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Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 2, 2017

Yasunari Kawabata's surrealist window on the world

Opening with one of the most famous lines in Japanese literature — "Emerging from the long border tunnel, they entered snow country," shifting us at speed from the darkness of the tunnel into the bright light of the snow — Yasunari Kawabata's novel "Snow Country" tells of a city-dwelling,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 24, 2017

The Tokyo International Film Festival can be a time of true cinematic discovery (if you know where to look)

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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 7, 2017

Hiroshi Sugimoto: The illusion of architecture

The renowned artist made a name for himself by capturing time in a photograph. Now he attempts to do the same with an art complex in Odawara ...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 23, 2017

'Devils in Daylight' and 'The Maids': The literary sleuthing of Junichiro Tanizaki

Question: Is it really the case that for a large part of the 20th century Japan enjoyed a golden age of literature? Or is this just misty-eyed nostalgia?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 18, 2017

Japan's filmmakers expand their idea of overseas opportunity

The Japanese film industry has long been insular, making films by and for Japanese with little input from, or concern for, the outside world.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Mar 10, 2017

Fukada's filmmaking a breath of fresh air

Koji Fukada's black comedy "Hospitalite" ("Kantai") won best film in the Tokyo International Film Festival's Japanese Eyes section in 2010 and since then he has become accustomed to stepping up on stages to receive prizes for his work.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2017

'The Neon Demon': Demonically arty — in a good way

With "The Neon Demon," director Nicolas Winding Refn seems to have come to the end of a trilogy that began with "Drive" (2011) and continued through "Only God Forgives" (2013). The idea seems to be to take genre-flick styles — car action, revenge and horror — and unravel them to the point where they...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 3, 2017

The special effect of Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Apichatpong Weerasethakul pokes a little fun at Thailand's superstitions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 14, 2016

Is Southeast Asia now Japan's competition?

Japan is an Asian entertainment powerhouse, is it not? This October's Japan Contents Showcase, which was held in Tokyo's Odaiba and Shibuya areas, included markets for film and TV (TIFFCOM), animation (TIAF) and music (TIMM), with 356 Japanese companies selling to 1,539 registered buyers, most from Asia....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 31, 2016

Japan's team spirit remains youthful in anime

The word "seishun" ("youth") comprises the kanji characters for the words "blue" and "spring," which connotes the freshness and innocence of those earlier years in life. It's also the name of a genre of anime and manga. Even as the population ages, seishun manga and anime seem to lock themselves to the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
May 25, 2016

A little 'je ne sais quois' from Eric Rohmer

Everything we know about French films, we learned from Eric Rohmer. At least for Japanese cinema lovers, that's what it felt like, especially in the late 20th century.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 4, 2016

'Six Four': Japan held hostage by the Showa Era

'Don't you understand what is to have a child taken from you? How could you be a policeman and not understand that?"
CULTURE / Film
Apr 6, 2016

Tokyo Talkies seeks to broaden exposure to Indian films

Indian cinema is prolific and diverse, with 1,969 feature titles released by 20 regional film industries in 2014, but movie fans in Japan have few chances to see this vast output. (Let's not count Bollywood musicals playing silently on monitors in Indian restaurants.)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / Wide Angle
Feb 3, 2016

Could an aging population save Japan's independent cinemas?

Only a few years ago, movie industry pundits sighed and said that cinema was dead (again), and that streaming networks would soon sweep that corpse aside.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 9, 2016

Nagisa Oshima: 'You have to tell the truth about your country, whatever it is'

Jan. 15 marks the third anniversary of the renowned film director's death. Roger Pulvers, who knew him for more than 30 years and was his assistant on “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” discusses the man and his work
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 22, 2015

Tokyo film festival ups its domestic fare

The 28th edition of the Tokyo International Film Festival, which began yesterday, is the biggest event on the Japanese film calendar. And like any such event, TIFF has had its share of critics over the years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2015

Androids and the avant-garde: The best Japanese films screening at TIFF

The Tokyo International Film Festival offers a once-a-year chance to see Japanese movies, both new and classic, with English subtitles. Getting tickets, however, especially for the films in the Competition and Special Screenings sections, may not be easy. With that caveat, here are my personal picks...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 23, 2015

The ballad of Sam Peckinpah is written in blood

Over the years, the idea of so-called auteur filmmaking has become identified with a certain breed of art-house cinema. A short list of American auteurs would probably include directors such as Woody Allen, Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson — but not someone like Sam Peckinpah, who made ultra-violent...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 7, 2013

Re-examining Yasujiro Ozu on film

Yasujiro Ozu once had a reputation for making films only other Japanese could understand.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 4, 2013

One year on from arts world 'disaster'

It's Oct. 27 and the setting sun fades to darkness. A long line of people begins to form around Tsukiji Honganji Temple next to the world-famous fish market in central Tokyo. The scene recalls what happened there last year on Dec. 27, the funeral of Nakamura Kanzaburo XVIII who passed away in the city...
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Nov 21, 2013

A showcase of established and new film talent

Any cinephile that may have left the Tokyo International Film Festival feeling underwhelmed by its high-profile film showings can get their art-cinema fix at this often-underrated rival — Tokyo Filmex.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 7, 2013

As crowds shrink, movie theaters turn to showing live concerts, ballet

Theater operators are looking for new ways to use their facilities as they struggle to survive the decline in cinemagoers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2013

'It's Such a Beautiful Day'

Director: Don Hertzfeldt
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013

How top lowbrow U.S. humor translates in Japan

Somewhere in the history of American cinema, someone (maybe John Waters?) decided that gross and profane and funny could all sit on the same park bench and start up a friendship. That was way back in the 1970s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 12, 2012

Ahead of TIFF appearance, Corman critical of films 'made for festivals'

The high-minded fare of the film festival circuit and the cheap thrills of B-movie pulp couldn't seem farther apart, but the circuit will be closed when king of the B-movies Roger Corman heads the competition jury at this year's Tokyo International Film Festival.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2012

French never blase about the American arts

One of the more instinctive knee-jerk comments in trans-Atlantic relations is that the "French don't like Americans."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Aug 12, 2012

Fading shades of pink

At its peak of popularity roughly four decades ago, the form of soft-core pornography known as pinku eiga (pink films) utilized more than 1,000 theaters to screen short, low-budget, erotic films churned out mainly by independent studios.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 27, 2012

'The Dark Knight Rises'

Jean-Jacques Beineix, the director of "Diva" and "Betty Blue," once told me that "when fiction and reality collide, you have a problem." Beineix was talking about his 1992 film "IP5," in which beloved French actor Yves Montand dies from a heart attack in the film, and actually died from one just after...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 4, 2012

Sintok festival brings Singapore's growing movie scene to Tokyo

How long does it take to develop a unique national culture? Perhaps the answer can be found in Singapore. The "Lion City" has been independent for just half a century and maybe, judging from the splash the country has made at international film festivals in the last couple of years, its film directors...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 8, 2012

Akira 'Harry' Mimura: A life uniquely focused on both sides of the Pacific

"Iwas put in charge of this unbearably painful filming job. Even if you consider a war between two countries to be unavoidable, why, you wonder, must innocent civilians be forced to go through such suffering?

Longform

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces