[KineJapan] "Burning" NHK Drama Special broadcast

Mon Dec 31 06:40:38 EST 2018

This reminds me of the BBC's treatment of 'Liberation Day', the documentary about Laibach in North Korea. The film was not distributed theatrically in the UK, but for its only UK broadcast, BBC4 cut out some 30minutes of it so it could fit into its late night Storyville slot, a ridiculous decision in any case as most people would have watched it on the BBC's iPlayer streaming service rather than stayed up to catch it on a particular broadcast slot, but particularly ironic for a publicly-funded national broadcaster given that the very themes of the film were about artistic freedom in a totalitarian state.

The Creeping Garden<http://www.creepinggarden.com/> - A Real-Life Science-Fiction Story about Slime Moulds and the People Who Work With them, directed by Tim Grabham and Jasper Sharp.
Available now on Dual-Format Blu-ray/DVD from Arrow Films<https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/the-creeping-garden-dual-format/FCD1435>.
The book, The Creeping Garden: Irrational Encounters with Plasmodial Slime Moulds is out now from Alchimia Publishing<http://www.alchimiapublishing.com/creeping-garden/>.
"A surprising investigation of perception, thought and life itself", Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/movies/review-the-creeping-garden-on-the-wonders-of-the-slime-mold.html>.
"An out-of-left-field nerdy delight", John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter<https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/creeping-garden-fantasia-review-724416>.
"Strange, eccentric, diverting", Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian<https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/09/creeping-garden-review-slime-mould-film>.

________________________________
From: KineJapan <kinejapan-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Eija Niskanen <eija at helsinkicineaasia.fi>
Sent: 30 December 2018 17:56
To: Michael Kerpan; Japanese Cinema Discussion Forum
Subject: Re: [KineJapan] "Burning" NHK Drama Special broadcast

NHK commissioned films have been treated weirdly by them before. Some 10 years ago they commissioned a series of documentary films by top documentarists around the world, to be shot on location in Japan. One Finnish filmmaker, Pirjo Honkasalo made the film Ito
Ito – a Diary of an Urban Priest
[Ito – a Diary of an Urban Priest.png]<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FFile%3AIto_%25E2%2580%2593_a_Diary_of_an_Urban_Priest.png&data=02%7C01%7C%7C65561c017b994ced2f6608d66e802eae%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636817894148274822&sdata=p8qYOAy65DyNRBDcXNTS2dDPGQW4GeyJSV%2BhfuTU8mU%3D&reserved=0>
Directed by     Pirjo Honkasalo<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPirjo_Honkasalo&data=02%7C01%7C%7C65561c017b994ced2f6608d66e802eae%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636817894148274822&sdata=eje8uvBRELBo9JyuPG0uw%2FvSoQjCk4mliCFZo16TyC0%3D&reserved=0>
Distributed by  Cinema Mondo
Release date

  *   September 2009 (Nordisk Panorama<https://nam03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FNordisk_Panorama&data=02%7C01%7C%7C65561c017b994ced2f6608d66e802eae%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636817894148274822&sdata=5CEUukpzZIE8PNXyD8rj6gEv3k9AbIDGyIx3ytWIDyM%3D&reserved=0> Film Festival)
  *   November 12, 2010

Running time
        117 minutes
Country Finland

in this program. The next year after it came out I asked at Yamagata doc film festival why it was not screening there, as they normally screen the new Japanese docs there. YIDFF replied that NHK would not let them screen those films of that particular series.
Eija

su 30. jouluk. 2018 klo 19.03 Michael Kerpan (mekerpan2 at gmail.com<mailto:mekerpan2 at gmail.com>) kirjoitti:
A wonderful (if depressing film).  NHK's mutilation merits excoriation.

On Sun, Dec 30, 2018 at 11:36 AM John Junkerman <jtj53213 at gmail.com<mailto:jtj53213 at gmail.com>> wrote:
I had the very curious experience of watching NHK's broadcast of a "tokushu drama" version of Lee Chang-dong's "Burning" on Dec. 29 (10 pm Sat on NHK General channel). I was expecting to see the film (which is based on a Murakami Haruki short story) that won the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes and has had a strongly positive response from critics, but what I saw was beautiful, inventive, very Murakami-esque in its oddly skewed and evocative slant on the pedestrian lives of its aimless characters, some hints of what critics raved about... but completely unengaging and unrewarding (it ended without an ending).

Looking into it after the broadcast, it turned out that someone (NHK itself?) had cut 53 minutes from the film. Of course, this happens all the time after a film has finished theatrical release. The "drama special" was also dubbed...happens all the time, though it ruins the actors' performances.

But why was this done a month before the film's theatrical release in Japan? Was this because NHK produced the film and has final cut, and the right to exploit it as it sees fit? I can't imagine that Lee directed this version, or signed off on it. I can't imagine Murakami did either.

>From what I understand, NHK has commissioned a number of leading Asian directors to make films based on Murakami's stories, and this is the first to be released. There's clearly a lot of juice behind the project (using hot Korean actors, and hot Japanese actors for the dubbing), but where are the director's rights in this equation?

Some kind of hyping imperative seems to override the director's vision. To broadcast this chopped-up, incomprehensible version of a film, under its original title, with no apparent effort to let the audience know that it is not the same film--what were they thinking, if they were thinking at all?

I'll look forward to seeing the original film when it is released in February, but I'd bet that a lot of those who watched the "drama special" won't bother, because they were left bored and perplexed.

If anyone has heard some back story on all of this, I'd appreciate hearing it, because to me, it just flummoxes.

--
John Junkerman
jtj53213 at gmail.com<mailto:jtj53213 at gmail.com>
2-18-6 Ehara-cho, Nakano
Tokyo 165-0023
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--
Eija Niskanen
+358-50-355 3189
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