Contrasts in Romance

Today's odd pairing compares and contrasts a quiet little independent production titled, American Pastime, brought to my attention in the preview section on the dvd, Letters from Iwo Jima, with the commercial hit, Blades of Glory. Each features physical conflict but ultimately examines brotherhood, family, honor, and love.

American Pastime is an independent film by Japanese American Desmond Nakano featuring familiar adults juxtaposed with relatively unknown younger performers. The fathers in particular turn in performances worth noting, as played by veteran Japanese performer Nakamura Masatoshi and Gary Cole, the former star of the television series, Midnight Caller. What disturbs me is that Nakamura-san is the only performer of Japanese ancestry in the featured nuclear family. As with Memoirs of a Geisha, the use of other ethnicities seems preferable to the casting of authentic Japanese for roles written specifically for Japanese. Now why is that? Even, perhaps especially growing up in the western portion of the U.S., the filmmaker should be sufficiently familiar with the visual differences among Pacific ethnicities to be disturbed by this, (though I have also heard that a number of Japanese Americans disassociated themselves from their race upon release from internment, sadly.) In any event, the result is that the protagonist is very much an older version of the hip younger son in Flower Drum Song, who also loves baseball and jazz and all things American. That said, the depiction of life in the Topaz internment camp is specific and evocative. The general tone is more in line with that of the nissei who enlisted with the 442nd and won fame and respect for all Japanese Americans in some of the bloodiest and fiercest fighting in Europe during WWII than other films dealing with the internment of the JA's might seem in more strident independent films I have seen. What comes through is a whole lot of love: love of baseball, love of jazz, love of family, love of community, romantic love, and affirmative movement from selfish love to love of self that is self-respect sufficient to radiate to others.

Then there's Blades of Glory, a Will Farrell/Jon Heder headliner put together by Ben Stiller. With credits like that, there is only one kind of film to expect, and that is what one gets. This film also moves from selfish love to love of self that is self-respect that can radiate outwards to include others. Unlike the protagonist of American Pastime, whose lone wolfish ways are arguably attributable to political and societal forces alone, however, the protagonists of this film, both the lone wolf and the pretty boy, can claim the lack of adequate home support. The former is an orphan who grew up on the streets, while the latter is an orphan plucked from obscurity by an entrepreneur who clearly sees him as product, not progeny. Where AP has two blood brothers, the younger of whom learns from his elder, BoG brings together two antithetical orphans who learn from each other, one to be more outgoing, the other to be kinder and gentler, or at least moderately more considerate. Ultimately this film is an affirmation of the American sensibility: independence and spontaneity tempered by consideration and cooperation, just a little bit.

And everybody gets the brunette. Now how can one argue with that sort of ending?