H... for Hideko (Part 3)

Yasujiro Ozu:

(Tokyo no Kôrasu, 1931)


Kajiro Yamamoto:
(Tsuzurikata Kyoshitsu, 1938)

Keisuke Kinoshita:
(Nijushi no Hitomi, 1954)

What I know about a Man named Shinya Tsukamoto

(Bullet Ballet, 1998)

By Takashi Miike

"Huh? He's just a nice regular guy."
This was my honest impression when I first met the peculiar film director Shinya Tsukamoto.
It must have been around 1996 or '97, if I remember correctly.
The location was a hotel in Tokyo.
The occasion was the wedding of Koji Tsukamoto, protagonist of Tokyo Fist and the director's younger brother. Director Tsukamoto followed all the required Japanese customs as he served as the groom's older brother, in front of the many guests that had come to celebrate the young man's new life.
In other words; in accordance with Japanese conduct he humbly bent his back, lowered his head and said:
"Thank you for all the kindness you've shown to my brother. He's still young, but I hope you'll be good enough to continue to support him in the future."
And he delighted in his younger brother's happiness more than anyone in the room. The heartwarming personification of the good older brother. He had kind, peaceful eyes... he really did.
At that moment.

"Hah! Just as I thought, he is crazy after all."
This was my second impression when I met the peculiar film director Shinya Tsukamoto for the second time.
It must have been about two months after the wedding party.
The location was a rundown building in suburban Tokyo.
At the time I was making a kitschy yakuza movie called Full Metal Yakuza. But I ran into some problems and couldn't use the arranged location for the next day's shoot. For a poor director a single day's delay can have disastrous consequences, so we tried everything we could to find a new suitable location.
Good news arrived. Director Tsukamoto happened to be shooting his new film Bullet Ballet in just that kind of place.
Right! I thought of his peaceful eyes, the kind glance of the good brother. Those eyes must be able to help me. I called him up straight away.
"Mister Tsukamoto, I'm stuck. Please allow me to use a tiny corner of your location."
As I expected:
"Be my guest."

The shooting day. Just after I arrived, I went to look for director Tsukamoto to thank him.
There he was. Director Tsukamoto was looking into the camera and giving indications for the lighting. Fake blood gushed from the head of the man lying on the floor in front of the lens. Even so early in the morning there was a curious tension in the air. Director Tsukamoto seemed unhappy with the composition, looked up from the viewfinder and glanced at his script with a frown. Then his eyes looked in my direction.

These eyes were wild. Totally wild.
Drugs are illegal by Japanese law, so there are very few wild-eyed people in Japan.
In other words, these eyes are naturally wild. Not because of a drug administered from the outside, they are naturally wild because of the adrenalin secreted by the brain.
"...Yikes! He... he's already wild-eyed from morning."
I couldn't talk to him. I shuffled back to my set and began filming. I shot for dear life to shake off the spectre of those eyes. I don't remember exactly, but I think I must have done about 80 set-ups that day. It was an average number for me at the time.
Well, I'll go back to thank Tsukamoto and then head for home. Even Tsukamoto wouldn't continue being wild-eyed for that long...
"No way! ... Th...that's not."
Director Tsukamoto was looking into the camera. Fake blood gushed from the head of the man lying on the floor in front of the lens...
You mean you've been working on the same shot since this morning?!
Looking up from the viewfinder and glancing in my direction, the director noticed me standing stunned in a corner.
"You finished already. Good-work."
He smiled at me, still wild-eyed.
I will never be able to beat this guy.

This is him: tough and generous madman Shinya Tsukamoto.

PS: Younger brother Koji, whose union with the woman he loved was celebrated by so many, recently departed on a new journey in search for more freedom... By himself.

November 30, 2004

Interview with Naomi Kawase

(Tarachime, 2006)

By Christopher Bourne

Naomi Kawase directed her first short film in 1988 while studying at the Osaka School of Photography (now the Osaka School of Visual Arts), where she received her initial training as a filmmaker. The title, “I Focus on That Which Interests Me,” could describe the aim of any filmmaker who strives to create works with a personal vision and voice. But the fact that Kawase gave her film such a direct and rather bold title says quite a bit, perhaps, about Kawase as a person.

The short documentaries Kawase made as her initial forays into filmmaking explore her family history, often fraught with pain and difficulty, but also with joy and wonder, much of it expressed by her close attention to the natural world. This is very much a function of her being raised in rural Nara, the setting of all her films. Essentially abandoned by her parents after their divorce when she was a child, Kawase grew up with her great-aunt (whom she called “grandmother”), and her family history is the overarching subject of many of her short films, most notably “Embracing (Ni tsutsumarete)” (1992) and “Kya ka ra ba a (Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth)” (2001), which trace Kawase’s search for her absent parents and her quest to reconnect with her father, as well as the aftermath of his death. “Katatsumori” (1994), “See Heaven” (1995), and “Hi wa Katabuki” (1996) – her “Grandmother Trilogy” – examine Kawase’s loving, but often combative, relationship with the great-aunt who raised her. These intimate and truly first-person films expose herself and her family in sometimes unsettling detail. What is fascinating about these films is how firmly she places them in the natural environment of her Nara home. The natural phenomena she documents are given as much prominence as, and indeed are inextricable from, Kawase’s own actions and feelings as depicted in her films. Kawase often narrates in a sonorous monotone and appears onscreen, camera in hand, reinforcing the intensely personal nature of these films.

Kawase’s inimitable style carries over seamlessly into the four feature films she has released to date: “Suzaku (Moe no Suzaku)” (1997), the unexpected winner of the Camera d’Or for best first film at the Cannes Film Festival which observes the impact of a village’s failed economic development on a broken family; “Hotaru (Firefly)” (2000), following the intense and violently passionate relationship between an exotic dancer and a pottery maker; “Shara (Sharasoju)” (2003), in which a boy struggles to deal with his guilt over his brother’s disappearance; and her latest, “The Mourning Forest (Mogari no mori)” (2007), which once again surprised observers by winning a major award at Cannes, this time the Grand Prix. In all of these films, Kawase imbues her fictional scenarios with the same intense intimacy and attention to details of the natural world, as well as a vivid sense of Nara as a place (you could practically draw a map of Nara based on her films), that she brings so forcefully to her documentaries.

Kawase’s most recent documentary, the 40-minute “Tarachime (Birth/Mother),” returns once again to her great-aunt, this time in her 90’s, suffering from poor health and the beginnings of dementia. The film opens with the startling image of her great-aunt’s naked body in the bath; Kawase’s omnipresent camera recording every detail, every fold and wrinkle, in nearly microscopic detail. The emotional displays of both Kawase and her “granny” are no less exposed; in one lengthy scene, Kawase angrily confronts her about the thoughtless and hurtful ways she was spoken to as a young girl, goading her great-aunt into a giving a tearful apology. However, the anger eventually gives way to forgiveness and renewed affection, as Kawase sings “Happy Birthday” to her granny on the soundtrack. In the film’s latter half, Kawase turns the camera on herself with as much unsparing detail as with her granny, including real-time footage of herself giving birth to her son. Soon after, we see her great-aunt holding Kawase’s newborn son, the ending and beginning of life combined in a moving, indelible image. As depicted by a lesser artist, this would simply be an expression of the hoary cliché of the “circle of life;” in Kawase’s masterful hands, it becomes a powerful affirmation of the endurance of human existence.

Kawase usually requests that “Tarachime” be screened before “The Mourning Forest,” and for good reason: the themes of aging, impending death, loss and grief resonate in both films, and “Tarachime” becomes a potent prologue to the fictional story told in “The Mourning Forest.” Kawase’s latest feature concerns two grieving people who, during their journey through the titular forest, seek to heal the pain caused by their respective losses. Machiko (Machiko Ono), mourning the death of her young son, works at a village retirement home, where she meets and befriends Shigeki (Shigeki Uda), one of the residents who still pines after his dead wife, who passed away 33 years earlier. One day they go on a road trip to celebrate his birthday, during which Machiko’s car breaks down. Shigeki wanders into the thick forest nearby to search for the place he believes his wife is buried. Machiko follows him, and as they are surrounded by the elemental forces within the forest, they grow closer together and experience their own spiritual epiphanies, leading to a beautifully moving conclusion. What is most remarkable about “The Mourning Forest” is the way Kawase melds a documentary-like style of filmmaking with a lyrical sense of the porous boundary between life and death, given concrete form in the scenes in which Shigeki’s deceased wife appears before him. In a key scene in the film, a Buddhist priest gives a lecture to the retirement home residents on what it means to be alive. The enduring value of “The Mourning Forest,” as well as the rest of Kawase’s oeuvre, is its ability to allow viewers to ponder the truly important questions of life and death, the meaning of our existence, and our place in the world.

I spoke to Ms. Kawase about her film at the Japan Society, where “The Mourning Forest” received its New York premiere as the opening night film of the Japan Cuts Festival of New Japanese Film. Translating for Ms. Kawase was Brian Nishii.

(Sharasojyu, 2003)

I: The concluding titles of your film explain the Japanese word “mogari,” which you define as “the period of mourning, thinking back on the dearly beloved.” Themes of mourning and loss run throughout your work, and in this case you clearly felt it was important enough to explicitly call attention to it. Could you elaborate on this concept, and how it relates to your film?

Kawase: It’s really important to me that I show the short film “Tarachime” before “The Mourning Forest” because it really explains where I’m coming from. I didn’t grow up with my parents, but with my grandmother and with the older generation. So I often feel a sense of foreboding, because when that generation disappears, a part of me will disappear with it. We gain so much of our sense of self through our parents, and most of us have that connection of life that flows from our grandparents and our parents through to us. But in my case, because that middle layer of life provided by parents didn’t exist for me, I don’t have that clear understanding of self. I grew up with my grandmother mostly; my grandfather passed away much earlier. But it wasn’t until after my grandfather died that I understood that in a way I felt much closer to him. It’s when a person leaves this world that you understand more clearly your connection to that person. So that idea is the basis for this film. When I looked up the word “mogari,” I found that it means both the place of mourning and the feelings you have toward those you mourn or miss. We spend so much of our time in modern society worrying about the here and now. It’s through having the experience of witnessing a loved one die or go through the stages of dying that we can reflect on the inner soul and be connected to the afterlife.

(Moe no Suzaku, 1997)

So is the Shigeki character based on your grandfather?

The Shigeki character isn’t based on my grandfather so much as it is based on the fact that my grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, just as Shigeki does in the film. When you’re dealing with someone in the family who has Alzheimer’s, you often forget that it’s a disease, it’s a sickness. The rest of the family can get frustrated very easily, having to attend to all their needs. But if you approach it as a disease, you can take a step back, and not be as frustrated, and really be there for them. So my personal experience of caring for my grandmother is the genesis of the Shigeki character and his situation.

Could you talk a little about Shigeki Uda, who plays Shigeki in the film? I thought he was great. And I understand that he was someone you knew who had never acted before. How did you come to choose him for this role? Did you write the film with him in mind?

Shigeki runs an old used bookstore in my neighborhood. He has no money whatsoever, but he has a lot of time on his hands. So because he had all this free time, and because I like to spend a lot of time creating my work, we had a few months to spend in a facility that took care of older people and people with Alzheimer’s. So Shigeki was able to really observe how people under those conditions would behave.

What was it about Shigeki that made you think he was the right person to play this role? I’m assuming the character he plays is someone very different from himself.

I got to know Shigeki four years before making the film, and I had worked with him on another project. But since then, I’d developed a relationship with him and observed him over the years. The biggest factor in deciding to make a movie with Shigeki was the fact that he had a lot of time on his hands. I’m the mother of a two-year-old, and I wanted to be able to make a movie while carrying a two-year-old in my hands. If I were to bring in a star actor from Tokyo, I would be limited by their schedule and I wanted to take my time in making this film. And I could hire Shigeki for very little money. Shigeki’s character is such that he takes on things very purely, and he has a kind of young-at-heart quality about him. Whether it is living in the facility, or going into the forest, he absorbs everything on the sincerest, purest level. So because of that, I knew this role would work very well for him.

Did you shoot this film in an actual retirement facility?

No, we used a village house to create the facility. We consulted with professionals in the field so we could accurately recreate the way such a house would be made into a retirement facility. The old men and women around Shigeki are actual residents of the village, and they’re really natural. My approach to filming was to create an atmosphere, make it as real as possible, and have everyone exist together in that space, and then the camera could come in and film everything like a documentary.

(Mogari No Mori, 2007)

Yes, I think this documentary aspect of your films is what makes them unique, and this effect is enhanced by the fact that for the most part, you cast nonprofessional actors. Could you talk a little about how this informs your creative process? I assume from the way you work that you don’t begin with a fully written script beforehand.

I usually start with an outline and the basic idea. But I keep the idea simple enough so that everyone on set can have it in their head. Everyone working on the film has to, as we say in Japanese, “put their antennas up,” and be aware of what is going on at all times, because at any given second we could be filming, we could be capturing a moment. Everyone on set has this understanding, and works toward this. The rough guidelines of the story, from point A to point B, are basically followed, but how you get there is a collaborative process. The audio guys on my films keep a wireless mike on me, because they never know when the camera is rolling! (laughs) Because they never know, they have to keep in close contact so that everyone’s on the same page.

So it sounds like your method of filmmaking is to create a fictional environment and then film it as if it were a documentary.

It’s an actor’s job to recreate an emotional state, and a director can guide them in achieving that. But for me, I find that it’s better to create an environment where an actor can truly feel something that is profound to them. For example, in the scene in the care facility where the priest lectures about life and death, I basically told the monk, ‘Talk about this,’ and I just let him go. And during the scene, I had someone participating in the conversation off-camera say something that would instigate a reaction that was truly realistic. I’m very particular about setting up scenes and environments in a way that will allow my actors to be natural.

Listening to you explain your working methods in this way is very fascinating for me, because it really helps to explain where your films are coming from. And I think this connects to what you said earlier about growing up around an older generation, because the way you make films hearkens back to earlier generations of Japanese directors, many of whom drew their inspiration from daily life and what was happening around them, rather than from other films, as is so often the case nowadays.

I didn’t come into filmmaking from, as you say, watching other films and then wanting to be a director. Fundamentally, it was my love of the medium of film as a tool to capture the moment, the moment that’s happening right now. When film was first invented, there was that excitement about its ability to capture a moment in time, the here and the now. And that’s really the starting point for my interest in the film medium.

I was struck by the sense that this film brings your career full circle in a way. Your lead actress in “The Mourning Forest,” Machiko Ono, was also in your debut feature “Suzaku,” which you made 10 years ago. Also, both films won major prizes at Cannes. Both films even begin with nearly identical overhead shots of swaying treetops. Was this a conscious choice, to revisit and perhaps update your earlier film?

There are a lot of similarities between the two films, definitely. But casting Machiko Ono in “Mourning Forest” wasn’t planned. I actually auditioned a lot of other people for the role, and I didn’t want to repeat myself by casting her in another movie. But I’d noticed that in the ten years after “Suzaku,” Machiko had grown up a lot, and had really matured. She’d changed a lot; she has a two-year-old son now. In fact, Machiko asked to be in this film. And I thought, well, you know what? She’s matured a lot and I’ve matured a lot, and it would be really nice for us to work together again. And yes, on this film, before I knew it, I found myself using similar shots and following similar storylines. So maybe it is coming full circle, as you say.

Japanese Cinema Blogathon

See you in June, Japanese Movie Lovers!

Thanks, Michael!

H... for Hideko (Part 2)

Yasujiro Ozu:

(Munekata Kyoudai, 1950)

Mikio Naruse:
(Inazuma, 1952)

Mikio Naruse:
(Onna ga Kaidan wo Agaru Toki, 1960)

Rest in Peace, Terayama-san!

寺山 修司
(10/12/1935 - 04/05/1983)

On the 10th December, 1935
I was born an imperfect dead man
Years will follow years and one day I know
I shall become a perfect dead man
When that day comes
I will think of the
Cherry tree

"My occupation is being Terayama Shuji."

About Death by Hanging

(Koshikei, 1968)

By Nagisa Oshima

An artist does not build his work on one single theme, any more than a man lives his life according to only one idea. Foolish critics, however, want to think that works have just one theme running through them. Then when they find something that contradicts that one theme, they immediately say that they don't understand the work. Our work has nothing to do with these foolish critics. We want to put into it everything we are thinking and experiencing now. If we didn't, creative work would have no meaning for us. Of course, that also applies to Death by Hanging.
It is true, however, that Death by Hanging had as its starting point the events set in motion by the criminal Ri Chin'u, perpetrator of the Komatsugawa High School incident. In my opinion, Ri Chin'u was the most intelligent and sensitive youth produced by postwar Japan, as demonstrated by the collection of Ri's letters edited by Boku Junan, Punishment, Death and Love. Ri's prose ought to be included in high school textbooks. Ri, however, commited a crime and was setenced to the death penalty.
I had been thinking of devoting a work to Ri ever since he committed his crime in 1958. I wrote one script in 1963, the year after the execution. During that period I continued to depict the Korean problem in The Forgotten Imperial Army, A Tombstone to Youth, The Diary of Yunbogi, Sing a Song of Sex. I further explored the problem of crime more and more deeply in nearly all my work. Needless to say, both crime and the Korean problem are ultimately national concerns.
The two contexts in which the nation believes it is permissible to kill people are the death penalty and war. We say no to the death penalty and to war. We object strenuosly to their existence. However, our objections will carry no weight unless articulated by an ideological level that transcends the nation. Based on Ri Chin'u, who came close to achieving that, we created R, a character who did not die after execution.
The character R - and the work Death by Hanging - owe a great deal to the strenght of the countless people who are interested in Ri Chin'u. Another way to express this is to say that I am indebted to the strenght of all who have a deep interest in the Japan-Korea relationship - even if those people represent a whole range of opinions. Also, our ability to construct a realistic execution site and to realistically depict execution is due to the good offices of Mukae Yoshiteru and others in the penitentiary system. We would like to take this opportunity to express our deep gratitude to them.
Based on this solid foundation, the scriptwriter, location crew, actors, and everyone else once again participated in the making of the film from the beginning. Recently film productions dependent on the Art Theater (1) have been in the news, but we pride ourselves strongly on the fact that the original method that we have been carving out for ourselves for some years is now coming to fruition. Matsuda, Adachi and Ishido offered their generous, joyful participation in work outside their true occupations. I don't know how to express my gratitude to them for their generosity.
I will continue to engage in bold film production with my fellow Guevaras, there is no doubt that Death by Hanging is one of our milestones.

(Film Scripts of Oshima Nagisa, 1968)

Notes:
1. A company engaged in producing, importing and distributing films, established in 1961. (for more information see here)

Juzo Itami Knew What was Missing

By Bruce Rutledge

Japan is a funny place, and I mean that as a compliment. Life there is filled with humor — some intended, some not. Laughter breaks the tension in an overly tense society. And every once in a while, an artist comes along who has an eye for that humor and can illuminate Japanese life for us. If you want to learn about human nature, watch Akira Kurosawa; if you want to learn about the Japanese, watch Yasujiro Ozu.

It’s the eye for everyday humor that makes the difference. Kurosawa takes us plunging into the depths of human nature, Japan’s Shakespeare. Ozu allows us to eavesdrop at the dinner table.

Sometimes the Ozus of the world get overlooked. Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Takeshi Kitano was winning international awards for his pretentious oriental fare — like John Wayne, Kitano banks on a mythic past — a far more talented director was struggling to find his place in Japanese cinema. Juzo Itami, a filmmaker for just 12 years, ended his career abruptly when he jumped off the building of his production office in 1997 over a tabloid’s claims that he was cheating on his wife, actress Nobuko Miyamoto. It was a tragic end to a brilliant if brief career. One Japanese magazine even speculated at the time that the international acclaim for less talented Japanese filmmakers had sent Itami into depression.

Itami’s work captures the humor of life in Japan better than any of his contemporaries. He was a daring filmmaker — a social activist who went straight after Japan’s biggest taboos. In some ways, he was like Oliver Stone, except much, much funnier.

“I make movies to get the Japanese to look in the mirror,” Itami told an audience at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in July 1996.

The first movie Itami directed and wrote, Ososhiki (The Funeral), came out in 1984. He was 50 at the time. Itami used the story of a family preparing for a funeral to subtly spoof Japan’s obsession with doing things the “right” way. In one scene, family members watch a how-to video to practice proper grieving. The movie was a big hit in Japan and a critical success overseas, launching his directorial career with a bang.

For the next 12 years, Itami’s movies would be the most illuminating, creative and witty cultural products to come out of Japan. He directed 10 films in all, and in this body of work he put together a dynamic portrait of modern Japan, complete with gangsters, corrupt politicians, two-faced religious leaders, struggling salarymen, philanderers, gourmands, lovers, even supermarket owners. He captures both the humor and the energy of Japan at that time.

Itami’s movies paint a far more realistic portrait of Japan in the late 1980s and 1990s than almost all of the books written by the West’s so-called Japan “experts” during that time. From Rising Sun to The Enigma of Japanese Power, the literature is humorless and one-dimensional, painting the Japanese as karate-kicking kamikaze pilots and blue-suited drones.

In contrast, Itami shows the Japanese as they are, faults and all, which is far more entertaining. Take the scene from the 1987 film Marusa no Onna (A Taxing Woman) where actor Shiro Ito plays the owner of a pachinko parlor being questioned by tax officials over his suspect bookkeeping. Ito goes into an elaborate fit when he knows he’s cornered and ends up hugging a utility pole outside his shop, bawling his eyes out. As the tax authorities fade into the distance, he immediately turns off the tears and says coldly, “I’ll cry forever if it’ll save me a few million yen.”

Like Stone, Itami’s films were criticized at home for being too didactic. And also like Stone, Itami couldn’t help himself; he just found too much that needed changing.

Itami made movies that riled parts of Japanese society. He was stabbed in 1992 by yakuza who didn’t like his portrayal of Japanese organized crime in the movie Minbo no Onna (Minbo: The Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion). Itami led a frontal attack on popular folklore (the very folklore that Kitano wallows in) by portraying the yakuza as mean, blustery, mostly dimwitted men in loud suits. A good chunk of Japan’s movie industry has long been reserved for formula dramas portraying the yakuza in a rose-colored light. The thugs who cut Itami’s face didn’t like the fact that the director had turned up the wattage.

Itami, whose real name was Yoshihiro Ikeuchi, didn’t begin directing until he was 50 in part because of the long shadow cast by his father, Mansaku Itami, a prewar director noted for his satire. Instead, Juzo acted. Some of his better known roles were in Sasame-yuki (The Makioka Sisters), MacArthur’s Children and the very funny Family Game. In 1969, he married Nobuko Miyamoto, the star of many of his films.

During his schooldays, Itami was improbably a classmate of writer Kenzaburo Oe in Ehime Prefecture. These two boys would grow up to be arguably the most important Japanese cultural figures of their generation. When they were in sixth grade, World War II ended. “At the end of the war, the adults took a 180-degree turn,” Itami recalled. One day, the Japanese people were told to prepare to fight the Americans to the death; the next, they were told to accept defeat. “It was upsetting and strange for the children,” he said.

Itami likened life in wartime Japan to life in the Aum Supreme Truth cult, which gassed the Tokyo subways in March 1995. An unbending obedience to authority dominated both groups, he argued. His last film, the 1997 Marutai no Onna (The Woman under Police Protection) deals with a Japanese cult, painting the members with alternating doses of sympathy and send-up.

Japanese pop culture is thriving more than ever these days, but it is often targeted at children and teenagers and seems oh so unbearably light. Itami created pop culture for adults. It’s too bad he’s gone.

Film director and actor Juzo Itami once said that modern Japan was a country that “failed to invent the father.” In the West, he said, the roles of mother, father and infant were fully developed, but in Japan, only the mother and infant had emerged. The mother-infant relationship is ruled by the pleasure principle, he argued, and the father’s role is to break that relationship and infuse the family with logic and rational thought. Because the role of the father had been retarded in Japan, the director said, Japan had only two cultural ideals: the motherly, nurturing type and the cute, obedient type.

In just about any Itami movie, men suckle on women’s breasts. Sometimes it’s the most corrupt or disturbed characters who suckle: the cult killer in Marutai no Onna (Woman of the Police Protection Program); the corporate tax dodger in A Taxing Woman. But perhaps the most famous breast-feeding scene is the closing shot of the hit Tampopo, which perfectly ties together the movie’s themes of eroticism and food.

Tampopo was described as a “Japanese noodle western” when it came out in 1986. It became a cult hit on college campuses in the US, and it seemed that Itami’s career was about to skyrocket. The film hinges on a fairly flimsy plot where a widow (played by Itami’s wife, Nobuko Miyamoto) tries to save her ramen noodle restaurant despite being a pretty mediocre cook. A mysterious truck-driving stranger wearing a cowboy hat (Tsutomu Yamazaki) appears and agrees to find a team of experts to help her learn how to make the perfect bowl of noodles.

Itami loosely weaves vignettes exploring food and eroticism in and around the main plot. The sex scenes are both funny and erotic, and some of the vignettes are knee-slappers, such as the scene where the old, sickly man is left to have lunch and promptly orders and devours the very dishes he is supposed to avoid, or the scene where an etiquette teacher tries to show young Japanese women how to properly use a knife and fork, only to be drowned out by a large Caucasian man on the other side of the restaurant slurping down his spaghetti with abandon.

Many movie fans expected more of the same from Itami, but his next eight films were more piercing in their social satire, more directed at affecting change, more Oliver Stone than Pedro Almodovar. Itami was obsessed with Japan’s culture of corruption, and then later, I would argue, with Hollywood.

His most direct spoof of political corruption, the 1990 Ageman (Tales of a Golden Geisha), is largely unknown overseas. Here he is spoofing actual politicians as well as Japan’s corrupt political culture. The actor with the thick glasses is the spitting image of Shintaro Abe, father of failed former prime minister Shinzo Abe; the one with the greased back hair and an eye for the ladies bears an uncanny resemblance to Ryutaro Hashimoto, who was prime minister when the movie came out; and the older man with the white hair and the closet full of cash will remind viewers of Shin Kanemaru, the kingmaker who was arrested at home with hundreds of pounds of gold bars stashed in his kitchen.

By 1990, Itami was the father of modern Japanese movies, leading the way for hits like Shall We Dance?. The responsibility seemed to weigh on him. He once said that his competition wasn’t with other Japanese directors but with Hollywood, because Hollywood made the movies the Japanese paid to see. Itami’s last work, Marutai no Onna, is his most violent, with car chases, fist fights and several murders. The tender touch of Tampopo is long gone by this point. Even Supaa no Onna (The Supermarket Woman), an entertaining movie about rival supermarket chains, contains a long car chase that seems stuffed into the script to placate those who need action and explosions in their movies.

Perhaps Itami was making concessions in hopes of drawing larger audiences. But his strength was not portraying violence or using special effects. He was best when he drew on his humor and compassion. Some of his most interesting scenes involve supposed enemies being drawn together, as in the gangster leader’s grudging respect for the female anti-extortion expert, or the tax woman and the tax dodger lying in an embrace after an assassination attempt.

Itami’s legacy may be largely overlooked, but his films still have a lot to teach us about what makes Japan tick.

Juzo Itami: Filmography
Ososhiki (The Funeral) (1985)
Tampopo (1986)
Marusa no Onna (A Taxing Woman) (1987)
Marusa no Onna II (A Taxing Woman’s Return) (1988)
A-ge-man (Tales of a Golden Geisha) (1990)
Minbo no Onna (Minbo - or the Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion) (1992)
Daibyonin (The Last Dance) (1993)
Shizuka na Seikatsu (A Quiet Life) (1995)
Supaa no Onna (Supermarket Woman) (1996)
Marutai no Onna (Woman of the Police Protection Program) (1997)