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1998 Contemporary Japanese Film FestivalDaily papers foretell the doom of the Japanese economy, yet Japanese cinema, in fits and starts, may be making its way back onto Western screens nevertheless. Once a staple of the international film smorgasboard at one time available to cineastes, this formidable national cinema now has accessible screenings surfacing only rarely. But recent events foster some wishful thinking. Shohei Imamura won at Cannes last year with The Eel, which soon will be released in the States by New Yorker Films. Imamura's even newer film will appear at the next New York Film Festival. And this year's Toronto Film Festival will feature a sizeable showcase of recent Japanese work. If the recent art house attraction, the mesmerizing Maboroshi, missed the Twin Cities, Fireworks finally made it to Minneapolis just recently, and its director Takeshi Kitano is an internationally celebrated auteur. Asian Media Access wants to do its part by hosting a seven film series of recent Japanese work at, mostly, the Auditorium at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul. Starting on July 17, AMA will present Friday night screenings of highly acclaimed films from some of the best Japanese directors working today. An eclectic sampling of filmmaking styles and narrative tendencies, the series will include Takeshi Kitano's 1996 Kids Return, his bare-knuckled portrait of nonchalantly delinquent losers. Also showing is Naomi Kawase's award-winning first feature Suzaku, which recently scored the international critics prize at the Rotterdam Film Festival. And we open with Village of Dreams, the completely charming film from director Yoichi Higashi which won the Silver Bear at the 1996 Berlin Film Festival. This vastly appealing film looks at the antic childhood of twin brothers, whose adult careers as colorfully expressionistic children's book artists is presciently suggested by their wildly playful unchecked boyhood. This series is made possible through a generous grant from the Japan Foundation with helpful programming assistance from the Japan Society.
2 DuoThe story of a breakup of a relationship shot in an edgy, improvisational style. Kei, an inspiring actor, thoughtlessly proposes to his girlfriend Yu the day after a long and pointless argument. The proposal prompts Yu to realize that the relationship is all wrong. Director Suwa's use of long takes from a stationary camera and his encouraging the actors towards improvisation (he even conducts interviews with the actors in character) work to create an engaging realism, the film as compelling of a formal experiment as it is a bristling narrative. Directed by Suwa Nobuhiro (1996, 90 minutes) IkiruA film about a struggle to give life value, Ikiru tells the story of a government bureaucrat who learns that his stomach cancer will only allow him 6 more months to live. How can he find meaning for all of his wasted years in such a short time? The government worker, Kenji Watanabe, played in a fierce performance by Takashi Shimura, eventually settles on a struggle against red tape, aligning himself with a group of women trying to get a playground built. Kurosawa reveals his tortured path to this decision for action and, then, strikingly, gauges his efforts in flashback, as Watanabe's life and death are considered by his detached family and peers, at his funeral. Many understandably treasure Kurosawa's films for their singular dynamism. As it presents a man desperate to render meaningful 25 years of empty existence, Ikiru is remarkable in its quiet and contemplation. In his obituary in Time magazine, Martin Scorsese wrote, It is perhaps Ikiru, about a man with cancer who searches for meaning in life, that had the greatest impact on me. Seeing this film was one of the most intense emotional experiences of my teenage years. From then until the time, many years later, when I played a small part in his film Dreams, my admiration for the mental agility and physical energy of this great master...never waned. While it saddens me that he is gone, I know that his genius -- which allowed him to acheive much, much more than most of us could ever hope for -- will live on forever in his films." Considering his own mortality, Kurosawa, unlike his bureaucrat hero, claimed, "Occasionally I think of my death...then I think, how could I ever bear to take a final breath; while living a life like this, how could I leave it?" Ikiru (1952, 142 min.) Kids ReturnFrom the director of Fireworks, this 1996 film, Kitano's first after his motorcycle accident, was seen as uncharacteristically naturalistic at the time of its release. A successful portrait of questionable ambition relentlessly unachieved Kids Return is a bare-knuckled depiction of high school delinquents: would be boxers, aspiring thugs, and a couple of comdians; that prompted critic Tony Ryans to report: "Confrontational and completely unsentimental, Kids Return evokes the spirit, though not the style, of vintage Sam Fuller. It goes further and deeper than earlier Kitano films, which means that it's the most interesting japanese film in some time." Directed by Takeshi Kitano (1996) March Comes in Like a LionAn offbeat tale of love, of a sort, between siblings. A young women determines to change her life by pursuing an affair. She chooses her own brother as her partner, his memory, his sense of identity obliterated by amnesia. With her careful lies, the two begin a relationship, the liason sustained as long as memory remains lost. Directed by Hitishi Yazaki (1991, 118min.) Osaka StoryAfter three years in London, director Toichi Nakata returned home to the town of Osaka and crafted this portrait of a family in conflict, his own family. He reveals their divided Korean and Japanese loyalties, the two families that his father maintains, his mother's wories about the future, and a brother choosing between the family business and a new religious cult. The director is himself conflicted: should he stay with his family, like a dutiful oldest son, or does he reveal his homosexuality to the family and go elsewhere to live his life? Writes The Observer (London): "Deeply moving...an unflinching look at the disintegrating marriage of his Japanese mother and Korean father, and the culture clash it involves. Nakata's film has rightly been compared with Shohei Imamura's feature movies." Directed by Higashi Yoichi Toichi Nakata (1994, 75 minutes) SuzakuA contemplative, quietly stunning tale of loss and impossibility, portraying one family's dashed hopes and impossible loves. The Tahara family, struggling in a small village cramped by the dwindling of the local timber industry, places all of its hopes it the completion of a railroad tunnel, which, possibly, will bring economic opportunity, or at least, some change to the stagnant region. Fifteen years pass, and the tunnel is still uncompleted; the family -- marked by silence and loss -- struggles to face their pervading disappointment. The 27-year-old Naomi Kawase is widely considered one of Japan's most promising young directors and this, her debut feature -- she had previously crafted two award-winning documentaries -- garnered her the Camera d'Or at the 1997 Cannes film festival and the Fipresci Prize given by international critics at the Rotterdam Film Festival. Directed and written by Naomi Kawase (1997, 95 min.) Village of DreamsBased on a book of essays by Seizo Tashima about his and his twin brother's life as children who grew up to become childrens' book artists, this fanciful, delightful film is an extended flashback to the twins' childhood in 1948 when they live in a rural village with their school teacher mother (quietly amazing in her wisdom and benevolence) and patient older sister. Hunting for eels, playing together, drawing when they can, the twins' insistent playfulness frequently gets them into trouble, their antic spirit branding them as delinquents. A portrait of the artists as Tom Sawyers, Village of Dreams is as winning as it is relaxed, basking in the infectious charm of the Matsuyama twins as the brothers. Winner, Silver Bear, 1996 Berlin Film Festival Directed by Higashi Yoichi (1995, 112 minutes) |
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