Japan Cuts 2013: Sex And The Cinema (A WOMAN AND WAR, THERE IS LIGHT director q & a's)

Agitators In Arms: Japan Cuts programmer Samuel Jamier and director Junichi Inoue

As if this summer weren’t hot enough, the Japan Cuts festival has been screening a mature batch of imports with no small amount of onscreen scintillation, proving sex to be a pervasive aspect of the culture.

It is used as a form of emotional leverage and manipulation in crime story DREAMS FOR SALE; and in drama THE COWARDS WHO LOOKED TO THE SKY (reviewed here), both a means of escape and fitting in, a necessary path to reproduction that is crucial in keeping with small town conventional values.

This past week 2 films were screened, which cast copulation at opposite poles of the spectrum of darkness and light. Both screenings were also attended by the films' respective directors, who also made very different impressions. Junichi Inoue, the director of anti-war diatribe A WOMAN AND WAR, purposefully wearing a Che t-shirt, wasted no time in uttering his hatred of the Bush administration hence his surprise at returning several years later to the US. Meanwhile, Yukihiro Toda, here to represent his debut feature, THERE IS LIGHT, about a prostitute working exclusively with disabled clientele, humbly expressed his gratitude to the audience before abandoning the introduction, speechless until the q & a that followed the film.

In A WOMAN AND WAR, the approaching defeat at the hands of China and Allied forces during World War 2 finds its characters consumed in a vacuum from which morality has been completely sucked out. Lambasting their own military forces and speaking of rape that will come at the hands of non Japanese soldiers, sex is looked upon as a defiant last act of resigned defeat. Older men come on to women arguing that things will end soon anyway.  “Let’s screw each other to show we know we are being screwed by the war” (or something to that effect) is the attitude embraced by a wilting writer, maintaining a journal to avoid the draft, and the oblivion-obsessed barkeep he couples with. Describing an upbringing peppered with abuse and followed by work as a prostitute, she reacts to sex frigidly, without feeling, only experiencing arousal when violence is involved.

Meanwhile, a soldier returning from the battlefield who has lost an arm in combat, invites women to accompany him to a distant place where  he can obtain free rice; then, when reaching an isolated spot, savagely chokes them to unconsciousness and commits heinous acts of rape. This occurs after initially speaking out against and even trying to stop a group of men from carrying out just such an act. He could have been maintaining a sense of decency in the presence of his wife and child, who were since moved to a safer. That or perhaps a switch was flipped in his agonized, combat afflicted mind.

The grim film looks quite good in spite of a low budget and limited shooting time. The outdoor settings have a natural beauty, and the dilapidated ruins of war are sufficiently gray and soot covered. When the war does end, the tragic survivors seem to take little solace, almost burdened by the thought of continuing to live in such destitute conditions. It is a blunt but effective tome on war.

Toda’s brief feature film, THERE IS LIGHT, takes a morally ambiguous stance on prostitution. It begins with a mild-mannered yet formidable manager of an escort service for severely disabled customers speaking to Saori on her first day at the job. She visits customers, whose disabilities include a fatal flesh deteriorating disease, a disfiguring condition that causes the man to need human assistance and specialized equipment to move, and a bike accident victim whose body from the waist down has ceased to function. It is the last of the three, whose appointment with Saori was arranged by a mother desperate to return her son to her idea of normalcy, who affects her the most.

Yukihiro Toda, director of THERE IS LIGHT

The bold film addresses the relatively low status of Japan’s disabled citizenry, with the manager referring to the country as ‘disability unfriendly’ resulting in afflicted people staying out of sight.

The interactions are moving, at times light hearted, and not lacking in any of the frank sexual grammar afforded more conventional situations.

Saori‘s transformation is key and acted with accomplished subtlety by gravure model Maya Koizumi, an as of yet inexperienced actress. She goes from a strictly business mindset to realizing the feelings she brings about in these despairing individuals is something worthwhile. And that she herself, a fragile and guarded soul, can find salvation in her interaction with just such a pained individual.

A few narrative turns that feel forced can be forgiven in light of the larger statement being made about a vastly neglected but significant population in Japan. It is a film that should make people think twice before coming to blanket moral judgments about people’s paths in life. How even those working in a profession that conventional wisdom tells us is degrading can be seen as a source of hope or even just temporary relief for those who are largely forgotten by the rest of society.      

A WOMAN AND WAR’s unsettling graphic and frequent depiction of rape was addressed directly by Inoue in speaking about the film, claiming he felt a 'moral responsibility to depict (events) as truthfully and accurately as possible. He described his goal as to show the plight of the 'secondary victims of war - not those on the frontline.'  Below are excerpts of the q & a that followed the screening, which gets into the influence of well known film agitator Koji Wakamatsu, the film's impact on the far right in Japan, and negotiating freedom of expression and censorship in Japanese media.

The first time feature director Yukihiro Toda modestly but enthusiastically took answered questions about his film, discussing what brought him to take on this topic,working with the lead Maya Koizumi and the actors portraying characters with disabilities, and challenges he faced in making the film.








Sex is clearly an influential force in several aspects of Japanese society and there are daring, mature directors willing to hold nothing back in exploring its impact. And in turn, the Japan Cuts festival has gone to lengths to bring their visions  direct to us.

Me on twitter = @mondocurry

The Thing That Couldn't Die (1958) (revised)

Who but me would spend an inordinate amount of time trying to run down a movie about a dead devil worshiper's who’s body is wandering around trying to find it’s head which was found buried separately in a box? Yes I know this is a sign I should be locked away but I’m on the move so you’ll never find me.

This is a weird 1950’s horror film about some people finding the body pieces of the not quite dead Gideon Drew and how Drew’s head uses it’s will to force people to do it’s bidding. For years the image of Drew’s bearded head on a shelf in a closet haunted me. I had no idea what the film was, it was something I had stumbled upon as a kid on TV and the image haunted me. Then in the days before the Internet I struggled to figure out what in the hell I saw since no one knew what it was, or if they did they didn’t know what the film was called. I spent a fortune on hit and miss horror films at nostalgia shows trying to find it. Eventually I found a reference to it in the Overlook Horror Encyclopedia, which I’ve read from cover to cover a couple of times, and the hunt was off for the right film. Trouble was no one had it for sale.

Eventually I found it… and it really isn’t all that good. Sure the Drew's head stuff is eerie but the rest of the film is mediocre.

At this point you’re probably wondering why am I recommending the film. Simply any film that has hung for me for decades has to be noted. Good bad or indifferent the fact it sent me on a hunt means something.

A review by way of apology: Broken (2012)

An apology of sorts to the makers of Broken.

When I sat down to screen your film it came at the end of a long run of similar British dramas all financed in the same way (BBC/National Lottery/BFI). For whatever reason it was during the run of the film it occurred to me that as good as the film was it was ultimately interchangeable with any number of other films I’ve seen not only over the last few months, but the last few years. To my mind despite all the films having different plots, you could pretty much slip characters and sequences in and out any one of them and have them play pretty much without a bump. Yes, you’d be tripped up by the specifics of plot, but mostly all of the films could be forged together into one giant British drama. While watching Broken it suddenly became very clear that despite whatever pros (great cast great characters) and cons (too many echoes of To Kill a Mockingbird) the film had on its own terms it was rapidly being lost in to the clump of like similar dramas.

Taken on its own terms Broken, which concerns a young diabetic girl dealing with a boyfriend, crazy neighbors, a beloved teacher dating her au pair, her friends and her dad, is a good film. It has a great cast featuring Tim Roth, Cillian Murphy, Rory Kinear and Eloise Laurence as our heroine, Skunk. The characters live and breathe and make the film worth the price of admission. Of course the film has its flaws, sameness aside, the chief of which is that it seems to have been cribbed partly from To Kill a Mockingbird, with a Skunk looking like scout from the movie, a crazy neighbor (who is dangerous this time) and a rock solid father.

The problem is that I can’t take it on its own terms. To me the film is yet another in a long line of British domestic films all set in the same sort of town, all in homes that look the same all involving people who look alike. This isn’t the case of all British films of course, rather it seems that it’s the result of the films that all, or a large portion of those reaching US shores, seem to be produced by BBC/National Lottery /BFI.
I realized there was a problem when I saw the three names and groaned “oh Christ no” out loud. Clearly it meant something subconsciously. Then after about ten minutes into the film I realized that my attention was drifting. Not because it was bad, rather because it didn’t stand out. It looked like I was seeing something I had seen before even though I had never seen it before. (I was going to include a list of similar films but realized that I haven't been noting them because the whole lot are rather bland and haven't been worth mentioning here or anywhere else)


I stayed on to the end but the film never clicked with me.

Broken isn’t a bad film, its just an unremarkable one, especially if you have seen a large number of recent BBC/National Lottery/BFI films.

Deep Cuts: THE COWARDS WHO LOOKED TO THE SKY ( ふがいない僕は空を見た) and JAPAN'S TRAGEDY (日本の悲劇) highlight the darker side of the Japan Cuts festival

As Japan Cuts settles into its skin amid this 7th year of its existence, its propensity for bringing serious dramas that offer unique insight into the culture is as clear as ever. This year, however, programmer Samuel Jamier seems to be navigating for darker waters than usual. Two upcoming films of the festival that are accomplished works both steeped in social commentary are THE COWARDS WHO LOOKED TO THE SKY(fugainai boku wa sora wo mitai) and JAPAN’S TRAGEDY (nihon no higeki).

Directed by Yuki Tanada, COWARDS… begins in total darkness before a door is literally opened, as if granting a glimpse into a rarely acknowledged subculture. Two individuals adorned as characters from a scifi manga – a practice commonly known as cosplaying – are in the midst of an intimate sexual encounter. Their outrageous attire is contrasted by the drab bedroom where the escapade takes place, the male, Takumi, reading notes scribbled in pen about the fantasized scenario. To make the scene even more uncomfortable, Takumi is clearly a student, not yet of age, coupled with the adult woman, Anzu.  The story does not dwell on the subject of cosplay. This turns out to be one piece of a puzzle involving a diverse range of characters who reside in a town that feels smaller and smaller by the moment.

The film is shot plainly and without resorting to ostentatious flare. Sequences are sometimes repeated after some other significant occurrence is revealed, changing the context in which we see things. The cosplay affair is one of them, turning from shocking to something that feels like a sane, unremarkable reaction to overwhelming pressures. For the woman, Anzu, it is an act of escape from reality, brought on by her husband and mother-in-law who make for a Norman and Mom Bates like pair, the latter of which obsesses vindictively over Anzu‘s lack of reproductive activity. For the student, it is a combination of hormonal curiosity and a deep compassion for Anzu‘s situation, one that suggests an emotional maturity beyond his years despite the impending slip into compromising circumstances.

Other characters suffer fates beyond their control; be it aberrant desires, harrowing impoverishment, or abandonment. What they all share is the desire to escape from a suffocating small town existence, one in which they are shunned or subject of cruel rumors by the rest of the community. The habit of doing so feels so pervasive it even brings other victims to lash out at their suffering peers.

Meanwhile, Takumi’s mother, a midwife, represents a relative outcast whose job puts her at odds with the mostly conventional values of the town, yet one who deals with uncomfortable situations with grace and rationality. Her unusual poise is shown to have a positive influence on her son. And Kento Nagayama plays Takumi with incredible sensitivity, which makes his fate one of dire consequence to the audience.

The film’s unabashed social commentary brings to mind ODAYAKA, a film made in reaction to the earthquake of March 11 that strikes a similar chord (screened at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival and reviewed here. While not addressing the disaster in any overt way, I wonder if it is joining what is possibly a post 3/11 movement of critical issue films.

JAPAN’S TRAGEDY from director Masahiro Kobayashi, on the other hand, does deal directly with the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake, although its subtext runs much deeper. Unemployment, economic strife, and alcoholism all factor into the troubled lives we see before us.

Shot in stark monochromatic black and white and with a maddening stillness (most scenes are shot in long, unmoving takes focused on one of a few rooms in a house), here we also feel as though we are looking in uninvited at a private, intimate existence. In this unspectacular dwelling a middle aged man, Yoshio , and his father, played by legendary actor Tatsuya Nakadai, pick at each other irritably. As their strained dialogue wears on, details of their sorrowful lives are revealed, involving the loss of loved ones to the earthquake’s devastation.

Like the frame itself, Nakadai is largely sedentary. Confined to a chair at the kitchen table, or grieving before a shrine to his late wife where he vows to spend the rest of his days until death, it underscores a helpless inability to affect any change, and a weariness of life. Both he and Yoshio speak in pain-wracked tones, voices cracking, at times, to reach unrestrained registers of suffering.

A single depiction from the past is shown in color, standing out jarringly from the rest of the film. Yet, it serves mostly to make us aware of the darkened existence we’ve settled so thoroughly into. 

While JAPAN’S TRAGEDY plays like an endurance test, it is not a meaningless one. It’s the kind one goes through to get oneself a bit closer to knowing of the world’s most disconcerting truths. These are just two of the many film offerings Japan Cuts has set before us that allow us to do just that.

THE COWARDS WHO LOOKED TO THE SKY is being shown on Saturday, July 20 at 4 pm.

JAPAN’S TRAGEDY is being shown on Sunday, July 21 at 3:30 pm.

All screenings are being held at The Japan Society. Visit their website for tickets and more information. 

Blackfish (2013)

Very good documentary on the weird disconnect we have between killer whales as portrayed by Sea Wold and the rather nasty reality of keeping them in captivity.

Nominally the story of Tilikun, a killer whale captured in the wild and brought to Sealand, an low level aquarium. Several years later Tilkun pulled on of his trainers into the pool and killed her.  With the fun of it gone Sealand sold Tilikun to Sea World for breeding purposes only. The trouble was Sea World didn't do that it, they put him in the shows, and it eventually  killed another trainer (a couple years after killing a man who snuck into his enclosure).  The film uses the Tilikun story to explore the relationship between man and killer whales, as well as performing animals in general.

I'm going to keep this really short  and sweet- see this film. I''m keeping this short because I have about nine pages of notes, nine. Usually I take maybe two, I took nine. I damn near annotated the entire film and my initial draft of this review spelled out everything. I can't do that, it's not fair to you or the film since this is a film that you really must see because it raises tons of very important questions. Its a powerful film that makes you think about things you probably haven't thought about.

As good as most of the film is it gets itself into trouble in two places.  First the narrative thrust of the film gets lost in the second half of the film. the backbone for the first half is the death of  Dawn Branteau and the OSHA lawsuit the resulted from it. The problem is that in the second half, as the film throws its net wider to show the number of incidents with killer whales in captivity (and its only in captivity- they don't bother people in the wild) the film drifts all over the place and stops being about anything and instead is just someone shouting that there is something wrong.

The second place it gets into trouble is that the film raises the question of what our relationship with the whales would be if we didn't have places like Sea World, would they still be cuddly? Would they still be a symbol for conservation? .  It mentions the question in the final third or so of the film and then just leaves it hanging there, which would be okay but with the judges ruling and other matters affecting the future of animal shows and the animals themselves its a tidbit that should have been explored even in a cursory way, I mean will people care about the whales if they can't see them?

That said. A film that you really should see- though keep the little ones away since some of the talk and video might freak them out.

A new Something Like a Phenomenon trailer

The scary things at Borley Rectory return...

Apologies to Jonathan Chance who sent this to me a couple weeks back, but I have been so swamped I'm just getting around to posting it now. For more details on the film go to the Facebook page.

Death in Paradise (2006)

The second film based on the Jesse Stone books by Robert Parker is based on the first novel. Since it’s a story that sets up Jesse and Paradise the film probably confused some viewers when it originally ran on CBS. Now thanks to DVD and reairings the film can be shifted to the right place in the front of the line of Jesse Stone films.

This is the story of the coming of Jesse Stone to the town of Paradise Massachusetts. Jesse a once mighty homicide detective has fallen on hard times and as his marriage to an actress collapsed he took to drinking (but not on the job). He doesn’t expect to really get the job but he goes anyway. What Jesse doesn’t know is that the position he is taking is being vacated by a man who doesn’t want to go. However he knows too much and the corrupt head of the town council (Saul Rubineck) wants him gone. He’s hoping to put Jesse into the position because his reputation is so bad he figures he’ll be able to be controlled. As Jesse tries to pull himself together and not blow the job, a mob enforcer (Stephen Baldwin) working for the head of council takes matters into his own hands and kills Jesse’s predecessor. Had the body not been found as quickly as it was it might have been ruled a suicide but the State Police find evidence that it was murder which send Jesse on the hunt since “it happened on my watch”.

One of the better Stone films shows very clearly that the reason the films work is the characters. A dark brooding affair the film is kind of almost a modern day noir in how down beat everything is. Hell, things are shadowed by the fact that Jesse’s dog is slowing dying. This is not a happy film. On the other hand the film is full of wonderfully drawn characters, from Selleck’s Stone to Suitcase and Molly two of Selleck’s cops to bad guys Stephen Baldwin and Rubineck who make watching the film an absolute pleasure. Frankly the mystery isn’t all that mysterious since we know who was doing what, with the result we just get to watch the characters go through their paces and react to the things that are happening around them.

Dark brooding nature or not its great fun and very entertaining and when I was done watching it on a recent Hallmark Channel airing I was ready to pull out all the other films (I have the whole series on DVD) and wend my way through the lot.

If you like good mysteries and great characters this is a must see

Los Angeles Film School is hosting the Evolution International Film Festival

The upcoming Evolution International Film Festival will take place at the Los Angeles Film School from July 26-27. In it’s second year, EIFF is requiring filmmakers to dive headfirst into the most relevant and wide-reaching topic of our time: Revolution and Freedom.

With impassioned citizens from Egypt, Syria, and Brazil lobbying for the human rights and economic liberties promised to us in the United States, EIFF could not come at a more significant moment. With 23 films in 10 different languages, this festival hopes to change the way we view the international landscape. While the media most certainly highlights the atrocities of the on-going struggles for freedom, EIFF will engage its audience with the heart-wrenching, yet inspirational stories that would otherwise go untold. Los Angeles Film School, the alma mater of festival director Sandra Seeling, provides a top-notch film education to a diverse selection of students that hail from all over the world. Dedicated to globalization, the school welcomes a festival that also takes place in Mallorca, Cairo, and Egypt.

Narrative Feature Competition
Coyote, directed by Joe Eddy, USA
Xingu, directed by Cao Hamburger, Brazil (click on the link to see my rave for this from last year's Tribeca)

Doc Feature Competition
Kumpania, directed by Katina Dunn, USA
Barzan, directed by Cassidy Dimon

USA Narrative Short Competition
Robin O. (14), directed by Cecilia Verheyden, Netherlands
Buzkashi Boys, directed by Sam French, Afghanistan
Double or Nothing, directed by Nathaniel Krause, USA
Smoke, Mirrors, directed by Ben Wise, USA
Good Night, directed by Muriel d'Ansembourg, UK
First Date, directed by Alex Weinress, Australia
Ismail, directed by Nora Alsharif, Jordan
That Wasn't me, directed by Esteban Crespo, Spain
Try Outs, directed by Susana Casares, Spain
Wild Flower, directed by Vlad Veier, USA/Slovakia

Doc Short Competition
Unravel, directed by Meghna Gupta, India
Not Anymore: A Story of a revolution, directed by Matthew VanDyke, USA
Dreams in their Eyes, directed by Alia Yunis, UAE
Carbon For Water, directed by Evan Abramson, USA
Motorbike Midwifes, directed by Masumi Higashi, UK
By Her Side, directed by Niels van Koevorden, Holland Student Competiton
The Boy Who'd never seen rain, directed by Kim Ramsay, Australia
Sahashi Cori, directed by Erin Galey, USA- Treibjagd, directed by Christiane Hitzemann, Germany

Animation
VitalVoices, directed by Aron Kisner, USA


For more information go to the website.

Away With Words (1999)

I have no idea if Away with Words is a good film or a bad film. I don’t think it’s even worth trying to figure out if it’s one way or the other, rather I think we should just except it as a singular work of cinema and a grand masterpiece.

And yes it’s pretentious as all hell but at the same time it’s frequently so deliriously wonderful that I can forgive it it’s short comings.

The plot of the film has something to do with Asano who has a sensory relationship with words and an iron trap memory going to Hong Kong and meeting Patrick Sherlock at a night club. Sherlock is the odd man who I believe owns the club who has memory problems unless he’s drunk and who talks a mile a minute. There are other characters who come and go but for the most part the film focuses on the two men, their memories, dreams and the ways they relate to language.

For a film that is often about words this is an incredibly visual film. Amazing image crashes into amazing image. The connection of them, especially when mixed with the flowing words creates an emotional landscape that is deeply affecting to both the head and the heart…though more in the heart, it’s more a film that I feel than one that I can really talk about. It’s a film where words of description fail. How can I explain how a series of images, some rapid fire makes you feel? How can I explain how the sequences work when the visceral impact of three or four images would take three or four pages of words to duplicate.

I love that Christopher Doyle has thrown everything into the film. It goes from looking amateurish to looking stunningly professional and back again and again and again. The shifting back and forth should kill the film but instead it creates this unmatched sense of life and living. In life we go through moments that are dumb and then we bounce into highly polished ones. Such is the case here. This film is a gloriously alive, even to the point that the characters are all playing fictional versions of themselves.

I don’t know what to say but if you can track the film down. Watch it with no preconceived notions and just let it and its images and ideas wash over you. Don’t take it as anything other than what it is at that moment…and I think you’ll come away really impressed.

Away with Words is a visual delight

The Closing Night of NYAFF 2013 including a review of Jay Chou's THE ROOFTOP

La welcomes everyone to the Asia Society and the Closing Night

The final night of this year’s New York Asian Film Festival was an emotional experience. The big moment was not the film, rather it was the awarding of the Daniel Craft Award for Cinematic Excellence in Action Cinema . The award was named after the late Daniel Craft who is still a force behind the NYAFF and was bestowed on Herman Yau’s Ip Man the Final Fight. The award was accepted by Dan’s wife Paige on behalf of the filmmakers. Paige was deeply moved by the award

Sam looks on as Grady gives a speech for the ages

Before the award Grady Hendrix gave possibly one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard. The speech was a powerful explanation of fandom vs hipsterism. It went into how the film festival was created by a bunch of guys who loved the films they were showing, and how that love brought in people like Dan to the fold. It was Dan’s love of the films, of his unabashed fanboyism that drove the festival forward over the last few years despite the fact that there has been a talk of hanging it up because it's such a massive undertaking. Grady added that despite the desire to end the festival, they were no longer planning on doing so because to do so would mean that they would have to give up a connection to a friend that they hold dearly. Grady then went into how the award was created to be given from the fan perspective. It was created to honor films that won’t win thing critically but touch the fans and make them go “Fuck yea.” Grady then called up Paige to the stage to accept the award on behalf of Herman Yau.

Sam gives Paige Craft the award named for her late husband as Grady looks on

Paige’s remarks were a treasure- talking of Dan’s love of the festival, her being okay to being number two to it, and thanking Grady and the festival for eventually paying off her and Daniel’s credit cards.

She was also clearly moved by the award being named for her husband.

Jay Chou’s THE ROOFTOP is a frustrating film. A musical romance set in a magical realistic world where people spring into song and dance at the drop of a hat, the film concerns Wax a young man who is in love with a young girl on a billboard that towers over his roof top community. He along with his friends/brothers are simply getting by by working hard at a clinic run by Eric Tsang which dispenses medicine and has floor shows (yes, really floor shows). Wax’s brother works for the Housing Commission collecting rents. One day after collecting the rent at a bathhouse the guys hear a scream and see a woman being accosted, stepping in to save the damsel they wreck a movie shoot.. and meet the girl of Wax’s dreams. Will romance blossom?

Of course it will and of course complications will come.

Chou’s film frustrates me. There is so much good in this film, it borders on being one of the best musicals I’ve ever seen, but it annoys me when it stumbles throughout and then crashes at the end into a huge WTF.

I have no problem saying that if you take THE ROOFTOP on a purely moment by moment basis it’s a wonderfully joyously happy film (until the end). It’s a film with great music, great dance numbers and heartfelt romance. If you don’t look forward or back and just dwell in each glorious moment it’s as good and as wonderful as any movie you’re likely to see. The moments are as good as movie musicals get.

The trouble is that the film doesn’t always connect things up. Yes, the film is a kind of memory play, but at the same time things are left out, other things are not fully explained and more things just happen. It’s not fatal, it’s just that it keeps the film from truly soaring.

However what is truly damaging is the final 15 or 20 minutes. As the film races to its conclusion the film doesn’t go dark, it goes black, as we get murder, rape (real rape), bloodshed (in an otherwise bloodless film), a car chase that will boggle the mind of those who were annoyed with the unreality of the ones in another NYAFF film, Confession of Murder. And then there is the conclusion which is by turns out of left field, heartbreaking and WTF. Where does this shift come from? Who’s idea was it to turn “real” after 90 minutes of fantasy? Worse who’s idea was the WTF bookends? As the film ended the audience was laughing but not with the film but at it.

On the other hand if you view the film as pieces its place of magic that I want to revisit several more times- hell the musical numbers are often mind blowingly cool. As pieces Ilove the film.

As much as it will annoy several people who hate Chou and others who really didn’t like the film , I heartily recommend it assuming, of course, you know that it’s flawed.


Lastly I have to say that as with every screening at this years festival it was full of friends old and new. One of the best parts of this year’s festival was that other than an Inaccurate Memoir every screening I attended was also attended by a friend or two. Who said movie going was a solitary business? Its never the case at NYAFF.

Last night the evening began with meeting Mondocurry for a quick bite. This was the first time in several months where just the two of us simply sat down and just talked. We got some slices from Two Boots and just were talking movies and music. It was a nice change. We talked until we had to leave, then headed off to the Asia Society and the movie.

After the film I finally met Dwitt Davis. Dwitt is an imposing figure who seemed to be at almost every screening I attended. I had wanted to make my way and introduce myself to him at couple of screenings but circumstance defeated me. Last night on the way out of the movie we struck up a conversation and he, Mondo and myself ended up walking and walking for a good while before we all hopped trains/subways and headed home. I can completely understand why he was always surrounded by people at the festival, he’s a cool guy.

And with my entry onto the subway NYAFF was officially done for me. Another one down and all that left to do is get ready for the next one in some 50 or so weeks… perhaps a dip into the Japan Cuts pool... or even the Asian American International Film Festival…. Or better yet just some sleep its been a crazy couple of weeks.

Until next year I need to thank everyone connected with the festival, it was a blast.

Nightflyers (1986)

Okay B level science fiction/horror film is a decidedly 1980’s film in its look and feel. A minor film, even under the best of circumstances, Nightflyers is also a pretty good time passer that seems to have bits of it stolen by more recent films such as Prometheus.

The plot of the film has a bunch of characters brought together to try and track down an elusive force in the universe that remakes things as it passes. Once the ship takes off things begin to go wrong as the ship’s captain is found to be incommunicado and only appears as a hologram, and the ship seems to be trying to kill the passengers.

Far from the best film ever made the film survives thanks to some interesting twists and turns and some reasonably good action sequences.

The film’s final half, where the crew tries to survive the deranged ship’s efforts to kill them is pretty good. It was seeing this sequence that I reconnected with the film.  I had walked in on the film in the later half when it was being run by one of my family members. Plopping down on the couch as all hell was breaking loose I was amused by what I was seeing. To be certain it wasn’t the best action sequence ever, but the cast played it seriously enough that you could at least sympathize with their situation. While the action plays a bit more silly when you see it from the start, it still was pretty good when I later on watched the film from start to finish.

To be certain that the film is far from a classic film, but it is on another title to add to the growing list of films that are better than their reputation or oblivion seems to indicate. Worth trying should you run across it.

The Daniel Craft Award at the closing night of New York Asian Film Festival 2013

Just in from the Closing Night of the New York Asian Film Festival I'll write about the night and the movie later but right now I just want to post a picture from the awarding of the newly created Daniel Craft Award for Excellence in Action Cinema "fan" award. It was named for the late Dan Craft one of the driving forces behind Subway Cinema and the New York Asian Film Festival. The award goes to the best action film at the festival. It went to Herman Yau's IP MAN THE FINAL FIGHT and because Herman Yau wasn't there Dan's wife Paige accepted the award.

Briefly : Warped Forest (2012) New York Asian FIlm Festival Japan Cuts 2013

My final trip to the Japan Society for a New York Asian Film Festival screening was for WARPED FOREST. I was also supposed to stay for Ruroni Kenshin but because of trains I headed home.

The screening was low key. I met Alec inside and kept a seat between us because I had to put my Criterion Collection haul somewhere other than under foot (hey 50% off at B&N).

The introduction was largely a discussion of how tired everyone was and how they had just woken up.

The film itself involves a dual story of sorts, of a several people having weird experiences around a hot spring. And another story, set in a dream like world with weird fruit, strange guns, trees that are women and other odd sights.

Its a kind of sequel to FUNKY FOREST, made by one that films directors...

Writing about the film is extremely hard. Part of the reason is that the film is an almost random series of connected scenes which kind of come together at the end into something that is worth trying. The other reason that the film is hard to write about is that the film is ultimately an amusing trifle and nothing more. Don't get me wrong, its really good film, It just doesn't produce a great amount of words on my part beyond saying I liked it.

After saying good bye to Alec I headed out and headed home. I ran into Lee who was taking a break from the festival, she had seen Kenshin, and was going off to get something to eat and kill time. We talked about the films over the last couple of days as we walked away from the Japan Society. Two blocks over I parted ways with Lee- I went home and she went to hunt for Criterion films.

Hated: GG Allin & The Murder Junkies (1993)

Long before big blockbuster comedies such as Old School & The Hangover trilogy, Director Todd Phillips was just a lone, inspiring film maker at NYU. He dropped out of school to focus on finishing his first full length feature. A documentary on the ever so controversial, underground punk-rock 'icon' GG Allin.

Hated: GG Allin & The Murder Junkies is a look behind a man whose music & life put all other so called "shock" acts to shame. There is no brief way to describe GG Allin, to those that may not be familiar with his work. To call his live shows and music violent, would be an understatement. Allin would often fight members of his audience, men & women, mind you these are people who paid to see him. He also often bragged about plans of killing himself on stage, though that never came to fruition. While performing most of his concerts in complete nakedness, Allin would switch between defecating on stage & self mutilation. Either with a microphone he once used to smash out his front teeth or broken glass. Most shows only lasted around 15 minutes or so, and ended in either a brawl or Allin being arrested. You get the feeling that if you walked into a club to see GG Allin, you were stepping into a war zone. No one was safe.

Phillips follows Allin & his band, The Murder Junkies through their short lived 1991 U.S. tour. There is no lack of footage here, between public appearances on Geraldo, spoken-word outlets (which always ended badly), and of course the guerilla style film making of his live performances. You will be disgusted at what you see, and that is exactly what GG Allin set out to do.

Several short interviews with Allin, his band mates (which include his brother Merle), ex-members & fans, intertwine between the raw footage shown. You never really get into Allin's past, it's laid out in a very subtle way. But that was never the point of the film. Hated: GG Allin & The Murder Junkies gives new meaning to the term 'sex, drugs and rock & roll'...just mix that with blood, urine, profanity & violence.

As it's mentioned after the closing credits, Allin died of a heroin overdose just a few months after filming wrapped on the documentary. He was only 36 years old.

There are a few different versions of the DVD available. I happen to have an older release, which includes footage of Allin's last show. A former gas station turned hole-in-the-wall venue, ends in an upscale riot on the streets of NYC. This footage is the last ever seen of Allin, who died just mere hours after. A 2007 version of the film, features different sets of commentary, one by Todd Phillips himself. An interview with Allin's mother, and a reproduction poster drawn by one of Allin's closest friends, serial killer John Wayne Gacy. What a colorful guy.

At The Crossroads of the New York Asian Film Festival and Japan Cuts

This weekend, taking in some of the selection screened at the crossroads of the New York Asian Festival and Japan Cuts, feels like a survey of a year’s worth of the best indie and repertory Japanese releases condensed into a couple of days. Although a desire to be there in Japan consuming these films at a casual pace definitely arises, it wouldn’t include the luxury of subtitles. Plus, as even some of the individual screenings have proven, there is something to be said for occasional excessive indulgences in visual stimulation.

I’ve written about the opening night party screening of I’M FLASH! here and Miike Takashi’s saucy hor d'oeuvre THE LESSON OF EVIL here, as it was shown at an earlier screening at the Walter Reade Theater.

Friday was a double feature powerhouse of Sono Sion’s 199- stillbirth debut wrenched back into life BAD FILM, and hilarious comic sendup HENTAI KAMEN.  Saturday would find me watching 3 of the day’s films: DREAMS FOR SALE, IT’S ME IT’S ME, and HELTER SKELTER. On Sunday, things would let up a bit with me taking in only 1 screening – THE KIRISHIMA THING. Here is a brief look at each.

BAD FILM (Sono Sion) is a roughly shot behemoth populated by amateur stage actors and assorted ‘characters’ that is s crudely compelling…not in spite of but because of its incessantly brash and offensive dialogue. It’s  a Shakespearian melodrama set in the near future pitting warring gangs of nationalistic Japanese and immigrant Chinese against one another, whose biggest target is pigheaded intolerance in the name of nationalism. There are ridiculous characterizations of the Japanese gang members, the leader of which has an intimate relationship with an actual pig head. This diamond in the rough does not have to be so long, but a large part of the auteur Sono’s appeal is his insistence on presenting his madcap visions undiluted…which here includes baseball games between he ethnic gangs, a laundromat debate of civilly spoken yet thoroughly racist epithets timed so that the participants switch from Japanese to Mandarin every 3 minutes, and gangs using old school propaganda vans equipped with microphones to preach on the detrimental effects foreigners’ penises pose to Japanese females’ equivalent anatomy. A bigger mess of such high intrigue is unlikely to exist.

HENTAI KAMEN (Yuichi Fukuda) is a pitch perfect hilarious manga adaptation of a comic story that sends up superhero stories and Japan’s notorious fetish subculture all in one shot. A junior high school student, born of diametrically opposed fetishes (his dominatrix mom and the latent submissive cop dad whom she ensnared), finds superhuman strength in presence of one of Japan’s most notorious and shameful fetishes: a preoccupation with used underwear. Whereas some superhero parodies put an audacious wrapping on an otherwise straightforward story – to stick with a Japanese example, Yatterman has pitch perfect costumes but a no surprise good vanquishing evil progression – HENTAI KAMEN keeps a sly and cheeky face throughout.  

DREAMS FOR SALE (Miwa Nishikawa) set Saturday afternoon ablaze with a slow-burning brushfire. It’s not the first Japanese film to explore he notion of people escaping harsh reality by deluding themselves with fantasty, and those who help  expand on those fantasies for their own selfish gain – past Japan Cuts alumni Motel 66 comes most readily to mind – but it is by far the best. A hot and cold couple working various temp restaurant jobs become emotional grifters with the end goal of earning enough money to build their own restaurant and hence financial security. Kanya reluctantly plays the foreground when it is realized that women are attracted to a sense of ease and security he gives them. Satoko finds sadomasochistic pleasure in brokering him out, taking pleasure in the way they part money from the insecure and desperate marks, but wounded by the attention Kanya pays them instead of her.

The drama is pillared by two strong female forces in Japan’s film industry: director Miwa Nishikawa (who has paved the way for this film with other restrained and slowly revealing moral dilemma dramas Sway and Dear Doctor), and Takako Matsu who plays Satoko, known for her near legendary performance of a revenge driven teacher in Confessions. In contrast to Matsu’s ice cold portrayal in that film, here she plays her character burning hot. Notable is the all too natural sudden flashes of violence she is capable of – whether brandishing a glass or literally cooking Kanya in a bath of hot water while pressuring him to carry out their scams. The facades hold up all too well until a final slippery mess brings illusions crashing down.

IT’S ME IT’S Me (Satoshi Miki) is a rambling, colorful, absurdist dream brought to life. Wrought with quirky exchanges of dialogue set to an even quirkier bleeping electronic score, it follows the path of Hitoshi an electronics store employee and photography enthusiast, who on a whim, grabs another person’s cell phone and engages in some mischievous exchanges with people at the other end of the line. A matter of steps finds Hitoshi in an alternate reality populated by numerous Hitoshi’s all with their own personas that seem to be different shades of the one true one.  While it’s an interesting riff on the idea of seeking out one’s true self, it is only occasionally engaging. At it’s best, images come to life to create a cubist fantasy of towering angular structures and a final movement that is filled with panicked escape through claustrophobic spaces. Far too often, though, conversations are more confusing than anything. It’s enough so that I have become growingly wary of films built around the presence of a pop idol, even one as offbeat as this. Although I could hang with it and appreciated its uniqueness, it’s the sort of film that if I’d brought a friend along, I’d probably feel compelled to apologize for it afterwards.

HELTER SKELTER directed by designer Mika Ninagawa is pure blissful visual anarchy. A hundred thousand pop art projects strung together and animated in sequence. Despite talk of it being a plastic surgery horror film, it’s more about a fame monster destroying everything in its path before eventually devouring itself. Forget story and just let the visuals stun you into submission. Starting with an opening sequence with swirling red and white stripes reminiscent of the work of Yayoi Kasuma and building too a an all out animatronic bad acid trip.

About a year ago I read about this film online and in an instance of life seeming to imitate art, found news of lead actress Erika Swajiri missing appearances and behaving erratically. Her onscreen counterpart, fashion model Lilico, is an embodiment of celebrity behavior out of control, holding a personal assistant and her boyfriend hostage sexually when not destroying herself with overdoses of pills.  Meanwhile, Dr. Frankenstein-like plastic surgeons vindictively slash up their patients.

Its extravagance makes HELTER SKELTER arguably the closest thing to a Japanese equivalent to The Great Gatsby.  And thinking about the excess of both HELTER SKELTER and BAD FILM, not too mention Sono’s more recent work, a grandiose collaboration between the two is the stuff of wishful fantasizing.

THE KIRISHIMA THING (Daihachi Yoshida) is a subtle film that took Japan by surprise. Focusing on the interactions of students in a typical high school, we watch events of a few days unfold from multiple perspectives. Much is shown about how students’ every word and move is an integral part of forming their identities and navigating relationships. A very prominent aspect of KIRISHIMA is a film club’s endeavor to make a b-movie; their pursuit of movie magic is a delightful reflexive aspect of the film. Much appreciated is the nod to Tetsuo: The Iron Man, which is shown with a wink and a nudge as a symbol of movie geekdom.

As the New York Asian Film Festival closes its iron clad doors for another year, Japan Cuts continues for another week of vibrant, challenging films. Stay tuned for a few more reviews of what’s to come.  

Me on twitter = @mondocurry