Mono no awareThrough my ongoing research, I have been able to come to the conclusion that anything I’m ever going to do or make is ever going to amount to more than a grain of sand in endless desert. Life is transient, yet, what I can do in my lifetime is create beautiful expressions of my experience and grow in my understanding of it all. But more in regards to my research and less about my world-view, I’ve been attempting to learn more about how and why the filmmakers I love make the films they do. Specifically, East-Asian filmmakers, though just through watching their films I can absorb much of what they are trying to say and trying to create and how they feel about it all, but I want to know more, I want to know exactly their thought processes. Through my research I’ve been learning about defining certain ideas, where the ideas come from, and what it takes to get certain ideas across to a viewer.
The phrase “mono no aware” is actually a Japanese phrase used to describe an awareness of the transience of things and the bittersweet sadness of their passing. This is something that’s present in all of the films that greatly inspire my own work, and though I’ve only more recently come across this phrase, I feel it’s something I’ve understood for a long time about the films. Through my readings of interviews with the filmmakers, now I know that this is what feeds much power into the films. Japanese master filmmaker, Yasujiro Ozu, who directed 50 some films in his 60 years of life, is very well known for his use of mono no aware. He would often end his film with a conversation like “ii tenki desu ne,” (it’s fine weather isn’t it) as the characters share a sober smile, even after all that’s happened in the film; to end with such a common thought, it’s as if though they are sad now, they can see the future and it is bright. Ozu truly brought mono no aware to film, and since his death in 1963, filmmakers from not only Japan but all over East-Asia have been inspired to continue the path.
To really get into the directors heads, the majority of my research this semester has been reading a lot of interviews with directors, sometimes over specific films, sometimes general interviews about their filmmaking careers. This has proved to be an excellent source of information, and very reaffirming to me because so often I’m reading the directors explanation of things and think, “that’s exactly how I took it, I got that!” So it’s been interesting finding out how much I really got from films before hearing it defined by the actual directors. But now, I’d like to go through and give some information based around this research, one director at a time.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa from Japan, is actually one of the first Asian directors I really got excited about. “Which genre my film ultimately belongs in is up to the
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audience when it’s finished… although film needs a fictional story element, it also is a medium that allows you to record the reality around you. You’re filming real forests and real people. I think that film for me is a medium point between a fictional story and reality,” says Kurosawa. He’s certainly worked in many genres, mostly in suspense thrillers, but it’s his more recent work that’s really meant the most to me. His 2003 film Bright Future (or Akarui Mirai, I love the Japanese title) is another example of a piece with many small elements but no real “point” to the story. The pace is actually very episodical, though it’s strung together as a time in one young mans life, it moves from one chapter to the next. “Mono no aware” flows through this film in the purest of forms, the 90 minutes spent with Yuji Nimura are more than anything about his coming to terms with the realities of life. He loses his best friend for reasons he’ll never know and all his direction in life, what little there was, is swept out from under him. Some might say this idea of simply accepting life as it is is a weak or easy-way-out but Kurosawa explains, “…accepting life as it is is not a weak or a pressured or a pessimistic thing. I think it’s quite the opposite, it’s a strong, aggressive, positive stance.” But what is also very prevalent in his work is the use of sound and music or lack there of, and using this element in pushing the transience of the film. “Film to me is somewhere in between reality and fiction and I think of sound as defining the world that I’ve created in that film. Sound if what defines that place that is neither story nor reality… because I think when you’re telling the story in visual images you reflect the characters and they can only be that what they are.” Using sound to put us in the heads of his characters is definitely a technique I’ve carried over as well, it gives us tone and emotion without having to bang us over the head with excessive dialogue. Again, it’s something I think is just difficult for American audiences to understand, but that’s what I hope my work changes in people. Kurosawa comments on American films, “…there is a lack of moments of ‘just being.’ American filmmakers have a particular knack for injecting meaning into the space between scenes.”
Next, and equally as important, is Thai director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang. His film Last Life in the Universe remains one of my favorites, and oddly enough, it’s very similar to Lost in Translation. Last Life is not really about any one thing, it’s simply a moment in the time where two very different people come together for a short few days, and we as the observers are simply given this experience to take in and enjoy. Through his quiet interactions and his elegant pacing, often letting a shot continue long after the character has left the frame, he reminds us of the beauty of subtlety. Though most aspects of the film are sad or upsetting in some way, it still retains the ambiguity of being neither a happy or sad film entirely. On the one hand, the male character (Japanese superstar Tadanobu Asano) is a suicidal man that only hastens his fate by becoming involved in his brother’s murderous mafia affairs as well as getting involved with the female character who happens to have an ex-boyfriend who’s just as dangerous. But on the other hand, the reassurance Kenji and Noi provide to each other, reminding each other that everything will be alright, proves to be where the real power lies within the film. Pen-Ek said, “I think happiness is overrated in life. Everyone wants to be happy! But life is so unhappy… a lot of bad things happen to the main character, but they all happen so that in the end he could
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understand that the simple life is the best.” And, that’s really what it’s about, you couldn’t have a film that’s completely one sided, positive or negative, there has to be a balance of learning to accept bad situations as a part of life and remember that no matter what it’ll work out and you’ll be able to better understand things. But he was also quoted as being depressed around the time of making his next film Invisible Waves, and saying “I didn’t mean to make a dark film, but if it turns out to be one, then that’s what it is.” For Pen-Ek, a film is something an individual should either like or dislike, not something to be analyzed; he said, “in Asian film, intelligence and cleverness doesn’t count. You have to be a bit more mature. It’s about emotions, and it’s about what life is about. That’s what our kind of films are about.” And that’s what I love about them, that’s what I want to convey in my work, these simple messages in a simple understandable, universal way that’s not heavy with intellectualism or tied down to any one genre.
Kim Ki-Duk, a Korean director who’s truly mastered the art of silence with films like 3-Iron, Bad Guy, The Isle, and Spring Summer Fall Winter… and Spring, had this to say on why he makes his films, “I don't try to entice viewers to watch, understand, or even like my films. That is not my purpose. Many filmmakers try to satisfy and please viewers but that’s not my job.” I find this important because, yes, I want others to understand what I understand in terms of the power of filmmaking on the understanding of life; but I also understand that it really isn’t my job, it’s not my true purpose in making work. For me, my true purpose is for me, I am the one who hopes to better understand things by creating work, then sharing that beauty with an audience comes secondary. But with Kim’s work, what’s always the most powerful, amazing aspect to me is how involved we become with the story and characters even though there’s barely any dialogue at all. For instance, the main character in 3-Iron never says a single word in the film, and the female lead barely utters a couple sentences only at the very end. And again, he has insight into the difference in views, “…Americans have amore rectangular and rigid perception of things whereas Asians have a circular or round perception.” Translated, I clearly see what he’s trying to say, here, we need everything to be defined, having a beginning and an ending we can clearly understand, but with Asian film (and what I try to do in my work) these things aren’t necessary, it doesn’t matter if things are clear, nothing in life is every that clear anyway.
Just a few more points I want to make and directors to name. Many of these directors are also masters of creating low-key stories that focus more on a characters emotions or taking a slice of time from a characters life in an almost documentary-style way. Hou Hsiao-Hsien, director of Café Lumiere, uses seemingly throw-away domestic details to elaborate his character’s normalcy, explaining, “the main thing is for the actors to forget the camera. They have to act as if they are working in a documentary. The camera is kept still and at a discreet distance from the actors.” He goes on to say, “basic outlines substituted for detailed dialogue in hopes that the actors could speak naturally – almost reflectively – to bring authenticity to their performances.” This is something I definitely am doing when I am making my documentary-narratives, it’s really a great way to get honesty from
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actors, give them basic ideas of what needs to happen and let them go about it however they choose (and I sometimes don’t tell them when I’m filming or not). Katsuhito Ishii does this often times with actors as well. In his film The Taste of Tea he uses familiar familial images and long cuts to give his films that real-life feel. In a very documentary sort of way, Hideaki Anno, famous anime director, used only hand-held consumer camcorders to make his first live-action film, Love & Pop. With this film, he captures a nostalgic sense of life change, but in an extremely creative and innovative way, his camera work is completely arbitrary, seeming to have no rules or reason to the angles and shots he creates. For instance, there will often be a conversation going on at a table but the camera will be below with the girls’ legs, or in a glass being filled up. And lastly, but certainly not the least, is Hirokazu Kore-eda. His films Maborosi and Nobody Knows are testaments to his quote, “I simply want to look at people as they are.” Like HHH, his attention to detail, use of all natural light, and meshing of the seductive intimacy of documentary and the formal beauty of fiction give his film the appearance of a series of photographs. Maborosi is the story of a woman who’s endured much, it reminds us that sometimes life’s questions are unanswerable, and though the film is deliberately mundane on the surface, using all hand-held cinematography and a mix of actors and non-actors, we become entwined and put into a meditative state as we assess our own value and meaning of life. He explains, “there’s no confrontation, no growth in the relationships, in Japan this is a way to maintain peace and to get through life.” Therefore it’s not in any huge waves that his meanings are defined, but in the small ripples of day-to-day life that the essence of life can be found.
Lastly, I want to talk about the impact Wim Wender’s 1985 documentary, Tokyo-Ga, has had on my research as well. The film is half a portain of modern day 1983 Tokyo, half a tribute to legendary Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. Here’s an example from his narration of the film:
“As thoroughly Japanese as they are, these films are, at the same time, universal. In them, I’ve been able to recognize all families, in all the countries of the world… For me, never before and never again since has the cinema been so close to it’s essence and it’s purpose: to present an image of man in our century, a usable, true and valid image, in which he not only recognizes himself but from which, above all, he may learn about himself.”
And I really feel like I don’t need to explain much more about that. That’s the thing about the film, Wenders does such an outstanding job at explaining these ideas and emotions. I learned a lot from watching it, which I’ve done about five times now, it’s a really amazing piece.
So as my research continues into next semester I’ll be continuing to simply watch more and more movies and read about them and read thoughts from directors. But also, I want to dive deeper and learn more about where in Asian cinema history these ideas came from. With such deep (yet simple) concepts, there’s really a never-ending amount of research and meditation to be done on being able to understand life and represent it through film in the most effective, beautiful way.
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Nevertheless, that’s what I’m going to be trying to do in my life, making films that will awe people, films to inspire people, make them smile, make them cry, films that cause people to reflect on their own paths in life. But then again, my films are just as much for me as they are for an audience, it’s just a good feeling when I can show someone how I see the world and they find beauty and value in that, and begin to see similarly. If more people understood mono no aware, I feel like we’d live in a very different world.
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i hope that, while in Japan, I have the opportunity to make my own documentary. this one will be hard to beat for emotional power but i'm sure possibilities are there waiting to be found.
