No matter what system, youth hurts the body. - Nagisa Oshima
Japanese cinema is divided into period dramas and modern dramas, and Nagisa Oshima wondered if European films were also divided by era. He used the example of Polish director Angie Vajda to solve this doubt. In the process, Nagisa Oshima shows a Vaida who is remorseful in the face of history, a Vajda who is full of confusion from the inside out.
History and Regret: Anjayer Vajda
Nagisa Oshima (Japan)
Weekly translation
In Europe, anyone who cares a lot about Japanese movies knows that there is a difference between period dramas and modern dramas in Japanese movies. In film magazines and newspapers, there is a very popular concept of Jidaigeki-gendaigeki in italics in the criticism and introduction columns. I don't know when this happened, or how it went. One can condemn my ignorance, how arrogant I was to people who introduced Japanese films overseas, and at the same time draw attention to how isolated and hard the work of these people is. However, this is not my subject now. Are there such a distinction between period dramas and modern dramas in foreign films? Of course, in contrast to "Japanese films", the term "foreign films" is very loose. If it is equivalent to the position of Japanese films, then strictly speaking, it should be spoken of on a country-by-country basis. Now, however, for convenience or to some extent, people's opinions, the term "foreign cinema" here refers to American, Asian, and European cinema. Is there a difference between a period drama and a modern drama in a "foreign film" in this sense, like a Japanese movie? I'm afraid it doesn't exist Because there is no such distinction, the word Jidaigeki-gendaigeki is used when describing Japanese films, mainly in introductions.
Poster of Andrey Vajda's film Sewers
Of course, the premise of my discussion is to admit that there is a distinction between period drama and modern drama in Japanese cinema. However, I found that foreign films are not without distinction between japanese films and modern dramas. This article will deal with Anjaye Vajda, so here is a similar example. Recently, we can finally see films like Yelzi Kavalerovich's Pharaoh, which is a movie like a period drama. In other words, for me, almost all foreign films set in antiquity and about half of them set in the Middle Ages are period dramas. The deliberate exclusion of films with some ancient backgrounds is to consider, for example, whether a series of works by Pierre Paul Pasolini can be counted as period plays; the exclusion of about half of the films set in the Middle Ages is due to the thought of, for example, films by Carl Theodore Delette and Robert Bresson, depicting Joan of Arc. How do European audiences see this? Of course, I know there is no "period drama" framework there. Still, do they have such a distinction? Ignorance about this is clearly caused by the arrogance of those who introduce foreign films in Japan and should be condemned; at the same time, those engaged in film criticism in a weak island nation in the Far East must bear great, even desperate, difficulties, which we may sympathize with. Isn't it time for us to convey the truth now?
I know one word — costume play, such as Cecil C. B. Demille's work can be called that. So what about Federico Fellini's The Myth of Love? At last year's Venice Film Festival, I watched the film and said, "What, isn't this Demir?" In response, Gene Moskovich of the Variety Newspaper spat out: "If it is Demir, he will make us feel more happy!" "Can 'Love Myth' be called a costume play? Or can it be called a period drama? European audiences are not interested in film classification. Genres do exist, such as the categorization of films explicitly in manuals of a guide nature, and Godard's work is often classified as comedy films. However, I did not find the distinction between period drama and modern drama at least in print.
Why should I cling to this issue? For example, are recent gangster movies period dramas or modern dramas? What if you go to Europe and are asked by critics who divide Japanese cinema into different types when they mention it? I think this kind of gangster movie should be classified as a period drama. Recently, every summer, there have been war movies — or more precisely, in-war movies — that appear like law-abiding monsters. How should these be divided? In my opinion, they are all period dramas. In this way, for me, the so-called modern drama is a film set in post-war Japan. Is this my thought and feeling, this thought and feeling abnormal? I don't think so. I think there will be people who will agree.
Let's go back to Europe. Will a European audience categorize them when watching a film in their country? I would love to know that.
Writing this, my topic finally comes to Anjaye Vajda. We Japanese have very little access to Vajda's works, and there are generally four works that can be seen: Sewers (1956), Ashes and Diamonds (1958), The Innocent Wizard (1960), and Twenty-Year-Old Love (1962). There is also a lack of introduction to his work. Tadao Sato traveled to Poland to give brief explanations of Wajda's A Generation (1955), Lotona (1959), Ashes (1964), and Everything For Sale (1968). Through the works of Adoran Taulion, we learned for the first time about Vajda's Samson (1961) and Miss Siberian Sorrow (1961). As for the rest of "Heaven's Gate" (1962), "Mille-feuille Cake" (1968), "Exorcist of Flies" (1969), "The Land After The War" (1970), etc., I still don't know the content. But even if I know about ten of them, I find that most of them are based on the past. There are five films based on World War II, and "Ashes" and "Miss Siberia" tell the story of a more distant past. There are only three works with a completely modern theme, namely "The Innocent Wizard", "Twenty-Year-Old Love" and "Everything For Sale". In my thinking about cinema, Vajda is a playwright of the times. Of course, this is a joke. Europeans certainly look at Vajda differently. Taurinon said that during the filming of "Miss Siberian Sorrows", Vaida gave up modern subjects for the first time and faced the past. This feeling may be normal. In fact, I think so too. In this sense, I thought that "Lotona", based on the German invasion of Poland in 1939, seemed to be able to fall into the category of "films facing the past". But I haven't seen the movie and can't draw conclusions.
In the long narrative that preceded me, I wrote a lot of seemingly reasonable words. In fact, what I want to say is, why is Vaida's war-themed film a modern drama in my eyes? There is, of course, a strict time issue. Known as Vajda's trilogy, "A Generation," "Sewers," and "Ashes and Diamonds, were filmed and produced between 1954 and 1958, and it can be speculated that the war was still in the minds of many people as reality. Needless to say, this question also exists in Vaida's heart as a very clear theme. During World War II, Vajda was only thirteen to nineteen years old. Later, he answered other people's questions like this:
Tadao Sato: (... Is it relevant to your own experience of war?
Vajda: ... I have some kind of complex. ...... During the German occupation, I had contacts with underground organizations, but I was not put in a forced shelter. At that time, I happened to go to Krakow and did not participate in the Warsaw Uprising. Suffice it to say, I missed all sorts of things that happened in that era. I fill in the missing parts of my experience with my work.
Bolesław Mihavik: What kind of war did you go through? Where were you during the war?
Vajda: ... I barely participated in the resistance movement. As a result, I have had very little experience of war. Maybe that's why I want to make up for it in the movie.
Nagisa Oshima Film "Merry Christmas on the Battlefield"
Can't fully believe what the director says. Don't think that he's said the same thing to someone else, that's true. But the fact that he said the same thing to the two men would at least make us understand that Vajda had secretly decided in his heart that he would answer the question this way. Only this is true. So, let's look at his answer. One was that he had "very little war experience" or "almost no participation" in any resistance movement or underground organization. In this case, the words "little experience" or "almost no experience" in his response can also be replaced by phrases like "no participation at all." According to my speculation, it can be said that he may not have participated. But the phrase "not participating at all" was not used because he still wanted to participate. The other is to make up for this sentence with works. Although the words are beautiful, can you use the works to make up for the lack of behavior? At this point, the interviewer's questioning is very inadequate. Apparently, Vaida himself must have thought it irreparable. He himself knows that irreparable acts or omissions can become the motivation for creation.
But can a work be created with this motivation alone? Literature may be possible, but film cannot, at least not by motive alone. The past cannot be repaired, and this is a kind of regret in the face of history. The person who felt the most remorse for this was Vajda. When the average person faces history, at most, there is only victim-style regret. I believe that in the face of history, Poland is one of the countries in the world with the deepest remorse. But even so, no, because of this, the average person only has victimistic regret. At this time, the resistance movement and underground organizations in Vajda, in the face of history, did nothing but mean that they had the potential to play to their advantage. Still, this beginning is only a kind of remorse, a kind of regret that cannot even be called a victimistic regret. While studying at Rhodes Film University, when people recount their experiences in the war, I am afraid that Vaida has quietly left his seat, and perhaps he has at best cheerfully said: "I really did not participate in the war." ”
What happened before this remorse for history was presented in the form of subjective remorse in Sewers and Ashes and Diamonds? In 1956, there was a de-Stalinization movement and a democratization movement that affected Poznan, and in these movements, did Wahida take the main action this time?
We don't know anything about this, there is no written record, there is no verbal narrative, and even Tadao Sato has not asked questions. I didn't say this to defend my beloved Tadao Sato. There could have been a certain atmosphere in the Polish film industry at the time that was difficult to deal with – I felt it after only a few days in Poland. So during this period of de-Stalinization and democratization, which was as active as a groundwater flow, it was not clear what Vajda had done. But it is entirely presumptive that during this period, the Rhodes Film University and the film industry were undoubtedly a stronghold of the democratization movement. In 1954, several creative groups called "movements" emerged. Film production, which had previously been directly managed by the state, began to take a completely different form, marking ahead of the democratization movement in the film field than in other fields. Of course, we don't know exactly what role Wahida played in this, especially politically. However, in 1954, the cast led by the director and some of the actors were all newcomers, "guided by different principles, they produced new films that were very different from before" (Waida), and Vaida was the leader of "a group of people who used the film as their manifesto" (Wahida). During this period, Vajda undoubtedly played a subjective role.
In fact, if Vajda explicitly had non-Stalinist, or more advanced anti-Stalinist, political thinking, then he had gone a little too far. Rather, in his groping from A Generation to Sewers to Ashes and Diamonds, he may have become consciously aware of his anti-Stalinist stance. If one were to speculate, perhaps his political thinking would have reached a peak after finishing Sewers and about to begin production of Ash and Diamonds. Moreover, when he took the stand of anti-Stalinism, the de-Stalinization and democratization movement in Poland was beginning to turn back. Like the fireworks that bloom behind Machik when they cling to the knocked-out Szuka, Ash and Diamonds is beautiful and sad because vajda, who empathizes with the perverse perverse actions of the de-Stalinization and democratization movements, has an impulse in her heart.
That is to say, in the face of a blank time in 1945, Vajda dedicated everything she faced with history in 1956, making two films, Sewers and Ashes and Diamonds. "A Generation" is an emotional work because of it, and "Lotona" is a sad by-product. Therefore, including the last two films, they are completely modern dramas, eternal modern dramas, which are very different from the Japanese war movies that appear like monsters every year during the Obon Festival. However, I would like to draw attention here that the modern drama produced by Vajda is definitely different from the director who makes a period drama in a certain country but thinks that there are modern problems in it. In the "past" as fodder there is our relationship with history, and this relationship and the present relationship between us and history are repeatedly transformed – and this is where Vajda's films arise. Films made without going through such a process and based on the past, no matter how strongly the author argues, are just a flower rack. That's a real "costume play."
Speaking of costume drama, I think of such a thing. Taulion once quoted Plazusky as writing in the Film Handbook as saying: "Vajda deliberately put Tsibersky in the popular narrow trousers. Vajda emphasizes the duality side of his thoughts many times, that is, the character, although sitting in a chair in the tavern, does not drink a drink with alcohol, but likes to drink water from the kettle of the Machi (anti-German) team member. However, Vajda emphasized that the protagonist wears light-colored glasses from 1958. Although Taulion quoted this passage, he did not understand the meaning of this passage. He accepted this passage only as a result. Counter-revolutionary resistance in 1945 (what a contradiction in language!) Wearing 1958 sunglasses and tights — that's not the result, it's the method. Vajda bets everything on this method.
In response to Tadao Sato's question that "Polish cinema seems to have done little after the polish faction's remarkable activities," Kavalerovic replied: "Sometimes they can help people make good movies, and sometimes they get into crisis." This sentence is particularly wonderful. I've asked the same thing and got the same answer. For Vajda, Poland's post-1958 period may not have been "a time to help him make good films." I don't know if it was lucky or unlucky, but I've only seen one of his films, Twenty-Year-Old Love. Instead, the film adds "past" to "now" and is an excellent film. I haven't seen his other films and have no say. However, after watching his film, I personally felt Wahida's bitter mood.
If we take the theme of the present modern era, Vajda may not be able to exert its subjectivity in the face of history, and there will be limitations. Even if the theme of war is a very distant thing, I am afraid that "Samson" is criticized as "indifferent". New ways of photographing masterpieces based on distant pasts may not have been discovered yet. Thinking in this way, we can clearly see from Vajda's filmography the difficulties he faced from the inside out.
"If I were the producer of my own work and could be financially independent, I would be able to make a second film, 'A Generation' and 'Sewers.'" This is a tragic remark by Wajda in response to Ivana Barbie's questions published in the January 4, 1963 issue of The World. This reminds us of the fate of artists under socialism. But writers must not create "second ××". I wouldn't take it literally and believe it completely. Vaida's filmography, though full of desperate bitterness, does not back down. I wanted to see everything for sale as soon as possible, which begins after the death of Zbignev Chipblski. Since the works exhibited at the 1968 Baikalmo International Film Festival were all "mediocre works", no grand prize with a bonus was awarded. Many people raised fierce objections to this, including Marse Marcé in Film 1968: "If only the jury could award the 'Mediocrity Award'." This is because in addition to "The Melancholy Gaul" (directed by Michel Kuno) and Robert Cramo's "Edge", "The Banquet and the Guest" (directed by Jan Nemek), "A Woman and another Woman" are also not mentioned, and there are two of the best undisclosed works: Vajda's "Everything for Sale" and Japanese director Nagisa Oshima's "Hanging Death". What is mediocrity?! Perhaps with this fate, perhaps a little emotional, I found that after "Everything For Sale", Vaida filmed "Millefeuille Cake" (1968), "Exorcising Flies" (1969), "The Land After the War" (1970) and other works in a fast-paced manner that has never been seen before. I thought there must be some reason for this, and I was looking forward to it. Cibulski's death may have ignited passion in Vajda's heart. Vajda must have insisted on doing two things about the remarkable approach of prematurely discovering the connection between history and the self, one to deny it and the other to continue to tolerate it. Vajda said: "In Poland, there are many more demands on artists than in other countries. "It's sometimes an honor, sometimes a heavy responsibility. Wazida is far removed from both the mighty third world national liberation struggles and the new left revolutionary movements in the capitalist countries, which have been repeatedly wounded but continue to produce new breakthroughs and move forward; if there is no such thing as the de-Stalinization movement of 1956, the democratization movement, which is the movement associated with Wagida, the act of insisting on making films at a fast pace has great significance: "diamonds shining like the dawn of victory" will be born here, which will exceed the demands of the Polish people. Even the result far beyond what the Polish state demanded.
Author: Nagisa Oshima (Japan)
Publisher: Yazhong Culture/Nova Press
Publication year: 2016 - 6
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