Berlinale 2009, Day 7 (Yanaka boshoku)

Again, too late und “boring” for the Choco Parfait, so kindly accept me as a stand-in.

This was showing in the Arsenal, the cinema attached to the German Film Museum. It is quite interesting, because it’s part of the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz and was built together with a multiplex that is only seperated by a glass wall, so technically the two halls are part of a multiplex, but they really try to come off as a artsy small cinema. Well, nothing bad about that. Again, queue-avoiding was necessary, this time however I was “innocent” because I placed myself in the (much shorter) line for people with accreditation which looked like the regular queue for me. Only when the other one moved I realised my mistake and silently switched queues, placing myself in front of 300 people who came before me. *hrrrr*

Yanaka boshoku (Deep in the Valley, ????)
Japan 2009, Atsushi Funahashi, 135′

Basically the movie is about the Yanaka district of Taitô ward, Tôkyô. Because of many cemeteries and buddhist temples located there, the district managed to evade the rapid, destructive modernisation of Tôkyô after the war and is one of the few places in the city, with the feel of a classical Japanese city. It was also famous for its Five Story Pagoda, which burned down on July 6th (yay, my birthday) 1957 and is the main theme of the movie.

The Director chose a very interesting layered structure: the „base layer“ was a documentary about the people of Yanaka, like buddhist monks, a blind old lady working as a gravekeeper in the Yanaka cemetery and an old man in a wheelchair, who can be seen at the pagoda site all the time. Then he took a few actors and placed a story of the „Yanaka Film Association“ searching for old home movies made by residents of the area, to restore and show them at their little screening room (you can’t call that a cinema, no way). Also, as a bonus: a cute little romance story. As they go around, main guy and girl are acting, but almost all of the locals are not, as they tell them about the district and their history. There is also another layer on top of this: the guy in the wheelchair always reads a book aloud, a Japanese classic written by Kôda Rohan in the 1890s about the rebuilding of said pagoda, which happened in the 1780s, also after a fire. Fragments of the book, which is mainly about a carpenter apprentice who almost single-handedly builds the pagoda, are being shown throughout the movie. Interestingly, main guy plays the carpenter, while main girl plays his wife.

While the movie starts as black and white it gradually becomes more colourful to the point where in  the „past layer“ they celebrate the completion of the pagoda, after which all of the movie is in regular colour.

All in all this is an unusual mix of documentary and fiction, with an interesting topic in the documentary part (Especially if you’re interested in Japan or urban living topic in general) and a simple, entertaining and slightly meaningful fictional coating: There is certain irony, that a pagoda built by a reckless youngster becomes a traditional historic spot and that in the present those who try to preserve the memory of it are also the young ones. Unfortunately it has its flaws. The first part, which is nearly all documentary, drags on, as the director overuses our beloved mood-establishing-shots. After that however, it becomes quite a rewarding experience. If you can dig through the beginning and have no aversion to the topic I recommend it.

Fun Fact: During the Q&A the director said, that when he makes documentaries, his producers always say, that they don’t feel „real“ but more like a movie. Conversely when he makes a movie he gets told, that it feels like a documentary, so he decided to make this movie which is neither, so noone would complain!