Category: Japan

Earlier this week I shared thoughts on the 6 movies I saw during Japan Society’s annual Japan Cuts Film Festival for 2015. For this last entry about the festival I’m focusing on the other event I attended: the Experimental Spotlight.

Mono No Aware x [+]

This event was interesting in that in some sense it began several weeks before the festival started. On June 21 Mono No Aware and the Japan Society presented a workshop in which 20 participants created (very) short films using direct filmmaking techniques to manipulate 16mm “found footage” of documentaries about Japan. The films produced in this workshop opened the program, and were interesting in their variety and approaches despite using the same techniques, and in showing what can be done in such a short period of time.

The remainder of the program was even more fascinating in its diversity. RELAY presented an incredibly unique moving image view of an even more unique subject in the form of artist Ei Wada playing music on repurposed television sets. The imaginative Koropokkuru used puppetry and other techniques to convey Japanese folklore through manipulation of inanimate objects. Emblem manipulated the conversion of video to film to create a narrative out out of research footage. Louis Armstrong Obon played with pacing and atmosphere rather than visuals or technique, presenting almost a documentary style feature with great atmosphere and impact. sound of a million insects, light of a thousand stars was mesmerizing to watch, and became even more intriguing when the method behind the film was revealed at the end.

Varying manipulations of light were featured in the remaining 3 films. Stella Nova conveyed the life of a star through constant colorful manipulations and explosions, Emaki/Light was a dance of abstract black and white images produced by direct drawing on film pairing with harsh sporadic piano notes, and UB HOUSE Experience in Material No.52 was a brilliant and creepy presentation of moving shadows and bursts of light.

While I’ll admit some of the pieces seemed longer than they needed to be, everything was interesting and at least in some part captivating. The contrast of all the chosen shorts and topics covered really made this shine. This spotlight is a welcome addition to Japan Cuts and I hope we’ll see more of it next year.

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And that concludes my experience at Japan Cuts 2015. I had a wonderful time and hope to attend even more of it next year. I encourage anyone who’s even remotely interested to check it out in 2016 as well as the other events Japan Society’s Film Program has in between.

Yesterday I shared thoughts on 3 of the movies I saw during Japan Society’s annual Japan Cuts Film Festival for 2015: Makeup Room, Strayer’s Chronicle, and 100 Yen Love. Here’s a look at the other 3.

The Voice of Water

This movie has haunted me for days and I still don’t know quite what I think of it. A charismatic charlatan acting as head priestess of a manufactured, business-like cult starts to crack from the pressure of continued success, and things get worse from there despite her attempts to be more genuine. The carefully constructed plot progression and pacing build tension and an increasingly desperate atmosphere masterfully, but I found some of the story choices unsettling beyond what I think was needed. There’s a lot to process in every layer of the movie: the characters’ actions and their results, the motivations behind those actions, and the thematic statements and criticisms the story is making about society. Strong performances from the central cast and key supporting characters keep it all anchored. I can’t say for certain I liked it, but The Voice of Water is a powerful film that’s well worth watching for all it has to say, whether you end up agreeing or not.

The Light Shines Only There

This was my second favorite film in a festival packed with fantastic movies (just a tiny bit behind Makeup Room). It’s a love story about two thoroughly broken people reeling from unfortunate and disturbing events out of their control. All of the characters are struggling with some sort of personal demons, with varying levels of success. It’s the pitch perfect performances of everyone in the cast that keeps it all relatable and engrossing. Themes and events get quite dark and are hard to watch in parts, but it all fit the story and nothing felt out of place or gratuitous (no matter how much I wanted to yell at the screen sometimes). A unique, phenomenal film overall.

Sanchu Uprising: Voices at Dawn

The closing film of this year’s festival had been highly recommended to me, but I didn’t really know anything about it going into the screening. It centers on a farmer uprising in 1726 in the face of impossible taxes. It turns into the bloodiest such uprising in history. But the focus of the movie is more on the pressure and difficult choices of the individuals caught up in the uprising, particularly a coward who isn’t sure it’s worth the risk. Besides the interesting choice of scope and subject within the premise, Sanchu Uprising distinguishes itself with several stylistic choices unusual for its genre, including jazz touches to the soundtrack and an animated sequence.

It’s an interesting movie and while I had some doubts along the way I think it came together extremely well by the end. It wasn’t an unanimous opinion though, as several audience members had rather pointed (but valid) questions for the director during the q&a after the film about his choices. The director was thoughtful with his answers and open to criticism, which made the discussion fascinating. A perfect way to end the festival.

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So this completes my thoughts on the 6 films I saw during Japan Cuts. I will have one more blog entry on the festival, covering the other event I attended – the Experimental Shorts Showcase.

Japan Society’s annual Japan Cuts Film Festival for 2015 ran from July 9th to July 19th. It featured a wide variety of engrossing movies and was a great event overall. I attended 7 of the 29 showings, including US premiers and spotlight screenings with directors, actresses, etc as special guests to introduce their movies and participate in q&as afterwards.

Here’s a look at a few of them.

Makeup Room

An amazingly funny low budget movie about the making of a low budget movie. Set entirely in a single room, the makeup room for a porn shoot, Kei Morikawa’s minimalist endeavor takes full advantage of his experience in the industry, actual adult video actresses, and a brilliant performance from non-AV actress Aki Morita as the makeup artist to create a unique comedy with touches of authenticity and drama. The sex is always just off-screen, but the consequences of each scene bounce hilariously back to the room we’re stuck in. It’s a close call, but this was my favorite of the festival.

Strayer’s Chronicle

One of the few films this year to venture into science fiction, Strayer’s Chronicle features two groups of young adults who were experimented on as children resulting in special powers with dangerous side-effects. The premise itself isn’t terribly original, but I found the execution refreshingly different. This was not the full blown action movie a lot of the audience seemed to expect, and opinions seemed very mixed as the theater emptied. However I enjoyed it for what it was and found the foreboding atmosphere, conflicted characters and moral questions raised made up for the plot not being as tight as it could have been. This was another win for me.

100 Yen Love

Sakura Ando received the festival’s Cut Above Award for Outstanding Performance in Film directly before this screening, and it’s easy to see why. Her startling yet logical transformation from unmotivated slob to driven boxer was amazing to watch and 100% believable. There were small pieces of the plot that bothered me, but overall the movie worked wonderfully and Ando’s powerful performance more than compensated for any small missteps. The q&a after the movie with Ando was both informative and fun, as she was clearly excited to be there and her energy was contagious.

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I’ll continue with the rest of the films I saw later this week.