The Japan's Gaze

Japan, I still want to meet you.

Underground by Haruki Murakami

In the morning of Monday 20th of March of 1995 a group of members of the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo put several packs of sarin, a poison gas, in the Tokyo’s subway system.

As a result twelve people died and hundred were wounded.

The Japanese well-known writer Haruki Murakami, author of novels such as The Wind Up Bird Chronicle or Norwegian Wood, was shocked by this news and decided to write about it.

This book is the result of his work. In my opinion the book is divided in three parts. The first one is shaped by the testimony of some of the victims. The second one is a transition between the first one and the third one. In it Mr Murakami explain his

reasons to write this book and try to justify why he has included the last part. As the writer says since the subtitle of his book “The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche” he is not only interested in knowing more about the terrorist attack but he want to make the following question: Does all Japanese society reflected in what happened this day?

Moreover he, as a novelist, is interested in the fact that people need to built “narratives” to explain their lifes. This idea has interesting consequences as the following paragraph shows:

“Haven’t you offered up some part of your Self to someone (or something), and taken on a “narrative” in return? Haven’t we entrusted some part of our personality to some greater System or Order? And if so, has not that System at some stage demanded of us some kind of “insanity”? Is the narrative you now possess really and truly you own? Are you dreams really your own dreams? Might not they be someone else’s visions that could sooner or later return into nightmares?”

The last part of the book is shaped by the testimony of some members of the group Aum Shinrikyo. It is not about to understand their reasons. It is only for knowing how ordinary people can join an organization like this.

Although I recommend you this book, I have to warn you that this is not another Murakami’s novel but an essay really hard because is about a terrible terrorist attack.

I wait for your comments.

Thanks in advance

MAP OF THE SOUNDS OF TOKYO

Last Saturday I watched the film “Map of the Sounds of Tokyo” directed by Isabel Coixet.

I usually like this director’s films and this is one of her best works.

Although sounds are very important in this film, this is a movie about feelings and silences. This is about words never said. I remember the first film by Coixet which I watched some years ago: Things I Never Told You.

When you are a young person, you think everything is very important. Both what you do and what you don’t do is very important. When you are young, you live as if you only had one life. But you have to die very soon to live only one life. People usually live several lives. David, one of the main characters, lives three lives during this film.

When you get older you add new lives, new rooms in your mind. Some of these lives are longer than others; some of them are more reminded.

When you look back since your old age, to what of these lives will call “my life”? Who will have been more important for you?

Maybe, as the killer girl in the film, all of us should have a job which makes us not to think. All of us have graves to clean on Sunday.

This film is on general release in Spain but I don´t know if it is available in the USA or in other countries.

In short, this film is about a strange girl who has two jobs. Thanks one of them she makes money, the other one gives her peace. On the other side, the plot talked about a rich man, an important chairman, who has lost his only daughter. She has killed herself. Finally, the nexus between these two stories is David. He was the boyfriend of the dead daughter and he meets the strange girl.

For the final scene, Coixet has chosen a perfect song. This song is included in the last CD of Antony and the Johnsons: “One Dove”.

While I stayed on after the film to read the credits, I still heard in my mind this amazing song.