Ogawa / Hammer

[M Arnold]

I thought I'd share a few very short comments about the films I saw today.

I just got back from watching Barbara Hammer's "Devotion" at Box Higashi 
Nakano.  It was extremely interesting... not quite what I expected, and 
probably not what most of the other people in the audience expected either.  
Before I get to that though, early this afternoon I went back to Athenee 
Francais to see two more Ogawa documentaries.  Honestly it was a bit of a 
chore, as the combined time of the two films was 4 and a half hours, and the 
fast-paced dialogue was pretty hard for me to follow, but I'm very glad I 
went.  I really wish I could go back and see more of the films before they 
disappear again, but I can't spend the whole weekend in Ochanomizu.  A.F. 
has this nasty habit of being closed on Sundays too.

The first film this afternoon was "Paruchizan zenshi" (1969), produced by 
Ogawa Pro but directed by Tsuchimoto Noriaki of "Minamata" fame.  It 
documented, as the title suggests, (trying to paraphrase what I re-read in 
Desser the other day) the origins of the Partisan movement in the Kyoto 
student protests of the late 1960s.  Tsuchimoto did a good job of depicting 
the violence of the student movement--while most of the Ogawa films I've 
seen take the side of the farmers or students and show violence mostly on 
the side of the police, this film showed the students' half of the action as 
well; practicing marches and "attack" drills, making Molotov cocktails out 
of coke bottles, and confronting the police.  I don't know how intentional 
this was but I came out wondering, "what in the world were those people 
thinking?"  I did have some trouble following the theory and speeches about 
revolution and violence though, so maybe there was some explanation that I 
missed.

After that ended I went out for a quick coffee and returned for "Nihon kaiho 
sensen: Sanrizuka" (1970).  Out of the four Ogawa Pro movies I saw this time 
this one was particularly interesting.  Part of the reason was the wonderful 
color photography, headed by none other than Tamura Masaki (he did this and 
the following 5 Sanrizuka films).  I'm not picky about the use or non use of 
color in film, but in this case the brown dirt, dark blue police troopers' 
uniforms and the farmer wives' pink cheeks added a lot to the "life" of the 
story.  Tamura's style was very visible.  The camera wandered around from 
the interviewees' faces to their hands and back, slowly in and out of focus, 
so the image kept one's interest as well.  Like some of the other films 
there were several scenes of farmer-police confrontations and long scenes of 
farmers just talking about this and that, discussions between farmers who 
"gave up" and decided to sell and those who were still fighting.  Also like 
the other Sanrizuka films it became tedious at times.  Three or four of the 
people in front of me kept nodding off to sleep during the film.

There were a couple of things I was wondering about while watching the films 
today.  One is something that's been bugging me for quite a while now--the 
sound.  Most of the sound in the Sanrizuka films is unsynchronized with the 
visuals.  You can see soundmen carrying microphones in the footage, and 
obviously it is "real" audio from the same scene, but it's rarely matched 
with what we're seeing.  Sometimes, like in a few scenes in "Paruchizan 
zenshi," the sound seems to be off by only a few seconds.  Is there any 
practical reason for this?  Is it much cheaper to edit documentary films 
with the sound unsynchronized?  This seems common in Japanese films through 
the 70s and 80s at least (Masumura, Oshima, Suzuki Seijun, Roman Porno, even 
some of the recent Zeze Takahisa videos I saw this week) but it shows up in 
a lot of documentary as well.  I remember watching "Kyokushiteki eros 
koiuta: 1974" a few years ago and the sound and visuals were so disconnected 
I wondered if they had re-recorded the audio afterwards in a studio or 
something.

The other thing has to do with the women.  Something I see again and again 
in the Sanrizuka films is the line of farmer women, arms linked together, 
blocking the road, chaining themselves to the blockade or yelling insults at 
the (mostly young) armed police troops.  "Go home you little pig!  Your 
mother would be ashamed of you!"  And so on.  In "Paruchizan zenshi" it was 
very hard to pick women students out of the protesters.  Sometimes there 
would be one or two marching with the men, other times one might be seen 
painting a slogan on a wall or chatting with the boys.  In all of the films 
they seemed to have a fairly secondary, supplementary role to the men, who 
were out actually fighting with the police and doing the "hard" work.  I 
remember reading something back in college--I think it was Apter and 
Sawa--that said despite the "social" and human rights focus of the 
Ampo/Sanrizuka movement, women were still cooking and serving tea to the 
men.  I think Ueno Chizuko wrote something similar, that the Ampo movements 
never really dealt with the issues of women's human rights.  For some reason 
this stuck out in my head while watching the films this afternoon.

After "Sanrizuka" I headed to Higashi Nakano.  Wakamatsu Koji and Adachi 
Masao had a short discussion before the showing of "Devotion."  They talked 
about their differences and similarities to the Ogawa style of political 
filmmaking.  They debated the point of whether or not film directors are 
"emperors," and the possibilities of true group (or should I say 
democratic?) filmmaking.  (Adachi did say that he is planning on making 
films in the future, by the way.)  Adachi seemed a little perplexed by 
Hammer's documentary.  I don't think he felt it was an accurate picture of 
the Ogawa group and their activities.  He said that the film cut the 
interviewees apart from each other and stuck them back together like an 
assorted sashimi plate.  He reminded the audience a couple of times that 
Barbara Hammer comes from a "lesbian feministo" point of view and that 
strongly affected the film.  He repeated this comment about the Hammer's 
"lez-feminist" orientation at the end.  I think the word he used to describe 
it was "bukimi" (eerie, weird).  He said it's a "new ideology" (atarashii 
shiso).  "Benkyo shita ho ga ii yo."  I think he was being facetious.  
Everyone laughed, anyway.

Hammer's film was wonderful.  In contrast to the idealism of the Ogawa films 
and the sometimes stuffy atmosphere that surrounds these classic documents 
of Japanese documentary filmmaking, her movie was like a hard slap in the 
face.  In the span of 80 minutes the "emperor" Mr. Ogawa was reduced to 
something of a sexist egomaniac who sacrificed his crew, their families, and 
of course all the women nearby for the cause of his filmmaking.  How did he 
do it?  Because he was a very motivated, very attractive man and they all 
loved him.  Even though he sometimes lied about his past and his education, 
and constantly insulted the people working with him.  Somebody along the way 
said that if it weren't for the films they were making, they might have 
ended up in a cult-like mass suicide (!).

Honestly though this was a much more human portrait of the man than the 
information I've gotten from watching the films and reading film history 
books.  Hammer truly has a talent in documentary.  She made the picture 
speak as much as the people, she dug deep into the relationships and history 
behind Ogawa Pro, and her timing was impeccable.  To her credit she gave an 
equal voice to many of the "hidden" women that were left cooking and 
cleaning in the wake of the group's ambition, even though their comments 
weren't very forgiving.  It also must have been the "lez-fem" ideology in 
action when she probed the men for ideas on their "love" for Ogawa, and the 
gnot physically but spiritually homoerotich relationships they had working 
together.  (Some of the pictures she put on the screen here were just 
perfect.)  Oshima Nagisa is quoted in the film saying that he dearly wanted 
to make a movie about the "homosocial" environment of Ogawa Productions.  
One thing I wonder is why she wasn't able to interview Tamura Masaki for the 
film.  The closest she got was an old black and white clip of him holding a 
big camera saying, "Yes it's a bit heavy for me.  I imagine it would be just 
right for a gaijin though."

"Devotion" had a 2000 date on it.  Has it been screened in many places 
outside of Japan?  While I'm at it, what is the availability for Ogawa films 
outside of Japan?  What is available in America?  I'd really like to see 
more of these films but the only time they seem to show up is the occasional 
retrospective at Athenee Francais.  Are there any other good places around 
Tokyo to look for showings of Ogawa's work?

Thanks,
Michael Arnold

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