recommendations?

[Jonathan M. Hall]

Dear Joe,

I wonder if your students might be equally or even more interested in Tsai's
The Hole, easily available on DVD.  The latter is a far more accessible
film, I believe, and is as masterful in its probing of the limits and hopes
of alienated individuals.  The setting is a decrepit sector of Taipei,
abandoned by authorities--water supply is cut off--in an attempt to sanitize
and defend the city against a plague that is turning humans into
cockroach-like anti-social creatures.  The film thematizes well the relation
to the natural environment as well as social forms of marginalization.  And
the campy fantasy scenes are a blast.

And especially since you've written on it, how about Yaguchi's Hadashi no
pikunikku [Down the Drain], which is also now available on DVD with English
subtitles.  If "Japan's most unhappy girl" isn't alienated, then I don't
know what to call her.

The Korean film, Peppermint Candy, also deals with alienation
well--foregrounding an historical alienation.

Jonathan


0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Jonathan M. Hall
Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
301 Wieboldt Hall
University of Chicago
1050 E. 59th Street, Chicago IL 60637
1-773-834-8346 office tel./messages
1-773-834-1323 fax 
jmhall at uchicago.edu






-- 


From: Joseph Murphy <urj7 at nersp.nerdc.ufl.edu>
Reply-To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 13:13:04 +0900
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: recommendations?


Dear Listmembers,
We have a student organization here that runs an informal film series, and
they would like to pick up some films in subtitled DVD format on the theme
"Sub/urban alienation."  It's a college audience, knowledgable about film,
but no particular familiarity with Japanese cinema assumed.

For films from Chinese cinema, they've got Fallen Angels. Wong Kar Wai; and
Vive L'amore. Tsai Ming-Liang.

I'm thinking about the film equivalent to Honma Takashi's suburban
photographs, or Nakano Masaki's photographs of empty Tokyo, and a number of
films come to mind, but it's really limiting to have to find something in
subtitled DVD.

Anybody have any thoughts on the Gainax mockumentary "Otaku no video"
(1982)?  Is that worth a look?  Does Takashi Miike's "Audition" usefully
address the topic, or will it strike the audience as a straight genre film?
Any other suggestions?

yours,
J. Murphy

-- 



Univ. of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32601, USA
<http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jmurphy>



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