sexuality, gender and nation in japan
fall 2002, unc-chapel hill
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"Within a Budding Grove: 
Myth, Memory and Criticism in Postwar Okinawa" 

Chris Nelson
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

 October 9,  2002

7:00-10:00pm
Room 08
Gardner Hall
UNC-Chapel Hill 

presentation followed by a screening of The Beat

 

 
 
The Beat (1998) is the first film by the musical director Miyamoto 
Amon and is based on the novel Nami no Ue no Maria by the 
Akutagawa Prize-winning author Matayoshi Eiki.  Released at the 
peak of the anti-base movement and the land rights struggles of the 
late 1990s, the film follows the attempts of a young Okinawan man to come to grips with questions of personal and social responsibility 
during the American Occupation.  The film also provides an 
opportunity to consider the critical possibilities of the mainstream 
media in contemporary Japan.  Starring Uchida Youki (an idol 
singer) and Claude Maki (who also starred in Kitano Takeshi's 
recent film Brother), the movie also features an extensive 
supporting cast of Okinawan actors.