Jane Eyre (ジェーン・エア, 2011)

Charlotte Brontë’s Gothic romance Jane Eyre (1847) presents many challenges to a screenwriter looking to adapt the story into a film.  Not only is one burdened with the usual pressures remaining faithful to the characters and flavour of the novel while creating a new work, but Jane Eyre has been adapted dozens of times to film, radio, television, and the stage.   From the 1943 classic Hollywood adaptation starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine with its impressive score by Bernard Herrmann to the much loved BBC adaptations such as in the 1983 version with Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke, it has been done well so many times that it is a challenge to find a new angle to take with the story.

When I heard that Cary Jōji Fukunaga had taken on the challenge, I was both excited – surely the director of an impressive debut feature like Sin Nombre (2009) could bring something new and refreshing to Jane Eyre! – and trepidatious.  The trepidation was not only because of the great adaptations mentioned above but also because there have been two solid adaptations in recent memory: Franco Zefferelli’s 1996 version starring William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsbourg and the wonderful 2006 BBC adaptation with Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson.  That being said, it is rare for even a very good adaptation of Jane Eyre to tick all the right boxes for me.  The biggest pitfalls are: making Jane too plain/boring, making Rochester so temperamental and creepy that one couldn't imagine Jane falling for him, and not exploring the Gothic nature of the story far enough.

Fukunaga’s version manages to avoid all of these pitfalls: Mia Wasikowska, with her expressive eyes, plays Jane as an intelligent young woman who knows her place in society but has just enough backbone to stand up for herself when she feels she is being badly treated.  Michael Fassbinder, who is one of those rare actors  able to transform himself completely into his characters, makes Rochester sympathetic enough for us to understand why Jane learns to love him, while at the same time showing him to be a man conflicted by the miserable cards that life has dealt him. There is also real chemistry between Wasikowka and Fassbinder – a must have when depicting a period where more is said through looks and demeanor than action.  A nod must also be given to the supporting cast – particularly Judi Dench who brings a great deal of warmth to Mrs. Fairfax, and Sally Hawkins who is practically unrecognizable as the horrid Mrs. Reed. This is  the first time that I have seen Hawkins play an unsympathetic character and she really took advantage of the opportunity to show her range as an actress.

This adaptation easily ranks as one of the best versions of Jane Eyre for two reasons: its use of landscape and its exploitation of the Gothic romance genre.  The moors play such an important role in setting atmosphere in the novel and this is the first adaptation that I felt really got the fact that the landscape like another character in the story.  Shot in the Hathersage moors (not quite Haworth moor but one probably couldn't shoot there without tourists getting in the way), Fukunaga and cinematographer Adriano Goldman really capture the connection between the landscape and the character of Jane.

The cinematography was also a key element of the Gothic look of the piece.  Being "Gothic" is not just about finding the right castle –  it is also about capturing the romance and suspense of a Gothic novel.  The interior scenes set at night in this adaptation make great use of dark and light.  This was a time where rooms would have only been lit by fireplaces, candles, and Paraffin lamps (aka Kerosene lamps in North America).  The lighting in these scenes not only captures the historical reality but the shadow also adds to the general suspense.  The scenes where Jane hears noises but does yet know what their source is are so expertly done that I found myself on the edge of my seat even though I knew exactly what was going to happen.  Many adaptations concentrate so strongly on building the character of Jane that they forget that the story belongs to the Gothic romance genre.  The dash of Hitchcock added to the mix made Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre well worth the price of admission.

cmmhotes 2012

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Cary Jōji Fukunaga is a Japanese-Swedish American director.  His debut feature film Sin Nombre (2009) won him much acclaim including the directing award at the Sundance Film Festival.  Warner Brothers has signed him up to adapt Stephen King’s It in two parts with Chase Palmer writing the screenplay. See The Hollywood Reporter for more details.

The Mirage Flower (あんてるさんの花, 2012)

Tonight the 13^th Japan FilmFest Hamburg is hosting the world premiere of The Mirage Flower (aka The Mysterious Flower of Anteru / Anteru-san no hana, 2012) directed by up and coming young filmmaker Tadaaki Horai.  The film is set in Kichijōji, a bustling neighbourhood of Musashino city. 

Shigemitsu Ogi (Paradise Kiss, Always: Sunset on Third Street 2) plays Teruo Ando, the quiet unassuming proprietor of an izakaya (Japanese-style bar) which he has named using his own nickname “Anteru”.   While doing a guest spot on a local radio station to promote his izakaya, Anteru learns about a mysterious flower from Peru whose petals can cause realistic hallucinations for up to three days.

On his way home, Anteru spots a flower fitting the description at a florist, purchases it on a whim, and takes it back to the izakaya to show his wife Namiko (Misato Tanaka of Bride of Noto).  Namiko suggests that they test the flower’s powers out on three of their regular customers: Kusanagi, a divorcee with a young son; Chisato, a recently signed musician trying to make a name for herself; and Takayuki, a part-time security guard with a meddling little sister.

After having contact with Anteru’s flower, each of the central characters encounters an important figure in their lives – someone who has been haunting their dreams and whose relationship with them is unresolved.  Kusanagi (Hidenori Tokuyama of Slackers 2) is still suffering from the pain of his recent divorce and struggling with being a single father to Shuichi.  The sudden reappearance of his ex-wife (Megumi Sato of Happy Flight) forces him to confront his conflicting feelings towards her.

Chisato (Megumi Yanagi) now considers herself a professional musician on the up-and-up, but her new record producer is pressuring her to change her style in order to become more successful.  After coming in contact with Anteru’s flower, Chisato’s former band mate Naomi (Yukina Kasai) reappears in her life.  Naomi reminds Chisato of her roots as an artist and causes her to question whether or not she has become a sell-out.

Unlike his two friends, Takayuki (Ren Mori) doesn’t seem to have any skeletons in his closest – apart from a troubled relationship with his parents – but he does have secret fantasies about the kind of girl he’d like to meet.  One day while on the job the beautiful girl of his dreams turns up and engages him in conversation.   Remembering his encounter with Anteru’s flower, Takayuki immediately presumes that this girl must be a hallucination.  Real or not, Takayuki is happy to go with the flow for as long as this trip lasts.

The film unfolds in a dream-like fashion with some scenes shot overly bright to add to the ethereal quality.  The multiple plot lines weave in and out of one another in a manner reminiscent of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours Trilogy with a colour scheme similar to that of The Double Life of Véronique. The line between what is real and what is hallucination is so thin that we start to realize that even the envelope story of Anteru and his wife may not be all that it seems.  The references to Hans Christian Andersen remind us that this is not a realistic story but a more of a fable about life.   It is a film about unfinished business and second chances, not to mention love, loss and forgiveness. 

The Mirage Flower will be released in Japan on the 16^th of June at the Baus Theatre.  For more information, check out the film’s official website or the website of the production company Musashino Eiga.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Paradise Kiss (パラダイス・キス, 2011)

Things have been quiet here on Nishikata Film the past couple of weeks because I have been ill.  When I am under the weather and sofa-bound, I turn to what for me is the movie equivalent of chicken noodle soup: romantic melodramas.  2011 has been so jam-packed for me with work that I have not had the free time to indulge in the guilty pleasures of a cheesy romantic drama.

First on my list was the live action adaptation of Ai Yazawa’s popular manga series Paradise Kiss (パラダイス・キス, 1999-2003).  I am a huge fan of Yazawa and have been suffering from withdrawal since she abruptly stopped writing her Nana (2000 – hopefully ongoing) manga series in 2009 due to illness.  Paradise Kiss is a standalone sequel / spin off of Yazawa’s Neighbourhood Story (1995-8).  The manga tells the story of a high school student called Yukari who gets discovered by some fashion students who want her to model the designs of their studio "Paradise Kiss" at their school's end of year fashion show.  Yukari is torn between her desire to give modelling a go and pleasing her mother, who puts a lot of pressure on her to succeed academically and go on to a good university.

Like Nana, the fashion in the manga is influenced by British punk, Vivienne Westwood, and the Harajuku alternative fashion scene.  The character of George Koizumi, for example, is based on the character of Brian Slade as played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the film Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes, 1998).  In addition to the avant-guard look of the manga, the central character has a strong coming-of-age storyline.  Yukari (called Caroline by the Paradise Kiss fashionistas) does not yet know who she is as a person or what she really wants to do with her life and she is struggling not only with the intense pressure her mother puts on her, but is also having to deal with confusing feelings of sexual desire for the charismatic fashion designer George Koizumi.  The manga also has a very strong supporting cast of characters with their own subplots – Isabella, a transgender woman and childhood friend of George, and the love triangle between childhood friends Miwako (whose sister was the central character in Neighbourhood Story), Arashi, and Hiroyuki.

The live action feature film Paradise Kiss (パラダイス・キス, 2011) is adapted from the manga by Kenji Bando and directed by Takehiko Shinjo.  Shinjo is known for directing romantic TV dramas and sentimental feature films like Heavenly Forest (ただ、君を愛してる, 2006) and I Give My First Love to You (僕の初恋をキミに捧ぐ, 2009).  To put it plainly: Shinjo has basically given the story a TV-dorama makeover that guts the original story of its edginess.

To begin with, the feature film is woefully miscast.  In the manga, Yukari/Caroline is taller and more sophisticated than most girls her age and really stands out in a crowd.  While she is undoubtedly a beautiful young woman, actress Keiko Kitagawa is of average height.  Ordinarily, height would not be much of an issue except that Yukari’s height and body type are the reasons why Arashi picks her out of the crowd in the opening scene of the manga.  Kitagawa’s average height might not have stood out so much if it weren’t for the fact that Miwako, played by Aya Omasa, towers over her.  Miwako is meant to be a petite “kawaii” girly girl – so tiny in the manga and anime as to be doll-like.  Also miscast is Osamu Mukai who is much too sweet to play the charming but predatory George Koizumi.    

I knew I was going to be deeply disappointed right from the opening credits, which seemed more like an advertisement for nail polish than the engaging, up-tempo montage opening of the anime.  The music throughout is simpering J-pop ballads, which pale in contrast to the funky up-tempo music of the anime adaptation (IE Tomoko Kawase’s “Lonely in Gorgeous” and Franz Ferdinand’s “Do You Want To”).  I am no fashion expert, but the clothes looked more mainstream than avant-garde – instead of hiring Vivienne Westwood to design the costumes (which would have been a lovely tribute to Ai Yazawa), the clothes seemed calculatedly selected with an eye to fashion magazine and store tie-ins. 

Now I know that practically speaking the limitations of time for a feature film meant that much of the subplots had to be excised.  Even the TV anime adaptation with its 12 episodes found itself scrambling to fit everything in towards the end.  However, the substantial cuts to the subplots in the feature film meant that all the supporting cast were rendered one-dimensional.  Isabella’s gender identity only gets passing references – there is no depth to her relationship with George.  Speaking of which, George’s sexuality is much less ambiguous than in the manga/anime.  Even worse, Arashi comes off as a creeper and Miwako as promiscuous.  

What made Yukari special in the original manga was the fact that her story was messy and complicated.  Her friends also led messy and complicated lives.  There were no simple answers to problems and her romantic feelings towards George and Hiro-kun were confused – just as it is in real life.  By over simplifying Yukari’s story, the filmmakers have just turned it into over-polished Disneyesque schlock for teenaged girls.  I don’t mind a fluffy sentimental romance now and then, but Paradise Kiss should have been more Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink (John Hughes, 1986) and less Sandra Dee circa late 1950s.  This "happy ending" version of Paradise Kiss may have been enough to please the target audience of the film (IE adolescent girls), but to fans of the original manga it is simply lacking. 

Cast

Keiko Kitagawa as Yukari 'Caroline' Hayasaka

Osamu Mukai as Jōji 'George' Koizumi

Yusuke Yamamoto as Hiroyuki Tokumori            

Shunji Igarashi as Isabella

Kento Kaku as Arashi Nagase                   

Aya Omasa as Miwako Sakurada            

Natsuki Kato as Kaori Asō           

Hitomi Takahashi as Yukino Koizumi      

Shigemitsu Ogi as Joichi Nikaido

Michiko Hada as Yasuko Hayasaka

Available from cdjapan:

Paradise Kiss [Regular Edition]

Paradise Kiss Premium Edition [Limited Edition]

Fine, Totally Fine (全然大丈夫, 2008)

The funniest film at Nippon Connection this year was unquestionably Yosuke Fujita’s Fine, Totally Fine (Zenzen Daijobu, 2007). The film put such a delightful spell on its spectators that the film managed to beat out some pretty stiff competition from competing films to win the top prize at the festival.

Unlike most comedies, which immerse audiences in a storyline and move from plot point to plot point, Fine, Totally Fine works its magic through character development. We are introduced to a set of quirky characters who delight with their unusual hobbies and personality quirks. Taking centre stage is Teruo Tōyama, played with comic finesse by the irrepressible Yoshiyoshi Arakawa. Teruo loves scaring his friends and complete strangers with horror gags. By day he works in parks management and in his spare time he creates elaborate horror models and gags. He also helps his father, who is experiencing a mid-life crisis, run the family second-hand bookstore.

The bookstore becomes the focal point for the eclectic cast of characters who wander in and out of the narrative. Conflict eventually arises when Teruo’s best friend Hisanobu Komori (Yoshinori Okada), a medical center manager with a soft heart, and Teruo both fall for the shy, horrifically accident-prone artist Akari Kinoshita (Yoshino Kimura). Each of the characters has a personal issue that they need to work through. Teruo dreams of creating the most spectacular haunted house in the world so that he can prove to his friends and family that his hobby is not childish. Komori finds that his staff are trying to match-make for him and needs to overcome his shyness to find the romantic relationship he desires to have. Akari also needs to overcome her shyness and connect with people instead of only connecting with the world around her through her art.

The film completely fascinated me in the way it kept me fully engaged through comic gags and character development. Yosuke Fujita, who both wrote and directed Fine, Totally Fine, has worked in theatre comedy for many years working with the Otona Keikaku comedy troupe. The impeccable timing of the 2-part gag set up was reminded me of the films of the three greats of the silent era: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd. The first gag would start you laughing, then Fujita would hit you with a second, even funnier gag that would escalate the audience laughter even further. Like Chaplin, Fujita also adds sentimentality and romance through crushes that Komori and Teruo develop on the beautiful Akari. The bittersweet ending also has a Chaplinesque charm about it.

Other things to like about the film include the endearing performances of the supporting cast. Fujita’s script allows each character to shine long enough to make a solid impression on the audience. The horror dolls designed by expert movie model-maker Hiroshi Sagae are priceless. Examples of Sagae’s horror dolls done in Arakawa’s likeness can be seen at ryuganji.net. You can also see them pop-up on the official homepage for the movie, where you can also listen to a sample the relaxing soundtrack music.

Although this film hasn’t even made it onto the Internet Movie Database yet, perhaps because it is the feature film debut of Fujita, I have a feeling that it will make it onto the international art house circuit. Fine, Totally Fine is a real comic gem.

Fine, Totally Fine (Zenzen Daijobu) [Regular Edition]

Japanese Movie

Fine, Totally Fine (Zenzen Daijobu) Special Edition

Japanese Movie

Fine, Totally Fine (Zenzen Daijobu) Original Soundtrack

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2008

Paradise Kiss (パラダイス・キス, 2005)

This 12 episode anime is adapted from Ai Yazawa’s 5 volume shōjo manga Paradise Kiss (パラダイス・キス), known to fans as ParaKiss (パラキス). The manga was first published in serialized form in Zipper fashion magazine.

There has been much grumbling on blogs about the adaptation of Ai Yazawa’s Paradise Kiss manga into an anime. The main complaints have been about the unusual animation style, in contrast to other mainstream anime-series, and the excising of a great deal of the original manga storyline. I personally like that the animation staff took risks by experimenting with technique in this series. As to the latter complaint, I’m afraid that cuts are inevitable when adapting a work of art from book to the big screen. Unlike the adaptations of series like Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto and Yazawa’s current hit Nana, Paradise Kiss was only funded for 12 episodes, meaning that the five-volume manga had to be stream-lined during the adaptation process.

Director Osamu Kobayashi (小林治) (along with the original manga itself) can largely be held responsible for the avant-garde look that Paradise Kiss has in contrast with other popular anime series. Kobayashi started out doing animated shorts and has made a number of music videos for Studio 4ºC. Some features of his style include irising, unusual camera angles, off-center framing, and a collage style that often features the mixing of monotone backgrounds and hyper-colourful moving figures.

The manga-ka Ai Yazawa (矢沢あい) is currently one of the top selling manga artists for young women in Japan with Nana (ナナ) spawning a hit live action movie as well as a TV anime series. Most of her manga incorporate themes of fashion and punk rock music. Yazawa began her career studying fashion design and the flamboyant style of Vivienne Westwood serves as a key influence in her work.

The central narrative of Paradise Kiss is a shōjo coming of age story. Yukari Hayasaka is in her final year at a private high school and is preparing for university exams. She nurses a secret crush on her classmate Hiroyuki Tokumori. In the first episode, Yukari is discovered on the streets of what looks like Omotesando by Arashi Nagase who along with Isabella (née Daisuke Yamamoto) a tall, blue-haired transvestite, whisk Yukari away to their fashion design studio Paradise Kiss. There she meets Arashi’s girlfriend, the pink-haired Miwako Sakurada, who welcomes Yukari as a friend by giving her the nickname Caroline.

The fashion students feel that Yukari, with her tall, slender form and long, straight black hair (a novelty in this world of fantastic hair colours) would be the perfect model for their final design project. Enter the blue-haired George Koizumi, chief designer of the group and new focus for Yukari’s unfocused teenage desires.

The series engages the audience with a clever mix of realism and fantasy. In terms of realism, Yukari’s ambivalence about whether to become a model or follow her mother’s wishes and attend university will strike a chord with young women of the same age. Yukari also struggles with her romantic feelings for George, difficulties communicating with her mother and a mostly absent father who works away from home.

At the same time, Paradise Kiss seduces with its glamorous depiction of the world of fashion and the sophisticated and exotic people who inhabit it. George fascinates Yukari with his suave good-looks and expensive lifestyle, which is given a dash of realism with his alcoholic mother and distant father. Sometimes the fantasy element of the tale strays away from credibility. For example, the idea that Isabella could live in such a castle and commute to Harajuku is highly unlikely and a bit over-the-top in my humble opinion.

The quirky, more avant-garde animation style of this anime makes it stand apart from other shoujo anime. The idea of mixing of monochrome images of real Tokyo cityscapes with bright colourfully rendered characters and clothes derives from Yazawa’s manga, but the animators have added unusual little creatures who wriggle through still images of locations. I also love the unusual wipes such as rolling flowers that transition between scenes.

The opening and closing sequences deserve special mention. The opening sequence features a montage of images from Tokyo’s fashion district along with motifs and characters from Paradise Kiss. The accompanying song is ‘Lonely in Gorgeous’ by Tomoko Kawase as her alter ego Tommy February6. The song’s theme and the persona of the singer fit well with the anime.

Experimental animation artist Hiroyuki Imaishi (今石浩之) created the closing animation. Chibi versions of the main protagonists dance to the song ‘Do You Want To’ by indie Scottish band Franz Ferdinand. The animation here is tongue-in-cheek and a lot of fun to watch. The use of chibi (rounded faces and bodies) fits well as they use chibi characters often in the series to show the internal emotions and reactions of the characters.

Paradise Kiss is a sequel to Gokinjo Monogatari (ご近所物語, Neighbourhood Story) which told the story of Miwako’s older sister Mikako Kouda, an aspiring fashion designer and her longtime friend and love interest Tsutomu Yamaguchi. Although it is not necessary to know Gokinjo Monogatari in order to enjoy Paradise Kiss, it does provide fans of the first series with a lot of inside jokes and references to spot. Not only do Mikako, now a successful fashion designer with her own label called Happy Berry, and Tsutomu makes cameo appearances, but so do other smaller characters or their offspring (Arashi and Hiroyuki).

My overall verdict on the adaptation is that it is quite a good one given the limitations the animators had to work with. I think the right choice was made in focusing mainly on the Yukari story arc. However, the sudden jump to Isabella’s story at the beginning of episode ten was awkwardly done. Every episode except for that one starts and ends with Yukari’s interior monologue. I suppose Kobayashi felt it needed to be added somewhere in order to explain the ending to those who did not read the manga, but it could have been handled more adeptly. The final episode also feels a bit rushed as they tried to put too much storyline into it at the last minute. So much so, that they had to scrap the Imaishi animation for more wrapping up of loose storylines.

For episode reviews and screencaps, check out these fantastic blogs:

Random Curiosity

Memento

Paradise Kiss act.1 [Regular Edition]

Animation

Paradise Kiss act.1 Special Edition [Limited Release]

Animation

Paradise Kiss act.2 [Regular Edition]

Paradise Kiss act.2 Special Edition [Limited Release]

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2007

Lost in Translation (ロスト・イン・トランスレーション, 2003)

This piece on Sofia Coppola’s Oscar winning film, Lost in Translation, has been quietly simmering away in the back of my mind for the past three years.

My husband and I went to see it on our first date since the birth of our son at the wonderful repertory cinema, the Exeter Picturehouse in Devon, England. My husband had just accepted a job at Tokyo University and we were heady with excitement at the prospect of moving to Tokyo. We met each other in Japan in 2001 and my husband, who speaks Japanese fluently, has fond memories of Tokyo dating back to his first stay there when he was just sixteen.

We entered the elegant cinema expecting to delight in details of recognition of things that we know and love about Japan. Instead we experienced one of the most uncomfortable viewing experiences I had ever had (not quite as bad as watching Makavejav’s sexually disturbing Montenegro in university, but I was pretty fidgety). We found that while the British audience laughed at the puerile visual gags like Bill Murray towering above the Japanese occupants of an elevator or his sarcastic quips in response to a Suntory whiskey commercial director who refuses to engage with him in English, we just sat in silence. I could feel my husband growing more and more agitated throughout the film.

As we walked home along the Exe River my normally easy-going husband exploded with anger at what he termed the “stupidity” of the film. In particular, he found the rude language (toned down by the interpreter) of the commercial director extremely unlikely and over-the-top. We couldn’t quite figure out exactly why we hadn’t liked the film as a whole and speculated that perhaps it was because Japan isn’t so “lost in translation” to us. We just hadn’t been in on the joke. I wasn’t quite as annoyed as my husband at the representation of the Japanese in the film, but something had disturbed me about the film and I couldn’t yet place my finger on it.

The shakuhachi player Kiku Day, wrote a piece called “Totally lost in translation” for the Guardian accusing the film of racism, an accusation that was echoed on many blogs. I’m not so sure that I would use such a strong word as ‘racism’, but I do feel that the film goes for easy gags based on stereotypes about Japanese people and their culture. The film’s story doesn’t really engage on any meaningful level with its setting. For a while I speculated that the film could have been shot anywhere ‘non-Western’, but recently I am not so sure. Japan, with its veneer of “Americanisation” mixed with the exoticness of its unique Asian culture make it a particularly easy target for stereotype and misrepresentatation.

In January, I had my Japanese graduate students watch the film and read Kiku Day’s article. I was surprised to find that none of my students had seen the film and most had not even heard of it even though it is widely available in rental shops here. As we screened the film in class, the students did laugh at some of the jokes – in particular, the really quite funny scene in which a photographer asks Bill Murray’s character to invoke a feeling of Roger Moore (not Sean Connery!!) as James Bond.

In discussion afterward, my students told me that they felt it didn’t really show a very accurate image of contemporary Japan. Yes, Matthew Minami is a real TV presenter and people do enjoy pachinko and karaoke in Japan, but the middle-aged call girl and the extremely rude Suntory film director seemed unlikely. On the whole they had enjoyed the film, but felt that the Japanese characters were all one-dimensional.

Through re-screening the film in preparation for the class I finally realized why the film had made me feel uncomfortable the first time around: its sexist portrayal of women. It’s quite remarkable to me that a woman director could make a film that treats women so blatantly as objects, but she does. The film invites us to look at women as objects straight from the opening: an extended shot of Scarlett Johansson’s backside in see-through underpants. This portrayal of women as sexual objects is only magnified by the middle-aged call girl, who the script sets up as an object of ridicule and the random scene where Charlotte and Bob arrange to meet some of Charlotte’s friends in a bar that turns out to be an exotic strip club. Were these girls met to represent the “exoticness” of the locale? Was this scene even necessary?

As a female spectator, I can identify with Charlotte’s dilemma in the film: she has finished her education, gotten married, and has reached a crossroads where she isn’t sure what she wants to do next with her life. What I cannot relate to is her depiction as a “poor little rich girl.” She follows her husband to Tokyo on his business trip as a professional photographer then whines that he’s working all the time and isn’t making any time for her.

Despite the fact that she claims to Bob that she and her husband have friends in Tokyo, she seems to have nothing to do during the day. Her ‘friends’ only turn up when she wants to go out at night. There are so many wonderful restaurants and coffee shops to hang out in this town, I find it hard this hard to believe.

With her friends unavailable to distract her, she prances about her expensive hotel in her underpants listening to self-help audiotapes. She seems unable to find anything more exciting to do with herself in Tokyo apart from wander aimlessly about Shibuya and Roppongi acting generally bored with everything. I was relieved when she finally boarded the shinkansen and went to Kyoto to take in a bit of ‘culture’.

On one hand the film mocks educated women, while with a backhand it mocks uneducated women. For example, her husband makes comments that imply that Charlotte’s philosophy degree from Yale has made her snobby, and Charlotte herself is almost apologetic about telling people she studied philosophy. She then sneers at the Cameron Diaz-esque character Kelly (played by Anna Faris) for being stupid. Do we really need another film with a dippy blonde in it? ***Sigh***

The saving grace of this film for me is the irrepressible Bill Murray, whom I have loved since his SNL days. His wry, laid-back wit combined with his sheer bravery in allowing Sofia Coppola’s camera to linger over every pock-mark of his aging face resulted in some very fine comic scenes. Not wanting to slight Johansson as an actress, I must add that she did a commendable job in her role, I only wish that Coppola had given her better dialogue and filmed her in a more progressive manner.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2007

Penny Serenade (愛のアルバム, 1941)

Penny Serenade (George Stevens, 1941) is a classic example of a weepie: a drama, usually romantic in nature, designed to make its audience weep buckets by the time it’s through. Favourites of mine in the genre are the Bette Davis vehicles Dark Victory (Edmund Goulding, 1939) and All This, and Heaven Too (Anatole Litvak, 1940). Although the term ‘weepies’ isn’t used as much these days, they are still being made. A very good recent example is The Notebook: Nick Cassavetes’s sleeper hit of 2004 starring Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling.

Penny Serenade is also an example of a film that is hard to talk about without giving away plot points designed to take you by surprise and pull at your heartstrings. So if you plan on seeing this film and want the full shock value of all the obstacles thrown Irene Dunne and Cary Grant’s way, don’t read past this paragraph but skip to the final paragraph for my recommendation. Although I plan to tread judiciously in order to avoid too many spoilers, I wouldn’t be able to write about the film at all without mentioning a couple key plot points that were quite a shock to me right at the beginning.

The film opens in a melancholy mood with Julie (Irene Dunne) and Roger (Cary Grant) on the verge of divorce because, as Julie sadly tells their devastated friend Applejack (Edgar Buchanan), they just don’t seem to need each other anymore. Applejack tries to convince Julie otherwise and leaves her alone with a scrapbook of records and other mementos the couple has collected over the years. Julie then begins playing the records one-by-one and relives the memories of her relationship with Roger.

The transitions to the flashbacks are done in a very clever way. Instead of the usual dissolve to the past, they have gone for an iris in and out over an image of the record of the tune that evokes each memory. The tagline for the film is “Remember the tune they were singing. . . the night we fell in love?” For Julie and Roger that song was Freed & Brown’s “You Were Meant for Me”, a song from the late 1920s that would no doubt evoke nostalgia on the part of the original 1941 audience watching the film. As would the collection of other nostalgic songs of the 20s and 30s referenced during the course of the film: “Just a Memory”, “The Missouri Waltz”, “I’m Tickled Pink with a Blue-Eyed Baby”, and “The Moon was Yellow.”

The couple meet when Roger spots Julie working in a record shop and after a whirlwind romance, they marry hastily on New Year’s Eve just hours before Roger ships off to Japan on assignment for the newspaper that he works for as a journalist. They have a romantic tryst on the train (shot in a very titillating way for 1941!) which results in Julie being pregnant when she joins him in Japan three months later.

The segment of the film set in Japan really took me by surprise for two reasons: there was no suggestion of it on the DVD cover and it was a remarkably positive portrayal of Japan given that the precarious international situation at the time. Penny Serenade was released in April 1941, just 9 months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and it portrays Japan as a quaint, exotic local with cute children, lovely clothes, fancy gardens, and elegant homes. Par for the course for this time period everything has clearly been shot in a Hollywood studio. Also, all the “Japanese” look and sound like the actors may be of Chinese or other Asian backgrounds, and great liberties have been taken with the costume and set design, but I would imagine the audience would leave with a very positive impression of Japan as a travel destination.

Until of course, the earthquake hits and begins a series of tragedies for the young couple. Julie loses their baby when the house collapses on her and is rushed to California for treatment. There the couple discover that Julie’s injuries mean that she will not be able to have children and Julie is devastated. Roger is more difficult to read than Julie (during the first half of the film he often puts on a false front designed to show Julie what she wants to see), but we later learn that he too loves children.

They move to the countryside, where Roger has begun his own small newspaper and they decide, with prodding from Applejack, to adopt a child. Little Trina brings a lot of love and magic into Julie and Roger’s lives, but I’m afraid that there are many more tears in store before this movie draws to its conclusion, but I will allow you to discover how this movie turns out for yourself.

Cary Grant was nominated for an Oscar for playing Roger, but lost out to Donald Crisp in Ford’s How Green Was My Valley (the biggest film at the Oscars in 1942). Grant’s nomination was no doubt due to the memorable scene in which he heart-rendingly begs the judge not to take Trina away from them just because they are having financial difficulties. Up until that moment, his character had been more of a charmer than a man with hidden depths.

Irene Dunne looks as stunningly beautiful as ever and plays Julie with a great deal of delicacy. Rather then turn on the waterworks all the time, which would have grown dull rather fast, Dunne has mastered the art of looking like she could cry at any given moment but that she’s holding them in with her pride. My strongest memory of this film is of her sorrowful, doe-like eyes welled up with tears.

The cast is rounded off by two of the greatest character actors of all time: Beulah Bondi (best known for playing George’s mother in It’s a Wonderful Life) and Edgar Buchanan (from the 60s TV comedy series Petticoat Junction). Bondi plays Miss Oliver, the adoption agency representative who puts on a professional front but is really a soft-hearted soul underneath. Buchanan keeps the film light with his comedic turn as Applejack Carney, a friend to both Julie and Roger, who keeps them both in check and gives them each a little nudge in the right direction whenever it’s needed.

This is not a first date movie, so watch it with someone you’re in a committed relationship with or with a girlfriend. It would make uneasy viewing for someone with cold feet about committing to a long-term relationship because of all the difficult issues it raises. I highly recommend this film for a girls’ night in. It’s not an easy film to watch alone, so curl up on the sofa with a friend and a hot toddy and weep away together.

© Catherine Munroe Hotes 2007