The film Onibaba (1964) by expressionist director Shindo Kaneto came as a shell shock when I finally saw it last week. It is an aggressive masterwork from the heyday of Japanese cinema that hits you squarely in the face – in a most pleasant way. Just as its contemporary The Woman in the Dunes by Teshigahara is completely dominated by shifting sands, so Onibaba is in the grip of fields of waving long susuki grass.
“I was enslaved by the waving susuki field,” says director Shindo. The grass hides beauty and savagery, terror and death, and supports the attempt at survival in times of war by a few poor peasants.
A mother and her daughter-in-law hide out here to kill stray, wounded samurai and sell their weapons and armor on the black market.
The bodies are dumped unceremoniously in a deep hole in the center of the grassy realm.
Then a young man of the village returns and reports the son and husband killed. He and the young woman, now widow, are sexually attracted to each other and meet in scenes of violent eroticism – the grass now becomes the swaying of sexual impulses.
The mother fears she will loose her livelihood if the daughter-in-law leaves her and tries to shock her away from her lover by donning a demon mask she has stolen from a samurai she kills for the purpose.
Thus she becomes the Onibaba, the “Devil Woman,” of the title. But there is a catch: she is not able to remove the mask anymore, and when she finally succeeds with the help of the young woman, after much pulling and wringing, her whole face is disfigured...
The film is shot in fierce contrasts of black and white, extreme close-ups are mixed with long shots, long silences alternate with the thundering sound of drums. It is the kind of minimalist art film that invites thick tomes of commentary, but I would say, see it for yourself...
Review in DVD Verdict and DVD Review.
June 19, 2006
June 18, 2006
Funerals in Japan
In his recent review of a study about funerals in modern Japan, Modern Passingsby Andrew Bernstein, Donald Richie writes that what he has learned from this study, is that funerals in Japan are modern inventions. Apparently, Richie had thought that Japanese funerals were less hypocritical than in the West, and that may still be the case, but this book seems at least to have opened his eyes to their artificiality. Modern Passings is an interesting book and I can fully recommend it for its insights in the way cultures produce their own rituals, again and again.
Coming back on Richie's remark, I would add that in Japan the attitude towards death is perhaps more natural than in the West, but that funerals are just as awful (such as the custom of picking the bones of the deceased from the still warm ashes after the cremation and transferring them with chopsticks to the urn).
On top of that, in Japan funerals cost heaps of money. As Ed Jacob writes in Quirky Japan:
By the way, the largest ancient graveyard can be found on Mt Koya, and although this is the headquarters of the Shingon sect, all Japanese would like to have part of their ashes buried here. It is a sort of spiritual homeland of the dead. Of course, such a wish is impossible, in the past it were only the daimyo, Japans rulers, who could buy graves here, and now it are the rich and the large companies. The picture below shows the grave of the Ezaki Glico company on Mt Koya (for its employees). Nice detail: note the stone in front with the narrow opening where visitors can insert their namecard... as if the dead still would care for such stuff.
Coming back on Richie's remark, I would add that in Japan the attitude towards death is perhaps more natural than in the West, but that funerals are just as awful (such as the custom of picking the bones of the deceased from the still warm ashes after the cremation and transferring them with chopsticks to the urn).
On top of that, in Japan funerals cost heaps of money. As Ed Jacob writes in Quirky Japan:
But there is more. We also have the kaimyo, the spiritual name taken after death by a Buddhist, and written on a flat stick that is put up near the grave. The average price here (to cite Ed Jacob again) is 100,000 yen per character, so one stick can again cost many millions of yen. And we are not even talking about the cost of the funeral itself, the pompous hearse, or about the family altar that has to be set up afterwards (also easily one million yen), the many costly services that must be held in the first period after death to prepare a smooth way to heaven, and the bi-annual visits to the grave (although these only cost time).
Death in Japan is not only time consuming, but expensive as well. With an average funeral costing about US $40,000, this is the world’s most expensive country in which to die. Because of the land shortage, funeral plots and headstones are extremely expensive, starting at 700,000 yen for a small plot in the country, and rising to as much as 5,000,000 yen for a tomb with a view in a centrally located graveyard. The average seems to be somewhere around 2,500,000 yen.
By the way, the largest ancient graveyard can be found on Mt Koya, and although this is the headquarters of the Shingon sect, all Japanese would like to have part of their ashes buried here. It is a sort of spiritual homeland of the dead. Of course, such a wish is impossible, in the past it were only the daimyo, Japans rulers, who could buy graves here, and now it are the rich and the large companies. The picture below shows the grave of the Ezaki Glico company on Mt Koya (for its employees). Nice detail: note the stone in front with the narrow opening where visitors can insert their namecard... as if the dead still would care for such stuff.
June 6, 2006
Jellyfish in Japan
Healing, iyashi, is much sought after in Japan since the economic crisis.
It has given rise to a whole new culture, which is typically Japanese. People are willing to spend a lot of money on stress relief, sponsoring a $30 billion industry.
Traditional massage and herb therapy are a long passed station. Now you have animal therapy ("rent-a-pup", which is better than buying your own pet which brings stressful chores!), aromatherapy, luxurious "day spas", and exotic "high end" massages.
The Japanese spend six times as much money on these treatments than on acquiring new flatscreen televisions.
The most popular way to relieve stress, as reported by the Washington Post? You would never have guessed: watching jellyfish.
Apparently, it is soothing to see jellyfish slowly sliding through an aquarium. Many people buy their own jellyfish for at home, but that, too, may be stressful.
The Enoshima Aquarium in the vicinity of Tokyo offers the perfect solution. It organizes stay overs in the aquarium, enabling you before retiring for the night to leisurely watch a big tank where jellyfish dance to the sound of New Age music...
It has given rise to a whole new culture, which is typically Japanese. People are willing to spend a lot of money on stress relief, sponsoring a $30 billion industry.
Traditional massage and herb therapy are a long passed station. Now you have animal therapy ("rent-a-pup", which is better than buying your own pet which brings stressful chores!), aromatherapy, luxurious "day spas", and exotic "high end" massages.
The Japanese spend six times as much money on these treatments than on acquiring new flatscreen televisions.
The most popular way to relieve stress, as reported by the Washington Post? You would never have guessed: watching jellyfish.
Apparently, it is soothing to see jellyfish slowly sliding through an aquarium. Many people buy their own jellyfish for at home, but that, too, may be stressful.
The Enoshima Aquarium in the vicinity of Tokyo offers the perfect solution. It organizes stay overs in the aquarium, enabling you before retiring for the night to leisurely watch a big tank where jellyfish dance to the sound of New Age music...
June 5, 2006
Imamura Shohei: Picturing Japaneseness
Last week Japanese film director Imamura Shohei has died at the age of 79.
Imamura belonged to a group of New Wave directors who broke through in the early sixties and he went on to become one of Japan’s major film makers.
In his 45 films, Imamura has tried to find the essence of Japanese culture, of the Japanese consciousness, and of what of means to be Japanese.
He did this from what I would call a vibrant Shinto-mentality, from the boisterous spirit of the Matsuri, the Shinto festivals.
At the same time, he probed the lower depths of Japanese society in connnection with the lower part of the human body.
His world is populated by prostitutes, thieves, serial killers, and when in his last film his hero is a salaryman, it is someone who has lost his job and lives among the homeless.
Women are central to his films, always big women with a great zest for life, vulgar perhaps, but also with a sharp instinct for self-preservation. They are like Shinto goddesses, like Ame-no-Uzume dancing on the tub in front of the Cave of the Sun Goddess. Such women appear in his early masterworks Insect Woman and Intentions of Murder, and all the way to his last film, the mellow Warm Water under a Red Bridge. In Profound Desire of the Gods, a film situated on Okinawa and symbolizing the clash between nature and technology, the two main characters are female shamans.
Imamura twice won a Palme d'Or at Cannes, for The Eel and The Balled of Narayama.
Imamura Shohei made messy, human films. The man who looked for the essence of Japaneseness, was surprised by his enthousiastic reception in the West.
How, he used to say, could people there understand what he as talking about?
Note: Also read this article by film critic Mark Schilling in the Japan Times.
Imamura belonged to a group of New Wave directors who broke through in the early sixties and he went on to become one of Japan’s major film makers.
In his 45 films, Imamura has tried to find the essence of Japanese culture, of the Japanese consciousness, and of what of means to be Japanese.
He did this from what I would call a vibrant Shinto-mentality, from the boisterous spirit of the Matsuri, the Shinto festivals.
At the same time, he probed the lower depths of Japanese society in connnection with the lower part of the human body.
His world is populated by prostitutes, thieves, serial killers, and when in his last film his hero is a salaryman, it is someone who has lost his job and lives among the homeless.
Women are central to his films, always big women with a great zest for life, vulgar perhaps, but also with a sharp instinct for self-preservation. They are like Shinto goddesses, like Ame-no-Uzume dancing on the tub in front of the Cave of the Sun Goddess. Such women appear in his early masterworks Insect Woman and Intentions of Murder, and all the way to his last film, the mellow Warm Water under a Red Bridge. In Profound Desire of the Gods, a film situated on Okinawa and symbolizing the clash between nature and technology, the two main characters are female shamans.
Imamura twice won a Palme d'Or at Cannes, for The Eel and The Balled of Narayama.
Imamura Shohei made messy, human films. The man who looked for the essence of Japaneseness, was surprised by his enthousiastic reception in the West.
How, he used to say, could people there understand what he as talking about?
Note: Also read this article by film critic Mark Schilling in the Japan Times.
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