Japan (Lonely Planet, 11th Edition) - Chris Rowthorn [42]
In recent years, Japanese cinema has been enjoying something of a renaissance and foreign audiences and critics have taken note. In 1997 Japanese directors received top honours at two of the world’s most prestigious film festivals: Unagi (Eel), Imamura Shōhei’s black-humoured look at human nature’s dark side, won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, making him the only Japanese director to win this award twice; and ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano took the Golden Lion in Venice for Hana-bi, a tale of life and death, and the violence and honour that links them. More recently, in 2009, Takita Yojiro’s film Okuribito (Departures) garnered an Oscar for best foreign film.
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Tōkyō Monogatari (Tokyo Story; 1953) is Ōzu Yasujirō’s tale of an older couple who come to Tokyo to visit their children, only to find themselves treated with disrespect and indifference.
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The film Distance (2001) is a subtle meditation on togetherness and loneliness. Koreeda Hirokazu’s sequel to After Life tracks four people into the woods as they seek the truth about lovers and friends who belonged to a mysterious cult.
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ANIME
The term anime, a contraction of the word ‘animation’, is used worldwide to refer to Japan’s highly sophisticated animated films. Unlike its counterparts in other countries, anime occupies a position very near the forefront of the film industry in Japan. Anime films encompass all genres, from science-fiction and action adventure to romance and historical drama.
Anime targets all age and social groups. Anime films include deep explorations of philosophical questions and social issues, humorous entertainment and bizarre fantasies. The films offer breathtakingly realistic visuals, exquisite attention to detail, complex and expressive characters and elaborate plots. Leading directors and voice actors are accorded fame and respect, while characters become popular idols.
Some of the best-known anime include Akira (1988), Ōtomo Katsuhiro’s psychedelic fantasy set in a future Tokyo inhabited by speed-popping biker gangs and psychic children. Ōtomo also worked on the interesting Memories (1995), a three-part anime that includes the mind-bending ‘Magnetic Rose’ sequence where deep-space garbage collectors happen upon a spaceship containing the memories of a mysterious woman. Finally, there is Ghost in a Shell (1995), an Ōishii Mamoru film with a sci-fi plot worthy of Philip K Dick – it involves cyborgs, hackers and the mother of all computer networks.
Of course, one name towers above all others in the world of anime: Miyazaki Hayao, who almost single-handedly brought anime to the attention of the general public in the West (see the boxed text, above).
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MIYAZAKI HAYAO – THE KING OF ANIME
Miyazaki Hayao, Japan’s most famous and critically acclaimed anime director, has given us some of the most memorable images ever to appear on the silver screen. Consider, for example, the island that floated through the sky in his 1986 classic Laputa. Or the magical train that travelled across the surface of an aquamarine sea in Spirited Away (2001). Or the psychedelic dreamworlds that waited outside the doors of Howl’s Moving Castle (2004). Watching scenes like this, one can only conclude that Miyazaki is gifted with the ability to travel to the realm of pure imagination and smuggle images back to this world intact and undiluted.
Miyazaki Hayao was born in 1941 in wartime Tokyo. His father was director of a firm that manufactured parts for the famous Japanese Zero fighter plane. This early exposure to flying machines made a deep impression