The Great Happiness Space (**)

The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief
Directed by Jake Clennell, USA, 2006
Official site: www.thegreathappinessspace.com

Knowing my predilection for all things Japanese, my friend recommended this documentary about Japanese "host boys" - good-looking young men (sometimes known as "flower boys" because they're flora-pretty with an androgynous, long-haired look akin to that of a rock star) who are paid to entertain women in exclusive nightclubs. She figured I'd like it because it was about the Japanese sex trade and that my half-Japanese girlfriend would dig it because it was specifically about the less well-known male side of that trade. Unfortunately, she was wrong. This doc was way too long, the narrative didn't progress at all, and we doubted the veracity of the film - i.e., were people just playing to the camera or were we really getting a fly-on-the-wall perspective of something approaching truth?

Part of the problem is that first-time documentary director Jake Clennell focuses almost exclusively on one male character - Issei, top host boy at Osaka's Café Rakkyo - and the group of women who adore him. The women are all sex industry workers (either "host girls," strippers, or "soap land" masseusses) who feel they can only talk about their trade or have a relationship with someone also in the trade or similarly "damaged goods" in the eyes of society. But Issei is egotistical and we never move beyond his superficial "Look at me, I'm wonderful" explanations of his success. And the girls, well, they're not middle-aged Patricia Neal types buying a young George Peppard boy-toy a la Breakfast At Tiffany's. They're young and fairly attractive; one wonders why, since men pay to have sex with them, that they can't simply find young, attractive guys to date. (Here's a hint, ladies: musicians. Since Issei and his ilk look just like J-rock pop stars, why not join the groupie gravy train? It's a well-established fact that pop musicians will fuck anything that moves, plus you might actually get in free to shows instead of having to pay $200 an hour to sit with Issei and sip $500 bottles of champagne in the VIP booth at Cafe Rakkyo.)

But instead, we get a tedious, seemingly endless loop of the women talking about how wonderful Issei is. For well over 90 minutes. And the grand finale? A predictable end-of-the-night scene of the exhausted man-whores stumbling out of the club and counting their money. Hardly a Hard Day's Night finish. And since Issei and his fellow hosts look so much like rock stars, I would have liked to have seen the director explore that aspect - talk about the "flower boy" pop star phenomenon, learn what pop stars the girls liked, etc. As it is, this movie is a one-trick pony, without a whole lot of ideas or filmmaking style. I can't believe it won the "Best Documentary Feature" at the 2006 Edinburgh International Film Festival. There must have been a football derby that day between Celtic and Rangers and all the judges must have been supremely pissed after the game.

To best understand host bars and their employees and clientele, check out Mikio Naruse's When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (Onna ga kaiddan agaru toki, 1960). It may be a fictitious narrative film, but Fiction is often the lie that tells the truth. It certainly rings truer than an allegedly "real" film like The Great Happiness Space.

Late Chrysanthemums (***)

Bangiku (Late Chrysanthemums)
Japan, 1954, 101 minutes, b&w
Directed by Mikio Naruse
Cast: Haruko Sugimura, Sadako Sawamura, Chikako Hosokawa, Yûko Mochizuki, Ken Uehara, Hiroshi Koizumi, Ineko Arima, Bontarô Miyake, Sonosuke Sawamura, Daisuke Katô

Though his quiet films are often compared to Ozu, Mikio Naruse is really the Japanese George Cukor - crossed with the existential concerns of Ingmar Bergman. He loves strong women's stories, especially those of aging or retired geishas and working class moms. Men are seen as good for nothing womanizing drunks and leeches that women are better off not having in their lives. Feminist cinema, Far Eastern style. This film is bleak - the women find their beauty has faded and their children and lovers are disappointing - but it has an uplifting finale that showcases the indominatable spirit of these resolute women - all retired geishas who have seen better days but keep on keeping on, despite the passage of their generation for a new post-war society that they are trying to understand. Naruse shows their lives, warts and all: in one amazing sequence we actually see a character nonchalantly pluck her nose hair! And I loved the scene where the two friends Tomi and Tamae watch a "modern" young woman wiggle down the road and Tomi remarks, "Look at her walking like that American woman Monroe! I can do that too!" before comically imitating the young girl. As former geishas, these woman had also looked ridiculous trying to attract and please men, but in this instant they recognize their former folly and laugh at it.

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (*****)

Onna ga kaidan wo agaru toki (When a Woman Ascends the Stairs)
Japan, 1960, 111 minutes, b&w
Directed by Mikio Naruse
Cast: Hideko Takamine (Mama, aka Keiko Yashiro), Masayuki Mori (Nobuhiko Fujisaki), Reiko Dan (Junko Inchihashi), Tatsuya Nakadai (Kenichi Komatsu), Daisuke Katô (Matsukichi Sekine), Ganjiro Nakamura (Goda), Eitarô Ozawa (Minobe), Keiko Awaji (Yuri)

I love Naruse. He tells stories for AARP set. His films are about the folly of youth, the anxieties of aging and the wisdom that comes with maturity, like this story of "Mama," a proud and pure middle-aged bar hostess who refuses to take the easy route of sleeping with men to make her life more comfortable (and help the handouts she makes to her greedy mother and leech of a brother), only to be deceived by the man she thinks is her true love. Heartwrenching finale. In that way, it compares favorably with Fellini's Nights of Cabiria.


Mama You've Been On My Mind:
Tatsuya Nakadai pines for Hideo Takamine

A young Tatsuya Nakadai plays bar manager Kenichi Komatsu, who secretly is in love with Mama. The DVD has a special feature interview with Nakadai that is very interesting. He says Naruse favorite Hideo Takamine wasn't the friendliest actress to work with, but one that nonetheless taught him a great deal about acting and the business of making movies. Nakadai also reveals that Naruse had an unusual way of filming scenes. For example, he'd shoot a scene of Nakadai talking to Takamine in two separate takes, filming all of Nakadai's dialogue (including his reactions to an offscreen Takamine) in one take, then shoot a separate camera angle of all of Takamine's dialogue and reactions in another take. It's the equivalent of a band laying down its rhythm tracks in the studio and then adding in vocals and guitar overdubs later, rather than recording "live" in one take.