Kakera: A Piece of Our Life (カケラ, 2009)

It is rare to find an individual who is completely happy with themselves.  Most people, especially those without love in their lives, find themselves constantly searching for a way to improve or replace these pieces of themselves that they find lacking.  Momoko Andō’s Kakera: A Piece of Our Life (カケラ, 2009) is peopled with characters who are unhappy with their present circumstances and are looking without rather than within in order to fulfill their needs and desires.

Kakera tells the story of a college student named Haru  Kitagawa (Hikari Mitsushima of Love Exposure), who stays with her boyfriend (Tasuku Nagaoka of Moon and Cherry) despite the fact that he treats her quite badly.  One day in a café, she is approached by an older woman named Riko Sakata (Eriko Nakamura) who finds her attractive.  This awkward, yet tender scene marks the beginning of a complicated relationship between the two women which runs the gamut of emotions from warmth and affection to jealousy and confusion.  

Momoko Andō has managed to capture the fragile beauty of a romance between women with an authenticity and sensitivity rarely seen in feature films.  Each of the characters in the film has a kind of void in their lives that they try to fill with the love they have for another character and as in real life the course of these relationships never runs smooth.  Riko’s love for Haru is complicated by Haru’s unresolved feelings for her boyfriend and her own sexuality.  Haru’s boyfriend is one of those types of people who seem to always desire what he cannot have.  And Riko’s client and lover Tōko (Rino Katase) is also consumed by desires that remain only partially fulfilled.  This theme is visually represented in the film by the prosthetics that Riko designs for people who have lost body parts.  Prosthetics allow their wearers to disguise the ravages of illness or accidents that they have suffered, but they are not a permanent replacement for what has been lost.

Kakera is a film that examines female sexuality in all its ambiguities.  Riko’s love for Haru is complex.  She can be loving and kind, but she can also be possessive and jealous.  It is a brave film in many respects, though might have been even braver if Andō had included less chaste lovemaking scenes between the female protagonists.  This would have been a welcome contrast to the cold, empty sex scenes between Haru and her boyfriend that look more like rape than love-making.

The film has a feeling of authenticity about it thanks to not only the sincere performances of the actors but also the use of recognizable locations from around Tokyo, which ground the film in a very realistic, contemporary setting.  As a female spectator, I also took great delight in Andō’s use of female spaces that normally get left out of films.  There is one wonderful scene in which Haru is shot from a high angle using a public squat toilet to put a menstruation pad into her underpants.  It is an intimate moment that marks a new phase in Haru and Riko’s relationship.  This scene should not have been as surprising as it was as it’s a part of women’s everyday lives, but  startles because these moments always get omitted from films.  

  

Order the DVD

Kakera was adapted by Andō from the popular manga Love Vibes by Erica Sakurazawa  and was filmed beautifully by cinematographer Hirokazu Ishii.  The soundtrack was written by James Iha, the former guitarist of Smashing Pumpkins.  It is available on DVD in the UK from Third Window Films.  It is also available from cdjapan (JP only).

This post is part of the Queer Film Blogathon hosted by Garbo Laughs. To read more LGBT posts from the blogathon click here.

Manji (卍, 1964)

The impassioned voice of Kiyoko Kishida in the lead role of Sonoko Kakiuchi dominates the narrative of Yasuzo Masumura’s 1964 classic feature film Manji (卍, 1964). Just as in the original novel Quicksand (Manji/卍, 1928-30) by Junichirō Tanizaki, the story is told from Sonoko’s point of view to a man she refers to as “sensei”.

  

The Taniguchi novel

Sonoko is stuck in a loveless arranged marriage to Kotaro Kakiuchi (Eiji Funakoshi). The marriage is childless because Sonoko is secretly taking measures to prevent pregnancy, and she fills her empty days with art. She attends art lessons at a local women’s college. During life drawing classes, it is brought to Sonoko’s attention that she has become the subject of gossip because instead of drawing the model’s face, she has been drawing the face of beautiful fellow student Mitsuko Sido (Ayako Wakao).

Sonoko is brought to her knees by Michiko's unadorned beauty

The two women develop a friendship with each other that blossoms into a full-fledged love affair. The passion Sonoko feels for Mitsuko is so strong that she brazenly conducts the affair in her own marital bed and defies her husband’s wishes for her to end the relationship. It does not take long however for cracks to appear in what Sonoko believed to be a perfect love. She soon discovers that Mitsuko has a secret fiancé Eijiro Wakanuki (Yuusuke Kawazu), a man whose impotence leads him to behave in a jealous, irrational manner. This awkward ménage-à-trois becomes even more complicated when Mitsuko also draws Sonoko’s husband into the fray.

Michiko embraces Sonoko.

It’s a frenetic narrative that rarely stops for air as it races towards its dramatic conclusion. Set among the Osakan upper classes, we rarely see a glimpse of the city streets as the story for the most part unfolds in the interiors of the Kakiuchi home or in anonymous rented rooms. The use of interior spaces and frequent use of close-ups adds to the stifled atmosphere created by the oppressive passions of the four narcissistic lovers. The Japanese title “Manji” is the Buddhist swastika with its four arms representing each of the four lovers. Sonoko also uses Mitsuko as the model for her painting of the Goddess of Mercy, which serves an ironic function in the plot as Mitsuko turns out to be anything but merciful in the way that she skillfully manipulates her lovers.

Sonoko and Michiko's love letters.

In the wrong hands, Tanizaki’s story of obsession and jealousy could have easily been turned into a tawdry film exploiting love between women. Masumura avoids this thanks to Kaneto Shindō's poignant script and his use of highly stylized framing. Love scenes are rendered in fragments with each frame carefully composed with the elegance of an oil painting. The pureness of Sonoko's love for Michiko is emphasized through one of the few outdoor scenes in which the two women stroll through a verdant forest and pause in front of some Buddhist statues.  Throughout it all, the tremulous voice of Kyoko Kishida as Sonoko reminds us that with all the lovers’ threats of suicide at the very least one passionate woman will survive the maelstrom that is Manji. 

This post is part of the Queer Film Blogathon hosted by Garbo Laughs. To read more LGBT posts from the blogathon click here.  This film is widely available on DVD (Fantoma in the US, Yume Pictures in the UK - who have interestingly dropped the swastika from the poster).  Click here to order from Japan (no subs).

Japanese women behind the scenes

At Nippon Connection in April a podium discussion was held about the current status of women in Japanese cinema. The reason for this was the sudden jump in numbers of films being presented at the festival with women at the helm as directors. Guests at the festival included Yuki Tanada with her film Ain’t No Tomorrows (俺たちに明日はないッス, 2008), animator Naomi Nagata (Animation Soup), Musabi students Ayako Shinohara (Baby Complex) and Mariko Tanji (Drown Breath) as well as producers Kanako Yoneyama, Hiroko Namba and Yukie Kito. Screenings were also held for three films from Momo Matsuri (Peach Film Festival): emerger (Aki Sato, 2008), Bunny in Hovel (月夜のバニー, Mayumi Yabe, 2009), and Csikospos (クシコスポスト, Yumiko Beppu, 2009). (The Peaches films will be screening in Toronto in August)

The podium discussion was moderated by Dr. Roland Domenig of the University of Vienna. Yukie Kito was representing women producers having presented Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata at the festival. Mayumi Yabe from Peaches represented emerging women directors. Kayoko Nakanishi represented the promotional aspect of the film industry, and Nami Asakawa gave us the perspective from the point of view of translators and subtitlers.

I was impressed by the passion all four women had for the film industry in Japan. The general message seemed to be that while big name women directors have been scarce in Japan (and I might add I most countries around the world), women have come to dominate behind the scenes. Kito and Nakanishi felt that there were more women than men working as producers and promoters in Japan. Kito’s rationale for this was the fact that women make up more than 70% of film audiences. This would also explain why so many romantic comedies and dramas are produced every year in Japan. Kito also pointed out the growing number of women cinematographers, such as Akiko Ashizawa (芦澤明子, b.1951) who has become a favourite with Kiyoshi Kurosawa working on Tokyo Sonata, Sakebi (2006) and Loft (2005). Ashikawa was interviewed for the documentary Women Behind the Camera (Alexis Krasilovsky, 2007).

Since the podium discussion, I have thought a lot about women behind the scenes, so I thought that for my final contribution to the Blogathon, I would mention a number of such women that deserve more credit for the amazing body of work they have contributed to Japanese cinema history.

Kinuyo Tanaka (pictured above with Bette Davis)

The first Japanese woman to work as a director was the actress Kinuyo Tanaka (田中絹代, 1909-1977). This luminous star was a favourite of Kenji Mizoguchi (she appeared in 15 of his films!!) and appeared in over a hundred films in the course of her career. Largely due to her star status, Tanaka was given the opportunity to direct starting with Love Letter (Koibumi) in 1953. She went on to direct five more films ending with Onna bakari n yoru in 1961. Ozu, who had directed Tanaka in Equinox Flower, co-wrote her 1955 film Tsuki wa noborinu. I do hope that someone has the foresight to put her work on DVD so that it becomes more widely available outside of Cinematheque and Japan Foundation screenings.

Teruyo Nogami

Nogami (野上照代　b. 1927) was a colleague and friend of Akira Kurosawa for almost 50 years. She started out as script girl (continuity) on Rashomon (1950). By the end of his career, she had become a vital part of the team that he gathered around him for every film production. Since Kurosawa’s death in 1998, Nogami has played an important part in the shaping of Kurosawa’s legacy. In her memoir, Waiting on the Weather, she shares anecdotes about his working methods, his relationship within the Japanese filmmaking community, and his encounters over the years with great directors from around the world.

Natto Wada

Most fans of Japanese cinema know the films of Kon Ichikawa (市川崑, 1915-2008) but fewer people have heard of wife Natto Wada (和田 夏十born Yumiko Mogi 茂木由美子, 1920-1983). The two met while working at Toho. At the time, Wada, who had a university degree in English literature, was working as a translator. After the couple married, Wada collaborated with her husband on the screenplays for many of 34 as his films (mainly adaptations, but some original screenplays). Wada retired from screenwriting after Tokyo Olympiad (1965) but is said to have continued to act as her husband’s closest advisor. She sadly died much too young of breast cancer in 1983.

Animation has been a place where women have played important roles on animation teams, often working as inbetweeners and storyboard artists. Benjamin Ettinger, who seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge about Japanese animators, wrote a highly informative article on the Women Behind Ghibli on his blog Anipages back in 2007. The article discusses the animation of Akiko Futaki, Atsuko Tanaka, Masako Shinohara, and Megumi Kagawa.

Ettinger also wrote a great piece about Kazuko Nakamura and Reiko Okuyama, two important female pioneers in Japanese animation
Read:
Two pioneer women animators
Reiko Okuyama passes away


There have also been a number of great husband-wife partnerships in the world of Japanese animation.:

Renzō & Sayoko Kinoshita (木下蓮三+木下小夜子), made wonderful short films together for over 20 years and founded the Hiroshima International Animation Festical. Read more about them here.

Uruma Delvi (うるまでるび) is the pseudonym of a husband and wife team who specializes in Flash animation. Their animated short, Bottom-Biting Bug, was a cult hit a couple of years ago. Read more about them here. Or check out their website here.

Shinzo & Yukie Yuki (行信三+ゆきゆきえ) have worked at Toei as art directors and background artists for years. Most recently, they worked on the background art for Cassern Sins. Read about it at anipages.

Writing this post made me think of Keiko McDonald and what a tragedy it was that she passed away last September. When she died she was working on a book about Japanese Women Filmmakers. I do hope that someone picks up the torch and finishes her book because much, much more needs to be written about the history of Japanese Women and Cinema.

UPDATE:

I have started a wiki called Japanese Women Behind the Scenes with the aim of gathering more information in English about Japanese women directors, screenwriters, cinematographers, producers, etc.  If you would like to join this project, please click here for more information.

September 2010

Renku Animation "Fuyu no Hi"

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2009

My Favourite Japanese Art Animators

For those of you who don’t know already, since discovering an art exhibit by Tomoyasu Murata in on Hongo Dori in 2006 (the photo above is of my kids watching the installation in the front display window) I have developed a huge passion for Japanese Art Animation. My love of avant-garde and experimental animation in general dates back to my discovery of Norman McLaren’s work at the central library in my hometown when I was a teenager (hurray for the NFB! You can watch some of his films online on their website). There is a kind of circularity in this because it was a screening of McLaren’s work in Japan in the 1950s that brought the term “animation” into the Japanese vocabulary and inspired a generation of innovative animators in Japan. Before that, animated films were referred to as “manga eiga” (literally: cartoon movies).

It is hard for me to whittle down a list of “favourites” because there are so many different styles of art animation and it’s hard to judge one against the other. What follows are a selection of artists whose work excites and inspires me.

Animators who got their start in the 1960s & 1970s:


Taku Furukawa (古川タク, b. 1941)

He first worked under Yōji Kuri (久里洋二, b. 1928), then founded his own studio in 1970. Furukawa’s films range from his tribute to the 19th century optical amusement, the Phenakistoscope, to a humorous modern revision of Ozu’s Tokyo Story called Jyōkyō Monogatari (1999). Furukawa mentors young artists as a lecturer and vice-president of the Hiroshima International Animation Festival. He holds regularly exhibitions of his art at galleries as well as publishing manga and picture books for children. Would live to find a DVD of his (& his contemporaries) Minna no Uta work.


Kihachiro Kawamoto (川本喜八郎, b. 1925)

Kawamoto’s puppet animation brings together European puppet animation (he studied under Jiri Trnka in the 1960s) with bunraku traditions (Japanese puppet theatre). He is best known in Japan for the elaborate television puppet dramas he did in the 1980s and best known outside of Japan for his short film work. Kawamoto inherited the presidency of the Japan Animation Association from Osamu Tezuka and has been very active in the past decade organizing the Winter Days (2003) project as well as his spectacular feature film Book of the Dead.


Renzō and Sayoko Kinoshita (木下蓮三/ 木下小夜子)

Renzō Kinoshita’s films probe questions about what it means to be Japanese and how Japan is seen from the outside world. His 1979 anti-war film Pica-don depicts the Hiroshima bombing from the perspective of the ordinary citizens going about their everyday life. His wife Sayoko collaborated on his films as producer, scriptwriter and animator. Together they founded the Hiroshima International Film Festival which has become an important place for Japanese animators to have their work shown and to see work by artists from abroad. Sayoko has continued this work after Renzo passed away in 1997.


Tadanari Okamoto (岡本忠成, 1932-1990)

Influenced by Czech puppet animation, Okamoto became a pioneer in Japanese puppet animation. An award-winning filmmaker, he is famous for using a different medium for each of his films including relief puppets, cut-outs, cel animation, and more. Read more about this amazing artist at Anipages.

The younger generation:


Tomoyasu Murata　(村田朋泰, b. 1974)

An award-winning Tokyo-based artist, Murata produces a wide variety of art including stop-motion animation, cel animation, installations, manga, photography and paintings.


Meike Seike　(清家美佳, b. 1975)

A Kansai-based animator who has a distinctive visual style achieved by scanning real objects (leaves, photographs) and colouring and animating them on the computer. Her films are deeply allusive and concern a wide range of feminist themes. Her work featured on the Image Forum Thinking and Drawing program.


Tabaimo (束芋, b. 1975)

Internationally renowned artist Tabaimo incorporates elements of animation into her installations, which often include collaborations with dancers and other performance artists.


Naoyuki Tsuji (辻直之, b.1972)

Instantly recognizable for his pencil and charcoal cel animation aesthetic, Tsuji is also known for his illustrations, short manga and outdoor installations. Since 1999, Tsuji and Takumi Terakami have hosted a guerilla art exhibition called Scrap Festival which features sculptures and installations throughout the city of Yokohama.


Atsushi Wada (和田淳, b. 1980)

Wada has a unique style of drawing human figures that distinguishes him from other animators. His rather conservative looking male protagonists are put in unusual circumstances. Meaning is made in these thought-provoking films through subtleties of character movement and symbolism that are often absurd in nature.


Kōji Yamamura (山村浩二, b. 1964)

Perhaps the best known art animator of his generation, Yamamura’s films have received numerous awards world-wide. He has dabbled with various styles of animation, but is best known for his distinctive multi-planed aesthetic. His films range from accessible themes for children to the surreal. His best film to date would have to be Kafuka Inaka Isha.


Maya Yoneshō (米正万也, 1965)

Influenced by the work of Norman McLaren, Oskar Fischinger, and Taku Furukawa, Yonesho spends part of each year in Europe and is known for used found objects in her animation. Here's an article I wrote about her after exchanging e-mails with her last year.


Takashi Ishida (石田尚志, b. 1972)

An active artist on the international art scene, Ishida makes animated films, video installations, and collaborative art. His art explores the limits of the screen and questions of space, form, and perspective. One of my favourite works by him is Umi no Eiga.


Mami Kosemura (小瀬村真美, b. 1975)

Both a scholar and an artist, Kosemura’s “moving paintings” come out of both Nihonga and Yōga (Western art) traditions. The subtlety of movement in her work raises interesting questions about the relationship between art and time.

I hope that you will check out some of the websites of this artists because their work is truly amazing! Other links in this entry will lead you to previous articles I have written about the artsits.

TOMORROW'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE BLOGOTHON: WOMEN BEHIND THE SCENES

Tomoyasu Murata Sakuhinshu - Ore no Michi

My Favourite Animators (Mainstream)

Isao Takahata (高畑勲, b. 1935)

Takahata’s films have the power to move audiences in unexpected ways. Grave of the Fireflies (1988) is, along with Imamura’s Black Rain (1989) and the Kinoshitas’ film Pica-don (1979), one of the most powerful anti-war films that I have ever seen. On the other end of the spectrum, I have rarely laughed as much during a feature length animated film as I did while watching My Neighbours the Yamadas (1999). I also love Pom Poko, not to mention his work on television series in the 1970s (Anne of Green Gables and Heidi!).


Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎駿, b. 1941)

Little can be said about Miyazaki that has not already been said. I love all his films. If pushed to pick a favourite, I would have to say Tonari no Totoro (1988). Miyazaki’s young female protagonists stand head and shoulders above the female characters that inhabit most anime. They are strong and heroic.


Atsuko Ishizuka (いしづか あつこ, b. 1981)

Tsuki no Waltz (2004) surely rates as one of the best Minna no Uta animations of all time, and demonstrates why Madhouse snapped Ishizuka up so quickly after her graduation from art college. I have enjoyed her work in Nana (2006-7) and Mōryō no Hako (2008), but I am really itching for Madhouse to give her the opportunity to direct her own feature. Or to give her some time to do short animation on the side. Sigh, one can always dream.


Rintaro (りんたろう, b. 1941)

Love love love LOVE Galaxy Express 999 and Metropolis. Although I am not the biggest fan of 3DCG, with Rintaro at the helm I am quite excited about seeing Yona Yona Penguin when it finally comes out. The trailer looks fantastic!


Satoshi Kon (今敏, b. 1963)

Kon is from a place dear to my heart, Kushiro in Hokkaido. He seems unafraid to try new things and to push the boundaries of where animated features have gone in the past. He can be surreal, like in Paprika (2006), but he can also create a heart-wrenching drama with wide appeal like Tokyo Godfathers (2003).


Osamu Kobayashi (小林治, 1945)

Kobayashi is an innovator. I particularly enjoy his method of montaging photos with mainstream style anime. His use of colour is also a real treat to watch. Although he may have had some differences of aesthetic opinion with manga-ka Ai Yazawa, I love what he did with Paradise Kiss (2005), though I wish they’d stretched it 24 episodes instead of squishing the story into 12 episodes. Kobayashi’s work on Mahoutsukai ni Taisetsu na Koto: Natsu no Sora (Someday’s Dreamers, 2008) is also excellent.

Coming Tomorrow: MY FAVOURITE ART ANIMATORS (for a short list see the links of filmmaking artists in my sidebar)

Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka) (English Subtitles) Collector's Edition

Animation