Kikujiro no natsu

[John Dougill]

I happened to see Beat Takeshi's Kikujiro yesterday, by coincidence shortly
after seeing the video of the 1997 remake of Kizu darake no Tenshi (Angel
full of wounds?).  There's a remarkable similarity between the two films,
namely that a disreputable lower order type is lumbered with taking a young
boy on a journey to see his mother.  On the way both encounter adventures
and an odd assortment of characters.  Takeshi must be familiar with the
latter film, especially the early Matsuda Yusaku version, so I wondered
whether there was any connection.  Whereas I was not entirely sure why Kizu
darake no Tenshi was so called, Kiujiro makes great play with angels -
indeed it constitutes one of the film's central visual motifs, from the
wings on the satchel of the little boy to the hell's angels and the mascot
of an angel that Takeshi gives to the little boy to represent his mother.
Was this coincidence or an acknowledgement of the earlier film, I
wondered....

While I enjoyed Kikujiro and its leisurely pace, it did seem about twenty
minutes too long and at times like a Takeshi television programme as he and
his chums goof about - in some scenes Takeshi is laughing so much he can't
even act his scene properly.  The effect was to create a kind of
amateur-looking road movie: compare the artificial acting of the little boy
for instance with the convincing performance of the boy in Life is
Beautiful.  It struck me that there was a parallel here with the one-man
shows of Woody Allen, whose comedies also have an amateurish feel at times
as actors improvise and grope for words.  This may of course be part of the
appeal as against the slick manufactured and manipulative Hollywood film.
Kikujiro also left me wondering a bit about the fact that both the Takeshi
character and the little boy return from their journey without talking to
their mothers.  It's a heart-warming film in a sense but with a hole in its
middle where motherly love should be.  The cruelty and selfishness of the
Takeshi character presumably stems from this.  Despite the simplicity of
the film, the doubling of the two central characters (Takeshi is like a
grown-up boy or rather the boy grown up) suggests an intriguing
psychological portrait too - was Takeshi looking to explore his own inner
child?

A final thought concerns the very Japanese character of the film - or
Japanesque, perhaps.  The film is crammed full with yakuza and tatooed
backs, shrines, temples, tengu, hostess bars and as much Japanese colour as
possible it seemed.  When Takeshi appeared in a dream sequence at the end
dressed in full samurai regalia, I began to wonder whether this was all
deliberate and artificial, aimed at appealing to a foreign audience.  I've
heard Takeshi describing himself as 'very Japanese' and perhaps he is now
out to establish himself in the exotic Eastern tradition.  As we know from
Mishima, this has great appeal to Westerners......

Any thoughts on these matters?
John Dougill
Kyoto