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
More information about the KineJapan
mailing list