Tag: Japan

Zigeunerweisen (Seijun Suzuki, 1980)

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ZigeunerweisenSeijun Suzuki maybe most well known for his 1967 weird hitman themed existential crime movie Branded to Kill but the film almost cost him his career and definitely did cost him his job at Nikkatsu after studio bosses lamented that his films made no sense and no money. The next decade saw Suzuki involved in a complex set of legal battles and unable to sit in the director’s chair. The positive result of all this is that he obviously had some time to save up all his crazy so he could put it all into his personal statement of rebirth – Zigeunerweisen. Inspired by Hyakken Uchida’s novel Sarasate no Ban, Zigeunerweisen is a surreal and nightmarish journey through Taisho Era Japan as seen through Seijun Suzuki’s very idiosyncratic gift for storytelling.

As far as the plot goes, it begins with two men listening to a record of Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen on which it sounds as if someone says something before the music starts but neither can quite make it out. It transpires that the two men are Aochi, a Westernised professor of German and his old university friend Nakasago who has become something of a wanderer. The pair are reunited in a small fishing village where Nakasago is implicated in the death of a local woman who had apparently fallen in love with him (something which seems to happen to him a lot). After Aochi manages to make all the charges go away with his “I’m a professor don’t you know!” routine, the pair retire to a local inn where they insist on getting the one geisha in the place who’s just returned from her brother’s funeral to come and cheer them up. Later, Aochi is stunned to discover that Nakasago has got married to a noble woman but even more surprised when he realises the wife looks exactly like the geisha from the sea side town! Dualities build upon dualities with an ever multiplying sequence of bizarre love triangles as dreams and reality continue to become ever more indistinct. That’s not to mention the recurrent presence of a blind singing trio, a sister-in-law in a coma and that the main character may or may not be dead the whole time….

The Taisho Era, 1912 -1926 in our dating system, was a short lived historical time period as the Emperor Taisho was in poor health. A little like Weimar Germany, this brief period has taken on a sheen of tragic romanticism, innocent and decadent at the same time – safe from the chaos of the Meiji Era which saw rapid changes resulting from Japan’s emergence from centuries of isolation, but also a time of youthful exuberance before the darkness of the Showa Era’s militaristic bent took hold. Aochi seems to represent an intellectual, civilised Western looking outlook with his European clothing, house and free spirited wife whereas Nakasago represents a more primal force with his traditional dress, Japanese style house in the middle of nowhere and, when he marries, traditional Japanese wife who dresses in kimono and stays home all day waiting for her husband’s return. However, Nakasago also gives full vent to his passions leaving his wife at home to go wandering and break a few hearts along the way. He uses and abuses women with no thought at all – he simply takes what he wants from them and moves on. He cares nothing for so called traditional morality or the rules of society, he is quite literally a law unto himself. Where Aochi thinks, Nakasago does.

As for feeling? Maybe neither of them are particularly engaged in any kind of emotional activity. Adding to the film’s dreamlike quality is a kind of permanent listlessness. A pervading sense of ennui which seems to say that none of this is really of any consequence. Logical sense has no real place here – we’re suddenly in a cave mid conversation, figures appear and disappear from the frame without reason or warning and characters which were once fully grown adults are suddenly children. Oh, and the murder / suicide victim at the beach? she died because six crabs emerged from her nether regions. There are also constant allusions to death – most obviously through Nakasago’s skeleton fetish which is certainly one of his more outlandish (and disturbing) qualities. That’s not to mention the title track itself Zigeunerweisen and its strange recurrence in the plot where the inability to decipher its mysterious message takes on an unsupportable level of importance. Alive or dead? Awake or dreaming? Are those things even mutually exclusive?

What does it all mean then? Absolutely no idea – but that’s OK. Zigeunerweisen throws up mirrors everywhere, demonstrating the curious symmetry of life. Dualities abound, the real and the unreal intersect in strange and inseparable ways. Perhaps that’s the point, there is nothing absolute – all things consist of other things. All moments truly are one moment, coexisting on a vast plane uncrossable by will but nevertheless traversable (or so the bizarre blind trio children would have you believe with their strangely anachronistic Manchurian war song). Suzuki is obviously uninterested in concrete answers, but as in many things it’s the questions themselves which become the most interesting.

My Man 私の男 (Kazuyoshi Kumakiri, 2014)

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162276_02Based on the Naoki Prize winning novel by Kazuki Sakuraba, My Man tackles the difficult subject of a quasi-incestual “love” affair between a young orphaned girl and the “distant” relative who adopts her as his “daughter”. Though this taboo subject has never been far from Japanese screens (find me an art film from the ’60s which doesn’t involve incest in some way), My Man dares to examine in it in all its realistic muddiness and is marked by nothing so much as its raw intensity. Brought to the screen by Kazuyoshi Kumakiri whose last picture Summer’s End chronicled the romantic and existential dilemmas of a woman approaching middle age, My Man is a disturbing and unsettling film which poses a fair few unpleasant questions about the nature of familial and romantic relationships.

The film begins with a young girl, Hana, crawling away from a scene of intense devastation. Finally ending up at a refugee centre, it seems that Hana’s entire family have been killed in a natural disaster. Creeping back to her house, Hana is discovered by a rescue worker, Jungo, who by coincidence happens to be a distant relative of hers. Asked who the little girl is, Jungo immediately asserts that she is his daughter and there after claims her as his own. The pair continue to live together in a small, seaside Hokkaido town until Hana reaches middle school age at which point their relationship changes and the lines between father/daughter and husband/wife become exceedingly blurred. Only growing in intensity, the two will eventually even go so far as to kill to protect their illicit relationship which eventually takes them to the comparatively more anonymous Tokyo but what the outcome of their unconventional bond will ultimately be, only time will tell.

Hana and Jungo are both people in search of “family” and unbreakable bonds. Hana, having just lost her entire world in a tsunami is haunted by nightmares of being carried by her desperate father running from the coming storm but comes to see her new guardian Jungo as something more than a paternal figure. Jungo, as the kindly uncle Oshio remarks, is the sort of man who shouldn’t have a family. At this point, we don’t know why Oshio feels this way, merely that people seem uneasy in Jungo’s company and there’s something a little strange in his bearing and in his willingness to adopt an orphaned little girl with very little consideration. Though they are described as “distant” relatives, Jungo spent sometime in Hana’s familial home just before she was born and claims to have had a fondness for her mother – perhaps not such a “distant” relative after all.

In fact, Hana comes to feel an indestructible bond with Jungo precisely because of their blood ties. She believes he may be her true father and makes him also her carnal lover. Hana’s possessiveness begins almost at the beginning of their relationship with a repeated motif where she sucks on his fingers which takes on an increasingly erotic context as the film goes on. Seeing off Jungo’s more age appropriate girlfriend, Komachi, Hana delights in her triumphant ownership of Jungo decrying that he needs a blood relative and nothing else will do. Horrified, Komachi eventually leaves the area altogether and Hana and Jungo to their strangely intense “family” life. When Oshio accidentally discovers what exactly goes on in their household and comes to the conclusion Hana may once again need rescuing, talking may not quite be enough. Though their relationship has crossed social taboos the pair see nothing wrong in it yet are afraid of the possibility of being discovered and will go to great lengths to protect their illicit secret.

The tale starts to lose momentum a little after the move to Tokyo but it’s here that the central problem makes itself most plain. Jungo, having left the sea behind him, works as a cab driver in the city but eventually drifts into a life of aimless alcoholism as Hana grows up and away from him. “I just want to be a father” he cries after having just had a bizarre and humiliating encounter with a would be suitor of Hana’s. “You’re not good enough” he tells him, a repeated phrase offered to another of Hana’s men at the end of the film – fatherly words, but tinged with the jealousy of a rival. In the end, it seems as if Hana may have abandoned their “family” for a more conventional life, however, in a telling sequence set in a restaurant everything else appears to disappear leaving just the two of them isolated in their own world. Flirtatious and possessive, theirs is a bond which will truly never be broken, for better or worse.

Kumakiri shoots this bleak tale in a mostly naturalistic style occasionally giving way to expressionism and snaps of non-linear editing. In a pivotal scene as Jungo and Hana indulge their carnal passions one morning before school, the entire room rains blood – first falling as droplets on Hana’s back before becoming a torrent which leaves them both stained crimson. A blood wedding or presaging their further transgressions, this startling moment is only one of Kumakiri’s impressively nuanced symbolic touches. Though the film has its B-movie, melodramatic elements, Kumakiri has been able to integrate these into his slightly elevated tone with little difficulty to create a modern, melancholic mood piece which is rich with mystery and only hinted at implications.

Another interesting film from Kumakiri, My Man is an impressively directed dissection of its difficult subject matter. Anchored by extraordinary performances from Tadanobu Asano and particularly from Fumi Nikaido as the complicated and conflicted Hana, Kumakiri thankfully keeps the sleaze factor low though simmering enough for its necessary impact. It may not be a pleasant watch, but for those who can bear its unrelenting melancholy My Man offers a fascinating portrait of the modern family in crisis.

When Marnie Was There 思い出のマーニー (Hiromasa Yonebayashi 2014)

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When-Marnie-Was-There-GhibliPerhaps the final effort from Studio Ghibli, When Marnie was There is directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi whom some had seen as a potential successor to the company though it seems he too has now left Ghibli’s employ! Like Yonebayashi’s previous film The Secret World of Arriety, Marnie is also based on a vintage British children’s book – this time by Joan G. Robinson, though When Marnie Was There hasn’t enjoyed the same level on ongoing popularity as The Borrowers (maybe because it hasn’t received the same kind of televisual treatment as Mary Norton’s novels). Nevertheless, Marnie has been successfully shifted to modern day Japan whilst still managing to feel quite like ’60s England.

Anna is a solitary 12 year old orphaned girl living with her adoptive parents in Sapporo. A constant worry to her fretting mother, Anna suffers from severe asthma and has received complaints at school regarding her aloofness and seeming inability to make friends. Part blaming herself and her often absent husband, Anna’s mother decides to send her to the country for a while over the summer, hoping both that the clean air will be good for her lungs and a change of scene might help bring her out of herself. After arriving at a small seaside town to stay with some relatives of her mother’s, Anna hears tell of a mysterious grain silo which the local children think is haunted and also becomes strangely drawn to an apparently empty Western style mansion. Anna starts to dream about the house and eventually ends up meeting a mysterious and cheerful blonde girl there dressed in a distinctly old fashioned style. Though opposites in many ways the two have more than you might expect in common and quickly become firm friends. However, why can’t Marnie go very far from the mansion and why doesn’t anyone else seem to know about her? Only through solving the mystery of Marnie can Anna unlock the secrets that have been causing her pain in her own life.

Perhaps oddly, there are a lot of similarly themed children’s books from this period – enough to form a small genre all of their own though there are certainly much more well known examples than When Marnie was There. They are in fact so well known that to name any one of them might accidentally spoil the story but any British adult over 30 who grew up reading this kind of material or watching the numerous television adaptations has probably already figured out where this is going. Having said that, the film at least deviates from the norm in that the country relatives are actually nice if content to let Anna figure herself out while she’s there rather than the stern guardians you often see which necessitate the children getting out of the house to go on their adventures. Likewise, generally the stories focus on the accidental friendships developed by (oftentimes originally mismatched) children as they investigate whatever mystery has arisen – though Marnie has this, it leaves it as a nice, subtle detail that actually pays off in the end. Thankfully, though the resulting story is sad, there’s nothing really malevolent lurking and the resolution is such that it allows the central characters to close the loop on a traumatic event with their memories returned to them so they can move on with their lives.

By and large, the animation is just as impressive as any other Ghibli movie (though perhaps unremarkable by their very high standards). The pacing is, at times, strange – particularly the last segment in which the revelation is played as one long narrated tale, but Yonebayashi has been able to imbue this little seaside village with plenty of character full of tiny details and a fully realised life of its own. Though it’s a little more obviously sentimental than many of Ghibli’s other works and eschews some their more usual concerns, When Marnie was There stays true to the emphasis on the importance of friendship, loyalty and decency that has long been a mainstay in Ghibli movies. Unlike The Wind Rises or Princess Kaguya, this one is firmly aimed at girls of around the protagonist’s age and may have a little less to offer to those outside of it but its tale of adolescent connection still rings true.

Some might claim it’s second tier Ghibli, and they might be right, but even second tier Ghibli is still a ways ahead of most other animation. An old fashioned children’s mystery melodrama with friendship at its heart, When Marnie was There doesn’t exactly break any new ground but it does offer an intriguing tale told with characteristic warmth and intelligence by the promising young director Yonebayashi.

Monsterz (2014)

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Monsterz_2014Hideo Nakata is best remembered as one of the driving forces of the J-Horror boom of the late ’90s thanks to his hugely influential Ring movies. However, despite a few notable hits including Dark Water, his career has seen something of a slump following a foray into American filmmaking with The Ring 2 – a sequel to the remake of his own Ring (though entirely different from his Japanese language Ring 2 completed in 1999). Monsterz sees him helming a remake of another foreign property – this time the Korean sci-fi thriller Haunters.

The film begins from the POV of Monster no. 1 (played by Tatsuya Fujiwara), who narrates much of the story and refers to himself solely as “monster”. Blindfolded, a small boy is dragged home by his mother only to be discovered by his abusive father who beats him and berates his mother whilst insisting “the monster” needs to die. At this point the blindfold comes off and the boy controls his fathers actions eventually persuading him to snap his own neck. Beginning to also control his mother, the boy stops short of giving her the same treatment and wanders off into the rain. Fast forward 20 years and the monster is now a criminal mastermind who uses his time freezing and mind control capabilities to make a living as a bank robber. However, one day he discovers someone who seems to be immune to his powers (Takayuki Yamada) and his whole world is shaken. The monster sets about removing this threat to his supremacy but it appears his opponent is also “a monster” – a man with super healing properties who cannot die! It takes a “monster” to fight a monster but which one will come out on top?

Yes, lots of predictably comic book style action adventures begin as the two guys with opposing super powers face off against each other. The most interesting aspect of the film is that it’s mainly told from the point of view of the otherwise unnamed “monster” though Nakata’s attempts to make him a sympathetic anti-hero never quite work out despite Fujiwara’s committed performance. The film’s ending is also unconventionally unresolved (though also very true to its American comic book roots) with a pleasing note of tolerance and inclusivity thrown in. However, that is in part facilitated by the lack of tension in the central dynamic – the two opposing forces are at a perpetual stalemate which only ends up feeling, well, stale – in a word. The monster’s freezing and mind control powers are impressive but the action sequences are much of a muchness and just get bigger rather than more interesting.

Having said that the action sequences aren’t unexciting, there are some impressive moments (bar the odd use of dodgy CGI and green screen). The main problem with the film is a slight mismatch in tones between Nakata’s portentous doom laden fatalism and the playful lightness of its comic book inspiration. The conventional hero, Shuichi, takes second lead here with his gang of sidekicks – otaku Akira and flaming queen Jun offering odd moments of comic relief. Though actually the role of Jun is another interesting inclusion as, despite offering a stereotypically “gay” character camping things up spectacularly, Jun is also presented fairly normally as a valued friend and comrade of the hero. His sexuality is merely a character trait, never a joke in itself which is a refreshing element particularly in a Japanese film. In the end, Monsterz aims to offer a message of tolerance and inclusiveness – that, oddly, there are no monsters and would be no villains if we could all just learn to accept each other’s differences and live together in harmony. However, the message is a little hamfisted and clumsily delivered and, some might feel, out of place in an action orientated film such as this.

Very typical of the comic book movie genre (though perhaps more Fantastic 4 than Dark Knight), Monsterz is middling mainstream fare which, while mildly diverting, fails to offer anything particularly memorable. A fine way to spend 90 minutes, Monsterz never outstays its welcome and offers generally high production values plus Nakata’s trademark visual flair but is unlikely to satisfy more genre savvy fans.

Morning for the Osone Family 大曾根家の朝 (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1946)

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81avzyD41gL._SL1500_So, after making the subtly subversive Army, Kinoshita found himself persona non grata but all that changed with Japan’s final surrender and the coming of the Americans. You might think that means an end to the system of censorship and a greater freedom of expression but the truth is one master had simply been swapped for another. The Americans now imposed their own censor’s office and banned the depiction of various dangerous or inconvenient ideas including anything xenophobic, militaristic or anti-democratic. In short, the complete reverse of before but perhaps no less restrictive. However, the new requirements were undeniably closer to Kinoshita’s true feelings so there were fewer problems when it came to getting a film made. Accordingly Kinoshita began working on Morning for the Osone Family soon after the surrender and the film was released in 1946. Extremely raw and probing, the film deals with the effects of the war on a well to do, liberal intellectual family but turns their plight into a metaphor for the country as a whole.

The film begins in the Christmas of 1943 as the Osones gather together around the piano for a rendition of Silent Night as they prepare to say goodbye to the daughter’s fiancé who’s been drafted and will shortly be leaving for the war. The celebration is short lived as their peace is shattered by an ominous knock at the door. Oldest son Ichiro is carted off by military police for having written a mildly subversive essay in a newspaper. Whilst all this is going on Yuko’s fiancé, Akira, takes his leave handing her a letter to say she needn’t wait for him with the future so uncertain. It’s at this point that meddling fascist uncle first appears to reveal he has written to Akira’s family to break off the engagement because they are of a high status and with Yuko’s brother’s arrest he feels it’s inappropriate to bring them shame. As the war drags on, Uncle Issei comes to have more and more control over their lives but will the progressive atmosphere of the Osone household ever be able to withstand the bluster of Uncle Issei’s militaristic fervour?

Made immediately after the war, Morning for the Osone Family is filled with the bitterness and anger of disillusionment. Coloured by the knowledge of Japan’s impending defeat, the events can’t help but take on a portentous air and it’s pretty obvious the Osone family will never be able to return to that final Christmas in 1943 before everything was taken away from them. The obnoxious Uncle Issei becomes a metaphor for Japanese fascism as a whole with his heartless militarism and personal corruption. During one telling episode, Yuko remarks that the more they simply obey him the worse he’ll get and that they should stand up to him every now and then. The mother, Fusako, agrees but thinks it’s impossible. Later, in a last impassioned speech, she laments that she should have done more, said no earlier, but she tried to do what was expected of her. Fusako voices the rage and disappointment of the masses of ordinary people who went along with things they didn’t agree with because they felt it was the proper thing to do. Now she sees no need for the pretence, in this brave new world it’s time for the younger generation to do as they see fit without feeling beholden to these corrupt ideas peddled by those who claim to speak for everyone but have only ever been speaking for themselves.

Oddly, Morning for the Osone Family may have the most overtly propagandistic feeling of any of the films in Criterion’s Kinoshita and World War II boxset. Though it ends on an undeniably powerful declaration of hope for renewal and rebirth, its epilogue feels like a step too far – both hollow and needlessly over the top. Apparently this final scene was added at the behest of the Americans who wanted more deliberately democratic sentiments which may explain its on the nose tone though it isn’t entirely out of keeping with the rest of the film and most likely represents Kinoshita’s real feelings. Morning has arrived after a long night filled with pain and sorrow, all that remains now is to banish the darkness and welcome in the light.

Uzumasa Limelight (太秦ライムライト, Ken Ochiai, 2014)

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tumblr_nfxugkn3kO1seecgzo1_1280Another one from The Glasgow Film Festival (which starts today!), Uzumasa Limelight reviewed at UK Anime Network.

Once upon a time, Japanese network television was dominated by Jidaigeki or samurai dramas filled with tales of glorious battles and petty vendettas. Of course, they had their stars – the guys on the posters looking mean with their swords held high, but they couldn’t have run without the “kirareyaku” or the guys whose sole job it is to get killed by the star of the show over and over again. However, times have changed and samurai dramas aren’t as popular as they used to be. Consequently, there’s not so much work to go around and it’s hard to make a living getting by on ordinary “extra” work in modern day dramas when you’re used to the comparatively more active chanbara world. The days of the once famous Uzumasa studios as the capital of period drama in Japan are coming to a close, yet perhaps it’s just time for the older generation to step out of the limelight so that the young ones can enjoy its glow.

Inspired by Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight – the story of a once famous washed up clown who finds a new lease on life after saving a young dancer from suicide, Uzumasa Limelight is a poignant tale of the transient nature of art as it evolves from one generation to the next. In a bit of smart casting, the leading role of the veteran kirareyaku, Kamiyama, is played by a real life master – Seizo Fukumoto who has been dying on screen for over fifty years and takes on a leading role here for the first time! After falling over in the street he encounters a young, hopeful actress just leaving an audition. Satsuki (played by world champion martial artist Chihiro Yamamoto in her first dramatic role), it turns out is fascinated by the kirareyuki craft and becomes intent on training under Kamiyama despite being warned there are generally very few of these sorts of roles available for women. Nevertheless, Kamiyama begins to pass on some of his skill and before long Satsuki herself has begins to step into the limelight.

Things have certainly changed a lot since Kamiyama began working back in the glory days of the TV chanbara serial. A new producer has come in and a series which had run for over forty years has been cancelled to make way for a new show – still a period drama but more modern and up to the minute. It’s going to star a handsome idol from a top dance group – one who refuses to wear the bald cap so they have to put him in a ridiculous helmet with a giant fur train. He also can’t use a real sword so all the fights will be done with cut off green sticks and replaced with CGI blades. The new producer doesn’t care about skill or experience, he just wants handsome faces to pull in the youth viewers – old guys like Kamiyama are totally out of luck! Who wants to see some random old guy when you could just pull in a few idols to wave a little stick around and fall over on queue? It’s a shame, but it’s the way of the world. Old soldiers fall but new faces rise in their place. There may be scant respect for craft, but the art form carries on – it changes and evolves from one generation to the next but the spirit remains.

In this way, Uzamasa Limelight feels very Japanese in that it sets up the conflict between a perceived decline in values in modern movie making – what was once an art is now a (fairly ridiculous) business, whilst simultaneously accepting the transient nature of all things. Kamiyama accepts his time has passed, he barely fights it and when he decides it’s time to go he does so with dignity. He passes his skills onto his young protege and watches her use them to become a star in the new artistic world whilst retiring to the sidelines, content to have played his part to the best of his ability. Uzumasa Limelight is a beautiful, poignant tribute to the bit players of countless movies whose performances are little appreciated but without whom an entire industry would not have been able to function. Imbued with a gentle melancholy, Uzumasa Limelight also offers not a little hope for the younger generation who will pick up where their forebears left off and create something, if not necessarily better, then at least different.

 

On a side note, this is a really well made trailer!

Pale Moon (紙の月, Daihachi Yoshida, 2014)

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Pale-Moon_MainDaihachi Yoshida’s last venture into human dynamics, The Kirishima Thing, took the high school environment as a microcosm for society as a whole. In some senses painting on a large canvas by illuminating the inner lives of these teenagers acting as both individuals and as members of a group, The Kirishima Thing was equal parts ensemble character drama and probing social commentary. Pale Moon (紙の月, Kami no Tsuki) is no different in this regard although it focuses more tightly on one individual and shifts age groups from turbulent adolescence to middle aged desperation. Set in 1994 just after the bubble burst, this gleefully cheeky (im)morality tale takes another sideways glance at the social norms of contemporary Japan.

Rika (Rie Miyazawa) is a demure woman in her early forties. A childless former housewife, she’s recently moved from a part time position at a bank to a full time job where she works as a kind of personal banking assistant visiting wealthy clients at home to discuss their financial needs and physically depositing their money in the bank for them. Efficient, reserved, reliable – Rika is the perfect employee, that is until one day she spends some of a client’s money because there isn’t quite enough in her purse. She takes the money straight out of an ATM and replaces it right away, of course, but a line has been crossed. It’s a quick step from a gentle misappropriation of funds to a series of interestingly decorated hotel rooms with a boy half your age, embezzlement on a grand scale, blackmail, bank fraud – the list goes on. How did it ever come to this? Yet, it’s the strangest thing – Rika has never felt more alive.

Money – it’s the life blood of capitalism. It makes the world go round and drives people crazy as they try to amass even more little bits of paper with numbers written on them. It’s fake, an illusion that we’ve all bought into – no more real than a paper moon (to go by the film’s original Japanese title), though we continue to set all of our hopes afloat on its surface. When Rika finally convinces her financially challenged young lover to accept her (stolen) money, she tries to convince him that nothing will change but, of course, it does. The dynamics fluctuate and money gets in the way, the toxicity of debt starts to eat away at any genuine connection that may have existed. The irony is, Rika is one of those people who steals in order to give away. It sounds selfless, even altruistic, but is in fact the most intensely selfish action that can be taken. “It’s better to give than to receive” goes the mantra of the nuns of the Catholic school where young Rika was educated, but they also council that charity should never have anything to do with your own gratification. This is the lesson that Rika finds so hard to learn, it feels so good to give – how can it be wrong to take?

It’s easy to say that the world has changed a lot in the intervening twenty years between now and the time the bulk of the action takes place, but maybe it hasn’t. The first thing that strikes you is how extraordinarily sexist Rika’s world is. It’s not long before she’s being asked questions about her marital status whilst being made to feel uncomfortable, alone in the home of her elderly male client. Then at the office her boss praises her efforts whilst sadly lamenting that women have more “tools” at their disposal than men do, which is both insultingly crude and a put down of her skills and hard work. Rika only gets her permanent position because another woman, an employee of nineteen years standing, has been forced out through a campaign of constructive dismissal because the big wigs don’t like paying higher salaries to older female workers but they won’t promote them past a certain level either. Her younger colleagues make fun of their “spinster” supervisor, Sumi (Satomi Kobayashi), who, only a generation older, had to make a clear cut choice between work and family and having chosen a career now sees the rug being pulled out from under her with the standard “transfer to head office” game plan in place to force her into retirement.

Rika’s home life offers a similar level of hope for the future. Her husband is probably well meaning, but totally insensitive and the marriage is at best unfulfilling. He pooh-poohs his wife’s thriftiness and her new “hobby” at the bank, totally failing to understand her motivation. At one point he announces he’s being transferred abroad so she’ll have to give her notice – it never occurs to him she may not wish to go, let alone that she’d refuse over something so trivial as her own job. It’s little surprise then that she’d so quickly fall for a handsome and attentive stranger. An “amour fou”, an old story but no less potent than it ever was.

Rika knows none of it’s real – that her temporary crime fuelled reprieve can’t go on forever, but that only makes her feel more free. In one telling episode, Rika is talking to a granny she’s in the process of swindling and remarks on her beautiful new necklace. What a shame it’s fake, Rika says, but the old lady replies that she knows it’s only imitation but she doesn’t care – it’s pretty, she likes it and she’s happy. That perhaps is the answer. Rika saw her chance and she took it. That takes some courage and whatever the moral outrage one might feel, there’s something undeniably admirable, even exciting, about Rika’s dramatic escape from the constraints of conventional social behaviour.

Pale Moon is receiving its UK Premier at the Glasgow Film Festival on 19th February so if you’re in the Glasgow area be sure to check it out!

Wood Job! (Wood Job（ウッジョブ）神去なあなあ日常, Shinobu Yaguchi, 2014)

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ff20140516a1aHe’s a lumberjack and he’s OK! Well, after a while anyway – climbing trees all day is not quite as much fun as it sounds in Shinobu Yaguchi’s latest comedy which sees a streetwise city kid randomly decide on a career on forestry. Not so much fish out of water as duck in a tree, Wood Job! is a heartwarming comedy drama which more than lives up to the puntastic comedy of its title.

Yuki Hirano is your typical slacker teenager. Like many guys his age, he’s run into something of a life crisis as he didn’t get into university and he hasn’t really thought about what to do. At first he thinks it’s no big deal, he’ll just take the tests again next year but after being abandoned by his girlfriend and seeing all his friends set off without him Yuki feels a little lost. That is until he notices a shiny magazine advertising a new life in the open air – “come and work with me!” it says next to a picture of a pretty girl. Yuki’s packed his bags and caught the next train before you can even say “Where’s the nearest combini”? but his new found occupation is a little more intensive than he was expecting and Yuki’s not sure he’s cut out for this no frills life. Then however he meets the girl from the advert herself – can Yuki really stick around long enough to convince her he’s not some city boy layabout but a real mountain man?

Wood Job! is that rare film that manages to mix a fair amount of slapstick comedy with the kind of naturalistic, everyday humour that can’t help but give it an endearingly warm quality. Taking the classic fish out of water approach as its basis, the film highlights the absurdity of country life (at least to eyes more accustomed to the city) but crucially never mocks it and seems to have a profound respect for the rural way of life and all that entails. Neither does it shy away from the fact forestry is hard work which is often dangerous and requires an extremely specific skill set – you can’t just rock up one day because you’ve seen a picture of a pretty girl on a poster and instantly become a man of the mountains over night. The villagers are all too used to people who turn up in the country with romantic ideas about getting back to the land or living a more simple life but go home after a week or so because they can’t adapt to this very different environment. Already pre-conditioned to expect disappointment, their approval is hard to win but worth all the more because of its rarity.

Yuki Hirano is something of a departure for Sometani who ranks as one of Japan’s most promising young actors. Having hitherto made a name for himself playing “intense” characters, Wood Job!’s laid back slacker couldn’t be more different than the tortured soul of Himizu though Sometani carries off this seeming 180 degree turn with aplomb further proving his versatility as an actor. He’s also surrounded by an equally talented cast including Hideaki Ito (most recently seen as the sociopathic teacher in Lesson of Evil, also alongside Sometani in a small role) as his hard tasking forestry mentor as well as Ken Mitsuishi and Akira Emoto in smaller roles and Masami Nagasaki as Yuki’s longed for poster girl for the world of forestry. Filled with realistically drawn characters near perfectly pitched by its well put together cast, Wood Job! manages to achieve just the right comedy-drama balance which makes some its more outlandish moments seem perfectly plausible.

It may be a very conventional film in many ways, but Wood Job! succeeds in doing what it set out to do incredibly well. Filled with warmth and good humour, director Shinobu Yaguchi manages to breath new life into this old idea to create a charming and engaging tale of the virtues of country life. Any film which manages to pack not one, but two distinct puns into its title alone has to be worth a look but Wood Job! more than lives up to the comedic promise of its name.

This is playing as part of the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme so it’ll be a bunch of places between now and the end of March including:

  • MAC Birmingham (24th February)
  • Dundee Contemporary Arts (25 February)
  • Tyneside Cinema Newcastle (15th march)
  • Nottingham Broadway (25th March)
  • Brewery Arts Centre Cumbria (25th March).

So if you’re near any of these be sure to check it out! Also because people always say this – if the festival isn’t coming near you it’s most likely not Japan Foundation deliberately snubbing you, get in touch with your local indie cinema and try and convince them to book some of these films. If you don’t have a local indie cinema you’re probably out of luck though as the big chains often won’t take these kinds of special screenings :(. In short, support your local indie (or a not so local one if it’s your only option).

Review of the forestry themed comedy Wood Job! up at UK Anime Network. I love how many puns they managed to pack into the title of this film, it wins just for that.

Kumiko the Treasure Hunter (UK Anime Network Review)

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Screen-Shot-2014-12-29-at-10.49.38I wrote this getting on for a year ago when the film was screened at Sundance London (which is apparently dead now) but seeing as it’s getting a proper release by Soda Pictures from 20th February here it is again! Hit the jump to read my review over at UK Anime Network.

Famously, the Coen Brothers’ 1996 film Fargo begins with a black screen and a caption telling us that everything we’re about to see is based on real events that took place in Minnesota in 1987. What is perhaps less well known is that this is an out and out lie – a manifestation of the Coens’ strange sense of humour that’s just really there as a sort of in joke to mess with the viewer’s head. When a Japanese woman was found wandering around a wintery Minnesota, underdressed for the cold weather and pointing to a hand drawn map of tree next to a road, it wasn’t long before someone connected her actions to the famous movie. When she was found dead in the woods some days later, an urban myth was born about a crazy Japanese lady who froze to death looking for Steve Buscemi’s buried suitcase. As it so often does, the truth turned out to be much sadder and more ordinary than the legend suggests and that this poor woman became the butt of a global joke seems cruel and unfair. Now the original myth has spawned another story of its own – of Kumiko, who sees herself like a Spanish Conquistador who alone has learned of vast riches hidden deep in the new world.

Kumiko is a 29 year old office lady from Tokyo who lives alone in a tiny apartment aside from her pet rabbit Bunzo. As she goes about her everyday life she looks worn out, like someone who’s been carrying a heavy burden for a long time. She barley speaks to anyone and resents her boss so much she almost spits in his tea before thinking better of it. As it turns out one of the reasons she looks so tired is that she spends every night sat in front of her ancient TV scouring an old VHS of the movie Fargo (which she found in a cave buried under a pile of rocks at the end of a previous treasure hunt) for clues as to where Steve Buscemi buried his money. When her boss calls her in one day to ask why it is she always looks so miserable and points out, in a nice avuncular way, that 29 is really far too old for an office lady things have come to a crisis point. Using his company card she’s booked herself on a flight to Minneapolis armed only with her hand embroidered map and unshaken faith that her treasure exists and is hers alone to find.

Of course, her delusion is ridiculous for a multitude of reasons: to begin with, it’s obviously a constructed film – not a documentary so even if the events were real how would you know they recreated the exact burial spot in their movie version. Secondly, why would they have done that and then left the actual money where it was. Thirdly, the money was supposedly buried in 1987 – surely someone else would have come up with a similar idea in the intervening fifteen years and found the money already, wouldn’t they? Fourthly, he only buried it in the snow. Snow melts. How could anyone believe this? The film opens with Kumiko following another of her intricately made hand embroidered maps that results in her finding the fateful tape as if she alone had been handed some kind of divine revelation. Accordingly she pours all of her energy into divining its holy secrets. Hers is a literal leap of faith – she simply believes in it even though we ‘know’ it’s absurd.

What would make someone cling on to this kind of bizarre idea as their only true hope of salvation? We’re never given very much backstory, but it seems that somewhere along the way Kumiko’s life diverged from the one she wanted to live and ever since then she’s been treading water. Her mother rings her periodically to try and convince her to move back home ‘until she gets married’ whilst asking all sorts of questions about her love life and career that Kumiko would rather not answer. At work she’s the odd one out in the office as generally young women either decide to leave and get married or pursue a more demanding career long before Kumiko’s almost ancient 29. She keeps herself apart from her colleagues and barely speaks to them which is fine because they think of her as a creepy old lady anyway. She does eventually agree to meet an old school friend for coffee but bolts once left alone in a cafe with her friend’s five year old daughter. It’s almost as if Kumiko herself feels she’s failed and is too ashamed to interact with other people. Faced with her friend’s successful home life with a healthy young daughter compared to Kumiko’s own dreary, lonely existence it’s not difficult to see how loneliness and frustrated desperation could lead to a state of psychosis. If she can just prove it, show everyone she has a destiny – something she alone is supposed to do then they’d all see.

Once she reaches America things begin to take a darker turn. Dressed only in her usual blue dress and little red hoodie, she’s like Red Riding Hood stepping off alone into the woods. She hasn’t brought winter clothes, cash or even made a proper plan of how to actually get to Fargo. She meets some nice people along the way – a lonely old lady who means well has almost kidnapped the poor girl and keeps trying to thrust James Clavell’s Shogun at her, and a truly decent policeman who can see there’s something wrong but is prevented from helping by the impenetrable language barrier. Every time it seems as if there might be a better way out of this the door is cruelly slammed in Kumiko’s face and left entirely alone in a strange land there really is nothing else for her to do than trudge on in hope of finding her treasure. Kumiko could so easily have been a series of crazy lady tics and quirks but thanks to Kikuchi’s extremely nuanced performance the infinite sadness of her story is completely laid bare. All this happened, more or less – mostly less in this case, but there is truth in this story. The world is full of lonely people whose minds have turned in on themselves through having nowhere left to run. Kumiko the Treasure Hunter is an existential tragedy that nevertheless is shot through with enough charm and whimsy to make its often unpalatable message easy to digest. A strange fairytale for adults, Kumiko’s story is heartbreakingly bleak but it’s also immensely beautiful.

 

Army 陸軍 (Keisuke Kinoshita, 1944)

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Dem-3 Photo. Helene Jeanbrau © 1996 cine-tamaris.tif

With a name like “Army”, you’d expect this to be a stridently propagandistic film about brave men fighting for their countries – some of whom will likely fall but will cover their families in eternal glory through their selfless sacrifice. Those are certainly the ideas behind Kinoshita’s 1944 film, the last film he’d be permitted to make before the war’s end, however any lingering feelings of pro-militaristic ardor are completely undercut by the film’s near silent closing moments.

Like The Living Magoroku, we begin in another historical era – one just as turbulent as the contemporary action. As people flee burning houses at the dawn of the Meiji era, a father and son shelter a wounded samurai who gifts them a set of historical encyclopaedias. Despite the changing times, the father is convinced a man’s highest duty is to his country and makes a deathbed plea that his son Tomohiko become a fine soldier. Tomohiko tries his best, as an infantry Captain through the several of Japan’s international conflicts of the early 20th century he’s certainly had ample opportunity to distinguish himself. However, luck is not on Tomohiko’s side as minor injuries, illness or simply failing to be selected have kept him safely away from the front lines. Eventually invalided out, Tomohiko tries to make a go of civilian life, finally ending up trying to run a pawn shop (before realising he’s not good at that either and leaving the heavy lifting to his more capable wife). Still convinced of the wisdom of his father’s philosophy, Tomohiko pushes his wishes for military glory onto his oldest son – the equally weedy Shintaro whose slight frame and kindly nature don’t exactly point to a future Field Marshall. Japan needs soldiers though, it’s time for every man and boy to stand up to defend her!

Final scene excised, Army would look like the most obviously propagandistic film in the box set. Full of references to the importance of military virtue and physical strength over book learning, Army brings home that a man who does not fight is not a man. He is weak and womanly and is to be shamed. Even those who are in poor physical health or simply not built for brute force attacks are expected to suddenly shape up and join every other young man in sacrificing themselves nobly for the Emperor. Mothers, even, are not permitted to grieve as their sons were never theirs in the first place – they were merely taking care of them for the Emperor. Now they’ve done their duty and returned their progeny to the father of the nation, they ought to feel nothing more than relief at a job well done, or so says Tomohiko’s wife, Waka. Wouldn’t it be shaming to have a grown up son still at home, after all, or even one that was far from the front line but relatively safe? Prepare for the worst or hope for it? It’s an oddly macabre way of thinking.

However, the last scene of the film which is played almost silently, undercuts this cold willingness to sacrifice and shows it up for its own hollowness. Having originally claimed not to be going to see the brigade depart because she’s a weak and emotional woman, Waka is suddenly overcome by something. She rises and follows the other townspeople drifting towards the noise of the parade with its crowds of cheering, flag waving supporters. Desperately, anxiously, she searches for her son in amongst the multitudes of other young men in identical uniforms marching off gleefully almost certainly not to return. Having pushed through the ranks of ecstatic civilians, she finally catches a glimpse of Shintaro who smiles at her before disappearing back into the ranks of anonymous infantrymen. Waka is left bereft, alone and terrified – her only recourse is prayer.

Unsurprisingly, the army didn’t really like this bit. In fact, one high ranking official marched right down to Shochiku and accused Kinoshita of treason! Luckily, not too much came of that but Kinoshita’s next script about kamikaze pilots was rejected and he wasn’t allowed anywhere near a camera until after the end of the war. Waka’s final uncertainty, her grief at losing her son to this faceless monster undercuts the entirety of the previous 80 minute celebration of glorious military history and masculine pride. All of a sudden it’s not a joyful celebration anymore, it’s a funeral peopled with grieving wives and mothers – hardly the sort of message you want to send out when you’re trying to give the barrel a final scrape when it comes to conscripting for the army. Army is a film that’s defined by its final minutes and is surprising in the level of ambiguity it was allowed to get away with given the strict censorship conditions in place. As a propaganda film it fails, but by design. Kinoshita once again refuses to depict his characters as unfeeling robots who can suppress their natural empathy in the name of duty or honour and a mother’s love proves the most dominant (if hopeless) force of all.