Thursday 24 November 2011

I noticed something the other day when I was watching my case study film (Chatroom) and I thought I'd make a post about it. This is probably one of those irrelevant posts that nobody cares about, so feel free to completely disregard it.


I was thinking about that whole category thing for British films, which made me want to watch it again, and I was thinking about which category Chatroom would go into. It's nearly entirely British, but it has a Japanese director, Hideo Nakata. I'm guessing it goes in like B or something like that. But it also got me thinking about the film and how having a director from a different country and culture can influence how the film is made. Chatroom is a very British film; it has a British cast, it uses London as its setting and they film on location and nearly everybody involved was British.

But, there are certain things that reallllllly stand out as being incredibly Japanese-style.

For instance, in this picture, where they're sitting in their newly decorated room, there's a lot of Japanese influence. You can't hear it (obviously, it's a picture...), but the song when they open up their new room is I Left My Heart In Tokyo, and there's all the bunnies and I don't know it just reminds me of those scarily happy Japanese girls that are all jumpy and screamy and stuff (think Battle Royale, that girl on the video, she's scary...)

If you look from 3:35 - 4:00 (be warned, it's kind of graphic and I guess kind of triggering), the part that's cut in between him putting lotion on his scars is really reminiscent of a scene from A Tale of Two Sisters (I'd find it, but I can't remember which part of the film it's in and I don't want to watch the whole film to find it, because that film scares me :')), which is a Japanese film. And just the way it's just harshly cut in. After 4:00, there's a clip of a girl jumping out of a window, but that's not really that Japanese-y, just there's a Japanese girl in it...

If you go from 8:25, you see some scarily peaceful woman sitting in a really eerie room. This is like the epitome of the Japanese influence in this film. The whole clinically white, yet with a blue tint, thing they've got going on pops up all over Japanese films (especially in Ringu, also by Hideo Nakata) and there's always a creepy little girl in it with black hair and a really pale face. The woman in the room is like them, but with short hair. She even has the slow and peaceful voice. I'm not explaining myself very well, but if you like Japanese horror films, you'll know what I mean.

/coolstorybro

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