film in the mall/Arcades

[Alex Zahlten]

Hello Kinejapaners,

I wanted to add my thoughts to Aarons recent mall-going observation on the
telling in-store combination of Japanese movies, manga and candy, even if they
might not offer much new insights. 

Working for the Nippon Connection Japanese Film Festival (in Frankfurt,
Germany), that also offers a host of cultural events during the festival, the
preconceptions on Japan are something we of the festival are constantly
confronted with and, to be honest, sometimes work with. Saying that there are quite
well defined preconceptions of various aspects of the ?Japanese brand? is of
course stating the obvious. There are, among our audience, usually several
groups, one being the chrysanthemum club type japanophiles interested in the
more traditional aspects of Japanese culture- this typically being an above
40/50?s well to do crowd interested in Ikebana, Tea Ceremonys etc.; then there is
the Anime crowd, fairly young with a high male but strongly growing female
contingent. From there things become less well defined, but a 20ish to early
30ish crowd (by far the largest of the groups) might be described as being
attracted by the more general ?Japanese brand?, this being a mix of various pop
cultural elements like easy-listening type pop music, trendy clothes, movies,
manga, anime and yes, candy, all mostly connected more by an overall diffuse
aesthetic atmosphere (of lightness, cuteness and enjoyability mixed with
optional profundity) than concrete elements- and I do assume that most of the
people are not specifically ?Japan-freaks?, and have little expert knowledge on
either of these single elements. There is a certain sense of pop cultural
?ironic consumerism? going on here, I think, with a half-consciousness that
this is a fantasy being indulged in. Of course, with the very fewest of people
having first-hand knowledge of Japan, there is very little to counter the
other half.

The aestheticization of Japan in the foreign imagination stands of course,
as mentioned before on the list, in a long tradition. So does the
characterization of Japan as a land of contradictions; this can also be found in the
press reactions to the festival, which, write whatever one may in the press
releases, always end up as something like ?..presents the exciting cinema of a
land torn between tradition and modernity?. 

On a complementary level, it has often been mentioned that there was a
conscious distinction in Japan (in the film industry as well) between products
designated for export and such designated for consumption on the home market. I
actually doubt that in recent time there has been much that was specifically
produced for the foreign market (even Miike or Kitano, who would be the
likeliest candidates, don?t hone their films to that effect, I think, and the
production side doesn't stress that aspect; Takenori Sento targeted foreign film
festivals in the late nineties, but this was less a production than a
distribution strategy). There is a consciousness of the ?Japanese brand?, however,
and Tsuguhiko Kadokawa mentioned the further establishing of such a brand as
one of his main goals for the Tokyo International Film Festival in front of
the National Film Festival Convention, held in Osaka in September. How
seriously this is persued on the level of film is doubtful, I would say, as the
Japanese film is simply not profitable enough at the moment. This is excluding
anime, and possibly in the near future Pink and AV cinema (for which a burst in
export has been predicted specifically after the lifting of the restrictions
on import of Japanese cultural products to South Korea); but exactly such
?genre?-specific export is of course, on the other hand, one of the mainstays of
cultural construction.

Now what does that mean on a general level for the way Japanese cultural
products are perceived in the ?west? (I wonder if it is that different in other
asian countries- it seems to me that there seems to be the same amalgamation
of Japanese pop cultural elements into a consumable package going on in South
Korea, for example), and on a more specific level for how cultural product
from Japan (such as film) should be handled?
For part one of the question I would say that not much has actually changed
in the tradition of the mode of perception regarding Japan, though the
perception itself has to a certain degree, as have the concrete elements within it.
Pocky and Sushi may be extensions to another realm of the senses (taste) and
the popularization of other media like manga are to a certain degree a
welcome diversification, but the basic organizing elements, one of which may
simply be ?consumability?, are still in place and finding new synesthetic modes of
transmission.
As for part two, that would take up a whole lot of space and I?ve written
way too much and redundantly already; however I would be interested in others
experiences in the exhibition and handling of Japanese cultural products-
though keeping the list in mind, we probably should stick to the exhibition of
visual media.
Please excuse, it was actually only going to be a short one,

Alex Zahlten

-- 
alex at nipponconnection.de

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