Yamagata: The New God

[Aaron Gerow]

Busy busy today, so have to make this as short as I can.  I agree with 
much of Markus's analysis of Tsuchiya's tape, but I thought I'd add my, 
slightly more critical comments, in part because I had the chance to 
interview Tsuchiya during the festival for Documentary Box.

I was most interested in the film in terms of its contemporaneity, 
particularly how it is dealing with a whole bunch of problems--identity, 
nation, the Other, social relations, etc.--I see as recurring issues in 
contemporary Japanese fiction film.  Like Aoyama, Kawase, Anno, Kurosawa 
and a bunch of others, Tsuchiya is experiencing a generation which feels 
an emptiness that, while often forgotten in the mad rush of consumption, 
comes to the fore whenever the train of consumer desire derails.  At such 
(frequent) moments, it becomes clear to many that they have no identity 
primarily because they have nothing certain outside them (family, school, 
society, nation) with which to define themselves.  Just as other 
directors are in a difficult search for Others which can help define the 
self, Tsuchiya is exploring those youth who have chosen various 
means--ultra-nationalism in The New God, enjo kosai in Ryoko 21--to latch 
onto something else with which to give the self definition.

The politics of this becomes more urgent considering the fact Kobayashi 
Yoshinori's Sensoron was so popular among young people. While ostensibly 
a critique of individualism in Japanese society, Kobayashi's text was 
popular precisely to the degree it offered to people who feel so empty a 
means of "certain" self definition: the State and the Nation (and with 
it, a valorization of WWII).  Trying to figure out why young people would 
find such a text attractive, Tsuchiya picked Amamiya and Ito and starting 
filming.

What is interesting about Tsuchiya's position is that, unlike Anno 
Hideaki, who just wants to reassure people they are needed, Tsuchiya 
wants to explore the possibilities of people defining themselves by 
themselves such that they won't need to depend on the State, the Nation, 
enjo kosai, or the camera for personal definition. The group of three in 
The New God is presented as such a model: a small community defined by 
mutual communication and mutual recognition of difference (sounds a bit 
like Habermas).  Instead of trying to convince Amamiya and Ito that they 
are wrong (the New Left response) he rather tries to establish 
communication and mutual recognition with them that will eventually make 
it unnecessary for them to rely on the Nation to define themselves.  
While this is not achieved at the end--Amamiya, in what becomes 
Tsuchiya's critique of the basis of personal documentary, declares she 
needs the camera or she'll become nothing--Tsuchiya spoke of his feeling 
that the tape opened up a way out--an uncertain and still undefined way 
out, but still a way out.

Importantly, this way out is not simply personal, but also political.  It 
is a means of getting out of both this otaku-like self-enclosed world, 
and the political impasse which has led many youth to reject politics 
precisely because it does not speak to their contemporary malaise.  In a 
reformulation of the personal as political, Tsuchiya emphasized that he 
believes these small reconstitutions of community and communication can 
and will change society.

It is very refreshing and encouraging, and I certainly sympathize with 
Tsuchiya's efforts (which are, I think, in different ways shared by other 
directors), but it is also very ill-defined and perhaps overly 
optimistic.  As I discussed with him after our interview, there are many 
contemporary films that similarly see the need for the formation of these 
alternative communities, but in these other works most of them are 
temporary and break apart immediately.  There seems to be too many 
problems for anything secure to be constructed.  Compared to Tsuchiya, a 
lot of contemporary fiction films seem more pessimistic, portraying 
through beaches and other liminal spaces the desire for a way out, but 
always ending simply with the liminal experience, without the final 
escape.  Those like Tsuchiya and Aoyama who reject pessimism must often 
do so on faith--in others and in the self--without certainty or 
confidence. (I think Aoyama is an interesting comparative text for 
Tsuchiya: less political in terms of national issues, but still focusing 
on personal relations as a sociopolitical issue within contemporary 
history.)  But one still wonders if Tsuchiya has fully taken in all the 
problems (or has he chosen optimism precisely because to be political 
demands a forward-looking stance?).

There are some problems with the film, but instead of just noting my 
points, I'd like to quote some comments made by the Korean director Byun 
Young-joo, who saw the film with Markus and me and who talked with me at 
the closing party.  Since the film deals with nationalists who valorize 
WWII and has a scene where Amamiya visits North Korea, I was very 
interested in what some of the directors from other Asian countries felt. 
 Anyway, her comments were basically as follows:

1. This was a fascinating, entertaining love story

2. She wonders what the significance was of Japanese audiences laughing 
at right-wingers.  What's going on there?  What about the tape's 
encouragement of that?  (A very perceptive and interesting comment.)

3. She still wonders what Tsuchiya's position is in all these images.  (A 
valid point.  While Tsuchiya rightly is trying to present a model of his 
community of communication and difference in the tape by toning down his 
point of view and letting Amamiya and Ito speak, he nonetheless edited it 
(and his editing skills are good) and the work bears his name.  While it 
would be wrong to ask him to stand on the soap box (though I think Byun 
was hoping for a bit more of that--he barely makes any comments at all in 
some sequences), I think he still has to make clear his position as the 
figure putting this all together--especially since the tape itself is 
supposed to represent some kind of way out.  What are the power relations 
here?)

But still, I think this is a very important film. Remember that it was 
Kawase Naomi who won the same prize at YIDFF 95 Tsuchiya did: the 
FIPRESCI Special Mention.  (Tsuchiya mentioned he's interested in doing a 
fiction film, but not, he cautioned, because he wants to "graduate" to 
feature film.)  I wouldn't hop on Markus's band wagon with the same 
enthusiasm, in part because I think a lot of other directors are working 
on the same issues and problems, but The New God has to be recognized as 
a major work of the 1990s.

Aaron Gerow
Associate Professor
International Student Center
Yokohama National University
79-1 Tokiwadai
Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama 240-8501
JAPAN
E-mail: gerow at ynu.ac.jp
Phone: 81-45-339-3170
Fax: 81-45-339-3171