Love Exposure

愛のむきだし Sion Sono, (2008),

At the Melbourne International Film Festival last year, two films by director Sion Sono were screened, Cold Fish and Guilty of Romance unfortunately I didn’t get to see either of them, something I now regret. Even now I still haven’t seen them, and as far as I know only Guilty of Romance has seen a DVD release in Australia as yet. But over Easter I watched one of his previous works, Love Exposure from 2008. My only experience with Sono up until then had been Suicide Club, a cult favourite from 2002. After watching the trailer for Love Exposure I decided to give it a shot. And I am still am unsure what it was exactly that I subjected myself to.

 

The film starts of simply enough, teenager Yu grows up in a seemingly ordinary Catholic household, until the death of his mother results in his father Tetsu’s decision to become a priest. Over time, Tetsu urges his son to go to confession. Yu, having never really thought of himself as a sinner, finds that his confessions of not helping an old lady across the street or stomping on ants just aren’t good enough for his father. So, with the best of intentions and only wanting to please his father, Yu falls in with a band of delinquents in order to learn how to really sin, and soon becomes a ninja-like master of upskirt photography, pornography being the one sin no priest can excuse. If this sounds like some kind of twisted sacrilegious attempt at comedy, I can tell you,  that’s exactly what it is. Yu is trained by an old Mr. Miyagi style character in the ways and techniques of upskirting in a particularly hilarious training montage, with Yu cartwheeling and backflipping through the streets, covertly stealing photos of girl’s underwear. The whole Catholic angle is very interesting, it feels like a satirical comment on Christ based religions in Japan, particularly exploring the concept of sin, which plays a huge part in the film. Catholicism isn’t the only thing critiqued though, a cult “Church Zero” is introduced, and its members are just as crazy and even more manipulative. One of its leaders, Aya, sets a complicated and malevolent plan in motion to convert Yu and his family to their church, and this is where the movie starts getting really freaky.

One by one, Sono throws rules out the window, as what first seemed purely comedic film becomes a mind bending psychodrama. The characters’ personalities undergo so many changes and relationships become so complicated that it’s hard to keep track. Yu falls in love with a girl called Yoko (a very impressive and sustained performance by Hikari Mitsushima), who he believes to be the one he has waited so long for, but Yoko falls in love with a woman named Sasori (yes, that Sasori!) who is actually Yu in disguise, while the psychotic Aya continues to infiltrate their family and turn them against Yu. Phew. Most of these particularly confusing plot developments take place in the film’s second half.

Did I mention that this film goes for four hours?

This film tackles so many themes and gets into such bizarre territory that I find it quite hard to talk about, or even form an opinion on. Religion, sin, perversion, love, sexuality, brainwashing... The gang’s all here, and it does get exhausting. I loved the aforementioned reference to Meiko Kaji as Sasori, and also the inclusion of such non Japanese elements like Catholicism were very interesting to see represented, particularly in such a critical/comedic way. The use of Ravel’s Bolero was a cheeky addition to Yu’s upskirting escapades, his perverted pastime becoming a beautiful ballet of sin. Moments of bloody violence and sexuality are peppered throughout, with the characters going from one extreme to the next in a matter of scene changes. Some of the shooting locations are so beautiful, particularly the beach where Yu and Yoko hide from Church Zero in an abandoned van, and inside the eerie, minimalist Church Zero building.

This film is bizarre, funny and freaky. The four hour running time will definitely test, if not completely repel you. It is not a film I loved as a whole, but parts of it I really enjoyed and I couldn’t help admiring its unbridled ambition, as many film festivals also seemed to, it received various prizes for directing and acting. It’s a film I feel like I would be reluctant to recommend, but at the same time, it’s the kind of film I would want people to see so it can be discussed and unpacked. Weeks after I watched it, I’m still puzzled and intrigued by it, but not fully understanding seems a part of its strange appeal. Sion Sono has created an epic vision so jam-packed full of ideas that it’s ridiculous… and I feel I shall have to give myself a long break until I tackle another of his films.

Kamikaze Girls

下妻物語 Tetsuya Nakashima, (2004)
Tetsuya Nakashima is one of the most exciting directors working in Japan today. His visual style is absolutely amazing and he has proven himself capable of working with a wide range of material (often adaptations of novels) that continues to push him into different styles of storytelling and filmic genres. His latest film Confessions (2010) saw him win the awards for best picture and best director at the 34^th Japan Academy Awards. That film was my first introduction to Nakashima, and I have since worked my way backwards through his earlier works that I have managed to get my hands on.

Kamikaze Girls seems to have been Nakashima’s first major film, and established his focus on female characters, something that was to become a habit that has continued with Memories of Matsuko and Confessions, his work becoming increasingly darker with each new film. But Kamikaze Girls contains almost no trace of the hardships and unrealised dreams of Matsuko or the intense psychological revenge drama of Confessions. Instead, it is a light, entertaining comedy in which two young girls who, despite their completely opposing subcultural styles; Lolita and Yanki, become unlikely friends. This collision of two different worlds, so based on image, takes the kind of jokes that have become cliché in this kind of movie and puts a new Japanese spin on them. Momoko is a friendless, lone Lolita in a small country town who fantasises about being born in the Rococo era, while Ichigo is a hard talking, head-butting, delinquent biker girl who rides a bright pink scooter. Their worlds and personalities could not be further apart:

“What are you listening to?”

“Johann Strauss.”

“I don’t know that band.”

The setting of the film, Shimotsuma, Ibaraki, is almost like the third main character of the film. Nakashima has made great use of its beautiful green landscapes and isolated roads, coupling them with his glowing, colourful style while also including the flashing lights of pachinko parlours and the cartoon-like restaurants and shops. Momoko’s opening monologue describing the town and its inhabitants could even stand on its own as a hilarious short film! The whole film seems to be bathed in a beautiful hyper-real light, which, along with the brilliant costuming and candy-store visuals, creates a fantastical daydream of a film. Nakashima seems to bend the rules of reality almost to breaking point, characters fly through the air on a whim, appear on television in interviews that act as dramatic asides, and even some short animated sequences are included. One of my favourite scenes sees the locals of Shimotsuma lapsing, Broadway musical style, into a tongue in cheek advertisement for local clothing store Jusco, complete with superimposed text and prices.

While the story isn’t earth shatteringly original, and does follow the buddy movie kind of formula, it is entertaining enough to make sure that it doesn’t become simply an exercise in art direction, and does contain some hilarious moments and particularly creative gags that toy with bleeping of copyrighted words and pointing out of Kanji spelling mistakes. Music plays a very important role in Nakashima’s films (I think he has directed some music videos for Japanese bands), Memories of Matsuko was something of a musical, while Confessions boasted a soundtrack quite close to perfection. However, the Kamikaze Girls soundtrack was a bit hit and miss for me, some of the original compositions by film and anime scoring legend Yoko Kanno (Cowboy Bebop, check it out) are beautiful, (as has come to be expected from her) the wide range of which serves the movie quite well, but other inclusions of pop music I found hair pulingly annoying. The acting is great throughout, and not just from the two female leads. Momoko’s mother and father are hilariously juvenile, and just about every other character seems to be an extravagant caricature, just waiting with some funny one-liner to help propel this hyperkinetic film along. Momoko in particular has developed some quirky and interesting philosophies about life, informed and shaped by her hopeless parents and obsession with Lolita clothing.

Kamikaze Girls is a film about friendship and fashion, and while I’d say it’s more a film aimed at girls, but I still found plenty to enjoy thanks to Nakashima’s visuals and offbeat humour. I found it particularly interesting to continue exploring Nakashima’s work, particularly to track the changes in his visual style, overall tone and characterisation of principal female characters. I will most definitely be writing about his other work in the future, so stay tuned.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

This post marks a new step, the first time I will be looking at a Japanese movie that is currently screening in cinemas, rather than just watching a DVD like I usually do. Hopefully there will be many, many more of these in the future, but it all comes down to what receives a local release. The film is a documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi directed by David Gelb, and is currently screening at Cinema Nova in Carlton.

Jiro is an eighty-five year old sushi chef who has dedicated his entire life to his career, making sushi. Operating a tiny ten seater sushi restaurant in a subway underpass, the sushi he creates is world renowned and has earned his restaurant three Michelin stars; the only sushi restaurant in the world to achieve this. The film features extensive interviews with Jiro and his sons as they explain their craft and personal philosophies toward life and most importantly, work. We learn of Jiro’s largely fatherless childhood and how it influenced his work ethic and subsequent upbringing of his own sons, seeing many bittersweet similarities in this decidedly old school and very Japanese approach to life and work. Upon opening his own branch of sushi restaurant, Takashi, Jiro’s youngest son, was told the words his own father had heard many years before, “Should you fail, you have no home to come back to” a harsh yet somewhat rousing push into the real world, Jiro speaks of his own thoughts of the Japanese youth, (most likely the current wave of ambivalent part timers) who want fewer work hours and more free time. Yet the workers we see in the film remain so firmly committed to their work that it is almost scary, apprentices are subjected to rigorous training the likes of which many of us may never experience. One of Jiro’s employees recalls crying the day he finally mastered making egg sushi, after several months of failure. While Jiro’s eldest son Yoshikazu recalls an apprentice who hardly lasted a day.

Even Jiro’s suppliers are on a higher level, acquiring and providing the finest fish and rice with a great loyalty and respect to their friend and his incredibly high standards. The film’s excursions to the Tsukiji fish market work very well in terms of breaking up the film and getting us out of Jiro’s tiny restaurant, showing us yet another microcosmic community’s characters and inner workings. In one such scene, Yoshikazu, buying fish on behalf of his father, casually asks a fishmonger how he has been. The small, elderly man replies “Not good. I want to retire.” Yoshikazu does well to hide his possible surprise at such an honest response, quickly making his exit, yet it really fascinated with me. Like a Yasujiro Ozu film come to life, this man’s simply stated response becomes a quiet confession filled with layers of truth and emotion, only to be flippantly brushed off. A similar moment takes place in a scene where Jiro and Yoshikzu visit the grave of Jiro’s parents. After observing the dead flowers near the headstone, Jiro remarks, painfully casually “I don’t know why I come here. My parents didn’t look after me”. Is this what created such a consuming work ethic in this man? In contrast to the aforementioned fishmonger, Jiro speaks of not being ready to retire and, despite his often cold disposition of absolute professionalism, explains that everyday, making sushi, he feels ecstatic and is completely in love with his job. Jiro admits were he to retire he would be driven insane with boredom. The film makes it clear that his work really is his reason for living.

Towards the beginning of the film, one of the employees explains that the techniques that the chefs are using are “no big secret”, and we hear about many of these in fascinating detail, including the differences of depth in flavour in tuna and also the forty-five minute massage an octopus receives before being served. All of this is wrapped up neatly in a film that runs under an hour and a half and never feels long-winded. Many sections of interviews and conversations are juxtaposed with beautfiul slow motion sequences of the sushi’s creation, likened metaphorically to a musical symphony with its different movements. It is often said that the mark of a good documentary is one that can be entertaining and accessible to people who may have no interest in the actual subject. Jiro Dreams of Sushi is one such documentary. Even though I am not the world’s biggest sushi fan and will probably never eat in Jiro’s restaurant (bookings a month in advance are essential and prices start at $300) the film provides not only a fascinating insight into Jiro and his restaurant, but the network around it and a uniquely Japanese approach to one’s career.