#ko nakahira

[shihlun]

Paul Klee’s paintings as main motifs in Kō Nakahira’s “Flora on the Sand“ (1964)

[davidhudson]

Crazed Fruit (1956), directed by Ko Nakahira (January 3, 1926 – September 11, 1978).

[pierppasolini]

Crazed Fruit (1956) // dir. Kō Nakahira

[schlock-luster-video]

On April 18, 1958 Crazed Fruit debuted in West Germany.

[wetgeliscasualinterval]

Mariko Kaga in “Only On Mondays” (1964) by Ko Nakahira

[byneddiedingo]

Yujiro Ishihara, Mie Kitahara, and Masahiko Tsugawa in Crazed Fruit (Ko Nakahira, 1956) Cast: Yujiro Ishihara, Masahiko Tsugawa, Mie Kitahara, Masumi Okada, Harold Conway. Screenplay: Shintaro Ishihara, based on his novel. Cinematography: Shigeyoshi Mine. Art direction: Takashi Matsuyama. Film editing: Masanori Tsuji. Music: Masaru Sato, Toru Takemitsu.  The eternal triangle, this time involving two brothers, Natsuhisa (Yujiro Ishihara) and Haruji (Masahiko Tsugawa), and a young woman, Eri (Mie Kitahara). Crazed Fruit is somewhat of a landmark movie in Japanese film history, part of a genre known as taiyozoku or "Sun Tribe" movies, featuring the idle, affluent postwar Japanese youth. Every culture had its rebels without a cause in the 1950s, and the Japanese older generation was as scandalized (and titillated) by them as the rest. Crazed Fruit was singled out as more scandalous than most, partly because it seems to relish the erotic energy of the young without condemning it. The focal point of the film is the younger brother, Haruji, who becomes infatuated with a pretty young woman he sees in a train station, and becomes involved with her after he meets her again while out in a motorboat -- she has swum much farther out from shore than is usual, and he gives her a ride back. Her name is Eri, and she mysteriously keeps him away from the place she lives, agreeing to meet him elsewhere. She is taken with Haruji's innocence and shyness -- for a long time they stop short of having sex -- in part because he reminds her of her own lost innocence. She is married to a wealthy middle-aged American businessman (Harold Conway), a fact she keeps from Haruji, but which his older brother, Natsuhisa, learns and uses to blackmail her into having an affair with him. Haruji's learning the truth leads to a cataclysmic ending, of course. The material is handled with a good deal of sophistication that somewhat mitigates its exploitative qualities. The film made its young leads into big stars: After outgrowing his rebellious youth persona, Masahiko Tsugawa became a leading man and then a familiar character actor, while Yujiro Ishihara (the screenwriter's young brother) and Mie Kitahara married and became frequent costars -- a TCM commentary on the film called them "the Bogart and Bacall of Japan."

[farsouthproject]

Books of the Year 2023

Strange, but as usual, I didn’t think I’d read so many books this year. Then I count them up and get to thirty-eight. Not bad. Jon Fosse novels were a stand-out at the beginning of the year.. At the end of 2022 I’d read the first two volumes of Septology and was then was gifted the one volume version. Trilogy and Aliss at the Fire followed. Interesting how trends in my reading continued from the previous year: a couple of Denis Johnson books, one a reread, the other one I’d missed when it came out. Reread Mary Gaitskill. Spent less time with the Beat Reading Group but I joined in with Interzone and Kerouac’s Doctor Sax; in addition I reread Burroughs’ Last Words.  Dipped into Tanizaki again with Seven Japanese Tales that had some great stories – notably The Bridge of Dreams. Pushkin Press put out a short story collection - The Siren’s Song – that showcases three of Tanizaki’s early works. A little poetry in troubled times was welcome in Philip Gross’s Deep Field. On the noir front, The Cage by Kenzo Kitakata gave me a lot of insight into ordinary Japanese supermarket business and a parallel insight into the Yakuza world. I followed up with Ashes, his Yakuza story of a ‘dog’ rising through the ranks of a crime family. Andrew Nette’s Orphan Road was trip into the past with reverberations in the present: an unsolved heist story with a gothic twist. Gary Chance, the main character from his previous novel Gunshine Coast goes on a dangerous peregrination through the Melbourne underworld and beyond.  

O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker was a delight recommended by Val in Seattle. I was deeply impressed by the ambition and prose style of When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut. I was a bit disappointed by his follow-up The Maniac. The final section on AI was excellent, so no complaints. Whenever a Pascal Quignard volume comes out, I’m excited: The Fount of Time was no exception. I was completely absorbed by Jeremy Cooper’s Brian that delved into the mind of a lonely bookkeeper who becomes a film-buff. Cooper has an unsentimental compassion for Brian’s social awkwardness, his ordinariness and a deep respect for his knowledge of Cinema. A masterpiece even? Maybe so.

Septology – Jon Fosse (trans. Damion Searls)

Trilogy – Jon Fosse (trans. May-Brit Akerholt)

Aliss at the Fire – Jon Fosse (trans. Damion Searls)

Interzone – William Burroughs (reread)

Doctor Sax – Jack Kerouac (reread)

Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs

Deep Field – Philip Gross reread

Bad Behaviour – Mary Gaitskill reread

The Name of the World – Denis Johnson reread

Angels – Denis Johnson

The Kingdom of this World – Alejo Carpentier (trans. Harriet De Onis)

The Year of Living Dangerously – Christopher Koch – more depth after seeing the movie.

Brian – Jeremy Cooper

When We Cease to Understand the World – Benjamin Labatut (trans. Adrian Nathan West)

The Maniac – Benjamin Labatut

O Caledonia – Elspeth Barker

Selected Poems – George Barker

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept – Elizabeth Smart

Seven Japanese Tales – Junichiro Tanizaki  (trans. Howard Hibbert)

The Siren’s Lament – Junichiro Tanizaki  (trans. Bryan Karetnyk)

Noir

The Cage – Kenzo Kitakata (trans. Paul Warham) – chance find on the library shelves

Ashes – Kenzo Kitakata (trans. Emi Shimokawa)

The Dark Room – Junnosuke Yoshiyuki (trans. John Bester) – following on from Japanese Film Festival showings of the films of Ko Nakahira.

The Strangers in the House – Georges Simenon (trans. Robert Baldick)

Black Wings has my Angel – Elliot Chaze – chance find on the library shelves

He Died With His Eyes Open – Derek Raymond – recommended by John L Williams

How the Dead Live – Derek Raymond– recommended by my mate John L Williams

Orphan Road – Andrew Nette – a great heist story set in Melbourne

Nonfiction

Kazuo Ohno’s World from Within and Without – Kazuo Ohno and Yoshito Ohno (trans. John Barret with Toshio Mizohata)

Hijikata Tatsumi and Butoh: Dancing in a Pool of Grey Grits – Bruce Baird

Antonin Artaud: Selected Writings – Susan Sontag ed. – (trans. Helen Weaver)

Maya Deren: Choreography for Cinema – Mark Alice Durant – an excellent biography

Getting Carter – Nick Triplow – a great biography of Ted Lewis and the Birth of British Noir

Time Within Time – Andrey Tarkovsky (trans. Kitty Hunter-Blair)

Fassbinder: Thousands of Mirrors – Ian Penman – personal essays time and cinema

Unclassifiable

The Fount of Time – Pascal Quignard (trans. Chris Turner) – Inimitable and Brilliant.

[toot-things]

Monday Girl,1964 by Ko Nakahira

[phantomladyoverparis]

Suna no ue no shokubutsu-gun (1964), dir. Kô Nakahira  

[pixienatthecat]

A suprising, and funny take on a regular microaggression that many, mixed race people in Japan experience, in a scene in the 1956 Japanese sun tribe film Crazed Fruit. The actor, Masumi Okada (a producer for the 2000 Japanese movie Battle Royale), born in 1935, died in 2006, as Otto Sevaldsen to a Japanese father and a Danish mother. Crazed Fruit (1956, Japan) Directed by: Kō Nakahira

[strangeorangetage]

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Kuroi tobakushi: Akuma no hidarite (1966) / Kô Nakahira

[shihlun]

Kō Nakahira

- Flora on the Sand

1964

[davidhudson]

Crazed Fruit (1956), directed by Ko Nakahira (January 3, 1926 – September 11, 1978).

[edoardojazzy]

Monday Girl, 1964.

@Ko Nakahira

[wetgeliscasualinterval]

Mariko Kaga in “Only On Mondays” (1964) by Ko Nakahira