#365 film challenge

[365days365movies]

Japanuary: Introduction

Well, holy shit, what year is it? It's been 4 years since I tried this whole Tumblr thing, and...eh, it wasn't the most successful endeavor ever, but fuck it! It was a fun ride in 2021! I tried to do the whole one-film-per-day thing, stuck with it for a while, and eventually failed that challenge. And I'm not gonna pretend that watching a movie a day and writing a blog post about it is possible with my current schedule, BUT! Even then, I have enjoyed the whole endeavor. So, why not give this shindig another spin? And how do I plan to do that? Easy: with a monthly themed challenge once again.

This time, though, let's not do Action in January. In fact, why be bound to genre at all this time? Theme, sure, but let's stretch the genre limit a bit here. So, with that, let's start a brand new month and a brand new year with a brand new theme...and a very-little touched country on this blog: 日本国.

Japan, sometimes known as the Sun's Origin (a direct translation of the country's name; "the Land of the Rising Sun" is a Western epithet), is one of the biggest movie-producing countries on the planet, since almost the beginning of cinema. However, the Golden Age of Japanese cinema began in the 1940s and 1950s, when prominent directors rose in the fallout of World War II. Pun...technically not intended, but valid all the same. Storytelling and tradition are treasured practices in Japanese culture, which is strong to this day. However, years of self-imposed isolation, followed by rapid acceptance of Western influence, definitely made film an interesting development in those storytelling traditions. While originally Western-influenced, Japan definitely injected itself into 35mm camera tape starting in the 1910s. And that continued, often through propaganda film, until...uh...well...

If you know, you unfortunately know, if terms of the above GIF. But, yeah, World War II happened, and Japan was involved and affected in...various ways. In any case, its civilian population was heavily traumatized, and that showed itself through the film industry especially. While wartime film really was a lot of propaganda about the Empire of Japan, it also came with a lot of restrictions, especially when Western influence was suspected. So, after the war ended with Japan surrendering, and the heavy boot of America made itself known in Japanese everyday life, the film industry was affected positively and negatively. On one hand, much of Japan's film history was literally burned for fear of its potentially offensive nature. Plus, jidaigeki, or samurai films, became incredibly difficult to make. Not impossible, but that's a point for later.

It's during this time that a number of prominent Japanese directors start popping up, or coming back into significance. Of note are Akira Kurosawa (MUCH more on him soon) and Yasujirō Ozu, amongst several others. Film stars like Toshiro Mifune also begin to appear. Japanese films also began their international spread, and suddenly, they also began to become popular in the United States and the Western world. By the time the 1950s came, Japan's film industry had entered its new, golden age, and that decade saw some of the most famous films in the country's history.

I've previously talked about Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, which came out in 1950, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Seven Samurai, Tokyo Story, Ikuru, The Burmese Harp, The Human Condition, Ugetsu Monogatari (which I've also talked about), Sansho the Bailiff, Floating Weeds, amongst several others. All in the 1950s. Badass. I feel like there's a major one I'm missing, too, but I can't list every Japanese film ever made. You get the idea: Japanese film is sort of a big deal.

Despite this, though, when television spread throughout the succeeding decades, the film industry died back a tiny bit. CHina began their own blockbuster film industry with the boom of wuxia, and Japanese filmmakers became more experimental in their work, appealing less to the masses as a result. The two studio giants in Japan, then and now, were Toho Co., Ltd. and Toei Company, Ltd. Even then, neither company did great during the 60s and 70s. Toei would eventually find its footing in the world of anime, while Toho found its footing in...OH RIGHT

Sorry, Godzilla, almost forgot about you. This science-fiction horror (and yes, it is a horror film in an existential sense) would put an indelible stamp on the industry for DECADES, and would also color people's perception of Japanese films in the west for a while. That, combined with the resurgance in jidaigeki, would prove a bit of a downfall in terms of Western popularity. But even then, the film industry kept chugging along, and Japan did eventually find a new way to appeal to the Western world. Now, I'm skipping over a HELL of a lot of history (basically the entire '80s and the mini-theatre craze), but there's good reason for that.

See, once we get to the '80s and '90s, new directors suddenly step into the limelight. Takeshi Miike shocks people with Audition, which also becomes part of a new horror tradition in Japanese cinema that gets a LOT of attention. Hirokazu Kore-eda moves from documentaries in the '60s, and makes several films over the years up through the '90s, like Maborosi and After Life. And then, in the late 1980s, a new animated film based on the Lupin the Third franchise brings a new director into the public consciousness...and EVERYBODY starts paying attention again.

Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli come into prominence, and film is back, baby! And I mean that; Porco Rosso, that one Miyazaki movie with humanoid pigs, was more popular than E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, for one example. Satoshi Kon and Isao Takahata come into the fray, and large movie theatres also become more prevalent after their decline decades later. And now, Toei is making anime for Japan and the Western world, where it's EXPLODING. Suddenly, Japanese media is popular worldwide, and they never go back. The anime industry exponentially expands, and more films can be made and distributed. Hell, Toei also gets rich from the trend of sentai shows, which the Western world will most closely associate with Power Rangers! Seriously, shit starts to blow up.

Today, most people associate Japanese media with either anime or Godzilla, which is...simplistic. But, hey, there's a FUCKTON of Japanese media out there, and I've personally explored precious little of it. So when I was settling on watching more films this coming year, I was looking for ideas. And then I stumbled on one: Japanuary. Not an original idea on my part, and you can check out other lists for it (like this one, this one, and this one, for starters), but I'm into it! Of course...there is one caveat.

I, uh...I didn't watch all of these in January. I actually started in November.

NOVEMBER WAS A DIFFICULT MONTH!!! And not even for all the reasons you'd expect. But, honestly, I missed updating this blog. And I knew that, to do so in a timely fashion, I'd need a lot of extra time. So, to get that extra time, I started real early. And in truth, I'm writing this post from the past (specifically November 8. YES IT HAS ALREADY BEEN A DIFFICULT MONTH). Still, I'll be putting out the full list of films I'll talk about this month in this post! And, if this came out on December 30th as planned, that means I actually did it! Otherwise, this post would be left in the drafts, to die a slow and unfulfilled death. So, fingers crossed that you're reading this right now!

And so, with that said, here is my list for Japanuary 2025! Feel free to watch along if you can (so will I, believe me), and happy New Year!

Ikiru (1952; dir. Akira Kurosawa)

Throne of Blood (1957; dir. Akira Kurosawa)

Yojimbo (1961; dir. Akira Kurosawa)

High and Low (1963; dir. Akira Kurosawa)

Ran (1985; dir. Akira Kurosawa)

Late Spring (1949; dir. Yasuijirō Ozu)

Tokyo Story (1953; dir. Yasuijirō Ozu)

The 47 Ronin (1941; dir. Kenji Mizoguchi)

Sansho the Bailiff (1954; dir. Kenji Mizoguchi)

Harakiri (1962; dir. Masaki Kobayashi)

The Ballad of Narayama (1983; dir. Shōhei Imamura)

Fireworks (1997; dir. Takeshi Kitano)

Audition (1999; dir. Takeshi Miike)

Sukiyaki Western Django (2007; dir. Takashi Miike)

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984; dir. Hayao Miyazaki)

Castle in the Sky (1986; dir. Hayao Miyazaki)

Porco Rosso (1992; dir. Hayao Miyazaki)

The Secret World of Arrietty (2010; dir. Hayao Miyazaki)

The Boy and the Heron (2023; dir. Hayao Miyazaki)

Perfect Blue (1997; dir. Satoshi Kon)

Tokyo Godfathers (2003; dir. Satoshi Kon)

Wolf Children (2012; dir. Mamoru Hosoda)

Mirai (2018; dir. Mamoru Hosoda)

Nobody Knows (2004; dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda)

Shoplifters (2018; dir. Hirokazy Kore-eda)

Godzilla (1954; dir. Ishirō Honda)

Godzilla Minus One (2023; dir. Takashi Yamazaki)

Tampopo (1985; dir. Jūzō Itami)

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985; dir. Paul Schrader)

Drive My Car (2021; dir. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)

Tokyo Gore Police (2008; dir. Yoshihiro Nishimura)

[casdeans-pie]

13/365 ::::: Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon

He's so good and brave and loyal. He has conviction in what he thinks is right and he will follow through with it - he will not waver from that path. He's smart and funny and awkward - teenage me had the biggest crush on him! Plus, he makes friends with a dragon that's basically a giant cat!

[365kiwichallenge]

I started my daily challenge on November 22 and was posting on IG and FB. I got fed up with the owner, so I went dark, but I was still doing it. I forgot I had this tumblr, so here we go. Great film! The monkey kept changing from a man in an ape costume to a real chimpanzee. It's hilarious but still fun.

[kellykadesperate]

as soon as i come back into my house after being out literally anywhere just know i'm laying in bed watching a film and scrolling on my phone

[shenergyx]

!ALERT! NEW BRAIN ROT JUST DROPPED!

Y'all. Challengers (2024).

What a fucking time.

I'm ready to ride this one out for atleast the next 365 days. All the fanfics, all the fan arts, all the deep dives. SHOVEL them my way.

[nyckthefox]

i'm doing this challenge where i watch the same film every day for a year and log it on letterboxd and i find it hilarious how every time people ask me why i'm doing it i just don't have an actual answer. usually i just end up saying one of these:

i really like this film.

i want to prove that i could never get tired of it.

i want to become this film's biggest fan in the world.

i'm insane.

[yuzurujenn]

[2023.07.27] ANA Captain Yuzuru Hanyu’s Journey – Special Interview

(Filmed: 27 July 2023, Archive released: 27 Sept- 17 Dec 2023)

Ladies and gentlemen, Star Alliance members, thank you for boarding ANA’s special flight to Sendai. I am Yuzuru Hanyu, the captain of this flight, and your flight will be departing shortly. Please make sure your seat belts are securely fastened. Today's flight time is scheduled to be about 1 hour. Well then, let's go on a special journey with me.

-Thank you for having me. How are you spending this hot summer?

-Summer huh... I don't go out much, but I feel like I'm busy every day doing creative work, training, and taking on various offers. Actually, the condition of the ice at the skating rink has gotten quite bad, so in that sense, I'm getting anxious because it's taking a long time to get to the right conditions. It's a restless season for me.

Is the skating rink also affected by the season?

-Yes, as the indoor temperature inevitably rises, the ice will melt, it will become loose, the strength will weaken, and so on, so I spend the summer thinking that it's going to be a challenge.

It’s been 1 year since you turned professional. How do you feel now?

-When I had the press conference, I was very nervous. I remember that scene very well. After the press conference was over, it was on this very day that I approached MIKIKO-sensei to direct the show, it was also the day that I met MIKIKO-sensei for the first time. In a way, it was a day that determined my "GIFT", and then "Notte Stellata", "Fantasy on Ice", and various ice shows. I think it was the day that Yuzuru Hanyu's future was decided.

Has the past year been long?

-I think that this one year was quite short. So many things happened. There were a lot of things going on and I didn’t really have time to catch my breath, so the year seemed too short. But when I say 365 days, if I look at each one of them, each day carries its own weight, I think I’ve spent fulfilling time every day.

Yuzuru Hanyu's new journey begins with "Prologue" (2022.11)

"Prologue" (2022.11) Yuzuru Hanyu's first solo ice show after turning professional

When I made "Prologue", the first thing I thought about was that there was something called "GIFT" that was like the main story, and I wanted this to be a prelude to it. I thought it would be nice by looking back on my life, it will remind them of this when they see “GIFT”, so I created ‘Prologue’ to serve as an introduction to explain the story. In fact, when I finally finished "GIFT" to the end, I really thought that it was like a prologue to my current life now. I feel once again that I want to do my best so that I can continue to produce various chapters of the main story, like the first chapter, the second chapter, the third chapter, and so on.

It was also the prologue of your life, right?

-In fact, initially I just had "GIFT" in mind when I was creating it. However, the story changed in many ways as I progressed and started to skate, and I also received various thoughts from fans. As I went along with the story and the programs, various values emerged in my mind. Through this process I felt like my life as a professional skater had gradually started all over again.

Tokyo Dome performance “GIFT” (2023.2.26)

The first solo Tokyo Dome performance by a skater, Yuzuru Hanyu's life and future on the ice

-It feels like it happened a long time ago, right? But it’s only been half a year, it's strange honestly. If someone says that two or three years have passed, I would believe that indeed that much time has passed. To that extent, I feel that I have done something where I left my soul in the work.

What kind of "GIFT" did you receive from fans?

-Well, I'm a pessimistic person, I think negatively about a lot of things, and I have various constraints within myself, but I realised my existence can also be of use to someone. I think this realisation is the gift that I’ve received from everyone. During the show, there were various effects, lighting, and the light from the wristbands that everyone was wearing. Whenever I saw these, among the 35,000 lights, even if it was just one person, if it makes them feel some colour or emotion for a moment in this world, then it makes me think that my existence is a good thing.

[There were many things that I couldn't do, but little by little, I could do more. Each time, the world became warmer. I loved that world. That’s why I wanted to become warmer and warmer, by learning to do more - Quote from [GIFT] narration]

-When I looked back on my life so far, I had this image of being involved in skating and have been living with skating, but when I dug deeper into why I chose skating, I realised that I liked that world when skating went well. I wondered how I could convey this feeling to everyone, regardless of age or gender, in an abstract way. If the whole world could be like the warm world that I am talking about, then maybe everyone could be kinder. I chose those words with this in mind.

Did you enjoy directing?

-It's fun, but at the same time I feel like I have to dig into a lot of things within myself, and in the process, I found that I've been carrying all kinds of walls within me or I've neglected some issues. So that is tough, but I'm sure by reflecting on myself deeper in this way, I can purify my thoughts. The various suffering you may be carrying, such as pain or loneliness, I hope that if I show you my own heart, it can be an opportunity for everyone to re-examine their hearts a little more closely. This is what I think about most now that I am involved in production and direction.

YUZURU HANYU x [TRAVEL]

-Physically, traveling to different countries or other places was only for competitions or expeditions. In that sense, I may not have ‘travelled’, but I often went abroad, and even went to many places in Japan for competitions. Even now, I go to many places to perform in ice shows.

What do you bring on board a plane?

-Earphones, audio player, battery, a game console, what else, supplements, I think. It's heavy every time. There were batteries and various cables, and there were about 5 earphones in the case, so every time the inspectors from overseas would ask, "What are these?” I will be stopped.

5 earphones are too much, isn’t it?

-Maybe there are too many cables.

How do you spend your time on board?

-For example, when it comes to traveling before a competition or a show, I would spend most of my time thinking about the time difference, stretching, jet lag, and so on. I would calculate these things, considering how much sleep I could get and also making adjustments to make sure that I could get the right amount of sleep. But on the way back, I would be completely free. Since I could spend my time as I wanted, I would play games of course, but I also liked to look back on my performances during the expedition, or look at the clouds outside the window, the sun above the clouds, and the way the light reflects off the clouds.

Do you prefer the aisle seat or the window seat?

-I like the seat next to the window. I think it's great that airplanes can go above the clouds, even if it's cloudy or rainy. Of course, there are times thick clouds will make it difficult to reach above, and there may be a turbulence, but you know that there is always a sun above the clouds during the day, and there is the moon at night, I really think that is a unique sight on the plane. The rays of the sun, or the light of the moon reflecting through the gaps or the uneven surface of the clouds really look like a scenery out of this world. No two sceneries are ever the same, they change every 0.1 second. I think there must be some meaning in having encountered such a scenery. I like spending my time on the plane like this.

What are your memories of your travel time?

-When I was a student, I spent a lot of time on airplanes doing reports or research. When I had to travel from Canada to Japan or other countries, I had a lot of time, so during those times I tried to finish my assignments on the plane so that I could concentrate on my performance. Of course there were people around me, but when it was dark and I only had my book and reading lamp on, I felt as if I was in my own space, so I was able to concentrate and relax while doing my assignments.

What's your routine for the day you depart on a trip?

-When I go on a travel, usually there must be a competition scheduled, so I try to clean my room as much as possible before I leave, not to make a wish, but to prepare myself for the performance. After all, tidying up the room is like a time for me to put my thoughts and feelings in order. Especially when I pack, things tend to get messy, so I try to keep it as clean as possible. Yes, I try to tidy up every time before leaving.

It's amazing how you can tidy up when you have the least time.

-It’s really hectic, but on the contrary, I will feel uneasy if it is not organised. Sometimes I’d think about ‘I didn’t tidy up here, will I make a mistake in my performance?’. I’ll get caught up in the thought. So, every time I’ll point my finger to confirm and say, ‘Ah, this is sorted, that is sorted’. It is always like this.

FLIGHT LOG: What does "journey" mean to Yuzuru Hanyu?

A mirror to know yourself

Finding a mirror in the middle of life

-For example, it's really difficult to feel your own existence in the dark. If you were to stand somewhere with all five senses gone, and stay there for hours, you would lose track of who you are, you couldn't touch anything, you couldn't feel anything. After such an experience, when you go outside and feel various things, you can really feel that you are alive, can't you? That's an extreme example, but I think that maybe we’re experiencing the same thing in life. As we live our lives feeling all kinds of things, I'm sure that at some point we’d feel lonely and become isolated, and there must be something that can only be felt because we’ve been in the darkness once. I think that it's because we're able to feel such things that we come to understand our own existence. Those stories and events are like mirrors, and we live our lives searching for where that "mirror" is. I think that this is the so-called journey of life.

- (Wearing the captain’s uniform) It's embarrassing, it's embarrassing. I don't get a chance to wear this often, so I'm very nervous. It's so embarrassing.

What is the key point to distinguish a captain’s uniform?

-Line?

Yes, the captain's uniform has 4 lines, and the co-pilot's uniform has 3 lines.

-It definitely has a weight to it. It makes me nervous, and excited at the same time.

With Hanyu dressed as the captain, let’s move to the next scene!

(Virtual Tour)

-Wow, awesome. This is fantastic. It’s so dreamy. Wow, I can feel the Earth.

How many countries have you been to so far?

-About 16. I went to many places in Europe in my junior years, like Bulgaria, Poland, Croatia, and more recently Sweden. I guess a lot of European countries. Of course, I also went to Canada, the U.S., and Russia. There were people who I competed with and improved together in these places.

Where was your first international competition?

-The first time I participated in a competition was in Finland. Tampere, Finland. Ah, I found it, it’s so big (points to the map).

[Tampere, Finland. Finland's second largest city. Since it can be accessed from the capital Helsinki in as little as one and a half hours, it is a popular city for day trips. You can enjoy nature while cruising the lakes and rivers.]

-I was 9 years old, and I celebrated my birthday in the airplane. I turned 10.

On the plane?

-Yes. I'm not sure if it was on the way there or on the way back, but I was told that I could see the Northern Lights. I wanted to see it, but I was on the aisle side so I couldn't see it at all. I really wanted to see it.

Was there any celebration on the plane?

-No, not at all. At that time, even though it was before my birthday, I already had my birthday present in my hands. I thought it was a great event. My birthday was on December 7th, and I left on the 6th, but I was really happy to have the birthday present already. I was feeling like “Not until the 7th, it's not my birthday yet, so I shouldn't open it yet”.

What were your memories of your first international competition?

-It was my first international competition and I was very confident, but in fact, I was competing in a category higher than usual. Generally speaking, it would have been impossible to win, but I won somehow. It was the ‘Santa Claus Cup’, so all the judges were dressed up as Santas. That was very memorable.

So Santa Claus gave you the score?

-Yes. Back then, the scoring system was different from now. They were holding up scoreboards with a score of 4.3. It was a great competition like this.  

Were you nervous about competing abroad for the first time?

-No, I was an overconfident person at that time so I thought I could win no matter what. On the way there in the plane, I was listening to "Eikou no Kakehashi" (Bridge of Glory) thinking, "I've finally come this far", and I was feeling emotional. It felt like I was finally embarking on a journey out to the world.

Did you have time for sightseeing in Finland?

-Since it was my first competition, I wanted to do some sightseeing, and I had a little bit of time, so I went to a place called the Moomin Museum. You can look it up. I’m curious to see what it's like now.

(searching) It may not come up. Maybe I'll search for Tampere Moomin or something. Where is it. Ah found it.

Is this it? Wow, that brings back memories. I don't remember it being this big. It looks quite spacious. I didn't know it was this big. I went there at night at the time, I didn't remember it being that big at all. But I remembered the interior very well. There was a corner where you could experience all kinds of things, and there was an information section about the person who made it. Tampere is like the birthplace of Moomins, and I even bought a Moomin souvenir. It’s really nostalgic.

[Moomin Museum. Approximately 2,000 items are on display, including the original drawings of Tove Jansson, the creator of Moomin. Various interactive exhibits are also popular.]

-Wow, this is the first time I've seen it since then, it brings back memories. I think we went by car, but I don't remember how we got there. But it was December in Finland at the time, so there was very little sunlight. It was mostly dark. I think the sun was up for only about an hour or two at that time.

Memories of Europe?

-The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen. (searching) From Denmark. Maybe this one.

[13 years old, a brief sightseeing in Copenhagen, Denmark]

-Ah, I went there. Ah, it was around there. I remember this place quite well. You can see the park from the street here. I passed through it to get there.

When did this happen?

-I think this was at the end of my first year of junior high school, around March. It’s quite nostalgic. This was the last time I was able to do any sightseeing during the competition. But I didn't have much time for sightseeing other than here and Tampere, so it’s a very memorable place for me. I think this was my last competition before entering the junior level. I was about 12 years old.

[Little Mermaid Statue (Copenhagen, Denmark). A bronze statue based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Little Mermaid". It stands quietly by the sea as a symbol of fairy tale land.]

[Hanyu Yuzuru’s training ground. Canada] - (searching) As expected, cricket club may not be searchable, if I don’t type ‘Toronto’... Ah found it.

Yes. I often come here. Wow, Wilson Avenue. How long I’ve been here. Yes. This is my practice place, how nostalgic.

[Cricket Club (Toronto, Canada). The skating rink where Yuzuru Hanyu was based for about 10 years]

- I had been practicing at this rink for almost 10 years. Amazing. It was about three years before the Sochi Olympics.

Looking back now, what was your time in Canada like?

-Well, at first I didn't know right from left and I couldn't speak English, so I was full of anxiety, but I gradually started doing things like self-checkout and tried to stay away from English as much as possible in my daily life, and I gradually started to feel more comfortable.

[A Place of Growth: Hong Kong]

-I went to Hong Kong twice. I don't really have good memories of either since I couldn't win. In the first competition, I simply didn't have enough skill to win. And in the second competition, I was in an unusual situation where I couldn't even advance to the free skate, so I was really frustrated and I cried a lot. But then, for the first time, I landed the triple toe loop really cleanly. It was at a skating centre in a shopping mall and there were a lot of people watching, and they were cheering excitedly and saying how amazing (that kid) was, so I was really fired up at that moment.

It sure brings back a lot of memories.

-It does.

Did seeing the world lead to growth?

-For me I experienced a lot of growth in competitions, like when I first landed a triple jump, it was during a competition in Hong Kong. It was the first time I felt like I had landed a clean triple jump, but when I was training in Japan, I couldn't land it at all. As I thought, if I had a rival, someone to aspire to, or a good image right next to me, I felt like I could do it too. It seems like I had grown without even realising it.

[Yuzuru Hanyu’s hometown: Sendai]

-Sendai. Sendai has its urban areas, but there's also an abundance of greenery which is really nice. Also, the climate is very pleasant. It doesn't rain a lot, and it's not unbearably hot in the summer, and although it's cold in winter, it doesn't snow like it does on the Sea of Japan. I think it's really comfortable to live there.

As it is the town where I was born and raised, whenever I recall the various sceneries and think of the people who have helped me, I am filled with gratitude, and I often think about how much support I have received in order to get to this point. As such, I hope to give back in some way for the time, energy, and money that was spent on me, whether through my performances, donations or any other ways to express my gratitude.

[FLIGHT LOG: What does “the world” mean to Yuzuru Hanyu?]

Hope and anxiety, brought together by gravity

-It’s a combination of hope and anxiety brought together by gravity. The world, through my experience in all the competitions and travels I have been on, is that it is full of hope, it gives me hope, it teaches me things, it makes me happy, and when I come back to Japan, I can come back with that hope in my heart. But there is also a sense of anxiety when I travel, a culture that I don't understand, or a language I don't understand, or other things that are different, and these things are also part of the world, which is brought together by the gravitational force of the earth and the connection between people and the community. I think it’s a collection of various things.

What is the charm of travel?

-I think just making a lot of plans for a trip and thinking, ``I want to go here'' or ``I want to go there'' is already like a journey of thought. But when you actually go and try things, you'll experience many things up close, or you'll feel scared when you're there, or maybe not everything will go smoothly. That's why there’s a sense of thrill, and that thrill will turn into excitement and joy. I think that's what makes traveling fun.

A message to everyone who challenges the world.

-I think it would be more difficult to find something that doesn't make you anxious when you start out in a new environment. Honestly, at that time, I was excited every day taking on new challenges, and if it was something I liked, I would be thrilled to move forward to the next step, and proceed with much curiosity and excitement. But if I take a step back and think about it calmly, I’m sure that at the same time there is anxiety attached to it too. I think that hope exists not only because things go well, but also because there are things that do not go well. So it is definitely okay to feel the fear of taking on a challenge. The sense of accomplishment you feel when you succeed after trying is surely multiplied many times because of that fear. I believe it turns into joy.

I am sure that everyone is challenging themselves every day, not because they have a goal in mind, but just by living life, you keep challenging yourself. Even if you are never praised for doing things that others think are normal or taken for granted, I think for some people that life will be happy, and for others that life may be boring. So, I believe that by just thinking that you are challenging yourself every day and moving forward, your value ​​of happiness will surely change too.

After becoming a professional, for me, improving my skills and acquiring various ways of expression are my daily gifts. I challenge myself every day, encounter failures, but there are fewer instances that lead to success, so I think I'm accumulating failures every day. But that may be skating for me, for you that may be housework, or that may be your daily work. But I've come to value those small daily failures and joys, and I want to cherish that happiness too.

(end of Virtual Tour)

The second journey in my life

-Talking about it, I now feel like I’m on the second journey in my life. For me, the first journey was up to the Pyeongchang Olympics. When I started that journey, my goal was to win the Olympic Games back-to-back. At that moment, I think that my first journey had already ended. Four years passed from there that led to Beijing, but I don't really think of the time leading up to Beijing was much of a journey.

It’s Pyeongchang, not Beijing?

-Well, I think that for everyone, it’s probably Beijing, or till the day before the press conference. But for me, Pyeongchang was the moment when my dream came true. I think that the first journey ended there, and looking back now, I think after that it was the preparation period for my next journey.

[What was Yuzuru Hanyu’s “First journey of life?”]

-In my mind, travel is a kind of journey to look at oneself, to touch on various things, to gain various insights, to find out what one wants to do, etc. I think it's like a journey of self-discovery, but in a way, my first journey was not like that. It was pretty much like a predetermined destination, and I was being taken there on an airplane. The route was already decided, there were probably various layovers along the way, and amongst those stops, I'm sure there were things like this stop was good, or the next option was better, or that this plane was better, etc. But looking back now, I didn't feel like I was navigating it myself.

[And now, to the “Second Journey of Life”]

-To be honest, I don't really know where my destination is. Maybe as I gain more and more experience and re-examine myself physically, my thoughts, and various other aspects, I may come up with a destination that I want to aim to. But for now, I'm just flying until I run out of fuel, and when I feel like I need to refuel at a certain point, I’ll make a stopover, refuel and fly again.

I’m curious, what kind of fuel does Yuzuru Hanyu use for his airplane?

-I wonder. It's really difficult, but it runs out of fuel all the time. I wasn't the captain on the first trip, there were maintenance crew, assistant staff, I had a lot of supportive people around my seat and I spent my time being very dependent on that support. Now I'm more like the captain and also the control tower. Of course, I’m in charge of the approach of the plane that I'm flying, but I also have to detect the radars of the planes flying around me, thinking about what to do, so in a way it's a bit chaotic.

So, it feels like my fuel runs out very easily. If you ask me what fuels me, well, I guess it's the impressions and the reactions on everyone's faces when I perform. After all, I’d like to know how everyone felt about my performance, the thoughts I put into it, the various techniques and expressions I put into it, how those things were conveyed to the audience, what they liked about it, what they were interested in, and so on. I think that maybe that’s the fuel for me.

[The many "walls" I've encountered in my life's journey]

-The "wall" is there every day. I think about various things every day, and every day there are moments when I feel like “I want to do this”, or “I can't do what I want to do”. I wonder how to overcome that, how to face it, should I just give up today. I think there is some kind of wall that exists every day. The thickness of the wall varies from day to day, and there are days when I have to put a door on the wall, or climb over it, or kick it down. I feel like I spend my time every day looking at and colliding with the walls within myself and my heart in some way.

How did you overcome the obstacles?

- I don't actively try to overcome them much. For example, there was the injury I got when I collided with someone in China, also I've had a lot of injuries myself and I remember how I felt when I got injured at the Pyeongchang Olympics, and in Beijing Olympics I got stuck in a hole and made a mistake in the short program, such are the various obstacles in competition. And I still feel the towering wall that stands in the way of my quadruple axel dream, but more than that, I think that there are ‘walls’ in just living each day. I'm sure there are many different routes out there, and I have to make choices every day, and when making those choices, I wonder if there will be an obstacle in the way or not, or if there will be obstacles later on. I think that's the biggest ‘wall’ for me.

FLIGHT LOG: What are the words that Yuzuru Hanyu value?

-What I value, yes. “Never forget your original intention”.

This is a phrase that I have always treasured ever since I was in junior high school, and it is also my motto. Whenever think about various things and work hard towards something, there will be times that I feel like my footing is unsteady. It is common to gradually forget the feelings you had when you first set out to achieve it, so if I can live without forgetting those initial feelings, I think I can overcome most things. When you start something, you’re probably having fun or enjoying it. You begin with that feeling, being curious and wanting to move forward, but gradually that feeling fades away, it becomes monotonous, and you lose the joy of it. Such things happen. I think it would be nice to always feel something like that initial joy or sense of accomplishment you get as you grow.

How have you taken care of yourself?

-I think I'm probably strongest when I'm thinking about skating, so in a way, those moments may be a situation where I’m taking care of myself. When I move away from skating, my existence… in a way, I think that my skating, the people who watch me skate and my programs are like a mirror of my existence, so I think those moments are the most comforting for me. However, the most difficult moment is when all the effort and preparation I've made, all the things that I've carefully imagined, doesn't translate into results or reflected in my skating, and it's not just my fault, but all sorts of factors pile up which prevents me from doing it the way I wanted. That’s most painful for me.

When you hit a wall, what should you do? Do you have any advice for everyone?

-I think it's good to feel a lot of walls. There are times when you can overcome them if you try, but there are also times when you think you can't overcome them. And before you know it, someone may become your ally and open a door for you, or someone may also tell you that there is another way without breaking down the wall, and I think it's okay for various ways depending on the circumstances around you and how you feel at that time. So, experience many obstacles, think about what you have now, or return to your original intention and think, ‘Why did I come up against this wall?’, or look back in retrospect at the various obstacles you have faced and reflect what you have done repeatedly to get here. I think it is good to have such an opportunity.

[FLIGHT LOG: Captain Yuzuru Hanyu’s journey. Where are you heading to?]

-Uncertain future. I don't think that the person I will be in a second from now has everything decided, and looking at the person a second later, the current self is already in the past, and that is the path in front that I have already walked. All this while, when I was chasing various goals and dreams, I didn't know how the journey would turn out, but I could see the goal, and even though I didn’t know if it was certain or definite, but I have always lived my days trying to make it certain. To be honest, I don't know where the destination is now, but I think that the present is possible because the future is not decided, and the future is visible because it is not certain. I think that is the purpose and goal of my journey from now on.

Are you enjoying the journey now?

-It's not fun, to be honest. It's funny that it’s not fun. But I think I'm having a fulfilling life every day, thinking about various things, absorbing many things, learning various things, and then from there it would be great if I could find a mirror each day in which I can re-examine my existence.

[A message from Captain Yuzuru Hanyu to everyone]

-Thank you for watching. I look forward to seeing you again soon on your journey through life.

Source: Own video audio transcript

Online video: https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:5046894632566792

[kattangeln]

my top 9 first-watch films of 2024

I tag everyone who wants to share their favorite films watched in 2024

I’ve watched 135 feature films for the first time, and this selection was actually quite hard to make. Some I barely remember watching, some I really enjoyed. I wanted to include others, I really enjoyed Bullet Train (2022) for example, but in the end, these are all films that will stay with me.

(And this year the goal is to see a film every day, so 365, I look forward to the challenge).

I recommend all of these films if you ever get the chance to watch them. Under the cut is a short description of the films.

Bullets (2023) is a Swedish drama thriller about a kid who accidentally gets drawn into criminality, it explores the actual reality of criminal gangs and their exploitation of kids in Swedish suburbs.

C’è ancora domani (There’s Still Tomorrow, english title) (2023) is an Italian drama about a family in the 40s living with an abusive husband. It follows the wife in her daily life and leads up to the first election for women.

Eye in the Sky (2015) is an English/American drama thriller about the messy morality and the complicated laws surrounding military warfare surrounding wanted people and innocent civilians.

Flukten over grensen (The Crossing, english title) (2020) is a Norwegian drama about the Nazi occupation of Norway during World War Two and the struggles of Norwegian Jews from the perspective of children.

Jagten (The Hunt, english title) (2012) is a Danish drama thriller about a lonely pre-school teacher who gets accused of molesting a child, portraying the hunt of a pedophile.

Les misérables (2019) is a French crime drama about a trio of different policemen in a neighborhood filled with crime and distrust of the police. It follows bad decisions, police malpractice and brutality and riots.

Official secrets (2019) is an English/American political thriller about Katherine Gun who exposes a USA-UK illegal cooperation and their lies to the public leading up to the invasion of Iraq 2003 and her legal trial.

Papicha (2019) is an Algerian drama about a headstrong young student fighting for freedom in 1997 Algiers where new Islamic laws and rules change the lives of her, and specifically all other women.

Poor Things (2023) is an English/American philosophical epic about a child in a full grown woman’s body and her adventures and explorations of sexuality, inequality and men’s cruelty in a fantasy sci-fi Victorian like world setting.

[365days365movies]

Japanuary I: Ikiru (1952) - Review

This film is...incredible.

And I mean that, too. I may have gotten a bit amped because of the messages about the futility of bureaucracy, but the very fact that I was affected proves the efficacy of this movie. This is moving in several ways. It's heartbreaking, it's rabble-rousing, it's thought-provoking, and it's a treatise on the nature of a life lived and a life fulfilled. Some of the best filmmaking I've ever seen, and absolutely one of the best films I've ever watched. I genuinely can't recommend this film enough, whether or not you're a film buff. But be warned...you should be in the right mood to watch it.

That said, what do others think of this film? Well, unsurprisingly, it's one of the most loved films ever made. It's got a 98% on Rotten Tomatoes (for the critics score, audience is 97%), an 8.3/10 on iMDb, a 4.5/5 on Letterboxd, and an impossible 92 on Metacritic, holy shit. Yeah, this is an incredibly well-loved movie, although nobody seems to think it's perfect. And...yeah, I agree. I have some minor criticisms with this movie, which I'll go into, but I still can't deny how utterly excellent it is. So, without further ado, check out the Review below the jump!

SPOILERS AHEAD!!! KINDA!!!

Cast and Acting - 9/10

...I just...holy shit, Takashi Shimura. He's one of Akira Kurosawa's mainstay heavy-hitter actors, and WOW DOES THAT MAKE SENSE! Shimura is absolutely amazing in this film, and in the modern world, easily could've won Best Actor at the Oscars, even though this is a foreign language film. His performance as a truly broken Kanji Watanabe searching for meaning and purpose is fantastic, and he showcases his character development through multiple moments in this film. It's honestly difficult for me to say things that haven't been said about his performance, but you can just...feel it. Like, it's incredibly, depressingly resonant. It's hopelessness tinted with the desperation to hope. It's just...so...fucking...GOOD.

That said, everybody else is great, but not as good. You can't be as good as Shimura is in this film, to be honest, it's just so hard to compete with. Still, credit to be given to Shinchi Himori, Nobuo Kaneko, Yunosuke Itō, and Miki Odagiri for some notable appearances and performances, especially Odagiri for her genuine performance as Toyo. It's a hell of a cast, but Shimura takes it over entirely. It's honestly incredibly impressive.

Plot and Writing - 10/10

Holy shit, the way this film is structured was incredibly effective for me. The themes of finding fulfillment and having unseen personal struggles are potent and relatable, but the sheer and utter arraignment of bureaucracy in Japan after World War II is...enragingly palpable. I honestly meant what I said in the review when I said it stoked anti-bureaucratic fires within me that I didn't know existed, but good God, I felt that hard-as-hell. I've seen scenes like the opening in films before, where someone's led on a runaround, only to get back where they started, and I actually wonder if this is where that film and TV trope started. It's incredibly effective, as is the ending section of the film where said bureaucracy attempts to erase Watanabe's work. Just feeling his efforts drowned in the machine, with no difference made within the levels of bureaucracy...just...GAH FUCK, I'm getting mad again. Moving on, moving on...

As I said before, the film was written by Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni, inspired by the Leo Tolstory novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich. Not sure about that last part in terms of how much was adapted, but it doesn't matter. This film is masterfully written, and a real dissection of what it means to live, and what it means for that living to have meaning, in any portion of that life. After all, even if the bureaucrats seem to erase his legacy immediately, the mothers won't forget. Their children won't forget. His family...might forget, they're pieces of shit, all of 'em. Yeah, that's another theme of this film: family ignoring you and being real shitty, NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRIED TO RAISE YOUR UNGRATEFUL SPINELESS BOOR OF A SON ALL BY YOURSELF GAAAAAAAH!!!!

...Moving on.

Direction and Cinematography - 10/10

Talk about the master at work! Unsurprisingly, Akira Kurosawa knocks this one out of the park in many ways, as does cinematographer Asakazu Nakai. Even in the GIFs I've shown, there's obvious care in each of the shots, and the direction of the actors is obviously top-notch throughout. No complaints, and no comments that haven't been made elsewhere. Excellent direction, excellent cinematography, this film looks fantastic!

Production and Set Design - 10/10

Honestly, second verse, same as the first here. I believe I'm in 1950s Japan because...well, we are there. This is a realistic looking and feeling film, and somehow...SOMEHOW...feels mostly timeless even though it's obviously dated. There are packed dance halls with outdated Western dancing, there're very stereotypical Japanese neighborhoods and wardrobes that are obviously old, and there's a lot of paperwork, and yet...it's effortless. It's a beautiful film enhanced by the set-dressing and production. Fantastic.

Music and Editing - 9/10

The second half dragged a bit. Yeah, that portion of the review after Kanji dies, where I drag on for a bit about the poison of Japanese bureaucracy? That's how long the movie drags that out. And hell, it's effective, but there's some cutting that could've been done there, I think. However, even if that was the case, it's overwhelmed by clever editing and use of music. Obviously, the song Gondola no Uta is a major part of the film, and is used twice with devastating effectiveness, both times! Other pieces of music, including the Happy Birthday song in a well-posed scene, are used incredibly well. Credit to Fumio Hayasaka for the composing of this film, and we've actually seen him a few times already, in Rashomon, Seven Samurai, and Ugetsu. And this won't be the last time, either.

Man, this movie was a hell-of-a-way to start this Japanuary. Definitely going to keep on the Kurosawa thread for a minute here, since he's one of the most important Japanese filmmakers in the history of the country's cinema, and all that. Next up, though, I'm touching on one of my favorite things: adaptations of a classic property. I'm a sucker for comic book movies (which is something I haven't talked about on this blog, but is true nonetheless), and I've talked previously about my love of Greek mythology, amongst other mythologies (basic bitch as that may be). But there's a taste of mine that's even more basic bitch of me, from a literary standpoint, if that's even possible. And it's also something that I've surprisingly barely touched upon in this blog. So, next time, and without further ado...the Bard.

Next: Throne of Blood (1957) - dir. Akira Kurosawa

[eretzyisrael]

Good evening. Three months into the war. This evening I want to explain the fighting in the Gaza Strip, the challenges of the war, and its duration. One of the war's goals is to dismantle Hamas. This means dismantling the military capabilities Hamas built over the years and used to carry out the barbaric massacre on October 7th. To understand the military operation in Gaza Strip, one must understand the enemy Hamas and how it operates.

Hamas is structured in battalions. Hamas battalions use a complex underground system with infrastructure to manufacture weapons, war rooms, command and control centers, and the capability to launch rockets from above and below ground. The terrorists move between different areas in the Gaza Strip using this infrastructure, allowing them to do so covertly. The enemy's strongholds are located under and near sensitive civilian sites like the Indonesian Hospital, which you see here in the film and next to it a school, used by Hamas as a human shield. Hamas terrorists move unarmed, dressed in civilian clothes, planting explosives for IDF forces in the streets and at the entrance to tunnel shafts. What does this fight look like in the field? This is the Gaza Strip. It covers 365 square kilometers, and its population is over two million people. This is the northern Gaza Strip, where we began our ground operation and have been fighting for the past three months. In the northern Gaza Strip, Hamas had two military brigades with 12 battalions in total, consisting of about 14,000 terrorists total. From Jabaliya, for example, hundreds of terrorists committed the murderous massacre in the communities of Sderot, Nir Am, Erez, Kfar Aza, and Netiv HaAsara on October 7th. They slaughtered civilians and abducted others to Jabaliya. Jabaliya is a densely populated area, as you can see in the film, with about 25,000 buildings. One in every ten such buildings is multi-story. Before entering such a dense area for combat, we evacuate the population, aiming to prevent harm and protect the civilians while allowing military action, as it deprives Hamas of protection under the guise of the population and allows us to distinguish between the population and Hamas terrorists and target them. This protects IDF forces and the uninvolved civilian population. After evacuating most of the residents, before IDF ground forces enter, the Israeli Air Force strikes threats to IDF forces. We struck underground infrastructure, terrorists, lookout posts, and explosive rigged houses. Just in Jabaliya alone, we struck about 670 air targets before the entry of the ground forces. We struck precisely, intelligence-based, and according to international law. All this allowed optimal entry conditions for IDF forces.

Dismantling Hamas consists of five objectives – the first and most important, eliminating Hamas commanders, thus impacting its command and control. In these strikes, in the Jabaliya area we eliminated the battalion commander, the deputy brigade commanders, and 11 company commanders leading the terrorists in the field. The senior terrorist we eliminated in the area is Ahmad Randor; you can see him here in the picture, sitting with his command echelon in his underground bunker, 40 meters underground. We precisely struck and eliminated all the people with him. Eliminating the commanders made it difficult for the terrorists to fight organized and led to many of them surrendering. The second objective is ground combat against the terrorists. IDF forces encircled and cleared the Jabaliya area, meaning the combination of Armored forces, about 200 tanks, Combat Engineering forces, Infantry forces, and special forces encircled the Jabaliya area from several directions simultaneously. All this with intelligence and air support from dozens of aircraft that strike any threat quickly. IDF ground forces directed the fighter jets that struck about 300 targets. This collaboration between the Israeli Air Force and the ground forces has not been seen in any war to date. Even at this moment as I speak with you here, Israeli Air Force jets continue to accompany ground forces and strike any threat to IDF forces. IDF soldiers on the ground are fighting bravely. They eliminate terrorist cells firing from within houses, tunnel openings, and alleyways; IDF forces fight close-quarter battles with terrorists. This footage, from the Go-Pro of a soldier wounded by a terrorist, shows the soldier rising, charging, and eliminating a terrorist. There are dozens of such operations in the field. Fighting terror is complex and costly. Sadly, it also costs the lives of IDF forces. We announced this evening the death of the late LTC Roee Yohay Yosef Mordechay, may his memory be a blessing. He was killed in an encounter with terrorists in the northern Gaza Strip. Roee was an outstanding commander and soldier. Before his death, it was agreed that he would be appointed Commanding Officer of the 50th Battalion of the Nahal Brigade. We embrace his family and all bereaved families and will continue to accompany them.

We learn from every event and improve in order to reduce the number of casualties. In every event where there are casualties in the field, IDF forces provide life-saving medical treatment and conduct rescue operations under fire and life-threatening conditions, with the help of medical teams and the 669 Airborne Rescue and Evacuation Unit of the Israeli Air Force. We have rescued hundreds of injured, saving their lives.

The third objective is to gather intelligence in the field. We have located computers, maps, communication devices, and found hard drives from which we downloaded about 70 million intelligence files, which are now being studied and analyzed by the Intelligence Directorate (J2) and the Israeli Security Agency (ISA). We interrogated many terrorists in the field, in collaboration with the ISA, working shoulder to shoulder, a practice that yields remarkable achievements in the war. In Jabaliya, many terrorists have surrendered, whom we are questioning. As a result of this, we have gathered intelligence about senior Hamas operatives, including documentation, as you can see in this picture, of Muhammad Deif, which we retrieved from a hard drive. This drive also contained information about senior Hamas operatives outside of Gaza. All of this provides us with vital intelligence for the continuation of the war.

The fourth objective is to locate and destroy rockets, weapons, and the sites where they are manufactured. We located and destroyed about 40,000 weapons across the Gaza Strip, some of which were found in schools, hospitals, mosques, and under the beds of children.

The fifth objective for dismantling Hamas is to destroy its underground infrastructure. In Jabaliya alone, we found 8 km of underground tunnels and more than 40 tunnel shafts. Inside the tunnels, we located Hamas’ northern headquarters near there, we retrieved the bodies of five hostages and brought them back to be buried in Israel. To combat the underground infrastructure, we deployed classified technological means, followed by special forces trained for the mission, and ultimately, as you can see, we also eliminated terrorists and destroyed the infrastructure inside the tunnels. We also operated in bases that Hamas had established in hospitals. These are bases Hamas thought we would avoid operating in, but they were mistaken. In two hospitals in the area, Kamal Adwan as you see in the picture, and the Indonesian Hospital, underground infrastructure, weapons, and military equipment were established. In both, we carried out special operations to dismantle the terror infrastructure, without harming doctors, medical teams, or patients. IDF forces were prepared with intelligence information in advance regarding locations where hostages were suspected to be and therefore did not strike them. We learned many lessons from the tragic event in which three hostages were killed, and we are training IDF forces for such encounters. The return of the hostages is a main goal of the war and a supreme national mission.

At the end of a stubborn and determined battle, we dismantled Hamas' military framework in Jabaliya. Hamas no longer operates in an organized manner in this area. We have deprived it of its main terror capabilities in the region. It is important for me to say to the public – there are still terrorists in Jabaliya. However, they now operate without a framework and without commanders. We have encountered and will continue to encounter sporadic rocket fire from this area. We have struck it and will continue to strike, deepening our achievements in these areas. This takes time. There are no shortcuts in fighting terror. Now think about what I showed you, about what we did in Jabaliya, and multiply it by eight areas that cover the entire northern part of the Gaza Strip, each with different terrain and challenges. This is why the task required three months. We have completed the dismantling of Hamas' military framework in the northern Gaza Strip and will continue to deepen the achievement, strengthening the barrier and the defense components along the security fence. Now, we are focusing on dismantling Hamas in the central and southern Gaza Strip. We will do this differently, thoroughly, based on the lessons we have learned from the fighting so far. The central camps area is dense and contains a lot of terrorists, and in Khan Yunis, there is an underground city of sprawling tunnels. We are applying the lessons we learned and continue to develop more creative ways to fight in the area, to eliminate terrorists, to destroy terror infrastructure and weapons above and below ground. This will take time. The fighting will continue throughout 2024, as we work according to a plan to achieve the war's objectives. To dismantle Hamas in the center and south and to continue with every intelligence, operational effort, and military pressure to return the hostages. Meanwhile, we are building defended areas to safely return our residents home.

I also want to refer to the last day in the north. Hezbollah, in its role, or the role it has taken upon itself as the protector of Hamas, fired today towards IDF bases in the north, with no casualties to IDF forces. We eliminated the terrorist cells that carried out the shooting and struck a series of targets including significant military compounds of the organization. We continue to be prepared with very high readiness in the north, in defense and offense.

[watermeloncholycucumbersome]

Day 78 of Writing Something Everyday

(365 Day Challenge)

(☝️is the spoken word short film I made to go along with my poem and 👇 are the words🩶)

Missing.

There's a gaping hole inside of me,

So large it cannot be packed.

Nothing can fill the abyss of loss,

I mourn the growth the scythe hacked.

Gale's cold voice blows through me,

Shivering at its hollow sound.

I watch as seeds sown,

Uproot themselves from the ground.

The rope has come untethered,

My body's carried among the trees.

Alas I am caught - crudely displayed,

A plastic bag discarded from the breeze.

The echo of the emptiness screams,

It's the utmost deafening of sounds.

Missing you does not define the way I feel, As all words used are stormbound.

It's a deep desire - a wanting,

And my God it hurts.

To be brought back down to reality,

High on the delusion of my disconcert.

My spirit groans within me as I breathe my

final breath.

I love you and I will see you again,

Even if it must be in my death.

~Jenni

[kellykadesperate]

considering i'm a full time teacher and do have a semi active social life i am smashing my 365 films in a year challenge. it must be said!

[mywifeleftme]

335: Areski and Fontaine // L'Incendie

L'Incendie Areski and Fontaine 1973, BYG

The late ‘60s and early ‘70s were when the past half-century of avant-garde developments in theatre, literature, film, and art music began to break through into pop. The results of these early flirtations have a sense of discovery and possibility that has continued to captivate generations of new listeners to this day. Brigitte Fontaine and Areski Belkacem’s L’Incendie should absolutely be considered one of the towering classics of the era (and, among the Francophonie, it probably is), but I only came across it for the first time early last year. It reminds me of something from the Velvet Underground / John Cale / Nico universe, simultaneously emblematic of its time and so ahead of it as to sound anachronistic.

On “Les murailles,” tape of Fontaine’s exhalations and what sounds like a kalimba are snipped up and looped to create a tinkling, twitching soundscape that presages the Books or Boards of Canada; the track that follows, “L’engourdie,” layers howling wah-drenched electric guitar behind a pretty acoustic folk pop number that would fit right in on a Brigitte Bardot record; next, the stark “Nous avons tant parlé” could be a theatrical elegy set in a dilapidated seaside church. Every song feels stylistically distinct, but Areski and Fontaine’s creative vision remains consistent; I hear post-punk and Björk and Sonic Youth, and I hear French early music and Berber folk and the ‘50s sound poetry of Henri Chopin in the same measure.

It’s always a challenge reviewing non-English language records because you’re stuck speaking to its purely sonic characteristics, which increases the likelihood you’ll hilariously misread it—call a song a soothing folk idyll when it’s actually about smashing international Jewry or something. With political, lyric-forward stuff like L’Incendie, it also means failing to engage with its message, flattening it as an artwork. (Unfortunately, there is nothing I as a person of French ancestry living in a majority-French city could do or could have done in the past to better interpret this record.) I asked French-language correspondent and girlfriend of the podcast Mea for one of her classic vibe checks, but she told me the reams of notes she took while listening were too dotty to share, so I can only assume hearing and understanding Fontaine’s words in their original tongue unchains some celestial horror.

Few of the lyrics can be easily found online, which forces me to rely on Le Gendre’s analysis, but critic Kevin Le Gendre’s helpful liner notes paint a portrait of a wide-ranging album that engages with recent post-colonialist bloodshed (Jordan’s Black September civil war with PLO forces on “Le 6 septembre”); the medicalization of psychic distress (“Ragilia”); intimacy and coupledom; and much more besides. What I was able to find of Fontaine’s lyrics online have a spiky surrealist poetry to them. From “Après la guerre” (“After the War”):

“Happiness blows The eyelids lie gently The sexes glow The eyes, by moving, make you cum The men returned from the war And on their heads, the grass grows back.”

335/365

[notebookmusical]

got tired of my 365 albums in 365 days challenge because everything started to sound the same and now today's album is a film score </3 beautiful score tho

[thehitchikerdude]

Tagged by @nickandros! Between my flatmate @bjorkswarmthness challenging themself to watch 365 films in 2023, sci-fi night with them, Nick, @beholdingslut and @zezran, and my work getting me movie vouchers for my birthday, I ended up watching 235 films.

Would you believe that some of them were pretty good and my absolute faves are below (with only a single re-watch in this list!):

Tagging @bjorkswarmthness, @elesssar, @kredensik, and @emuwarum to do this too!

[365days365movies]

Japanuary I: Ikiru (1952) - Recap

Akira Kurosawa, baby!

Man, every time I've returned to Kurosawa, I've been super-excited! I've talked about him before (in both a published review, and an unpublished review that I may finish one of these days), but it's always cool to revisit one of the masters of cinema! And, while more people in the West know him for his 1950 film Rashomon and 1954's Seven Samurai, he has far more famous films in his filmography, and I'm gonna watch a BUNCH of 'em! That's right! IT'S A KUROSAWA MARATHON BABEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

So, where to start? Well, I've seen Rashomon and Seven Samurai, which means I've skipped a seminal Kurosawa film: 1952's tragedy film Ikiru. That makes this the first film I've seen directed by Kurosawa that isn't a samurai film on some kind, and the first film I've ever seen that Wikipedia straight-up calls a tragedy film! What the FUCK does that mean, and what am I in for? Well...time for some background, I guess? It all starts with author Leo Tolstoy, and OH FUCK, TOLSTOY?

Well...shit. That explains a few things. Leo Tolstoy is, of course, one of the greatest Russian writers and poets of all time, famous for the novel Anna Karenina, and the notoriously 1225 page long historical novel, War and Peace. Yeah, it's that dude. And no, I haven't read either book, or seen an adaptation of either, and you'll REALLY have to convince me to do so. My attention span...she can't take that much pressure, cap'n! But anyway, Tolstoy wrote a novella in 1886 called Смерть Ивана Ильича, or The Death of Ivan Ilyich. It's about a judge who dies. Because of course it is.

However, Kurosawa is excellent when it comes to adapting stories from other cultures, and translating it through a Japanese lens. I am terribly excited for Throne of Blood and Ran, which are Kurosawa's adaptations of Shakespeare, so this should be just as interesting. In fact, Ikiru is said to be one of the greatest films of all time, which is...wow. Hell of a bar to clear, I tell you what. But OK, how did this film get made?

Well, apparently, Kurosawa wanted to make a movie about a man who was set to die in 75 days. His career didn't matter, just his imminent death, and his quest to find meaning in the process of it. And I'm not sure, but Kurosawa may have come up with that idea before Tolstoy's novella was even consulted. Screenwriters Hideo Oguni and Shinobu Hashimoto, the former of which would be a long-time writing partner of Kurosawa's starting with this film, used the novella as inspiration, and they were off. The film was made for $85,000 (the equivalent of $1,011,342.83 today, holy...FUCK, inflation is a motherfucker), and release to critical acclaim.

And that's not just in Japan. Roger Ebert considered it one of his favorite films, and critics in 2012 called it the 12th greatest film of all time. And it was equally well-acclaimed by American critics back then, although it was poorly known to American audiences (unsurprisingly). It's consistently considered one of the best films ever made, and would inform cinema and Kurosawa afterwards. Hell, he credited this movie for being the reason he adapted Macbeth to make Throne of Blood, which I'll get to next. So let's see what the fuss is all about, and...probably get kinda depressed, let's be honest here.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

We start with our protagonist, Section Chief Kanji Watanabe (Takashi Shimura). He's a bureaucrat in the Public Works Office in Tokyo. A boring man with a boring life, who's done nothing with that life save to serve the boring busy bureaucracy in which he's suspended. His position is not meaningless, but he does nothing substantial with it. Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring. And, unbeknownst to him...he has stomach cancer.

We're presented with an issue in a standing cesspool in the public parks that's proposed by a group of concerned mothers., who also propose replacing it with a playground. We trace a ludicrous path that the question travels, starting at the Public Works Office, all the way up through the levels of bureaucracy, until we get to the Deputy Mayor, who directs them right back to the Public Works department, to their understandable fury. However, they return on a day that Watanabe is absent from work, which is atypical for him.

Turns out that Watanabe's at the doctor's having been suffering from stomach pain. While he's waiting, a regular at the clinic tells him the symptoms of an ulcer, vs. the symptoms of stomach cancer. You see Watanabe resonate silently with the latter, and the warning that they will only tell him he has a mild ulcer if he either has an ulcer...or has less than a year to live. And unfortunately for him...the doctors tell him he has an ulcer. After Watanabe leaves, realizing he has stomach cancer, the doctors say there's no point in telling him, as he has only six months left to live.

He goes home, distraught, to tell his son Mitsuo (Nobuo Kaneko) about the diagnosis, but finds that his son's wife Kazue (Kyôko Seki) is talking to him about using Kanji's money before he dies, basically not caring about his existence. He's about to tell him, but decides against it after hearing that. Also, fuck his daughter-in-law, she really sucks. This starts a series of flashbacks, where we find that Kanji's wife and Mitsuo's mother has long past, leaving Kanji to raise his son as a single father, only for his son to semi-abandon him at the behest of his wife. Well. This isn't fucking tragic at ALL.

After quietly crying himself to sleep that night (YES, ACTUALLY, JESUS CHRIST), Kanji wakes up the next morning and...doesn't go to work. We actually jump forward by five days, and he hasn't shown up to work since. He disappears, and nobody knows where he is, including his family. Turns out, he's been drinking his troubles away, and is attempting to...well, content warning here, but end it all. But he can't bring himself to do it, wondering what he even lived for in the first place before coming to such finality. He reveals this in conversation with a writer, a random Novelist (Yūnosuke Itō).

As Kanji pours his heart out to the Novelist, in a manner that is truly depressing, he asks for help in spending the money, as he's never learned how to...live. The Novelist offers a night on the town entirely on him, feeling pity for the man, as well as a measure of fascination for somebody like poor Kanji, whose "cancer has opened [his] eyes to his own life. Fuckin'...Christ, why did I make THIS the first movie to watch for this challenge, good...GOD.

The writer and Kanji go to the pleasure halls and nightclubs, burying themselves in hedonistic pleasure that Kanji's never experienced before. In the process, they head to another nightclub, where a piano player asks for song requests. And Kanji has one: Gondola no Uta. It's a ballad from 1910 meant to represent the old telling the young to live their lives before it's too late. Kanji sings along, and...look, to get the joke out of the way, he completely harshes the vibe of the club. But to get the seriousness of it all...it's fucking heartbreaking. You're watching this man break in real time. It's an incredible performance by Shimura, because you can feel his absolute and unabiding pain. Not to mention...seeing it. Because that camera's really cooking, direction-wise, and it BREAKS. MY. SOUL.

The two continue clubbing after that, but it's not really the same. Kanji tries a bunch of hedonistic pleasures, with the writer as his Mephistopheles guiding him along, but it's not what Kanji needed. They part company soon afterwards. The next day, a sober-but-distraught Kanji wanders the streets, then runs into Toyo Odagiri (Miki Odagiri), a young female employee in his office who's desperate to quit in favor of a less monotonous, more meaningful career. She needs his signature to let her leave, and he brings her back to his home to do so.

In the process, the two share their feelings on their job, hatred from Toyo's part, and discontentment on Kanji's. He can no longer remember why he began the job, and only thinks on how busy and boring it always was. The joyful Toyo contrasts with the dour Kanji, much to the confusion of his son and daughter-in-law, who question his association with such a young woman. Understadably, for the record, 'cause it is kinda weird without any context.

So, while he and Toyo have some fun on the town, so Toyo's eventual discomfort, and while Kanji almost tells her the reason for his distress and wanting to absorb her zeal for life, he doesn't. He returns home that first night, attempting to tell his son again that he's fucking dying, only for his son to cut his dad off, and yell at him for going around with Toyo, DESPITE NOT EVEN ASKING FOR THE CONTEXT AT ALL!!! BAD SON, MITSUO! BAD SON!

Seriously, though, this is basically Cat's in the Cradle (y'know, the Howard Chapin song), but if there was an extra verse where the son told his Dad to fuck off! Anyway, this reprimand precedes Kanji's absence from work for two weeks, peppered with spending time with Toyo, who starts working at a toy factory, and tries to break off the uncomfortable situation. But, on one final night, Kanji finally attempts to explain why he enjoys spending time with her, and does explain that he has stomach cancer. He opens up further, explaining that he can tell he's dying soon, and that he and his son are basically, spiritually no longer related.

He presses her to explain how she can feel so alive, and that he can't let himself die until he feels the same zeal that she does to live. She replies that she doesn't know why she has that zeal, and all she does is make toys for kids, which makes her feel connected to every child in Japan. He despairs as he tries to figure out how he can do that in his job and position...then runs off with an idea. In the process, he leaves Toyo behind, kinda broken by the revelations that've just happened. Me too, Toyo, me too.

The next day, much to everybody's surprise and confusion, Kanji is back in the office, with a big-ass pile of paper, and ready to work once again. And this job is to FINALLY take care of the goddamn cesspool that the mothers were asking about. It'll be a long, cross-departmental operation, which will take coordination and some bureaucratic legwork, which Kanji literally intends to do. And his plan is to turn the cesspool into a park, exactly as the mothers suggested!Awesome! It'll tale about five months, but now we'll track his progress through

...Oh. He's dead. Oh.

Six months. Kanji Watanabe died in a little less than six months, as we were told he would. No miracles, no angels, no wrong diagnoses. He's just...dead. And now, in his place there's the new Section Chief, Ono (Kamatari Fujiwara), the cold and bureaucratic Deputy Mayor (Nobuo Nakamura), and a new park that he's taking the credit for. While the press, including the novelist, attempts to give Watanabe the credit, AS THEY FUCKING SHOULD, Sakai argues that those efforts were instead a part of his job and basically built the park himself. And NOBODY IS CALLING ON HIS BUREAUCRATIC BULLSHIT, INCLUDING HIS FUCKING SON!!! Jesus CHRIST, does NOBODY give a shit about what this man did?

As the bureaucratic sycophants and toadies all suck up to the Deputy Mayor, giving him the credit, the same group of mothers from earlier come up to the funerary service, asking to burn incense for the dead Kanji. And as they weep and sob at the feet of the man that saved their fucking community when nobody else fucking would, the bureaucrats, AND FUCKING MITSUO, THE SPINELESS PIECE OF SHIT, all squirm uncomfortably, as they realize they're bad-talking the man ON HIS FUCKING DEAD BODY GOD FUCKING DAMMIT

...Jesus, this movie got me fuckin' GOING there. As Mitsuo and his fuckin' wife leave the room, these filthy fucking bureaucrats finally leave the room after defaming the legacy of this man, who froze to death while dying of stomach cancer, by the fucking way!!! God. Fuck all of these people. After the deputy mayor and his fucking toadies leave out of discomfort, the remaining bureaucrats still defame him, not even trying to acknowledge his role in getting the wheels moving when they were fucking GLUED IN PLACE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

Good goddamn, as soon as I think I'm done, the movie riles me up again. Amongst this disagreement, the group questions why he would've done this all-of-a-sudden, having undergone this sudden transformation. None of them knew he had cancer, and they refused to believe that he knew either. They instead blame it on his sudden "romance" with Toyo, until Ono and Sakai (Haruo Tanaka), another part of the Public Works Office, begin to recall his immense enthusiasm (AKA, think about it for MORE THAN FIVE FUCKING SECONDS).

One by one, bit-by-bit, they start to realize that this motherfucker worked day-and-night, think-and-thin, sweat-blood-and-tears to make this shit happen, despite pressure from all of the departments that needed to work together to get this done! He hunted these bureaucratic assholes down to get this work done, tirelessly hounding them until they GOT OFF THEIR ASSES AND DID SOMETHING. They claim to have pitied him, they claim the other departments were worse then them, they claim and try their damnedest to take or dodge responsibility where appropriate, but no matter what, there's one undeniable fact: Kanji was a fucking KING, and the reason this park happened at all! This beautiful motherfucker stood up to the fucking Deputy Mayor, after being told to abandon the project altogether, and cut through his STUPID STUBBORN BUREAUCRATIC LAZY ASS TO GET THIS PARK BUILT GODDAMN IT I FUCKING LOVE THIS MAN

The funeral party considers whether or not the effort was worth it, but still, still belittles Kanji's place in the process! He has ONE dude, Kimura (Shinichi Himori), actually giving him the credit. A guy who SAW his struggles, even saw him dying in the hallways of the building. He has A SINGLE MAN, WHO ISN'T HIS FUCKING SON, sticking up for him the whole time!!! Goddammit, I'm SO UPSET! Over the night of drinking and thinking, these stupid idiots (except Kimura, who's the MVP here) reminisce over and over about his good deeds, and we actually do get to see Kanji's progress over the course of those five months. He's threatened, bullied, almost run over, belittled, ignored, and pushed aside figuratively and literally, over and over and over again, all while he's dying! But he doesn't care! He still goes on! He's a fucking hero!

Finally, these idiots, now drunk off their fucking skulls, realize that Kanji did realize he was dying, which explains his doggedness to get this project done, despite the obstacles in his way. And they still that that revelation and make it about themselves, claiming they would've done it in his place, were they to die! God! But when somebody points out that anybody could die at any second, and none of them have the TITANIUM GONADS THAT KANJI WATAFUCKINABE HAD, they realize that Kanji was a great man. Which really sucks, because this is a hangover away from being forgotten by all of them.

Now...NOW...FUCKING NOW...they start complaining about the tediousness of bureaucracy, and realizing that ALL of their shit does stink. And finally, in a final flashback, we see exactly how Kanji Watanabe died. A policeman drops by to pay his respects, and noted that he saw him that night, and didn't attempt to get him out of the cold, because EVERYBODY IS AN ASSHOLE APPARENTLY. Anyway, he saw Kanji, happy and on the swings in the park, once again singing Gondola no Uta, while swinging away in the snow.

I'm touched. I'm sad. AND I'M MAD AS FUCK

These fucking assholes, son, daughter-in-law, brother, bureaucrats, deputy mayor, cop, EVERYBODY (except Kimura and Toyo), CAN ROT IN HELL!!! Mitsuo calls his father cruel for not telling them he was dying (HE TRIED, YOU LITTLE SHIT), and they realize maybe Toyo wasn't his fucking "girlfriend", even thought they NEVER BOTHERED TO EVEN ASK HIM!!! And after all that, after everything, these drunken bureaucratic sons of bitches wail and cry that they'll improve, and be better like Kanji was, ONLY TO GO BACK AND DO THE SAME BUREAUCRATIC BULLSHIT THEY WERE DOING BEFORE GODDAMMIT ALL TO HELL

Kimura tries to stand up. It's futile. Nobody stand with him. Instead, he goes out after work to see what Kanji did, as the children play.

I'm fucking angry, and this movie is fucking great.

I'm just...moved. I'm touched, I'm saddened, and I'm in awe of how good this movie is. It's almost 2.5 hours long, and it didn't feel like that at all. It's fantastic. And I've never felt more like FUCKING MEGATRON IN MY LIFE!!!

BURN IT DOWN!!! ALL OF IT!!!

See you at the Review.