In Conversation with Daisuke Miyazaki
The Liminal Midwest, Pink Film, Hamburgers and The State of Arthouse Cinema
Daisuke Miyazaki is a Director and Writer from Yamato, Kanagawa. He started working in film through the commercial film industry. Since directing Yamato (California) in 2016 he has directed several feature films typically with low budgets and fast shoot schedules which showcase his ever evolving unique style.
Kani Releasing is currently bringing Daisuke and his films across the US for the next few weeks with screenings of five of his films at the Lumiere in LA and Plastic the Metrograph in New York, go check them out if you’re in the area! Or hit up their new releases of his films; Plastic and Yamato (California).
The following interview was recorded online after Daisuke’s film #Mito screened during the Sydney leg of Static Vision’s “Obsession’s” festival all the way back in February of this year. We ended up talking for quite some time and much of our conversation was too interesting to cut, so I’ve slightly re-arranged and reorganized segments of our chat for maximum digestibility, bon appetit!
#Mito, The Liminal Midwest
Saoirse Price: I loved it, the whole lobby, everyone was talking about how much they loved #Mito!
Daisuke Miyazaki: Thank you (:
Mito has a lot more companies in it’s opening credits than i’m used to seeing from your films, did you have more money than usual?
Yes, It’s probably the biggest budget i’ve had in my career.
I’m kind of surprised it was so experimental with more backing behind it, were there more restrictions than usual?
Fortunately there where almost no restrictions, the budget was bigger and there where less restrictions than usual, I really did what I wanted to at that point.
I think initially the insert visuals, the animation and commercials had a humorous reaction from the audience but as the movie progressed but they felt grim-er as the film went on, how’d you approach balancing the energetic aesthetic of it and the dark undertones?
I wanted to make a satire, I basically always make satire but I wanted this to be more of a formalistic satire. Fashion Music and picture wise I wanted something cool and experimental at the same time. I imagined it as a comedy but people watch it very seriously and get depressed, like “what the fuck.” In japan everyone saw it so seriously, I told them “please enjoy it it’s not that serious”.
I think this screening ended up a bit like that. When you showed the two towers, me and my friend looked at each other holding back laughter while the rest of the cinema was silent, maybe that’s a generational thing.
I have a very close writer friend, one of the most famous writers of our generation in japan. We kind of share experiences in our life all the time, when we meet. The other day we talked about 9/11 and twins in our lives are sometimes important, for my generation in japan. The earthquake in 95 and 9/11 in 2001 are big parts of our youth. I was following the idea of twins in all my movies, like in tourism there are two girls they don’t look similar but they’re something like twins. In Videophobia They change into what becomes like a twin, I wanted to follow the image of twins again. Anyway my writer friend of the same age was doing this in his book, so I consciously made that a larger part of this, it’s about twins, it opens on twins.
My VFX director told me he could’ve done it with a better texture, but I asked him to keep it cheap and cheesy. I really like backroom horror and like liminal space horror.
That’s so interesting that you’d say that, i feel like that’s very popular with people younger than me even!
I kinda like that about it, I like to follow these things I like but don’t understand why I like them. I’m watching it every day but it’s for these young kids and I wanted to use it in my movie. Everyone asked me to make the VFX better but I said no I need it to look like those liminal space horror videos on you tube.
You really succeeded with that, I loved that section where they’re in the office and they’re pitching that Chinese AI filter, and this generic office space looks like it’s been filmed on a green screen, was that a part of that?
Yeah it was, I wanted to make the background elements change colour but we had some trouble with it.
It worked anyway though, that slight layer of unsettlingness, They go back to your hometown, Yamato in this movie right? With the planes?
That was the first time I’d ever gotten a real plane in my shot.
They say “ you can’t hear the planes any more” is that true? Plane noise is such an important motif for your films.
Well since COVID, everyone’s had this memory problem, and in japan it’s like every landscape is becoming the same, History is kind of fading a way, We don’t really know what happened in the past, that’s how I feel right now. I’ve been describing the history of the city of Yamato throughout my career, but even for me Yamato’s history and what’s happening seem to be fading, that’s how I felt while filming Mito. Maybe the people of Yamato will get angry, like “he’s suddenly forgot about everything here.” but why shouldn’t I be true to how I feel, that’s what I thought to myself.
The connection you make with liminal spaces and Yamato, it’s almost like the American Midwest. That’s what a lot of those videos are trying to mimic and it’s interesting to see a Japanese take on that. Your movies are very transcultural, you once talked about being an international director, Is that still true?
I think it’s still true. It's interesting. I think my base imagination sources from the American Midwest, all the 80s movies I love from there were shot there. Around my house in Yamato, that all looks basically like the American Midwest. Japan is made out of the consciousness of the U.S and the subconscious of China, that’s what I feel, but no one wants to admit they’re influenced by China. People have forgotten the U.S now so people believe like they’ve come from somewhere random. It feels obvious our country has come from the mix of the big continent of china and also modern U.S influence. I myself was very into western culture but getting older I feel this broader Asian and Japanese element inside of myself, so i’m consciously mixing that and U.S. I feel like that’s unique in the Japanese film industry, many directors follow French taste, very few follow a “Japanese taste” and I’m trying to mix it up and pull what’s good from U.S, East Asian and South East Asian culture.
I can feel that in your films, it’s quite unique.
#Mito is a movie about the internet and internet culture. I found the anti internet group interesting, you paint them with the same imagery as the student movement. So I was wondering where you sit on that, more the internet side of things that is. Where does the internet fit in politically for you?
My history on that is kinda interesting, as a kid I was pretty much like a nationalist, I think through football I became a fake nationalist, but in high school I turned around and became an ultra lefty. It’s been changing a lot, but basically since high school i’ve been a communist or a socialist not a liberal but I consider myself a socialist.
In college I studied communism too, In Japan of course the internet is used by the left and the ultra right everyday they’re fighting and to be honest nothing positive has come from it these last 5, 10 years. Japanese people and people online try to decide which team you are and there’s only two choices and they yell at you “how can you make movies if you don’t have an opinion”.
Running away from that left or right world has been my topic since I started filmmaking, I think. In my town there’s a U.S base and it’s very easy to say “just get out, why are you still here after world war 2” It’s true but it’s more complicated than that right? Reality is more complicated than that, If they leave what will happen. The world is complicated and recently it’s getting more complicated. Basically it’s getting kinda crazy, that was my thought when filming #Mito, basically it’s not going in a good way for anyone.
Like in that scene between that almost Kazuo-Hara-esq, Okuzaki-Kenzo character.
He’s an anarchist but he looks ultra lefty, but he looks ultra nationalist at the same time, that’s what's interesting about him.
But these people are fighting over celebrities! Like on the English speaking internet there’s a lot of Taylor Swift worship, it’s politicised in a way that’s ridiculous and it’s so unuseful.
Yeah haha, everyone is turning into an animal. I really love a french author called Michel Houellebecq. Sometimes he’s to pessimistic, but I still like his irony and his trust in humans, I do trust in human’s but recently it’s just like what the fuck is going on, that’s how I felt filming Videophobia and #Mito. During the filming of Tourism I felt, “oh a new generation is coming”, traveling is so cheap, everyone can go everywhere and discuss and mix and we’ll become a newer world, that’s what I believed. But after COVID and trump and post truth all this business I felt “hey what is going on, and when did you guys become so crazy and conservative” that’s what I felt.
But I do not want to give up in my belief in human beings, I made Videophobia and #Mito out of that but I did get attacked online for #Mito by left leaning people, they thought I was making fun of them but it’s not making fun of them or like- they thought I was like uh? like a libertarian or whatever?
That’s so American haha!
Haha, I’m obviously not but they were pissed off.
The same dumb shit is going on everywhere.
I think through my film if someone says I’m a lefty or a righty I don’t care, I just reflect what I believe at that time. When I was filming Tourism i was believing that world, I was believing that philosophy. With #Mito I believed that philosophy and I felt like that, and so that the reason I made that. So following my filmography, its kinda interesting to see how my philosophy and my ethics have been changing.
Cinema Culture, The State of Art House
Following you on Instagram the past 6 months or so I notice you often post about the positive reception your films have here in Australia. You’re quite disdainful of the Japanese audience, what draws you to this weird little continent?
As I said my film is a mix of many cultures and many influences. It’s not easy for -let’s say- the French to enjoy it, French people like movies obviously influenced by France. I hope a new value and generation comes forth which is a mix of cultures. Working with static vision and meeting Australians, I feel like there’s something new in Australia that isn’t in the U.S or Western Europe or Asia.
Unfortunately most of the Asian countries still follow France, other Western European countries because of colonialism, these countries then lead them to international fame in those big, very political festivals. Australia has nothing to do with those, I feel they’re trying to create not a new film industry but a new generation of film enjoyment and evalument.
As I was saying I like to follow what randomly happens in my life, I don’t know why I filmed in Singapore [for Tourism]. It wasn’t like “Oh I really love Singapore, Oh I have to film in Singapore!” but i had a chance to film there, that’s why tourism was made. I feel led by fate to go do something in Australia.
The audience’s reactions in Australia, Japan and other parts of the world are pretty different. I mean, Japanese people’s reaction is based on, as I said the French people’s evalument. They watch it like french people watching my film and then they say something french. I do respect that, and I'm happy about that but I've gotten bored of hearing the same reactions, it hasn’t changed since Japan's nouvelle vague. I feel it’s making movies very conservative. In japanese art house culture it’s like If you do it this way it’s automatically good, and if you do it this other way it’s automatically bad. It’s boring and conservative.
Yeah it’s like Incestous? I find that approach to discourse quite disgusting as well, it makes me sad to walk out of a movie and hearing people try to evaluate something objectively, people are unwilling to sit with something new.
I’ve been through that culture and taste too so I won't deny all of it, but the philosophy of the nouvelle vague filmmakers was about doing new things, improving yourself and style and instead everyone is doing the same thing these last 60 years. French people and Dutch people and whoever goes “wow they copied us so well!” I feel so sad and bored about that. There’s so much possibility of cinema culture still left, that’s what I feel.
I hope so too. We talked about it last time, you used to run a film club getting directors together and such, was that environment that kind of nouvelle vague?
Most of them got established after those screenings so I'm not sure how to talk about it, but I think I was trying to do something like the nouvelle vague. It’s very hard to live as an arthouse director, the safe way is to be protected by France or Germany and repeat what they want you to do.
So static vision introduced me to Eugene Kotlyarenko, a Ukrainian director, his films are very aggressive and new and a bit French too. We had a good discussion about how cinema is becoming conservative, and how that’s not how art house cinema should go. It was very encouraging, I felt like I was the only one doing this kind of thing but of course there’s people doing it everywhere all around the world. It’s changing because it has to change, every world has changed dramatically in the last 10, 20 years, why can’t film change from this old conservative colonial world?
And then you have bodies like A24 that have come and recouped and commercialised that old arthouse style.
Yeah haha, Many people in Australia said stuff like that when I visited but i feel like in Japan they’re seen as the cool counter to Canne and Berlin. It’s the same you know, it’s a part of capitalism and the US money game. I do like some of them of course. It’s all about the alternative I guess, we can watch what we want and love and feel like instead of them forcing us like “this is what you have to watch”.
Absolutely, I’m glad i’m finding that more locally lately.
That’s something I like about static vision, they stand by their taste, sometimes it might be very good and sometimes it might be difficult to understand. But they don’t believe in the values of the general art house festival circuit world.
Pink Film, and Mcdonalds Movies
Circling back to #Mito, you said you had more budget than usual, did you have more time as well?
It’s weird, since it’s a TV station movie and the budget was big, I thought there’d be lots of meetings, and preparation but it went very quick. It was faster than most of my film making. We had to finish it very fast, we had to release it very fast, we didn’t have time to plan distribution or a festival release or whatever. But the movie itself was about the quickness and fastness of capitalism so I thought, “It’s okay, if it reaches one or two audiences around the world and influences them in some way I'm happy.”
That’s always the end goal. That's interesting to hear, I've started working on a very tight production at the moment, and I think a lot about the last time we spoke at the Q&A you did, working on tight schedules, V-cinema, that kind of thing. It meant a lot to me.
One thing for sure is that if you’re doing a tight movie you need lots of time thinking and location scouting and casting. It’s interesting how commercial things progress so fast, if it’s a commercial thing they should have money, that’s what I honestly feel. If they don’t have money and it proceeds fast, “what is this McDonalds,”, that’s what i’m probably going to think.
Haha, It’s interesting, and sorry if I sound like a total weirdo here, but in circles i’m in I feel a lot of people turn to pink film, Japanese softcore porn movies purely for their production value, it’s quite an interesting thing seeing these total “McDonalds movies” where you see the bare bones of what you can get away with for a film to formally make sense. I think about how that might trickle down into something more important than porn I guess?
No, Pink movies are great if they’re directed by a good director, I recommend a lot of pink films at my university in my classes, but students are like “oooo” just because it’s a pink movie right. Lot’s of film directors —Japanese film directors studied through pink movies and I myself did, well not actually a pink film but in Japan there’s pink movies and tiny horror movies.
More like V-cinema?
Yeah, yeah, my experience of being an Assistant Director and partly directing V-cinema educated me a lot, you know? When I don’t have any budget or many shooting days, what should I film? How should I plan? Everything. It helped me a lot so it’s very useful to study through pink movies.
Not to steal your syllabus, but what would you recommend?
I do like Kumashiro, a director called Kumashiro Tatsumi he’s my favourite pink movie director. How he uses the actors and their physique is very interesting.
There’s an understanding that you’re creating visually and that these actors are like puppets a little bit. You typically work with models, at least in tourism. There are a lot of well crafted consistent movements, like the OK sign with Mito, she does it almost robotically. How do you work with an actor to get something like that?
Yes, I didn’t realise I often worked with models. In Japan since the studio system collapsed in the 80s we don’t always have professional super experienced actors all the time, right? so we have to use amateur actors and models and beginners. So in order to make them act and move - like Kurosawa Kiyoshi, one director who I love he’s like my master, he chooses to direct actors like puppets, they’re like a thing you know? A material moving around in his frame. I feel Hamaguchi Ryusuke does the same thing. To be honest everyone treats them like puppets because they don’t believe in the actors. But at the same time, like in Kumashiro’s pink movies the actors are amateur but they look very vivid and lively right? And that’s what I wanted to follow, that John Cassavettes style.
So basically, when I work with actors I try to spend as much time as I can. I stay with them, I eat something, I go on a walk with them. I spend time with them to figure out what looks good on film, the kind of body language they often use. When you tell them “Do this!” they get nervous and kind of stiff right? But if you know their natural life and how they act in real life it’s easier to say “can you do it like when you were eating dinner with me”, “ can you walk like that when we had a walk together” I want to pull out parts of the original actor, I don’t want to lock the character inside the character I imagine, it’s like jazz music I decide the rhythm, the character I imagine but the equipment and the melody is brought by the actor.
You need to communicate with the audience as well, there’s a fiction line. I try to announce that at the beginning of the film, it might look untrue in real life but in this movie at least you can believe this, that's what I want to do. Mito would be weird in real life but you believe her in the film.
As a young woman, and someone who has experienced growing up as a young woman through the internet, Videophobia really spoke to me. It made me think about how your films focus on female characters, but more the “object” of female characters -not as in you’re objectifying- but as in as if they’re a subject of discussion of women being objectified, through social media, or through revenge porn. I was really interested in how you think about that consciously.
I do yes. My challenge started from a very personal thing. I’m a Man, and most of my friends are men, but its so boring y’know?
Both Laugh
Being a man and talking with men. At the same time, I am mentally and physically a man of course but I'm interested in how women feel in the world. Maybe they are just like men, some people say that but I don’t think so and of course it differs between people but talking with friends and being with guys is so boring, “I don't wanna film this”. And working with male actors is so boring, they’re always like “oh I understand oh I understand” but the “oh I understand” is the only answer they give me. Communicating with actresses, there's this slight gap I feel. What is ordinary for me is a lot of the time not normal, or general for them is what I felt with working them. And that experience was really interesting for me. It was like meeting others, and of course they’re guys who I fell a gap with when we communicate, but the percentage of feeling that gap when you’re communicating was higher when I was talking with actresses. “Can’t I reflect this is my movie?”
As I said, I don’t want to lock the actor inside my character, I want to make some kind of a noise that I can’t control inside my acting and inside my movie. Working with actresses it’s easier for me to make that noise. I did work with an actor for Plastic.
I’m annoyed I didn’t get to see it when it came around last year.
It’ll be in Australia very soon. It was interesting, everyone said “why don’t you work with an actor” so I was like “okay”, and I did. It was a fun experience but the same thing happened. “Oh I understand, I understand, I can sympthasise totally with you” I really want a gap with you and I want you to show that gap in the movie. The First reason I work with actresses to make noise! To make something weird happen on screen! Something seperate to what I wanted to do that the actor figured out by herself.
But the second reason is I think film making and especially the camera is a very violent medium. It’s sneaking into something, or it stares at something, I feel it’s very violent and man-ish. If you put a camera in front of a man it kind of encourages the manpower inside the frame. If you put it in front of an actress you become one of the members of the aggressors.
That’s the total undercurent of Videophobia, that’s what i love about it.
Filmmaking is always like that to me, and it fascinates me. Its beautiful and I think its the best artform in the world, but at the same time it makes you feel guilty. “What am I watching”, “what is this camera angle”, “what is this shot”, the strange guiltiness of the audience is what I want to show and dig into through my filmmaking, and whatVideophobia was about that. Its about the guilt of watching. The guilt of being human. The Christians say “Original sin” but, this guilt of watching this film is what I’d like to stick with.
That’s why I go to pink film, or say Shuji Terayama movies, its where that relationship is most explicit. it’s refreshing to hear you talk about that consciously.
Back in Australia
I’ve heard your next production will be here in Australia?
Hopefully, Yes!
I saw in an old static vision interview from 2020 on Tourism is that you said that your new film would be a sequel to that, but that might have changed?
Yeah some people said they wanted a sequel to tourism, but what I was thinking was… So Melbourne was the first city that made the first ever feature film in history,
Really!?
Yeah, its the first place where the a movie over 60 minutes was made.
I went to a library over here and watched this old Australian film documentary from the 50’s that was crumbling and I felt awful getting the librarian to scan it but that is insane that that wasn’t mentioned, I knew we had a silent movie boom but, I've never heard that before!
Yeah lots of people didn’t know. That I thought was really interesting, so I was thinking that maybe a Japanese grad school student whose project was on that film (the first feature film in the world) goes into this strange events and happenings related to that first feature film.
That’s really cool! That’s absolutely not what I was experiencing from a movie from you set in Australia? What strange happenings? Based on true events or you making stuff up?
I was thinking… what was that famous gang?
The Ned Kelly Gang?
Yeah yeah, the first feature film was about Ned Kelly Gang, so maybe we can follow that. But its more of a… David Lynch…
After the #Mito screening, everyone was like “this is his mulholland drive!”
Both Laugh
Oh really? Really? That’s amazing I love that movie.
Me to. I think people say Lynchian to much these days, especially in film school, And I don’t think their project subjects are actually Lynchian, but I would trust you to use that word correctly.
I do love David Lynch very much, and when I was young I was kind of shy saying David Lynch, because everyone was saying it, but recently, I’ve finally truly understood what’s great about Lynch. David lynch, Todorovsky, or whatever everyone else I wanted to avoid when I was younger because everyone was saying that. I feel as if the time has come I finally, truly understand the greats.
You were talking about how you feel Australia is this weird mix of cultures and I really think it is, Like, our relationship with our England in a political sense, I think they control so much about why we are the way we are, but I feel like culturally, no one wants to be England. I think we are this wield lost culture, especially with movies. Everyone I knew who only grew up on American stuff, y'know that was it basically. In Australia if you’re an Australian film nerd that’s odd, because there’s like 5 Australian movies. The Ned Kelly Gang is like our one national narrative, and I think its quite a nationalistic one at this point? Its warped in that way. I was wondering how you plan on tackling that, and the colonial legacy it has.
I’m looking forward to it too! I’m not, totally sure what will come out, but yes, I think I can make a good one out of it. We do have the project and do have a rough story, but we still have to collect money and schedule everything, but I hope it will happen soon.
I'm not so sure if its going to be my next project, but I'm very sure that its going to happen is what I can say.
I imagine you can't really say much more about it
I really want to go back to Australia soon, I cant believe its only been 3 months. I respect the Australian audience more than any other audience in the world.
To me, that’s the most insane thing anyone has ever said.
Both Laugh
Post Script! it’s my first Substack post so it’s obligatory. Thank you so much for reading! I’ve been dipping my toes in and out of writing and interviewing for a few years now. I’m really proud of this and I’d like to thank Daisuke for not only taking his time to sit with me but also for getting me to push it off my back burner. I can’t promise anything regular here on out but I do plan to use this again sometime, interviews, reflections, essays, the lot. Co host shut down recently, maybe I’ll touch up and back port some old goodies from there.
Have a lovely one!
-Saoirse