Uncertainty/unrepresentability

[M Arnold]

Two comments I wanted to make:

>Re: Query: Japanese-Foreigners Love affairs/ai-no-ko

I started wondering about a related issue a few weeks ago.  I've watched a 
few films recently that have dealt with foreigners and ethnicity to some 
extent, and was wondering if any of you had comments to make on their use of 
'others', especially in the context of Ishihara's recent remarks and the 
Apr. 29 NPA report about crimes by foreigners in Japan increasing.  The 
films:  "Nihon Kuro Shakai," "Blues Harp" and "Junk Food."

Aaron Gerow <gerow at ynu.ac.jp>:

>This relates to the aversion against sixties or seventies
>politics many young people hold today: it all seems like preaching >based 
>on certainties which no longer exist today.  That does not >mean that 
>anything goes, but rather that the point is to in some >ways return to 
>ground zero and try to build up values and >relationships on your own in 
>relation to present-day lived >experience.  That I think is a common theme 
>in the better work >that's coming out these days.

Did anyone else see "The New God" (?V?????_?l) last Saturday at the Tokyo 
showing (was it Box Nakano)?  The director Tsuchiya and the other two... 
actors? participants? musicians? from the film came in for a brief statement 
at the end.  Tsuchiya discussed the documentary's reception in some of the 
other countries and festivals it's visited and touched on the ambiguity of 
the movie's 'message' in the end in relation to different audiences' 
interpretations.  One comment I made a mental note of (hope my memory serves 
me right) was when he was discussing today's Japanese youth, saying they are 
struggling to find some ideology to believe in (a "new god").  (The film 
itself is perhaps more commentary on that struggle than an anti-soandso wing 
critique.)  He mentioned the current trend in 60s and 70s political films, 
including Adachi and the recent retrospective, as another part of this 
struggle to try to rediscover a 'cause'.

This idea of working independently and not relying on ideology to find your 
own values was an important point in "The New God" as well.

>things.  The problem then for cinema is how to deal with this 
> >unrepresentability: to acknowledge it while also to try to build 
> >structures (moral or cinematic) which enable representation amidst >the 
>impossibility of certainty, and facilitate contact/communication >with the 
>Other, that most unknowable of entities.

Maybe this ties into my question about the 'others' in the 3 films above?

>Some interested in these issues of representing the young generation
>might want look at the interview I did with Tsuchiya Yutaka in

Very interested.

P.S.  The TV version was very straightforward, but I thought the ending of 
the "Evangelion" film was anything but simplistic.  Did I miss something?

Mike A
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