i admit, i know nothing about japanese movies, and am starting from scratch, but it serves as my only remote window into japan from nyc - a companion piece to learning any language, i think.so, to answer the burning question that naturally follows.... no, i don't count "Fast and the Furious 2: Tokyo Drift" as a Japanese film.
To answer the OTHER question, no, I can't understand a word. (occasionally catching a "konnichiwa," is nothing to brag about, i'm sure).
so far my film fest has included the story of a cursed and evil newspaper (Yogen (Premonition), 2004, above), and a sad family with a dead son (Aruitemo Aruitemo (Still Walking), 2008, below).
currently the thematic breakdown of the available japanese-cable-on demand-movies:
monsters 2
assasins/revenge 3
war/ninjas 2
murder/killers 2
family drama 1
student drama 1
(please note: the family drama? -- about death. the student drama? about making a movie about, you guessed it, death.)
what's with all the death? what is time warner trying to tell me? can this really be an accurate representation of japanese cinematic themes? who's running the cultural show over there: Bauhaus? Marilyn Manson? i understand that at this particular moment, my choices for this 'fest' are dictated by the choices offered by Time Warner Cable, because i am just too lazy, at the moment, to leave my house. but either Cable has an incredibly sick sense of humor, or the japanese film audience is incredibly morbid. who's to blame?
any suggestions are welcome.
(side note: i loved "Still Walking" 2008)
You're right, there are tons of Japanese movies about death across the whole spectrum of good-bad, funny-horrifying-- but I wouldn't call this "morbid", at least not from a Japanese perspective. But I would venture that death:Japan::romance:America (not to say that Americans aren't intrigued by death and Japanese don't love a little love)... hmmm... maybe that is a little morbid!
ReplyDeleteOh my so many good Japanese movies from the olden days. Cruel Story of Youth is awesome. Tokyo Story is classic. Anything Ozu is pretty good, though often there's no dialogue so not helpful with your linguistic studies. xx
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