The Crisis of Identity in Contemporary Japanese Film Brill’s Japanese Studies Library Edited by H. Bolitho K. Radtke VOLUME 30 The Crisis of Identity in Contemporary Japanese Film Personal, Cultural, National By Timothy Iles LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008 On the cover: A group of young people leaving an impromptu street concert near the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo’s Harajuku ward. June, 2006, inside Harajuku Station. Photo by Timothy Iles. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Iles, Timothy, 1961– The crisis of identity in contemporary Japanese fi lm : personal, cultural, national / by Timothy Iles. p. cm. — (Brill’s Japanese studies library ; v. 30) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17138-1 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Motion pictures—Japan. I. Title. PN1993.5.J3I47 2008 791.430952—dc22 2008031291 ISSN 0925-6512 ISBN 978 90 04 17138 1 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Brill has made all reasonable efforts to trace all right holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands In memory of my father CONTENTS Foreword, by Dr. A.V. Liman Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto, Otemae University ................................................................................ ix Acknowledgements ..................................................................... xiii Introduction ................................................................................ 1 Chapter One Contextualising Identity in Contemporary Japanese Film .......................................................................... 29 Chapter Two Problems of Communication, Identity, and Gendered Social Construction in Contemporary Japanese Cinema: the Look and the Voice ........................................... 53 Chapter Three Families, Crisis, and Film ............................... 79 Chapter Four Horror, Thriller, Suspense: “Who Are You?” .... 105 Chapter Five Travelling Toward the Self in Japanese Film .... 135 Chapter Six The Human/Post-human in Japanese Animation ............................................................................... 159 Chapter Seven Animation and Identity: Drawing a Line Between the Real and the Ideal ............................................. 185 Conclusion Looking for the Face in the Frame ...................... 213 Bibliography ................................................................................ 217 Index ........................................................................................... 221 FOREWORD There is a growing interest in Japanese fi lm throughout the world. The classical period of Japanese fi lm, namely the 1950s and ’60s of the last century have been studied and described in suffi cient detail by scholars and fi lm experts such as Donald Richie, Audie Bock, Keiko McDonald, David Dessser, Noël Burch, Isolde Standish, Abe Mark Nornes, Minaguchi Kiseko, Sato Tadao and others. Western fi lm theoreticians dealing with Japan can now avail them- selves of an extensive body of translation and analysis, thereby avoiding some of the more obvious pitfalls which so far awaited the non-specialist observer. However, one still fi nds serious misinterpretations in the work of otherwise impeccably equipped fi lm critics. Timothy Iles has the great advantage of being an expert Japanologist and at the same time being extremely well versed in comparative and theoretical approaches to fi lm. Furthermore, he sets out to map out and describe a period that has not been studied yet in a systematic way, namely the mid-eighties of the last century up to the present. In order to discuss his chosen range of fi lms in depth, Dr. Iles pro- vides an extremely well informed and incisive analysis of the social background, tracing the impact of Japan’s rapid urbanisation and modernisation on the Japanese psyche and the ensuing drastic readjust- ment of cultural values. In chapter One the author introduces notions of the Japanese self and shifting identity, supporting his argument with quotes from authorities such as Karatani Kōjin, Tsurumi Kazuko and others. To illustrate the changing concepts of self and identity, he then provides an in-depth analysis of a 1988 fi lm by Matsumoto Toshio, called Dogura Magura. It is not only the psychological make-up of the fi lm, but also its narrative cinematic techniques that are discussed here in illuminating detail. Traditional Japanese concepts of self and identity were always expounded in conjunction with cultural ideals of motherhood and Timothy Iles correctly analyses the mother image in this fi lm in the context of larger shifts of social identity, national vision and his- toric self-awareness. He points to the interesting conclusion of the fi lm, which suggests that the protagonist’s extreme violence is not