Cautious Optimism in Ninagawa Yukio’s Hebi ni piasu

• In Event: Imagining a “Post-Bubble” Japan in Lost-Decade Cinema

Abstract

This paper analyzes Ninagawa Yukio’s film Hebi ni piasu (2008), based on the novella of the same name by author Kanehara Hitomi. The film’s interest in profiling the marginalized, voiceless, and socioeconomically disadvantaged members of Japan’s post-bubble youth culture portends a grim outcome for protagonist Lui and her heavily tattooed friends. Indeed, the film captures the literal and figurative darkness of the times by emphasizing shadows, back alleys, and emotional anguish, set against a muted and melancholy soundtrack. I argue, however, that Ninagawa’s ultimate goal, like that of Kanehara, is not in sensationalizing the negative affect of millennial Japan, but rather in illustrating how Japan’s youth cope with the difficulties that have come to define the “lost decade.” The film’s surprising, if not entirely convincing, conclusion offers no happy endings, but suggests that things will get better eventually. While my emphasis is on Ninagawa’s film, I contextualize his work vis-à-vis Kanehara, whose literary oeuvre is predicated on survival and overcoming impasse. Rising to literary fame in the early 2000s for a combination of literary talent and a captivating personal aesthetic, Kanehara is singularly devoted to crisis and its resolution in the pessimistic landscape of millennial Japan and the decades that have followed. In considering the film adaptation of her novella, I will demonstrate the symmetry between these discursive mediums and elucidate the ways in which both contribute to a cultural narrative of cautious optimism for the future.

Author

• David Holloway, University of Rochester