[KineJapan] Hara Kazuo's Cinema Juku wraps up

[Markus Nornes]

Today was the last day of Hara Kazuo’s Cinema Juku. This was a year-long
series of talks with the theme of documenting the self. Hara gathered
people at Athenee Francais once a month for sessions featuring a mix of
screenings and discussion with filmmakers. It included foreign filmmakers
like Gina Kim and Wu Wenguang. You can see the whole lineup at their
website: http://newcinemajuku.net


Today’s session was to sum up everything, pivoting around the debate
between producer Yasuoka Takaharu and Sato Makoto in 2003. Sato was quite
critical of the “self-documentary” that had taken over Japanese
documentary, and Yasuoka was a supporter. They touched on the debate, but
constant sidetracks (some pretty interesting) kept them from really
wrapping things up in any serious way. It’s too bad.


Today’s juku also suffered from a problem that ran through the entire year.
The place of women in the project was really quite problematic. This was
true from the start, when the largely female staff bailed and left the juku
after the first month or two. And while Hara did feature a number of
important women, like Kawase Naomi, Hamano Sachi, and Yang Yonghi, too
often they were relegated to themes connected to women; thus, it was not
surprising that no women were invited to today’s meta-level wrap-up of the
year’s efforts. Hara also treated men and women very differently. Men were
cut a lot of slack, given mostly softball questions, and questionable
behavior was excused with little to no comment. For example, pink director
Hirano Katsuyuki talked about the children that he fathered (ultimately in
absentia, except for the sex act) he admitted he doesn’t really care to
even see them, but sometimes gives them presents. Hara did little more than
laugh. But when when women took the stage, Hara relentlessly questioned
them about their most intimate personal lives. It was sometimes quite
uncomfortable, as when he pressed Kawase Naomi about the state of her
marriage.


Just today this blind spot about gender was particularly obvious. One of
today’s films was Kazoku Ketchup, one of the earliest self-documentaries,
which begins with the main character urinating on his mother in front of
the family shrine. Hara said little about this scene except that it “took
courage.” In contrast, later in the day Hara showed Sato Makoto’s diary
film about the birth of his second daughter, and ridiculed Sato and the
film. He didn’t get far into his reasons, but it was clear he couldn’t see
how a well-functioning couple going through childbirth—together—had any
social dimension. He seemed blind to what was going on in the film, perhaps
because there was nothing extreme or provocative in it. Or it could just be
that the two never got along. But it could just be Hara’s blind spot;
earlier in the juku he was perplexed why his daughter from Extreme Private
Eros—who he admitted he hardly spent time with over the decades—refused to
go on stage when he showed the film….in turn perplexing many audience
members who wondered why he didn’t get it.


This was all rather unfortunate, because Hara is very smart otherwise,
listens to people with a special intensity, and generally holds great
discussions. I learned a lot in the juku, and admired the ambition to hold
such sustained discussion. Just today, there were several high points with
Kawanaka Nobuhiro and Matsue Tetsuaki.  But I also understood why so many
people stopped coming halfway through.


Markus

-- 
*Markus Nornes*
Department of Screen Arts and Cultures
Professor of Asian Cinema, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
Professor, School of Art & Design

*Department of Screen Arts and Cultures*
*6348 North Quad*
*105 S. State Street*
*Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1285*
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