In Kouchi

Before I came to Japan, I worked a couple of jobs in central London. Primarily I was a box office assistant which, although slightly routine, was a lovely job to have. The customers were generally in good moods and the workload was far from difficult. My second job was working part time as a PA. Both of these jobs treated me extremely well and, as an additional bonus, I was in London; and in such a city I had hoped to indulge in a little foreign cinema, to be more precise Japanese Cinema.

While I was at university, I had a brief look at Japanese films and even wrote a couple of basic essays on a few of the more obvious directors. I seem to remember one of these papers attempting to make a fairly spurious connection between Kurosawa and Isao Takahata; which, as it turned out, was just a blatant excuse to watch Yojimbo and Grave of the Fireflies again.

Since then, I’ve done a little reading and, while I was in London, I even managed to track down a number of screenings of some of the rarer films. This was not as easy as I had originally hoped and as it turns out the best place to find the choice films was at the Japanese Embassy itself, just off Green Park. If you’re a fan of Japanese cinema and the journey isn’t too much of a mission then I strongly suggest you look into it. A different film is played once a month and it’s actually screened in the ballroom. I tried to go as often as possible and I was rewarded with some amazing pieces. My favourites being Kon Ichikawa’s The Burmese Harp and Kazou Kuroki’s The Face of Jizo.

While looking into this nation’s film history I was personally struck by a particular genre known as Shoushimin eiga or a home drama film. These films draw attention toward ordinary or common people and mainly focus on the Japanese family unit. There’s a slowness to these pictures but I do not write that to put them down. I can honestly say these are the only films I would ever refer to as beautiful. Of course Ozu Yasujiro’s Tokyo Story and Naruse Mikio’s Late Chrysanthemums come to mind but there are many films of this period out there, if only they weren’t so difficult to track down.

Right now I’m currently living in Japan. In a small city to the south of Shikoku called Kochi. While it’s not a huge town it does grant me plenty if opportunities to see the latest Japanese films as well as some of the classics. Which is definitely something I plan to take advantage of… Stay tuned.