Young Tourists Marooned in a California Town
A Japanese brother and sister, tourists in America, are momentarily stranded in a rural California town; the brother resumes their trip, but the sister, who speaks no English, stays on for a while, interested in the residents and flattered by their interest in her. That’s the premise of Mike Ott’s second feature, “ Littlerock ,” an out-of-pocket production shot on video and partly improvised, using mostly nonprofessional actors.
It’s significantly smaller and more casual than “Mystery Train” or “Lost in Translation,” movies its premise calls to mind, but in some ways it’s more layered and complex. We see the lives of the young people stuck in Littlerock, an hour and a world away from Los Angeles, through the trusting but not innocent eyes of Atsuko (Atsuko Okatsuka, who was also one of the writers). Situations that will seem menacing to Americans — especially those who watch a lot of indie films — might sadden or confuse her, but they don’t alarm her, and they play out in ways that nicely subvert our expectations.
Late in the movie Atsuko rejoins her brother for the final stop on their trip. These scenes give the film a retrospective meaning — she’s been sampling a life that could have-should have been hers — that will be apparent all along to viewers who understand an earlier reference to the Manzanar internment camp. It’s an idea that feels a little forced, as does Mr. Ott’s decision to withhold subtitles for Atsuko’s Japanese dialogue when she’s talking to English speakers. If they can’t understand her, neither can we.
These are minor annoyances alongside the film’s minor but undeniable pleasures, including the performances of Ms. Okatsuka and Cory Zacharia (as a particularly frustrated Littlerock homeboy) and Mr. Ott’s dead-on depictions of all-night keggers and aimless small-town rambles.
LITTLEROCK
Opens on Friday in Manhattan.
Written and directed by Mike Ott, based on a story by Mr. Ott, Atsuko Okatsuka and Carl McLaughlin; director of photography, Mr. McLaughlin; edited by David Nordstrom; music by the Cave Singers; produced by Fred Thornton, Laura Ragsdale and Sierra Leoni; released by Variance Films. At the Cinema Village, 22 East 12th Street, Greenwich Village. In English, with some subtitled Japanese. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. This film is not rated.
Manzanar Internment Camp - News
These scenes give the film a retrospective meaning — she's been sampling a life that could have-should have been hers — that will be apparent all along to viewers who understand an earlier reference to the Manzanar internment camp.
The Army summoned more than 270 Japanese Americans to gather in Seattle, then sent them by train to Manzanar, an internment camp in the California desert. A memorial wall made of wood, granite, and basalt, consisting of 277 Japanese American names,
"Ansel Adams: A Portrait of Manzanar" at the Bainbridge Island Historical Museum examines the internment-camp experience of West Coast Japanese Americans during World War II. By Michael Upchurch Internment camp: Roy Takeno reads a newspaper in front of
The pair were being deported to an internment camp for Japanese-Americans in Manzanar, Calif. Fumiko Hayashida and daughter Natalie Ong are shown at Hayashida's Seattle home in 2009, 67 years after a now-iconic photo was made of their deportation to an
I note that the Bainbridge History Museum has an exhibit of Ansel Adams photos from the World War II internment camp at Manzanar, one of the places the US government held Japanese Americans from the West Coast. I haven't seen the exhibit yet,
Manzanar Japanese Internment Camp Memorial | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
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Manzanar Internment Camp - Bookshelf
Mystery at Manzanar, A WWII Internment Camp Story
During World War II, fifteen-year-old Tommy Yamamoto and his family are forced into the Manzanar Internment Camp for Japanese Americans.Manzanar
Technologies for interactive digital storytelling and entertainment, second international conference, TIDSE 2004, Darmstadt, Germany, June 24-26, 2004 : proceedings
The piece explores parallels between the imprisonment of Japanese Americans at Manzanar Internment Camp in Eastern California during World War II, ...The Freedom Writers Diary, How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them
Mas was sent to a camp called Manzanar, the same camp we had read about in ... was also stripped of everything we owned and placed in an internment camp. ...LIFE
Yet Manzanar. for all its hopes and assets, was no idyllic country club. Manzanar was a concentration camp, designed eventually to detain at least 10000 ...Perfect Information Directory
Manzanar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Manzanar is most widely known as the site of one of ten camps where ... Internment era,[9] as specified in the legislation that created the Manzanar ...
Manzanar National Historic Site (U.S. National Park Service)
Manzanar War Relocation Center was one of ten camps where Japanese American citizens and ... Eight guard towers were built around the perimeter of the camp. ...
Manzanar Internment Camp
A relocation center for nearly 10,000 Japanese Americans who were imprisoned here during World War II. This is one of several internment camps in the Southwest, ...
Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar During World War II
Learn more about the Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar during World War II. View many pictures taken by Ansel Adams detailing this terrible tragedy.
Manzanar - Reassembling the Internment Camp
Reassembling the Manzanar Internment Camp at Manzanar ... Manzanar, Calif. - A piece of Manzanar came home this week, trucked down U.S. 395 past the snowy teeth of the ...