Panorama (2011)

Life is never predictable and neither is Ryō Yoshikawa’s graduate film Panorama (2011).  The film begins in the nondescript hallway of a standard modern Japanese apartment with the voices of a couple arguing off-screen.  Just when we as spectators start to feel left out of the action, we are startled to attention by Haruka (Yūko Genkaku ) being thrown against the wall in front of us by her abusive husband Kenji (Yūya Matsuura).  Haruka also strikes back at her husband and both become implicated in the violence of their relationship.  We soon realize that we are witnessing this scene from the perspective of their confused young son, Takuya, the real victim in their disastrous relationship. 

Kenji walks out on his family, leaving a jobless Haruka scrounging for work as a hostess.  Her mother (Hana Kino), berates her for screwing up her marriage and reluctantly takes poor, young Takuya under her wing for the time being.  Just when we are starting to get invested in Haruka’s miserable tale, Yoshikawa switches gears and throws us into the parallel plotline of salaryman Takuma (Kyosuke Shimamori).  Takuma is a newlywed, but is reluctant to talk about his wife Hana (Chika Uchida), who works as a tour guide, with his co-workers.  One co-worker in particular, Akita (Masaki Miura), is suspicious of Takuma’s unusual behaviour and for good reason.  Although small in stature, Takuma is hiding a big secret: he regularly follows women that he spots in the train station and rapes them in the public toilets.  His behaviour flies in the face of the usual stereotypes, for he is no loner: his wife Hana goes out of her way to try to spice up their marriage.  She greets him every evening with a home-cooked meal and even buys sexy lingerie to try to seduce him.

Eventually, these two parallel stories will collide in circumstances that leave us wondering what is real and what is imagined.  The characters in this compelling drama are all either caught up in a tangled web of their own making or in circumstances beyond their control.  It is about how ordinary people living ordinary lives suddenly find themselves feeling like they are drowning. 

I was reminded of the famous poem “Not Waving But Drowning” by Stevie Smith (スティーヴィー・スミス, 1902-71) during one of the crucial scenes in the film:

Not Waving but Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he's dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

The Nara-born director Ryō Yoshikawa (吉川諒, b. 1985), was in attendance at the international premiere of Panorama at the Nippon Connection Film Special at Japan Week in Frankfurt am Main on November 6, 2011.  During the Q+A he shared a number of interesting facts about Panorama and the film program at Tokyo University of the Arts:

• Panorama is Yoshikawa's  graduate film from the Tokyo University of Arts’ graduate program in filmmaking

• Panorama was shot in 10 days – which is a rule in the Tokyo University of Arts’ program

• Someone in the audience asked whether or not the mask scene in the pool was real or a dream, and Yoshikawa left this open to interpretation.  He did explain, however, that the pool scene was a metaphor for “real” circumstances in the film: will they survive their current circumstances or will they drown?

• What was his inspiration for the film?  The everyday experiences of life.

• What are his influences?  He admires European directors with very different styles like Leos Carax (France) and the Dardenne brothers (Belgium)

• One of the most interesting aspects of the film is the soundtrack which often uses white noise like traffic and construction in lieu of music.  It really brought home the dehumanizing affect that city landscapes can have on some people.  I asked Yoshikawa about that and he said that he deliberately wanted the audience to be aware of the influence of these sounds of the reality of the city (cars, trains, etc.), which can disturb and unsettle us.  The soundtrack was carefully intertwined with the music track in a deliberate way.

• Yoshiwara identified two main themes in the film: violence between individuals and sudden violence.  The people in the film are living in tumult.  Sometimes in life we reach a point where we feel like we’re drowning.

• The film had a budget of 200 万円 which translates to around € 20,000 / $25,000 USD

• He is currently working on the scenario for a new film which he hopes to shoot in the new year if he can secure the funding. 

• Follow Yoshikawa on Twitter.

Director/Screenplay

Ryō Yoshikawa

Producers

Minyoung Cho

Tokyo University of the Arts, Graduate School of Film And New Media

Cinematographer

Yuuki Teshima　

Editing

Saki Ishii

Music

Haruyuki Suzuki　

Cast

Yūko Genkaku as Haruka

Kyosuke Shimamori as Takuma

Chika Uchida as Hana

Yūya Matsuura as Kenji

Masaki Miura as Akio Akita

Hana Kino as Haruka’s mother

.

This event was sponsored by Nippon Connection:

and The City of Yokohama - Frankfurt Representative Office.

Animated People in Photo (Takashi Namiki, 2000)

ORDER NOW

1975 was a decisive year in the life of Takashi Namiki, the animation producer, historian and the chairman of Anido (read his profile here).  Kihachirō Kawamoto invited Namiki to go to the Annecy International Animated Film Festival with him.  It was not only his first trip abroad, but also the first time attending such a large festival dedicated to animation.  He’d attended and organized animation screenings before, but this one week at Annecy “was like a dream.”  To have so many people gathered together who shared his enthusiasm for the art of animation caused him to feel strangely elated.

At the time “manga eiga,” as animation was then known, was not held in such high esteem in Japan.  Before going to Annecy, Namiki felt that he was the only one who truly understood animation as an art.  This notion was shattered completely at Annecy.  To learn that there were so many people interested in animation as an art and to discover so many wonderful animated works at Annecy was an inspiration to Namiki.

In 2000, Namiki published a photographic chronicle of his friendship with the “animated people” of the world called Animated People in Photo.  It documents the faces of animators, directors, historians, producers, and the organizers of animation festivals that Namiki met during the 25 years since that first festival in Annecy. 

At Annecy 1975, Namiki could not speak the language and he didn’t know anybody yet, so he wandered around and took photographs.  The photograph that he is most proud of is of the great pinscreen animation pioneer Alexandre Alexeieff (1901-1982), who had shot to fame in 1931 with the film he made with his wife Claire Parker Night on Bald Mountain (Une nuit sur le mont Chauve).  The photograph opens the collection and is indeed one of the best photographs that Namiki shares with us in this book.  Other favourites of mine include a shot of Kawamoto chatting with legendary stop motion animator Karel Zeman at Annecy 1987, Barry Purves with chopsticks in Tokyo in 1995, Břetislav Pojar at Hiroshima 1985, a young  Hayao Miyazaki in some kind of a truck or van outside Shin-Akitsu Station in 1979, anime pioneer Kenzō Masaoka in his home (Tokyo, 1978), Les Drew at NFB Studios (Montréal, 1990), stop motion animation pioneer Tadahito Mochinaga at Hiroshima 1998, Ward Kimball doing an impression of Charlie Chaplin while holding a figurine of Chaplin (LA, 1991), legendary Chinese animator Te Wei (Tokyo, 1981), Yasuji Mori in front of his home (Tokyo, 1992), and Yasuo Otsuka in a Parisian antique shop (1999).  The photograph of the author himself at Annecy 1975 was taken by Kawamoto and is also one of the best photographs of the bunch.

Animated People can be ordered online from Anido.  The photos are not printed on glossy paper, but still look reasonably good.  This is a must-have collection for the animation aficionado – though it’s hard to beat Namiki as a collector: his private archive boasts over 5,000 films and many relics of early animation.  The afterword by Namiki is only in Japanese, as are the profiles of the people photographed, but the photographs are all labelled in English.  

Here is a complete list of the people included in the book by country:

Belgium: Raoul Servais (b. 1928), Véronique Steeno (b. 1950)

Brazil: Marcos Magalhães (b.1958)

Canada: Frédéric Back (b. Germany, 1924), Ishu Patel (b. India, 1942), Jacques Drouin (b. 1943), Les Drew, Wendy Tilby (b. 1960)

China:  Yan Ding Xian (b. 1936), Shuchen Wang (1931–1991), Te Wei (1915-2010)

Croatia: Joško Marušić (b. 1952)

Czech Republic: Břetislav Pojar (b. 1923), Jan Švankmajer (b. 1934), Jiří Barta (b. 1948), Karel Zeman (1910-89), Michaela Pavlátová (b. 1961), Pavel Procházka, Pavel Koutský (b. 1957), Vlasta Pospíšilová (b.1935)

England: Barry Purves (b. 1955), Bob Godfrey (b. 1921), Brothers Quay (b. 1947), John Halas (b. Hungary, 1912-95), Mark Baker (b. 1959), Nick Park (b. 1958)

Estonia: Borivoj Dovniković (b. 1930), Priit Pärn (b. 1946)

France: Alexandre Alexeieff (1901-82), Bernard Palacios (b. 1947), Jean-Luc Xiberras (1941-98), Jean-François Laguionie (b. 1939), Michel Ocelot (b. 1967), Nicole Salomon, Paul Grimault (1905-94)

Germany: Bärbel Neubauer (b. Austria), Marec Fritzinger

Holland: Paul Driessen (b. 1940)

Hungary: Csaba Varga (b. 1945), Edit Bleier, Eva M. Tóth, Ferenc Mikulás (b. 1940), Gizella Neuberger (b. 1953), József Gémes (b. 1939), Mária Horváth, Péter Szoboszlay, Szilágyi Varga Zoltán (b. 1951)

Israel: Edward Herscovitz (b. Egypt, 1921-2006)

Italy: Bruno Bozzetto (b. 1938), Giannalberto Bendazzi (b. 1946)

Japan: Fusako Yusaki (b. 1937, works in Italy), Hayao Miyazaki (b.1941), Isao Takahata (b. 1935), Kazuko Komatsubara (1943-2000), Takamura Mukuo (1938-92), Osamu Tezuka (1928), Kihachiro Kawamoto (1925-2010),  Yoji Kuri (b. 1928), Yoichi Kotabe (b. 1936), Yasuo Otsuka (b. 1931), Tadanari Okamoto (1932-1990), Yasuji Mori (1925-92), Norio Hikone (b. 1936), Taku Furukawa (b. 1941),  Syo Yoshimura, Ryotaro Kuwata, Goro Sugimoto (1924-87), Tadahito Mochinaga (1919-99), Shinichi Suzuki (b. 1933), Seiichi Hayashi (b. 1945), Kazuhide Tomonaga (b. 1952), Yoshinori Kanada (1952-2009), Kenzo Masaoka (1898-1988), Masao Kumagawa (1916-2008)

New Zealand: Bob Stenhouse

Poland: Aleksandra Korejwo

Russia: Aleksandr Petrov (b. 1957), Fyodor Khitruk (b. 1917), Garri Bardin (b. 1941), Igor Kovalyov (b. 1963, working in the USA), Yuri Norstein (b. 1941)

Switzerland: Bruno Edera, Georges Schwizgebel (b. 1944)

USA: Bob Kurtz, Caroline Leaf (b. 1946), Charles Solomon, Chuck Jones (1912-2002), Frank Thomas (1912-2004), Jimmy Murakami (b. 1933), Joan C. Gratz, Marc Davis (1913-2000), Myron Waldman (1908-2006), Ray Harryhausen (b. 1920), Renya Onasick, Ward Kimball (1914-2002), Will Vinton (b. 1947)

Author & Editor : Takashi Namiki

All Photo by Takashi Namiki

Illustration : Masahiro Katayama

First Edition : June 2000

size: A5 (H210×W148mm) 112P/ Hardcover

94 photos are all monochrome

Ken and Kazu (ケンとカズ, 2011)

 The gritty world of underground drug dealing is a tough, kill or be killed environment.  Ken and Kazu don’t talk to each other much as they sit in their vehicle, waiting for customers to tap on the window.  They keep things impersonal and pass the time playing shiritori – a word game where one person says a random word, then the next person takes the last syllable of that word and gives a new word using it as their first syllable.

Ken has heard rumours that Kazu wants to get out of the business and becomes suspicious of the fact that Kazu’s cell phone keeps ringing incessantly.  After a heated exchange, Kazu drops his touch guy demeanour to reveal that his mother is suffering from Alzheimer’s.   In this moment, we see a brief glimpse of humanity beneath Ken and Kazu's hard man exteriors.

Their relationship is soon put to the test when the boss man learns that someone has been cheating customers by stealing cocaine from each deal.  He has already had one of the suspects killed but decides to test Ken’s loyalty by bringing him in to kill the other person under suspicion: Kazu.  Ken is faced with the game changing decision of choosing to give his loyalty to his boss or to Kazu.  

Ken and Kazu (ケンとカズ, 2011) is directed by Hiroshima born filmmaker Hiroshi Shoji (小路紘史, b. 1986), a graduate of the Tokyo Film Center School of Arts.   The film uses a lot of close ups and hand held shots which capture the claustrophobic tension between the men in the cab of the vehicle they use for dealing drugs.  A terrific little film that left me wanting to see more by this director.

Learn more about Hiroshi Shoji here.

Watch a trailer for Ken and Kazu here.

This film screened at Japan Week, Frankfurt am Main on November 5, 2011.

The event was sponsored by Nippon Connection: