Kiyoshi Kurosawa interview on Bright Future by Masanobu Sigetsuke, editor-in-chief, Composite / Invitation:

The latest of the serious direction with new challenges:

Q. I felt that your bright future is the newest work coming from the group starting from Cure, to License to Live, Charisma, Barren Illusions, and Pulse, a sort of serious works.

A. Yes, this must be on the same line of these works. However, every time I make a new film, I challenge something new, and I do not feel like making the same kind of films all the time. There was some time between Pulse and this one, thus, I included something new, different from my old stuff.

Q. At the beginning of the film, you realistically portray the “fleeters,” the young folks in Japan with no permanent job.

A. I did not intend to depict the real image of these contemporary Japanese “fleeters,” however, I used to be like them when I was young. I know many around myself, these people you do not know exactly what they do. Honestly speaking, I can imagine how they live better than the salaried men, the full-time office workers do….

Q. At the same time, you also portray the middle-aged men very well.

A. There is a character who gets killed in the film. Age-wise, I am closest to him among the film’s characters. Probably I can imagine how he feels, and therefore, if I am not conscious, I will easily identify myself with him. I feel that he did nothing wrong. I did not intend to portray him as an evil person. However, if I feel too sympathetic to him, I cannot kill him, and it creates a problem, as this film is basically focused on the young people. I was most cautious in the scene of his killing. I wanted this scene to be restrained, rather than being easy to understand. I thought a lot, but I am not completely confident if I am questioned further. There might be somebody else who deserves more to be murdered.

Q. In this sense, this film is an extreme example of portraying the generation gaps. It requires courage to depict death as a result of this process.

A. It could be my bad habit. If there are two parties who cannot compromise with each other in a drama, and if only one of them can survive, I have to kill the other. This may sound strange, but killing the other is the best solution, because they will no longer appear in the rest of the story and you do not have to further portray how they live after then. If they keep alive, you must portray the life after. However, every film must end at some point. When you have a character that is important but you do not need him or her any longer, it is best to take this extreme form for me.

When you shoot Tokyo, the city looks so desolate:

A. The desolate feeling about the current situation in this film can be considered to be your feeling towards the current society?

Q. On the contrary, I do not believe that the current society is desolate. However, it is strange that when I shoot Tokyo, it looks desolate.

A. How?

Q. Probably, Tokyo is not a city for shooting. Or it is not made to be seen by people. Tokyo seems to reject getting seen. Despite all these, I try to shoot this city, looking for good locations. Maybe this is why.

A. You included violent boys in the film. Do you want to depict this kind of subject matter or do you think it’s easy to do so?

Q. You cannot simply say that young people are violent. However, such an expression becomes very clear and powerful in film. It is more effective to show them destroying things rather than including lots of violent words in dialogue. You often see young people who cannot verbalize their feelings, those who cannot express themselves in words, choose an expression of physical violence when they related to others in a drama. It could be a very cinematic or theatrical thing. It is one of the characteristics in expressive media using human physicality.

When I try to make a film, I understand its theme for the first time:

Q. Your films are often described to be difficult, however, bright future is not so difficult.

A. I never try to make difficult films. This time, it was the same, but I always challenge something very difficult beyond my capacity. If I understand my subject matter perfectly, I may be able to present it to others in more lucid form. However, when I start making a film, I start understanding my theme for the first time. While shooting a film, I am still studying it. Probably I am always saying that “I challenged this difficult theme, but I understand only this degree. I ‘m sorry,” and this is why my films are difficult to understand. I feel sorry to my viewers but I usually understand my theme better at the end of my filmmaking. Sometimes, I make films in order to understand my theme myself.

Q. Is this process that you have vague feelings at the beginning, and you work on it as if you are solving a puzzle, then, you must present it as incomplete when it is not perfectly solved?

A. Yes, I cannot lie on this matter. It will be cool if everything is in order and solved at the end, but if you cannot think of the missing pieces, you cannot just bring in the wrong pieces to fill them out. You must admit that you cannot complete it.

Resisting against the explanation of the themes and making it a challenge:

Q. In bright future, you have hope as its title indicates at the end of the film. Sin-ichiro embraces young Yuji and tells him that he will forgive him. Before this film was made, you had tended to end a film with no dialogue or not with this kind of ending. In another word, you show something new in bright future. You chose to deliver a message.

A. As you say, I used to believe that a film stops being cinematic at the moment when you deliver a message, and thus, I had avoided such treatment. I always believed that themes and human emotions cannot be portrayed on the screen. You can imagine a certain character in a film probably feeling this way and that way, but you cannot visualize how these characters are thinking. It’s truer with film’s themes. In order to convey these, you explain it by directing actors accordingly or through the dialogue accordingly. I used to have strong resistance against these methods of explaining everything. However, in this film, I somehow thought that despite such lines, my film will not suddenly become vacant or infertile. I vaguely knew that my films will not crumble by such a thing if I handle it skillfully. Therefore, I challenged something new for the first time.

Q. That scene seemed to me necessary and logical and I was moved. I was also moved by encountering such an emotional scene in your film.

A. The reason why I had always avoided such a treatment was because I was afraid of bringing in a piece to make a complete form even if I was not fully confident of my choice. I always reasoned to myself that this kind of treatment was not cinematic. However, this time, I began to feel that I can fulfill the void by a piece close enough to the missing one, even if it will not make a 100% perfect shape.

Q. You wanted to have a hopeful ending?

A. I honestly wanted it. There is definitely a hope, and bright future, although I don’t know what we head for and what kind of hope it is. It depends on what generation you belong to, and it will be all right if you don’t know it. This is my consistent theme.

The abrupt ending is a proof that it is not a simple story:

Q. Your ending is always abrupt. Is it consciously done?

A. If you say so. My beginning is also abrupt. It is maybe because I believe that a film is not exactly like a typical story. In a typical story, there is a certain opening as well as a certain ending. On the other hand, a film follows a story but at the same time, it is very similar to reality. In a real city, a real human being plays a cinematic role. A viewer knows that this is a fictional story while taking it as a sort of reality. In real life, there was the past, and there will be the future. In a film, during the period of two hours, you have a beginning point and an ending point. Then, you must start a film abruptly and end it abruptly. I believe it is like a proof that it is not simply a story. I want to avoid an easy sign saying that “it is an ending!” If you are portraying a character wandering in a city like Tokyo today, you cannot often come up with a dramatic ending with a sure closure.

Q. Does it mean that you want to link your film to reality in present Tokyo, or you do not want to present your film as a form to be completed in a movie house?

A. Yes. It is not sufficient if you say it is it after somebody pays a movie admission of as high as 1800 yen (approx. US $15) and sit through it for as long as two hours. An interesting film lingers with the viewer after the screening. You suddenly remember certain scenes in the film or think about certain points from it for a long time. If you live in Tokyo and see a film about Tokyo, something should feel differently when seeing Tokyo after seeing the film. In such a case, your two hour experience is valuable and meaningful.
 

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