Kuroki Kazuo's Cuban Lovers

Jonathan M Hall jmhall at uci.edu
Sun Oct 22 12:24:09 EDT 2006


Dear Alex and others,

Cuba's Lovers as a title does make it sound like a pink documentary.  I 
don't know if there is an official English title, but I've been 
waffling between using The Cuban Lover and Cuban Lovers as a 
translation for the title.  I think the former better preserves the 
commentary on uneven development that is important for the film, but 
the latter suggest Fidel himself as the competing suitor, something I 
much prefer.  Like some other films from the period that I've been 
working on for my book project, it combines fictional and documentary 
elements.  But the encompassing structure is certainly fictional.  I 
presented on this film a year ago at a talk at Michigan--as part of the 
very wonderful Three Films series that Markus organized--and I do hope 
soon to have something out in print on it in the near future.  There is 
a very long interview (which I translated) between Yasui Yoshio and 
Kuroki Kazuo in the YIDFF Documentary Box database.  There's an 
interesting description of the film therein:

http://www.yidff.jp/docbox/18/box18-1-1-e.html

Yours sincerely,
Jonathan


-----
Jonathan M. Hall
Japanese Film, Media, and Modern Literature
Assistant Professor, Comparative Literature / Film & Media Studies

320 Humanities Instructional Building
UC Irvine, Irvine CA 92697-2651 USA
office: 1-949-824-9778
fax: 1-949-824-1992




On Oct 21, 2006, at 7:35 AM, Alexander Jacoby wrote:

> Thanks Matthieu. I knew about Cuba's Lovers, but had it listed as a 
> documentary. Is it definitely fiction? If you can send me more 
> information about Nuclear War (especially, is there a threat that the 
> power station will explode or that a real nuclear war will be 
> triggered?) in November, I'd be very grateful - in less someone else 
> fills me in in the meantime...
>
> ALEX
>
>
> Mathieu Capel <mathieucapel at gmail.com> wrote:
>> what they're all about but :
>> 1. Evil spirits of Japan, which is actually the third Kuroki's fiction
>> feature, after Silence has no wings and Cuba's lovers (I am not sure
>> about the english title), is a rather strange movie, and may appear
>> actually as an "offbeat yakuza" movie. You have a cat-and-mouse game
>> involving one cop and one yakuza, but the point is that they both are
>> played by the same Kei Sato (whom you may have seen in almost every
>> Oshima's films in the sixties). Of course this leads Kuroki to play
>> with blurred identities, not so much with some "cops and cirminals are
>> the same" stuff, but does provoke some vertigo effects that are quite
>> stimulating. This film was issued on DVD in Japan last year, as a part
>> of a 3 dvd box (with the two others mentioned above).
>> 2. Nuclear war is not at all about Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It is also
>> some kind of detective movie : one guy played by Harada Kazuo arrives
>> on an island which may be one of the Ryukyu's to search for a
>> disappeared girl (?). The results of his inquiries leads him to the
>> nearby nuclear power station...
>> This is all I can do for you now. Sorry...
>> (I am now in Japan, and my dvd's and VHS are in France ; if there's
>> not enough informations running until next week, I shall be able to
>> tell you more from the 1st of November - but I guess you will be able
>> to find plenty of informations up to that date)
>>
>> Mathieu Capel
>
> All new Yahoo! Mail "The new Interface is stunning in its simplicity 
> and ease of use." - PC Magazine
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