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The Consulate-General of Japan at Chennai and the Indo Cine Appreciation Forum (ICAF) are conducting a three-day Japanese Film Festival in Chennai from July 9 to July 11 at the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce auditorium, Anna Salai, Chennai.

The films to be screened during the festival are 'Bondage', 'Summer Holiday Everyday', 'Night Train to the Stars', and 'Bloom in the Moon Light'. Keiko Nakano, vice-consul, Culture, Information and Development Affairs, inaugurated the festival July 9. Seats are available on a first-come-first-served basis.

Music, Movies and Mamta Are you ready: Image makeover Red One for Achchamundu! Achchamundu! A day-trip to Dakshin Chitra நாயகனின் மனிதாபிமானம் கெட்ட கல்லூரியில்லை, சட்டக் கல்லூரி ஸ்ரீகாந்தின் சமாதானம்

Bondage (Kizuna) : (colour/vistavision/1998/123 mins) Takaaki lse, president of Ise Corporation, manages restaurants and clubs in Tokyo and also launders money for the Sasaki Yakuza gang. Later, we learn that Ise was actually born Yoshiro Haga and his new identity conceals a dreadful past which he has never revealed to a living soul. One night, Ise runs into Ginza bar hostess, Chikako. A few days later, Chikako's lover, Okabori, a freelance journalist, is shot dead. Police sergeant Sako has his suspicions about Chikako, but she has a watertight alibi. Investigations show that the gun used in Okabori's murder is the same one used 10 years ago in a yet unsolved murder case of a prominent financier, Ikejiri, whose body was found floating in the Tamagawa River. Sergeant Sako begins to investigate the possible links between the two killings. The rest of the movie deals with Yoshiro's secret and the mystery of the two killings.

Summer Holiday Everyday (Mainichi ga natsuyasumi): (colour/vista/ 1994/94 mins.) The Rinkaji family, by all appearances, is a well-to-do Japanese family. Father Nariyuki works in an elite corporation, something that gives his wife Yoshiko status in their suburban neighbourhood. But the daughter Sugina, who herself has secretly stopped going to school because she is being bullied, discovers one day that her stepfather, somewhat of an individualist, has quit his job. As Nariyuki decides to find a new job along with Sugina, Yoshiko, a firm believer in a life based on the company, soon finds her world falling apart. Job-hunting does not go off well, however, so he decides to start his own company with Sugina as vice-president: a do-I anything service. This only causes further embarrassment for Yoshiko in front of her gossiping neighbours and her former husband. As the movie progresses, Nariyuki undergoes a transformation.

Night Train to the Stars (Waga kokoro no Ginga tetsduo) : (colour/Vista/1996/111 mins.) Miyazawa Kenji is an idealist from the start, pledging, with his friend Hosaka Kanai, to work for the happiness of farmers and realise their utopia. He presses such ideals on his pawnbroker father, forcing him in one case to pay more for a pawned item that it is worth, so as to help a poor farmer. His father, Masajiro, objects to such idealism, however, pointing out to Kenji that the farmer was lying about his situation. Hosaka's idealism also hits the thick wall of reality when he is expelled from school for writing his revolutionary plans in an essay. The two friends renew their pledge to educate farmers before Hosaka leaves for Tokyo. The rest of the film follows the lives of these two friends as they take at times coinciding, at times divergent, paths in their search to realise themselves and their desire to achieve an utopia for themselves and others.

Bloom in the Moonlight (Waga ai no uta:Taki Rentaro monogatari): (Colour/Vistavision/1993/125 mins.) In April 1895, the talented young Taki Rentaro comes to Tokyo from his home Kyushu to enrol in the prestigious National Academy of Music. Hoping to become a pianist, he meets another student there, Nakano Yuki, who shares the same aspirations. With his friend and elder classmate Suzuki's encouragement, Rentaro practices furiously to perfect his technique but loses his health in the process. Down with tuberculosis, he has to retum home to Kyushu to recuperate. There the young Fumi takes a liking to the young master, but seeing how the world of music completely separates the two of them, she gives up on ever having Rentaro for herself. Restless and feeling left out, Rentaro quickly recovers and retums to Tokyo to catch a performance of new music by Koda Nobu, just back from studying in Europe. Impressed by her performance, Rentaro again devotes himself to music, this time composing songs for a group organised by his c1assmate Yui Kume, who wants to create new Japanese songs for Japanese children. Suzuki gradually realises his own inferiority when compared to Rentaro's talent, and leaves Tokyo for good when his father falls ill. Yuki too, seeing Rentaro perform, begins to lose confidence in her own talent, and is filled with an unease that is coupled with a growing attraction for the brilliant young musician.

With Koda's backing, however, Yuki is chosen as the next scholarship student to study in Europe, an honour which should have gone to Rentaro, thinks Yuki. Rentaro follows her a year later as the next scholarship student and again vigorously applies himself to music study when faced with the wealth of talent that surrounds him in Leipzig. He meets Yuki in Berlin, where she confesses her long-held love for him while playing the piano. Just when the two seem united, Rentaro suffers another bout of tuberculosis, forcing him to return to Japan, all the while keeping his illness secret from Yuki. Unable to rest in Kyushu, Rentaro struggles to compose the piano piece he had promised Yuki and dies while playing the small organ in the school near his house. In faraway Germany, Yuki receives the tragic news and begins playing with great sadness the unfinished piece he had written for her.

RR

Published on 10^th July, 2004