Author Archives: Sekenbanashi

Song of the South

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  • Song of the South

11/4/24 (Mon)

Disney has kept this 1946 children’s film out of circulation in the US for the past several decades – it was last released theatrically in 1986 and has never been available in the US on video or streaming – due to charges of racial insensitivity or worse. That made me all the more curious to see it, and the internet makes that easy enough. I vaguely recall watching it as a kid and, other than the animation, just remember a white boy and girl and black boy running around together and spending time with Uncle Remus.

As usual, the complaints have been blown far out of proportion. Continue reading →

Seisaku’s Wife (清作の妻)

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  • 清作の妻 (Seisaku’s Wife)

11/2/24 (Fri), Tokyo

This 1965 work was being shown at the Tokyo Film Festival as part of a tribute to director Masumura Yasuzo on the 100th anniversary of his birth. It is the time leading up to the outbreak of war with Russia in 1904. The attractive Okane (Wakao Ayako) has been forced by her desperately poor family to serve for the past three years as mistress to a wealthy but much older man. When he dies and leaves her a small fortune, she returns with her mother to their old village. Unfortunately the villagers, partly jealous of Okane’s newfound wealth, deride her for having sold her body, however unwillingly, and refuse to have anything to do with her. She, in return, makes no attempt to ingratiate herself with them or help with the village work.

Meanwhile, Seisaku (Tamura Takahiro), a local lad, returns from military service in China and is hailed as a hero. Wartime fever has infected the entire village, which sees serving and dying as a glorious act. Seisaku, determined to improve village morale, has forged a large bell that he clangs early each morning to rouse the people to work. They reluctantly do so in deference to him.

Okane, however, ostracized in any case, refuses to play along. This intrigues Seisaku, and slowly but surely they come to fall for each other. Continue reading →

Wolves, Pigs and Men (狼と豚と人間)

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  • 狼と豚と人間 (Wolves, Pigs and Men)

11/1/24 (Fri), Ginza

Fukasaku Kinji’s stellar 1964 work was being shown at the Tokyo Film Festival in a pristine copy in honor of what would have been its star Takakura Ken’s 100th birthday. A violent, relentlessly driving film about three low-life brothers from the slums who become involved on different sides of a dangerous scheme that could be their salvation – or their death warrant. Continue reading →

Orochi (雄呂血)

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  • 雄呂血 (Orochi)

10/31/24 (Thurs)

This silent film of 1925 apparently broke barriers by presenting an antihero fighting the corruption of the ruling class as opposed to the good samurai defending the masses. The video online has excellent Japanese narration by a professional benshi narrator, which I listened to briefly. But benshi tend to add their own commentary and imagined dialogue; silent films were not made with the assumption of any specific narration and, with the intertitles, are (or should be) perfectly understandable as is. I ended up turning the sound off, which worked just fine. The movie does rely too much on expository intertitles, some of which are very long and hard to read (at least on a television). Thank goodness for the English subtitles.

The title Orochi is not the serpent of Kabuki fame. Though it’s the same word in English, the characters here are a strange mix of unrelated kanji, apparently chosen at random (for instance, the middle character ro is simply part of the screenwriter’s name) when the authorities objected to the original Buraikan or ruffian (often mistranslated in the West as outlaw). The odd word presumably perplexed them enough to let it pass. The film was the first to be produced by the production company set up by its star, former Kabuki actor Bando Tsumasaburo, though it was the second one released. The actor, known popularly as Bantsuma, must have liked it: it’s the only of the 200+ films in which he appeared that he kept the original negatives. And what a film.

Continue reading →

Noh: Aritoshi, Funa Benkei (蟻通, 船弁慶)

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  • Noh: 蟻通, 船弁慶 (Aritoshi, Funa Benkei)

3/27/24 (Sun), Tokyo

The two shows today represent, perhaps unintentionally, the oldest and newest strands of Noh, the first written in the art’s infancy and the other toward its final flowering. In addition to the virtues of the separate pieces, the comparison of the two was instructive.

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Tetsuo, The Iron Man (鉄男)

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  • 鉄男 (Tetsuo, The Iron Man)

10/19/24 (Fri)

Tsukamoto Shinya’s (Shadow of Fire) surrealistic 1989 horror fantasy about… actually, I’m not sure what it’s about, but it involves a man, a woman and a male hit-and-run victim who gradually turn into machines. I think. Continue reading →

Slave Play

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  • Slave Play

9/12/24 (Thurs), West End

I had not planned on subjecting myself to what sounded like another diatribe on racism, but having told a friend to select whatever he’d like, I couldn’t complain. The result was predictable in its blame-the-whites attitude.

The first half hour offers three scenes of interracial couples on a plantation in outrageous master-slave relationships, including whips and boot-licking. These turn out to be therapy sessions aimed at confronting the racism that is supposedly hurting their marriages. The couples – a women with a man who had initially been brought by her husband to spice up relations, a gay couple, and a seemingly normal couple – are brought together after their fantasy sessions to discuss their feelings with two therapists.

The entire show reflects the racist attitude of the writer in assuming that the couples’ problems are rooted in racism, specifically from the white side. I’ve heard it all before; the writer is beyond redemption. I don’t feel a need to reflect on it, though I did enjoy the mocking pseudo-intellectual observations by the lesbian shrinks, which were quite funny. While it’s true that this is low-hanging fruit, I wish the rest of the show had been on that level.

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Mrs. Doubtfire (musical)

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  • Mrs. Doubtfire (musical)

9/12/24 (Thurs), West End

I was wary of yet another musical retread from a beloved old film. In the movie, Robin Williams had a field day with the story of a divorced man who, granted only limited visitation rights with his children, disguises himself as a female nanny in a bid to stay close with them. It’s essentially the Robin Williams Show, so dominated by its central performance that it was hard to imagine how another actor could put his stamp on it. In any case, the musical was the unexpected choice of a friend, so I went along politely, albeit with expectations in check.

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Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Ieri, oggi, domani)

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  • Ieri, oggi, domani (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow)

10/2/24 (Wed)

I had seen De Sica’s later Sunflower, also starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, not too long ago, and a friend strongly recommended this 1963 comedy as well. Comedy is not the first thing that comes to mind for a De Sica film, but it did win an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and was a big success in its day.

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Past Lives

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  • Past Lives

9/23/24 (Mon)

Canadian writer/director Celine Song’s debut work is a romantic flick about two Korean childhood friends who are forced to separate at age 12 due to their parents’ jobs. The quiet boy remains in Seoul, while the more vivacious woman emigrates to Canada and then to the US to become a writer. After a 12-year blank, they reconnect thanks to the wonders of Facebook. They begin to chat regularly online, obviously still smitten with each other. The chats become a distraction for the woman, however, perhaps tying her to a past that she no longer recognizes. She impulsively asks him not to contact her anymore.

It is only another dozen years later, marking another turn in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese calendar, that they finally meet in person again when he comes to see her in New York. By this time, he has been dumped by his girlfriend and she is married to a Jewish novelist. They reunite in joy, or what passes for joy in the man’s introverted personality, but soon realize that their chance has gone. Seeing the woman in her new life, the man humbly sacrifices whatever hope he might have held and tells her he is leaving. In a moving ending, they wonder, in the context of a Korean concept known as inyeon, if this life is a past life that they are simply recalling in the future. They might previously have been strangers on a train or a bird and a branch, and who knows how they might meet next time. As he returns to Korea, he tells her that he looks forward to seeing her then, as they separate forever.

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Evil Does Not Exist (悪は存在しない)

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  • 悪は存在しない (Evil Does Not Exist)

9/11/24 (Wed)

Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s (Drive My Car) latest. Small-town folk deep in the Nagano countryside lead a hard-scrabble life in their beautiful natural setting, their basic needs met thanks to the wealth of resources in the area. The main character, a widowed father of a teenaged girl, spends his time chopping logs and gathering water, often so absorbed that he forgets to pick up his daughter from school. A company is eyeing the spot for a gramping site in order to take advantage of soon-to-expire pandemic subsidies. It employs a television talent agency to give a presentation to the local population in what it sees as a mere formality. However, the locals prove less pliant than anticipated. Continue reading →