"The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai" at Pole Pole

[J.sharp]

>At any rate I wonder if a movie like this international >version of
"Sachiko" really qualifies as a pink film in >the usual sense.

I don?t see why it shouldn?t. The original 65 minute version had already
been released into pink cinemas some 18 months before. HANAI SACHIKO is
certainly not the first Kokuei film to have completed its run in pink
theatres before getting a one-off retitled release in mainstream/arthouse
theatres. Zeze?s TOKYO X EROTICA and Imaoka?s OBENTO/TAMADAMA are two that
spring immediately to mind. The only difference with Meike?s film is that
half-an-hour got added in the process. This 90 min version premiered at the
showcase of pink directors that played in the Athenee Francais in summer
last year.

(Having seen both versions, I hazily recall that though few extra scenes are
present in the longer version, the scenes do play longer and the whole does
seem to flow more nicely, even though, as many reviewers have pointed out,
it does lag in pace in the final third)

I am sure this ?international? label is something of a marketing gimmick,
probably inspired by Meike?s experiences living in New York for a year,
during which period the film played at several film festivals. If you watch
the PINK RIBBON documentary, and certainly the impression I have always got,
is that the original film went way over budget and over schedule, and the
65min version was rushed into cinemas before it was really edited properly.
The so-called ?international? version seemed to be a concession towards
Meike on the part of the production company Kokuei?s president to get the
film finished properly. There have certainly been no precedents set in it
screening abroad either. The previous year, like HANAI SACHIKO OBENTO had
screened had both Raindance and Nippon Connection. So yes, this version is
still a ?pink? film, albeit an atypical one.

OBENTO and TOKYO X EROTICA were also filmed in sync sound. I am not
convinced by the argument that this helps boost ?sales to cable TV channels,
DVD or video release?. The impression I get is that though it costs more, it
does give the feeling that the director?s are making ?proper? films. All of
the films I have mentioned here are produced by Kokuei, who actually make up
a rather small part of the annual output of pink films in Japan, yet these
are the ones that are best known outside of pink cinemas, and outside of
Japan- this is because the company actively promotes their films outside of
the pink circuit (and ironically Kokuei?s films are not particularly popular
with pink patrons ? which is the reason why Zeze et al earned themselves the
collective monicker ?The Four Devils? in the first place).

But on this subject, Kokuei release far more of their production to video
than the other companies. OP Productions only release a few of the works of
their major directors such as Yoshiyuki Yumi onto video, and I don?t think
Xces distribute on video at all. I recently spoke to a director at OP
Productions who spoke rather sneeringly of his Kokuei counterparts, saying
?they think they are all auteurs?. Basically, the other companies ? OP,
Xces, and to a lesser extent Shintoho ? make films to play in pink theatres,
their primary destination, whereas Kokuei use the established pink theatre
network to springboard films out into a wider arena. So I would say the
reason HANAI SACHIKO used sync sound is similar to the reason OBENTO was
shot on 16mm film to give it a more arty, indie look rather than the glossy
porny look of the films of companies like Exces.

Either way, the sound recording on HANAI SACHIKO is pretty awful, and I know
Meike had a lot of troubles in post-production due to poor sound recording
on BITTER SWEET, so I don?t think it will ever become standard.

>I was surprised to notice that "Identity" director Matsue >Tetsuaki has a
significant part. I hadn't seen him in a >Kokuei film before.

I?ve seen him in a few other Kokuei films, though can?t remember offhand ? I
think he appeared briefly in Toshiki Sato?s LOST VIRGIN (aka Tejo/Cuffs,
2001)

>Japan's self-proclaimed biggest movie otaku (yes, that one) >asked me why
foreign film fans and researchers (don't
> worry, I won't name names) are always so interested in
>the Japanese pink movie genre. Most are trash, he said.

Which otaku would this be?
Well, yes, most are trash, but the same could be said about a lot of
contemporary Japanese cinema, or a lot of cinema anywhere in the world. And
also, I am not really sure there is that much interest in them. You?ll have
to check with the distributor Salvation in the UK to see how many DVDs
they?ve sold, but I?ll wager not that many (though HANAI SACHIKO, along with
GHOST IN THE SHELL 2, was the only film to sell out its screening at
Raindance.)

It would be easy to say foreigners are only attracted by the sex, but this
wouldn?t be logical, because there are fare more explicit sex films
available outside of Japan, whether you are talking hardcore video porn, or
retro-titles such as the films of Just Jaeckin and Tinto Brass. And one
might infer, as one speaker did at the Kineclub conference last summer, it
is because young white males feel secure watching the kind of violent and
degradation inflicted on the women that would not be permissible in their
own cultural context ? though this doesn?t bear close scrutiny either, if
one compares the content of modern pink films with the type of extreme
arthouse fair that plays widely in UK and US cinemas, such as BAISE-MOI,
Michael Winterbottom?s NINE SONGS, the films of Catherine Breillat (ROMANCE,
ANATOMY OF HELL), or Gaspar Noe (IRREVERSIBLE, SEULE CONTRE TOUS).

What interests me is that the Japanese pink film produces, every year, about
the same number of titles as the entire European Union. Of these films, shot
entirely as 35mm program pictures, about 95% will never make it outside of
the pink cinemas, playing on an endless loop for a few weeks before moving
to another part of the country and on and on until the print wears out. So
why do directors like Zeze or Meike choose this particular avenue to make
their personal statements? There just appears to be this huge gulf between
intentions of the director and the demands of the audience (I have my own
ideas about all this, but not to go into here)

And the fact is that so far, while those who work in the pink industry or
critics in Japan are familiar with it might accept the whole phenomenon of
pink as perfectly natural because it is part of their everyday life, there
is no equivalent anywhere else in the world. So until anyone out there in
the English language writes a book that puts the whole phenomenon in any
type of context, there are going to be numerous TV crews and journalists out
in Tokyo trying to get to the bottom of the mystery of ?what is pink??.

Just a few of my many thoughts on the matter, but I have rambled on long
enough now


Jasper

--
Midnight Eye: The Latest and Best in Japanese Cinema
www.midnighteye.com

===

Available now in bookstores everywhere:
The Midnight Eye Guide to New Japanese Film (Stone Bridge Press)
by Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp
http://www.midnighteye.com/features/midnighteye_guide.shtml
"Easily one of the most important books on Japanese cinema ever released in
English."
- Newtype USA



--------- Original Message --------
From: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu <KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: "The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai" at Pole Pole
Date: 04/12/05 09:28


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