Page 30 - ARUBA TODAY

A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Thursday 2 March 2017
Japan actor in Scorsese’s ‘Silence’

drawn to recurring theme

YURI KAGEYAMA purposely to degrade and and lyrical.
Associated Press discredit them. Maggie Lee, film critic for
TOKYO (AP) — Violence pul- Mokichi, a forlorn and Variety, calls Tsukamoto
sates in Shinya Tsukamoto’s ragged figure of angel- “an eccentrically versatile
early films, driving stories ic purity, dies a grisly but and sometimes visionary
into nightmarish fantasies glorious martyr’s death — director, who expanded in-
like in the award-winning drowning on a cross as the ternational fandom for Jap-
1989 “Tetsuo,” which ridi- waves engulf his rail-thin anese horror before they’d
cules middle-class confor- body, again and again. even heard of Sion Sono,”
mity with a man-becomes- Some scenes of the crucifix- referring to the director of
machine metamorphosis. ion were shot on a beach, “Himizu” and “Cold Fish,”
In this Feb. 16, 2017 photo, Japanese film director Shinya His more recent works still but close-ups of the drown- who also has a reputation
Tsukamoto speaks during an interview in Tokyo. depict violence, though ing were shot in a pool with as subversive and fiercely
Associated Press the Japanese director says computer graphics for the independent.
the nature of the violence landscape, and it required Tsukamoto shot to star-
has changed — from whim- near-drowning exertion by dom with “Tetsuo,” which
sical “cyberpunk” horror to Tsukamoto. launched a prize-amass-
horrifying reality. That’s why He was impressed with the ing career in what he
he identified so closely with uncompromising scale and dubs “cult entertainment,”
Martin Scorsese’s gruel- artistic grandeur of Scors- meaning that he strives for
ing epic, “Silence,” which ese’s movie-making, but fun, along with the experi-
portrays the persecution also how positive Scorsese mental.
of Christians in samurai-era was toward his actors, be- Three years ago, he won
Japan. Tsukamoto plays ing open to their ideas — the lifetime achievement
Mokichi, a poor villager while demanding take af- award at the Festival du
and martyr. ter take. Nouveau Cinema at Mon-
“In any era, regular people “He would say, ‘Excellent,’ treal, which screened “Fires
are kept down with vio- get the actors motivat- on the Plain.” The work is
lence. There is such sadness ed, and shoot again and based on an anti-war novel
about why violence is per- again,” he said. by Shohei Ooka, and was
petually involved,” Tsuka- Fortunately, Tsukamoto was made into a film in 1959, by
moto said in an interview already in character for the Kon Ichikawa.
with The Associated Press role. He had just finished his Tsukamoto had been plan-
at a Tokyo hotel. “This same own 2014 movie, “Fires on ning to make the film for
theme came at the same the Plain,” a brutally solemn two decades but decided
time.” and grotesque tale about the time was now.
Tsukamoto, 57, is a prolific World War II, which he di- He fears Japan, peaceful
actor as well as director, rected and starred in as a after its defeat in World War
with a cameo as a scien- near-starving soldier. II, may be starting to forget
tist in the latest Japanese Throughout “Fires on the the lessons of its past. He
Godzilla film. He went to an Plain,” the soldiers are fight- was determined to make
audition for “Silence,” not ing nothing other than their the film, even if it meant
counting on landing a role own hunger. They fear he had to do it practically
but hoping to get close to each other as much as the alone, he said, setting up a
a director he has admired enemy. The film carried camera in the jungle and
since he was a teenager. stunning references to can- then acting in front of that
He has watched “Taxi Driv- nibalism, which some histo- camera.
er” dozens of times, and rians say really happened. Tsukamoto said the March
finds something new each That kind of no-holds- 11, 2011 earthquake, tsu-
time. barred storytelling is signa- nami and nuclear disas-
He was surprised and flat- ture Tsukamoto. ters in northeastern Japan
tered when Scorsese rec- Over the decades, his gave special meaning to
ognized him right away scenes have abounded “Kotoko,” as he witnessed
and told him he admired with squirming maggots, how many mothers worried
Tsukamoto’s films. In the metallic rock-inspired for the safety of their chil-
audition, a dialogue scene, banging, blood-sputtering dren.
Scorsese played the part of beatings, dizzyingly jagged “It is a world in which it has
the missionary to his Mo- camerawork and masoch- become so difficult to pro-
kichi. It was so natural, easy istic but titillating erotica.q tect those we love,” said
and perfect, Tsukamoto re- His Kafka-esque charac- Tsukamoto.
called happily. ters inhabit sterile concrete He has many ideas for
The film, which had an Os- apartments, lost in winding his next movie, maybe a
car nomination for the cin- alleys, escalators and stair- samurai film, a genre he
ematography by Rodrigo ways, all seemingly on the has never made, maybe
Prieto, is based on a novel verge of collapsing, like animation, or a film about
by Shusaku Endo, inspired a stage set, into another childhood.
by the true history of torture darker reality. And the lan- “Those who must go to war
used by the shogunate on guage of his films juxta- are the children. And we
European missionaries and poses the obsessive and fear for our children,” he
their Japanese followers, deranged with the childlike said.q