"Alienated" is the feeling a tourist is meant to have if he goes to a physically safe and culturally unthreatening country whose language he doesn't understand. What feeling is he supposed to have if he goes to a physically dangerous and culturally threatening country (whether the menace is real or imaginary) whose language he doesn't know at all? "Terrified," a la _Midnight Express_ (1978), because "they" will fuck you up . . . literally.
_Midnight Express_ came after the oil embargo.
_Blade Runner_ (1982), _Ransom_ (a novel by Jay McInerney, 1985), _Gung-Ho_ (1986), _Black Rain_ (1989), _Rising Sun_ (1993), etc. were made at the time when the so-called "Japan, Inc." was seen to threaten the US economy.
After the burst of the bubble and the onset of deflation, Japan, once again, is a safe place where an American tourist can feel "alienated."
Postscript:
What I really want to show to the Iraqi Governing Council is _The Teahouse of the August Moon_:
The Teahouse of the August Moon
1956 - USA - Romantic Comedy/Comedy of Manners
PLOT DESCRIPTION
Starring Eddie Albert, Marlon Brando, Glenn Ford, Paul Ford, Machiko Kyo. Directed by Daniel Mann. (NR, 123 minutes).
Marlon Brando went out on yet another creative limb when he insisted upon playing sly, philosophical Okinawan interpreter Sakima in the 1956 filmization of John Patrick's Broadway play Teahouse of the August Moon. While he occasionally lapses into "flied lice" stereotyping, for the most part Brando is quite effective and amusing, especially when facing up to the difficult task of speaking directly to the audience. The story is set in Okinawa in the months following V-J Day. Paul Ford (repeating his Broadway role - and replacing Louis Calhern, who died at the start of production) plays an American colonel in charge of the occupation troops. Determined to bring Western civilization to the Okinawans, the colonel assigns captain Glenn Ford to do his bidding. A habitual screw-up, Captain Ford hopes to make good by organizing the Okinawan women into a social club and by building a schoolhouse. But the villagers would rather erect a teahouse, serviced by pretty geisha girls. The ever-resourceful Sakima (Brando) does his manipulative best to curry favor with the Americans while still mollifying his own people.
Co-starring in Teahouse of the August Moon is Machiko Kyo, leading lady of such Japanese film classics as Rashomon and Gate of Hell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
MPAA Rating: NR (Excellent For Children)
<http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=48805> -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>