1. Yudo: The way of the bath
2. The lines that define me
3. We’re broke, my lord
4. Brave: Gunjo Senki
5. Mondays: See you “this” week
6. Citizen Kitano

Yudo (湯道) A comedy focussed on two brothers and the bath-house they inherit after their father’s death. It felt like the subplot around the older brother’s plans might have suffered in editing but the rest of the film hung together well. I enjoyed it.

The lines that define me (線は、僕を書く) A drama following a university student who is invited to become an apprentice of a famouse sumi-e painter and his relationships with the others in the group, his friends, and his tragic history. I really enjoyed it.

We’re broke, my lord (大名倒産) A period comedy set in the late Edo period. A young man　who was raised by a salted salmon merchant discovers he’s the illegitimate son of the lord of the estate. I thought it was very, very trope-y, but good fun.

Brave: Gunjo Senki A high-school is transported back to the warring states period. Samurai attack the school, slaughter what seemed like most of the students, and kidnap several hostages. Some of the [very few] survivors set out to rescue their classmates before the school is carried back to the present day. An uneven mix of high-school sports drama, samurai slasher film, and isekai manga. Did not enjoy at all.

Mondays: See you “this” week A clever comedy with touches of The Office and Groundhog Day. A well put together film, I really enjoyed it.

Citizen Kitano A film about Takeshi Kitano and his work as a filmmaker and artist. I’m not much of a film buff so this wasn’t really my cup of tea but it seemed well made and was interesting enough.

I didn’t get to see as many films as in previous years and my miss-rate was higher than previous years, but it was still a fun week of cinema. Thanks Japan Foundation and sponsors.

• Masquerade Hotel
• Saint Young Men 2nd Century
• And Your Bird Can Sing
• Born Bone Born
• Dance With Me
• My Dad is a Heel Wrestler
• Noise
• Samurai Shifters
• JK Rock

I saw Masquerade Hotel on a flight earlier in the year. It’s a fun mystery with detectives going under cover as staff at a high-end Tokyo hotel.

Saint Young Men is a collection of episodic sketches following Jesus and Buddha as they share a flat in Tokyo. I found it funny but quite short.

And Your Bird Can Sing follows three friends during a summer. It’s a drama largely driven by characters and ended with lots of unresolved drama.

Born Bone Born sees a family gathering on the fourth anniversary of their wife and mother’s death to was her bones in an Okinawan funerary ritual. This was another character driven film but it was marred, I think, by the frequent intrusion of comic interludes into otherwise dramatic scenes.

Dance With Me is a musical road-trip comedy following a corporate worker as she tries to break the spell (or curse!) of a botched hypnotism which forces her to sing and dance whenever she hears music.

My Dad is a Heel Wrestler follows a young boy as he discovers and deals with the fact that his dad works as Cockroach Mask, a heel wrestler.

Noise was another character driven drama following the lives of several people impacted by the Akihabara massacre. Like And Your Bird Can Sing, there’s not a great deal of resolution to be found here.

Samurai Shifters is a period piece that follows a samurai clan forced to relocate. I thought it was funny in places and pretty well paced but some elements could have done with a little more time to develop fully – I suspect it was trimmed a little too much in editing.

JK Rock follows three high-school girls as they form a rock group. One thing I found a little odd was the ridiculous car (surely product placement?) and the pastel interior design of the “rock cafe”. Interestingly, the actresses playing the band members did, indeed, form a rock group: Drop Doll.

• Rautavaara;
• The Alim Qasimov Ensemble;
• Dalmatica: Chants of the Adriatic; and
• Lubomyr Melnyk.

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra played three of Einojuhani Rautavaara’s works. The first Cantus arcticus – Concerto for birds and orchestra uses recordings of bird song as an instrument to very great effect. I bought box sets of Rautavaara’s 12 Concertos and Choral Works later.

The Alim Qasimov Ensemble features Alim and his daughter Fargana as vocalists and Rafael Asgarov, Rauf Islamov, Javidan Nabiyev, and Zaki Valiyev playing a range of traditional instruments. The music is, the programme told me, something of a fusion of the classical mugham and more popular ashiq musical traditions of Azerbaijan. However it comes about the concert was great (and the Spiritual Music of Azerbaijan album is great too).

Dalmatica: Chants of the Adriatic is a collaboration between two groups: Dialogos, a group of four female singers, and Kantaduri, a group of six Croatian cantors. The programme explores Dalmatian liturgical musical traditions from the middle ages which use both Latin and church Slavonic. This was a really, really good concert and I will be surprised if Ispovidajte se Gospodinu, jer je dobar (track one on the Dalmatica CD or listen to the Youtube video embedded above) is not amongst my 5 favourite tracks for 2017.

The last Sydney Festival concert I went to was Ukrainian-Canadian Lubomyr Melnyk playing something of an introduction to his piano music, particularly his technique of “continuous music”. He spoke quite a bit between pieces – and said some things I found quite strange – but the music was amazing.

If the 3% of the programme I saw is any indication the 2017 Sydney Festival was excellent and I’m already looking forward to 2018!

• Kampai! For the Love of Sake (カンパイ! 世界が恋する日本酒)
• SIX FOUR: Part 1 (64 ロクヨン 前編)
• SIX FOUR: Part 2 (64 ロクヨン 後編)
• What a Wonderful Family! (家族はつらいよ)
• The Mohican Comes Home (モヒカン故郷に帰る)

Not long after I also watched:

• Your Name (君の名は)

Kampai! is a documentary about three people who are involved in the sake industry: John Gauntner – a Western sake expert, Philip Harper – a British-born sake brewer working in Japanese breweries, and Kosuke Kuji – a 5th generation sake brewery owner. If you are interested in sake, booze, or documentaries, I suggest watching it if you get the chance.

Based on a best selling novel SIX FOUR is a single massive story divided into two feature length films. I saw part one on the flight back from Japan after ICFP and was super excited to see them both at the film festival. The story follows a large cast of characters involved in the unsolved kidnapping, ransom, and murder of a little girl. It was the only major case in the year Shōwa 64 (which only lasted a week), hence the name. It spends a lot of time on the interaction between the police and the press and on politics within and between the prefectural and national police agencies but the personal dramas of the central police officer and the murdered girl’s father. Highly recommended!

What a Wonderful Family kicks off when Tomiko’s birthday request of Shuzo – her husband of 50 years – assent to the divorce papers she’s had prepared. The resulting family drama was, if I recall correctly, mostly played for laughs. Not too serious but fun nonetheless.

The Mohican Comes Home is something of a “fish out of water” film. It follows a Eikichi and Yuka – a metal musician and his big city girlfriend – as they visit the small island village he grew up in. The film was funny and poignant by turns and I quite enjoyed it but don’t go out of your way to track it down.

At about the same time the Japanese Film Festival was in Sydney the super excellent anime film Your Name (君の名は) had a fairly wide Australian cinema release (capital cities and some other centres) and I went to see that too. It’s begins with the two teenage main characters – a girl who lives in a small town and a boy from Tokyo – waking up having swapped bodies (which they continue to do on a semi regular basis). Eventually it becomes clear that her life is a few years in the past relative to his and that her small town was (will be) destroyed by a meteorite killing most of the residents! I loved this film a lot! I’ve been listening to the soundtrack on pretty heavy rotation and am really hanging out for the DVD release. If you don’t hate anime, see it!