Among
the 4 films screening in the Nippon Cinema Now section at Tokyo
Festival was Chinpira by Rokuro Mochizuki. Early in
the year, his erotic film Currency
and Blonde was well received at Venice
2000.

"I
have always filmed sex scenes with no inhibition".

Rokuro
Mochizuki

You seem
to be fond of strong, sexy women as in the erotic movies of Tatsumi Kumashiro...

I am drawn
to strong women, such as the ones you can see in my films Onibi
(The Fire Within), Minazuki and Gokudo Kisha. But
in my last film, I think the force of the main character, Anna, is somewhat
different, because this character works more on a metaphorical level.
I made her a symbol of the United States' aggression. Thus, the issue
of her sexuality, of knowing whether she is dominant or submissive in
the sexual relationship is less relevant than that of her force. But I
didn't make her as strong as Kumashiro's women. I killed her at the end
of the movie, whereas in a Kumashiro film, she would have survived!

Do you
think Japanese men have inferiority complexes compared to Western men?

Hmmm... My
generation grew up watching commercials and posters coming from the United
States or Europe. In Japanese magazines, for example, there were many
Western women advertising clothes or shampoos and I used to wonder why
there were so many beautiful white women on TV or in Japanese magazines.
I think that Japanese viewers would probably feel ashamed should they
watch my film with that in mind.

I
think most Japanese people try to become Westernized or imitate Westerners.
I, for example, wear Western clothes and have bleached my hair. I think
Japanese people still labor with Western influences and reproduce individually
the kind of relationship existing between Japan and the United States.

Also, I think
that eroticism does not define only what's linked to sex - politics, economics,
matrimony can also be very erotic things. By associating the symbols of
a blond woman and money, I think I showed the tortuous path which we,
Japanese people, are presently following.

Does the
character of Asao symbolize the complexes of Japanese men?

I have no
intention of denying the worth of interracial love stories. It's very
good for an Asian person to love a European or African one. Yet again,
this is not what I mean to point out in t he film... I think love, after
all, is like a mirror. For example, your partner is like your mirror if
he or she loves you and understands you. By respecting yourself, you respect
your partner, but if you disparage yourself, you tend to choose a mediocre
person. But in the film, Asao doesn't even understand himself...

Is love
always a mirror?

No, love
is not always a mirror. Even if Asao says "I love you, I love you," there
is no reciprocity. However earnestly he repeats the word "love," it remains
only a word in his mouth. Even though he pretends to be looking for true
love, Asao never matures enough for that purpose. This makes him a tragi-comic
character. If Asao could only understand himself, he would understand
that the American dancer takes an interest in him. But he doesn't go to
her. So he never gets a glimpse of true love even though he's willing.

In
Onibi, you portrayed an old yakuza capable of love... A hero of a sort
in a rather aesthetic film.

Hmmm... Even
though this character says that he would leave the world of the yakuza
for the girl, he still commits the crime she wishes. But he doesn't do
it for her... He doesn't really love her. At first, he desires the girl
because he hasn't had sexual relationships for a long time. Then he tries
to get to the bottom of her past, and what he discovers really gets to
him. It is true that I shot Onibi aesthetically, but I wouldn't say that
the main character is a "hero." It's a character cut off from everything.
He has no grounds for killing, he kills for nothing. Not even for the
girl. He doesn't follow anyone's lead. He's a useless man.

What do
you think of violence in films, especially in Takeshi Kitano's?

I think it's
one thing to show killings, an another one to show sex. I have never filmed
sex negligently. As I have always seen sex as something romantic and never
filmed it for nothing, it's probably why there are more sex scenes than
murder scenes in my films. And as I consider sex as something far more
beautiful than murder, I have always filmed sex scenes without any inhibition.

To be frank,
I don't like murder scenes. There are murder scenes in my films indeed,
but I have never considered murder a heroic act. I don't think murder
is aesthetic either. So I think we'd better view murder scenes in Takeshi
Kitano's as tragic rather than aesthetic. Yet, I do not like this films
too much. It seems to me that his characters kill without flinching, they
never lose composure after killing. I'm sure that people in Japan still
tend to believe that suicide is the cure for all that stuff. But I don't
like those scenes where characters shoot themselves in the head. I don't
like the idea that suicide might sort everything out...

Robin
Gatto

Thanks to: Akiko Takeda & Tomoko Yada

(arigato gozaimasu!)