Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival 2008

THE BLESSING BELL

Laid off with the unexpected closing of a local factory, a laborer opts to take a walk rather then join his co-workers in protest. Hands in his pockets, wearing an aimless gaze and never uttering a word, his walk takes him to various places and people, including a ghost played by Seijun Suzuki. When he can go no further, he turns around and walks home.

Having established himself with energetic screwball crime capers like Postman Blues and Unlucky Monkey, SABU’s The Blessing Bell is a markedly distinct work. The bumbling of Yakuza, the lamentations of murderers and the Rube-Goldberg machine plotting that SABU is so elegant at constructing persist from previous works, but what differs is how SABU approaches these episodes visually. For the most part, SABU has the camera capture the action on a proscenium. Like the unfurling of a tapestry the protagonist walks from the left to right across a series of shots, only to pass through them all again on his way home. The effect is an extremely absorbing cinematic representation of Zen philosophy.

In the pivotal role of the wanderer is veteran Japanese actor Susumu Terajima. A familiar face from both Takeshi Miike and Kitano, but rarely assuming anything more then a supporting role, SABU takes advantage of Terajima’s wonderful face and its seemingly perpetual grimace for his patient protagonist. It is a deadpan, but moving performance of exquisite subtlety.

The Blessing Bell, winner of the Netpac Award at the Berlin International Film Festival (2003) and the Grand Jury Prize at Cinemanila International Film Festival, is a wonderfully accomplished film that manages to inspire a contagious sense of optimism despite its brushes with life’s tragedies and suffering.

- Eric Cazdyn and Peter Kuplowsky

SABU was born in 1964 as Hiroyuki Tanaka, He began his film career as an actor. His performance in Katsuhiro Otomo’s World Apartment Horror (1991) won him an award at the Yokohama Film Festival 1991, and he went on to appear in several other films, working under Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Hideo Nakata and Takeshi Miike. In 1996, he debuted as both a writer and director with D.A.N.G.A.N. Runner. Celebrated for his inventive style and humorous storytelling, SABU quickly became a highly regarded director in both Japan and overseas, particularly in Europe.



SPONSOR: University of Toronto Munk Centre for International Studies at Trinity College, Asian Institute
COMMUNITY PARTNERS: Gendai Gallery, Canada Japan Society of Toronto