Love & Pop -- extended re-mix

[Naguib Razak]

Thank you Aaron & Mark for their sparkling commentary/debate so far ... i
certainly hope KineJapan continues having such keen yet level-headed
discussions as this ...

coming back to the disparate approaches of Iwai & Aoyama, i have always
taken a similar stance as Aaron with regards to the role a film can and
should play in informing, provoking & inspiring its audience instead of
merely affirming the illussions and hollow stereotypes that are already
pervasive in their lives ... i have always felt that films, like literature
and art, should be a factor of change rather than perpetuation ...

but experiences in recent years has forced me to rethink that position, not
in the least of which was the absolutely bewildering and disconcerting
experience of standing at that remarkable 6-way crossroads at the heart of
Shibuya ... and it was exactly that -- a strange crossroads, of cultures and
sensibilities, of expression and denial, of interaction and isolation ...
and though the island of Shibuya, the greater ocean of Japan is extremely
unique in its obsessions and preoccupations, i could not help but see some
of this same crossroads of experiences paralysing and afflicting the young
people in my own city of Kuala Lumpur ... we too have our version of Enjo
Kosai, (perhaps more pathetic or less pathetic, i can not tell) the girls
here would give up their bodies (and i don't mean in participatory spirit)
for a thrill ride on motorbike or a couple of dollars of change ... but i
digress ...

the thing is ... the impact of this over-saturation of mass media, from the
heaps of television channels to the tonnes of magazines, the hundreds of
musical styles to myriad characters in comics/mangas, the constant cycle of
iconistic imageries in films to the millions of permutations of interaction
through the internet is leaving the younger generation (and even some older)
who haven't had such strong role models or values (traditional or modern,
conservative or radical) to anchor themselves, these younger generation are
benumbed by this cultural bombardment so much so that it has stopped being a
matter of choices or deliberation ... there are no points of entry for a
higher understanding nor a point of departure for self-revolution ... all
there is out there for these young people ... be they part of the enjo kosai
practice or some street urchin in Jakarta or a half-breed stuck in a
Parisien 'banlieu' ... is a sea of confusion, an ocean of conflicting values
....

for these people, the approach in films by Aoyama et al would cut very
little ice i imagine ... as opposed to the embarassingly fantastical
scenario of Evangelion ... in this same way, the beautiful yet tragic
realism in Kawabata Yasunari's novels will cut little ice with today's
youth, even though it speaks of the same confusion and marginalisation and
obsession that pervade in their lives ... but take Murakami Haruki on the
other hand, with his indulgent, inconsequential escapades up strange
elevators, down weird corridors, flirting and bedding his sexual fantasies,
rabbit's ears and sheepmen ... glib as he is, somehow he exist in the same
sea of confusion ...

what i am getting at is ... while i have always personally rejected the lack
of objectivity and purpose in those "Post-Modernistic" works that
deconstructs everything and leave nothing in its place ... Post-Modernism
has become a social reality and gone beyond its arbitrary status of
fashionable style/vogue of the arts & literature as well as post-modern/pop
culture ... (am i making any sense, here?) ...

going back to that crossroads in Shibuya ... i couldn't help but feel (and
it took me a whole month to figure out what i felt) that most pockets of
super-modern society have lost the "unity" or singularness of values,
purpose and identity ... perhaps it is out there, and some of us do have a
grasp of it (and can make powerful, insightful films about it) ... but for
those who don't, it is "all" just out there mixed-up with the red herrings,
trojan horses and mythical unicorns that has little purpose yet remain just
as essential as the truth serum could be, perhaps simply because it is
there, and it is all that they have ... somewhat like the eggs from the
imaginary chicken at the end of Woody Allen's Annie Hall ...

in this way, i feel i agree with Mark in suggesting that at this stage
perhaps "connecting", bringing about that certain "buzz" in their lives is
more important ... well, that's probably about the best we could do, we
so-called film intellectuals and film "belabourers" ... i certainly do not
want to lose my ability to connect with the younger generation, because like
it or not they will soon become the custodian of humanity ...

i hate it when i ramble on ... but i speak from the heart ...

thank you for listening, we return you now to the regular programming ...

Naguib

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
[mailto:owner-KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu]On Behalf Of Mark
Schilling
Sent: Friday, May 12, 2000 11:22 AM
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Re: Love & Pop


Aaron, as usual, found something pertinent and thoughtful to add to my
off-the-cuff comments, this time about the ability of Shunji Iwai to
connect to young audiences:

>Iwai might be able revive
> the industry (though I seriously wonder about that), but frankly its not
> a cinema that I want.  This is not simply a matter of taste: I don't
> think Iwai has thought about the cinematic or ideological implications of

> style to the extent other filmmakers have.

I'm not sure I want Iwai's cinema either -- I found "Swallowtail" more of
an extended music video than a film, whose reverse stereotyping of Asians
in Japan may have been intended as "positive" but impressed me as often
clueless, or outright offensive. Nonetheless, I remember the buzz in the
packed house at the Shibuya screening of "Love Letter" I attended -- and
how it struck me as qualitatively different from that at most other films
by young Japanese directors I had seen (though "buzz" isn't the right word
to describe the subdued, if not actually somnolent, atmosphere at the
screenings of these films).

That kind of stir and excitement is too seldom found among even dedicated
fans of Japanese films, for whom attending screenings is often like serving
an otaku obsession. ("I got to add that one to my collection"). I am
thinking of my own misspent youth in late sixties to mid-seventies, when I
went to see "2001," "Bonnie and Clyde," "Straw Dogs," "The Godfather" and
"Last Tango in Paris" with a tremendous sense of anticipation and even
anxiety -- as though this might the movie that changes everything and blows
my mind forever! (Well, it had already been blown, but no matter.) Those
films, whatever their respective merits, spoke to me and my generation
directly and urgently, in ways that mainstream Hollywood couldn't -- or
wouldn't.

As much as I admire the films of Aoyama, Kurosawa, Tsukamoto and others who
are working outside industry conventions, they haven't yet hit the same
kind of nerve with the wider audience, while Iwai, for all his faults, has.
I'm not asking them to imitate Iwai -- a bad idea in any case. I would be
happy, however, if a madly ambitious and talented under-forty were to
forget filling out the application to Taorima and instead knock a million
or so folks (including a few of us outlanders) flat with the brillance and
energy and orginality of his (or her) vision.

Mark Schilling
schill at gol.com