>>
>> I'm searching for representations on film of female epileptics. This may
>> seem like a narrow frame of reference, but can anyone help?
>>
>> Kate Bowles
>> Screen Studies, Department of English
>> University of Wollongong
>>
One of this year's Fukuoka "Focus on Asia"-film festival's entries, Shunichi
Suzuki's "Sukiyaki" (1995)
featured a young epileptic woman.
Context: A family, comprising a senile (and demented) grand-mother, a lone
father and two young twin-sisters (one of whom is the epileptic), struggles
with, well, keeping up daily life in times of internal deterioration. The
grandmother has to be constantly guarded, for otherwise, she will run away
and just forget where she is, the epileptic is yet another care-problem, and
how can you run a restaurant in this situation? Two sailors appear (it's
Yokohama, a harbour-town), both cooks, one of them an "easy-come-easy-go"
womanizer, the other a diligent, respectable boy. The film is basically
about the two girls' dreams and pains, including marriage proposals by
boring, but wealthy young men, first kisses and family loyalty. Not a
spectacular film - Tadao Sato, while introducing it, said it was one of
those "charming films" Japan used to be famous for and which nobody produces
anymore -, not high on pathos, calm, shot in an almost documentary style,
and produced by a film-company whose goals are to revive Japanese cinema.
Birgit Kellner
Institute for Indian Philosophy
University of Hiroshima
----
To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L
in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]
|