Japanese director Jun Ichikawa tragically died over the weekend at the age of 59. He reportedly collapsed over a meal and was never revived. Ichikawa's only film that got US distribution was Tony Takitani which played at The Parkway a few years back and is available on DVD. Tony Takitani is an understated film of melancholia adapted from a short story of the same name by Haruki Murakami.His death comes at a time when he seemed to finally be getting his directorial legs, breaking away from director for hire projects punctuated by his current independent film, buy a suit, that was slated to premier at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October.
4 comments:
Sad news, yep. Decidedly, this is not the year for the Ichikawas (I. Kon died on the 13th February, 2008...).
I was really sad to hear the news. I loved Tony Takitani, and also enjoyed Tokyo Marigold.
By the way, Dan, I do visit your blog, but my Italian sucks! So I am unable to understand most of it. I do, however, appreciate the beautiful photos!
Oh, don't worry for my blog! Usually, I only point out in English the DVD news - http://barrenillusions.blogspot.com/2008/09/octobers-masterpiece.html -; sometimes, some reviews too - http://barrenillusions.blogspot.com/2008/05/now-with-criterion-reissues-its-time-to.html -. Actually, in the beginning, I wanted to write in English and so I did, but I realized that write about art in English was not as satisfactory, and deep enough, as in Italian. The thing to do would be translate from Italian to English. I was thinking about it.
About Jun: I liked "Tony Takitani", that is the only one I've seen from him - it's so difficult to trace his movies! -. They say "Dying at a Hospital" is a Japanese masterpiece, now maybe we can hope in a DVD release...
I think only Tony Takitani and Tokyo Marigold (R2 Japanese DVD) are available with English subs. (I'm afraid my Japanese is as bad as my Italian!)
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