Win Tickets to Toronto Screening of Beyond Anime: The Outer Limits

What: Beyond Anime: The Outer Limits (16 shorts)

When: July 15, 2012 at 6pm

Where: Revue Cinema, Toronto

This year’s Shinsedai Cinema Festival in Toronto is presenting an eclectic mix of animation by innovative young Japanese animators.  From the psychedelic visual assault of Yoshihiro Haku + Sachiko Hiraoka to the delicate visions of Sayaka Oku, Beyond Anime: The Outer Limits will take the audience on an adventure past the well trodden paths of anime to the farthest reaches of Japan’s animation landscape.  The programme was curated by Jasper Sharp of Midnight Eye and first presented at Zipangu Fest in London last fall.  The screening is being co-presented by the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.

Nishikata Film Review is giving away three double passes to this event.  To win, simply e-mail me at nishikataeiga(at)gmail by June 15, 2012 with the subject line “Beyond Anime” and the answer to this skill testing question:

Which animator in the Beyond Anime: The Outer Limits programme had his/her work featured on Nishikata Film Review in May?

a)  Mana Fujii

b)  KTOONZ

c)  Ryo Hirano

d)  Nasuka Saito

The correct answers will be put into a hat and three winners will be selected at random.  Good Luck!

Here is the full programme:

Syasou

 Ryu Furusawa 2008 2min

Ichigwankoku

 Ryo Hirano 2009 6min

Fantasy Girl

 Hanamushi (Akira Noyama) 2009 6min

Death of Phonebook

 Cinema Iloobia (Tim Grabham) 2011 2min

Stinky Winky 

KTOOONZ (Keiko Nakamura) 2002 2min

Requiem For Pioneer

 Yoshihiro Haku + Sachiko Hiraoka 2008 3min

Future Man

 Ryo Hirano 2008 7min

Doroningen

 Masahiro Osuka 2007 4min

Mizutamamoyo

 Ryu Furusawa 2006 5min

Enchanted Forest

 KTOOONZ (Keiko Nakamura) 1994 9min

A Labyrinth of Residence

 Nasuka Saito 2008 5min

TA-TA TOSY TiT

 Yoshihiro Haku + Sachiko Hiraoka 2009 5min

The Straw Girl and the Strange House

 Hanamushi (Akira Noyama) 2009 1min

Holiday

 Ryo Hirano 2011 14min

Melting Medama

 Sayaka Oku 2011 5min

The Last Train

 Mana Fujii 2008 3min

Interview with Akino Kondoh

I was delighted to have the opportunity to chat with artist, manga-ka, and animator Akino Kondoh at Shinsedai this year. Her 2004 painting Red Fishes was used as the eye-catching poster art for the festival, and her 2006 animation Ladybirds’ Requiem (Tentou Mushi no Otomurai, 2006) preceded Momoko Ando’s Kakera (2009) at the opening event.

Childhood influences

Kondoh was born into an artistic family. Her father and brother are both architects and her homemaker mother studied design at university. Kondoh was never particularly interested in television. Instead, she recalls enjoying having picture books read to her by her parents and being taken to museums. Kondoh also had little interest in popular manga as a child.  She did; however, discover Garo (ガロ, a monthly anthology magazine for avant-garde manga which ran from 1964-2002) when she was a junior high school student. Kondoh’s own manga art has been featured in alternative manga magazines and one of her striking images adorns the cover of the debut English language edition of AX: A Collection of Alternative Manga. This cover art had previously been used for volume 42 (2004) of the Japanese edition of AX (アックス).

Garo cover art

Kondoh cover art - order here

Insects

I have long been interested in the prevalence of insects in Japanese art and culture. Cicadas, for example, are always used as signifiers in movies to indicate that the setting is late summer. When my children were in hoikuen (nursery school) in Bunkyo-ku, they had a pet kabuto-mushi (Japanese rhinoceros beetle) in the same way that a Canadian Kindergarten might have a hamster. In Kondoh’s art insects like ladybirds (ladybugs in Canadian vernacular), butterflies, and insect larvae play an essential role. When I asked Kondoh about this she told me that insects have long been an object of fascination for her. She recalls playing with insects as a child, so it has been only natural that they have become a source of artistic inspiration in her work.

Introduction to art animation

While a student of graphic design at Tama Art University, Kondoh was introduced to animation in her second year of studies through assignment work. Her professor was Masashiro Katayama (b. 1955), who has enjoyed a long and successful career as an animator and illustrator (see my review of Winter Days, and Kawamoto’s Self Portrait). In her third year at Tamabi, Kondoh made The Evening Traveling (Densha kamoshiranai, 2002), her first animation short. The Evening Traveling won her awards at the Japan Media Arts Festival (2002), the Digista Awards (2002), and the third Yuri Norstein Grand Prix / Audience Award at Laputa Animation Festival.

The use of music in her animation

Kondoh and her brother became big fans of the band TAMA when they were teenagers. Through a fortunate series of events, Kondoh was able to develop a professional relationship with band member Toshiaku Chiku. Prof. Katayama often invited animator Tatautoshi Nomura of ROBOT (the company that employs Oscar-winner Kunio Kato) to guest lecture his class. Nomura is also a fan of TAMA and has often worked with the band for the soundtracks to his animations both as musicians and as seiyū (voice actors). Kondoh was able to get permission from Toshiaku Chiku to use his song Densha kamo shirenai for her film of the same name. (English title The Evening Traveling)  At first, Kondoh explained, Chiku was not really sure about her project, but when the film was a success and won awards at festivals, he agreed to compose an original score for Ladybirds’ Requiem.

 French edition of her manga

Elaborate vision, minimalist style

Akino Kondoh’s art carries us into a complex, dream-like world. Yet while the images she creates are highly detailed, at the same time she employs a very minimalist aesthetic. When creating the images for her animation films, she uses plain art paper. Her tools are graphite and marker. Her colour palette is predominantly black against a white background – as in The Evening Traveling which was entirely monochrome. Filler colours like grey or the brilliant reds of Ladybirds’ Requiem are done with markers. The images are then scanned and edited using Adobe Photoshop and After Effects for Macs.

Prolific artist with an eye for detail

Kondoh’s passion for her craft drives her to put in long hours at the canvas. While some artists prefer to work in the morning hours, or well into the night, Kondoh’s entire day revolves around her desire to keep on creating new work. At the same time, Kondoh is a perfectionist with very high standards. There are actually two versions of Ladybirds’ Requiem. The one that is floating around on various video streaming sites was done as a student work in 2003 and has a running time of 2’50”. Kondoh expressed a deep dissatisfaction with this work and so in 2005 she set out to remake the film. She started from scratch, drawing entirely new images for the animation which was eventually completed in 2006 with a running time of 5’38”. A limited edition DVD of the film (only 12 copies!) was released for sale to her representatives Mizuma Art Gallery and snapped up by high end art connoisseurs. It is this version of the film that played at Shinsedai and at Naomi Hocura’s Seconds Under the Sun screenings.

Kondoh’s fascination with contemporary art

Funding from Bunka-cho (the Agency for Cultural Affairs) allowed Kondoh to do a residency in New York City from November 2008 until October 2009. For that first year in New York she lived in Chelsea. She has now moved to Astoria and is supporting herself through her art. When I asked her “Why New York?”, she responded that she wanted to immerse herself in contemporary art and get exposure to the art community outside of Japan.

Kondoh’s depiction of Eiko, the young woman protagonist at the center of her work, has often reminded me of art deco influenced illustrations that I saw at the Yayoi Museum when I lived in Nishikata. I was also reminded of the unusual world of girls I had once seen at the Collection de l’art brut many years ago in Lausanne, Switzerland. When I described the work to Kondoh, she immediately put a name to the artist – Henry Darger. It turns out that Kondoh shares my interest in l’art brut or Outsider Art and she spoke enthusiastically about the Henry Darger collection at the American Folk Art Museum in New York, which is located near the MOMA.

Future Plans

I was impressed by Kondoh’s high ambitions and passion for her work. She dreams of showing her work all over the world. Among other projects she has currently on the go are collaborations with the New York avant-garde jazz musician John Zorn, for whom she designed the cover art for his CD The Goddess: Music for the Ancient of Days. She does plan to do more animation in the future, and is working constantly on her art. She expressed her enthusiasm by saying: “I want to keep creating” 

 

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Jellyfish Boy (くらげくん, 2009)

 

Jellyfish boy, he is my friend.

He dresses like a Jellyfish, so I named him Jellyfish boy.

He likes me even though we are both boys.

One day, Jellyfish boy told me he's moving.

We can't play together anymore.

He asked me to go somewhere far together.

He told me he wants to run away from his life.

We can't run away from our life, so we went to the sea.

The sexuality of children is normally a taboo subject in the world of filmmaking. It is even rarer to find a film that portrays a young, homosexual boy in an unabashedly postive manner.   In his short film Jelly Fish Boy (くらげくん/Kurage-kun, 2009), young director Shoh Kataoka (片岡翔) tackles the issue head on by presenting the story of two prepubescent boys.

Kotaro (played by Ren Yasuda) is a very masculine type. His hair is shorn short, he wears masculine clothes and he likes to play with toy soldiers. 

In contrast, Kotaro’s best friend Kurage-kun (Daiki Gunji) is very effeminate. Kurage means ‘jellyfish’ and ‘–kun’ is the diminutive placed at the end of boys’ names in Japanese. This is the affectionate nickname that Kotaro gives his friend because the flowy dresses that Kurage-kun likes to wear remind him of a jellyfish. Kurage-kun likes to play music on his ocarina, and in addition to dresses, wears a pink scarf, a necklace, and frilly shoes. 

In spite of the pair’s different outward appearances and different interests – Kotaro likes to play rough, while Kurage-kun has a more gentle nature – the two are fast friends. They play chase, and tease each other and spend a lot of time talking with each other.

When they learn that Kurage-kun will be moving away with his family, the two boys decide to run away to the seaside together. While at the seaside, it becomes clear that Kurage-kun has a slight crush on Kotaro and that his dreams for the future and Kotaro’s vision of the future don’t exactly match up.

The story unfolds in a lyrical manner with beautiful cinematography by Yoshinobu Murahashi and music by Mayumi Nakata. The scene of the two of them sitting on the stairs together was surprisingly dialogue heavy for a film, but as the two young actors made the words seem natural it worked. The best moments of the film were of the two of them playing together or just simply sitting together on the train, for their body language and expressions spoke more than words could say.

The cynic in me thinks that the relationship portrayed in the film is an idealistic one – a relationship that could only develop outside of the pressures of school peers and with liberal-minded parents. On the other hand, the young actors portrayed their characters so convincingly that I wanted to believe that two such boys could have a friendship that transcends the prejudices of society to conform. 

An enchanting and thought-provoking film, Jellyfish Boy won the runner-up prize at the 2010 Pia Film Festival. I had the good fortune to see at the Shinsedai Cinema Festival in Toronto. Definitely check it out if it comes to a festival near you. In the meantime, check out the trailers on Kataoka's Youtube channel.

Shoh Kataoka Filmography

2006 Can Kick
2007 Nitankasanso
2008 28 (6‘)
2008 hero (3‘)
2008 Guru-guru Mawaru (28‘)
2009 Following (5‘)
2009 Mr. Bubblegum (13‘)
2009 Kuragekun (Jellyfish Boy, 14‘)
2010 Gurunika (21‘)

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

The Red Spot (Der Rote Punkt / 赤い点, 2008)

When Marie Miyayama’s debut feature film The Red Spot (Der Rote Punkt /Akai Ten /  赤い点, 2008) was released here in Germany in 2009, it created a buzz of a similar level to that of Dorris Dörrie’s Kirschblüten (Cherry Blossoms/Hanami, 2008) the previous year. It was a real delight for me to finally be able to see the film at Shinsedai this summer. My delight only increased when I discovered that unlike Kirschlüten, which disappointed in its superficiality of emotion, The Red Spot moved me with its simplicity of plot, beautiful cinematography, and the excellent performances of its cast.

Part of the authenticity of the story comes from the fact that it is inspired by a real incident. While working as an interpreter in Germany in the late 1990s, Marie Miyayama was hired by a Japanese woman to assist her on her quest to find a spot marked in red on a map. They took a taxi to the spot on Highway B17, southwest of Munich, where they found a memorial stone dedicated to a Japanese family that had been killed there in a hit-and-run car accident in 1987. These were relatives of the woman accompanying Miyayama, who told her that only a 6-year-old girl survived the accident. The orphaned child was then adopted a raised by other relatives.

Der Rote Punkt / The Red Spot from Münchner Filmwerkstatt e.V. on Vimeo.

Inspired by this story, Miyayama reimagined it from the point of view of the orphaned girl. The Red Spot, tells the story of Aki Onodera, a young college woman nearing graduation whose future path is clouded by memories of the past. Her adoptive parents, her aunt and uncle, have provided a loving home for her, but she has never properly mourned the loss of her parents and infant brother. Before seeking a graduate job, she decides to travel to Bavaria to find the red spot on the map where she lost her family.

Intertwined with Aki’s story is that of the Weber family, Johannes and Erika, whose children, Elias and Martina, are now reaching adulthood and on the verge of leaving the family nest. There is a lot of tension between the father and son, which reaches a fever pitch with the arrival of Aki as a guest in their home. By coming to Bavaria in order to connect with her dead family, Aki unwittingly sets of a series of events that will cause a Weber family secret to be revealed.

The underlying concept behind The Red Spot is how a traumatic incident can create a ripple effect throughout the lives of people who are in some way touched by it. The silence of Aki’s family regarding the past is mirrored by Weber family’s inability to talk freely about the underlying problems in their relationships with one another. The result is a tangled web of emotions and conflict that are always threatening to come to  the surface.

Marie Miyayama and Chritoph Tomkewitsch have written an impressively restrained script for first time feature film scriptwriters (though Miyayama has done quite a number of short films and docs).  Oliver Sachs’s cinematography captures the tranquil beauty of Bavarian Swabia. I liked the added dash of red objects throughout the film as a poetical, visual reference to not only the dot on the map, but to Japan itself. It was interesting to see small Catholic shrines erected on the sides of Bavarian country roads, just as one sees Buddhist and Shinto shrines on roadsides in the Japanese countryside (there is a quite memorable one in Totoro, for instance).

Some have criticized the film for having a predictable plot. While I was able to work out early on the general direction the film was taking, I did not feel that this took away from the emotional impact of the film. In fact, the suspense of waiting to see everything unravel was part of the pleasure of watching the film for me. The success of the film on an emotional level was made clear to me during the Shinsedai screening by the quiet weeping of the Japanese-Canadian women in the row behind me throughout the second half of the film.

Along with Naoko Ogigami’s Megane (2007), Momoko Ando’s Kakera, Yuki Tanada’s One Million Yen Girl (2008), and Miwa Nishikawa’s Dear Doctor (2009), Marie Miyayama’s The Red Spot joins a growing number of films by women that have genuinely moved me this year. It will be interesting to see if Miyayama continues making features or if her next project will be another documentary like between earth and sky (2004). Either way, I look forward to more films from this multifaceted young director.

Cast

Yuki Inomata as Aki Onodera

Hans Kremer as Johannes Weber

Orlando Klaus as Elias Weber

Imke Büchel as Erika Weber

Zora Thiessen as Martina Weber

Mikiko Otonashi as Aki’s Aunt

Shinya Owada as Aki’s Uncle

Yuu Saito as Jun

Toru Minegishi as the Photo Shop Owner

Toshihiro Yashiba as Aki’s Father

Nahoko Fort-Nishigami as Aki’s Mother

The Red Spot is available on DVD in Germany with German and Japanese subtitles.

Other great movies by women directors:

Dear Doctor (English Subtitles)

Megane (English Subtitles)

Kamome Shokudo (English Subtitles)

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

A Normal Life Please (フツーの仕事がしたい, 2008)

For me, the best documentaries are those in which the documentary process follows not only the journey of an individual or an event, but also documents the personal journey of the filmmaker themselves.  With A Normal Life Please (フツーの仕事がしたい/ Futsū no shigoto ga shitai, 2008), Tokachi Tsuchiya makes his presence known via first person overdubbed narration, telling us the story of truck driver Nobukazu Kaikura as he saw it unfold through the lens of his camera.  Both documentarian and his subject are the same age (36 at the time of filming in 2006), and both have experienced losing their jobs.

Straight off the bat, we learn that the director is an accidental tourist during the early events of the film. Kaikura works as a driver for sub-contracted company Toutou, which delivers cement for a much larger corporation Fucox. By using sub-contractors instead of hiring drivers themselves, Fucox avoids having to pay living wages or benefits to the drivers. Instead of receiving an hourly wage, the drivers are paid according to how much they deliver. This results in the drivers working hours than on paper sound just impossible. In order to change things, Kaikura joins a union, who in turn hire Tsuchiya in order to document Kaikura’s working conditions.

A cursory evaluation of Kaikura’s documented work schedule reveals that in one month alone he drove his cement truck for 552 hours. This meant that he had only 5.7 hours on average every day to eat, bathe, and sleep. By the time Tsuchiya’s camera arrives on the scene, this extreme work schedule has already had a detrimental effect on Kaikura’s health and that of his parents with whom he lives. It also means that he has hardly any social life to speak of, and sees no prospects of finding a partner with whom to start a family - the 'normal life' of the film's English title.

For the public at large, there is a great risk to the safety of Japan’s highways. The documentary tells of one case in particular in which a sleep-deprived truck driver caused an accident that took the lives of the innocent occupants of another vehicle. The drivers are shown in the film to not just be taking risks in terms of how many hours they are on the road, but also in overloading their trucks, thus making them even more of a highway hazard.

The real turning point in the film comes at the funeral of Kaikura’s mother. A thug, hired by the company, comes to the funeral with his goons in order to pressure Kaikura into leaving the union. Tsuchiya’s camera captures the ensuing violence in vivid detail.  The filmmaker also becomes an active participant when he gets physically assaulted for refusing to turn off the camera. 

After this attack it becomes clear that Kaikura blames his working conditions for adding to his mother’s ill health and subsequent death. The mourning of his mother is a powerful visual symbol in the film. We see Kaikura’s father praying at a makeshift family shrine because the family does not even have enough money to afford a butsudan (see my review of Toad’s Oil for an explanation about what a butsudan is). This incident serves as a catalyst to strengthen what Tsuchiya had previously seen as Kaikura’s weak resolve to truly stand up for his rights. 

Although Tsuchiya appears rarely on camera, his story as a documentarian serves as an important subplot.   His footage is also quite pivotal within the film as it is used by the union to try to name and shame the concerned people and companies.  The film documents Tsuchiya's shift from being an impartial observer of Kaikura’s life to having an active concern in his welfare. 

Tokachi Tsuchiya belongs to a politically motivated filmmaker’s collective called Video Act, established in 1998 by Yutaka Tsuchiya, which seeks to document social injustice in Japan. Other films associated with Video Act include Horoki Iwabuchi’s Sounan Furiitaa (遭難フリーター/ Freeter’s Distress).  A Normal Life Please is an impressive documentary which deserves a much more widespread release. It has won best documentary honours at the 2009 Dubai International Film Festival and the 17th Raindance Festival.

Before I sign off, I just wanted to share some of the information I learned during the Q&A with Tsuchiya at Shinsedai. On the whole, Tsuchiya struck me as an individual who is extremely passionate and articulate about the rights of the workers of Japan. He was impressively well educated on the topic of unions and talked at great length about the facts and figures surrounding not only the events of that took place during the filming of his documentary but also the greater cultural context within Japan. Other information gleaned from the Q&A:

• Tsuchiya did not expect a documentary film to emerge from the material he shot – least of all enough material to make into a feature length film

• Tsuchiya is an independent director who will film almost anything – with the exception of material that could be used to promote nuclear power generation

• Tsuchiya was surprised by the fact that Kaikura-san looked older than his age when he met him

• he sees this film as a huge collection of coincidences

• the incident at Kaikura’s mother’s funeral was the most scared Tsuchiya had ever been in his life

• since the film was completed, Kaikura-san has started a new union

• the documentary has been screened for public servants and teachers, often with the result of injecting newfound energy into their own unions

• until recently, unions haven’t really made much of a difference on the life of the worker in Japan

• the film premiered in Tokyo in October 2008

• despite the fact that many names of companies and people’s faces appear on screen, Tsuchiya has not received any response to the allegations his film makes

• In fact, Tsuchiya admits that he has been disappointed not to get any rough treatment at all: no scare tactics from corrupt people shown in the documentary and the police seemed to have taken the tactic of ignoring it in the hopes that it would go away

Other great documentaries:

Minamata Nikki Yomigaeru Tamashii wo Tazunete

Documentary

Tokyo-Ga [Digitally Remastered Edition]

Movie

Tokyo Olympiad

Documentary

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Confessions of a Dog (ポチの告白, 2006)

One of the most important films screened at Toronto’s Shinsedai Cinema Festival this year was Gen Takahashi’s Confessions of a Dog (ポチの告白/Pochi no kokuhaku, 2006). Takahashi completed the film in 2005, but because of the controversial nature of the subject matter he has run into trouble getting his film screened domestically in Japan.

Confessions of a Dog tackles head on the issue of police corruption in Japan. At the beginning of the film, we are encouraged to sympathize with the main protagonist Takeda (Shun Sugata), a young police officer. Takeda begins the film as an honest new recruit who has idealistically joined the force with the intention of making the community a safer place and has a loving relationship with his young wife. His good deeds see him quickly promoted to detective and he finds himself becoming more and more embroiled in the corrupt world of the Japanese CID.

The corruption infects all levels of the police force with the domestic press, who are in theory allowed freedom of speech under the Japanese constitution, bowing to police pressure to publish only the ‘official’ police version of events. In the face of overwhelming pressure, including a vicious beating, a social activist Kusama (Junichi Kawamoto) slowly gathers evidence of police misdeeds in order to try to bring about a change in the system.

The events in Confessions of a Dog are based upon the brave research of freelance investigative journalist Yū Terasawa and incidents involving police that Gen Takahashi experienced in his youth. The film belongs to a tradition of films in Japan, beginning with the Japanese New Wave, that tackle issues the Japanese establishment would prefer to see swept under the carpet than discussed openly. I was reminded in particular of Nagisa Oshima who, like Takahashi, had difficulties with the funding and distribution of his films in Japan because of their controversial subject matter. Like Oshima, Takahashi has had to look outside Japan to get his film distributed (the film has a Hong Kong distributor, but no word of a DVD yet). 

Confessions of a Dog is a tale of Shakespearean proportions with a 3 hour running time and a broad cast of characters who weave a tangled web that begins its inextricable descent into tragedy. Shun Sugata, a character actor with an impressive CV of roles under his belt (from Boss Benta in Kill Bill and Nakao in The Last Samurai to Takayama in Ichi the Killer and Boss in Pulse), was a brilliant choice of casting for the role of Takeda. Physically, he towers over his fellow actors, but he plays the role of tough guy with the charisma, charm and confliction of Jean Reno in Léon.

Visually, Gen Takahashi constantly reminds us of how trapped Takeda is by framing him in confined spaces, such as the narrow gap between two sliding doors. The Shakespearean nature of Takeda’s story is emphasized by the use of Hamlet-esque monologues towards the end of the film which use very theatrical lighting. In the final scene, when Takeda breaks the fourth wall entirely and directly addresses the cinema audience, I was reminded of Charlie Chaplin’s final scene in Monsieur Verdoux (1947). When I raised this with Gen Takahashi after the screening, he very modestly objected that his film was addressing a much smaller audience than Chaplin was with the ending of Monsieur Verdoux. While it is true that Takahashi’s main goal with Confessions of a Dog is to bring about change in the Japanese police force, such corruption unfortunately exists in all societies and at every level of society. Confessions of a Dog is a film that deserves wider recognition than it has received so far and I hope that it can at least achieve wider distribution on DVD than it has in cinemas.

See it.

Other films by Gen Takahashi:

GOTH Deluxe Edition

Charon (Hoshi no Na wo Motsu Shofu)

Gin no Otoko Roppongi Host Densetsu

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010

Locked Out (ロックアウト, 2009)

Yasunobu Takahashi’s debut feature film Locked Out (ロックアウト, 2009) tells two parallel stories that the hands of fate bring together in the parking lot of a supermarket.

Kiichi Sonobe (Sodom the Killer) stars as Hiroshi, an apparently down-and-out young man driving directionlessly into an uncertain future. Hiroshi is clearly haunted by an event in his recent past, but exactly what has happened to him is not made clear initially. The psychological trauma that he is experiencing reveals itself in dramatic dream sequences triggered by the smallest of incidents. For example, perceived impoliteness by a waiter in a diner sets off a Reservoir Dogs-like dream sequence in which Hiroshi plays a violent starring role.

 Hiroshi's psychological trauma reveals itself in nightarish Resevoir Dogs-esque dream sequences.

Meanwhile, 6-year-old Keita (played charmingly by Takeru Shimada) and his harried mother Shoko (Miho Ogata of Space Travelers), are on an expedition to the supermarket. In a typical mother-son scene, Keita begs his mother to buy him a set of cards for him to trade with his friends, but his mother refuses. When Shoko has to run back into the store to purchase an item that she had forgotten, young Keita sneaks out of the family car to steal the cards he so desired. Upon his return to the parking lot, he mistakenly climbs into Hiroshi’s car and thus begins an unlikely friendship between the scared young boy and the depressed young man.

The narrative paths of Keita and Hiroshi collide..

Using fairly straightforward narrative and cinematic techniques, director Yasunobu Takahashi leads his audience into presuming the worst of Hiroshi, just as Keita’s mother and the police officer presume the worst when they see the minor cut on Keita’s face together with Hiroshi’s disheveled appearance. As the story inexorably unravels itself, we learn that appearances often belie the complicated realities beneath the surface.

At the centre of Locked Out is a well-told story supported by stellar acting performances and capable cinematography by Testuya Takahashi (Marriage Ring). For a cast and crew with relatively little experience, they managed to pull off a very professionally shot and edited film that manages to avoid the usual pitfalls of a first time film.

 Scene-stealing young actor Takeru Shimada as Keita

I spoke with Yasunobu Takahashi at Shinsedai Cinema Festival and learned that he was not a cinéphile as a kid but rather that filmmaking was something that he discovered as a passion as an adult. In the mid-1990s he travelled to California in order to improve his English, and rather than take ESL classes decided to take a film production course instead. The moment he held a camera in his hand, he was seduced by the art of cinematography.

Since that time, he has honed his skills making short films (see filmography below) and started his own independent production company On the road films. Takahashi writes, directs, and produces his own films because he enjoys having control of all stages of production. He is currently in the process of writing his next feature film. His filmmaking process begins with writing, as for Takahashi the essential element of a good film is the story and the characters. How he directs his films grows out of the human drama at the core of the film.

I was impressed with Takahashi’s passion for filmmaking and hope to see some of his short films in order to get a better idea of how he has developed as a film director. Someone with such enthusiasm and dedication to his craft is definitely one to watch in the future. I applaud Shinsedai Cinema Festival, and also Raindance and  Nippon Connection where Locked Out played in 2009, for supporting young, upcoming talent like Yasunobu Takahashi.

Director/Screenplay/Producer

Yasunobu Takahashi

Cinematographer

Tetsuya Takahashi

Original Score

Katsuhito Teshirogi

Starring

Kiichi Sonobe as Hiroshi

Miho Ogata as Shoko

Takeru Shimada as Keita

Tomomi Miyashita as Yuri

Noboru Akima as Kazuhiro

Hiroh Suzuki as Saito

Hiroyuki Yamamoto as the Guard

Yutaka Ohnuki as Nagata

Keisaku Kimura as the Officer

Yasunobu Takahashi Filmography

1997 Personal Time Frames (6‘, 16mm, B&W)

2000 The Age (32’, DV)

2004 Rule of No Intervention (24’, DV)

2004 Falling Life (23’, 8mm/DV)

2008 Locked Out (82’, HDV)

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2010