Films this year:
6. Ginga tetsudo no yoru (The Night of the Galaxy Train), Gizaburo Sugii (1985).
7. Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner), Zakharias Kunuk (2001)
Last tuesday watched 6 with a couple of second-year students. Based on a hyper-famous story by Kenji Miyazawa, this animation is after Hiroshi Masumura's lovely all-cat characters comics version. Well-made, faithful, and as touching as the original. This term my undergraduate seminar students are expected to write on the story and I have my own theory about the whole structure of it, but will keep my mouth shut for a while.
7 is an EXTREME, TRULY OUTRAGEOUS masterpiece. This is the second time I watch it, but I still can't figure out the pre-history (one generation before, that is) part of the rivalry between Oki and Atanarjuat. All Inuit film based on an Inuit legend that calls for a GA (Eric Gans's generative anthropology, itself a development from René Girard's originary anthropology) kind of reading. Actually, I will write up my analysis one of these days, time permitting.
