Banana Yoshimoto: 'Kitchen' (1988, 1993)

Going though books discarded by the library, I've been sampling a variety of works that I otherwise may not have discovered anytime soon. One of them is Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen, translated from the Japanese by Megan Backus (New York: Grove Press, 1993; originally published in 1988), which includes "Moonlight Shadow."  These are quick reads that update, in a way, the superb social films of Yasujirō Ozu (1903-1963) and Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998). 

Yoshimoto (born in 1964), like Ozu and Kurosawa, takes a close look at the fabric of a society under pressure. Though they are all three of them observing people through the scrim of Japanese culture, their tales have universal relevance. Changes -- whether brought about by the devastation of atomic disaster (Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Fukushima), earthquake, flood, fire, occupation, technology, demographics, or Westernized economic systems -- have led to the disintegration of traditional structures. Family systems crumble or evolve, as does civil society. 

More recently, the United States has moved into similar territory, and so all of these Japanese artists can communicate to distraught Americans.

In Kitchen, Mikage, the lead character, has lost her parents and, most recently, her grandmother, and she has no siblings. She is taken in by Yuichi, a fellow who knew her grandmother, and by Yuichi's transgender mother, Eriko. Though Mikage never entirely shakes off her depression, she does take some satisfaction in cooking. However, this is played out in a low-key, non-Hollywood manner. There have been Asian, but not American, movie adaptations.

"Moonlight Shadow" is a very streamlined tale of loss and survival, also, revolving around dead and living characters. The latter are Satsuki (the main protagonist), Hiraji, and Urara. In this one, there are surreal elements (think Twin Peaks) involving a bell, a bridge, a dress and the "Weaver Festival Phenomenon."  

Banana Yoshimoto is now on my radar. Her artistic approach can be reflected back to the corresponding concerns of master filmmakers Ozu and Kurosawa, and forward into the unknown. 

Today's Rune: Signals. 

Akira Kurosawa: 生きる / 'Ikiru' (1952)

No, Toyo Odagiri is not looking at her cellphone. This is 1952, okay?

I love Akira Kurosawa's films, which hyper-link into many deep things: Japan, the universal human condition, Russian literature, existential philosophy, songs, theatre, visual design and so much more. I also love that Kurosawa's films sometimes meander a bit unexpectedly, like a good novella or novel.

Ikiru (1952) is, indeed, inspired in part by Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), and the spirit of Fyodor Dostoevsky is there, too.  

The premise of Ikiru: what happens when a person -- in this case Mr. Watanabe (Takashi Shimura) -- figures out that he (or she) has only six months or a year to live?  

For one thing, Mr. Watanabe wants to spend more time hanging out with Toyo Odagiri (Miki Odagiri aka Santo), who is so full of life and mischief. 

Ikiru also has the feel, at times, of Charles Dickens' 1842 novella, A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost-Story of Christmas. Though Mr. Watanabe is not such an awful man as Scrooge, he's often just as (almost comically) freaked out when he first glimpses his own mortality. 

Ikiru is a film about nothing less than the meaning and purpose of life. 

As Roger Ebert phrased it on September 29, 1996: "I think this is one of the few movies that might actually be able to inspire someone to lead their life a little differently." (Link to full article here.) No higher praise needed. 

Today's Rune: Flow. 

Akira Kurosawa: 白痴 / 'The Idiot' (1951)

What we have left to see is about half of Akira Kurosawa's orginal epic cut of 白痴 / The Idiot (1951), based on the hefty novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky first published in complete book form in 1874. As is, Kurosawa's film conveys the mood, atmosphere and existential thickets of the Russian original through a Japanese scrim.   

Even cut in half, The Idiot still works, provided one is willing to employ a little imagination to help fill in the gaps. The gist remains. Here, the title character (Masayuki Mori), suffering from post traumatic stress (thanks to his wartime experiences), has the thousand yard stare; Denkichi Akama (Toshiro Mifune) burns holes into his best frenemy with an equally mystified stare.   

Enter Taeko Nasu (Setsuko Hara) and Ayako (Yoshiko Kuga) into a four-way staring contest. Note Toshiro Mifune on the left, a clear prototype for spaghetti Western characters in his look, well emulated by Clint Eastwood in the 1960s.

In the previous post, Charles asked about a biography of Kurosawa. There are these two books, neither of which I've read yet. But they look good.

Peter Cowie, Akira Kurosawa: Master of Cinema (Rizzoli, 2010).

Donald Richie, The Films of Akira Kurosawa: Third Edition, Expanded and Updated (University of California Press, 1999). 

Today's Rune: Protection. 

Akira Kurosawa: わが青春に悔なし / 'No Regrets for Our Youth' (1946)

Blend one portion of Jane Austen with two of Fyodor Dostoevsky, season with a little Gone with the Wind. Sit down for a Japanese meal during the Second World War period and voila, you have tasted of  Akira Kurosawa's わが青春に悔なし / No Regrets for Our Youth (1946).  Bon appétit!

Let's look briefly at three aspects of this early post-war film.

1. Love triangle, beginning in 1933. Yukie (played by the astonishing Setsuko Hara) is wooed by Noge and Itokawa (all pictured above).

At one point, Yukie matter-of-factly spells things out for Itokawa:

"If I follow you, my life will be peaceful.  But, if I may say, it'll be boring . . . If I follow [Noge], something dazzling will await me. My life will be stormy . . . It terrifies me and fascinates me."  

2. Family. We learn important things about the connections between Yukie, Noge, Itokawa and their family systems, how they help inform their existential decision-making -- even in rebellion. 

3. Society under pressure. Japanese fascism and nationalism begin to squash socialist and even the most moderate dissent. At first, the students and faculty fight for free speech and against militarism, but eventually, many of the students are absorbed into the war machine and most of the faculty either removed or cowed into silence.

Noge goes to prison and is seemingly rehabilitated by the time of his release, though he still remains, in actuality, a member of the resistance. Itokawa becomes a government prosecutor and is seemingly sympathetic, though in actuality, he has become part of the new status quo. 

Yukie is the character who changes the most, and, existentially, for the better.

No Regrets for Our Youth has additional facets worth exploring -- including fine matters of technique and craft -- but three are enough for one post!

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.  

Akira Kurosawa: 蜘蛛巣城 / 'Throne of Blood' (1957)

Akira Kurosawa's 蜘蛛巣城 / Throne of Blood (1957) transmogrifies Macbeth in a totally cool way, dropping the basic storyline into the sizzling stew of samurai Japan, changing the three witches into one evil spirit within Spider's Web Forest, and substituting Washizu Taketoki (Toshiro Mifune) as Macbeth and Washizu Asaj (Isuzu Yamada) as Lady Macbeth. Results: brilliant! 

Filmed in black and white, Throne of Blood starkly heightens the shadowy contrasts of architecture and nature with both interior and exterior shots. Scenes are luxuriously expanded and drawn out as in a dreamscape, with close attention given to the expressions and movements of the main characters. This memorable technique was tidily picked up by Sergio Leone for his own epic films. 

The creepy movements and words of Isuzu Yamada are both riveting and chilling. Toshiro Mifune plays an unhinged samurai general from beginning to end. 

More from Isuzu Yamada. She is even creepier than the evil spirit of the forest!  In addition to the visceral power of live theatre and the big gestures of Silent Film, Throne of Blood adds very effective sound effects. 

Toshiro Mifune snarling his way to the crescendo ending!

I can certainly see why Akira Kurosawa is often ranked in the very top global tier of movie directors. A great pleasure of craft and vision.

Today's Rune: Initiation.  

Akira Kurosawa: 一番美しく / 'The Most Beautiful' (1944)

Akira Kurosawa managed to direct 一番美しく / The Most Beautiful (1944) during World War II, even with Imperial Japan heading for defeat. This film takes a poignant and intimate look at a group of women working in the coastal city of Hiratsuka at Nippon Kogaku (Japan Optical Company) optics production facility.  What is remarkable is how similar these women's camaraderie is to all-male combat units fighting at the same time. Their cohesiveness is due more to loyalty to each other than to any other factor.   

In addition to internal group camaraderie, these "most beautiful" workers are implored by slogans on the factory walls to "FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE OF THE WAR DEAD:" give it their all! Here laboring away on optics devices such as lenses for siting scopes, binoculars, range-finders and so on. There is specific mention of honoring the dead of the Battle of Tarawa (November 1943), in which almost the entire Japanese garrison of 2600 troops and 2200 Japanese and Korean laborers died. (The American attackers lost some 4,000 casualties as well). 

In scenes that remind me of the football game in the film version of MASH (1970), The Most Beautiful features the Japanese optics women playing volleyball and also, for unit cohesion, playing musical instruments and marching. All is not perfect in that some infighting occurs, with accusations of favoritism and special treatment for those taken ill by work stress.  

There is much beauty in this film, despite the war. We see Mount Fuji and a snowscape with children playing. We see some of the "girls" meditating in their communal garden, each having brought soil from their home garden plots. And we see the care and tenderness they show toward each other.  And there is a tale told by an old soldier about a roaming "raccoon dog," bringing some levity. 

Given the absurd violence of war, in the summer of 1945, a wave of American B-29 bombers -- the kind worked on by "Rosie the Riveter" in the USA -- attacked Hiratsuka and destroyed half of the city, just weeks before Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a year after this movie was released. Two more air attacks followed. 

After the war, Nippon Kogaku regrouped and retooled and eventually began producing my favorite type of camera, the kind I favor today: Nikon. 

Today's Rune: Protection. 

Akira Kurosawa's 赤ひげ / 'Red Beard' (1966)

Akira Kurosawa's 赤ひげ / Red Beard (1966) is a meticulously crafted film, an example of cinema as a masterful art form in its own right that includes elements of fiction, poetry, visual art and architecture but is also distinctive. The aesthetics of black and white film (this was Kurosawa's last before shifting to color) allow one to focus on shadow and form as well as sound. Kurosawa is a master filmmaker and one need not understand Japanese to appreciate his works. Indeed, as in the most moving silent films, many of Kurosawa's shot compositions illuminate the power of facial expressions and, in particular, the look of a person's eyes. Kurosawa's work is very satisfying aesthetically and I'm learning a great deal about technique in reviewing his films.

I have never really understood modern medical doctors, their motivation or disposition, but Red Beard makes me wish we had in the everyday now many more such as these doctors from 200 years ago, working hard at a Japanese medical clinic. 

The title character, Dr. Kyojō Niide (played by the always memorable Toshiro Mifune), frequently strokes his beard which is, though we see him in black and white film only, red. One can readily compare his character with Atticus Finch, as played by Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird, an American film made in the same decade as Red Beard, though the good doctor is a bit gruffer than the lawyer. Just as Atticus takes up a rifle to shoot a threatening rabid dog, Red Beard has a scene in which he opens up a can of whoop-ass on a threatening group of hooligans in a courtyard outside a brothel.

Red Beard approaches his patients, most of them poor, in a holistic manner, strengthening the body, mind and spirit of each when it's still possible to help. He works patiently and effectively with people afflicted by fevers, alcoholism, mental illness, "spiritual scalding," and physical wounds. His holistic approach could be put to good service in the 21st century.

Blanket airing on left is of the same pattern as the one in the top image

Red Beard is based on Shūgorō Yamamoto's The Tales of Dr. Redbeard (1958), plus an additional thread from Fyodor Dostoevsky's Humiliated and Insulted (1861).

Red Beard has heft as well as breadth. In flashback sequences (which sometimes remind me of surrealistic Luis Buñuel flashbacks), there is a landslide and the aftermath of an earthquake. In one sequence, we can see a character stumbling around in the foreground while at the top of the screen a line of people exit the "stage." Having experienced firsthand the nightmarish devastation of the Pacific War that ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and having earlier lived through a massive earthquake, Kurosawa is deep diving through these scenes.

There's another sequence that begins with a strange chanting, a beckoning to the underworld to spare an imperiled young boy's life, that ends with a visual shot from the perspective of the bottom of a well, a water-reflection of the people shimmering above -- a mind-blowing achievement. 

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Akira Kurosawa: 'The Bad Sleep Well' / 悪い奴ほどよく眠る (1960)

In The Bad Sleep Well / 悪い奴ほどよく眠る (1960), Akira Kurosawa tackles a still very contemporary theme: institutional greed and corruption, cover-up. and behind-the-scenes machinations.

Shot in black and white (with elements of silent films -- like special emphasis on faces and gestures), the movie's basic set-up is thus: Nishi (Toshiro Mifune) plans to take revenge on his corporate father's tormentors. 

The film is developed in waves, with a grand wedding, reporters asking questions, corruption investigations, and much unspooling intrigue. 

The Bad Sleep Well twists along to include an attempted suicide at the mouth of a (real) live volcano, clandestine night meetings, and semi-hostages secreted in the ruins of a (real) munitions factory bombed by the Allies during World War II.  

Admirers of Alfred Hitchcock and the Coen brothers will especially dig this production. 

Those even barely attuned to what's going on today, from Trumpian America to Brazil to South Korea, from Fukushima Japan to around the globe, will surely grok the enduring connections across time and space between egotistical organizational chess pieces bound up in graft, greed and sheer folly, so well-depicted in this film.

The Criterion Collection includes added bonus materials with its DVDs, including a relevant chunk of Akira Kurosawa: It is Wonderful to Create (2002). 

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Akira Kurosawa: 天国と地獄 / 'High and Low' (1963)

Akira Kurosawa's 天国と地獄 / High and Low (1963) is a rare example of a movie that's better than its source. Kurosawa took the basic premise of Ed McBain's King's Ransom: An 87th Precinct Mystery (originally published in 1959 and since reprinted) and morphed the setting into a Japanese one. The result is a deliberately paced, noticeably well-crafted black and white film.

The psycho kidnapper is one cold slice. 

Envy and hatred are partial motivators: having to look up at Mr. Gondo's house from relative poverty may have driven him over the edge. 

The great Toshiro Mifune (1920-1997) as Mr. Gondo, a man who rose from shoe-and-satchel craftsman to high officer in the National Shoe Company. All is put in jeopardy by his psychopathic nemesis.

Just as pleasurable as seeing Kurosawa's craftsmanship in play is watching High and Low as a cultural artifact. I tend to do both at the same time -- watch and see.

What this 1963 movie reveals from the perspective of 2016. 

Almost complete male domination of Japanese society in the public sphere.

Reiko Gondo (Kyōko Kagawa), Mr. Gondo's spouse, is dressed traditionally and seems very deferential and submissive. However, she wields influence and helps push her husband in a more compassionate direction.

Back-stabbing and power-plays at the corporate level.

Debates over quality vs. quantity, and profit margins. Mr. Gondo prefers high quality even though this means a smaller profit margin. He is proud of his work and wishes to remain so.

Competent and respectable police force. In the field, detectives and supports operate in pairs.

Sensitive awareness of socio-economic differences between groups of characters by the director and by the characters themselves.

The role of honor -- and differences between honor in theory (high-minded) and reality (more practical or even cynical).

Heroin -- matter-of-fact discussions by police; somewhat lurid depictions of "Dope Alley" reminiscent of  Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend (1945). 

Articulated mass transit system (trains and trolleys).

Seemingly no air conditioning.

Use of telephones and wiretapping. Public telephones in use.

Changes since 1963?

Women in Japan have made gains, comparatively.

Transit, air conditioning and telecommunications highly developed, with society more fully saturated with all three elements.

Films rarely made in black & white anymore.

Films are rarely this well-crafted, although many newer television series have made tremendous strides in quality. 

Today's Rune: Fertility. 

Akira Kurosawa: 七人の侍 / 'Seven Samurai' (1954)

Akira Kurosawa's 七人の侍 / Seven Samurai (1954) is a sprawling novelistic film steeped in history during a period of violent anarchy in Japan (late 1500s). It serves as a microcosm of social relations and war. Twenty-first century viewers might be surprised by this wild pre-CGI black and white film, its primal nature and serious grasp of the human condition, as well as by the looseness of its structure.

In Seven Samurai, there are three groups: one of more than one hundred villagers/farmers; about forty brigands/bandits; and seven (eight including Kikuchiyo) ronin/samurai. In the midst of surrounding famine and general devastation, all are hungry. The second group wants to plunder and ravage the first group once their harvest comes in. The village elder of the first group hires the third group, the hungry samurai, to help them fight the brigands. That's the set-up. 

Most of the articulated conflict comes actually between the villagers and the samurai, as they adjust to each other. The bandit attackers are not seen from within their own circle -- an effective approach by Kurosawa that often doesn't work in less capable hands. We never see (or rather we never become well-acquainted with) a specific "villain." The stakes as we see them are high enough: life or death. Stanley Kubrick takes a similarly effective approach in Paths of Glory (1957), set during World War One. 

Kikuchiyo (Toshiro Mifune)

In Seven Samurai, we see a range of social activity and responses. The villagers, though they often seem helpless, are also crafty and just as brutal as brigands or samurai. The main difference is their attachment to the soil, and place. 

By far, the coolest samurai is their leader, Kambei Shimada  (Takashi Shimura -- on the far right in the picture at the top of this post). Through his decisions, we see at play Sun Tzu's The Art of War. In many scenes, whether involving combat or just social interaction, we see the cinematic equivalent of The Face of Battle (N.Y.: Viking, 1976), a frank and painstaking look at people under extreme pressures. There is also occasional comic relief. 

Seven Samurai has already been adapted to Western Hemisphere settings in The Magnificent Seven (1960 and 2016 versions), and to outer space in Battle Beyond the Stars (1980).  

Today's Rune: Fertility.  
  

Akira Kurosawa: 'The Hidden Fortress' (1958)

Akira Kurosawa's 隠し砦の三悪人 / The Hidden Fortress (1958), set in the 1500s during the ferocious clan wars of Japan, combines history and mythic, primal storytelling with strong characters, setup and high stakes. 

Extra fun is seeing the "ur" version of a Sergio Leone film, set in black and white. Take Leone's Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo / The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966), for instance, and the central role of gold. Make two of the characters more hapless, and one more ferocious. Add three strong women -- more along the lines of Clint Eastwood's The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). Make music an important element, and strong visuals. Pepper with playful, dark humor mixed with grim situations, such as becoming prisoner to nasty enemies. Make sure environment is a key element, and a partially obscured endgame. (Or, compare with Star Wars, which was directly inspired by The Hidden Fortress -- but let's not even go there at this juncture.)

Instead, consider the character of Makabe Rokurōta (played by Toshiro Mifune). This fierce dude may be the toughest badass you'll ever see on film. Or Princess Yuki (Misa Uehara), some of the time playing a mute, who must have inspired the Shirley MacLaine role in Don Siegel's Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970).  

The difference between The Hidden Fortress and all of the later films is in intensity -- 16th century Japan must have been a terrifying place in which to live -- an island with no exit. The two idiots (a word well-employed in this film as well as by Sergio Leone in his own films) introduced at the beginning of the movie provide a sort of comic relief, but they also underscore the harsh demeanor and derring-do of the other characters.

The Fire Song (sung twice -- once at the Fire Festival, and once by Yuki)

The life of a man

Burn it with the fire.

The life of a bug

Throw it in the fire.

Ponder and you'll see

The world is dark

And this floating world is a dream.

Burn with abandon!

Today's Rune: Journey. 

The Eyes of Texas: T Bone Burnett at the Lone Star Film Festival (2010)

In remembering that T Bone Burnett had brought up Marshall McLuhan during the 2010 Lone Star Film Festival in November, 2010, I dug up my notes from his talks. Saw him at three different venues on or around November 13, 2010. These scribbles were made during T Bone's interview with Bobbie Wygant. 

T Bone has worked on many projects, ranging from his own albums to the music for Coen Brothers' films (The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Inside Llewyn Davis) to Walk the Line and Crazy Heart.

Bobbie Wygant asked T-Bone about his inspirations while living in Fort Worth, Texas.

There was a place called the Capri Theatre and they showed [Luis] Buñuel films and [Jean-Luc] Godard films and [Federico] Fellini films and [Sergei] Eisenstein and [Akiro] Kurosawa . . . these incredible foreign films in Fort Worth, Texas, & it was like a portal into another universe . . . I appreciated it so much. I learned. I would say it was through these two places, the Capri Theatre and Record Town, that I sort of learned everything I've lived my whole life on.

[My 2015 update]: The Capri (which also went by other names) was torn down I think in the 1980s. Nothing has replaced it. Fort Worth needs independent "art house" theatres -- at least one, for God's sake. Fort Worth's three major art museums are wonderful resources, and "Magnolia at the Modern" screens independent and international movies on weekends. However, new art does better in less controlled, contained or restricted environments; that is, via more free-wheeling & Bohemian focal points.

At another venue in 2010, T Bone Burnett spoke of his agreement with Marshall McLuhan, that a new medium envelopes an old medium and lifts elements of the old medium into higher art forms.

Examples: TV becomes more engaging when eclipsed by the internet (The Sopranos, etc.); analog music (vinyl record technology) becomes more absorbing when made obsolescent by digital music. 

Let's be mindful that we are surrounded by an electronic envelope of many layers. 

There's more, but that's a taste of it.

Today's Rune: The Self.