- 14 Mar 2002
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Which J-movies have you been watching lately?
To all French and German-speaking film aficionados in Europe: Arte screens Japanese movies each Monday at 20.45 CET.
Last week's movie was "Ichiban utsukushii natsu" (Firefly Dreams) by John Williams. John Williams, a British, studied French and German literature in London and later moved to Japan. After he began work teaching French in a high school, he discovered his love for film making.
Here's what he wrote about his movie:
Review of "Firefly Dreams"
Info on John Williams
Yesterday's movie was "Unagi" (The Eel) by Shohei Imamura, with Koji Yakusho starring.
If you have a chance to watch these movies, don't miss them!
To all French and German-speaking film aficionados in Europe: Arte screens Japanese movies each Monday at 20.45 CET.
Last week's movie was "Ichiban utsukushii natsu" (Firefly Dreams) by John Williams. John Williams, a British, studied French and German literature in London and later moved to Japan. After he began work teaching French in a high school, he discovered his love for film making.
Here's what he wrote about his movie:
"A few years after coming to Japan I was asked to give some advice to a pretty but extremely rebellious highschoolgirl, who was giving her parents hell. I had a lot of sympathy for the girl, because she reminded me inmany ways of my own teenage troubles. I forgot about her for a long time but years later I started to write ascreenplay about a rebellious schoolgirl and I realised that this central character was modelled on her. That screenplay eventually became Firefly Dreams. I think that it is through the experience of trying to imagi-natively enter the life of someone else that we come to understand ourselves. We see ourselves mirrored inother people and we come to see our shared predicaments. In the film Naomi gradually becomes curiousabout Mrs. Koide and her past. I wanted to catch the awakening of this curiosity, the awakening of Naomi'scapacity for empathy, which I think lies at the heart of all good films and all good fiction. I was interested inthe idea that Mrs. Koide and Naomi were mirrors for each other, in the same way that I had found a mirror ofmyself in a rebellious Japanese schoolgirl. While we were location hunting for the film we discovered an oldglobe and a dusty mirror in the junk-filled attic of an abandoned farmhouse. When I saw the mirror and the globe I felt as if I had stumbled onto a key image for the film. The globerepresents the greater world, the desire to escape and lead a larger, more exciting life. Both Naomi and Koideknow this desire, and of course that is what brought me to Japan in the first place. The mirror represents self-knowledge, and that is what Naomi finds in Mrs. Koide, and what Mrs. Koide rediscovers through Naomi. Another major element in the film is the setting itself, and the contrast between city and country. Travellingfrom the urban sprawl of Nagoya to the rural area where we shot is like travelling back in time. From themost modern place in the world it is possible to go back in time three of four hundred years in the space of atwo hour drive. I wanted to catch this amazing contrast on film, a contrast that mirrors the gulf in experience between Naomi's age group and the pre-war generation of Mrs. Koide. And again I found a mirror for myself.Even though I now live on the other side of the globe I found numerous similarities between my home inWales and the Japanese countryside. While we were filming, the sounds, sights and smells took me back to my own childhood. I felt that I hadcome a long way but that I was in some strange way back where I had begun."
Review of "Firefly Dreams"
Midnight Eye review: Firefly Dreams (Ichiban Utsukushii Natsu, 2001, John Williams)
A review by Jasper Sharp of Firefly Dreams (Ichiban Utsukushii Natsu, 2001, John Williams)
www.midnighteye.com
Info on John Williams
Yesterday's movie was "Unagi" (The Eel) by Shohei Imamura, with Koji Yakusho starring.
Midnight Eye review: The Eel (Unagi, 1997, Shohei IMAMURA)
A review by Tom Mes of The Eel (Unagi, 1997, Shohei IMAMURA)
www.midnighteye.com
If you have a chance to watch these movies, don't miss them!
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