Shinoda Masahiro on DVD

[yoshimori]

cdjapan now lists three Shinoda Masahiro films, all to be released on April 28, each with English subtitles. They are:

Shokei no shima [Captive's Island] (1966)
Chinmoku [Silence] (1971)
Shonen jidai [Childhood Days] (1990)

I've seen 6 Shinoda films (and liked 3 of them) but haven't seen any of these. Comments?

And 4 more Shinodas, each with English subs, for May 27:

Buraikan (1970)
Kaseki no mori [The Petrified Forest] (1973)
Sakura no mori no mankai no shita [Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees] (1975)
Hanre Goze Orin [Ballad of Orin] (1977)

Anyone know these films?

[Subbuteo]

Can't believe no one has leaped on this post in the last two days. I haven't seen any of these but I know the film music for a couple of them and think these releases are HOT NEWS

Comments on the films anyone!

[Steven H]

Going purely on Double Suicide and Pale Flower (I have the Panorama With Beauty and Sorrow on the way though), I'm very excited about these releases. The price is a little foreboding, but I'll certainly try and purchase as many as possible.

Buraikan (or The Scandalous Adventures of Buraikan) written by Shuji Terayama and starring Tatsuya Nakadai means I'm already sold.

Synopsis of Ballad of Orin (sans spoiler ending) on imdb.com:

Orin, a blind traveling musician who is expected to remain celebate, is sexually violated and is expelled from her group. An outcast, she ultimately links up with a young man who is opposed to Japanese militarism. Although she is "available" to him, he will not take advantage of her, as he resists a culture where hypocrisy reigns and where women (and men, also) are expected to yield to superior force.

Also, for the title alone Under The Blossoming Cherry Trees...

thanks for the update.

[feihong]

I have the VCD of "Under the Cherry Blossoms." A veeeery interesting looking movie, with a stunning, commanding performance by Shima Iwashita. Buraikan is one of Shinoda's most acclaimed films, and it looks very interesting, too.

[peerpee]

The MoC Series (UK) will release Shinoda's ASSASSINATION later this year.

[Steven H]

The MoC Series (UK) will release Shinoda's ASSASSINATION later this year.

Great news. Any favorites among the upcoming Japanese Shinoda titles, Nick?

[Pinback]

The MoC Series (UK) will release Shinoda's ASSASSINATION later this year.

Very very exciting. I assume this is the only Shinoda coming from MoC as part of the Japanese Summer. Any chance of spilling the spine number of Assassination?

[peerpee]

#20

[Lino]

So, does that mean that #19 will be Pale Flower?

[Pinback]

So, does that mean that #19 will be Pale Flower?

I'd bet on #18 and #19 being Keisuke Kinoshita films...

[Steven H]

Slightly off topic, but I just got Panorama's With Beauty and Sorrow today. Brilliant film, but this DVD is awful. It's way too bright with horrible colors and no clarity of image. I can't find any information on it's specific OAR, but I *know* it's cropped, just not from what. Avoid unless you're an avid fan (like me...) very little of the visual genius shines through. Hopefully a better edition will crop up soon.

[yoshimori]

There's an r2j (dual-layered, anamorphic) of With Beauty and Sorrow. If you've got the time and know-how you might be able fit the Panorama (yes, it's image is horrible) subs onto the Japanese disc. btw, I haven't seen the Japanese disc but I'm guessing it's significantly better. Anyone know for sure?

[yoshimori]

Aside: There's a Kohei Oguri box set now listed at cdjapan. It has all four of his films: Muddy River, Kayako no tameni, Sting of Death, and Sleeping Man. Unfortunately, no sign of English subs. Dang!

KOHEI OGURI BOX

[Michael Kerpan]

Oguri's "Sting of Death" is an absolutely _dreadful_ film. I have the Panorama DVD -- and can't even bring myself to finish this. (I skipped through to the end -- and it didn't seem to get sany better). Some nice cinematography, though. ;~}

MEK

[shirobamba]

There's a Kohei Oguri box set now listed at cdjapan. It has all four of his films: Muddy River, Kayako no tameni, Sting of Death, and Sleeping Man. Unfortunately, no sign of English subs. Dang!

No subs! (Sigh!) This would have made my month, at least. But perhaps, if we keep our fingers crossed, the edition details are not fully up...?

Oguri's "Sting of Death" is an absolutely _dreadful_ film. I have the Panorama DVD -- and can't even bring myself to finish this. (I skipped through to the end -- and it didn't seem to get sany better). Some nice cinematography, though.

Seems, that neither New Wave, nor New School do very much for you. During the last 7 days, you discarded two masterpieces: Hani�s Inferno, and now Oguri�s Sting. I looked around, if Oguri has said anything, that sheds light on his origins, and especially his relationship to the old Japanese masters. And - Eureka! - this is what I found:

(This critical text was written for Oguri�s "Sleeping Man", but I think the main line of argument applies to "Sting of Death" as well.

In Search of a Uniquely Japanese Technique

Film was born about a century ago in Europe, in a way of looking at things that drew mainly on the traditions of western culture, and carrying the weight of the modern rationalism and humanism that most influenced the thought of that time. Films were thus conceived in correspondence to a human scale, and a story would develop in terms of the conversation exchanged among the characters in it.

What Oguri tells us, however, is that perhaps in Japan, with its different cultural roots, there is a completely different way in which it can be done. Looking in the past for filmmakers who have searched for such a way, one finds the names of Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi.

While in an Ozu film the story does move through conversation, says Oguri, there is not much emotional movement or uplift that comes from it. The conversation does nothing more than hover at the surface while the two people in it maintain their own separate worlds. Thus Ozu was able to make film after film on essentially the same story, and what is important is what sort of contemplative world can be constructed.

Mizoguchi, on the other hand, sought in camera work something unique in Japan. His technique, moving in one sweep out of a house into the garden, beyond that into the landscape beyond and back, would never have occurred to European filmmakers who considered interiors and exteriors as two different worlds. Oguri explains that it was because of this technique that Mizoguchi was able to capture the emotion of the classical Japanese heroine so wonderfully.

"This technique influenced foreign filmmakers," he says. "You can see it in the way people like the Greek director Theo Angelopoulos will have a setting change a hundred years with one long camera pan. But the reason he doesn't handle inside to outside the way Mizoguchi does lies in modern Greek history. I think how you seek out an individual way of doing things is the task of a filmmaker."

But leaving aside the quests of Ozu and Mizoguchi, how does one portray our own era, Japan of the late 20th century? Oguri searched for his own approach, and the result is SLEEPING MAN, in which the conversation does not have one particular direction, and in which the line of the camera is one that abandons a 'human point of view'.

An Oriental Sense of Life and Death

"It's been 50 years since the end of World War II," says Oguri. "The tempo of things has increased over the last century, and people now find themselves feeling short of breath from running to stay up with it. After the war Japan gave priority to economics as it set out to catch up and pass other countries, but now we find ourselves stopped dead both economically and politically. You can't use conventional methods to portray a time like this. I don't know where this film will lead, but I feel that it's a necessary first step."

The climax of the film, in a grove of trees in full leaf, is an outdoor noh drama performance. The play being one in which the dead speak to the living, symbolizes an Oriental feeling of life and death, and at the same time is a unique Japanese cultural expression of abstraction and stylization with six centuries of history.

"People say that Japanese today are completely cut off from the sense of life and death, and the sense of nature, that was formed from noh, but that's not true," he says. "While noh may be further from real life than film, it still holds its own ground!"

Perhaps this contributes a tiny bit to the understanding of the different value sets, that lead to completely different approaches in narration. To see every Japanese film through Ozu's glasses, might be misleading.
Ozu's main masterpieces portray the changes of the Japanese family during the 50s. They contain a very friendly (non-radical) form of social critique of the Japanese society. That's my over-all reading of his films. And, he found a perfect form to achieve this.

But then came the 60's social upheaval, which brought a radicalization of narrative techniques. The less secure "Japanese identities" became, the more shattered the narrative became as a consequence of a quest for new solutions. That�s what Hani & the New Wave stands for. (Remember, that parts of the script (the dream-sequences & the flashbacks & the pornographic photo-session, especially) of "Inferno" were written by Terayama Shuji, one of the most radical innovators of Japanese theatre & cinema of the 60s and 70s.

And now, Oguri is working in the 90s. He�s looking for new, fresh forms of narrating, and IMHO he�s one of the most successful director's in doing so.

Sorry, that this has developed into such a long one. And please forgive the clumsy expressions, it's not my mother-tongue.

[Michael Kerpan]

Thank you for the interesting quote from Oguri. What I think this shows is that he was part of a generation of Japanese film makers that almost completely misunderstood Ozu (and his colleagues). Reading what Oguri wrote, I can't imagine he had much first hand familiarity with Ozu's work (maybe a film here and a film there). Only with Shigehiko Hasumi's book on Ozu in the 1980s did Japanese scholars (and film students) begin to re-examine the cliches that Oguri voices in the passage you quoted.

Some of Ozu's films are quite harsh (and far from "contemplative") -- but perhaps most of Oguri's generation (except for Shinoda) was uninterested (or unaware) of films like "Hen in the Wind" and "Tokyo Twilight". -- not to mention his 30s work.

In any event, I don't see all of Japanese cinema through Ozu eyes -- I like some of Mizoguchi's films almost as much as I like Ozu's work -- and very much like the work of Naruse and Shimizu -- and some of Kurosawa -- and most Imamura (andf KItano and Shinoda...). ;~}

As I recall, Mark Schilling was not too enamored of Oguri's 1990s work either -- in his book on 90s Japanese cinema.

[yoshimori]

Oguri's "Sting of Death" is an absolutely _dreadful_ film. I have the Panorama DVD ...

Such are the mysteries of taste.

[The Panorama transfer, sadly, is subpar. Even for Panorama.]

[peerpee]

Did these come out? Anybody got them? Do they have English subtitles?

[yoshimori]

Yes. All (the 3+4) have English subs. Transfers look great to me.

Can't say I'm a big fan of Silence (from the Endo novel, dull), Under the Blossoming Cherry Tree (too arch, without the art, for my taste), Buraikan (ditto), Childhood Days (pretty pedestrian), or Petrified Forest.

Enjoyed Captive Island (something of a cross between Pale Flower and Battle Royale) and Ballad of Orin (the film matches the Takemitsu score, nice and eery, my favorite of these). To my eyes, all excellent transfers.

[kazantzakis]

"Captive's Island" features magnificent use of light and sound to embody its psychographies. The narrative is pretty banal but the mere photography and the soundtrack make this a memorable experience. It also features a score by Takemitsu, who seems to have scored half the Japanese film output of the period. The DVD looks great and the subtitles make sense. "Silence" is also a good DVD but I didnt care for the film.
That's about all I have seen yet.

[Steven H]

Watching through these I definitely *love* Ballad of Orin, Buraikan, and Childhood Days. Honestly, I fell asleep during Silence (not a signifier of like or dislike) and haven't watched Cherry Trees (saving the hypothetically "best" for last, though Ballad of Orin might take the cake.)

Ballad of Orin has gorgeous flattened out full screen color cinematography (similar to Shinoda's Himiko in this way) and Iwashita Shima is amazing. Buraikan also definitely stands out for me, I've watched it three times since getting it in the mail. Childhood Days was a big surprise, a confidently filmed (very minimal, natural sounds, "laid back" storytelling) kind of interesting to see it next to Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies or Ozu's Record of a Tenement Gentleman concerning the treatment of children in Japan during WWII (though this film takes a turn for political allegory in the urban vs. country children fights and jockeying.)

Petrified Forest was also a big surprise, but the ending fell apart for me. I would still call it a "good" film, and I really need to see it again... but it just didn't hit the mark I think it intended to.

All these films look great and are thoroughly subtitled. Highly recommended purchases (and a bargain at nearly $50 a piece... *cough*)

[kazantzakis]

I too fell asleep through "Silence". But "Ballad of Orin" was exceptional. Shinoda has a way of inserting the character element into magnficent landscape compositions that seems to carry a lot of the films' content. The trademark of dissonance of the Takemitsu scores coupled with Shinoda's inserts and abrupt editing are a perfect combination.

I was not too keen on Buraikan. I found it a bit over the top. Havent gotten to Petrified forest or the others yet.

[Steven H]

I was not too keen on Buraikan. I found it a bit over the top. Havent gotten to Petrified forest or the others yet.

I would say give it another shot. The first time I viewed it I felt the same, then I went back and reread some of the things Desser had to say about it and it opened it up for me (Eros Plus Massacre pg. 180-184.) This passage especially:

In the aborted revolution of the Tempo era, one is tempted to see a comparison to the student protests of the 60s. The humor of the film, dark though it is, offers up a vision of hope, of liberation, precisely by its outrageousness. In place of ideology, the film offers up instinct; in place of high culture it offers up popculture; in place of giri, it puts for ninjo, but ninjo without guilt, without the shinju of the traditional culture-- the ninjo of sex and violence, of politics, of youthful rebellion, of play. (italics his)

It's connections with Double Suicide and Shuji Terayama's themes really had me interested, plus Nakadai is a truly charismatic actor and his laconic gaze "anchored" the film somewhat. The scene at the end of his mother lying between him and Iwashita made me laugh out loud. It also seems strangely associated with Assassination (though the connection is bizarre, I'll give it some thought.)

[kazantzakis]

Thanks, Desser certainly seems onto something. Many of these socio-political threads appear quite frequently in Shinoda's work. Perhaps that's what a New Wave is all about afterall.

[Steven H]

Sakura no mori no mankai no shita (literal english translation, Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees) is probably my favorite of the seven films recently released on DVD in Japan, and I thought a review would be in order.

Shinoda worked for Shochiku with a few of the other Japanese new wavers (in my opinion, giants of cinema) before the exodus into a more independent filmmaking, and in some ways he's the most conservative of the bunch (which is to say, not very conservative at all). Written by the extremely controversial author Sakaguchi Ango (also wrote Imamura's The Eel, and the controversial essay "On Decadence") but to me this film didn't seem “politicallyâ€