Recent Japanese Cinema

[Richard Suchenski]

Japanese cinema is actually doing quite well, and the fact that it's hard to
see that sometimes is more a testament to current distribution patterns than
to the quality of Japanese films.  And, I should point out, this a problem
that's not specific only to Japan, but is endemic to world cinema as a
whole.  French cinema, for example, has entered one of its strongest periods
in the past decade or so, but most of that work is coming from brilliant
directors both young (Claire Denis, Olivier Assayas, Andre Techine), and old
(Jean-luc Godard, Agnes Varda, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais) who, despite
recognition by the international film community, are largely marginalized by
a distribution system that would rather release mediocre crowd-pleasers like
"8 Women," "Swimming Pool," or "Amelie."  The same holds true for Japanese,
British (Terence Davies is arguably the greatest British director since
Michael Powell, but masterpieces like "Distant Voices, Still Lives," and
"The Long Day Closes" remain obscure in the US), Iranian, German, and
especially Chinese-language cinema.

I'm firmly of the belief that we are in the midst of a mini-Renaissance in
world cinema, but the international distribution system has become so staid
and audience tastes so ossified that you'd hardly know it if you didn't know
where to look.  There are plenty of high-profile directors like David Lynch,
David Cronenberg, Martin Scorsese, and Wes Anderson who continue to produce
masterpieces, or at least very interesting films, that get decent theatrical
releases and a nominal amount of media attention, but there is another tier
of even more talented filmmakers whose works need to be actively sought-out.
Directors like Hou-Hsiao Hsien and Tsai Ming-liang (both from Taiwan), Wong
Kar-Wai (Hong Kong), Bela Tarr (Hungary), Manoel d'Oliviera (Portugal),
Alexander Sokurov (Russia), Jia Zhang-ke (China), and, to get closer to the
original topic, Nagisa Oshima (Japan) are generally regarded as among the
greatest living narrative filmmakers by the international film community
(take a look at the end-of-the-year polls in Film Comment, Positif, or, for
that matter, the Village Voice, and you'll see what I'm talking about), but
few, if any, of their films have received even limited commercial releases.
It gets even worse when you look at the fascinating, and often
breathtakingly beautiful, films released by directors in even more
marginalized countries like Darzhan Omirbaev in Kazakhstan, Nuri Ceyland in
Turkey, or Ousmane Sembene in Senegal.  There are dozens of masterpieces
released each year, but both audiences and distributors have become
complacent, and it's becoming harder and harder to see really great world
cinema, especially because distributors have decided that audiences
everwhere would rather watch easy-to-market tripe like "Tomb Raider 2" (a
hit all throughout east Asia) than "Mulholland Drive."

So, back to the matter at hand, what about contemporary Japanese cinema? As
Tom Mes, J. Sharp, Mark Schilling, and others have so consistently
documented, Japanese cinema has been stronger in the past decade than at any
point since the 70's.  Established directors, now in their 70s and even 80s,
such as Nagisa Oshima, Seijun Suzuki, and Shohei Imamura continue to turn
out fascinating, elliptical films and they've each released a great film
since the turn of the millenium.  All three -"Taboo," "Pistol Opera" and
"Warm Water Under a Red Bridge" respectively - received commercial releases
in the US and are available on region 1 DVDs.  Even more exciting is the
surge of new directors, most of whom have already been mentioned in this
thread, who have really come into their own recently.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa is probably the single most interesting filmmaker in Japan
right now, but the two best Japanese films I've seen in the past 5 years or
so have been Shinji Aoyama's 2000 "Eureka" and Hirokazu Kore-Eda's 2002
"Distance."  Both played at Cannes and are available on excellent Region 2
DVDs with English subtitles.  As for Kurosawa, I would start with 1997's
"Cure" (recently released on DVD in the US by Home Vision Entertainment) and
1999's "Charisma" (region 2 DVD) and then move on to "Pulse," "Bright
Future," "Doppelganger," and "License to Live."  All of those films, except
the recent "Doppelganger" are readily available either on Region 2 DVD (try
Amazon Japan or CDJapan) or on legal region-free releases produced in Hong
Kong or Korea (try HKflix.com, Pokerindustries.com, or the usually reliable
ebay).  Kurosawa's films are always formally brilliant and, while continuing
to produce "genre films," he is expanding the boundaries of cinema in fresh
and challenging ways.  For that matter, both of Kore-eda's other films,
especially the chronically underrated "Maborosi" are excellent, and they're
readily available on DVD and VHS to boot.

Other directors that are worth taking a look at:

Mamoru Oshii - To my sensibility, Oshii is the most talented director of
animation in Japan, and I highly recommend 1987's "Angel's Egg," 1993's
"Patlabor 2" (easily the most moody and politically sophisticated anime film
ever made) and 2001's "Avalon" (Oshii's flawed, but fascinating, live-action
response to "The Matrix") in addition to the more readily available "Ghost
in the Shell."

Takeshi Kitano - I'm really surprised that nobody else has mentioned Kitano
in this thread.  Yes, "Brother" and "Dolls" have serious problems, but am I
the only one who found "Zatoichi" an interesting, if somewhat slight,
experiment?  And what about "Kikujiro," a film whose surface sentimentality
masks an almost-palpable loneliness and deliriously weird sensibility (at
its best, it's like a slightly more downbeat Tati film).  None of these
films reach the heights of "Sonatine" or "Hana-bi" but they're well worth
checking out.

Isao Takahata - "Little Nols, Prince Valiant" (which just had a thread on
here) made his reputation, but I also recommend the more recent "Pom Poko"
and "My Neighbors the Yamadas."

Naomi Kawase - Unfortunately, it's hard to find her works on video, but, if
you can, check out "Hotaru," "Shara," and "Blue."

Makoto Shinozaki - I've only had the chance to see 2000's "Not Forgotten,"
but it was a fascinating film and if you can see it, you should.

Finally, there's another tier of filmmakers whose works vary wildly in
quality, but each of them has at least one real gem, and at least some of
their works get distributed.   Mark Schilling's book  "Contemporary Japanese
Film" and, more recently, Midnight Eye are wonderful resources, but here are
a few more recommendations that I know are available on DVD:  "Angel Dust"
(Sogo Ishii), "Rainy Dog" (Takashi Miike), "A Snake of June" (Shinya
Tsukamoto), "Postman Blues" (Sabu), and "All About Lily Chou-Chou" (Shunji
Iwai).

Richard Suchenski
Princeton University