London, late-January/early February sort of time, and e Japan
Foundation presents its annual Touring Film Programme, starting off at the ICA
and moving to the more artistic cinemas in various cities up and down the UK. And
every year there must be a theme.
This year's theme is quite a good one: Ikiru, the Japanese verb 'to
live', and the name of a famous Akira Kurosawa film (no, not 'Throne of Blood'
fans of Stewart Lee's Comedy vehicle Series 3'). In Japanese cinema, this is a
genre - if you'd call it that - of cinema typically associated with Yasujiro
Ozu and his portraits of change in ordinary, everyday Japanese life; a theme
carried on into the new millennium by Kore-eda Hirokazu.
Far from grand samurai classics and out-of-this-world anime, these are
slower films, films to provoke more introspection, films to make you laugh and
cry, and then vomit while reading this. This, the thirteenth JFTFP (JFTFP!),
saw me see fewer films than I typically would, driven largely by busy-ness,
seeing Tony Law and not wanting to watch four straight films on a Saturday, especially
as Villa had won for once, so I had to watch Match of the Day.
In the words of Scha Dara Parr, let it flow, again...
Cheers from Heaven (Tengoku kara no eru; 天国からのエール)
'Cheers from Heaven' is probably a bit mainstream for me;
it's a fair example of low-level mainstream cinema that's decent, not amazing,
forcing emotions on its viewers with a tad too much sentimentality. Saying that
though, I had to see this one of all the films shown as part of this year's
programme.
In a small Okinawan town, a group of not-particularly-musically
talented school children struggle to find anywhere to practice their
not-particularly-impressive talents. Annoying adults, local bento supplier, Hikaru,
disillusioned by a lack of community spirit, takes the group of children in,
allowing them to play in a spare area behind his kitchen. But being essentially
open-air, this doesn't really solve the problem. But, never one to give up
easily, he takes it upon himself to start building a studio for the children to
use freely (in each sense), but as long as a community of sharing is followed.
The kids delight in this, and suddenly every child in the
town has a guitar and comes knocking on the door. But Hikaru's focus stays on
the original group he took in, becoming a manager of sorts in helping them
pursue their dream, for reasons that become quite sentimentally apparent. In
true light movie fashion, they succeed.
The content meant little to me, however. 'Cheers from
Heaven' is set and filmed in the northern Okinawan town of Motobu, where my
wife and I stayed as part of our honeymoon. The real life Ajisai studio, opened
by once real life man Hikaru Nakasone, was on the winding hill path that we
walked passed each day en route to our guesthouse. For the majority of the
film, therefore, I was sat looking at the scenery and remembering what I did
there, such as the public lavatory I once stood outside, where the headline act's
drummer and guitarist have a fight.
 |
| Famous Motobu toilet |
The 'living' element of this film is a tale of a man perhaps
a little fed-up with how things have become, in his own life and society in
general, feeling the need to make some sort of change and realise a dream,
before it's all tragically too late, if a little forced by the conclusion.
This is a nice film, a steady film, a decent film that
perhaps needs to stop trying so hard by then end to get its message across. But
for me, it probably serves more as a holiday memory.
I'll Give it My All, Tomorrow (Ore wa mada honki dashitenai
dake; 俺はまだ本気出してないだけ)
'I'll Give it My All, Tomorrow' is a title I liked the
moment I read it, particularly as it came accompanied by a photo of a man in
boxer shorts. It's fair to say, this is my kind of comedy.
In his forties, Shizuo gives up his salaryman job to work part-time
in a fast food bar and sitting about playing an 'important match' of his
Playstation. Living with his father and seventeen year-old daughter, his slack
attitude soon frustrates his family and Bob, the foreign employee in the fast
food bar. See as a superior by those younger than him, but a waste by those by
those who depend on him, he soon makes it his life ambition to become a manga
artist...at some point, some time.
This is a film about the life that happens when you're
making plans, too busy sitting about and thinking about what you should do
rather than getting anything done. While the earnest desire is there, the
proactive motivation is somewhat lacking, resulting in a limbo. A mid-life
crisis finds your average salaryman working alongside and socialising with
young adults still trying to find their place in the world, naturally to the
amusement of the likes of me.
'I'll Give it My All...' captures well that somewhat naive
compulsion that men have to pack it all in, fight the system and sit in their
pants playing Playstation while the rest of society moves on; the freedom we
all want, but is probably quite dangerous in misguided and confused hands.
Shinich Tsutsumi is well cast as the anti-hero, seemingly
confident to those his junior, but unable to achieve and get his life moving,
and Yuichi Fukuda's direction works well in magnifying his shortcomings, as a
forty-two year old man asks his seventeen year-old daughter to lend him twenty
thousand Yen.
If you too would like to learn about how mundane your life
is, the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme travels to the likes of
Leicester, Bristol, Birmingham, Derby, Sheffield, Aberystwyth, Dundee, Edinburgh,
Kendal, Exeter, Nottingham and Manchester...though you're probably already
aware of said fact.
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