Garden Geta

http://www.joeyroth.com/garden-geta/
Wood shoes based on traditional Japanese wooden clog design by Joey Roth. An interesting take on the Japanese geta.

Japanese Taiko Performance

Start:	Feb 22, '08 8:30p
Location:	Streetscape, Shangri-la Plaza

Jun Murakoshi Design

http://www.junmurakoshi.com/
The creator of the Shelving Chair and the Stacking Stool, among other curious stuff.

Japanese Geta

http://www.ee0r.com/proj/geta.html
A skinny on and some instructions on making geta.

inochi

Rating:	★★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Drama

it's something to be said of the fast-paced-multimedia assault that i am exposed to everyday that it took me some minutes to adjust to the slow pacing of inochi. the last film with similar pacing that i saw was babel; like that film, inochi forced me to sit down and stay with a movie full of long, lingering shots with many quite, dialogue-less stretches.

my visceral, instant gratification-needing self still thinks the movie felt too long (it was a little less than 2 hours, in fact); but the more patient part of me thinks i needed something like that.

inochi was about the last few months of the life of a japanese stage director. it was also about his girlfriend of 10 years who eventually left him for a married man, then left him when she got pregnant. it was stated she had a history of attempting suicide, and she initially was thinking of having the baby aborted.

what was that? these weren't easy characters to deal with. this wasn't an easy movie to deal with. this wasn't a "normal" over-the-top japanese movie with really bad (but absolutely fun to watch) acting.

higashi was diagnosed with cancer that has spread to his liver, lungs, and (eventually) his esophagus. he thought he was ready to die. yu will be having a baby but she didn't know whether she wanted to keep him or not. the child's father being married but childless with his wife, he wanted her to keep the baby but can't help in raising the child. her time at an all-time low, she renewed contact with her ex, higashi.

yu realized higashi was sick and helped him see a doctor. they found out it was cancer, and he had very little time left to live. in the midst of that, yu asked if she could get back with higashi until she gave birth to the baby. higashi agreed. like the most significant decisions we make in our lives, in hindsight, that decision did not make any sense.

and yet it turned out to be near-perfect. in the most quietly moving scenes of the movie, higashi, dying of cancer, was watching the rain turn to snow outside the hospital window when he heard a newborn's cry. it was yu's son that was born. a nurse approached him, and told him both are well and asked him if he wanted to see the baby. the first person the baby was introduced to was neither his mother nor father, it was higashi. he saw himself being reborn. and then he decided he doesn't want to die yet.

the movie could have ended there and the audience would've been happy knowing the cycle of life continues: another life was born while another was dying, but we didn't need to see the dying person die. but that's the conventions of drama, and this was about a real person's life. i wonder if the late director would appreciate the dramatic restraint in his biopic.

the film had plenty of beautifully composed scenes that lovingly linger on the character's faces. one would think seeing too many soap operas would have diminished the impact of close-up, but the movie captured these close-ups as they should have been. they highlighted the character's nuances, letting the audience appreciate the amazingly understated acting.

but the outside the close-ups, the other scenes were no less powerful. a character's posture amidst an otherwise empty hall showed fortitude in a bleak situation. a dying man cradling a little baby seen behind lines where temple-goers pinned their prayers was so movingly intimate, i thought about looking away.

like babel, this was a very visually telling film. there were no deserts here, though, but scenes of familiar domesticity: apartments, hospitals, parks. throughout the movie, yu was a tall figure in long skirts, dark colors, and long flowing hair that highlighted her very handsome face. she was surrounded by people in brightly colored clothing: they were full of life, but she had to struggle with hers. her and higashi were like two shadows moving among humanity.

i went in to the cinema without any idea what the movie was about. so there i was, recovering from my throat illness (with my boyfriend going through a similar illness), watching one of the main characters coughing on screen. i watched it with vanny and her brother; they recently lost their mom to cancer and we were watching a movie about a man who was at his last few months living with it. i guess they liked the film. i did. (i did call dar after the movie, to check how he's doing.)

inochi felt like a made-for-tv movie, but in a way made-for-tv movies fail to capture. it lacked blatant artifice, the acting was very restrained and the story intimately portrayed. it was a moving replaying of the lives of two people who stuck together because they felt they were the closest thing they had to family.

Eiga Sai 2007

Start:	Jun 20, '07
End:	Jul 8, '07
Location:	Shangri-la Plaza, UP Film Center, Cultural Center of the Philippines

CONTEMPORARY FILMS
THE JAPAN FOUNDATION, MANILA'S MONTH-LONG EIGA SAI

SCREENING SCHEDULE

Shangri-la Plaza			UP Film Institute			Cultural Center of the Philippines
June 20 (Wed)	7:00 PM	Kamikaze Girls	July 2 (Mon)	2:00 PM	Shangri-la	July 4 (Wed)	4:00 PM	Out of this World
				5:00 PM	Out of this World		7:00 PM	Blue Spring
June 21 (Thu)	2:00 PM	Shangri-la (Togenkyo No Hitobito)		7:00 PM	Blue Spring
	5:00 PM	Blue Spring				July 5 (Thu)	4:00 PM	Blue
	8:00 PM	Out of this World	July 3 (Tue)	2:00 PM	Blue		7:00 PM	Shangri-la
				5:00 PM	Inochi
June 22 (Fri)	2:00 PM	Hotel Hibiscus		7:00 PM	Kamikaze Girls	July 6 (Fri)	4:00 PM	Inochi
	5:00 PM	Inochi					7:00 PM	Kamikaze Girls
	8:00 PM	No One's Ark	July 4 (Wed)	7:00 PM	Hotel Hibiscus
						July 7 (Sat)	4:00 PM	Harmful Insect
June 23 (Sat)	2:00 PM	Blue	July 5 (Thu)	2:00 PM	Harmful Insect		7:00 PM	The Stars Converge
	5:00 PM	Kamikaze Girls		5:00 PM	No One's Ark
	8:00 PM	The Stars Converge		7:00 PM		July 8 (Sun)	4:00 PM	No One's Ark
							7:00 PM	Hotel Hibiscus
June 24 (Sun)	2:00 PM	Kamikaze Girls
	5:00 PM	Hotel Hibiscus
	8:00 PM	Blue Spring
June 25 (Mon)	2:00 PM	Blue
	5:00 PM	Inochi
	8:00 PM	Out of this World
June 26 (Tue)	2:00 PM	Shangri-la
	5:00 PM	The Stars Converge
	8:00 PM	Harmful Insect

The Japan Foundation, Manila, in cooperation with the Shangri-La Plaza Mall, the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and the UP Film Institute, proudly presents slices of Japanese life as seen through the eyes of contemporary Japanese directors of "Eiga Sai 2007": a showcase of modern film genre at the Shang Cineplex, UP Film Institute and CCP Dream Theater.

Among the films to be featured are Kamikaze Girls (Shimotsuma Monogatari, 2004, directed by Tetsuya Nakashima), Harmful Insect (Gaichu, 2002, directed by Akihiko Shiota), Hotel Hibiscus (Hotel Hibiscus, 2002, directed by Yuji Nakae), No One's Ark (Baka no Hakobune, 2002, directed by Nobuhiro Yamashita), Inochi (Inochi, 2002, directed by Tetsuo Shinohara), Out of this World (Kono Yo no Sotoe-Club Shinchu Gun, 2003, directed by Junji Sakamoto), The Stars Converge (Chirusoku no Natsu, 2003, directed by Kiyoshi Sasabe), Blue (Blue, 2001, directed by Hiroshi Ando), Blue Spring (Aoi Haru, 2001, directed by Toshiaki Toyoda) and Shangri-la (Togenkyo No Hitobito, 2002, directed by Takashi Miike).

The Eiga Sai (literally, 'film festival' in Japanese) opens at the Shangri-la Plaza Mall on June 20 with light comedy, "Kamikaze Girls" (2004, 103 minutes, Color), written by Novala Takemoto and directed by Nakashima Tetsuya. It tells the story of two very different teenagers who become best friends, even though neither will admit it. J-Pop star Kyoko Fukada stars as Momoko, a 17-year-old girl so obsessed with everything rococo that she wears old-fashioned frilly white clothing and carries a parasol. After Momoko's mother leaves her small time crook husband, her young daughter grows up on the farm, 60 miles from Tokyo, with her ex Yakuza father who sells fake Versace merchandize and grandmother, a woman with an extraordinary ability to catch flies in mid air. Desperate for money, Momoko starts selling the remainder of her father's counterfeit clothing, but her only customer is a tough-talking young biker chick, Ichigo (Anna Tsuchiya), who belongs to an all-girl gang. Their lives exemplify some of the fascinating intricacies of Japanese youth culture in a feel good film with art direction creatively designed to blow your socks off. The movie garnered critical acclaim and won numerous awards in Japan and abroad.

All films will be shown with English subtitles. Screening venues are at the Cinema 3, Shangri-La Plaza Mall (June 20-26), UP Film Institute (July 2-5), and CCP Dream Theater (July 4-8). Admission is free. For detailed screening schedules and inquiries, please check the Japan Foundation, Manila website: www.jfmo.org.ph or call the JFM telephone numbers 811-6155 to 58.