Shinji Somai

[Michael Kerpan]

I watched the 4K version of Typhoon Club (down-converted to our venerable plasma TV) and was stunned by how fantastic this looked. The colors were wonderful (looking "unnatural" only when presumably intended). I don't think I've ever seen a bigger upgrade (over the very poor long-ago Japanese DVD release). The interview with Kiyoshi Kurosawa was a nice extra. Eventually I will look at the included BluRay to see if it looks different. Very much looking forward to CG's release of Moving.

[feihong]

The Third Window disc of Luminous Woman looks very, very close to the Japanese disc––which was exceptionally high-quality. The grain seems marginally more noticeable than on the Japanese disc––the contrast looks a little different from what I remember. I'll have to do some comparisons here, too. But this is a really great way to see this movie, as it was initially presented upon theatrical release.

The deleted scenes are not made into an extended cut of the film––I think this is an option I just haven't found on the Kadokawa disc?––but are rather subtitled and given cards describing the gist each scene before it plays. I have seen the cut of the film with the deleted scenes incorporated into the film. Though virtually all of them are without sound, I still found that including them improved the experience. The film is much longer and slower as a result, but the things the film is getting at thematically are far, far clearer, and the gravity of the experience is much more impactful. That said, this still isn't one of Somai's more cohesive films––though I think it's fascinating. Somai and Yozo Tanaka are reaching here for a kind of "back to nature" parable that is always dipping into myth and popular culture for vivid allusions. I think the movie sort of eludes their grasp, even though some elements work especially well.

There is a note by Somai that finally explains these copious deleted scenes. Somai says he shot the later Hokkaido scenes first, in a more realistic style, and then once he developed a more stylized view of the Tokyo sections of the film, he felt they didn't work together. He also mentions twice that pacing and runtime was a big factor in the excisions. He apparently wanted to cut the scenes of Sensaku's Hokkaido girlfriend, Kuriko, because it would be "too explanatory." He felt she didn't need to appear much in the film. He quotes an assistant who told him a film would be boring if everything in it were explained.

The problem, for me, is that in the theatrical cut, with very little explanation of the movements of the characters, of the motivations for their actions, there's a certain obtuseness that gets in the way of enjoying the picture. And there's a sense, I think, that some of the thematic ideas in the film are things we have to actually experience, or go through with the characters, before they have much meaning. We're told Sensaku is looking for his girlfriend, wants to restore his dying village in Hokkaido, but we hardly see the village in the theatrical version. The extended scenes add meaning to Sensaku's restoration quest, and seeing Sensaku labor to restore vitality to his village makes his return to the city feel more resonant. He's grown in the time when he returns to the village, and when we don't see it in the theatrical cut, it doesn't seem as if he has grown when he returns, in anything but a superficial way.

Whatever. I don't think anyone is about to claim it's one of Somai's best. It seems a lot like material Tanaka especially has been digesting for a long while––but it doesn't really feel like the high culture/urbanity versus country virtue theme really works. Monday Michiru is pretty wonderful in it, and there are a lot of large-scale scenes which are really interesting. It's an intriguing film––I think it worked like a panic brake on both Somai and Tanaka's careers. Tokyo Heaven, Somai's film following this, is far more complete-feeling and rewarding. But it is fascinating.

[Michael Kerpan]

feihong -- Kiyoshi Kurosawa, in his interview on the Typhoon Club disc, mentions several (considerably) longer versions of early Somai films. He said that HE felt these versions felt "more balanced".

[thethinwhiteduke]

These were visible in the theatrical screening as well, but they weren't present on the Third Window disc. I'll look closer at the disc, but I wouldn't be surprised, in spite of what that guy said who showed up on this thread just to defend the Third Window disc, if there hadn't been noise reduction applied to the Third Window disc that made it look as bad as it did.

I'm not sure where I defended their disc, I only said that your claims of DNR'ing were pretty dubious/speculative claims (you just have a lot of incorrect information, such as Odessa being the rightsholder, etc.). And the DNR claim is something you pivoted to once I clarified that the restoration was from the same source as the Cinema Guild one.

With restorations, you can't simply go in and "rectify" a restoration as you see fit once you license it from a Japanese company (or any company for that matter) by DNR'ing it to oblivion. It's just like how you can't re-color grade a new restoration. I don't think the Third Window looks very good at all, but to automatically assume they DNR'd it is what I'm quite skeptical of. I guess it's worth asking him on blu-ray.com, but to me the difference in presentation quality can be chocked up to a lot of factors, and, other than blu-ray compression, another factor could just be Third Window only asked for a 1080p Encode of the 4K from Japan since they were never going to release on 4K or in theaters, etc.

I found having to constantly explain these things tiresome, so I sort of lost interest. The chatter on these forums can be very ill-informed.

[feihong]

feihong -- Kiyoshi Kurosawa, in his interview on the Typhoon Club disc, mentions several (considerably) longer versions of early Somai films. He said that HE felt these versions felt "more balanced".

The longer Sailor Suit Schoolgirl with a Machine Gun cut plays a bit better, doesn't it? I kind of felt that. There are some scenes in the trailer for Lost Chapter: Passion in Snow that seem like they could be really meaningful, but which don't make it into the final cut. I guess, when I think about it, I don't know a film of Somai's that feels as unresolved as Luminous Woman, though, and maybe that's why that footage still feels relevant and interesting.

[Michael Kerpan]

I agree on Sailor Suit -- the longer cut felt more "devastating". Pretty subversive for something that was presumably supposed to be a mostly light-hearted idol film (in the eyes of the studio, at least). KK (in his TC interview) is a huge fan of Lost Chapter (esp its longer version) but says he has no idea what it "means".

[andyli]

New American poster for the upcoming 4k restoration of Moving. I like the design, bold and fitting the theme of this film. Cinema Guild retweeted this; maybe they’ll use it for their eventual blu-ray as well.

[Michael Kerpan]

Cute poster. I can't wait for the Blu-Ray!

[therewillbeblus]

Really surprised P.P. Rider isn’t being prioritized given how much fun it is, but Cinema Guild pumping these out is great. I hope they sell well enough so we can get that gem

[feihong]

Somehow those are dead-on portraits of the parents in Moving, I feel.

[Red Screamer]

Caught up with Moving last night and loved it. It’s emotionally devastating even as it delights with comedy and stylistic gambits. Part of what makes Somai’s vision of youth so effective (on the basis or this and Typhoon Club, the only other one I’ve seen so far) is similar to what I said about Janet Planet’s suspension of tone in that film’s dedicated thread, in that his reversals and wacky combinations of tone resemble the overflow of emotions and abnormal (meaning un-adultlike) responses of a child in situations they’re not yet sure how to respond to. Renko’s moments of unflappability can be just as surprising and disturbing as when she spirals out of control.

I love how Somai’s style in these two films is highly choreographed but remains grounded in quotidian life, with plenty of fascinating loose ends of real human behavior and environmental details. The film begins and ends on two very impressive danse-like long takes in totally different registers: the first a naturalistic dinner scene introducing us to the family dynamic, the last an ironic music video esque frolic through a symbolic mental landscape. Both have an excellent sense of rhythm and escalation, qualities that our current generation of long take enthusiasts often seems to forget. As with Typhoon Club, Somai’s desire to always be shape-shifting can leave the film with a pretty unwieldy structure or trajectory, and I wonder if these films might flow better during reviewings. Which, considering how refreshing and surprising they were on first encounter, I’ll be happy to indulge in when I get the opportunity.

EDIT: Funny to find twbblus mentioning Licorice Pizza earlier in this thread for a different Somai, since I wondered if that film could have taken its running motif from this one!

[Michael Kerpan]

Red Screamer -- Glad you liked Moving -- one of my favorite "modern" movies about children. I have always felt that this film is tied in some vague fashion to the Ghibli films (both Miyazaki and Takhata, but perhaps more the latter) coming both before it AND after it (especially Spirited Away) -- and is the closest thing out there to approximate a live-action Studio Ghibli film.

[diamonds]

The Friends 4K restoration trailer

[Michael Kerpan]

That's a lovely (but very bittersweet) little film,

[Finch]

Thank you for sharing the trailer. I hadn't heard of the film before and now I'm desperate to see it. Maybe a Blu-ray is still going to come out before 2025 is over.

[dadaistnun]

I watched Moving on Criterion Channel a few nights ago and was just knocked out by it, one of the best films I’ve seen in a while. Found it incredibly moving (sorry) and very relatable despite neither having divorced parents or being divorced myself. A great film about both childhood and the acceptance of the melancholic feeling that while happiness can indeed be fleeting it’s imperative to hold those moments, and memories of those moments, close. One of those movies I want to tell nearly everyone I know to see.

[Michael Kerpan]

I have been shilling for Moving for well over 20 years. It is such a wonderful movie -- in every respect. Tomoko Tabata (12 or so when it was filmed) was just incredible. Interestingly, despite her auspicious debut, she dedicated most of the next 10 or so years to finishing her education -- returning to acting on a regular basis only after that.

[diamonds]

Tabata did a brief interview on the occasion of the Moving revival a year ago. It sounds like it was a very tough shoot, and I can certainly imagine why she would've wanted a break from acting after the experience. But, contrary to the judgment she gives of her performance, I don't think she has anything to be embarrassed about in the finished film. One of the the most remarkable child performances in cinema.

[Michael Kerpan]

Tabata's performance was fantastic, pretty much equal to Aoi Miyazaki's performance in Eureka. Totally "real" feeling -- and compelling. Too bad she doesn't recognize the extent of her accomplishment.

[andyli]

In addition to Typhoon Club, Moving, and The Friends, two more Somai films have been restored in 4K and are showing in Japan: P. P. Rider and Umbrella Flower.

[Lowry_Sam]

The Friends 4K restoration trailer

Restored by Ritrovata?

[Calvin]

In addition to Typhoon Club, Moving, and The Friends, two more Somai films have been restored in 4K and are showing in Japan: P. P. Rider and Umbrella Flower.

Any source for this? Kaza Hana being restored would be very exciting news

[feihong]

The Friends 4K restoration trailer

Restored by Ritrovata?

To be fair, this film has always looked very yellow.

[andyli]

In addition to Typhoon Club, Moving, and The Friends, two more Somai films have been restored in 4K and are showing in Japan: P. P. Rider and Umbrella Flower.

Any source for this? Kaza Hana being restored would be very exciting news

It's reported on Kinema Junpo Web.

[feihong]

When I saw Typhoon Club and P.P. Rider in Westwood two years ago, the theater made the claim outside that both films had been restored.

I have the sneaking suspicion that Typhoon Club didn't sell great, and that rather than go further down the path of 80s Somai, the postmodern, surreal anarchist, they went for the easier sell of 90s Somai, the grudging sentimentalist. Moving, The Friends, Kaza-Hana, and Wait and See are the films that move that way, to my mind. I think in those movies you can see Somai chasing a changing mainstream audience, making movies that are on the whole more realist. If you ask me, he seems deflated in this part of his career, and while the movies are still pretty good, they feel, to me at least, less unique, less venturesome, more conformist in their bent. And Somai's storytelling in these later films trends towards the glum and conventionally soulful; people come to terms with life and death, with family being not what they might have hoped it would be, etc. Most painfully for me, Somai seems no longer to believe in the imagination's ability to move outside the reaches of everyday compromise––something he always seemed to feel in the bracing, less tidy, sometimes much more pessimistic movies of the 80s. After Tokyo Heaven, Somai's signature visual indicator of the transgressive desires of his characters–the way in which they trespass over, under, and through public spaces clearly meant for other purposes, gets fit more and more tightly into plausible spaces within the dramas. The last really surreal transgressive flareup in his movies is probably the fire Renko starts in the chemistry lab in Moving. Afterwards, these visual transgressions start having more and more diegetic plausibility attached to them. There is less room to dream, and when Yuu shivers with love for Fumio inside the rainy car at the end of Tokyo Heaven, it might be the last moment dreaming and longing are profitably joined in a Somai picture. Whereas the dream at the end of Moving is a funeral for childhood, ushering Renko into an adult world she isn't possibly ready for, and the audience is by that point no longer invited to dream with the characters––from there on out we are watching the fallout of failed dreams on painful lives––it is a little ironic, I think, that the last character Somai invites the audience to dream with and for is a dead girl, and after that, we are as viewers fully alienated from any later dreams of the characters we'll watch. And the 90s films really do away with the messiness of earlier Somai pictures, the way the director would so happily select a take where the camera framing or movement was imperfect so long as the acting was at its most inspired. The 90s films look much, much slicker, with cinematography that feels way more precise and showy, and often more conventional. It's a step down that moves from transcendant and unique to well-crafted and accessible––although Somai's movies were plenty accessible in Japan in the 80s––at least until Luminous Woman.

Of the 80s films, P.P. Rider is the defining picture, the most extreme exponent of unsentimental whimsy and surreal gamesmanship, the least tidy-seeming film––the one which most eschews the qualities of the "well-made" film in terms of narrative continuity, linear development of story and character, even just the idea of a narrative focus. It takes surrealist ideas of trespass between screen and viewer Somai has toyed with in The Terrible Couple and Sailor Suit Schoolgirl with a Machine Gun and explodes them outwards into a film made only of transgressions. No scene plays the way you'd expect it to, surprise flowering from small details––like the way Debu is captured implausibly with a butterfly net to the way the trio of children escape the cops by taking over a boat plowing through a nearby canal, to the ultimate action of the film, the terrifying Rube-Goldberg-ian invention––a product of wild children colluding finally with an increasingly transgressing adult, which yanks one of the kidnappers out of his safe house and murders him, dangling his corpse by the ankle from a telephone pole. The film's transgressions of public space are the largest and most affecting in Somai's filmography, including the yakuza shootout where the children run furiously between the guns on a logjam, slipping and sliding without doubles into the water, finding their way up again, in a single, harrowing take, and the touching scene in the rocket ride at a public park in the rain, where the children sing with Mr. Nobody and scream a touching goodbye to him. P.P. Rider is the Rosetta Stone for Somai's 80s output as well, teaching us how to read every conceit of Somai's style of the era, from the absurdly long takes to the way he films the shapes people make as they play a game with one another, or sing a song together. And the film pushes Somai's seriocomic pessimism to its apex, and it centers Somai's driving theme of the era––that the adult world is one of compromise, a pale imitation of the riot of childhood that no self-respecting child wants anything to do with. The tragedies that fill Somai's movies of the 80s are all about encounters with that adult world––the way Bruce gets her period in mid-adventure, and the way Mr. Nobody shows up at the end to save the children, in his grotesque imitation of childhood, and delivers the cold, hard murder that brings the house down prefigure the fear of adulthood that drives Mikami to suicide in Typhoon Club, the frustrated compromises of the would-be couple in Love Hotel, or the way a loving adult murdering her school rival to protect her takes away the last of Natsuki's diminished and strangled childhood in Lost Chapter: Passion in Snow. So P.P. Rider is an extremely useful film in figuring out Somai. And it's playful, fun, hilarious, and full of fascinating filmmaking.

Only problem? It's also the exact kind of experimental, intellectual movie the generic art-film lover in the U.S. likes the least, full of distanciating surrealism (like when the children all change clothes and give each other haircuts in an attempt to negate Bruce's burgeoning womanhood as a discriminating factor distinguishing them from each other). It does not track for the mainstream art-film crowd in the way a sentimental story about divorce does, or a movie about children bugging an old man so they can learn about death and appreciate life does, or a film about a disgraced salaryman and a disgraced prostitute on a journey to double-suicide or romantic redemption does (who knows if they will try and release Wait and See, the least of Somai's 90s movies). The premise of the children's ever-mutating quest in P.P. Rider is tiny, dwarfed by comparison with the events of the movie itself, and that kind of deliberate discordance is not generally that appreciated by viewers. For too many Criterion fans, even, art movies are pretty and flattering to their audiences' seriousness and self-regard––experiences that still must put the viewer through something, just put them through something more sophisticated than a Hollywood blockbuster. But the mechanism of Hollywood's effect on the viewer still has to obtain. The movie can be sad––in lots of cases viewers feel it should be sad. But that sadness has to have the right tone to it, the one we've all been trained to expect. And P.P. Rider doesn't do any of these things. Oftentimes it presents material that is portrayed in ways that deliberately undercut our trained identification with this sort of scene or that one––something Somai seems to have inherited from the collaborators he shared with Seijun Suzuki (including his mentor Chusei Sone and his frequent screenwriter Yozo Tanaka). It forces the viewer to think hard about what they're seeing, and the movie doesn't yield any easy feelings of closure.

In Japan, though, it screened as a comedy. I have a poster of it showing on a double-bill with Ursei Yatsura: Only You. Nevertheless, I have the feeling that for all these reasons, P.P. Rider may have been too thorny a proposition for Cinema Guild to try and release on home video. It screened opposite Typhoon Club when I saw them, but they were sold as separate screenings. It's been a year since Typhoon Club came out on 4k and blu ray, and Moving seems to be finding its way everywhere, and they seem to be charging forth with the other 90s pictures. I'll be overjoyed if they end up releasing a 4k or a bluray of P.P. Rider, but I've lost all confidence that Cinema Guild plans to do it.