馬の骨　ブログ　:2010年02月16日

2010年02月16日

「キャタピラー」若松孝二監督　ベルリン国際映画祭に

英語の記事のみで申し訳ありません。

Japanese cinema takes new strides Germany-Cinema/Japan/
FEATURE: Japanese cinema takes new strides
By Takehiko Kambayashi, dpa
Eds: Berlin film festival runs February 11-21 =
Tokyo - Film director Koji Wakamatsu says the Japanese media's treatment of his latest work Caterpillar would give you a glimpse of how Japan has confronted the past. Major newspapers and broadcast media repeatedly touted leading Japanese director Yoji Yamada's Otouto (About Her Brother) as a film chosen to close this year's Berlin International Film Festival.
Scant attention, however, has been paid to Wakamatsu's Caterpillar, which has been selected in the race for the Golden Bear.
"Even through a magnifying glass, it would be very hard to find this movie (Caterpillar) in the media coverage," Wakamatsu said, smiling wryly.
He added that much coverage was usually devoted to an increasing number of films that glorify a war.
"There is no such a thing as a just war. It's an act of mass murder," Wakamatsu told the German Press Agency dpa. "Many young Japanese on a suicide mission to attack enemy ships with their own plane had never wanted to die to begin with."
The 73-year-old Wakamatsu vividly recalled he as a primary school student saw four of his five elder brothers off to battlefields.
Wakamatsu criticized Japan's education and media for Japanese people's lack of understanding of history.
"Most Japanese today don't know the miseries of war. They forgot how many people were killed during World War II and how many perished in the atomic bombing attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki," he said.
In his film Caterpillar, Lieutenant Kyuzo Kurokawa (played by Shima Ohnishi), who lived in a rural farming village, went to war with much fanfare. He came home as an honoured and decorated soldier, but deprived of his arms and legs lost in the battlefields in China.
The lieutenant's wife Shigeko (played by Shinobu Terajima), while looking after the "god soldier," continued to honour the Emperor and the nation, playing a role model for those in a closely-knit community in time of war. However, she gradually began to struggle with a feeling of emptiness.
"In the film, I wanted to describe the majority of the victims in times of war are innocent civilians, especially women and children," Wakamatsu said.
In 1982, Wakamatsu traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, where he was shocked to witness mountains of dead bodies of women and children soon after the massacres of Palestinians at Sabra Shatila refugee camps.
"We continued to see a rising number of civilian casualties in the US-led war in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said.
Wakamatsu as a teenager came to Tokyo, did a variety of jobs and became a yakuza (a member of a Japanese organized crime syndicate). Following a fight, he was incarcerated for six months, where he had been badly treated, he recalled.
After his release, Wakamatsu came to believe that producing a film was a way to expose the abuse of power.
His earliest recognition in the movie business came after his erotic movies gained popularity.
His previous films include Red Army/PHLP: World War Declaration (1971), Ecstasy of the Angels (1972), A Pool Without Water (1982), Landscape of a 17-Year-Old (2004), and United Red Army, which was selected at the 2008 Berlin Film Festival's Forum Section.
In Japan, however, independents like Wakamatsu continue to scramble for distribution. Still, some of their films are highly acclaimed.
Meanwhile, Japan's leading producers these days team up with major media companies to make blockbuster films, even though they are criticized for their products being spin offs from popular TV drama series. Many young people, showered with a string of advertisements, tend to choose such big-budget films.
It is natural that Otouto, which is to presented out of competition in Berlin, continue to draw media attention as some major media organizations including leading newspaper groups were involved in the movie's production. Otouto's production company was Shochiku.
The film is about a relationship between a brother seen as a troublemaker and a sister, played by one of Japan's top actresses Sayuri Yoshinaga, who is never free from worries about him.
The movie's director Yoji Yamada, who has been a guest of the Berlinale six times, said, "I hear it is very rare that a Japanese film is selected to close the festival. We feel very honoured."
Yamada was also named winner of a Berlinale Camera award at this year's event.
Wakamatsu, known as a master who can make a film within a limited budget, said he feels free of constraints since he does not have a large budget.
They had planned to spend two weeks on the shooting, but it turned out they just needed 12 days.
"Having a fat budget does not guarantee you could produce good work," he said emphatically. "I'm always trying to produce a film that could impress people more than those with a large budget could."
dpa tk amc ds
030500 GMT Feb 10

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