Film stills from Kanai Katsu’s The Kingdom (1973)

Film stills from Kanai Katsu’s The Deserted Archipelago (1969)

Kanai Katsu's THE DESERTED ARCHIPELAGO (1969) Review on J-Film Pow-Wow

“The Deserted Archipelago” is a surreal political tale, a film entirely of it’s time. By the late 60’s and early 70’s the leftist student movements who had mobilized against the U.S.-Japan Security treaty, better known as the ANPO Treaty, had splintered and re-splintered into ever smaller and more radical groups. By the time that Katsu was making “The Deserted Archipelago” many university campuses in Japan more closely resembled battlegrounds than they did places of learning. While these groups clashed over the finer points of political actions many shared the common goal of throwing off the yoke of U.S. Imperialism in their home country. It’s this core idealogy that Kanai explores in his film.

Kanai Katsu's THE KINGDOM (1973): Review on J-Film Pow-Wow

“The Kingdom” is the third film in Kanai Katsu’s avant-garde Smiling Milky Way Trilogy which began with two politically loaded films, 1968’s “The Deserted Archipelago”, a dream journey through the the post-ANPO Treaty 60’s, and 1971’s “Good-Bye”, an exploratrion of the plight of the zainichi, or Japanese of Korean heritage. “The Kingdom” doesn’t take on any loaded current event or momentary societal ill though. Instead it goes to the root of Japanese (and global) society’s engine - time - and in that way “The Kingdom” is probably the most radical film in Kanai’s trilogy of films.

Experimental Films of Kanai Katsu - Canadian Premiere

ANGURA! is very proud to present the Canadian Premiere of the work of Kanai Katsu!!


In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s Tokyo’s underground film scene fermented some of the most enlightening, kaleidoscopic, bizarre and pioneering visions. Names such as Shuji Terayama, Toshio Matsumoto, Takahiko Iimura and Nobuhiko Obayashi defined this avant-garde cinema, but one filmmaker, 74-year-old Kanai Katsu, has continued to labour in the underground. Since Kanai independently released a limited edition retrospective DVD box-set of his films his work is being discovered by a whole new generation of film fans and art enthusiasts.


On Friday Oct 1st, ANGURA! will be presenting a double-bill of two of Kanai’s defining films - 1969’s “The Deserted Archipelago” and 1973’s “The Kingdom”. Winner of Grand Prize at the 1970 Nyon International Film Festival, “The Deserted Archipelago” plays out like a fever dream of the social and political unrest of the post ANPO-Treaty riots that nearly tore Japan apart during the 1960’s. A lone man escapes a life of abuse in a Catholic monastery only to face male-pregnancy, insanity and a machine gun toting nun on his road to Japan’s Parliament building. “The Kingdom” encorporates surrealism and pinku eiga techniques of momentary flashes of colour footage to take us on one young man’s battle to fuse with the natural world and to conquer time.

PLUS! There will be a special performance by Toronto-based acousmatic / tape music / psychedelic duo GASTRIC FEMALE REFLEX between the films. 


Poster art by Private Press Printing


ADMISSION: $10.00 (includes screening + performance + 1 drink)
Doors at 8pm

8:30 -The Deserted Archipelago (無人列島), 55min
9:45 - Gastric Female Reflex
10:15 - The Kingdom (王国), 80min

(TTC Directions: Take the #168 from Dundas W Station or #127 from   Station and get off at Laughton. Walk 1/2 block west and go down the alley running north to the second door of the warehouse.)

To whet your appetites for this world of Kanai Katsu check out the trailer he put together for his independently produced DVD box set below.

-CM

Kanai Katsu Film Works - Trailer