Lost In Translation

Tora-San's Cherished Mother (2)

1969 saw a second edition of the Tora-san series directed by Yoji Yamada with Tora-San's Cherished Mother starring the irascible Kiyoshi Atsumi in the lead role. The main stories in this film concern Tora-san bumping into his old English teacher his daughter Natsuko (Orie Sato) whom He quickly falls for. The main plot concerns news that his mother Okiko (Chochi Miyako) is alive and not dead as previously thought and running a hotel in Kyoto. Of course the lovable lout has a number of disruptive episodes from having to be admitted to a hospital and getting arrested for over indulgences. The hospital incident leads to a romance between the young doctor and Natsuko, as Tora-san loses in love once again. The on location scenes in the shitamachi (downtown) areas of Tokyo show how the city looked in the late 60s.

Night And Fog

Alain Resnais' Night And Fog (1956) documentary short about the holocaust is his first cinematic triumph. It is a remarkable film for a number of reasons. The film juxtapositions contemporary color footage of the concentration camps with older archival black and white footage with narration of commentary by poet and holocaust survivor Jean Cayrol. Resnais also commissioned an original score from composer Hans Eisler. The overall effect is powerful for a number of reasons-it is a difficult 30 minute film to sit through as many of the black and white images of dead bodies, ovens, and other disturbing images confront the viewer with the atrocities committed in the concentration camps by the Nazis during WWII. It was an audacious look at a dark chapter in human history.

Kokoro

Lafcadiio Hearn is a fascinating literary figure. He was born in Greece as the son of a Irish father and Greek mother, and eventually made his way to America where he became a writer in Cincinnati, Ohio before moving on to New Orleans where he would live for 10 years and write extensively about that city and the and its vibrant multi-cultured populace. I was aware of His Japanese writings but first encountered his New Orleans writing when it was referenced in David Simon's HBO drama series Treme. Since then I read two of his most famous works, Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan and Kawaidan: Stories and a Studies of Strange Things. Kokoro: Hints and Echos of Japanese Inner Life (1896) reminds me of those New Orleans pieces in the variety and breath of his scope-Hearn was interested in all aspects of life, high and low and saw diversity as a benefit and had a thirst for knowledge. There are 15 essays and an appendix of "Three Popular Ballads" that recounted from an experience he had in Matsue, Shimane prefecture. My favorite essays in the collection are his personal accounts of daily life in Japan that are best represented by the first and last essays in the collection. In the first, "At a Railway Station" he recounts the story of a repentant thief who murdered a family man and felt enough remorse to kill himself (apparently he made his name in Cincinnati as a crime reporter). The last essay, "Kimiko" is the story of the life of a geisha who entered the profession in order to care for her family. The slice of life essays were of the most interest to me, but he also had some more philosophical essays such as "The Idea of Preexistence." I am attracted to his curiosity and attention to detail, these essays are now more than a 100 years old and give the reader a glimpse of what Japan used to be, but they still have relevance today as well.

Abducted In Plain Sight

Skye Borgman's unbelievable documentary Abducted In Plain Sight (2017) has been getting a lot of attention since it has been streaming on Nexflix. It is the outrageous story of how 12-year-old Jan Broberg was abducted from her family in Pocatello, Idaho by a family friend. When Jan was returned 5 weeks later, she assured her parents and the courts that "nothing had happened"....helping a pedophile to go free, and paving the way for Jan's second abduction and years of sexual, emotional, and psychological abuse. It's one of those truth is stranger than fiction stories.

Hiroshima Mon Amour

I finally got around to seeing Alain Resnais' New Wave classic, Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959). It is an extraordinary film and Resnais' debut as well. It is the story of an affair between a French woman (Emmanuel Riva) in Hiroshima making a film about peace who has an affair with a Japanese architect (Eiji Okada). The history and legacy of Hiroshima is prominently displayed in the background especially in the beginning sequence which includes documentary like footage with film footage taken from Japanese films on the subject. The novel-like script was written by acclaimed writer Marguite Duras There is another storyline-that of the young French woman's experience as the lover of a young German soldier during the occupation of her hometown Nevers. The Japan sequences and France flashback footage are filmed by different cinematographers-Michio Takahashi and Sacha Vierny respectively. The score and ambient sounds of the film standout as well. The Criterion features include: new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack, audio commentary by film historian Peter Cowie, interviews with director Alain Resnais from 1961 and 1980, interviews with actor Emmanuelle Riva from 1959 and 2003, new interview with film scholar François Thomas, author of L’atelier d’Alain Resnais, new interview with music scholar Tim Page about the film’s score, Revoir Hiroshima . . . , a 2013 program about the film’s restoration, new English subtitle translation, and an essay by critic Kent Jones and excerpts from a 1959 Cahiers du cinéma roundtable discussion about the film.

O Pioneers!

Willa Cather has been considered a classic American novelist and I have yet to read her masterpiece My Antonia, then learned that she has written a "Great Plains Trilogy" starting with O Pioneers! (1913) and includes My Antonina. O Pioneers is essentially the story of an intelligent, independent woman Alexandra Bergson and her family living on the Nebraska frontier with Swedish, Czech, Bohemian, and French immigrants.  There is a lyricism to the prose and novel included a story that was a separate tragedy of fate not being aligned with hearts.  The novel was more compelling than expected-the only previous Cather book I've read was One of Ours, which I read as an undergraduate student more than 20 years ago.

Seattle (Winter 2019)

The impressive Rem Koolhaas Seattle Public Library downtown.

Downtown Fifth Avenue.

My brother introduced me to a nice new local craft beer stop, The Growler Guys, in Lake City.

Some memorabilia put out for my 50th birthday party hosted at my brother's house. It's my 50th birthday year and I won't be in the US during March so I started celebrating early with a family dinner in Spokane and this party in Seattle with friends and my brother's family.

Lunch at Saffron, an Indian restaurant at Northgate, with my Aunt Patsy and my brother.

In Flight Films (Tokyo Bound)

The 15:17 To Paris (2018) directed by Clint Eastwood is something of an anomaly. It a bio pic based on true-life events where three Americans stopped a terrorist attack on a train in Europe. Someone thought it was a good idea to cast the real life heroes in the film. Their amateur status as actors is glaring. The earlier scenes with child actors were much more effective.

I suppose a flight is the only context in which I would sit through The Incredibles 2 (2018). Brad Bird is obviously talented, but it is clearly targeted for "the whole family"...

The HBO documentary Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind (2018) by Marina Zenovich was entertaining and a fitting tribute to a manic comedic performer and acting giant of the of the last 40 years.

I'm not a huge fan of superhero movies, but if I'm going to watch one I prefer to see one that doesn't take itself so seriously like Deadpool 2 (2018).

Perhaps the best film I saw on this voyage was On Chesil Beach (2017) an adaptation of an Ian McEwan novel starring Billy Howle and Saoirse Ronan about a young couple who finds their idyllic romance colliding with issues of sexual freedom and societal pressure that results in an awkward and fateful wedding night.

ReMastered (TV Series)

There's another compelling docu-series on Netflix these days-ReMastered (2018), which focuses on musicians and controversial events related to them. For example, the first episode, "Who Shot the Sheriff?" is about the 1976 attempted assassination of Bob Marley. The second episode, "Tricky Dick and the Man in Black", is about the relationship between Johnny Cash and Richard Nixon who was attempting to use Cash to secure the southern vote as Cash increasingly became anti-Vietnam war and in opposition to Nixon's policies despite his earlier support for Nixon. In the third episode, "Who Killed Jam Master jay?", is about the unsolved murder of Run DMC DJ Jam Master Jay who was killed in 2002. The fourth episode, "Massacre at the Stadium", examines the grim 1973 death of Chilean folk singer-activist Victor Jara, as well as the complex circumstances that emerged from the despotic Pinochet regime. The latest episode, "The Two Killings of Sam Cooke", which examines the murder of Sam Cooke in 1964 and suggests that his business organizing of the music industry and his emergence as a civil right advocate may have made him a target. Not sure if there are more episodes in the making, but ,yet, another fascinating series from Nextflix.

Sleepy Eyes Of Death (1): The Chinese Jade

Sleepy Eyes Of Death: The Chinese Jade (1963) is another film series based on a series of novels starring the idol Raizo Ichikawa and directed by Zatoichi veteran director Tokuzo Tanaka. There are many similarities between Zatoichi and Nemuri Kyoshiro (Ichikawa) in that both men are loners and wanderers who seem to rack up impressive body counts when they encounter trouble. In this installment-he is involved in a love triangle and intrigue centered around the Kaga clan of Kanazawa. The intrigue involves the hunt for a jade statue that holds the key to bringing about the end of the Kaga fief and its ruler Lord Maeda. Kyoshiro forms an uneasy truce with Chen Sun, played by Tomisaburo Wakayama, a 13th descendant of Chen Gen-Ping, a Chinese practitioner of kung fu who traveled to Japan during the Tensho Era and helped to establish Shorinji Kempo. Samurais dispatching ninjas is always fun, but I don't think Ichikawa is as charismatic as Shintaro Katsu, but I will probably watch the whole series anyway.