Japanese Cinema After the Economic Miracle: A Retrospective of Masaki Tamura, Cinematographer

• January 10
  • Narita: The Peasants of the Second Fortress (Sanrizuka: Dainitoride no hitobito) 1971, B&W, 143 min., 16 mm, Japan. Directed by Shinsuke Ogawa.

    This film is part of Shinsuke Ogawa's “Sanrizuka Series,” a record of the farmer revolt against the Japanese government program of forced resettlement to accommodate the construction of Narita International Airport (1966 - ). In this film, Ogawa, arguably the greatest documentarist in Japanese film history, does not try to provide a conventional, objective account of this political struggle. Rather, Tamura's elastic camera tenaciously captures the political consciousness of the farmers in their faces and in their concrete acts of resistance, chaining themselves to trees or digging tunnels to serve as their hidden fortress. In Japanese with English subtitles.

• January 17
  • Narita: Heta Village (Sanrizuka: Heta buraku) 1973, B&W, 146 min., 16 mm, Japan. Directed by Shinsuke Ogawa.

    Ogawa and his staff lived among the farmers to create this unique documentary, which focuses more on the farmers' day-to-day lives during the protest than on the political arena of the Sanrizuka struggle. Tamura's camera gazes at an old woman recollecting her life, at farmers' heated discussions of their struggle, or an old man recounting village history, allowing these scenes to unfold gradually by lingering on the subject. The New Year festival and other communal traditions of Heta village dating from the premodern era are displayed in rich detail. In Japanese with English subtitles. see the Critic's Choice review in the Chicago Reader!

• January 24
  • A Japanese Village, Furuyashikimura (Nippon-koku furuyashiki-mura) 1982, color, 210 min., 16 mm, Japan. Directed by Shinsuke Ogawa.

    The first part of this film is devoted to a bricolaged, scientific investigation of the particular conditions of rice farming and weather in Furuyashikimura, a small village in the Japan Alps. The second part turns to the villagers' lives, which defy stereotypical images of rural Japan. Furuyashikimura offers fascinating scene of a charcoal burner's obstinate individualism and several villagers' recollections of their wartime experiences. An old man in military uniform bugling against the quiet landscape sums up this extremely moving, eerie film, which received the Fipresci Prize at Berlin. In Japanese with English subtitles.

• January 31
  • The Assassination of Ryoma (Ryoma ansatsu) 1974, B&W, 118 min., 16 mm, Japan. Directed by Kazuo Kuroki.

    This off-beat samurai film with a 1970s flavor portrays the last three days in the life of the revolutionary samurai Ryoma before his assassination at the dawn of the Meiji Restoration (1868) and Japan's “modern” era. Tamura uses high-key black & white photography to display - self-consciously and to great effect - Ryoma's intimate relationship with his friend Shinta. In Japanese with English subtitles.

• February 7
  • Farewell to the Land (Saraba itoshiki daichi) 1982, color, 134 min., 16 mm, Japan. Directed by Mitsuo Yanagimachi.

    This bitter realist film portrays the agony of a rebellious man living in a working-class milieu in rural Japan. Yukio quits farming and becomes a truck driver, but his sons' death by drowning drives him to drug addiction. Shots of rice fields, inserted as Yukio's point of view, crystallize Tamura as the “cinematographer of rice.” In Japanese with English subtitles.

• February 14
  • Untamagiru (Untamagiru) 1989, color, 120 min., 35 mm. Japan. Directed by Tsuyoshi Takamine. Drawn from Okinawan folklore, this is a story of a young sugar factory worker named Giru, the Robin Hood of Okinawa. This post-colonial fairy tale is set in Okinawa in 1969, three years before its return to Japan from occupation and governance by the U.S. military. With all the dialogue in an Okinawan dialect (incomprehensible to residents of mainland Japan), the film is shown in Japan with Japanese subtitles. It is rich in vivid colors, sunlight, and song. In Okinawan dialect with English subtitles.

• February 21
  • Helpless (Helpless) 1996, color, 80 min., 35 mm, Japan. Directed by Shinji Aoyama.

    The talented Shinji Aoyama made his directorial debut with this controversial film. A high school student named Kenji meets his friend Yasuo, a yakuza who has just come out of prison. Yasuo asks Kenji to keep his bag but does not tell him what is in it. Tamura's camera captures a series of non-articulated violence against the background of a green, rural Japan in sober, long takes. Helpless neither justifies nor aestheticizes violence, but simply presents it as it occurs, using dense, deep-focus/long-take mise-en-scène.In Japanese with English subtitles.

• February 26 (Friday) 6:30 to 10:00 p.m.
  • A conversation with Masaki Tamura and Tom Gunning
    followed by a screening of Himatsuri (Himatsuri)
    Cobb Hall, Room 307 5811 S. Ellis Ave. (see map)
    
    Himatsuri (Himatsuri) 1985, color, 126 min., video, Japan. Directed by Mitsuo Yanagimachi.

    Tatsuo, a woodcutter, believes himself to be the lover of a mountain goddess. Kenji Nakagami, one of the most controversial and highly-acclaimed novelists of the 1970s and 80s, penned the richly sensual screenplay for this film. Yanagimachi's direction and Tamura's stunning photography result in a moving and disturbing consideration of violence, sexuality, and mystical relations between human beings and nature menaced by the process of modernization in Japan. In Japanese with English subtitles.
    
    All are invited to a reception held before the screening at Classics, Room 10 from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. on the University of Chicago campus (see map)

• February 28
  • Duo (2/Duo) 1996, color, 90 min., 35 mm, Japan. Directed by Nobuhiko Suwa.

    Nobuhiko Suwa made a successful debut with this trenchant, Cassavetes-like film. The story focuses on a young woman who lives with her boyfriend. His anxiety for his career as an actor drives them into an emotional trap in which they cannot but devour each other. Almost all the scenes are improvised, blurring the boundary between fiction and documentary. This movie has garnered high praise not only for the emotional intensity the actors evoke but also for the tense filmic space created by Tamura's camera under Suwa's direction. In Japanese with English subtitles. A brief introduction and talk by Masaki Tamura.

• March 7
  • Suzaku (Moe No Suzaku) 1997, color, 95 min., 35 mm, Japan. Directed by Naomi Kawase.

    One of the few women directors in Japan, Kawase made her feature film debut with this film, which won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes. Set in a rural village, the story revolves around a family, their relationship with the village community, and modernization as epitomized by railroad construction. Most of the roles are played by non-professionals, and the film includes an 8 mm clip photographed by the director. Tamura's cinematography of the green mountains is unforgettable. In Japanese with English subtitles.

Film series sponsored by the Committee on Japanese Studies at the Center for East Asian Studies,
the University of Chicago
With additional support from DOC Films and the Film Studies Center at the University of Chicago. Special thanks to Masaki Tamura, Hiroo Fuseya of Network Films, the Japan Foundation, and Tom Gunning for their generosity and encouragement.

[Japanese Cinema Workshop] [Tamura Film Series] [Film Descriptions]
[Symposium:Activist Camera] [Map] [Links]