tripu

Last night I went to watch Inception. I quite liked it.

Before last night, I was feeling a bit sceptical about the film. Is it just me, or so many action/fantasy films from Hollywood lately are remakes of The Matrix, Mission: Impossible or something of the sort? There is so much creativity (or lack thereof) spawning from the trunk of inspiration that goes from The Matrix to Blade Runner, all the way through Dark City and Ghost in the Shell.

Bullet-time, martial arts, alternative realities and simulations are cool. Those representations are also rich in suggestive images of urban decay and dark hypertrophied cities. I’m all for that, you know. But aren’t we overdoing it?

There’s a bit of that in Inception, too. Fortunately, in this particular case Christopher Nolan has managed to write a story that is both entertaining and provocative. And the intense soundtrack by Hans Zimmer fits very nicely.

I write about Inception first as an excuse. Truth is that, at the risk of becoming definitely a bore to my family and friends, this post is about Japan and my appetite for Japan. Again.

My emotions about Japan are difficult to explain. Even before I visited the country for the first time (and long before I told anyone close to me about this interest) I felt strangely attracted by it. In some sense it is only logical in my case, for I get easily bored with the environment I live in, and in Europe Japan (still) represents one of the most extremely exotic, yet reachable, places in the world.

Today it dawned on my that my image of Japan, and Tokyo, isn’t but an imagined, personal place that is utterly unattainable. My own particular vision of that part of the world is at risk of becoming a sort of personal “limbo” (in the Inception meaning of the term): an unreality that grows the more sophisticated and tempting the more you indulge in it… and one that can destroy you if you aren’t able to tell reality from dreams.

Japan is to me a perfect land of material progress, urban development, money, rules and the future.

Of course not.

I’m lying. I am well aware of the imperfection of anything that exists, by definition. Italy wasn’t my panacea eight or nine years ago, London didn’t make me happy either, and so far I don’t feel as comfortable as I would wish living in Madrid.

At times I find myself on the streets of Madrid, idly watching people talking and walking around me, when suddenly that particular smell I found in some hidden residential area of Kobe hits me out of the blue. There is a little girl skipping happy ten meters from me and I can’t help swapping the setting, so now she’s in a pier in Yokohama at dusk. There are wild colours in the sky all across the bay and silent old people on bicycles gently pass me by as they ride home. Or maybe it’s raining like hell. It doesn’t matter, because it’s beautiful and different and surprising anyway.

Why do I keep on seeing Japan all around, like Dominic Cobb sees his dead wife in every corner?

It is also a permanent contradiction for me: I’m pretty sure I could be in Japan by now if I had started working hard on it three or four years ago. I long for it, but I don’t seem to be able to commit to it. I’m procrastinating and writing posts like this one instead of directing my efforts towards that goal. That contradiction is the more annoying at times when I’m confronted with alternatives and need to make bold decisions. Did I mention I just became 30? I won’t deny the influence of such a symbolic date in this post (it’s such an stereotype), but I think there is more than that.

That contradiction of mine is another hint telling me that that Japan is not real, is not what I want. As if somewhere very deep I knew that it’s just an imagined alternative reality. As if I knew it will be disappointing at the end.

Or maybe I’m just scared of trying.

Warning: moderate spoilers ahead (unless you’ve watched more than four mainstream American films in the past decade, that is!)

So there is this exuberant planet Gymkhana, one with whimsical gravity forces, flawless foliage with neon-like sap, and its own cute indigenous take on practically every terrestrial animal species, only much larger and colourful and maybe with an extra pair of legs or something.

Planet Gymkhana is inhabited by an ancient race: the descendants of a praiseworthy hybrid between Jar Jar Binks, a bunch of elves hailing from Middle Earth and the puny aliens from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, plus a dash of the Smurfs. The people of Gymkhana spend their days hunting, jumping, flying, diving and running around. That is how their planet got its name.

There come the baddies — easy to spot by their lack of feelings, the corporate greed they defend, the caliber of their biceps, or a combination of the above. Then there is a scientist, Ripley, who knows stuff and talks in science-speak and is far more sensible, if also too naïf for the toughness of the situation. Then there is the goodie, who also has strong biceps, is a bit stupid and takes great pride on not knowing a thing about planet Gymkhana, its native population or anything at all for that matter; but he is good. He is an American hero. They don’t say that in the film, but you can tell from the beginning.

The baddies want the money, the goodies have got feelings, you know the rest. Of course, the ignorant jarhead achieves tons more than the witty scientist with all her funny speak and her books (boys and girls: you get the moral of the story!). The goodies don’t have a chance to win (it’s the future and they’re shooting arrows, for Christ’s sake), but the planet is so cool that, man, the laws of physics rock around pages 68 and 114 of the screenplay, right there when they are most needed. And when, in spite of all that, their cause seems lost, good old deus ex machina does it.

The goodie just looks the girl in the eye and coughs and she feels all the screws coming loose in her body. She falls in love, then she rejects him very badly, then something happens and he’s great and she wants him again even more badly. There is the nice expendable soldier who is sensible and helps the goodies and dies at the end. You’ve got everything! There is even the younger, geeky scientist who is unable to strike a match but feels somehow threatened by the beefy main character, so he makes some lousy attempt at becoming the hero of the story (but he can’t because he ain’t on the frickin’ movie poster).

The story is also a metaphor of what’s going on in planet Earth. There are clear hints on the ideas of invasion, preemptive strikes and a military that refuses to learn anything from the culture they’re just about to anihilate; and even more explicit references to “fighting terror with terror” and a “shock and awe” operation (!).

In spite of it all, I quite liked “Avatar”. So I guess I should say something positive about it now.

“Avatar” in 3D is a feast for the senses — and a moving one, too. Just too much of cheap shamanism for me, and too many plastic bricks supporting a predictable script.

I found it extremely beautiful and evocative, and great fun to watch. James Cameron certainly hasn’t “reinvented cinema” (bah!) but this film might well be one of those fantasy/action/CGI films that stay in our memory forever, like “Terminator” and “The Matrix”.

“Tokyo”
by +joanjimenez
via @Xirick

There are things in this world which purpose or destiny is easy for anyone to distil: wheels, coal, surgeons, fear — you know what they are for. And there are other things that just are, and their utility rejects comprehension. Love, ageing, civil servants. Man.

If one were forced to classify art in general, and films in particular, into one of these two categories, I guess the second bucket would clank loud.

What do you watch films for? Forget right now about documentaries, cheap scary movies and light-hearted irrelevant comedies: documentaries serve the same purpose as magazines, and the latter two are a ride in the amusement park. What do you watch films for?

Why would you pay to watch a film so clumsy (or so honest) that spares all the polite ellipses, and instead lets you watch with eyes wide open, like a rabbit helplessly startled by the lights of the car that is just about to run over it? Why would you pay for a film with just two actors in it, barely three or four locations and a plot that can be summarised in two sentences? Why would you watch a film so skilfully conceived and crafted to make you suffer for two hours, both mentally and physically? And, most importantly, why would you pay for a cinematic gadfly to rip up your own shameful human nature into pieces and then hold them to your face?

For me, the red thread running through Dancer in the dark, Dogville and this film is how lovingly the writer rejoices at the display of evil and cruelty. It is as if he were shouting at us that it is our Nature to be evil, to inflict pain to others and to ourselves, and to enjoy it as the beasts we are.

The photography reminded me a lot of the work of Chris Cunningham: dark and foggy atmospheres, shallow depth of field, cold palettes and a disturbing attention to textures and detail. The super slow motion scenes are a marvel, and probably Chris Tookey was referring to them when he mentioned those ‘few images of startling beauty’.

If you suspect that films have a purpose and a reason on their own, even if you can’t name it; if you believe there is a point in safely experiencing a brief but realistic jewel of hatred, remorse and agonising pain, go watch Lars von Trier’s Antichrist.

If, on the other hand, you think only a mentally ill person or a masochist could enjoy that, or if the trailer made you hesitate for a moment, spare yourself the ordeal.

Believe me, I was not wearing my Japanophile’s hat when I entered the cinema. I did a conscious effort to look at the screen in the same way I thought my friends were going to look at it. I didn’t nudge them and whispered the toponyms that, who knows why, are lacking in the story. I tried to see pachinko, love hotels and women-only carriages as if it were the first time. A story in Tokyo… What an exotic country, wonder what it’ll be like. So far away, isn’t it? Must be an amazing culture. Well, let’s see.

Still, Isabel Coixet‘s Map of the sounds of Tokyo fails to tell an engaging story; it is rather boring. If her intention was to leave spectators ‘craving for sex and sushi’ (sex and ramen, at any rate), it didn’t work for me.

As UnGatoNipón pointed out, dialogues are poor in general, and sometimes plainly silly. Long still shot. Silence. ‘Do you want a strawberry mochi?’ ‘No.’ Silence. ‘I can go and buy some, it’s no problem.’ ‘No.’ Long silence. If that is supposed to capture some profound, centuries-old Japanese introspective philosophy, I don’t get it.

And what with the dubbing. If it is usually just criminal the way most foreign films are butched and re-interpreted here in Spain (Spain hasn’t had a head of government who was fluent in any other language but Spanish for decades; certainly not during the current democratic period) the case with Map of the sounds of Tokyo, being it a Spanish film, is especially sad. The character of David is a Spaniard who has been living in Tokyo for two years and whose Japanese is, as he admits, not good. He’s supposed to speak in English with the Japanese characters. All that is dubbed into Spanish in the version that is being shown in Spanish cinemas, but from time to time there are words or common expressions that are spoken in Japanese.

Not only that, but it seems that the producers didn’t bother editing the subtitles appropriately: when David tells his colleague that Midori’s father called him baka (stupid) once, Sergi López is pronouncing the word in Spanish, and at the same time we read it in a subtitle in Spanish, which is quite confusing. Although I suspect that is a timing issue, and that subtitle is supposed to appear when the Japanese character repeats the word in Japanese.

What is even worse is that, as anyone who ever has had to move around Japan using English knows, communication in English with the Japanese is, more often than not, quite difficult. If, as it is claimed, Tokyo is a necessary protagonist in the story, i.e. if the same tale wouldn’t be conceivable in Lisbon or in Jakarta, you can’t avoid the issue of communication altogether.

The writer makes an attempt at disentangling clichés about Japan and the Japanese, but it seems to me that she only skims the surface, sometimes rather explicitly. David tells Ryu that in essence the Japanese are no different from his own people; and at the beginning, Midori’s father expresses his disgust about the flamboyant evening that has to be arranged to please his foreign business partners. But Coixet falls short of tackling those issues, and her Tokyoites appear as silent, shy, lonely ghosts with an unfathomable interest for the weirdest activities.

The worst thing about the movie is that it’s very slow, and so quiet. To me, Tokyo is a city of words, both written and spoken. It is a loud city. It is what Paul Waley calls ‘Tokyo as textual city’. I think that is why this representation of Tokyo doesn’t look realistic at all.

The scene when Bill Murray sings More than this at the karaoke… Sorry — I mean, the scene when Sergi López sings Enjoy the silence at the karaoke doesn’t convey any melancholy, and for me it was ridiculous.

To me, the first scene in the love hotel was everything but exciting. Maybe the others were a bit more evocative. Sex scenes were brave and sincere, that I must admit.

From the soundtrack, only One dove by Antony & the Johnsons makes the cut for me.

Bonus: if you really want a tender, funny, surprising film that leaves you craving for ramen and sex, go and watch Tampopo (1985). Here, an appetizer for the ramen part of it; here, something about the sex… and also food.

El 24 de mayo pasado llevaba yo tres días en Tokio y ya había hecho buenas migas con Kinga & Stella, dos californianas que se estaban alojando, como yo, en el Sakura Hostel de Asakusa. Esa tarde, a propuesta suya, teníamos planes para ir al Tokyo Dome, que es el mayor espacio para conciertos en Japón y es, sobre todo, el estadio de los Tokyo Giants. Los Giants son el equipo local de béisbol (patrocinado por el diario con mayor tirada del mundo, el Yomiuri Shimbun) y probablemente el equipo más fuerte de la liga profesional japonesa.

El Tokyo Dome es una estructura gigantesca, interesante de ver por sí sola. Si la Wikipedia no miente, su cubierta es una membrana flexible que se sustenta gracias a que el interior del estadio está presurizado …y esa es totalmente la impresión que uno tiene viendo la fotografía aérea en Google Maps.

Si además puedes visitar el estadio para ver un partido de liga entre los Tokyo Giants y los Osaka Buffaloes (patrocinados por el emporio financiero ORIX) pues mejor que mejor. Es como vivir un Madrid–Barça, pero a la japonesa.

Del ambiente en el estadio, del partido de béisbol y de mis elucubraciones durante el mismo (bastante ajenas al deporte en sí) quisiera hablar con detalle en otra entrada. Ahora solo quería contaros que íbamos camino del estadio, habíamos salido de la estación de tren de Suidobashi y giramos a la izquierda para cruzar el río Kanda, cuando vi esta imagen, que me resultó extrañamente familiar:

Esto es un fotograma de la película japonesa de animación Ghost in the Shell; es uno de los paisajes urbanos que se ven durante esa secuencia maravillosa y emocionante en la que Kusanagi viaja en un bote por los canales de New Port City:

¿Cómo dices? ¿Que está un poco pillado por los pelos? A ver qué tal esta otra:

En esta foto, que tomé dos días antes, se ve un pequeño canal seco que pasa cerca del intercambiador de Shibuya:

Y este es el canal de cemento en un suburbio de la ciudad por el que escapa una de las primeras víctimas del Puppet Master, al principio de la película:

Canal en Shibuya:

Ghost in the Shell:

¿Tampoco te convence? Hum, entonces puede que sea verdad que lo mío con Ghost in the Shell no es normal.

De todas formas, New Port City (Niihama-shi) es una ciudad ficticia que estaría situada cerca de Kobe, y como el propio director de la película Mamoru Oshii ha admitido, la inspiración fue más Hong Kong que Tokio. No quiero forzar relaciones que no existen, pero el manga original es obra de un japonés y fue distribuido en Japón antes de convertirse en un éxito internacional, e igualmente las películas y las series de animación fueron hechas en Japón y por japoneses, y supongo que principalmente para un público doméstico. Así que espero poder relacionar esa representación de distopía urbana (¿¿«distopía» no figura en el DRAE?? un punto menos para ellos, y con esto se sitúan en −42) con otras imágenes de ciudades decadentes en obras japonesas de ficción científica.

Más o menos de eso trata el ensayo en el que estoy trabajando ahora, y que (hopefully) será el colofón para el máster cuando lo entregue en septiembre. Confío en llevarlo a buen puerto y en tenerlo listo y medianamente decente para entonces. Solo necesito que se den las siguientes dos circunstancias: primero, que mis amigos y conocidos japonófilos, a los que siempre es un gustazo escuchar/leer, se olviden de mí y dejen de recomendarme, tan amablemente, tantos libros, artículos y películas tan reveladores; y segundo, que haya un corte de luz gordo e internet se apague de aquí a septiembre.

¿Uh?

¡Madre mía, qué talento!