SION SONO, crazily prolific film director of ultraviolence (and other things)

If you like his oeuvre or are curious about it, these guys are doing a retro essay fest:

http://inreviewonline.com/2016/08/02/sion-sono-retro/

Kind of sad that his Lords of Chaos movie fell through.

Suicide Club is my fav of what I've seen (Noriko's Dinner Table also really good) could not fully get into Why Don't You Play In Hell? or Tokyo Tribe.

i've seen nothing but Himizu, which i liked

I've seen Land of Freedom, Why Don't You Play In Hell and Tokyo Tribe. I really want to watch more, especially Love Exposure and Himizu. I love the focus on Sono right now, when Japanese films from the 90's indie heroes like Hirokazu Koreeda, Kiyoshi Korusawa and Naomi Kawase has become kinda safe and bland (though I like some of them anyway). I don't know if Japanese cinema needs a shakeup, or if it's more like the western conception of it that needs to move on, but it's so dull to see the same names on the festival circuit year in and year out.

LOL 'safe' and 'bland'.

There are (and always have been) a few sides to Japanese cinema (apart from animation which I will not engage with).

What do you call films like Our Little Sister and Still the Water?

Not seen the latter but I wouldn't say Our Little Sister was bland. Its not the very best Koreeda but I wouldn't say its indicative of this trend of 'family dramas' being so dominant. It might be excluding other things distribution-wise but reports from festivals tell me there are other things being made in Japan.

You do realize that 'safe and bland' was only used to describe the films of a few particular directors, right? I'm well aware that a lot of other stuff is happening, it's why I complain about the bland stuff getting too much attention in the west.

You do realize I am disagreeing that most of the films getting through right now are bland, right?

How can you 'disagree' with something nobody has said?

I love the focus on Sono right now, when Japanese films from the 90's indie heroes like Hirokazu Koreeda, Kiyoshi Korusawa and Naomi Kawase has become kinda safe and bland

Exactly. You do get that those are names of directors? Do you think it's production companies, or genres, or something?

I mean, I misspelled Kurosawa, but I'd've thought it was intelligible.

You've named them as examples of filmmakers from Japan that have released things lately that are safe and bland, that they dominate the national cinema to the extent it needs shaking. You say Sono is the edgy counter to that.

I say they are no such thing in the first place.

Can someone else translate? Be nice if someone could close this loop.

You could perhaps just admit that you read me wrong, and shouldn't have been so dismissive, and let it be. Whatever.

That's how I'm reading you. Can we discuss how I'm right?

Yeah, you're clearly reading me right.

What I said: "I don't know if Japanese cinema needs a shakeup"

What you say I said: "they dominate the national cinema to the extent it needs shaking"

From your statements about the latest batch of films and how Sono stands apart from that it looked like a fair re-wording.

Bet Morbs thought this thread would never exceed 20 posts but we are nothing but content-producers, making dreams happen.

Well, fuck it. One asshole shouldn't derail this thread even further.

I'm thinking quite a bit on Japanese cinema at the moment, because Our Little Sister just premiered in Denmark, so I reviewed it, and did a bit of writing on earlier films by Koreeda. Also some reading on the wave of directors that broke through in the late nineties, apart from the people I've mentioned also Shinji Aoyama, who wrote the quite interesting 'Nouvelle Vague Manifesto' and directed Eureka, but hasn't been as visible lately as the other ones. The films from the late 90's/early 00's such as Suzaku, Shara, After Life, Distance, Eureka are a lot alike in their depictions of trauma, and the feel for young characters on the odds with society. I mean, it does kinda feel like 'wave'. But the wave crested, I'd claim Koreeda became safe already with Nobody Knows back in 2004. And whatever came after hasn't been breaking through in the west, at least. I'm sure there's a lot of interesting things happening, for instance Sion Sono, or the best Japanese film I've seen in ages, SABU's Chasuke's Journey. I'm struggling to get any grasp over what's happening, though, because so little comes to Denmark, so little is even written about in Danish, that isn't by the big 90's directors.

But the wave crested, I'd claim Koreeda became safe already with Nobody Knows back in 2004.

Happy to be the arsehole as this is a deeply wrong claim to make - what is 'safe' about that film, which depicts child abandonment? Koreeda's films are deceptive shades of light these days. Maybe there is something settled but I don't think he is complacent, I'm finding him at some kind of refinement stage.

I liked Love Exposure and the one about making a movie. Mostly Love Exposure. Stop fighting.

Nobody Knows is a sanitized version of the true story which leaves out a brutal murder, it's aesthetically safe, with an overbearing and manipulative soundtrack, and it subtly changes Koreedas usual theme from being an attack on societal norms to being an attack on an individual (the mother) falling to live up to those norms.

Compare it to his three first features and I'd say it's pretty clear something is missing.

I've only seen a few Sono movies. Love Exposure is the one that's stuck with me. Five in 2015 is crazy - how good could they possibly be at that rate?

http://67.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9crj9y6f11qmemvwo1_500.jpg

ok, but even as a mis-reading of the true story (as if something like this should be wholly and accurately depicted anyway) it wasn't exactly safe as a subject matter in the first place, which is why I thought it was a weird word to attach to this.

Koreeda has rarely done a naked attack on societal norms - or he does it via the family as being a slow suffocating enabler to quiet brutality but he never quite gets to state it as that. xxp

Happy to be the arsehole as this is a deeply wrong claim to make - what is 'safe' about that film, which depicts child abandonment? Koreeda's films are deceptive shades of light these days. Maybe there is something settled but I don't think he is complacent, I'm finding him at some kind of refinement stage.

Yeah. I saw Still Waiting again the other day and admired how the parts came together. Maybe that's bland filmmaking idk

er Still Walking

I've seen 9 or 10 of his films and I recently got Love And Peace on disc. Love Exposure is the only thing I loved (and I REALLY LOVED it) but Cold Fish and Exte are quite fun. Guilty Of Romance is quite lovely looking.

I generally hear that the Japanese film industry is in dire shape right now.

Nothing bland about Still Walking. It's about a domestic setting, of course, but there are some brutal scenes in that movie.

I like Still Walking, quite a lot. I even kinda like Air Doll. But I don't think they live up to the promise of his earlier works.

it's called Nobody Knows because the film is an indictment of society. the mother stops being a factor pretty early on.

anyway if I could start with ONE movie by SS which one should it be?

Love Exposure by miles. Don't be daunted by the length it moves along so well. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Have only seen Cold Fish, which was good but much too long, and Tokyo Tribe, which I found insufferable and gave up on after about twenty minutes - total cultural disconnect.

geez, my starting w/ Love Exposure was a disaster...

I really found that to be pretty ignorable, tho it wasn't helped by literally everyone else I know freaking out about it.

I didn't like Tokyo Tribe at all. The rapping just wasn't good enough and the music rarely carried it. Were any of them actual rappers? Doesn't seem like it. It would have been better if the rapping was really good but the acting was a bit rough. Perhaps real rappers would insist on their own lyrics and there'd be too many writing credits? I dunno.

I like the bad guy in Cold Fish, how his confidence and initial appearance of generosity leave the father totally emasculated. I like the fish stores. I might have gotten into it without all the dwelling on gore, which is pretty uninteresting to me.

I kinda liked Tokyo Tribe :) Not as much as Why Don't You Play in Hell, but I thought it was funny, and the sets were spectacular. But the rapping and the music wasn't that good, no.

Some of the sets were good. If I like Love And Peace I'll probably get an American copy of Why Don't You Play in Hell, for some reason that skipped region 2 but was released lots of other places.

Nice to see some Sono talk... favourite of his recent-ish prolific overload was The Whispering Star which is fantastic but much more austere than usual, came across as kind of Ozu through a Tarkovsky/Strugatsky brothers filter.

He hates Ozu

Or at least isn't a fan but despises his influence.

Sono's pretty funny. He says in a Q&A that his plan for Lords of Chaos was to do it like 90210, and that audiences should engage with Love Exposure like pro wrestling.

Love And Peace is like a kids film, it's so cutesy I was welling up a couple of times. The sewer hobo with the discarded animals and toys reminds me of Babe: Pig In The City. It's pretty good but I think there could have been a tighter cut.

I adored Love Exposure when I saw it a few years ago, would be interesting to see if it holds up

I watched some of it last night (no way I can get through this film in one sitting). I love it but I think I love the first half more, with the multiple converging intro chapters, complex cross-cutting, and endless Bolero. It becomes simpler and more linear in the second half, although I wouldn't necessarily change anything.

Looked through the available trailers of the ones I haven't seen. Shinjuku Swan, Tag and Virgin Psychics look like far more commercial films but Whispering Star looks more "indie" than anything he's done in a while. Anti-Porno will probably be similar.

Had no idea he married Megumi Kagurazaka.

Eureka is releasing Tag. I think I'll give this one a miss. Don't understand the fascination for highschool.

Every now and then I remember the lyrics in Love & Peace about Tokyo Olympics. Not sure if it was supposed to be funny but I thought the way he sings it is pretty funny.

Tag is really good, though. And not actually a high school movie at all.

Just finished watching all five of the 2015 Sonos. They run the gamut, from the almost great Tag to the unbearable Love and Peace. To celebrate my accomplishment, I think I’ll drop my Sono top ten here:

1 Love Exposure
2 Strange Circus
3 Himizu
4 Guilty of Romance
5 Tag
6 Tokyo Tribe
7 Into a Dream
8 Hazard
9 Suicide Club
10 The Whispering Star

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-xLV7NlHN8
Not sure what's going on with this, both an amazon tv series (japan only?) and a movie

Okay, the tv series was cut into a movie version for festivals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT7DeuUvAxc

Haven't seen any of his stuff since Love & Peace

been stoked for this one for ages :D

the Cage Trilogy concludes

I didn't know about it until a few days ago

the last Sono film, The Forest Of Love iirc, was great btw

That was a tv show that got edited into a movie too? I just seen a trailer with a really silly english dub, I had no idea people still did dubs of this kind of film

oh i didn’t know there was an ilx sono thread

i owned a copy of suicide club in hs and it was def the most fucked up movie i owned

i loved antiporno and need to see everything else he’s done

Cold Fish is more fucked up than Suicide Club but he's made so many I haven't seen.

since it's one of the best movies ever, noriko's dinner table is def my top pick. so funny and sad and raw and intense.

It's funny because back then I thought that hired family stuff was just Sono's brilliant dystopian vision but it's real

well, kinda:
https://newrepublic.com/article/160595/new-yorker-japan-rent-family-fabricated

So was the Herzog documentary bunk too?

haven't seen it so I have wondered about that. I would like to think that herzog's BS radar is pretty strong. wonder if he's ever commented on it?

seems safe to say that it isn't nearly as widespread a phenomenon as a lot of people in the US, etc. think tho.