Perspectives of Japanese Film

There are few films that exist that can be described as truly magical, yet magic is the legacy of Miyazaki’s work. Miyazaki’s works with studio Ghibli include such standouts in the film industry as Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo, and, of course, the ever ubiquitous Spirited Away. At it’s core, Spirited Away is a love story. The choices that Chihiro/Sen made throughout her journey in the spirit world were informed solely by her love for Haku and for her parents. Although at the outset of the film, Chihiro is a nervous and timid child, in pursuing her goal of saving Haku and her parents from the control of the witch Yubaba, Chihiro draws upon her inner strength and develops the confidence to fulfill her quest in restoring Haku and her parents. All the while, the film is colored with themes of environmentalism and the harm of greed. Chihiro’s parents are turned into pigs for greedily and mindlessly stealing huge amounts of the spirit’s food. The stink spirit the Chihiro cleans is actually an ancient river spirit that has been poisoned by human pollution while Haku is a river spirit who can never return to his river as it has been completely destroyed through human intervention. Even the spirits are not free of greed, and it is the greed and gluttony of the bath house staff that corrupts No Face. A large part of Chihiro’s journey is spent making amends for and cleaning up the harm caused by greed.

While the film features thematic depth in its story as well as a rich cast of complex and unique characters, Spirited Away and the works of Studio Ghibli can best be described as sensory experiences. The food is so richly colored and textured that the audience can almost taste it while the while the physical scenery is so well textured and defined that the audience can almost feel what it is like to be within the realm of the spirits. The score is absolutely timeless and captivates the audience’s spirits and emotions. Above all else, Spirited Away is a visual masterpiece. The animation is smooth yet highly stylized in such a way to give the characters and scenery a unique level of emotiveness and expressiveness. The world is vibrantly colored while the scenery is diverse and expansive. Despite the massive scale of the set-pieces, careful attention has been paid to the most minute detail down to the individual drop of water or insignificant background character. So many times during my viewing of this film I found myself ignoring the focus of the scenes and just admiring the small details from Chihiro’s reflection in the glass window of the train to the way the shadows and lighting seamlessly combined to give physical depth to what should’ve been a two dimensional world. The film comes to life in front of the audience’s very eyes and brings the magic to life too. It really is no wonder why Studio Ghibli has an exclusive dubbing and distribution deal with the magic mongers themselves over at the house of mouse.

Normally at this point in my reviews I give my final opinion on how a film made me feel and whether or not I would recommend the film to anyone or watch it again. This time and this time alone I truly feel that I should not need to recommend Spirited Away, or any Ghibli film for that matter, to anyone. Miyazaki is timeless. Ghibli is timeless. Spirited Away is timeless, and I can give it no other final review than this: Japanese film, as we have discussed for this course, tends to be defined by films directed in Japan that are informed by Japanese culture, history, society, and social trends. Japanese film, then, is infused with and captures the spirit of Japan. The films of Hayao Miyazaki, the films of Studio Ghibli, and the film Spirited Away perfectly capture, in its purest form, the spirit of humanity.

Sukiyaki Western Django is a modern masterpiece. This triumph of the Western genre acts as a love letter to the tropes and legacy of the films that preceded it. Loosely remaking Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 spaghetti western “Django”, Sukiyaki Western Django follows a man with no name who enters into a town caught in the middle of two rival gangs. After finding out about the origin of the gangs arriving in town and hearing about a young boy who is the offspring of members of both gangs, the nameless man decides to fight both gangs. Aided by a retired gunslinger named Bloody Benten, the nameless man sets the gangs against eachother then confronts their remnants in town by luring them out with gold. Although Bloody Benten dies while killing one of the leaders, the nameless man is able to successfully liberate the town before passing control of the gold and the town to the young boy who eventually grows up and moves to Italy where he is known as “Django”.

Sukiyaki Western Django adapts many of the tropes of the Western genre, from a nameless stranger to the shootouts to the raid on the wagon train to the final duel in the middle of town, it is clear that this film is very well informed about the genre that it draws from. The film features a number of call-backs to the original 1966 “Django”, notably the inclusion of a gatling gun hidden in a coffin as well as a Japanese language rendition of the original “Django” theme. The film also noticeably has American director Quentin Tarantino play a role; Tarantino would later go on to produce his own adaptation of “Django” titled “Django Unchained”. 

The inclusion of Tarantino also highlights the similarity between Tarantino and Miike with their hyper-violent film style. Sukiyaki Western Django features a number of action set-pieces and the violence is never censored. If anything the excessive bloodshed as well as the injuries specific characters suffer give the film a campy, comedic feel despite the serious tone of the story and the main character. Thematically, the film seems to mimic the themes of the western genre by focusing on freedom, “justice”, and self-determination. The main-character stays to fight in order to “settle the score” and to protect the young boy. On the subject of the young boy, his connection to both gangs being symbolized by the roses had thematic potential, but ended up falling flat. The young boy is set free from the pain of the past by the nameless stranger, and as the young boy realizes that he is free to choose his own future, the third rose finally blooms: riveting. All jokes aside, the themes of this film are present but not prevalent, however that does not detract from the quality or enjoyment factor of the film.

At the end of the day, Sukiyaki Western Django is truly a love-letter to the western genre. It is campy, serious, reverential, irreverent, western, Japanese. It is so many things rolled into one, a true melting-pot of cultural and artistic influence, and the film succeeds in so many ways. I personally will be watching this film again, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a fun watch, or to anyone who wants to watch a good western.

Hideo Nakata’s Ringu is a very specific kind of horror film. Not reliant on cheap thrills, the story of Ringu instead focuses on the mystery of the monster, Sadako. As a result, the film seems to have a lot more substance than most horror films and the frightening moments of the film feel like a natural part of the story as well as being somewhat frightening. The story follows Asakawa, a journalist investigating rumors of a cursed video that kills people after 7 days. Following the death of her niece, Asakawa recruits her ex-husband who is later revealed to have psychic powers to help her investigate. The two track the source of the video to Oshima where they discover the truth about a young woman who was studied for her psychic powers only for her daughter, Sadako, to develop the power to kill people. Asakawa and her husband attempt to track down Sadako’s remains in order to break the curse, and, at first, they believe they succeeded. That is until Asakawa’s husband is killed by the curse and his ghost helps her realize the real way to break the curse is to copy the video and show it to someone else. Knowing that her son had watched the tape, Asakawa drives to pick up her son from her father’s house while calling her father to ask him for “a favor”.

In general, Ringu was a very “meh” film. It features a fairly generic horror plot, acting that is decent but not groundbreaking, cinematography that is well done but nothing extraordinary, among other elements. In short, the film is a solid 6 out of 10: perfectly acceptable for popcorn entertainment but lacking in the depth or quality needed to make a film worth discussing. I would watch it again but I would not go out of my way to watch it nor would I recommend it to a friend unless they just want a quick watch.

Shunji Iwai’s Swallowtail butterfly is a pseudo-dystopian drama set in future Japan. Mainly taking place in Yen Town, an area of Tokyo populated by immigrants who came to Japan to make it rich, the film follows Ageha, a young girl who gets taken in by a yen-town prostitute named Glico as Ageha, Glico, and other Yen Towns pursue their goals. One day, the group accidentally kills a mob member while defending Ageha from the members attempted assault. As the group hides the body they stumble across a tape containing Frank Sinatra’s hit “My Way” as well as the magnetic data for print currency. Using this, the group is able to produce enough counterfeit money to begin pursuing their goals. As time passes, the group begins going their separate ways as Glico becomes a pop sensation, Mei Fong opens a nightclub, and Ageha begins a gang of her own. While all of this is happening, the mod attempts to hunt down the tape so they too can begin a counterfeit operation. The group is brought back together as things go south for all of them, and ultimately they end where they started right back in yen-town. 

Swallowtail butterfly is a long, dense film with a multitude of plotlines, thematic elements, and characters. The film deals with themes of identity, trauma, class-struggle, and family to name just a few. The film emphasizes the sense of connection and unity between the yen-towns through a shared sense of struggle and a shared mistreatment by the upper-class. It is when the yen-towns strike it rich and are able to separately pursue their own goals that they begin encountering life-threatening danger and hardship. This shared danger robs them of their good fortunes but also forces them to reunite with one another and come back together to begin life again within yen-town as a unified group. The reunification brings with it a sense of solidarity and hope represented by a repetition of the films opening narration for the closing narration. While the opening narration tonally portrays Yen-Town as a derelict, depressing environment, the closing narration portrays it as beautiful, diverse, and hopeful. 

The film also incorporates elements of identity shown best through the mention of the “third culture kids”. Because Yen-Town consists of people from multiple different countries they are seen as being not-Japanese. At the same time however, many of these immigrants have been living within yen-town for multiple generations and therefore some “Yen-towns” have absolutely no connection with their families nation of origin. Iwai introduces a question of, “Are people born inside yen-town Japanese or immigrants?” and answers that question with the statement that they are neither. Their shared identity comes from and creates a “third culture” that is uniquely their own. As an aside, it is interesting that this film was included so soon after the inclusion of “Go” within the classes discography, as both deal with issues of identity, belonging, and separation from nation of origin.

Overall, there is so much that could be said about this film, so much so, that this blog post was kept intentionally short. I loved this film and have many ideas about it that I plan to write about for my essay later. As a result, for now all I have to say is that this was such a fun and interesting film to watch and I would highly recommend it to people.

The 1997 film Hana-bi, released in the west as “Fireworks”, by Takeshi Kitano is a subtly beautiful film. The story primarily focuses on Nishi, an ex-detective who retired from police-work after an incident that caused his partner to be paralyzed from the waist down as well as two other cops to be injured or killed. With Nishi out of work and his wife receiving treatment for leukemia, Nishi takes out a loan from the yakuza in order to make ends meet. When the mob begins pressuring Nishi to pay back his debts, he buys a used taxi, paints it like a police cruiser, and proceeds to pull a heist. After successfully making off with the money, Nishi sends some of it to the wife of the cop that died during the earlier incident and then takes his wife on a vacation to the beach. The yakuza and cops, both having realized that Nishi pulled the heist, follow him. As the police confront their former colleague on the beach, he asks for a moment alone with his wife before they arrest him, during which time the film closes with Nishi and his wife standing on the beach before the sound of two gunshots are heard.

The core theme of Hana-bi is that of mortality. Early in the film it is established that Nishi is no stranger to mortality. His wife has been battling terminal Leukemia, and their family had only recently gone through the loss of a daughter. Later, Nishi is the only one to walk away unscathed from an incident involving an armed suspect that paralyzes his partner, Horibe, injures one officer, and kills another. The resulting guilt weighs heavily on Nishi throughout the film. Nowhere is the theme of mortality more present than in the journey of Horibe, whose family abandons him after his paralysis despite him having previously been a loving husband and doting father. This abandonment leaves Horibe deeply depressed, and he attempts suicide. For both Nishi and Horibe, mortality looms over them like a spectre, yet they each respond their mortality and the mortality of others in their own ways. Nishi is often shown in quiet contemplation, and he shows his wife much devotion, tenderness, and care. Nishi also takes personal responsibility to take care of the widow of the officer that died, meeting with her at times and sending her money after the robbery is successful. Despite his generally sympathetic and calm disposition, Nishi’s actions and life are punctuated by outbursts of extreme violence and bloodshed. Nishi’s violence, however, is always focused and has a specific goal in mind. As for Horibe, his injuries and resulting paralysis set him on the path of depression and an eventual suicide attempt. After this, Horibe picks up the hobby of painting and creates surrealist works of animals with their heads and eyes replaced by flowers. These paintings are themselves symbolic of mortality, as the flower is, like a firework, only a brief but beautiful existence. In the end, the film does not have a conclusive message on how one should face mortality, but it instead shows that the beauty of life can be appreciated despite how brief it is.

Isao Yukisada’s 2001 film Go tells the coming of age story of Sugihara, a young korean-japanese delinquent born and raised in Japan. The film follows Sugihara as he transitions through life from a junior-high student in a Korean school to a high-school student in a Japanese school and eventually into college all the while trying to come to terms with what he wants out of life. Sugihara fights, brawls, and sprints his way through life until he meets Sakurai, a young Japanese girl whom he starts dating. Through a series of events in his life including the death of his friend Jong Il, separating with Sakurai due to him being Korean, speaking with a Japanese police officer and having a brawl with his drunken father, Sugihara makes up his mind to go to college and study hard, giving up his delinquent ways and reuniting with Sakurai.

Go as a film is primarily concerned with labels, distinctions, and definitions. This is made evident from the very first scene where Sugihara’s basketball team gives him trouble for being Korean so he starts a fight. Later, his father tells Sugihara that he will be changing nationality from North Korean to South Korean in order to travel to Hawai’i. At the Korean school, students are prohibited from speaking Japanese and are punished with physical abuse, and Sugihara is labeled a “race traitor” when it is revealed that Sugihara will be moving to a Japanese school. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet plays a minor role in the film through the line “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet”, which, in the context of the play, disparages the use of labels as a means of dividing people. Later in the film, while eating dinner with Sakurai’s family, Sugihara points out that no one really knows what “Japan” means or really where the name comes from, and, even later when speaking to Jong Il, Sugihara mentions that, even for the people of Japan, if they traced their heritage far enough back they would find common ancestors, not a clear division. The dialogue about labels and definitions comes to a head when Jong Il is murdered by a Japanese student and Sugihara is once again called a “race traitor” by his old classmate and warned not to go to school the next day. Later, after confessing to Sakurai that he is half Korean, Sugihara is compelled to leave Sakurai after her strong negative reaction. It is on the way home from Sakurai’s that Sugihara meets a Japanese Police officer and knocks him out in fear that he will be arrested. Regretting his actions, Sugihara waits for the officer to regain consciousness and has a drink and a smoke with him. It is during this conversation that Sugihara is reminded that labels and definitions are pointless if they only exist to divide people, as he realizes he and the police officer are quite similar and even share similar misgivings about the labels that they have been assigned. Later, Sugihara has a fight with his dad that results in him getting beaten badly, but his father shares a final piece of wisdom with him, saying something along the lines of “it’s time for your generation to take the lead” Ultimately, the film concludes on the theme that the younger generation does not need to be constrained by the same distinctions and labels as previous generations, and instead should strive to live in a world beyond labels or as Sugihara puts it “a world without borders.”

Funeral Parade of Roses is weird. There is no other way to say it. The story is very loosely based off of Sophocles Oedipus Rex with the roles slightly reversed: the main character Eddie, a woman assigned male at birth who works in a gay bar, murders her mother at a young age and sleeps with her father, the proprietor of the gay bar and part-time narcotic dealer. There was also the Madame of the club who had been living with the owner and engaging in a sexual relationship with him, yet she grew jealous of the owner’s relationship with Eddie and ended up committing suicide in a very dramatic fashion. There was also a independent film director named Guevara who looked kind of similar to Che Guevara. If it seems as if I don’t know what to say about this film that’s because I really don’t. The story is told out of order with a number of tangential story threads and scenes that are simply there in the film. There also are scenes that are similar to documentary film which make the whole film even more confusing.

The film had some interesting themes or focusing points. There was a huge presence of eroticism in the film, though whether it was a thematic choice or an aesthetic choice I could not say. There was also the presence of psychedelic an narcotic drugs which seems to have had meaning. There was also a huge focus on trans women and homosexual men whom the film called “gay boys”, which attached to the focus on trans women were themes of gender dysphoria. In fact, the theme of gender dysphoria was beautifully displayed in the scene when Eddie first tried on lipstick and broke down in raw emotion.

Overall this has been a very short post, but like I said I really don’t know what to say about this film, I just did not understand it at all, however I thought it was very well done and it was at least an interesting film.

Disclaimer: Due to time constraints I watched this movie in 1.5x speed, as a result my perception of the tone and pacing of this film are likely altered.

Double Suicide was a treat to watch. Originally based off a play called “The Love Suicides at Amijima”, the conceit of this film is that it is in actuality the play being performed with live-actors instead of the traditional puppets. Throughout the film, stage-hands clothed all in black move invisibly throughout the set moving props and interacting with the “stage” as a means of heightening and highlighting the dramatic elements of the story. The sets also were very dynamic, with one scene in particular using them to great effect as Jihei smashes all the wall of his house only to emerge at the entrance to the entertainment district. The presence of these theatrical elements in a film gives Double Suicide a sense of surrealism that not many films obtain. This surrealism was aided by the performance of the main leads, the male lead playing Jihei and the female lead playing both Koharu and Osan. Their performances were reminiscent of stage-acting with their larger than life movements and verbal expressions, and, by adding even more elements that pertain to theatre but clash with the “reality” that film and television attempts to create, their performances lend to the disconnect between expectation and reality, deepening the sense of the surreal.

Aside from masterfully incorporating those elements of theatre to maintain the main conceit of the film, Double Suicide is just a wonderfully and meticulously crafted film. From the costumes, to the set design, to the props, to the shot composition this film was polished. The film was beautiful.

If I had any criticism for the film it would probably be in the confusing tone of the film. I quite frankly could not tell if this film was intending to be dramatic or comedic. The narrative of the film as well as the characters within it take the film’s subject matter very seriously. However, the surrealism created by the theatrical elements as well as the portrayal of some situations presented in the film lends a comedic effect to the film. There were more times during the film that I was compelled to laugh or smile at the film than there were moments were I was concerned with the drama of the characters.

All in all, Double Suicide was an extremely enjoyable film that I look forward to watching again and recommending to others I know.

In a lot of ways watching this film was like a fever dream. The story follows Mikoto and Kiyoshi’s twisted relationship as it slowly leads to both of their lives falling apart and their eventual deaths. The pair first meet when an older man attempts to assault Mikoto but is stopped by Kiyoshi, who chases the old man off after taking his money. The next day, Mikoto goes out on a date with Kiyoshi where he eventually brings her to the river and assaults her himself. Despite this, the two begin to date and in order to make money they recreate the circumstances of the night they met, allowing Mikoto to get nearly assaulted by a series of men and Kiyoshi “saving” her and then extorting the men for money. The pair eventually catch the attention of a gang that makes money by prostituting women which results in conflict with Kiyoshi. Eventually, Kiyoshi and Makoto are arrested on charges of extortion, as one of the men Kiyoshi stole money from was a politician named Horio, who Makoto had slept with before he had his money stolen by Kiyoshi. Though the are bailed out by a wealthy older woman whom Kiyoshi has an on and off affair with, the two quickly break up with each other and meet untimely deaths: Kiyoshi at the hands of the gang and Mikoto trying to escape from a car after she tried recreating the circumstances of the night they met herself.

The relationship between Makoto and Kiyoshi was nothing short of abusive. Kiyoshi assaults Makoto on day one of their relationship. He regularly threatens her with violence, commits violent acts against her, threatens her with abandonment, flaunts his previous and current other relationships to her, forces her to get an abortion, and forces her into dangerous situations for his own financial benefit. All of the abuse compounds on itself to slowly destroy Mikoto’s life. She becomes alienated from her family, she becomes callous and unfeeling, she becomes desperate for Kiyoshi’s affection and attention, all of which are trauma responses. The only time of respite Makoto gets from Kiyoshi is with Horio, who does not even treat her with genuine kindness merely a basic level of respect and dignity. What is truly tragic about Makoto’s interactions with Horio is that, because she is treated so horribly on a regular basis, simply being treated with a modicum of decency comes off as truly kind. The break from her abuse is short lived though, as almost  immediately she is drawn back into Kiyoshi’s fold. Ultimately it is even Kiyoshi that causes Makoto’s death, as it is out of an attempt to get him to come rescue her again that she gets in the car that one last time. In short, Kiyoshi and Makoto’s relationship is horribly abusive and Kiyoshi is  character without redeeming qualities.

That said, that Kiyoshi is so easy to hate speaks volumes about the impressive performance by the actor, and Makoto’s actor as well also had a stellar performance in this film. Furthermore, the film overall was well structured and well shot, so it is easy to understand why the film itself is regarded so highly even if the characters of the film are so low. In the end, I cannot say I enjoyed watching this film merely by virtue of the narrative, yet it was decently good film. And no matter what it was still a better watch than Ugetsu.