Etsushi Toyokawa, the insinuating friend of the widow's late husband in Love Letter, entangled husband in Undo, and the weird husband-or-something in Angel Dust, plays a chameleon and inveterate liar, Aikawa, something like, but much more inept than, the Will Smith character in Six Degrees of Separation or the DiCiprio one in Catch Me If You Can. At the film's start, he nudges into the life of self-sufficient typesetter Zeiji. The give and take between these opposite personalities fascinates throughout.
Of the episodic events that follow, the surreal gangster's moll stuff bores, but all involving the publishing industry intrigues. Really, just the fleeting views of Zeiji's kanji-based computer typesetting apparatus pay back the effort to see this relatively recent yet obscure film.
Watch for Aikawa's presentation to a group of publishers about 55 minutes in. Somehow he knows what he's talking about, gives a wonderfully graphic presentation on the dangers of acid paper, embrittlement, and more, then segues into the economics of shrinking print size, especially significant in a kanji-based society. Nothing new. Librarians and preservationists will know what other viewers suspect, that Aikawa's done real research and knows what he's talking about. But the lesson's much more effective out of the blue in this rambling fiction than in a classroom. These fact-based surprises help make the Aikawa character bearable and entertaining. The integrity of his research surprises again and again, because he undercuts each flight of brilliance with goofy fawning and seemingly escalating failure.
Books and publishing pervade the plot. A volume key to the story dies multiple deaths to suffer a startling resurrection.
Touch points? When I chanced on Lies Lies Lies I was nearly done readings Eco's "Il nome della rosa" which carries other lessons on the life and death of books. In 1986 it became an Annaud-directed film, The Name of the Rose, less effective than Eco. Another okay film coincidentally instructive about the life and death of print is Harada's Inugami which integrates near-documentary scenes of paper-making into an otherworldly, somewhat lurid melodrama.
Of the episodic events that follow, the surreal gangster's moll stuff bores, but all involving the publishing industry intrigues. Really, just the fleeting views of Zeiji's kanji-based computer typesetting apparatus pay back the effort to see this relatively recent yet obscure film.
Watch for Aikawa's presentation to a group of publishers about 55 minutes in. Somehow he knows what he's talking about, gives a wonderfully graphic presentation on the dangers of acid paper, embrittlement, and more, then segues into the economics of shrinking print size, especially significant in a kanji-based society. Nothing new. Librarians and preservationists will know what other viewers suspect, that Aikawa's done real research and knows what he's talking about. But the lesson's much more effective out of the blue in this rambling fiction than in a classroom. These fact-based surprises help make the Aikawa character bearable and entertaining. The integrity of his research surprises again and again, because he undercuts each flight of brilliance with goofy fawning and seemingly escalating failure.
Books and publishing pervade the plot. A volume key to the story dies multiple deaths to suffer a startling resurrection.
Touch points? When I chanced on Lies Lies Lies I was nearly done readings Eco's "Il nome della rosa" which carries other lessons on the life and death of books. In 1986 it became an Annaud-directed film, The Name of the Rose, less effective than Eco. Another okay film coincidentally instructive about the life and death of print is Harada's Inugami which integrates near-documentary scenes of paper-making into an otherworldly, somewhat lurid melodrama.
