Art exhibitions seem to be in the wind recently, this morning together with 2 taiwanese classmates I visited the Bunkamura Art Museum in Shibuya, Tokyo to view the Monet – Great Impressionists exhibition, which includes pieces by some other notable painters like Seurat, Signac, Bonnard and Renoir. While many of the artists’ greater works were not on show, ie Renoir’s “Le dejeuner des canotiers”, more commonly known as the Amelie Painting, it was exhilarating to see Monet’s Waterlilies in person.

Tokyoscape, on the way home from Shibuya.

Later at a bookstore in Shibuya, my attention is quickly drawn to a promotional movie trailer playing off a small TV, its music, mood and visual style just screaming Shunji Iwai. Hana & Alice, Iwai’s latest film. I was seized by an intense and involuntary urge to tear off the movie poster and boot, but my friends shook their heads violently in disapproval. Saddened, I was however jolted back to my senses, remembering succintly the exact purpose of my studies in Japan, the earnest passion I have for the moving image and narrative that was in a huge part, attributed to the artistic influences bore by watching Iwai’s cinematic magnum opus, Love Letter.