JAPANESE FILMS

When A Society Drifts Further From Truth

During the production of “Bouquet in the South Seas (Nan-kai no Hanataba, 1942)” The film was shot on location in Marshall Islands and other South Sea Islands, the occupied territories of Japan at the time. The caption for this photo reads “The issues of the South Sea Islands need the most urgent attention.” The nationalists not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. – George Orwell There’s an article in Independent website about ever-growing revisionist views among the board members of NHK, the public …

JAPANESE FILMS

Literary Genealogy of Rashomon (Part 2)

Robert Browning composed The Ring and the Book, a long dramatic poem, based on a real-life murder trial in 17th century Rome. In 1698, Count Guido Franceschini was accused of a murder of his wife and of her parents and sentenced to death. He protested and even appealed his innocence to the Pope, who denied his plea eventually. The Ring and the Book is comprised of twelve separate books, the first and the last being the narration by a third person, presumably Browning himself. The remaining ten books are testimonies and discussions by witnesses, the accused, the lawyers and the …

 
JAPANESE FILMS

Literary Genealogy of Rashomon (Part 1)

The word ‘Rashomon’ has now firmly acquired the place in English vocabulary. Even a person who has never seen the Kurosawa’s film uses the term. In Wikipedia, the word “Rashomon Effect” is defined as a term “to refer to contradictory interpretations of the same events by different persons, a problem that arises in the process of uncovering truth”. The word also found its entry in OED in the recent edition. In the film Rashomon, there is a crime and there are witnesses (suspects and victims). Each witness tells a story about the crime, – how it happened, who did what, …