Jane Eyre (ジェーン・エア, 2011)

Charlotte Brontë’s Gothic romance Jane Eyre (1847) presents many challenges to a screenwriter looking to adapt the story into a film.  Not only is one burdened with the usual pressures remaining faithful to the characters and flavour of the novel while creating a new work, but Jane Eyre has been adapted dozens of times to film, radio, television, and the stage.   From the 1943 classic Hollywood adaptation starring Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine with its impressive score by Bernard Herrmann to the much loved BBC adaptations such as in the 1983 version with Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke, it has been done well so many times that it is a challenge to find a new angle to take with the story.

When I heard that Cary Jōji Fukunaga had taken on the challenge, I was both excited – surely the director of an impressive debut feature like Sin Nombre (2009) could bring something new and refreshing to Jane Eyre! – and trepidatious.  The trepidation was not only because of the great adaptations mentioned above but also because there have been two solid adaptations in recent memory: Franco Zefferelli’s 1996 version starring William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsbourg and the wonderful 2006 BBC adaptation with Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson.  That being said, it is rare for even a very good adaptation of Jane Eyre to tick all the right boxes for me.  The biggest pitfalls are: making Jane too plain/boring, making Rochester so temperamental and creepy that one couldn't imagine Jane falling for him, and not exploring the Gothic nature of the story far enough.

Fukunaga’s version manages to avoid all of these pitfalls: Mia Wasikowska, with her expressive eyes, plays Jane as an intelligent young woman who knows her place in society but has just enough backbone to stand up for herself when she feels she is being badly treated.  Michael Fassbinder, who is one of those rare actors  able to transform himself completely into his characters, makes Rochester sympathetic enough for us to understand why Jane learns to love him, while at the same time showing him to be a man conflicted by the miserable cards that life has dealt him. There is also real chemistry between Wasikowka and Fassbinder – a must have when depicting a period where more is said through looks and demeanor than action.  A nod must also be given to the supporting cast – particularly Judi Dench who brings a great deal of warmth to Mrs. Fairfax, and Sally Hawkins who is practically unrecognizable as the horrid Mrs. Reed. This is  the first time that I have seen Hawkins play an unsympathetic character and she really took advantage of the opportunity to show her range as an actress.

This adaptation easily ranks as one of the best versions of Jane Eyre for two reasons: its use of landscape and its exploitation of the Gothic romance genre.  The moors play such an important role in setting atmosphere in the novel and this is the first adaptation that I felt really got the fact that the landscape like another character in the story.  Shot in the Hathersage moors (not quite Haworth moor but one probably couldn't shoot there without tourists getting in the way), Fukunaga and cinematographer Adriano Goldman really capture the connection between the landscape and the character of Jane.

The cinematography was also a key element of the Gothic look of the piece.  Being "Gothic" is not just about finding the right castle –  it is also about capturing the romance and suspense of a Gothic novel.  The interior scenes set at night in this adaptation make great use of dark and light.  This was a time where rooms would have only been lit by fireplaces, candles, and Paraffin lamps (aka Kerosene lamps in North America).  The lighting in these scenes not only captures the historical reality but the shadow also adds to the general suspense.  The scenes where Jane hears noises but does yet know what their source is are so expertly done that I found myself on the edge of my seat even though I knew exactly what was going to happen.  Many adaptations concentrate so strongly on building the character of Jane that they forget that the story belongs to the Gothic romance genre.  The dash of Hitchcock added to the mix made Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre well worth the price of admission.

cmmhotes 2012

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Cary Jōji Fukunaga is a Japanese-Swedish American director.  His debut feature film Sin Nombre (2009) won him much acclaim including the directing award at the Sundance Film Festival.  Warner Brothers has signed him up to adapt Stephen King’s It in two parts with Chase Palmer writing the screenplay. See The Hollywood Reporter for more details.

Japan in Germany 9: Shinro Ohtake at documenta 13

See more photos 

The first weekend in August, my husband and I visited documenta 13 in Kassel.  The amount of art, live performances, and film on offer at documenta 13 is simply overwhelming, so we picked out a few artists whose work we definitely wanted to see and saw a number of other interesting works incidentally while wandering through the installation spaces.

Soil-erg.2012 by Claire Pentecost

My husband, being a conservation biologist, was interested in American artist Claire Pentecost’s installation of soil shaped like gold bars at the Ottoneum.  The concept of soil being as valuable as gold is very relevant to our times as we enter the post-oil era. (b. 1956, artist profile) (artist website)

Image of a metronome in Kentridge's "The Refusal of Time"

I happily stood in line for ages to get into the William Kentridge (b. 1955) installation “The Refusal of Time” (2012) in the Hauptbahnhof North Wing.  Kentridge’s animation has been highly influential – one can see the influence in the charcoal animations of Japanese experimental animator Naoyuki Tsuji, for example (see: Angel).  “The Refusal of Time” is projected on 5 screens with a mechanical machine in the middle.  It explores the various ways humanity has tried to capture time: metronomes, pressurized clocks, time zones, music, and so on.  There were elements of animation (stop motion, drawn) and live action with Kentridge himself even appearing in some scenes.  It is a complex work and I wish I could have spent the whole day in the installation just to be able to take in the diverse elements at work in it.  Learn more about the installation in this interview with the artist.

Also high on my list of things to see were the paintings of Canadian artist Emily Carr (1871-1945, CBC article) on display at the Neue Gallerie.  I had previously only seen a couple of her paintings in person at the McMichael Gallery in Ontario.  It is such a different experience to see her work in person than reprinted in books – they create a certain atmosphere that is hard to put into words.  The seven paintings on display were of her later work and the influences of Fauvism and Cubism were very evident.  Dark and hauntingly beautiful pieces.

As much as I love Emily Carr, she seemed a bit out of place in the documenta.  She seemed to have been selected to balance out the two Australian artists sharing a room with her – Margaret Preston (1875-1963) and Gordon Bennett (b.1955) – whose work is also influenced by aboriginal art.  All three were surrounded by conceptual and installation art – which represents the bulk of documenta works.  The neighbouring room, for example, featured the work of Geoffrey Farmer (b. 1967), which was perhaps the most popular installation at the documenta.  “Leaves of Grass” has been featured widely on magazine covers and newspaper articles – it has mass appeal not only because of the immensity of the project but also because of the popular subject matter: pictures cut from 5 decades of Life magazine (see Guardian review).  The link to Carr is that Farmer is also from British Columbia and attended the art college named after her – but it terms of style and subject matter these two could not be more different.

Japan was represented at documenta 13 by Shinro Ohtake (b. 1955, official website).  Ohtake is known as a collector from his ongoing series of “Scrap Books” (1977-) to the strange collages and ephemera decorating the “I Love Yu” Bathhouse in Naoshima, Kagawa Prefecture (article).  Ohtake’s “Mon Cheri: A Self Portrait as a Scrapped Shed” installation in Karlsaue Park shares much in common with the “I Love Yu” Bathhouse.  “Mon Cheri” is an example of a “snack bar” – the kind of hut one might find frequented by eccentric locals at an off-the-beaten track seaside town.  The neon sign was apparently found by Ohtake ten years ago and the Scrapped Shed was inspired by a defunct snack bar in Uwajima.

We could hear the Mon Cheri snack bar before we could see it as we traversed through the expansive grounds of Karlsaue Park.  At first the music was tinny and difficult to recognize, but as we got closer the song changed and I heard the familiar strains of Kyu Sakamoto’s rendition of the Jimmy Jones hit “Good Timin’.”  The snack bar has been installed under an impressively huge tree, and boats of various kinds are strewn around the bar on the ground and in the tree.  There is also a small caravan next to the snack bar. The snack bar is covered with newspaper and magazine clippings from both Japan and Germany.  The bar was wall-to-wall with a collection of junk from bicycle tires to a guitar and even miniature video screens displaying abstract videos. 

The junk in the tree caused a number of German commentators to suggest that this was a reference to the devastating tsunami of March 2011, but the title of the installation suggested to me that this was a much too literal interpretation.  As a self portrait, it seemed to me that the artist sees himself as being formed from the random detritus of popular and disposable artifacts of modern culture.  One could detect a sense of humour in the way in which the objects and clippings had been assembled – Ohtake appears to both love all this junk and be aware that all these things are simply fleeting in their nature.

Judge for yourself by checking out my photo album of Ohtake’s installation.

documenta 13 runs until September 16. 

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Hiroshima International Animation Festival 2012

The biannual Hiroshima InternationalAnimation Festival 2012 came to a conclusion today.  The final competition consisted of 66 works selected from 2,110 entries from around the world.  The international jury included Aleksandra Korejwo (Poland), Igor Kovalyov (USA), Irina Margolina (Russia), Kosei Ono (Japan), and Marv Newland (Canada) – whose classic film Bambi Meets Godzilla (1969) was screened on 16mm at my 10^th birthday party and had a profound effect on me ;)  The international honorary president of the festival was Peter Lord of Aardman. A selection of Lord’s works were also screened at the festival.

The winners are as follows:

Grand Prize

I Saw Mice Burying a Cat (Dmitry Geller, China, 2011)

Hiroshima Prize

Kali, the Little Vampire (Regina Pessoa, Portugal/France/Canada, Switzerland, 2012)

Debut Prize

Sticky Ends (Osman Cerfon, France, 2010)

Renzo Kinoshita Prize

Futon (Yoriko Mizushiri, Japan, 2012)

Audience Prize

Head Over Heels (Timothy Reckart, UK, 2012)

Special International Jury Prize

It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Don Hertzfeldt, USA, 2011)

Ursus (Reinis Petersons, Latvia, 2011)

Sunday (Patrick Doyon, Canada, 2011)

Tram (Michaela Pavlátová, France, 2012)

Chinti (Natalia Mirzoyan, Russia, 2011)

Special Prize

two (Steven Subotnick, USA, 2011)

Howl (Natalie Bettelheim+Sharon Michaeli, Israel, 2011)

The Little Bird and the Leaf (Lena von Döhren, Switzerland, 2012)

The Great Rabbit (Atsushi Wada, France, 2011)

Muybridge’s Strings (Koji Yamamura, Canada/Japan, 2011)

Read more about the winning films at the official website for Hiroshima 2012.

Seven works by Japanese artists made the official competition:

The Great Rabbit (Atsushi Wada, 2011) (read review)

Muybridge’s Strings (Koji Yamamura, 2011) (read review)

The Light (Yuka Sukegawa, 2010)

Rain Town (Hiroyasu Ishida, 2011)

SPONCHOI Pispochoi (pecoraped, 2010)

Yonalure: Moment to Moment (Ayaka Nakata + Yuki Sakitani, 2011)

Futon (Yoriko Mizushiri, 2012)

In addition to the competition, this year’s festival celebrated the 30^th anniversary of ASIFA-JAPAN, which was founded by the co-founders of the Hiroshima festival – the current ASIFA president Sayoko Kinoshita and her late husband Renzo Kinoshita (read more about them).  The ASIFA-JAPAN 30th Anniversary Special Program celebrated the works of its members through screenings of their animated works and an exhibition of objects related to their works including puppets, paintings, books, and installations.

I was deeply disappointed not to be able to attend the festival this year as there were many special presentations I would have loved to have seen: a Jiří Trnka Special Program to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of his birth; an homage to the late Nobuhiro Aihara (see poster for this year's festival), whose works are so rarely screened outside of Japan; and a focus on animation from Norway.  There was also an omnibus presentation of the best in recent world animation, a special on contemporary Japanese animation, a program for children, and a program on works by students.  In a nod to the founding ethos of the festival, a selection of peace-themed films were also screened dedicated to “the spirit and the heart of Hiroshima.” 

 cmmhotes 2012