Shinozaki, etc.

[joseph murphy]

The echo of Kunikida Doppo's well-known collection of sketches from the 
Meiji period, "Wasureenu Hitobito," typically translated "unforgettable 
people" is too close for me to shake.  I meant to ask Shinozaki if he 
intended it at the screening, what with the archaic "-nu" ending, but 
the taidan with Professor Fujii went on for most of the allotted time, 
and I didn't get a chance.  Do you know if he meant to allude to that?

As for the hysterical motif on t-shirts, I don't think I was suggesting 
that the word made its first appearance in Tokyo last month.  Rather, it 
seems to appear more often, and more strategically tied to female terms 
than I remember.  "Hysteric glamour" is one thing, "hysterical lady" or 
"hysterical girlfriend" another.  T-shirts seem a lot wordier in general 
these days than before, incorporating large chunks of English text 
scrolling down the entire front or back of the shirt, rather than a 
little jingle-like pair of words a la "Let's Active".  It used to be you 
read the advertising copy on the trains, now you read people's shirts.  
As for whether the incidence of "hysteric" and its various forms is 
indeed statistically more prevalent than before, as is my impression, or 
not so, as is yours, that would need to be determined by a Kon 
Wajiro-type longitudinal urban street ethnology, something marketing and 
advertising firms undoubtedly already have in place and functioning.  
I'm sure the data is out there.

The larger point is that, as much as I like Okaeri, it's another story 
about a sick wife, who begins with a modicum of financial and personal 
independence,is reduced to helplessness by mental illness and ends 
judged before doctors and collapsed into her husbands arms, who cradles 
her in his arms and tells her to shush.  Who's wish-fulfillment that 
might represent, I don't know. I think clinically it is a not at all 
careless representation of the onset of schizophrenia, but it stacks up 
with a number of motifs of longstanding in melodramatic fiction and 
film, cf. Laura Mulvey.
yours,
J. Murphy



The english-language title of Shinozaki Makoto's most recent film, 
"Wasurerarenu Hitobito", is *Not Forgotten*. It is not his first film 
since *Okaeri* -- he also made *Jam Session: The Official Bootleg of 
*Kikujiro**, a documentary about Kitano and the making of *Kikujiro*. 
Shinozaki has long been one of Kitano's most perceptive critics, and his 
film is an extension of that interest.

And "hysterical" -- or rather, "Hysteric" -- has been a common 
English-language borrow-term on tee-shirts in Japan for a long time now: 
think Hysteric Glamour. [There's a scene in the recent and excellent 
*Mon-rak Transistor*, by Thai director Pen-ek Ratanaruang, where the 
main character turns up, quite baffingly, wearing a *Hysteric Glamour* 
tee-shirt. Pen-ek, the most popular Thai director with Japanese 
audiences, is currently in pre-production on his new film, set to star 
Asano Tadanobu.]


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