Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana

Japn by Carlos ReygadasReview by: Cynthia TompkinsChasqui, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Nov., 2006), pp. 194-197Published by: Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericanaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29742133 .Accessed: 01/07/2012 16:12

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to Chasqui.

http://www.jstor.org

194 Reviews

ca?ula Maria D'Ajuda (Tais Ara?jo/ L?a Garcia) - mae, filha e av? dedicada - ? s?mbolo de maternidade agregadora, mas tamb?m de independencia sexual, de gra?a generosa e sedu?ao. Assim como sua sobrinha Selminha (Maria Cei?a), essas personagens sao arquetipos de Oxum, mulheres que criam e buscam raizes e que estabelecem o ciclo de fertilidade e continua?ao das

tradi?oes. Os arquetipos dos orix?s se apresentam de forma fluida em proje?oes e intera?oes que de um lado ecoam as narrativas do If? e por outro apontam para o entendimento de que os seres

humanos em suas complexidades, apesar de carregarem a for?a energ?tica primordial de um orix?,

apresentam caracter?sticas de outros orix?s.

Assim como Daughters of the Dust, Filhas do vento desenvolve um trabalho de representac?o est?tica das tradi?oes cultur?is da diaspora africana, tradi?oes essas que sao essencialmente teoc?ntricas. Traduzir esse conte?do para urna linguagem art?stica (literaria ou visual) ? um trabalho que s? pode ser executado em toda sua intensidade pelo artista que conhece e reconhece

neste universo cultural religioso, a est?tica que a informa -

n?o como decorativa ou perif?rica, mas como central e carregada do potencial, do ax?, de afirma?ao positiva de beleza e felicidade.

Isis Costa McElroy, Arizona State University

Jap?n. Dir. Carlos Reygadas. Mexico, 2002. Dur. 130 min.

Carlos Reygadas's Jap?n (2002) is a lyrical movie structured through imagery rather than a strong plot. It is anchored on aporia as a reflex of undecidability, insofar as the sketchy plotline appears to withhold almost as much information as it provides. Quite appropriately, the film begins with cars speeding through a tunnel. Positioned in the front of a car, the camera registers the passage through a wooded area. Images of land covered by high corn stalks transition into semi-desert mountainous landscape. At that point, we see a hand patting the hood of a bus, which

implies that the ride is over. Point of view appears to become more personal as the hand-held camera takes in what the protagonist (the man?Alejandro Ferretis) sees. However, the camera also fulfills a dual role by registering the scrawny man's walk through an area lined with agave. All of a sudden, a chubby redhead signals, asking him to duck. After some shots the boy runs to fetch a pigeon. Thus, we learn about the hunting party, in which there is a cameo appearance by Reygadas. The boy holds the pigeon hesitatingly. As the man asks for it, we don't expect him to sever the bird's head. The camera zooms to the spasmodically moving head, perhaps a wink to Bu?uel's Un Chien andalou (1929). The man plucks the feathers and hands the bird's frail body to the boy. The stereotypical assumptions about the role of hunting in the construction of

masculinity are played out as the man meets the boy's father, who also happens to be a redhead. When the man asks for a ride down the cliff we realize they're on a mesa. The camera continues

alternating between the man's point of view and that of a distant observer, which emphasizes the

beauty of the landscape. When the father inquires about the reason he wants to go to the neighbo? ring village, the man replies, "to shoot myself," an abrupt enough answer to put an end to the conversation. They drop him off on the hamlet half-way down. He is awakened by the noise of a pig being slaughtered, and we infer he's spent the night at a butcher's shop.

As he treks on down, we realize he limps despite a cane. Upon arrival, he asks villagers for

lodging, but soon discovers he must get clearance from the community leader (Judge Rolando Hern?ndez). As he prefers to live far from the village, they offer accommodations at a widow's bam. Trekking up with Sabina (Yolanda Villa), the grocer's wife, they meet Aseen (Magdalena

Reviews 195

Flores), a very religious wizened woman, whose reservations about having a lodger arise from her advanced age?she's too old to take care of him-and the lack of running water.

On the following day, the man goes down to the valley. At first we don't realize that the

shiny black square with slits for eyes, crossed out with red, is a painting. The work offers infor? mation about the man's background, his feelings, and his habits, such as his close attention to the

changing landscape. As he returns from the valley, a man going in the opposite direction curses him. Upon arrival Aseen offers him cold tea, but prefers not to divulge the traveler's identity. On the following day, rain changes the hues of the surroundings. As the man sits smoking, listening to music, and looking at a book of paintings, he invites Aseen to join him. The woman accepts his offer to try pot, and in response to his request shows him the painting she prefers, a minima? list rendition of lines, perhaps a self-reflexive reference to the title of the film.

As the man lies naked in bed he doodles with a gun, but ends up masturbating. Images of a sand dune and a svelte girl in bikini walking away from the sea to kiss Aseen on the mouth

would appear to mimic a dream, prefiguring perhaps the beauty he has discovered in the old lady. A telling incident happens when after a hearty dinner, she offers him a cup of "good coffee." As she leans down to look for the pot, the man stares at the curve of her buttocks, despite her lean

body. A few minutes later, she signals to him and they awkwardly hold hands. On the following morning Aseen tells the man that her nephew has come twice to claim the foundations of the barn. The man leaves, and as he treks uphill he slips badly and in falling cuts the side of his

head, which starts bleeding. However, the focus is on the mountainside, the changing light, and the cloud formations, and the rain. Once at the top of the mesa, he sees a dead horse, which seems to have been castrated. The image is fitting, since the man appears to be ready to commit suicide. He finally shoots and the camera goes foggy. Then (perhaps in a chopper) starts circling the bodies going higher and higher, with the crescendo of an exquisite chorale as background. The rain has a cleansing effect. As he returns to the village, he overhears the nephew's sons

making fun of Aseen, has himself bandaged by Sabina, enquires about Aseen's nephew, drinks too much and becomes irritated by Norte?a music blaring out of a boom box. After throwing it on the floor, he is kicked out. Back at his lodgings, Aseen tells him they'll come to take the stones on the following day. Though he attempts to convince her that her nephew has no right, she replies, "es que no soy aferrada." Despite her sadness, she is fatalistically accepting. While

she washes clothes by the river, the man is privy to the mating of horses. That evening, as they go up the cliff, he asks Aseen if she's seen the sunset. Aseen, in turn, asks him what brought him to the village. The man answers that he's left the city in search of serenity, to cast aside certain

things usually taken for granted. Later, he invites her to listen to music, and he admits that his search awoke in him certain emtions and instincts. He blurts out, "en realidad, lo que me gustar?a es tener relaciones con Ud." Surprised, she repeats, "Ud. lo que quiere es fornicarme ahora

mismo." She prefers to wait. Aseen goes to church and smiles at the brawny golden image of Christ. Once both are naked, the man keeps asking her to change positions, to the sound of sheep and chickens in the background. Finally, he gives up, crying, and she draws her gnarled hands around his head. The sounds of hammers crashing into the walls startle them. Accompanied by some of the community men Aseen's nephew is intent on taking the foundations. Though the man

attempts to stop them, he is cast aside as a cripple. Little by little the roof collapses. While the men work, Aseen offers them pulque. Each one of the hewn white foundation stones requires the

strength of two men to be moved. The stones are placed on two wagons, pulled by a tractor. As

they take the road down to the village, Aseen borrows the man's coat, promising to return it

shortly. The camera follows her for some time, sitting regally on the wagon.

196 Reviews

As night falls, the man turns off the light. On the following morning, Sabina gives him the news. Once again, we follow the camera traveling over railway tracks covered with small white stones. A fire on the far side is all that remains of the tractor. Some bodies are strewn around, others under the wagon. The camera moves from one side of the tracks to the other; finally, fixed on the tracks, it zooms back a considerable distance till it stops, focusing on Aseen's body, face

staring up, with hair or blood covering her face like lace.

According to Richard James Havis, "Jap?n was shot with unusual superCinemascope process ... on a 16mm camera, then blown up to 35mm. . . . Reygadas uses the frame for maximum

effect on the landscapes.... But the relative mobility of the 16mm camera allows him to carry out some adventurous hand-held experiments. The audacious, circling 7-minute shot, which closes

the film, tying up the story as it swoops in on the fates of the various characters, is mesmeri?

zing." However, the audience never finds out what drove the man to the village to commit suicide; or, for that matter, why he did not carry through. Perhaps, being a painter, he is redeemed by the breathtaking beauty of the landscape. Perhaps, by Aseen's kindness and

willingness to try new things despite her age. The fog that fills the screen when the man shoots is ambiguous, for it may suggest a black-out or the sublime, which by definition, cannot be described. In She Must be Seeing Things (1987) Sheila McLaughlin relies on blinding light radiating from the canvas to suggest indescribable beauty. Indeed, the ever-widening and ascen?

ding circling shots of the man lying on the mesa, facing the lush beauty of the gorge, suggest the sublime. Moreover, Reygadas resorts to the chorale to suggest that the man is in a different

mindset at several points of the movie. Ironically, the man's Zen-cum-Existentialist quest is

juxtaposed with the daily life of poor peasants. Aseen, for instance, has spent her life depending on a mule for water, working throughout the seasons to eek a living. For all her Indian phe notypes, she is assimilated, and following Marx's dictum of religion as the opium of the people, she prays. Conversely, the man doesn't.

The sexual imagery is ambiguous. Symbolically, horses connote male sexuality. The image of the castrated horse at the top of the mesa is hard to pin down. Was the corpse really there? Did the man imagine it? We assume not, since both bodies are framed when the man tries to commit suicide. Once he has given up on killing himself, a horse mounting a mare propells the narrative into the man's request for sex, which hinges on taboo, or the abject, given the age difference. Aseen addressess him as "joven" throughout the movie. The fact that he would ask Aseen to have sex reinserts the man in the hegemonic construction of masculinity according to which men act driven by urges. Thus, his impotence is ambiguous. Hegemonically, a flaw, but an advantage if interpreted as a sign that he is no longer driven by instincts. In other words, though the camera follows the man constantly we are kept in the dark regarding his past and his stream of consciousness. Aporia, as a paradoxical degree of undecidability describes the film insofar as his actions allow us to infer almost as much as what is withheld from us.

Aseen's predicament is more clearcut, and the audience feels for the woman. She knows that

the foundations of the barn anchor her home, which will not resist the weather afterward. By giving them up, she signs her death sentence. Her acceptance, despite her awareness, may be

attributed to the self-sacrificing role expected of women in Catholicism. Furthermore, she is being victimized by a close relative, which could very well have been her son. His betrayal, considering that she used to visit him while he was in prison, is all the more galling. The implicit betrayal of the community, which condones the action, is also telling. Despite the ambiguity regarding Ascen's motivation in choosing to go down the mountain on the wagon the denouement reads like the poetic justice of a Greek tragedy. While she meets her death sooner rather than later, and

Reviews 197

knowingly, as suggested by her attempt to cloud her enemies's reason with pulque, her greedy nephew and his accomplices are punished for exacting the proverbial pound of flesh. Though the man never admitted his motivation, Aseen appears to have inferred it, and as part of an unspoken pact, inmolates herself in his stead, in a perfect instance of the Derridean supplement.

Cynthia Tompkins, Arizona State University

Lista de espera. Dir. Juan Carlos Tab?o. Cuba, 2000. Dur. 107 min.

En un viaje que hice a Cuba, poco despu?s de llegar o? a alguien en la calle decir que "Si el surrealismo se hubiera inventado en Cuba, ser?a costumbrismo". En ese momento me pareci?

simplemente un comentario gracioso, pero a lo largo de varias semanas en la isla empec? a

entender las condiciones que han inspirado tal humor c?nico. Al ver la pel?cula de Juan Carlos Tab?o, Lista de espera (2000), un a?o despu?s, record? las condiciones que desde mi perspectiva de norteamericana lindan con lo absurdo pero para los cubanos reflejan una realidad cotidiana. Tanto en Cuba como fuera de ella, Tab?o es un director conocido no s?lo por sus colaboraciones

con el ilustre Tom?s Guti?rrez Alea?Fresa y chocolate (1994) y Guantanamera (1996) se cuentan entre las m?s celebradas?sino tambi?n por sus propios largometrajes que tratan el tema

de algunas circunstancias cotidianas con un matiz ?nicamente cubano.

La trama de Lista de espera gira alrededor de la experiencia de un grupo de personajes que se encuentran pr?cticamente abandonados en una estaci?n de autobuses en alguna parte del centro

de la isla. Cuando Emilio (Vladimir Cruz), el protagonista, llega a la estaci?n para emprender un viaje a Santiago, entra y se encuentra en medio de una especie de colmena: ancianos, ni?os, hombres y mujeres, todos con sus maletas, bolsos o cajas de cart?n, algunos sentados con una

postura desgarbada, todos movi?ndose de alguna forma, gesticulando fren?ticamente o abanic?n? dose. Entre el bullicio conoce a Jacqueline (Thaim? Alvari?o), una joven atractiva que necesita llegar urgentemente a La Habana, donde su novio espa?ol la est? esperando para llev?rsela con

?l a Europa. Entra en escena Rolando (Jorge Perugorr?a), un ciego que pretende que lo pongan al principio de la cola por ser ?l "un caso social", lo que provoca una reacci?n vehemente de

algunos viajeros que se niegan a perder su sitio en la cola. (Descubrimos un poco despu?s que Rolando finge su ceguera para inspirar l?stima y trato especial de los otros viajeros, y su enga?o le funciona bastante bien.)

La calma relativa (o sea, el caos controlado) del ambiente se desmorona cuando una mujer grita: "?Ay, Se?or, viene una guagua!" y todos se van corriendo, sobresaltados, al and?n. Al

ambiente de caos y frenes? se le a?ade una capa de frustraci?n y desilusi?n al darse cuenta todos de que el conductor no ha parado por ellos sino ?nicamente por una joven voluptuosa vestida de

liera, y ha seguido el camino. Todos vuelven desanimados a la estaci?n para esperar que se

arregle un autob?s estropeado, pero primero llega la medianoche y Fern?ndez (Noel Garc?a), el director de la estaci?n, anuncia que el terminal se tiene que cerrar y que todos los viajeros deben volver a sus casas para pasar la noche. La frustraci?n es evidente cuando algunos cumplen con

el orden del compa?ero, gru?endo pero obedeciendo. No obstante, algunos viajeros indican que no pueden volver a sus casas, mientras que otros, encogi?ndose los hombros, expresan simple?

mente que no hay nada que hacer en casa y prefieren estar con los dem?s en el terminal.

Es en este punto cuando la historia empieza a tomar unos pasos inesperados: aunque gran

parte de los viajeros s? salen de la estaci?n, aproximadamente una docena opta por quedarse a

Article Contentsp. 194p. 195p. 196p. 197

Issue Table of ContentsChasqui, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Nov., 2006), pp. 1-213Front MatterGarca Mrquez's Sublime Violence and the Eclipse of Colombian Literature [pp. 3-20]Ilan Stavans's Latino USA: A Cartoon History (Of a Cosmopolitan Intellectual) [pp. 21-41]Impossible Indian [pp. 42-57]En el Pas de la Parodia: El Criollismo de Adn Buenosayres de Marechal [pp. 58-71]Tomochic: Nationalist Narrative, Homogenizing Late Nineteenth-Century Discourse and Society in Mexico [pp. 72-88]Trac(k)ing Gender and Sexuality in the Writing of Alejandra Pizarnik [pp. 89-108]Mirada Cinematogafica y Gnero Sexual: Mmica, Erotismo y Ambigedad En Lucrecia Martel [pp. 109-130]ReviewsReview: Review Essay: La transgresin sexual y poltica en las tradiciones espirituales africanas de Amrica y en la obra de Reinaldo Arenas. [pp. 131-133]Review: Review Essay: Del Caribe Insular al Caribe Continental y Espaa: Cuba, Espaa, Mxico y Puerto Rico [pp. 134-136]Review: untitled [pp. 136-137]Review: untitled [pp. 137-139]Review: untitled [pp. 139-140]Review: untitled [pp. 140-142]Review: untitled [pp. 142-146]Review: untitled [pp. 146-147]Review: untitled [pp. 147-151]Review: untitled [pp. 151-153]Review: untitled [pp. 154-155]Review: untitled [pp. 155-156]Review: untitled [pp. 156-157]Review: untitled [pp. 157-161]Review: untitled [pp. 161-163]Review: untitled [pp. 163-164]Review: untitled [pp. 164-166]Review: untitled [pp. 166-173]Review: untitled [pp. 173-174]Review: untitled [pp. 174-177]Review: untitled [pp. 177-179]Review: untitled [pp. 180-181]Review: untitled [pp. 181-182]

Film ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 183-184]Review: untitled [pp. 184-186]Review: untitled [pp. 186-189]Review: untitled [pp. 189-190]Review: untitled [pp. 190-192]Review: untitled [pp. 192-194]Review: untitled [pp. 194-197]Review: untitled [pp. 197-199]Review: untitled [pp. 199-201]Review: untitled [pp. 201-203]Review: untitled [pp. 203-206]Review: untitled [pp. 206-207]Review: untitled [pp. 208-209]Review: untitled [pp. 210-211]Review: untitled [pp. 211-213]

Back Matter