Sunday Salon 1-13-19

Time and Place: 9:45 Sunday morning, at my main computer, newly moved to the dining room table (a useful change).

Reading: 2019 has gotten off to a great start in my reading, as I’ve already completed five books! Granted, a couple of these were relatively short, and one was an art exhibition catalog with lots of illustrations. Still, I’m happy about the start. Not only that, but as I mentioned on the blog this week, I’ve joined the Japanese Literature Challenge 12, hosted by Dolce Bellezza. So I’ll be joining several bloggers in focusing on Japanese books through the end of March. Without even knowing about the Challenge, I had already decided to devote a lot of the coming year to novels in translation by Japanese authors. So the Challenge came along at just the right time. I finished my first book for the Challenge, Masks by Fumiko Enchi, yesterday; I hope to write about it in the coming week.

Viewing: After a gangbusters finish to 2018, with seven films viewed in the last five days of the year, I’ve gotten a bit of a slow start this year. I did, however, watch again Hirokazu Kore-eda’s first feature film, Maborosi, in a very nice new Blu-ray issue. The film moved me as much as ever, and remains in my Top Ten films of all time.

Listening: Music has been a bit of a non-issue in my life in recent weeks, so I’ll mention a couple of current favorite podcasts instead, both of which happen to deal with film. I continue to listen to and enjoy You Must Remember This, in which Karina Longworth talks about, as she puts it, “the secret and/or forgotten history of Hollywood’s first century.” I’m currently in the middle of a series in which she analyzes stories from Kenneth Anger’s famous, scandalous, very enjoyable, and occasionally accurate Hollywood Babylon. Newly a part of my podcast lineup is Her Head in Films, in which Caitlin talks about her favorite films in very personal terms. She is attracted to foreign and art house films, as am I, and the repertoire of films she has talked about in the podcast is such a close match to my own tastes that it feels I have found a friend in film in this podcast.

Blogging: My main accomplishment this week was returning to blogging at all. After a month away, this is my fifth entry in five days, which pleases me very much. The pace may slow a bit in coming days, but I have a couple of things in the works for this week, including the aforementioned review of Fumiko Enchi’s Masks and a short article on the connections between Claude Monet’s paintings and Japanese art and gardens.

Pondering: Should I take in some of Noir City 17, the festival of films noirs coming to San Francisco in a couple of weeks? I know I would love it, but I also need to be careful of finances, having little regular income at the moment. We’ll see…

And finally: With his most recent film Shoplifters having won the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year, and with my own recent viewing of Maborosi and The Third Murder, I’ve had the films of Hirokazu Kore-eda, one of my favorite film directors, much on my mind recently. One of the best introductions to his films is this short piece by the filmmaker and critic kogonada that I posted here on the blog several years ago (you can read what I wrote about it then here), and am happy to present again.

The World According to Koreeda Hirokazu from kogonada on Vimeo.