firefly dreams

[Aaron Gerow]

Here's my review from the Daily Yomiuri (August 23, 2001):


Brit soars in 'Firefly'

               Aaron Gerow Special to The Daily Yomiuri

               FIREFLY DREAMS (ICHIBAN

               UTSUKUSHII NATSU) 

               Dir: John Williams

               Cast: Maho, Yoshie Minami,

               Tsutomu Niwa, Etsuko Kimata

               We have a sometimes-annoying tendency to look at films in
               terms of their nationality. If it's a "Japanese" movie,
               there's always a compulsion to look for the
               "Japaneseness" defining that film.

               That quest, however, is often pointless. Motion pictures
               have been a global medium from their inception; the
               people who make them, the money that funds them and the
               films themselves have criss-crossed borders without end.
               What's the point in calling the American-made Psycho by
               the British-born Hitchcock either "British" or
               "American"? Either way, the film is still just as scary.

               Even Japan cannot seal its cinema off from such
               international tendencies. Just as Mie Hama got to be a
               Bond girl, a number of non-Japanese directors, from Josef
               von Sternberg (Anatahan) to Jean-Pierre Limosin (Tokyo
               Eyes) have made films in Japan. Why should we make their
               films mere footnotes in our discussions of Japanese, or
               even world cinema?

               The Brit John Williams is another figure to add to the
               list of foreign filmmakers in Japan. But unlike his
               predecessors, who often came to Japan as established
               directors, Firefly Dreams is his debut work. Perhaps
               that's one reason the movie is so fresh and free of
               preconceptions about its Japanese subject--about the
               nationality of its cinema.

               The story begins with a situation possibly out of a
               television wide show.

               Naomi (played by newcomer Maho) is a dyed-blonde Nagoya
               highschooler who is truant, rebellious toward her parents
               and on the verge of selling her body to support her
               shopping and playing habits. When her mother, whom she's
               hated for having an affair, finally leaves home, Naomi is
               sent off to temporarily live with her father's sister who
               runs a small inn in the country.

               The boondocks are a far cry from the urban streets, as
               Naomi is forced to work at the inn and play companion to
               her mentally challenged cousin (Etsuko Kimata). Matters
               change, however, when her aunt asks Naomi to visit their
               elderly relative Koide (played by renowned actress Yoshie
               Minami).

               The solitary Koide is slowly going senile, and needs
               someone to check in on her once a day. The trip to
               Koide's aged house is long, and at times, the elderly
               woman does not always remember who Naomi is, but still,
               the blonde kogyaru begins to enjoy her visits.

               It's not simply because Koide lets her smoke and drink
               beer (which her uncle does not), or because her house
               offers refuge after a failed romance with a womanizing
               delivery boy. Perhaps for the first time, Naomi begins to
               see herself in another person, whom she cares for dearly.

               Rummaging around the house, Naomi learns that Koide was
               not your regular country girl. Fading photos reveal that
               she was a movie actress before the war, the epitome of
               the fashionable urbanite who even starred in a film
               titled Valley of the Fireflies. While she was just as
               urban as Naomi, her experience was a painful one, so much
               that Koide refuses to talk about the past. Nonetheless,
               she can see in Naomi a young version of herself, musing
               that it would have been splendid if they were born at the
               same time.

               The relationship between these two women, bridging
               different ages and locations, functions as the center of
               the film, but what distinguishes Williams' sure but
               unaffected direction is how it refuses to confine this
               simple story to stereotypical frameworks.

               In these days of antisocial youth, one could easily
               imagine this becoming a story of a young girl who learns
               the error of her ways through encountering the good old
               life of the country. Or a vision through foreign eyes of
               a more natural, Japanese form of existence that can heal
               the wounded souls of Western modernists.

               Firefly Dreams is thankfully free of such cliches, making
               Naomi's recovery less a matter of encountering "Japan,"
               than of meeting an eccentric individual who helps Naomi
               accept herself as a historical individual.

               Interestingly, this is a process Williams ties to cinema
               and, in the process, to death and memory. While Koide
               rejects her memories (although she's already at the point
               of losing many of them due to senility), Naomi wants to
               dig up Koide's past, even though she herself seems only
               to live in the present. It is only with Koide's death,
               and a connection between her cinematic past and Naomi's
               memories of her father, that Naomi finally comes to terms
               with mortality, time and history.

               It is these issues, both universal and individual--and
               not national labels such as "Japanese" or "British"--that
               make Firefly Dreams special.

               The movie is currently playing.


Aaron Gerow
Associate Professor
International Student Center
Yokohama National University
79-1 Tokiwadai
Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama 240-8501
JAPAN
E-mail: gerow at ynu.ac.jp
Phone: 81-45-339-3170
Fax: 81-45-339-3171