La Jetée

For cinéphiles all around the world, the movie La Jetée by Chris Marker is a mythical one. 
Defined as photo-roman, since it is made by a very quick sequence of images, this short film (no longer than 28 minutes), has a special place in Nouvelle Vague fans’ hearts.
Why? Well, maybe because in such short time Marker is able to create a world apart, a black & white place where the future and the present has a strange, enigmatic, fascinating connection. 
If you’ve never seen it, I suggest you to do it as soon as you can. 
Many cinéphiles, though, when they think about La Jetée, have something else in mind.
It was 1974 when Tomoyo Kawai, a Japanese woman in love with French cinema, opened in Tokyo, in a Shinjuku area called Golden Gai, a little, a super tiny bar called La Jetée.
The place, I am talking about few square meters, became mythical very quickly.
Tomoyo-san, who lived in Paris and speaks a perfect French, was able to attract all the French cinema lovers passing through Tokyo, as well as many important film-makers (including Chris Marker himself).

Golden Gai - Shinjuku, Tokyo

Both Marker and Tomoyo-san are visible in a short sequence of Tokyo Ga by Wim Wenders, the love declaration (in the form of a documentary) to Tokyo and Ozu cinema that the German director filmed in 1985.
Wenders is an aficionado of this bar, as well as Francis Ford Coppola and his daughter Sofia, Quentin Tarantino and Juliette Binoche, among others. If you love French cinema and Tokyo, La Jetée is simply a must.
Some of Tomoyo’s clients even have their own, personalized bottle of whisky, which will be kept intact until their next visit. Isn’t that lovely?

I wanted to see this place so much, and I was finally able to have a gin and tonic there last April, during my stay in Tokyo. I was astonished by the smallness of the bar (that you can reach through a super tiny flight of stairs): just one table, a little counter and a mini toilet.
I couldn’t believe it! It was actually a place at my scale:

Zazie at La Jetéé - Tokyo, April 2016 (photo by Giorgio Amitrano)

Tomoyo-san is a very quiet and lovely lady who treats her clients in the sweetest way.
The walls are full of cinema pictures and cinema posters; not a single space is left and there are so many things to look at!

Useless to say, this bar immediately became my favourite one in Tokyo, and most probably in the whole world.
When I was about to go away, on the wall just above the door, I saw the poster of a retrospective of François Truffaut movies celebrating the 30th anniversary of his death:

It was the icing on the cake.
This is THE PERFECT PLACE, I swear.
If you are in Tokyo and you don’t go there, don’t even bother the journey.


A special thanks to Giorgio Amitrano, who brought me to La Jetée!

Tokyo Monogatari (again!)

Few weeks after the Paris attacks, when I was feeling extremely sad (and pretty lost), I started thinking about something that could REALLY cheer me up.
The first idea was to get married to Michael Fassbender.
Yes, well… easy to think but more difficult to have it, so I decided to go for the second idea: planning to visit as soon as possible the place I love most on this planet.
This is how I bought a round-trip ticket to Tokyo and, I’m happy to announce it, my plane is taking off tomorrow.
So, dear readers, even if I’m sure I’m going to have some amazing cinematic adventures in Japan, I’m not too sure I’ll have the time to write about it before two weeks and I wanted to prevent you about my absence.
Because I know you can’t live without reading my blog!!! (this is why I love you so much).
Well, be patient and try to resist: Zazie will be back soon.
In the meantime, you can always read my previous Japanese posts….
OZU'S MEMORIES
A DINNER WITH KUROSAWA
UNA BLOGGER ITALIANA A PARIGI... E TOKYO!
MY OWN PRIVATE JAPAN
IL SILENZIO SUL MARE
さようなら!
Zazie

Setsuko Hara

Non so voi, ma io tutte le mattine faccio colazione con Setsuko Hara.
Qualche anno fa, al museo The Eye di Amsterdam, ho trovato questo meraviglioso poster del film Banshun (Late Spring) di Yasujiro Ozu, con una foto in bianco e nero di Setsuko Hara che sorride, una tazza di té poggiata sul tavolo davanti a lei. L’ho appesa nel mio soggiorno, dove faccio colazione, e vedere quel sorriso luminoso ogni mattina mi fa pensare che il mondo sia un posto davvero bello:

Nelle ultime due settimane, lo ammetto, qui a Parigi si fa un po’ fatica a crederci, che il mondo sia un posto bello. 
E adesso che Setsuko Hara ci ha lasciato, ancora di più (per la verità l’attrice è mancata lo scorso 5 Settembre, ma la notizia è stata data solo il 25 Novembre).
Nata nel 1920 a Yokohama, Setsuko Hara è diventata famosa grazie a due film interpretati per Akira Kurosawa ma, soprattutto, per la sua lunga collaborazione con il regista Yasujiro Ozu. Alla morte di quest’ultimo, nel 1963, la Hara si è ritirata dalle scene e se ne è andata a vivere sola (non si è mai sposata) a Kamakura, rifiutando qualsiasi intervista e qualsiasi fotografia. Non a caso è stata definita la "Greta Garbo Giapponese".
Come una vera diva degli anni ’50, ma con uno stile tutto nipponico, si è eclissata dal mondo, lasciandoci in eredità i suoi meravigliosi ruoli di figlia (prima) e madre (poi) nei film di Ozu. L'eleganza con cui cammina a piccoli passi sul tatami delle case in stile tradizionale giapponese, il modo assolutamente irresistibile di sorridere, reclinando leggermente la testa di lato, il timbro dolcissimo di voce, me fanno un'icona di bellezza senza tempo e senza rivali:

L'altra sera mi è venuta voglia di rivedere Akibiyori (Late Autumn), che mi sembrava il film perfetto considerata la stagione e la malinconia di questo periodo, e infatti lo era.
Ogni inquadratura di Ozu è una piccola magia, un quadro dal nitore e dall'essenzialità risplendenti, dove ogni oggetto sembra trovare la sua ragione d'essere, la sua collocazione più intima e sincera. 
E non ho potuto fare a meno di pensare che quando quello che ci circonda appare brutto, meschino, insensato, brutale, basta regalarsi - non dico tanto - 10 minuti di inquadrature di Ozu. 
Meglio ancora se illuminate dal sorriso di Setsuko Hara.
E passa la paura.
L'unico antidoto possibile contro il male assoluto.
La vera bellezza che salverà il mondo (se siamo ancora in tempo...)

Ozu's Memories

Yasujiro Ozu, my favourite Japanese film-maker, died 50 years ago today, December 12.
For a weird coincidence, this was also the day he was born, 110 years ago.
I have always been in love with his cinema, since the first time I saw Tokyo Monogatari (1953), one of his masterpieces, when I was very young.
His cinema is made of very few elements: simple stories, essential dialogues, many moments of silence and minimal camera movements.
Ozu’s movies are basically the opposite of many today’s movies, where everything is going fast, camera movements are hectic, dialogues are excessive and very often stories are over complicated and also extremely stupid. Ozu’s understatement is proverbial: the expression “less is more”, could have been invented for him.

Tokyo Monogatari (1953)

During my last trip to Japan (at the end of October, beginning of November), I decided to go to visit Ozu’s grave in Kita-Kamakura, a small city not far from Tokyo (just one hour by train). 
I didn’t know much about it, just that his tomb was located inside the Engaku-ji, one of the five most important Buddhist temples of Japan. I was sure to recognise his grave, though, because I saw it in Tokyo Ga by Wim Wenders (a movie entirely dedicated by the German film-maker to Ozu) and also because on the grave the only visible thing is one of the most beautiful kanji (ideograms) of Japanese language, MU (NOTHING):

     無
What I didn’t expect, that lovely autumn afternoon entering the gate of the splendid Engaku-ji, was how difficult it would have been to find Ozu’s grave...

The entrance of Engaku-ji, Kita-Kamakura

The woman who was selling the entrance tickets gave me few indications, in Japanese, that I managed to understand (believe it or not). At that stage, I thought it would have been super easy. I started walking on the right side of the park, as she told me to do, and then I started climbing some stairs. Apparently, the grave was somewhere there. In fact, there was a small space with few tombs. I looked at them, one by one, but no sign of Ozu’s one. Going up the hill, I realized that there were many of those little spaces full of graves and I started to have some serious doubts about the possibility of actually find the one I was looking for. The truth is, I wasn’t finding the grave but I was finding so many amazing and beautiful places that I wasn’t too worried about it:

 

 

 

But eventually I said to myself that I had to find a solution, and quickly. 
It was at that right moment that I saw two old Japanese women walking towards me. I approached them and I explained what I was looking for. It was one of those moments where the fact of having studied Japanese for five years at the age of 20 looked like the best idea one could ever had in life.
They understood me and they told me they knew, more or less, where the grave was. After 5 minutes walking, we arrived in front of a chart full of small drawings. It was a chart of the graves and each one of them had the name of the dead inside. The two women, after a while, recognised the kanji of Ozu’s name and then they showed me the way. Of course, without those two lovely women, it would have been impossible, for me, to find it. I immediately thought that Ozu himself or some weird cinema god sent them to me. When we arrived in front of it, they waved good-bye and they left me, with one of those marvellous gestures Japanese culture is full of. Like in a Ozu’s movie, they used a simple tact: they understood that was a special, intimate moment, and they left me discreetly. Oh, I’ll never forget them! And so, there I was, at last, on the grave of my favourite Japanese film-maker:

I stood there for a while.
Mentally saying silly things to Ozu. Very silly things like: “Hey, I came to see you! From Paris! It is a long, long way, you know? I hope you appreciated. Oh, and, by the way, you deserve this trip because you have made some of my favourite films of all time. Thank you! Thank you so much, Ozu-san!"
Yes, this is a confession, I say things like that in front of film-makers graves. This is what people mean by being a cinema freak. A real one!

Happy like a child, I kept walking into the temple’s park, out of joy for that moment near Ozu’s grave but also out of joy for the beauty of every single thing I could set my eyes on in that amazing place:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I saw those monks passing by, I really thought, for a moment, to join them: I just wanted to live there, to stay there for ever, near Ozu, surrounded by the peace and the splendour of Japanese nature. But then I had a doubt: Can Buddhist monks go to the movies? 
Not knowing the answer, I preferred to take the train and go back to Tokyo.

Grazie a Flavio Parisi per avermi suggerito di andare a Kita-Kamakura, a Takuji O'Hara per avermi dato tutte le indicazioni per arrivarci (e avermi detto la traduzione di "tomba" in Giapponese), e a Giorgio Amitrano per l'amore che condividiamo per questo regista.
 どうもありがとうございます