A Japanese Legend

We now have a schedule in place for filming the remaining footage for Kanashimi.  It's been an interesting few weeks, with the completion of a rough cut to get a feel for what we really needed to finish up, and some good, constructive feedback to help.  One of the crew (somewhat approvingly) called what we're doing a kind of "jazz film-making".  We started with a full score (the script, the shooting schedule), but budget limitations, minor disasters, and just plain lack of time forced us to begin improvising and riffing on the basic story.  Not unprecedented in the movie business, but not what we had in mind when we started, either.

No matter.  All films, to some degree or other, depart from their original plans - even Hitchcock had to adapt, on occasion.

Apropos of the coming shoot, here is a bit of backstory for the film, in the form of a short piece I wrote yesterday. It's designed to provide a rationale for some of the symbolic elements of the story, including the use of two Japanese Noh masks as key props.  This one is called Hannya:

Hannya is a female demon who was once human, and was transformed into horned, fanged beast by jealousy.  In our film, the mask is used as part of a Halloween costume, so there is nothing to explain.  She's just supposed to be scary.  But creating a rationale for the inclusion of the other mask proved a little more difficult, since he is supposed to have symbolic meaning, as well as just being creepy.  That one is O-Tobide:

"O-Tobide" is Japanese for "startled expression", which the mask reflects.  In Noh theater, the mask is worn to represent a supernatural character, usually a demon of thunder. The Noh plays, while interesting, are lyrical, philosophical, and poetic (as well as being very "Japanese"), and thus were not suitable to provide an interesting back story for Kanashimi.

As Werner Herzog did not say (but easily could have), "Never let the facts get in the way of a good story."  So, in that spirit, I present:

雷鬼の悲しみ

(Kaminari oni no Kanashimi - The Sorrow of the Thunder Demon)

(a Japanese "legend" I made up, with elements taken from the Noh play, Kamo)

 A man and his young son were walking to Kyoto to visit the shrine known as Shimogamo Jinja.  A thunderstorm struck, but they continued on in the rain, for they were on their way to pray for the soul of the man's wife, who had passed away on that very morning.  Fed by the storm, the Takano river swelled as they were crossing the bridge, and the man's son was swept away in the current. Heartbroken, the man cried out to Wakeikazuchi, the god of thunder, who answered by striking the bridge in front of him with lightening.  The man was so shocked that his countenance was frozen in astonishment and fear.  Nonetheless, the man pleaded with the god to return his son.  But it was too late, the boy had already joined his mother in the land of the dead. Overcome with grief, the man pleaded twice more, until, in an act of pity, the god transformed the man into a supernatural being - kaminari oni - a demon of thunder.  Now he could strike at will between heaven and earth; he could visit both the living and the dead, but could not be a part of either world. To this day, he is called "o tobide", for the look of surprise and grief that he will wear for all eternity.