Synopsis
Foreword: Filmed in Giurgiu County, directed by T. Jurgiu, and produced by T. Giurgiu, “The Japanese Dog” is a debut film nominated at Cannes and awarded at Warsaw & San Sebastian.
“Maybe a few extra seconds would have made us say that Wenders definitely saw Jurgiu’s debut, based on a screenplay by Ioan Antoci and cinematography by Andrei Butică. And that he really liked it.” (cinepub.ro)
Director: Tudor Cristian Jurgiu
Scriptwriters: Ioan Antoci, Gabriel Gheorghe, Tudor Cristian Jurgiu
Cast: Victor Rebengiuc, Şerban Pavlu, Laurențiu Lazăr, Ioana Abur, Kana Hashimoto, Toma Hashimoto, Constantin Drăgănescu, Alexandrina Halic, Emilia Dobrin, Toma Cuzin, Doru Ana, Constantin Florescu, Mihai Chirilă, Ion Bechet, Mihai Petru Chinez
Produced by: Tudor Giurgiu (Libra Film), Bogdan Crăciun (executive producer)
Cinematography by: Andrei Butică
Film editing by: Dragoș Apetri
Sound: Vlad Voinescu, Filip Mureșan
Year: 2013
Category: feature film
Genre: drama
Duration: 86 minutes
Subtitles: English
15,715 – Cinepub viewers
PLOT SUMMARY
When a flood hits a village in Romania, Costache and his wife, Maria, see all their possessions swept away by the waters. After the tragedy, the two retreat to a shelter in the village, Costache refusing to sell his land to move elsewhere. He wants to rebuild his house at any cost and refuses help and advice from his neighbors. The unexpected return of his son, Ticu, from Japan, along with his wife and son, will put them both in a situation where they must relearn how to communicate and become a family again. Costache learns to become a true grandfather to his 7-year-old grandson, and Ticu manages to repair the mistakes of the past.
A delicate and tender film about family reconciliation.
AWARDS
- 2009 – San Sebastian International Film Festival – Best Director Award
- 2009 – Warsaw Film Festival – Best Director Award
- 2009 – ScriptEast Program – Krzysztof Kieslowski Award for Best Screenplay in Central and Eastern Europe
- 2014 – Gopo Awards – Best Actor Award (Victor Rebengiuc)
- 2008 – HBO National Screenplay Competition – Best Screenplay Award in Central and Eastern Europe
FESTIVALS:
- 2013 – San Sebastian IFF – selected in the “New Directors” section
- 2013 – EU Film Days Festival, Tokyo
- 2012 – Thessaloniki Film Festival, “Work in progress” section
- 2012 – CentEast Market, Moscow
- 2014 – New York Film Festival – “New Directors/New Films” event
- 2013 – Thessaloniki Film Festival
- 2013 – Mumbai Film Festival
- 2013 – Istanbul Film Festival
CRITICAL REVIEWS:
“The first feature film by the talented Tudor Cristian Jurgiu, The Japanese Dog, is an exercise in Romanian neo-neorealism, ambitiously coupled with an exercise in cinematic ‘chietism’ (with the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu as a possible reference point).” – Andrei Gorzo – Liternet Agenda
“It has been a prolific time for Romanian films this fall. More than nine productions have been released starting with Corneliu Porumboiu’s “…Metabolism”, in mid September. One production, Japanese Dog (Câinele japonez) by Tudor Cristian Jurgiu’s stands out.” – Andrei Dudea, East European Film Bulletin
“A delicate and tender film about family reconciliation.” – Hotnews Editorial Team
“The poetry of the images transports you into a kind of spell that integrates you into the hero’s being and the abyssal space that surrounds him; into a kind of Maya’s veil in which the 86 minutes of the feature film seem like a few seconds. Stylistically, the film is compared to the family dramas of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, and in terms of typological achievement, it is compared to Stere Gulea’s remarkable film The Moromete Family, starring the same sublime actor, Victor Rebengiuc.” – Roxana Pavnotescu, Agenda Liternet
“The perspective that Jurgiu gives to the camera in The Japanese Dog is similar to that in Hai shang hua/ “Flowers of Shanghai” (1998, directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien): Bordwell writes that Hsiao-hsien’s intention was for the camera to be like a character walking through the places where the protagonists meet, spying on them while remaining hidden. In “The Japanese Dog,” the camera watches from afar, without judging or intervening, like a silent observer. – Diana Mereoiu, Liternet Agenda
“Hou Hsiao-hsien reveals a wide range of feelings in what might seem like a detached perspective on the action. Emotion is not eliminated, but essentialized. As with Hsiao-hsien, Jurgiu constructs a film of purified feelings, discarding any kind of excessive pathos, careful not to fall into the trap of melodrama (very easy in the case of this story), going so far as to de-dramatize the conflict. There are no “outbursts,” no open confrontation between father and son, and no shouted accusations, but the film comes much closer to natural human resistance to discussing problems. There are resolutions, because both have to face the people they left behind (for Ticu, this means his father and his former fiancée, Gabi, and for Costache, it means softening the vehement rejection of his fellow villagers).” – Diana Mereoiu, Agenda Liternet
“When everyone else is writing minimalist urban stories, Tudor Jurgiu offers us a short, simple, delicate tale set in the countryside. Not “Moromeţii 2,” with all its bitterness, but a realistic story about a character who has lost everything and, moreover, a sad story about young people leaving the country to work and the family land that no longer matters, because now everything is for sale.” – Cristina Zaharia, Agenda Liternet
“If Niko appears in Hirayama’s life so that we finally have the opportunity, even the privilege, to witness a three-minute development, in which Kôji Yakusho’s face carries us through the waters of sadness and joy, of depth and floating, of regret and complete fulfillment, the appearance of Kôjiță, as his newly found grandfather, who has always been his grandfather, affectionately calls him, is a kind of midpoint in reverse. A midpoint in which the one who died without dying is reborn. A rebirth of the father through a second son — that of his son. Who brings with him from Japan, the country where Ticu left 20 years ago to be a teacher and stayed to be a husband and father, a robot dog and lots and lots of life. Suddenly, Costache smiles. Costache talks. Costache plays.” – Cris Petcu, cinepub.ro
Media articles:
- The film, director Tudor Cristian Jurgiu’s feature debut, was Romania’s entry for the 2015 Oscars.
- Tudor Cristian Jurgiu graduated from National University of Theater and Film, Film and TV Directing Department, in 2009. In 2009, he made the short film “Oli’s Wedding”, also produced by Libra Film, which won him numerous awards, such as: Best Short Film at the Leeds Film Festival, Best Romanian Film at the NexT 2009 Festival, Best Short Film at the Anonymous 2009 Festival, and the Gopo Award for Best Short Film of the Year.
- His latest short film, “În acvariu” (In the Fishbowl), won third prize in the “Cinefondation” section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
- The film marks Victor Rebengiuc’s return to a leading role on the big screen.
- Victor Rebengiuc tells Film Reporter about the film and the character he plays: “It’s an interesting script, and I didn’t start with any preconceived ideas, but rather with the discovery of the character, because it’s hard to understand what a disaster victim might feel when the water has taken his home, his wife, and everything he had, and he finds himself at home with his son and… some Japanese people.”
- For the same publication, director Tudor Jurgiu says: “We wanted to suggest more of the problems between this old man and his son. I am interested in this type of person, who does not discuss things, but hides many of his problems. Somewhat in the manner of “Oli’s Wedding”, where there was no conflict or antagonist, but rather a state of affairs that was quite dramatic in itself. That is what I am aiming for here as well, more a state of affairs than an evolution. We discover things about them.”
- Together with Gabriel Gheorghe, the director subsequently rewrote scenes and added others, even changing the ending. “We rewrote sequences based on how we planned to film it, and now that we’ve filmed it, we realize it has more humor than we expected”. Most of them are filmed in sequence shots. “I couldn’t have imagined the film any other way, actually. That’s how I saw it when I first read the script, and that’s how I like it. I feel that cutting with shots, reverse shots, and details greatly fractures the real duration of a moment, and you enter into a convention that doesn’t work or that I can’t accept, even when I’m watching a film”, explains Jurgiu, assisted in all these decisions by director of photography Andrei Butică.
- First organized in 1953, the San Sebastian Film Festival, in which the film participated in 2013 in the “New Directors” section, is a Class A festival according to FIAPF classifications and one of the most important film events in the world. Over the years, films such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Woody Allen’s Melinda and Melinda, and Star Wars have premiered here.
LINES:
• “You’re not the victim, man. You’re stupid, man! You drink yourself silly, man, you spend all your money on booze. I don’t know what the hell is going on in your head.” – Costache (Victor Rebengiuc)
• “Well, what am I supposed to do with all that money? Let someone steal it? No. Forget it.” – Costache (Victor Rebengiuc)
• “What can you do? You do everything. And that’s if you’re lucky. No one is waiting for you with the table set there (abroad).” – Ghiță (Toma Cuzin)
• “Everyone steals, Mr. Costache.” – Ghiță (Toma Cuzin)
• “Don’t you know how it is here? Someone sneezes, everybody knows.” – Ghiță (Toma Cuzin)
• “Don’t you understand that I’m not selling? I’m not selling!” – Costache (Victor Rebengiuc)
ARTICLES:
- The Return of The Japanese Dog, by Roxana Pavnotescu – agenda.liternet.ro
- A film of purified feelings – The Japanese Dog, by Diana Mereoiu – agenda.liternet.ro
- In search of elevation and in opposition to it – The Japanese Dog & Faust, by Andrei Gorzo – agenda.liternet.ro
- Dad, this is for you – The Japanese Dog – agenda.liternet.ro
- The Japanese Dog (Tudor Cristian Jurgiu, 2013) – blogdefilm.ro
- Romanian film The Japanese Dog presented at San Sebastian – romania-actualitati.ro
- Victor Rebengiuc stars in a new film: The Japanese Dog, at the San Sebastian Film Festival – ziarulmetropolis.ro
- Lost in Transition – eefb.org
- V. Rebengiuc on the participation of the film The Japanese Dog at San Sebastian: Applause like I’ve never heard in my life – digi24.ro
- The film The Japanese Dog, by Tudor Cristian Jurgiu, represents Romania at the EU Film Days festival in Tokyo – news.ro
- About fathers and sons. The Japanese Dog – filmreporter.ro
- The Japanese Dog, Romania’s entry for the 2015 Oscars. Victor Rebengiuc: “I’m not getting my hopes up” – digi24.ro
