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| Love Letter star Yamamoto Taro |
- Friends After 3.11 is a documentary by Iwai comprised of interviews discussing the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown disaster in Japan. It screened last week at the Berlin Film Festival, and Iwai includes two interviews from it here. This volume starts with an 11-minute interview with Kobayashi Takeshi, a music producer for such acts as Mr. Children and director of the Iwai-scripted BANDAGE (2010). He and Iwai discuss big picture issues of Japanese identity, politics, and zeitgeist. Next is a 13-minute interview with actor Yamamoto Taro, co-star of Iwai's Love Letter. After 3.11, Yamamoto apparently became a voice of the anti-nuclear movement, and there is footage of him speaking at a community meeting and touring an area hit by the tsunami. I personally found these less interesting than last Volume's interviews with a nuclear scientist and a nuclear activist, but whatever. 2.5 stars.
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| Fukushima Day post-screening panel talk |
- My little film festival: Fukushima Day discussion, a 13-minute panel discussion with Iwai and director Sono Shion (Love Exposure), novelist Sakurai Ami (she has one novel available in English, published by Vertical), and actor Iseya Yusuke (star of Casshern). The discussion follows a screening of the Sakurai Ami's short film Fukushima Day, which apparently began as a documentary about life after the 3.11 nuclear accident but morphed into a fictional piece.
The four guests have been active in post-disaster art and advocacy, and each one briefly discusses their projects. Iseya heads Rebirth Project, which promotes/creates ecologically-friendly products, and is involved in a separate organization that delivers food and aid to victims of the disaster. Shino, when adapting the play "Himizu" to a 2011 film of the same name, changed the play's setting to post-disaster Fukushima, and plans two film sequels to create a so-called Fukushima Trilogy.
Iwai discusses a film he had started writing even before Lily, called Banken wa le wo Mamoru (translation?) which he describes as people trying to survive in an irradiated, presumably post-apocalyptic world, "and I'd forgotten it up till now". He was in the process of revising his old manuscript when 3.11 happened, and realized that he had previously been unable to understand the gravity of such a situation. Iwai has adapted the screenplay as a novel (more below).
Overall, mostly informational about the creators' various projects. Iseya ends things with a positive thought, "So are we going to be the generation that sat back and did nothing? Or the ones who stood up?" 2 stars.
- My little film festival: talk with producer Suzuki Toshio, a 14-minute interview with Studio Ghibli producer Suzuki Toshio, who worked on Ghibli's most famous works like Princess Mononoke and also produced Hideaki Anno's film Shiki-jitsu (starring Shunji Iwai). Suzuki talks about including articles on nuclear issues in an anime magazine he contributed to back in the day, a controversial move at the time. Suzuki and Iwai discuss a number of Japanese films that relate to nuclear disaster themes, including Godzilla and Kurosawa's I Live in Fear (1955). This interview was filmed as part of an introduction to the Japan Film Channel airing these films. 2 stars.
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| Shunji Iwai |
- Messy Room - About 30 minutes of Iwai reflecting on 2011, especially the 3.11 tragedy, and his plans for 2012, which include:
- a part 2 to Friends After 3.11. He discusses his choices of nuclear-related films for the Japan Film Channel (discussed above), and mentions
- his new novel, Banken wa le wo Mamoru, was published in January 2012, and he eventually wants to film it.
- work on Kitagawa Eriko's second film after Halfway (2009, co-written by Iwai, which was originally planned as a short film)
- several scripts
- Vampire won't be released until after summer 2012 (although it screened at various film festivals last year).
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| Longtime friend of Shunji Iwai, Nakajima Hiroto |
Oddly, considered he is the one filming and presenting this interview, Iwai seems reluctant to really open up, politely agreeing with Nakajima's statements or responding with vague answers. Perhaps their inability to really connect on a topic is that Nakajima asks questions relating to the "art" of Iwai's films, but Iwai seems more interested to talking about questions of filmmaking craft. This is labeled "Part 1" of the discussion, so perhaps we'll see more in future volumes of IWAIFF. 2.5 stars.
- Novie noveau - Iwai presents the latest chapters from his serial novels in Flash video, a presentation format he called "novies"(his own portmanteau of "novels" and "movies"). Unfortunately, I would infinitely prefer to read text the way I read all the other text in my life, rather than sentence by sentence in Flash movie form. The interface is simply too slow to properly read, and the translations are for some reason not up to the solid standard of the rest of the site. The new chapters are from Iwai's online novels, Vampire and All About Lily Chou-Chou: The Complete Edition (final chapter). Zero stars.
- Music - two tracks: "Vampurity" by Iwai (solo piano + apparently synthesized cello), from the Vampire soundtrack, and Moonlight by Debussy (solo piano, apparently performed by Iwai, has been included in IWAIFF before). Just okay. Would be nice if Iwai added more tunes or licensed music from some other sources.
Overall, not the best issue. The interviews for Friends After 3.11 and with Iwai's childhood friend are promising, but rarely go deep enough or generate much insight. Too much of the rest of this Volume's content is merely promotional or information on others projects. Worth your 500¥? Maybe not this time.
