It was a deliberate choice and it has to be admitted that it works in the film. The school uniforms and the hairstyles do blend the students into a homogenous whole at the start. (...) It was an intention of the author and the director. This part of the film worked very well. We see by this method that the students are closely bonded as a whole, but the Program forces them to betray and kill each other as individuals.
If Takami indeed confirmed this, it's hard for me to argue, but I have to admit that I don't see this at all.
I've already noted that uniforms don't count; Japanese schoolchildren all wear uniforms, in many cases since primary school, and for a movie about junior high school students this would be taken totally for granted. Meanwhile, the students' hairstyles are all different. Very clearly, very markedly different. If it were the director's intention to make them into a "homogenous whole", he could easily have cast students who all had the same hair colour and hairstyle, but he didn't. This means we can clearly tell them apart even before some of them alter their uniform.
In fact, it's clear from the Behind the Scenes featurettes that the director insisted that every student act differently based on their character and motivations. They wear their uniform differently - with nerds like Motobuchi sporting a neat tie while bullies like Numai leave their tie very loose - and they respond in very different ways to what happens in the classroom scene. Again, if the intention was to make them all the same, the director seems to have deliberately sabotaged this, and missed every opportunity to make the point.
Even during the bus scene, shots of individual students show that they are not "closely bonded as a whole", but that the class consists of distinct cliques and scattered loners who may or may not get along. From single glances and lines of dialogue we are introduced to a range of different characters. Again, if the intention was to make them all the same, why are they revealed to be such a varied bunch?
betrayal was the main theme of the novel
How so? Betrayal barely features in the novel. The majority of the deaths come from suicide, open conflict, and psycho killers. There is no major betrayal plotline; the main characters never betray anyone and are never betrayed. The novel has many themes, and the movie far more and far more intricate ones, but betrayal doesn't really play any part. Or am I missing something here?
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summeriris
10 years ago
I've already noted that uniforms don't count; Japanese schoolchildren all wear uniforms, in many cases since primary school, and for a movie about junior high school students this would be taken totally for granted. Meanwhile, the students' hairstyles are all different. Very clearly, very markedly different. If it were the director's intention to make them into a "homogenous whole", he could easily have cast students who all had the same hair colour and hairstyle, but he didn't. This means we can clearly tell them apart even before some of them alter their uniform.
But that is exactly the purpose of a school uniform. Like any other uniform it turns an individual into a part of the whole. Perhaps it's because I live in the UK, the country where all those Japanese school uniforms were adaptred from that this is not a surprise to me. I'll try and see if I can track down that interview. I think it was in a review of the book and not the film though. I much prefer the book to the film and I prefer the second re-written version of the book to the first version. That book was such a bad translation and had so many errors in it.
How so? Betrayal barely features in the novel. The majority of the deaths come from suicide, open conflict, and psycho killers. There is no major betrayal plotline; the main characters never betray anyone and are never betrayed. The novel has many themes, and the movie far more and far more intricate ones, but betrayal doesn't really play any part. Or am I missing something here?
I think you are. The tag line from the novel was..."Could you kill your best friend". If you kill your best friend in order to save your own life I think that can safely be assumed to be a betrayal. Did it have to be spelt out for you? It's an interesting take on relationships don't you think? And for me it was the most powerful statement in the novel. The blood and body parts didn't impress me very much, but the thought of killing someone you have sworn to be friends with...that impacted. The closest example from the the film on this was the massacre scene in the lighthouse. That started simply because one girl thought another girl that she was supposed to be friends with had poisoned the food. That's betrayal in action.
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The_Zig
10 years ago
... Perhaps it's because I live in the UK, the country where all those Japanese school uniforms were adaptred from that this is not a surprise to me. I'll try and see if I can track down that interview. I think it was in a review of the book and not the film though.
You're not the only one who lives in the UK.
Frankly, this isn't worth discussing further without evidence. I could claim to vaguely remember an interview where Takami muses on how he deliberately made them all distinct to emphasise that even a homogenous group is made up of diverse individuals. Without evidence it's meaningless: provide a link.
That's betrayal in action.
This is sophistry in action. As usual. If I kill my friend because I think they've gone nuts/turned homicidal/will kill me or people I care about, this is not 'betrayal'. It could be called many things, but betrayal simply doesn't fit. It's empty word-play to claim otherwise. And obviously you'll now do so... to the amusement of all present.
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summeriris
10 years ago
You're not the only one who lives in the UK.
Frankly, this isn't worth discussing further without evidence. I could claim to vaguely remember an interview where Takami muses on how he deliberately made them all distinct to emphasise that even a homogenous group is made up of diverse individuals. Without evidence it's meaningless: provide a link.
You are quite correct, I can't find the link. I will keep looking but if I can't find it, well than I will simply have to amend my point to the fact that
I think it was the original intention of the author. And if you live near a school you could try being near that school when the student's come out. See if you can spot the reason why that element of the film so impressed me. Or try looking a photos of soldiers in uniform. Even the word 'Uniform' implies sameness of appearance. And IMO it worked in the film. Visually it was very striking.
This is sophistry in action. As usual. If I kill my friend because I think they've gone nuts/turned homicidal/will kill me or people I care about, this is not 'betrayal'. It could be called many things, but betrayal simply doesn't fit. It's empty word-play to claim otherwise. And obviously you'll now do so... to the amusement of all present.
Now who is trying sophistry. I chose a specific example from the film that really demonstrated my point and the point of betrayal. The gunfight started because one girl jumped to a conclusion. The conclusion was her friend was trying to kill her. That's what was shown to happen. What you are discussing has nothing to do with betrayal, it does have something to do mental illness.
Here are some comments from different reviews.
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/japannew/takamik.htm
It looks like a no-win situation for the participants, or at least all except one, since there appears to be no way to turn against the game-keepers, or to stay alive without turning to murder. With the large number of participants at the beginning of the game Takami manages to go through most of the possible variations of reactions and attitudes. A few jump right into the game, readily willing to turn on their classmates, while others try to forge alliances and help each other out. Trust is hard to come by -- and hard to keep.
Cleverly, the students are outfitted with different weapons, everything from a machine gun to a set of darts. One player only gets a bulletproof vest, another a device that lets him know the location of near-by players. Betrayal is common, and Takami comes up with some entertaining twists of fate.
http://fangfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/suzanne-collinss-hunger-games-vs.html FRIENDS VS. STRANGERS: The biggest difference between the two books is that in HG, a contestant knows only the other person from his or her District. The others are complete strangers. In contrast, the BR participants know each other quite well. They play on the same sports teams, attend the same classes, and, in some cases, have known one another since kindergarten. This means that the killing in BR is much more personal than in HG. The BR group is made up of geeks, jocks, smart kids, mean kids, and "normal" kids—just like any other class in any other place. Like teen-agers everywhere, these kids have secret and not-so-secret crushes on one another, all of which are now undermined by distrust. One moment you may have a fond meditative memory of another student who has always been your friend, and in the next moment, that "friend" cuts your throat. It's that sense of betrayal in BR that you don't get in HG.
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The_Zig
10 years ago
Fair enough. So who betrayed who in the lighthouse scene - in your view?
Did Yuko betray her friends by trying to protect them from a killer in the lowest risk way she could think of?
Did Chisato betray them by freaking out, stating the fact that someone poisoned the soup and demanding to know who?
Did Haruka betray them by freaking out and picking up a weapon to defend them?
I can see how Iago betrays Othello, Skar betrays Mufasa, Elsa betrays Indy and Cypher betrays Neo. I don't really see it in your example. That said, there is betrayal in BR - for example Mitsuko's scythe kill after gaining Megumi's trust.
Enough to call it a major theme? Questionable, in my view.
I 100% hear your point about the uniform. You only need to look at the word (in English, not Japanese*) uni-form. 'Uni' = 'one' ('unit', 'unicycle', 'universe') "One-Form". Uniformity.
But then, every school I saw in Japan had a uniform. I've heard that some schools don't (particularly lower age ranges) but it is certainly the vast overwhelming majority. So this wasn't an "artistic choice", it was acknowledging everyday reality.
Given this, the only evidence we have of Takami's intent to "blend the students into a homogenous whole" is the article you claim to have seen. This seems somewhat incredible as it goes against many of the choices he made in writing it, and in the film (in which he had some influence) and especially the manga (in which he had a lot of influence). If you're right, this is quite interesting to me - however, without the article, I can't be sure you haven't simply misinterpreted it or misread its emphasis.
* In Japanese, the kanji for 'seifuku' (uniform) more or less translates to 'law-clothes' or mandated-clothing. It doesn't have the subtext of Oneness that you get in English.
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summeriris
10 years ago
Fair enough. So who betrayed who in the lighthouse scene - in your view?
Did Yuko betray her friends by trying to protect them from a killer in the lowest risk way she could think of?
Did Chisato betray them by freaking out, stating the fact that someone poisoned the soup and demanding to know who?
Did Haruka betray them by freaking out and picking up a weapon to defend them?
This IMO has to be looked on with a little contextualising. These girls are young, they are in a position of great peril and they...each of them is in a state of paranoia. What happens is they turn into a mob. Not one of them betrays the other in a worse fashion than anyone else. All of them react to what they see as a threat with force. This scene has always reminded me of the Tower of Cirith Unger scene in The Two Tower novel (Jackson put it in the last film). In that scene the Orcs all turn on each other and kill themselves. Paranoia and fear in both scenes lead to the massacres. I think Takami had to have read Tolkien, the scenes are too close thematically...even down to both of them being enacted in a tower. The lighthouse/tower massacre is a microcosm of what the entire book is about.
I 100% hear your point about the uniform. You only need to look at the word (in English, not Japanese*) uni-form. 'Uni' = 'one' ('unit', 'unicycle', 'universe') "One-Form". Uniformity.
But then, every school I saw in Japan had a uniform. I've heard that some schools don't (particularly lower age ranges) but it is certainly the vast overwhelming majority. So this wasn't an "artistic choice", it was acknowledging everyday reality.
This is true. Think about it, Takami addresses this very mindset in the novel. Shogo speaks to Shuya and Noriko about how the Japanese people have been brainwashed in a way to accept what is happening by this conforming to uniformity. It's been a while since I read the novel (about 4 years) so I can't remember the exact quote.
Given this, the only evidence we have of Takami's intent to "blend the students into a homogenous whole" is the article you claim to have seen. This seems somewhat incredible as it goes against many of the choices he made in writing it, and in the film (in which he had some influence) and especially the manga (in which he had a lot of influence). If you're right, this is quite interesting to me - however, without the article, I can't be sure you haven't simply misinterpreted it or misread its emphasis.
I found the reference, it was on the Wikipedia page for the novel.
Takami describes the characters as possibly all being "kind of alike", being "all the same" despite differing appearances and hobbies, and being static characters. Takami used these descriptions in contrast to the manga adaptation he wrote, with Masayuki Taguchi illustrating, which he believes has a more diverse and well-developed cast.[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_RoyaleI am quite willing to say that I probably did put more emphasise on this quote than I should have, all I can say in my defence was that it made sense to me when I saw the film. The visual impact of the uniforms and at first glance hairstyles, height and general build of the students reinforced my impressions from the quote. I still think that this was probably a deliberate artistic choice by the director, to emphasise the 'sameness' of the students before breaking up the group into individuals.
* In Japanese, the kanji for 'seifuku' (uniform) more or less translates to 'law-clothes' or mandated-clothing. It doesn't have the subtext of Oneness that you get in English.
As I have practically no knowledge of the Japanes language I cannot disagree with you there.
On a different note I would post this, 'Battle Royale' is a much more complex and thoughtful piece than even this board gives it credit for being. I do prefer the novel to the film. In the novel I was not distracted by copious amounts of blood and body parts. I think, and it is only my opinion too much attention is paid to how visceral the film is and it's humour. Not enough attention is paid to it's real themes of betrayal and government control. There is more to the novel than shock and awe.
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The_Zig
10 years ago
This scene has always reminded me of the Tower of Cirith Unger scene in The Two Tower novel (Jackson put it in the last film). In that scene the Orcs all turn on each other and kill themselves. Paranoia and fear in both scenes lead to the massacres. I think Takami had to have read Tolkien, the scenes are too close thematically...
Interesting. I'm one of the last people in the world who has never watched a LotR movie, so I can't comment.
Although, in case you're interested, I remember an interview where Tarantino recalled meeting Kinji and Kenta (Fukasaku - directors of the
Battle Royale movie). At some point he was telling them how he loved this scene, and they laughed and said Takami would be pleased because he took it from
Reservoir Dogs.
P.S. If you wanna have a look, I just did some googling and the interview was in a magazine called
Japan's Eiga Hi-Ho and was replicated on a site called JapAttack. The site has long 404d, but this seems to be the last existing site scrape available...
http://archive.is/Eq3vThere's also a copy of the interview in
Quentin Tarantino: Interviews, Revised and Updated which can be found in Google Books.
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summeriris
10 years ago
I think I've visited that site. I have done a lot of research on 'Battle Royale', prompted I have to say by the BR trolls that put up such stupid posts on THG boards. I get angry with them but I have to confess that I have always maintained that though 'Battle Royale' is not nearly as original as they claim, the novel has so many good points. (The first translation was dire but the second expanded and rewritten version is very good.) I'm not that fond of the movie, but the novel is well worth reading. So few do though.
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