Koroshiya 1 / Ogawa / Eiga no Tabi

[M Arnold]

A week or so ago there was some talk about Miike's "Koroshiya 1", mostly 
negative if I remember, but it piqued my curiousity and I decided to go see 
the film at Image Forum in Shibuya (another Shibuya "art" theater that's 
built more like a concrete mausoleum than a place to watch films).  I always 
regret talking about a movie I've only seen once, but I liked this one, 
mostly.  I hope people don't remember what I wrote about "Battle Royale" and 
get the wrong idea about my tastes in film.  There surely was a lot of 
violence, but ultimately I think there was something interesting happening 
in the story, especially at the end.  The rest of the audience seemed to get 
caught up in it too; when the film and credits ended there were a few 
seconds of silence before people gathered their wits and started to get out 
of their seats.  I think if I had walked out half way through the movie it 
would have made much less of an impression on me, and in that sense I could 
say that the movie might have needed tighter editing, but most of the 
violence was so cheap-looking and "cartoony" that it was hard to get 
seriously offended--or turned on--anyway (I think that was the point).  The 
tongue scene was a little unsettling though.

I'm not much of a Miike fan.  I was just talking to a friend the other day 
about how, after seeing 7 or 8 of Miike's films, I still can't understand 
why the guy is getting so much attention.  You always read reviews talking 
about how quickly he makes movies--cheap and mass produced, sounding like a 
stereotype about Japanese cars or something--but it's harder to get a 
reading on the guts of his stories.  Anyway this is the most interesting 
thing I've seen from him so far, and I'm thinking about going back into his 
filmography again to see if I've been missing something.

I don't think there's been much mention here of the Ogawa Shinsuke retro 
going on at Athenee Francais now.  They've been running through 20+ films in 
the Ogawa Pro filmography since the 25th of last month, and the program 
continues until the 15th.  I left work early yesterday and took a day off 
today so I could go see "Gennin hokokusho" last night and "Paruchizan 
zenshi" and "Nihon kaiho senzen: sanrizuka" this afternoon.  Barbara 
Hammer's documentary on Ogawa Pro is playing the late show at Box Higashi 
Nakano right now as well (until the 15th).  About once a week they're having 
guest speakers come to the film.  Tonight (2/8) is Adachi Masao and 
Wakamatsu Koji.  I'll try to be there too.

One last thing.  When I was at A.F. yesterday I picked up a flyer for 
"2001-nen: Eiga no Tabi".  This is something of an omnibus video made up of 
three parts:  "2001 eiga to tabi" dir. Kurosawa Kiyoshi (15 min), 
"Shinsekai" dir. Sakamoto Junji (18 min) and "Sude ni oita kanojo no subete 
ni tsuite wa kataranu tame ni" dir. Aoyama Shinji (51 min).  This will be 
playing at Athenee Francais for five days from 2/26 to 3/2.

Michael Arnold

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