Japanese Movie Madness

My neighbor from Tottori, Japan, Edward, lent us a few movies from that Land of the Rising Sun and I'm now, after watching them, kind of dreading returning them to him and getting embroiled in the subsequent film talk. Films are, I believe, one of those intensely personal thing that easily rile people when naysayers rip into one's favorite flicks. I admit freely that I'd claw out the eyes of anybody who spoke poorly of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or Lost in Translation. The fact of the matter concerning the movies lent to us by Ed is that I didn't terribly like any of them and, in fact, downright hated one of them, wishing there were some sort of bureau I could appeal to in order to get the life I spent watching it back.

In order of least to most unpalatable the movies are Cha no Aji ("The Taste of Tea"), Kazoku Gemu ("Family Game") and Megane ("Eyeglasses"). Actually, I could only stomach Cha no Aji because it was the least bad of the three. Your mileage may vary.

But are they really bad? Probably not. Probably it's just a matter of different sensibilities. From my perspective each movie failed utterly at characterization and plot development. Viewers hardly get to know each character's name by the halfway mark, let alone their motivations or even what they're striving for. Cha no Aji was the only movie with a discernible plot, but even then no introduction of the players was made, no indication as to what they are doing or why. It's enough to make you go blind with frustration.

The key, I think, to understanding Japanese movies is that Western movie-making techniques and devices do not apply in that film industry. The movies are about feeling who the characters are and what they're doing. Since the lifestyle of a typical Japanese citizen is pretty much homogeneous around the country the challenge confronting a filmmaker there is to draw the viewer in with scenes of traditional Japanese life and inject subtle surrealism into the mix. Take Cha no Aji, for example. We are presented with a spot-on typical family that resides deep in the countryside and spends their home time relaxing on the veranda overlooking the garden, playing igo, eating together and doing other slow lifestyle activities. As the movie progresses we discover that mother is a talented amateur animator, father is a hypnotherapist, grandfather is batshit nuts, daughter has visions of a giant version of herself wherever she goes and so forth. Sure, it all sounds pretty interesting, but the way it's presented and the pace of things is infuriating. Oh, I didn't even mention the story threads that are picked up and never resolved!

That movie won multiple awards in Japan somehow. Like I said, different sensibilities.

--Matt