The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 163

The Age 28 February 1987 9r Saturday Extra 4 ft Ti Jv Let: Sogo shit, director of The Crazy Family': a message to all Japan, including his own family. Inset: Members of 'The Crazy Family': heading for 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. The crazy case off a strange family THERE ARE PROBLEMS at the Australia Council over the proposed (but, as yet, unconfirmed) merging of the Theatre and Music boards. It is strongly rumored that the council has approved this and the other mergers, and that they await final approval by the Federal Arts Minister, Mr Cohen. Meanwhile, the director of the Music Board, Dr Richard Letts, has resigned; in April, he takes up his new appointment as head of the Australian Music Centre.

Both the Theatre and Music boards are naturally concerned about the merger. This worry stems, as revealed to Promptings by a source close to the boards, from three main factors. One is a possible result of the merger itself, which, although designed to reduce costs, might work in the other direction because of the creation of a new tier of bureaucracy necessary to serve the merged board. The second is that the boards have still not received any clear details of the merger (in other words, whether it is on or off) and that, whenever council is asked, the reply is the same: talking is still going on with state authorities. The third worry is an increasing anxiety that the arts community at large is not sufficiently aware of the proposed merger and therefore not in a position to protest maybe until it is too late.

Also, the boards are worried about the moratorium on new board members. The Theatre Board, for example, loses three members by 1 July, bringing its membership down to the quorum level of four. What happens then? Also, because of the cutbacks in travel, the boards have not been able to meet as frequently and, therefore, have not been able to discuss properly the problems the merger raises. Theatre and music are not always natural companions, especially if forced together into a situation where each has to consider delicate issues of funding. Promptings sees the merger as a curious thing: the equivalent of a performance of Handel's 'Messiah' with 'Macbeth' being staged in the intervals.

Or vice versa. So what is going on? We'll keep you posted. THE Playbox production of Michael Gow's 'Away' ran away with the main 1986 Green Room Awards for drama. The play, which followed three families on a NSW seaside holiday, blended comedy and pathos, Shakespearean whimsy and Australian domestic conflict. Its three-week November run at the Studio in the Arts Centre was such a huge success that it returned for another four weeks in January.

The Green Room Awards, now in their fifth year, are peer-group awards selected by professional theatre people and audiences. They are Melbourne's only professional stage awards. 'Away' was named best Australian play, won best production (Playbox) and best direction (Neil Armfield) and was nominated in three other categories. Other drama winners: leading actor, Peter Carroll ('Master Class'); leading actress, Janet Andrewartha ('Tom Viv'); supporting actor, Simon Chilvers ('Master Class'); supporting actress, Monica Maughan ('Blithe Spirit'); best design, Shaun Gurton ('Master Class'). Ken Russell's production of Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly for the Victoria State Opera, which opened the Spoleto Melbourne festival in September, scooped the opera awards, winning production, direction, design (Ruth Myers and Robert McDonald) and female support (Elizabeth Campbell).

Other winners: male lead, Louis Otey ('Don Giovanni'); female lead, Marilyn Zschau ('Salome'); male support, Roger Howell ('The Magic Flute). In dance, Graeme Murphy's Sydney Dance Company production of 'After Venice' won direction, design (Kristian A strange Japanese comedy, The Crazy Family', opened at the Valhalla, Richmond, this week. NEIL JILLETT talks to its young Japanese director. Frederickson) and male support (Garth Welch) categories. Other winners: male lead.

Dale Baker ('The Taming Of The Shrew'); female lead, Lisa Pavane ('The Taming Of The Shrew'); female support, Andrea Toy ('Nearly Beloved'). In music theatre, 'Guys And Dolls' was the big winner, with production (South Australian Festival Theatre), direction (David Toguri), male lead (Peter Adams), female lead (Nancye Hayes) and male support (Ricky May). Other winners: design, Anne Fraser ('Countess Maritza'); female support, Marjorie Irving ('Countess Maritza'). Betty Pounder, choroegrapher, director, producer, casting director, teacher you name it, she's done it received the lifetime achievement award. In recent years she has been a special consultant to the Arts Ministry and has been integral to the development of fringe theatre, as well as bringing theatre within the price-range of the young.

William Akers, the Australian Ballet's production manager, who was the consultant for the Arts Centre's lighting systems, received the committee award. Anne Fraser, who won the music theatre design award, has now won in all design categories. A POSTSCRIPT TO Michael Shmith's Perth Promptings of last week: LEEUWIN ESTATE IS 280 kilometres south-west of Perth and is one of the more unlikely concert venues of this world. The drive takes almost four hours (Western Australian drivers are scrupulous observers of speed limits); but there are many willing to make the journey to this, the West's answer to Glyndebourne, for its once-a-year-day concert. The owner of Leeuwin, Perth businessman and entrepreneur Denis Horgan, has, in just two years, made his annual outdoor concert at Leeuwin (always performed by the orchestra visiting the Festival of Perth) a great social event.

Sponsorship certainly is the order of the day. The program book lists, inside its fold-out front cover, no fewer than 30 sponsors for the event; they range from Qantas to Taittinger Champagne and the Perth 'Sunday Times'. At Leeuwin, the sponsors have their special area: an upmarket tent-city set aside behind special fencing. The entrances to this area were controlled by security staff, complete with walkie-talkies. Within these walls, the dinner-suit and long dress were much in evidence, and the conversation matched.

I passed one florid-faced gentleman (it might have been the heat) who was telling another chap "Of course, Alan Bond's ex-secretary works for me Of course. Elsewhere, clothing was mainly T-shirts and thongs. Before the concert, which started at 6.30 pm, Denis Horgan, who is sponsoring the Danish Orchestra's entire Australian tour, entertained the players and the administration at a barbecue lunch at his house, set in the centre of the 1200-hectare winery in the middle of a forest of towering gum trees. The Danes, chomping on chops and sausages and trying the occasional glass of Leeuwin Estate's red or white, expressed their thanks with an impromptu performance of some old Danish brass music. Some players played, others held the music, all was quiet and still but for the sound of trombones, trumpets and tubas resounding through the tall trees.

get the backing of the big-money Japanese studios. Meanwhile, he is happy to continue working with a group of eight other young directors who see themselves as riders of a New Wave, raising their own budgets and keeping full control of their films. Although his recent travelling has been useful for reshaping old ideas and collecting new ones, it has cut into his work time don't feel good unless I make a film a He has just made one film an hour-long promo (or, to use his phrase, "a new style of image with a West German rock group and his plans include a feature about an Indonesian shaman (spiritualist). But that looks like being an expensive project, so his next film will probably be a "hardboiled" feature set in contemporary Tokyo. "Hardboiled" is a word recruited into Japanese from English.

It is pronounced the same in both languages except that the Japanese stress the last syllable. The meaning, though, is different. "It has become a very strong Japanese filmic term," says Mr Ishii, "but it has nothing to do with cool private eyes. It describes a way of looking at things, perhaps introverted but still from a distance. It refers to films about people living and struggling in a big city and relationships based on loneliness.

"My film will be about a girl from South-East Asia and an autistic Japanese boy running from a threat." Sounds odd, but what would you expect from a director whose comic ideas are inspired by incest and a plane crash? As Mr Ishii says of himself: "Though I don't have Hollywood and the American film industry as a goal, I think I can work in countries outside Japan. But any film I make will always have its origin in an Asian outlook, because I am an Asian." Neil Jillett went to Sydney as a guest of the Valhalla Cinema. IF YOU ARE now on an aircraft and are afraid of flying, turn to another page. Because this article is about a very funny film that was partly inspired by a crazed pilot who deliberately crashed his jet. killing himself and 50 passengers.

The film's director, Sogo Ishii, explains the connection between the factual tragedy and the fictional comedy: "A Japanese pilot in 1983 had been under psychiatric consultation, but the company kept on using him on regular flights. And in a fit of depression he pulled the backjet lever just as the plane was going into the airport, and subsequently it stopped because of the backjet and plunged into the water of Tokyo Harbor. Most of the people were rescued, but about 50 died. "'Backjet' became a word of the time. When businessmen, or people in the elite class, did something crazy, it was said "Oh, he's backjetting'." In fact, the word in the film's title that has been translated as "crazy" actually means Another true story contributed to the film.

It concerned a middle-class adolescent who had an incestuous relationship with his mother and killed her and his father with a steel bat. You have probably assumed by now that Mr Ishii has a strange sense of humor; but his purpose in making 'The Crazy Family' was quite serious. "The problems of Japan these days explode from the inside, from the structure of the family itself," he says, "and I wanted to make a film which perhaps symbolised that, the social destruction that is happening now." He made the film in 1984, when he was 27 he looks all of 14 now and, though it did well in Japan, it was not a major hit. It has also been a considerable success outside Japan. For the past two years Mr Ishii has been touring the European and US film festival circuit with 'The Crazy Family'.

It was shown at the 1985 Melbourne festival and at a recent Sydney festival of Japanese films arranged by the Australian Film Institute. I caught up with Mr Ishii in Sydney, where the audience responded with the same warmth, a combination of delight and shock, the film had been awarded in Melbourne and, according to Mr Ishii, in other cities outside Japan. Even what he regards as the film's most esoterical-ly Japanese sequence a joke about ambition and Tokyo University won laughter. "I was very surprised by foreigners' reception of the film," he says, "because it was made specifically for a Japanese audience, dealing with Japanese problems of the moment. But since travelling around Western countries, I've decided that perhaps modern capitalistic society brings about common problems around the world, especially in big cities." 'The Crazy Family begins with the decision by Katsuhiko (Katsuya Ko-bayashi), middle-class, middle-aged, middle-management, to move his family into a suburban house.

It is small and crowded against its neighbors, but Katsuhiko sees it as a remedy for the mysterious sickness that has afflicted his family in an even more cramped city flat. His wife Saeko (Mitsuko Baisho) has a sexual liveliness that frightens him, his son Masaki (Yoshiki Arizono), with a zeal that seems excessive even by Japanese standards, is studying to get into Tokyo University, and his daughter Erika (Yuki Kudo) is in training for a career as a pop singer or a professional wrestler. As soon as the family occupies the house everyone's behavior becomes more extreme, and there are new wor ries. White ants are undermining the house; Grandpa (Hitoshi Ueki) moves in, to be accommodated in a basement flat (created by a direct attack through the floorboards of the main room); Katsuhiko is threatened by loss of his job. And there is worse to come.

Grandpa reverts to his days as a soldier and thinks he is occupying Manchuria. Daughter is in danger of being raped by all her male relatives. Suicide and murder are contemplated as the family members take up arms against each other. In a welter of destructive insanity the film turns into a romping version of 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre', acted with an extraordinarily controlled lunacy. Yet even at its blackest this brutally energetic comedy sparks laughter, at least from a Western audience.

Not always from the Japanese, though. Mr Ishii says that while young Japanese find it funny, their elders take it seriously or are offended by it. And one of the scenes most shockingly funny for Westerners (you can almost feel the guilty edge to their laughter) gets little reaction in Japan. This is when Father knocks Daughter out with a blow to the jaw. "In Japan the shock value of violence has pretty well disappeared," Mr Ishii says.

"So people didn't laugh very much at those scenes of violence because the media have made them so used to it." One of the most forceful criticisms of the film in Japan is that it is not violent enough and that, having worked towards an apocalyptic ending, Mr Ishii backs away and closes on a note of almost pastoral calm. He says hope or despair can with equal validity be read into the final scenes. "I wanted it to have the contradiction. because that's the way I am," he says. "I keep changing from an optimist to a pessimist inside myself, sometimes weekly, sometimes daily, sometimes hourly.

I'm always struggling with those twc feelings." Mr Ishii has been making films since he was at high school. He achieved early success, eight years ago, with his graduation film, 'Crazy Thunder from the Japanese University. It was a feature about motorcycle gangs and was so well-regarded that it was blown up from 16 to 35 mm and given a successful commercial season. Mr Ishii's favorite subjects were outsiders, usually high school students and punks. 'The Crazy Family' is his fourth feature, but his first comedy and his first look at society from the inside.

Ready to acknowledge artistic debts, he says he was influenced in making this film by the Spanish surrealist Luis Bunuel and the "slapstick realism" of Buster Keaton (probably his favorite film-maker) and the Marx Brothers. 'My own family was very like the family in the film," he says. "It was partly a message to my family in particular as well as to Japanese society in general. And how did his family respond to the message? Mr Ishii at first dodges answering whether they have even seen the film; then, with a giggle: "I think it was a bit of a shock to my father." Mr Ishii usually writes as well as directs his own films. For 'The Crazy Family' he worked with a friend, a comic-strip artist who shares his sense of humor and philosophy.

Then they hired a professional writer to polish the script. This collaboration, according to those who have seen all his films, gave 'The Crazy Family' a greater artistic cohesion. As a result, he may find it easier to POPULAR GEMMOLOGY Interested in gems? Try our 11 week evening course commencing March 10. and continuing each Tuesday thereafter. A gem cutting demonstration is followed by sessions on geology and gem identification.

The course is then rounded off by a series of talks on well-known gems. Time: 7.30 p.m. Tuesdays from March 10. Place: 316 Victoria Richmond. CHELTENHAM ART GROUP'S EXHIBITION AND SALE OF PAINTINGS in the Gallery AMP Building cnr.

of William and Bourke sts. MON MAR. MAR. 13th BUS. HOURS ONLY BAUaUE: ARTS OF INDONESA SPECIAL LATE SUMMER SHOW FINE OLD BASKETS IKAT WEAVIN65A BATIKS BATIK JACKETS JEWELLERY SAT2lt FEB-SUN Isr MAR 1 1 am 6pm VERONICA AND CHRI5TDPHER HAZZARD II ROSE 5T RICHMOND PH: -428 PAUL DRAKEFORD PHOTOGRAPHS Exhibition continues until March 8 1987 RATHDOWN STRUT GALLERY 550 Rathdown Street, North Carlton 3054 Telephone: 387 5606 Hours: Tuesday to Friday 10.30 am-5.

30 pm. Saturday 10.30 am-5. OO pm. Sunday 12.00 pm. 428 5636.

or write to G.P.0. Box 5133AA, Melbourne: 3001 in Enrolments also invited for Faceting Beginners' Silversmithing classes. GEMM0L0GICAL ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA by Lynn Johnston FOR BETTER OR WORSE I WONDER HOW HE. II II FSO.LAUJRENCEIS REflLLy GOING-12) VfefiH. HIS MOM'S COMING-ON MONDflV FROZEN IN TIME Mike.THeV Won't want it back, Feels about you LNlMGlNTHE-HCOSE He.

USED To HAVE TO LOOK FOR fl 1 1 111 I THPl'P MOVE HEREflSRIN! SILVER GALLERY Presents LIMITED EDITION EARLY AUSTRALIAN PHOTOGRAPHS FLUTE THEORY Tuition at home Any level Ring Terry McDermott on 428 2054 POLISH-AUSTRALIAN CULTURAL SOCIETY PLAKAT POLSKI Seventh annual exhibition and sale of film, theatre and other posters from Poland. 28 March, Contal Gallery, 253 Flinders Lane, Melbourne. 10 am-6 pm. Admission free. Proceeds to Hospitals.

MEAT MARKET CRAFT CENTRE Current Features 1986 CERAMIC AWARDS Collection Selection Victorian State Craft Collection Gallery Hours 10 am to 5 pm daily, admission free 42 Onirtmy Street. Siirth Melbourne. Lrf- A R.PS A unique collection taken during the 1920s and 1930s SAT. 28 FEB. TO SUN.

8 MARCH 9 AM TO 6 PM DAILY 1094 HIGH ARMADALE 509 5577 THE WIZARD OF ID bV Brant Parker and Johnny Hart SiyilLtPUHUIKE 24 February-12 March Exhibiting: Julie Begg, Patty Chandler, Lynne Edey Fiona Murphy, Merrilyn Stock 10 am-5 pm DISTELFINIC GALLERY 432 Burwood Road, Hawthorn 3122. 818 2555 REG COX Studio WATERCOLOR EXHIBITION Preview Opening: Friday 6th March 6 p.m.-9 pm Saturday 7th March 10 am-6 pm Sunday 8th March 1 1 am-6 pm Monday 9th March 1 1 am-5 pm At 68 Pound Road. Warrandyte and thereafter by appointment. Phone 844 1296 A MUSIC SCHOLARSHIP 83! MELBOURNE GRAMMAR SCHOOL SToCK in Pi RpiT UOLE. OF PiM i FUNNV WCM ffcESOM OF rn much 7 Tamptestowa Road, Bullaan, 3105 Talaphona: (03) 850 1849 ANOTHER SUMMER Tha Australian Landscape 1942-1987 Exhibition dates: 28 February-12 April 1987 Come and enjoy the LAST DAYS OF SUMMER Jazz concerts in the Park 1-4 pm OFFCE- UJiTv ft BoMCM OF HRlF ISH'T IT mPlWeiJOUS TH6S 1 KELHTOMS PrrtRfCTCrj TO tupiT FfvR HRD UMTtO KTlDfcJ-ILfci CM THT.

ONC HPfO and Pi CBauo ce PUOPINS Sort lOUDmOOTVI Goes pind sbdhs eyegym ins. rPMHETC vnOKONS ON TUC CWER TKWOWTfWX) R0UM.T rtutrro Pi HrtRD DRV PWD U) HRVT 15 JWwcfc Alkm Iwwm Bond itAmnotAMi Pot UP bJ'TM TVIPiT SSiL VTCTKJ1AN PRINT WOBXSHOP IKC. 188 Gertrude Street Fitzroy. P.O. Box 236, Clingwood 3066 Applications are invited for the following positions: PRINTER-LITHOGRAPHY (approx.

3 days per week) The Workshop requires a printer experienced in stone and plate lithography. The printer will be required to print fine-art editions in collaboration with artists and to participate in the Workshop's printing and other activities. STUDIO TECHNICIAN (approx. 4 days per week) Applicants should have comprehensive experience in studio printmaking practices including the handling of materials and equipment and will be required to assist Workshop users as necessary. SECRETARY RECEPTIONIST (approx.

4 days per week) Applicants should have proficient typing and general secretarial and reception skills. Some experience in bookkeeping would be an advantage as would be an interest in the arts. Applicants should have communication and organization skills. For all positions list names and addresses oftwo referees. Initial appoirrtmentswill be for one year.

Salaries are negotiable. For furttwr details or job specifications, please contact John Loane on 419 5820. The Victorian Print Workshop Inc. acknowledges the assistance of the Victorian Ministry for the Arts. 22 Mcrcfc BccImIm fri by Tom Ryan A HOIK TUMBLEWEEDS vmi nLcov 19 March DhMy Wan Dadtfias Adults Cone.

$2. Gallery Hour: 10-5, Sat. Sun. 12-5. THE SIR BRIAN HONE MUSIC SCHOLARSHIP carries total remission of tuition fees and the special fee for tuition in one musical instrument.

Applications are invited from boys currently in Years 6 and 8. Applicants must be under 14'j years on 1st January 1988. Boys already attending the school are not eligible for this award. Minimum standard required: (a) Keyboard AMEB GradeV or equivalent (b) Orchestral instruments AMEB Grade IV or equivalent The successful applicant will be required to study a second musical instrument. Candidates must also sit for the examination for the award of academic scholarships on Saturday 9th May 1987.

Applications close Monday 27th April 1987. Entry forms available from the Registrar's Secretary, Melbourne Grammar School, Domain Road, South Yarra 3141. Tel. 267 7622. VAmWnOfjLCQtaNP jtnwzoo MUKtfraurwnfPKiiK 41 now on flit zoo uwis Saturday Extra ADVERTISERS PLEASE NOTE Booking Deadline 12 noon Monday prior.

Material Deadline: Complete material, bromide, original artwork (NO MATS OR BLOCKS ACCEPTABLE) 12 noon. Wednesday prior. Copy for setting 11 am Tuesday prior. it.