Flourishing Independent Filmmakers: Japanese Films in the 1990s

HANA-BI
Feb. 13, 2022 (Tue) 16:00
Mar. 4, 2022 (Thu) 18:10

Hana-bi, dir. Takeshi Kitano
1997,103min, 35mm, Color

The film that marked a turning point for Takeshi Kitano’s international reputation as a director when it won the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival, Hana-bi continues to be a major highlight of his resume.

In the film, two police detectives, Nishi (played by Takeshi himself) and Horibe (the late, great Ren Osugi, a regular in Kitano’s films), are on a stakeout when Horibe is attacked and paralyzed. Nishi is sick with guilt, since he’d left the scene to visit his cancer-stricken wife Miyuki (Kayoko Kishimoto). This translates into a burning desire for revenge against the gangsters, but he’s been forced, by Miyuki’s mounting hospital costs, to borrow money from the yakuza.

With its unexpected outbursts of violence (now a familiar Kitano trademark), haunting paintings (created by Kitano), sentimental love story and scenes of beautiful Japanese landscapes, abetted by Joe Hisaishi's swelling soundtrack, Hana-bi combined all of the actor-director’s favorite obsessions into a sublimely moving film on life, death and art.

Midori
Apr. 9, 2022 (Tue) 16:00
Mar. 4, 2022 (Sat) 18:10

Midori [第七官界彷徨 尾崎翠を探して]
dir. Sachi Hamano
1998, 108 min., 35mm, color

At the 1997 Tokyo International Women's Film Festival, Sachi Hamano learned that legendary actress Kinuyo Tanaka had directed more feature films (six) than any other female director in Japanese history. Hamano had already directed more than 300 pink films under her own gender-blurred name and another, Chise Matoba. But the news inspired her to make and and release her first non-pink film, Midori (aka In Search of a Lost Writer: Wandering in the World of the Seventh Sense).

Based on the life and work of female author Midori Ozaki, played by Kayoko Shiraishi, it depicts her life as well as dramatizing her best-known novel, "Wandering in the World of the Seventh Sense." After conducting extensive interviews, Hamano came to believe that the prevailing public image of the writer, who had become addicted to painkillers and stopped writing, was a false one.

“Ozaki's life was very different from the commonly imagined ‘miserable feeble life of a writer who gave up writing’” said Hamano. “For her, life meant more than just writing. She also seemed to have found pleasure and significance in her beloved hometown.”

The film was made with the financial support of some 12,000 women all over Japan, and with the cooperation of people in Ozaki’s Tottori hometown. It received the Amari Hayashi Prize at the 2000 Japanese Independent Film Festival.

Helpless
Apr. 14, 2022 (Tue) 18:30
May 1, 2022 (Sat) 13:00

Helpless
dir. Shinji Aoyama
1996, 78min, 35mm, color

The first theatrical release by Shinji Aoyama (Eureka), Helpless is set in Kitakyushu, Aoyama’s hometown. It stars a very young Tadanobu Asano as disaffected high school student Kenji, who meets yakuza Yasuo (Ken Mitsuishi) at a diner and is immediately in over his head. After Yasuo provokes a shootout, he leaves Kenji holding a mysterious bag and his own disabled sister, Yuri (Kaori Tsuji).

But Kenji gets into deeper trouble when he’s waiting with Yuri at another restaurant and, disturbed at the owner’s behavior after hearing that his father has just committed suicide, he lets loose. Surprising how much suppressed rage a high-schooler can store up.

Avec Mon Mari (1999)
Apr. 14, 2021 (Wed) 15:00
Apr. 23, 2021 (Sun) 18:20

Avec Mon Mari
dir. Kentaro Otani
1999, 96 min., 35mm, color

The feature film debut of two-time Pia Film Festival Grand Prize winner Kentaro Otani, this romantic comedy amusingly portrays a love triangle that devolves into a full-blown divorce crisis over a minor quarrel, and grows even more complicated when another couple gets involved.

Miyako (Yuka Itaya) works as an editor at a publishing company, and Tamotsu (Hirofumi Kobayashi) a freelance photographer, have been married for three years. Miyako is a leader in the workplace but just can't abide housework; while Tamotsu can do all kinds of housework, but he doesn't have time for actual work. Still, their relationship is fine until one day, Miyako starts to believe that Tamotsu is having an affair.

After Miyako kicks him out, Tamotsu moves into the apartment of “the other woman,” Mayu (Kaori Tsuji), and a strange four-way relationship begins.

National Film Archive of Japan