Film festivals can be dangerous. There is so much on offer, you're bound to pick a few duds. So here they are, two in one day no less! (Note how the posters make the films look much more interesting than they are)
A Letter to Momo
ももへの手紙 Hiroyuki Okiura, 2011
I mentioned in a previous
post that this was the only Japanese Anime screening at MIFF 2012, at first I
thought I would skip over this film, as it really didn't look all that
appealing. I watched the trailer, which didn't help either, as it was very
boring. Yet for some reason I booked a ticket. Bummer.
The film follows the main
character Momo, a young girl, probably about twelve years old, who has recently
lost her father. She has just moved to a small town near the sea with her
mother, where they will be living in close proximity to their Aunty and Uncle.
Momo and her mother both suppress their grief at their recent loss, and with
her mother keeping herself busy, Momo finds herself often all alone in the new
house, pondering an unfinished letter from her father that she found after his
death that reads only "Dear Momo". The appearance of three magical
goblins who only Momo can see triggers the start of a very unoriginal story
about self discovery and dealing with grief.
As I was watching this film,
all I could think of was, "This has all been done before, and immeasurably
better". I know it might be unfair to compare this film to Ghibli Movies,
but how can you not? Let's have a look at some of the film's major plot elements.
A young girl moves to a new house with a single parent, magical creatures who
only the girl can see, and older grandparent figures offer advice and clues to
the mystical creatures are huge elements lifted straight out of My Neighbour
Totoro. The seaside location, which is beautifully realised and animated,
echoes Ponyo. The weird and wonderful cast of spirits with origins in Japanese
mythology and folklore recalls Spirited Away. A Letter to Momo retreads all of
these ideas, which have all been explored in more artistic and inspired films.
Little kids might enjoy
this, but with so much better Anime on offer I'm not sure why you'd go out of
your way to see this one. I only found a couple of moments funny and found it
hard to believe that fart jokes were actually included. Films still do that?
The animation is absolutely beautiful though. The colours are vibrant and the
character designs are quite good, in particular the little goblin you can see
on the poster above. In spite of this, the film is definitely a minor work and
I would probably say don't bother with this one, even if you're a die hard
anime fan.
11/25: The Day Mishima Chose his Own Fate
11・25自決の日 三島由紀夫と若者たち Koji Wakamatsu, 2012
Prior to seeing this film, I
knew two things about Mishima. One, he was a famous Japanese novelist, and two,
he ended up killing himself, hara kiri style. Also, the only thing I knew about
the director Koji Wakamatsu was that he was quite prolific in the 70s with his
erotic, or pink films. Given my love of trashy films, I would probably enjoy
his earlier work much more than this "biopic" of Mishima, which was
an absolute shambles.
Despite the inclusion of
much archival footage, photos and newspaper headlines, I still had great
difficulty fully grasping the political climate of 1960s Japan and just
who this Mishima character was. References are made to his successful books and
ideologies, yet little to no light at all was shed on his political motivations
and reasoning behind his actions. Communists, student riots, the emperor and
patriotism are all talked about, but I just couldn't make head or tail of what these
angry young men were on about. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't just me and my
general indifference to politics. Mishima just seemed to change tack from
writer to militant political activist, recruiting young men who shared his
views and patriotism for Japan.
This resulted in huge homoerotic overtones throughout the whole film. The men
sit and talk in saunas, gaze lovingly into each others eyes and profess their
devotion to each other and their cause with some of the campiest acting and
overdone facial expressions I've seen in a long time. The whole film just
screamed "zero budget made for TV (perhaps NHK?) production".
Particularly in the scene where Mishima delivers an impassioned speech to a
crowd comprised solely of crowd sound effects and blurry archival photos,
accompanied by a bizarre and just audible enough to be annoying soundtrack of
someone noodling on an electric piano, in desperate search of a melody.
I'm a stickler for details.
If you're setting your film in the 60s, set your film in the 60s. Slapping a
few headbands on females' slightly coiffured hair and a few houndstooth jackets
on males does not give a 60s atmosphere. The scene where Mishima and his mates
drive to meet their fate in an automobile of clearly modern production, gaily
singing a patriotic song would have been unbearable if it wasn't so
(unintentionally?) hilarious. Cameras attached to the ceiling capture shots
with a bird's eye view, resulting in some of the most bizarre camerawork this
side of Tommy Wiseau's The Room, while a dinner party in what looks like an
empty display home is filmed with handheld camerawork that makes it look like
an episode of Cops. Indeed, many people in the cinema could not contain their
laughter at the ludicrousness of this production. One bloke even got up and
yelled "Good riddance!" as he stormed out of the cinema.
In the end, I left the
cinema knowing not a whole lot more about Mishima than when I entered. I'm
still trying to work out whether Wakamatsu set out to create a hammy pisstake
of a historical Japanese icon, or earnestly tried to represent his one of his
heroes, and just failed miserably. I had some huge laughs though!
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