On Februray 9th, I had the opportunity and great pleasure to attend the annual Kansas City Japanese Film Festival. The event showcased a highly impressive and varied selection of exceptional films spanning different genres, equal parts live action and animation, and some of Japan’s most revered classic and contemporary directors. Impressively, there was not a weak link in the bunch — a testament to the careful consideration of the knowledgeable organizers.
This year’s JFF was hosted at the Alamo Drafthouse, and admissions were donated to the Taylor Anderson Memorial Fund to benefit tsunami recovery for the Ishinomaki and Tohoku regions of Japan. The fund is named in honor of an American teacher in the JET program whose life was lost in the tsunami of 2011.
The festival organizers created and gave away unique event posters celebrating each of the four films — Perfect Blue, Ikiru, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and Battle Royale, and preceded each film with a brief introduction describing its significance.
Perfect Blue (1997)
Director: Satoshi Kon
When a bubbly pop princess tries to reinvent herself as a serious actress, a chain of events is set off which threatens her life, and eventually her sanity. Some of Mima’s fans are clearly unhappy with her career change, and paranoia begins to take hold when she becomes aware of a phony blog chronicling her daily activities and thoughts — far too accurately. Is it the work of paparazzi, a stalker, or a secret part of her psyche splitting into a new personality? On the set of her TV drama, events involving her on-screen persona mirror those of her own life, and the fabric of reality becomes a confusing blur of real danger, character acting, and uneasy dreams and hallucinations. Perfect Blue is both a prescient analysis of celebrity culture in the age of the Internet and a densely layered cerebral thriller, and unique for using anime to tell a kind of story which would typically be shot as a live action feature.
Ikiru (1952) — 35mm
Director: Akira Kurosawa
“To Live” is the translated title of this Kurosawa masterpiece, and the question that the film attempts to tackle is none other than that greatest question of all: What is the meaning of life? Suddenly faced with a terminal illness, a public servant named Kanji Watanabe laments the years he has spent working in mind-numbing bureaucracy. A widower who never remarried, his only concern was raising his son, but that relationship has grown strained and distant. Full of self-pity, he leaves both work and home on a journey to find out what will give him satisfaction in his final days. After his death, the self-important attendees at his wake — mostly other bureaucrats whom he had worked with — try to piece together the puzzle of his final days.
Kaze no tani no Naushika [Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind] (1984) — 35mm
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
This was perhaps the most significant of the four screenings due to the scarcity of the format: a 35mm, English-subtitled, Japanese-language presentation. Since most of Hayao Miyazaki’s filmography is now distributed by Disney in meticulously-dubbed English editions, such a showing is indeed a special treat. The age of the film is such that it features a gorgeous hand-painted look which was greatly enhanced by the filmic presentation.
Based on Miyazaki’s own manga series, the tale concerns an adventurous young princess in a post-apocalyptic world. The princess and her people exist in a tense and easily threatened balance with their world. Nestled in the relative protection of a valley, they are surrounded by various dangers: warmongering nations, a lethally toxic forest, and several kinds of creatures including gigantic armor-plated mite-like bugs capable of leveling entire cities when angered. The film is an early example of what would become a recurring theme in Miyazaki’s films: man’s need to live in harmony with nature.
Battle Royale (2000)
Director: Kinji Fukusaku
Battle Royale may be more known for its notoriety and influence on The Hunger Games than for the actual film itself. The plot alone raises eyebrows: in a near-future police-state version of Japan in which youths rage out of control, a class of middle-school students is sent to an island to battle each other to the death — a kind of annual tradition in this brave new world. Only the last student remaining alive will be allowed to live. Due to its depictions of violence and sexual situations among youths, the film was heavily criticized and either banned or denied distribution in many parts of the world. My own first viewing was a poor quality rip from the early days of Google Video. Despite the film’s popularity, it wasn’t officially released in the US until 2012.
Armed with weapons and forced to comply with the rules of the game, the various combatants form and break truces, friendships, and romances, commit suicide, seek closure before they die, attempt to hack the island’s surveillance system, or just try to stay alive. The series (a sequel was released in 2003) was an intriguing swan song for veteran director Kinji Fukusaku, who, after a long and successful career of four decades, closed with his most thematically youth-driven creation and then died at the age of 72.
My sincere thanks go to all who helped make the Japanese Film Fest possible. The 2014 JFF was sponsored by Heartland JET Alumni Association, Kansas City Art Institute, Heart of America Japan-America-Society, and the Consulate General of Japan at Chicago.