Plugs and Postman Pat

[Gavin Rees]

I should thank Stephen for pointing out that I had an interview with Miike
in the Guardian.

It is in Q and A because that is the format that they required.
It is more or less as I wrote it, except a few crucial things got subbed
out. The first question originally read. "Some might be tempted to see
Audition as a morality tale about what happens to men who try and trick or
control women." It is a bit different to the printed: "Some might be tempted
to see Audition as a morality tale."

In the interview Miike was very keen to dismiss the idea that the film was
in a way a critique of the gender order of Japan, but was instead more
concerned with common psychological pitfalls and pressures which he thinks
both men and women are subject to. I think that is interesting because lots
of Western reviewers have assumed that the film is all about gender;
presumably because they associate Japan, rightly or wrongly with a militant
patriarchy. Miike said that when I talked to him that both the descent of
Aoyama the middle aged video producer and his muse Asami into their own
little hells, he said he felt that they had both had at the outset entirely
reasonable expectations and hopes.

I should apologise a little for the article skewed so much towards a
discussion of violence in his films. I would have much rather talked about
Miike's talents as a film maker, but you know, a discussion of film making
per se is practically unprintable in main stream newspapers over here now.
The standard format is "film maker as hero, or embodiment of successful life
style choice". It is all celebrity interviews in which you are supposed to
write about how palpable x or y's sex appeal is. Soon that will be true of
every kind of interview, even the gardening ones. (It has already happened
in cooking.)

As for the digits issue. I am write in saying that lots of Japanese cartoon
characters have mitten style hands? Or is that fanciful?  I have certainly
read that the MGM Disney rule was always four fingers not five on the basis
that drawing 5 made the characters had bunches of bananas strapped to their
wrists.





----------
>From: "Stephen Cremin" <asianfilmlibrary at mac.com>
>To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
>Subject: Plugs and Postman Pat
>Date: Sun, Mar 18, 2001, 4:06 pm
>

> List member Gavin Rees interviews Miike Takashi in the weekly Guide of
> Britain's Guardian newspaper:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4153644,00.html
>
> AUDITION was released on Friday and managed to make Film of the Week in the
> Guardian which is extremely rare for an Asian film, particularly for an
> Asian film not directed by Wong Kar-wai, Kitano or Ang Lee:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4152739,00.html
>
> While we're at it, here's Pete Tombs article in The Guardian last year which
> touches on Miike:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4052532,00.html
>
> A few pages before Gavin's review in The Guide is an article on yakuza which
> I can't find a link for.  Well, article leads with a statement along the
> lines that Postman Pat and Bob the Builder cartoons had to be modified in
> Japan because they both lacked digits on their hands!  Sounded completely
> made-up to me, until reading the rest of the article which proved well
> researched: for example, the writer certainly knows who Guts Ishimatsu is.
> Is there any truth to this?  Hasn't there been a great tradition of US
> cartoon characters with four digits going back at least to Mickey, because
> five digits was just too octopussy.  How many digits do Japanese anime
> characters have?  Has April Fools Day come early?
>
> Stephen
>