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Waiting

Waiting for bloody Godot must have been easier than waiting for Nizam, my life seemingly revolves around waiting and waiting never knowing if he will show up or not. In Oslo he has a very busy work schedule and an extremely troubled family life, so he ends up bouncing from one to the other and now, he also has the problem of me and my needs thrown into the frantic mix. His partner is completely against us making this film and won’t even agree meet me. I sense, not surprisingly, that this added pressure is exactly what Nizam doesn’t need right now.

Torn between getting his family life back together and making a film with me he must obviously prioritise his home life, but when he said he was taking a vacation from Oslo to see a friend in Bergen it seemed a good time to catch-up and get some filming done.

For me it was also difficult to organize, I had my own kids to care about and managed to get my mother to come down to London, which allowed me to make a flying visit to Norway. Following my night-time arrival Nizam and I just sat and drank with his bubbly Iranian friend, I didn’t want to film on the first night and hoped to do some the next day but, as usual, I found myself imprisoned in my hostel waiting for his call.

Nizam eventually rang at 5 and we met in darkness at 8pm. I’d already given up the idea of filming this beautiful city with him, and anyway he wanted to cook something before taking off to a jam-night in a local bar. I saw a glimmer of hope, maybe I could at least film a cooking scene at his friends place, but this was short lived as he asked me to stop filming, he didn’t feel up to it.

So we ate the wonderful couscous he made and hit the bar, I tried filming but he wasn’t interested so I didn’t push it. Instead I watched the scenes we could have filmed. A great conversation with a Norwegian guy in the bar about the simple life he misses in Syria, followed by lots of Norwegians drinking and partying hard and then hordes of them drunk all along the streets as we headed home with my camera still locked in its bag.

Any-time soon I’m supposed to sign contracts with a German agent to sell this film, a film already commissioned by the BBC, nearly commissioned by the Japanese, and with a possibility of Norwegian TV coming on board too. Now I wonder what to do, do I push someone who isn’t interested in being filmed anymore, do I continue to try and convince Nizam of why he should be filmed, why it mattered to him and to me, or should I just cut my losses and call it a day?

St Sean, on the road to Damascus

Bollocks. The BBC just cancelled the ‘North’ season that had brought me back to Hull looking for ideas. Actually I’m relieved… I am now in Sofia waiting for a Syrian visa so I can take my own ‘road to Damascus’.

I am looking for the conversion that changed St Paul on his road. I want to find a film there and the strength to persuade the BBC to accept an idea which they rejected back in December 2008.

I’d opted for their (dual) offer of two films, one in Hull, and one in Libya but now I really doubt whether I can get the access I would need to make a film there (Libya, not Hull).

Furthermore I’ve no real idea why I want to make a film in Syria I just see a fantastic colourful film set in Damascus full of fun fear and freedom. A place where contradictions play themselves out in widescreen. Stupid things like democracy versus dictatorship. A place where thousands of Iraqis apparently have fled their new found freedom for the ‘safety’ of a dictatorship, where partying hard at the weekend is seemingly as important as the Friday call for prayer.

Sounds amazing to me but sadly not the BBC. Not yet anyway. So on the road I go.

My Kind of Man

So here I am back in my Tokyo hotel now fully-commissioned for a feature-length documentary co-production between BBC2 and NHK. It is a great opportunity to make a film of my choice with no brief.

But Japan presents my biggest challenge so far in making a film that gets under the skin of what is going on. This closed society is hard to crack, on my last trip 8 months ago I left never wanting to come back. But since then I have recharged my batteries and have been introduced to a character called Naoki who lives in Yamagata about 3 hours out of Tokyo.

Married 3 times, divorced 3 times he ran a bar called ‘Night Dew’ named after a famous shampoo brand here but after getting into a fight the former communist found himself in hospital for 3 months. His bar closed and now he rides a Honda 90cc everyday for the post office dreaming of re-opening his Night Dew bar. He lives with a woman half his age that used to drink at the bar. Naoki sounds like my kind of man.

Last of Japan. Or so I thought.

I’d decided to leave Japan after 10 weeks of research with what felt like no results. I was more confused than when I arrived.

Paul Weller was playing Tokyo so I treated myself with a gig before leaving. I’d arrived late hoping to buy a cheap ticket off a tout but there were no touts about just an orderly queue of people.

Growing up the UK my life had been a series of Jam, Style Council and Weller gigs. They were always as riotous as the audience was. I always felt a part of such crowds. It was interesting to see how Mr. Weller was going fit in here. The packed house was seated and silent as they waited for him.

As I blinked I missed his arrival. Suddenly there he was on stage. The full house remains well ordered and offered a controlled hand clap. No cheers not even a murmur from the audience. The atmosphere felt like a school concert with an amateur rock band on stage. Weller looked bemused but did his best and continued.

I was at the back of the Circle. And like my attempts over these last 10 weeks I felt desperately outside what was happening around me. I felt the same frustration in the concert hall that I felt at not getting inside Japan. I instruct my Japanese friend to follow me in an effort to get closer to the stage and thunder out of the Circle and down some stairs to the main hall. My friend is warning me that we do not have the right tickets, “fuck them”. I am angry at my failed attempts at getting inside Japan and want to at least enjoy this gig before I leave. It stirs great memories of growing up with Weller gigs as a kid.

I storm the main hall doors expecting a polite young Japanese ticket collector to stop me. Two ticket men demand tickets I thunder past them and run down the aisle followed by my friend, pushing more ticket collectors out of my way. I end up 6 feet from Weller at the front. Close up I wanted to feel the gig and enjoy it more. But close up I could sense Weller’s bemusement more than I could from back. Weller was doing his best to enjoy himself. Blasting through the set. The crowd would sway to the songs and clap between them. There was an eerie silence amongst the crowd that Weller found embarrassing. He would amuse himself by making jokes, knowing no-one was really understanding him.

“Just keep clapping a little longer while I change my guitar…”

Clap clap clap

Weller was struggling through his set like I had struggled through my research-time in Japan. No matter how hard he tried he never got closer to his audience they always kept themselves at arms length. Swaying through songs and clapping between them. I could really identify with him. This Weller concert was a monument to my time in Japan.

To amuse himself he would make more jokes with the audience who he didn’t understand and who didn’t understand him.

“It’s a great pleasure to play back in this hall in Nakano. I played here 26 years ago when I started out with the jam and …” he smiles knowing he is talking to himself. “It was a fucking nightmare then and it is now” he hammers into another song laughing to himself.

This concert was more personal than most and it felt like an epitaph to my time Japan. A grateful goodbye to 10 long weeks of alienation, confusion and disappointment. Weller kept looking round to his young band members and breaking into fits of laughter. I kept thinking ‘oh why does Japan make itself so alien’.

I remember an english teacher telling me when I first arrived. ‘The problem with the Japanese he said is that they always live up to their worst stereotypes.’

Weller returns to the stage for the encore. A Jam number, ‘Town Called Malice’… he cannot get the first line out for laughing; it’s a private joke with other band members who are also laughing. As he sings the first line the joke becomes clear to me but is missed on the thousands in the audience…

‘you better stop dreaming of the quite life because it’s the one you’ll never know…’

Weller can hardly sing for laughing now.

I leave remembering the good old days of growing-up with Weller gigs in the UK. I struggle to find what Japan means to me. 10 weeks in Japan had sort of destroyed my soul. I thought fuck Japan I will never come back I simply cannot relate to this place.

6 Weeks Later

I’m back in UK recovered and behaving as if Id never been to Japan. I am thinking of making a film in Africa then the phone goes, it’s the BBC they love the last idea I sent about Japan and would love me to make it. Furthermore they are offering the best part of 200k to do so. The Japanese network NHK will match that with a further 100k.

I’ve been raising money to make this film for the best part of 3 years … the money allows me to make a film the way I want with the luxury of a year in which to make it. This was always my dream.

The problem is now my dream has become my nightmare.