Meryl Streep walked down on the red carpet as light drizzle cooled the opening of the 29th Tokyo International Film Festival on Tuesday.
The American actress was the biggest presence at Japan's major cinema showcase that continues until Nov 3 at Roppongi Hills. Minutes later on stage, Streep was joined by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who spoke about how cinema is part of Japan's soft power policy (he also joked about the film Shin Godzilla, perhaps the best monster movies of the year, in which the prime minister of Japan along with his cabinet ministers were killed by the beast's wrath midway into the story).
Streep, however, had the best punchline of the night. She said she wanted to stay longer at the festival to watch some films, but she had to rush back to the US "to help get our president elected". The whole room cheered.
The Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) is known for having big American titles as the curtain raiser -- this year it's Florence Foster Jenkins, starring Streep as a 1940s tone-deaf singer -- before the festival gives way to a selection of world cinema and rising Asian talents. Last year, the Thai film The Island Funeral won the Asian Spirit Award while the politically-flavoured love story Snap was picked for the main competition. Too bad there's no Thai film in the line-up this year, and yet TIFF remains solid with a number of films from the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodian Chinese, and of course Japanese filmmakers.
But it was Florence Foster Jenkins on the opening night that shows how TIFF is Japan's foremost "soft power" player: the presence of Streep, who once played British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, with PM Abe, who's best remembered donning a Super Mario costume as Japan received the Olympics torch from Brazil last month, tempts politico-cultural interpretation on many levels, in the South China Sea and beyond.
However the talking point will soon shift to the fact that Streep, after helping Hillary Clinton get elected, is likely to get another shot at the Oscars' Best Actress nomination with this film.
Directed by British Stephen Frears, Florence Foster Jenkins stars Streep as the title character, a real-life society heiress in the early 1940s who harbours a dream of becoming an opera singer. The problem is Florence has a God-awful voice, devoid of technique and any musical ability -- singers belt, Florence brays -- all of it compounded by the fact she thought the opposite while her manager/husband Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant) created a bubble of reality inside which his wife is the world's most talented soprano.
He bribes critics, hand-picks audiences to exclude those who'll tell the truth to his wife, and successfully -- this is based on a true story -- organises a solo concert for Florence at Carnegie Hall.
This is a comedy first and foremost, and yet the film has an undercurrent of sadness coursing through the biography of this rich woman who's lived a tragic life (we wish Frears would dig a little deeper into that). It is neither Stephen Frears' major work nor his wittiest -- but Streep and Grant somehow pull through the comical hysterics in the first minutes to give us a portrait of their characters' unusual relationship, one defined by love, devotion and denial of the reality around them. The film also stresses that the story takes place during World War II, the time of brutality and madness everywhere in the world.
So, yes, Streep as Florence, comical and pathetic, demented and heartfelt, has a fair chance of making it through the crowded field of best performances as the Oscar season approaches. For now, she has had Tokyo and PM Abe in thrall.
US actress Meryl Streep at the opening of the 29th Tokyo International Film Festival on Tuesday.
