Utsukushiki Tennen
Japan,
2005, 95 min
Shown in 2006
CREDITS
- dir
-
Takushi Tsubokawa
- prod
-
Takushi Tsubokawa
- scr
-
Takushi Tsubokawa
- cam
-
Yukihide Itagaki
- editor
-
Takushi Tsubokawa
- mus
-
Takushi Tsubokawa, Takerou Sekizima
- cast
-
Hitoshi Takagi, Hideko Yoshida, Masao Komatsu, Fujio Tokita, Kikuyo Takahashi
- source
-
Ten Nen Do, 3-53-8 Wakamiya-cho Nakano-ku, 165-0033 Tokyo, Japan. FAX: +81-3-3223-2623. EMAIL: kumokaru@violin.ocn.ne.jp.
- premiere
-
North American Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Takushi Tsubokawa in attendance.
OTHER
In a silent cinema in the 1930s, a benshi (a performer who provides live narration for silent Japanese films) narrates the tale unfolding on screen for the film "Utsukushiki Tennen", in which flower-seller Okiku (Kikuyo Takahashi) is prevented from pursuing her true love, violinist Tadanosuke (Shojiro Kataoka), by a dance-hall proprietor (Shinichiro Uchida). But this is just the beginning of a story that straddles two eras. In the 1930s, the boy delivering the film to the theater is also a big fan of Okiku. Upset by the film’s tragic ending, he buries the last reel of the film. In the present, that delivery boy is now an old man (Hitoshi Takagi) who comes to stay with his flower-painting daughter and his troubled granddaughter Nami (also played by Takahashi). Grandfather is dogged by the memory of the missing film reel, and his search for it helps Nami to resolve her own problems. Director Tsubokawa's first film, Clouds of Yesterday took ten years to complete, struggling against budget problems and an aging cast (Takagi died just one month after the shooting was completed). But the effort has paid off in this tender and loving homage to silent film and its music (Tsubokawa himself leads and plays in a musical ensemble that accompanies screenings of silent film). However, the film is not all rosy nostalgia, and Tsubokawa understands that whether in the past or the present, within movies or outside them, the path to true love and loving relationships is never straightforward.
—Roger Garcia
FACTOID #7
Governor Pat Brown welcomed the crowd at Opening Night of the Festival October 30, 1963. Other attendees included George Peppard, Willie Mays and the governor’s wife Bernice; it also happened to be the couple’s 33rd wedding anniversary.
