Kyoto FF

[Davis Darrel]

 Kyoto Film Festival:  Short Reporto (first of 2)

	The Kyoto Film Festival took place 12/6 - 14 at venues scattered around--way around--the city.  Programs included eleven new films from the Tokyo FF, a Beat Takeshi retro (including HANA-BI, and visits from Takeshi himself), a 14-film Yorozuya Kinnosuke program with new prints, a memorial to Katsu Shintaro, the TV works of Mike Leigh (British Council), pre-Caligari German films (Goethe Inst.), and early films from Italy, Germany, Holland, England and France.  There on the big screen was the famous 1899 MOMIJIGARI (Viewing Maple Leaves), with kabuki stars Ichikawa Danjuro and Onoe Kikugoro. With this there was a  stunning 1912 hand-tinted featurette called La Trahison de Daimyo (Pathe).  Though the company claims it was the first feature shot in Japan, its histrionic acting, illegible calligraphy, and quasi-Chinese decor makes this doubtful, despite its apparently Japanese actors.
 	
	As for the real thing, the best of this fest was a program of nine important prewar Jidai geki: "Period film's first Golden Age."  There were works thought to be lost, like Ito's Chuji Tabinikki ('27) and Kinugasa's 1932 Chushingura.  Other notable films in the series were the first film in the longstanding partnership of Ito Daisuke and Okochi Denjiro, Cho-kon (An Old Grudge, 1926), and Ito's first talkie, Tange Sazen I (1933).  Others included: Mysterious Werewolf, Tomizawa Shinro; Man of Splendor, Futagawa Buntaro ('26); Mystery of a Million Ryo, Makino Shozo ('27); The Jiraika Group, Ikeda Tomiyasu ('27-28); Shimizu no Jirocho trilogy, Tsuji Kichiro ('28).  Altogether an exciting bunch of films, noteworthy for their narrative and technical sophistication as well as their pyrotechnical swordfighting.  Prints were mostly restored, some had English titles, and others had live musical or benshi accompaniment.

	Another SRO festival attraction was an "all star" roundtable on the topic "Jidai geki and World Cinema."  An epic event (3 hours!), translated simultaneously into English, French and Japanese.  I'll post a separate account of this in another installment.

Darrell Davis
Kobe University of Commerce