By APA Staff

This year's Japan Film Festival of Los Angeles brought selections including The Sky Crawlers, Blitzkrieg Bop, A Long Walk, Vacation, Funuke: Show Some Love You Losers!, and more.

The Sky Crawlers
dir. Mamoru Oshii

Mamoru Oshii doesn't do emotions –- he's an existential philosopher-cum-animator. More often than not, his characters are ciphers upon which he imposes his machinations on Aristotle, Hegel, Heidegger, Satre. As such, many find his films brilliant but cold, full of ideas and politics, but lacking in how real people deal with real situations. It's both his strength and his weakness -- what makes a film like Ghost in the Shell or Patlabor II so haunting about mechanics, and what makes a film like Jin-Roh so mechanically uninvolving (yes, Jin-Roh wasn't directed by Oshii, but its stamped with all of his concerns).

The Sky Crawlers isn't one of Oshii's most successful pictures, but it achieves a romanticism in isolation not seen since his freaky adaptation of Urusei Yatsura, Beautiful Dreamers. His first truly animated picture since Ghost in the Shell 2, Oshii's latest is adapted from a literary source (like many of his works, either from novels or manga) and revolves around a gaggle of flying fighter pilots who don't grow old. Living in a borderless world without traditional concepts of nation, and employed as mercenaries for arms corporations rather than geographically-bound states, the film lives in a globalized world gone to hell. War is the only constant, and the air provides the only source of exhilarating death, the closest thing to life cycles for our ageless protagonists. In the skies, our heroes don't speak Japanese, and they enact all the fantasies of their dreams and past film and anime dreams. (Comparisons to Miyazaki's sublime Porco Rosso are inevitable, but not unworthy.) 

Oshii contrasts this by literally grounding his characters: sans jets and bullets, they meet with monotony, a reality so dull they violently attempt to replace it with any kind of human connection. As is typical of Oshii films, they often meet with failure, but the pain and enjoyment they derive from sex and love here is useful. For once, Oshii's emptiness conveys the emptiness of his characters' lives and feelings. How bored we should be by the characters' boredom is another question. But Sky Crawlers will have different effects on you with different viewings. I was enthralled by the battle sequences when I first saw this in Tokyo, but seeing it at the Fest, I was moved to contemplate the sadness of the rented-out house of a world that Oshii masterly portrays, a mood that goes beyond politics or culture and conveys something like an Antonioni flick set in Final Fantasy VII's Nibelheim. --Bryan Hartzheim

Blitzkrieg Bop
dir: Kakuei Shimada

Blitzkrieg Bop isn't just a reference to a classic Ramones song, but a very apt title for a film that assaults you with a barrage of non-sequiturs and niche pop culture references to make even an ADD Family Guy fan's head spin. Kakuei Shimada's film can be described as perhaps a combination of John Waters and Takashi Miike: crude, absurd, bizarre and borderline obscene. The film follows an eventful day in the life of of a punk named Okajima, who is coerced by his ex-girlfriend into rescuing her new boyfriend from yakuza boss Fujikita. To compound matters, yakuza hunter Torakichi seeks out Okajima, mistaking him for a yakuza thug. Their paths eventually converge in an unpredictably surreal explosion of outrageous and sometimes philosophical events. Not since Funky Forest: First Contact have I seen an off kilter film with so many seemingly random vignettes tied together by a loose narrative. A character compares one disappointment to going to a Beatles concert to find that instead of the Fab Four, there are four Ringos all playing the drums instead. That's just one of the many abrupt sight gags the characters erratically spring out. These sequences are hilarious and disturbing, and they will leave you thinking "What the fuck?" Yet it somehow comes together in a distinctly entertaining way... that is, if you can make it past the first 20 minutes and accept the film's helter-skelter logic. --William Hong

A Long Walk
dir: Eiji Okuda

Love doesn't come easy for Sachi (Hana Sugiura), a little girl with cardboard angel wings and purple bruises on her body. Living with her abusive and alcoholic mother, Sachi walks barefoot and spends her time alone in an area of shrubs and trees near her apartment complex.  Redemption doesn't come easy for Matsutaro Yasuda (Ken Ogata), a retired principal who is haunted by the death of his alcoholic wife and resentful daughter.** Now living next door to Sachi, he often hears moaning at night and watches as the small girl is forced to see her mother prostitute herself. For both, love and redemption can only be found when Sachi and Matsutaro find each other – on a long walk to find "a blue sky, where clouds appear like cotton candy and a white bird is flying high." The film's emotional score by Hibiki Inamoto and a sultry rendition of Inoue Yosui's "Kasa ga Nai" makes the film's social themes of neglect and apathy real. This heartfelt drama also stars director Eiji Okuda and Shota Matsuda (Hana Yori Dango).  A Long Walk is the co-winner of the Grand Prix of the Americas Award and the winner of the FIPRESCI and Ecumenical Prizes at the 2006 Montreal World Film Festival. --LiAnn Ishizuka

Vacation
dir: Hajime Kadoi

Akira Yoshimura's Vacation is adapted to the silver screen by screenwriter Dai Sako, and director Hajime Kadoi illustrates the story's poignant moments with long, quiet, and somber shots, and his actors add life to this story about a man's final days before his execution. Kaoru Kobayashi and Hidetoshi Nishijima both star as the male leads, the prison guard and prisoner; Toru (Kobayashi) is to serve as the "supporter" for Kaneda's (Nishijima) execution. In exchange for being the supporter, Toru is given a weeklong vacation, and he takes the opportunity to spend time with his new wife, Mika (Nene Ohtsuka) and her son, Tatsuya (Shusei Uto). What's highly effective in this film is how the calming moments lead up to the finale, where the execution finally takes place. In juxtaposition to Kaneda's outbreaks in his prison cell in between his lone moments painting, Toru is exceedingly calm throughout this whole film. But we learn more about his internal struggle to become a better husband and father, while simultaneously dealing with the forthcoming execution. In the midst of Japan's recent success in the international film scene, Kadoi emerges as one of Japan's great new storytellers with his second feature. –-Kanara Ty

Funuke: Show Some Love You Losers!
dir: Yoshida Daihachi

The dysfunctional family drama is a common affair in the film festival circuit (this season's darling is Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Tokyo Sonata), but Funuke: Show Some Love You Losers! mixes things up with a dash of black comedy and compelling absurdity. The film's subject is the Wago family: Shinji, the family's stoic, weary breadwinner; Machiko, Shinji's doting wife that's best described as pathologically cheerful; Kiyomi, a shy, aspiring manga artist who uses her family's turmoil as the basis for her stories; and her older sister Sumika, a self-centered, talentless actress who returns from Tokyo and drags the family down beneath the weight of her impossible dreams of stardom. Sumika's arrival stirs a hotpot of old grudges, sexual deviance, jealousy, and simmering violence. Then it all boils over in a uniquely twisted finale. Funuke is a film of contrast: heavy handed drama is often followed by moments where you can't help but laugh, despite what happened before. Machiko's haplessly hilarious reactions to all the turmoil provides some levity when the film threatens to buckle under the weight of its own dramatic gravity. --William Hong

Don't Laugh at My Romance (aka Sex is no Laughing Matter)
dir: Nami Iguchi

A May-December romance is at the center of Nami Iguchi's sex indie Don't Laugh at My Romance. The offenders in this illicit affair: Kenichi Matsuyama (Death Note, Detroit Metal City) as the younger art student Mirume to Hiromi Nagasaku's substitute lithographic teacher Yuri. While the premise reads like a sex fantasy of young males, the film is anything but perverse. Instead, it takes on a serious manner. Mirume becomes much more involved with Yuri as the film goes on and later meets her husband, Inokuma (Morio Agata), who he mistakes as her father. Added to the mix is Yu Aoi's En, a fellow art student at Mirume's college who has also taken a strong liking to him as well. While Matsuyuma turns in a strong performance, what really carries the film is the performances of the two females: Nagasaku and Aoi. Without even utilizing any explicit sex scenes, Nagasaku takes her Yuri and turns her into a sexy and oh-so-very-seductive teacher that literally charms the pants off Mirume time after time, without any strong effort on her part. Aoi continues to remain one of Japan's strongest young female actresses, and she brings in indefinite charm by being adorably spunky. She also supplies some comedic, refreshing moments of the film. Iguchi tells a fine story, and with these performances, it's definitely not to be missed. –-Kanara Ty

Coney Shun's From the Season with Sakura, a collection of three shorts, "Sakura, Umbrella," "White. Pose" and "Koganeyuki" are beautiful stories that make us realize whatever small happiness we have can actually seem immense. For this first-time director, his training in cinematography is apparent, and his creativity in VFX experimentation makes these shorts magically surreal. It seems the only real connection between all three shorts is the changing seasons in the lives of solitude individuals. 

At half past noon, a young college art student brings her canvas to sketch the blooming sakura blossoms in a local park. But it rains one day, and before her art is ruined, a figure suddenly appears. Completely covered in black, he gives her his umbrella and an intricate ceramic butterfly. He is gone before she can thank him. In "Sakura, Umbrella" the mysterious stranger suffers from xeroderma pigmentosum (the inability to be in the sun), so he is forced to cover himself from the light. She learns this stranger was once a memory from her childhood: the little boy she always saw hiding behind the curtains through the window. The concluding frames illustrate the beauty in memory, as her final portrait of the blooming cherry blossoms hangs on the easel. 

"White. Pose," inspired by Shun's own real life experience, is a more serious take on age and love. With Naoto's single father gone away on business, he is left alone in an empty house. Naoto takes a job as a busboy in a local Japanese restaurant, where he finds his new tenant and infatuation -- an older woman in her mid-thirties looking for a place to stay. She serves as more of a motherly figure and friend than the young high schooler's lover, but her impression on Naoto is not forgotten. When she leaves before he is able to say goodbye, he retreats back to a favorite spot near a creek and feels at peace as he remembers their time together. 

"Koganeyuki" is a comical shift into the life of a young woman and her mannequin. Stepping on the shoulders of a Lars and the Real Girl storyline, a fashion student's relationship with her young poetry professor turns into a twisted reality -- where their relationship is only seen in flashbacks. But one fateful phone call comes and the student learns he died in a car accident. To restrain her thoughts of mourning, she takes a mannequin home, dresses him up, makes dinner for two, and converses as if he were real. The collection of Manyoshu poems is the only portal back to her memory of him, and on her birthday, something magical happens. With the power of the Manyoshu book, her mannequin comes alive and he takes her to the top of a snowy mountain -- one with the same description of her favorite Manyoshu poem. As she looks out at the beauty of winter, she turns to see she is standing next to a mannequin.  

Coney Shun's transitions from the distinct four seasons in From the Season with Sakura is more subtle depiction of how individuals find their own happiness – sometimes only in our memory and plastic manifestations. --LiAnn Ishizuka

Published: Friday, May 1, 2009