from the manga by Tsutomu Takahashi in which a traditional Japanese inn becomes the waystation between life and death. A young woman (Non) arriving after a car accident is unexpectedly reunited with the half-sisters (Yuko Oshima & Mugi Kadowaki) she never knew she had.

TRIBUTE TO RYUICHI SAKAMOTO: Tokyo Melody: A Film about Ryuichi Sakamoto

Screening on 16mm

Opening comments by Akiko Yano; Screening followed by a Q&A with Director Elizabeth Lennard

French-Japanese TV documentary co-production directed by Elizabeth Lennard following Sakamoto during the production of his 1984 album Ongaku Zukan.

Best Wishes to All

Horror film produced by Takashi Shimizu in which a young woman begins to question her reality after visiting her grandparents’ home and discovering what brings them happiness.

Convenience Story

Surreal drama based on a story by Japan Times critic Mark Schilling and directed by Satoshi Miki starring Ryo Narita as a blocked writer who finds himself drawn into a strange alternate combini universe. Review.

Father of the Milky Way Railroad 

Prestige drama based on the life of legendary poet and children’s author Kenji Miyazawa (Night on the Galactic Railroad) starring Masaki Suda and Koji Yakusho as his supportive father.

From the End of the World

The first feature in eight years from Casshern’s Kazuaki Kiriya, this pre-apocalyptic drama takes place in the two weeks before the end of the world and follows a young woman (Aoi Ito) who has the power to stop the disaster.

Hand

Nikkatsu Roman Porno homage from Daigo Matsui adapted from the novel by Nao-Cola Yamazaki following a young woman with a fetish for older men whose photos she collects in a scrapbook.

I Am A Comedian

Documentary following comedian Daisuke Muramoto who was once a popular figure on Japanese television but soon found his bookings cancelled when he began including controversial topics such as the Fukushima nuclear disaster and discrimination against ethnic Koreans into his act. Review.

I Am What I Am

Empathetic social drama starring Toko Miura as a young asexual woman who struggles to find acceptance for her lack of interest in sex and romance in a society largely defined by marriage. Review.

MONDAYS: See you “this” week! 

Witty workplace timeloop comedy in which a collection of office workers are forced to relive the same dull working week several times over while trying to figure out how to escape their corporate purgatory.

Plastic

Latest film from Daisuke Miyazaki in which a young couple bond over their shared love of a ’70s glam rock band only to break up when the demands of their lives place a strain on their relationship.

Single8

Charming teen summer adventure movie set in 1978 in which a group of high school students inspired by the success of Star Wars get together to make a sci-fi movie for the school cultural festival.

The Fish Tale

Quirky dramedy from Shuichi Okita starring Non in a role inspired by the real life fish-obsessive Masayuki Miyazawa, aka Sakana-kun. Review.

The Legend & Butterfly

Introduced by and followed by a Q&A with director Keishi Otomo

Lavishly produced historical epic starring Takuya Kimura as Oda Nobunaga and Haruka Ayase as his wife Nohime who find themselves falling in love while plotting the unification of Japan and dreaming of a new life in a distant land.

Wandering

Adapted from the novel by Yu Nagira, the latest from from Lee Sang-il is a morally complex drama in which a university student is accused of kidnapping after taking in a neglected little girl.

Winny 

Drama from Yusaku Matsumoto (Noise) contemplating the implications of the legal case surrounding file sharing programme Winny which saw its developer prosecuted for aiding and abetting copyright theft.

Amiko

An unusual little girl living in an idyllic Hiroshima village retreats into fantasy when her family unit begins to crumble in the wake of an unexpected tragedy in the debut feature from Yusuke Morii.

J005311

Minimalist directorial debut from actor Hiroki Kono who stars as a petty thief agreeing to drive a fleeing salaryman in exchange for a million yen.

People Who Talk to Plushies Are Kind 

Empathetic drama adapted from the novel by Ao Omae in which sensitive university students talk through their worries with a series of stuffed toys to avoid burdening others with their troubles. Review.

Saga Saga

Drama in which a former actress plagued by strange dreams reassesses past and future while pursued by a mysterious woman and bonding with an anxious teenage girl.

Sanka: Nomads of the Mountain 

Drama set in the 1960s in which a young man becomes friends with a nomadic people after moving to his grandmother’s village from Tokyo.

When Morning Comes, I Feel Empty

Followed by a Q&A with Director Yuho Ishibashi

Zeitgeisty indie drama in which a young woman struggles to move forward with her life after discovering the corporate world was not for her. Review.

JAPAN CUTS 2023 runs at Japan Society New York July 26 to Aug. 6. Tickets are on sale now for Japan Society Members and open for the general public on June 27. Full details for all the films are available via the official website and you can also keep up with all the latest details by following the festival’s official Letterboxd, Instagram, Facebook page and Twitter account.

Japan Society NY & ACA Cinema Project Announce The Female Gaze

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Japan Society New York and ACA Cinema Project will present The Female Gaze: Women Filmmakers from JAPAN CUTS and Beyond from Nov. 11 to 20, a new series focussing on the work of female filmmakers from directors to screenwriters, producers, and cinematographers.

November 11, 2022 at 7:00 PM: Wedding High

A wedding planner has her work cut out for her when a young couple’s wedding day spirals out of control thanks to competitive speechmaking, over-invested guests, an ex on their way to stage a rescue, and a thief who’s just snuck in unnoticed, in an ensemble comedy from Akiko Ohku (Tremble All You Want).

November 12, 2022 at 1:00 PM: Dreaming of the Meridian Arc

A TV drama series centring on Tadataka Ino who produced the first map of Japan in 1821 hits a snag when it’s discovered that he died three years into the project but his assistants covered it up and decided to complete the map in his honour.

November 12, 2022 at 5:00 PM: She is me, I am her

Four-part anthology film from Mayu Nakamura (Intimate Stranger) starring Nahana in a series of tales of urban loneliness and unexpected connection in pandemic-era Tokyo.

November 12, 2022 at 7:00 PM: One Summer Story

A classic summer adventure movie from Shuichi Okita in which a high school girl embarks on a journey of discovery trying to track down her estranged birth father, a former cult leader. Review.

November 13, 2022 at 1:00 PM: Good Stripes

A young couple on the verge of breaking up attempt to come to terms with an unexpected pregnancy in Yukiko Sode’s zeitgesity drama. Review.

November 13, 2022 at 4:00 PM: The Nighthawk’s First Love

Adaptation of the Rio Shimamoto novel following a young woman who has a facial birthmark that has left her afraid to pursue love but encounters new possibilities when invited to appear in a film.

November 18, 2022 at 8:00 PM: Riverside Mukolitta

Warmhearted quirky drama from Naoko Ogigami in which a man recently released from prison attempts to start again in a quiet rural town while unexpectedly forced to deal with the unclaimed remains of his estranged father. Review.

November 19, 2022 at 1:00 PM: No Longer Human

Visually striking drama inspired by the life of Osamu Dazai (Shun Oguri) as seen by the three women who surrounded him: his legal wife (Rie Miyazawa), sometime mistress (Erika Sawajiri), and the woman he died with (Fumi Nikaido). Review.

November 19, 2022 at 7:00 PM: Let Me Hear It Barefoot

Somehow in dialogue with Wong Kar-Wai’s Happy Together, Riho Kudo’s second feature follows two young men seeking escape from moribund small-town Japan and temporarily finding it in recording elaborate soundscapes for the benefit of an older woman who dreamed of travelling abroad. Review.

November 20, 2022 at 1:00 PM: Nagi’s Island

A young girl begins to heal from the trauma of her parents’ divorce and violent marriage while living with her grandmother on an idyllic island in a laidback heartwarming drama from Masahiko Nagasawa. Review.

November 20, 2022 at 4:00 PM: a stitch of life

Poignant drama from Yukiko Mishima in which a woman running a tiny boutique almost unchanged from her grandmother’s time is courted by a big fashion brand but eventually finds the courage to embrace change on her own terms. Review.

November 20, 2022 at 7:00 PM: Plan 75

Chie Hayakawa expands her 10 Years Japan short to explore a dystopian future in which the government has launched a voluntary euthanasia program for those aged over 75. Starring golden age star Chieko Baisho, the film explores the effects of the program on a Plan 75 volunteer, a salesman, and a caregiver in a society which has largely decided to discard those which it views as “unproductive”.

Classics Focus on Natto Wada and Yoko Mizuki

November 13, 2022 at 7:00: Her Brother

Kon Ichikawa drama adapted from the autobiographical novel by Aya Koda and scripted by Yoko Mizuki in which a young woman is forced to sacrifice herself for her family becoming a surrogate mother figure for her delinquent younger brother. Review.

November 14, 2022 at 7:00 PM: Conflagration


Adaptation of the Mishima novel directed by Kon Ichikawa and scripted by his wife Natto Wada in which a young man is driven to the brink of despair believing that the world has become so corrupt and polluted that beauty is in its way offensive.

Filmmakers in the Rise

November 15, 2022 at 7:30 PM: Two of Us / Long-Term Coffee Break

Two shorts including Risa Negishi’s Two of Us focussing on two women in various stages of loneliness and, Naoya Fujita’s Long-Term Coffee Break following a couple through a relationship that began with a cup of coffee.

November 18, 2022 at 5:00 PM: His Lost Name

Sensitive drama from Nanako Hirose in which an old man’s decision to take in a young man he finds at the riverbank places him at odds with his family. Review.

The Female Gaze: Women Filmmakers from JAPAN CUTS and Beyond runs from Nov. 11 to 20 at Japan Society New York. Full details for all the films along with ticketing links are available via the official website and you can also keep up with all the latest details by following the festival’s official Facebook page and Twitter account.

No Smoking (Taketoshi Sado, 2019)

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Celebrating the 50th anniversary of his musical debut in 2019, Haruomi Hosono has undoubtedly had a long and varied career shifting from countercultural folk rock to avant-garde electronica and bubble-era pop music. In later years, he’s become known internationally primarily for his film scores and particularly that of Hirokazu Koreeda’s Palme d’Or winning Shoplifters. Capturing footage from Hosono’s 2019 anniversary world tour, Taketoshi Sado’s documentary is equally meandering struggling perhaps to find a clear through line in regards to Hosono’s works. 

As such, it rockets through his early days with interesting family trivia such as his grandfather having been the sole Japanese Titanic survivor, his father’s secret dancing dreams, and his mother’s love of music. Picking up with his time at university, Sado more or less charts Hosono’s musical evolutions in chronological order though with little cultural context outside of a brief evocation of post-war devastation at the time of the musician’s birth. Accordingly he begins with Hosono’s uni folk rock band Apryl Fool which broke up after one album onto the hugely influential Happy End, various side projects, the avant-garde Yellow Magic Orchestra days, writing bubble era pop songs for idol stars such as Seiko Matsuda’s Tengoku no Kiss, and finally music for film composing the title track “Kaze no Tani no Naushika” for Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä. 

Meanwhile, Sado shuttles between direct to camera monologues from Hosoda himself intercut with concert footage from the 2019 tour, legendary gigs, and rather a lot of Hosoda doing his famous silly walks. Sado does not include direct interviews with Hosoda’s collaborators or fellow artists, mainly allowing him to speak for himself, but does include footage of him with some who have been influenced by his music such as singer-song writer and actor Gen Hoshino who is apparently such a fan that he first met the artist while cosplaying his Harry Hosoda outfit from his famous Yokohama China gig, and LA musician Mac DeMarco who also appears onstage singing in Japanese at Hosoda’s LA concert. Actress Kiko Mizuhara and sister Yuka meanwhile also spend some time travelling with Hosoda in the UK appearing on stage in Brighton, while London’s Barbican Hall concert was also notable for the unexpected onstage appearance of Ryuichi Sakamoto briefly reuniting the Yellow Music Orchestra. 

The brief backstage footage from the event is among the more interesting in the slightly awkward interactions of the three band members despite Hosono’s claim that musicians can pick up where they left off with each other even after many years through the universal language of music. The 2019 tour however leaned heavily into Hosono’s boogie boogie covers rather than original tracks, while Sado seems content to mix and match between various concerts and adding vox pop comments from excited fans waiting to get in long after the first footage of the evening appears. Despite building towards the brief YMO reunion, he offers little commentary on relations between the former band members or why such an event is so viewed as so momentous. Rather he suggests that Hosono’s various musical projects existed more or less concurrently serving particular purposes in reflecting his specific creative desires. 

“The keyword is free, when when I touch what’s free my heart dances” Hosoda explains in one of his monologues, hinting at this process of continual meandering between musical genres that culminates perhaps paradoxically with revisiting the music of his childhood in American boogiewoogie. The film’s ironic title is apparently inspired by Hosono’s love of smoking, as he explains he needs cigarettes to create and there is music in a puff of smoke. Hosoda does indeed nip off for a puff rather a lot, often seen with a tobacco or electronic cigarette in his hand or else doing some of his silly walks. Footage from Hosoda’s diaries and early illustrations fill in the blanks of Sado’s rough chronology, though he does begin to rely on footage from other interviews particularly towards the documentary’s end. Despite offering a comprehensive if whistle-stop tour of Hosono’s varied discography, there’s no denying that No Smoking remains somewhat superficial offering, only an unannotated overview, but does undoubtedly offer insight in following the man himself as he celebrates such a significant career milestone. 

No Smoking streamed as part of this year’s Japan Cuts.

International trailer (English subtitles)

Seiko Matsuda – Tengoku no Kiss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZvqFEDguV0

Hiruko the Goblin (ヒルコ／妖怪ハンター, Shinya Tsukamoto, 1991)

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Shinya Tsukamoto burst onto the scene with indie cyberpunk classic Tetsuo: The Iron Man, an avant-garde body horror exploration of dehumanising industrialisation. After performing as a virtual one man band, however, Tsukamoto’s second film, Hiruko the Goblin (ヒルコ／妖怪ハンター, Hiruko / Yokai Hunter), was his studio first accepting the opportunity to direct a feature adaptation of Daijiro Morohoshi’s Yokai Hunter manga. Some have seen this as a huge stylistic departure, shifting from the punk aesthetics of Tetsuo towards warmly nostalgic summer adventure, but it is in fact perfectly in keeping with Tsukamoto’s earlier 8mm work such as Adventures of Electric Rodboy while also reminiscent of the kind of wistful teen adventures Nobuhiko Obayashi among others had been making throughout the Bubble era. 

Nevertheless, Hiruko’s main lessons seem to relate to the dangers of buried history and its corrupted parental legacy. The franchise protagonist, Reijiro Hieda (Kenji Sawada), is a once promising archeologist ostracised by his peers for his determination to prove the existence of yokai or “goblins”. Still grieving the death of his wife Akane (Chika Asamoto), Reijiro is summoned to her hometown by his brother-in-law, high school teacher Mr. Yabe (Naoto Takenaka), who informs him that he’s found something in a burial mound which he believes was built “by the ancients to appease evil spirts”. Yabe insists that he doesn’t believe in yokai, but thinks it might be a good opportunity for Reijiro to further investigate his theory. By the time Reijiro arrives, however, Yabe has already disappeared along with high school girl Tsukishima (Megumi Ueno) after exploring the tomb alone. 

Though set in the present day, Tsukamoto plays with horror serial gothic motifs such as the creepy tombs, suspicious janitor, and the continually befuddled Reijiro dressed in his old-fashioned white suit while armed with an arsenal of yokai fighting gadgets all contained in the Mary Poppins-like suitcase he continually carries around though at one point he seems to try catching escaped yokai with fly paper and is generally found wielding bug spray. Despite constantly working with dirt, an early joke sees him undone by spotting a creepy crawly in his room. This does not bode well for him, because Hiruko’s end game is convincing its victims to decapitate themselves before attaching their severed heads to weird, spider-like bodies. 

It does this seemingly by locating a pleasant, poignant memory and promising to prolong it forever. Reijiro’s nephew Masao (Masaki Kudou) is almost seduced on seeing an idyllic scene of missing high school girl Tsukishima dressed in white and enjoying a picnic on a summer’s day only to be suddenly brought back by his uncle. The inheritor of a curse, Masao is often struck by fits of furious burning in which his clothes seem to steam while he later displays strange scars on his back which take on the appearance of human faces. His predicament is largely his grandfather’s fault in having kept from his father the truth about the mound, leading him towards an over curious investigation during which it appears he accidentally released a bunch of demons from their eternal imprisonment. Now all Hiruko wants is to find the spell to open the door so they can all escape for good. 

Having been in a sense betrayed by a corrupted parental legacy, Masao nevertheless finds salvation in his history by way of his uncle who has of course memorised the entirety of the “Kojiki”, an ancient chronicle of myth and folklore, and recognises the two passages necessary for opening and closing the stone enclosure one found on a broken stele and the other hidden inside an ancient helmet appropriated by Yabe. Masao can only save himself and lift the curse by learning the truth which had been hidden from him, ironically putting on the helmet while others lose their heads. 

Yet Hiruko itself is also perhaps a manifestation of grief, something which cannot be eliminated but must in a sense be contained. Reijiro is almost tricked by Hiruko on being shown a vision of his late wife, unwittingly revealing the opening spell in return for being able to remain within the memory. Masao is similarly seduced by his vision of Tsukishima, but must then deal with the loss of his father who sacrificed himself trying to save others having realised his mistake in unearthing truths intended to stay buried. The fault lies however with Yabe’s own father whose attempt to keep him safe only endangered him. 

In keeping with much of Tsukamoto’s work, Hiruko’s threat lies in the loss of bodily autonomy and corporeal destruction forcing the victim into an act of mortal self-harm and thereafter repurposing and remaking the physical form in its own image. Tsukamoto’s characteristically elaborate practical effects and use of creepy stop motion add to the sense of the uncanny, horror lurking in dark corners everywhere waiting for the opportunity to strike. Even so, Hiruko is not without its sense of silliness, Tsukamoto playing gleefully with genre archetypes while conforming fully to the summer adventure movie necessarily filled with a sense of wistful nostalgia. Having contained their demons, Masao and Reijiro emerge at summer’s end, but are greeted with another hazy goodbye if each a little more secure in having learned to accommodate their corrupted legacies. 

Hiruko the Goblin streamed as part of this year’s Japan Cuts.

Original trailer (English subtitles)

Spaghetti Code Love (スパゲティコード・ラブ, Takeshi Maruyama, 2021)

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“Tokyo is where everyone comes to make their dreams come true, right?” a naive young woman exclaims having just abandoned her life in the country to chase freedom and independence in the capital. “You’re wrong” her reluctant, infinitely jaded host tries to correct her, “Tokyo is where everyone gets killed by their dreams”.  Tokyo is indeed the place dreams come to die in the debut feature from music video director Takeshi Maruyama, Spaghetti Code Love (スパゲティコード・ラブ). As one dejected Tokyoite puts it in her slightly pretentious opening monologue, what they’re chasing isn’t love, or money, or success but “approval” wanting desperately to find acceptance but more often than not encountering only defeat and despair. 

At least, that’s according to intense artist Kurosu (Rikako Yagi) who has become moderately successful but remains somewhat insecure knowing that her success is partially built on that of her famous parents. She insists that there are two kinds of people in the world, those who meekly put up with a disappointing reality and those who defiantly “create their own world”. She of course claims to be the latter, a highly individualist artist who takes no shit from anyone but that doesn’t excuse her tendency to behave like a total diva in an effort to assert he superiority over others, humiliating aspiring photographer Tsubasa (Nino Furuhata) by likening his set up to an ad placed by a rural supermarket. 

Tsubasa meanwhile is himself conflicted having come to Tokyo to further his career as a photographer but desperate for work and afraid of selling out. He came because he thought it was better to regret the things you’ve done rather than those you haven’t and that he’d always wonder if he stayed at home, but now he’s wondering if it’s better not to try, that the possibility of what might have been is easier to bear than knowing you tried and didn’t work out. Painting a slightly rosier version of his Tokyo life on social media he offers a Twitter friend the opportunity to visit him in the capital out of politeness only for her turn up, insist on staying with him in his tiny apartment, and make him feel even worse with her childish idealism which has a kind of poignancy in its unrealistic hopefulness.  

Like Tsubasa, aspiring singer-songwriter Cocoro (Toko Miura) is beginning to wonder if her dreams are worth pursuing as she meditates on the success of prettier rivals in both her work and romantic lives, spotting ex Shingo (Hiroya Shimizu) with his new squeeze and irritated when he smirks at her from across the courtyard. A cold and aloof young man fond of giving overly scientific explanations for philosophical questions, Shingo has decided that unhappiness is the result of broken attachment and so he’s decided to have no attachments at all even going so far as to have no fixed address living by apartment hopping every 10 days. As he discovers to his cost, living life with no connections may be fine on the day to day but you’ll be in a fix if you wind up in trouble and have no one to ask for help. His new girlfriend Natsu (Saya Kagawa), by contrast, has the opposite problem working as a sex worker in part as a means of protecting herself from romantic heartbreak by avoiding emotional intimacy. While Cocoro wonders what her life would be if she were as pretty as Natsu, Natsu meditates on the pretty girl paradox admitting that some things come easy but others slip through her fingers. She claims to love lonely people because lonely people don’t up and leave without warning. 

But loneliness manifests in many forms such as that exhibited by Shizuku (Kaho Tsuchimura), a part-time waitress with extreme low self-esteem who’s staked her existence being on the perfect partner for her boyfriend while terrified he’ll leave her an anxiety later borne out by the fact he’s married to someone else and apparently only using her as a “fun” break from his presumably less patriarchal domestic life. And then there’s Uber Eats driver Amane (Kura Yuki) and his unwise attachment to a low level idol star who’s since retired. Obsessing over her rather banal favourite aphorism about whether a falling tree in the forest makes a sound if no one’s around to hear it he vows to forget her once he’s made 1000 deliveries but realises that a romantic attachment is hard to break even if it’s entirely one sided. 

On the flip side, broken hearts eventually bring two next-door neighbours together as they mutually abandon their unhealthy coping mechanisms of online psychics and compulsive peanut butter eating while bonding in a shared sense of romantic disappointment realising the terrible men who dumped them aren’t worth all this aggro. A pair of emo high school students suddenly realise growing old isn’t so bad after all, and a kid struggling with his life plan survey suddenly realises that “no plan” is also a plan before careering off on a borrowed skateboard. Tokyo can be cruel and unforgiving, but so can everywhere else. Shot with true visual flair, Maruyama’s ethereal, floating camera follows this interconnected yet isolated band of young people all over the city as they search for love, chase their dreams, and yearn for connection allowing them each at least if not fulfilment then possibility as they learn to accentuate the positive in a sometimes hostile environment.

Spaghetti Code Love streamed as part of this year’s Japan Cuts.

To Sleep So as to Dream (夢みるように眠りたい, Kaizo Hayashi, 1986)

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“I feel so well, as though I am dreaming” a ghostly old woman exclaims, having dealt with her unfinished business or perhaps merely becoming one with the silver screen. Released in 1986 but set ostensibly sometime in the 1950s and recalling the golden age of the silent movie, Kaizo Hayashi’s postmodern odyssey To Sleep So as to Dream (夢みるように眠りたい, Yumemiru Yoni Nemuritai) sends a pair of detectives on the hunt for a missing reel, voyaging through an ethereal dreamscape of mysterious magicians, kidnap and conspiracy, in search of the solution to the “Eternal Mystery”. 

Opening in total darkness, Hayashi pans across to a gas lamp and then to the figure of a woman watching a silent film projected on a screen in her living room. We see only her gloved hands, one wearing an ostentatious ring, somewhere between Miss Havisham and Norma Desmond, while the movie seems to be part of an early serial revolving around the Black Mask ninja who is trying to rescue the kidnapped Bellflower (Moe Kamura) only the princess always seems to be in another castle, as detectives Uotsuka (Shiro Sano) and his sidekick Kobayashi (Koji Otake) will discover. In any case, the film bursts into flames and dissolves at the moment of climax just as Black Mask confronts the kidnappers and declares the mystery “solved”. The old lady, Madame Cherry-blossom (Fujiko Fukamizu), then telephones the Uotsuka Detective Agency and requests their help with a kidnapping, sending her manservant Matsunosuke (Yoshio Yoshida) to the office with a tape recording of the kidnappers’ message which includes the clues to a scavenger hunt the pair must solve if they are to arrive at the drop off point with the money in order to retrieve Bellflower. 

Filming in black and white and in academy ratio, Hayashi maintains a silent film aesthetic adding selected sound effects but rendering all dialogue other than recordings as intertitles. We hear the phone ring and the radio playing, but “live” human speech is presented only as text save for that of the Benshi who appears at the film’s conclusion though even he may also be “on tape”. Meanwhile, he adds in random gags at the guys’ expense such as the “hardboiled” detective’s obsession with hard boiled eggs, while his sidekick Kobayashi is forever riding a rocking horse in the corner of their office while wielding a lasso and wearing a cowboy hat. A live chicken completes the home on the range feel while a series of horse shoes decorate the wall. The two men feel as if they emerged from a 20s noir farce, their slapstick antics eventually leading to a confrontation in which Kobayashi proves himself an unexpectedly skilled martial artist.  

Their world is already absurd even as they head into the abstract in order to chase Bellflower while, just like Black Mask, the kidnappers leave them irritating messages at each checkpoint revealing another clue and that the ransom has now doubled. They are plagued by a series of magicians who turn up in different guises from a man performing a kamishibai version of the Black Mask story for children to some guys running a shell game and posing as a trio of “scientists” led by Prof. Jerowski “of the British Empire” showing off their new gyroscope technology. Yet it’s no coincidence that the kidnappers go by the name Pathé & co, having essentially trapped Bellflower inside the celluloid realm and refusing to set her free. 

While Uotsuka falls for the beautiful, elusive image of Bellflower who begs to be released from “this endless story”, fantasy and reality begin to merge as he finds himself cast in the role of Black Mask. The ironically named “Endless Mystery” is a film with no end, the apparently incomplete debut of a faded star not so much ready for her closeup but desperate for closure and the release of her younger self from 50 years of torment in the reassurance that Bellflower will certainly be rescued by Black Mask at the film’s conclusion which is, after all, how such serials are supposed to end. While others slip ghostlike into the darkness, Uotsuka is left behind another prisoner of cinema chasing the romance of the silver screen yet finally saving his princess by extracting her from it. Operating on several levels, Hayashi expertly recreates both the grainy serials of the early silent era and crafts an absurdist, postmodern homage to its more recognisable evolution as his detective becomes wilfully lost in the labyrinths of cinema. 

To Sleep So as to Dream streamed as part of this year’s Japan Cuts.

Restoration trailer (no subtitles)