The Flash of Capital: Film and Geopolitics in Japan (Asia-Pacific)

Rating:
Summary: read, watch, re-read
Review: Cazdyn's book is useful both for giving an overview of what to watch for when approaching one of the selected movies for the first time and he (Cazdyn) also succedes in giving a thought-provoking outer context (ie the transformation of 'capital' in modern japan). it is important to understand that this theory of the films as economic-artefacts (not in a crude cause and effect sense, mind you) is accomplished through the very readings Cazdyn performs on them. The first step is a basic historicism that aims to survey and then go one step past existing Western reactions to key Japanese films. However, we begin to see quite early in our reading (note that i say early in the reading not early in the book, for this is a work that definitely benefits a non-synchonic pursual) that Cazdyn's ability to make these 'new' points as very much indebted to his invocation of a historical-materialist framework. Like Marx's re-read the economy of 18th C England to prove a point, so Cazdyn is rereading the economy of 20th C Japan!

It is therefore very ironic that the non-academic responses to this book so far have focused on how it is full of theory talk. yes, the jargon can seem a little think but Cazdyn is definitely not making po-mo points!