Oguri's retrospective held at JIFFest

By Gotot Prakosa

JAKARTA (JP): It is fitting that the Jakarta International Film Festival (JIFFest) is set to honor Japanese film director Kohei Oguri by holding a retrospective of his work, because his films are regarded as masterpieces in contemporary cinema.

International critics say that Oguri's films are typically Japanese. Their visual language, their images and their composition all contain the "Japanese spirit". Donald Richie, author of The Japanese Movie, argues that Oguri continues the tradition initiated by Yasujiro Ozu of constantly questioning what cinema means to Japanese society. It helps that his work is rooted in the ground of Japanese culture.

In a discussion with Indonesian director Slamet Rahardjo when the two were preparing a film together six years ago in Jakarta, Oguri expressed his concern about the essence of cinema.

He thought the entire world flooded by American films; films that treat their audience as passive objects. Moviegoers sit still in a dark theater while their minds are invaded and terrorized by constantly moving images, which are moving faster and faster these days. "Are we all going to be trapped in that kind of predicament?" Oguri lamented.

Although he makes Japanese contemporary films, Oguri believes that films use a universal language: the language of sight and sound. But he also admits that films from a particular country have a strong tie with a particular ethnic group's expression.

It is his conviction that this film language will always develop as an art form, and survive amid the differences between universality and local culture. He sees a need for each country's cinema to have a self-orientation period in order to fill world cinema with original works.

Almost all of Oguri's films, including Doro-no Kawa (Muddy River, 1981), Kayako no tame ni (For Kayako, 1984), Shi no Toge (The Sting of Death, 1989) and Nemuru Otoke (Sleeping Man, 1996) as well as Correspondency by Film which he made with Slamet Rahardjo, use long, static shots.

For him, long shots provide space for the audience to have a longer dialog with the picture. Therefore, his actors need to compromise with the natural setting of his films.

Indonesian actress Christine Hakim, one of the stars of Nemuru Otoke, said that during shooting a single shot could take a week to film, just waiting for things like animal-shaped clouds to appear. To work with Oguri, people have to be prepared mentally to understand his unusual desires. But most of his crews understand him, and they always long to work with Oguri again, no matter how much time is spent in filming.

Oguri was born in Machashi, Gunma prefecture, in 1945, during the Pacific War. He learned to write screenplays and later became an assistant director for Masahiro Shinoda in Double Suicide and Himiko, and for Kiriko Urayama in The Gate of Youth.

His first film, Muddy River, adapted from Teru Miyamoto's novel, was not initially widely distributed and only shown in limited press screenings. Nevertheless, it received much critical acclaim. This motivated Toei, Japan's biggest film company, to distribute it nationwide. The film was a commercial success.

Muddy River won the Silver Prize at the 1981 Moscow Film Festival and received Best Japanese Film of the Year Award from Kinema Junpo Magazine.

Gene Moskowitz, film critic for Variety magazine, said that Oguri's debut feature conveys deep reflection and accurately describes the Japanese character. Donald Richie hailed Oguri for giving a new image of Japanese cinema amid the violence, pornography and the mindlessness offered by the big studio productions.

His second feature, For Kayako, adapted from a novel by Hue- Song Lee, received the 1990 George Sadoul Award. His third, Sting of Death, based on a Toshio Shimao novel, won the International Critics Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and firmly established him as an international filmmaker.

For his fourth work, Oguri collaborated with Rahardjo to make Correspondence by Film, which was produced and aired by NHK TV Production. Next he invited Christine Hakim to star in Nemuru Otoke, which also received an extraordinary response from international film forums. Excepts from a Correspondence by Film, along with all the films mentioned above will be shown as part of JIFFest on Nov. 22, 23, 25 and at the Festival's closing on Nov. 28, 1999.

Nemuru Otoke, the Festival's closing film, tells of a farmer, Takuji, who lives in a village near Mount Fuji. After suffering from an accident in the mountains, Takuji falls unconscious. The film also concerns Tia (Christine Hakim), a bargirl in the same village who has migrated from Southeast Asia. She has lost her son in a flood as a result of illegal deforestation in her country.

Together with a man named Kakimura, Tia attempts to revive Takuji by bringing him to the woods and digging up recollections from the past. The forest is an important motif for each of the film's characters.

As in his other films, Oguri is very much concerned with ecology and the balance of nature and its relationship to humans. Nature is a constant inspiration for his films.