TIFF Tokyo Drifter, Everyone Was On Edge

Tokyo's International Film Festival is one of many events in this city, if you search for TIFF you'll get all kinds of answers. 2011 is the 24th event. Action for Earth! was the theme. Good.

They held a special event in Sendai to support the survivors of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, with a special screening for children:

Hal’s Flute is an animated film based on a story by Takashi Yanase, a Japanese creator of popular anime Anpanman. Following the screening at a theater full of children, voice over actresses Keiko Toda and Masako Nozawa came out on stage. Nozawa praised the film saying, “All creatures share the same emotion. This story lets you go back to the basics you tend to forget about.” Toda delivered a message from Takashi Yanase. “I would like the adults to watch this film, too. It’s very touching and has warmth and may do wonders to your mind.” A photo session with the two voice-over actresses and the children followed and the whole theater was filled with a warm and comfortable mood.

Also on TIFF, Tokyo Drifter, by director Tetsuaki Matsue who follows singer Kenta Maeno over a rainy May, 2011 night starting in Shibuya as he sings a set of songs reflecting on life, love and most of all, Tokyo itself. The haunting images of a darkened post-Tohoku disaster Tokyo serve as the backdrop Tetsuaki’s meditation on Japan in 2011.



2011.11.02[Interviews]【Official Interview】 Japanese Eyes “TOKYO DRIFTER”

— Were the songs written for the movie or songs written over the years?

Matsue: These were all songs Maeno-san composed before the earthquake, but the last song, “New Morning” is something that he was singing before the earthquake – last year actually. After the earthquake the song itself had a different meaning for me. While I was in Korea, I was listening to this song. It was during a time when you could hear people being very afraid of the radiation. So, it started to take a different meaning. From the very beginning I asked Maeno-san, “I want you to sing that song at the end of this film” because I thought it had an impact. There were several songs that Maeno-san did compose after the earthquake – Tokyo 2011, for example… the Coca Cola song. I wrote the words to “Tokyo Drifter.” When I was location hunting, Maeno-san said “You have to write the lyrics, because it will also give you an idea of what the film is about.” And that’s why I was forced to write the lyrics of the song “Tokyo Drifter.” And reading the lyrics, Maeno-san more deeply understood what the film was about.

— And the final location, on the river?

Matsue: So that was in Kawaguchi City in Saitama, across the river. I wanted to get a shot of Tokyo. That’s why I went to Kawaguchi. I thought if I went out of Tokyo I could capture the whole city. And to me, rivers play a very important role in films. When you see a flowing river you can imagine what’s outside that frame. So I thought it was very important. Rivers play a big role in expanding the imagination of the audience. The ocean is too big, but with the river you can image there are people living outside this frame along the banks of the river. So that’s why I thought the river was very important.

— The film is like a love letter to Tokyo. And interesting and positive response to the tragedy of 3.11. Anything more to say about that?

Matsue: The Tokyo now and the Tokyo then is different. In May everyone was on edge. They didn’t know what was happening. I prefer Tokyo then in May, rather than the Tokyo we’re in now.

Interesting, creative people prefer Tokyo to be a little bit more dark, a little bit more mysterious, a little bit more creative.

Speaking on being on the edge, how about Play by Ruben Östlund.

Director: Ruben Östlund
Starring: Anas Abdirahman, Sebastian Blyckert, Yannick Diakité
Rating:

‘What does being an immigrant have to do with anything?’ demands a flustered parent towards the end of Play. That’s the elephant in the room during Ruben Östlund’s film, a dispassionate drama of human unpleasantness in the vein of Michael Haneke. On one level, it’s about bullying: the central story involves a trio of middle-class boys in Gothenburg who are accosted, toyed with and eventually robbed by a group of older kids. The fact that the perpetrators are black ultimately makes little difference to their victims, but is likely to provoke no end of squirming in the sophisticated, politically correct audiences for whom the film is clearly intended. When a pair of fathers try to confront one of the group later on, the impotence of their gesture is compounded when they’re interrupted by a pregnant woman who chastises them for picking on a child – and one from an immigrant family, at that. Touché. Östlund shoots much of the action in long, tightly framed shots where some of the actors are out of view, lending them the deadening immediacy of watching a crime unfold on CCTV footage. Though the tension sags at points, for the most part this is as compelling as it is utterly grim to watch, and the young cast excel themselves.

Timeoout.jp:Play



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