Yamagata--Hara and Cinema Juku

[GavinRees at aol.com]

Markus wrote:



<<<<<<In the end, my sense is that
 the generational difference that was messing up Hara and Cinema Juku has a
 second historical dimension, that of major transitions in art and politics.
 Hara is dealing with the legasy of the early 1970s, when the New Left
 crumbled...yet stuck around to the present without adequately transforming
 to meet historical changes. This is provocatively suggested by the structure
 he chose for Cinema Juku and _My Mishima_. It's a return to the collective
 mode of filmmaking best exemplified by Ogawa Pro and their _Heta Village_
 (1973). Turning away from what he called the Super Hero-ism (supahiro-shugi)
 of his previous films, this would be a group effort (Cinemea Juku + Hara
 Kazuo) about another group (Mishima islanders). It's as if Hara can't think
 beyond the earlier paradigm.
 
 By contrast, the transition that the Taiwanese are dealing is far more
 recent: the lifting of martial law and the collapse of the USSR and the
 subsequent reevaluation of Marxism. But for reasons that aren't clear they
 are dealing with the transition in interesting ways. The documentaries they
 showed were about issues like aboriginal people and the deaf (by a deaf
 woman, with no sound!). And while there might be a generation gap between Wu
 and his students it is not silencing them. I sensed Hara's jealousy
 regarding the way Full Shot works together. Here is what Hara wrote in the
 main catalogue:
 
    Taiwan's history of documentary film is not as long
    as Japan's; it's still in its nascent period. Because of that,
    however, its films are full of a youthful energy of which I am
    envious. By contrast, when I think about documentary
    film in Japan, I am full of bitter doubts over whether
    we have passed our prime and lost our energy...I have
    the fortune this year to come to the magnet that is
    Yamagata. I have made a promise with director
    We Yii-feng to do our best in dialogue.
 
 Both Hara and Tsuchimoto are at a loss about what to do from here on out.
 How do you invigorate Japanese documentary without transforming Japan
 itself?  " >>>>>>>>>>>


Thanks for the post, reading it has helped clarify some of the thoughts I had 
on the exchanges between the two. 

One of the things that struck me about it though, was that My Mishima was 
considerably less interesting than some of the other Japanese works in the 
festival. Although Matsue, the young director of Annyong Kimchi, avowedly 
claims not to be political, his film nevertheless is an attempt to deal with 
questions of identity and being Japanese. It doesn't attack the system as 
such, in a way that "The New God" goes on to do.  Most foreign commentators 
in the "pro" rather than "anti" japan camps, (and unfortunately there do 
appear to be a lot of unreconstituted antis out there), deal with theirf 
frustration at the apathy  of the young by reserving their ire for the 
education system here. I think it is interesting to note that the Kimchi film 
is a graduation peice for Matsue's course at the Nihon Eiga Gakko, and it is 
exactly the kind of self-explorational film that the school tries to 
encourage its students to make. (Another recent graduate, made "Fatherless" 
while he was there. I can't remember his name sorry!)

Hara, is of course a  film maker of extroadinary talent. I saw "Extreme 
Private Eros: Love song" for the first time at the festival, and yes...what 
can I say. masterpeice is probably apt. "The Emperors Naked Army Marches On" 
was one of the films that inspired me to come to Japan in the first place. 
Unfortunately My Mishima is really not that good at all. I don't think either 
Hara or the students were directing that film. The plaudits should really go 
to the villagers for so skillfully controling their presentation. It reminds 
me of tales of anthropologists being hoodwinked by the natives. Consciously 
or unconsciously they made a PR film for the Island in the house style of 
NHK. (And in those terms not a bad one, perhaps.)

I don't know if it could be anything else though. I think most of the 
students in Juku are just students who think they would quite like to make 
films, or work for "Telly". If you go to  a screening of the Summer School 
films of New York University. Only 3 or 4 out of 60 show promiss, and a good 
30 of them or so will be incomprehensible rubbish. And those students will 
have spent two months working flat out to make their own work as well. The 
students I listened to during the debate were reluctant to speak, and 
certainly not as vocal as many of the young Japanese film makers and groupies 
I met else where. (Some of the young filmmaking people I sometimes go out 
drinking with, could do with judicious gagging at times!)

Hara probably does have Ogawa in mind in creating Juku seems different too. 
As Markus wrote the Ogawa method involved in tapping, the creative energies 
of the people around them, and steering them with his  own forceful 
personality. Hara, however, before starting up Juku, has made very 
idiosyncratic and personal pieces, which were largely made by himself. 
Imagine it must be hard for a "Superhuman director"., making films about 
fellow super humans to adapt to working with a group of students, making a 
film about a group of villagers. It is a fairly big transition. 

Also maybe the idea of making films as a group, ie by commitee,  is a 
fundamentally bad idea, if you are worried that the young are apathatic, and 
are inarticulate at expressing their individuality. 

Most importantly of all, Hara didnot have enough time to get beyond the 
reserve of the locals. Last year I visited a small Island in the Pacific 
researching the possibility of making a documentary there. In the end I 
decided I could, but only if I was prepared to live there for two years. The 
300 people who lived on that island were nice enough people, but.....  .To 
make the kind of peice that most people would have wanted to see, Hara would 
have had to have been much more confrontational. Besides some of the funds 
came from the Hagi Municipal Government, and so he could hardly disclose 
their shoddy treatment of the people living there. 

And there is perhaps another thing, too. Hara is an ex-Island boy himself, 
who not only left his furusato (homeland), but also then tried to put a 
fairly heavy boot into the Japanese "family system". When he was talking he 
made it clear that the theme of separation from his homeland was an important 
personal issue. Maybe he wasn't  psychologically in the right position to 
make a more critical stance. 

Just some thoughts. 


Gavin Rees