113 A Man Vanishes

[Peacock]

Basically Oshima discusses the negative influence the film could potentially have, as many people were solely discussing its technique; he goes on to argue that Imamura began making the film as a documentary, and that partly as a result the film has barely any theme - that Imamura began the film hoping to find the theme along the way, and when he realized this wouldn't happen, he went straight into fiction and ended the film with the idea "I don't understand the truth", which Oshima argues isn't a theme nor is it anything worth making a film about; he says the only thing good about the film is that it is charming in its attempt to find a theme within itself. Sorry if this is all very messy, you'll be able to read it yourself soon, in the book I have it takes up three large pages, so it'll make more sense once read in full!

I haven't seen this film yet btw and despite Oshima's criticisms, it still sounds very interesting.. can't wait for this release!

[knives]

Maybe I'm just easily charmed, but having the theme being more or less finding one is really interesting sounding to me.

[zedz]

I'll look forward to reading the piece, but it sounds like this criticism points up some of the important differences between Oshima's and Imamura's film practice, since Oshima's filmmaking approach is so overwhelmingly driven by the theme / subject of a specific project that he tends to reinvent his filmmaking approach accordingly from film to film. It's very hard to imagine Oshima embarking on a film without having a crystal clear idea beforehand of what he wants to say and how he wants to say it, whereas Imamura's approach seems to me much more settled in his established style and exploratory, which is how you can end up with an amazing one-of-a-kind film like A Man Vanishes.

[evillights]

Peacock's synopsis is pretty accurate; zedz's inference is pretty on-target.

The film speaks for itself, and the Ôshima piece is included as a constructive thought-piece. It's up to the viewer to decide which sensibility they lean toward personally. My guess is that most viewers will tend sympathetic toward the Imamura side of the equation. The nearest correlative would be the debate between Antonioni and Luigi Chiarini that we reprinted in the booklet for LA SIGNORA SENZA CAMELIE. In this instance, there's no response from Imamura, but, again — the film speaks for itself.

[Documaniaque]

This is a little off-topic, but anyone in Paris next week might be interested to know a small cinema is showing 3 of his rarer 70's documentaries: Karayuki-san, the Making of a Prostitute (1973), Mikikanhei o otte or En suivant ces soldats qui ne sont pas revenus - N°2: La Thaïlande (1971) and Muhomatsu kokyo e kaeru or La brute revient au pays natal (1973).

According to this blog they're all coming out on (French) DVD in Spring 2012.

Their edition of A Man Vanishes coming out this Nov. also has another of his documentaries as a bonus: Bubuan no Kaizoku or Les Pirates de Bubuan (1972)

[fred]

This is a little off-topic

Maybe off-topic, but fantastic news! I can't help but be greedy though and hope that History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess will also finally get a proper video release.

[Documaniaque]

This is a little off-topic

Maybe off-topic, but fantastic news! I can't help but be greedy though and hope that History of Postwar Japan as Told by a Bar Hostess will also finally get a proper video release.

That's also at the top of my wish list, and I'm surprised it's not being released in lieu of the the other ones, which are less well known than History.

Saw Karayuki-san yesterday; it was most excellent. Not as aesthetically refined as History (made in color for TV, with a pretty wobbly hand-held camera at that), but still fascinating and moving. About kidnapped Japanese women sent all over Asia as "Japanese export products" and forced into prostitution, with some degree of official complicity, in the 1910s.

[Michael Kerpan]

About kidnapped Japanese women sent all over Asia as "Japanese export products" and forced into prostitution, with some degree of official complicity, in the 1910s.

Naruse clearly invokes this form of "trade" (without explanation, presuming his audience would know about it, I assume) in his Apart From You, where the individual is "selling herself" (under compulsion of circumstances)rather than being kidnapped.

[manicsounds]

review at dvdverdict but not a really enlightening one...

[Hail_Cesar]

I saw this film a month ago in an Art theater guild retrospective and they did talked about Oshima's reception of it which was extremely negative. He was angry about the non-ethic way to make film. I don't know what is written in the MoC booklet but if I correctly remember, the ATG specialist said the film was intended to be a documentary but Imamura felt the film was going nowhere and decided to fall into fiction without telling the wife at first. When the film was released distributed by ATG it became extremely popular because of the critics of Oshima and the wife sued Imamura so Nikkatsu took the distribution so it would get a wider audience...

[otis]

Beaver

[MichaelB]

Beaver

Shame they couldn't afford Tony Rayns and had to make do with Toby Rains instead. Is he related to Claude?

[otis]

I wondered the same thing!

[Finch]

To be fair to Eric Cotenas, that's probably a one-off spelling mistake while Gary's writing is regularly filled with spelling and grammatical errors, sometimes to the point of making sentences unintelligible.

[otis]

Oh absolutely! I didn't mean to take the piss (which is why I didn't mention it with the link), but, as Michael noted, the Claude Rains connection made it amusing (rather than unintelligible, as Gary can indeed be).

[Matango]

Not a one-off, as "Toby" is in there twice.

[Graham]

Extremely minor 'complaint', but I do wish he would learn about paragraphing as I can never be bothered to read a huge chunk of text.

[Ozu Teapot]

My copy of A Man Vanishes arrived today in the post!

Hopefully The Ballad of Narayama won't be too far behind and I can have an Imamura weekend!

[Cash Flagg]

Amazon informed me that they are still awaiting stock, and as a result my estimated arrival date is now between 11/29 and 12/13.

[knives]

Hopefully it means that they're awaiting more stock meaning that it's selling better than expected.

[frankiecrisp]

HMV are also waiting for stock of A Man Vanishes and The Ballad of Narayama but you never get MOC titles on release day from HMV even if you pre-order.

[Forrest Taft]

you never get MOC titles on release day from HMV even if you pre-order.

If only there was a way to pre-order MoC titles directly from Eureka. Then this wouldn't be a problem. :-"

[frankiecrisp]

you never get MOC titles on release day from HMV even if you pre-order.

If only there was a way to pre-order MoC titles directly from Eureka. Then this wouldn't be a problem.

Just a decent distribution dept to get titles to retailers on release date would do. A top company for product but the distribution dept lets them down.

[jbaart]

you never get MOC titles on release day from HMV even if you pre-order.

If only there was a way to pre-order MoC titles directly from Eureka. Then this wouldn't be a problem.

Doesn't help as I was forced to pre-order the Touch of Evil steel from HMV

Having said that, neither of the two imminent releases have shown up yet over here in Germany, despite ordering from MoC. Just a matter of mere days though I hope

[perkizitore]

HMV are also waiting for stock of A Man Vanishes and The Ballad of Narayama but you never get MOC titles on release day from HMV even if you pre-order.

That is not true, I remember getting the Metropolis steelbook earlier than the release date.