New Books on Japanese Cinema and Pesaro F. F.

Michele Faggi meffe
Mon Jul 9 20:49:13 EDT 2001


.......yes i think it's a difficult thing to operate a choice trough new 
Japanese cinema, to built a festival.

In Italy Works and movies by Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Miike Takashi
  (we know) are available only for DVD or VCD market, for others (like 
Ishii Sogo for esample) is difficult to find subtitled material.

I think that the Pesaro Selection can be integrated with the volume edited 
by Lindau that has many interesting essays and an important "Glossary" 
about some of the most important directors ot the last ten years in Japan.

I was in pesaro and i think that what Roland say about budget is true, but 
i think in another way that is a problem that can be vievew also in how 
budget(s) are distributed.
For example, one of the most important space of the Festival (the 
screenings in Piazza del popolo) was haunted by works that "must" create 
"the event !" but that i think (except for Kao/face, the korean Barking 
dogs never bite, unagi by Imamura S., probably no man's land...but i'm not 
so sure !!!!) was not so important for the festival and for research.

.....far east festival is probably wildest, liminal etc etc out of a 
"normal" kind of organization, but it tends to show "everything" in "every" 
format.

This edition of Pesaro F F it was important, sure, but i think that this 
kind of festival has the limit that is to show  a sort of "packet" well 
configured and sometimes too much "configured".

I mean the problem remains: if you read some of the articles appeared in 
italian webzine about Pesaro film festival and the "situation" of japanese 
cinema, you can realize that these pple don't know the existence of 
Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Miike Takashi, ishii sogo etc etc etc.

so, i hope someone out there will be able to built a festival that fill 
this hole.


sorry for my bad english :=))

Michele Faggi





I

> > Well, if this was the plan, I cannot explain myself the absence in 
> Pesaro of
> > important directors who still have to be discovered in Italy: it's hard to
> > organize a discussion upon the renaissance of Japanese Cinema without the
> > presence (whether in the flesh or with their movies) of Kurosawa Kiyoshi,
> > Kawase Naomi, Shiota Akihiko, Kurosawa Kiyoshi, Fukasaku Kinji (yes, 
> he's 70, but
> > his are films that shock, grab and disturb the viewer, in fact his last
> > "Battle Royale" was originally scheduled in Pesaro). Spagnoletti himself
> > mentioned this introducing the symposium; he spoke about some unexpected
> > obstacles in receiving all the Japanese films planned for the festival.
>
>Well, I think this criticism is a little carping. There will always be
>important names missing in a program that tries to present a film nation as
>productive and diverse as Japan with 20 films. Even if the retrospective had
>comprised of twice as many films it would still have shown only a portion of
>what is currently going on in Japanese cinema.
>Considering the limitations of the festival - both logistically (there was
>only one cinema available to show the films properly) and financially (all
>foreign language films, even those with English subtitles, were shown with
>electronic Italian subtitle projection and I guess that the translations had
>consumed a considerable portion of the festival's budget) - and taking into
>account how difficult it nowadays can be to get all the films you want to
>show, it is off the point to complain that certain names or films were
>missing.
>
>I for my part enjoyed the Pesaro festival exactly because the program was
>not too extensive. If there are too many films, perhaps shown at the same
>time, I often end up regretting to see the one film and not the other,
>instead of just enjoying the films. True, some films are more interesting
>than others, but that's only a question of personal preferences.
>
>Beside the Japanese Cinema Today tribute and the retrospective of Mario
>Monicelli, one of the masters of Italian comedy, who for more than five
>decades convulsed Italian audiences but who is little known outside of his
>country, this years program presented the films of Romuald Karmakar, one of
>the most controversial and uncompromising young German filmmakers, and a
>selection of video-works by British filmmaker Chris Petit (among others
>'Negative spaces', a marvelous video with and about
>painter/carpenter/filmcritic Manny Farber and the state of film criticism),
>as well as a birthday-hommage to the french filmmagazine Cahier de Cinema
>that also included two Japanese films, Oshima's Ninja bugeicho and
>Teshigahara's Suna no onna (the last one in a deplorable 16 mm copy).
>
>A last word to Hara Masato. He came with his little son and his wife who
>also made the video Haratonic Letter, in which both discuss the (then) new
>law concerning the national flag and anthem. Since the video had no
>subtitles the inter-titles were read in Italian and the conversation of the
>two reenacted by Hara and his wife themselves in (broken) English. It was a
>very funny happening (they propose to make John Lennon's song Imagine the
>new Japanese anthem) that the handful of visitors thoroughly enjoyed. After
>the screening Hara was beaming as he was the day before when he was circling
>the empty Piazza at noon with the tandem he had brought from the beach (two
>friendly policemen pointed out that using the tandem is allowed only in the
>beach area, but they finally gave up, probably because Hara was just too
>happy).

-----------------------------------------------------
......state of emergency.....
......how beautiful to be!.....
......state of emergency.....
......is where i want to be.....
---------------------------------------Bjork----- 





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