Middle grounds

[M Arnold]

andrew osmond wrote:

>But how about the animations Mononoke and (especially) Spirited Away, which 
>are after all the two highest-grossing Japanese films?

I think they do deserve recognition as such, but following all those video 
releases that have been flooding North America & Europe for the last 10+ 
years people may still be eager to view them as a part of that "cult" anime 
category when they get shipped abroad.  What else do casual audiences need 
to be convinced that contemporary Japanese film is all cartoons (or cartoony 
B-movies)?  I am curious about Disney's attempts with Ghibli films though, 
if they'll be able to market them as Japanese film without exaggerating (or 
creating) a Japanese difference like the rest of the anime scene does.  I 
think what I meant by fetish was the way old Kurosawa and Ozu, etc. may be 
treated with a certain sense of distance, elevated as artifacts or antiques, 
rather than as films that many years ago actually were shown to real people, 
within real contexts.

Yesterday was the first of the month here in Tokyo, but I skipped May Day to 
do Movie Day instead, as most theaters were selling discount tickets for 
only 1000 yen, and I thought it would be another good chance to wander about 
and wonder about what is happening in Japanese cinema.  The first movie I 
happened to see was the new Coen film, "Barber" as it's called here.  
Certainly the best film of the day.  Very interesting style with nice black 
and white photography, but despite the high-quality look and comfortable 
seats at the Ebisu Garden Theater the projectionist couldn't quite figure 
out how to center the picture on the screen.  My second film was "Crayon 
Shinchan: Arashi wo yobu appare! Sengoku daigassen."  It wasn't quite as fun 
as the last few Shinchan adventures but I noticed that several people in the 
audience were very moved by the movie, including gentleman in his 40s 
sitting to my right who started crying like a baby during the final tragic 
scenes of Shinnosuke's trip into the past.  Nobody I saw was that moved by 
Spirited Away.  For some reason, about 30 minutes into the film the center 
of the screen went well out of focus and remained that way, while the edges 
of the screen remained sharp.  When that finished I caught the 7:00 showing 
of Zeze Takahisa's new Dog Star.  The projection was nice this time, but the 
film itself wasn't that great.  It contained similar kinds of borders, 
transformations and replays that you see in Zeze's other films, except it 
was shot in the genre of "date film" rather than "sex film," and shown 
appropriately at the new Teatoru Times Square, which sits on the 12th-14th 
floors of the Takashimaya building in Shinjuku along with HMV and a bunch of 
trendy Italian restaurants.  (http://www.dog-star.jp/f_theatre.html)  The 
theater opened only a few days ago and this is its first film.  It was very 
clean and the screen was big and clear, but the arm rests on the seats were 
very short, so if you set your arms down your elbows end up sliding into the 
cup holders.  During one scene in Dog Star two of the characters were 
sitting in their apartment watching a video, and it sounded like it was 
another Zeze film, possibly Raigyo.

What's happening in Japanese film?  This week it seems to be Lord of the 
Rings.

Looking at Robin's comment, I always thought Fukasaku's middle ground would 
end up somewhere closer to Satomi Hakkenden...

The DVD of Pistol Opera came out a week or so ago, and it looks like it has 
all sorts of extras, including an audio commentary track, but I don't think 
it has subtitles.

Michael Arnold

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