Japanese Girls at the Harbor.In 1924, Hiroshi Shimizu, the 21-year-old son of a wealthy businessman, dropped his studies at an agricultural school in Hokkaido and moved to Tokyo to pursue his interest in filmmaking. The Japanese industry was in a state of flux, moving away from the jidaigeki, or period dramas, and towards gendaigeki, films about contemporary life: slapstick, romantic, and sport-themed comedies; crime films; and its trademark, shōshimin-eiga, social dramas concerned with working and middle class life.One of the major forces of this change was Shochiku, the studio where Shimizu landed a job, first as an assistant director, and then in 1925 as a full-fledged director. Under the leadership of Shiro Kido, an ambitious young executive, Shochiku was establishing itself as a distinctly modern film studio within a major metropolis. Tokyo was in the midst of a growth spurt, with urban sprawl accelerating and multitudes of people migrating from the countryside.
- 5/24/2024
- MUBI
Floating Clouds.In the opening scene of Mikio Naruse’s Floating Clouds (1956), a group of repatriated Japanese civilians disembarks from a shabby boat. After two brief wide shots, Naruse cuts to a medium shot to introduce the film’s protagonist, Yukiko, singling her out from what is otherwise a crowd of anonymous faces. But the film’s screenplay elaborates on those who walk alongside Yukiko: Returnees from South Asia are getting off the ship. Among the crowd of women, which consists only of comfort women, geishas, nurses, typists, clerks and the like, there is also Kõda Yukiko, who is not outfitted with proper winter attire.“Comfort women” is a name given to women and girls forced into sexual slavery at the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army. According to Yoko Mizuki’s screenplay, some are present in the crowd, but it is impossible for the viewer to discern them. The...
- 4/25/2024
- MUBI
Floating Weeds Sitting inside his Tokyo home, surrounded by stacks of books and photos of John Ford and Jean-Luc Godard pinned to the wall, the venerated film and literary critic, writer, and scholar Shiguéhiko Hasumi admitted with a wry smile that he was not really in the mood to talk about Ozu. We were gathered for an interview about a new English translation of his book Directed by Yasujiro Ozu, but he had old Hollywood on his mind. As he spoke, he switched between Japanese and French-accented English. “This book was written 40 years ago,” he said. “My last monograph is about John Ford. And this is my latest book. I greatly admire the films of Don Siegel.” He pointed to What is a Shot?. “So, I am so far from Ozu.” Indeed, Hasumi, who turns 88 this month, remains prolific. Spread out on the coffee table in front of him by...
- 4/16/2024
- MUBI
Blind Beast.You could start cradled like the kidnapped woman in the undulating foam curves that resemble a gigantic female torso in Blind Beast (1969). You could make your approach via the swing of a Super-8 camera towards the steps of a courthouse at the beginning of A Wife Confesses (1961). You could drift into A Cheerful Girl (1957) through the kitchen window, onto a table laden with groceries and bottles of fluorescent orange soda-pop. You could inject yourself like morphine into Red Angel (1966), seep like body ink into the skin of Spider Tattoo (1966), or slide into the fevered bloodstream of All Mixed Up (1964) like powdered poison swallowed from a kite-paper pouch. Whether you arrive on the tip of a blade or the cusp of a kiss, there is no wrong place to start with Yasuzo Masumura, the postwar Japanese director whose astonishing accomplishment should by rights have him mentioned in the same...
- 8/15/2023
- MUBI
The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.The success of his latest release, Wife of a Spy (2020), has once again positioned Kiyoshi Kurosawa atop the list of international cinema's most celebrated filmmakers. Continuing what has been an exceptional festival circuit reign in recent years, the Kobe-born director's World War II drama was awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and it is, as Notebook’s Aaron E. Hunt observes, an emblematic feature from Kurosawa, retaining several of the archetypes and tropes he has so often embraced. Indeed, a consistency in distinct systems of narrative and audiovisual expression has been central to Kurosawa's cinema, manifest in films spanning multiple genres and locations and relayed in mutable tones and mesmeric formal motifs. And though it took time to find traction with a global audience, this approach was something...
- 9/22/2020
- MUBI
Can porn be art? This question seems to be contradicting itself. Art calls for our contemplation, while porn requires our bodily involvement. How can a film excite its viewers on these two fronts? Masayuki Suo’s pink film (“pinku eiga”; it refers Japanese softcore pornographic films produced since the sixties) “Abnormal Family” seems to be a rare beast that combines stylistic commitments with titillating imageries. Once studying film with Japan’s leading intellectual Shigehiko Hasumi, Suo’s film is a love (erotic?) letter to Ozu’s films.
Unmarried daughters. Bickering relatives. Taciturn fathers. A teapot. A vase. A Noh performance. A Coca-Cola signpost. A corner of the Kita-Kamakura station. These are the basic elements of the Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu’s cinematic world. In these quiet corners of Japan, there will always be a father who is worried about marrying off his daughters. The tradition must go on,...
Unmarried daughters. Bickering relatives. Taciturn fathers. A teapot. A vase. A Noh performance. A Coca-Cola signpost. A corner of the Kita-Kamakura station. These are the basic elements of the Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu’s cinematic world. In these quiet corners of Japan, there will always be a father who is worried about marrying off his daughters. The tradition must go on,...
- 4/1/2020
- by I-Lin Liu
- AsianMoviePulse
Beginning 2000s, director Akihiko Shiota emerged as part of a new wave of Japanese filmmakers portraying teenage alienation in postmodern Japan. Like many other famous directors of his generation, Shiota was a student of Shigehiko Hasumi at Tokyo Film School. Though less prolific than his former classmates Shinji Aoyama (“Eureka” 2000) and Kiyoshi Kurosawa (“Cure” 1997), Shiota produced impressive movies such as “Moonlight Whispers” (1999), “Harmful Insect” (2001) and “Canary” (2004), which all deal with young outcasts and a lack of parental presence. In the course of his career, Shiota shifted his focus from serious indie dramas to sentimental commercial productions and effect-filled entertainment (“Dororo” 2007). He finally ended up in the genre of medical drama with the TBS tearjerker “I Just Wanna Hug You” (2014). What may look like a decline of artistic demand, is proven wrong by Shiota’s newest film “Farewell Song” (2019).
“Farewell Song” was screened on Japannual Film Festival in Vienna.
Although Shiota...
“Farewell Song” was screened on Japannual Film Festival in Vienna.
Although Shiota...
- 10/15/2019
- by Alexander Knoth
- AsianMoviePulse
Kurosawa’s latest film is the Uzebekistan-set To The Ends Of The Earth
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is planning a return to genre filmmaking. “I haven’t achieved the complete perfection of it,” the veteran Japanese filmmaker said of his plans to return to the type of filmmaking which first made him an international name.
He was talking at a masterclass reflecting on his career at the Doha Film Institute’s talent development event Qumra in Qatar this week.
Kurosawa began his career making softcore “pink” porn, straight to video titles and low budget yakuza thrillers before emerging as both a key...
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is planning a return to genre filmmaking. “I haven’t achieved the complete perfection of it,” the veteran Japanese filmmaker said of his plans to return to the type of filmmaking which first made him an international name.
He was talking at a masterclass reflecting on his career at the Doha Film Institute’s talent development event Qumra in Qatar this week.
Kurosawa began his career making softcore “pink” porn, straight to video titles and low budget yakuza thrillers before emerging as both a key...
- 3/21/2019
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Can porn be art? This question seems to be contradicting itself. Art calls for our contemplation, while porn requires our bodily involvement. How can a film excite its viewers on these two fronts? Masayuki Suo’s pink film (“pinku eiga”; it refers Japanese softcore pornographic films produced since the sixties) “Abnormal Family” seems to be a rare beast that combines stylistic commitments with titillating imageries. Once studying film with Japan’s leading intellectual Shigehiko Hasumi, Suo’s film is a love (erotic?) letter to Ozu’s films.
Abnormal Family is screening at Japan Cuts 2018
Unmarried daughters. Bickering relatives. Taciturn fathers. A teapot. A vase. A Noh performance. A Coca-Cola signpost. A corner of the Kita-Kamakura station. These are the basic elements of the Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu’s cinematic world. In these quiet corners of Japan, there will always be a father who is worried about marrying off his daughters.
Abnormal Family is screening at Japan Cuts 2018
Unmarried daughters. Bickering relatives. Taciturn fathers. A teapot. A vase. A Noh performance. A Coca-Cola signpost. A corner of the Kita-Kamakura station. These are the basic elements of the Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu’s cinematic world. In these quiet corners of Japan, there will always be a father who is worried about marrying off his daughters.
- 7/29/2018
- by I-Lin Liu
- AsianMoviePulse
The 24th entry in an on-going series of audiovisual essays by Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin. Mubi will be showing Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Creepy (2016) from August 5 - September 4, 2017 in the United States.Note: No essential element of the plot of Creepy is divulged or spoilt in this video essay or the accompanying text below.Hubert Niogret, in his review of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Creepy in Positif (July/August 2017), suggests: “There is always, in this director’s work, a particular view of social behaviour in this country of Japan where rules are numerous – above all when it comes to politeness, and the civil exchanges between individuals.” Niogret also notes that, beyond the “V-cinema” period (1994-1998) of relatively cheap, quickly made films within the genres of horror, fantasy and ghost tales, Kurosawa’s more recent works tend to introduce their supernatural elements (when these exist) only gradually and indirectly. Indeed, both...
- 8/5/2017
- MUBI
NEWSCahiers du Cinéma has revealed its Top 10 of 2016:Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade)Elle (Paul Verhoeven)The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn)Aquarius (Kleber Mendonça Filho)Ma Loute (Bruno Dumont)Julieta (Pedro Almodóvar)Rester Vertical (Alain Guiraudie)La loi de la jungle (Antonin Peretjatko)Carol (Todd Haynes)Le bois dont les rêves sont faits (Claire Simon)Slamdance Film Festival has announced its 23rd edition, starting with its narrative and documentary feature film competition lineup. Variety has the full announcement.
Dennis Hopper's personal record collection is now on sale via Moda Operandi.Recommended VIEWINGWes Anderson has delivered a Christmas themed advertisement for H&M. Pietro Marcello's Lost and Beautiful gets a gorgeous new trailer via Grasshopper Film.A welcome meeting between three giants of world cinema: Q&A with Carlos Reygadas & Apichatpong Weerasethakul introduced by Béla Tarr.Recommended READINGThe ambitious new issue of Lola is now available, and it...
Dennis Hopper's personal record collection is now on sale via Moda Operandi.Recommended VIEWINGWes Anderson has delivered a Christmas themed advertisement for H&M. Pietro Marcello's Lost and Beautiful gets a gorgeous new trailer via Grasshopper Film.A welcome meeting between three giants of world cinema: Q&A with Carlos Reygadas & Apichatpong Weerasethakul introduced by Béla Tarr.Recommended READINGThe ambitious new issue of Lola is now available, and it...
- 12/1/2016
- MUBI
NEWSConcept art from the next project of Paul W.S. Anderson–an adaptation of the beloved Capcom video game Monster Hunter. Anderson discusses the project, and his upcoming Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, alongside producer Jeremy Bolt at Deadline.Toronto International Film Festival has acquired 1,460 prints, including work from Peter Mettler, Alfred Hitchcock, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Abbas Kiarostami. Recommended VIEWINGThe first trailer for Martin Scorsese's Silence.Cristi Puiu puts his unique spin on the festival award acceptance speech in response to recent accolades from the Chicago International Film Festival & Thessaloniki International Film Festival (via Ray Pride).With the recent 15 year anniversary of Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko, the BFI has cut a fantastic new trailer for the films imminent re-release.Recommended READINGAt Keyframe, David Hudson compiles numerous considerations on the role of art in light of the U.S. election results."As the train gathered speed, I began considering what...
- 11/29/2016
- MUBI
The following text is an excerpt from an essay commissioned by the specialist publishing house Hatori Press (Japan) for a tribute to the great critic, scholar and teacher Shigehiko Hasumi on the occasion of his 80th birthday (29 April 2016). Other contributors to this book (slated to appear in both Japanese and English editions) include Pedro Costa, Chris Fujiwara and Richard I. Suchenski. Beyond Prof. Hasumi’s many achievements in criticism and education (he was President of the University of Tokyo between 1997 and 2001), his ‘method,’ his unique way of seeing and speaking about films, has served as an immense inspiration for a generation of directors in Japan including Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Shinji Aoyama. The online magazines Rouge (www.rouge.com.au) and Lola (www.lolajournal.com), co-edited by Martin, provide the best access to Hasumi’s work in English (see references in the notes below).Leos Carax and Shigehiko Hasumi. Photo by Michiko Yoshitake.
- 3/30/2016
- by Adrian Martin
- MUBI
"Terra Incognita: 22 Unknown Pleasures from Around the World." That's the title that drew my first click of all the selections from the new issue of Film Comment now up on the site, plus the "Online Exclusives," of which this is one: a list expanded from the 15 in the print edition, with recommendations from the likes of Kent Jones, Olaf Möller, Shigehiko Hasumi, Thom Andersen and more. More than a few of the films written up here are new to me.
We already know the results of year-end poll of critics, of course, but here are Godfrey Cheshire on Asghar Farhadi's A Separation, Nicholas Rapold on Nadav Lapid's Policeman, Gianfranco Rosi's El Sicario, Room 164 and Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, José Teodoro on Gerardo Naranjo's Miss Bala, Jesse P Finnegan on Tank.tv, Graham Fuller on Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady, Margaret Barton-Fumo's interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky,...
We already know the results of year-end poll of critics, of course, but here are Godfrey Cheshire on Asghar Farhadi's A Separation, Nicholas Rapold on Nadav Lapid's Policeman, Gianfranco Rosi's El Sicario, Room 164 and Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, José Teodoro on Gerardo Naranjo's Miss Bala, Jesse P Finnegan on Tank.tv, Graham Fuller on Phyllida Lloyd's The Iron Lady, Margaret Barton-Fumo's interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky,...
- 1/10/2012
- MUBI
The Poetry of Precision: The Films of Robert Bresson will be the first complete retrospective of Bresson's work in North America in 14 years. Tiff Cinematheque has announced today that the series "features a restored print of his acclaimed first feature Les Anges du péché (1943), a metaphysical thriller set in a convent, and new prints of key titles struck especially for the occasion of this retrospective such as the controversial Le Diable probablement (1977), which was prohibited to viewers under the age of eighteen in France as an incitement to suicide; A Man Escaped (1956), a work of resolute beauty that rigorously elevates the gruelling routines of prison life; Four Nights of a Dreamer (1971), legendary for being unavailable in North America for almost two decades; and his last masterpiece, L'Argent (1983), a terse and chilling indictment of capitalism and modernity."
While the retrospective will run at Tiff Bell Lightbox from February 9 through March 18, it'll...
While the retrospective will run at Tiff Bell Lightbox from February 9 through March 18, it'll...
- 12/13/2011
- MUBI
Like many, I've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of the new film journal that Adrian Martin and Girish Shambu have been working on for months now. Today's the day. The theme of the inaugural issue of Lola is "Histories."
Girish has already drawn up a guide, pulling quotes from each of the essays, so briefly, "Histories" features Joe McElhaney on his "passion for aging filmmakers, the older the better"; William D Routt's expansive consideration of Lubitsch; Andrew Klevan on "films which put the in-between at their centre"; Luc Moullet, with his irresistible title: "Ah Yes! Griffith was a Marxist!"; Richard Porton on Dušan Makavejev's Wr: Mysteries of the Organism (1971); Shigehiko Hasumi: "Stated briefly, my hypothesis is that the medium of film has not yet truly incorporated sound as an essential component of its composition."; Sylvia Lawson on Australian cinema's relationship with the nation's history; Stephen Goddard on the ways...
Girish has already drawn up a guide, pulling quotes from each of the essays, so briefly, "Histories" features Joe McElhaney on his "passion for aging filmmakers, the older the better"; William D Routt's expansive consideration of Lubitsch; Andrew Klevan on "films which put the in-between at their centre"; Luc Moullet, with his irresistible title: "Ah Yes! Griffith was a Marxist!"; Richard Porton on Dušan Makavejev's Wr: Mysteries of the Organism (1971); Shigehiko Hasumi: "Stated briefly, my hypothesis is that the medium of film has not yet truly incorporated sound as an essential component of its composition."; Sylvia Lawson on Australian cinema's relationship with the nation's history; Stephen Goddard on the ways...
- 8/17/2011
- MUBI
Above: From left to right, Tokyo FilmEx festival directors Kanako Hayashi and Shozo Ichiyama; and Nobuteru Uchida's prize-winning film, Love Addition.
Last November, I had a conversation with Tokyo FilmEx Festival directors Shozo Ichiyama and Kanako Hayashi. For more than a decade, this duo has helmed Japan’s most serious festival, one dedicated to independent cinema from Asia. Office Kitano, Takeshi Kitano’s production company, has remained its key partner over the years, and helped Japan’s support of Iranian directors as well as groundbreaking figures from China, most notably Jia Zhangke, a regular at FilmEx from the beginning. The festival also revealed the fragile state of art cinema in and from Japan and how a very small, centralized community that has been determining what fits into this category, and what is not allowed in; a community that’s aged while being unable to neither find nor form new heirs.
Last November, I had a conversation with Tokyo FilmEx Festival directors Shozo Ichiyama and Kanako Hayashi. For more than a decade, this duo has helmed Japan’s most serious festival, one dedicated to independent cinema from Asia. Office Kitano, Takeshi Kitano’s production company, has remained its key partner over the years, and helped Japan’s support of Iranian directors as well as groundbreaking figures from China, most notably Jia Zhangke, a regular at FilmEx from the beginning. The festival also revealed the fragile state of art cinema in and from Japan and how a very small, centralized community that has been determining what fits into this category, and what is not allowed in; a community that’s aged while being unable to neither find nor form new heirs.
- 3/9/2011
- MUBI
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