If Monika Treut represents the "cool queer look" of the 1990s, then Hamano Sachi from Japan looks like a hippie from the 1960s. Having made more than 300 porn films in the past 30 years, Hamano began making feature films in 1998. Last week she brought two of her features to the women make waves film festival. Like Treut, she likes to wear sunglasses all the time, even when people want to take her picture.
"Japanese movies always present old women as well-mannered and "cute Obasan." In this movie I wanted to present the human part of women aged 69-91, their desires and their sexuality," said Hamano when talking about her opening film, Lily Festival. The film is a witty and humorous story depicting eroticism in a senior citizen's apartment. When a honey-tongued geriatric Romeo moves into a nursing home with seven women, the gender roles of Snow White and the seven dwarfs are suddenly reversed.
"In my 30 years of making porn films, I've always wanted to present them from a woman's perspective," Hamano said. "Women's senses are very different than men and also women can have an open and pro-active attitude towards their desires."
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
For that reason, Hamano said she has been in constant conflict with her producers and co-workers. "In most Japanese porn films, especially the early ones, women have been entirely submissive. A woman could never say she wanted it, not even actively caress her lover. Women always played passive roles."
When Hamano began making her porn films presenting lively women who were enjoying themselves, she was questioned by older male co-workers. And because she had been the only woman in the porn film industry until five years ago, she was asked to change her screen credit to that of a man.
"I love making movies, which was the reason why I started with porn films," Hamano said. "In 1966, porn was younger and more flexible and women were accepted in the industry. The feature film industry back then strictly excluded women."
Beginning as an assistant director making porn films at the age of 18, Hamano took to wearing sunglasses to shield her young eyes from too much exposure. "I wear them even when I watch movies," she said.
Now, as a feature filmmaker, Hamano has been traveling with film festivals and fund-raising. Her next project will be about the lives of two left-wing lesbian couples in the 1930s.
"It will be about friendship, love, and the dense atmosphere of the time," she said.
And about her porn-making? "I will continue. I will keep making women's porn until Japanese women stop feeling ashamed of sex, and until they truly gain power over their sexuality," said Hamano as she stroked her long straight hair.
For your information: Films by Monika Treut and Hamano Sachi are being screened at Women Makes Waves Film and Video Festival until Sept. 20 at President Theater, 4F, 59 Chunghua Rd., Sec.1. For program information see http://www.wmw.com.tw
It is barely 10am and the queue outside Onigiri Bongo already stretches around the block. Some of the 30 or so early-bird diners sit on stools, sipping green tea and poring over laminated menus. Further back it is standing-room only. “It’s always like this,” says Yumiko Ukon, who has run this modest rice ball shop and restaurant in the Otsuka neighbourhood of Tokyo for almost half a century. “But we never run out of rice,” she adds, seated in her office near a wall clock in the shape of a rice ball with a bite taken out. Bongo, opened in 1960 by
Common sense is not that common: a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania concludes the concept is “somewhat illusory.” Researchers collected statements from various sources that had been described as “common sense” and put them to test subjects. The mixed bag of results suggested there was “little evidence that more than a small fraction of beliefs is common to more than a small fraction of people.” It’s no surprise that there are few universally shared notions of what stands to reason. People took a horse worming drug to cure COVID! They think low-traffic neighborhoods are a communist plot and call
The sprawling port city of Kaohsiung seldom wins plaudits for its beauty or architectural history. That said, like any other metropolis of its size, it does have a number of strange or striking buildings. This article describes a few such curiosities, all but one of which I stumbled across by accident. BOMBPROOF HANGARS Just north of Kaohsiung International Airport, hidden among houses and small apartment buildings that look as though they were built between 15 and 30 years ago, are two mysterious bunker-like structures that date from the airport’s establishment as a Japanese base during World War II. Each is just about
Taiwan, once relegated to the backwaters of international news media and viewed as a subset topic of “greater China,” is now a hot topic. Words associated with Taiwan include “invasion,” “contingency” and, on the more cheerful side, “semiconductors” and “tourism.” It is worth noting that while Taiwanese companies play important roles in the semiconductor industry, there is no such thing as a “Taiwan semiconductor” or a “Taiwan chip.” If crucial suppliers are included, the supply chain is in the thousands and spans the globe. Both of the variants of the so-called “silicon shield” are pure fantasy. There are four primary drivers
RSS