Japanese Story

To quote FilmINK, “a deeply moving experience”. Recently awarded AFI Best Picture.
Rated M RT:110 mins

Screening 2.30, 5.00 & 7.15 pm on
Wednesday 4 February

AFTRS GRADUATE SUE BROOKS caught the eye with her first feature “Road to Nhill” in “97. It also marked the debut of writer Alison Tilson and composer Elizabeth Drake.

“Japanese Story” sees another successful collaboration. A geologist, Sandy Edwards (Toni Colette), is obliged to act as a guide to a Japanese businessman Tachibana Hiromitsu (Gotaro Tsunashima) as they travel through the Pilbara region of WA. At first the relationship between the two is strictly business until circumstances lead to the development of a mutual understanding and much, much more.

Brooks is aided no end by the performance of her two leads and by the widescreen photography of Ian Baker. The chemistry between Colette and Tsunashima is explosive. This makes “Japanese Story”, to quote FilmINK, “a deeply moving experience”. The judges at the AFI thought so too. The film picked up many awards recently including that of Best Picture.

 

NOTES ON THE PREVIOUS SCREENING
Lost in La Mancha

FOR THE RECORD, Terry Gilliam was born in 1940 in Minneapolis and started his career as a writer/illustrator for magazines. Dissatisfied, he moved to London where he began working for the BBC. It wasn”t long before he was making a significant contribution to the TV series “Monty Python”s Flying Circus” with John Cleese, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, Michael Palin and Eric Idle and to a number of features made under the Monty Python banner such as “The Search for the Holy Grail” and “The Meaning of Life”. It was Gilliam who designed the bizarre but now instantly recognisable cut-out animation for the show.

“Brazil” (1985), a Kafkaesque excursion into near-future absurdities (Katz 1998) established Gilliam as a free-thinking, independent director. Like many of his subsequent outings, it explored the intersection of fantasy and reality. Even this film had its problems. The distributor, Universal Studios, insisted on trimming 17 minutes off the running time for the American release. An action that enraged Gilliam.

His follow-up feature four years later was the seemingly quixotic but box office corpse “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen”.

Gilliam”s personal thoughts about his attempt at making “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” on the plains of Spain in 2000 are not recorded. On set he alternately acts like a cherub or cackles like a demented gargoyle. Due to the success of Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe”s doco “Lost in La Mancha” chronicling all the disasters which befell the production over a mere six days of shooting: the weather, the military aircraft, Jean Rochefort”s mysterious illness, Gilliam has been much in demand on the talk-show circuit.

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