#/of course/ it's a yamada yoji film

[ranichi17]

“due to personal reasons, i will be resigning as a housewife” is the funniest line in a trailer i have ever seen

[ogradyfilm]

Recently Viewed: The Great Yokai War and The Twilight Samurai

Japan Society is currently hosting an online retrospective celebrating the past twenty years of Japanese cinema, spotlighting a wide variety of films from dozens of esteemed directors—including Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Sion Sono, and Shinya Tsukamoto. Obviously, considering the wealth of material available, I found the task of choosing what to watch to be absolutely daunting. Ultimately, I decided to wet my feet with a relatively light double feature:

The Great Yokai War: This was the perfect screening for a lazy Saturday afternoon—a cartoonish fantasy adventure about a kid hero battling grotesque monsters, demonic robots, and deranged wizards as a thinly-veiled metaphor for growing up. Takashi Miike has earned a well-deserved reputation for making subversive and/or transgressive movies (see: Audition, Ichi the Killer, The Happiness of the Katakuris), but in this case, he tackles the material with a remarkable degree of sincerity; this isn’t a cynical, mean-spirited deconstruction of a nostalgic genre, but rather an affectionate throwback in the style of Star Wars and Indiana Jones. The central themes—tradition versus modernization, spirituality versus industrialization, the tragedy of mankind’s wastefulness (the conflict revolves around the personified resentment of discarded trash, a premise rooted in Shinto beliefs)—are simple, yet universal. The true stars, of course, are the creatures—a motley assortment of kappa, tengu, bakeneko, and yuki-onna realized through a mix of puppetry, prosthetic makeup, rubber suits, and jittery CGI. While the visual effects occasionally look a bit primitive and dated, they nevertheless radiate charm, evoking the works of Jim Henson, Tim Burton, and Ray Harryhausen.

The Twilight Samurai: I first encountered this critically-acclaimed period drama back in college, and it totally redefined how I viewed the jidaigeki genre. The protagonist, in particular, is extremely unconventional—a low-ranking samurai struggling to support his senile mother and two young daughters following the death of his wife. By day, he works in his clan’s storehouse, keeping track of inventory; after hours—when his colleagues are out frequenting the local bars and brothels—he fishes, toils in his small rice field, and crafts wooden trinkets to supplement his meager income. While the narrative features its fair share of swordplay and political intrigue, the film is, first and foremost, a love story, exploring “Twilight Seibei’s” budding romance with his recently-divorced childhood sweetheart. The overall tone is, in general, pretty warm and fuzzy (albeit occasionally melancholy and haunted by the specter of impending warfare)—which makes the inevitable arrival of bloodshed all the more impactful. Although I would have preferred a proper theatrical experience, I savored the opportunity to revisit this Yoji Yamada masterpiece.

[ogradyfilm]

Recently Viewed: Tora-san, My Uncle

In Tora-san, My Uncle, the forty-second episode of Yoji Yamada’s long-running Tora-san series, the eponymous peddler surrenders the role of protagonist to his teenage nephew, Mitsuo (played by Hidetaka Yoshioka, who recently reprised the part in 2019’s Tora-san, Wish You Were Here). He remains an integral piece of the narrative puzzle, of course; he may be a bit older and wiser (though not by much), but he’s ultimately still the same boisterous, lovable buffoon. At this point in the saga, Kiyoshi Atsumi plays him as an almost mythical figure: like a mischievous trickster god, he seems to materialize out of thin air whenever a family member absentmindedly utters his name, sowing chaos and discord—which inevitably lead to catharsis, healing, and reconciliation. The film makes an effort to humanize him, as well, exploring his struggle to set a good example for his dear sister’s wayward son.

The movie spreads its plot a little too thin (the “road trip” structure offers plenty of gorgeously photographed scenery, but slows the pace to an interminable crawl as both conflict and slapstick comedy take a back seat), but it manages to shine in its smaller pleasures. It’s fascinating to see how the characters and their relationships have matured along with the returning actors; Gin Maeda’s evolution into a stern father with a heart of gold, for example, is particularly compelling. Additionally, the thematic subtext is as solid as ever: Tora-san is a rebel to his very bones, always defying outdated social conventions and challenging narrow-minded attitudes. While Tora-san, My Uncle doesn’t quite rank alongside Tora-san, Our Lovable Tramp and Tora-san Meets the Songstress Again in terms of overall quality, when judged on its own merits, it’s a perfectly enjoyable domestic drama.

[ogradyfilm]

Recently Viewed: Tora-san, Our Lovable Tramp (It’s Tough Being a Man)

I first became aware of Yoji Yamada back in college, when I discovered his three critically acclaimed revisionist samurai dramas—The Twilight Samurai, The Hidden Blade, and Love and Honor—during one of my frequent jidaigeki binges. While these genre-bending masterpieces (produced when he was already in his seventies) remain the director’s best known works among western audiences, however, he is most famous in his native country for his numerous contributions to the long-running Tora-san franchise. Despite the valiant efforts of such distributors as AnimEigo, the vast majority of the beloved character’s forty-eight adventures (forty-six of which were helmed by Yamada himself) are still commercially unavailable in the United States... but that certainly hasn’t stopped American fans from celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of his creation! Japan Society, for example, is screening one movie in the series per month through December (but only on weekdays, which is, unfortunately, totally incompatible with my current schedule); Film Forum, meanwhile, has booked a limited engagement of the itinerant salesman’s inaugural appearance���Tora-san, Our Lovable Tramp (It’s Tough Being a Man)—which I had the absolute pleasure of seeing today, in all its 4K, digitally-restored splendor.

What a delightful introduction to actor Kiyoshi Atsumi’s iconic clown! Roger Ebert once described him as “a little Chaplin, a little Jerry Lewis, a little Red Skelton,” but I think he more closely resembles a chattier version of Jacques Tati’s Monsieur Hulot: a well-meaning buffoon that inadvertently destroys everything in his path… but nevertheless manages to (equally unwittingly) leave some good in his wake. Clad in an oversized checkered coat (which he drapes across his shoulders like a cape) and lugging a battered leather suitcase bursting at the seams with shoddy counterfeit wares, Torajiro Kuruma returns to his sleepy hometown of Shibamata (where today there stands a statue of his likeness, making this fictional figure an honorary resident of the very real neighborhood) following a twenty year absence. Almost immediately, his brash attitude, blunt honesty, and blatant disregard for pomp and ceremony bring him into conflict with the more traditional, conservative members of his estranged family. His overindulgence in alcohol and juvenile sense of humor, for instance, are directly responsible for alienating his younger sister’s wealthy prospective husband… and yet, she was never truly invested in the arranged marriage, and merely accepted the proposal because she was too polite to turn it down. Later, Tora’s ill-advised meddling in her relationship with her actual crush (a mild-mannered factory worker) nearly derails the romance in its infancy… and yet, resolving the ensuing farcical misunderstanding ultimately inspires the timid lovebirds to finally move on from silent mutual pining.

Of course, our hapless hero isn’t quite so lucky in his own pursuits; like the roaming ronin and wandering gunslingers of old, he’s destined to walk off into the sunset alone, having no place in the community that he’s worked so hard to enrich—though, humorously enough, he rarely stays away for long. Indeed, his perseverance will persist even beyond Atsumi’s death: a new installment in the previously dormant franchise will be released at the end of 2019, once again directed by Yamada (still going strong at eighty-eight). Hopefully, this revival will spark a renewed interest in these underappreciated cinematic gems—and, eventually, result in the announcement of a complete series box set. 

Are you listening, Criterion Collection?