Yamagata: sidebars

[Abe' Mark Nornes]

One of the things to look forward to at Yamagata are the sidebars.

The event that stood above the rest this year was the Joris Ivens
retrospective, which brought together all of his major films and many minor
ones. There were unusual selections, like showing the Hemingway and Welles
versions of _Spanish Earth_ back to back. I was most impressed by the
quality of the prints, especially for the early films. I've never
particularly liked _Rain_ that much, but after seeing a pristine print taken
from the original negative I understand why it made such a splash. It was
stunning, moving. This sidebar also had an amazing catalog, with essays and
interviews covering every period in his life. These included a discussion
between Loridan (Iven's wife and collaborator) and Ogawa Shinsuke, coverage
of his visit to Japan and Sanrizuka, and an interview with Ivens about his
anti-Japan films during WWII (particularly the _Know Your Enemy: Japan_
episode). The catalogs very nearly sold out, so if you want one get it soon!
I hope the festival reprints it, because it's something that should go into
libraries as so little is available in English about the director.

The film that will be of greatest interest to KineJapan readers is probably
_The 400 Million_. Usually, Capra's _Why We Fight Series_ is credited with
establishing the prototype for the World War II era propaganda film.
However, a comparison of Iven's film with, say, _Battle of China_ would make
it clear that Capra, Knight and company were working off a model they were
borrowing from Ivens. It could be possible that historians that set this
discourse into motion were more inclined to credit Capra the great American
rather than Ivens the notorious Communist. (As an aside, if there was a
weakness to the catalog and the sections of the event I saw, it is only that
it did not adequately deal with the controversies that continue to swirl
around Ivens and his relationship to communism...some of which go so far as
to implicate Ivens in assassination.)

The other reason _400 Million_ is of current interest is that one of the
recent historical revisionists has used the film to attack the famous Robert
Capa photograph of a baby sitting in a bombed out Shanghai trainstation as a
fraud (Capa was on the production team with Ivens.) The photograph is
usually presented as an orphan, all alone, found on a platform crying,
evidence of Japanese atrocity. The revisionist points out that in Ivens'
film you can see someone place the baby on the platform. It's a silly,
meaningless attack, but it got the man press.

In any case, the Iven's retrospective as a great event, especially for Japan
where these films have rarely if ever been shown. For this reason, there was
a core group that spent their entire time watching Ivens films and skipping
the rest of the festival!

Another event was on video activism, and was organized by Video Act! This is
where the Tsuchimoto tape was shown, along with other tapes connected to
Video Act! Much of this event was devoted to a comparison of Korean and
Japanese manifestations of video activism. For the Korean side, they invited
representatives of PARN, most notably Kim Dong Won. I guess the conclusion
would have to be that the model is coming from Paper Tiger, although neither
country has established the kind of inroads to broadcast television that the
Americans have via public access.  Video Act! is concentrating on creating a
distribution outlet which is probably a good strategy since its one of the
biggest problems with the non-theatrical scene in Japan (they are selling
tapes---globally---via the internet, and we have a link to their catalog on
Kinema Club). As for Korea, they are excited about the jump in technical
quality made possible by digital cameras and non-linear editing, but are
obviously beginning to deal with the impact of a looser political system on
the one hand and the fall of the Soviet Union on the other.

One of the most interesting events was the encounter between Cinema Juku and
Full Shot (the festival published a nice catalogue that discusses both
collectives). The latter is a group led by Wu Yii-feng in Taiwan, and is
quite a lively crowd of young filmmakers. Wu was inspired to Ogawa Shinsuke
to create a group that nutured young documentarists. Cinema Juku is Hara
Kazuo's effort to bring a new generation of documentary filmmakers to the
fore. He's been doing this for the last few years, organizing events around
Japan around various themes and with visits by major film directors, stars,
and cameramen. The Yamagata event marked the premiere of Hara's new film,
made "collectively" with his Cinema Juku. Like the video activism event,
they compared the situations and works of the two groups; this comparison
was quite a bit more revealing, and I don't think it left Hara feeling very
happy.

Hara's new film is called _My Mishima_ and was made through the auspices of
Hagi City, which sponsored many Cinema Juku through their own local film
festival. The idea was to bring in a bunch of young people, almost in a kind
of summer camp situation, and make a 16mm film about Mishima Island, which
is actually part of Hagi. After sessions on filmmaking skills, the students
went out to the island to do research. They'd come back with writtten
reports and Hara would determine if the material was usable for the film.
They then shot and edited the film together.

During the discussion, the story behind the "collectivity" and
"togetherness" started coming into focus,  mostly because of surprisingly
harsh criticism from the Taiwanese side. I think Hara and Cinema Juku people
were somewhat taken aback their candor. Actually, word is spreading in the
film community here that _My Mishima_ is not up to Hara's usual level, and I
have to admit that it doesn't have the edge of his other films. In this
sense, it shows the desires and influences of the younger people working
with him. They wanted a film that dealt with issues that many Japanese can
identify with, leaving one's hometown and mother behind for a new life in
far away cities. There are interesting scenes where 10 to 20 young people
express, in a single shot, their dreams for the future (which usually have
to do with leaving Mishima) and their relationship to their hometown.
However, as the Taiwanese pointed out, the film is weakened because it
doesn't explain _why_ people are leaving. A rep from Hagi film festival
revealed some structural reasons, like taxes and public funding, that make
life on the island unattractive, adding fuel to the Taiwanese fire. Put
another way, the Taiwanese wanted politics, which is exactly what the young
Japanese filmmakers were trying to avoid.

Hara and co. tried to defend themselves, but kept falling back on the issue
of *generational difference.* Hara talked about how he's always criticizing
the young people that attend Cinema Juku, trying to provoke them and tease
them out of complacency and silence. (This is a story one often hears from
university professors in Japan, by the way.) But his students keep quitting,
making continuity difficult, and making the generation gap seem
insurmountable. The Taiwanese berated Hara for criticizing his own students
like that, but they couldn't appreciate how problematic the relationship is
between Japanese youth and the World...a paralyzing situation for anyone
aspiring to create documentaries. There was almost a feeling of dispair on
the Cinema Juku side, in contrast to the energy and optimism of the Full
Shot side.

That night, everybody made up in a party that lasted until breakfast, and it
gave me a chance to talk to everyone at length. 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?