Grand master
The Film Festival’s new artistic director recalls his trip to Japan to meet KON ICHIKAWA, master filmmaker and subject of this year’s retrospective.
Words: Shane Danielsen
Thursday morning in April. l’d
arrived back in London the
night before. after a week in New York. Suddenly my mobile phone rang. It was a Japanese voice: a lady from the office of Kon lchikawa in 'ltik}’t).
‘lchikawa-san says he is available to speak to you.‘ she said. ‘At his house. ()n Sunday.’
Ah.
The plan had originally been this: though flattered by the retrospective tribute at this year‘s lidinburgh International Film Festival. Mr lchikawa was. at 86. too delicate to make the long trek to Scotland in August. And as 1 pointed out to him. being responsible for killing our guest-of-honour in my first year as artistic director would represent nothing if not a severe loss of face. So I had arranged to go to him. around fiaster. to inteiyiew him iii-person for our catalogue and website. But in the end. he was delayed shooting his new film. and the trip was cancelled. .\'ow. suddenly. it was on again. In three days' time. I made some calls: two hours later I was ready to fly.
Why Kon lchikawa“? I had my pick of pretty much any filmmaker in the world upon whom to base a retrospective season. but the simple answer is because I love and admire his work and because he is. to me. one of the great masters of 20th century cinema.
Like many guijin (foreigners). Shibuya is my favourite area of Tokyo: one of the busiest and hippest precincts of the city. a labyrinth of restaurants and nightclubs and shops. including the peerless Tokyu Hands department store. It says something about lchikawa that. well into his ninth decade on the planet. he still chooses to live there. in a large. modem house on its perimeter.
It was a warm spring day. lchikawa received me graciously. l was slightly early. and the translator had yet to arrive. This presented a problem. When I’d lived for a time in Tokyo. as a younger man. my Japanese had grown slowly to something approaching the proficiency of a slightly backward nine-year-
A
old: years later. it had evaporated (to use a very Japanese phrase) like the mist from a lake at sunrise. So here I was. face-to-face with one of my heroes. and there was nothing to say.
A minute or so passed: tea was poured. The silence grew. Finally I fumbled for a phrase. He looked expectantly at me. a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. How. er. was he‘.’ I ventured awkwardly. He nodded and smiled. ‘Genki desu.’ he replied. Fine. Another silence. He seemed amused by this idiot who’d travelled halfway around the world to meet him. In desperation I looked around. Nice house (‘Uchi ga suki desu'). I managed. Again be inclined his head. ‘Domo angato.‘ And just then. what looked like another linguistic stalemate was broken. not a moment to soon. by the arrival of the interpreter.
In (mediated) conversation. however. he was everything I had hoped: kind and gracious and wonderfully self-deprecating (asked to comment on each of the films we were screening. he replied that more than half — masterpieces most directors would
cinema’
(the.
‘I love and admire his work, he is one of the great masters of 20th century
Ticket prices are £7 (£4.50) unless otherwise indicated.
Wednesday 14
I Morvern Callar 0.... UGC. 8pm. It's the detail that makes it so perfect. Like the way the (-2i.)or‘iymous herorne of Lynne Ramsay's adaptation of Alan Warner's novel leaves her dead lover lying there. as you might leave a newspaper gathering dust too long, so it becomes an accidental feature: or the way a mouthful of Monster Munch hang like accidental fangs when she opens the acceptance letter for the novel left as the suicides legacy. and re—ai)propriated as Morvern's own.
Then there's the bulls being ritually chased about the sleepy Spanish town as she gapes on. the only still thing left in a push and shove landscape.
All such moments are acted by Samantha Morton with a raging calm in a film of rare. unsentimental beauty that is one woman's guest for higher truth beyond the bright-lights buzz at the end of the stroboscopic rainbow. Sublime and spiritual. this reveals a new depth of maturity in filmmaking from a pensiver hypnotic European sensibility.
Where next? This is what it seems to ask from start to finish. On: that's where. See feature (Neil Cooper)
40 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE ti, lr'; Aug 211)?
Thursday 1 5
I Mister Pu (Pu-San) Film/rouse, noon £4.50 (E3). First film in the Kon lchikawa retrospective. and the first instalment of the Japanese master's comic trilogy about the unremarkable life of a mathematics teacher. See feature.
Explosive Fragments 1 Film/rouse. 3.30pm. The first of six programmes of short films from all over the world. See panel.
Soft Shell Man 0..
Film/rouse, 4.30pm. This slickly made lifestyle movie by Andre Turpin follows underwater photographer Alex as he recovers from a serious accident in the
Indian Ocean. Returning to Montreal. he takes up with bolshy journalist Marie. but also develops pretty strong feelings for his best friend's deaf partner. At the same time he finds himself shuttling drugs from place to place and also prepares for a photographic exhibition containing photos of an ethically dubious nature. Turpin's film is always beautiful and often entertaining. but the moral complexities it raises always seem secondary to the slickness of its very impressive, very modish veneer. (Tony MCKibbin) Pleasant Days Film/rouse. 5.30pm. Grittty. sexually-charged portrait of alienated youth. Hungarian first time