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Akihiko Shiota: How did I portray juvenile characters in my early films?

– attended Rikkyo University, where he was in a film club with other students such as Makoto Shinozaki and Shinji Aoyama and began making 8mm films in the tradition of other Rikkyo students like Kiyoshi Kurosawa. His independent films were recognized at PIA Film Festival and he began writing film criticism and working as an assistant for Kurosawa and other filmmakers. He also studied scriptwriting under Atsushi Yamatoya and worked as the cinematographer for films by Takayoshi Yamaguchi. His films ‘' and ‘Don't Look Back', both released in 1999 earned Shiota the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award. ‘Don't Look Back' won also the Jury Prize at the Three Continents Festival. ‘Harmful Insect‘ (2002) was screened at the Venice Film Festival and earned two more awards at the Three Continents Festival. His first major commercial film ‘Yomigaeri' was the fourth biggest grossing Japanese film in 2003. ‘' (2005) inspired by the killings of Aum Shinrikyo in 1995 won the top prize at the Raindance Film Festival. He is recently known for the very amusing tribute to the Japanese pink genre cinema ‘Wet Woman in the Wind' (2016) and ‘The Farewell Song‘ (2019) starring Nana Komatsu, Mugi Kadowaki and Ryo Narita.

The lecture was held at the International Conference ‘Japan – Film – Theatre – Media Art – East and West: Contemporary Interconnections' organized by Adam Mickiewicz University in cooperation with Bridges Foundation as an integral part of the 1st edition of Inlandimensions International Interdisciplinary Arts Festival (www.inlandimensions.com) in October 2019. Translation: Maciej Kanert (http://www.tlumaczeniejaponski.pl/) & Nikodem Karolak.

From the second half of the 90s to the beginning of the 2000s, Japanese films revolving around teenagers were in a time of state of flux. I would like to call that a shift from the coming of age film to the puberty film. What is the difference between these two? In coming of age films, there are certain ideals, dreams, and aims that are to be pursued both socially and individually. In the world portrayed through actions of the main character, there exists a clear narrative structure.

On the contrary, in the world being depicted by a puberty film, all ideals and dreams that should be pursued, as well as even the ethic axis, are abolished both by the society and the individual. The mental conflict of juveniles living in such a chaotic world becomes the main theme of a film. Therefore, the narrative skeleton of a puberty film is ambiguous and weak and, on the contrary, one of its characteristics is a strong commitment to the movie's narration, meaning the style.

It can be stated that the Japanese puberty film emerged as a result of a filmmakers' meticulous investigation, in order to attribute both visual and aural expression, in the form of a film, to the spiritual confusion of juvenile characters, a phenomenon that is merely perceptible in reality. I reckon that my early works, such as ‘Moonlight Whispers', ‘Don't Look Back', ‘' and ‘Canary' serve as the prelude to the puberty film genre in Japan.

Having said that, ‘Moonlight Whispers', being my first film with a theme of juvenile characters, is yet a work with stronger tones of a coming of age movie than a puberty one.  It is a story about two schoolmates that fall in love with each other. However, since the boy is a masochist, their love becomes twisted and tangled. The girl, being forced, awakens her inner self to sadism, creating a new dimension of love. Via the description of such a distorted world – remote from the ideals of society – ‘Moonlight Whispers' speaks yet about the definition of pure love.

Moonlight Whispers

Following ‘Moonlight Whispers', ‘Don't Look Back' is a work that depicts juvenile characters that are at the point of reaching puberty, rather than being a puberty film. I remember vividly that when I turned ten, I felt the world that had been enveloping me cozily inside, suddenly started to go awry, which made me feel very scared. I could not have done much about it when my close friends gave me a cold shoulder, but on the other hand, I developed friendships with other classmates, utterly different from me.  

It was an awakening of self-consciousness, typical for that age, but at the same time, it might have been also a period when one's intrinsic nature starts to take the lead. Before that, a boy that would eventually become a yakuza and a boy that would become an artist could have become close only because they lived in the same vicinity.  However, after that period, the yakuza would start to hang out with other guys of similar disposition, and the artist would be where other artists are. Thus, within such an abrupt change, their worlds would fall apart.

In my case, such an idea was spurred by a friend that disappeared suddenly after his whole family committed suicide. Entangled in such circumstances, the boy that would be normally spending time outside, puts a halt on it. He is unable to run outside without a reason anymore. He notices the sudden loss that he cannot regain.

‘Don't Look Back' attempts to depict that particular sensation. Therefore, the two juveniles that used to run so eagerly in the first half of the film, stop for a while. At the same time, the music disappears and all that is left are sounds heard from afar. The dry sound of a skyrocket resonates changing its expression, reflecting the characters' heart. Sometimes it is a sound of joyful friendship, sometimes, however it may sound like sadness caused by somebody's departure. It even pinpoints a bashfulness of the consciousness regarding relations to the other sex. I think the music is by all means one of the most interesting aspects of the film.

My next work, this time with schoolgirls as the main protagonists, is ‘Harmful Insect'; however it was not based on my own script. The scenario was written by Yayoi Kiyono, a student of mine in the Film School of Tokyo, where I taught at that time.

The heroine, Sachiko, a junior high school student, lost her father and now lives together with her psychically unstable mother. She has been having a special relationship with her teacher since her primary school days, perhaps trying to find a foster-father in him. The teacher now works at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, and the two still write letters to each other. These letters seem to be the only thing tying Sachiko to this world.

The film portrays fragmentary scenes of Sachiko's everyday life; however before long, she is gradually being driven by violent emotions surrounding her habitat and eventually meets a tragic end. During the whole process, the correspondence between Sachiko and her teacher is being shown on the screen in a form of subtitled intervals.

I had a clear vision of showing the letters as a narrative script. I eliminated, very often, the suggestive human voice and via beautifully written, yet unfeeling and drab Japanese characters, I expressed the essence of the relation between Sachiko and the teacher, pinpointing their perception and their condition in which nothing can be done.

When the cold and unemotional boards are being displayed, one gradually sees the ‘lethal delay' of the teacher's answers to Sachiko's letters. When his replies reach her, the environment around Sachiko is already altered and thus his words can no longer save her.

That buildup of such short, yet significant delays leads to the final misunderstanding of the two. Isn't Sachiko's fate somewhat akin to what we might find in ancient Greek tragedies, where the protagonist fails miserably precisely because of such a buildup of trivial matters?

From that time on, I started to pay attention to the wind effect in movies. In this case, the production costs were not sufficient, so I had to shoot it not by synchronous recording but by post-recording. That is why I did not have to be concerned with the sounds while filming. I had a few house fans prepared and then I kept sending the wind towards Aoi Miyazaki, who plays Sachiko, from the side of the camera. As a result, in the film her bangs often move slightly, and she stares to the front with strong eyes as if she was confronting something. This is exactly what I thought to be the essence of Sachiko's existence as a human. She always is being blown by an invisible and unpleasant wind.

In my opinion, ‘Harmful Insect' was a work that may be called a full-fledged puberty film. According to my definition of a puberty film in the beginning, in this case, both society and Sachiko have no ideals or dreams to pursue, whatsoever. They seem to have lost even the capacity to distinguish right from wrong.

Harmful Insect

Having said that, when I think of puberty films, I cannot avoid reaching the conclusion that, at that time in Japan, the ideals and dreams, as well as the criteria of discerning right and wrong, that in normal circumstances should be explained by adults to children, were lost in society.

In fact, at that time, Japanese youths were confronted with two recurrent questions. The first came from juvenile girls: ‘Why one should not do enjo kosai‘ (paid dating)? In Japan, after the burst of the bubble economy at the beginning of the 90s, the number of teenage girls imperturbably selling their underwear or even their bodies to adult men increased dramatically. This question was their reaction to adults trying to hunt them. ‘We sell our bodies and receive money. The grown-ups pay and receive pleasure. It is a win-win situation, so why should that be wrong? Why one is not supposed to do enjo kosai‘?

The second question raised by the youths at that time was: ‘Why one should not kill another man? What is wrong in slaughtering our enemies during war? Aren't they being executed according to the law? And then adults would oppose that there are reasons for that: So, what are those reasons allowing us to kill others? Supposing they exist, is it justified to kill?'.

These two issues, so obvious that nobody had tried to reflect on them seriously before, were suddenly brought by juveniles. The adults were at loss. In my next film, ‘Canaria', I wanted to depict a young boy and a girl trying to live on their own as they might, while being trifled by society. Frankly speaking, this film is rather chaotic, but I dare say it is as decomposed as the Japanese society at the time, which the movie attempts to portray. One might also say, as chaotic as the male juvenile protagonist.  

A 12-year-old boy, Koichi, is forced to join a cult sect with his mother. While in the sect, he is abandoned by her and attempts then to live on his own, taking care of his younger sister. Since the members of the sect commit a mass murder terrorist attack, the juvenile is liberated and returns to the external world; however there is no place for him to go. His sister had been previously taken from him by his grandfather. At this moment, Koichi makes his first independent decision, which is to kill him, telling himself there is a good reason to do so.

However, a juvenile girl that happens to accompany him during his journey does not agree with his logic. Being of the same age as Koichi, she had been previously involved in enjo kosai. She does not think that selling her body for money is something morally wrong. This is the way she chose to live, but on the other hand, she thinks that killing another human being is morally corrupted. That is why she abstains from killing her father, whom she loathes more than anybody in this world.

Canary

There is a scene enveloped in snow-white clouds, when the boy opens his eyes and sees an image resembling his parted mother on the other side of the dense fog. The whiteness of the fog that fills the scene is the symbol of the ideal world imagined by the sect. It is the whiteness of absolute good, not stained by evil that symbolizes the sublime love enclosing Koichi. However, at the same time, it separated him from his mother. My film tries to depict that kind of contradiction.

Do not misunderstand me, by no means do I sympathize with the Aum Shinrikyo sect or its doctrine, which was one of main inspirations for ‘Canary'. In a society with no ideals and values, and no obvious criteria for discerning right from wrong, people want to search for the answer that would surmount all the controversies, for the unshakable, one and only justification. However, not even once have I trusted such words and I shall not trust them in the future. Why? Because the words that advocate absolute righteousness at one point might abruptly turn into the opposite direction from what they aimed at initially. That is why I do not swallow any words without taking a second thought.

Nevertheless, I truly like the motive of juveniles who, having lost their ideals, attempt to find a way and words of their own, nowmatter how awkwardly would they do it. I feel like I have lived in a similar way.

About the author

Nikodem Karolak

INLANDIMENSIONS International Interdisciplinary Arts Festival's Director, which's first edition in October 2019 is being conducted with three major Polish partners: Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan and Jerzy Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw. Film/theatre critic, professional translator/interpreter from Japanese, event planner and artist manager, nowadays preparing a book on the concept of intertextuality in Terayama Shūji’s art. PhD candidate at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznanand at Waseda University in Tokyo. Laureate of Adam Mickiewicz University Foundation for best PhD researchers in 2018.

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