In October 2023, Hibiya was hot like summer, and the city teemed with foreign tourists. Tokyo International Film Festival opened with Perfect Days, which was on everyone’s lips due to Koji Yakusho winning Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival. Once I sat in my seat and the movie theater became dark, I watched Hirayama, played by Koji Yakusho, waking up in a small, old apartment room. I was drawn into it the second he awoke in his wooden six-tatami mat room. The film is set in Japan and is in Japanese, but there’s no doubt it’s Wenders’ film. I knew it would be an essential work even before the end credits played, especially for creators that go back and forth between Japan and abroad. No other film had succeeded in translating the image of Tokyo in the 2020s into a visual language. This visualization of the city will become a common language for those who live in Japan and those from abroad to communicate with. We’ll be able to say, “That Tokyo.” The new year has rolled in, and several months have passed, yet the reverberations of Perfect Days remain. 

The Tokyo portrayed in Perfect Days is unmistakably the reflection of Tokyo today. Hirayama, played by Koji Yakusho, is a bathroom cleaner who lives in a small residence on the east side of Tokyo with a view of Sky Tree. The area he works in is on the west side of Tokyo, and the public bathrooms he works at are part of The Tokyo Toilet project in Shibuya. On weekdays, Hirayama always wakes up early in the morning without an alarm because someone sweeping outside wakes him up. He brushes his teeth, waters his plants, changes into his cleaner uniform, and leaves the house after fetching his belongings like a watch and some cash. He’s a cash-only person; he doesn’t use QR code payment. He rides a Daihatsu Hijet Cargo, commonly used as a delivery van. It’s a car for laborers. Hirayama goes from the east to the west of Tokyo with a canned coffee for breakfast and music playing from a cassette tape. Here, Wenders illustrates a realistic rhythm of people living on the outskirts of Tokyo, heading from downtown to uptown. This scene, which realistically shows the stark economic differences between the east and west, is handled with perfect balance precisely because Wenders is the master of road movies. The view of the road, lit by the morning sun, will feel familiar to those who know his work. It also appears in Notebook on Cities and Clothes, Wenders’ 1989 film on Yohji Yamamoto. 

In pursuit of the image of Tokyo

The days when foreign tourists couldn’t be seen in the city have disappeared. In 2003, there were 5.21 million foreign visitors and 25 million by 2023. The number multiplied by 5 in two decades. After overcoming a period marked by a slump due to the pandemic, the number of monthly visitors entering the country at the end of 2023 surpassed the number in pre-covid 2019. Sightseeing destinations like Kyoto and Niseko are full of tourists from abroad, but Tokyo is the same. There are moments when it feels like over half of the people in Ginza and Omotesando are visiting from abroad. With the help of Japan’s weak yen, the number of people drawn to Tokyo has increased. What sort of idea of Tokyo are the foreign visitors chasing after? 

A famous example of a film that successfully visualized Tokyo in the past is Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003). The film, which continues to enchant audiences abroad, offers a glimpse of Tokyo culture from an outside perspective. Conflicting cultures, such as technology, karaoke, cosplay, clubs, fetish culture, fashion, music, TV programs, and traditional culture, are mixed and woven within the city. She creates an unidentifiable image of Tokyo that “economic animals” reside in. Figures such as Hiroshi Fujiwara, the late chief editor of DUNE, Fumihiro Hayashi, Kunichi Nomura, who was involved in the location scouting process, and HIROMIX make cameos. The 2003 film captured the hearts of audiences, especially in Europe and America, who were searching for a city where novelty and exoticism coexisted. If you ask the hotel staff, you can actually listen to the tracks that Nigo selected at the Park Hyatt Tokyo, the backdrop for Lost in Translation. Even today, two decades after the film’s release, people visit the city and the Park Hyatt Tokyo to chase after the elusive idea of Tokyo in the film, and they haven’t ceased. I should point out that the film illustrates life in the west side of Tokyo, such as Shibuya and Shinjuku. 

On the contrary, in the sense that anyone can access it, the Tokyo depicted in Perfect Days is approachable. It’s not the kind of Tokyo you can’t tap into if you don’t know anyone; it’s not a best-kept secret. It comprises parks, izakaya bars, old bookstores, laundromats, apartments made from wood, bathrooms in west Tokyo, the landscape of a city where its urban development never seems to end, and streets that connect the east to the west. For many Tokyoites, such everyday views aren’t rare, as they’ve encountered them at least once. 

A film that was born because it didn’t start out as one

According to the producer and co-screenwriter of Perfect Days, Takuma Takasaki, and co-producer and financer, Koji Yanai, this film was born from various coincidences. The film’s setting, The Tokyo Toilet, is a set of public bathrooms in the Shibuya ward. In terms of toilets, in In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki, he asserts that the mystique and distinct beauty of toilets lie in their gloominess, but what do you, dear reader, think? The Tokyo Toilet is a project in which legendary architects and designers shed light on the shadows of bathrooms. The 17 bathrooms, made by world-renowned architects and designers like Shigeru Ban, Tadao Ando, Nigo, and Mark Newson, were born from Fast Retailing’s Koji Yanai’s curation. Perfect Days 
emerged from Koji Yanai and Takuma Takasaki casually brainstorming how to get people to use The Tokyo Toilet bathrooms cleanly. A conversation between Takasaki and Yanai detailing the film’s genesis is in the December 2023 issue, the Perfect Days issue, of SWITCH in Japanese, so I’d recommend you read it*1.

A film made from the opposite end of Hollywood

Wenders is undeniably the master of road movies. The trilogy of Alice in the Cities (1974), Wrong Move (1975), Kings of the Road (1976), and Paris, Texas (1984), a film set in Texas, USA, that cemented his icon status, are all road movies. Perfect Days, going back and forth between the east and the west side of Tokyo is also a road movie. Wenders is also known as a director with a rebellious spirit against Hollywood films*2. One of his inspirations is the films of Yasujiro Ozu, stemming from the opposite end of Hollywood. About the director, Wenders passionately says, “I still think his cinema is truly world cinema…by not being part of the empire of the American census… but by being its own empire.” 

When I think about Ozu’s body of work, I’m reminded of a debate between Ryunosuke Akutagawa and Junichiro Tanizaki in Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Bungeiteki Na Amari Ni Bungeiteki Na (1927). Tanizaki posits that the most crucial factors for a novel are an exciting plot and narrative structure, while Akutagawa argues that there’s also a lot of value in a book that doesn’t have much of a story. Ozu’s films are made from elements that Akutagawa approved of. His works are quiet and have an atmosphere developed from movie sets with meticulous details and beautiful camerawork. There are no bizarre scenes or synopses, but what does exist is this richness born from the continuous changes in the subtle textures. That itself is a work of art. Wenders has been making films with the influence of Ozu, and Perfect Days is a perfect projection of the director’s experience of Japanese cinema. 

Ozu’s Hirayama, Wenders and Takasaki’s Hirayama

Takuma Takasaki gave the protagonist of Perfect Days the name Hirayama, which often appears in Ozu’s films, but according to Takasaki, it was a total coincidence*3. In Ozu’s films, the best-known Hirayamas are Shukichi Hirayama (Chishu Ryu), the protagonist in Tokyo Story (1953), and Shuhei Hirayama (Chishu Ryu) in An Autumn Afternoon (1962). The everyday lives of the Hirayamas in Ozu’s films seem like they were the norm for Japanese people at the time, but that wasn’t the case. Japan was still poor in the 60s. Akira Kurosawa’s Dodes’ka-den (1970) was made after An Autumn Afternoon, but it’s set in a poor and rough city. Nagisa Oshima’s Night and Fog in Japan (1959) was created in the 50s, like Tokyo Story, but again, the setting is a rough Tokyo, and the protagonist is a poor child. Even though these films existed in the same Showa era, the worlds Ozu built were rich. 

In Tokyo Story, among Hirayama’s children are a private physician and a teacher, respectively, and in An Autumn Afternoon, the protagonist Hirayama holds an important role at a corporation in the Marunouchi area, and many of the characters are white-collar workers*4.

*1 An interview with the people involved in the making of Perfect Days is on the official account of Bitters End, the distribution company for the film. It’s interesting to watch it paired with the film. 

*2 Hollywood films are known for gun fights, war, heroic tales, love stories, the bottom pit of capitalism, and the American Dream. Many of them have scenes that could actually happen in American society. It can be said that the reality of American culture has given Hollywood films a sense of reality, but it can’t be said the same films seem realistic in other countries. 

*3 This anecdote is mentioned in a short interview with the co-screenwriter and producer of Perfect Days, Takuma Takasaki, in POSTGENDAI, an online magazine. 
https://postgendai.com/blogs/postgendai_dictionary/takuma_takasaki

*4 In An Autumn Afternoon, the marriage arrangement of Hirayama’s daughter, Michiko Hirayama (Shima Iwashita), comes up, and one can tell that Hirayama leads an affluent life from the fashion in the film. Hanae Mori designed the costumes for Shima Iwashita. Hirayama’s furniture and the Japanese restaurant in the film all look like they could be in Katei Gaho. 

In Perfect Days, in a scene where Hirayama’s sister appears in a Lexus with a personal driver, we discover that Hirayama comes from a wealthy family but left them of his own volition and lives quietly on the east side of Tokyo. It made me wonder if Hirayama from Perfect Days could be a relative of the Hirayamas from Ozu’s films. 

In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy opens with, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Many films made in the same period as Ozu’s are set in a world rife with social issues. Perhaps Ozu, who was drafted into the military in World War II and led a turbulent life, chose happy worlds of their own kind as the settings of his films because he felt his aesthetic could stand out precisely because the settings are alike. 

Hirayama from Perfect Days was given the role of cleaning bathrooms. Unlike the one in Ozu’s and Kurosawa’s era, the Tokyo he lives in is one after Japan’s rapid economic growth. Tokyo, which overcame the “lost 20 years” after the economic bubble burst, isn’t a place where Hollywood-esque stories could shine. Through Hirayama’s life, we’re reminded of the richness of everyday life in Tokyo, which we’re prone to forget. Watching him spritz water on his plants, taking photos of komorebi (sunlight through the trees)*5, falling asleep while reading, and dreaming, I can see that he understands the fulfillment of such a life. It makes me want to agree with him quietly*6.

Opposing the gaze of Orientalism

In 2023, Japan ranked first worldwide on the Nation Brands Index (NBI) for the first time*7. I believe rankings have little meaning, but I didn’t expect Japan to be number one worldwide in the same year a prominent film from Japan was released. 

Perfect Days is captivating audiences across the globe, not just in Japan. At the Cannes Film Festival last year, Koji Yakusho, who plays Hirayama, won Best Actor, and the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film this year. In January, it was number one at the box office in Italy, and the other day, an event held at the Chinese Theater the night before the American release was a success. 

Other countries will inevitably view Japanese films made with an international audience in mind through an Orientalist gaze. What they seek is the essence of the East. Many films have managed to meet such expectations. Akira Kurosawa, mentioned above, and Takeshi Kitano, who makes films about human relationships in the underbelly of society, could be examples. The same could be said about films that extracted social issues that became topical in Japan and illustrated them in a way foreign audiences can understand. The same gaze is probably on Perfect Days, but the Tokyo that Wenders, a foreign director, captured manages to neutralize such extreme expectations. 

The notion that imported things are supreme is ingrained in Japanese people. This is to be expected because people have been borderline overdosing on music, literature, and fashion from the West, and especially American culture. As a result, aside from the reverse import of Japanese content, a strange phenomenon in which Japanese people, living on the opposite end of Western society, don’t appreciate Japanese content tends to occur*8. It becomes clear that Hirayama is also strongly influenced by Western culture, as he prefers American music and novels. The production team, like Takuma Takasaki and Koji Yanai, is probably the same. They met Wenders, someone who has been following Japanese films for around five decades, and portrayed the contemporary image of Tokyo; that’s one significant story in itself. 

Perfect Days’ idea of Tokyo has given new meaning to Tokyo. The landscape of Tokyo that we know was spread to the world; one of the film’s successes lies in how we can talk about it regardless of where we’re from. The last scene where Nina Simone‘s ‘Feeling Good’ plays is inside Hirayama’s van as he drives it. The inside of a car is a small space that can exist anywhere in the world, not just in Tokyo. The scene stirs something within us; our own memories of life flicker in our minds. Much like Hirayama feeling the sound of the car engine in the driver’s seat as he goes from east to west of Tokyo, we, too, feel the hum of contemporary Tokyo in our seats in the movie theater. 

*5 Donata Wenders took some of the images of the komorebi in the film, which were exhibited at 104 Gallery from December 22nd, 2023, to January 20th, 2024, under the title KOMOREBI DREAMS: supported by THE TOKYO TOILET Art Project/MASTERMIND. 

*6 In an essay in Murakami Asahido, Haruki Murakami uses the term “simple pleasure” to mean small but certain happiness. This can also be applied to Hirayama’s daily life. It signifies the fulfilling feeling of mundane yet certain pleasures in everyday life, such as drinking a cold beer after working out. 

*7 Anholt-GfK Nation Brands Index uses six criteria to evaluate certain countries: culture, people, tourism, exports, governance, and immigration and investment. Japan was ranked first for the first time in 2023. 
You can look at the past rankings on Wikipedia. Until Trump got elected in 2016, the US was almost always at the top. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_branding 

*8 The dancing of Min Tanaka, who appears as a houseless person in the film, can be seen in Somebody Comes into the Light (music by Jun Miyake), a short film. Speaking on dancing, he touches on Ame-no-Uzume’s dancing, which appears in the Kojiki. Today, dance in the West is predominantly founded on ballet. Initially, different dances existed everywhere among indigenous groups, but they became extinct because of colonialism and the changing times. He mentioned that thinking within a Western framework can be limiting if we were to return to the idea of dance. It speaks to Wenders’ ideas regarding Hollywood films.

Translation Lena Grace Suda

The post Notebook on Fashion and Society Part 3: A New Vision of Tokyo in “Perfect Days”—A Quiet Beauty Born from an Imperfect City and Its People appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Aalto: Architect of Emotions, a documentary film about the distinguished late Finnish architect and designer Alvar Aalto, was released on October 13th, 2023, to commemorate the 125th anniversary of his birth. The film is a tapestry of beautiful moving images and music that shows the process of how Aalto gave shape to his ideas all over the world. Not only does it follow his life and body of work, but it illustrates the love story between Aalto and his first wife, fellow architect Aino, for the first time. In addition to rare family photos, archival footage, and testimonies from concerned parties, we get a window into the unknown side of the couple through their intimate letters. Upon her arrival in Japan before the film’s release, we spoke to the Finnish director, Virpi Suutari, about the insights behind making the film and her thoughts on Aalto’s work. 

Virpi Suutari
Virpi Suutari was born in 1967. She is a film director and producer based in Helsinki, Finland. She is a member of the European Film Academy. Suutari’s film, Aalto: Architect of Emotions, won Best Music and Best Editing at the Jussi Awards, the Finnish equivalent of the Academy Awards.

Alvar Aalto
Alvar Aalto was born Hugo Alvar Henrik Aalto in Kuortane, Finland in 1898. He was born to a land surveyor father and enrolled in Helsinki University of Technology in 1916. Aalto was born in a family of generational foresters and grew up loving trees since he was young. He established his own architecture office in 1923. In 1935, with his wife, Aino, he founded Artek to sell furniture, lamps, textiles, and more to the world. Aalto designed over 200 buildings in his lifetime, known for their masterful and superb combinations of organic shapes, materials, and light.

Aino Aalto
Aino Maria Marsio-Aalto was born in Helsinki. She enrolled at Helsinki University of Technology in 1913. She joined Aalto’s firm in 1924 and then later married Alvar. Her name became known after the release of her glass, Bolgeblick. She was Alvar’s private and public partner until she passed away in 1949.

A story based on the director’s adolescent experience with Alvar Aalto’s architecture

—―How did you first encounter Aalto’s architecture and works?

Virpi Suutari: Every Finnish person has encountered Aalto buildings, design objects, or furniture because we have so many Aalto buildings. Almost every Finnish family has some Aalto objects at home. We have Aalto kindergarten furniture, and in schools, we have furniture designed by Aino Aalto and other people from Artek. It’s part of our everyday life. 

But what made me make this film was my childhood memories in my hometown, Rovaniemi, which is by the Arctic Circle in Lapland. It was destroyed and totally burned down in the Second World War, and in the 50s and 60s, Finnish architects, including Alvar Aalto, came to the rescue and started designing the city again. Aalto designed many magnificent monumental buildings for Rovaniemi, and one of them was the Aalto library, which I visited almost every day after school. The winters in Rovaniemi were harsh and cold—it would drop to minus 30 degrees. I used to go to the Aalto library because I needed a warm place, and it became a dear place for me. I loved everything about it: the shape of the main library hall, the leather chairs, and the beautiful glass lamps. I was also studying at the music school in the Aalto Theater, so I was in the Aalto buildings a lot, and those memories stayed with me. 

I’ve been making documentary films for around 30 years, so I thought it was time to explore Alvar, Aino, as well as his second wife, Elissa Aalto, more carefully. I wanted to get to know them personally, but I also tried to understand why my experience in the library was so magnificent. What was so special about it? What was their architectural thinking? I wanted to understand that and share it with everyone else in Finland, Japan, and other countries.

――Alvar Aalto is such an iconic figure not only in Finland but internationally. Did you feel any pressure to make a documentary on him? How much time did you spend on the research?

Suutari: That’s a very good question because almost every Finnish person has an opinion on Aalto architecture. All the Finnish taxi drivers think they are the best critics of Aalto architecture (laughs). They’re critical but very proud at the same time. But then, there are Aalto Puritanists, who are these Aalto fans who think you shouldn’t say anything critical about Aalto. 

Everyone has an opinion, but I knew that for my own view on Aalto, I needed to make my own film—a film that aesthetically came out of me—based on careful research. The core of the film had to be in my own childhood memories of my experience of the Aalto buildings. I knew there had to be this atmosphere of love, humor, and warmth. I knew that if I did my research well, I could do whatever I felt was the best with the material and be confident about it. That’s what I did. It was like the Aalto couple moved into my home for four years. I was constantly researching and thinking about them, so much so that I had dreams about them. In the end, my husband was tired of them. He is actually the voice of Alvar Aalto in this film because he’s an actor. When the film was finished, he told me very gently but firmly, “Maybe it’s time Alvar and Aino move out of our house and stay outside the gates of the house” (laughs). But now they’re in Japan, which I’m happy about.

――I was pleasantly surprised that this film is very human. It’s not just talking about their work. There are human relationships at the core of the film. Why did you decide to make a documentary with this kind of approach? 

Suutari: I didn’t want to make an academic theoretical film. I wanted to do good research behind the film to ensure I didn’t make any mistakes, but I wanted to make a film anyone could enjoy. You don’t have to be an expert to see this film. Of course, you can be an architect to see it because I’m sure there are new things even for researchers and experts. But ordinary viewers can get so much out of it. I want to make films that can speak to anyone. Of course, I’m interested in the buildings, all the details, and beautiful objects, but I’m interested in human beings. That’s what I’m interested in as a documentarist.

It was important for me to look behind the scenes to figure out who Alvar Aalto and Aino Aalto were. Also, it was important to shed light on Aino Aalto’s role and her importance in creating Aalto architecture and design because she did most of the beautiful interiors we admire in the buildings they designed together. So, it was time to credit Aino and his second wife, Elissa. 

“ But what touched me the most was Aino’s loneliness in her last years”

――It was interesting to learn about Alvar and Aino’s relationship, personalities, and how they collaborated through letters. What surprised you the most when you read those letters?

Suutari: I was surprised by how modern they were in their thinking. We tend to think people who lived 100 years ago were old-fashioned, but they were living in their own time. The Aalto couple especially wanted to be modern in every aspect of life. They were interested in new technology and broadening their ideas of sexuality, physical health, and things like that. That was a surprising element for me. 

But what touched me the most was Aino’s loneliness in her last years. Alvar Aalto was a very outgoing extrovert. He had a wonderful, charming personality but was also quite self-centered. Sometimes, Aino Aalto handled being the CEO and artistic director of the Artek furniture company by herself. She had two teenage kids at home and was an architect, so she had a lot to handle. Aino was quite alone when Alvar Aalto worked at MIT in the United States. It was pretty touching to read those letters; she was constantly blaming herself for her feelings of loneliness and how she couldn’t think bigger like Alvar Aalto. 

What also touched me about Alvar’s letters was his repeatedly craving and missing those first years they started working together. He always dreamt about that period when things were easier between them, and they were discovering new modernism together. He repeatedly wrote about craving to be back in that mental state of working together.

――The film features precious family photos and all kinds of family archives, and we get to see who they were as a couple. What did you discuss with the Aalto family in making this film? Did they give you a list of do’s and don’ts?

Suutari: It took a while to get their trust, but once I got it, I met Aalto’s other family and his grandson several times. With their trust in my project, they were open and didn’t give me any restrictions. Of course, I was in dialogue with them and would tell them what I’d do. But I was totally free to do whatever I wanted to do with the materials. I was very aware that some of the materials were delicate, like the drawings that Alvar Aalto did of Aino on her deathbed. You have to have a sensibility to use that sort of valuable material. 

I’ll always remember the moment Aalto’s grandson came to my office. He opened his car, and there was this big brown box. We carried it to my office, and I started reading the letters that were in there. Then I told my assistant, “Okay, we’re making the film.” That material gave me the confidence to make a film that isn’t just about architecture but much more—about this timeless creativity between a beautiful couple.

――I read that Aalto was influenced by Japanese architecture in his projects such as Villa Mairea. When researching for this film, did you feel the influence that Aalto had from Japan?

Suutari: I think so, and people wiser than me have said there are Japanese influences in that house. For example, there is the winter garden, which reminds me of some Japanese features and spaces. They never visited Japan, but they certainly had some Japanese literature. At the time, in Stockholm, there was a famous Japanese tea house, and many architects were influenced by it. Researchers said Aalto probably visited that tea house as well and got ideas. Also, his use of wood: it’s like the forest has entered the interior. In the living room, there are these wooden pillars. So, there are some similarities to Japanese thinking, like how the interior and the exterior are in dialogue. 

Villa Mairea is probably the most beautiful private house I’ve ever visited. I had the pleasure of staying there with my film crew and saw the house in different lights, like the morning light, and sitting by the fire in the evening. We also went swimming in the beautiful kidney-shaped pool and experienced all the luxuries. In those moments, you think, “Oh, what a wonderful profession it is to be a documentarist!” (laughs).

――In many documentaries, we see talking heads one after another and often get a very academic impression from them. But in this film, all the comments by experts were only in narration. It’s wonderful we get to be immersed in the whole world of Aalto along with the beautiful music. 

Suutari: It was certainly our intention to make it like that. It’s challenging to make a film based on archives when the subjects are no longer here. The challenge was how to make the film fluid and organic and clean the dust away from the archive material. The soundscape, music, and editing had big roles in achieving that. It was a big, important choice to leave all the talking heads out and create one big narrator out of several narrators. It was more work for me to do it that way, but I think it made the film much more organic and beautiful, and the viewers could dive into the world of Aalto. 

A film where the viewer can feel the beauty of the details, the Aalto couple’s forte

――After watching this film, I came to like Aalto more than before. Could you share with us if you have any personal favorite architecture or furniture that Aalto designed?

Suutari: Well, I’m sitting in the Artek store in Tokyo right now, and I’d like to have all the beautiful chairs and lamps from here (laughs). But I promised myself when I finished the film that I’d get myself a Paimio chair, and I did. It’s probably not the most comfortable chair to sit on, but it’s something I love every day when I look at it. It’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s like a sculpture, but you can sit on it too (laughs). This film process made me realize all the details because the Aaltos were masters in creating details in the buildings. All the door handles, handrails, and, of course, furniture and glassware were carefully thought through. The beauty relies on these details, and you get to see them more clearly after seeing the film.  

――Is there anything you’d like to say to the Japanese Aalto fans and film enthusiasts looking forward to watching this film?

Suutari: I hope you check this film out because it gives you an enchanting, exceptional tour of the Aalto buildings worldwide. Not only can you see buildings in Finland, but you can also see ones in the United States and many European countries. If you can’t afford to go to those places immediately, it’s much cheaper to go to the cinema, buy a ticket, and be in those places. Also, you can dive into the beautiful love story of one of the greatest modernist couples, Alvar and Aino.

■Aalto: Architect of Emotions
Title: Aalto: Architect of Emotions
Director: Virpi Suutari
Year: 2020
Distribution: Doma
Advertising: Valeria
Supported by: The Embassy of Finland, Tokyo, Finnish Institute in Japan, Japan Institute of Architects
In association with: Artek, Iittala
2020/Finland/103 minutes/ (C) Aalto Family (C)FI 2020 – Euphoria Film
Official website: aaltofilm.com
Out in theaters nationwide on October 13th, 2023

The post Pulling Back the Curtain on Alvar and Aino Aalto in the Film, Aalto: Architect of Emotions appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

※Please be aware that the following text contains spoilers.

Commentaries Increase

The Boy and the Heron is an animation consisting of “increases” and “collapses.”

As soon as this Japanese master animater’s long-awaited work was released, many authors commented on it. It is common for such a high-profile movie to have a lot of words on it circulated on the Internet after its release. However, particularly with this work, there has been a flood of texts, which is becoming even more extensive. Much of the discussion focused either on the “mother” in the story or on the idea of “inheritance,” applying the relationships around Studio Ghibli and the history of Japanese animation to the characters and story in the film. In the former case, Tsunehiro Uno, for example, describes the film as “a self-commentary of Miyazaki himself on what is at the core of him, which is typical post-World-War-II-version of mama’s boy mentality, as if it were written by a critic” (*1), and Kaho Miyake writes that “a world where father is absent, mother and her child are in close contact, eggs cannot be born, and the voices of screaming parakeets echo virtually” is a “nauseatingly accurate metaphor” for our times (*2). For the latter, hiko1985, author of the blog “青春ゾンビ (Youth Zombie),” points out that the character “Kiriko” is a metaphor for Isao Takahata and Michiyo Yasuda, Miyazaki’s sworn allies from days in Toei Animation (*3), and Seiji Kano sees in this movie a “return to a manga movie” that inherits the “legacy of those who have worked closely with Miyazaki, such as Isao Takahata and Yasuo Otsuka” (*4). Perhaps it is a blessing in itself to be able to extract multiple narratives from a piece of work because it is a testament to the fact that Miyazaki and the rest of the Studio Ghibli staff have been making movies for decades and that so many viewers have been receiving them for so long. However, the storyline plays only a secondary role in feature-length animation. The primary stimulus to the audience’s senses, and what the filmmakers pursue above all else, is the movement within the sequence of pictures. Without this, the story around the mother and the references to the real persons are nothing more than easy manipulation of symbols, and brings no excitement.

(*1) Tsunehiro Uno. ” The Boy and the Heron and the Problem with the ‘King’”.2023-07-20.
https://note.com/wakusei2nduno/n/nc1c94c0793fe, (referred to on 2023-07-27)

(*2) Kaho Miyake.” #What was Hayao Miyazaki ultimately trying to portray in The Boy and the Heron [Fastest review with spoilers]”2023-07-15.
 https://note.com/nyake/n/nc74f29fccca2, (referred to on 2023-07-27)

(*3) hiko1985. “Hayao Miyazaki, The Boy and the Heron, ” 青春ゾンビポップカルチャーととんかつ. 2023-07-17.
https://hiko1985.hatenablog.com/entry/2023/07/17/135024. (referred to on 2023-07-27)

(*4) Seiji Kano, “The Boy and the Heron: A Return to ‘Manga Movie’ with Adjusted Logic.”. Cinema Cafe.2023-07-21.https://www.cinemacafe.net/article/2023/07/21/86462.html, (referred to on 2023-07-27)

“Increase” Overflows

In the middle of the movie, the jam increases. In this scene, Himi, one of the heroines of the movie and an incarnation of the protagonist Mahito’s mother in the other world, serves Mahito a piece of toasted bread with jam in a Western-style kitchen. Himi spreads a thick layer of butter on the toast, puts red jam on top, and gives it to Mahito. Mahito takes a bite of the toast. The jam spills out, ending up being around his mouth. “It’s tasty. My mother used to make it for me,” he says to himself. He bites into the toast again. Then, that red jam overflows from the toast and spreads out in front of his face, which is drawn in a medium close-up shot. The amount of jam clearly exceeds the amount that Himi had applied to the toast in the first place. The jam increases. It overflows. It proliferates.

The way the jam increases and the color of red remind us of a scene in which Mahito bleeds, placed in the first half of the movie. On the way back home from school to which he has just transferred. After a fight with classmates, Mahito suddenly strikes his right temple by himself with a stone he picked up. Against the blue sky and the green forest, a dark red stream flows out from his temple. The blood doesn’t stop right away. Instead, it gushes out in the next cut. If it really happened to a flesh-and-blood human being, the amount of blood would be enough to cause death in some cases. It even looks as if the blood itself is growing. The blood increases. It overflows. It proliferates.

The movement of ” increase ” links the jam and red blood. What at first glance does not appear to be a significant quantity overflows and spreads in the next cut. The movie is overfilled with this kind of proliferation and movement of increase. 

For example, in the scene where Mahito and the blue heron confront each other for the first time at the pond behind the mansion and exchange words. When the heron belligerently says, “I’ve been waiting for you, sir,” catfish-like fishes appear from the pond, and in the next cut, a large number of frogs appear, crawl up from under Mahito’s feet, and surround his body. The catfishes and frogs suddenly multiply.

Or the scene in which Mahito is guided by a blue heron into another world. A golden gate stands in a windy field. As Mahito gazes up at the gate, a flock of pelicans suddenly swarms over him. The weight of the pelicans pushes the gate open. The gate’s opening leads to Mahito’s encounter with the sailor Kiriko (one of the elderly ladies in the real world), and here, too, the sense of proliferation is depicted through the flood of pelicans.

In the two scenes I just mentioned, a large herd of animals appears, but the sense of proliferation is not brought about only by the animals. In both scenes, the wind is blowing before the herd appears. The strong wind causes Mahito’s grayish shirt to flap and sway. At this time, the shirt’s contours bulge out in an unnaturally rounded form. After Kiriko and Mahito meet, the sea begins to swell. As the two proceed in their wooden boat, a huge wave appears before them, covering the horizon. The wave rises high and covers the boat, which is shown from the left side. Both wind and water are depicted in this movie as part of the phenomenon of increase and overflow.　

In this light, it seems that the group of elderly women working at the mansion in the real world also has something to do with the “increase” movement. The appearance of the old women who gather like ants around the luggage that Mahito’s father brings back to the mansion is accompanied by an unusual sense of proliferation from the start, and their wriggling in groups of five or six is reminiscent of the elderly ladies in the nursing home in Ponyo (what both groups share are one woman with a wart on the side of her nose and another who acts independently from the group). However, the reason why the group in The Boy and the Heron leaves us with a creepy impression becomes apparent when these women are depicted from the side. Their eyes are weirdly popping out of their heads. Their eyeballs are so enlarged that they look as if they are about to spill out. The combination of the large roundness of their eyes and their collective wriggling and chattering forms the impression of an eerie proliferation. 

In addition, the “Warawara,” a group of white creatures that live with Kiriko and are said to be the form of pre-human, are also part of the “increase” movement, as are the swarm of parakeets that develop a hostile relationship with Mahito, Blue Heron, and Himi in the latter half of the movie. In this work, the movement of “increase and overflow” abound all the way through the story.

This “increase” movement has appeared frequently in Hayao Miyazaki’s previous movies, as exemplified by the seeds planted by Satsuki and Mei being rapidly transformed into a large tree by Totoro’s mysterious power in My Neighbor Totoro, the swarm of Ohmus in Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the swarm of fish and the proliferation of the anthropomorphic sea in Ponyo. In the early part of it, Mahito’s father, Shoichi, and his company’s employees line up the windshields of the fighter jets’ cockpits they are building at their company one after another at their mansion, and this “increase” movement links to the way the windshields of the swarm of flying Zero fighters were highlighted at the end of The Wind Rises (Even from the perspective of the period setting, the movie, The Wind Rises is followed by The Boy and the Heron) Therefore, this work can be said to be the newest version of the “increase” movie directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

“Increase” is Accompanied by “Collapse.”  

The “collapse” movement reveals itself accompanying the depiction of “increase.” In the middle of the movie, Mahito, while being taught by Kiriko how to do it, cuts a huge fish (looks like an anglerfish) that Kiriko has caught. Following her instructions, he plunges the blade into the belly of the giant fish, and blood gushes out. Once again, Mahito thrusts the blade. Immediately afterward, the fish’s pinkish viscera begin to overflow and spill out of its belly. On the screen, the viscera are increasing in volume toward the outside of the belly, but the fish’s body is collapsing. An increase is sometimes accompanied by collapse. Another “collapse” awaits after this scene. According to Kiriko, the guts of the fish are the fodder for the Warawara to float. She explains that at night, the Warawaras rise into the air and the group of them gradually form double spirals, reminiscent of a double-helix structure of DNA, eventually reaching the “upper world,” where Mahito came from, to be born as human beings. Pelicans, which feed on the rising Warawaras, appear and try to devour them, but Himi, the fire girl, appears and releases a firework-shaped flame to save them from the pelicans. That night, Mahito meets a dying pelican beside an outdoor toilet. The pelican falls to the ground and collapses, complaining about the dire situation of the pelicans, who have nothing to eat but Warawaras. Again, we can see the contrast between the movement of the pelican, who collapses in solitude while the flock of Warawaras rises into the air.

As with the case of “increase,” “collapse” is another key movement that has underpinned Hayao Miyazaki’s animations. In Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, as well as Spirited Away, the collapse of a world occurs in the final stages. Both the Giant God Soldier and Shishigami crumble as if they were melting. In The Boy and the Heron as well, the world created by the “great-uncle” with a contract with “stones” finally collapses with a heavy thud. This movie can also be said to be the newest version of the “collapse” movie. 

If “collapse” is one of the common gravities in the world of Hayao Miyazaki’s animations, then we could accept some of the puzzling scenes in this work with no hesitation. In one scene, a heron invites Mahito to a stone tower. Inside the tower lies Mahito’s mother, who is supposed to be dead, but when Mano touches her, her figure dissolves into the water. This scene does not foreshadow anything that happens in the later part of the story, leaving the audience with a puzzling impression. However, if we are to believe the collapse of the mother’s figure is a movement depicted in accordance with the gravitational force of “collapse,” there is no room for doubt about the scene’s necessity. How about the scene just before the great parrot king meets Mathito’s great-uncle on the tower? The King climbs up the wooden staircase, and when he reaches the top step, he carefully destroys the stairs. This must have been done to prevent his pursuers, Mahito and the blue heron, from reaching the top. But looking at him smashing them four times, one would think he is overdoing it. In addition, it turns out that his attempt was ineffective because the two pursuers eventually met his great-uncle through a different route. So here again, the movements in the animated pictures do not ensure the story’s coherence but can be said to rest on the gravity of the “collapsing” movement.

Movements Precede Metaphors

Meanwhile, it should be added here that there have been criticisms about “movements” in this work. In an article by Kazeto Shimonishi, which deserves attention for pointing out the fact that the opening scene is a “subjective image” of Mahito and that the entire depiction of the work is “exaggeratedly grotesque,” he points to the technical limitations of the work, stating that “the expression of ‘movements’ is far inferior to what it was in Miayazaki’s prime,” and that “perhaps due to physical decline, Hayao Miyazaki is no longer able to draw.” (*5) It is true that this movie does not have the dynamism of, for example, Porco Rosso. The swarm of ships and the plants in the garden of Himi’s house, both in another world, seem less elaborate and vivid than the swarm of airplanes Porco saw in his visionary experience and the beautiful garden of Gina’s house. The light shining through the clouds also lacks the variation of shading expressions compared to those in Porco Rosso, of which I couldn’t help but feel the monotonousness and uniformity. We cannot find meticulous depictions of forests seen in My Neighbor Totoro or crowds in The Wind Rises, let alone the appeal of the flexible pencil lines in Ponyo. While I would refrain from simplistically attributing these differences to Miyazaki’s “old age” or “decline,” it would be unreasonable
not to acknowledge the differences themselves. (*6)

(*5) Kazeto Shimonishi, “Hayao Miyazaki’s Sorrow and Question — The Boy and the Heron“. 2023-07-21. https://note.com/kazeto/n/nca1be7cd479c, (referred to on 2023-07-27)

(*6) In an interview by Yoichi Shibuya for “Sequel: Where the Wind Returns,” Miyazaki frequently bemoans the lack of skill among young animators. If we are to believe him, the reason for the reduced sense of dynamism in his newest movie should be attributed less to the director’s age and more to the lack of skill of the animators in an age when working with a PC has become the norm. Of course, a writer who has never worked in animation does not have the ability to pursue the cause or responsibility. See Hayao Miyazaki (2013), Sequel: Where the Wind Returns: How the Filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki Began and Ended His Career, Rocking On.

However, this movie surpasses all of Hayao Miyazaki’s previous works in its relentless repetition of the same movements. The proliferation of the trees in My Neighbor Totoro is only seen in a single scene. In Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the increase of Ohmus and the Sea of Corruption is not exempt from narrative inevitability. In both Princess Mononoke and Laputa: Castle in the Sky, “collapse” is an integral part of the story. Ponyo is an exception in that the seawater, fish, and Ponyo’s limbs “increase” in an uncontrolled manner, but the city hit by the tsunami does not “collapse.” No other movie has been as repetitive as this newest one in that increases and collapses occur everywhere repeatedly, including in scenes not directly related to the storyline. What arises from this repetition is a sense of rhythm that only this work is allowed to live with.

What we receive far more directly from this work than from its story is a series of movements that fall into two categories: “increase” and “collapse”. It is not the construction of a story that the animators devote themselves to, but the generation of movements. We feel “creepy,” “scary,” “nerve-fraying,” or “thrilling” when we sense the increase or collapse of things or creatures. Such sensory reactions precede the idea of tracing the story with the structure of Japanese society and applying the relationships in the work to those of real people.

Therefore, there is an inevitability in the scene in the final part of the work where the characters escape from the other world of “stones.” When Mahito, his stepmother Natsuko, and the old woman Kiriko return to their original world, pelicans and parakeets pour forth from the tower. Behind them, the stone tower collapses completely. This work can be completed by the simultaneous occurrence of “increase” and “collapse” all at once. Mahito and Natsuko, smiling and covered in birds’ droppings, resemble us, the audience, who were exposed to “increase” and “collapse” simultaneously. 

It is easy to consider “increase” and “collapse” as metaphors for “life” and “death,” respectively. It would not be wrong to think so. However, we must not get the order wrong. The beauty of this work does not lie in the fact that it depicts “life” and “death” symbolically through the representations of “increase” and “collapse,” but in the fact that the symbols of “life” and “death” can be felt in front of our eyes as wriggling of movements. Without “increase” and “collapse,” the metaphors of “life” and “death” would be nothing more than a mundane theory of life.

Increase, Collapse, and Closure

Now that we have reached this point, it would finally make sense to think about “mother” and “inheritance.” The world that the great-uncle has protected and tried to entrust to Mahito is not inherited, but collapses. Instead, the number of people who have a relationship with Mahito increases. Not only does Mahito call his birth mother “mother,” but he also starts to call his stepmother Natsuko “mother” in the middle of the story. This is not a choice between mothers, but rather an increase in the number of mothers. The conflict between mother and son is overcome through the “increase”. In a cut before the final one, Mathito’s father, Shoichi, and Natsuko wait for him at the entrance with their new child. This cut is depicted from the same perspective as when Mahito once peeked into his father and stepmother sharing an embrace. This repetition reinforces the impression of the “increase” in the number of children. Both “mother” and “child” are increasing in this movie.

But it is not only “mother and child” that increase. In a conversation with his great-uncle, Mahito describes the scar on his temple as “a proof of my malice.” Kiriko, a sailor, had a scar in the same spot. “Malice” is also amplified. At the same time, in his conversation with his great-uncle, Mahito said that Himi, Kiriko, and blue heron were “friends.” And when they parted, the heron bluntly said to Mahito, “Bye, my boy.” In the first place, the blue heron has an “increased” face: a face of middle-aged man emerges from beneath his face as a bird. It is mentioned several times in the dialogue that he is a “liar” with two faces, but the “liar” blue heron and Mahito become “friends” in the end. Furthermore, since Himi is an incarnation of his dead mother, Mahito also becomes friends with “death.” That is to say, Mahito is saying that “malice,” “lies,” as well as “death” are his friends. “Friends” are portrayed as something that will only increase.

A kingdom that has been protected for many years collapses without being passed on. Mothers, children, malice, lies, and friends increase. We never know what is truly in the minds of the creators of this work. Even if we did know it, it is not necessarily reflected in their work. However, the sequence of pictures and sounds in the movie titled The Boy and the Heron whispers at our ear as follows: “You and I are creatures who are irresistibly attracted to ‘increase’ and ‘collapse’ rather than ‘protect’ and ‘inherit.’ Everything that ‘increases’ is free from moral judgement, and they all become your ‘friends.'” Whether this is right or wrong is, of course, not mentioned anywhere in this movie. The door closes without telling us anything, even with no words like “The End” or “Fin” to mark its end.

The post “Increase” and “Collapse”: Two Key Movements of the Movie “The Boy and the Heron” appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Charlotte Wells
Charlotte Wells was born in 1987 in Scotland and is a filmmaker based in New York. Wells graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Classics from King’s College London and then a Master of Arts from Oxford University. After, she worked in finance and ran an agency for people working in film with a friend in London. She then earned a Master of Fine Arts and a Master of Business Administration at the Tisch School of the Arts. She was supported by the BAFTA New York Media Studies Scholarship Program while in school and wrote and directed three short films. In 2018, she was named one of Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film, and in 2020, she became a fellow at the 2020 Sundance Institute Screenwriters and Directors Labs. Aftersun (2022) is Wells’ first feature-length film.  

The blazing hot sunshine of summer. The waft of chlorine from the pool. The feel of sunscreen. 11-year-old Sophie (Frankie Corio) goes on summer vacation to a Turkish resort with her father, Calum (Paul Mescal), who lives apart. The two spend happy, precious moments with each other, sometimes conversing awkwardly with a camcorder in one hand. 

The above makes it sound like Aftersun is a heartwarming story about family, but it takes an unexpected turn as the film progresses. The film, which won over 70 awards at film festivals worldwide and was named the best film of 2022 by numerous influential platforms, portrays an adult coping with his mental health and people reconnecting to one another through memories and imagination.  

The film’s director is Charlotte Wells, who hails from Scotland, and this is her first feature-length film. We spoke to her about Aftersun, which was informed by her own experiences but is ultimately completely fictional.  

*This interview includes details related to the plot of the film.  

On choosing a camcorder as a medium  

—Between the first draft of the script and the completed film, what was the biggest change you made?  

Charlotte Wells: I removed a lot of characters. By focusing on the story of Sophie and Calum, I got rid of the conflict between them. There was more friction between them in the first draft. When I got feedback on that script, people asked me to push the [source] of their friction further, and I realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to make it about two people at odds with each other. I wanted the conflict to come from within themselves and their time apart, but I wanted them to have a positive experience for their time together.  

—The beauty of this film is how as an adult, Sophie looks back on the home video footage and comes face to face with her father, who’s no longer there. Plus, the father is barely in the videos.  

Wells: I think you’re the first person to notice that, so thank you. That was the intention. In the birthday scene where Sophie points the camera at her father, I directed Paul (who plays Calum) to avoid the camera, which is why he dances from side to side.  

The camera was a record he had for himself that Sophie now has. The footage is the only point of view of Calum that Sophie and we have. Through the camera, we have his only direct point of view during their holiday in Turkey.  

—You spoke in a different interview that there aren’t any videotapes of your father left and that you only have one photo of him. Why was a camcorder the medium of your choice despite that fact? 

Wells: One of the reasons is because it offered an interesting effect on the film in terms of perspective. There’s one home video taken at home that I remember strongly. My aunt tells my grandmother that the camera’s not on, but it is, and she points it at my grandmother during dinnertime. And behind her, above the table on the wall, is a picture of me looking straight down the lens. It was a surreal experience, seeing my younger self looking back at my current self on the couch. There was something about holding my own gaze, even though I wasn’t there. It definitely informed the end of the film, where Sophie holds her gaze. But Calum’s hands took the video. It’s like he’s an invisible person between the two Sophies.  

—Sophie “communicates” with her father while looking back at his gaze captured in the camera.   

Wells: I received one tape from a relative once this project was conceived. The tape is a series of still images. As the video goes on, you see my dad, his friend, and I playing chess around a table, but you can only see us from the neck down. Our faces aren’t in the frame. I stared at this tape and filled in the space around this static frame. I remembered the apartment and things I didn’t know. The stimulus of the tape brought things far from the back of my mind to the front. It got me thinking of the nature of records, searching beyond what is there, and filling in the gaps.  

For Sophie, the tapes are anchor points for her to remember memories. The things she sees in the tapes are a combination of things remembered and imagined.  

—Have you ever thought editing a film is like trying to make a memory stick in your mind?  

Wells: You create meaning by putting images next to each other. That’s the process of editing. In that sense, the process of memory is the same. But memories remain more fluid. They never set; they’re constantly adjusting and molding themselves when they need and want to. But it’s all about searching for meaning.  

I feel like most people’s memories are based on images, which is why film is a great medium for works about memory.  

The challenge of depicting a young and good father  

—I feel like it’s rare to see young, good fathers like Calum in films. Why did you decide to show a character like that? 

Wells: Fathers in films are often portrayed as deadbeat or absent. He’s absent from her life because they don’t live together, but that doesn’t make him emotionally absent. That was my experience with my dad, but that sort of father-daughter relationship isn’t represented onscreen often. It was also important to cast someone who looked young enough to be mistaken for Sophie’s brother. 

The driving force behind the film was my desire to represent that kind of father. At the same time, it presented challenges because people are accustomed to seeing the deadbeat dad onscreen, and that’s what they want to see. If they want to, they’ll overlook the character’s every positive action in favor of arriving at that interpretation. I occasionally see Aftersun being described as a story of an estranged father and daughter. I don’t know what more I could’ve done to convince them otherwise. Perhaps there’s no winning for people who want to see a positive depiction of fathers.  

—Calum struggles with his mental health; he uses tai chi and raving to cope. How did you land on these particular physical activities? 

Wells: Tai chi and raving show different parts of Calum. Raving and dancing are associated with his time away from Sophie. I think with tai chi and meditation, he’s trying to find a healthier inner peace. He wants Sophie to see that version of himself because he’s aspiring to be a better version of himself.  

My father and his brothers used to do tai chi (laughs). It wasn’t popular in Scotland then, so I think it was unusual. But yes, tai chi and raving are coping mechanisms for different sides of Calum.    

—The rave scene plays a vital role in the film. Do you go clubbing or dancing regularly?  

Wells: Yes and no. I only go dancing with a certain amount of alcohol in my bloodstream. I can’t be certain I could find the dance floor (laughs). Dancing is fun, but dropping my self-consciousness around it is hard. I envy that as a form of release. 

I watched a lot of UK rave footage from the 90s on YouTube. It’s a very specific time. It had great freedom, expression, and community, but I also saw another side of that; people on drugs with desperate facial expressions. It seemed like there were people trapped within it. What at first was a place of liberation could become a place of inescapability.  

The rave footage determined the direction and power dynamics of the film. At the end of the film, Sophie gets closer to a white, death mask-like face. It looks like a place of comfort and solace from a distance, but as you get closer, you see the face of desperation. That’s what I wanted the rave scene to express.  

—I see. That’s why Calum has a stern look on his face. 

Wells: There’s a parallel between the hotel and the rave. Calum tries to coax Sophie onto the dance floor, but she dismisses him. But as an adult, she constantly wishes to return to that moment. Sophie wishes to engage with him again in that space. But as an adult, she sees something she didn’t expect there as a child. 

Editing this film was more nerve-wracking than ever 

—I want to know about your cultural experiences. What sort of films and music did you grow up consuming? 

Wells: I had an unlimited pass for the movies, so it was like I lived in the cinema during my early teens. But they showed a lot of mainstream American and British movies. I started watching independent films after attending film festivals at around 17 or 18. I went to film school and started watching the kind of films I do now.  

I listened to a lot of music that led to pop-punk of the early 2000s in my teens; a lot of it is in the film. After that, I listened to slightly heavier rock. In my 20s, I became interested in electronic music. Music and films have played a big role in my life.   

—In another interview, you referenced the short story writer Muriel Spark. Do you like reading? 

Wells: When did I mention her (laughs)? It’s interesting; I was thinking about her again recently. I probably mentioned Muriel Spark’s book because I believe the best books shouldn’t be adapted into films. They’re written in the form of a novel. I’m interested in the idea of using a medium to the fullest. If a work does that well, I don’t think it should be adapted. 

But I also sometimes read while thinking about adaptation. Short-form stories are better suited for films because they’re about the tone and provide space to build a world.      

—Do you have other writers you like? 

Wells: Patricia Highsmith, Eileen Myles. I read a lot of poetry and classics because I studied classics as an undergraduate. The translation of The Odyssey by Emily Wilson, for instance. I have a diverse range of books on my bookshelf. 

—You’ve shot three short films in the past, but this is your first feature-length film. What was the most challenging part of shooting a feature-length film? 

Wells: Editing. It took about seven months to edit after the intensity of the shooting. It was a very long process that required stamina and was different from editing a short film. Small changes would have profound impacts on people’s perception of the film, so it was hard to edit, more than usual. There were ten times more people when we shot it, but that didn’t feel different from shooting a short film. 

—Which do you like better: shooting or editing? 

Wells: They’re both hell (laughs). But I like shooting with the crew. I like to be alone, but shooting this film was special because we were isolated due to covid. I used to do editing for a living until this film, so I enjoy it. Blair McClendon, the editor, and I went to the same film school, so I can put my trust in him. But editing this film was hard, so there was probably more joy in shooting. 

Translation Lena Grace Suda
Photography Yuri Manabe

Aftersun  
Out in theaters nationwide on May 26th, including Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho and Shinjuku Piccadilly Cinema 

Written and directed by: Charlotte Wells  
Cast: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall 
Cinematography by: Gregory Oke 
2022/England・USA/In color/Vista/5.1 ch/101 minutes  
Distributed by: Happinet Phantom Studios 
© Turkish Riviera Run Club Limited, British Broadcasting Corporation, The British Film Institute & Tango 2022 
http://happinet-phantom.com/aftersun/

The post A Dialogue Between a Father and Daughter Via a Videotape: Charlotte Wells, the Director of Aftersun, on Imagination and Memories appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Kasumi Arimura
Born February 13th, 1993 in Hyogo prefecture. She made her TV drama debut in 2010 in She’s a Steely Woman! (Asahi TV), and gained widespread attention for her role in NHK’s TV series Amachan shortly thereafter, in 2013. In 2015, Arimura was cast as the lead in Biri Gal, and won the Japan Academy Award for best lead actress/best new actor, and for best lead actress in 2021 for her role in Hanataba Mitaina Koi Wo Shita. In 2022, she appeared in the TBS TV drama Ishiko and Haneo and the film Tsuki No Michi Kake. In 2023, she appeared in NHK period drama Dousuru Ieyasu and the film Call Me Chihiro. Other appearances include Natarrage (2017), Soshite, Ikiru (2019), Rurou Ni Kennshin the Final/the Beginnings (2021), Zenkamono (2022), and others.
https://www.flamme.co.jp/actress/profile.php?talentid=11
Instagram：@kasumi_arimura.official
Twitter：@Kasumistaff

There exists values that are born from the time and cherished by people throughout the ages. In this series,時音, we look back at the works of people who have promoted such values and speak with them about what they anticipate in the future.

In this installment, we interviewed actor Kasumi Arimura, star of the film Call Me Chihiro. The film is a live-action adaptation of Hiroyuki Yasuda’s manga of Chihiro-san, and is directed by Rikiya Imaizumi. The film follows former sex worker Chihiro who works at a lunch box shop in a small seaside town, and the various interactions she has with the people she meets there.

Arimura captivated audiences with her performances in the films Hanataba Mitaina Koi Wo Shita, the TV drama Ishiko and Haneo, and Call Me Chihiro. We interviewed her about where she’s at currently, at the age of 30.

A comfortable distance

– Call Me Chihiro was wonderful. I also love Ishiko (TV drama Ishiko To Haneo).

Kasumi Arimura: Thank you (laughs).

– I feel that the characters you’ve played in recent years, including Kinu (from Hanataba Mitaina Koi Wo Shita), have truly been captivating. What do you keep in mind when you play these roles?

Arimura: In my case, I find that I need to create a good foundation for my characters within myself, or else things become too vague. To do that, I look for the core of all the characters I play. For Chihiro, I built up her past based on clues written in the original manga. I assumed maybe Chihiro got tired of being too giving in the past, whether it was in her relationships with men or in her relationships at the company she worked for. Or that maybe she doesn’t know how to give love because she didn’t receive it from her mother. And perhaps that’s why Chihiro wants to give love to so many people, and why she ultimately ends up burning out. Those past experiences may have been what led her to keep her distance. I can’t verbally explain the nuances, but I put the pieces together to create the role within myself.

– What did you try to remain conscious of when expressing the Chihiro that you created using your own body?

Arimura: Chihiro looks good with short, blunt bangs and long black hair. Just from her appearance, you can sense a beautiful and charming person. She speaks gracefully, and possesses an unforgettable charm that comes across even after one conversation with her. It was difficult to create Chihiro’s distinct character since she’s at a different place than where I am usually, and has lived a different life than I have. So what I could do was try to lower my voice, not speak too fast, and try not to deviate too much from a certain level of emotion and passion felt from the tone of my voice.

– Did you work with Director Imaizumi to adjust how to depict the more delicate details of womanhood, such as Chihiro’s past as a sex worker or her relationship with Taniguichi (Ryuya Wakaba)?

Arimura: Director Imaizumi repeatedly asked me to “be a little more cheerful” on set. But he also mentioned that Chihiro is hard to depict because she couldn’t be too bubbly or too reserved. Mr. Imaizumi was probably also wondering if things were right while shooting, which I didn’t know the answer to, either. We basically finished shooting by worrying about it together.

– Can you tell us a scene that moved you while you were playing Chihiro?

Arimura: I think for Chihiro, her relationship with (the wife of the manager of the lunch box shop she works at) Tae (Jun Fubuki) is special. It felt as if Chihiro (her alias) could be her real self, Aya (her real name) in front of Tayo.

– Chihiro tends to keep her distance from people because of her past experiences and to maintain her emotional stability.

Arimura: I felt like I could understand why she kept her distance from people. When I think about it, I’m also not the type to overstep, and I keep a reasonable distance with even my friends. This keeps my emotions from fluctuating as much in my personal life, which is more comforting to me. Since I’m so stimulated in my work life, I want to be able to live an unstimulating, calm personal life as much as possible (laughs). I think about how the other person may want me to keep my distance, too.

For instance, if someone asks me to listen to a problem they’ve been having, it may be better for them if I keep a reasonable distance so I don’t accommodate so much or get sucked into their emotions. When I think about things like that, I feel like the way Chihiro keeps her distance is perfect for my current self.

– Do you think you, like Chihiro, learned to maintain distance because of your past experiences with different people?

Arimura: I met a lot of people in my twenties because of my line of work. It becomes difficult to maintain good relationships with so many people if I don’t keep a reasonable distance. If you’re part of an institution that allows you to work with the same people all the time, it’s best to build good relationships during a long period of time. But the projects I’m a part of take three months, or even as short as one month to finish. Of course I treat everyone the same when I first meet them, and I work hard for the months we’re shooting. But if I don’t let the people go after I say goodbye when production ends, I wouldn’t be able to maintain myself. There’s a part of me that can’t move on if I don’t do that.

– You mentioned that you find a lot of stimulation from your job. Can you elaborate?

Arimura: I meet and part with so many people throughout the short span of a year, I work with countless people for a single project, and I have to manipulate my emotions to act, whether that’s to cry, laugh, depict anger, suffering, or happiness. Everything I can’t get from my personal life is all stimulating.

– You don’t get used to that stimulation?

Arimura: No, you don’t. That’s why living a quiet and calm life at home enables me to be more myself. The more I lay low, the more I can ride the waves of emotion when I’m acting (laughs). I believe that’s my style, too.

Solitude does not equal loneliness

– Chihiro has some profound dialogue that makes us question how many lives she’s lived. Are there any lines that struck you in particular?

Arimura: “A meal eaten together is delicious, but a meal eaten alone is still delicious” is the line that struck me most. There’s a negative impression that people who are alone are lonely, but that’s not true. There are many people in the world who love solitude. If someone feels that it’s easier for them to be alone, that’s what makes them happy. This line felt accepting of the act of being alone.

For instance, finding a place where a schoolgirl can eat lunch alone may be very difficult for her, but it may also be her place of salvation. They are free to love that space, and I think many people may be relieved of these anxieties if there were people like Chihiro saying that spending time alone is perfectly fine. I think there’s a lot of dialogue in the manga and the movie that can help people.

I personally think there’s nothing wrong with solitude because I don’t think humans can understand each other 100%. There are always things others don’t know about you, whether it’s someone you like, friends, or family. That objectiveness can be fun; you can imagine what they’re thinking about, and really consider the other person. We learn so much when we confront each other, and I think solitude is at the root of this process.

You’re alone when you fight, too. For example, you’re alone when you’re fighting through a workload that was thrust upon you. I’m sure the fight with solitude is common in any profession, and the responsibility gets heavier the higher up you are. Like the student who has the best GPA in the class must be in solitude to maintain that position. Athletes are the same. There are cons to being in this position, but there are also a lot one can learn from being alone. That’s why I don’t believe solitude equals loneliness at all.

– Are you conscious of when you’re fighting, too?

Arimura: It’s more like I’m fighting against myself, not with others.

– Unlike academics and sports, there is no numerical ranking for actors. What are some of the things you use as a guide when fighting against yourself?

Arimura: Castmates are like comrades at war in any project. I don’t feel any competitiveness, even with actors who aren’t on the same project, because we’re all comrades. I may envy another actor because there are so many unique and charming people in the field, but I try not to pay attention to it. I have to fight to get through this role or that day of shooting. It’s a fight to overcome what’s in front of you everyday (laughs).

“I’d like to work towards a better quality workplace”

– Do you have any favorite scenes after watching the finished film?

Arimura: I basically like all the scenes that Okaji (Hana Toyoshima) and Makoto (Tetta Shimada) are in (laughs). Like the scene in Makoto’s house where Okaji cries eating the yakisoba made by Makoto’s mother (Yui Sakuma), or Chihiro’s POV shot of Okaji and Makoto when they go to Chihiro’s house bearing get-well gifts, each of their scenes are so precious. I think they played incredibly important roles in this film.

Makoto was very free, but could say all his lines when rolling regardless. That’s what amazed director Imaizumi, who would say, “that’s why he’s impressive” (laughs). I heard that Makoto couldn’t cry during his audition when he was asked to. But when he was leaving the room, he offhandedly said, “I guess the part of me that can’t cry came out today”, which left a strong impression on the director (laughs). He was a very interesting child.

– I think Okaji’s perspective of the future changed for the better by meeting Chihiro during her high school years. Have you met anyone who has had that sort of impact on you?

Arimura: If you’re asking about encounters I’ve had since I started working this job, I was impacted by a senior at my agency. I trailed behind them because I assumed that I could be like that person if I worked just as hard as them. I read interview articles to digest this person’s thought processes, because I wanted to know what they were thinking. I feel like I gained a wider perspective by doing that.

– You were cast in so many projects in your twenties. How are you feeling, after turning thirty on February 13th? I’m wondering what age means to you.

Arimura: I’m shocked to already be thirty (laughs). Thankfully, my situation and background changed very rapidly in the last decade. These ten years have almost been too rich of an experience, and felt like it was gone in an instant. In terms of age, I don’t put much emphasis on it. I often think about what I can do in the present to age gracefully.

– The fact that Call Me Chihiro will be available on Netflix on the day of its theatrical release will also be a new experience. What would you like to work on in the future?

Arimura: Work is more fun when you’re able to have discussions with others. There have been increasingly more situations in which people will do exactly what I say.Instead, I’d like to create a work environment where we can share thoughts and ideas with each other. I’d like to work towards a better quality workplace in my thirties.

■Call Me Chihiro
International streaming on Netflix & Japanese theatrical release on February 23rd
Cast: Kasumi Arimura, Hana Toyoshima, Tetta Shimada, van, Tatsuya Wakaba, Yui Sakuma, Lily Frankie, Jun Fubuki, and others.
Based on: Chihiro-san by Hiroyuki Yasuda (Akita Shoten “Akita Ladies/Comics/Deluxe” edition)
Director: Rikiya Imaizumi
Screenplay: Kaori Sawai, Rikiya Imaizumi
Producer: Netflix, Asmik Ace
Production company: Asmik Ace, Digital Frontier
Distribution: Asmik Ace
https://chihiro-san.asmik-ace.co.jp

Translation Mimiko Goldstein
Photography Mikako Kozai（L management）
Styling Yumiko Segawa
Hair & Make-up Izumi Omagari

The post 時音 Vol. 20: Interview with Actor Kasumi Arimura on How to Approach a Role appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

The Japanese soldiers, such as Yonoi and Hara, abide by the belief of protecting their god—the totality and order of the nation—and eradicating a sense of individuality without questioning whether it’s right or wrong. Hara’s words, “I’m ready to die,” echo this mentality. The Japanese soldiers’ distorted sense of discipline manifests in the devious ways they treat the prisoners of war.

In contrast, the foreign prisoners, such as Lawrence and Hicksley, adapt to their environment and live to fulfill their individuality based on modern values like social norms and rationality. Celliers appears beautiful, heroic, and charismatic, but his spirit is haunted by his “original sin,” in which he betrayed his younger brother and, in turn, himself. Through his interactions with Hara, Lawrence discerns the Japanese soldiers’ ancestral worship, views on life and death—a primitive aspect at the root of the soldiers’ mindsets—and the existence of the individual spirit.

On Christmas night, the eve of Lawrence and Celliers’ scheduled execution, Hara pretends to be drunk, and playfully releases them, entrusting his individual intentions to the non-exist “Father Christmas,” the symbol of the festival. Although Yonoi scolds Hara for his actions, he gives him a cigarette in private, an imperial gift. 

In exchange for his own life, Celliers frees Yonoi’s tortured soul, saves the prisoners, and sows a seed in the hearts of everyone. And once again before his final moments, Hara releases the tearful Lawrence and his own soul with the words that night “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” and a radiant smile.

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence condenses the heart of human emotion and dramatically depicts the individual’s introspection on life and the seeds of forgiveness and salvation that get passed from one person to the next, which is written about in the original book in detail. We spoke to Naofumi Higuchi, film director and the leading expert on Nagisa Oshima, about the film’s background and appeal. 

Naofumi Higuchi
Naofumi Higuchi is a film director and critic born in 1962. His book, Oshima Nagisa Zeneiga Hizou Shiryoshusei (Kokushokankokai), got first place in the Kinema Junpo Award 2021 for Best Film Book. Other notable books include Oshima Nagisa no Subete, Kurosawa Akira no Eigajutsu, Jisoji Akio Saiki no Garan, Akiyoshi Kumiko Chosho, Romanporno to Jitsuroku Yakuza Eiga, Suna no Utsuwa to Nippon Chinbotsu 70nendai Nihon no Chotaisakueiga, Showa no Koyaku Mou Hitorino Nihoneigashi, Good Morning, Godzilla Kantoku Honda Ishiro to Satsueijo no Jidai, and more. Higuchi has directed Intermission and The Master of Funerals. He also operates “Neko no Hondana,” a shared bookstore in Jimbocho where shelves by movie people such as “Nagisa Oshima library” and “Shinji Aoyama library “ are collected.
Photography cooperation “Neko no Hondana“

Achieving both radicalism and popularity through Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

— Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence deals with profound issues at its core. Simultaneously, each actor’s individuality shines, and the soundtrack has become a timeless masterpiece. Among Oshima’s films, this has especially garnered a wide range of fans. What makes this film unique? 

Naofumi Higuchi(Higuchi): Nagisa Oshima is a director that’s perceived differently according to the generation. During the golden era of filmmaking, the 1950s, he graduated with a degree in law from Kyoto University and joined Shochiku, the most conservative Japanese film production company, where he made films that broke the formula of traditional Japanese filmmaking with his subject matters and methods. By the 60s, he founded Souzousha, an independent film production company. Oshima’s unconventional works were embraced during the student protests and campaigns against the Japan-US Security Treaty, an era of upheaval and searching. As an innovative, leading figure, he was popular among the youth at the time. The director’s original fans looked up to him as a lone, antiauthoritarian champion, but he had the selfish desire to be both popular and radically fierce. 

Oshima had a persistent intent to show the people something radical in the form of something popular since the beginning of his film career. The postwar Japanese left didn’t gain popularity, was at an impasse, and eventually crumbled. Perhaps, fundamentally, he felt there was no point in appealing to oneself [as opposed to appealing to the masses]. For instance, he cast superstar singer Harry Belafonte as the Black airman in his socialist film, The Catch (1961), based on a book by Kenzaburo Oe, and for Diary of a Shinjuku Thief (1968), he cast underground icons like Tadanori Yokoo and Juro Kara. His works were very artistic, but he loaded them with journalistic codes so people would talk about them more. 

Two decades later, Oshima stuck to his intent and got the opportunity to create Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence with the international market and film festivals in mind. At first, he made a film proposal for a conventional literary epic with respected, famous domestic and foreign actors so that he could jump on the Japanese blockbuster bandwagon. However, Oshima couldn’t cast said actors because of differing ideas and schedules, so he cast Ryuichi Sakamoto and Takeshi Kitano at the last minute. Oshima didn’t know of Sakamoto initially, but he acutely understood people’s stage presence. This casting choice became one of the primary factors that gave the film exceptional artistry and mass appeal.

The popularity that Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence gained is one of the director’s achievements, considering his wish to reach an audience. Until then, people had this image that Oshima made arthouse films that were solemnly shown in small movie theaters. But the casting of Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence was so strong that it was decided it would be shown in big movie theaters that previously showed box office hits from abroad like E.T., despite the film’s artistic content. Some of his original fans criticized the film, saying the casting choice was a deliberate ploy to get attention, but young people responded with fervor. The director especially got a lot of support from young women. At the movie premiere of Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Oshima ran onto the stage like a Japanese idol to greet the audience of young women cheering, wearing a shirt by Kansai Yamamoto that said “THE OSHIMA GANG” with a bandanna on (laughs). 

Film critics said Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence was a film portraying Western and Eastern cultures as opposite ends, but Oshima rejected the idea, saying he didn’t make such a thing. He hastily explained that he depicted people being drawn to each other, using a critical choice of words. Even if people are bound by various obligations, burdens, pride, certain encounters, and many other hardships, people will always irrationally be attracted to others, even if it doesn’t come to fruition. 

On the contrary, rather than perceiving the film as obtuse, the young women fans recognized the simple, true nature of Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, despite the film being many of their first introduction to the director. The letters they sent him arduously detailed their observations. Oshima felt that they truly understood what the film was about and preserved the letters with great care. He replied to some of them too. Oshima and the women fans were in sync with each other in their haste and urgency to get to the heart of the matter without reason or pretense, embodied by his pesky, original fans. To this extent, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence could be seen as the materialization of Oshima’s ideal—the coexistence of radicalism and popularity.

An authentic presence, a baroque balance that has no predictable harmony  

–I believe Ryuichi Sakamoto and Takeshi Kitano delivered memorable performances because they didn’t have any acting experience and were able to reflect the impression they got from the scenes and the original book. How was Oshima able to create a complete film with non-actors?

Higuchi: Oshima thought it was boring to only work with people that strictly followed his orders. He didn’t ask the actors to deliver a technical performance; he wanted them to show him something unpredictable. Even if the inexperienced cast showed apprehension on set, Oshima told them there was nothing to worry about because he valued their command of presence, not their technical skills. He had faith in the cast. Being on the receiving end of that trust entails a lot of responsibility, and giving that trust as a director is an act that requires courage. That’s why the actors in his works deliver fresh, momentous performances only made possible with the exhilaration of leaving things up to chance. 

The true essence of acting in films doesn’t lie in the technique but in the actor’s presence: this was Oshima’s pet theory. He mentioned that his order of priority in casting was 1: amateur, 2: singer—he didn’t have 3 or 4—and 5: movie star. His best masterpiece with a starring amateur is probably Boy (1969). He visited an orphanage in Meguro in search of a boy to play the protagonist and selected a real orphan to play the part, thus depicting an authentic presence. 

Further, for the most part, Oshima only shot one or two takes per cut, which would surprise many seasoned actors, but this way, he was able to capture the raw quality of non-actors. David Bowie gives a remarkable performance through his own interpretation of his character in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, and I bet Oshima was delighted to witness his eccentric ways.

As a whole, the structure of the film is somewhat awkward. It has a sort of baroque imbalance, as if Oshima shot intricate scenes with momentum and quickly put them together. Take the scene where Lawrence and Celliers talk to each other over a wall in their separate cells. Lawrence recalls his past in short sentences, while Celliers’ recollection is told through elaborate visuals. Visually speaking, there’s a clear imbalance here. Oshima had shot the only scene that included a woman, which was Lawrence’s recollection, but it all got cut. This resulted from Oshima’s sensibility, as he believed the film would be stronger if it only had men, even if that meant it would lack balance. 

By using the cast, location, issues during the shoot, accidents, and changes to his advantage, Oshima completed Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence as something unpredictably brilliant. The filmmaking process parallels the story, in which people clash awkwardly and eventually develop a rapport.

The music and art that perfects the worldbuilding of Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

—I get the impression that although the film is set in Java during wartime, the film’s location feels like it doesn’t exist anywhere in the world thanks to Ryuichi Sakamoto’s enigmatic score and the conceptual set design by art director Shigemasa Toda. I feel like Oshima was able to create a sort of utopia, which was what he wanted to develop through the film, because of the music and art department. 

Higuchi: Oshima first asked David Bowie to create the soundtrack of Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, which is now a part of film music history, but he said no because he wanted to devote himself to his role. The film score was born because Sakamoto voluntarily asked if he could make it. Oshima didn’t instruct or direct the musician but instead anticipated what his creativity and unpredictability could create. The director was the polar opposite of directors like Akira Kurosawa, who had a complete vision in mind and gave meticulous instructions. 

Shigemasa Toda, the art director, had a distinctly singular aesthetic that people couldn’t process in an easy-to-understand way. So, most critics of his time didn’t recognize his true genius. That sense of restlessness in Oshima’s films is largely thanks to Toda’s art direction. There’s an anecdote: in Masaki Kobayashi’s film, Kwaidan (1964), it cost a massive amount of money to build the set, which was bursting with Toda’s strong point of view. Ultimately, the production company went bust because of that. After hearing this rumor, Oshima decided to meet Toda. He wondered what sort of weird person would come, but Toda was quiet and polite, to his surprise. It made him think, “Wow, this is the madman” (laughs). That’s how Oshima was drawn to him. Oshima’s works were very artistic, so he often had a modest budget, but Toda was so talented that he only needed a little money to demonstrate his vision. For instance, he would place something that shouldn’t belong in the scenery. He could change the film’s world, like flower arrangements, by making the set come alive. There’s no art director like him. 

When you look closely, the film has a strange aesthetic, but Toda didn’t embellish it for the sake of being strange; he derived the visuals from the essence of the film, so it all surprisingly works well. The most specific example is the main POW camp set. We, as the audience, treat it like it’s normal, but no POW camp looks like that. The set, made out of timber, concrete, and tents, is basically like a greenhouse made out of glass. In the original book, The Seed and the Sower, the camp is where seeds of peace get sown and nurtured in the hearts of people on opposing sides. In other words, it functions like a greenhouse. POW camps don’t look like that, but when David Bowie, Sakamoto, and Peter Barakan, who tagged along, visited the location to see the finished set, they didn’t think it was odd-looking because Toda understood the essence of the story. 

The significance behind showing a film that focuses on the true nature of humans today

–Young people today could have the opportunity to discover Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, now that it’s in theaters in 4K.

Higuchi: I feel like the themes Oshima put into Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, like “people get attracted to other people,” “the difficulty of obtaining true freedom,” and such, could be more easily understood today, which people call “the era of division and disparity” than when the film was first released. I especially think the young generation, whose awareness of LGBTQ+ people and issues is standard, will clearly and instantly understand the heart of this film, much like the young women who loved the film back in the day. Forty years after Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence’s first release, you can see how the young audiences that fill the seats in movie theaters feel genuinely moved. The times have finally caught up with this film. 

■Merry Christmas Mr.Lawrence 4K restored version
Website: unpfilm.com/senmeri2023
©Nagisa Oshima Production

Direction Akio Kunisawa
Photography Hiroto Nagasawa
Translation Lena Grace Suda

The post The Presence of the Individual in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence: an Interview with Film Director and Critic, Naofumi Higuchi appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Shinpei Ueno, a professional skateboarder and director of TIGHTBOOTH, spent nine years working on LENZ III since the release of the preceding video in the series, LENZ II.

The film was premiered in Tokyo, Osaka, New York and London, with countless skaters in attendance. When the screening started, the audience cheered and applauded as if they were watching the skate tricks live in front of them. The space was filled with a raw excitement, more like what you would see on the streets than in a movie theater.

The aesthetic vibes presented in LENZ III are cool and humorous, not only in terms of the skating footage, but also in the computer graphics and background music. The video is filled with these characteristics that are inherent in skate culture. It is a collection of subcultures, just like all the famous skate videos that have been released in the past.

When you feel that something crazy is about to happen, and you know that you are about to witness that very moment, there’s this tingling feeling of excitement that you can’t ignore. You feel like your feet are barely on the ground and you’re dancing inside. That is probably what everyone was feeling at the premiere of LENZ III.  The film must have inspired so many people, and a lot of them even went skating on the streets right after the event.

This work, which documents the cutting edge of the contemporary as an independent company skate scene, will surely be passed down to posterity as a skate video that conveys the early 2020s in Japan. At first glance, many people may feel that producing a skate video isn’t that special. However, it’s quite difficult to create a full-length street skate video in Japan, and to do so on a D.I.Y. basis is a tremendous task, which makes the completion of LENZ III in itself an epoch-making miracle.

That being said, we asked the creator of the featured piece, Shinpei Ueno, his thoughts behind the making of LENZ III and its series, and what he thinks about the immense difficulty of making a skate video.

Shinpei Ueno
Born in Osaka in 1983, Shinpei Ueno is a professional skateboarder for Evisen Skateboards and brand director of Tightbooth Production, renowned for a number of independent skate videos put out over the years, notably his masterpiece “LENZ II” (2014). Other notable works include running an Osaka based skate shop, Shred, creating video content for brands such as Gucci and Moncler, design contribution to Supreme’s inline collections and brand direction for the pizza franchise Pizzanista! Tokyo. In 2023, LENZ III the final piece of his LENZ trilogy is released worldwode.
https://shop.tightbooth.com
Instagram：@shinpei_ueno

I captured the best skaters in each generation

– On the stage of the LENZ III premiere, you said, “I dedicate this to the VX series and MK-1”. First of all, please tell us about the equipment you used for filming and the reasons for using them.

Ueno: I use Sony DCR-VX1000 video cameras released in 1995 with CENTURY OPTICS MK-1 ultra fish-eye lenses, which have been coined “the ultimate skate video camera setting”.

The distortion that the MK-1 possesses allows it to create a distinct sense of realism and speed, and the DCR-VX1000’s unique dry microphone sound and film-like visuals also work great. We’ve been shooting with this setup since 2005, which makes it our nineteenth year of filming this way. For the VX1000, we’ve used more than thirty units in total and more than seven ultra fish eyes. The camera and lenses are no longer in production and can no longer be repaired, and the software for capturing the mini-DV tapes has been having some problems. Even with these issues, I’ve chosen to stick to this setting for nineteen years. I dedicate this work (LENZ III) to the VX series and MK-1.

– What is the concept behind LENZ III?

Ueno: The production of it is very simple. Basically, I direct the entire production while shooting talented skaters in prime locations. I captured the best skaters in each generation, also as a journalism point of view to broadcast the scene.

– I found the flow of this film, in which the CG animation accompanying the skaters transitions into the skating portions of the film, to be very interesting. How did you go about creating this format?

Ueno: For this project, we demonstrated how LENZ III was being made at the fictional research facility VX LABORATORY. The main camera, the VX1000, was modeled in 3D and created in full CG. We shot nineteen years worth of skate videos with the VX1000, so we wanted to create an opening dedicated to this video camera.

And in the VX LABORATORY, we created Rooms for each rider that reflect their personalities and their video parts, which was a try and error process. I would come up with a rough idea, and we would discuss with the CG team how we could make it happen. For example, in the case of the part of Kotora Mitani, a cage was placed in a Japanese-style room with tatami mats and video monitors scattered around to make it look as if a tiger was walking in the room (his name Korora literaly means a little tiger). But it was difficult to show the whole body of the tiger with CG due to the budget, so we discussed the possibility of using only silhouettes for it.

Also, the soundtrack for the JAPANESE SUPER RAT part was by GEZAN, so I stacked the monitors vertically in a bright red room and scattered equipment cables all around. Then, while concert footage of GEZAN was playing from the monitors, I let rats scurry around them. That’s how we built it. The most difficult part of the project was the rendering, which took a lot of effort from conception to assembly. The CG for the intro of each part was limited to 15 seconds, but it took up to a minute and a half to render one frame, which meant it took a day to render one chapter if you included the work. And after checking the preview, it would take another day to make corrections, so I had to calculate how many more renderings I could do before the day of the premiere. We broke out in a cold sweat from the lack of time we had.

– It sounds like CG production is very difficult. 

Next, I’d like to ask about the music assigned to each part. The music was very unique, ranging from hip-hop to techno to punk. For the ending theme, a song by Japanese Synchro System, a unit featuring ILL-BOSSTINO of THA BLUE HERB, was used, which I thought it really a reflection of you. How did you decide on the music?

Ueno: We made our decisions based on the concept of the part and the personalities of the riders. I also wanted to select a soundtrack from my musician friends, so I gathered a large number of songs, including existing songs, new songs before their release, and songs that were still in the demo stage. The closing song by Japanese Synchro System is one that I’ve been listening to since I was in my early twenties, And the verse really have pushed me and my friends to keep going for years and years. I wanted to make a feature film using this song as the ending theme one day. Now, some sixteen years after the song’s release, I think I’ve finally created a work worthy of it.

– I felt that LENZ III focuses on skaters of a new generation. What attracts you to youth skaters?

Ueno: I think the best thing about these young kids is that they’re freeform. Because in addition to complex technical ledge tricks, they’re pulling off everything from gnarly transitions to unprecedented NBDs (Never Been Dones).

– More than a hundred skaters appear in the film. What are the criteria for your selection? And how did you connect to those skaters?

Ueno: The criterion is vague, but basically it’s whether or not I, as the director, feels something special in them. I don’t cast skaters simply because they’re skilled or visually appealing. Perhaps it’s because of my profession or maybe it’s common sense. But when you’re in the skate scene, you naturally know which skaters you should currently be shooting. Also, skaters are basically friends of friends, so they’re easy to connect with. Many of the young skaters grew up with the LENZ series, so it wasn’t hard for me to get in touch with them.

– I was also drawn to the fashion of each skater. Did you ever arrange the styling according to the shooting location?

Ueno:  I sometimes styled the TIGHTBOOTH member riders myself. Also, depending on the location, the impression of the shoot can drastically change if the subject wears a white or black top, so we’d often bring three outfits to the shoot. I’d ask the rider to  come up with three styling ideas in advance that they liked, and I’d make slight modifications from there.

Skate videos contain all the charms of skateboarding

– What do you find difficult or interesting about producing skate videos in Japan?

Ueno: Japan is probably the second most difficult place in the world to film a skate video, number one being North Korea. In Japan, you’ll see security guards and police officers at all kinds of spots, and they stop you instantly. Sometimes, even passersby call the police, which is a special phenomenon that happens here that I’ve rarely seen happen in the rest of the world. Even if they have nothing to do with it and it’s not bothering them at all, some people call the police out of a strange sense of justice. I’ve been skating in many countries, but only Japanese people would do that. 

Maybe it’s the Japanese education system. Of course, part of it is that skateboarding is not part of the fabric of Japanese life, and sometimes skating can be a nuisance to others, which can’t be helped… But that sense of skating being bothersome doesn’t exist outside Japan. Most people don’t care if there are people skating around them abroad. In fact, some even watch the skaters and give comments like, “that trick was really cool”. In Japan, you’re treated like a criminal just for skating. What’s interesting about shooting skate videos in Japan is the scenery and architecture unique to the locations here.

– From your point of view, what do you think is the current state of the skate scene in Japan today, and what challenges do you see?

Ueno: I think skateboarding itself has been recognized a little more due to the Tokyo Olympics. However, I feel that many Japanese people who watched the Olympics have started recognizing skateboarding as a sport, which is sort of aunfortunate thing because it has a huge negative impact on street skating that is the essential of skateboarding. For example, many people in the general public look at street skating and say, “those street skaters are getting in the way and bothering people who are trying to become a proper Olympic skateboarders”. This is something someone actually told me. I think about this issue a lot, and I feel that this is a difficult thing to change because of the national mentality of the Japanese people.

– I felt that LENZ III also attempts to bring the reality of the street skate scene in Japan to a wider audience. Was that your intention?

Ueno: I wanted to show the beauty of skateboarding, even to people who do not skate. I hope that by having as many non-skateboarders as possible watch the video and understand its allure, the current street skate scene will change for the better, even if only slightly.

– What do you feel is the appeal of skate videos?

Ueno: It’s the best “visual groove” that shows incredible skaters making art in the architecture of a city that is not made for skating, accompanied by a high-quality soundtrack. It’s not simply about conveying how cool skating is, but also about the love of creating a piece of art with your friends. Skate videos contain all the charms of skateboarding.

■DVD LENZ III (Tightbooth Production)
February 18th  release
¥24,200 (limited box set) / ¥4,180 (normal edition)
featuring full parts：RIO MORISHIGE, KOTORA MITANI, KYONOSUKE YAMASHITA, GLEN FOX, AYAHIRO URATSUKA, KENTO YOSHIOKA, RYUHEI KITAKUME, RINKU KONISHI

Text Ryo Tajima
Translation Mimiko Goldstein

The post Shinpei Ueno and his Skate Video, LENZ III – The Possibilities of Skateboarding Revealed in its Production Process appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

If you have the chance to meet someone who has created incredible works of art known to people around the world, you should use that opportunity to ask them about things you’ve always wanted to ask. Such questions may be ones that they didn’t want to think about, or ones that they’ve already forgotten about from the perspective of the interviewee. But it’s by asking directly that we’re able to put these thoughts into words and deliver it to our audience. 

Movies were my textbook. More importantly, they cultivated my own morals and aesthetic sense. I think many people have that same experience. I also believe there are far more people who have found that what they felt watching a movie was much more useful in their lives than anything they learned at school or in a textbook. 

Personally, I learned about how to interact with women from Andrew McCarthy, stars of such foreign films as Pretty In Pink and Less Than Zero, and learned about the vulgarity of picking on your close friends’ parents from Stand By Me. From the various films directed by Izuru Narushima, one can feel the ways in which the characters relate to their families and the sense of distance between them. 

Many of his films give me great courage because it helps me understand that blood ties such as familial love or parental feelings are less important than where I am and who I’m with now. Yet, the themes and delivery of director Izuru Narushima’s films vary. Thus, what we absorb and feel in each work can be different.

This makes it all the more important to know what the director’s central passion for his films is. As an audience member, I shouldn’t need to know this information, but I’m eager to find out. With that being said, we had the pleasure of interviewing the director himself, Izuru Narushima.

Izuru Narushima
Born in 1961. From Kofu City, Yamanashi prefecture. Narushima has been making independent films since he was a student, and his film Midori Onna was selected for the Pia Film Festival. In 1994, he began working as a screenwriter, and in 2003 he won the Fujimoto Award for Best New Director and the Yokohama Film Festival New Director Award for his first film, Yudantaiteki, starring Koji Yakusho. Afterwards, he worked on a number of popular films including Fly, Daddy, Fly, Kokou No Mesu and Rengou Kantai Shireichokan Yamamoto Isoroku, starring Koji Yakusho. In 2011, Youkame No Semi won ten awards including Best Picture and Best Director at the 35th Japan Academy Prize. His new film Familia, just released in theaters, will be followed by Ginga Tetsudo No Chichi, starring Koji Yakusho.He has also produced many other films, including Solomon’s Perjury Part 1: The Case, Solomon’s Perjury Part 2: The Trial, Chotto Imakara Shigoto Yamatekuru, Goodbye~Uso Kara Hajimaru Jinsei Kigeki~ and Inochi No Teishajyou.

We interviewed him about his time before he made his debut as a feature film director, and about the many films he’s made since then

familia Movie Trailer
©2022 familia Production Committee System

Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture. The junction from the Tomei Expressway to the Wangan Expressway. The sky is waiting for the sunrise before dawn, the beautiful time of day where it’s a gradation from deep blue to orange. I have personally experienced this scenic road at this time of day many times because I used to commute to Wakayama for my photography work, and I was always thrilled to see this exquisite gradation.

That scenic view from the road appeared exactly as it did in Familia, the latest film by Izuru Narushima. But despite the beautiful gradient sky being the same, it didn’t excite the main character, Seiji, as much. Instead, he was enveloped in a twinge of urgency. Beauty and irrationality coincide. I came to realize, once again, that this is what life is. The moment I had this thought, I was drawn further into the story. 

– Between the time you made Yudan Taiteki in 2004 and your most recent film, Familia, you directed fourteen films (with your following film, Gingatestudo No Chichi being your fifteenth). Simply put, the time between the release of these films is such that by the time one is put out into the public, the next film is already being shot or has been finished. What are some things you keep in mind that helps you continue to release films at such a rapid pace into the world?

Izuru Narushima: There are other people who have shot more films. I don’t particularly think I’ve directed that many, but it’s definitely not a small amount. It’s simply because I make nothing but movies. I don’t teach at schools or universities, and I don’t direct TV shows. Which means that I can’t make a living if I don’t shoot at least one film a year. That’s it.

– It’s the feeling of having to do it. It’s like if someone doesn’t weight train for a day, and they become obsessive and restless. Do you feel like you can’t go on if you’re not involved in film somehow?

Narushima: I do. I’m happiest when I’m involved in film. The actual filming only lasts for about a month or two, but I’m part of the pre- and post-production processes, which means I’m involved in each of my films for about three years total. In the case of my new film Familia, it was four or five years. Now, around two films of mine get released every three years.  

– After you won a contest award for your independent film Modori Onna in 1985, you worked mainly as a screenwriter for eighteen years until Yudan Taiteki in 2003. What did that time and experience mean to you? And during that time, did you have any specific goals and visions about what kind of director you wanted to become?

Narushima: I originally became interested in films late in the game. I watched many different movies at once, once I was exposed. I moved out to Tokyo, and started watching movies at the Meiga-za.

At the Meiga-za, I watched Yasujiro Ozu’s films and Tatsumi Kumashi’s Roman Pornos, both of which I thought were interesting. That’s how I was educated on film, very different from filmmakers in my generation who grew up on Jean-Luc Godard’s films. If I said I thought Roman Holiday was good, my friends would make fun of me. 

– Godard was such a prolific director, one who would make two films a year. You mentioned that your film education consisted of films of different genres, many of which I assume were Western films. Which is why I want to ask you how you feel about dialogue often featured in such Western films, like,  “I love you” and “Hey, tell me you love me”. I don’t believe you use the line, “I love you” very much in any of your films. Do you believe there are more important things that could be said, or are you hesitant to include such straightforward language?

Narushima: Living in this world means things can be complex. A lot of things are going on in Familia, as well. The main character, Seiji Kamiya, played by Koji Yakusho, is a potter who makes ancient Japanese ceramics. This is the story of what happens to him.

The reason the phrase “I love you” isn’t included in a lot of my dialogue is because it’s been said that the words “I love you” didn’t originally exist in Japanese. It’s a phrase that was imported into Japan after the Meiji era. Including the Japanese phrase “Aishiteru” would mean the same thing as saying “I love you”. I like creating dramas that don’t include that. 

– I see. Even in a novel, if you describe something that was fun as just, “fun”, it wouldn’t be very interesting. In contrast, your films gave me the impression that you took the time to describe things, which distances them from human dramas. Instead, your films convey humans in the most extreme situations. For example, we see a doctor’s position as a person entrusted with life and death (Kokou No Mesu), a person in a harsh alpine environment (Midnight Eagle), a person deciding whether to euthanize a loved one (Inochi No Teishajyou), and so on. In Youkame No Semi, Kiwako Nonomiya, played by Hiromi Nagasaku, says , “That child hasn’t eaten yet. Please let the child eat” in the final scene. Those were words I wasn’t expecting at that moment, but the second I heard them, I understood her feelings all too well. Do you personally have any memories in which you had to make a decision in an extreme situation?

Narushima: No, not personally. But theoretically, I can talk about encountering people the moment something went wrong, like the line, “That child has not eaten yet”, which is not a phrase that one just comes up with. Similarly, the actions of Seiji, played by Mr. Yakusho, are not calculated. I like that, and I think it’s part of what makes the movie.

– Is that also how you view life?

Narushima: Yes, perhaps it is. Part of it is because I wasn’t able to live a calculated life. I’m the type of person who isn’t cut out to be a salaryman. I can only do things I enjoy. I can’t do what I don’t like, and I can’t be around people I don’t like.

– I learned about how to interact with women and how to go on dates from movies. Even if these films were made by people who weren’t cut out to work a regular job, their creations are essential.

Narushima: I’m the same way. I learned a lot through the movies I watched, and I was able to travel the world because of it.

On the memorable scene and stunning shots in the film

– In your newest film Familia, the gradient colors of the sunrise shot from the junction between the Tomei Expressway to the Wangan Expressway, was very memorable. I linked this scene to the one in Solomon’s Perjury Part Two: Trial, where the sunlight beautifully peeks through into the gymnasium in the scene immediately preceding the story’s climax. The beauty is juxtaposed against the extreme situation. The director of photography in both films is Junichi Fujisawa. Are you constantly thinking about how to include such shots in these scenes?

Narushima: Yes, somewhat. It is a movie, afterall. I want to show the viewer, not tell them. I think that’s why many of the climactic moments in my films include such scenes.

– On the subject of parents, their children, and families, has the type of family or relationships between people that you want to feature in your films changed in the twenty-plus years you’ve been a director? The rate at which times are changing is astounding. 

Narushima: It’s not like I want to convey that times have changed in my films, but it’s true that how people relate to one another has changed. I was living in Okubo, Tokyo, for a long time. There, I met many Korean and Chinese people. I became best friends with a lot of them and we still keep in touch. Back then, we had the Japan-Korea World Cup and other things to get excited about together, but I had no idea that the environment over the past few years would turn out like this. In reality, I feel that the disconnect is growing.

I often wonder if there’s anything that films can do to combat that disconnect, although I wasn’t purposefully trying to communicate that message through Familia. Since I’m a hedonist, I basically just make films I would want to watch. That being said, I guess I like seeing a message being conveyed when the story moves forward within a family, which is the smallest possible unit in a story. If I were to depict the war between Russia and Ukraine, it would probably be a more interesting drama if I depicted one family in each place rather than the governments of two large countries.

– What is something that never wavers when you’re making a film? I’m not sure if I’m correct, but it never seems like you’re trying to distinguish exactly right from wrong. The subjects and settings of your past works are also varied and wide-ranging. My impression of your work is that they can’t be put into categories or genres, as I tend to do. But even throughout your various films, do you have any basic principles that you try to go by?

Narushima: I’m sorry, but as I mentioned before, I’m just a hedonist who likes and makes movies. It’s like being asked what the commonalities between Ms. A, Ms. B, Ms. C, and Ms. D are. There’s no such thing. I dated all of them because they’re different in their own ways, and like them for their distinct characteristics. Ms. A and Ms. B are completely different people. One is from the Okhotsk region of Hokkaido, and the other from Ishigaki Island in Okinawa. Dating one will bring about a different drama than dating the other. I’m a sincerely indecisive person. I would truly like to date a person from Hokkaido, and then date a person from Okinawa. This is an analogy told as a love story, but it’s important to like the drama of it. If I don’t like it, I can’t film it.

The reason Koji Yakusho appears in so many of my films is because he’s my favorite actor. So naturally, the number of my films he’s been in has increased. I do what I like, and what makes me comfortable. At the end of the day, the main character is the film itself, and the director is merely the parent who births it. It’s fine for the qualities of each child (film) to be different. I think it’s okay.

– So there’s nothing that makes a film a Narushima picture.

Narushima: Exactly. I don’t want to be the type of director who refuses to make a film because it’s not like a quintessential Narushima picture. I’ll eat Korean food, Chinese food, or sushi from Kyoto, as long as it’s good. I want to try everything. That’s why for this film, Inagaki (screenwriter Kiyotaka Inagaki) based the story on real scenarios he’s encountered, which is why he included the housing complex (modeled after the Yasumi housing complex) and Seto pottery (ceramic art). Anyway, the important thing is whether you like it or not.

– It seems unlikely that you’ll ever dislike movies.

Narushima: You can’t be so sure. There might come a time when I start to think that nothing I watch is interesting. I’m afraid of that happening one day.

– The last scene in Familia. What was the image that only the main character, Seiji Kamiya, saw?

Narushima: It’s common for a lot of my films to end with a closeup of a character. I believe ending on a face conveys a sort of message that encapsulates drama and the future. There’s a part of me that hopes that the audience can feel something from it, too. 

■familia
In theaters nationwide from January 6th, 2022
Director: Izuru Narushima
Starring: Koji Yakusho, Ryo Yoshizawa, Lucas Sagae, Fadile Waked, Takeo Nakahara, Shigeru Muroi, Maraika Ali, Lima Aran Shimada, Gustavo Sumida, Yutaka Matsushige, MIYAVI, Koichi Sato, and more
Distributor: Kino Films Co., Ltd.
©2022 familia Production Committee System
Official Site：https://familiar-movie.jp/

Photography Kenji Nakata
Translation Mimiko Goldstein

The post Interview with Izuru Narushima, Director of the film Familia, and His Thoughts On the Film appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Thinking structurally and loving complexity

–How did you two become involved in making Kaguya by Gucci?

Makoto Nagahisa: Toshihiko Tanabe-san, who produced Kaguya by Gucci, reached out to Shibuya-san and me, respectively, which is how we got together. Before this project, I didn’t know Shibuya-san personally, but I had been listening to his music. I was also inspired by his opera, Heavy Requiem featuring Hatsune Miku and an android (editor’s note: a collaborative performance with Shingon Buddhist monk Eizen Fujiwara performed at Ars Electronica in 2019). So, I was elated to have been able to work with him. 

Keiichiro Shibuya: I was also happy to have been able to work with you. Nagahisa-san, you used to play music, right? When you gave me your opinions and instructions on the music for Kaguya by Gucci, you used words and expressions only someone knowledgeable about music would know. So, I looked you up online afterward out of curiosity (laughs). And I found information about your musical background, just as I thought.

Nagahisa: Yes. I played jazz throughout my school years. I played the baritone for six years and the tenor sax for three. 

Shibuya: Out of the various kinds of jazz, which do you like?

Nagahisa: I listen to a lot of kinds. But if I were asked who my favorite musician was, it would be Gil Evans. He incorporated something different into jazz and expanded the genre through big bands. For instance, he would play Jimi Hendrix’s music by introducing an electronic guitar into the ensemble. I find that very appealing. I used to cover his music at university. 

–Your 2019 film, We Are Little Zombies, featuresNaruyoshi Kikuchi-san. Was the casting your choice? 

Nagahisa: Yes. I love him as a musician and have also covered DC/PRG’s music. Kikuchi-san’s logical way of talking is also appealing to me. I reached out to him because I wanted him to be in my film, and thankfully, he said yes.

Back to my musical background: I gave up trying to become a professional sax player when I was around 20. I thought long and hard about what medium I could pour the same passion into and pivoted to filmmaking. But I’ve always loved music. 

Shibuya: I see. It was easy to work with you, and much of what you did made sense to me. I gel well with directors who like complex music, like yourself (laughs). People like you see one piece of work as a structure, whether that’s music or film. I’m the same, so it’s easy to have a mutual understanding. It’s difficult working with people who only like songs, as opposed to instrumentals, or three-piece rock bands, because they focus too much on the narrative and literary aspect of music and have a low awareness of the structure (lets out a bitter laugh).

Nagahisa: I guess you can say I’m pro-intricacy. I’m the type that thinks the more intricate the relationship between things or elements, the better. I love complex things or things that many people feel are a chore. 

How the modern-day version of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter was born

–How was the concept behind Kaguya by Gucci born and nurtured? 

Nagahisa: The start of the project was when the producer, Tanabe-san, told me, “I want you to create a modern-day Bamboo Cutter set in Tokyo with Princess Kaguya, Okina, and Mikado.” As a storyteller of today, I wondered how I should handle and illustrate the oldest Japanese tale because it was created over a century ago. I had to clarify my perspective on The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. I let my thoughts marinate, and the conclusion I came to was to go against the original story. 

“Even if a story’s synopsis and ending are set in stone, each character has the right to insert their ideas and views into the story.” By rewriting a story based on this line of thinking, I wanted to express meanings and values that could exist precisely because of our current times. In Kaguya by Gucci, Okina resists saying goodbye to Princess Kaguya, and Mikado doesn’t stop loving Princess Kaguya even if he knows they won’t end up together. The lyrics sung by Alter4 in Shibuya-san’s soundtrack are written from that perspective. The lyrics say something like, “I don’t exist to play a role imposed on me.” 

–Alter4 appears in the short film with you, Shibuya-san, and its makeup packs a punch. 

Shibuya: Alter4 made its debut with this short film and played an important supporting role. When I explain that to people from other countries, they say, “Now that you’ve mentioned it, it makes sense.” 

Nagahisa: True. It might be easier for people from other countries to understand the story once you provide historical context, like noh, into account. 

Shibuya: Some cultured people from other countries are more well-versed in traditional Japanese culture than Japanese people. 

The AI learned Nagahisa-san’s text to generate a portion of the lyrics, so his name is credited alongside Cypher, the AI. The AI named itself. 

Most AI names are boring, as they come from ancient gods or classic figures (laughs). I didn’t want the AI to have a name like that, so I was like, “What should I do?” I asked the AI, “What should we call an emerging lyricist who people would want to follow?” And it answered, “Cypher.” It signifies zeroes and passcodes, which I thought was excellent. That became the official name. 

A structural approach to making the soundtrack

–What was your approach to making “I come from the Moon,” the track you wrote for this short film?

Shibuya: As I mentioned before, I view music and film in a structural way. I believe people feel moved by structure. 

The most important thing about this song was for it to be circular-shaped. In the film, many circular shapes are shown abstractly, like close-up shots of the characters and Alter4’s eyes, and the moon. The cyclical nature of the film is shown at the end when Aoi (Yamada)-san, playing the role of Okina, says the same line as the beginning, “This is a fairy tale.” Both abstractly and structurally, the circle was important. It’s the shape of the moon, of course. I thought about how I could portray that with the music. 

Another central element is the scene where Okina, played by Aoi-san, runs up Tokyo Tower to reach Princess Kaguya, played by (Hikari) Mitsushima-san. The shape of the circle in psychoanalysis can be interpreted as a symbol of female genitalia. Meanwhile, a phallic shape, Tokyo Tower, makes an appearance. It depicts a love story between two women, but a sign of maleness exists there too. I felt like that would play on the viewer’s subconscious in a powerful manner. I felt like the scene needed a melody with a strong drive. 

–I see. I can tell that you analyzed the story structurally and symbolically to create the soundtrack. 

Shibuya: But if the melody surged at that Tokyo Tower scene, that would’ve equated to reaching an orgasm, so I couldn’t do that (laughs). As Nagahisa-san said, the vital theme was to go against something, so I played a descending melody in contrast to the ascending chords. 

The BPM rapidly increases once she starts running up Tokyo Tower, but when Princess Kaguya and Okina embrace each other at the climax of the scene with the moon in the background, the BPM rapidly decreases and returns to the same BPM as the first scene. That’s how I portrayed the circular structure of the short film through music.

Nagahisa: The music is terrific in every scene. I love the part where Princess Kaguya and Okina turn into small figurines and dance together. In that scene, live action turns into CGI, and the tone of the music changes drastically too. It matches the visuals. 

–Speaking of tone, you used the sound of live drums and electric bass instead of synth bass, which you seldom use in your music. 

Shibuya: Because the android plays the key part of a storyteller and singer, I felt combining the singing voice with a human touch would sound more interesting. This project allowed me to consider the distance between machinic and human things. Aside from the bass, I used a simulation of electric guitar and live drums from the 50s. Whenever an android is the central part of a song, it makes me want to produce this kind of tone for some reason. 

–As you mentioned, Nagahisa-san, there’s a strong cohesion between the visuals and music. You must’ve paid acute attention to that.

Nagahisa: Yes. It’s about the small details: you’d get a vastly different impression if a song—with its swelling and reverberations—ends with a cut instead of lingering until the next. We matched each frame with the sound until the last minute. 

Shibuya: I’m sure Nagahisa-san’s experience in shooting commercials plays a big part in how he’s more meticulous about and aware of cuts and frames than directors who only create their own work. Even regarding the sound, he said, “People won’t feel moved if the attack doesn’t come in at the tenth frame!” I believe that sort of meticulousness is absolutely right. It’s ineffective if you can’t convey something that’s numerical by nature by using numbers. It’s out of the question.

What can we gain from androids?

–What was it like working with an android, Nagahisa-san?

Nagahisa: I make films based on the disconnection or discrepancy between life and death and emotion and expression, and I think that won’t change in the future. Androids are important to me because they’re relevant to my interests. Androids are bound to become more widespread and necessary in the future, so it was a memorable experience to sit down with an android that tells stories. 

Shibuya: Androids are interesting, even from the perspective of filmmaking and acting. In the past, the benchmark of a good actor or film was how well emotion and motion could be connected and expressed. (Jean-Luc) Godard “cut” into that with his own method and created a new form of film. With androids, nothing connects the android to the human being, to begin with. The very existence of androids begs the question, “What is emotion?” 

Nagahisa: I agree. I’ve always felt that emotion and motion aren’t aligned. We usually respond to situations out of reflex instead of emotion. I feel like that disconnect or inconsistency is so beautiful. That’s why I’m drawn to androids, as they embody that. 

Shibuya: People act out of reflex and habit, and there’s always a social component behind what they like. The existence of idols not only hinges on appearance but on the social values that deem them “kawaii.” It’s not rare to meet an idol that’s actually not that kawaii (laughs). It seems like more people are beginning to see that people don’t act out of emotion as much as we had thought.

–It also seems like our awareness and sensibility regarding human existence and emotion are changing because of AI and androids. 

Shibuya: Once the prerequisite of emotion disappears, the way we create stories will change. It’s a major opportunity for Japan. Fundamentally, Europe is anthropocentric, and they don’t doubt the existence of humans. It could be hard to eliminate the belief that humans have emotions and robots don’t. But I feel like we in Japan can create a new story based on a different set of values.

Nagahisa: People in Japan have created joruri for generations, so we have a strong foundation. 

Shibuya: Exactly. 

Nagahisa: There’s the belief that puppets have emotions and that humans don’t have emotions that puppets can’t express. I feel like that’s something people from other countries don’t feel. 

Shibuya: I call that the “new ethnic.” 

Nagahisa: I understand. My films are more popular in America and Europe than in Japan, but not because of the direct depictions or motifs. They see a distinct, ethnic Japanese quality in, say, my dry, blunt approach to giving up or how sadness doesn’t come to the fore. They think it’s interesting. 

Shibuya: Over the past ten years, I’ve portrayed the existence of the self in an obscure way and made the emotions impossible to ascertain in my work. I assume people from other countries are more prone to discuss such themes than Japanese people.

Nagahisa: I see. When we made Kaguya by Gucci, Tanabe-san told me you and I have similar views on society and human beings. I saw what he meant today while we covered various things. Thank you.

Shibuya: Thank you. It was fun talking to you.

Photography Tasuku Amada
Translation Lena Grace Suda

The post Keiichiro Shibuya and Makoto Nagahisa on Making Kaguya by Gucci and What Androids Can Teach Us — “Massive Life Flow; Inside the Mind of Keiichiro Shibuya” Part 8 appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Film trailer for All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip-Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997)
©2021 Elkin Editions, LTD. All Rights Reserved.

In the 1990s, New York street culture, in which music and skateboarding had been slowly gaining momentum locally since the late 1980s, began to attract worldwide attention. In downtown New York, a skateboarding company called Zoo York was started. Eli Morgan Gesner, who was a central figure in the company, narrates All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip-Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997), a documentary film that focuses on New York City street culture from 1987-1997.

Directed by Jeremy Elkin, a lover of skateboarding culture and music, the film is built around a collection of rare archival footage from that era and interviews with key figures active in the New York street scene. This valuable documentary provides a rare glimpse into the roots of current street culture that includes music, skateboarding, fashion, and art.

Yes, the connection between the New York local street scene is incredibly cool, and the culture that emerged from it has definitely influenced the world, as you will learn from this film. We’d like to share an interview with director Jeremy Elkin, who visited Japan for the film’s theatrical release here.

Jeremy Elkin
Born in 1987. From Montreal, Canada. Influenced by his family, Elkin got into skateboarding and music during his teenage years and started shooting skate videos i n Montreal in the 2000s. He then moved to New York City, where he worked as a video producer for VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE. In 2018, he shot and directed a short film for the Brooklyn Museum, The Chronicles of New York City, by French artist JR. In 2017, Elkin started his own video production company, and in 2021, he launched his own video production company with his first feature-length documentary film, All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip-Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997).
https://www.elkineditions.com
Instagram：@jeremyelkin

Filming the Montreal skate scene since the age of twelve

――Let’s talk about your life before you started filming videos. What was your childhood like?

Jeremy Elkin (Elkin): I was born in 1987. I grew up downtown in Montreal, on the west side. Montreal is close to New York. I have three older siblings, my brother Josh, who is fifty now, grew up skating and spinning hip-hop records. When I was born, I didn’t really have a choice, as soon as I could walk, he was teaching me how to stand on a skateboard with all of his friends who skated. Him and my sister Rosetta were friends with Willo Perron, who’s had enormous success in the music industry. They would all go to clubs, DJ at bars, and of course go to New York all the time, so I was inspired by those cultures at very early age. My brother played basketball with the Beastie Boys, etc. Willo and my sister took me to the Rawkus Records office and Supreme in the late 90s for the first time, which were eye opening.

――When did you start taking videos?

Elkin: I started making skate videos when I was around twelve years old. A lot of the skaters were really good but there were no cameras at that time, which would’ve been 1998 or 1999. I thought it would be good to save up and get a camera to start filming them. We would get VHS tapes and watch them, but the skaters we were skating with were better than the tapes from California or wherever, so we had to film them. I then started making skate videos at an early age and it just sort of progressed from there.

――Were you self-taught in your filming?

Elkin: It was all self-taught. With skateboarding, I’m sure it’s the same with hip-hop, when you’re young, you’re around people of all different kinds of backgrounds and age groups. So you start to learn things really quickly, because of the way the scene is.

The only guy in Montreal who filmed skate videos was Eric Lebeau. His videos were unbelievable. I learned a lot from watching him film. Then there’s Barry Walsh and Marc Tison. They’re really heavy into vinyl, skating, boomboxes, dancehall, dub, etc. Everything they ever do has great style, and clarity. They’ve been huge inspirations for me.

――And you moved to New York shortly after?

Elkin: I did. I worked a lot of jobs, anything to make money. I was still making independent skate videos, not sponsored. Then I worked at Vanity Fair magazine for three years. I started a film department there that did videos about the covers, and documentaries and features. After that, I started my business, my own production company. And that’s when I started making All the Streets Are Silent.

©2021 Elkin Editions, LTD. All Rights Reserved.

Being organic is the key to capturing local culture

――What prompted you to start making All the Streets Are Silent?

Elkin: I think any good documentary starts with a big archival collection. All the best documentaries pull from a large database of unseen footage and tapes. I knew that Eli Morgan Gesner had a crazy collection. We made an agreement that if I digitized all of the tapes, I could maybe do something with them.

――Does that mean you personally proposed the idea for the film to him? 

Elkin: Pretty much. Eli wasn’t involved in the story, but he recorded the narration, which was eight hours or something. Another trait of a strong documentary is to let the footage tell itself, and let the people tell the story. I tried to let it just be organic. The story’s a little bit harder to follow, because it’s so organic. It’s not forced.

――That organic nature is true to skate culture, specifically the east coast culture.

Elkin: (laughs) It’s true.

©2021 Elkin Editions, LTD. All Rights Reserved.

――Why did you focus on the decade of 1987-1997?

Elkin: Eli was in school in 1987, and he started at Club Murs and met Yuki in 1988. So the beginning of that footage is that first year. And thenEli’s video, Zoo York’s Mix Tape, was released in ‘97. It felt like a good bookend. That decade is more interesting to me because there’s no digital.

――You interviewed many DJs and skaters for this film, but is there one person in particular that left an impression on you? 

Elkin: Kid Capri was the best, and is one of my favorites. The most interesting ones were the ones where I didn’t know the person. That was the first time I met him and I was in his house in New Jersey, in his basement, so it felt extra special. KRS-One had just left his place. We missed him by an hour. Everyone was super cool, so I don’t think there was a bad moment. We did a lot of interviews, like 55.

――Any funny anecdotes from the interviews?

Elkin: I have a lot of good ones that maybe I shouldn’t say on the record (laughs). If I were to choose… I have a good one of Lil Dap from Group Home.

He was wearing a gray Fila tracksuit and put on brand new black leather Fila as he was getting out of the car. So he’s wearing head-to-toe Fila. And he asks, “where do you want me to sit or stand?” and I was like, “right here”, by this metal standpipe. So he goes to sit down and it’s really low, and he’s calling over his cousin. I say, “Dap, are you ready for the interview?” and he goes, “yeah”, calls over his cousin, and takes off his brand new black Filas, and his cousin brings a brand new pair, opens it up. He just switches shoes and goes, “now I’m ready”. That was crazy.

――Even though you were starting to film (laughs)? I wonder why he changed his shoes.

Elkin: Because they were like a block old. He already crossed the street in them. He wanted the freshest sneakers. Even when we were rolling on Kid Capri, he was like, “just a second”, and goes on top of his piano and brings out a long towel with  all different types of watches.

©2021 Elkin Editions, LTD. All Rights Reserved.

――I’d like to talk about Yuki of Club Mars. He’s a Japanese person who’s been active in the New York scene for a long time, and is considered a real legend. This film was the first time I’ve seen footage of him.

Elkin: He discovered Madonna. He’s the best. The Standard Hotel on the High Line on the west side is where the club was. I want everyone to learn about Yuki.

――Large Professor is the music supervisor for the film, too. That’s amazing.

Elkin: We didn’t have a budget to make the film, so we raised a little bit of money at the end to be able to work with him. We showed him the film with really expensive music that we couldn’t pay for. So that’s how the conversation started. We asked him if he could make beats that sounded like these songs. We were going through all his material trying to find what would fit in the right spot and make it sound like a ten-year period. With Large Pro, it was an organic process.

――I’m sure Zoo York is a skateboard company that you love. What is the appeal of it?

Elkin: Zoo York was super important. I think it represented the east coast in a way that others didn’t. And Eli’s design, art direction, and photography was so good. He was also really good at skating, he could do everything, even was a club promoter at Mars. He was a huge legend growing up.

I didn’t even know it was one person, because his graffiti tag was OcuLarge, and his name was Eli Gesner, but then in the Zoo York ad and Supreme ads, it would say “courtesy of EMG”. I didn’t realize that EMG and OcuLarge and Eli Gesner were the same person. I would see EMG or OcuLarge in skateboard magazines or hip-hop magazines. His hand styles are really famous. The Zoo York logo is just his writing. He has an incredible hand style. And he was really close with Bobbito growing up. We talked a bit about it in the movie, but that’s how he got into and filmed all that amazing footage.

A message for the once desolate New York street scene

――Why did you choose the title, All the Streets Are Silent?

Elkin: There were three main reasons why we chose the title. One is the cost. The title I initially wanted was 212. I thought it was the sickest name, so simple and easy to remember. But the AT & T network owns 212. You can’t use it in a commercial sense, and they wanted a lot of money. Eli wanted me to call it Watch Your Step, which was kind of sick. Some of the Supreme guys had names. Everyone was trying to come up with a name at some point. But All the Streets Are Silent was the only name out of ones on my list that didn’t cost money. So I was like, “perfect”.

We registered the name before Covid and the reason why it was on my list of potential names for the film was because New York was kind of dead. The scene was going through a phase where it was a low point, and I felt like skate culture had become too commercialized and mainstream. I was walking down the street and a mannequin had a skateboard and a boombox. It was too much. The industry felt super wack. The title was kind of a metaphor for that. The culture is kind of dead right now, so all the streets are silent. But then Covid happened, and all of the sudden, there was this whole new generation of kids. I show this in the movie a little bit, but there were all of these Supreme kids who were just getting to the right age and getting better at skating, and just cooler.

―― Skating and hip-hop has become trendy and mainstream. Did you have that in mind when making the film?

Elkin: I don’t really care about that. Scale and money has never been the goal. I don’t make things with the idea of profiting. It’s probably bad, I should have more of a business sense. If I want to make something, I try to make it. That’s what this film is, really.

©2021 Elkin Editions, LTD. All Rights Reserved.

――I liked seeing a new culture being born out of skateboard and hip-hop culture organically intertwining on local New York streets.

Elkin: The thing that skate and hip-hop culture have in common is that you can’t really be in either world and be fake. It’s very hard to have friends who skate or dig for records or spin and go to listening rooms, or who sit on a curb and skate and also be half in. It doesn’t really work. It’s all or nothing.
What I’ve seen from growing up in Montreal and skating in New York is, that person who’s kind of faking it, either the group moves away from them or they just straight up tell them “you can still hang with us, but don’t skate anymore”.

Now, in skateboarding, everyone is hugging. It’s so different, there’s so much embrace. It’s like, “you just skated for the first time, high five!” It’s kind of weird. There’s so much forced positivity that was never a part of skate culture before.

――It’s so big now that it’s become an Olympic sport.

Elkin: I think it was always like that in LA, but now it’s like that everywhere, it seems. A dude who looks like a businessman can skate on a longboard, it’s weird. As my friend says in New York, we’re in the “everyone skates” era right now. And then in five years, it’ll be the “no one skates” era.

――To end the interview, what is a message you have for those going to see the film?

Elkin: Whatever you’re into, get into it hard. Go down a rabbithole and learn as much as you can. It’s not for me, but someone could do a film about 1997-2007. Do it with the same intensity. Right now, the decade we’re in, 2017-2027, there could be another. History repeats itself. Every five or ten years, there’s a new scene and energy. It’d be cool to keep seeing these moments happen. We’re probably in the middle of one right now.

I would say whatever you do, do it 100%. Get super into your craft. Don’t just have a skateboard as an object. Destroy it, use it. Same thing with these kids who wait in line to buy shoes… Wear the shoes. I hope that that comes back. I think it’s so insane what they do now. They’re so precious with their objects, that their home is like a museum. To me, it’s a little ridiculous. It’s the same thing when people buy records and keep them sealed. What are you doing? (laughs).

©2021 Elkin Editions, LTD. All Rights Reserved.

■All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip-Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997)
Directed: Jeremy Elkin
Narration: Eli Morgan Gesner
Music: Large Professor
Executive Producer: David Koh
Producer: Dana Brown, Jeremy Ellkin
https://atsas.jp
Twitter：@RegentsMovie
Instagram：@regentsmovie

Photography Atsuko Tanaka

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