Now that the festival season is upon us....

GavinRees@aol.com GavinRees
Fri Sep 3 03:07:42 EDT 1999


 Stephen Cremin wrote:

<< hugely 
disappointing debuts (and second films) from Hagiuda Koji, Saito Hisashi, 
Yamakawa Gen, etc.  (I guess I'm one of the few people who liked Isaka's 
"Detective Riko", although Suzuki Kazuma's Toyoetsu impression gets on the 
nerves once again.)>>

Stephen, when you are refering to Hagiuda Koji's film, do you mean the film  
given the English title of "Paradise Sea"? Admittedly it is a terrible title, 
but  I it had down as one of the best films I saw here last year. I suppose 
there is no accounting for my taste. It is a good thing I am not a festival 
programmer, as I might have just let it slip out into the open! 

I am sure it did lousy box office, however. For those who have not seen it is 
a slow moving account of the relationship between a young street performer / 
drop out, and an old man determined to spend his last savings on building a 
boat of a type which nobody uses anymore. I thought it had interesting things 
to say about the growing generational divide in Japan, and the way the young 
here are increasingly looking for new kinds of satisfaction from work. The 
young lead (can't remember his name of course) delivers a stunning 
performance. It has exactly the kind of naturalism that people on this list 
often lament the dissappearance of, ie of standard you find in an everday Ozu 
film.  I suppose it is very Ken Loach-like, just without the overblown plots. 

Going back to festival programming, and questions of individual taste: 
obviously all prorammers have their own agendas and their own standards by 
which they judge films for selection. This remark is not particularly aimed 
at Stephen who has done a great job in promoting interesting Japanese film in 
the UK, or for that matter at Tony Rayns, who has similarly brought lots of 
asian films to a wider public. But I can't help thinking that it might be 
better if there was more of an effort to make selection on a wider commitee 
basis. 

At the risk of starting a thread which may be politically foolish, it seems 
to me that non-Japanese programmers have an extroadinary power to dictate how 
Japan is percieved by non-Japanese audiences. Living in Tokyo, I keep on 
bumping into young Japanese film makers, who ask me, If I know Mr X, (a 
famous programmer?who I don't  think has ever lived in Japan), and who then, 
sometimes even go onto ask me, what kind of things does Mr X likes to see in 
the films that he?reccomends/programmes. I also meet film makers who accuse 
others of deliberately targetting their work at foreign critics, and even of 
employing Japanese ADs who have studied at Western film schools to act as 
consultants. I am not sure a lot of this is worth taking that seriously, but 
it does underline the emotions that are roused?when people are trying to get 
their work into festivals.  Entry into the Toronto Catalogue is very 
important, it guarantees that art cinema distributers and directors will have 
your name at their fingertips. 

This may be inevitable: somebody has got to put the effort into requiring all 
the specialist knowledge,  but I am not entirely sure that it is totally 
healthy. There are very good reasons why political organisations with public 
responsibilities do things by commitee. 

Any thoughts anybody?


Gavin Rees




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