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Bewley on Hiatus: The First Inconvenient Japantastic Film Festival
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The First Ever Inconvenient JapanTastic Film Festival Wrap Up!
by Marc Vogl
NB: This festival consisted of three screenings each at 1pm in the afternoon on Marc Vogl's 19" television set in Hayes Valley. The fest ran from Thanksgiving Thursday November 22 to Saturday November 24.
DAY 1
Film: Yojimbo
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Audience: Marc
We got off to a late start since I was doing my laundry and wondering if anyone else was going to show up. I also decided at the last minute to heat up the oven and put in one of the four Celeste Pizza For One (TM) pizza pies that I bought this week at the Safeway.
The pizza was good; Akira Kurosawa's "Yojimbo" was better. A total western in which one man without a past or a future rolls into town and gets all the bad guys to kill each other while stoically eating rice, drinking sake and occasionally kicking some samurai ass himself. There is a depth to the story though, there are cycles of salvation and redemption, routines of betrayal and the threat of violence lurking under the swirling of leaves in a god forsaken ghost town. It's kinda funny too. Good stuff. Even if no one came.
DAY 2
Film: Branded to Kill
Director: Seijun Suzuki
Audience: Marc, Brian Baldi(!)
I stalled again wondering why no one is here for the 1967 yakuza thriller. I've identified three possible reasons why no one (besides me) is attending my film festival:
1. I've selected films no one wants to see (or has heard of)
2. I'm showing them at a time no one can make it (or wants to)
3. I'm showing them in a not-particularly attractive setting (on a 19" tv in my living room).
I hope this last reason is not really it. My tv may not be as big as some people's (eg. mara, paul, brian) but I vacuumed recently and still have several Celeste Pizza For One (TM) pizza piess to offer. People don't know what they're missing.
Finally! Brian Baldi showed up twenty minutes into "Branded to Kill." I stopped the film to greet the audience. Then the audience and I went to the kitchen to warm up some sake the audience had brought along; we made a little tortellini snack. The audience and I then watched the rest of Suzuki's stylish (confusing) gangster shoot-em-up. Occasionally being blown away by the 60s cool that accompanied the hero's apartment, wardrobe and savoir-faire. Most of the time though we had no idea what the fuck was going on as our main man shot lots of people in increasingly stylish and improbable ways. In the end he himself gets it and literally falls out over the ropes of a deserted boxing ring. A little help please?
Still, another great day at the fest. The audience told me he liked the film too and even left me the rest of the undrunk sake.
DAY 3
Film: A Taxing Woman
Director: Juzo Itami
Audience: Marc, Brian Baldi, Maura Madden, Miriam Latzer
Expectations are high today in the wake of yesterday's run-away audience success "Branded to Kill." I've gone to Safeway and bought an assortment of donuts for the throngs that will no doubt be showing up momentarily to see Juzo Itami's "A Taxing Woman" ‚ a follow up to the quite well known "Tampopo" also by Itami. It's all I can do to resist having a glazed old-fashioned right now. But as a festival organizer I must put my audience first and wait until they've taken theirs.
Glory be! What a turn out! Four people! Once again doubling the previous day's attendance. The festival is really picking up steam just as it's coming to a close. It's a little bit like summer camp ‚ just when the fun is starting it's time to leave. If we kept up this rate of audience growth and extended the festival by 10 days I could expect to have 1024 people by the middle of next week!
Alas, this is it though. What way to end it. Itami's film chronicles the determined investigation of a mid level IRS type investigator as she tries to bring down a notorious tax dodger. The freckled Ryoko Itakara is unstoppable and cute. Made in the late 80s the big sunglasses and cheesy derivative Beverly Hills cop sound track were total crowd pleasers, even if the film dragged at times and didn¼t really seem terribly high stakes. Still, it had its funny parts and while not as funny as "Tampopo" it was a crackerjack way to bring the fest to an end. Also Miriam made some kick ass popcorn about 3/4ths of the way through the film which kept us going after the initial donut infusion started to wear off.
So, that's it for the Festival! Will we do it again next year? Time will tell, but stay tuned and if you got a hankering for starting your own inconvenient japantastic film festival a good place to go for recommendations is this film round up courtesy of The Stranger:
http://www.thestranger.com/2001-11-08/japan4.html
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