This film begins on a swelteringly hot day in Tokyo. A 54-year-old father and his 32-year-old son are escaping from the heat by indulging in ice cream in an air conditioned Mini-Stop convenience store. They decide to head to the family home in rural Gunma Prefecture to get away from the oppressiveness of summer in Tokyo.

Once in Gunma, they find that it is so cool that they need to put on warmer clothes. Searching about in boxes of items belonging to the late grandparents who used to live in the house, the father finds a collection of seventies-style colourful school tracksuits. These tracksuits become both a visual gag and a symbol of togetherness for the father and son: their ‘slow life’ uniforms, so to speak.

Two in Tracksuits (Jaji no Futari) could be described as a buddy film. However, unlike the American films that gave that genre its name, this is not a chatty film. Both men have a lot of issues to resolve, such as bad marriages, job dissatisfaction (the father) and joblessness (the son), but they do so by taking time to enjoy each other’s company and the peacefulness of rural life.

Rock star Makoto Ayukawa (father) and actor Masato Sakai (son) are both masters of the poker face, and the laughs are subtlety evoked through visual repetition and variation gags. For example, the father and son find tomatoes on sale at the local supermarket and fill their cart with them. Then neighbours begin giving them bags of tomatoes as presents, which leads of course to the running gag of them serving tomatoes (salad, sandwiches, etc.) to their visitors. It sounds very simple on paper, but left the audience in stitches during its screening at Nippon Connection.

The repetition and variation theme is reflected in the storyline. The film actually depicts two summers. The first summer, the men are alone in the family home. The second summer, the men are joined first by the son’s wife, then by his half-sister. The visitors are a clever device for showing the uniqueness of the father-son relationship which at first seems rather superficial. The ending (which I won’t spoil) uses one of the films running gags (about the difficulties of reading kanji) to demonstrate just how strong the bond between these two men is. A truly uplifting film for those who enjoy the ‘slow life’.

As the title implies, Hideyuki Hirayama’s adaptation of Takako Satō’s Talk Talk Talk (Shaberedomo Shaberedomo) is all about talking, both privately and in public. At the centre of the drama is the young rakugo performer Mitsuba, played by Taichi Kokubun of the boy band Tokio. Mitsuba’s colleagues and audiences find him a mediocre talent, but he is determined to succeed in order to honour the memory of his late grandfather who was a huge fan of this traditional form of storytelling.

Rakugo (落語) is performed in traditional costume while sitting down in the seiza (正座) position. The stories told are long and complicated comic tales involving a dialogue between two or more characters. The storyteller plays all the roles, distinguishing the different characters through variations in pitch, tone, and gesture. The comedy comes not only out of the story, but out of wordplay such as puns and onomatopoeia.

Mitsuba insists on using traditional stories despite the cajoling of his younger peers to try modern tales in order to make himself more popular. His main flaw is that he tries too hard to mimic his mentor Kosanmon, played with flair by the imitable Shirō Itō. In doing so, Mitsuba fails to infuse his storytelling with his own unique sensibilities.

Through happenstance, Mitsuba finds himself teaching rakugo to a motley crew of misfits in the living room of the home he shares with his grandmother Haruko Toyama (Kaoru Yachigusa). His first student is Masaru-kun, the nephew of one of Toyama-san’s tea ceremony disciples. Masaru has just moved to Tokyo from Osaka and is being bullied in school for his Kansai-ben (dialect). His aunt hopes that learning a skill will improve his self-confidence at school. There is also Satsuki Tokawa, a sullen but beautiful young women whose grumpy exterior belies the fact that she seems to diligently help her parents run the family dry cleaning business. Rounding off the trio is a retired baseball player, Yugawara, whose poor public speaking skills are ruining his chances of keeping his new job as a radio commentator.
The camaraderie and good-natured squabbles of these rakugo classes acts a catalyst for each of the characters, including Mitsuba himself, to grow as individuals and to face problems they have in their personal lives. The film is heartwarming without being too sappy and has plenty of comedy with a dash of romance thrown in for good measure. The cast works really well as an ensemble with strong performances from all leading players. The ever graceful and beautiful Yachigusa brings such warmth and humour to a rather small role and the young fellow playing Masaru-kun (Yuuki Morinaga) practically steals the show with his infectious laughter and high energy performance.

The centerpiece of this film, however, is the art of rakugo itself. Through its use of repetition of the two main stories by different characters in the film, Hirayama teaches the audience how to appreciate the subtleties of the storytelling craft.

The trailer for this film can be viewed on its official homepage. The DVD (with English subtitles) is available:

At the Musabi Student Film Explosion screening at Nippon Connection, the real standout for me was a three-minute animation from director Kei Suezawa (末澤慧). Musabi is the nickname of the Musashino Art University (武蔵野美術大学), a leading college in the education of young artists including Satoshi Kon.

The film Moving (おひっこし/Ohikkoshi, 2008) takes a simple story concept and uses it as a vehicle to show off the animators talent. The animation is executed with innovation and a sense of humour. It opens with moving men clearing the furnishings from a room. Two identical grey cat decorations sit side-by-side on a shelf staring forwards with wide eyes and ambivalent expressions on their faces. Neglected by the movers, one of the two cats tumbles off into the traffic. From there the cat falls into the sewers and floats out into the ocean to begin its adventures around the world. The film closes with the cat landing back in the moving van, but it’s colour has faded to white during its journey making the cats look like a pair of salt & pepper shakers.

The cel animation looks to be hand drawn and uses bold colours. A professionally mixed soundtrack of music and sound effects complements the high quality of the animation. My one criticism of the film is the inclusion of one of those stock scenes of an aboriginal island community dancing around a caldron which suggests they are cannibals. This is such a cliché and not even a funny one at that.

When I looked this little film up on Musabi’s website, I found that someone named Hodaka Ueda (上田穂高) received top billing on their screening list, but I have found very little information about the current status of either of these two students. Ueda and Suezawa seem to also have collaborated together on another short animation called Buraunkan Heya (ブラウン管部屋). Judging from the high quality of Moving (おひっこし, I suspect that the students behind it are studio bound and have a bright future in animation ahead of them.

Director Yuki Tanada, a special guest at Nippon Connection this year, is one of a number of women directors creating a niche for themselves in Japan. Traditionally, the role of director has been seen as a man’s job, but at the Podium Discussion: What’s Up With the Women?, producer Yukie Kito said that women make up 70% of filmgoers in Japan. Therefore, it only makes sense that more women should go into directing. Women have played key roles behind the scenes since the inception of the cinema industry, doing continuity (like Kurosawa’s assistant Teruyo Nogami) and screenwriting. According to Kito, women dominate the fields of producing and marketing films in contemporary Japan.

If Ain’t No Tomorrows (Oretachi ni asu wa naissu, 2008) is representative of what women directors have to offer, then I am truly excited about the future of Japanese cinema. On the surface, Ain’t No Tomorrows begins as a standard drama about the life of teenagers. Standard teenage types are set up: the rabble-rouser, the fat kid, the teacher’s pet, and so on. Rabble-rousing teen Hiruma (Tokio Emoto) leads his friends in the bullying of fat student Andou (Ini Kusano). They give him the nickname ‘Boobs’ because of the extra fat on his chest, and pay him ¥100 to feel up his man-boobs while they fantasize about their big-chested classmate Akie (Ayame Misaki). Akie, meanwhile, resents that boys lust after her only for her looks and aren’t interested in her as a person. Rounding of the main characters are Miné, the good-looking guy who generally follows what the crowd is doing and bespectacled Miwako plays the role of teachers pet.

The stereotypes begin to get overturned with the introduction of Chizu, a naïve girl who Miné discovers face down in a park with blood running down her thighs. Although her uniform indicates that Chizu is from the same school as Miné, he has never seen her before and we share with him his initial fear that she has been the victim of a rape. When he wakes her, he discovers that she has only been the victim of her own panic. Chizu has gotten her period for the first time quite late, and being motherless doesn’t understand what is happening to her body.

The introduction of Chizu leads to the male and female characters pairing off and tentatively negotiating their first sexual experiences together. The film gives a raw depiction of teenage sexuality and the peer pressure to have sex in all its awkwardness and embarrassment. Tanada foregrounds the ignorance of teenagers about the mechanics of sex and the functioning of their own bodies. Receiving little or no information from their parents and their school, the young people have to learn from each other about how things work.

By the end of the film, each of the six central teenaged characters has risen above character ‘types’ and evolved into complex characters with hidden facets. Tanada has managed to nuture some remarkably sensitive performances out of her young cast. The characters of Miné and Andou were the most nuanced depictions of teenaged boys that I have ever seen. Ini Kusano, who plays the fat boy Andou, appears to actually lose a lot of the weight for the final scenes.

During the Q&A that followed the screening, Yuki Tanada explained that she had had low expectations for the films success because of its limited release, but had been quite pleased so far with the critical response. The film has struck a particular chord with audiences in their 30s and 40s who recall their teenage years with some bitterness.

This film is due out on DVD on May 22nd in Japan. Links are provided below for other films by Yanada that are available on DVD. The original manga for this film is also available.

Director: Yuki Tanada (タナダユキ)
Based on a manga by: Akira Sasō (さそうあき���)
Screenplay: Kōsuke Mukai (向井康介)
Cinematography: Yutaka Yamazaki (山崎裕)


Cast:
Tokio Emoto （柄本時生）as Hiruma (比留間)
Yūya Endō （遠藤雄弥）as Miné (峯)
Ini Kusano （草野イ二）as Andou aka An-pai (安藤 aka 安パイ/Boobs)
Sakura Andō （安藤サクラ）as Chizu (ちづ)
Ayame Misaki （水崎綾女）as Akie (秋恵)
Miwako （みわこ）as Tomono (友野)
Dankan（ダンカン）as Chizu’s father（ちづの父）


Yuki Tanada Filmography

2001 The Mole　（モル）
2004 Takada Wataru: A Japanese Original (タカだワタル的, documentary)
2004 Moon and Cherry (月とチェリー)
2005 Sakuran (さくらん, screenplay only)
2007 Hatsuko’s World (赤い文化住宅の初子)
2008 Aoi Yū X Yottsu no Uso: Camouflage (蒼井優×4つの嘘 カムフラージュ, TV drama)
2008 One Million Yen & the Nigamushi Woman (百万円と苦虫女)

Collections of short animation at film festivals are usually hit or miss affairs. This is particularly true when the assembled films are all by students or first time animators. Not so in the case of Digista, which is sponsored by the NHK. The assembled shorts which screened at Nippon Connection on Friday were all of a very high quality.

Digista is an abbreviation of ‘Digital Stadium’. The name of the program is slightly misleading because the films are not necessarily produced digitially. Rather the forum for screening (television) is digital. The films actually represent a wide range of animation styles including watercolour, cel, puppet, pixilation, and CG.

Speaking to producer Hiroko Namba of Directions (producers of Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s Time of Eve, among other projects), at the festival I learned about the process by which the Digista films are chosen. First a ‘curator’ is selected. The curators are already established artists. First time animators are then invited to send their work in to the curator for consideration. The curator then selects the best work for screening. The Digista films are screened on Saturday night at midnight on BS2 and repeated Monday night at 1am and Friday at 11pm on BShi. They can also be screened on the NHK website and on Youtube.

The Digista program has an excellent track record for discovering new talent. Previous animators featured on the program include Richiro Mashima, who has had viral video success on the internet with his film Ski Jumping Pairs (2002) and this year’s Oscar winner Kunio Kato whose film Around appeared on the program.

Digista Vol. VII represents the best of last year’s Digista shorts. Hiroko Namba was very interested in collecting feedback from the audience that she could take back to the animators. This included polling the audience about their favourites. I learned from her after the screenings that the curators had selected a ‘best of the best’ for a special prize. The winner was Masanori Okamoto (岡本 将徳) for his film Mending a Puncture (パンク直し).

Mending a Puncture is a very interesting film for its turning of a mundane event, the repair of a bicycle tire, into something extraordinary. Apparently he spent a month observing workers in a bicycle repair shop so that he could get the detail just right. The result is a technically brilliant animation.

My personal favourite film was Taijin Takeuchi (竹内 泰人)’s The Wolf Loves Pork (オオカミはブタを食べようと思った). It is a very complicated stop motion animation that involved animated photographs inside a room. The photos feature a boy in a wolf costume and a model of a pig. The photos themselves depict a scene shot outside, but the photos themselves occupy and interior location (an average apartment). As the photos multiply, a scenario is animated in which the wolf boy chasing the pig. Takeuchi has done a remarkable job in matching exterior shots to the interior shots. For example, the pig is shown in the photos to be escaping down a flight of stairs, while in the interior space he is descending from the table to the floor (see image above) . Another great match is when the photographs reach the kitchen sink. The wolf boy in the photos swims across a pool, while the ‘photo’ of him floats across the water in the sink. It really is a film that defies description and must be seen to be believed. An exceptionally creative animation.

Another animator who impressed me with his innovation was Sho Yamaguchi (山口 翔) whose film Trip takes us on the self-reflexive journey on an artist whose sketches transform from line drawings into 3D-CG figures around the city. The film cleverly combines elements of cel animation, pixilation and computer animation with a great storyline to boot. The most memorable for me was the 3D-CG whale floating over the city street.

Other great films included two by Hiroco [sic.] Ichinose (一瀬 皓コ) who does humorous animations which reminded me of the films of Koji Yuri and Taku Furukawa. Tomoyoshi Joko (上甲 トモヨシ)’s film Buildings was also very amusing. K oshi Shimada (嶋田 晃士) and Shunsuke Saito (斎藤 俊介) had some impressive surrealistic works. Sonoko Yamada (山田 園子)’s film Wash used watercolour paintings washed out by sponges in a mesmerizing way. Yumika Koide (小出 悠美香)’s puppet animation Give and Take (持ちつ持たれつ) was also excellently done and reminded me of the early films of Tomoyasu Murata (who apparently is also a curator this year).

I am going to have to watch Shuichi Nishikoji (西小路 修一)’s film Sho-chan’s Summer (しょーちゃんの夏休み) again, because I was distracted by it’s lack of a soundtrack and did not fully appreciate the film. Hiroko Namba informed me that this was artist’s intention, but as there are often technical snafus at Nippon Connection I didn’t realise this until the film ended. Namba also told me that Nishikoji made this, his first animation, at the age of 65. He has had a career as an illustrator, which would explain the high quality of the cel animation.

All of these films and more are available for viewing on the NHK's website here, so check them out!

Films Screened at Nippon Connection:

ha・P ( 4’05, Hiroco ICHINOSE)
BUILDINGS (5’44, Tomoyoshi JOKO)
TONARINOKUNI (5’07, Natsuki TAKEMURA)
KAIGA NO KISEKI (4’20, Koshi SHIMADA)
SHO-CHAN'S SUMMER (2’54, Shuichi NISHIKOJI)
WASH (2’30, Sonoko YAMADA)
MENDING A PUNCTURE (3’40, Masanori OKAMOTO)
A WOLF LOVES PORK (4’20, Taijin TAKEUCHI)
MOCHITSU MOTARETSU (6’08, Yumika KOIDE)
USHI-NICHI (9’09, Hiroco ICHINOSE)
KARERAHA (6’47, Kiminori ITO)
TRIP (2’34, Sho YAMAGUCHI)
CRAZY CLAY WRESTLING (6’21, Takena NAGAO)
YUME (2’26, Shunsuke SAITO)
EXISTENCE METAPHOR (3’21, Mayuko KANAZAWA)
KASUTERA BOUSHI (1’29, Yuka KAMBAYASHI)

Ikki Katashima’s directorial debut film Serial Dad (小森生活向上クラブ/ Komori seikatsu kōjō kurabu, 2008) had it’s first screening outside of Japan at Nippon Connection last night. It is a black comedy along the lines of Kind Hearts and Coronets (Robert Harmer, 1949) and Charlie Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux (1947), but with the quirky fantasy mixed with unease found in many recent Japanese films like Memories of Matsuko (Tetsuya Nakashima, 2006).

Serial Dad tells the story of a salaryman called Komori (Arata Furita) who is stuck in middle management and bored with his life. This is visually portrayed by him fiddling over the fried egg breakfast his wife has prepared for him at home, as well as his ambivalent attitude towards his family and co-workers.

On a train ride home one day, the woman standing behind him loudly complains to her friend that he is a chikan (someone who gropes women on crowded trains). The next day, when he sees her doing the same thing to another innocent man, his blood boils and he fantasizes about pushing her in front of an on-coming train. This fantasy leads to a comical nightmare in which the woman, drenched in blood, crawls up from the railway tracks and taunts him in the style of the ghosts of old Mizoguchi movies. The dream ends with a figure of Jesus (inspired by the Christian messages Komori regularly sees posted on walls about town) hands him a gun with which to finish the woman off.

This success leads to Komori regaining his appetite for his wife’s heavy breakfasts and being more pleasant and in-charge at work. It also leads to him fantasizing about becoming a Clint Eastwood-style vigilante in a direct spoof of the Robert De Niro character in Taxi Driver (Martin Scorcese, 1976). Soon, his fantasy life becomes reality, as Komori begins to knock off people whom he feels are making the lives of others worse. With each success, Komori’s sex life with his wife improves, his family life improves, and his cheerfulness and industriousness at work increases.

Komori’s efforts begin to spiral out of control as one after another, more work colleagues discover his mission and join in his efforts. They form the Komori saviour and execution club, known as “Komori seikatsu kōjō kurabu” (Komori’s Social Betterment Club), which is the original Japanese title of the film. At about three quarters of the way into the film, it becomes clear that the director is faced with the dilemma of how to end the film. On the one hand, the audience has grown to love the Komori character with his affable charm, but on the other hand he has taken justice into his own hands and become a serial killer. In Kind Hearts and Coronets and Monsieur Verdoux, the eventual end for the main protagonist is inevitable, but in Serial Dad there are so many elements of fantasy that other possibilities are opened up by the script. I will not spoil the ending here, suffice to say that I found it a bit disappointing. However, the film is well worth watching for its comic charm and send-ups of American action movies.

The premiere film at Nippon Connection in Frankfurt am Main last night was Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s critically successful film of last year, Tokyo Sonata. It tells the story of Ryuhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa), a salaryman in his late 40s who suddenly loses his job but out of shame cannot bring himself to tell his family. Instead he pretends to go to work each day, when in actual fact he is looking for work and lining up to get a free charity lunch with other jobless and homeless men.

While the film is very timely with the current recession, the story is based on the situation in Japan in the late 1980s when the economic bubble burst and many salarymen found themselves living on the streets or doing menial jobs to get by. The original screenplay was written by an Australian Max Mannix but was rewritten by Kurosawa and Sachiko Tanaka. At last night’s screening, producer Yukie Kito said that the original story focused on the relationship between the Sasaki and his youngest son Kenta (Kai Inowaki). Kurosawa expanded the roles of Sasaki’s wife Megumi (Kyoko Koizumi) and elder son Taka (Yu Koyanagi).

Critics have seen this family drama as a departure for Kurosawa, who is better known for his horror films like Cure (1997) and Kairo (Pulse, 2001). However, Kurosawa has shifted the horror from an externalized force to an internalized one. The horror that Sasaki faces is not only the realization that he has no skills with which to find another job but that he risks losing his authoritarian role at home due to his own hypocrisy. His wife faces the horror of realizing that after dedicating her whole life to being a housewife and mother, she may need to start all over again on her own. Their sons face the horror of realizing the fallibility of their father. Kenta’s grounding is also shattered by his loss of respect for his school teacher.

The film gets its name from the piano sonata played by the young son at the end of the film. As in a sonata, each character in the film elaborates upon the main theme of self-discovery and personal change. Sasaki must learn to swallow to his pride and take a lower class job, his wife must play a stronger role as a decision maker in the family, Taka joins the American military in order to find a purpose in life, and Kenta finds his path through music. Many issues are left unresolved in the film, such as the lack of communication between the family members.

This could have been a very morose film, if not for the quirky injections of humour throughout. The most enjoyable of which is a cameo appearance by Kōji Yakusho, a long-time Kurosawa collaborator, as a hapless burglar. Kanji Tsuda also puts in a tragicomic turn as Sasaki’s old school friend Kurosu, who has also lost his job and puts on the façade of the working salaryman with his constantly ringing keitai-denwa.

The look of the film is beautifully rendered. The film stock had a sepia quality about it that reminded me of art films of the 1960s and 1970s. The framing of scenes, particularly within the Sasaki family home, is beautifully done. When the family sits to meals at their Western-style table, they are usually framed through the stairs or kitchen shelves in a manner that reminds us visually how trapped they all are by their various circumstances.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2009

Nippon Connection runs from the 15th until the 19th of April this year. They published their programme earlier this month and the excitement is mounting. As always, they have a packed schedule of events and it will be difficult to decide which events to attend. This year's Nippon Retro features pink films. The Nippon Culture events include everything from a tea ceremony to a Butoh dance workshop. For me the most curious event in Nippon Culture is the "Sound Concert with Silent Film" directed by Yukihiro Ikutani with sound composition by Tetsuya Hori.

I'm going to try to attend as many of the short film selections in the Nippon Digital screenings as I can.... though it will be hard to decide what films from the Nippon Cinema screenings to miss out on. I am glad to see that they are doing two screenings of some of the more popular selections this year. I'm sure, for example, that Tokyo Sonata and Genius Party are high on everyone's list of films to see!

The films up for the Nippon Cinema Award this year are:

20th Century Boys (Yukihiko Tsutsumi)
Detroit Metal City (Toshio Lee)
Genius Party Beyond (Maeda, et al.)
Genius Party (Fukushima, et al.)
GS Wonderland (Ryuichi Honda)
Hells (Yoshinobu Yamakawa)
The Kiss (Kunitoshi Manda)
Nightmare Detective 2 (Shinya Tsukamoto)
Non-ko (Kazuyoshi Kumakiri) -- movie poster above! --
Parting Present (Mamoru Watanabe)
Still Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Talk, Talk, Talk (Hideyuki Hirayama)

The Nippon Connection site (follow the above links) gives links to official sites for all these films. Nippon Connection recently posted the following promo showing just how awesome last year's festival was (see below). This year promises to be equally as exciting.