Lost In Translation

Japan An Attempt At Interpretation

Lafcadio Hearn is one of the most famous foreign residents of Japan. He wrote extensively about his adopted country, taught English Literature at universities, and collected ghost stories-for which he is probably most famous for. He is of Irish Greek origin but lived in America before coming to Japan and was a journalist know for his writings about New Orleans. In Japan he first settled in Matsue, Shimanae before moving onto Kumamoto in Kyushu and eventually Tokyo. Japan An Attempt At Interpretation (1904) is Hearns' scholarly attempt to explain his adopted country. many have complained that he is something of an apologist looking at Japan with rose-colored glasses. In this volume he seems very careful to not make judgements or sweeping generalizations. He often cites examples of Greek and roman history to show how the Japanese way is not so different from the foundations of major modern western countries. Here are some of the chapter headings: "Difficulties," "Strangeness And Charm," "The Religion of the Home," "The Japanese Family," "The Communal Cult," Developments of Shinto, " Worship And Purification," The Rule of the Dead, " "The Introduction of Buddhism, " etc. The first third of the book is devoted to religion and overall it is a bit dry. I had expected more first person accounts of Hearn's personal observations and at the end of the book he makes some observations about the Japanese being in the midst of the war with Russia. I think I would still like to read his collected ghost stories Kwaidan.

Last Year At Marienbed

Last Year At Marienbed (1961), directed by Alain Resnais (who recently passed away in 2014) and written by respected novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, is an infamous modern film. I think that the cinematic quality of the film should be undeniable: gorgeous black and white cinematography at a beautiful hotel and its grounds with gorgeous people dressed to the nines in artist arrangements with exquisite framing and tracking shots. But I can see how this film also represents the incomprehensibility and pretentiousness of Europeans films and can be used as a model for these complaints. Notoriously, this film was one of Pauline Kael's targets in her seminal essay, "The Come-Dressed-As-the-Sick-Soul-of-Europe Parties." There is something of a bare bones plot in which X (Giorgio Albertazzi) narrates the film in which he may or may not have met A (Delphine Sevrig) last year and promised to meet again this year. However, she has some sort of connection with M (Sacha Pitoeff), who acts as antagonist to X and has a hold on A. The plot is convoluted as it is not presented in naturalistic fashion so it becomes convoluted. It is a supreme art house film which I think would have limited appeal to the average film goer. But for cinemaphiles it marks a milestone in innovation of sorts in movie making-challenging the viewer in new ways.

Le Bistro

Le Bistro is a French style bistro that specializes in pork, so naturally I got he chicken cordon bleu, which was one of the ¥1100 lunch sets that comes with soup, salad, excellent bread, and choice of drink. I thought it was a great value and I would go back to try pork another time. There is a larger lunch course available for ¥1900.

Setagaya: Enkoji-Mikio Naruse / Kinuta Koen / Yoga

I found out that the grave of one of the Japanese masters of cinema, Mikio Naruse, was located in a suburb of Tokyo in Setagaya ward at Enkoji Temple, which seems to be a popular temple name: a more famous one is located in Kyoto along with two others in the Tokyo area. It was a nice sunny winter day so I decided to check the Yoga station area out.

The Naruse family grave identified by the kanji (Chinese characters)-it is an unusual family name.

On way there and back I walked near or through Kinuta Park, which is apparently famous for cherry blossoms in the spring.

It also houses the Setagaya Art Museum, which I walked around but decided that I wasn't interested enough to check out the exhibitions showing at the time. However, there were some interesting sculptures outside.

On the walk back to the station I accessed it via a lovely little street called Yoga Promenade that had some stately houses along the well-maintained and decorated road.

I used Yoga Station on the Den-entoshi line for access to Enkoji. As you can see the station entrance is very modern and futuristic looking.

Shie Shie Tea Cafe

This cafe specializes in Chinese tea, but also serves lunch. I decided to try the mabodofu set for ¥1200. It was spicy and tangy with lots of black pepper served with rice, soup, and steamed vegetables with salt for seasoning.

Untamed

I finally tracked down Mikio Naruse's 1957 Taisho era (1912-1926) film Untamed (1957) starring Naruse's frequent muse Hideko Takamine. It is Takamine's ferocious performance as the fiercely independent and industrious Oshima that would place this in the top five of Naruse's films and certainly one of Takamine's finest performances. According to Catherine Russell in her book The Cinema of Naruse Mikio, the film is based on a novel serialized by Tokuda Shusei in 1915 that was adapted by Naruse and screenwriter Yoko Mizutani to incorporate some more contemporary aspects of modern women in the 50s while transporting the heroine back in time to the unpredictability of the Taisho era. Russell reports that Naruse was creating a character that was still present in contemporary Japan-one that was the embodiment of the entrepreneurial spirit and has no place in the traditional order of society. Furthermore, Naruse says that Oshima was the opposite of Yukiko in Floating Clouds-who was dependnent on men and put up with bad behavior and the indiscreet affairs of her lover. She is the opposite in a big way. She disapproves with her adoptive family's first marriage match and escapes to her sister's on the day of her wedding. Her first marriage to the philandering Tsuru (Ken Uehara) ends after a physical fight when she falls down stairs and has a miscarriage. After that she is sent to a inn in the mountains to work off her brother's debts, she soon becomes involved with the married owner of the inn, Hayama (Masayuki Mori), and when found out she is banished to another more remote onsen. Later her father arrives to drag her back to Tokyo because he believes that she has become a prostitute. While back in Tokyo she takes up the tailor trade and quickly hitches her future up with a seemingly compliant tailor Onoda (Daisku Sato), who is less industrious and reliable than she had originally thought. The have frequent fisticuffs and at one point turns a hose on him when he was being lazy in the shop. Later she fights her husband's lover and then leaves him taking the head shop assistant (Tatusya Nakadai who would later star with Takamine again in A Woman Ascend the Stairs in 1960). So Oshima is as far from Yukiko as can be. The period details of the film as well as the location settings are part of the artistry of the film when western fashions and innovations (bicycles and telephones) came into prominence. A rare non Fumiko Hayashi adapted film about a strong -willed and modern woman taking charge of her own survival-one of Naruse better films overall, full of the cinematic craftsmanship that Naruse had been known for.

Cafe La Vida

I was surprised to learn that I had been walking past a Cuban restaurant in Hiroo without noticing it, Cafe La Vida moved from another location in December of 2015. I had a hankering for Cubano sandwich, the one pictured above wasn't but a variation that was tasty but a little steep at ¥1200. I'd come back for a little Latin flavor at night sometime though.

The Asssassin

Hou Hsiao Hsien has finally directed a wuxia genre film after an eight year hiatus with The Assassin (2015), a film that has gotten much critical praise. Hou won the Best Director at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival as well. It is a complex story set during the Tang dynasty in the 8th century starring Shu Q as the assassin and Chang Chen as her cousin formerly betrothed to her, and military governor, ruling the Weibo Circuit. To be honest I was content to just take in the gorgeous cinematography with exquisite framing, bold colors and patterns, as well as impressive location shots. There is certainly less action than your typical wuxia film, which is to be expected since Hou made his name on contemplative art films, but he has done a period film before, The Flowers of Shanghai, and that film like this one was meticulously researched so that the period being depicted was realistically depicted in the film. I suppose this is not for everyone, but it lived up to my expectations.

The Blue Room

I first learned about the prolific French novelist from Akira Kurosawa who said that his hardboiled film Stray Dog was modeled after a Georges Simenon detective novel. Since then he has been praised by writers I admire from Truman Capote to Paul Theroux. The fact that this, The Blue Room (1960), is only my second novel assures me that there will be many more opportunities to savor his psychologically dense prose in the future. This story recounts how the protagonist had arrived in the position of sitting trial for murder after ending an illicit affair with a former school mate in a small provincial French town. A short but compelling tale of passion and murder.

Henry's Burger

Henry's Burger in Daikanyama is serving up 100% black wagyu beef burgers. In my neighborhood, I can get a mix of wagyu with lean beef at Blacows and a 100% lean beef patty at Burger Mania-so it's nice to have another option. All wagyu creates a lot of grease, messy, but it cannot be denied that this is a great burger.