Encounters with Kyoto

Encounters with Kyoto: Writers in Kyoto Anthology 3 (2019) is an absorbing, at times amusing collection of twenty-two storytellers' personal essays, poems, and fiction centered on Kyoto as a wellspring of inspiration and creativity. From Writers in Kyoto, the book lights up countless facets of the city's history, culture, and people as well as its transformations, all examined and interpreted, in some cases briefly or fleetingly, through the eyes and pens of writers who share with us their experiences in and enduring connections to a city which has long captured the hearts of so many artists.

What I particularly liked about this anthology was the diversity among its voices. I learned a lot, about Kyoto's past and present, and the imagery in several pieces left impressions and stirred my imagination. But since each work stands out on its own in terms of voice, the collection can be enjoyed especially for its freshness throughout. So what the reader gets are very different angles to view and understand Kyoto, and a rich picture of its temples, tourists, gardens, ponds, residents, and lots more.

Ran

Akira Kurosawa's final epic, Ran (or 乱, which can mean riot, war, disorder, and disturb), released in 1985, is based both on legends of Mōri Motonari and on Shakespeare's King Lear (derived from the legendary king of the Britons named Leir). Ran tells the story of Hidetora Ichimonji (Motonari-slash-Lear, played brilliantly by Tatsuya Nakadai) during the Sengoku period (1573–1603).

The old warlord has a dream, which inspires him to divide his realm among his three sons (as King Lear did among his three daughters). Like Lear, Ichimonji slips into madness, and this is inflamed by the disrespect he perceives his sons are showing him. War breaks out, heads (of a fox statue and two women) are lopped off, and the fool may be the only one seeing things for what they truly are. All the while the whole world seems off-kilter and irreparable.

Watching Ran makes you realize how CGI shattered a facet of the art of film-making. The special effects, costumes and makeup, and painstaking efforts of the crew created battle and other scenes that are incredibly realistic, in their rawness and true-to-life imperfections, and made Ran a visual masterpiece. This includes the colors—rich or dull, dim or bright, ablaze and vibrant or smoky, and so forth—infusing each scene with an atmosphere and mood aligned with the narrative and individual characters. The two scenes I especially enjoyed were the siege and slaughter at the burning Third Castle and the one in which Lady Kaede coerces Jiro, to become the real power behind the throne.

Stop it! Do not curse the gods! It is they who weep. In every age they've watched us tread the path of evil, unable to live without killing each other. They can't save us from ourselves. Stop your crying! Such is the way of the world. Men live not for joy but for sorrow, not for peace but for suffering. Look at those in the First Castle. Even now they vie for the greater share of sorrow and suffering and revel in their mutual slaughter!

— Ran, Akira Kurosawa

The Water Magician

The Water Magician is a 1933 silent film (with benshi accompaniment) by Kenji Mizoguchi.

Takino Shiraito (played by Irie Takako) is a water magician in a traveling funfair in northern Chubu, it seems between Kanazawa and Naoetsu. She's famous for her artistry in controlling the long paddles that direct streams of water into shapes and patterns which enthrall her audiences. She meets a miserable carriage driver who rides her into town on the back of his horse after his carriage breaks down. Shiraito has a golden heart and, taking on the role of mother (often portrayed in Mizoguchi films; note too that the boy is an orphan), she resolves to pay his college tuition in dribs and drabs and sends him off to Tokyo so he can become a lawyer.

The story is singular and tragic. The boy does finish his studies, thanks to Shiraito, who despite her struggles manages to send him money regularly. But her will to help him and others ultimately leads to her downfall. Unable to fulfill her promise, of providing the boy with a few yen from time to time, she offers herself to (or is raped by) a usurer, and afterwards is robbed by the carnival's knife thrower. In the commotion he drops a knife which, after Shiraito regains consciousness, she picks up. Certain that the usurer had set up the robbery, and furious she has lost what she had demeaned herself for, Shiraito returns and kills the man during what appears to be an act of self-defense against an attempt to rape her. Later charged with murder, she is as astonished as she is overjoyed to discover that the prosecutor is the very boy she has helped reach the position of authority and high status he now holds. She implores him to carry out his duty, dutifully for her and for him, and this he reluctantly does, and Shiraito is consequently sentenced to death, choosing instead to end her own life right there in the courtroom, while the boy puts a bullet in his head a year later on a bank of the Asano River.

Water as a symbol for purification and the passage of time (one of the last lines: The river flows on as before and as it always will), suicide as an act of ultimate love (to reunite in another—generally accepted as better—world), and the rigid, inescapable confines of social roles . . . these are all themes in this film as well as in others by Mizoguchi. I found most of The Water Magician compelling, and it got me most thinking about the inner-workings of Shiraito. No matter what misfortune was thrown at her, even her inevitable death at a young age, she didn't fail to find enough good around her to press forward, albeit in a self-sacrificial and arguably Japanese sort of way.

Interesting asides:

● Shiraito "bit out her tongue in the courthouse," the benshi tell us. Apparently, suicide by biting off one's tongue was (maybe still is) often used in Chinese literature and films depicting ancient China. This was the first time I'd heard the expression, and in Mizoguchi's film it seems this is literally how she ends herself.

● The Water Magician was adapted from an Izumi Kyoka novel entitled The Righteous and the Chivalrous.

● Shiraito's lover, the boy (Kinya), was played by Okada Tokihiko, who died at the age of 31 from tuberculosis, a year after The Water Magician was made.