We recently attended a screening of a film that helped illuminate some of the issues we've been bandying about in past weeks. The film was "Junkers, Come Here," an animated film from Japan. As one might expect, the film was thoroughly entertaining and takes some turns which don't "make sense." The part when Hiromi and Junkers do their magic tricks is splendid filmmaking. There's some good comedy of the "huh?!", drunk-tossing-aside-a-bottle type when Junkers talks to the crossing guard. Junkers is a good character because although he's a talking dog and later it will turn out he's magic, he has a lot of pretty unsound ideas about human relationships, and enjoys television. Say what you will about the Nipponese - if you see one of their drawn-picture movies, you will be at the very least confused and fascinated, and at best confused and delighted.
Aside from the fact that we expect Jack would enjoy this film tremendously, it got us to thinking about our earlier discussion about authorial cruelty. The reader will recall we delved into whether Jack, as an author with a devoted readership, has an obligation to post, whether winning over readers brings with it not merely admiration, but an attendant responsibility.
While watching Junkers, we quite fell in love, but were concerned that some miserable fate might befall him. Which got us to thinking about authorial cruelty. Can an artist be faulted for malicious intent? If a creator wins an audience's love for a character, slowly earning sympathy and then visits some dreadful punishment upon him, isn't that an act of violence, an act of cruelty upon the reader? We refer here not to tragedy generally, but to cases where the trap is sprung quite by surprise.
It would be a difficult task to achieve, certainly - lulling a viewer or reader into a false sense of security. But the blogger, who knows no genre, could pull a sneak attack at any time - some sudden burst of fury, some break in tone. Surely some of these academic jerk types who theorize about this sort of nonsense and pose experimental types of theater and whatnot must have thought of this specific kind of theater or literature of cruelty.
In any case, that's how a Japanese talking dog reminded us about the remarkable power a consumer yields to a producer of art and entertainment.
We like cartoons!
