Book Chapters by Kenta McGrath
The Child in World Cinema (ed. Debbie Olsen) (Lexington), Feb 2018
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Giant Creatures in Our World: Essays on Kaiju and American Popular Culture (ed. Camille D.G. Mustachio & Jason Barr), 2017
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(In)Digestion in Literature and Film (Routledge), May 5, 2020
In recent years, scholars and commentators within and outside Japan have argued that a victim con... more In recent years, scholars and commentators within and outside Japan have argued that a victim consciousness or mentality (higaisha ishiki) took hold of the nation in its postwar years, through which Japanese came to see themselves primarily as victims, rather than as aggressors, during the Pacific War. The horrific accounts of cannibalism in the latter stages of the war – a common outcome of abandonment and starvation, and committed by Japanese troops against Allied soldiers, prisoners of war, civilians, and each other – sit uneasily within this discourse of victimhood because the line between victim and perpetrator is often ambiguous or exists on multiple fronts. Depending on the context, victim status can be spread widely, and even a soldier who practiced cannibalism may be perceived to be a victim, a perpetrator, or both simultaneously.
The tiny number of Japanese films that have tackled the issue of war cannibalism likewise blur the distinction between victim and victimizer; as such, they are well equipped to respond to historian Tanaka Yuki’s call to examine “wartime Japan as aggressors and as victims at the same time”. This chapter focuses on four films which foreground war cannibalism and examine the complexities of its victimhood: Ichikawa Kon’s Fires on the Plain (Nobi, 1959), Tsukamoto Shinya’s eponymous 2014 remake, Fukasaku Kinji’s Under the Flag of the Rising Sun (Gunki hatameku moto ni, 1972) and Hara Kazuo’s documentary The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (Yukiyukite shingun, 1987). In these works, cannibalism extends well beyond a theme, image or narrative device used to evoke horror or express antiwar sentiment. They all engage with the horrors of cannibalism to consider what the war meant, how it ought to be remembered, and why defining victimhood in such extraordinary circumstances can be an elusive pursuit.
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Giant Creatures in Our World: Essays on Kaiju and American Popular Culture (ed. Camille D.G. Mustachio & Jason Barr), 2017
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Articles by Kenta McGrath
Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, 2017
Abe Forsythe’s Down Under (2016) is the first narrative feature film about the Cronulla riot—the ... more Abe Forsythe’s Down Under (2016) is the first narrative feature film about the Cronulla riot—the infamous event on 11 December 2005 where over 5000 white Australians, responding to a minor local incident, descended on Cronulla Beach in Sydney and proceeded to harass, chase and bash anybody who they perceived to be of Middle Eastern appearance. In the following nights, a series of violent retaliatory attacks took place, as community leaders called for calm. Suvendrini Perera identifies how a symmetrical narrative had emerged in the wake of the riot and its aftermath, whereby Cronulla Beach “comes to stand for a paired sequence of events, the riot and the revenge, in a fable of equivalence in which two misguided groups . . . mirror each other’s ignorance and prejudices”. This article considers how Down Under reinforces the distortive implications of this “riot and revenge” narrative by maintaining a structural equilibrium—through the rigorous balancing of its narrative and characters, and formally, via its soundtrack, cinematography and editing patterns. In so doing, and despite its antiracist sentiments, the film ultimately dilutes the issue of race and obscures the power imbalances that informed the riot, and which continue to this day.
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Mise-en-scène: The Journal of Film & Visual Narration, 2016
To organise the mise-en-scène is also to organise what is not to be seen, a process of selection ... more To organise the mise-en-scène is also to organise what is not to be seen, a process of selection and arrangement as much as a process of reduction and omission. In Abbas Kiarostami’s films, which always involve a complex interplay between sound and image, the mise-en-scène often emphasises an absence, where what is missing takes on equal or greater importance to what is shown. Through an analysis of the opening sequence of The Wind Will Carry Us, this paper considers how the director uses offscreen space to mount a reflexive critique of his own role as a filmmaker.
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Senses of Cinema, 2019
An article about the relationship between cinema and the 3/11 earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster... more An article about the relationship between cinema and the 3/11 earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster, written for the "Cinema in the 2010s" dossier in Issue 92 of Senses of Cinema.
http://sensesofcinema.com/issues/issue-92/
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4:3, Nov 1, 2019
A comparison of the two recent documentaries about the Adam Goodes racism furore, The Final Quart... more A comparison of the two recent documentaries about the Adam Goodes racism furore, The Final Quarter and The Australian Dream.
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Peephole Journal, 2018
An analysis of the ethical and aesthetic concerns surrounding a single shot from Kazuo Hara's 198... more An analysis of the ethical and aesthetic concerns surrounding a single shot from Kazuo Hara's 1987 documentary, The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On.
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Metro, 2013
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Reviews by Kenta McGrath
Senses of Cinema, 2020
An annotation for Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Mysterious Object at Noon, written for a season of ... more An annotation for Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Mysterious Object at Noon, written for a season of the director's films playing at the Melbourne Cinémathèque, June 17–July 1, 2020.
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4:3, 2018
A review of Caniba by Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor of the Harvard Sensory Ethnograph... more A review of Caniba by Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor of the Harvard Sensory Ethnography Lab, about the infamous Japanese cannibal Sagawa Issei.
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4:3, 2018
A review of A Woman Captured, a documentary by Bernadett Tuza-Ritter focusing on modern-day slave... more A review of A Woman Captured, a documentary by Bernadett Tuza-Ritter focusing on modern-day slavery in Hungary.
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4:3, 2019
A review of Midnight Family, a documentary by Luke Lorentzen about a family of unlicensed paramed... more A review of Midnight Family, a documentary by Luke Lorentzen about a family of unlicensed paramedics in Mexico City.
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Sightlines Journal, 2017
An open peer review of Catherine Gough-Brady's film A Portrait of Judith Buckrich, published in t... more An open peer review of Catherine Gough-Brady's film A Portrait of Judith Buckrich, published in the second issue of Sightlines Journal. The issue features a range of films that screened at the Sightlines: Filmmaking in the Academy event at RMIT in late 2016. Sightlines Journal is primarily an audiovisual publication designed to showcase films made in a research context within the higher education sector.
Along with the featured films, Sightlines Journal publishes the filmmaker’s research statement, the two peer reviews and an (optional) filmmaker’s response to the reviews. Peer reviewers had the option of having their name published or withheld.
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Senses of Cinema, 2017
An article on Cristi Puiu's 2001 film Stuff and Dough, written for a season of the director's fil... more An article on Cristi Puiu's 2001 film Stuff and Dough, written for a season of the director's films playing at the Melbourne Cinémathèque, October 18–November 1, 2017.
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Senses of Cinema, 2017
An article on Hirokazu Kore-eda's 2004 film Nobody Knows, written for a season of the director's ... more An article on Hirokazu Kore-eda's 2004 film Nobody Knows, written for a season of the director's films playing at the Melbourne Cinémathèque, July 15–19, 2017.
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Conference Presentations by Kenta McGrath
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Book Chapters by Kenta McGrath
The tiny number of Japanese films that have tackled the issue of war cannibalism likewise blur the distinction between victim and victimizer; as such, they are well equipped to respond to historian Tanaka Yuki’s call to examine “wartime Japan as aggressors and as victims at the same time”. This chapter focuses on four films which foreground war cannibalism and examine the complexities of its victimhood: Ichikawa Kon’s Fires on the Plain (Nobi, 1959), Tsukamoto Shinya’s eponymous 2014 remake, Fukasaku Kinji’s Under the Flag of the Rising Sun (Gunki hatameku moto ni, 1972) and Hara Kazuo’s documentary The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (Yukiyukite shingun, 1987). In these works, cannibalism extends well beyond a theme, image or narrative device used to evoke horror or express antiwar sentiment. They all engage with the horrors of cannibalism to consider what the war meant, how it ought to be remembered, and why defining victimhood in such extraordinary circumstances can be an elusive pursuit.
Articles by Kenta McGrath
http://sensesofcinema.com/issues/issue-92/
Reviews by Kenta McGrath
Along with the featured films, Sightlines Journal publishes the filmmaker’s research statement, the two peer reviews and an (optional) filmmaker’s response to the reviews. Peer reviewers had the option of having their name published or withheld.
Conference Presentations by Kenta McGrath
The tiny number of Japanese films that have tackled the issue of war cannibalism likewise blur the distinction between victim and victimizer; as such, they are well equipped to respond to historian Tanaka Yuki’s call to examine “wartime Japan as aggressors and as victims at the same time”. This chapter focuses on four films which foreground war cannibalism and examine the complexities of its victimhood: Ichikawa Kon’s Fires on the Plain (Nobi, 1959), Tsukamoto Shinya’s eponymous 2014 remake, Fukasaku Kinji’s Under the Flag of the Rising Sun (Gunki hatameku moto ni, 1972) and Hara Kazuo’s documentary The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (Yukiyukite shingun, 1987). In these works, cannibalism extends well beyond a theme, image or narrative device used to evoke horror or express antiwar sentiment. They all engage with the horrors of cannibalism to consider what the war meant, how it ought to be remembered, and why defining victimhood in such extraordinary circumstances can be an elusive pursuit.
http://sensesofcinema.com/issues/issue-92/
Along with the featured films, Sightlines Journal publishes the filmmaker’s research statement, the two peer reviews and an (optional) filmmaker’s response to the reviews. Peer reviewers had the option of having their name published or withheld.