WIT Life #240: Japan Cuts 2013: Week 2
Events, Film, Translating/Interpreting, Uncategorized, WIT Life, Writers 
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WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer/Interpreter/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends along with her own observations.
The amazing lineup at Japan Society’s Japan Cuts 2013 continues, and last night I had the chance to catch two films with the themes of loneliness and love. The first movie was I Have to Buy New Shoes, which is set in Paris and features a three-day romance between the main characters Aoi and Sen. The film’s title comes from their initial encounter, in which Aoi tripping over Sen’s passport causes the heel to come off her shoe and his passport to be ripped. She is a longtime resident of France, and he is visiting for the first time with his sister (who has abandoned him to find her boyfriend who is living there). Reminiscent of Celine and Jesse from Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, Aoi and Sen fall into an easy rhythm as they find themselves spending all their moments together.
But with Sen’s departure three days away, there is a deadline to their relationship. Over this short period of time, they become close enough to confide in each other about their painful memories and current struggles, and to find a temporary cure for their mutual loneliness. From the movie poster, I expected a light romantic comedy, but the content was much more substantial and moving than I anticipated. Things end on a fairly open-ended note, so I’m hoping that director Eriko Kitagawa follows in Linklater’s footsteps and gives us more of Aoi and Sen down the road.
Director Yukihiro Toda with actress Maya Koizumi, star of There is Light
The second film of the night was the debut feature from director Yukihiro Toda, who was on hand for a Q&A following the screening. His work There is Light looks at the rarely examined world of call girls who service the disabled. The movie opens with working girl Saori (actress Maya Koizumi) on her first day after joining an agency that provides these services. She encounters clients with a variety of disabilities, but she is able to see past their physical flaws and eagerly agrees when her pimp asks her to stay on. She develops relationships with all of her clients, especially a young man named Kenji who has a spinal cord injury. Their connection becomes more than professional, and Saori takes Kenji on an impromptu adventure that leads to a fateful episode which propels him to turn around his life.
After the screening, Toda captivated the audience with the story of how the film got made. He works for national broadcaster NHK, and in the course of this work he had done research on the disabled and the sex industry, hoping to make a documentary about this subject. However, it was too risque for NHK, as being disabled is a taboo topic in Japan, and putting this together with sex would be impossible. As a result, he abandoned the documentary idea and decided to make a feature film instead, despite having no directing experience whatsoever. In addition, the project was entirely self-funded by Toda himself.
Figures from the movie indicate that there are 3.5 million disabled people living in Japan, though they are rarely seen on the streets as they spend most of their time indoors. Despite these numbers, due to the isolated lives Japan’s disabled lead, there is no sense of community or even information sharing. They are often completely dependent on their families who take care of all of their needs, including sexual in some cases (In the movie Kenji’s mother books Saori, but Toda revealed that sometimes mothers will satisfy their disabled sons themselves). Toda made sure to have disabled people on set to verify the accuracy of his characters’ movements, dialogue, etc. (only one actor was actually disabled), and the film went on to receive awards and acclaim in Japan. He commented that he hopes it will lead to more awareness and perhaps changes for the Japanese disabled population.
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