Two remarkable classical Japanese film scripts in English

Reviewed by Ranga CHANDRARATHNE

The translation of two classical Japanese film scripts by Kinugasa Teinosuke, for the first time into English from Japanese, by Prof. Ariya Rajakaruna will fulfil a knowledge gap in the study of Japanese films in English.

A Crazy Page (Kurutta Ippeiji, 1926) and Crossroads (Jujiro, 1828) mark an important millstone in the evolution of modern Japanese film. Although much has been written about the films and of the filmmaker, until Prof. Rajakaruna translated them from Japanese into English, the original film scripts were not available in languages other than Japanese.

A crazy Page and Crossroads Author: Prof. D.A.Rajakaruna

Kinugasa Teinosuke (1896-1982), a contemporary of Mizoguchi Kenji, Ozu Yasujiro and Kurosawa Akira, is one of the important filmmakers in Japanese cinema. He is considered as a pioneer of Modernism in Japanese cinema.

The formation of the New Sensationalist Motion Picture League by Kinugasa and others of the New Sensationalists group (Shin –Kankaku-ha) marked an important development of the evolution of Modernism in Japanese cinema.

It was the New Sensationalists Motion Picture League which produced series of films in the new mould including A Crazy Page which was also known as A page Out of Order; A Page Out of Place or A Page of Madness. Although Kinugasa himself said that the idea for the film was conceived following his visit to Matsuzawa Mental Hospital at Setagaya in Tokyo, similarities were found between A Crazy Page and the German Expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Remarkably both films were based on incidents taking place in a mental hospital. However, it was said when A Crazy Page was made in Japan, The Cabinet of Dr Calligari has not been shown in Japan.

The story of the film revolves around the life of an old man who serves as an attendant in the mental hospital. In his youth, the old man used to work as a sailor and goes abroad in search of a better life deserting his wife and daughter. After longs years in abroad when the sailor returns to his motherland, he finds that his wife is warded in a mental hospital. He joins the hospital staff as an attendant both due to his guilty conscious and as he wanted to be near her. The wife is unable to recognise either the husband or the daughter who is engaged to a youth and anxious over her marriage due to her mother being warded in the mental hospital. The attendant tries to take the wife away from the hospital to help daughter’s marriage. The story takes a meandering course through disturbed minds of the attendant who is subjected to hallucinations.

In a review of A Crazy Page by then undergraduate of Tokyo Imperial University, Iwasaki Akira recognised the importance of the film to Japanese cinema as a major production of the day. He wrote “I declare with conviction that this is the first true film made in Japan. Besides this is the first ‘Universal film’ made in Japan.” Iwasaki made the remark considering the marked departure of the film from the traditional Samurai films of Japan. About the novel approach to cinema, Iwasaki states; “Directors like Kinugasa who can make use of the cinema freely, independently and effectively are not common in Japan. They are rare even in other countries. Sugiyama Kohei the photographer who operated the camera skilfully also deserves high praise. The camera becomes almost an organism which grasps the object naturally and perfectly. The operation is not simply a mechanical one. Hence they succeed in producing an original work.”

Kinugasa’s next film Crossroads (Jujiro) is considered to be the second Japanese avant-garde silent film. It was produced in 1928. Kobayashi Masaru, a young film critic stated “After the First World War a large number of Expressionists films were made in Germany. The Cabinet of Dr Caligari was one of them. It was also shown in Japan. German Expressionism had an impact not only on Japanese cinema but also on Japanese theatre as well. A Crazy Page and Crossroads may be considered as the first and the second Expressionist films made in this country. The scenario of the latter was an original work of the director.

Expressionist films usually have a grotesque atmosphere leaving behind queer impressions in the minds of the audience. A Crazy Page like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari , expresses weird ideas arousing eerie feelings. On the other hand, Crossroads was quite different. One wonders whether its scenarios were based on Expressionist principles”

The story is woven around an elder sister and her younger brother who live alone in a flat. The story takes place in three areas; on the archery ground, in the flat and on the road leading to the crossroads. Apart from the eerie scenes, the film depicts the psychological states of the characters. In addition to translating the scripts, Prof. Rajakaruna has translated the unabridged original Japanese texts into Roman alphabet. The book fulfils a long felt need for authorised English translations original Japanese film scripts which will be extremely beneficial for scholars and would literary feast to readers.

A deceptively simple and readable novel

Review by Prof. Kamani JAYASEKARA

The 'Birds' of Aristophanes is an Old Greek comedy which presents an interesting situation. The main character seeks to escape from the hazards of the personal, social and political situation that he is experiencing by escaping to the land of the birds in the sky. The democracy that has transcended its boundaries in to imperialism and the unpleasant war faced by Athens as a consequence is enough in itself for any sensitive person to indulge in wishful thinking. i.e. - ‘if I could be free from all this and become a bird?’ The Athenian whose dream does come true escapes and finds his freedom. But what finally proves is that what he could not be free of is his own character. He escapes his duties and obligations. But could he escape the traits of his own character? Hence he manages to create chaos and cultivate unrest and unhappiness in the domain of the birds as well.

Samaropanaya Author: Prof. Chandrasiri Paliyaguru

In reading 'Samaropanaya' I was strongly reminded of the above play, however remotely it may be connected with 'The Birds'. The main character is a victim of the tsunami that devastated the shores of Sri Lanka in the year 2004. He is also fortunate enough to escape with little injury. Being unconscious for a short period, he decides to pretend that he had lost his memory through the experience. The reactions and consequences lead him on to prolong the pretext. He had in the outset, been fed up with the rat race of life. Not only the social and the economical but also family wise as well. Tied down by duties and responsibilities he sees the opportunity as an escape route.

He is a successful businessman with a beautiful devoted but busy wife and two teenage children. A girl and a boy. He is educated but he had come into money as well as the business world and comfortable life through his wife. But while he enjoyed what life had offered him he is fed up with the monotony of it. His business is looked after by an efficient board of directors, the domestic front by his wife and servants. As often in such situations he finds a distraction in the form of a mistress. One may also describe this as a mid life crisis. After the ‘illness’ he is confined to his home, therefore, he lives with the mistress on every occasion he could, in his mind. The ‘pretext’ of losing his memory enables him to enjoy his flights of fantasy while enhancing him with the opportunity of saying and doing what he likes. - to the extent of leaving home on his free will and living a few days in the adulterous relation with his mistress, and returning.

The consequences that he finally has to face is that he is compelled to return all his shares in the company, divorce his wife and leave his home and children. The character is not completely a negative defeatist. For he does foster hope of a new life, when he leaves home. A fresh tomorrow.

When one examines the novel with the cultural social and moral context in mind we are tempted to ask a question. The question is what if all men and women plunge in to these voyages of freedom? Begin to shake off all shackles of family and society? In the portrayal of this character the main characteristic that we could observe is the extreme ego centric selfishness. The character does not for a moment consider the impact his actions may have on his dearest and the nearest. The escapism, along with ready opportunities may come to any person in society, irrespective of whether it is a woman or a man. And it is not because one does not have an opportunity, nor the temptation that one may not take action. It is careful consideration and the mindfulness of the suffering one may cast on the innocent or the not so innocent at that. For all are humans. But weaknesses of others is not an excuse for some other to jeopardize all.

In this particular incident the legal wife realizes that she is deprived of a healthy sexual relationship because of another woman in her husband’s life. But she is ready to forget and forgive. However, the ‘play’ that the husband had staged for his benefit turns the tables on him. According to him, he had passed wind as a jest, but at the end he had ended up in his own excrement.

The writer does not condemn the character. But he makes him dream again with the above realization in mind. Professor Palliyaguru leaves his readers to surmise what might be instore for him in future. And the probability is, getting back to The Birds of Aristophanes, that he might make a mess of it as well. As for example how could his mistress believe that he might not do the same to her, as he did to his wife and children, when the monotony starts setting in? And how could he have faith in a woman who could have an adulterous relationship with a man who was married and had kids of his own? Another characteristic that one could observe in him is that he is not ready to earn for a living. But at the same time he is used to living a life of luxury and the freedom that goes with it. To him it seems that life is only taking, with the minimum of giving on his part.

The problem that the writer has tackled is quite apt in the modern day of life. At the same time one is tempted to view the situation from a psychological stand point. An average person may not have the leisure to indulge in flights of fantasy. But something that one may face, irrespective of economic, social or gender position are the illicit affairs. And it is in the hands of thinking men to decide if he or she is to mess it all up or not. Not only for himself but for others as well.

The style of presentation is smooth and simple - deceptively simple and very readable. However, one may wonder if the ‘impersonation ‘as suggested in the title of the novel could be applied to the deception carried out by the main character. At no time are the characters meanly sketches. The characters are full of flesh and blood, living and breathy in the 21st century. The novel excels in itself in the sense that it is thought provoking without being propaganda, be it cultural or otherwise.

Poetry felt in the blood and heart

Reviewed by Dr. Lakshmi de Silva

It is the urgency of experience, the felt need to express a surge of reaction to the Divine as well as the diurnal that gives distinction and emotive force to Lynn Ockersz’s poetry. The lines spring not as varta-kavi that record a moment of whimsy or pathos, nor from cerebral choice, but anvilled in the heat and stress of strenuous active engagement in confronting his inner self or contemporary society.

Harry Potter mesmeric lore thrown into

The Peace Thou Gives Author: Lynn Ockersz

War casualty tolls and cricket scores

Political gossip and superstar shows

The Poor Man’s Cocktail

The peace of the graveyard grates on the ear

It is not the Peace of Love Thou holds so dear

But an eerie stillness born of fear

Welling in hearts by worldly

Might brought to heel

As the Gun-Smoke Settles

The poet’s ear that makes a line echo and hold, not pass through a reader’s mind, an awareness of the way language works is evident: to that extent, Ockersz’s response to more than four years of being immersed in literature and familiarising himself both as a student and Visiting Lecturer with the work of Donne, Herbert and Eliot shows. It accounts for a seasoned scholar’s delight in the first manifestation of Ockersz’s abilities.

“Lyn Ockersz’s Christian religious poetry in Flame and Sparks (2003) represents a new element in Sri Lankan poetry in English ... Ockersz’s poetry is fresh, strong and convincing and is also free of echoes of well-known Western religious poets”.

D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke in Sri Lankan English Literature and the Sri Lankan People 1917-2003 also identifies the distinctive quality of Ockersz’s early poetry succinctly.

“Its essence is controlled thought, an epigrammatic balancing of ideas”.

It was this fusion of intense feeling and equable views that gave both force and poise to the poems in Flame and Sparks but a new note has developed in his new collection ‘The Peace Thou Gives’ - more confident and consequently, occasionally less solemn, capable of using a lighter tone to accommodate the sardonic and satirical vein. Where the poem centres on religion, however the fervour is undiminished. One may not be able to accept Ockersz’s tenets but the deep sincerity manifestly ‘felt in the blood and felt along the heart’ to quote Wordsworth’s irreplaceable line cannot but make the reader share his feelings at the moment of reading, as is the case with Maker and the Mould and ‘The Peace Thou Gives’.

Flame and Sparks voiced an impressive commitment to social justice; the preface to ‘The Peace Thou Gives’ states “I hope I have succeeded ... in giving to my poems a substantial local socio-political dimension and topicality”.

Far from being ‘an artificial implant’, the element which another critic perceptively identified as ‘social responsibility’ impels Ockersz to express himself in poetry as well as the religious impulse to glorify his God. In the poet’s vision the two are inseparable. The true measure of Ockersz’s achievement lies in his ability to convey his sense of the operation of the Divine Will to readers whose understanding of Christianity is derived solely from English literature, through the medium of language and rhythm. Yeats wrote of “the craft of verse” and even if Ockersz had not significantly used the word “crafted” in his preface, it is apparent that he is not of the hit-or-miss school of poetasters. Clarity of imagery, firmness of structure emphasised by an unforced and unobtrusive use of rhyme and an awareness that “the ear is the true reader” gives many of his poems the power of lodging in the memory, for instance

The Miscarriage

The world comes crashing down on the powerless

Because some trembling hands cannot weigh evenly And obey the Call of Conscience coming from Eternity

But would prefer to heed

Hades cold prompting

And choose safety of self,

Position and pelf ...

Ghost Writer too has its appeal, as Ockersz deftly playing on a term older than Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost unhesitatingly and unerringly places a small plain word that is full of meaning at a prominent point

Am I not like Moses who felt

Small before Thy Writ

But Thou his spirit did lift

I too look to Thee O giver of grit.

Embellished as it is with miniature pictures not always entirely in keeping with the starkness of some of the poems, but charming in themselves, the slim book is likely to prove a popular Christmas gift to favoured friends because of its furtherance of their faith. For those who may echo Yeats

“Homer is my example and his unchristened heart” it may promote discussion of societal dysfunction or the dynamics of poetry.

BOOK LAUNCH

Sathyam Sivam Sundaram

Deepachandi Abeysinghe’s 'Sathyam Sivam Sundaram' will be launched at the Town Hall auditorium Kuliyapitiya on November 4 at 2.30 pm.

The book is a Samudra publication.

Sinhala Hodiya Denagan Indura

Prof. Bandusena Gunasekara’s latest book “Sinhala Hodiya Denagan Indura” will be launched at Dayawansa Jayakody Bookshop, Ven S. Mahinda Mawatha, Colombo 10 on November 2 at 10 a.m.

Prof. Gunasekara is the author of several other books such as ‘Suvanda Patha Nala - Veera Dutugemunu’ “Vimukthi Sangramaye Niyamuva - Senadhipathi Nandimithra” ‘Veera Gajabahu’, ‘Subahu hevath Mahaneela’, ‘Gajaba Puvatha’ and ‘Kavanthissa Rajathuma’. “Sinhala Hodiya Denagan Indura” is a Dayawansa Jayakody publication.

NEW ARRIVALS

Thibbatha Diyaniya

Anula de Silva’s ‘Thibbatha Diyaniya’ is the authentic Sinhala translation of Sonami Tancheng and Vickie Mackensi’s “The story of Soname’s flight to freedom entitled Child of Tibet”.

The book is published by Sooriya Publishers, Colombo 10.

Leda Suvakarana Reiki

Wijayasena Gangodage’s ‘Leda Suvakarana ‘Reiki’ introduces a new healing method which was practised in India and Tibet for a long time. Reiki has a strong emphasis on meditation.

The author has undergone extensive training under Dr. Ranga Premaratne who is a well-known Reiki Master. The book explains what Reiki is and gives its history.

The healing method using universal energy was first used by the Chinese. It was called ‘Chi’. Later it spread to Japan under the tittle ‘Ki’. The same method is used in India as ‘Prana’. The current term ‘Reiki’ had its origin in Japan.

‘Leda Suvakarana Reiki’ is a Shikshamandira Publication. RS.

Mage Kathava Bill Clinton

Saman Pushpa Gunasekara’s ‘Mage Kathava Bill Clinton’ is the authentic Sinhala translation of ‘My Life Bill Clinton’. The book gives a graphic account of President Bill Clinton of the United States.

His autobiography gives inspiration to politicians, students of political science and the general reader.

‘Mage Kathava Bill Clinton’ is a Sarasavi publication.