Comments on: Life in a Tokyo shantytown

By: dac

dac — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 18:34:31 +0000

I kinda wanted to watch it, but I turned it off during the intro.

By: Terry

Terry — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:34:25 +0000

I never got past the intro. This film was billed as “I visited a small shantytown in Shibuya I had seen from a train the day before, tucked away in a kids playground. My translator Nick Stone and myself introduced ourselves to a friendly group of people and negotiated permission to pry into their lives and film, in exchange for some food/ cigarettes and wine.”

The fact that over 50% of the time spent on-screen was wasted as an “intro” to the piece, and not on the alleged subject, both shows the amateurishness of the filmographer and the inflated sense of self-worth that plagues said filmographer. For that reason it is a piece of crap. Imagine 60-minutes or any other newsprogram creating a piece about the homeless, and then spending 50% of their time not talking about the subject but showing everyone how well they can play with their copy of Adobe Premier.

Now, if it had been billed as an artistic look at the life of the homeless, I might have another opinion, but it wasn’t. I critique it based on its announced intent. As such, it is crap.

Terry

By: Jordan

Jordan — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:57:54 +0000

Nope. Just wish people would stop being such philistines.

By: Jordan

Jordan — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:33:12 +0000

You know, you’d be surprised what you find in tarp cities as I like to call them. I’ve met a tri-lingual man who was living in Ueno selling poetry in French. Of course the usual suspects are also there: alcoholism, depression, mental illness, but many of Japan’s homeless aren’t completely desperate. They kind of band together in “business” of sorts, riding trains, collecting used periodicals for cheaper resale. A lot of the homes they construct for themselves are pretty well built as well. Its a very interesting aspect of Japanese society.

By: Panna

Panna — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:31:59 +0000

Is this your art project Jordan?

By: Jordan

Jordan — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 07:29:14 +0000

It isn’t a piece of crap, you simply lack enough perspective to understand it.

By: OsakaGuy

OsakaGuy — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 04:02:37 +0000

Thank goodness for the fast forward clicky clicky.

I was surprised the shanty towns have CISCO networking and all those fancy gadgets.

By: a geek by any other name

a geek by any other name — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:35:29 +0000

[...] Required YouTubing – JapanProbe’s got a video about life in a Tokyo shantytown that’s a great watch, especially if you want to know some of the truth behind the [...]

By: Nslaver

Nslaver — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:09:46 +0000

A shame if you consider that they might have a lot of film to choose from.

By: VonSkippy

VonSkippy — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:04:10 +0000

For a good laugh, read all the artsy fartsy comments on the BoingBoing site. They’re all sticking up for that piece-o-crap.

By: Ken

Ken — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:47:23 +0000

I did get through the first 15 seconds.

By: Jordan

Jordan — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:04:41 +0000

I liked this short. It might leave a large portion of these peoples’ lives to your imagination, but sometimes its important to not demand information be spoon-fed to you. I like that only a vague sense of these peoples’ pasts is given in written form and that the bulk of their current lives’ narrative is supplied by visuals. It might be textbook, but it is a good example of how to tell a story without getting too wordy.

That this is obviously “a student film” doesn’t take away from the fact that this is a decently interesting piece of minimalist cinema (perhaps a bit Sartre-like as well). A bit short, but the film has a lot to say if you only pay a modicum of attention..

By: Jordan

Jordan — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:57:23 +0000

I agree with the part about the first 2 minutes.

By: me

me — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:53:00 +0000

whatthefuck.

By: rikka

rikka — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:36:12 +0000

Dear wannabe filmmaker,

Making your film confusing and all “artistic” does not automatically makes it good. Everyone with a right side of their brain can do that.

Thank You

By: menrui

menrui — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:12:40 +0000

someone owes me at least 2min of my life back

By: mortonsalt

mortonsalt — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:49:41 +0000

that was a very “student” film

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:47:59 +0000

What was the point of the 2 minute intro with the film reels on the screen?

By: Wayne

Wayne — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:09:06 +0000

Kitty said it best. This is complete garbage. I feel sorry for all that have watched it.

By: Kitty

Kitty — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:42:18 +0000

This film is horrible. The intro was 2 minutes with no information, then some over-stylized arthouse beginning with no information other than I used to be at a place and now i am here, everyone ends up here. This must have been made by an film student…a failing one.

By: Rudolf

Rudolf — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:20:03 +0000

What a piece of shit that was.