Long-term readers will know that I am a fan of Tsutomu Nihei and I have written about his manga Abara, Biomega, and the anime adaptation of Knights of Sidonia. Blame! is based on Nihei’s manga of the same name which was his first commercial manga series when it was published in Kodansha’s Monthly Afternoon magazine from 1997 until it ended in 2003. This movie adaptation is from the team behind the TV anime adaptation of Knights of Sidonia and Ajin and it looks awesome thanks to the financial muscle and time given to the animation studio Polygon Pictures by their backers Netflix:
The story of the film takes place in the same setting, a distant dystopic technological future where civilisation has reached its ultimate net-based form and transhumanism is rife. Unfortunately, an “infection” wipes out the one way humans control everything – Net Terminal Genes. This causes the automated systems to spiral out of order, resulting in artificial intelligence running amok as it fulfils its function to create an ever-expanding multi-levelled city that replicates itself infinitely in all directions.
This is typical Nihei stuff with buildings shooting off into the atmosphere and plunging into the depths of the earth. Bridges span gargantuan chasms and there is a sense the world is a barren wasteland haunted by ruins, a mixture of crumbling architecture where pipes jut out and spill slop and rusty stairwells stretch out into abyssal regions.
It is all captured with lots of glorious wide angle shots that give a sense of scale to the environment and how empty of life it is, how tiny the people are in it, and how many dangers lurk in the shadows such as the city’s “builders”, gargantuan creatures that loom out of nowhere from time to time.
Indeed, with humanity having lost their Net Terminal Genes and their access to the city’s controls, they lose the right to live there. They are hunted down and purged by the defence system known as the Safeguard which sends humanoid creations that run on all fours across walls and floors and tear their human prey apart. Over the course of hundreds of years, humanity has been pushed to the brink of extinction and only tiny communities remain hanging on amidst the hundreds of levels of this city which reaches out into space.
In a tiny corner of the city, a little enclave known as the Electro-Fishers is facing eventual extinction, Trapped between the threat of the Safeguard and dwindling food supplies, their numbers are running low and these brave people are hanging on by a thread, scavenging old equipment. Nihei’s art comes through once again. Not only are their character-models fragile and tiny in their environment but the highly detailed costume design gives the sense that they are wearing lived-in battle armour that has been handed down through the centuries. Every loss of a person or piece of kit is felt and so the city becomes even more threatening.
From this point on, the narrative for the film features a number of changes which have been made by writer Sadayuki Murai who pulls together different stories and characters from various volumes of the original manga series to create a linear plot.
A brave teenage girl named Zuru goes on a journey to find food for her village, only to inadvertently cause doom when an observation tower senses her and summons a Safeguard pack to eliminate the threat. With her companions dead and all escape routes blocked, the only thing that can save her now is the sudden arrival of a mysterious stranger named Killy, a wanderer who travels the lonely corridors and spaces of the city, on his quest for the Net Terminal Genes, the key to restoring order to the world.
Killy and his AI companion Cibo were the centre of the manga’s somewhat disconnected vignettes but the decision to refocus everything on Zuru allows the film to introduce a set of easy to relate to characters and makes the story easy to understand.
Killy is a hero in the Nihei mould – synthetic or trans-human, biologically different from the rest of the humans, taciturn and pretty much unstoppable with his gun, a gravitational beam emitter which packs a huge wallop that levels structures. Having such an unflappable hero is cool but probably won’t be engaging for some audience members whereas Zuru provides a positive female protagonist without a hint of exploitation.
Actually, Killy, Cibo, and his main antagonist, Sanakan look so damn cool and act it to. The perfect humans in their artificial bodies and with their super-strength, they are like the Gauna in Abara and the various inspectors and agents in Biomega. This is techno horror rather than body horror but they still have a high impact, especially when they are able to bring whole buildings down and take out huge chunks of their surroundings.
Blame! benefits from having Netflix and the experienced animators on board because the visual and aural qualities become operatic thanks to the time and money lavished on the movement of the characters and sound effects which features a better flow while the direction is clean and concise and delivers the action perfectly. There are great moments such as POV shots where the HUDs in the helmets and eyes of characters light up the screen with information, vertiginous shots of the city, platforms and plateaus, and the combat scenes when the camera zips along like a glance. It all looks great and the action scenes are cool which is what audiences are watching this for!
The Berlin International Film Festival launches at the end of this week and runs from February 07th to the 17th. There are a decent number of features and a couple of shorts for fans of Japanese cinema to watch out for. Two of the features seems brand new to me, as in, I haven’t seen it at places like Rotterdam but one was winning major buzz at Sundance last month. The others I have seen at Glasgow. Anyway, here are the Japanese films playing at the festival:
This one looks really interesting. It is a drama about people with cerebral palsy that is stacked with good actors like Makiko Watanabe (Love Exposure) and it goes a step further by having people with the condition portray characters. It mixes drama and humour and the 37-second teaser promises it will be worth watching.
Synopsis from the festival site:Yuma is a 23-year-old woman from Tokyo. When she commutes by train to her job in a manga studio, her face is at hip height to the other passengers standing up. Yuma uses a wheelchair on account of cerebral palsy. Her deformed limbs only allow her to crawl – and to hold a pencil. The fact that her boss, a successful comic artist and blogger named Sayaka, who has a penchant for garish Fairy Kei attire, passes Yuma’s drawing ideas off as her own, dismays the talented ‘mangaka’. Even worse, her overprotective mother hardly lets her out of her sight and refuses to talk about her father. As Yuma attempts to live a more independent life, she stumbles across adult comics – manga porn – and toys with the idea of drawing some herself. The publisher advises her to gain some personal experience first. But what happens when a woman in a wheelchair asks a tout in Tokyo’s red light district to fix her up with a sex date?
A film based on a novel by Yasushi Sato is usually something to take notice of after a series of good to great adaptations. Nobuhiro Yamashita’s Over the Fence is good, while Sketches of Kaitan City by director Kazuyoshi Kumakiri, and Mipo Oh’s The Light Shines Only There are great. The three are set in the author’s native city of Hakodate in the north of Japan but this film was originally set in Tokyo before being relocatedone has been The Japan Times review sounds like this film doesn’t quite fly. That’s a shame because there’s a great cast with Shota Sometani (Himizu), Shizuka Ishibashi (The Tokyo Night Sky Is Always the Densest Shade of Blue), and Tasuku Emoto (Dynamite Graffiti).
Synopsis: The unnamed protagonist (Tasuku Emoto), simply referred to in the credits as “Boku” is a slacker who works at a bookstore while sharing an apartment with his unemployed friend, Shizuo (Shota Sometani). “Boku” begins dating his co-worker Sachiko (Shizuka Ishibashi) and she gets roped into his hang-about life, but Shizuo soon gets involved and a love triangle develops…
This has won awarda and plaudits at Sundance and it is at Berlin. It has an otaku aesthetic with 8-bit computer games being a big influence. Some really great actors are in this one and it has a lot of buzz from people who have seen it.
Synopsis: When their parents are die, four 13-year-olds, Hikari, Ishi, Yuki and Ikuko, find they cannot cry. What do you do in such a situation? Well they make a rock band to search for their emotions. While doing that, they meet the far-our residents of a junk yard and hit the big time!
This China-Japan co-production seems to be a continuation of the director’s short film Signaturewhich also stars Yulai Lu. That short featured him playing a Chinese immigrant wandering around Shibuya.
Synopsis:A Chinese man named Chen Liang (Lu Yulai) left China and his ill mother and elderly grandmother to livein Japan. He wanted to escape his responsibilities and have a new life but he finds himself experiencing the hardships that come with living illegally in Japan but it looks like things might change for the better when he takes a phone call meant for someone else and accepts a job at a traditional Japanese soba restaurant run by an elderly chef (Tatsuya Fuji). He takes to learning the art of soba-preparation, however, his illegal status could put things in jeopardy.
There are also two shorts, one made by an American named Shelly Silver – A Tiny Place That is Hard to Touch – whch takes place in Tokyo and has an American woman and a Japanese woman examining Japan’s declining birthrate and getting into disagreements which take on sci-fi overtones. Then there’s Leaking Lifeby Shunsaku Hayashi. I’ve watched two of his films in the past and they are real trips. Here’s a teaser:
Here is past coverage I have offered on the festival:
The closing film of Osaka Asian Film Festival 2019 (March 08th – 17th) has been announced and it is the Vietnamese family comedyDaddy Issues.This is the Japanese premiere of a film directed by Ken Ochiai whose Kyoto-based film Uzumasa Limelight (2014) should be familiar to fans of Japanese cinema – quite appropriate since OAFF 2019’s opening film Randen is set in Kyoto.Most recently, he has been working in the Vietnamese film industry and created a comedy hit with Saigon Bodyguards whichwas released in 2016 and beat Rogue One in the charts and became the 4th biggest movie of that year.
Daddy Issues is based on the Japanese novel Papa to Musume no Nanokakanby Takahisa Igarashi. This novel was dramatized in Japan in 2007 and made into the movie Daddy You, Daughter Me in Korea in 2017. This was screened in OAFF 2018. The film stars Thái Hoà, a Vietnamese “comedy king” known from Let Hoi Decide and Saigon Bodyguards and Kaity Nguyen, a rising star best known from her debut film Jailbait.
Daddy Issues will have its World Premiere on Friday, March 17th at the Osaka ABC Hall after the Closing Ceremony of OAFF 2019.
On top of that, the full programme has been announced with 51 films in total, including 14 films in the Competition section. OAFF will screen 10 World Premieres and 9 International Premieres.
There’s plenty to see between the start and finish so stay tuned for further coverage over the coming weeks. Here’s the trailer for the closing film:
Daddy Issues
Hon Papa Da Con Gai
Running Time: 115 mins.
Release Date:December 28th, 2018
Director: Ken Ochiai
Writer: Michael Thai(Screenplay), Takahisa Igarashi(Original Novel)
Synopsis: After the mother passed away, a childish father named Hai and a headstrong daughter named Châu find their relationship deteriorates. Châu is still 17 years old, but very independent and talented, while Hai is cowardly and unreliable and with their fiercely different personalities, they argue frequently. One day ends differently when, a magical event happens and they find that they have switched bodies! With this twist in events, the two are forced to get to know each other, how they think and their experiences, and just in time because both father and daughter will have to deal with important events in their lives.
The closing film of Osaka Asian Film Festival 2019 (March 08th – 17th) has been announced and it is the Vietnamese family comedyDaddy Issues.This is the Japanese premiere of a film directed by Ken Ochiai whose Kyoto-based film Uzumasa Limelight (2014) should be familiar to fans of Japanese cinema – quite appropriate since OAFF 2019’s opening film Randen is set in Kyoto.Most recently, he has been working in the Vietnamese film industry and created a comedy hit with Saigon Bodyguards whichwas released in 2016 and beat Rogue One in the charts and became the 4th biggest movie of that year.
Daddy Issues is based on the Japanese novel Papa to Musume no Nanokakanby Takahisa Igarashi. This novel was dramatized in Japan in 2007 and made into the movie Daddy You, Daughter Me in Korea in 2017. The Korean version was screened in OAFF 2018. The newest film stars Thái Hoà, a Vietnamese “comedy king” known from Let Hoi Decide and Saigon Bodyguards and Kaity Nguyen, a rising star best known from her debut film Jailbait.
Daddy Issues will have its World Premiere on Friday, March 17th at the Osaka ABC Hall after the Closing Ceremony of OAFF 2019.
On top of that, the full programme has been announced with 51 films in total, including 14 films in the Competition section. OAFF will screen 10 World Premieres and 9 International Premieres.
There’s plenty to see between the start and finish so stay tuned for further coverage over the coming weeks. Here’s the trailer and information for the closing film:
Daddy Issues
Hon Papa Da Con Gai
Running Time: 115 mins.
Release Date:December 28th, 2018
Director: Ken Ochiai
Writer: Michael Thai(Screenplay), Takahisa Igarashi(Original Novel)
Synopsis: After the mother passed away, a childish father named Hai and a headstrong daughter named Châu find their relationship deteriorates. Châu is still 17 years old, but very independent and talented, while Hai is cowardly and unreliable and with their fiercely different personalities, they argue frequently. One day ends differently when, a magical event happens and they find that they have switched bodies! With this twist in events, the two are forced to get to know each other, how they think and their experiences, and just in time because both father and daughter will have to deal with important events in their lives.
Since the last time I wrote a trailer post I have spent my days either meeting thousands of people in my day job (I kid you not) or watching films from around Asia in the comfort of my home. I managed to finish off a big proof reading projects. In terms of writing on this blog, I posted a review of Blame !(2017), a preview of the Japanese Films at the Berlin International Film Festival 2019, and a glance at the Closing Film at Osaka Asian Film Festival 2019.
This film was originally a short before being expanded into a feature film. It explores the “senkotsu ceremony”, an Okinawan custom involving the cleansing of the bones of the dead by relatives and loved-ones in seawater or sake after burial in the ground or open air, and then re-burying the bones. This ceremony passes on life from the dead to the living and the film uses it to show how a matriarch unites a family even in her death. Here’s my review. It stars Ayame Misaki, a former model who is making waves as an actor as seen in Hikari(2016).
Trailer for the feature:
Here’s one for the short:
Synopsis:Yuko Shinjo (Ayame Misaki) has taken a vacation from her job as a hairdresser in Nagoya to head home. She is pregnant and alone but that’s not going to stop her journey to Aguni Shima, a small island which lies to the west of the Okinawa. It is here that Senkotsu is still performed even though it is a tradition that has largely died out. Her mother Emiko recently passed away and so she will perform the ceremony with her family, her father Nobutsuna (Eiji Okuda), who is quietly devastated and nursing his grief with alcohol while living alone, and her argumentative older brother Tsuyoshi (Michitaka Tsutsui). Rumours swirl around the family but friends come to their defence as the trio find the time to face each other and themselves and overcome their individual hardships.
Back Street Girls: Gokudoruzu
Back Street Girls ゴクドルズ 「Back Street Girls Gokudoruzu」
Synopsis: Kentaro Yamamoto (Jin Shirasu), Ryo Tachibana (Reiya Masaki) and Kazuhiko Sugihara (Masato Hanazawa) are young and dangerous yakuza soldiers but one mistake on a hit and they find their lives are radically changed when their boss, eager to make money, demands the three get a sex-change to cash in on the idol boom. The three boys are now girls and debut as the idol unit “Gokudoruzu.”
This title consists of 14 short films with an animated end-title sequence by female directors born in either the late ‘80s or ‘90s so they are all under 30. It features a roster of familiar names from international festivals like Aya Igashi and Yoko Yamanaka (Amiko) and lots of familiar actors like Ai Hashimoto (The Kirishima Thing), Rena Matsui (Dear Etranger), Erisa Yanagi, Shizuka Ishibashi (The Tokyo Night Sky is Always the Densest Shade of Blue), Mei Kurokawa, Sairi Itoh (Love and Other Cults), Kiki Sugino (Snow Woman), and Kaho Minami. It was screened at last year’s Tokyo International Film Festival which is where I got a lot of the details from.
Essentially, these are films made by women primarily for women and aim to capture the female experience. Please read this article on the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan website for more information.
Synopsis: Toru Nakanishi (Kazuki Soejima) is a lazy student and despite reaching his third year at university, he hasn’t prepared for what to do after that. Things change when a friend introduces the charismatic Haruhiko Ogino (Teru Sato) who teaches Toru Nakanishi how to get a job.
Saga of Tanya the Evil
劇場版 幼女戦記 「Gekijouban Yojo Senki」
Release Date: February 08th, 2019
Running Time:101 mins.
Director: YutakaUemura
Writer: Kenta Ihara (Screenplay), Carlo Zen (Original Creator)
Synopsis: Tanya and her troops have defeated the Republic’s army but the Empire faces a new threat from the Russy Federation and so she and her men are sent to the front again. Their foes are many because a multinational army under the leadership of the Allied Kingdom has joined the conflict and one girl, Mary Sioux, wants to avenge the death of her father after he died battling the Empire.
Synopsis: City Hunter is back and our heroic mega-lecherous private-eye named Ryo is protecting a woman named Ai Shindo, the daughter of a scientist recently killed in suspicious circumstances. The scientist had taken part in a project to create advanced military attack drones but left the project before completion with a key part. Now Ai is being hunted by the boss of the company overseeing the project, Shinji Mikuni, and Ryo is the only one who can save her.
Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection
コードギアス復活のルルーシュ 「Code Geass: Fukkatsu no Lelouch」
Release Date: February 09th, 2019
Running Time:112 mins.
Director: Goro Taniguchi
Writer:Ichiro Okouchi(Screenplay),
Starring:Takahiro Sakurai(Suzaku Kururugi), Yukana(C.C.), Ami Koshimizu(Kallen Stadtfeld), Ayumu Murase (Shario), Keiko Toda (Shamuna),
Synopsis:Shiori is a high school student in Tokyo with fond memories of learning to play festival drums from her grandmother. However, she lives with her strict mother who is more concerned about education. Shioristruggles with life in Tokyo but when she travels to Yakushima on her grandmother’s behalf, she has a mystical encounter with a robot that can talk and her life opens up again. The two cross paths with various people and bring hope.
Kamakura is one of the old capitals of Japan and the most magical place in the country according to Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura. In this CG-heavy adventure, a young woman discovers her new husband’s titular home town is where the borders between life, death, fairytale and reality are blurred as she and her beloved embark on a magical fantasy adventure.
The film takes place in an alternate reality where the historic coastal city of Kamakura is where ghosts, demons, yokai and humans live side-by-side. Tokyo girl Akiko (Takahata) is the freshly-minted wife of the mystery novelist Masakazu Isshiki (Sakai) and she gets a surprise every day when she meets her supernatural neighbours who are more familiar to her from books on folklore. Thanks to her positive attitude, Akiko soon takes everything in her stride including seeing her husband help the local police investigate difficult cases involving spectres but she soon gets caught up in a case of her own when her spirit is separated from her body. It is down to her loyal husband Masakazu to figure out what happened by venturing into the afterworld if he wants to unite Akiko’s corporeal and ethereal self.
The story comes from a manga by Ryohei Saigan and has been adapted for the screen by Takashi Yamazaki, probably the best choice for director considering he has helmed three of Saigan’s nostalgia-packed Always: Sunset on Third Street stories as well as making CG heavy films stretching back to the early 2000s such as the Takashi Kaneshiro action flick Returner (2002), an entry in the Doreamon anime franchise and, more recently, the live-action adaptations of the manga Parasyte. Nostalgia and CG feature prominently in Destiny as Yamazaki blends the real and fantastical into a heady confection.
The first half of the film settles for gentle scene-setting of a world which is similar to ours but due to props and set-design it feels a decade or two off. It is as if the setting is moored closer to the 50s. While some people dress in contemporary fashion, modern technology is mostly absent and Akiko and Masakazu’s sartorial style, car and home decorations look old-fashioned. These anachronisms allow the fantastical and mythical creatures of the story to gracefully materialise in this world through CG and people in prosthetics as supernatural beings like kappa and mischievous jinx deities drink in bars and lodge in houses and some even work local government.
This melange of Japanese folk tales, iconography, culture and infrastructure is all playfully deployed and goes from little details like the names of characters to something big like seeing our more familiar reality and the fantastical afterworld linked via Kamakura’s famous nostalgia-inducing Enoden train. Everything works in harmony as the fantastical blends in with the background before popping to the front when needed for plot purposes.
The plot is made up of little vignettes full of details that gradually stack up to create a fuller world and a deeper insight into the characters just in time for a satisfying second half of the film which is a CG extravaganza as the afterworld is explored and mysteries are cleared up. This section is where the creatures and environments become more fantastical with animation allowing action to take place in a beautiful vertiginous village in an exaggerated version of Japan. What keeps the film grounded is we get a true insight into the romance of the central couple which forms the beating heart of the film.
A collection of experienced thespians, singers and dancers like Min Tanaka (Haruneko, Maison de Himiko), Mikako Ichikawa (Rent-a-Cat), Sakura Ando (100 Yen Love) and Jun Kunimura and Shinichi Tsutsumi (both in Why Don’t You Play in Hell?) and former idol Hiroko Yakushimaru have been assembled and each imbues their character with life with and without special effects.
For all of the dazzling CG, audiences will be left more in awe of the double-act at the centre of the film as Mitsuki Takahata’s soft-hearted angelic Akiko and her slightly geeky but equally kind husband Masakazu display and delve into their relationship and discover it is something timeless. The lead actors have an easy chemistry together and an uncomplicated relationship based on somewhat traditional roles but they perform them with utter sincerity and dedication. Masato Sakai’s (Key ofLife) performance is all innocent looks, furious head scratching and sudden bursts of energy and this, coupled with his costumes put me in mind of the famous detective Kosuke Kindaichi when he was played by Koji Ishizaka in Kon Ichikawa’s 1976 film The Inugami Clan. The real charmer is Mitsuki Takahata (Japanese Girls Never Die) as an angelic wife who fizzes with energy and compassion which is essential for her and the audience to be able to accept the events that happen in the film. Their individual characters soften each other and display a loyalty, love and energy that will make viewers long to be in a relationship like theirs especially if it comes with some safe supernatural shenanigans in a place as beautiful as Kamakura.
The film may be packed with mystical creatures but when the credits roll, audiences will have been charmed more by the performances of the actors who sell the idea that love is the most magical thing. Love conquers all. This charming film is the perfect sweet shot of sugar called for by dreamers and it is delivered by fun acting and CG that will make it easy for audiences to devour.
Shinya Tsukamoto will receive the NIPPON HONOR AWARD at the 19th Nippon Connection Film Festival in Frankfurt am Main, Germany (May 28th – June 02nd). Shinya Tsukamoto tweeted this news earlier in the month and it has been confirmed by a press release sent out on Tuesday this week. This is the fifth time the award has been bestowed on someone and it goes to a person who has made outstanding contributions to Japanese cinema. I can’t think of a better person at the moment!
Fans of Japanese films who have followed this blog for a while will know I am a big fan of the actor and director, editor and cinematographer. He was one of the first directors I went and wrote a biography for and reviewed a whole bunch of his films (my favourite being Vital). In fact, I met him at the Raindance Independent Film Festival a few years back and had my picture taken with him just before a screening of Fires on the Plain!
Anyway, according to the press release:
“Shinya Tsukamoto will receive the NIPPON HONOR AWARD in person at the closing ceremony on June 02nd, 2019 at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt am Main. His current film Killing, which was already lauded at the Venice Film Festival, will have its German premiere at the Nippon Connection Film Festival. Other works of his will be shown at the festival as well.”
The press release contains a bio for the director which I’ve made slight alterations to so I can plug my own reviews(!!!):
Shinya Tsukamoto was born in Tokyo in 1960 and is regarded as one of the most important representatives of Japanese independent cinema. He made his first steps as a filmmaker by shooting 8mm-films. Later on he founded his own drama group and at the age of 22 he started to work as a director in the advertising film industry. His cinematic breakthrough came in 1989 with Tetsuo: The Iron Man. Inspired by Blade Runner and Japanese monster movies, the experimental work succeeded as a cult film, which thrilled the crowds at numerous international film festivals and has since influenced many directors.
Tsukamoto is often the DOP, editor and lead actor of his films all at once. They are also often produced by his own production company Kaijyu Theater. His most known films are Tokyo Fist (1995), A Snake of June (2002) and Vital (2004). He was a guest at the Nippon Connection Film Festival to present his films Nightmare Detective (2007) and Kotoko (2012). As an actor he has worked alongside iconic directors like Takashi Miike (Dead or Alive 2, Ichi the Killer), Teruo Ishii (Blind Beast vs. Killer Dwarf) or Hollywood director Martin Scorsese (Silence). He also starred in the blockbuster Shin Godzilla (2016).
Killing (2018) is Shinya Tsukamoto’s latest work and his first attempt at making a samurai film. Tsukamoto was awarded the Mainichi Film Award for Best Supporting Role in his film.
Shinya Tsukamotois back writing, directing, editing and producing his own films after a short spell acting in features like Shin Godzilla and Over the Fence. I’m a big fan of his works thanks to Nightmare Detective(2007),Tetsuo: The Iron Man(1989), Tokyo Fist(1995), and Vital(2003) and his film A Snake of June, whichwas given the Special Jury Prize at the 2002 Venice Film Festival.
Synopsis: The ronin Mokunoshin Tsuzuki (Sosuke Ikematsu) is alive during the end of the Edo period where many samurai like him are finding their way of life losing its edge as the country exists in a state of peace. He lives in the suburbs of Tokyo where he helps out farmers and is acquainted with one farmer’s son named Ichisuke (Ryusei Maeda) who dreams of being a samurai. Tsuzuki spends his days farming and sparring with Ichisuke but, despite the tranquillity, Tsuzuki’s heart is in tumult because he is concerned about the questions of whether he could follow a lord’s orders and kill a man and, more importantly, passions are brewing as he is falling in love with Ichisuke’s sister Yu (Yu Aoi). Passions from further afield are also growing as the country is on the verge of a civil war when a mild-mannered and skilful ronin Jirozaemon Sawamura (Shinya Tsukamoto) arrives in town looking for warriors to take to Edo.
Killing as been picked up for distribution by UK label, Third Window Films, so expect to see it released some time in 2019!
All that remains to say is, congratulations! I hope Shinya Tsukamoto has a great time in Germany!
Stay tuned to this blog to get more news about Nippon Connection!
The next few weekend posts are going to be really brief and probably lacklustre because I am super busy. I have had my time packed with all sorts of things like proofing friend’s works, finishing a game script and trying to practice Japanese. Fortunately, I have a stack of reviews good to go for the next month and a bit so that takes the pressure off. This week’s review was for Destiny a Tale of Kamakura(2017) and there was news about Shinya Tsukamoto who will receive the Nippon Honor Award at the 19th Nippon Connection Film Festival in May.
Synopsis: Hiroshi (Goro Inagaki) listlessly lives his life in a small town in Japan after taking over his father’s charcoal kiln. He uses it as an excuse to ignore his wife (Chizuru Ikewaki) and his teenage son who is going through a rebellious phase. To take his mind off things, he goes drinking with childhood friendMitsuhiko (Kiyohiko Shibukawa), a laidback guy who sometimes tells Hiroshi off for ignoring his gamily. One day, Hiroshi’s ex-friend Eisuke (Hiroki Hasegawa) comes back to his hometown after a long time in the self-defense force. Eisuke brings a truckload of old wounds back for Hiroshi but he has worries about the soundness of his own mind following his job which makes Hiroshi look at his life again…
Takahiro Miki, an expert at adapting manga and novels for the big screen – he of the mega-hit We Were There films – gets a dream duo for this film in the form of super-handsome Ryunosuke Kamiki (The Kirishima Thing, Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno) and super-beautiful Kasumi Arimura (I Am a Hero).
Synopsis: Shinichiro Kiyama (Ryunosuke Kamiki) lost his family in a plane accident when he was young and since then, he has lived a lonely existence and becomes even more isolated when, one day, he develops the ability to see through the body of people who are about to die. That changes when he meets Aoi Kiryu (Kasumi Arimura) and the two fall in love. It looks like life will become fun for Shinichiro but just when things are getting good, he is able to see through Aoi’s body…
Synopsis: Daichi is a dental technician who has good looks and skills with the drills. He is also the son of an expert dentist. Father and son do not get along because, despite Daichi’s skill and handsome appearance, the father doesn’t believe Daichi is skilled enough. Conflict arises when Daichi receives a complaint from a patient. Could his father be right?
Tiger: My Life as a Cat
トラさん 僕が猫になったワケ 「Tora san: Boku ga Neko ni Natta Wake」
Running Time: 91 mins.
Release Date: February 15th, 2019
Director: Masaya Kakei
Writer: Toshiya Ono(Screenplay), Mina Itaba (Original Manga)
Starring: Hiromitsu Kitayama, Mikako Tabe, Kokoro Hirasawa, Jun Kaname,
Synopsis: What do you do if your manga isn’t that popular? You’re earning a pittance and stressed all of the time. Well Suzuo Takahata (Hiromitsu Kitayama) gambles and goes drinking all the time. That is fine when you’re single but Suzuo is married to a fine lady like Natsuko (Mikako Tabe) and they have a daughter, Miyu (Kokoro Hirasawa). He is a completely selfish jerk and so when he dies in a traffic accident it is natural for Suzuo to conclude he is going to Hell, but no! He is reincarnated as a cat because he is given one month to reflect on his life and his family.
I saw this one at the Osaka Asian Film Festival as well and had a good time. It’s an easily accessible story that involves adults and children who dream of nothing but wrestling as a way of making sense of the world and it was filmed with support from the Dotonbori Pro Wrestling League – so real wrestlers and the real feel of pro-wrestling are on the screen. Solidly shot, easily accessible in terms of story, and with entertaining performances from the cast (especially the children – the one kid from Tokyo kept me laughing) this is an easy one to recommend.
Synopsis: Hiroto lives in the quiet city of Izumi in Osaka prefecture. He has no particular hopes or dreams unlike his classmates and this causes him to feel a deep sense of crisis. Consider the crisis over when he sees a wrestling match with popular masked fighter named Dynamite Wolf. Hiroto becomes a mega-fan and discovers that even Dynamite Wolf has failed dreams and he can help out.
Psycho-Pass: Sinners of the System – Case.2 First Guardian
PSYCHO-PASS サイコパス Sinners of the System Case.2 First Guardian「PSYCHO-PASS Saikopasu Sinners of the System Case.2 First Guardian」
Release Date: February 15th, 2019
Running Time: 60 mins.
Director: Naoyoshi Shiotani
Writer: Makoto Fukami (Screenplay), Gen Urobuchi (Original Concept)
Synopsis: The story follows Teppei Sugo, one of the characters in the second season of Psycho-Pass. In 2112, he was still something of a model citizen but we meet him just as he hits a crisis.
Teppei is a drone pilot in the Self-Defense Force and works with a squad of marines on the ground. One mission goes badly wrong and Teppei is left feeling guilty because he was ordered to abandon his squad. They are listed as MIA but presumed killed. Three months later, an unmanned combat drone opens fire on the Ministry of Defense in Tokyo and Teppei is questioned by none other than enforcer Tomomi Masaoka and inspector Risa Aoyonagi.
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Arrow of the Orion
劇場版 ダンジョンに出会いを求めるのは間違っているだろうか オリオンの矢
「Gekijouban Danjon ni Deai o Motomeru no wa Machigatteiru Darou ka: Orion no Ya」
Synopsis: This is a new adventurer in the dungeon beneath Orario and further afield as Hestia, Bell, Liliruca and the others find new places to explore.
The Royal Tutor Film Version
劇場版 王室教師ハイネ 「Gekijouban Oshitsu kyoshi haine」
Release Date: February 16th, 2019
Running Time: 61 mins.
Director:Katsuya Kikuchi
Writer: Kimiko Ueno (Screenplay), Higasa Akai (Original Creator)
Starring: Keisuke Ueda (Heine Wittgenstein), Daisuke Hirose (Leonhard von Grannzreich), Shouta Aoi (Licht von Grannzreich), Yuto Adachi (Bruno von Grannzreich), Yuya Asato (Kai von Grannzreich), Shogo Sakamoto (Eugene Aleksandrovich Romano), Shohei Hashimoto (Ivan Aleksandrovich Romano),
Synopsis: Heine Wittgenstein is the Royal Tutor at the court of the king of Grannzreich, and his job is to whip the four princes into material fit for the throne. The little man has his work cut out because each of the princes his a wildcard but just as he is getting to grips with the guys, he is introduced to the twin princes from the Kingdom of Romano and beneath the polite exteriors are sadists…
Synopsis:This documentary looks at the links between Futaba Town, Fukushima Prefecture and Nikkei in Hawaii, two places tied by “Bon no Uta”. It is a link that stretches back over 100 years when bon dancers were among those who moved from Fukushima to Hawaii and their descendants carry on with the tradition, still performing the dances and music. This was shot over three years and takes in people in both Hawaii and Japan as well as the Fukushima crisis.
Synopsis:Yumi is a 29-year-old civil servant in a long-distance relationship with her fiancé in Japan. She hasn’t seen him for a while and so travels to Nagoya to meet him but when she rocks up at his door she meets his new girlfriend. The two want to get married. Yumi walks away from the situation and wanders around Nagoya. She ends up at a guest house at the end of a street and meets a handsome young man named Nishiyama and other guests who will hopefully help Yumi overcome her ordeal and give her the energy to start again.
Iron Girl Final Wars
アイアンガール Final Wars 「Aian Garu Final Wars」
Release Date: February 16th, 2019
Running Time: 90 mins.
Director: Kenichi Fujiwara
Writer: Yasutoshi Murakawa (Screenplay), Kon Kimura (Original Manga),
Synopsis:Kurisu Saotome (Asuka) is a bounty hunter who wears an armoured suit. Her skills and appearance have earned her the moniker “Iron Girl”. In this instalment in the franchise, cyborgs have bended into daily life but a war is coming between humanity and technology as an AI system designed for defending the Earth determines that humans are the greatest threat. Kurisu has lost her memories and caught up in the struggle but an encounter with human resistance members will put her on the right path again.
Three of Shota Sometani’s directorial works will be screened in Shibuya’s Eurospace Cinema (February 16-22). We know him as an actor from Himizu but he has also been active behind the camera with Similar But Different (2013) and Kiyosumi (2015) and Blank (2017) as he explores links between directing and acting.
Similar But Different
シミラーバットデイファレント 「Shimira- Batto Deifarento」
Release Date: December 20th, 2013
Running Time: 25 mins.
Director: Shota Sometani
Writer: Shota Sometani, Natsuki Seta
Starring: Shota Sometani, Rei Hirano
An old synopsis from a weekend long ago: Shota Sometani is a great actor as can be seen in Himizu. Many critics have singled him out as one of the best of his generation. He always picks interesting roles and now he’s forging some for himself with this short film he has directed and co-written. The trailer is a low-key affair with a smooth jazz soundtrack and slice-of-life stuff happening and the synopsis reads thusly: a man and woman who share the same time and space. One day in the morning, they go their separate ways. The woman meets an old friend, but she looks annoyed. The man meets an old friend but his thoughts are elsewhere.
Kiyosumi
清澄 「Kiyosumi」
Running Time: 10 mins.
Release Date: 2015
Director: Shota Sometani
Writer: Shota Sometani(Screenplay),
Starring: Shota Sometani, Yota Kawase,
Synopsis: A middle-aged man and a younger man walk alongside the Sumida river in Tokyo and talk.
Blank VR
ブランク「Buranku」
Running Time:26 mins.
Release Date: 2017
Director: Shota Sometani
Writer: Rinko Kikuchi(Screenplay),
Starring: Shota Sometani, Takashi Yamamoto
Synopsis (information taken from here): This one takes place in Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media and follows two security guards at the place. It was written by Rinko Kikuchi, Sometani’s wife and a talented actor herself (see Norwegian Wood) and filmed with a 360-degree camera so people who wear a head-mounted display can enjoy a feeling as if being right there at the set, and ultimately understand the relationship between performance in and direction of a movie, through the integrated on-the-spot experience of the direction and production processes.
LAPSE
LAPSE ラプス 「LAPSE RAPUSU」
Running Time: 105 mins.
Release Date: February 15th, 2019
Director: Kentaro Shima, Hidenobu Abera, HAVIT ART STUDIO
Synopsis: An omnibus movie set in the near future where three tales look at advanced technology like VR, cloning and human relations with AI gone awry.
Japan is a society where manners and decorum are everything. This is good for the most part. Politeness is the oil that makes society run smoothly. It does have its problems because it can be a nice veneer used to cover up nefarious behaviour or act as a battering ram forcing people to act certain ways. In such an environment, all sorts of negative emotions like paranoia and mistrust can run rife under the surface of individuals and social groups. Hospitalite makes this environment its playground and takes things to absurd heights as it critiques how Japanese society can use outsiders as a scapegoat for problems inside the community.
We enter the lives of the Kobayashi family. This collection of people consists of Mikio (Kenji Yamauchi), his much younger wife Natsuki (Kiki Sugino), and a daughter from a previous relationship named Eriko (Eriko Ono). Their humble abode lies above their family-run print shop in suburban Tokyo and they have just received Mikio’s sister Seiko (Kumi Hyodo) whose two years of marriage ended ignominiously in a divorce. They all live rather mundane lives in an unremarkable part of town, Mikio running the machines, Natsuki doing the accounting and taking care of Eriko, and Seiko hoping to learn English as she dreams about escaping to study abroad. Their only concerns as they drift along are a missing pet parakeet for which they have put up flyers and the nosy neighbourhood watch run by an interfering busybody (Hiroko Matsuda) who warns about the dangers of foreigners and homeless people menacing their area.
On the surface everything is fine as they do their routines and it seems like the only problems could come from outside the community but these people are hiding things as we see when a new face shows up.
Hanataro Kagawa (Kanji Furutachi), an unassuming bespectacled and bearded man, walks in off the street with a flyer and claims to know where the parakeet is. From this seemingly harmless and polite act he uses the hospitality of the Kobayashi family against them as he worms his way into the business, getting a job as a print assistant by playing on an old business connection, worming his way into the home by taking a spare room and moving his blonde-haired wife Annabelle (Bryerly Long) in, and worming his way into the family as he learns everyone’s secrets by playing a helpful advisor. He begins to manipulate the people around him and pretty soon he dominates proceedings and we watch with a mixture of incredulity and worry as he enacts a grand scheme involving immigrants and the homeless that pries apart the household and exposes secrets ranging from infidelity to money scams.
The film was written, edited and directed by Koji Fukada (who pops up wheeling a cart in one scene) and it earned distribution in the US through the Film Movement label in the early 2010s. Originally envisioned as a short, the film’s producer and lead actress Kiki Sugino suggested to Fukada that he lengthen it. Like a lot of his output it looks at the hypocrisies in relationships in contemporary society and exposes them in moments of absurdity and black comedy and he relies on stellar performances of his leading actors.
Shot in a few locations that emphasise normality and with actors portraying very real interactions, the film should be instantly recognisable to audiences and thus allow their problems to be easily identifiable. These problems and the close proximity of people and places make for claustrophobia and the tension in the film build as Kagawa guides everyone in his mysterious plan. The end result becomes massively absurd but all of those moments when an act of civility and hospitality is played upon or used to cover up misdeeds is brilliantly executed and the build-up is perfect as viewers will find themselves on tenterhooks, waiting to see what Kagawa has up his sleeve and how he will achieve it.
Everything hinges Kanji Furutachi who is marvellous as Kagawa as he affects a confidence and genuine affability that is useful for making all situations go right and smoothing over all conflicts. He masterfully controls social situations and sates the egos and desires of those around him but we are aware of when he takes advantage of politeness to force his way through situations even while remaining polite himself. A hint of violence comes out at one point but he remains ambiguous and becomes like someone you would easily fall in with. The general tone of the film is light-hearted because of Furutachi’s confidence and nonchalant approach but he has an edge of menace that makes it thrilling to watch just how far he will go. Kiki Sugino, magnificent as the lead in her feature-film debut as a director Snow Woman (2016) is the emotional core of the film as we see the chaos unfold around her but soon adds inflections of drama and sympathy as she gets sucked in. Mikio is portrayed by Kenji Yamauchi, a director in his own right with the films Her Father My Lover (2015) and At the Terrace (2016). He is sympathetic as the weak-willed patriarch of the family and does guilt pretty well. Kumi Hyodo is good as Seiko, a woman clearly running from reality by pursuing her dream of studying abroad. She put in a stellar performance as a working-class Tokyoite mother in Kako: My Sullen Past (2016) and does well here.They all act as perfect foils and fools for Kanji Furutachi’s Kagawa who shakes things up and gets people to look at themselves sincerely.
Whether Kagawa is a danger or not is left up to the audience decide. He does nobody any real harm but disrupts the harmony of the family and neighbourhood. This harmony was false to begin with and the real problems lay with the community itself, not the foreigners and immigrants envisioned as a threat. Kagawa gets people to face the problems they cause themselves and hopefully resolve them rather than scapegoating outsiders but the ending suggests the need to be polite can override any real change and so the status quo remains, hurting people. As such, this is a sly comment on Japanese society and its treatment of people. It shows conflict starts at home, from inside people who cannot be honest with themselves and their close ones, but despite being very Japanese it’s just as relevant for all communities around the world as we negotiate living in a globalised society.
This storyline would be retread but with a much more serious and dour tone in Fukada’s 2016 film, Harmonium.
Koji Fukada’s (Hospitalité, Au revoir l’été) 2015 movie Sayonara is billed as the first ever film with an android as one of the stars. As intriguing as seeing an artificial life-form act seems to be, the final result is a pretty lifeless affair in both acting and story terms but it does have some emotional impact.
It is based on a collaboration between Japanese playwright Oriza Hirata (a familiar collaborator with Fukada) and a leading robotics scientist named Hiroshi Ishiguro who works at Osaka University and has been developing different models of the Geminoid androids since 2005. Their team-up resulted in a 15-minute stage-play that travelled Japan with people being able to see the actor Bryerly Longconversing with the latest in android technology. With the two actors on stage and sat down it was a largely static affair in a story where a human woman comes to terms with her impending death through talking and the recitation of poetry. The film largely adopts the stage-play from what I have read and, despite looking good, suffers from relaying the content straight in an end-of-the-world tale that takes two hours but feels longer.
Due to multiple unexplained explosions at nuclear power plants across the country, the population of Japan is being evacuated overseas away from the spread of radioactive contamination. Tanya (Bryerly Long) is a foreign refugee with an illness so she will be among the last to leave while healthier Japanese escape after being selected through a government-run lottery system. She lives in a comfortable house embedded between fields and bamboo forests but is increasingly alone as residents in the nearby town leave. Her boyfriend Satoshi (Hirofumi Arai) and her friend Sano (Makiko Murata) visit her from time to time but she relies on an android named Reona (Geminoid F) who has been with her since childhood for company. Her loyal companionsupports her in her final days as everyone around her leaves…
Koji Fukada strikes an apocalyptic tone from the get-go with use of news footage and ominous reports of evacuations heard over scenes. What helps theend-of-the-world atmosphere is the use of landscapes – mostly countryside or small-town and mostly depopulated.Streets are empty, a ramshackle bon odori dance is organised at a shelter, and you notice that nobody dares go outside due to fears over radiation. Another aspect that works in the films favour is silence. There is so much that the slightest noise on the soundtrack seems like violence and the score, made up of violins and piano, is pretty effective in underlining tragedy. The only constant sound is that of a desolate wind and water trickling off somewhere which matches the views of life draining away on screen.
This atmosphere is a double-edged sword because it’s not the most exciting apocalypse to be involved in especially when it’s affecting the actors as Bryerly Long gives what can be described as a lethargic performance across from an artificial intelligence which is limited in its movement. Perhaps inhibited by her acting partner who remains confined to a wheelchair and sat stock still apart from facial movements, Long’s own performance echoes the android nature of Geminoid-F by feeling artificial. It remains the same when interacting with her flesh-and-blood co-stars as she lacks chemistry with her boyfriend, played with some determination by Arai, with whom she shares a lifeless sex-scene and heart-to-heart conversations, and her friend who is grieving over a personal loss. Their stories go nowhere in terms of emotional direction, except making sure Long’s character is alone with Geminoid-F.
The two characters have conversations about the past and isolation and they reference poets who dived into existential loneliness such as Rimbaud and Shuntaro Tanikawa and while it is all relevant to the time, it isn’t particularly enjoyable and it is overdone. Viewers face over an hour of this talk and it isn’t as interesting or dense in meaning as the writer thinks. The emptiness reflects the inside of the film and kills the story.
The ending is plain to see coming and the film slowly makes its way to it with a funereal air as it becomes mired in issues like absence, loneliness, and decay. As the story plods on, with few people around, the android reveals her own humanity – an emotional and aesthetic taste that suggests a degree of learning and highlights the tragedy of their position tucked away on a lonely hill amidst a nuclear crisis.A few arresting images are not enough to lift the film from its dull rhythm and story but it does have some emotional impact, maybe because the audience has been deluged with the theme.
Overall, this is one for people interested in seeing all of Koji Fukada’s work. That he dares to use an android is to be commended but the source material restricts him from anything exciting or ambitious. Or fun. This isn’t fun or as profound as it thinks it is. If you want to see artificial life acting on screen, well, viewers would be better advised to watch Short Circuit(1986). Can you name a better film with a robot co-star?
This is another truncated film trailer post and there are so many titles getting released over this weekend and the next! As far as film review go, I started a mini-season dedicated to Koji Fukada with reviews of Sayonara and Hospitalite.
Synopsis: It is World War II and in order to help children escape the fire-bombings of Tokyo, a Kindergarten teacher named Kaede Itakura (Erika Toda) and her friend Mitsue Nonomiya (Sakurako Ohara), persuades the parents at the school to allow them to take their children out to Saitama which is where they seek shelter at an abandoned temple.
Synopsis: Daikichi (Shinosuke Tatekawa) is a 70-year-old widower who lives on a small island with his cat Tama. Life is good and he has other friends but Daikichi’s son Tsuyoshi (Takashi Yamanaka), who lives in Tokyo, is worried about his father living alone on the island, especially as his physical condition worsens with age. His daily life begins to change…
Synopsis: Kunihiko Kunitachi (Kensho Ono) is a teacher at a high school who makes friends with a lonely student named Kazumi Kazumiya (Arisa Komiya). Nothing too wrong with that but when she begins to follow him around he can’t shake her off and when he tries to make new friends for her, these new friends attach themselves to him…
Synopsis: Tendo (Kanata Hongo) has transferred schools from Tokyo to a small village where he meets classmate Kouta Noda (Hayato Sano). The two become friends but Tendo is a bit of an outsider. He discovers that the village has a legend about a child disappearing once every 100 years.
Samurai Marathon 1855
サムライマラソン 「Samurai Marason」
Running Time: 104 mins.
Release Date: February 22nd, 2019
Director: Bernard Rose
Writer: Hiroshi Saito, Bernard Rose(Screenplay), Akihiro Dobashi (Manga)
Whoa! Bernard Rose, the guy who directed Candyman and Paperhouse has travelled to Japan to do this jidaigeki! It’s produced by Jeremy Thomas (Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence) and has a score by American composer Philip Glass! There’s an awesome star-studded cast who should need no introduction, as well. Here’s some background on the film over at Variety. It’s also based on real history (link).
Synopsis:It is the 1850s and feudal Japan is thrown into chaos as Americans led by Commodore Perry (Danny Huston) have parked their battleships off the coast and demanded the country open up. Katsuaki Itakura (Hiroki Hasegawa) is a feudal lord who runs Annaka-han and to toughen up his warriors for potential attacks, he holds a marathon that runs along a mountain path for about 58 kilometres. Samurai of all stripes are expected to take part but so has the lord’s rebellious daughter, Princess Yuki (Nana Komatsu) who escapes the castle to take part in the dangerous marathon. What is a simple exercise is mistakenly viewed as an act of treason by the central Edo government. Jinnai Karasawa (Takeru Satoh) is a ninja who has infiltrated Annaka to masquerade as a samurai in the service of Katsuaki Itakura and spy but he realises the mistake by his government and tries to stop assassins already making their way to the lord’s castle.
Synopsis: Tokyo is where all the beautiful people live and it is run by the father of Momomi Hakuhodo (Fumi Nikaido), a male high school student who looks like a girl. Saitama is where all the peasants live, as we all know, and people from there are persecuted. However,one day, Momomi meets mysterious male transfer student Rei Asami (Gackt) and they fall in love but Asami is from Saitama Prefecture…
When Mother Died, I Thought That I Wanted to Eat Remains
母を亡くした時、僕は遺骨を食べたいと思った。 「Haha o Nakushita Toki, Boku wa Ikotsu o Tabetai to Omotta」
Synopsis: Satoshi (Ken Yasuda) has always been supported by his mother Akiko (Mitsuko Baisho), a gentle, but strong woman, but when she is diagnosed with cancer it is Satoshi’s turn to take care of her. Fortunately, Satoshi’s girlfriend Mari (Nao Matsushita), his father Toshiaki (Renji Ishibashi) and his older brother Yuichi (Jun Murakami) rally together. A year later, Satoshi receives a present from his mother.
Synopsis:The actress Fumika Shimizu changed her name to Yoshiko Sengen after joining the Happy Science religion and how she has made a fantasy drama for them (written by the guy that runs the organisation) in which she plays a schoolgirl with magical powers who is reunited with her fated one, Yuichi, after they have been split apart. She finds that she is in the middle of a war between white and black magic.
Synopsis:Male idol group Boys and Men take on roles of guys who are about to hit 30. They each lead different lives as shown in this omnibus film. One guy makes indie movies while still living off his parents, one is a struggling manga artist, one plays the president of a marriage consultation office called “Super Matchmen” and another plays a YouTube-like star who is losing viewers.
Synopsis:This documentary looks at those with mental disabilities and behavioural disorders and the carers who live with them. It covers a spectrum from autism to self-harm and they find their daily life is sometimes limited to living in hospitals or with their parents but there are efforts to get these people to live full lives on their own with just a helper visiting. This hopefully keeps them a part of society.
Synopsis:Keyakizaka memberNana Oda stars in a time-slip film where a woman travels 30 years back in time to seeherself during her high school days. Frustrated with her current life, the older woman realises she has a chance to change things…
Synopsis:MOOSIC LAB 2018 films are slowly being released and this one comes from writer/director Yusaku Matsumoto who directed the feature Noise (2018). The story centres around a violent murder in an industrial area. A guy name Kyoichi who works at a nearby factory has inside information and finds himself part of a media storm.
Synopsis:Tomoko, Mujika and Takaya are three childhood friends who have grown to be entangled in a messy set of relationships where their emotions shift between needing carnal relations to fill in emptiness or needing nothing but fidelity. Their relationships suffer a breakdown over time… This is based on a story by Shinji Somai, apparently.
Chimamire sukeban chenso red: Kohen – Giko no kakusei
Synopsis: Geeko Nomura (Nana Asakawa)is a student at Uguisu Academy but she seems to be the only thing with a pulse after classmate Nero Aoi (Ano) turns the student body into zombies. Geeko is the final target but she is armed with a big chainsaw… This has been strung out into two films and was the recipient of a film back in 2016.
Koji Fukada is a film-maker inspired by the cultures of France and Indonesia as best evidenced by him transplanting elements to his native Japan in his many works. His like of French New Wave cinema is made obvious by this film, Au Revoir l’ete, which means goodbye summer and plays like an Eric Rohmer film where relationships are unpicked in a nonchalant manner as we get to a deeper understanding of some human relationships. It’s the perfect title for a film that describes the quiet misadventures of a teenage girl who waves goodbye to her naivete and matures a little more while in the company of some childish adults.
It is late August and an eighteen-year-old Tokyoite Sakuko (Fumi Nikaido) is a ronin student who is preparing to take her university entrance exam after flunking her previous one. Studying is the perfect excuse for her to tag along with her aunt Mikie (Mayu Tsuruta) who is house-sitting for her sister, Sakuko’s mother, in a sleepy coastal town.
While there, Mikie is researching flora connected to Indonesia as she translates a book while Sakuko, who should be studying, meets her aunt’s childhood friend (and ex-lover) Ukichi (Kanji Furutachi) who manages a local love hotel and lives with his daughter, a university student named Tatsuko (Kiki Sugino), and his nephew Takashi (Taiga) who is from Fukushima and working at the hotel after dropping out of school.
Sakuko finds every excuse to avoid studying as she spends her time listlessly learning to play the keyboard, lolling about on the beach, lazily watering the plants, and doing anything but studying and this includes getting involved with everyone’s lives. This group are soon joined by a visiting married academic named Nishida (Tadashi Otake). He seems to be an old flame of Mikie and complicates matters.
Through her aunt’s social circle of lovers and local neighbours who spread gossip, what Sakuko discovers is a truth about adulthood: that polite exterior is a facade.
This applies particularly when it comes to the guys in this story. From the seemingly harmless and stoic Ukichi to the calm intellectual Nishida, it turns out that they are all hung up on Mikie. Caught in the wake of Sakuko’s beautiful aunt, beneath their polite veneer is someone nursing frustrated desires and relationship woes. They are revealed to be venal and hypocritical and driven by sex. While the women show more maturity than the men, they are not above base desires and even use sex to get back at people.
As with some things Japanese, ambiguity is everything and it defines many encounters as evidenced here in a web of relationships which continues to evolve fitfully as people try and suss out various signals and, eventually, due to quiet desperation, give up on subtlety and reveal everything in messy, undignified encounters.
Through this, Sakuko is meant to mature as a person as she learns somewhat bitter lessons about adulthood and better defines herself.
Fukada’s script and direction can best be described as meandering as long takes with not much happening – maybe an extended tracking shot or observations on locales – couch winding dialogue that snakes around to slowly reveal insights into how people interact. A slow rhythm fits the languid atmosphere of the film as we listen to the wash of the waves lapping the beach and see people struggle with their impulses and desires, especially in social situations when an object of hate or desire is near and we wait patiently for a glimpse of an ulterior motives peek above the polite surface of a person.
At times it feels the content of the film is a little too unfocused to completely hold attention as the narrative flops lazily between the adults around Sakuko and herself. This might be frustrating for some viewers.
At Fukada’s sharpest, say, something like Harmonium and Human Comedy Tokyo, there is focus on a specific emotion, like a sense of dread, and it is brought out fully as ideas are teased and suspicions stack up even if the pace is slow but here the emotions might be too diffused to build up a strong emotional atmosphere, something that may have been achievable with the film more about Sakuko than splitting the story on the rest of the cast so much.
That written, performances here are generally good although Kiki Sugino, the producer of this film, has an energy that is a little too strong for her co-stars who act more low-key and nonchalant (or try to). Fumi Nikaido and Taiga have the more intriguing relationship as she gently signals her interest in him and he, like a dense idiot, fails to observe her signs. Kanji Furutachi continues to do the louche losers well and evokes some sympathy.
A nice touch is seeing how teenagers can become such people, especially Takashi’s background as a Fukushima refugee, which, while the wider issue is not handled that adroitly, is used to show a pattern of people repeating the adult’s disingenuous and ambiguous behaviour as he finds himself in the sights of a girl with grand ideas and results in some cringe-inducing scenes. This serves to push the plot along for a sweet night time sojourn for Fumi Nikaido and Taiga’s characters as they lament how awful people can be and how they want to escape. It doesn’t go anywhere explosive, just a gentle epiphany that they should group up. For that brief time together… Just talking about dreams is enough. And then it’s au revoir to the town.
I kind of liked it at the end even if I wasn’t convinced by everything.
While the whole film might be unfocused and languid for some, it does drive home how human relations are difficult when desires cloud the heart and how we can become hypocrites and disingenuous particularly when it comes to thinking about our own needs first. Also… Adults are the worst.
Overall this is a decent film and worth watching if only to try and understand the career trajectory of Fukada, familiar actors like Furutachi and the range of Fumi Nikaido and Taiga.
Having watched Fukada’s later works, Harmonium (2016), Sayonara (2015) and Au revoir l’ete(2013) (in that order), I was a fool to expect his feature-film debut Human Comedy Tokyo (2008) to actually be a comedy. What it has to say about human relations makes it one of the bleakest films I have seen in a while as we find that the title is super ironic because he depicts people in Tokyo as super isolated.
The film is influenced by Balzac’s collection of novels, “La Comédie humaine”, and this fits in with Fukada’s M.O. since he is heavily influenced by French films and culture. The film follows a similar desire to examine what underpins Tokyo-life and settles on loneliness as depicted through three tales of average people in Tokyo, “White Cat”, “Photo”, and “Right Arm”.
“White Cat” concerns a woman named Ms. Ohno (Reina Kakudate) whose boyfriend Satoshi pulls out of a date to an interpretive dance performance so she gives her spare ticket to another woman, Reiko Sasazuka (Eriko Nemoto), who is going through a divorce. Reiko is fine with that because she has a boyfriend, Furuya, although his faithfulness is in question. “Photo” follows Haruna (Yuri Ogino), an amateur photographer whose artistic debut at a gallery clashes with her friend Jun’s (Minako Inoue) wedding. They share the same pool of friends and Haruna agrees to go to Jun’s celebrations which suggests an awkward comedy of manners as people debate which event to go to but the focus resolutely remains on Haruna as she discovers her artistic skills are not enough of a pull. The third story, “Right Arm”, continues Jun’s story after her wedding to Masaki (Masayuki Yamamoto). Jun is preparing to be a mother when Masaki gets hit by a garbage truck and loses his right arm. His life changes as he finds work as an artisan becomes difficult and he develops phantom limb syndrome which causes him physical pain. Investigating a cure for his missing arm makes both him and Jun face the fictions that brought them together and keep them a couple.
Each story starts off innocuously with a confident person, a tight marriage or a set of friends but by the end we see it is all a lie. Through misconstruing others intentions, committing some social faux pas, or through not acknowledging some blind spot in their relationships, various characters find that they can carry on with their normal routines but when they grab on to a loved one for support, that person crumples and the veneer of love and friendship is thin and behind it is a gaping void of emptiness. Worse still, they probably sensed it all along but clung on to the fake image because they would have to face their isolation and own inner void.
The film revels in the details of the everyday. There are no fancy locations. Not the cool, shitamachi (downtown) places but the modest homes, galleries, and restaurants that layer the outer areas of Tokyo. The cast look like ordinary people and their dialogue has that naturalistic feel that snakes and stutters around subjects and does everything to avoid being brutally honest until a situation or a person’s impatience forces it out. Dialogue, it’s force and meaning isn’t always immediately obvious or flashy but listen carefully and hear how the spoken lines scintillates with resentment and desperation.
“It’s been a whole year”, a wife desperate for a divorce says.
“It’s only been a year”, her lonely husband shoots back.
Watch the acting carefully. Those situations build naturally from character-drive moments with the clockwork of human interaction ticking away. Anyone with experience in life will be able to read the twisting gears that make people move. The distant behaviour of a philandering partner, the innocuously supportive co-worker who has ulterior motives, the strained smiles in the face of narcissism that carries a person along in life. The movements are covered up by a recognisable veil of politeness, kindness, and forbearance that we all give to people in everyday situations, sometimes for ego’s sake, but mostly to make the process of human interaction go smoothly. However, the veil gets dragged off when it is tangled in the clockwork of life as the film allows the encounters between people to reach their nadir as people can take no more and unleash their pent-up feelings. These moments strike hard because of the quiet build-up so when we see the resulting wave of desolation that washes over a person who is mortified to find their “big talent” doesn’t live up to the hype, they really are alone in life, and they are weak-willed and quite horrible. These are just the appetisers for bigger let-downs and blow-ups that are quite hard to predict and shocking to witness.
What ties it all together is that the characters also float in and out of each other’s stories. The director himself shows up in a wedding scene. The stories really do plumb the depths of awkwardness until it all builds up to a stunning ending which is bleak and bizarre. I worry about Fukada.
I’ve written this the day after arriving in Japan. Yes, I am back in Osaka and getting ready for work at the Osaka Asian Film Festival 2019. I hope to provide coverage of the Japanese films and interview the directors and others who make them. I also intend to review films from other countries. Expect a lot of cross-posting between this blog and V-Cinema.
I wrote this trailer post while suffering jet lag so there’s a lot of brevity. I’m surprised I got it done in two sessions over one day! It was completed after walking around Osaka for about four hours.
This week, I reviewed Au Revoir l’ete and Human Comedy in Tokyo, two films from Koji Fukada. I intend to finish the mini Koji Fukada season with a fifth film, Harmonium, next Monday and then from Wednesday, it will be Osaka. I’m going to try and do it in a condensed time and not string it out.
Synopsis:Shiori Kitamura (Haruna Kawaguchi) works for a company and has just moved to a new apartment where her new neighbour Susumu Hirano (Issey Takahashi) turns out to be an aspiring novelist. She hears strange conversations involving a man from the future visiting coming from Hirano’s home and she decides to investigate, little realising that she will fall for the writer.
It has been about 40 years since this was released and it has been given a digital remaster after being subject to a crowdfunding campaign. It put Hitoshi (March Comes in Like a Lion) Yazaki on the map and earned him comparisons with important directors from avante-garde cinema movements of the 60s and 70s. Here’s an interview. This one is playing at the Osaka Asian Film Festival and you can find out more about it over the festival’s site.
Synopsis:It is Mitsu’s birthday.
Her roommate Natsuko is planning on giving her a matching virgo necklace and roses.
But there is a white handkerchief in the window of the apartment. It is a sign that Mitsu’s lover, Hideo is coming.
Natsuko secretly loves Mitsu.
Natsuko wants Mitsu all to herself and to do that, she tries to get closer to Hideo…
In the midsummer afternoon, the last shock that shook the world –
Synopsis:Yoshio (Yuya Matsuura) and his sister Mariko (Misa Wada) live on the outskirts of a coastal town. Mariko has a mental disability and often stays at home while Yoshio earns money despite his bad leg. One day, Mariko goes missing, but she turns up later in with pockets stuffed with 10,000 yen bills. Apparently she had had sex for money and saw no problem with being used like that. When Yoshio loses his job, he gets the idea to turn his sister into a prostitute.
Synopsis:Shota (Kanichiro) is a criminal on the run and he hides out at the house of an elderly lady named Tae (Chieko Matsubara). She mistakes Shota for her grandchild and takes him in but when Tae’s real grandchild Kaori (Rio Yamashita) arrives, the two confront each other. Things develop unexpectedly when she ropes him into running a marathon in order to help others.
Sisterhood
シスターフッド「Shisuta-fuddo」
Running Time: 87 mins.
Release Date:March 01st, 2019
Director: Takashi Nishihara
Writer: Takashi Nishihara(Screenplay),
Starring: BOMI, Manami Usamaru, Nina Endo, Ryo Iwase, Mika Akizuki
This one is playing at the Osaka Asian Film Festivaland for the third year in a row, I am working for/at the festival again. It’s an interesting film so stay tuned for a review. Anyway, Takashi Nishihara reunites with Nina Endo and Mika Akizuki, two of his stars from the film, Starting Over (2014) as they play variations of themselves in this semi-fictional semi-documentary-style film.
Synopsis: Tokyo-based documentary film director Ikeda (Ryo Iwase) interviews people about feminism. His subjects include a student in a bad relationship, a nude model, a musician and others who provide fresh material. Their fragmented lives are interwoven with the director’s personal issues throughout a narrative that creates a cohesive whole that speaks of the changes to society we are living through today.
Synopsis:The first time Haruka has sex, she killed the person she loved when she had a sudden physical change. After fleeing the scene she lives a life filled with fear and self-loathing but becomes attracted to a man who speaks to her gently…
Noise
Running Time: 124 mins
Release Date:March 01st, 2019
Director: Yusaku Matsumoto (松本優作)
Writer: Yusaku Matsumoto (Screenplay),
Starring:Kokoro Shinozaki, Urana Anjo, Kohsuke Suzuki, Kentaro Kishi,
Like looking at videos from home since I spent so much time in and around Akihabara. Minus the violence of course. This is a multilayered drama from director Yusaku Matsumoto who has a credit on a horror movie as an editor. A short of his was released last week.
Synopsis from IMDB: Eight years have passed from the Akihabara massacre. A pop star whose mother was killed in the incident, a teenager who left her home to Akihabara, a delivery boy who turns his directionless anger to the city. This is a story about the characters striving to grasp the string of hope within the darkness surrounding the city, the incident, and the people.
Synopsis:An experimental short animation work depicting half of a life of a boy aiming to be a cartoonist. The visual style changes according to the progress and growth of the hero. It starts off in elementary school all the way through to him being a manga artist’s assistant and gives us a glimpse of the life of a professional…
Synopsis:Shuntaro Miyao, a ballet dancer, makes his acting debut with his role of a hunter from a small village who takes his vocation seriously and respects the goddess of the mountains. Things are all on track and he might marry a local girl named Yu, however, one day, tragedy strikes and he is stuck in a mysterious world.
The same video as above because the trailer for this film follows on from the second.
Synopsis: Shun Sugata plays Jiro, a single man who lives in an ordinary town sandwiched between mountains and the ocean. His brother Taro (Ren Osugi) asks him to look after his 7-year-old daughter Umeko so he and his wife can go abroad. Jiro has to get used to looking after kids but an incident involving a missing wallet causes all sorts of changes…
Giwaku to Dansu
疑惑とダンス「Giwaku to Dansu」
Running Time:53 mins.
Release Date:March 02nd, 2019
Director: Ken Ninomiya
Writer: Takatsugu Naito(Screenplay),
Starring: Eri Tokunaga, Kenta Kiguchi, Masashi Komura, Mayuko Fukuda, Aki Kawamochi, Katsuya Kobayashi,
Synopsis:No rehearsal or screenplay, all improvisation. Satoshi, Sana, Tsubaki, and Komura are holding a party after news that Kanna and Masao will not marry. They all belonged to their university’s dance club and the theme of the party is suspicion however, in the middle of events, doubts arise that Kanna and Komura might have had sex during their student days.
Synopsis:This documentary collects testimonies from a variety of people who suffered due to the damage caused by radioactive contamination caused by the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Shot over four years, the director, Toshikuni Doi, boiled down 100 interviews to 14. This is not the first film from director Toshikuni Doi who also did Itatemura Hoshano to Kison (2012) but with the approach of the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2020, he reminds people of the many victims who have had their lives wrecked by the disaster.
Synopsis:A father passes down some of the techniques of Noh to his 10-year-old son while also giving life lessons. The son is puzzled by some of the actions of his father but a local girl who visits them helps ease the days of practice and observes family history in the flesh.
Synopsis:Shinya is a 23-year-old guy living in Tokyo who is introduced to a farmer from Fukushima Prefecture. He decides to up sticks and head out into the country where he engages with tough farming work. Over time, he gets used to it and wins people over and even begins a small romance with a nursery teacher named Risa.
The next five films are from the New Directions in Japan class of 2018.
Uchi uchi no men-tachi (tsura-tachi) wa.
うちうちの面達（つらたち）は。「Uchi uchi no men-tachi (tsura-tachi) wa.」
Running Time:28 mins.
Release Date:March 02nd, 2019
Director: Kan Yamamoto
Writer:Kan Yamamoto(Screenplay)
Starring: Kanau Tanaka, Hiromasa Taguchi, Mari Hamada, Mayu Ogawa, Shun Yamamoto
Synopsis:One of 5 shorts produced for 2018’s “New Directions in Japanese Cinema = ndjc”. This is an annual selection of films supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs and some of them go on to bigger festivals and the directors go on to bigger projects. This one features a story of a mother who disappears from her family for a break.
Synopsis:One of 5 shorts produced for 2018’s “New Directions in Japanese Cinema = ndjc”. This is an annual selection of films supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs and some of them go on to bigger festivals and the directors go on to bigger projects. This one features students who are battling to get past a test and into Tokyo University of Art.
Synopsis:One of 5 shorts produced for 2018’s “New Directions in Japanese Cinema = ndjc”. This is an annual selection of films supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs and some of them go on to bigger festivals and the directors go on to bigger projects. A man leaves his pregnant wife and goes back to the family home where his father has died. Strange phenomena happens.
Hazure Kazoku no Saaya
はずれ家族のサーヤ「Hazure Kazoku no Sa-ya」
Running Time:30 mins.
Release Date:March 02nd, 2019
Director: Mikiko Okamoto
Writer: Mikiko Okamoto(Screenplay)
Starring: Naho Yokomizu, Mei Kurokawa, Sue Masukoshi, Taijirou Tamura, Yurito Mori,
Synopsis:One of 5 shorts produced for 2018’s “New Directions in Japanese Cinema = ndjc”. This is an annual selection of films supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs and some of them go on to bigger festivals and the directors go on to bigger projects. A girl named Mitsuki used to live with her mother but when she found a new man and lives with her new son and partner. Mitsuki is jealous so when she buys an old wooden from a man who sells toys, she discovers a mysterious force and…
Synopsis:One of 5 shorts produced for 2018’s “New Directions in Japanese Cinema = ndjc”. This is an annual selection of films supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs and some of them go on to bigger festivals and the directors go on to bigger projects. A woman named Haruko who lives with her mother receives a letter from her estranged father asking for her support. She decides to visit him but wonders whether it is the right thing to do.
KING OF PRISM: Shiny Seven Stars I – Prologue x Yukinojou x Taiga
KING OF PRISM Shiny Seven Stars I プロローグ×ユキノジョウ×タイガ
Synopsis: A “prism show” combines figure skating, singing, dancing, and “prism jumping”, something which expresses the dynamism of the mind with unconventional imagination. This has been turned into a flashy 12-part TV anime which has been split into 4 fours with extra footage added to make it worth audiences going to the screenings.
Doraemon the Movie: Chronicle of the Moon Exploration
映画ドラえもん のび太の月面探査記 「Eiga Doraemon no Nobita no Getsumen Tansaki」
Release Date: March01st, 2019
Running Time:111 mins.
Director:Shinnosuke Yakuwa
Writer: Midzuki Fujimura (Screenplay), Fujiko F. Fujio (Original Creator)
Synopsis: This is the 39th Doraemon movie is an original story centered around the Isetsu Club Member Badge gadget featured in volume 23 of the original Doraemon manga, according the My Anime List. With this gadget, Nobita and pals go to the moon to see if there is really a rabbit kingdom there. They take along a msyterious transfer student named Luna. It is the first Doraemon film to feature a solo female screenwriter.
Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2202: Ai no Senshi-tachi Chapter 7 “Nova Chapter”
宇宙戦艦ヤマト2202 愛の戦士たち 第七章「新星篇」「Uchuu Senkan Yamato 2202: Ai no Senshi-tachi “Shinsei-hen”」
Release Date: March 01st, 2019
Running Time:N/A
Director: Nobuyoshi Habara
Writer: Harutoshi Fukui (Screenplay),
Starring: Daisuke Ono (Susumu Kodai), Takayui Sugo (Juzo Okita), Noriko Kuwashima (Yuki Mori), Kenichi Suzumura (Daisuke Shima), Aya Uchida (Yuria Misaki), Rina Sato (Makoto Kato), Aya Hisakawa (Kaoru Niimi),
Synopsis from ANN:Three years after the Yamato’s return from the planet Iscandar. The people of Earth restored their planet with the Cosmo Reverse System, and they signed a peace treaty with Garmillas. In addition to reconstruction, Earth developed a new defense fleet that includes the state-of-the-art battleship Andromeda. The Earth goes down a path of military expansion, despite Starsha Iscandar’s wishes. The Yamato helps accomplish this so-called peace, but it comes at the price of many invaluable sacrifices. The goddess Teresa, who prays for tranquility in space, calls the Yamato to a new voyage. The threat of Gatlantis is sweeping over the universe and approaching Earth.
This is the final entry in this particular series.
Koji Fukada’s Harmonium took the Jury Prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival and for good reason because it shows a director in precise control of his material. Story-wise, it follows in the footsteps of his debut feature Hospitalite (2011) wherein a stranger enters the lives of a family and disrupts things. While Fukada’s earlier title was light-hearted and poked fun at the social mores of Japan, this film is harsher with only a few dashes of hope beaming down in the final scenes.
Taking the lead is experienced thesp Kanji Futurachi, a familiar face from Fukada’s earlier films like Au Revoir l’ete (2015) and Human Comedy Tokyo (2012) and, crucially, Hospitalite (2011) where he was the stranger that forced a revolution on a family. In a role reversal he is the patriarch and a victim of sorts here as he plays Toshio, the owner of a small factory in the suburbs of some city or other. No location is given. It’s a nondescript and quiet place where he lives a quiet existence with his church-going wife Akie (Mariko Tsutsui) and their daughter Hotaru (Momone Shinokawa). It is she who plays the titular harmonium that gives the film’s soundtrack a funereal sense.
Right from the get-go we see they are a mismatched bunch and wonder what Akie saw in Toshio. He silently goes about his day at the factory ignoring wife and daughter, and in numerous breakfast scenes recorded in long takes, he eats his food at the dinner table while reading the newspaper leaving Hotaru and Akie to have the conversations. Toshio does show some affection to Hotaru who is practising for a performance at her church but Akie gets the cold shoulder unless she does accounting for his business. He doesn’t look at his wife and she goes about her duties loyally in this chilly atmosphere.
Disruption comes in the form of Toshio’s old-friend Yasaka (Tadanobu Asano) who appears unannounced at workshop wearing black trousers and a white shirt and carrying a bag. Yasaka has no family and no job and no real place to stay. Initial greetings are frosty between the two but Toshio plays the host for some unknown reason, hiring this old acquaintance and letting him stay without consulting his wife. Akie is concerned by this new presence, an excessively formal and disciplined man who joylessly goes about his day in a highly self-controlled way and only shows some emotions when he wakes screaming from nightmares.
Considering we have Tadanobu Asano playing Yasaka, it is totally fair for Akie to be concerned and the audience to suspect something will happen. For much of the film, despite some outbursts, his presence is open to interpretation but fans of Asano will be familiar with the fact that the man can do smouldering rage (Bright Future) as well as out-and-out psychopathy (Ichi the Killer). He also does slackers with rocket arms (Survive Style 5+) but his presence here is more menacing as he is clearly sincerely troubled by his past and his body-language and words show formidable restraint. Fukada also makes us suspicious of what will happen with clinical camerawork. Again, long takes let us see the characters interact and Yasaka is stiff, false and observant of mother and daughter. When he is out and about he sometimes bumps into Hotaru and we notice that the camera stalks Hotaru at a lower level, following close behind her like a predator, the camera on a dolly. He hovers near Akie and enjoys her company.
However, something unexpected happens. Akie warms to the man who shows genuine affection and respect and even bonds with Hotaru over her harmonium practising and church-going. The breakfast sequences take on more emotions with Yasaka present and life at home begins to pick up for the woman who feels new-found attention. He then tells her a secret as to why he is the way he is. This sequence, in a restaurant, features a slow zoom, the ambient noise dropping. Just Asano’s deep voice and concentrated gaze. We get sucked in. Cut to Akie who is also moved. She feels a deeper, possibly religious-based connection, that she can save him. Their orbits drift ever closer though she resists out of wifely duty, just as Toshio gets suspicious. We find out that Toshio owes Yasaka a debt and the man might be back to collect. A final act of resistance on Akie’s part sparks a tragedy that cleaves the film in two.
This is where Mariko Tsutsui steals the film from her co-stars as she visibly ages thanks to her restricting her physical movements, her body closing in on itself, and through the process of make-up and hair-dye. A haunted and sad look enters her face although she reveals manic rage when her loved ones are threatened. Kanji Furutachi is now a man ruing his mistake and it takes the arrival of another character played by Taiga (also a returnee from earlier Fukada films) to reveal just why Yasaka was angry with Toshio and how much the man hid from his wife.
The ending is tragic and yet beautiful and the build up with its excruciating dinner-table moments and gliding shots up and down streets following people who really aren’t that well-adjusted is the perfect lead-up. After all of the sullen anger and unbearable tension, we get moments most heartbreaking, especially when Hotaru and Akie communicate wordlessly as they try and connect despite difficulties. The final sequence is a near-death experience where Toshio scrambles back to life as his family is put at risk. It has an added animated flourish that is beautiful. There is no closure for anyone but the hint of a miracle as lights from heaven guide characters back to safety. As Toshio basks in this fading glow there is the hope that this fractured family can patch things up. Sometimes, hope is all we have and sometimes that is enough to give us the courage to move forward. We just have to believe.
The Osaka Asian Film Festival 2019 (OAFF) is back for its 14th edition and it promises a wealth of cinematic experiences from across Asia with a healthy selection of local indies programmed alongside international award-winners, auteur works, modern classics and genre cinema. I’m working at the festival again so I’ve got a lot of writing to do and I originally wrote this for V-Cinema to introduce the films.
The festival runs at various locations in the city from March 08th through to March 17th and organisers have carefully created a programme consisting of 51 films from 17 regions including 10 world and 9 international premiere films. Over half the titles will be screened in Japan for the first time and there will be filmmakers travelling from across the world to join film fans and take part in Q&A sessions to give more information about their works.
Everything has been organised across multiple programmes including the Competition section as well as sections dedicated to Hong Kong and Taiwan and there is also the prestigious Osaka Asia Star Award which is given to a significant figure from the Japanese or Asian film industry and presented at an award ceremony which is followed by an in-depth talk event.
What’s on offer?
OAFF 2019 opens with the world premiere of RANDEN: The Comings and Goings on a Kyoto Tram, a sweet and romantic title by director Takuji Suzuki (A Wife of Kitaro (2010)) which mixes a little local magic and a lot of longing for love as a writer on folklore played by Arata Iura (Ping Pong (2002), After Life (1998)) crosses paths with a variety of characters travelling on the titular trams across the western part of the city. The director and his stars will be in attendance for the screening and the festival’s opening ceremony.
The Competition section features films from Taiwan, China, India, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, the Philippines, Hong Kong and Japan and the titles feature the newest voices on the scene as well as veteran auteurs.
In an age when festival’s are being forced to examine how much space they give to female directors, OAFF continues to play a leading role in giving considerable festival coverage to women as evidenced by the fact that more than half of the titles in Competition were directed by women. These films have earned their place due to the vision displayed and some have already accrued accolades for their directors. This cadre of creatives includes new directors such as Han Ka-ram who brings a critical look at competitiveness and gender roles in Korean society with Our Bodyand Yi Ok-seop whose offbeat relationship drama Maggiewhich looks at the comedic and potentially dangerous misunderstandings that happen in a relationship between a nurse and her lazy boyfriend in the city of Seoul which is beset by the random appearances of sinkholes. Their works sit alongside titles like Asandhimitta, a sultry and deceiving Sri Lankan film about crime and obsession from veteran director Asoka Handagama where a filmmaker explores a murder case, and there is also Tanabata’s Wife, a quiet and beautiful adaptation of a famous Filipino short story about the romance between a Japanese migrant farmer in the Philippines and a local woman.
The festival continues to be a progressive voice through bold choices in programming as there are a number films featuring LGBT characters as seen in titles in the special programmes dedicated to Hong Kong and Taiwan and the large selection of films from the Philippines. Sam Lee, a rising star on the international festival circuit brings a fun romance between two girls in a rural Filippino town in Billie and Emma while Hong Kong director Maisy Goosy Suen dives into the issue of transgenderism in A Woman is a Woman, a film that portrays two people, one at the start of their journey and the other mid-way through theirs, and the reactions from the local HK community. Still Humanis a funny and sentimental film by Oliver Siu Kuen Chan which features an award-winning performance from veteran actor Anthony Wong as a disabled man who makes a connection with his Filipino domestic worker that has reportedly had audiences in tears and laughter at screenings in Hong Kong.
One of the big highlights will be seeing the Osaka Asia Star Award and Talk which has been bestowed on Taiwanese actor Roy Chiu who gives a comedic and layered performance in the colourful dramedy Dear Ex where he breaks his clean-cut image to play a husband stealing theatre director who turns out to be a goodhearted person. Roy Chiu will be in town to collect the award and talk about his career.
Local film production is well-represented in Special Screenings as well as the Indie Forum and Housen Cultural Foundation sections where new talents have been giving a platform to show new directions in Japanese cinema alongside more established names. Hitoshi Yazaki (March Comes in Like a Lion (1991)) brings a remastered edition of his well-regarded debut film Afternoon Breezeswhere a one-sided lesbian love affair unfolds between two room-mates. Nunchaku and Soul brings Akiyoshi Koba’s brand of small town gentle comedy to the screen when a nunchaku nerd and a soul brother enter a dance contest while Bilal Kawazoe looks at the mixed-race experience in Japan with his film Whole.
OAFF 2019 will then close with the awards ceremony where it is revealed who the judges and film fans have selected to win accolades including OAFF’s Grand Prix award, the Audience Award and the Japan Cuts Award which is given by the organizers of JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film to a film in the Indie Forum section. That film will then be screened in New York at Japan Cuts.
The final film of the festival will be the Japanese premiere of the Vietnamese hit-comedy Daddy Issues which stars the king of Vietnamese comedy Thái Hoà. Directed by Japanese filmmaker, Ken Ochiai (Uzumasa Limelight (2014)), it is a funny body-swap story where a lackadaisical father and a high-achieving daughter experience life in each other’s shoes and learn to grow together.
Nearly all of the films are presented in their original languages and will have English and Japanese subtitles, and there will be guests attending many of the screenings. The festival’s continued efforts at making films accessible to a wide audience makes it one of the best opportunities to see the cinematic output of Asia in the world.
The festival’s programme, with descriptions of all movies in both Japanese and English, is available at the festival website. Information on the guests attending and the venues the films will be screened at are also on the site.
Personal Highlights:
Nunchaku and Soul
Akiyoshi Koba has been making films for a while now but this one is a direct hit when it comes to the funny bone. It features a mismatched pair of dance partners who are determined to change their lives for the better by entering a competition. The differences in character and their reasons for entering are mined for low-key drama and lots of belly laughs and it features a funky soundtrack.
Still Human
Filipino domestic workers and the disabled aren’t usually the heroes of Hong Kong cinema but they make for a winning combination in this wonderful drama that is shamelessly upbeat and sentimental. It shows the power of human contact through a friendship that develops between a grumpy disabled man and his put-upon carer. Apparently, Anthony Wong didn’t get paid for taking on this role, he did it out of passion. His reward was to win accolades for his performance. He makes a good partnership with Sam Lee and Crisel Consunji
The Eternity Between Seconds
This is a simple drama with some depth as a middle-aged motivational speaker and a 20-something Korean-Filipino make a connection in an airport and help each other overcome their respective existential crises. The advice given and how it is acted on reflects reality rather and so it is free from the typical melodrama you might expect. Well-shot and charmingly acted, it had a profound effect.
Randen: The Comings and Goings on a Kyoto Tram
One of my highlights from my time living in Japan was sitting on a randen tram with a co-worker from the Osaka Asian Film Festival. It was comfortable, beautiful, and romantic, especially with the cherry blossoms floating around. The film imparted some of the magic that I felt and added a lot more through three sets of characters and the special relationship that can develop between people. Seeing it played out in the city on the screen was delightful.
I am currently in Osaka working at the Osaka Asian Film Festival. I’ve written quite a few reviews already as I try and make more condensed and concise coverage that is effective. I have been able to do this because I wake up at around 02:00 or 03:00 in the morning and have difficulty getting back to sleep which leaves me falling asleep at 18:00. I hope I can get a handle on it because I’ve got interviews lined up with directors!
In order to get my Osaka coverage going, I finished up my reviews of Koji Fukada’s films Harmonium (2016) and also posted a preview of the Osaka Asian Film Festival 2019. Expect reviews for the festivals films to start next Monday.
Synopsis from IMDB:Kamagasaki is an “invisible” slum of Osaka that attracts day laborers and prostitutes since WW2. When the local gang has its treasured cauldron stolen, a war to find it begins involving the thugs, a 12 year-old kid, a prostitute and a pickpocket, including the giant cauldron used to feed the destitute: The symbol of Kamagasaki.
Synopsis:WOne look at this and double-checking the director’s name and I knew this was from the guy that did Cesium and a Tokyo Girl(2014). The story takes in the afflicted areas in Fukushima Prefecture that continues even after 8 years on from the nuclear accident. It is done so with operetta and various animations, wrapped in a “cheerful fuss”.
Synopsis:Kazuki works at a host club and one of his regular customers, Mai, but disappears with 6 million yen left on her tab. Kazuki is sent to track her down within a week or he will have to pay back her debt. Kazuki turns to problem-solving office Kurogarasu. There, Kuroto, Yuya and Hina are hired by Kazuki to find Mai and he offers them 3 million yen. But …
Synopsis:Is this the live-action version of the Ghibli film Only Yesterday? The story is about how a TV personality named Takako Kojima (Kaho) is disillusioned with Tokyo life and when she finds herself assigned to cover a festival in Minamiosumi, Kagoshima Prefecture, she finds herself changed by the people there and opening up.
Geki × cine “Seven people of the skull castle” Season flowers
Synopsis: This is an omnibus film put together by a professional photographer and his theme is friendship between beautiful females. The cast are made up of actors, singers, and models.
Synopsis: Masato is a young ramen chef in the city of Takasaki in Japan who has just lost his emotionally distant father. His Singaporean mother died when he was ten and he has no idea about his family history so he is completely adrift. After he discovers a red notebook – filled with musings and old photos – left behind by his mother, he decides to head to Singapore and uses it to track down his missing background. With the help of Miki, a Japanese food blogger and single mother, he discovers a whole side of his family including his grandmother Madam Lee who is still alive know more about the story of his parents. Through the power of cooking, Masato gets in touch with his Singaporean family and his own history.
Psycho-Pass: Sinners of the System – Case.3On the Other Side of Love and Hate
PSYCHO-PASS サイコパス Sinners of the System Case.3 「恩讐の彼方に＿＿」「PSYCHO-PASS Saikopasu Sinners of the System Case.3 Onshuu no Kanata ni」
Release Date: March08th, 2019
Running Time: 68 mins.
Director: Naoyoshi Shiotani
Writer: Makoto Fukami (Screenplay), Gen Urobuchi (Original Concept)
Synopsis: This is the final story of the new Psycho-Pass run and it switches to Shinya Kogami who is travelling across Asia. We see him in a small South Asian nation where he rescues a bus of refugees under attack by armed guerrilla forces. One the refugees is a young lady named of Tenzin and she begs Kogami to teach her how to fight back but can he do it?
Ultraman R/B The Movie: Select! The Crystal of Bond
劇場版ウルトラマンR/B セレクト！絆のクリスタル「Gekijōban Urutoraman Rūbu Serekuto! Kizuna no Kurisutaru」
Synopsis from Ultra fandom:The Minato family has been living peacefully in Ayaka City, without any monsters appearing for a year. Isami and Asahi have found their dreams and are striving to reach it, but as for Katsumi, he is still wondering what he wants to do in the future. Katsumi decides to meet his friend Toi, who is striving to become a game creator. However, he had quit his gaming company and was living in his house withdrawing from social life. Katsumi was shocked to see what happened to Toi. An evil voice had approached Toi’s isolated heart; the voice called himself Tregear. Tregear had also approached Katsumi’s heart and flew him off into outer space far from the earth where monsters live.
Meanwhile in the earth, monster Snake Darkness had appeared, and Isami transformed into Ultraman Blu, fighting along with Riku Asakura=Ultraman Geed, who had come from a different world. Will Katsumi be able to come back to his family? What are the evil Tregear’s purpose and true self? The power of the bond will work miracles…!
Rise Dharuriser – The Movie New Edition
ライズ ダルライザー THE MOVIE New Edition 「ライズ ダルライザーTHE MOVIE NEW EDITION」
Running Time: 119 mins.
Release Date: March 09th, 2018
Director: Katsunori Sato
Writer: Katsunori Sato (Screenplay) Takeaki Wachi (Original Story)
This is a re-edited version of the film which was released a year and a month ago.
Synopsis: Shirakawa City, Fukushima Prefecture has a new local hero. Akihiro wanted to become an actor but had to give up his dream as a result of his wife ‘s pregnancy. He returned to his family’ s home in Shirakawa city and returned to real life until he took part in a local character contest promoted by the city. He makes a hero character “Dharuriser” (I think that’s the correct spelling) which is based on his city’s traditional crafts. Little does he realise that the mysterious group “Dice” have plans to take over the place and he will have to fight for real.
Director Akiyoshi Koba is a part-time lecturer at Nagaoka Zokei University and an indie filmmaker whose works feature a mixture of everyday settings dusted with a little sci-fi and tweaked with comedy. Titles include, Slippers and a Midsummer Moon (2015) where two sisters travel between parallel worlds to find their missing father, the tokusatsu parody short Psychics Z (2016), and Tsumugi’s Radio (2017), a gentle comedy about mental illness and mistimed romance told with a lot of flashbacks. In each of the films, mundane locations are used for out of the ordinary events. This is probably driven by budget constraints but it has resulted in an oeuvre which celebrates the possibility of fun and DIY filmmaking in small-town Japan. Nunchaku and Soul is probably Koba’s most amusing work to date and continues in this vein.
A tall and gawky bespectacled middle-aged guy skilled with nunchaku, Numata (Masahiro Kuroki) manages a restaurant. As an unconfident law-abiding (and sane) adult he can only fantasise about using the weapon popularised by Bruce Lee and he yearns for some fun in life. An encounter with a cute woman named Reiko at a mixer leads him to join the dance class she attends which is run by a devilishly handsome instructor with his sights firmly set on the lady. To be in with the chance to win Reiko’s heart, Numata enters a contest but it looks like it might be murder on the dance floor because while the instructor has silky smooth moves, Numata has two left feet…
Meanwhile, grooving across town is Soma (Atsushi Takahashi, a real-life singer named Funky-T), a middle-aged singer of a funk band who burns up the stage with his slick dance moves but the party is about to stop because after a concert his band decide to break up. The other members are busy with their regular lives but Soma is reluctant to give up his time in the spotlight because his life is a disaster: he works part time as a store’s mascot and he has a fractured family. Fate plays its hand because one of the band happens to be the cook in Numata’s restaurant and suggests to Soma he teach the shy guy how to dance.
Cue overcoming differences and training montages as the charismatic Soma tries to instil some soul in the nunchaku nerd. These sequences take place in and around their small town and come with on-screen text going into details of the dance moves being taught so these sections are insightful and Numata returns the favour with nunchaku training which is ripe for physical gags as the weapon is hard to handle. Some jokes have an immediate effect because they come so suddenly and often with a quick-cut to deliver the punchline, especially with nunchaku flying around. There is a lot of delight in seeing the public who are wandering by getting roped in or providing an audience but a lot of the comedy is character-based and takes delight in showing the two trying to change themselves in their community, their fantasies and their reality which they try to change.
The natural charisma of Funky-T and the charming shyness and ineptness of Masahiro Kuroki make for some engaging performances and opens the way to a stream of gentle gags that will, at the very least, get chuckles and leave mirthful grins on faces of audiences as we see the way people try to boost Numata’s confidence and eradicate his awkward body-language. It would be easy to set up Numata as the punchline but at no point is the script mean-spirited about any of the characters or the world they live in. Both the lead characters have serious issues in their lives they need to overcome (told by Koba’s favourite technique of flashbacks) and there is a simple character-arc for everyone to follow that allows them to grow.
There is the gentle ribbing of people but the film ultimately cheers people on as they want to find fulfilment in life. The film delights in their commitment to dance and how dance draws everyone together and provides everyone a sincere friendship and a chance for them to be better and does so with a toe-tapping score provided by the Suga Pimps, Funky-T’s band, as everyone has a great time nunchakuing and dancing in this fun and funky film.
Opening the Osaka Asian Film Festival 2019 is the world premiere of RANDEN: The Comings and Goings on a Kyoto Tram, a love-letter to the local tram that runs in the west of Kyoto City that links famous sites such as scenic Arashiyama to the ancient Koryu-ji temple and the exciting Toei Kyoto Studio Park where jidaigeki have been made over the centuries. It is beloved by many who ride it and the film’s story depicts the intersecting lives of three different couples whose love resonates throughout a narrative as fate, by way of the trams, deliberately bring people together.
This collection of people consist of a writer named Eisei Hiraoka (Arata Iura) who has travelled from Kamakura to Kyoto to research supernatural stories. Kyoto is his wife Tomako’s (Satoko Abe) home town so everything holds memories of their last visit there. Kako Ogura (Ayaka Onishi), a painfully shy local woman who works for a restaurant is asked to help an up-and-coming actor from Tokyo named Fu Yoshida (Hiroto Kanai) practice speaking with Kyoto intonation at the movie studio park. The young man develops feelings for her and gently grasps at the chance of romance by asking for a tour of Arashiyama. Then there is Nanten Kitakado (Tamaki Kubose), a high school girl from Aomori, who falls for a local high school boy (Kenta Ishida) racing around Kyoto filming the trams on a Super-8 camera. Despite her chasing after him, he sees nothing but trams.
Over the course of the story, the love of these couples is carried along by the titular trams as the characters hop on and off at various stops. As they travel the city, they also weave around their heart’s desire or fear, trying to understand and attain what tangles their emotions. For Eisei, it is his worry that he has changed and lost touch with his wife. For Kako, she deals with severe self-confidence issues and shrinks from Fu’s romantic gestures despite tentative feelings of her own. For Nanten, her desire for a perfect love must not be thwarted and it must only be a matter of time before the boy switches tracks and turns his attention from trams to her. As the characters journey, they enjoy some of the many, many special locations and traditions the city offers and work through their emotions. As a result audiences see kaleidoscopic examples of love ranging from the brash but naive energy of youth contrasted with the older character’s more nuanced and constant love that runs a little cooler but is just as powerful. Each set of characters will cross paths at points and their actions may echo or entirely change the perspective of others.
There is a fascinating dynamic between the characters as they naturally meet at station platforms or in nearby cafes and talk, their defensiveness over meeting strangers giving way to a need for connection as they wrestle with their emotions for others. The tram becomes like a guide ushering people together so they can help each other. Director Takuji Suzuki places the characters on or around the trams in many of the scenes and there isn’t an uninteresting shot because a tram is sure to cut through, or, at the very least, one can be heard in the background. The trams can be seen from the outside in the many dolly and handheld shots that track characters in relation to the city around them or from the inside during interior shots.
Few films about Kyoto can be boring, even the quiet suburban streets which are fascinating to venture into, and there are characters who give folklore and history which brims with pride and love for their city. This helps create a dreamlike atmosphere where the lines between fantasy. and reality are blurred.
These examples of love become intense as a little of Kyoto’s special magic, which Eisei is researching, is sprinkled over the narrative and supernatural things happen as hearts open up or tremble with uncertainty. Certain trams can create or doom a romance, a tanuki and fox spirit appear at special times, and characters take on the spiritual essence of figures from the past as they struggle to attain love. It is like a Nobuhiko Obayashi film in that it darts between waking and dream states without batting an eyelid and we get absorbed in the emotions evoked in the beautiful surroundings which ultimately make this a charming fairy-tale of a film that breathes the culture and atmosphere of the city.
When watching the film I was swept up by the emotions and remembered my first time on a Randen tram. How I and a friend had walked through a quiet street to a station squirrelled away amongst houses and cherry blossom trees that were in full bloom, how we boarded a tram, sat down and enjoyed the beautiful sights around us. Every time I think about Kyoto, I think about that tram and appreciate it exists and the beautiful memory it created. Randen is a film about love, the love locals have for the tram and their city, the love the tram evokes in people, and the love that the tram can deliver as it safely and reliably carries people back and forth on their journeys and has done so for over 100 years. This film carries that love and is a delight to watch.
The only constant in life is change and we are living through massive changes, not least with regard to the battle for gender equality which has been marked most recently by the #MeToo movement which has spread from America and gained traction in some of the most conservative of societies around the world. Channelling some of the momentum experienced in Japan is Takashi Nishihara, writer and director of Sisterhood. He graduated from the Department of Arts and Film at Waseda University with a focus on documentary and has created fiction films – Blue Ray (2011) and the lesbian love drama Starting Over (2014) – as well as documentaries – About My Freedom (2016) and Queer Asia, a series for GagaOOLala, Asia’s first LGBTQ streaming service. With Sisterhood, he mixes fact and fiction in a film that shows some of the voices asking for change to mainstream of Japanese society.
To capture the shifts going on in gender relations in Japan, Nishihara blurs the bounds between fiction and reality by merging footage from a documentary he has been shooting over the last few years and casting real life actors and models such as Nina Endo and Mika Akizuki (the two leads from Starting Over), SUMIRE and Manami Usamaru, as well as the musician BOMI, and making them play fictional variations of themselves. Each gives a portrayal of a young woman going about their lives. We see them modelling, studying, performing concerts, each desiring to be treated fairly as they chase their dreams and each question their role in society. These questions emerge thanks to a link character, a middle-aged male Tokyo-based documentary film director named Ikeda, played by Ryo Iwase, who interviews people for a documentary about feminism.
The general flow of the script Nishihara wrote is gentle as we see characters negotiate life and encounter issues where gender inequality is present. This is not a political diatribe. The conflicts and ideas emerge through osmosis as we watch characters talking about issues such as love, health, family pressures and work in naturalistic ways with friends and we see a sisterhood emerge between female characters. Each person’s voice joins a larger chorus so we get a bigger picture of what young women may experience. The documentary aspect allows the film to adopt techniques such as vox pops and concert footage shot for the documentary four years ago, which are more direct in their social messages and add a lively verve to proceedings. Two highlights are seeing BOMI’s creativity as she, like the newest generation of indie artists, crafts music at home and plays live shows with passion and flair. Another has her giving bracing direct-to-camera interviews criticising how Japanese society prevents people from expressing themselves and, most pointedly, she dissects how there might never be gender equality any time soon unless men step up and help foster change. This was recorded as part of the documentary and has a different energy from the rest of the film. It also provides a lot of food for thought and a sting in the tail for the end of the narrative.
Aside from that interview, how much of what is said on screen is scripted and how much is improvised is never clear because Nishihara cleverly blurs the lines but it fits together and the irony that a man has written the words that some of these women speak is not lost on Nishihara who has put together a pretty self-reflexive film.
Nishihara’s self-awareness about the trickiness of a man writing a film with the title “Sisterhood” and addressing gender equality on behalf of women especially is shown through his use of Ikeda who seems to be a stand-in for the Nishihara and who is put through excruciatingly embarrassing scenes for where a female journalist criticises his work for being unfocused due to his male perspective and dismisses his efforts at trying to give voice to women’s issues because he robs women of agency. Some people might level a similar charge here, the unfocussed nature of the film and taking away women’s voices, but by the end of the film Nishihara achieves a clever synthesis of ideas as each character has a moment in a relationship or business deal which acts as a critique levelled at the behaviour of men and the infrastructure in place to control women. This is most clearly shown in Manami Usamaru’s character as her nude modelling is a way of seizing her own identity after harrowing emotional experiences from adolescence but her efforts are also subject to exploitation through big publishers and the internet. Ikeda’s own hypocritical behaviour is exposed by one of the models played by Mika Akizuki, a woman he quietly longs for, as he talks good game about equality but is judgemental of a female friend’s behaviour. The ending is bitterly open and suggests that if men like Ikeda don’t realise how they are wasting women and act to make change, women will leave men in the dust.
In terms of form, Yukiko Iioka and Daisuke Yamamoto’s monochrome cinematography and camerawork allow for crisp visuals and an elegiac air which gives some eye-catching shots of the great metropolis of Tokyo as well as close-ups of the actors to capture intimate moments of hope and disappointment but most of the locations are of the ordinary and quiet variety so this has a realistic feel to things and suggests the conversations happening on screen are everywhere and should be listened to.
There is a quiet revolution going on and while this film doesn’t cover everything and may be messy and limited in scope (the women on screen all come from the same class and age bracket), it is interesting and has some emotional and intellectual pull. The fragmented semi-fictional lives match the unclear realities we exist in and are interwoven to create a cohesive whole that speaks of thechanges to society we experience every day.
