Japanese Film

              Despite calling myself an anime fan, I have only watched one Ghibli movie, so I am happy to have experienced another one. It’s easy to see how influential this movie, and Ghibli in general, have been to both Eastern and Western media. Like Godzilla, much of the film is already familiar. Seeing the soot sprites instantly made me understand that the dust sprites from Stardew Valley were directly inspired by this movie. It explains why the dust sprites drop coal as well. Characters like No Face and the Moomin looking mouse I have seen countless times. Several shots like when Chihiro and Haku run through the garden of flowers, Chihiro by the bridge, and No Face washed by the waves are all iconic. I’m pretty sure there was a Twitter trend for drawing Yababa’s room as well. It would be difficult for such a movie to reach my high expectations, but I’m honestly not disappointed.

              I love animation as a media. It is my favorite as it allows much more creativity and flexibility than in live action. I think Spirited Away does an amazing job in utilizing its medium. The setting is so vivid and would be difficult to express another way. Animation and art style are pleasing too and aren’t as exaggerated as in other animated movies, which helps it stay grounded. It also allows the horror aspects to hit harder. Seeing Chihiro’s parents turn into pigs scared me more than anything Ringu or Pulse did and triggered unpleasant memories of Animal Farm. Greed seems to be a running theme in this film. Chihiro’s parents suffer their fate due to eating the spirit’s food. No Face greedily eats anything and everything offered to him, and the workers at the bathhouse scramble for the gold that leaks from No Face. This is even more obvious when contrasted with Chihiro, who steadfastly refuses the gold offered to her. She even states that she doesn’t need the gold, which makes me wonder why the other employees were so desperate. I wonder if it’s a subtle way to criticize capitalism. People act irrationally when faced with large amounts of money. It’s part of the reason why the environment is so damaged, which is reflected through the two river dragons.

I was very, very confused throughout the film, but I still enjoyed it. First of all, I have never seen a film where the entire cast is speaking only in a language that isn't their mother tongue (with the exception of Tarantino). I can't help but compare this aspect of the film to Swallowtail Butterfly. However, while Swallowtail Butterfly's non-Japanese speakers were raised out of Japan, all of the characters here are meant to be Japanese, or at least that's what I assume because they have Japanese-sounding names. They also incorporated Japanese tales into the plot. Why, then, were they using English?

We've discussed a lot in class about how the "New New Wave" of Japanese cinema were making films that were aimed at receiving international acclaim. Although the film is perhaps not the typical festival-winning film style we are used to, the fact that they could put together a fully English-speaking film showcases their ability and universality of the Japanese film industry.

I’m not familiar with Westerns, Django, or Tarentino at all so I don’t know for sure if the film would have been easier to understand for those who did. But like I said before, whether or not the film was successful in making a film of its genre (Western/drama), its innovative ideas and commitment to the idea throughout is something to applaud. Like my classmates, I couldn’t tell if the film was trying to be serious or if it was self-aware of its ironic take the entire time. I find it hard to believe that the film I’m watching isn't a dark comedy when a guy’s head is cut open and he continues to clap his hands over his heads. Gunshots, stabs, and bleeding all follow a different biological rule than the one in our reality. However, any scene involving the son would draw me back in again. The fact that a child had to see and hear both his parents die horribly seemed like a plot that was too traumatizing to be put in as a mere comical scene.

 Everyone cooks in their own unique manner, and how you go about preparing a meal says a lot about your personality. Anyone can cook and this universality is what makes it such a fascinating act. It can bond or differentiate anyone and it is so integral to our humanity that it is truly an extension of the soul. It involves handling and transforming natural aspects of our world into creations of our imagination. It is the true embodiment of art. A transformation of the natural to the man-made for others’ enjoyment. Sweet Bean understands the impact cooking can have on someone by showing its ability to inspire love in someone. 

Tokue is an elderly lady that has a sacred love and understanding for making bean paste yet must grapple with a condition that slowly cripples their physical faculties. It is a cruel twist of fate, yet she never once complains about her situation. She is full of wonder and the opportunity to continue to make bean paste is all she needs to feel satisfied. The dedication she has for her beans speaks to the impact love has on creation. Her bean paste is miles better than the store-bought ones Sentaro previously used because there is true love in her concoction. Her love is magnetic and the often closed-off Sentaro finds himself attracted to the pureness that is Tokue’s mind. She can not believe he would buy bean paste in bulk because it is an insult to the craft she has dedicated her life to and it is the exact cheapness and greed of modern society that she is appalled by. Tokue is infatuated with life itself and teaches Sentaro to find appreciation for the wholesomeness life has to offer. On several occasions, she expresses her love for the trees and the youthful whimsy of children. Sentaro, who expresses the kids as being noisy and has disdain for sweets, becomes infatuated with Tokue’s perspective on life. She invokes a love for life that was dormant within him and it is cooking the bean paste together that teaches him what true care for something can cultivate. 

This is now my favorite film we’ve seen in class and the best thing I have seen in a while. Sweet Bean reminds you just how beautiful life can be and how easy it is to take for granted. It leaves you with that warm fuzzy feeling on your brain that manages to only grow after watching. It has so much beauty it can be blinding and it is easy to get lost in its overwhelming emotions. But maybe that is the point. Life is overwhelming and it can be easy to get lost in its sheer infiniteness, but that’s what makes it so spectacular. This movie goes exactly where you expect as it lacks any one aspect that serves to blow viewers away but its simplicity speaks volumes. 

Post Y2K and in the midst of the internet explosion, Pulsedocuments the inherent dangers of new technology through the lens of the scariest and most expansive thing in the universe besides the universe itself: the internet. But wait! There are ghosts too! A more accurate moniker for these beings would be spirits, anywhere from amorphous blobs to humanoid forms with fleshed out faces. I enjoy the though that ghosts and the dead don’t need to be this whole big thing in Japanese horror. Pulse posits the question of what if the dead were all around you all the time? Ultimately, this becomes the downfall of society as the spirits realize that they can have real influence over the living.

Kurosowa, in interviews, was very open about Ringu and its subsequent success being a major catalyst for his creating Pulse.Again, highlighting the importance of Ringu for Japanese horror and horror in general. Both dealing with ghost and curses, just in different ways. Kurosowa goes on to highlight the fear of the unknown, whether that being about new technology, the future, or the world at large. Pulse in my opinion is more worldly and depressing than Ringu. Kurosowa wants the viewer wallow in their self and come to terms with their own loneliness.

Thoughts/First Impressions:

Prior to the viewing session, I was pretty excited for the movie. I’ve seen Ringu referenced and parodied in different media all of my life, but never really got the chance to actually sit down and watch it. I always just knew it as that movie with the video tape and the girl from the well. Now that I’ve watched it, I can say that it was actually really good and I can understand why it is constantly referenced when talking about horror movies. The plot is pretty straightforward at first. There is a videotape that will cause the viewer to die several days after viewing it. A journalist watches the tape after her niece is killed by the tape, and investigates the origins of the tape and its curse alongside her ex-husband. What follows is a journey down a bizzare rabbit hole that involves mysterious events from years past, ESP, and murder. The backstory behind the tape was pretty unexpected to me. It was just something totally different to what I imagined prior to watching the film. I guess the whole plot was pretty surprising to me. Prior to watching, I thought the film, like a lot of other horror films, would focus on teenage main characters who happened upon the tape. It had me thinking this at the first scene, but I was surprised by the shift in characters in the next couple scenes after.

Themes/Interpretation:

In Ringu, I don’t really see a main theme from the story. I feel that we watched it more for its influence on the horror genre as a whole. I mean, the idea of facing an unescapable doom from something as menial as watching a video tape is a pretty scary idea. This movie was so popular that many other films have referenced and paid homage to it. If I had to reach for a meaning or theme, I would say that despite the advances in technology presented in the film such as VHS and phones, there is no escape from the past? I mean Sadako is able to reach her victims through a literal VHS tape despite that not even existing in a somewhat older looking time period. Again, I don’t really see a blatant message for the audience, but a movie like this doesn’t need one. It told a solid story and was pretty chilling at times. 

Final Thoughts:

This movie is what people should think about when they think of a “rollercoaster of emotions.” Swallowtail is a long drama about a group of disenfranchised people referred to as “Yentowns” that ranges from bringing you to tears to making you laugh from absurdity. Overall, I’d probably put this movie right outside my top-ten, it was pretty good but seemed a bit long, especially with a subplot that I think was completely unnecessary and filled with plot holes.

Initial Reactions

This movie is a trip and a half. I wasn’t really invested in the character of Fei Hong, even during his weird redemption arc because it seemed too little too late, especially since selling Glico out felt so long ago in the context of the story (and plus, Glico wanted to be in the music industry? Exclusivity is a weird thing to sell when she’s not exclusive). I did however, pretty much like everybody else in the movie: Glico finding her footing as a music idol was uplifting, and the scene where Ageha finally gets her namesake butterfly tattooed on her was emotionally compelling.

The subplot I didn’t like that was referred to earlier though was the interaction between the reporter and Glico. For starters, why would the reporter initially trust someone clearly cracked out and not in the right mental state? On top of that, how did the prostitute and reporter know it was Sado (or whatever his name was) who was killed? It’s not like his body was reported in the news with a name since it was buried with no indication of being found. And why wasn’t Glico’s room cleaned out in that timespan? That scene occurred so early in the movie that the room being in the exact same state seems to be impossible; someone should have cleared it out for the sake of destroying evidence.

And to top it all off: What was the whole point of this? The only thing that this whole subplot established that couldn’t be written around was the introduction of the reporter character, who is completely useless in the larger context of the story. This added unnecessary time to a two-and-a-half-hour movie that really hurt its overall enjoyment.

Themes/Analysis

I think the major theme of this story is metamorphosis. This is best seen in the characters of Glico and Ageha: Glico goes from a hooker scrapping for extra cash to a music star, and Ageha’s transformation can be visually seen, as she goes from having a caterpillar drawn on her chest to a Swallowtail Butterfly tattoo, emblematic of her growth into a Yentown. However, one thing to note is that despite these transformations, they don’t forget their roots. Glico ends the movie back in the junkyard, and Ageha, in the process of getting her tattoo, has a flashback of her times when her mom was alive.

Final Thoughts

Initial Reaction

It was interesting to see a film directed by Takeshi Kitano, more well-known as Beat Takeshi. Before taking this class, I did not know that Kitano produced films as he is more famous in Japan as a comedian/commentator. That being said, I did not know much about him prior to watching this film, because I haven’t really watched anything he’s in. After taking a look into his background, he seems to be as violent as the films he produced with Hana-bi (花火) being no exception. This comes as no surprise, since he is considered to be one of the most controversial celebrities in Japan. Two of his most famous violence-related incidents are 1) raiding Friday (1986), a tabloid, with 11 other men which he received a 6-month prison sentence for and 2) driving a motorcycle under the influence (1994) in which some of his face remains permanently paralyzed. While I imagine that it would be beneficial to analyze Hana-bi with consideration of his life events and character, I will not be doing so in this post.  

Cinematography

My first impression of this film was that there’s a lot of fluidity in the cuts. From Nishi smoking a cigarette when visiting his wife at the hospital to the swift cut of the close-up of the pistol that fires Horibe, and from the injured Horibe opening the car door to the cut to a nurse opening the door to Miyuki’s ward. This fluidity from Nishi’s cuts to Horibe’s cuts from the start allows the audience to focus on the juxtaposition between two men who both lead a similar life of having had a “normal” family at one point, having worked as a police officer, and coping with the loss of losing their wife and child. Despite life throwing similar hurdles at them, the two choose to live in completely different ways. Horibe chooses to live a life of non-violence and expresses himself through art, while Nishi chooses to live a life of violence and expresses himself with his hands. Considering the ending of the film, perhaps Kitano is trying to depict how “living” means something different to every person. Horibe chooses to live, despite feeling empty and full of despair at losing his family and his ability to walk, while Nishi who is healthy in comparison chooses to live his life to the fullest and die alongside his sick wife, because he sees no meaning to live without her. It is worth noting that Horibe figuratively seems to die as can be seen from his paintings of the animals and flowers with the creatures losing their facial recognition progressively until the whole flower becomes their face. Additionally, Horibe’s wish to die can be seen from his painting of snow with the words of “suicide” hidden, but he ultimately chooses not to. I think the title of this film, Hana-bi, sums up the nature of this film well. It is said that Kitano was planning to simply call the film “Takeshi’s 7th film” at first, which his staff obviously didn’t agree to. Fortunately, he left it up to his staff to create the title which ended up being Hana-bi which signifies life (flower, “hana”) and death (fire, “bi”).

This was definitely the most enjoyable movie we have watched thus far in class. I loved the film. I felt very invested in Sugihara’s development throughout the film and was genuinely excited to see what would happen next. 10/10 going to be one of my favorite films from this course. 

The Cult of Catcher in the Rye

The novel, Catcher in the Rye was not only a huge success in America but became hugely popular in Japan as well as a classic novel for high school education. While Sugihara isn’t actually reading the novel during the film, the mention of it does hint towards the final resolution of the plot. In the novel, the general arc of the plot revolves around the protagonist realizing that he has to let go of his childhood and move on into adulthood. Just like in the novel, Sugihara comes to the realization that he has to make a decision about his future and chooses to study and go to college.

Lighting in Confrontations

During the scene where Sugihara tells Tsubaki his real nationality and name, Sugihara is seen casting a dark shadow over most of Tsubaki’s face as he becomes a dark silhouette against the light from the window. Once he tells Tsubaki this, Sugihara faces the light since he no longer has anything to hide. The dramatic lighting in this scene not only heightens the emotion of the climax, but also lets the viewer see visually the feeling of coming into the light after hiding.

Crossing Boarders

I really enjoyed Tampopo and I’m going to guess that many of my classmates enjoyed it as well. The film was incredibly charming and wholesome with everything from the characters, to the plot, to the visual presentations. The film does a wonderful job at examining and playfully poking at how food and culture intertwined with another.

The main plot follows Tampopo and Goro as they try to recreate Tampopo’s struggling ramen shop. Goro, who is a truck driver, surprisingly knows a lot about ramen and decides to help Tampopo out of goodwill. Their dynamic is one of the sweetest elements of the film. It was rather refreshing to see a male-female relationship that isn’t toxic and both parties seem to really be equal with the other. I loved seeing Goro’s character be cool and masculine without putting down his female counterpart, or even the other male characters. One of my favorite moments of his was when he talked about his wife and kids, saying he wanted to give them a warm home but he ended up not knowing how to act in a happy home. He showed an honest and vulnerable struggle that I believe many men in that time or even now have gone through. I think his interpretation of masculinity also shows in how he acts and talks in such a “manly” manner but is actually very sweet underneath.

The switching between the Tampopo storyline and the random scenes that weren’t related to them were confusing to me at first. Since the man in the white suit broke the 4th wall and talked to us in the first scene, I interpreted any scenes with him and random people to be reenactments of real-life. All those scenes depicted food’s involvement in all aspects of life, from birth (the mother giving milk to the baby), to sickness (the mother getting up to cook before dying), to death (the man in the white suit’s final words about yam sausage). The director also poked fun at “proper mannerisms” that accompany certain foods, especially foreign cuisine. Scenes like the group of associates ordering French food they don’t know or the ladies learning how to properly eat spaghetti introduced to the audience how ridiculous the idea of properness is when it comes to enjoying food. Later on in the film we meet the group of homeless people who have exquisite taste and are experts of gourmet food. According to their class in society, they should never have even had access to these foods, yet they’ve surpassed the barriers to becoming experts.