This was one of the weirdest screenings I have seen in awhile, mostly because the main feature was announced as “having a bad print quality, but the film is so great that [they] are showing it anyways” and the short film that came before was a silent film that was actually – gasp! – shown silent. Even when you don’t have live music, the film usually comes with some form of musical accompaniment, but here we actually watched the 11 minute film in complete silence. I thought it was the strangest thing, and the silence itself actually made me want to fall asleep. When the main feature finally started, I immediately felt a little more awake.
Hyakunen-go no aruhi (A Day After a Hundred Years)
Japan 1933, Shigeji Ogino, 11′
In 2032, scientists bring back the spirit of a man who died 90 years ago. The man is impressed by the technological advances and learns about life in the future.
Danish dude saw these two films on another day and said he thought the silent film was the worst film he has seen in awhile. I can definitely see where he’s coming from, because the animation is absolutely horrendous. Considering that the film came 3 years after sound films came about, it is shocking how badly it is made. Sure, I tend to have high expectations for animation but I don’t expect Kyoto Animation-like quality from everybody. But even if you take history into account, if Lotte Reiniger can make “The Adventures of Prince Achmed” mostly on her own, then the lazy art in this film has no excuse.
Nevertheless, I liked the film because the story spoke to me. I thought it was humorous and at times surprisingly accurate when it comes to predicting how the world would look like one day. Sure, magnet trains don’t look like they do in the film (the style of the futuristic architecture is actually decent, it’s just the handiwork in the execution that is sloppy) but it was very interesting to see how they imagined us almost 100 years ago. In fact, I even got a little confused about when the film was made because they were talking about some “Great World War” taking place around 1942, and I was impressed that the film seems to be prescient about these kinds of details. For me, this short film oscillates somewhere between impressively good and impressively crappy, but overall I think it did not deserve to sink into obscurity.
Uchûjin Tôkyô ni arawaru (Warning from Space)
Japan 1956, K?ji Shima, 87′
The appearance of UFOs and then of actual starfish-like shaped aliens sends the people of Japan into panic. It turns out the aliens are there to warn Earth from the impending collision of a big planet which would destroy all life on Earth, and later on help the humans to survive.
Uh yeah, I don’t personally agree with the claim that the film is great, although it definitely has many entertaining moments. The starfish-like aliens are cool and positively remind me of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Naru Taru, and until the middle of the film, I was highly entertained and very grateful for the humorous story (which was something I really needed this late at night).
I think I am just allergic to Japanese victimization, so the film took a quick turn for me when the “Japan is the only country that has suffered under nuclear weapons” threat came out. The film turns Japan into this poor little country at the mercy of the greater powers of the world, just a few years after it very much aspired to be one of those great powers. This is especially apparent when the children come into play – they are completely hopeless, faceless, always in fear of something and look frumpy and desolate in the way they are styled (very very not cute, unlike the children in “Letters from a dead man” where they manage to be active characters despite being catatonic). Needless to say it is the invention of a Japanese scientist that will save them all, not an American or another otherwise, and certainly not some technology brought in by the aliens, who are described as much more advanced than humans.
Maybe it’s unfair to judge a film based on these kinds of political considerations, but despite my enjoyment of the story otherwise I was honestly quite disturbed by the subtle nationalism of it, so there we are: I found both Japanese films of the day good and bad at the same time, so in that respect they are a perfect match for each other.