It’s been nearly three years since the Aurora Asian Film Festival folded its tent. Since that time, there has been scant Asian movie programming, a pity for a town with a cinema-savvy audience as well as a sizable Asian population.
So, it’s good news that beginning Thursday, moviegoers can plunge into an intensive weekend of screenings, lectures and receptions when “Focus on Japanese Cinema” launches at the Starz FilmCenter on Auraria’s campus.
Teamwork between the Denver Film Society, the University of Colorado Denver and the consulate-general of Japan delivers one of the sharpest film series to open in recent memory.
The 12-film event mixes mid-century and contemporary Japanese classics. One highlight is a restored 35mm print of Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai,” ranked No. 11 in the magazine Sight & Sound’s esteemed once-a-decade poll of critics of best films period. (It plays at noon Sunday)
The series begins with “When a Woman Ascends the Stairs,” (1960), a rarely screened work by mid-century master Mikio Naruse (1905-1969). Although the director was the first Japanese filmmaker to be reviewed in The New York Times and a hero among French cinephiles, he hasn’t had the name recognition of contemporaries Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi.
Yet Kurosawa, a one-time assistant, remarked that in Naruse’s films “a flow of shots that looks calm and ordinary at first glance reveals itself to be like a deep river with a quiet surface disguising a fast-raging current.”
In actuality, the series begins Wednesday morning with a primer called “Japanese Cinema 101,” taught by UC Denver’s director of film education, Howie Movshovitz (April 7, 11:30 a.m.-12:45 p.m.).
Although pitched to Auraria campus students, the introduction is free and open to filmgoers who want a compass for what will be a heady journey of viewing, receptions and lectures. Of particular note is a talk by renowned visual artist Kota Ezawa on Friday at 5 p.m.
“It’s important to recognize cinema we don’t see very often but also to recognize it as representative of place and culture,” Movshovitz says. “And Japanese cinema happens to be spectacularly good.”
In addition to the spectacularly good “Seven Samurai” and three other Naruse films, is a showing of Ozu’s “Late Spring” (7 p.m. Friday).
Contemporary works
The 12-film event does not end with the midcentury masters. There are fine contemporary works. Among them director Juzo Itami’s popular 1985 comedy “Tampopo”; Kyoshi Kurosawa’s international breakthrough “Cure”; Satoshi Kon’s “Millennium Actress”; and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “After Life.”
Screening Sunday evening is director-writer Takeshi Kitano’s terrifically entertaining and unexpectedly moving “The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi.”
The film, which screened in Denver in 2004, stars “Beat” Takeshi (the director’s onscreen moniker) as a blond, blind warrior who arrives in a 19th-century village lorded over by corrupt samurai and gangsters.
Credit the film society with including a genre excursion in the lineup. A digital version of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s haunted “Hausu” (“House”) played ever so briefly in December as part of the film society’s late-night Watching Hour series. This is a restored 35mm print.
Made in 1977, the weirdly psychedelic tale follows a group of schoolgirls as they vacation at an auntie’s village home. The young ladies have names like Georgeous, Fantasy, Mac (she’s a big eater), Melody and Sweet.
“Hausu” shares some intriguing aspects with Dario Argento’s gorier “Suspiria,” made the same year. For one, the soundtrack is an eclectic mix of not quite comprehensible noise, incongruous upbeat instrumentals and a lovely intermittent piano theme.
Still, the shimmering soul of the weekend series remains the four seldom-seen works by Naruse: “When a Woman Ascends the Stairs,” “Yearning,” (9:30 p.m. Friday) “Lightning” (2 p.m. Saturday) and “Flowing” (7:30 p.m. Sunday).
“We’re really lucky to have these prints in this condition,” film society artistic director Brit Withey told an audience for a preview screening of “Yearning” on Wednesday night. As promised, the black- and-white print is gorgeous.
Legend Hideko Takamine stars as Reiko Morita, a widow who has kept her in-laws’ market afloat while male heir Koji (a divine Yuzo Kayama) seems only interested in gallivanting. But things are not as they seem in the astonishing, aching melodrama.
Naruse said of his characters, “If they move even a little, they quickly hit the wall.” He added this revelation: “From the youngest age, I have thought that the world we live in betrays us; the thought still remains with me.”
These might sound like the musings of a unforgiving artist, but “Yearning” is infused with potent and poignant sympathy, especially for his female protagonist, Reiko.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com. Also on blogs.denverpostcom/ madmoviegoer
“Focus on Japanese Cinema.” Film series. Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli, Ninth Street and Auraria Parkway. A 12-film plunge into classic and contemporary Japanese cinema with receptions and lectures (among them a talk by renowned visual artist Kota Ezawa). Through April 11. Film tickets from $10-$15; lectures open and free to the public. Call 303-820-FILM. For a complete schedule of events go to .
