F4 as genre
Finally getting around to re-watching Hana Yori Dango in order to actually, you know, write about it and I'm marveling at how carefully considered the formal and structural elements of the drama are. Because, of course, in the process of viewing, you get caught up in all the wackiness ensuing, the cookies of deep symbolic meaning, the outfits and the sheer existence of ~***Matsuda Shota***~. And it's easy to overlook how thorough they are in the construction of an aesthetically and thematically coherent narrative.
And a comment that ataratah made recently about how what made F4 compelling is the fact that they each seem to inhabit their own world made me revist their introduction sequence and it is startlingly how right she is. Each member of F4 not only inhabits their own world, providing unique and distinct fantasies, but these worlds are startlingly familiar. That is, these fantasies are articulated through the rigors of formal generic conventions, making F4 thus reifications, literal embodiments, of genre. Because like an SM idol group, F4 is not an ensemble in the traditional sense. F4 is made of four male central protagonists, or four would-be protagonist, if the drama operated in their genre.
This is made glaringly apparent in our very first introduction to F4. That voice-over sequence in which we meet and get the histories of F4 for the first time is organized in a systematic manner. We open with a shot of each guy walking slo-mo and airbrushed within an inch of his life, then cut to an insert shot that introduces us to his genre (except Rui, but more on that in a bit), and then a mid-shot of him within that context, then a sort of close-up or other stylistic device to suggest a sense of interiority or intimacy.
So we open with Akira:
Akira is seriously straight out of a Hong Kong new wave gangster flick. That last shot, with the coloring, the stillness, the siloutttes -- that could be a still of a wannabe Wong Kar-Wai film. Moreover, Akira's interiority is a literal other life, which he leads away from his F4 shenanigans. With Akira, unlike all the others, we don't get a close up, but a focal shift -- Akira's inner life is his history, which is brought forth through an act of visual displacement.
ETA: I have a lot of say about Akira, apparently, because even though Soujiroh is first in my fangirl heart, Akira is first in the part of me that wants to do nothing but reread Proust all day. Akira is arguably the least developed character in the narrative, but he's the most striking character formally because his genre, and his postion, is one that is characterized by liminality, displacement, the movement between and across bounded spaces.
First, it's notable that though Akira's implicitly Yakuza, his genre isn't that of the Yakuza film. He has none of the bleak, static realism of, say, Takeshi Kitano's early work. Nor does he look particularly like he stepped out of one of those Hong Kong triad films. Akira's styling isn't that of a gangster in a gangster film, in other words, he's a gangster in an art-house drama, less Tony Leung in Infernal Affairs, and more Tony Leung in his brief cameo at the end of Days of Being Wild. Hell, Akira 20 years older and set 50 years in the past could easily looked the part of Tony Leung's character in 2046.
What makes this interesting, of course, is that Akira's genre is one characterised by nostalgia, of temporal displacements that are echoed spacially. Consider too that Akira is the only member of F4 that doesn't look quite modern. Soujiroh, for all his traditional garb and his consternation at having to perform tea ceremony in modern (western) spaces, is a preservation of the past that nonetheless belongs clearly in the present. He has no problems moving between his mod little brit-boy outfits and his tranditional tea ceremony dress because his ties to cultural tradition are clearly articulated. They are a history not lived nor longed for, but performed. Akira, on the other hand, looks dated. His polyester shirts, his mannerism, his relationships with older women all make him a character at odds with the temporality he inhabits. If Soujiroh is a preservation, a museum, Akira is a kitsch object. Whereas Soujiroh is a thoroughly modern subject re-enacting history, Akira is a lagging sort of modernity, a subject with a sort of history that lingers.
But as Akira's "close-up" in his introductory sequence suggests, this temporal dissonance, this sense of lagging modernity, is represented spacially. We project into Akira's history and legacy through a shift in space, thus allowing him to embody a sense of place as presence, as present, a fantasy of nostalgia.
This sense of temporal displacement as spacial displacement, of nostalgia (a longing for time) articulated as a confusion over place, becomes robust when we consider too that Akira's other life frequently takes place outside Japan, that there's something not-quite-Japanese about both his character and his genre. (Remember too that Abe Tsuyoshi, the actor who plays Akira, is of mixed heritage, a casting decision that I can't believe was purely coincidental). That in many way, Akira is the embodied transnational Asian modern, and existince simultaneously characterized by displacements in both time and space.
Then we have Soujiroh
If the cinematography in Akira's sequence evoke new wave Hong Kong cinema a la Wong Kar-Wai, Soujiroh's introduction plays with the forms of classic Japanese cinema. The rigorously set up proportions of each shot, the minimalist mise-en-scene, the crisp deep perspective (through doorways and corridors, no less), and -- obviously not shown in screencaps -- the systematic, carefully repeated camera movement in order to shift the placement of the subject in the frame, all echo some of Ozu's techniques.
And then Rui:
Rui is interesting because, unlike the other three, he doesn't get an insert shot to set up his world, but if you look at the consequent shots of Rui, you realize it's because Rui's genre is, in fact, the post-trendy Japanese drama. If we look at the space he inhabits, it clearly depicts the central theme of the post-trendy drama -- the striving for success within the lonliness and excitement of glamourous, late-capitalist urban Tokyo. The meticulously tasteful decor, the blur of city landscapes against chilled high-rise windows, the cinematic brooding -- classic post-trendy jdrama. Which is why Rui doesn't get his little insert shot of props to attune us to the genre shift: we are already in his native genre. While the others are, in the beginning, somehow displaced, out of phase, Rui is already at home, so to speak.
And finally Domyouji
And finally Domyouji, the Shojo hero come to technicolor. So of course, his insert shot? Is a damn castle. Honestly, when we consider that the classic Shojo text, Rose of Versaille, takes place at, well, Versailles, it's no surprise the the quickest visual shorthand of "you are now in the realm of shojo fantasy" is a dude who lives in a castle.
This becomes even more interesting when you consider then that Domyouji, who has to become the central protagonist, is actually more like Soujiroh and Akira in the beginning, a fantasy ported into the genre of the actual series. It is, in fact, RUI who is the indigenous protagonist. Thus, part of the conflict between Rui and Domyouji, and part of the struggle that we as viewer have watching them and Makino (you know she's meant to end up with Domyouji, but let's not pretend that we didn't all have some moments where we really wanted her to just go for Rui) is a formal one. It is a struggle between genres -- the post-trendy urban TV drama and the shojo adolescence fantasy. While I haven't rewatched enough of the series to be sure, I would not be surprised if there are moments of rupture along these lines, as well as a subtle, but very insistent shift stylistically from one genre to the other and Makino moves towards her intended love interest.
And a comment that ataratah made recently about how what made F4 compelling is the fact that they each seem to inhabit their own world made me revist their introduction sequence and it is startlingly how right she is. Each member of F4 not only inhabits their own world, providing unique and distinct fantasies, but these worlds are startlingly familiar. That is, these fantasies are articulated through the rigors of formal generic conventions, making F4 thus reifications, literal embodiments, of genre. Because like an SM idol group, F4 is not an ensemble in the traditional sense. F4 is made of four male central protagonists, or four would-be protagonist, if the drama operated in their genre.
This is made glaringly apparent in our very first introduction to F4. That voice-over sequence in which we meet and get the histories of F4 for the first time is organized in a systematic manner. We open with a shot of each guy walking slo-mo and airbrushed within an inch of his life, then cut to an insert shot that introduces us to his genre (except Rui, but more on that in a bit), and then a mid-shot of him within that context, then a sort of close-up or other stylistic device to suggest a sense of interiority or intimacy.
So we open with Akira:
Akira is seriously straight out of a Hong Kong new wave gangster flick. That last shot, with the coloring, the stillness, the siloutttes -- that could be a still of a wannabe Wong Kar-Wai film. Moreover, Akira's interiority is a literal other life, which he leads away from his F4 shenanigans. With Akira, unlike all the others, we don't get a close up, but a focal shift -- Akira's inner life is his history, which is brought forth through an act of visual displacement.
ETA: I have a lot of say about Akira, apparently, because even though Soujiroh is first in my fangirl heart, Akira is first in the part of me that wants to do nothing but reread Proust all day. Akira is arguably the least developed character in the narrative, but he's the most striking character formally because his genre, and his postion, is one that is characterized by liminality, displacement, the movement between and across bounded spaces.
First, it's notable that though Akira's implicitly Yakuza, his genre isn't that of the Yakuza film. He has none of the bleak, static realism of, say, Takeshi Kitano's early work. Nor does he look particularly like he stepped out of one of those Hong Kong triad films. Akira's styling isn't that of a gangster in a gangster film, in other words, he's a gangster in an art-house drama, less Tony Leung in Infernal Affairs, and more Tony Leung in his brief cameo at the end of Days of Being Wild. Hell, Akira 20 years older and set 50 years in the past could easily looked the part of Tony Leung's character in 2046.
What makes this interesting, of course, is that Akira's genre is one characterised by nostalgia, of temporal displacements that are echoed spacially. Consider too that Akira is the only member of F4 that doesn't look quite modern. Soujiroh, for all his traditional garb and his consternation at having to perform tea ceremony in modern (western) spaces, is a preservation of the past that nonetheless belongs clearly in the present. He has no problems moving between his mod little brit-boy outfits and his tranditional tea ceremony dress because his ties to cultural tradition are clearly articulated. They are a history not lived nor longed for, but performed. Akira, on the other hand, looks dated. His polyester shirts, his mannerism, his relationships with older women all make him a character at odds with the temporality he inhabits. If Soujiroh is a preservation, a museum, Akira is a kitsch object. Whereas Soujiroh is a thoroughly modern subject re-enacting history, Akira is a lagging sort of modernity, a subject with a sort of history that lingers.
But as Akira's "close-up" in his introductory sequence suggests, this temporal dissonance, this sense of lagging modernity, is represented spacially. We project into Akira's history and legacy through a shift in space, thus allowing him to embody a sense of place as presence, as present, a fantasy of nostalgia.
This sense of temporal displacement as spacial displacement, of nostalgia (a longing for time) articulated as a confusion over place, becomes robust when we consider too that Akira's other life frequently takes place outside Japan, that there's something not-quite-Japanese about both his character and his genre. (Remember too that Abe Tsuyoshi, the actor who plays Akira, is of mixed heritage, a casting decision that I can't believe was purely coincidental). That in many way, Akira is the embodied transnational Asian modern, and existince simultaneously characterized by displacements in both time and space.
Then we have Soujiroh
If the cinematography in Akira's sequence evoke new wave Hong Kong cinema a la Wong Kar-Wai, Soujiroh's introduction plays with the forms of classic Japanese cinema. The rigorously set up proportions of each shot, the minimalist mise-en-scene, the crisp deep perspective (through doorways and corridors, no less), and -- obviously not shown in screencaps -- the systematic, carefully repeated camera movement in order to shift the placement of the subject in the frame, all echo some of Ozu's techniques.
And then Rui:
Rui is interesting because, unlike the other three, he doesn't get an insert shot to set up his world, but if you look at the consequent shots of Rui, you realize it's because Rui's genre is, in fact, the post-trendy Japanese drama. If we look at the space he inhabits, it clearly depicts the central theme of the post-trendy drama -- the striving for success within the lonliness and excitement of glamourous, late-capitalist urban Tokyo. The meticulously tasteful decor, the blur of city landscapes against chilled high-rise windows, the cinematic brooding -- classic post-trendy jdrama. Which is why Rui doesn't get his little insert shot of props to attune us to the genre shift: we are already in his native genre. While the others are, in the beginning, somehow displaced, out of phase, Rui is already at home, so to speak.
And finally Domyouji
And finally Domyouji, the Shojo hero come to technicolor. So of course, his insert shot? Is a damn castle. Honestly, when we consider that the classic Shojo text, Rose of Versaille, takes place at, well, Versailles, it's no surprise the the quickest visual shorthand of "you are now in the realm of shojo fantasy" is a dude who lives in a castle.
This becomes even more interesting when you consider then that Domyouji, who has to become the central protagonist, is actually more like Soujiroh and Akira in the beginning, a fantasy ported into the genre of the actual series. It is, in fact, RUI who is the indigenous protagonist. Thus, part of the conflict between Rui and Domyouji, and part of the struggle that we as viewer have watching them and Makino (you know she's meant to end up with Domyouji, but let's not pretend that we didn't all have some moments where we really wanted her to just go for Rui) is a formal one. It is a struggle between genres -- the post-trendy urban TV drama and the shojo adolescence fantasy. While I haven't rewatched enough of the series to be sure, I would not be surprised if there are moments of rupture along these lines, as well as a subtle, but very insistent shift stylistically from one genre to the other and Makino moves towards her intended love interest.