Pray for Japan: Hope and Healing One Year Later

The numbers are staggering: 319,000 individuals evacuated, at least 269,000 buildings destroyed, roughly $325 billion in damages, and over 20,000 souls missing or confirmed dead. It happened today, exactly one year ago, when the Tōhoku coast of Japan was devastated by a cruel earthquake and tsunami tandem. Yet, the enormity of the tragedy was matched by the resiliency of the average Japanese citizenry. Tokyopop founder Stu Levy pays tribute to the heroes and victims of the 3/11 disaster throughout his documentary Pray for Japan (trailer here), which screens today in New York as part of the Japan Society’s anniversary programming, in advance of a special national screening this Wednesday at participating AMC Theaters, followed by a weeklong New York theatrical run starting this Friday.

Last year, 3/11 was a Friday. It happened to be the Ogatsu Middle School’s graduation day. As a result, their students had already gone home when the 2:46 earthquake hit. As they made their way to shelters, the Ogatsu faculty reconstructed their class rosters from scratch and set about verifying their students’ safety over the following hours and days. Miraculously, none had been killed. However, little else remained of their school.

In alternating segments, Levy focuses Pray on four groups dealing with the quake-tsunami’s impact: school, family, shelter, and volunteers. Each features inspirational and heartbreaking stories, but the rebirth of Ogatsu Middle School is truly emblematic of the courageous rebuilding process. What viewers do not hear is any finger pointing or complaining. However, the grief remains raw and painful. Even the most jaded viewer will be deeply moved by one teenager’s koi-nobori tribute to his little brother on children’s day.

Indeed, Pray is a film that will make you cry repeatedly. Anyone of good will would be deeply moved by the stories Levy documents. To his credit, he has the good sense to stay out of the picture himself, letting the survivors tell their stories directly. Yet, the evocative animated title sequence and Okuda Tamio’s theme song “jp” greatly contribute towards setting the elegiac but empowering tone right up front.

Though undeniably harrowing for many, compared to 3/11, Katrina was a mild spot of flash flooding. Yet, the breadth and severity of the Japanese disaster seem lost on our media and elected leaders, who appear more interested in obsessing over the words of a radio talk show host they disagree with, than marking our close friend and ally’s solemn anniversary. That shows us all we need to know about them.

In contrast, Levy and a handful of filmmakers, like Lucy Walker (whose Oscar nominated The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom also screens today at the Japan Society), recognized an important human story, which continues to develop. Unfortunately, the Japanese people’s fundamental decency and modesty works against them when it comes to grabbing the global media’s attention, yet seeing that spirit manifest itself in acts of compassion and volunteerism is not just inspiring, but ennobling. Both films capture that impulse, making them important and stirring works of cinematic reportage.

Highly recommended, Pray for Japan screens today (3/11) at the Japan Society and Wednesday (3/14) at select AMC Theaters nationwide, including the AMC Empire in New York and the AMC Cupertino in San Francisco, with a further weeklong theatrical engagement set for the Empire and the Burbank Town Center, starting this Friday (3/16).

Immediately following the events of 3/11, the Japan Society took the lead spearheading relief efforts in New York. You can learn how to support their laudable efforts here.

DOC NYC ’11: Views on Japan (shorts)

It was only a matter of months after Katrina hit that a bumper crop of outraged documentaries began jostling for art-house attention. Strangely, almost eight months after the devastating Tōhoku earthquake and Tsunami rocked Japan the documentary film industry still maintains nearly complete radio silence. However, filmmaker Lucy Walker recognized the magnitude of the tragic events in Japan, capturing the immediate aftermath and early rebuilding efforts in The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom (trailer here), which screens as part of the Views on Japan short film program at DOC NYC 2011.

Blossom opens with first-hand video footage that will make viewers forever foreswear Roland Emmerich disaster movies. From the relative safety of higher ground, residents watch as the tsunami slowly obliterates their town and all their neighbors left behind. Their audible anguish is truly haunting.

There are many stories from those who lost loved ones. Clearly, the pain remains understandably raw and immediate for them. Yet, there is no finger-pointing or ranting in Blossom. The Japanese people are contradictorily both too practical and too philosophical for such indulgences. Instead they seek to remember and rebuild. Whether it is the beautiful young photographer recording the rebirth of the town destroyed in the initial scene, from that very same vantage point, or the relief worker who always stops to salvage family photos and tombstones, their efforts are profoundly moving.

For many survivors, the coming of the annual cherry blossom season signifies the process of rebirth, reminding them that life goes on. Observing the natural beauty of the sakura is an important tradition in Japan. Davina Pardo’s Minka (trailer here) also celebrates the distinctive grace of the Japanese culture and landscape. Minka refers to the Japanese farmhouses, whose rustic elegance is indeed peculiarly Japanese.

If you imagine the greatest Frank Lloyd Wright Prairie style home ever, you will have a sense of the vintage Minka American A.P. correspondent John Roderick and his future adopted son Yoshihiro Takishita rescued from demolition, literally rebuilding it piece by piece once they found a suitable site. It became the first real home for both men, eventually inspiring Takishita to make a career out of rebuilding similar farm houses.

Lovingly photographed by Pardo, their Minka looks intimately comfortable, yet its high ceilings and flowing space are quite striking. In fact, it is also a highly personal space, maintaining a connection between Takishita and the late Roderick.

Both films are highly personal tributes to the spirit and culture of our close Japanese friends and allies. They are also both potential award winners. Blossom is by far the best film on the otherwise uninspiring Oscar shortlist for best documentary short subject, while Minka is an official nominee for best short at the 2011 IDA Documentary Awards. Both films are the class of their respective fields, highly recommended when they screen together this coming Monday (11/7) as the Views from Japan double bill at this year’s DOC NYC. Concerned individuals can also still support the Japan Society’s earthquake relief fund by going here.

Viz Benefit Screening: Kamikaze Girls

This would probably be the Tarantino idea of cute. Momoko Ryugasaki is girly girl who wears frilly dresses and daydreams of the Rococo era. Ichiko Shirayuri a biker, sort of Japan’s answer to Rizzo from Grease. While they will eventually fight side-by-side, they initially have little in common beyond finding their provincial home of Ibaragi stiflingly dull. Unfortunately, the surrounding prefecture has been hard hit by the devastating recent earthquake, making Tetsuya Nakashima’s Kamikaze Girls (trailer here), an appropriate selection for the Viz Theater’s next special benefit screening for Northern Japanese disaster relief this Sunday in San Francisco.

Even Marie Antoinette would find Ryugasaki’s wardrobe impractical. She is a bit of a loner at school, openly contemptuous of unsophisticated classmates. To pay for the over-the-top creations of “Baby, the Stars Shine Bright,” her favorite Tokyo boutique, she starts selling some of her father’s stash of highly dubious Versace knock-offs, which brings her into contact with Shirayuri. Temperamentally, they are like oil and water, but they are both outsiders with their own idiosyncrasies. Still, it thoroughly baffles Ryugasaki why Shirayuri constantly wants to hang out.

While Kamikaze might sound like a blatant appeal to a wide range of fetishism (biker girls, school girls, etc.), it is all rather safe PG-CW channel material. Nakashima captures the spirit of the light novel and manga source material though, using a lot of visual razzle dazzle, VFX, and even some anime. Frankly, Ryugasaki’s preciousness and her friend’s petulance both get a bit tiresome, but the climatic rumble pays-off big time.

Granted, Ryugasaki is often deliberately unlikable, but Kyôko Fukada shows a flair for her snobby eccentricities. However, Mayuko Fukuda nearly steals the picture with her perfect deadpan delivery as young Ryugasaki in Kamikaze’s Annie Hall-esque flashbacks. Conversely, Anna Tsuchiya could have conceivably dialed it down a bit as Shirayuri without undermining the odd couple comedy.

Nakashima employs the basic shotgun approach, but Kamikaze’s breakneck energy pulls viewers through his misses as well as his hits. He gets a big assist from cinematographer Shoici Ato, who stylishly conveys all the temporal shifts, fantasies, and flights of reverie. Yet, perhaps Yojiro Nishimura’s animation provides the film’s coolest sequences.

Essentially, Kamikaze puts the The Powerpuff Girls, 90210, and Kill Bill into a live action blender, while somehow maintaining a light and sweet tone. Even though the treacly soundtrack could put an otherwise healthy person into a diabetic coma, the film has enough edgy lunacy and attitude to keep fanboys focused. It is definitely recommended to support a worthy cause. Viz is only suggesting a $10 donation for their Sunday (10/29) screening, with all proceeds going to the JCCCNC’s Northern Japanese Relief Fund. Donations can also be made directly here, as well as to the Japan Society’s relief efforts here.

Viz Benefit Screening: The Taste of Tea

Dad is a hypnotist. Mom is an animator. You would expect their family to be a bit eccentric and they are, but only in the way all families are crazy. At least they live amidst the tranquility of nature in Tochigi, a prefecture hit particularly hard by the recent earthquake. Nothing so dramatic befalls the Haruno family (yet), except for the real life happening in Katsuhito Ishii’s The Taste of Tea (trailer here), which screens tomorrow at the Viz Theater in San Francisco as their next special benefit for Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief.

As a young boy, Sachiko Haruno’s uncle Ayano was haunted by the ghost of a dead yakuza. The old gangster had a good reason that we need not get into here. This story has personal significance for his niece, because she too is shadowed by a vision of sorts. Actually, it is a giant manifestation of her own likeness. Based on his dubious experiences, she sets out to exercise other self through a gymnastic feat hitherto beyond her capabilities. Her older brother Hajime also has his sights set on a seemingly unattainable goal: the pretty new girl in his class. At least he has something to work with. She has joined the school’s go club.

There are moments of magical realism in Tea, as well as plenty terrestrial weirdness. Yet, it is grounded in its family drama. Indeed, the film’s wistful vibe is more closely akin to Kore-eda’s masterful Still Walking than a Taskashi Miike mind-flossing. The parents might have cool gigs, but the Haruno family all feel like real people, precisely because of their idiosyncrasies, even including Grandpa, who is definitely one strange cat.

Frankly, Tea ought to end with a wonderfully beautiful scene, appropriately involving animation (of the flip book variety) late in the film. It is legitimately touching, yet rendered as lightly as a feather. However, Tea takes one final cosmic trip that feels a bit anti-climatic. Still, it hardly matters. It does not detract from the depth of the scene in question or the film’s overall sweetness.

Young Maya Banno is quite engaging as Sister Sachiko, serving as our primary POV throughout the film. Takahiro Sato is more than a bit sullen as Brother Hajime, but one supposes most boys are at that tweener age. Though often understated to the point of seemingly needing a shot of adrenaline (or at least a venti Starbucks drip), Tadanobu Asano is also still oddly effective as Uncle Ayano.

Tea is a film of endearing charm a vivid sense of place, capitalizing on the striking open vistas of Tochigi. Indeed, the film takes on further elegiac meaning in light of recent events. Not to lay it on too thickly, but there are a number of sweet kids like Sachiko in the prefecture having a hard time of it now. (Of course, the message is lost on our president, who has yet to make a meaningful address on the Japanese catastrophes or announce a comprehensive plan of assistance.) Once again, America’s response is up to us as private citizens. You can support the Red Cross’ efforts in Japan here and contribute to the Japan Society’s relief fund here. For those in San Francisco, you can also help by going to a great movie this Sunday (4/17) when the Viz Theater screens Tea, with one hundred percent of the proceeds going to Japanese disaster relief.

Synapse Supports the Japan Society: The World Sinks Except Japan

For the media and the current administration, the recent disasters plaguing Japan have been little more than an opportunity for nuclear scare mongering. Bad karma for them. Over-the-top satirist Minoru Kawasaki has a film they should see. If nothing else, it should remind us all that there but for the grace of God . . . At least, the distributor, Synapse Films, recognizes the need for constructive efforts. For every Japanese DVD sold this month, they will donate one dollar to the Japan Society’s earthquake relief fund, and that most definitely includes Kawasaki’s The World Sinks Except Japan (trailer here).

Like Hobo with a Shotgun, this title pretty clearly tells you everything you need to know. Due to massive tectonic activity and “global warming,” the rest of the world indeed descends into the ocean, starting with North America. The Clintonesque President Pepiton and vapid Hollywood stars like Jerry Cruising and Elizabeth Clift take refuge in Japan. However, as the rest of the Earth’s continents also submerge, the influx of global refugees causes massive Japanese resentment. Foreigners are treated as sub-humans unless they are the legal spouses of Japanese citizens and a Fascistic government agency is created to “deport” illegals, by hook or by crook. Just as the Japanese government prepares to really throw down the hammer, Kim Jong-il one-ups them with his own evil play.

Say what you will about Kawasaki, excessive subtlety is not one of his flaws. Frankly, he makes the Zucker Brothers’ comedy looking like dry Noel Coward witticisms. Of course, he is hitting the target is aiming for (an awfully fat bull’s eye, to be sure). It is also important to bear in mind World is spoofing a recent Japanese disaster blockbuster, Japan Sinks, lest the concept be considered a tempting of fate.

Most of World’s performances are about as broad as one can possibly get, but at least Mio Dohi is cute and refreshingly restrained as the wife of a newspaper reporter. Romanian actress Delcea Mihaela Gabriela also shows some spirit as the frustrated pre-earthquake wife of another, increasingly chauvinistic journalist. She sounds about as much a native Texan as Marlena Dietrich though.

World is amusing in an unapologetically cheesy way. It even nods towards cultural staples, like Godzilla and Ultraman. For Kawasaki enthusiasts, this is the time to pick it up, since its purchase will help Japanese relief efforts. Hollywood and our own head of state should also check it out, just to see how unbecoming their inattention at a time of crisis appears to the world outside their little cocoons. Synapse’s Japanese titles can be found in its Asian Cult section here (but take note, your office might have it nanny-coated). You can also support the Japan Society’s relief fund directly here and find information about a special two night benefit concert produced by the Blue Note jazz club here.

Viz Benefit Screening: Hula Girls

The Fukushima prefecture has long been one of Japan’s more economically disadvantaged areas, even before the devastating natural disasters and subsequent nuclear concerns. However, it could have been far more depressed before the earthquake hit. In the mid 1960’s, faced with the imminent closure of Iwaki’s coal mines, a small group of young women took control of their own destinies, through hula dancing. Based on their true stories, Sang-il Lee’s Hula Girls (trailer here) is a fitting selection for the Viz Cinema at New People’s special Japanese earthquake and tsunami benefit screenings today in San Francisco.

As Hula opens, Iwaki is a one-industry town. Unfortunately, the coal mine has been steadily laying-off workers and will close for good in a matter of years. Rather than adapt, the local miners’ union actively discourages any attempts to diversify the economy and provide alternate means of (safer) employment. This applies in spades to Norio Yoshimoto’s proposed Hawaiian style resort-spa. Despite the prejudices of her mother, the leader of the miners’ ladies auxiliary, Kimiko Tanikawa joins her friend Sanae Kimura as one of the first recruits for the Hawaiian resort’s hula dancers. Of course, none of the local women knows how to hula dance, but Yoshimoto found the perfect instructor.

Madoka Hirayama is a professional dancer from Tokyo with a vaguely scandalous past and a small mountain of debt. When Iwaki calls, she reluctantly accepts. Not surprisingly, she creates quite a stir, making a decidedly strong impression on Tanikawa’s older brother. Initially, the girls are a mass of left feet, but Kimiko has real potential, which she will have to realize without the support of her mother.

Of course, Hula will be following Rocky’s triumph over adversity template, but is not the cutesy story of “plucky” girls one might expect. It resists cheap sentimentality and never whitewashes the meanness of the dancers’ circumstances. (In fact, there is a scene of domestic violence that is a bit rougher than it ought to be in a film with such obvious appeal for young girls.) Still, the young cast, particularly Yû Aoi as Tanikawa (something of a breakout role for her), is entirely charming and engaging. Yet, it is their unlikely teacher that really makes the film work. Although she eventually warms to her students, Yasuko Matsuyuki never loses her edgy attitude, which makes her glamorous character all the more attractive.

Hula is a solidly entertaining film that compares quite favorably to the somewhat thematically related but more clichéd and condescending Made in Dagenham. It is even more recommended today for everyone in the Bay Area. The Viz Theater will be donating 100% of ticket sales from three special screenings to Japanese relief efforts. Indeed, the people of Iwaki are among those who were the most directly impacted by the recent disasters. They will face economic challenges far greater than those of the mid-1960’s. You can also support the Red Cross’ efforts in Japan here and find information on the Japan Society’s upcoming (4/9) Concert for Japan here.

Save the Yakuza: Ryuji

Some things are worth preserving, like “sin, sex & violence.” Among the many treasures Japanese culture bestowed upon the world is the Yakuza film, a distinctly arty, existential variant of their western gangster movie counterparts. The Japan Society was well into their Yakuza retrospective, Hardest Men in Town: Yakuza Chronicles of Sin, Sex & Violence, when Japan was rocked by the earthquake and tsunami. In response, the Society has become a point organization for New York relief efforts and will donate fifty percent of all ticket sales to the cause through June. This includes Yakuza series, which features many American premieres, like last night’s screening of Ryuji.

In some respects, Ryuji is too appropriate for the times, given the shadow of death that looms over the picture. Though directed by Tôru Kawashima, most consider Ryuji to be Shôji Kaneko’s film. Written by the stage actor to serve as his breakout vehicle, Kaneko would die of cancer shortly after filming wrapped. Protagonist Ryuji Hanashiro is not exactly a stranger to violence and death either.

Hanashiro is a hard-bitten Yakuza foot soldier, living fast and hard with little future ahead of him. Somehow though, he gets involved with a good woman, Mariko, who bears him a daughter, Aya. Despite his dodgy entanglements and mercurial nature, Hanashiro agrees to go straight for the sake of his family. For a while, he works hard as a deliveryman for a liquor distributor (a business that sounds like it would be thoroughly mobbed-up), earning in a month what he used to blow on vice in an evening. Mariko took the man out of the Yakuza, but taking the Yakuza out of the man is a different proposition.

A sleeper-cult favorite in Japan after its initial 1983 release, Ryuji is an odd combination of styles, suggesting the cinematic vocabulary of the New Wave, but with an uber-80’s synth-heavy soundtrack (way past cheesy to our contemporary ears). It might sound like a mish-mash, but it works quite well, thanks to the stone cold integrity of Kaneko’s performance on the one hand and the endearing humanity of his real life wife Eiko Nagashima and daughter Momo on the other.

Sort of like a Japanese version of an early Abel Ferrara gangster movie, Ryuji has a gritty intimacy that is quite effective. Of course, the film takes on further poignancy through the contextual information audience members carry in with them. Seeing the soon-to-be deceased Kaneko in scenes with his young daughter is obviously quite heavy. Yet, the simple background shots of an elderly croquet league speak volumes of the sort of civil society Japan is and how important it is too preserve that way of life.

The Yakuza series concludes tomorrow with two screenings that are recommended unseen, simply on general principle. The Japan Society deserves credit for stepping up to help fill a leadership void that starts right at the top with the current occupant in the White House. Sadly, the people of Japan, a close friend and fellow democracy, must be rooting for Kansas and Ohio State to lose quickly, because with his bracket busted, Obama might finally turn his attention to international affairs. At least, we can help as individual citizens. To support the Japan Society’s efforts go here.