2. The trailer made me think back to the very different -- and much less positive -- way Japanese-Westerner relationships are represented in a french film made forty years ago, Domicile Conjugal (Bed and Board), the fourth in François Truffaut's Antoine Doinel series, released in 1970.
3. The film is up on YouTube in its entirety, so I watched it again. The relevant part of the plot begins at the end of the fifth slice, when Antoine (played by the beautiful, mime-like Jean-Pierre Léaud) is visited at his absurd job (directing model ships around a pond by remote control) by a rich Japanese family; a burly businessman and his wife and daughter (both dressed in kimonos). Antoine is given the job of accompanying Kyoko, the daughter, to the bathroom. They fall -- silently, like two mimes -- for each other, and Kyoko drops her bracelet into the pond deliberately, so that Antoine will have to return it in person.
4. Now, Domicile Conjugal is a great film -- I love Truffaut's lightness of touch, his combination of charm and realism -- but Kyoko is not a great character. As far as representations of Japanese women on the screen go, she actually makes Kissy Suzuki, the double agent in the 1967 Bond film You Only Live Twice, look well-rounded. Kyoko (played by the slightly-too-old Hiroko Berghauer, announced in the titles as "Mademoiselle Hiroko", and never seen on movie screens again) is, frankly, bizarre, a bore and a bitch; both stereotypical and weird, gracious and rude.
5. This is a romantic comedy, so stereotypes are forgivable, especially in the secondary characters. Kyoko draws on the 19th century imagery of Madame Butterfly, of course -- Antoine's wife Christine calls her that at one point, and even dresses up in a Butterfly-ish Japanese costume when she finds out about the affair. But could she also draw on the late-1960s stereotypology of Yoko Ono?
6. There are parallels. Released a year after The Beatles released their breakup single The Ballad of John and Yoko, Domicile Conjugal shows Kyoko breaking up Antoine and Christine. Christine finds out about the affair when some paper phrases -- half-Fluxus, half-Shinto -- pop out of a bouquet of flowers Kyoko has given Antoine. KYOKO LOVES ANTOINE, SHE IS CALLED KYOKO AND SHE LOVES YOU, COME WHEN YOU CAN BUT CAN SOON, SHE SAYS GOOD NIGHT AND THINKS OF ANTOINE, they say. Later, when Antoine's disinterest in Kyoko becomes too obvious, Kyoko also uses a note to tell Doinel to go fuck himself. It's written in Japanese on a piece of coloured paper, for all the world like a Yoko Ono instruction painting. ("Make three phonecalls to your wife. Return to your table. Examine my empty chair. Go fuck yourself.")
7. Kyoko is kooky, obsessional, determined, bitchy, rich, spoiled, aesthetic. She's living in France, but stays locked within her own culture, alternating kimonos with sexy black leather mini-skirts. She shares her apartment with Maki, a Japanese roommate Kyoko pretty much throws out onto the street when she wants to seduce Antoine over dinner. Sexually predatory, she lunges (amidst spooky pseudo-oriental music by Antoine Duhamel) to kiss Doinel when he delivers her lost bracelet.
8. Kyoko's Japanese lifestyle presents little interest or pleasure to Antoine. Although we see him lying in bed with Christine reading a tome entitled Japanese Women, Kyoko's apartment -- scattered with floor cushions, decorated with wind-chimes, ukiyo-e prints, a huge low-hanging paper lantern, and a groovy1970-style kotatsu table -- presents him only with discomfort (he keeps his shoes on and can't find a comfortable sitting position), and the Japanese food she serves seems to hold more horror than delight for him.
9. Kyoko soon begins to frighten Antoine with weird, fanatical utterances: "If I commit suicide with someone," she tells him, "I'd like it to be you" (this statement is followed by a dramatic chord on the soundtrack, part samurai movie, part horror film). When she isn't suggesting self-harm, Kyoko is boring Antoine to death by sitting silently, spinning meals out longer than he can bear, making him smile silently so long he gets lockjaw. Soon he escapes back to his wife.
10. Now, I very much doubt that My Darling is a Foreigner will trade in imagery anywhere near as negative and xenophobic as this. Imagine the Japanese film showing its American character as a kooky, unscrupulous fanatic, and the trans-cultural relationship as boring and doomed! From the trailer, it seems that the script of My Darling is a Foreigner concentrates, instead, on the happy couple's righteous struggle to overcome the prejudices of elderly family members.
11. My Darling is a Foreigner is clearly a nicer film, gentler in its treatment of its characters, and much more like the kind of scenario we'd all like to be living out in our cross-cultural relationships. I very much doubt, however, whether it's a better film; despite its unkindness to Kyoko and its very old-fashioned pessimism about cross-cultural relationships, Truffaut's film is artistically very strong indeed.
12. But Truffaut, with his portrayal of Kyoko, may have muddied his image in Japan. All the Japanese people I know love Godard; now I think about it, I've never heard one mention Truffaut. If they talk about Jean-Pierre Léaud, it's for his role in La Chinoise, or the darker, more complex, more obscure films of Jean Eustache.
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Anonymous
February 3 2010, 09:25:51 UTC 10 years ago
Anonymous
February 3 2010, 09:50:45 UTC 10 years ago
Anonymous
February 3 2010, 10:02:54 UTC 10 years ago
February 3 2010, 10:09:59 UTC 10 years ago
10 years ago
Anonymous
February 3 2010, 10:26:26 UTC 10 years ago
February 3 2010, 10:37:12 UTC 10 years ago
10 years ago
Anonymous
February 3 2010, 10:32:21 UTC 10 years ago
love & lingual kisses
Mitsuko Saito
February 3 2010, 10:43:35 UTC 10 years ago
February 3 2010, 10:52:27 UTC 10 years ago
February 3 2010, 11:06:53 UTC 10 years ago
Anonymous
10 years ago
Anonymous
February 3 2010, 11:08:12 UTC 10 years ago
Subtle and unsubtle prejudices exist in all cultures, and it might be hard to take the prejudice of a Japanese film with the title, "I Married a Foreigner!!!!!!!" seriously in some ways, because it's all very kawaii, etc., but speaking personally, I do at least find it annoying.
Having said that, the Western media still manages to get away with stereotypes of the Japanese that would be considered outrageous in relation to other races.
(PS. I'm not reacting purely to the title of the film. I've read some of the original comic strips that it's based on, and they revolved around cute petite Japanese girl whining that her boyfriend doesn't understand Japanese things, and that it's so hard when your daarin is a foreigner. Not exactly ultra right wing nationalism, but, still, irritating.)
Deleted comment
Re: Doubutsu?
February 3 2010, 12:24:53 UTC 10 years ago
Deleted comment
Re: Doubutsu?
10 years ago
February 3 2010, 13:14:33 UTC 10 years ago
1. "Fourcq" suggests "fork" (fourche, fourchette), which summons a whole imagery of red forked tongues and devil's forks. The book's colour scheme is also red and white. So Japanese women are being seen as evil temptresses.
2. "B du fourcq" could also read as "option B at the fork", or Plan B. The Japanese woman is an alternative route Antoine can take at this important fork in his life, and the plot.
Anonymous
February 3 2010, 14:03:29 UTC 10 years ago
http://www.amazon.fr/Elisabeth-B-Dufourcq-Femmes-japonaises/dp/B0014X466G/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265205448&sr=1-3
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89lisabeth_Dufourcq
10 years ago
Anonymous
10 years ago
Anonymous
February 3 2010, 13:18:28 UTC 10 years ago
February 3 2010, 13:29:38 UTC 10 years ago
Amis calls himself a feminist, by the way, and says Gloria Steinem converted him to the cause "in a single day":
"I've been a passionate feminist since the mid-80s," he says. "It was Gloria Steinem who converted me in a single day in New York. It's the rhetorical device she uses throughout, and it's very effective: she just reverses the sexes – what if men menstruated, what if men had babies? It's unanswerable."
Anonymous
10 years ago
L'Amour en fuite
Anonymous
February 3 2010, 14:27:42 UTC 10 years ago
Is the final one (L'Amour en fuite) worth a look?
Re: L'Amour en fuite
February 3 2010, 14:37:12 UTC 10 years ago
Re: L'Amour en fuite
10 years ago
Re: L'Amour en fuite
Anonymous
10 years ago
February 3 2010, 16:12:37 UTC 10 years ago
His tendency to over-simplify, present slightly ridiculous situations as 'cinematic realism' and a curiously consistent inability to create believable female characters get my goat - Domicile Conjugal and Jules et Jim both being cases in point.
The character of Kyoko is as you say "Frankly bizarre, a bore and a bitch; both stereotypical and weird, gracious and rude."
Meanwhile the character of Catherine in Jules et Jim fails to evince the enigma which she is purported to possess, certainly not to the degree to provoke that level of juvenile obsession in two grown men
Finally many of Truffaut's films tend to pride technique over narrative, I couldn't care less about wipes, dolly-shots or nods-to-cinematic-heritage if the film is being posited as narrative-driven and fails to deliver an engaging story.
I still very much like Les Quatre Cent Coups however, whilst La Nuit Américane is my favourite from his filmography.
Anonymous
February 7 2010, 20:55:59 UTC 10 years ago
Then go read.
February 3 2010, 17:27:18 UTC 10 years ago
1) Your abhorrence of automobiles has been well documented in these pages, but I've always wondered, what kind of car would a momus drive if a momus would drive car?
2) could you give us some examples of the images you use for your desktop pictures?
3) When you begin to search for something on the internet, do you just google and follow the links where they lead? For instance, let's say Cy Twombly was an artist that you weren't familiar with and you wanted info on him, how would you proceed?
4) Did you ever play ping pong when you were growing up?
5) what kind of music did your brother and sister listen to when you were kids?
6) Would you give me your critique of this song (album version). Frank tiger please. They were one of my favorites when I was in my 20s, but you won't hurt my feelings if you despise it.
7) you once mentioned an album by a Japanese artist that consisted entirely of the sound of raindrops falling into water bottles. I can't find the link now, could you give me more info?
8) Often I will come across something and think to myself, this is totally momus. I realize that CO is a constant (amazing) stream of recommended artists, writers musicians, but in as much as you have "known" me through my comments etc..., could you recommend say 2 books, 2 albums, and 2 movies that you think would be for me? right up my alley as they say.
February 3 2010, 18:01:11 UTC 10 years ago
2.
3. Yes, I just google. For a visual artist I might also check Artfacts.net, image search, look on ubu.com, search video, etc.
4. In fact 1997 was a big Ping Pong year for me; I had a table in my London flat, as well as having an album titled after the game. Later, in 2005, I used lots of ping pong sounds in this remix.
5. My sister: Grease soundtrack and Kim Wilde. My brother: Peter Frampton and Status Quo. I tried, with some success, to change their tastes, inculcating in my brother a love of Talking Heads and Elvis Costello.
6. I'll quote Paul Westerberg himself here: "You can't come in and just let your first impressions lead you. Because your first impression will be of a band that doesn't play real well, is very loud, and might be drunk."
7. Toshiya Tsunoda.
8. Well, you have pretty great taste already, I'd say -- you've introduced me to some amazing things via the videos you've posted! But just based on the Replacements song, you might like The Only Ones:
10 years ago
10 years ago
you really do sound 50
Anonymous
February 3 2010, 19:41:00 UTC 10 years ago
Re: you really do sound 50
February 3 2010, 21:00:26 UTC 10 years ago
Re: you really do sound 50
Anonymous
10 years ago
Re: you really do sound 50
10 years ago
Re: you really do sound 50
Anonymous
10 years ago
Re: you really do sound 50
Anonymous
10 years ago
Re: you really do sound 50
Anonymous
10 years ago
February 3 2010, 21:25:11 UTC 10 years ago
well, who else gets such bad treatment?
This might be the most evil sterotyped drama to burn a vibrant full spectrum image on the silverscreen.... but what do you think about Avatar... just another thin veil shrouding the 'other' with mystic fluff... (and what happens? the white man saves the day ..AGIAN? give me a break) I'm not even going to see it... sorry. Titanic.... (one word)
seriously 3D can go fuck itsself.... I'll wait.
so movies drawn on personal experiences and culture's ah, statiques that exist at the moment... more then we like to think.
Perhaps he had a bad experience with one of those oh so pretty but 'imposible' Japanese girls...
more then likely part of the simple answer.
Godard is amazing. Thats why they like him... He was one of the main jumping off points for Japanese 'modern' newwave cinema... woo hoo!!!!
Momus... I have a question for you as well.... do you think the next time you are in America... We could hang out...
get a few drinks and then [you] blow a wad of your best stuff deep in my arse... siphon it out with a straw (or what ever, you know?) and make me eat it from your mouth?
then cuddle for a bit?
February 4 2010, 04:11:31 UTC 10 years ago
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