22/05/73, Tokyo
As we were about to leave [the restaurant], which was closing, a man came in and asked to be fed. A Korean, said Tsuruta. How did he know, said I. By the insistence, said he.

[observations from a man sitting inside the armchair:]Some of the women possessed the firm bodies of ponies; others seemed to have the slimy bodies of snakes; and still others had bodies composed of nothing but fat, giving them the bounce of a rubber ball. There were also the unusual exceptions who seemed to have bodies made only of sheer muscles, like artistic Greek statues.

those exceptions are not exceptions anymore...

"The errors of youth cannot be helped. The good or evil of a person comes out in old age."

16/04/73, Tokyo
[at the gathering at the anniversary of Kawabata death Mr. Serisawa shared that] Mr. Kawabata told him how out of place he felt among the Western writers, for it is their practice, he said, but not that of Orientals, to write of human beings. But is not Komako (in Snow Country) a human being, asked Mr. Serisawa. No, said Mr. Kawabata. An obake - a wraith - nothing more.

shows how little we understand him... well, me at least...

( по-русски )

A bad man dies during sex, a good man dies while flossing his teeth, and both - contrary to the popular belief - end up in the same place.

I opened the envelope, and immediately was the captive of the dead face. The pictures were a success. They were of a man asleep, and at the same time they had the quiet of death about them.

"The Master of Go" by Yasunari Kawabata (tr. by Seidensticker)


The face was calm, there seemed no discoloration. I would be tempted to say that he looked as if he were asleep but for the fact that I never saw him asleep, and the fact that the absence of those extraordinary eyes made the face very different from the one I had known.

18/04/72, Tokyo [about the previous Sunday, 16/04 - day of Kawabata’s death]
"Genji Days" by Edward G. Seidensticker

Watched again.
I keep getting impression that the director is himself ironic about the plot being overemotional in somewhat Latin American style and the flamenco guitar songs were added to amplify that irony...
Saying that, it’s an absolutely wonderful (while not widely known) movie with the best performance from Hideko Takamine and the alway good one from Tatsuya Nakadai.

PS And just a note, to show that we are watching:) in the final scene Nakadai’s character starts running with a cane but is shown running with crutches in the next shot.

удивительно не то, как главная половина вопит "распять!", "сгноить в тюрьме!" и т.д., а то, что неглавная половина всерьёз бубнит про самовыражение, искусство и свободу
кто не с нами, тот против нас going both ways

7/12/1971, Ann Arbor

I am right, am I not, in thinking that Pearl Harbour was just thirty years ago today? Not a word has been said about the anniversary. And of course the day of the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima is never forgotten. Perhaps I am out of step, wrong in thinking the earlier of the two days the more important.

27/3/1971, Ann Arbor

I spent an hour or so trying to decipher the most recent letter, enchantingly illegible, I have had from Mr. Kawabata. Concluding that he was expressing pleasure at my willingness to translate Meijin, I answered accordingly.

31/10/1970, Ann Arbor
Young man wearing the ugly emblem which to me looks like a bomber but which is supposed to signify peace came with a big bag in his hand and said: “Peanuts for peace?” “I am a warmonger,” I replied. I almost thought he was going to hit me, such a peace loving hatred as did shine in his eyes. So I enjoyed the market after all.

1. Naked Island/Hadaka no shima® (Shindô, jp, 1960) 5
2. Actor's Revenge, An/Yukinojo henge® (Ichikawa, jp, 1963, Ayako Wakao) 4.5
3. Saigo Kara Nibanme no Koi/Second to Last Love (jp tv, jp, 2012) 4.5
4. Seisaku no tsuma/Seisaku's Wife® (Masumura, jp, 1965, Ayako Wakao) 4.5
5. Late Autumn/Akibiyori® (Ozu, jp, 1960) 4.5
6. Fusa® (Ichikawa, jp, 1993) 4
7. Shokuzai (jp tv, jp, 2012) 4
8. Hankyu Railways: A 15-minute Miracle/Hankyu Densha® (Miyake, jp, 2011) 4
9. Uwasa no Onna/The Woman in the Rumour® (Mizoguchi, jp, 1954) 4
10. Bam gua nat/Night and Day (Hong, kr, 2008) 3.5
11. Haebyonui yoin/Woman on the Beach (Hong, kr, 2006) 3.5
12. Geuk jang jeon/Tale of Cinema (Hong, kr, 2005) 3.5
13. Les bien-aimés/Beloved (Honoré, fr, 2011) 3.5
14. Yeah, yeah (Dylan Moran, Live in London) (Moran, 2011) 3.5
15. Children of the Tsunami (bbc, 2011, documentary) 3
16. Koto/Ancient City (Ichikawa, jp, 1980, hardly translated) 3
17. Inugami-ke no ichizoku/The Inugamis (Ichikawa, jp, 2006) 3
18. Strawberry Night SP (jp tv, jp, 2010) 3
19. Ame Agaru/After the Rain (Koizumi, jp, 1999) 3
20. Space Battleship Yamato® (Yamazaki, jp, 2010) 3
21. Yeojaneun namjaui miraeda/Woman Is the Future of Man (Hong, kr, 2004) 2.5
22. IRIS (kr tv, kr, 2009) 2.5
®=repeat

dropped: ( Read more... )

Hitsudan (conversing with the brush) refers to the practice common when Chinese, Japanese or Korean can read but not speak one another's language, of writing Chinese characters, which are intelligible to scholars of all three countries.

"Modern Japanese Diaries" by Donald Keene

новый год принёс замечательную ТВ-драму "Saigo Kara Nibanme no Koi/Предпоследняя любовь(?)" - явно для аудитории 40+ :)
сегодня вышла последняя серия, так что на следующей неделе должны появиться английские субтитры (G-d bless Heiwa Fansubs!)
лучшее, что было в этом году so far, а, может, и вообще
жмоты из fuji tv не разрешают крутить их ютьюбовские ролики вне Японии, так что только это:


надо сказать, что в этих полуврачебных нарядах герои на экране не появляются

прекрасная Koizumi Kyoko (гл. роль) в январе еще снялась в зловещем пятисерийном триллере "Shokuzai/Искупление" режиссера Kurosawa Kiyoshi (нам он незнаком, но, в определенных кругах, популярен)

оба сериала - highly recommended

new Takashi Miike movie, now a musical
I'm not a fan of vintage Miike but after "13 Assassins" it should become different

не шедевр, но приятно - в русле "Les chansons d'amour"
еще, я обожаю Киару
в Сиднее - to whom it may - будеt еще один сеанс вечером в воскресенье в Chauvel

PS обнаружилось, что если днём посмотреть корейский фильм длиной в два часа с хвостиком, а вечером пойти в кино на французский (2 часа 40 минут), то на японскую дораму не останется ни минутки

Donald Keene (89) получил наконец японское гражданство



( Read more... )

впрочем, фильмы по книгам Дазая ("Viyon no tsuma/Villon's Wife" и "Ningen shikkaku/The Fallen Angel") произвели на меня большее впечатление
"Жену Вийона" мы еще почитаем

PS :)

1. Maboroshi no hikari/Illusion® (Koreeda, jp, 1995) 4.5
2. Eureca® (Aoyama, jp, 2000) 4
3. Gururi no koto/All Around Us (Hashiguchi, jp, 2008) 4
4. Distance® (Koreeda, jp, 2001) 4
5. 13 Assassins/Jûsan-nin no shikaku® (Miike, jp, 2010) 4
6. Tange Sazen yowa: Hyakuman ryo no tsubo/Sazen Tange and the Pot Worth a Million Ryo (Yamanaka, jp, 1935) 4
7. Book chon bang hyang/The Day He Arrives (Hong, kr, 2011) 3.5
8. Hahaha (Hong, kr, 2010) 3.5
9. Jal aljido mothamyeonseo/Like You Know It All (Hong, kr, 2009) 3.5
10. Boku to Star no 99 Nichi (jp tv, jp, 2011) 3.5
11. Ok-hui-ui yeonghwa/Oki's Movie (Hong, kr, 2010) 3
12. Kaseifu no Mita (jp tv, jp, 2011) 3
13. Hana yori mo naho/Hana (Koreeda, jp, 2006) 3
14. Toute une vie/And Now My Love (Lelouch, fr, 1974) 3
15. Fisshu sutôrî /Fish Story (Nakamura, jp, 2009) 3
16. After The Thin Man (Van Dyke, 1936) 3
17. Catchfire aka Backtrack (Hopper, 1990) 2.5
18. Mahiru no hoshizora/Starlit High Noon (Nakagawa, jp, 2005, Suzuki Kyoka) 2.5
19. Chîmu bachisuta no eikô/The Glory of Team Batista (Nakamura, jp, 2008) 2.5
20. Ahiru to kamo no koinrokkâ/The Foreign Duck, the Native Duck and God (Nakamura, jp, 2007) 2.5
21. Kon'yaku samba-garasu/The Trio's Engagements (Shimazu, jp, 1937) 2.5
22. Gincho nagaremono mesuneko bakuchi/Wandering Ginza Butterfly 2 (Yamaguchi, jp, 1972) 2.5
®=repeat

dropped: ( Read more... )

“We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.”

with a nice coquettish "her"

это вот такие любят обзывать консерваторов фашистами и гордятся широтой своего кругозора

просто прекрасно
вначале напомнило песню из "Wandering Ginza Butterfly", а потом дошло, что сама эта песня вплетена в сюжет одного из лучших фильмов на свете "Aruitemo aruitemo/Still Walking"

вот эта жилетная пикейность по-поводу желания давным-давно покинувших навсегда проголосовать за правильную для России власть - раздражает буквально по-советски

мы жили Израиле, когда вышел "The Bodyguard" и на улицах висели афиши "שומר הראש"
я еще подумал, как здорово, что русские и американцы охраняют тело, а евреи - голову

Japanese is even more beautiful when spoken by a Korean woman
alright, not just any Korean woman

( Boku to Star no 99 Nichi )

японский еще прекрасней в устах кореянки. но не всякой.