Here's a thing I like but don't talk much about - Japanese films! I have a taste that makes me slightly more refined than an entry-level weeb, but not super refined. Films I've watched in the last two years and recommend (plus one I watched further back but is quite good): (1/n)
- Ran (Kurosawa, 1985). Grand cinematic vision of war destroying all that is good. Very Buddhist.
- Pom Poko (Takahata, 1994). Ghibli's most explicitly environmentalist film. Miyazaki tends to handle environmentalism in a Marxist way where he clearly appreciates the value of industrial progress, Takahata handles it in a way typical of himself.
- Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop (Ishiguro, 2021). It's very cute.
- Our Little Sister (Koreeda, 2015). Slice-of-life, but a tender drama. (2/n)
- Departures (Takita, 2008). Part of a genre of Japanese films that are about returning to the country, getting back to one's roots, and becoming more engaged in the basic facts of life.
- Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Schrader, 1985). Context: Yukio Mishima was a novelist who was entranced with the beauty of national tradition, the male physique, and death. (3/n, this dot point TBC)
This film combines a depiction of some of his novels with a quasi-biographic take on his life, focussing on the day he attempted to start a coup, failed, and killed himself. As well as doing AFAICT a good job at depicting Mishima's aesthetic vision, I think it also helps you see Japanese ultra-nationalist violence as part of a broader phenomenon that includes modern-day Islamic terrorism. (4/n)
OK it's actually also that I have context about Japan and its culture.
I think the thing I mainly like about Japanese literature and film is that it comes from a culture that has continually had to seriously reckon with the tension between preserving a national culture and achieving greatness/abundance/excellence by Westernizing, which tends to produce interesting stuff IMO.
Anyway as you can see I haven't actually watched all that much in the grand scheme of things so do let me know if you have recommendations. (5/5)