Lost In Translation

The Approach of Autumn

The Approach of Autumn (1960) is notable for a couple of reasons: for one it is the first film produced solely by director Mikio Naruse and in that it focuses on two child protagonists. Hideo (Kenzaburo Osawa), a boy displaced to Tokyo from Nagano with his mother (Nobuko Otowa) after his father's untimely death. In Tokyo he meets Junko, the only child of a single mother (the mistress of a rich Osaka businessman-the ubiquitous Daisuke Kato reprising a similar role from A Woman Ascends the Stairs). They are united by their resentments of their parents. Hideo's mother runs off with a client from the inn that she worked at, leaving the boy behind with the working class uncle and aunt where he has to contribute to the family business. His surrogate brother, Shotaro (Yousuke Natsuki) is the only one who looks out for him taking him for rides in delivery truck and motorcycle. As Catherine Russell points out in her book, The Cinema of Naruse Mikio, the drama of the film is the drama of grwoing up in a world that is totally alien to Hideo not only in geography, but also in new moral codes and social behaviors. There are several scenes that allow the viewer to explore the outdoor condition of Tokyo in Naruse's magnificent Scope cinema as it is being remade from a wasteland into the modern city it will become in the 60s before the Olympics. Junko takes Hideo to the a department store rooftop in which Tokyo Bay can be seen. Later they take a taxi to the reclaimed area that will become Shiodome in the future full of skyscrapers a s Junko has predicted. She disappears from his life abruptly near the end of the film when he tries to give her a beetle for a school project that he found in the crate of apples from his grandmother in Nagano. Again Russell sums up things nicely: "In Naruse's Tokyo of 1960, the city is a force that dismantles and disperses the Japanese family."

Germany Year Zero

The final film in Robert Rossilini's War Trilogy, collected by Criterion, is another masterpiece inspired by the death of his young son Romano, Germany Year Zero (1948). This film captures the destruction of Berlin in and the postwar chaos that is the result. It is a pretty bleak film with a shocking conclusion.  It broaches the issues of parricide, suicide, and features pedophiles-so it is no wonder that it didn't do as well at the box office as the previous films in this series. It has been characterized as a cry of pain and the final scenes of the film contain some memorable set pieces such as the walk around the fountain, the organ being played in the half destroyed church and the boy Edmund's last movements playing with a gun that he turns on himself. Again there are some really interesting extras included in the Criterion edition: a video introduction by Roberto Rossellini from 1963, the Italian release opening credits and voice-over prologue, Roberto Rossellini, a 2001 documentary by Carlo Lizzani, assistant director on Germany Year Zero, tracing Rossellini’s career through archival footage and interviews with family members and collaborators, with tributes by filmmakers François Truffaut and Martin Scorsese, Letters from the Front: Carlo Lizzani on “Germany Year Zero,” a podium discussion with Lizzani from the 1987 Tutto Rossellini conference, a new video interview with Rossellini scholar Adriano Aprà, Italian directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (Padre padrone) discussing the profound influence Rossellini’s films have had on them, and Roberto and Roswitha, a new illustrated essay by film scholar Thomas Meder on Rossellini’s relationship with his mistress Roswitha Schmidt.

Narco Cultura

Narco Cultura (2013) is a disturbing documentary directed by Saul Schwarz that looks at the drug war in Mexico and the connection it has with the wildly popular "narocorrido" music craze. Much of the violence is taking place in Juarez, Mexico a border town near El Paso, Texas. While Juarez has become one of the most dangerous places on earth with thousands of murders every year, while l El Paso has become one of the safest with only five recorded at the time of the filming of the documentary. In fact, the film states that there have been 60,000 murders since the beginning of the drug war which began in 2006. The director interviews a number of people form all walks of life, police, journalists, former criminals, and singers of the narocorrios. It is a disturbing portrait of life today in a part of Mexico extremely close to the US, it seems strange that the violence hasn't spilled over into nearby El Paso.

Nakayoshi Hanare

Nakayoshi Hanare is a new washoku (Japanese food) restaurant that opened a few months ago down the street from my apartment. I tried out the lunch set and went with an old favorite, chicken nanban for ¥880. An excellent value-I think this might become a go to dinner spot.

Battle Of Roses

It would seem that by general consensus, Battle of Roses aka Barra Kasen (1950) is considered one of Mikio Naruse's weakest films, along with White Beast. There is a lot of melodrama involved in this intricately plotted story of three sisters who are daughters of a parents who owned a cosmetics company. Catherine Russell, in her book The Cinema of Naruse Mikio, notes that the many short scenes detract from the scene-setting atmospheric effects that punctuate Naruse's cinema. She also sees the film as working as a cautionary tale about giving women new privileges and powers, since there are instances of premarital sex, kept men, blackmail, and younger lovers. The youngest and most innocent sister's husband tries to kill her, takes a lover, and finally is transferred to Hokkaido.  So even the just are punished. It acts as a sort of exploitation film as Russell notes, which draws on the sensationalism of the "liberated" woman. I didn't think it was all that bad, but when held up against his best Yearning, Floating Clouds, and the like-it pales in comparison. But it was a fun film none-the-less. In particular, I liked how Naruse captured postwar Tokyo with riverside inns, rooftop cafes, the neon lights of Ginza, and the like. 

The Dancing Girl Of Izu And Other Stories

Yasunari Kawabata's The Dancing Girl of Izu and Other Stories (1954) is a collection that mirrors many of Kawabata's main themes over the years of his books and stories. A the forefront is "The Dancing Girl of Izu," which is one of his best known works and one that was made into a film by Mikio Naruse called Dancing Girl aka Maihime in 1951. Naruse also made a fine version of Kawabata's novel Sound of the Mountain in 1954. It is a mediation on the innocence of and fleeting nature of true beauty that he would revisit in works like Snow Country and House of Sleeping Beauties among others. In the translator's note, we are told that "Diary of My Sixteenth Year" like the preceding story are concerned with Kawabata's early misfortunes to be parentless and then losing the grandfather that was raising him-making him an orphan at an early age with no stable family members to look after him. Part One also has several stories relating to death and funerals: "Oil," "The Master of Funerals," and "Gathering Ashes." Part Two is a collection of "palm-of-hand" stories: short 1-4 page stories of various types. I found the stories in this collection less than memorable. But I think it is significant for the first section, especially "The Dancing Girl of Izu."

Paisan

Paisan (1946) is another neo-realist masterpiece from Roberto Rossellini, volume two of the Criterion's Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy. One that French critic Andre Bazin suggested that its impact on European cinema was equal to that of Orson Wells' Citizen Kane. It captured reality in  way that would inspire a generation of filmmakers. While Rossellini's previous film, Rome Open City, focused on the Italian resistance in Rome, this one follows the allied forces as they liberate Italy from Nazi occupation starting in Sicily and moving their way north-not unlike Giuseppe Garibaldi's campaign that created modern Italy. Rossellini focuses on the miscommunication inherent in the outsiders integrating with locals as they try to expel the Nazi invaders with a special emphasis on the American allies. It is a six part omnibus that is highlighted by location shooting, non professional actors, and a commitment to reality that saw him dub the actors to make sure they appeared on film speaking the dialect of the region depicted in the film. The first part takes place in Sicily as a young local girl guides a group of American soldiers through a mine field and focuses on the miscommunication of the Italian local girl and a young soldier and ends in tragedy and misunderstanding. The second episode takes place in Naples and depicts the vibrant street life of the city and focuses the unlikely relationship between an African American soldier and a war orphan. From there the film move son to to Rome and looks at the cultural miscommunications that take place between the occupying forces and the local women. From there, the focus moves to Florence where the city is still half occupied by Nazis and a man and a woman brave the dangers of the occupied territory to find loved ones left behind. In the fifth episode, Rossellini mediates on the religious question as three army chaplains (one catholic, a protestant, and  Jew) have an overnight stay in a monastery and bring the outside world to their cloistered life. The final episode is set on the banks of the Po river near Milan and has Americans fighting with local paisans against the Nazis and has a tragic ending that suggests despite the setback good will prevail. The criterion extras include: a video introduction by Roberto Rossellini from 1963, a new video interview with Rossellini scholar Adriano Aprà, excerpts from rarely seen videotaped discussions Rossellini had in 1970 with faculty and students at Rice University about his craft, and Into the Future, a new visual essay about the War Trilogy by film scholar Tag Gallagher.

White Dog

I was inspired to see Samuel Fuller's controversial film White Dog (1982) after learning that the entertaining 2014 release White God paid homage to the film and not only in name. The film was shelved due to reservations by the NAACP about an increase of people training dogs to attack black people, even though this had been done throughout history and war-Fuller had worked with attack dogs during his service career. So the film didn't get a proper general release until 1991. It is very much a product of the 80s with teen sensation Kristy McNichols cast in the lead role of the aspiring actress who happens upon the white dog and hopes to rehabilitate it. She has Parker Stevenson as her boyfriend. She engages the help of crusty animal trainer Burl Ives and his lead animal trainer and black man Paul Winfield. The visual homage comes at the end of the film that has an emotional crane pull-away shot that is mimicked in White God. Surprisingly the film features an impressive score by Ennio Morricone.