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<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Perhaps I could report on a few
films at the London Film Festival, if anyone is interested. These are UK,
not world premieres.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Koreeda’s <EM>Air Doll</EM>,
<EM>Kūki ningyō</EM>, has already had a number of write-ups, including by Tom at
Midnight Eye.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It didn’t look
promising here when it was scheduled for Vue9, where there have been some
gruesome projections all festival (after each of which they would say it was
‘fixed’).<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>However, ‘Air Doll’
screened OK because, I surmise, it was projected digitally through a different
machine.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There may be out-of-work
projectionists but, we can only get by by de-skilling.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That’s not a complete match for a
possible interpretation of the film.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Or should I say movie.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>Most encounters occur in a video
store, which sets up various cinematic digressions.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But, was it a period film, circa 2003
?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I don’t recall any very recent movies in
the video store and its manager, in explaining everything <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">de novo</I> to the Air Doll character says
that a movie is a very long length of celluloid.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That begs a question, especially
as for nine-tenths of the movie, Koreeda obeys the laws [if not the practice] of
celluloid montage, only to come out into CGI at the end [what’s with the
obviously fake dandelions?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>what has
Itami Jūzō got to do with this?].<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>The period of the movie is a genuine question, as I can’t , unlike K’s
air doll, instantly read and write, without any tuition, half-glimpsed
Japanese.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Which is why I want one
of those for Christmas.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>On this a year or more back,
it was mentioned that there were nine or so films in production on the Nanjing
massacre.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The only one to hit the
UK shores so far is Lu Chuan’s <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Nanjing
Nanjing</I>, co-staring NAKAIZUMI Hideo. </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>In a packed house, I don’t think
anyone so much as moved for 136 minutes, apart from one or two running out.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There’s an obvious contrast with the
start of <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Katyn</I>.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There, a fleeing population is caught on
a bridge between two invading armies, with their own army maintaining its own
identity. In the film <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Nanjing,
Nanjing</I>, one disintegrating Chinese army is caught before a wall, in front
of another Chinese army trying to keep their compatriots in the falling
city.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But from there they
diverge.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Katyn</I> was not a war-film, whereas <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Nanjing, Nanjing</I> is completely so.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Katyn</I> was all about conflicting
stories.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Nanjing, Nanjing</I> did not address this
crucial issue.<o:p></o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>If Lu is right that the film was
controversial in China for showing a Japanese soldier with humanity [his was a
racially-qualified humanity] and for showing a non-Communist fight-back, then
it’s even more depressing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Lu did
certainly not even touch on “how and why the war happened” [catalogue], let
alone the slippery slope to militarism, and includes no senior Chinese or
Japanese figures.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In the way that
he partially breaks the taboo on the myth of lack of KMT resistance, he manages
to convey the impression that the <U>only</U> resistance to Japan in all China
was in Nanjing <U>after</U> the city had fallen, thus actually giving some
unintended justification to murders of prisoners by the Japanese army.</P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>A film described by the convenor
of a Q&A as a kind of alternate and partial view to Scorsese’s <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Il mio viaggio in Italia</I> was Valerio
Jalongo’s <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="mso-ansi-language: IT" lang=IT>Di me cosa ne sai?</SPAN></I><SPAN
style="mso-ansi-language: IT" lang=IT> (<I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">What do you know about me?</I>).<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But it reminded me strongly of </SPAN><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">Eiga Kantokutte Nan de!
(Cut!)</SPAN></I><SPAN style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">, with its sad tales
of out-of-work directors and abandoned cinemas.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I couldn’t resist asking whether there
was anything Uniquely Italian about this, compared to say, Japan.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Jalongo wasn’t adamant about film, but
Italian TV, yes, was uniquely dire.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>‘Koma’ by KAWASE Naomi is the
name of the village where this short was entirely set, shown with two others
from the Jeonju festival under the tag: ‘Visitors’.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>If Kawase stays rooted in Nara, YOKOHAMA
Satoko’s first commercial feature, <I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="COLOR: black; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">Urutora
mirakuru ravu sutōrī</SPAN></I><SPAN
style="COLOR: black; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">
(‘<I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Bare Essence of Life’</I>) stayed
within the small world of Aomori.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="COLOR: black; mso-fareast-font-family: 'MS Gothic'; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><o:p> </o:p></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal>SAI <SPAN
style="mso-ansi-language: FR" lang=FR>Yōichi’s <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Kamui </I></SPAN><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Gaiden</I> was billed [by Tony Rains, of
course] as ‘the best ninja movie ever made’.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I thought it was a swashbuckler, and
reminded me, in its sprawling story, complete with pirates and ship, idyllic
village and evil court, of TANIGUCHI Senkichi’s<SPAN
style="mso-ansi-language: FR"> </SPAN><STRONG><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; FONT-WEIGHT: normal">Rangiku
monogatari</SPAN></I></STRONG><STRONG><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; FONT-WEIGHT: normal">. <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But this was apparently derived, not from
a Tanizaki story but, from a manga of SHIRATO Sanpei (whose ‘Band of Ninja’,
filmed by </SPAN></STRONG><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial">ŌSHIMA,<STRONG><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; FONT-WEIGHT: normal"> showed at the same cinema the
previous week). The CGI didn’t help, got laughter in all the wrong places, but
the film did get some applause at the end.</SPAN></STRONG></SPAN></P>
<P style="MARGIN: 4pt 0cm 0pt" class=MsoNormal><SPAN
style="mso-bidi-font-family: Arial"><STRONG><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; FONT-WEIGHT: normal">Roger</SPAN></STRONG></SPAN><o:p></o:p></P></SPAN></DIV></BODY></HTML>