I remember that this was during a time that I was talking with a lot of filmmakers, and I had a meeting with one of them at RESOBOX. I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me earlier, but at that moment, the idea sprung up to bring a film festival of Japanese short films to RESOBOX. And so the idea was born.

In fact, I had an inkling of the idea for a long time before. The two films which bookend the first RESOBOX Japanese Short Film Festival are by two filmmakers that gave me the idea a some time ago. The idea that came to me is that there are so many short films either by Japanese filmmakers, or about Japan, yet few viewers are seeing these distinct visions. The thing about short films is that they are often created by independent film makers who are trying to express their unique viewpoints. (Such unique viewpoints are not frequently seen in mainstream films due to the fact that they cost millions of dollars to make; when someone invests so much money, they are less likely to allow filmmakers to express unique visions for fear of not making their money back.)

And so I decided that the mission of the RESOBOX Japanese Film Festival could be summed up easily: we want to show a unique side of Japan or Japanese ideas that are different from the mainstream cinema. We wanted the notion of Japan to be broad so that we could show what different people around the world might think about the idea of “Japan” or “Japanese.” What is Japan? What is Japanese? Sometimes asking questions about the most obvious ideas brings more interesting and diverse responses than might be expected. How would you answer these seemingly easy questions? Well, we found several filmmakers from around the world to try to explore these ideas.

One thing that I love about independent filmmakers is that, not only do they have unique visions, but they also make the change that they want to see. In the early 21st century, filmmaking resources are more open and available than they’ve ever been. And so I hope that people everywhere are encouraged to go out there, and change the world with films!

Japan’s Disposable Workers by Shiho Fukada

Upon first watching this set of films, I immediately recognized that there was a side of Japan that I had never before considered. While I fell in love with an imaginary, fantastic Japan of anime, manga, and “CoolJapan,” there was something that I felt I was missing about the real world, about real life, and how social and economic development have passed. Feeling that more people need to see this film about a dark aspect of Japan, this is one of the films that spurred me to bring this festival together.

Line & Dot by Shaqayeq Valipour

From Iran, this film is an example of the spread and scope of Japanese culture around the world. Living under a regime that she calls repressive against women, Ms. Valipour has nonetheless been exposed to Japanese art and animation, and is thus able to offer her own interpretation of what she has referred to as the simplistic and elegant design of Japan.

Now What? by Anna G. Jones

In this film we immediately see the kinds of faces that aren’t frequently portrayed on the screen, and the difficulties of portraying such faces on the screen. This reminds me of the recent controversy over casting Scarlett Johanson in the upcoming live-action version of Ghost in the Shell (or Matt Damon in a film about ancient China). Further beneath this exploration of identity, and the difficulty of such definitions, this film reminds us of the souls behind faces we might overlook everyday, and why we need to see more of them in movies.

Akutagawa’s Rashomon by George Tsouris

It seems to me, wandering around New York Comic Con recently, that there are quite a few panels aimed towards folks who want to break into Japanese animation, typically as English voice-over stars, or something like that. With the emergence the American Michael Arias, who made one of my favorite anime films, Tekkon Kinkreet, we might ask what it means when a someone who isn’t Japanese makes a Japanese film. So I tried to make my own Japanese animated film, and see what that might mean.

A Big Hand of a Japanese Cedar Tree by Usami Yoshiko

One thing that amazes some people about Japan is how the traditional and the modern are side-by-side in Japanese society. (I’m not sure I buy this, but some people say it.) In this film, we start seeing how old traditions are still being exercised by folks. But then real world problems, like illness, disease, and disability come in, and we learn how addressing these issues is evolving in Japan.

Onigiri-Kun by Ippei Kurahashi

This film explores a different side of the ever-present Japanese convenience store, from the perspective of the solitary worker. His challenges as he searches for love, meaning, purpose and magic, are dreamed in this surreal fantasy.

One-Two-One-Seven by Brett Kodama

This film explores a dark side of American history during World War II, and how it treated Japanese-Americans during their forced internment. This documentary gives a voice to one who experienced Japanese Relocation as a child, and the difficulties of trying to make sense, both then and now. Who gets to define what Japanese means, and what names to give?

oiL by Shihei Nishizawa

One of the key reasons that I put this festival together is because I wanted to offer a different notion of what we might understand as “Japanese animation.” It seems to me that many people get a first impression of Japanese via anime. The curious thing there is that the dominant visual style in these works, while not monolithic, does feature a very strong tradition that is adhered to in many anime we see. I wanted to include animated films here that challenge this visual understanding of animation in Japan. Indeed, there are many animators in Japan who are pushing against these traditional boundaries, and I think you’ll see that here.

Himitsu by Steve Gee

While Japan is traditionally viewed as a homogenous culture (typically in terms of race and class status), recent years have seen an upsurge of people, artists, and filmmakers recognizing and representing the rich diversity that exists within Japan. This film shows us that there are many different ways that Japanese live, in terms of family structure, bodily shape, gender roles, and others. It asks how we come to terms with our differences.

Mt. Head and Parade de Satie by Koji Yamamura

This final filmmaker inspired me to share so many diverse visions of what “Japanese” and “Japanese cinema” mean. When I first learned about Koji Yamamura, he was the first independent Japanese animator I had been exposed to. And indeed, his visual style is quite independent from the typical anime stylings. With his 2002 Academy Award Oscar Nominated film, Mt. Head, he shows us that beyond these traditional boundaries, there are other valuable traditions and stylistic choices, yet other difficulties emerge when thinking outside the box.

The title of the event, Far East Near East ~Hip Art Japan~, and the nature of this event resembling a happening, led to my recollection of the experimental artist group Hi-Red Center. Indeed, back in the 1950s and ’60s, Akesegawa Genpei and his friends of Hi-Red Center organized events in which diverse artists contributed to exciting happenings. And so this tradition seemed to continue on September 6, 2014 when Ken Hamazaki’s Red Tea Ceremony melded brilliantly with the video game inspired jazz of Fighting in the Streets.

Prior to the performance, there were more than a few members of the audience who were wondering what was going to happen this evening. The friendly environment and two drinks that were included with admission helped keep the audience curious yet cordial as we wondered what would happen next.

Before anyone knew it, the event begun, and all the chatter quickly died down. Two things more than any other signaled the commencement of the Red Tea Ceremony. First, the audience noticed that two striking silhouettes dominated the screen which had previously only showed a looping animation of spiraling swatches of RGB colors (along with their numeric values). On a baby blue sea, like a typhoon, some of the swatches would shoot out, almost as if they could emerge from the screen and leave their digital color splashed on the walls of the Resobox gallery; but unlike paint, the light of the flood gave way to the other colors on the screen.

The two figures in profile were two people behind the screen, blocking the light of the animation to create two black silhouettes facing each other. The audience now realized how the tea ceremony part of this event would take place.

Ken Hamazaki offered a distinct shape with his bald head and strong facial features. It is as if his face were created for the expressed purpose of being seen in silhouette profile. Anyone who was unaware of the ritual of the tea ceremony would tonight be made very aware of the steps. While the guest was keeled still, with her arms at her side, the right figure on the screen that Mr. Hamazaki’s body created was at work, first pouring the tea from a thermos, then mixing in the herbs before serving the carefully prepared cup to the guest. After she drank it, using both hands to bring the cup to her mouth, and setting it back down, Ken would hit the cup to create a gong, which seemed to signal the end of her service. But the guest would not leave before the host offered some gift, which seemed to be some origami work that he folded in front of her. Following a deep bow they offered to each other, the guest then exited from the left side of the screen, put her shoes back on, and returned to the audience, perhaps a changed person.

This process recalls Plato’s allegory of the cave, in which Socrates tries to convince the rest of us that what we think of as reality is merely shadows on the back of a cave wall. Is the Red Tea Ceremony trying to tell us something similar? In watching shadows on a screen with the animated typhoon of RGB swatches, perhaps I am no closer to witnessing a Japanese tea ceremony, just as none of us are any closer to understanding the reality of Japan or the Japanese by simply taking a class, reading some literature, or watching a film. After all, wasn’t it completely possible that what I had seen was actually some elaborate shadow puppet performance?

A man in a kabuki mask who had been standing close to the screen all along then became more obvious to the crowd when he seemed to invite another member of the audience behind the screen to repeat the whole process. In this case, perhaps the looping animation, along with the looping repetitive music which may have been inspired by Steve Reich’s minimalist pulse music, was perfectly appropriate while Mr. Hamazaki repetitively performed the same motions of the tea ceremony. Perhaps the only way to discover the platonic truth beyond the shadows was to traverse beyond the cave, or in this case the other side of the screen, to find the relation between the shadows and the reality of what we experience.

In that case, one might be quickly overwhelmed by the isolation from the rest of the audience. Suddenly, after being a member of the larger community who had the shared experience of the shadows on the screen, now the new tea guest is on the other side of the screen. No longer would she see shadows, but was instead face to face with the Socratic Mr. Hamazaki who might reveal the truth of this happening. In this case, such truths can only be arrived at one at a time, on an individual basis.

If the first half of this event was about individuals discovering the platonic truth behind the shadows, one at a time, then the second half was possibly about the collective community of the audience recognizing their shared experience and memory, and how that similar past history might bring us together to create something new. If this was the case, Mr. Hamazaki relinquished his role as teacher, prophet, or philosopher to the jazz band Fighting In The Streets. The transition could not have been smoother, when from behind the drum kit Norman Edwards Jr. added a subtle hi hat and crash cymbal to the Reich-like pulse music loop. Soon after his own visit beyond the shadows, Max Jacob’s bass guitar contributed a drone-like grove, and then with the Sean Richey on guitar, Alex Lopez on saxophone, and Phil Lewis on keys, the transition was complete: from the trance inducing repetition and loops, to the high energy grove and riffs of old video games.

Those in the audience who were sitting now found the need to stand in order to better receive the beats and melodies originally found in Nintendo’s Streets of Rage video game, Super Mario Bros., Mega Man, and Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog. While most jazz fake and real books offer lead sheets to the classic standards, Fighting In The Streets, discarded those books in favor of childhood memories of melodies and harmonies that permeated the collective youth of the video game playing generation of a certain age, and revealed those games to be amazing sources of chord changes, licks, and possibilities that few jazz musicians, artists, and human beings have mined.

August 2, 2014 ◆ George Tsouris

I am always curious to see new butoh performances. About 55 years after Hijikata Tatsumi and Ohno Kazuo performed their 1959 interpretation of Mishima Yukio’s novel Kinjiki (translated as Forbidden Colors in English), not only has the butoh form evolved, but so many other dancers take butoh elements, and incorporate and synthesize with other forms into their own unique styles that it would not surprise me if Tatsumi were alive today (he died in 1986), he would not recognize the form he created. It was therefore a pleasure to see Michiru Inoue’s butoh performance Microscopic Journey: Shuten-doji on Friday July 25th at Resobox, accompanied by KenYa Kawaguchi playing the jinashi–nobe–shakuhachi and Gian Luigi Diana who played both sitar and laptop computer.

While Mr. Kawaguchi performed on the traditional Japanese flute, and Mr. Diana on the traditional Indian stringed instrument, the combined musical synthesis that opened the performance informed the audience that they were going to witness a unique event this evening. The simple melody on the sitar accentuated with its own naturally resonating sympathetic strings had as counterpoint a seemingly traditional Japanese pentatonic melody on the shakuhachi, played with a less-than-traditional mania. I can imagine that the audience members wondered how this dance performance began without a dancer on the stage. Perhaps one of the musicians would drop his instrument and begin to dance? However, Ms. Inoue soon revealed herself.

Slowly the audience could see that Ms. Inoue was going to use the specifics of the Resobox gallery and incorporate it into this performance. As she crept out, seemingly attached to the wall, like a ghost returning from the grave, I was reminded of Hijikata’s idea that butoh was to be dance that conversed with his ancestors. Her slow and deliberate movements were as if she was possessed by the ghosts that she was summoning. Or maybe she was actually the ghost! Helping give that impression was the white ash-like makeup that she wore under the traditional Japanese high school girl uniform.

The question then becomes who is the dead high school girl being portrayed here? It might be that it is the ghost or the spirit or the soul of The Japanese High School Girl as a concept (that is, the unity of all high school girls in Japan) who is trying to become resurrected, trying to be heard, and trying to communicate with us. There is something about the butoh form that allows this spirit to talk with us; it is the bowed legs trying to walk (if you can call this walking), and the crossed eyes trying to see (if you can see with crossed eyes), and the twisted and contracted hands trying to grasp (if such hands can hold anything). Indeed, it was these poses and gestures in butoh’s early manifestations that scared or repulsed the Japanese public, fearing that butoh was either representing or insensitive towards physical disabilities. The patient and jerky motions by Ms. Inoue revealed that the summoned spirit has perhaps been away from the physical world for so long, and thus struggled to control the body with elegance and eloquence that some associate with dance, and seemed to try to escape for this constriction.

The escape theme continued as Mr. Diana left the sitar aside, and moved to the laptop, while Mr. Kawaguchi continued with the shakuhachi, and Ms. Inoue finally made her way to the opposite side of the gallery. This meant that the Japanese flute was now accompanied with a computer that seemed to be possessed by another spirit trying to be released from its bounds, as the clinks, clashes, and chaos of sound produced were evocative of the computer music coming out of places like IRCAM in the 1960s and 1970s by luminary composers such as Xenakis, Stockhausen, Bayle and others.

By now the spirits were making a more blatant expression of escape when Ms. Inoue climbed upon the gallery window sill, and seemed to long for the outside world, like a bird not aware of how remote the glass actually kept her from the exterior. Members of the audience would not have been out of line if they had moved further from the window out of fear of shattering glass. However, the spirit within must have finally resigned itself to failure as she lowered herself from the window after the long struggle, continuing with her unsteady and arrhythmic convulsions.

With a burst of activity, jumping, and her body silently screaming, the dancer seemed like either an ecstatic child being given a treat, or raving madman having one final release before reconciling with her trapped fate. Either would have been appropriate, and perhaps she was both. As if giving up, she dropped, dancing with the floor in a similar way as she had previously danced with the window and walls. If she could not escape from the walls, perhaps she could escape below. By now the chaotic computer spirit had succeeded in its own escape, or, like the dancer, was beaten into submission; and the musician moved back to the sitar. It was with the notes of the wind and strings that the performance ended. Everyone took their bow, which after this performance seemed especially necessary, if only to inform the audience that the spirits had returned to their realm.