Young Yakuza, language, laziness

[Marine]

A few weeks ago I went to a small theatre playing experimental movies. It is located inside a part of the Lille university, quite far from where I live, but worth a visit from time to time. I've only been there twice in two years, which is a shame. Lazzzzyyy me...Last time was to watch a documentary showing similarities between life in suburbs (mostly Paris, Lyon and Marseille) and life in prison. This time, I watched another documentary, called Young Yakuza, by French realisator Jean-Pierre Limosin. It appeared in the Cannes festival (outside the official competition).Limosin managed to film the everyday life of a Yakuza clan. Not so easy when you know how secretive they are... Several things are to be noticed : firstly, it is filmed as a fiction, and not as a documentary (choice of camera angles, light, and other things I have read about but am unable to appreciate). Which is quite what Limosin told us about yakuzas themselves (he was there and chatted a little with the audience) : they all live in a world of their own, that they have built around themselves and in which they are actors.Never genuine, always acting, as if they wanted to re-create those old Japanese movies.Then, you can, if you know the Yakuza movies, find lots of little references, like the one to Kitano's movies with the scene near the sea (always recurrent in Kitano's work, as he's always been afraid of the sea (or is it water in general ?)).And well, it's a documentary, so you learn...stuff.

So, worth a few hours of my time. The trip back home wasn't as much fun, though.At least, I know I'll have to look for the little stickers mentioned in the documentary (some kind of 'My shop has nothing to do with Yakuza business' sticker, even if that's not necessarily true) when I am in Japan.It's getting closer and closer, I'm glad everything seems to be fine so far. Except language of course : my poor attempt to talk to a Japanese girl in the queue for the June 9th gig was a complete failure on my side. But hey, if I had known I'd meet Japanese people at a Radiohead gig, I would have brought my books with me. がんばります !!I don't like relying on people, but I'm glad the friend I'm going with speaks (and reads) Japanese better than I do. Might help.