The Japanese “third generation” reveals a changed cultural and film identity which seems neither stereotypical and formalized anymore, nor simply Japanese

For those who have only recently discovered the last fifty years of Japanese film, it is easy to feel “distanced” from the roots of the meaning of it all. Searching for a solid grasp on this art, one is confronted by bewildering ellipses and blanks. Definitive histories of Japanese film are difficult to find. Those written in Japan, never having been translated into a western language, are inaccessible to most of us, while those written in the west are disputable. From the earliest time, before and during the artistic and political experiments of the New wave in 1960s, thus uniting the classicists and the rebels, and for the second time during the last decade, which is usually called New wave of the 1990s. This spring in Tuškanac we will connect the two major periods of Japanese film by showing two programs: the contemporary (1990’s) and the classic (1950-60’s). The first program of eight contemporary Japanese films will present several directors Shinobu Yaguchi, Akihiko Shiota,Yoichi Sai, Sakamoto Junji, Sogo Ishii, Joji Matsuoka, Shinji Somai and Masayuki Suo. Ken Okubo, film lover and professor at the Tokio Art University Tama, will hold a lecture about the unique genre of the film company Nikkatsu roman porno (romantic porn films), which is important for understanding of the present situation of Japanese cinema. The other program of classic Japanese films will show works of classic directors such as Kenji Mizoguchi, Akira Kurosawa, Kaneta Shinda, Masaki Kobayashi, Hiroshi Inagaki and Masahira Shinoda. These directors, at the time of artistic and commercial bloom of Japanese cinema (from mid 1950s to mid 1960s), marked the beginning of a fascination with and enthusiastic reception of Japanese film in the West. They also ushered in the great crisis of the Japanese film industry.
For a long time, the older generation of Japanese filmmakers pondered ways to represent their own diversity and explain their Japanese heritage. They tried to present to the West (in an almost auto-oriental manner) only such films as they thought exotic enough. During the last decade, Asian films (Iranian, Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese…) have won many awards at international festivals, and some filmmakers, such as Takeshi Kitano, persist in their efforts to represent Asians in ways that fall outside the stereotypes. It is thus ironic that, according to many western film critics, the charismatic Kitano is considered one of the most important Japanese directors after Akira Kurosawa. Nevertheless, the majority are preoccupied with the phenomenon of the new generation of Japanese directors whose films do not fall into the classic image of Japanese film. Nagisa Oshima felt this fundamental change when he, in his documentary about the 100th anniversary of Japanese film, concluded that filmmakers would at last free themselves of Japanese attractions and that Japanese film in the next century would be just film and not Japanese film anymore.
Even though in 1976 foreign (mostly American) film surpassed the domestic Japanese film production and in 2003 there were “only” 290 films made in Japan, the availability of Japanese film abroad keeps growing thanks to many festivals, awards and retrospectives in film theatres and on DVD. The reason for this increased popularity lies also in the Japanese animated films anime (250 hours per year). Moreover, thematic, stylistic and genre diapason of feature film in Japan as well as the mergence of new names all point to the revival of Japanese film. The new generation of Japanese filmmakers (born around 1960), had their first experiences on film as assistants on independent, roman porno and experimental films, as authors of 8 millimeter and 16 millimeter student films, as actors or directors of pinku eiga ("pink", soft core films), documentaries, music videos or commercials. Unlike the two film worlds of classicists and rebels that have been enchanting the world with their stylistic delicacy and virtuosity as well as their universal humanity, this newly discovered “third generation” of filmmakers reveals the changed cultural and film identity which seems neither stereotypical and formalized anymore, nor simply Japanese. (Tanja Vrvilo)