NYAFF/Japan Cuts 2010: "Hanging Garden" + "Doman Seman"

* Hanging Garden (dir. Toshiaki Toyoda, 2005, Japan). I went into this screening blind, not even having seen the trailer, based solely on something I'd read that put Toyoda's film on par w/ (or surpassing) Sion Sono's Noriko's Dinner Table. Though I'm not familiar w/ Toyoda's oeuvre (I understand his background to be visually-rich gangster films), Sono's is dear to me, precisely Noriko's Dinner Table, so such a statement was enough to latch my attention and draw me in. Upon leaving the theatre, I can subjectively say Toyoda and Sono can comfortably exist together w/in the realm of the family drama, that Noriko's Dinner Table is still my favorite, but Hanging Garden drew a visceral reaction all the same. Toyoda's camerawork is lovely: the title shot, through a leaf and soaring over the garden of the Kyobashi family's terraced high-rise condo, accompanied by a piano soundtrack, sets the scene. He spins the camera in slow circles, elsewhere, or floats it in extra-long takes, to denote nostalgia, rootlessness, and family banter where you're just waiting for the hammer to drop, or the first person to leave the table, or even blood to be drawn. All the tension in the film boils down to Kyoko Koizumi (who reprises the mother's role in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Tokyo Sonata), the smiling, steel-clad matriarch Eriko, tenuously grasping at this perfect family life. If she's not watering her jungle of plants, she's lining the dinner table, possessing the only housekey of the foursome. Dad Takashi (Itsuji Itao, aka Key Man from Yoshihiro Nishimura's Tokyo Gore Police) walks on eggshells around the emotionally distant Eriko whilst having a very active, secretive sex life w/ punkish, domineering Satoko and cutie Mina, who ends up tutoring son Kou (and who Eriko mistakenly believes is sleeping w/ her son, instead of her husband). Daughter Mana is your typical teenager (rude to mom, wise to dad) whilst skipping school and hanging at the plaza of a shopping mall all day, fearing bullying at school (and perhaps showing early signs of her mom's traits). Son Kou is withdrawn but very aware of what's going on in the family. Throw in Eriko's sometimes-hospitalized mother Sacchin, a fiery powerhouse, and a terribly awkward "birthday party" for Mina (the family, it's said, doesn't celebrate one another's birthdays, only other people's), and you've got a chemical reaction. Toyoda's handling of the soundtrack, and just sound in general, is also expert. Beyond the title sequence, his choice of sound reduction and amplification, sucking out all background noise to hear just dialogue, or muffling everything expect a torrential downpour, or footsteps, or just sudden jarring silence, maintains a sharp edge to this rather fast-paced drama. The tension is growingly palpable as the tidy family structure starts busting at the seams, and even Eriko's unbreakable smile fractures (in one part, she fantasizes about stabbing her petulant coworker in face, repeatedly, with a cake-fork), and the consequences of her manufactured happy existence, cloistered far above in the posh high-rise, are strained perhaps beyond repair. I sincerely hope this film is available for a wider audience.

* Doman Seman (dir. Go Shibata, 2010, Japan). Are you familiar w/ Future Sound of London's classic Lifeforms album? From the iconic artwork to the diversely trippy tunes. Watching Shibata's new Kyoto-set film (whose Japanese title is just as beguiling, if not moreso, 堀川中立売, both a string of kanji and an intersection of bridges that has something to do w/ age-old sorcery), I felt as though I was trapped in FSOL's Lifeforms. From the moody, spacey soundtrack to the shots of urban life v. shocks of greenery, to the 1st thing we see, a young girl who seems to have conjuring abilities. At the Q&A, Shibata compared the film to Boredoms, Japan's legendary indie noise-psych-percussion quartet, and then everything clicked for me. Actually: my "aha" moment came during the film, albeit late in. As I understand it, a magical spirit comes to contemporary Kyoto as a yakuza named Abe, w/ his precocious daughter. He gets two guys — one a long-haired loser more comfortable in his undies than proper clothing, the other a dandyish, psylocibin-user who is homeless by choice — to fight the evils encroaching on society. I.e. Kyoto's pretty-boys beating up the homeless and this creepy shut-in named Terada who murdered loan sharks as a youth and now, ironically, works for a loan shark company. Abe's minions do this whilst wearing bathrobes. And the puppetmaster behind all the evil is apparently a shamanic character who runs Terada's firm and is actually a famous young juggler in drag and heavy makeup. At...least...I think that's the plot. So finally, near the end, Abe's minions meet up w/ the shaman, and the story reconfigures in a bunch of jump-cuts placing the shaman in the center of the action until she finally disappears. Their task achieved, Abe and daughter breathe a sigh of relief, and the music segues into the pounding crust-punk anthems of Tokyo's Abraham Cross.

fee's LIST (through 7/13)

THURSDAY
* "Lush Life", curated by Omar Lopez-Chaoud & Franklin Evans, @ NINE LES Galleries, 6-9p. An LES art-block-party, based on Richard Price's eponymous novel. Each of the nine galleries took a chapter and formed a group show around it. Three are open already (read on under CURRENT SHOWS) but the full-out opening is tonight. And I'm not saying you need to see 'em in order, as you'll be doing a lot of backtracking, but for the three open it was helpful for me to see them sequentially. Sue Scott's provides a great intro to the entire project.
- Sue Scott Gallery / 1 Rivington St: Ch 1: "Whistle"
- On Stellar Rays / 133 Orchard St: Ch 2: "Liar"
- Invisible-Exports / 14A Orchard St: "Ch 3: First Bird (a Few Butterflies)"
- Lehmann Maupin / 201 Chrystie St: "Ch 4: Let It Die"
- Y Gallery / 355A Bowery: "Ch 5: Want Cards"
- Collette Blanchard Gallery / 26 Clinton St: "Ch 6: "The Devil You Know"
- Salon 94 Freemans / 1 Freemans Alley: "Ch 7: Wolf Tickets"
- Scaramouche / 52 Orchard St: "Ch 8: "17 Plus 25 is 32"
- Eleven Rivington / 11 Rivington St: "Ch 9: She'll Be Apples"

* Kyoung Eun Kang "In & Out" @ Arario NY / 521 W 25th St, 2nd Fl (part of the "Irrelevant" Group Show), 7p. Kang performs with cotton candy, which is the same medium she's covered w/ in her "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" video screening at the exhibition.

* Oh Sufan "Variation" @ Gana NY / 568 W 25th St. Think Franz Kline's action-expressionism and Yves Klein's shimmering monochromes, only w/ Oh's proper background.

* Ala Dehghan "I Can Explain Everything!" @ Thomas Erben Gallery / 526 W 26th St 4th Fl. Debut solo show from the young Tehran-based artist, whose richly narrative works on paper combine traditional miniature painting with her contemporary experiences as an Iranian woman.

* Jennie C. Jones "Electric" @ Sikkema Jenkins & Co / 530 W 22nd St. An incredibly intriguing pairing of minimalism, abstraction and abstract-jazz, in Jones' continued exploration of art history and Black history. Feat. her edit of Miles Davis' "In a Silent Way" (minus his trumpet part) matched w/ John Cage's "4'33"", plus collage and ink drawings mimicking music and sculpture from instrument cable.

* Jorge Pardo "Sculpture Ink" @ Friedrich Petzel Gallery / 535 W 22nd St. If you attended the creative Guggenheim exhibition "theanyspacewhatever", you've seen Pardo's partitioning, silkscreened prints before. But that doesn't make them any less cool in this gallery setting.

* "Big PIcture", curated by Tom Sanford and Ryan Schneider @ Priska C. Juschka Fine Art / 547 W 27th St 2nd Fl. Large-scale paintings by large-scale minds, w/ mash-ups of pop culture, politics, social issues — in short, good-looking art w/ a message. Feat. works by Kamrooz Aram, Holly Coulis, Emily Noelle Lambert, Lisa Sanditz, the curators and more.

* Pterodactyl + YellowFever (Austin TX) @ Cake Shop / 152 Ludlow St (F to 2nd Ave), 8p/$8. I don't know what I'm more excited about, seeing the messy indie rockers from my college town back in NY or getting sonically pummeled by Pterodactyl's unrelenting energy. A: both. w/ Dream Diary

* Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival presents "Salute the DJ" @ Music Hall of Williamsburg / 66 N 6th St, WIlliamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$10. A tribute to the beat-miners and wax-scratchers behind the MC, feat. some absolutely dope local legends incl. Rob Swift (X-Ecutioners), Rhettmatic (Beat Junkies), DJ Spinna (who hosted the original "Soundbombing" album) and Mr. Bobbito Garcia himself.

FRIDAY
* "You Were There", curated by Thomas Duncan @ Rachel Uffner Gallery / 47 Orchard St. The deceptively simple concept, showing an artist's work from 2005 AND from 2010 (the same timeframe as "Greater New York"), could lead to interesting results, esp. considering those involved: Rita Ackermann, Josh Smith, Sarah Braman, Joe Bradley, Justin Adian and Sara Greenberger Rafferty.

* "in here" @ Laurel Gitlen (Small A Projects)" / 261 Broome St. Five artists decipher the relation between visible/invisible and pictorial thinking, feat. Michele Abeles and Uri Aran, whose respective photography and works on paper are both at MoMA PS1's "Greater New York", in addition to Jamie Isenstein (sleight of hand), Halsey Rodman (assemblage) and Erik Wysocan (mixed media).

* "Con Air" (dir. Simon West, 1997) midnight screening @ IFC Center / 323 Sixth Ave (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St). The Finale of "Cage Heat: Nicholas Cage at Midnight". A Nic Cage festival this huge necessarily end w/ a bang, and if that doesn't mean the atrocious, heavily parodied "Wicker Man", then it must mean the explosive prison transport flick "Con Air", w/ a long-haired, drawling Cage in a sweaty tank top, locking arms w/ baddies like a creepy Steve Buscemi, a brooding Ving Rhames and John Malkovich basically playing himself in prison garb. Must be seen to be believed!! Also SAT at midnight.

* YellowFever (Austin TX) + MINKS @ Monster Island / 128 River St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$9. Another delicious, though goth/glammier chance to catch YellowFever, as they're matched w/ local Captured Tracks mega-group MINKS (think New Order w/ girl-guy vocals). w/ UK's Wetdog

* ZAZA + Naked Hearts @ Glasslands / 289 Kent Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 8p/$9. One of the many draws to this show, beyond the dope music, is they've all got really ace vocalists. ZAZA are stellar popstars (it's "music to make out to", after all) and Naked Hearts produce concentrated power-pop refrains.

* Real Estate + Kurt Vile (and band) @ (le) poisson rouge / 158 Bleecker St (ACE/BDFM to W 4th St), 7p/$15. A sunny, ace lineup perhaps best suited for a backyard party, but I'll take it anyway. Real Estate do that surf-rock thing w/ expert songwriting and shimmering refrains. Kurt Vile's rootsy indie rock is augmented by his full band. w/ the ever-lovable Big Troubles

SATURDAY
* Harry Smith program @ Anthology Film Archives / 32 2nd Ave (F to 2nd Ave), 6:15p. A very special screening of Smith's early experimental abstractions, plus the surreal "Oz, the Tin Woodman's Dream" from 1967.

* Wetdog (UK) + Hollows (Chicago) @ Bruar Falls / 245 Grand St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), 7p/$7. 2nd to catch Captured Tracks' rough-edged all-girl Wetdog, this time w/ Chicago's Hollows, who sound a bit like '60s girl-groups (perhaps due to the great vintage organ front-and-center). w/ Loneliest Monk

SUNDAY
* Xiu Xiu + Deerhoof play Joy Division's "Unknown Pleasures" @ The Pool Parties / E River State Park, Williamsburg (L to Bedford), . We're dead in the middle of summer, so it's only appropriate the MAYJAHest of outdoor free concerts debuts today, and though I felt last year's lineup was a bit spotty, this year's is solid. Take it from me. And it begins in a huge way w/ art-rockers Deerhoof and other-art-rockers Xiu Xiu covering Joy Division's seminal album "Unknown Pleasures". Picture Satomi singing "She's Lost Control" in that airy voice amid buzzsaw guitars and pummeling drums. Pair that w/ Jamie doing "Shadowplay" against clanging percussion and NES-keyboards. I'm just postulating here, but it's going to be a dope show.

MONDAY
* MINKS + Blissed Out @ Knitting Factory / 361 Metropolitan Ave, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, G to Lorimer), 8p/$8. Great lineup, esp. Captured Tracks' New Wave (in a good way) MINKS.

TUESDAY
* David LaChapelle "American Jesus" @ Paul Kasmin Gallery / 293 10th Ave. I am struggling to withhold comment until I see this potential monstrosity. Hell, LaChapelle could surprise me. But I'm not going to hold my breath on that one.

* The Beets + German Measles @ Death By Audio / 49 S 2nd St, Williamsburg (L to Bedford, JM to Marcy), 8p/$7. Essential summer lineup of hot local indie, w/ party boys German Measles and the sing-along garage-punk sensations The Beets. w/ Liquor Store

CURRENT SHOWS
* "The Evryali Score", curated by Olivia Shao @ David Zwirner Gallery / 525-533 W 19th St. I am amazed by the crop of inventive summer group shows this year, and Shao's elusive detective story is perhaps the best of all, and will certainly reward you for repeat visits if you've the energy and penchant for a little sleuthing. The exhibition began at MoMA PS1, with Shao's "The Baghdad batteries", the first of four rotating galleries during 'Greater NY', before reconfiguring — and tremendously expanding — at Zwirner. The larger space and multiple rooms is definitely to the exhibition's benefit, I think, as though these are incredibly discreet works, they still require room to breathe and for better contemplation. The 525 space contains much of the reconfigured PS1 show, w/ a few swaps (Marcel Broodthaers' gold under glass replaces Walter De Maria's shiny "Power Bar") and additions, like the stunning, subtly shimmering Willem De Rooij wall-spanning canvas. Though I suggest you begin w/ 533 (if you missed the PS1 version, no biggie), w/ the duet of John Knight's wall projection and (rarely exhibiting) Dutch conceptualist Stanley Brouwn's wooden wall piece. Brouwn's structure, like an inverted cube, calls attention to the gallery wall (and floor) itself, causing us to note its levelness (or slant) and the surrounding space. Craig Kalpakjian offers window-like (but windowless) abstract C-prints. Bernadette Corporation (one of several collectives in the show, the cheekily named Reena Spaulings is another) has a multiscreen Fendi video that works in conversation w/ Josef Strau's lamp installations in both galleries. And I'll bet you've never seen a wooden Claes Oldenburg relief before. And those grayed-out names on the show program, coinciding w/ fake birthdates? That's Sonia Lucerne's "Checklist Intervention". I'm telling you, spend some time with this one, let the clues slowly de-opaque themselves, but don't be surprised if much of it remains elusive even on several visits.

* "Lush Life Ch 1: Whistle", curated by Omar Lopez-Chahoud & Franklin Evans @ Sue Scott Gallery / 1 Rivington St. I will review these shows in turn, based totally on the visual and instinctual as I haven't read Price's book. But the shows give us much to go on. We get a fair sense of the '80s LES immediately w/ David Shapiro's array of handmade "found objects" — the want ad, the 'steal this book', the NY Post. Alice O'Malley's signature C-prints set the scene (the Mexican restaurant El Sombrero, the Ludlow rooftops) and David Kramer brings not only cheeky reconfigured alcohol adverts but an entire bar (which had what looked to be nearly a full bottle of Jack Daniels last time I visited). Take a stroll, get to know your surroundings.

* "Lush Life Ch 2: Liar", curated by Omar Lopez-Chahoud & Franklin Evans @ On Stellar Rays / 133 Orchard St. Thus far, my favorite of the novel's exhibitions, thanks especially to the strong roster at this show. Ezra Johnson's mural-sized word painting, screaming DOUBT, sets the mood. Tim Davis' politically-toned, sharp C-prints depict neighborhood gentrification, as do Manuel Acevedo's suite of modified Polaroids, each w/ a drawn-on "future structure", which are more subtly echoed by Scott Hug's 'pizza slice' collages.

* "Lush Life Ch 3 "First Bird (A Few Butterflies)", curated by Omar Lopez-Chaoud & Franklin Evans @ Invisible-Exports / 14A Orchard St. This one keeps the bird-theme close to its chest w/ a nearly uniform, avian-related show. In that sense it falls short of the explosive humor and dialogue of On Stellar Rays, but it's got some great stuff as well. My favorites: the haunting, long-pan video "Silent Among Us" by Dana Levy, of a flock of live doves in a taxidermy lab and Karen Heagle's huge acrylic and ink work, of crows on the most beautiful mountain of garbage you've probably ever seen.

* Yuan Yuan "A World of Yesterday and Tomorrow" @ Chambers Fine Art / 522 W 19th St. I loved this show. I'm a big Yuan fan as it is, and the young Beijing artist's foggy, mesmerizing paintings — shown here as small-scale groupings in ceramic frames and larger diptychs — are like the soft-focus scenes from a Sofia Coppola film, only clearly from Yuan's memory.

* "Irrelevant: Local Emerging Asian Artists Who Don't Make Work About Being Asian", curated by Joann Kim and Lesley Sheng @ Arario NY / 521 W 25th St, 2nd Fl. I recalled the 2007 exhibition "Making a Home" at Japan Society, which featured nearly three dozen Japanese artists living in NY, when I first heard about this multicultural, emerging artists show. Kim and Sheng culled together an even huger grouping, displaying a hotbed of young, creative artists working in none of the mnemonic, typecasting devices many critics and viewers expect of Asian artists: no manga-cartoony stuff, no renderings of Mao, no calligraphy here. As one example, take Tattfoo Tan, whose several years' worth of environmentally conscious endeavors work as a side-gallery-filling installation, from his mobile gardens to his "master composter" certificate. He'll be giving lessons on just that, composting, next week so stay tuned here (there are loads of performances from exhibiting artists through the end of the month. Mai Ueda, who opened the show last week, remains only as a glittery signature and handprint on the gallery wall). Check Kyoung Eun Kang's disquietingly messy video "HAPPY BIRTHDAY", where she pulls a vintage Paul McCarthy, Nancy Kim's and Youngna Park's enigmatic photography (the former recalling Uta Barth), Jason Tomme's cerebral "Cig Scale" assemblage, Jane V. Hsu's noirish "People Were Made to Disappear" short film, and like 40 other artists.

* "Swell: Art 1950-2010" @ Metro Pictures / 519 W 24th St + Friedrich Petzel Gallery / 537 W 22nd St. Surf-art, specifically California art, is a great idea for a mega summer group show in NY. Seriously. These two galleries (plus NYEHAUS) are chock-full of sunny, salty, subversive, and stunning works, some good and others really fantastic. Metro Pictures wins the day w/ a powerful array of California Minimalists (Craig Kauffman, Larry Bell, Helen Pashgian, John McCracken, Peter Alexander) v. the freaky So-Cal lot (Bruce Conner, George Helms), though Petzel had a few surprising, must-see pieces (Ashley Bickerton's classic coral wave, Alex Weinstein's shimmering "block" and the R.Crumb comix). Vast as the ocean.

* Brion Nuda Rosch @ DCKT Contemporary / 195 Bowery. A stunning solo-show debut for the San Fran-based Rosch. He works w/in a tight color palette — white, chocolatey-brown and a beguiling turquoise (as signature to him as International Klein Blue, only he didn't "patent" the color as his own — and a variety of media, found book pages, angular abstract sculpture, coated figurines, to fantastic effect. Case the gallery very closely and Rosch's many interventions, like the angled sculpture and the robotic "faces" in book pages, slowly and rewardingly reveal themselves. A destination exhibition.

* "Christmas in July" @ Yvon Lambert / 550 W 21st St. It's bloody hot out so why not a summer group show themed to the wintry holiday? Matt Keegan's paste-up Google images-esque chart is a tidy comparison: Santa v. a fat beachgoer, Uggs v. flip-flops, fruitcake v. a sand castle, a wrapped package v. a hot male in a Speedo. Beyond this, which is oddly addicting, is a lot of appropriately either garish or attention-demanding works, some nice classics from John Baldessari and Lynda Benglis, a funny Christian Holstad assemblage of a yellowed square of carpet bearing the imprint (and shed needles) of an absent artificial tree, a Marepe ornament sculpture recalling Jeff Koons only way less precious, and loads else.

* "Shred", curated by Carlo McCormick @ Perry Rubenstein Gallery / 527 W 23rd St. There is quite a range to the concept of collage as fine art, from Brian Douglas' laborious cut-paper rendering that is deeply textured like an Impressionist's painting, to Jess' and Bruce Conner's interventions, to Mark Flood's portrait echoing Jean-Paul Goude, to Dash Snow's deftly impressive pairing, to Judith Supine's elaborate, enigmatic acrylic portrait.

* "Seat-of-the-Pants" @ Museum 52 / 4 E 2nd St at Bowery. A tight little group show of the hot downtown lot (Amy Yao, Siobhan Liddell, Daphne Fitzpatrick, Jacob Robichaux), but the strong personalities of the latter two (esp. Robichaux's tactile "Papier-lacerer" trio) usurp the energy from the former. Liddell's interventions are typically restrained, as they are here, and Yao's discreet, beguiling collages don't embody the same energy as her fantastic installation at MoMA PS1.

* Carol Bove + Sterling Ruby + Dana Schutz @ Andrea Rosen Gallery / 525 W 24th St. Q: how to incorporate the respective abilities of these three very different contemporary artists? A: don't even try, just let them do their thing. But in doing so, and w/ some deft planning, the gallery has managed to successfully mute Ruby's atmosphere-sucking quality in his brutal, large-scale sculpture (the slickened, wooden cannon "Consolidator") w/ Bove's pair of scale-defying Plexiglas and metal-mesh boxes. They're elevator car-sized, true, yet the transparent quality and the metallic shimmer tricks the eye and creates an interesting effect w/ the space. Schutz's trio of new paintings are good, primarily the very abstract "Finger in Fan", and adds a color element to the room.

* "...and then some" @ Feature Inc / 131 Allen St. One wall of Tom of Finland's high-performance, works on paper and an audience response on the right, this salon-style mixÚ Mie Yim's fuzzy alien orgy, Bastille's Geiger-esque scenes, Martin of Holland's scatology, Raymond Pettibon's cheeky minimalism, Jeremy Pittu's Richard Prince-esque vintage prints. Lots of penis here, plus some very disturbing subject matter (mainly coming from Martin of Holland), to the point where our hero Tom's works are on the relatively tame edge of the spectrum.

LAST CHANCE
* "Natural Renditions" @ Marlborough Chelsea / 545 W 25th St. Marlborough's massive summer group show is incredibly trippy this go-around, a riot for the senses. It is too much to take in all at once, but worth repeat, brief visits to zero in on the better works. I was pleased to see Rob Wynne's exquisite blown-glass 'shrooms here and Kim Dorland's tortured mixed-media canvases are fantastic, subtly touching on deforestation. It's saying something when Will Ryman contributes one of the more innocuous pieces in a show. Better, and keeping w/ the overall theme of 'natural', are Valerie Hegarty's and Amit Greenberg's branch-incorporated sculpture.

* Robert Morris "New Felts" @ Sonnabend Gallery / 536 W 22nd St. Anytime Morris is working with industrial felt, you've got my attention. The four new works on view are his first new felts since the '90s, and they're beauties in black and blood-red. The gigantic 20-prong behemoth draped in the entry room reminds me, somehow, of a watermelon, so much so that I can't see anything else but that. In the interior room, the vividly red felt feels quite womanly to me, the all-black like the long Comme des Garçons A/W 2009 menswear skirt and the final red/black sort of tuliplike — so I guess there's underlying femininity in all these. In addition: two pigment drawings in answer to the U.S.'s current world conflicts, done by Morris while blindfolded.

NYAFF 2010: "Actresses"

* Actresses (dir. E J-Yong, 2009, Korea). The premise: six of Korea's leading actresses, playing themselves, in a loosely scripted fake Vogue holiday cover shoot, sounds precisely like my kind of plot, were I ever to film a Korean docu-style dramedy. Going into this dazzling, divalicious affair, I knew only the younger two actresses, the Kims: modelesque Min-Hee (esp. for Kwon Chil-In's Hellcats) and super-cutie Ok-Vin (who came of age quickly and sexily in Park Chan-Wook's Thirst, and she was discovered by E for his Dasepo Naughty Girls). So I had in mind casting Im Soo Jung, Bae Doona and two race queens (ideally Hwang Mi Hee and Ryu Ji-Hye, my goodness!!) — but I totally got E's premise of the generations of actresses, from the grande dame Youn Yuh-Jun to the relative baby Ok-Vin. Plus, he's known for casting and directing incredibly beautiful women, so I knew I'd be all right navigating this, even w/o knowing the elder four's respective backgrounds (gossip included). Yuh-Jun comes off equally anxious, regal and entirely wise, the only one of the six who really "gets it", i.e. the acting world (in Korea especially). Lee Mi-Suk is terribly gorgeous, her hair streaked with gray, and sharp-witted and -tongued, succumbing only to her elder, Yuh-Juh. Ko Hyun-Jung (who apparently carries the bulk of the scandal) is both caustic, primarily to her generational rival Choi Ji-Woo, and incredibly insecure. Ji-Woo, w/ her strong Japanese following, is the biggest diva, yet sobering. Min-Hee is mostly silly and a bit vapid (one of the elders, I think Yuh-Juh, questions what sort of drugs she's on). Ok-Vin, while my favorite and endlessly adorable, is flailing in deep water amid her elder peers, attempting to be respectful while continuously screwing up and acting nervous and awkward. The abuzz scene pre-shoot, the racks of clothing, the hot lights coming from the makeup and hair area, the fluster over delayed jewelry, the egos hurled back and forth, the preening and effusive compliments and booming music and clicking shutters — all this reminded me of the fantastic whirlpool of a fashion shoot. It truly is another world, and if you've never been on one (and I've never stayed for an entire shoot, either), you may wonder: how do they do it? By "they", I mean not only the actresses but the artists, the editors, the photographer, the assistants, the interns. But it happens, the individual portraits, amid flare-ups esp. b/w Hyun-Jung (drinking continuously) and Ji-Woo, who threatens to leave set. But the women make up, in a way, over a meal while waiting for the cover shoot, Dom Perignon pouring the entire time. Insecurities come to the forefront and it's Yuh-Juh who dispenses the best advice, that they as actresses really do need one another, b/c the Korean public and the greater world won't back down on the gossip-mongering and the spiteful words and the preferential treatment, and they toast and, just before the credits role, come together for the cover shot.

NYAFF 2010: "Symbol" + "Castaway on the Moon" + "The Ancient Dogoo Girl: Special Movie Edition"

* Symbol (dir. Hitoshi Matsumoto, 2009, Japan). Going into this screening, I was convinced Matsumoto-san had his work cut out for him. The teaser and subsequent trailer for Symbol were some of the most beguilingly opaque, trippy bits of film I'd ever witnessed. And how the director would tie together the two baldly disparate storylines — the washed up luchador Escargot Man in rustic Mexico (feat. an extremely Tarentino-esque chain-smoking, expletive-spitting nun as the wrestler's grown daughter) vs. Matsumoto himself in a stark white room, save for cherubic penis protuberances lining the walls, and when Matsumoto presses said protuberances (to the accompaniment of a choral "AH!") something weird and pop-hued falls into the room, from a toothbrush to a lounge chair to an exit door — that feat seemed impossible. And yet he did it, rather tidily too, to the point where this switched from a druggy trip to a feel-good film. It's visually incredible, and Matsumoto (who has much screen-time to himself) is a strong comedic actor, but I never thought I'd be writing how "grounded" Symbol is. Think of the phrase "for every action there is a consequence", or more like "for every action there is a reaction". That may give you a hint what's at play here.
Next Screening: July 7, 3:40p (Walter Reade Theatre)

* Castaway on the Moon (dir. Lee Hey-jun, 2009, Korea). I do love a good Korean rom-com. The NYAFF selections, like Crush & Blush last year, defy categorization as "just" a romance, or at least they're light-years beyond Hollywood's interpretation. Here, the tidy girl-meets-boy story arc presents two intriguing barriers: the boy (Jung Jae-Yeong) is a down-and-out salary-man who tried to kill himself by jumping off a bridge into the Han River, only to survive and wash up on a city island, and he can't swim; and the girl (Jung Rye-Won) is a major agoraphobe, living as others on the internet while conversing in text messages to her mom. Yet our girl photographs the night sky and just happens upon our boy, growingly pleased w/ his back-to-nature existence, and it's love at first sight. They converse in English, he in notes scratched in the sand, she in messages in bottles (venturing out late at night, in a helmet and track-suit). He pines for black-bean noodles after discovering a lone seasoning packet so she sends him some, forcing a deliveryman to paddle a duck-boat out to the city island, but he grows the corn anyway to hand-make his noodles. She photographs his tears as he finally succeeds. It is as incredibly emotional as it is corny. Both Jungs have nearly solo screentime and they are magnetic actors, particularly Mr. Jung in his growingly hippieish look, the longer he spends on the island. And we wonder: how will they ever meet, he unable to reach Seoul's shore like several hundred meters away, she unwilling to leave her flat for an extended period of time. But these would-be lovers are insatiable and the wrap-up is canned but totally necessary. So maybe it's a bit typical rom-com in the end after all.
Next screening: July 7, 8:45p (Walter Reade Theatre)

* The Ancient Dogoo Girl: Special Movie Edition (dirs. Noboru Iguchi + Yoshihiro Nishimura, 2010, Japan). An incredible slice of cinematic mayhem: Iguchi-san's Kansai-area midnight broadcast TV program The Ancient Dogoo Girl, about a large-breasted young goddess in a clay bikini killing monsters, a somehow family-friendly program too, recut as a 90-minute DVD w/ a special 30-minute gore-soaked promo by Nishimura. EVERYTHING IS RIGHT ABOUT THIS. Each director's portions are their signature worlds. Iguchi's portion is your sugary high-school romance, w/ "oppai" gravure idol Erika Yazawa as the cutie Dogoo-chan, uttering every single cute-Japanese euphemism besides "pin-pon!!", breaking into a dance routine when attempting to allay her budding feelings for loserish Masataka Kubota, her human helper, and after vanquishing a beastie (like a killer crab or a bicycle) by emitting like a heat-ray/tractor-beam out her chest, says "my breasts are full!" w/ the sweetest smiles you've ever seen. Every five minutes there is a closeup of her chest, or a slo-mo of her running so we can bask in her buoyancy. Nishimura's bit could've begun during the bondage club sequence of Tokyo Gore Police, as the 1st two characters we see are Tsugumi Nagasawa (croc-girl from the previous film) and her victim Yukihide Benny (the lecherous Tokyo PD commander who loses a leg and his genitalia to her wrath in that film, before becoming a mutant himself). Only this time, in sequence w/ panty- and breast-shots of Nagasawa, she sucks at his neck to kill him. This time the loserish guy is Yuya Ishikawa and like in his mid-30s, Dogoo-chan's helper 'bot is a Fabio-ish Takumi Saitoh and our heroine is the badass, Kansai-spitting Asami. Her 1st line, and I'm paraphrasing but this is pretty close, goes "hey shithead, kiss my ass" to Ishikawa. The villains, like Nagasawa, are vampire pole-dancers, seriously, led by Cay Izumi and there is a five-minute, extremely hypnotic dance sequence where these barely-clothed mutant girls bump and grind to the chorus "kimo ga sui" (or "we're gut-suckers"), before Asami busts in and kills all of them. And I'm left w/ a serious conundrum: I hate TV, I don't own one. But if/when I live in Japan, esp. if I move to the Kansai area, I'll need one to catch the second season of the absurdly good Ancient Dogoo Girl.

NYAFF/Japan Cuts 2010: "Alien vs Ninja" + "Mutant Girls Squad"

* Alien v. Ninja (dir. Seiji Chiba, 2010, Japan), July 3 at 6p. The world premiere of the 1st film out of killer new label Sushi Typhoon is coked-up action at its very finest. The extremely transparent title signals the lack of a weighty plot — it really is about aliens (half-dinosaur, half-Gigeresque) versus ninjas, in an endless primeval Japanese cedar forest — but I am 100% OK w/ that when the action is this good. Director Chiba's background is in historical action-drama, and the lead badass ninja, Masanori Mimoto, while simultaneously being a hot slice of manliness, is a ridiculously adept action hero. The swordplay and acrobats were of the caliber I rarely see in films of this vein, so exhilarating that I found myself on the edge of my seat as each choreographed sequence one-upped its predecessor. This goes beyond wires and CGI. Mika Hijii as the super-cute ninja (w/ metal fists reading "the strongest", and she is a total badass) and Shuji Kashiwabara as the slightly primadonna ninja, w/ his floppy hair and sullen 'tude (though he's a badass too), alongside Mimoto, are basically all that stands in the way of several disgusting, slimy rubber-suited aliens, which made brutally quick work of the other ninjas. Watch Mimoto throw a sullen, smouldering gaze as one of his kin gets bloodily dispatched and he swears revenge and cuts up an alien. Watch Hijii and Kashiwabara kick ass, as Mimoto throws more smouldering looks before engaging in a swordfight w/ an alien, who also is wielding a sword. Slap yourself but it'll do no good: you're not dreaming, that really just happened. Yattai, Sushi Typhoon!
Next Screening: July 6, 3:45p (Walter Reade Theatre)

* Mutant Girls Squad (dirs. Noboru Iguchi, Yoshihiro Nishimura, Tak Sakaguchi, 2010, Japan). Ever since experiencing Nishimura's Tokyo Gore Police at the 2008 NYAFF (for you don't just "watch" a Nishimura film), this unique brand of extreme body horror, coupled w/ a cadre of beautiful actresses and deviant humor, has been at the core of my festival experience. Last year everything, all my anticipation, led up to Vampire Girl v. Frankenstein Girl. This year, it had to be the powerhouse team-up and Mutant Girls Squad. After joining Twitter, I added @sentoshojo and got my daily dispatch of Mutant Girls news — this occurred for months, so you talk about anticipation. And the payoff? The gory amalgamation concocted by these three leading minds is a riotous party, loads of off-kilter fun that stays firmly w/in their cherry Sno-cone blood-soaked sphere whilst excelling in the bizarre beyond their previous works. It's saying something when the 1st person who gets sawed in half (like 1.5 minutes into the film) doesn't faze me — more like a gentle comfort that "yes, I'm back with you now!" — yet seeing a girl get her face trisected vertically reminds me: they've found ANOTHER way to do that, awesome! Good news: the talent is hot. Iguchi (and I'm pinning Iguchi w/ this one) has an eye for leads, and the three here (Yumi Sugimoto as Rin, Yuko Takayama as Rei, and Suzuka Morita as Yuki) have backgrounds as gravure idols, though Takayama, the overall meanest of the lot, is also the lead in action drama Hana no Asuka-gumi NEO. More good news: perennial Iguchi/Nishimura collaborators Asami and Cay Izumi — two of the baddest-ass actresses I have the pleasure of knowing — take their action careers to new levels, w/ Asami as the retainer for the Tokyo police force (wielding two swords in what I think is called "niten-ichi-ryuu") and Cay as a Lolita-esque character w/ swords coming out her boobs. Oh I haven't mentioned the mutant girls yet: think of X-Men, only they're all young hot fashion models w/ bizarre, body-horror mutations (ass-chainsaw, the aforementioned sword-boobs) and instead of Professor X we get Tak Sakaguchi in drag (think a svelte Robert Smith). Directors Nishimura and Iguchi both cameo and die. Cay and Asami die as well, rather violently and creatively the both (I must wonder what remains in these directors' bag of tricks for creative killings, but I've no doubt they've got a LOT of surprises remaining). Kanji Tsuda (the wacked-out professor-slash-Dr. Frankenstein in Vampire Girl v. Frankenstein Girl) returns as Rin's smiley dad, but mainly as a decapitated talking head atop her floating birthday cake, in an extremely '80s-psychedelic sequence that recalls that coffee-drinking screensaverish bit on Earthbound, only w/ Tsuda's decapitated talking head atop a floating birthday cake. Another killer juxtaposition: Rin and Rei slow-dancing, inter-cut w/ Sakaguchi as this avian mutation, cackling and killing Tokyo PD, whilst Yuki fights a slashed-up, fire-throwing Sayako Nakoshi (Nishimura's omnipresent "wrist-cut girl"). I loved every minute of it.
Next Screening: July 5, 6p (Walter Reade Theatre)

NYAFF 2010: "Yatterman" + "Pink Eiga" (+ Cay's dance)

* Yatterman (dir. Takashi Miike, 2009, Japan). One golden thing I realized late into this sweetly bizarre, mecha-romp, a combo of unnervingly accessible yet totally deviant Miike-san, which I don't think has been addressed by other NYAFF-attendees: this film, Miike's biggest commercial blockbuster, is an amalgam of every psychedelic film at this year's NYAFF. I don't know if that makes it the MOST psychedelic, this Frankenstein's monster of glowing, trippy appendages, but it's something to think about. As in: an impromptu volleyball match (seen in Death Kappa), here w/ the entire cast and a glowing Skull Stone. As in: half-shirts (seen in L.A. Streetfighters) — well, to be totally accurate, it's cropped leather vests worn by the Doronbo Gang minions w/o shirts underneath, but they also wear sushi jackets, cropped again (unsettlingly enough). And as a harbinger of what's to come: Tonzura of the Doronbo fantasizes about becoming a pro-wrestler (echoing Symbol?), and the Doronbo's 2nd big-mecha, Bridesmaidiot, fires lasers out her massive, metal tits (echoing, I'm guessing, Mutant Girls Squad? Or, hell, Ancient Dogoo Girl: Movie Edition?). See what I mean? Beyond the cartoon Japanese (the Yatter-wan, dog, ends most speech with "wan/woof", the ultimate baddie Skull-obey ends his archaic dialogue w/ "-obey", Doronjo, head of the Doronbo, throws insults like "imbefool" and "idiocile") and overall ridiculousness (the good-guy/bad-guy posturing, the dancing, the play-fighting), this is still very much a Miike production. Some of the sexual humor will hopefully go over kids' heads — the part where the giant Yatter-wan gets a nosebleed from facing off w/ Bridesmaidiot and the two mechas start making out, much to the chagrin of their respective humans, Ai's weapon is a "tickle-stick" —, but that other part where Skull-obey steals this scientist's identity by apparently queening him felt surprisingly, ahem, mature. Kyoko Fukada as the posturing, wicked Doronjo, doesn't dispel all the sugar-factor from her Kamikaze Girls role, but it was cool seeing her perpetually antagonized by her inept flunkies. And beyond Fukada-chan, Miike did well casting beautiful girls (Saki Fukuda as Ai, Anri Okamoto as Shoko) and a slightly androgynous Sho Sakurai as Gan to fill the "good-guy" roles.

* "Pink Power Strikes Back!" aka: Groper Train: School Uniform Hunter (dir. Naoyuki Tomomatsu, 2007, Japan). Pink films tend to run three-to-a-billing in Japan (they're only about an hour runtime, filmed on 35mm), and NYAFF presented a double-bill of PinkEiga films at this auspicious midnight screening, but I could only catch the 1st because, well, read on and you'll find out (unless you scroll immediately to the bottom of this post to see the photos). Luckily the one I saw was Asami's film, b/c she was the special guest and posed w/ me afterward for a photo (my heart practically leaving my chest at this point). And much as I regrettably missed part Yukata Ikejima's Japanese Wife Next Door Part 2, which does in fact have a prequel (described by NYAFF's Marc as sort of a Japanese Teorema, as opposed to this film, which is somewhat like the middle sequence of Run Lola Run). But Groper Train I dug, and that was 100% due to Asami. She plays an extremely cutesy, schoolgirl character, a total 180 from her current action roles (she's in Noboru Iguchi's The Machine Girl and RoboGeisha, plus — at least according to the trailer — a total badass in the joint production Mutant Girls Squad, which I am seeing Saturday night). She and a classmate, Kenji, have a tentative relationship, but they're both virgins and she gets (as the title goes) groped on the train, by an old perv, whilst he accidentally boards a woman-only car and is seduced by a jaded businesswoman. Asami-as-Yuki learns about her body and becomes increasingly comfortable w/ this perennial groper, to the point she takes him to a love hotel and proceeds to dominate him (uttering such lines, and I'm paraphrasing here, like "my pussy is overwhelmed" and "being good is the worst fate I can think of"). 60 minutes breeze by and Yuki and Kenji meet again, far more self-aware, and decide to visit a love hotel together. It was cute, but I know her best for action and I'm glad she loves action films too.
So why did I have to jet out after meeting Asami? B/c her cohort and frequent screen-sharer Cay Izumi (they were both Tengu girls in Iguchi's RoboGeisha) was giving a special cabaret pole dance at this basement club called Trash at Webster Hall straight afterward (i.e. 2a), and there was no way I was going to miss that. See what I mean?

NYAFF/Japan Cuts 2010: "Confessions"

* Confessions (dir. Tetsuya Nakashima, 2010, Japan). I'm knocking this out now, while the effects of Nakashima's latest film, a harrowing high-school drama, are still reverberating through me — though I've an inkling this film's resonance won't totally fade away come morning, or the weekend, or perhaps even the end of the festival. Nakashima achieves something brilliant here, in the first 20 minutes of the film, in Moriguchi-sensei's (winningly played by Takako Matsu) monologue to her JH class, amid their banter and slo-mo roughhousings. She lays it all out, the impetus for the action, her young daughter was murdered by two of her students, she knew who they were, IDs them to their surrounding classmates and exacts revenge. All this accompanied by a pervasive blue tint (gone, nearly, is Nakashima's former penchant for acid-saturated color) and a slow-burning Boris soundtrack. In the remaining 75% of the film, we get "confessions" from the murderers, from one of their mothers (played almost unrecognizably, and in that sense excellently, by Yoshino Kimura) and from the shockingly pretty "misunderstood" girl in the class, who becomes close to the other murderer. It is through these vignettes that Nakashima teases out just what Moriguchi-sensei is capable of, that revenge for her little girl's death does not end for the attention-getting demonstration around the 20-minute mark, involving supposedly tainted milk. No, no, they are left to fend for themselves in the world, think about what they did, as one fuels a growing rift with his mother while the other courts his girl classmate, all the while plotting his own explosive denouement. And w/ signature Nakashima, there are many beautiful, painterly scenes, the slo-mo cascade of raindrops, the backwards motion bubbles (repeated hauntingly at the end with that explosion), the girl staring back at the camera amid the blur of classmates' bodies. Too, Nakashima's films have always carried a weight beyond the spectacle: Memories of Matsuko, despite its cheery, gilded singalong Amelie leanings, is at its heart the protagonist's grief over her sister. And yes, Kamikaze Girls had it too: don't tell me you felt nothing when biker-chic Anna Tsuchiya finally breaks down in tears on the riverbed next to sugar-princess Kyoko Fukada. But Confessions is a far grimmer tale, with each gorgeous frame followed by an equally gorgeous, painful sequence. You could call it the rippling effects of one's actions, how it disrupts others and leads to earthquake-sized changes: they may kill someone, they may be killed. But so many are affected. Each year, the NYAFF programs this one film, amid all the others I go bonkers about and obsess over and love, that just DOES IT. Though we are only midway through a fantastic festival, Confessions quite possible is that film.
Next screening: Sun, July 4, 2p (Japan Society, and it's SOLD OUT)