Creativity flourishes in ‘No Man’s Land’
Creativity flourishes in ‘No Man’s Land’
Known for its quaint cafes and high-end high rises, the upscale neighborhood of Hiroo is home to many of Tokyo’s local and ex-pat illuminati, as well as to several foreign embassies. The area is pristine, even by Tokyo standards, and it is this refined backdrop that makes arriving at the French embassy that much more shocking. What’s that on the outer walls? Could it be . . . graffiti?!
Not to worry, this is not a sign of eroding Franco-Japanese relations, this is a sanctioned effort by the French Embassy in cooperation with dozens of artists and art collectives to transform the compound into an unlikely exhibition space. Scheduled for demolition later this year when the embassy moves to a neighboring property, the site is now home to the exhibition “No Man’s Land,” a title that captures the ephemeral state of a space that has been abandoned, but not yet leveled.
Windsor Bar 
As hotel bars go, this one takes some beating. The Windsor Bar, on the third floor of the Roppongi Prince Hotel, is divided into two spaces. Its most distinctive feature is a dramatic ceiling mural in the style of M.C Escher: a monochrome moonscape glimpsed through a perspective distorting series of pillars and arches…
Same old desperate housewives
What exactly does a woman want? Even a genius like Freud couldn’t answer that one, but that doesn’t stop Hollywood from gleefully pitching their own answers, time and time again. Sadly, they’re almost always something routine and familiar, dribbling with prosaic food-court banality: a man, a family, a wedding, a divorce, a relationship . . . yawn.
More of the same happens in “The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.” The Japanese-release title can be translated as: “The Love Diary of a Fifty Year Old” (“50 Sai no Renaihakusho”), which strikes me as one helluva depressing way to put it. On the other hand, it’s truer to the movie’s actual content than the original English title, which slyly suggests Pippa has a lot more to her than just the same old, same old.