Sleeping Man Japan
1996, 103min.
Prod.: Hiroshi Fujikura, Munashi Masuzawa, Script: Kohei Oguri, Kiyoshi Kenmochi, Dir.: Kohei Oguri, Dir. of Phot.: OsameMaruike, Compos.: Toshio Hosokawa, Prod. Design: Yoshinaga Yokoo, Sound: Soichi Inoue, Edit.: Nobuo Ogawa.
Cast: Ahn Sung-ki, Christine Hakim, Koji Yakusho, Masaso Imafuku, Akiko Nomura.
Underlying Kohei Oguri's Sleeping Man, a film of mesmerizing beauty, are tra¬ditional Japanese attitudes to¬ward nature, life and death, with a focus not on tension and oppo¬sition but on harmony and unity. A master of long takes and even longer silences, Oguri presents imagery so spellbinding that it's al¬most impossible to distinguish be¬tween content and form in his work. Set in Hilosuji, a fictitious rural Japanese village, Sleeping Mantells the story of a seemingly calm, uneventful place surrounded by mountains, forests and wild rivers. Title refers to Takuji, a man lying unconscious in bed as a result of a mysteriously unspecified accident in South America. Pic's re¬curring motif is that of the sleeping Takuji encircled by family and friends, a calm, intimate image placed against the lush landscape outside his farmhouse. Non-narrative in the conventional sense, Sleeping Man loosely inter¬weaves the lives of half a dozen char¬acters. Prominent among them is Kamimura, Takuji's classmate, who comes to visit him and reminisce about their childhood days in the forest. Working in a local bar is Tia, a beautiful Southeast Asian woman whose son drowned in a flood caused by deforestation in her country. She slowly befriends Kamimura and the other villagers, who are at first suspicious that she is a liar be¬cause she's an outsider. In the film's most lyrical sequence, which follows the performance of a Noh play, Kamimura and Tia wander separately in the mountains, converg¬ing in the hut that Kamimura shared with Takuji in their boyhood days.While Takuji lies in bed, the sea¬sons come and go, affording the chance to worship na¬ture in its entire changing splendor. Oguri's approach is elegiac, celebrat¬ing the richness of a traditional way of life that is all but lost while accept¬ing the inevitability of technological evolution. Sleeping Man advocates consonance with nature as much as possible. In a highly inventive, poetic manner Sleeping Man is narrated not by words, but by images, which give the sparse, meager story its formal structure, and distinctive aesthetics. By American standards, pacing is excessively slow, perhaps even dull, but Oguri’s tempo suits a metaphysical film that encourages viewers to reflect on their own relationship with the universe.
Awards
Best Actor (Koji Yakusho, Hochi Film Awards, 1996); Special Grand Prize of the Jury (Kohei Ogury, Montrռal World FF, 1996); Special Award for producing the film (Awards of The Japanese Academy, 1997); Best Actor (Koji Yakusho), Special Awards for Gunma Prefecture which produced the film (Blue Ribbon Awards, 1997); Best Actor (Koji Yakusho, Kinema Jumpo Awards, 1997); Best Actor ( KՒji Yakusho), Best Art Direction (Yoshinaga Yokoo), Best Cinematography (Osame Maruike), Best Film Score (Toshio Hosokawa), Best Sound Recording (Soichi Inoue) (Mainichi Film Concours, 1997); Best Actor (Koji Yakusho, Nikkan Sports Film Awards, 1996); Best actor (Koji Yakusho, Yokohama FF, 1997).
Production Company
Space Co. Ltd
| Oguri, Kohei (born 1945, Maebashi, Japan)
Graduated from the Waseda University drama Department. He made his directing debut in 1981 with Muddy River, which was voted number one in Kinema Jumpo's best ten list, received the Blue Ribbon Prize, as well as Best Director award at the Mainichi Competition. The film won also the Moscow IFF Silver Prize and was nominated for the American Academy Prize (Foreign Films Section).In 1984 came For Kayako written by Lee Hwe-Song, which won the George Sadule Prize, a first for a Japanese director. In 1990,The Sting of Death won both the Cannes IFF Grand Prize of the Jury and the FIPRESCI. All three of these films were set in the 1950s, and dealt with “post-war life” and “the Japanese and I” themes. In 1996 Sleeping Man became the first film to be both written and directed by Oguri, and it drew much attention for being produced and set in his native Gunma prefecture. Nine years later, in 2005 Oguri's latest endeavor, The Buried Forest come out.
Filmography
Muddy River (1981),For Kayako (1984), The Sting of Death (1990), Sleeping Man (1996), The Buried Forest(2005).
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