Reframing Loss: Japanese Cinematic Melancholia in Inter-Asian Contexts

Abstract

Photography and film are technologies of memory. The history of cinema encompasses technological change and social formations—thus both memory and loss become both individual and communal. This essay will examine some of the changes in the relations of cinema, memory, and loss in Japanese cinema in an inter-Asian context, giving the example of historical memory work from Taiwan and Korea as counterpoints. Loss in the classical melodrama is represented and reconciled within a primarily aesthetico-ethical system, while loss in the contemporary film is adjudicated through sociopolitical antagonisms no longer to be contained within a Japanese exceptionalism—loss and its meanings include the consequences of Japanese Imperialism in the first half of the twentieth century as well as the new multilateral dialogues that occur within inter-Asian cultural exchange and various forms of reengagement.