Furuhata, Y. (1999). Poppoya: Railroad man. Tokyo, Japan: Toei Company.
Yasuro Furuhata’s (1999) Poppoya tells the story about Otomatsu Sato who works as a station master in Horomai, a once prosperous but now dying town at the end of the line. When the station is scheduled to be closed down the aged Sato reflects on his life. In flashbacks it is revealed that Sato has constantly prioritised his loyalty to the railway company over his own family, even at crucial events such as his only child’s birth, illness and death, and his wife’s passing. In the days before the closing he meets three girls of varying ages on three different occasions, all with an interest in trains. The girls turn out to be his hallucination of his late daughter who conveys her admiration for his loyal commitment. This imagined forgiveness restores Otomatsu’s humanity and helps him to overcome his incredible feeling of guilt before he commits suicide. The loss of the job that represented his life consequently becomes his own end.
Furuhata’s Film is an important impulse to my project as it demonstrates possible visual and narrative ways to communicate the borderland between reality and illusion.
The approach to display reality and the protagonist’s hallucinations is extremely subtle. At no point is it visually apparent that the girl exists only in the protagonist’s imagination. To the audience she becomes part of the story’s reality which reflects the main character’s subjective view. El-Noor (2008, p. 16) calls this a personal or subjective twist narrative which “is filtered through a character’s experience of the story world. In this instance the character might intentionally or unintentionally provide a false view of it” (ibid.). For my project I intend to develop a visual and narrative approach that keeps the audience in uncertainty of what is the reality of the story world and what represents the character’s subjective hallucination. Using this approach I hope to create increased intellectual audience participation.
Any intentional misleading of an audience, however, creates a severe risk for a filmmaker. Films ‘with a twist’ become increasingly common. This heightens an audience’s expectation of being mislead. Any twist that can be detected before it is revealed in the story can ruin a narrative as being predictable. McKee (1999, p. 7) writes that “the audience is not only amazingly sensitive, but as it settles into a darkened theatre its collective IQ jumps twenty-five points”. As a screenwriter and director it is crucial not to underestimate the viewer’s capacity.
The use of a twist in my story may nevertheless be considered. I see two types of twists with a varying degree of the above-mentioned risk. The first I want to label the ‘intellectual twist’ that often requires a complete reinterpretation of the events that happened in a story up to the point of the twist. Films such as The Usual Suspects (Singer, 1995) and The Others (Amenábar, 2001) fall into this category. It represents a high risk because the story success depends on the twist not being detected too early. The second I want to term ‘emotional twist’. Similar to the intellectual twist it is a sudden revelation but it does not require a reassessment of past events. The risk of ruining the story if detected prematurely is significantly lower. It functions as a device to reveal a character’s emotional core but does not place emphasis on misleading the audience. It supports the story in that it puts the audience into the protagonist’s skin to experience a possibly life-changing revelation. Poppoya (Furuhata, 1999) is an example for an emotional twist. A film like A Pure Formality (Tornatore, 1994) combines the emotional and intellectual twist.
References
Amenábar, A. (2001). The others. New York, NY: Dimension Films.
El-Noor, M. (2008). Narratwist: alteration in meaning in a short film text (Exegesis). AUT University, Auckland, New Zealand. Retrieved from http://aut.researchgateway.ac.nz/handle/10292/408
Furuhata, Y. (1999). Poppoya: Railroad man. Tokyo, Japan: Toei Company.
McKee, R. (1999). Story. London, UK: Methuen.
Singer, B. (1995). The usual suspects. Buena Vista, FL: Metro Goldwyn-Mayer.
Tornatore, G. (1994). A pure formality. Culver City, CA: Sony Pictures.
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