Festival Report: Nippon Connection 2012

by Marc Saint-Cyr

Those initially scanning the program for the 12th Nippon Connection film festival, hosted in Frankfurt, Germany from May 2nd to the 6th, probably would have noticed the especially impressive selection of new works from some of Japanese cinema’s biggest names. This year, established auteurs were a more frequent sight alongside lesser-known and still-emerging directors, whose efforts – from my personal festival experience, at least – for the most part offered healthy competition against their better-known colleagues. In fact, I ended up being quite pleasantly surprised by how many positive viewing experiences I managed to discover in both the Nippon Cinema and Nippon Visions programs, the latter focusing on independent and digitally shot productions.

Postcard

The festival’s opening night film was “Postcard,” the 49th and intended final film by Kaneto Shindo, who celebrated his 100th birthday on April 22nd. As Eric Evans ably illustrates in his full review, this is a markedly odd film that erratically dips and spikes in its emotional atmosphere. Shinobu Otake stars as Tomoko, a woman who experiences a spectacular avalanche of misfortune brought about by World War II. Bound to her in-laws’ isolated farm, she encounters Keita (Etsushi Toyokawa), a veteran who arrives to fulfill his promise to deliver a cherished article – the titular postcard – previously owned by her deceased husband, Jouzukuri (Naomasa Musaka). Otake’s performance is especially remarkable as she channels quiet resolve, solemn despair and raw, unbridled agony, yet she is but one element in a piece that seems intent on packing in a full spectrum of moods and spectacles rather than constructing a more even narrative arc. Thus, we get nearly implausible depths of hardship, the absurdities of wartime fervor, the refreshingly lighthearted exchanges between Keita and his uncle, a comically persistent suitor (Ren Osugi), the rough fight between him and Keita, a celebratory play and hopeful signs of fresh beginnings. While that last ingredient, encapsulated in the idyllic final scene, is somewhat at odds with the actual climate of post-WWII Japan, it still seems fitting for both the characters and Shindo himself, who, after all, by now knows a thing or two about marching onwards and finding fulfillment through productivity.

Casting Blossoms to the Sky

While not quite yet at Shindo’s centennial level, Nobuhiko Obayashi, now 74, still remains impressively productive for his advanced age and, more importantly, is capable of proving he is still as full of surprises as he was when he made his now-beloved 1977 cult classic, “House.” His latest effort, “Casting Blossoms to the Sky,” is surely unlike anything else that will be screened this year. Over the course of its breathless 160 minutes, it uses a reporter’s desire to visit and investigate Nagaoka as a framework for its nearly essay-like exploration of the city’s links to the events of WWII and personal accounts of those who survived the destructive events of the past (with some of the real-life inspirations behind certain characters actually making onscreen appearances). Jumping from speaker to speaker at hot potato speeds and virtually pelting the viewers with facts and stories, Obayashi weaves together the hidden details of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing operations, incendiary bombing incidents, Pearl Harbor, 3-11, the art of firework creation, a young student’s ambitious theatrical production and more into an exhilarating and touching cinematic symphony. Its ardent plea for humanity to work towards a more hopeful future by learning from history might have come across as being exhaustively preachy had it not been presented in such a wholly sincere and original fashion, all the while accompanied by a rich Joe Hisaishi score. And the daring, dreamlike quality of the imagery only sweetens the deal, often reaching pulse-quickening heights – who could ever forget the sight of a group of uniformed students perched upright on their unicycles coasting across the frame in single-file along a country road? Like many other shots, so odd, but so beautiful.

Kotoko

Shinya Tsukamoto was present at the festival with his first film after a string of more mainstream studio projects: “Kotoko,” which was given the Orizzonti Award at the Venice International Film Festival last year. This up-close character study of singer Cocco’s titular single mother as she struggles with mental illness is an unquestionably powerful piece of cinema. Entering it, viewers have little choice but to be confronted with her claustrophobic head space, which plagues her with hallucinations of menacing doppelgangers, bursts of brutal violence and a devouring sense of dread. Brilliantly orchestrating camerawork, sound design and surrealist storytelling strategies, Tsukamoto has produced an utterly terrifying viewing experience that may very well come to be regarded as one of his finest accomplishments.

Sukiyaki

Fortunately, there were other films that proved to be more gentle with audiences’ nerves, two of them being Tetsu Maeda’s “Sukiyaki” and Shûichi Okita’s “The Woodsman and the Rain,” which ended up winning the audience-voted Nippon Cinema Award. The latter follows Kôji Yakusho’s lumberjack as he gets pulled into a zombie film shoot led by an insecure 25 year-old writer-director (Shun Oguri) while the former, with its “One Thousand and One Nights”-style narrative concerning prison cellmates who share personal stories about their most cherished meals in a contest for extra morsels, proves itself to be a worthy thematic counterpart to such films as “Tampopo” and “Still Walking” with its own extended, sumptuously photographed send-ups to the special links food shares with memory and love. Certainly, like those films, “Sukiyaki” is bound to leave viewers with a deeper appreciation for at least the next few dishes they enjoy after the credits roll.

Ten Days Before Spring
          

Over a year has passed since the earthquake, tsunami and ignition of Fukushima's nuclear troubles that occurred on March 11th, 2011, and in that time film festivals have received numerous cinematic responses to the monumental events that left a still-reverberating impact on Japan. Nippon Connection presented a varied selection of mostly non-fiction films addressing the disasters, some of which earning official recognition: Masaki Kobayashi’s “Fukushima Hula Girls” came in third place in the audience vote for the Nippon Cinema Award (Tatsushi Omori’s “Tada’s Do-It-All House” earned the second place spot). Additionally, the jury for the Nippon Visions Award (consisting of journalist Andreas Platthaus, filmmaker Yonghi Yang and the Pow-Wow’s own Chris MaGee) gave a Special Mention to Yojyu Matsubayashi’s documentary “Fukushima: Memories of a Lost Landscape” while bestowing the main award to Juichiro Yamasaki’s feature debut, “The Sound of Light.” My personal reflection on 3-11 during the festival occurred via a short and feature pairing that began with “Ten Days Before Spring,” written and directed by Dutch filmmaker Stefanie Kolk. Following a Japanese woman living and working in Amsterdam (Misaki Yamada) who desperately tries to make contact with her mother shortly after the tsunami hits, the fictional film perfectly captures the utter helplessness and agonizing worry that so many like the heroine must have experienced while waiting to hear from their loved ones in Japan. She has no choice but to go through the motions of her daily routine while ominous signs like the unanswered phone calls and a package from Japan sent prior to the disaster emphasize the inescapable, terrible sense of ambiguity. Not wasting any of its 13 minutes, the film wisely utilizes a lean, observational style to depict with commendable clarity the main character’s emotional state. Jumping from that distant vantage point straight into directly affected zones on the Japanese coast shortly after the tsunami, Koichi Omiya’s “The Sketch of Mujo” maintains a very specific approach to make its own impression on viewers. No music, no voiceovers, no direct allusions to the filmmakers’ presence behind the camera – just occasional interviews with survivors and shot after lingering shot of the immeasurable quantities of debris, ruins and scattered belongings left in the wake of the waves.

 The Egoists

           

Arriving late in the festival lineup, Ryuichi Hiroki’s “The Egoists” supplied an electrifying jolt of sexiness and tragic recklessness to its lucky audience. Small-time thug Kazu (Kengo Kora) and topless dancer Machiko (Anne Suzuki) decide to ditch Tokyo and start a new life together, but disagreements with his father, difficult patches in the relationship and, most seriously, a towering debt to some particularly nasty yakuza soon begin to press heavily upon their initial dreams of bliss and escape. Strongly evoking Jean-Luc Godard’s classic tales of doomed love – think “Breathless” or “Pierrot le fou” – “The Egoists” captivates with its ode to the glorious highs and cruel lows of passionate, destructive youth. Another film that very nearly managed to be just as compelling was Nobuhiro Yamashita’s “My Back Page,” which portrays a young reporter’s immersion in the revolutionary activities of 1970s Japan and bond with an alleged member of a radical group. The storytelling and character development is multi-layered and engaging, though some may leave the film craving a deeper immersion in the nitty-gritty of investigative research (as in David Fincher’s “Zodiac”) or the narrative trajectories and details of history (as in Olivier Assayas’ “Carlos”). Fortunately, festival-goers had opportunities to further educate themselves in this tumultuous era of Japan’s political history through the efforts of Vertigo Magazine commissioning editor and film curator Julian Ross, who delivered a talk entitled “Images of Protest, Images as Protest: Japanese Cinema and Political Activism,” which covered the early May Day protests of the 1920s and ‘30s; such filmmakers as Shinsuke Ogawa, Motoharu Jonouchi and Masao Adachi; and the more recent protest activities in the wake of 3-11, among many other subjects. The festival also featured a series of Japanese protest film screenings including works by Ogawa and Jonouchi at Frankfurt’s Deutsches Filmmuseum.

The Great Rabbit 

Another guest present throughout the festival was Dr. Catherine Munroe Hotes of the Nishikata Film Review blog, who was involved in multiple events representing another facet of Japanese cinema: animation. A specialist in the field, Dr. Hotes assembled the animated shorts program entitled “Spaces In-Between: Indie Animated Shorts from Japan,” which included works by Tomoyasu Murata (“Lemon’s Road”), Akino Kondo (“Kiya Kiya”), Koji Yamamura (“Muybridge’s Strings”), Ryo Hirano (“Holiday”), Mirai Mizue (“Modern,” “Modern No. 2”) and Atsushi Wada (“In a Pig’s Eye,” “The Great Rabbit”). Dr. Hotes also delivered a talk on puppet master Kihachiro Kawamoto, whom she has written about for the “Directory of World Cinema: Japan 2,” and conducted an onstage interview with Wada about his work.

Our Homeland

Easily the most moving film I encountered this year at Nippon Connection was, fittingly, the very last one I saw, sneakily lying in wait in the lineup to trump the previous offerings (despite their respective strengths) with its calm, controlled power. Two years previous, I was greatly impressed by Korean-Japanese filmmaker Yonghi Yang’s documentary “Sona, the Other Myself” when it was screened at the festival; now, making her transition into feature filmmaking with “Our Homeland,” she continues to explore the troubling effects of North Korea’s controlling regime and, more specifically, how it has divided her family by preventing her from maintaining regular contact with her three brothers since they moved back to the isolated nation in the 1970s. Based on Yang’s personal experiences, her new film stars Arata Iura (better known simply as Arata) as Songho, a Japanese man who has lived in North Korea for 25 years away from the rest of his family. Permitted a three-month visit to Japan to treat a brain tumor (an opportunity that took five years to secure), he is reunited with his family and friends, among them his gruff father (Masane Tsukayama), who still remains firmly devoted to North Korea’s ideology, and his caring sister Rie (Sakura Ando), who is unafraid to voice her disgust at the absurd conditions that define Songho’s situation. A painful sense of restriction and temporality permeates every second of Songho’s visit, underlined by the physical presence of his stoic North Korean escort Mr. Yang (Yang Ik-Joon, the writer and director of 2008’s “Breathless”). Iura’s performance does so much to reflect the traumas suffered by his character – his cautious reservation, nervous smiles and extreme shyness are all the signs of a man who has spent most of his life afraid of testing the dangerous authority he lives under, and who can still feel its hold on him during this all-too-brief reprieve. Besides being a perfectly rendered consideration of a political subject through an intensely personal story, “Our Homeland” reveals with incredible insight just how much many might take for granted because they are closer to Rie’s situation than Songho’s, and thus able to enjoy the closeness of family, freedom of expression and privileges of a liberal society without fear of dire and immediate repercussions. We need a film like this every now and then (and maybe a little more often than that) to be reminded of both our own good fortunes and the grotesque injustices that still persist in certain parts of the world. After the diverse array of delights, shocks and food for thought that my selection of films left me with throughout the week, it seemed proper to finally conclude the festival (and, ironically, begin my journey home to my own family) on a note of grateful contemplation.

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Throughout the festival, attendees could watch artist Kozue Kodama as she "live-painted" a new picture from scratch

Catherine Munroe Hotes during her talk with animator Atsushi Wada



Group picture of assembled guests and staff

Nippon Visions jurors Andreas Platthaus, Chris MaGee and Yonghi Yang during the awards announcements

Yonghi Yang introducing her film "Our Homeland" with festival director Marion Klomfass


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Personal Top Ten:

1) Our Homeland (Yonghi Yang)

2) Kotoko (Shinya Tsukamoto)

3) Casting Blossoms to the Sky (Nobuhiko Obayashi)

4) The Egoists (Ryuichi Hiroki)

4.5) Ten Days Before Spring (Stefanie Kolk)

5) Sukiyaki (Tetsu Maeda)

6) The Woodsman and the Rain (Shûichi Okita)

7) The Sound of Light (Juichiro Yamasaki)

8) My Back Page (Nobuhiro Yamashita)

9) Come As You Are (Kôta Yoshida)

10) Postcard (Kaneto Shindo)

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Other films featured throughout Nippon Connection 2012 that have been reviewed on the Pow-Wow:

About the Pink Sky (Keiichi Kobayashi)
Come As You Are (Kôta Yoshida)
Die! Directors, Die! (Makoto Shinozaki)
KanZeOn (Neil Cantwell, Tim Grabham)

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Awards:

Nippon Cinema Award: The Woodsman and the Rain (Shûichi Okita)
2nd Place: Tada's Do-It-All House (Tatsushi Omori)
3rd Place: Fukushima Hula Girls (Masaki Kobayashi)

Nippon Visions Award: The Sound of Light (Juichiro Yamasaki)
Special Mention: Fukushima: Memories of a Lost Landscape (Yojyu Matsubayashi)

VGF Nippon in Motion Award: Koi-Man (Micaela Fonseca)



2nd Place: Bōru (Florian Gautier, Stephan Altenhein)



3rd Place: Chado: The Way of Tea (Andrej Uduc)

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Both Chris and I would once again like to thank all the hard-working organizers, volunteers, technicians and press relations personnel who so warmly welcomed us and the other attendees and made this film festival such a positive and memorable experience.

NIPPON CONNECTION ’12 REVIEW: Come as You Are

ソーローなんてくだらない (Sôrô nante kudaranai)

Released: 2011

Director: Kôta Yoshida

Starring: 

Tateto Serizawa

Nagisa Umeno

Saya Yasuda

Running time: 102 min.

Reviewed by Marc Saint-Cyr

The setup for Kôta Yoshida’s latest film sounds like it wouldn’t at all be out of place in one of Judd Apatow’s projects: a young slacker named Haruo (Tateto Serizawa) who is stuck in his job as a video store supervisor faces an embarrassing problem that impedes his ability to form proper romantic relationships: premature ejaculation. After Momose, an alluring new employee, arrives at his store, he decides to actively attempt to cure himself. However, this task is not that easy to pull off in his apartment, where his roommate Noriko (Nagisa Umeno), limited living space and thin walls eliminate any privacy he hopes to achieve. When the website he consults instructs him to find a partner to help him, Haruo comes up with a bold proposition: in return for chipping in more money for rent and keeping the place clean, he wants Noriko to assist him in his goal to endure sexual activity for fifteen minutes. After much pleading and sucking up, she agrees to do him this very personal favor.

            

“Come As You Are” certainly contains the sex comedy ingredients one would expect from that description (not to mention the cheeky English title). Multiple scenes show, through careful camera positions and blocking, Haruo desperately testing his endurance with several masturbation sessions and engaging in intimate encounters that end in awkwardness and failure. At one point, the poor guy can’t even keep himself from cursing and yelling at his own malfunctioning member. But rather than simply fishing for laughs to be had at his characters’ expense, Yoshida ensures that the latter – particularly Haruo and Noriko – are properly developed and given personalities that extend far beyond the comic situations. In doing so, both Yoshida and his talented actors are to be commended. Serizawa’s portrayal of Haruo is especially impressive for how he constantly uses body language and facial expressions to reflect his character’s bound-up insecurities and tormented yearning. The sad attempts at feigning indifference, the all-too-brief flashes of confidence, the brutally frank confessions and humiliations – they all give real weight to Haruo’s plight and make him intensely sympathetic. Opposite him, Umeno’s Noriko acts as the more practical and mature one who keeps herself focused on her own priorities, which include a crucial school exam. Her thrice-daily “help” sessions with Haruo are dutifully carried out with an old sock of his (eventually replaced by gloves) and are aurally portrayed by way of some wonderfully detailed sound effects.

            

Perhaps predictably, the unique arrangement between Haruo and Noriko eventually reveals the genuine feelings they have for one another. But don’t be fooled – this is not a simple, meet-cute romantic comedy. Instead, the film remains focused on the problems that plague and, in fact, define Haruo’s personal life. Having worked at the video store and lived in the same apartment for eight years, he prefers to tell people he is pursuing acting jobs on the side when in fact he has clearly abandoned that dream. Directionless and lazy, the only real control he seems able to exercise is over the shift schedule at work, which he mostly uses so he can attempt to woo Momose. Yet through Noriko and others, he steadily realizes just how sad and self-destructive his current lifestyle has become. After a certain point, one wonders if his performance problem is in fact the latest warning sign that he needs to make some serious changes for his own good.

            

Kôta Yoshida is probably best known for his 2010 film “Yuriko’s Aroma,” another refreshingly honest and insightful work about people’s sex lives and the complications within them that can spawn alienation. This is an area he has proven himself to be quite talented in, as he clearly understands that, unlike so many other films that take such matters for granted, human sexuality is a strange and complex thing that everyone experiences differently. Yoshida has openly demonstrated his sympathies for the less confident underdogs of the world, in the process exploring the more sensitive issues that can lie in waiting when affections and simple human urges are involved. His characters not only search for personal acceptance and fulfillment, but also a way they can achieve that ever-elusive thing called happiness without getting trampled upon by the so-called social norms they are so often challenged by. Indeed, Yoshida’s films seem to leave us with an important question: is there such a thing as being “normal?” If Yoshida suggests that the answer is no, then he also makes it clear that that is not such a bad thing.

NIPPON CONNECTION ’12 REVIEW: The Sound of Light

ひかりのおと (Hikari no oto)

Released: 2011

Director: Juichiro Yamasaki

Starring: 

Yoshitomo Fujihisa

Toyoyuki Sato

Yoshiko Nakamoto

Eri Mori

Running time: 89 min.

Reviewed by Marc Saint-Cyr

“The Sound of Light” is a film entirely set in one of the tougher corners of the world; a place where hard work is a minimum requirement for making a living – and not even that can guarantee prosperity or even survival. Yoshitomo Fujihisa plays the main character Yusuke, a young man who, three years prior to the events of the film, moved back to his family’s farm in the mountain town of Maniwa in Okayama Prefecture from Tokyo after his father (Toyoyuki Sato) badly injured his foot. This move put Yusuke’s ambitions of pursuing a musical career on indefinite hold – a necessary sacrifice so he could lend a much-needed hand in the many physically demanding tasks dutifully upheld by his father and grandmother (Junko Sato) over the years. A small dairy farm fighting off debt, the business requires the constant feeding and milking of its cows, among other chores. Here, routine and dedication are the defining factors of daily life, bringing a regular flow of early mornings and toil.

The events of “The Sound of Light” are overshadowed by a past event described in an opening title card: three years ago, a dairy farmer named Natsuo Asano was killed in a car accident that spared his wife Yoko (Eri Mori) and son Ryota. These characters are tied to Yusuke’s family in various ways: Natsuo was best friends with Yoshiyuki (Takeshi Masago), Yusuke’s uncle, and the two men worked hard together to establish their own dairy farm. But in the wake of Natsuo’s death, Yoshiyuki’s life and business collapsed into ruin to the point that he now bears the reputation of a madman. Also, Yusuke is in love with Yoko and hopes to marry her – a plan complicated by Ryota being the only remaining male in the Asano family. If Yusuke and Yoko were to get married, the boy would have to go live with his grandmother on Natsuo’s side so as to continue the Asano family name, thus presenting Yoko with a difficult decision – and indicating another way how family responsibilities shape the characters’ lives.

One of the clear strengths of “The Sound of Light” is the total immersion into small-town farming life it gives. The impressive Chugoku mountains surround the town’s scattered farms, businesses and homes, emphasizing the rural isolation in which the characters eke out a living. Work maintains a strong grip on daily life: whether tending to vegetable patches, preparing meals or, most often, tending to the cows, Yusuke and his family – including his sister Haruko (Yoshiko Nakamoto) and her boyfriend Takashi (Soichiro Tsuji) who visit and lend a hand in the various chores – constantly see to the tall order of responsibilities that need to be met. Writer and director Juichiro Yamasaki, himself a Maniwa farmer, admirably approaches such actions with a still, observant eye that ably captures the quiet dedication of the farmers. The viewer is made quite aware of the tolls such a lifestyle demands – especially through Yoshiyuki, who is publicly regarded as a failure and a cautionary tale. Having driven away his wife, he burns down his barn, gives in to drinking and attempts suicide. His misfortunes show that it takes more than hard work to survive in farming; that loyal friends and family serve as irreplaceable supports for perseverance. But even then, the farmers are at the mercy of forces beyond their control. In one integral dialogue scene, Yoshiyuki explains to Yusuke how he and Natsuo had to contend with a sudden rise in feed costs and, more importantly, people’s indifference to local businesses in favor of convenience. “The harder you work, the less you get,” he says, underlining the dire consequences of the growth of world markets at the cost of the farmers’ hard-won labors. This bitter truth is not dwelled upon for too long, but its weight is certainly not lost on the viewer.

Impressively, Yamasaki maintains an even balance between depicting the real-life textures and issues of the farming community and the more narrative-dependent strand of the film dedicated to Yusuke’s personal situation. Visiting a graveyard of amplifiers in the woods and uncovering a hidden guitar and the organ his mother gave to him before leaving the family (alluding to a rift between her and Yusuke’s more farming-oriented father), he still clearly holds onto his love for making music. His father even offers to give him a saved bundle of one million yen to help re-ignite the distant dream of returning to Tokyo. Yet Yusuke remains bound to the important sense of duty that has kept him at the farm. As a son and the heir to the farm, the weight of expectation lies heavily upon his shoulders, even if his family grants him the permission necessary to break away.

            

“The Sound of Light” gives an even and honest portrayal of farming life, neither exaggerating the great endurance it requires nor holding it up as a utopian alternative to the light and bustle of Tokyo, which has never felt so distant in a Japanese film as it does here. But occasionally, Yamasaki allows for moments of hope and beauty: the night scene in which an actual calf is born, Yusuke’s song to his mother quietly performed in a cold barn, the annual climb up a nearby mountain on the morning of New Year’s Day to see the first sunlight of the year. Such scenes make Yusuke’s journey seem worth the challenges it has brought him, confirming that the sacrifices he made were willingly and, at times, perhaps even gladly chosen.

NIPPON CONNECTION ’12 REVIEW: The Woodsman and the Rain

キツツキと雨 (Kitsutsuki to ame)

Released: 2011

Director: Shûichi Okita

Starring: 

Kôji Yakusho

Shun Oguri

Kengo Kora

Asami Usuda

Kanji Furutachi

Running time: 129 min.

Reviewed by Marc Saint-Cyr

We first see the woodsman hard at work felling a tree. In fact, we hear him first, his chainsaw buzzing away in an otherwise peaceful, sun-lit forest. However, he is eventually interrupted by a bespectacled man who emerges from the wilderness and, after nearly getting crushed by a falling tree, timidly asks him to stop working. He explains that a film crew is shooting nearby, and they need quiet for the scene. The woodsman gruffly complies. Little does he know that this will in fact be the first occasion of many in which the film crew will ask for his assistance, the next one involving tracking down the perfect river for a scene.

Played by Kôji Yakusho, the woodsman, Katsu, lives a quiet and simple life in the mountain town of Yamamura. The two-year anniversary of his wife’s death is nearing, and he lives alone with his teenage son (Kengo Kora), whose laziness and difficulties in finding a new job have caused some tension to arise between them. Katsu’s steady routine of neatly preparing meals for himself, interacting with his three work buddies and cutting down and moving timber is gradually overturned by the arrival of the film crew. The location scout for the river, wherein Katsu’s sincere attempts to find the crew a “pretty” spot are initially rejected for being too impractical for the shoot’s requirements, eventually leads to another, totally unexpected request: for Katsu to don a wig and ghoulish makeup and play a menacing zombie for the movie! Afterwards, he is invited to see the dailies with the rest of the crew, which really sparks his curiosity and begins to turn his impatience with the demanding moviemakers into genuine excitement.

As he first begins to help the film crew, Katsu notices – and actually berates – a young man with an untidy mop of hair and a sweatshirt who seems all but paralyzed by shyness, hindering any possibility of being useful to the rest of the team. He turns out to be Koichi Tanabe (Shun Oguri), the terribly inexperienced writer and director of the zombie film, which is entitled “Utopia.” He unsuccessfully attempts to flee from his duties at a train station and is forced to return to the set the next day, where he is daunted by the many questions and demands thrown at him by his actors and technicians. Yet Katsu compulsively returns to the film set and proves to be a source of comfort and reassurance for the flustered director. One of the nicest scenes between the two very different men is a lunchtime conversation in which Katsu points out two pine trees – one twenty-five years old, one sixty, matching Koichi and Katsu’s respective ages – and says that it takes one hundred years for a pine to fully mature, suggesting that they naturally both still have some growing up to do.

“The Woodsman and the Rain” mainly chronicles Koichi’s steady acceptance of his role as director while Katsu all but pounces on new ways of helping out the production. He soon starts getting the whole town involved, recruiting its inhabitants to play pale-skinned zombies and members of an all-female, bamboo spear-wielding army. The infectious joy and enthusiasm the townsfolk give off as they devote themselves to the shoot highlight filmmaking as a truly collaborative event. As in François Truffaut’s classic tribute to the craft, “Day for Night,” filmmaking helps bring people together in a spirit of fun and productivity. Notably, there are two occasions when Katsu demonstrates his talent for predicting the weather: first near the beginning, when a rainstorm halts the logging crew’s efforts, then later on when another torrential downpour halt the filming of a crucial sequence. Such scenes, indicating the woodsman’s instinctive bond with the rain (hence the film’s title), are perhaps meant to show how the duties of a lumberjack aren’t that different from those of a filmmaker: both involve hard work and dedication, and are ultimately at the mercy of such larger forces as nature and circumstance.

Through the warm bond that forms between Katsu and Koichi, “The Woodsman and the Rain” illustrates the universal process of discovering and seizing our true callings in life. This can involve summoning hidden reserves of courage and confidence, as Koichi hesitatingly experiences, or learning how to manage pre-existing commitments to family, as both Katsu and his son discover. But such worries can become so small and insignificant compared to the spiritual nourishment offered by clear sensations of purpose and passion – whether they come from cutting down trees or making the next great Japanese zombie movie.

NIPPON CONNECTION ’12 REVIEW: Die! Directors, Die!

死ね! 死ね! シネマ (Shine! Shine! Shinema)

Released: 2011

Director: Makoto Shinozaki

Starring: 
Kyoko Mori
Akemi Suzuki
Hiromasa Kaneko
Yoshiharu Fujii
Toshiki Kudo

Running time: 72 min.

Reviewed by Marc Saint-Cyr

“Die! Directors, Die!” feels very much like a giant joke being played on its audience. But the question is whether it is a sneakily elaborate one that actually has some meaning behind its attempts at comedy or a winding, clumsily told one that botches its own punch line. The surface elements of the film will likely turn off some viewers right away: shakey, unpolished MiniDV camerawork; jarring, shrill jump scares and bursts of violence and a cheap, in-your-face approach to gore that seems directly inspired by the notorious “Guinea Pig” film series. In many respects, it cleanly fits in with the multitudes of v-cinema schlock that have come before it. But where it throws a curve ball of-sorts is in its numerous comments on filmmaking and the true roles of both directors and movies, which are first introduced through its amusingly provocative title.

            

“Die! Directors, Die!” opens with a student’s graduating film being shown in a screening room at the newly relocated Film School of Tokyo. The project is essentially a loud and clunky mash-up of horror movie imagery that the young director intended to be “the ultimate horror film.” His teacher, Shimazaki, harshly criticizes the film and labels it as a disgrace to filmmaking, but shortly after he in turn is denounced by another student who hurls such scathing remarks as, “Pure directorial visions suck!” This causes Shimazaki to suffer a mental breakdown, and he bursts back into the screening room armed with a spear attached to a camera that brings to mind a similar weapon from Michael Powell’s famous “Peeping Tom.” With it, he claims forty-two victims in an extended, over-the-top massacre sequence before attempting to kill himself, then vanishing. Four years later, a group of film students led by Natsuki, their controlling director, seek out the site of the incident to shoot their own film. However, odd paranormal occurrences and strange behavior from some of the crewmembers soon give way to a chaotic and unpredictable onslaught of events.

            

Perhaps to look too closely at – or react too negatively to – the rough, amateurish quality of “Die! Directors, Die!” is to miss or ignore the opinions declared by the young filmmaker at the beginning, who proudly claims he doesn’t care at all about film theory and believes he makes films for audiences, not himself. Or maybe it is the highly negative portrayal of directors, from the naïve student to Shimazaki to the crazed Natsuki, that is most important here. Several other characters also trash-talk cinematic authors, including a member of Natsuki’s crew who exclaims, “Directors are all a bunch of lunatics.” It could be that all of this is meant to address and attack the tendency of filmgoers – particularly cinephiles – to focus on the director and his or her voice as the main creative factors in a film. And in turn, perhaps cinema itself – or, at least, the kinds of cinema that commonly attract attention and praise – is being rejected outright, and “Die! Directors, Die!” is meant to be seen as a piece of anti-cinema that gleefully embraces its unattractive techniques as an extended middle finger to established habits and expectations.

            

But for every intriguing, potentially thought-provoking ingredient, including the anti-director remarks, a number of references to well-known films and filmmakers and a trip to snowy Yubari – of course, home to the legendary Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival – there are at least two that throw wrenches into the works, blurring any meaningful attempts at coherent commentary with goofiness, immaturity and befuddlement. The horror plotline, complete with classic pale-skinned, long-haired, contorting ghosts and a violence-inducing video recording, seems to suggest an attempt at a full-fledged genre product rather than a clever deconstruction. The purposely icky, gratuitous instances of violence come across as plain silly and designed solely to court shocks and laughs – especially when it reaches such ludicrous points as a newly-born, clearly fake baby being swung around a room by its umbilical cord. The characters are never fully developed enough to warrant a proper connection with the viewers, and their wandering trajectories are often cumbersome and tiring to watch unfold. Altogether, despite all the suggestions that there is something liberating and valuable to take away from the shamelessly crude nature of “Die! Directors, Die!” I simply felt that it was too muddled and unrefined to be taken seriously all the way. But then again, maybe I’m just blind to the inherent suckiness of pure directorial visions.

NIPPON CONNECTION ’12 REVIEW: About the Pink Sky

ももいろそらを (Momoiro sora o)

Released: 2011

Director: Keiichi Kobayashi

Starring: 
Ai Ikeda
Ena Koshino
Reiko Fujiwara

Running time: 113 min.

Reviewed by Marc Saint-Cyr

Keiichi Kobayashi’s debut feature “About the Pink Sky,” which won the Japanese Eyes section at the 2011 Tokyo International Film Festival, opens with one of those story devices that works so well for getting the main character moving along on a course towards different people, places and events. High school student Izumi (Ai Ikeda) finds a dropped wallet that contains ¥300,000 in cash and the owner’s I.D. After doing a little research, she discovers that the wallet’s young owner is the son of the head of the Horse Racing Association of Chiba – in other words, someone who enjoys a fairly privileged lifestyle. After freely loaning ¥200,000 of the loot to a middle-aged acquaintance facing trouble finding work, Izumi unwisely reveals her find to her two friends Hasumi (Ena Koshino) and Kaoru (Reiko Fujiwara). They all go to the wallet’s owner, Kouki Sato (Tsubasa Takayama), who notices the missing money’s absence, confronts Izumi about it and soon enlists her and her friends for an unusual project as a means of compensation.

            

This bare-bones description of the film’s premise doesn’t even begin to do justice to the actual viewing experience it offers. Kobayashi, who wrote, directed, edited and shot the film himself, chose a very specific style consisting of gorgeous, silvery monochrome and a soundtrack layered with background noise, yet devoid of music. But while in certain points such features might recall Robert Bresson or Michael Haneke, those severe masters of concentrated, sensory cinema, the unpredictable narrative trajectory and frequent flashes of casual, light-hearted humor create a different impression, constantly compelling the viewer to adjust expectations and eventually submit to its curious nature. Shot in various quiet urban locales with many long takes, “About the Pink Sky” provides a crisp yet slightly distorted snapshot of contemporary Japan. After a certain point, the near-total absence of adults becomes quite apparent, colliding with Kobayashi’s other stylistic choices to make the experience resemble a neat assortment of carefully edited memories of youth that still manage to reflect its aimlessness, comedy, drama, absurdity and vividness. Just as viewers go from scene to scene, Izumi goes from moment to moment in this compact segment of her young life, having no idea what the outcome of her impulsive decisions and dilemmas will be.

   

Which brings me to possibly the film’s finest quality: the extremely solid performances given by the cast of young, inexperienced actors. Ai Ikeda in particular is delightful as she gives a fantastically naturalistic characterization laced with great little mannerisms and subtleties. Whether viewers will actually like her Izumi will depend on whether they see her stubbornness, immaturity and whip-smart sass as obnoxious yet endearing or simply obnoxious. In any case, Ikeda puts great effort into her portrayal of the snarky teenager – at times, it seems, the ultimate snarky teenager – carefully making the most of her screen time. Whether whispering to herself in a sort of vocalized interior monologue, twisting her face into cheeky facial expressions or even, in one scene, discreetly pushing an unpaid bill towards an unsuspecting Sato without breaking their conversation, she always seems to be packing another little glimmer of personality into the film.

            

Throughout “About the Pink Sky,” Izumi maintains a hobby of reading newspaper stories and, with the bold slashes of a marker, coolly grading them based on her skeptical worldview. This is very much in keeping with her character as she frequently gives in to bouts of smugness, entitlement and indifference in response to the situations she comes across. One could see this behavior as her personal defense mechanism against a deceptive and imbalanced world – and indeed, over the course of the film there are many instances of seemingly simple or obscure appearances giving way to more complex and, occasionally, unfortunate truths. Gradually, we learn more about her friend Kaoru’s job in which she chats online with older men (she assures Izumi that the conversations haven’t yet veered into sexual territory) in order to lessen her family’s financial burdens, which are largely brought about by her mother’s taste for expensive designer brands. Izumi’s other friend, Hasumi, reveals herself to be quite vain, bossy and tragically susceptible to dreams of romance. But it is through Sato that Izumi matures the most; his job for the girls, which involves creating a homemade newspaper that only delivers good news, is all for a sick, hospitalized friend of his named Kazumi. In the face of such greater forces as illness, chance and genuine innocence, Izumi’s egotistical façade is all but bound to buckle, bringing about humorous, ironic and poignant results alike.

            

Surely, “About the Pink Sky” is an unusual coming-of-age film that will likely throw off some viewers with its lack of conventional dramatic structure or emphatic plot points. Yet the drifting approach to story, aesthetic beauty and admirable performances all add compelling degrees of realism and poetry to this wonderfully idiosyncratic effort. According to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter for his film’s appearance at Sundance, Kobayashi hopes to next make a project about an otaku couple, which should be a most interesting subject when presented from this director’s unique perspective.

Nippon Connection Coverage Ahead on the Pow-Wow - Stay Tuned!

by Marc Saint-Cyr

It is that time of year again: Pow-Wow editor-in-chief Chris MaGee and I will once more be shortly heading over to Frankfurt, Germany to catch one of the biggest Japanese film festivals out there: Nippon Connection. Celebrating its 12th year, the festival will be bringing a fantastic variety of new and exciting films from established directors (including Kaneto Shindo, Nobuhiko Obayashi, Takashi Miike, Toshiaki Toyoda and Shinya Tsukamoto) and emerging talents alike. The festival will be running from May 2nd to the 6th; during those days, I will be providing updates (with fresh photos) every one or two days right here to fill you in on the films I've caught and any other noteworthy observations on my festival experience. Additionally, I will be posting individual film reviews focusing on some of the intriguing selections featured in this year's Nippon Visions section, which consists of work from independent filmmakers and artists. Finally, stay tuned for after the festival ends, when I write up my summative festival report that will describe my overall experience of this year's Nippon Connection.

For those of you asking what Chris will be up to while I'm seeing to all this, I'm pleased to say that he will be quite busy fulfilling his own responsibilities - as a juror! Chris will be joined by filmmaker Yonghi Yang ("Our Homeland," "Sona, The Other Myself") and journalist and author Andreas Platthaus (F.A.Z.) on the jury for Nippon Visions, and with them, will determine which film will be worthy of the Nippon Visions Award, which will provide the honoured director with free subtitling for his or her next film courtesy of Tokyo's Japan Visualmedia Translation Academy (JVTA).

For us, Nippon Connection is always a special occasion for us to get a privileged look at the newest films coming out of Japan and catch up with far-flung friends who share our love and enthusiasm for Japanese cinema and culture in their own corners of the world. This year, we're more excited than ever about what this one-of-a-kind event has to offer, and hope you'll keep checking back here to follow our coverage!

Check Out the 2nd Block of Films Planned for the 2012 Shinsedai Cinema Festival!

by Marc Saint-Cyr

Recently, the Pow-Wow's editor-in-chief Chris MaGee has been hard at work preparing this year's Shinsedai Cinema Festival, which will be held in a new venue, Toronto's Revue Cinema, from July 12th to the 15th. Co-directed and co-programmed by Chris and Jasper Sharp, author of "Behind the Pink Curtain: The Complete History of Japanese Sex Cinema" and the recently released "Historical Dictionary of Japanese Cinema" and co-founder of Midnight Eye, the festival will be continuing its mission to bring rare and exciting new films from the current independent film scene in Japan to eager and curious North American audiences. This past Monday (April 16th), thanks in large part to the efforts of the festival's web manager Robert Harding, Shinsedai announced its second wave of films that will comprise the complete festival lineup (set to be revealed in its entirety sometime in May). Here's a look at the films featured in the announcement:

• End of the Night (Daisuke Miyazaki) - Helmed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa's assistant director on "Tokyo Sonata," this fusion of the Nikkatsu crime films of the 1960s and Takeshi Kitano's yakuza works, follows hitman Tamegoro as he raises a child claimed from one of his jobs as his own son, training him to take up his legacy of crime (pictured above).

• Zero Man vs. The Half-Virgin (Sakichi Sato) - From the writer of Takashi Miike's "Ichi the Killer" and "Gozu" comes an eccentric comedy about a policeman who is stricken with amnesia and begins seeing mysterious numbers on people's foreheads whenever he becomes aroused - perhaps indicating the number of sexual partners each person has had? This film is co-presented by the iconic Toronto DVD rental and sale shop Eyesore Cinema.

• The Naked Summer (Kenji Okabe) - This music documentary, shot by regular Hirokazu Kore-eda cinematographer Yutaka Yamazaki, follows butoh dancer Akaji Maro as he organizes his annual retreat in the countryside for dance professionals and amateurs alike, who will devote themselves to learning more about the fascinating dance form in preparation for a performance.

• From the Great White North: Yubari Fanta Special - Yasuhiro Togawa, director of Hokkaido's legendary Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival, assisted in the selection of three fascinating short films: Takuaki Tsunemoto's 'sexual martial arts' film "Hole and Pole," Yumehito Imanari's wrestling documentary "The Student Wrestler" and Kotaro Terauchi's marital comedy "Mrs. Akko and Her Husband."

• Battle Girls and Bondage: A Pink Film Double Bill - In what will be the first-ever theatrical screening of pink films in Toronto, Shinedai is proud to present, in collaboration with both L.A. distributor Pink Eiga and Toronto fetish clothier NorthBound Leather, a double-bill of Mototsugu Watanabe's "Sexy Battle Girls" and Osamu Sato's "New Tokyo Decadence: The Slave." Please note that this will be an 18+ age-restricted screening event.

As you can see, there is a pretty diverse selection of genres to viewers to choose from, illustrating the festival organizers' goal to bring many different facets of Japanese culture to the Revue this upcoming summer. With such films on the way plus the attendance of special guests and availability of Ontario Spring Water Sake from the festival's official beverage sponsor at the theatre bar, this is sure to be a very fun and memorable event.

The full announcement at the Shinsedai website can be visited here. Follow the Shinsedai Cinema Festival on Facebook and Twitter, and be sure to stay tuned for the final announcement that will reveal the festival's full lineup!

New Films from Kôji Wakamatsu and Takashi Miike Included in Cannes 2012 Lineup

by Marc Saint-Cyr

This past Thursday, April 19th, the main section lineups for the 65th Cannes Film Festival were finally revealed, sating film fans' curiosity about what new works would be appearing on the Croisette this year. While there is an abundance of treats for lovers of arthouse cinema from all over the world (new works from Anderson, Resnais, Loach, Mungiu, Reygadas, Vinterberg, Cronenberg, Haneke and more!) Japanese cinema has only a small handful of representatives...but what will be showing up looks quite special. Firstly, in the Un Certain Regard section there is "11.25 The Day He Chose His Own Fate," Kôji Wakamatsu's portrayal of the famous incident in 1970 in which renowned writer Yukio Mishima stormed the Ministry of Defense in Tokyo in a failed attempt to ignite a rebellion and committed seppuku. This film is the latest effort in what is turning out to be a very impressive late-career run for Wakamatsu, who has recently enjoyed acclaim for such works as 2007's "United Red Army," 2010's "Caterpillar" and this year's "Petrel Hotel Blue," which was recently featured in the Japan Society's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" series in New York. Meanwhile, the festival's Midnight Screening section will include Takashi Miike's newest film "The Legend of Love & Sincerity," based on a manga by Ikki Kajiwara. Those who are intrigued can check out the film's visually impressive trailer at the film's MUBI page.

While it seems that will be it for Japanese-directed films, it is also certainly worth mentioning that Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami's "Like Someone in Love," his new film set in Japan which we have been following, is part of the Competition lineup for the much-coveted Palme d'Or. The delightful teaser trailer, which was previously posted online only to be removed shortly after, can now be viewed once more - we've included it below:



Looking beyond Japanese cinema, it is nice to see other areas of Asian cinema included in this year's lineup. Among the honoured filmmakers of interest in that respect are South Korea's Hong Sang-soo ("In Another Country") and Im Sang-soo ("The Taste of Money"), India's Ashim Ahluwalia ("Miss Lovely"), China's Lou Ye ("Mystery"), Kazakhstan's Darezhan Omirbayev ("Student") and Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul ("Mekong Hotel"). It certainly looks like this will be one of the more fascinating years at Cannes, and we eagerly look forward to following news and reports from the south of France once the festival (which will be held between May 16th and the 27th) gets underway.

Many thanks to the MUBI Notebook for its comprehensive roundup.

Cast of Takeshi Kitano's "Outrage Beyond" Announced

by Marc Saint-Cyr

PLEASE NOTE - the following story contains spoilers for Takeshi Kitano's "Outrage."


It appears that Takeshi Kitano is making good progress with the sequel to his 2010 return to the yakuza genre "Outrage." The film shoot, which began on April 2nd, is now apparently half-way finished, and the finished project, entitled "Outrage Beyond," is set to be released in Japan by Warner Bros. on October 6th, 2012. In a press conference that was held this past Tuesday (April 17th) in Chiba Prefecture, the main cast was revealed. Kitano, Tomokazu Miura, Ryo Kase and Fumiyo Kohinata, who all appeared in the previous film, will be returning, while new actors will include Toshiyuki Nishida, Yutaka Matsushige, Katsunori Takahashi, Kenta Kiritani and Hirofumi Arai. Perhaps the most interesting tidbit of information in this story is the re-appearance of Kitano in his role as the yakuza Otomo, since the character was assumed to be killed at the end of "Outrage." Producer Masayuki Mori cleared up some of the confusion by saying that Otomo in fact survived the film's brutal events, and that "Outrage Beyond" will see the return of the character, but will not be focused on his attempts to gain revenge. The new film's story will instead involve a clash between the Sanno-kai and Hanabishi-kai crime organizations, which control the Kanto and Kansai regions, respectively, while Otomo confronts the police's efforts to eradicate the yakuza. Taking into consideration many viewers' criticisms of the first film being too detached and hollow, it will be interesting to see if Kitano keeps up that trend or decides instead to throw some interesting curve balls, be it through more compelling plot developments or new formal techniques, with "Outrage Beyond."

Many thanks to Nippon Cinema for providing the details for this story.

North American Release Date and Trailer for Hirokazu Kore-eda's "I Wish" Unveiled

by Marc Saint-Cyr

Here is some news that is surely getting a lot of Japanese film fans very excited: Apple's trailer website recently posted a new, polished trailer for "I Wish" the latest film by Hirokazu Kore-eda, the master behind such beloved works as "After Life," "Nobody Knows," "Still Walking" and "Air Doll." The film's North American release will be handled by Magnolia Pictures, which will be putting the film in theatres on May 11th. Additionally, Toronto audiences will have the opportunity to see the film earlier than that when it screens at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre on the evening of April 26th. Having seen the film last year at the Toronto International Film Festival, I can fully state that this was a welcome treat certainly worthy of holding company with Kore-eda's past successes. This new trailer does a great job of highlighting the complex layers of emotions and detailed perspective on the bonds between parents and children that all make the film such a pleasurable experience. Hopefully, Kore-eda fans out there will take note and make this a priority when it comes out in select theatres in a few weeks time - it is certainly worth it. To read more about what some of us at the Pow-Wow thought of it, feel free to check out Nicholas Vroman's site review and my guest review for VCinema.

Readers can now watch the trailer in HD over at Apple and visit Magnolia's main page for the film.

New Trailer for Naoko Ogigami's Latest Film "Rent-a-Cat"

by Marc Saint-Cyr

One of the more accomplished filmmakers in the independent Japanese film scene today is Naoko Ogigami. With such films as "Kamome Diner," "Glasses" and "Toilet," she has developed a personal style distinguished by well-written contemporary characters, light-hearted humanism and a polished visual sensibility. Just a few days ago, the online community got a brand new trailer (included below) for her latest film, "Rent-a-Cat," which screened at the Berlin International Film Festival. The story revolves around Sayoko (Mikako Ichikawa), a lonely young woman who runs a business in which people can rent cats for a time to lighten their lives a little. Living on her own, she doesn't seem to handle connections beyond her feline companions very well, though the re-appearance of a person from her past soon enough shakes up her self-imposed isolation. Judging from the two-minute glimpse we are given, it certainly looks like Ogigami's recognizable charm, humor and sensitive characterizations will carry on strong with this fresh effort.

"Rent-a-Cat" will be released in Japan by Suurkiitos on May 12th. To read more about Ogigami's previous works, check out Eric Evans' profile of the filmmaker here.

Source: Nippon Cinema

UK Theatrical Release for "Mitsuko Delivers" set for May 11th

by Marc Saint-Cyr

Third Window Films has repeatedly proven to be an absolute gift for eager fans of independent Japanese cinema with its caringly prepared theatrical and DVD releases. Very shortly, the company will be adding yet another worthwhile event to the calendar when, on May 11th, the 2011 film "Mitsuko Delivers" receives a theatrical release within the UK. "Mitsuko" is one of the most recent efforts from Yuya Ishii, a filmmaker who has steadily been making a name for himself with such works as 2007's "Girl Sparks" and 2010's "To Walk Beside You" and "Sawako Decides." The new film stars Riisa Naka as the titular character who maintains an optimistic attitude as she returns to Japan from California following an ill-fated relationship with an American. Far along in her pregnancy and facing grim financial prospects, she encounters certain figures from her past including her parents' former landlord and a young man who has long harboured feelings for her.

Check out Third Window Films to see the trailer, poster and more details on "Mitsuko Delivers." Many thanks to SciFi Japan for highlighting this story.