Jasper sez there's a sea change afoot

[Jasper Sharp]

Well Markus, I'm not sure how well I can further explain this, because maybe it was just an intuition I had this time round, and of course it was only based on what was screening in Frankfurt.

My take is based perhaps less on what is going on in Japan than what is actually making it onto British shores. About 5 years ago, when the Japanese cult cinema bug was biting hard in the wake of Battle Royale, Ring, Audition, Miyazaki et al, we were swamped with titles, mainly J-horror and anime, but it all seemed very new and exciting.

But nowadays there seems to be a crisis of nerve with distributors, in that there's no immediate bandwagon to latch onto and very little "new" stuff is coming through - by "new" I mean there's still new anime and new horror, and new films from old directors (I'm frankly surprised that Yoji Yamada and Jun Ichikawa have been the "latest" discoveries for British distributors), but little indication of any new trends in Japanese cinema, of a new generation of filmmakers emerging to replace Kitano, Koreeda, Nakata et al.

Those who live in Japan would certainly be well versed with Kudo Kankuro and his ilk, the new strain of more playful cinema that is coming out, and these are playing at festivals to replace the more serious films of the Kawases and Aoyamas of this world. Very little of these seem to have hit the radar of Uk (and US?) distributors yet.

So, regarding this idea of sea change, I noticed this year:

a) A lot more films by either first time directors, or names I'd not heard before.

b) A generally increased willingness and ability to entertain - lots of comedies, and generally films better structured and less baggy than the past few years. Little I saw seemed to outstay its welcome or go on too long. Films by new and older directors alike seemed to be quite simply better made and less self-indulgent.

c) On the political front, there were films that actually had a point to make, unlike the baggy, non-commital docs such as Matsue's Anyong Kimchee, which you mention in your book as being "non-poli" (ie made without any real sense of political message or purpose) - You could hardly accuse Tokko: Wings of Defeat or Yasukuni of this, and though not actually made by Japanese directors, I'd say they were certainly Japanese films about subjects senstive for the Japanese. 

As I mention, this is only an intuition I had, but overall I found the wave of new films played in Frankfurt this year a lot more refreshing than previous years. 
Is it really only me that senses this?
A point of debate anyway....

Jasper


(sorry if I'm not coherent - I've been at the computer all day!)














Midnight Eyewww.midnighteye.com

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> Date: Sun, 18 May 2008 13:46:16 -0400
> From: amnornes at umich.edu
> To: KineJapan at lists.acs.ohio-state.edu
> Subject: Jasper sez there's a sea change afoot
> 
> Among the new contributions to Midnight Eye, Jasper Sharp makes a general observation about the state of Japanese cinema after this season's Nippon Connection:
> 
> 
> I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Nippon Connection is THE premier event anywhere in the world to get a good idea of what is going on within Japan's vibrant film culture in any one year, and on the basis of the selection this time round, it seems there's a big sea change afoot in Japanese cinema at the moment - although whether this will be reflected by the titles distributors choose to release overseas is another matter entirely. Clearly one of the most evident trends over the past few years has been a move away from the pessimism and navel-gazing of the more auteur-driven works that proliferated across festivals worldwide at the turn of the millennium, and the violence, perversion and gore that many mistakenly identify with Japanese film.
> 
> A large proportion of the films screened in Frankfurt this year were by first time directors, and the emphasis overall seemed to be set far more squarely on providing solid entertainment and good clean fun. Criticisms of Japanese films as being self-indulgent, poorly structured and overlong hardly seemed appropriate for titles such as Hideyuki Hirayama's Three for the Road, Daihachi Yoshida's Funuke Show Some Love You Losers!, and Dog in a Sidecar, the latest by the criminally underrated Kichitaro Negishi. On the other side of the coin, there's been much talk over the past few years of a general retreat away from political subject matter in Japanese cinema. The tide certainly seems to have turned if this year's program was anything to go by, with a notorious talking point provided by the documentary Yasukuni, directed by the Tokyo-based Chinese director Li Yang and, if you haven't been following, already the subject of huge public and parliamentary debate in Japan, having been pulled from most cinemas following threats from rightwing groups. There was also the US-Japan collaboration Tokko: The Wings of Defeat (Risa Morimoto / Linda Hoaglund) about Kamikaze pilots, and Koji Wakamatsu's 3-hour+ epic United Red Army, which can easily lay claim as the crowning moment of an already astonishing 45-year filmmaking career. And if all this wasn't already enough, there were several sublime first works from the indie sector made by directors still in their early 20s, including Hiroki Iwabuchi's A Permanent Part-Timer in Distress, Ryo Nakajima's This World of Ours and Yasutomo Chikuma's Now, I...
> 
> 
> I'm left slightly puzzled, and wonder if Jasper could explain this a little better. I'm still not sure what he means, but I always appreciate Jasper's take on things and so I'm intrigued.
> 
> Does anyone else sense this?
> 
> Markus

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