Matsuri madness

Summer is the season of festivals in Japan. Wherever you turn there is some wonderfully colourful celebration going on, it gets to the stage that - no matter where you go - you bump into a group of insanely cheerful people carrying a Mikoshi (portable shrine). Such was the case this afternoon when I returned to Ebina to find not one, but five Mikoshis lined up and ready to start their parade down the main street.





The best thing about the whole affair was the the little munchkins seated on their father's or grandfather's shoulders beating out the rythm for the chanting which is integral to keeping up the morale of the people carrying the extremely heavy Mikoshis.

Film: Mysterious Skin

Certain films stay with you - their impact only felt once you leave the cozy confines of the cinema itself. I found this to be the case with Greg Araki's new film Mysterious Skin, which I went see at the Tokyo International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival today with a couple of friends.

This, however, is probably quite an appropriate response considering that one of the major themes of the movie is the role memory plays in shaping our lives.

The film itself is a tragic, but strangely moving story, about how child abuse affects the lives of two young boys and how their subsequent lives take very different paths. As the story unfolds the director attempts to analysis the ways in which the two boys have attempted to deal with the memories of their formative years and ultimately how they reconcile those memories in an attempt to make sense of who they are now and their place in the world.

The disturbing events themselves are presented with a certain level of detachment, which makes them all the more disturbing because they feel all too real.

For this reason the film has been subject to a considerable amount of controversy, which is a shame (but hardly surprising) because it is a compelling film - infused with a tenderness and beauty - that has a great deal to say about a dark subject matter.